Rosepoint Reviews – June Recap—The Heat is On!

Rosepoint Reviews-June Recap

I pretty much spend most of my time in the gardens in June, particularly the veggie garden. And with new food possibilities from Amazon also ordered a mushroom block (I chose Oyster mushrooms) and spouts—so many from broccoli sprouts to mixed salad sprouts and alfalfa sprouts. They are fun to see grow though I’d admit to some intensive work—sprouts have to be rinsed every 3-4 hours until ready for harvest. My broccoli spouts were a winner. Now I’m trying salad sprouts.

So far, the garden has yielded some sweet peas and beans along with the first yellow squash. This year also, my daughter introduced me to “grow bags” which led me to start some seed potatoes. Never too old to learn something new! All to say, I guess that June is not a big reading/reviewing month for me. BTW, so far the mushroom block is a dud. Not sure what I did wrong as it was supposed to have between four to five “flushes.” (My daughter got five.)

Again, I relied heavily on the CE for his reviews, so much of my time spent otherwise. We did read or listen to nineteen books in June, most from NetGalley as I’m working on the 500 badge, now up to a count of 472 and my ratio continues to be 95%.

The Lincoln Lawyer vs Audiobook by Michael Connelly
Code of Courage by Janice Cantore (a CE review)
A Home for the Lost by Sharon Maas
Pryor & Cummings by Rod Pennington
Death by Didgeridoo by Barbara Venkataraman
The Good Sister by Sally Hepworth (audiobook)
The Sea Nurses by Kate Eastham (a CE review)
The Last Paladin by P T Deutermann (a CE review)
Bayou Book Thief by Ellen Byron (book tour)
The Physicists’ Daughter by Mary Anna Evans (book tour)
The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner (audiobook)
The Girl from Bologna by Siobhan Daiko (a CE review
Mercury Pictures Presents by Anthony Marra (a CE review)
What the River of the Cherokee Did Not Tell by James Short
Dark Sacred Night by Michael Connelly (audiobook)
Joan by Katherine J Chen (a CE review)
No Strangers Here by Carlene O’Connor (a CE review)
What She Found by Robert Dugoni
Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate

Reading Challenges

I’m still struggling with my challenges—I’m sure I’ll catch up some time in July when it’s too hot to be outside. My challenges for 2022 are all listed and linked in the widget column on the right. You can check out the progress of my challenges by clicking the Reading Challenges page. I’m now at 54% of the Goodreads Challenge of 180 books at 98. Seems like we’ve had a spate of historical fiction books this year, given that is one of the CEs favorite genres. I’ve come to rely heavily on audiobooks, I can do those while gardening!

Spring Challenge

Did you check your Kindle Spring Challenge? I did make gold. (A Gold Reader is achieved upon reading any 75 days during the Challenge. Also notes I unlocked 12 of 16 achievements. The challenge ended today.

A big month for us, we drove with our son to visit our daughter at her new (to her) home in southern Illinois. They have five acres there she will use for personal benefit, but additionally wants to start posting about their farm (Red Barn Farm) and the progress they are making with planting. So far, she is trying to do her “shorts” on her cell phone. I just got a new laptop and am busy trying to make the transition but utilize Photoshop for graphics and can’t download my program to the laptop. I may end up giving her the laptop and keeping my old desktop—impossible though to lug around on trips. Also, we celebrated the CEs birthday as well as our son (born on the same day). Maybe with the heat things will begin to slow down.

How was your June? Are you experiencing record-breaking heat? I want to welcome my new followers as always and thank those who continue to read, like, share, and comment. Please let me know if you saw something above that got your interest and have a safe, sane July.

Have a great weekend!

The Sea Nurses: An absolutely heartbreaking wartime saga by Kate Eastham – #BookReview – #historicalfiction @Bookouture

The Sea Nurses by Kate Eastham

Book Blurb:

The young nurse ran across the wooden deck, her feet skidding. She spotted an injured young man clinging to the ship’s rail, his eyes wide with terror. She could see the water rushing up to meet them. ‘We need to jump!’ she screamed. In that moment, a wave washed over them. She lunged forward to grab his hand, but she was a second too slow. Somewhere, deep inside the vessel, came a loud crack. The hospital ship was breaking apart…

1914. Evie Munro is a Scottish fisher girl, working the herring season from Wick to Great Yarmouth. For Evie, every day is the same – gutting fish at the docks, shoulder-to-shoulder with her friends, followed by fresh bread, a warm whiskey toddy and an early night. But when Germany declares war on Britain, everything changes.

As her village begins to empty of young men, Evie’s life is marked by a heartbreaking tragedy at home. Her happiness destroyed, she vows to join the war effort as an army nurse, caring for wounded soldiers on the imposing hospital ship Britannic.

But as the war rages on and the ship comes under direct fire, Evie’s courage is put to the ultimate test. Can Evie and the nurses of the HMHS Britannic save the day and heal the patients in their care? Or will her life become one more casualty in Britain’s heroic fight for freedom?

His Review:

Hospital ships rolling in a tempestuous sea is the setting for this saga. Iris Purefoy is a worker in a fish processing plant turned nurse. She has always had a knack for taking care of injuries in the processing of fish and also setting broken limbs. The tale begins on large ocean-liners, The RMS Olympic and HMHS Brittanic!

Hospital ships are prime targets for German submarines because they carry wounded enemy combatants. If they are cured or rehabilitated, they will be sent back into battle to attack Germany again. Better to have them at the bottom of the sea rather than returning to battle.

The nurses serve twelve hour shifts six days a week and only have Sundays off. The pressure is immense and the pace grueling. Extreme mental duress is always a factor. Thinking or dwelling on any young patient can cause a serious degradation of morale. Looking at a patient with a limb missing and then assuring them that all will be well is not an easy task!

Nurses by their personalities are empaths and feel the need to assuage the pain of those in their care, but they must effectively remove themselves from the obvious pain of their charges and work as quickly and effectively as possible. Triage is one of the most critical and heartbreaking tasks of their job. Assuring the patient he will be taken care of quickly, knowing that he is dying is heartbreaking but necessary.

The dialogue and descriptions of the nurses in this book is heartwarming and endearing. I found myself drawn to their humanity and abilities fulfilling. Whether they were on cruise ships or hospital ships, they treated their patients with professionalism and caring. I applaud the author in her treatment of this heartbreaking anthology of nurses in time of war. 4.5 stars – CE Williams

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book.

Rosepoint Publishing: Four point Five Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Women’s Historical Fiction, Sisters Fiction, Women’s Friendship Fiction
Publisher: Bookouture
ASIN: B09VHDPX1Z
Print Length: 284 pages
Publication Date: June 6, 2022
Source: Publisher and NetGalley
Title Link: The Sea Nurses [Amazon]
Barnes & Noble

The Author: Kate Eastham trained as a nurse in the late 1970s and enjoyed a long career before a change in circumstance meant that she needed to be a full time carer for her partner. Determined to make the most of this new role ‘working from home’ she cleared a space at the kitchen table for a pile of books and a writing pad and started to make notes on the history of nursing. Inspired by the achievements of Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole during the Crimean War she was also captured by the sheer grit and determination of other ‘ordinary women’ whose voices from the past are seldom heard. An idea for a novel was born and her first book, ‘Miss Nightingale’s Nurses’, was published by Penguin in 2018, closely followed by three more in the series.

Having thought that she would never find anything to replace the work in nursing that she loved, she is now equally immersed in her writing, drawing on years of experience and the stories told by so many patients. With her passion for history, Kate aims to continue making visible the lives of ordinary yet extraordinary women from the past.

Her current fiction is set during the World Wars and will be published by Bookouture.

I'm not getting out of bed today.