February 2022: What I’ve Been Reading

Happy Friday Eve! My book posts are always some of my favorite to share, and this is currently me:

I wish I had more time to read. My “to be read” list is ever growing, and I’m over here just trying to keep up.

I only read two books this month, and I blame that on all my Olympic watching! That being said, both books were pretty lengthy, but they both were also so good.

This month I read…

{As always, book summaries are from Goodreads…}

Our Woman in Moscow:

Summary:

In the autumn of 1948, Iris Digby vanishes from her London home with her American diplomat husband and their two children. The world is shocked by the family’s sensational disappearance. Were they eliminated by the Soviet intelligence service? Or have the Digbys defected to Moscow with a trove of the West’s most vital secrets?

Four years later, Ruth Macallister receives a postcard from the twin sister she hasn’t seen since their catastrophic parting in Rome in the summer of 1940, as war engulfed the continent and Iris fell desperately in love with an enigmatic United States Embassy official named Sasha Digby. Within days, Ruth is on her way to Moscow, posing as the wife of counterintelligence agent Sumner Fox in a precarious plot to extract the Digbys from behind the Iron Curtain.

But the complex truth behind Iris’s marriage defies Ruth’s understanding, and as the sisters race toward safety, a dogged Soviet KGB officer forces them to make a heartbreaking choice between two irreconcilable loyalties.

Quick Thoughts:

I’m not sure if I’ve read any other books by Beatriz Williams, but this one was amazing. The sisters are twins, and they are very different, both in appearance and in actions. I enjoyed that the chapters were told from each sister’s point of view. The historical references, actions, and love interests made this book an overall good read. I was on the edge of my seat with how I was hoping it would end, and it didn’t disappoint!

Rating:

Becoming Mrs. Lewis:

Summary:

From New York Times bestselling author Patti Callahan comes an exquisite novel of Joy Davidman, the woman C. S. Lewis called “my whole world.” When poet and writer Joy Davidman began writing letters to C. S. Lewis—known as Jack—she was looking for spiritual answers, not love. Love, after all, wasn’t holding together her crumbling marriage. Everything about New Yorker Joy seemed ill-matched for an Oxford don and the beloved writer of Narnia, yet their minds bonded over their letters. Embarking on the adventure of her life, Joy traveled from America to England and back again, facing heartbreak and poverty, discovering friendship and faith, and against all odds, finding a love that even the threat of death couldn’t destroy.

In this masterful exploration of one of the greatest love stories of modern times, we meet a brilliant writer, a fiercely independent mother, and a passionate woman who changed the life of this respected author and inspired books that still enchant us and change us. Joy lived at a time when women weren’t meant to have a voice—and yet her love for Jack gave them both voices they didn’t know they had.

At once a fascinating historical novel and a glimpse into a writer’s life, Becoming Mrs. Lewis is above all a love story—a love of literature and ideas and a love between a husband and wife that, in the end, was not impossible at all.

Quick Thoughts:

My Gma suggested this book to me over a year ago, and she said how wonderful it was. She wasn’t wrong! I wish I hadn’t waited so long to read it. (Long story…but I’ve had it checked out from the library for quite some time.) I honestly didn’t know much about C.S. Lewis besides some of his more notable works like The Chronicles of Narnia. I most certainly didn’t know anything about Joy Davidman.

I love how each chapter starts with a quote from Joy’s sonnets. I truly couldn’t put this book down. C. S. and Joy correspond through letters for years before meeting. (How romantic is that?) While together, she inspired some of his best works. They connected as writers, then they became friends, and finally their relationship turned to a deep love. Since Joy was divorced, they spent years as only friends because of how their relationship would be viewed in the church. Joy was such a strong woman who left her alcoholic husband, started a new life for herself and her boys in a new country, while also trying to prove herself as a writer.

Did I shed a tear or two at the end? I sure did. I knew their fate, and I still didn’t want to turn the page to see the finality of their lives and their love story.

Favorite Quotes:

You know I love a good quote, and here a some of my faves from this book:

• “See?” I lifted my glass. “We’re connected everywhere. Even before we met, we were all of us tied together with these funny little threads. I love those small hints that God brings people together and says, “Here you go. This one’s for you.”
• “Happiness was the greatest gift of expectancy.”
• “As it’s always been—we use stories to make sense of the world.”

Rating:

I’ve shared before that I don’t think I’m much of a Historical Fiction reader…but maybe I am? Both of these books could land in my Top 5 of the year, but I’m almost 100% certain Becoming Mrs. Lewis will make the cut!

Even though I only read two books this month, they were definitely proof of “quality over quantity!”

See you back here tomorrow for Friday Favorites.

{this post contains Amazon affiliate links…}