"Sweet" fiction recommendations, your Catholic Librarian is on the case...

Greetings to all! Happy to be with you again. I'm such a nerd about this blog. I blog nearly every day, but some days it simply isn't possible, like yesterday. And I had been blogging for something like 10 straight days, so a break was fine. But it felt strange not to post yesterday, so I was all excited to get right to it today. But do check my Twitter feed for micro updates (if you care, lol) because I do post something on there every day.

Interestingly, this experiment in the 7 day blogging challenge made one thing clear that I have suspected for a long time: MANY less people read blogs over the weekend. I rarely post things on the weekend, and the two posts that I queued up have significantly less hits than usual. So, since this is a book related post, I wanted to mention that one of those weekend posts was the latest Catholic Book Club entry, on Paths to Prayer: A Field Guide to Ten Catholic Traditions. New readers can catch up on all of the Catholic Book Club entries here.

I started the book that I will review next in Catholic Book Club, but I have to be honest and admit that I needed a bit of break from heavy non-fiction reading and wanted a foray into fiction. And so, what kind of fiction does the Catholic Librarian read?

When I read fiction, I want total escapism. Nothing heavy hitting, sometimes even really good thrillers are just too intense for me. I like very sweet romances, usually with an Amish or general Christian theme, and I have been known to read serial romances. (when I was searching for that last link, I found this gem from last year about my adventures in ebook downloading when I first got my Kindle. Go enjoy :))

Right now I'm reading Beth Wiseman's The House that Love Built. I really like Beth Wiseman's work, as I mentioned in the link above regarding my love of serial Christian and Amish romances. She usually writes Amish books, but this is a non-Amish title. I'm about 30% of the way through, and it involves a young widow, and her two children, meeting the new man in their small Texas town who comes to refurbish a landmark old home. He's recovering from an unpleasant divorce to a woman who was unfaithful to him. There's also a very sweet side storyline about the main heroine's mother finding love in her retirement home.

I generally read a TON of Amish romances. I download them regularly to my Kindle when I see a new book out by a favorite author, or when they come up on the Inspired Reads list as being marked down and the description grabs me.  Also on my Kindle for the summer is: A Season of Love (Kauffman Amish Bakery Series), by Amy Clipston, A Plain Death: An Appleseed Creek Mystery, by Amanda Flower, An Amish Kitchen (a compilation which is marked down to $2.50 right now for anybody who wants it), and The Quilter's Son Book 1: Liam's Choice, by Samantha Jillian Bayarr (99 cents right now!)

Also in my fiction queue is a re-read of an old favorite, which is Death by Cashmere: A Seaside Knitters Mystery, by Sally Goldenbaum. I read a library copy a few years ago, and just loved this entire Seaside Knitters series, but this first volume was my absolute favorite. I saw a cheap new print copy on Amazon Marketplace and snapped it up.

Pretty soon (usually September) we will start to see romances set at Christmas time, and those are my *favorite* of the entire year. I have a few on my Kindle that I didn't get to last year (and yes, I have my Kindle books in folders, and one of them is set apart for Christmas books, there are two in there right now waiting for me *beams*). They are A Wild Good Chase Christmas: Quilts of Love Series, by Jennifer AiLee, and Call Me Mrs. Miracle, by Debbie Macomber.

I hope that gives you some good ideas for end-of-summer fiction!