{"id":131758,"date":"2026-08-10T20:51:25","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T20:51:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/?p=131758"},"modified":"2026-08-14T06:59:27","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T06:59:27","slug":"books-from-lately-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/everything-else\/books-from-lately-2\/","title":{"rendered":"books from lately"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sharing a roundup of the books I\u2019ve read lately and if they\u2019re worth adding to your collection.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Hi friends! How are you? I hope you had an amazing weekend!<\/p>\n

Today, I wanted to share the books I read lately and share my ratings with you. I haven\u2019t made reading as much of a priority lately – admitedly, I\u2019ve been doomscrolling a lot – but there have been some real winners in the mix.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what I’ve read lately:<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Books from lately<\/h2>\n

The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n

Kristin Harmel is one of my all-time favorite historical fiction authors and her latest book did not disappoint. I devourved it on the flight home from Orlando and couldn\u2019t read it fast enough. This is the story of Colette Marceau, a woman in her 90s who has spent her entire life as a jewel thief. It alternates between the early 2000s and WW2, and as the events of her childhood unravel, we learn more about her family, why and how she started stealing jewels, the details involving her sister\u2019s disappearance, and a very special bracelet.<\/p>\n

Historical fiction is one of the genres that immediately captures my attention and holds it for the entire book. These stories are always heartbreaking, but I was talking with a friend about it and she agreed that they\u2019re beautiful stories of resilience and they always seem to have exquisite writing and rich character development. 5\/5 – highly recommend this one<\/p>\n

From Amazon:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Colette Marceau has been stealing jewels for nearly as long as she can remember, following the centuries-old code of honor instilled in her by her mother, Annabel: take only from the cruel and unkind, and give to those in need. Never was their family tradition more important than seven decades earlier, during the Second World War, when Annabel and Colette worked side by side in Paris to fund the French Resistance.<\/p>\n

But one night in 1942, it all went wrong. Annabel was arrested by the Germans, and Colette\u2019s four-year-old sister, Liliane, disappeared in the chaos of the raid, along with an exquisite diamond bracelet sewn into the hem of her nightgown for safekeeping. Soon after, Annabel was executed, and Liliane\u2019s body was found floating in the Seine\u2014but the bracelet was nowhere to be found.<\/p>\n

Seventy years later, Colette – who has \u201credistributed\u201d $30 million in jewels over the decades to fund many worthy organizations – has done her best to put her tragic past behind her, but her life begins to unravel when the long-missing bracelet suddenly turns up in a museum exhibit in Boston. If Colette can discover where it has been all this time\u2014and who owns it now\u2014she may finally learn the truth about what happened to her sister. But she isn\u2019t the only one for whom the bracelet holds answers, and when someone from her childhood lays claim to the diamonds, she\u2019s forced to confront the ghosts of her past as never before. Against all odds, there may still be a chance to bring a murderer to justice\u2014but first, Colette will have to summon the courage to open her own battered heart.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

My Friends<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019m a huge fan of Frederik Bakman, but he definitely has a particular style. I feel like you can feel the characters and their personalities, but in this case, the main characters are a bit of a chaotic mess, so this book also felt chaotic. It was a slow burn, and took me forever to finish it, but the ending was excellent. 3.5\/5<\/p>\n

From Amazon<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Most people don\u2019t even notice them\u2014three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it\u2019s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an aspiring artist herself, knows otherwise, and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures.<\/p>\n

Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant seaside town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their bruising home lives by spending long summer days on an abandoned pier, telling silly jokes, sharing secrets, and committing small acts of rebellion. These lost souls find in each other a reason to get up each morning, a reason to dream, a reason to love.<\/p>\n

Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that will unexpectedly be placed into eighteen-year-old Louisa\u2019s care. She embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn how the painting came to be and to decide what to do with it. The closer she gets to the painting\u2019s birthplace, the more nervous she becomes about what she\u2019ll find. Louisa is proof that happy endings don\u2019t always take the form we expect in this stunning testament to the transformative, timeless power of friendship and art.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Broken Country<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

This was another one that I flew through and couldn\u2019t wait to see what happens.<\/p>\n

The man Beth loves is being tried for murder, but at the beginning of the book, we have no idea which man this is, or the events surrounding the trial. It flashes between past and future, and is a total pageturner. I also did NOT see the ending coming and it was extremely satisfying. It totally lives up to the hype. 5\/5<\/p>\n

From Amazon<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Beth and her gentle, kind husband Frank are happily married, but their relationship relies on the past staying buried. But when Beth\u2019s brother-in-law shoots a dog going after their sheep, Beth doesn\u2019t realize that the gunshot will alter the course of their lives. For the dog belonged to none other than Gabriel Wolfe, the man Beth loved as a teenager\u2014the man who broke her heart years ago. Gabriel has returned to the village with his young son Leo, a boy who reminds Beth very much of her own son, who died in a tragic accident.<\/p>\n

As Beth is pulled back into Gabriel\u2019s life, tensions around the village rise and dangerous secrets and jealousies from the past resurface, this time with deadly consequences. Beth is forced to make a choice between the woman she once was, and the woman she has become.<\/p>\n

A sweeping love story with the pace and twists of a thriller, Broken Country is a novel of simmering passion, impossible choices, and explosive consequences that toggles between the past and present to explore the far-reaching legacy of first love.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I still have my Book of the Month membership, but haven\u2019t used it in quite a while. The selection hasn\u2019t felt very exciting, but I keep adding books to my TBR list that I come across on Instagram.<\/p>\n

On my nightstand right now:<\/p>\n

Never Split the Difference<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Manifest the Unseen<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Our Perfect Storm<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Tax-free Wealth<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

and Many Lives, Many Masters<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

So tell me friends: what are you reading right now? Any historical fiction that you loved recently? My heart is already preparing for The Nightingale premiere next year.<\/p>\n

xo<\/p>\n

Gina<\/p>\n

The post books from lately<\/a> appeared first on The Fitnessista<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sharing a roundup of the books I\u2019ve read lately and if they\u2019re worth adding to your collection.\u00a0 Hi friends! How are you? I hope you had an amazing weekend! Today, I wanted to share the books I read lately and share my ratings with you. I haven\u2019t made reading as much of a priority lately\u2026
\nThe post books from lately appeared first on The Fitnessista.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":131760,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":""},"categories":[20,1,21,22,19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131758"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131758"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":131761,"href":"https:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131758\/revisions\/131761"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}