Hawks and honey: Book Club. {my 2014 reading list}

Let me start by saying I have a really amazing partner and Husband, he totally gets the fact I NEED to be social {even though, ironically I have serious social anxiety} and "allows" me to meet up with various groups of women to explore personal growth. One of the most recent examples of that is my monthly book club meet up. This past week a few other members and I met at Lux to discuss our current book; Outlander. We chose this book because many of the other members had already read the series, and wanted to re-read it before the final book: Written in My Own Heart's Blood: A Novel (Outlander Book 8) was published and before the t.v. show premiered on August 8. So while I committed to reading just the first book in the series, I'm now well into the fifth book thanks to amazon and Kindle on my iphone, which makes reading super convenient while nursing a sleeping baby in the dark. While I do LOVE the smell and feel of books, one major con, as a mother, is the fact they do not glow in the dark, so for this point in my life, I'm a technological book reader.

Anyway, here's our recent meeting...

Lux is first and foremost a Coffee shop and they have the best latte art in phoenix, not to mention their amazing baked goods, so Delmara ordered a latte and brownie, before sitting down to review our recent book.

I on the other hand went for a custom drink crafted by one of their talented bartenders {or is it bartendress?} anyway, that's the benefit of a place like Lux for a meet up, you could opt for caffeine and stimulation or order a glass of wine {or gin} and relax. While there is no name for the drink pictured above, because every drink is custom created for your taste, I did request gin and citrus and yes, that's a rosemary sprig in a lemon twist.

Liz and Delmara {the lady behind coordinating the 2014-2015 reading list}

So what did we discuss?

a lot.

We went over a few inspiration questions from the internet but without giving too much of the plot away, we discussed time travel {the main character find herself transported from a happy marriage in the 1940s to a confusing relationship in the 1740s}, character development and options of Claire, Frank, Jaime, Jack Randall, and more. The book itself is historical fiction so some of the characters are real people, with the author's creative twist on history. I like that with my kindle editions I could easily find passages I might have otherwise lost when referencing supporting arguments for various questions and the fact that when I was unfamiliar with a word or concept I could simply double click and find the definition promptly. Last time I read a historical fiction, I wanted to know more about the main character and accidentally read too much on her Wikipedia page, leaving me with more information regarding the plot than I wanted to know at the time. This time I've been very careful not to research the history referenced just yet, as I would like to see how the author portrays the events. I think the most interesting topic was the stones responsible for time travel. While I knew about Stonehenge and other Paleolithic sites I didn't realize the amount of stone structures around the world nor the relevance to mystical experiences, some sources document such strange behavior of various structures to increase up to 30* f within the circle of the stones, or when placed on a map, the intricate locations and line ups of such structures could be fascinating to dissect.

I'm really grateful for the opportunity and support to have yet another creative outlet and experience of discussing my thoughts on various works of literature. Do you find yourself looking for more books or just want to follow along? If you're interested in reading along we're on book 6!

Here's our Reading List: