Though I’m busier than I’ve been in months, I still found time to read tons of BSC books and an additional three “regular” books this month. If I’m being honest, it’s getting harder and harder to read regular books after reading all these much lower level books so much, so I should probably amp up the adult books for next month.

As I said last month, Viveca Sten’s books are hit or miss for me, but as they are a series, I’m in it now. So after finishing one last month, I moved right on to reading In the Name of Truth. This one was much better than the last one, and I appreciated that the mystery didn’t go in the obvious direction you would expect from the beginning. However, I will also admit that the obvious solution seems so overly obvious that it couldn’t possibly be where the story was going to end up in the end.

This book tells the story of a boy who goes missing from his sailing camp, and the ensuing investigation to find him. To complicate matters, the boy’s father is a prominent witness in a case that Nora Linde (one of the main characters of the series) is a lawyer on the case for.

As always, it was fun to revisit the characters from the previous books, as they all have various life milestones going on with each book. You get involved with the people in a story – or at least I do! – and become invested in what happens to them after a while. Perhaps this is why I continue reading these books even though I’m not always super eager to do so.

On the other side of the spectrum, I was so eager to read One By One, by Ruth Ware that I actually preordered it. I rarely preorder books, but I have loved Ware’s other books so much that I had to have this one as soon as it came out. I was thrilled when it arrived, and started reading it right away, pausing in the book I was already reading (see the next book for that one).

In One by One, a groups of business associates travel to the Swiss Alps for a skiing/work retreat. They stay in a fancy chalet complete with a household staff, who meets the group and is immediately not looking forward to spending time with them. However, tragedy strikes when an avalanche hits and strands the group without power. To make matters worse, one of their members has disappeared on a ski slope, presumed dead. It is believed to be an accident… until other members of the group start ending up dead as well.

Ware writes a good thriller, and I always love them, even if that are fairly predictable for me. This one was no exception, and I really loved the setting of the chalet in the Swiss Alps, even if I’m now completely terrified to ever stay in one with the avalanche risk!

Despite not loving Beartown, I chose Anxious People, by Fredrik Backman as my Book of the Month club selection for September. And while I didn’t love it as much as A Man Called Ove, it was a vast improvement over Beartown.

Of course, as a person with anxiety, I was intrigued by the title. Anxious People is not, on the surface, a book about anxiety. It recounts the tale of a bank robbery gone wrong. Or, as Backman says at the beginning of the book, it is a story about idiots. And it’s true, everyone in the book is kind of an idiot, bumbling through this strange hostage situation and then being completely uncooperative with the police during their investigation.

As with Beartown, there were a lot of characters to keep track of (all of the hostages, the bank robber, and the two police officers), but unlike the previous novel, I cared more about what happened to these people. It was clear that Backman was making connections between them, even though none of them had ever really met before, so I enjoyed the journey of learning about all the little connections, both the ones that existed before the events in the story and the new ones made through the events in the story.

Ultimately this is a story about anxiety and mistakes and starting over. It’s a sweet little book.

Excited for my October reads already, as I have new Lisa Jewell book on the way! Much like Ruth Ware, I have an obsession with Jewel’s books and devour them whenever a new one comes out! Hopefully will get into the groove of work soon and manage my time better to allow for more reading time… my goal is still fifty NON-BSC books for the year. September brings me to thirty-eight, so I have to read at least four a month to keep up the pace!

Wish me luck… and happy reading!