Happy Friday! This week I’m sharing about our family trip to Gualala over a long weekend, a fun bookstore visit, my blind date with a book, and a few updates on recent reads!

Getaway to Gualala

A few weekends ago, we headed up the Pacific Coast Highway to Gualala, California. We stayed two nights at a house on a cliff with a beautiful view of the ocean. Some of the touristy highlights on our itinerary were:

• Armstrong Woods – one of the trees is 1400 years old!
• Gualala Point Regional Park – watch out for the cliffs!
• Gualala Arts Center – beautiful artwork by local residents!
• B. Bryan Preserve – we fed a giraffe!

Four-Eyed Frog Books

Our first stop when we drove into Gualala was Four-Eyed Frog Books. As soon as I walked in, I was impressed by the selection! There was even the specific book I was looking to read for book club: Heart the Lover by Lily King. I couldn’t resist the Blind Date with a Book table and picked up one of those, too. My son also left with a new-to-him graphic novel from the Cat Kid Comic Club series.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the bookstore two days later, so I started to do a bit of research. I learned that in 2016, the owner put the bookstore up for sale, but then more than twenty community members bought the bookstore! You can read more about that story here.

I’ve been borrowing so many books from the library lately that when I buy a book from an indie bookstore, it feels so special. I’ve started writing in the front of the books I know I’m going to keep.

Heart the Lover by Lily King

One of my goals for 2026 is to write down my thoughts about all of my 5-star reads. Luckily, this one falls into that category for me! Heart the Lover is about first love, college life, literature, and how life tears us apart and brings us back together. This was my first by Lily King, but after finishing I immediately added her entire backlist to my TBR. This book reminded me quite a bit of Tom Lake by Ann Patchett. There were also so many references to The Great Gatsby and other classics.

The book is divided into three sections – in the first section we meet the unnamed female narrator while she’s in college. She begins to date a boy from her lit class and then falls for his best friend (can you say love triangle?). Over the next two sections, decades pass and we learn about where life led them.

Here’s one of my favorite quotes:

You know how you can remember exactly when and where you read certain books? A great novel, a truly great one, not only captures a particular fictional experience, it alters and intensifies the way you experience your own life while you’re reading it. And it preserves it, like a time capsule.

Blind Date with a Book

The book I picked up from the blind date table at the Frog was labeled as “Fiction” with the hint: “A compelling portrait of how love and resentment are often twin sides of the same coin.” I had no idea what to expect! I promised myself that I wouldn’t open it until after I finished my book club book.

I finally opened it to discover Flight by Lynn Steger Strong. I haven’t heard of this book or author, but I was pleased to see that Lily King, author of Heart the Lover, wrote one of the blurbs!

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell

I picked up Hamnet because one of my favorite booksellers at Rakestraw Books recommended it for her book group and I also listened to Maggie O’Farrell’s interview on the What Should I Read Next? podcast. This book was published in 2020 and is about the death of Shakespeare’s son, Hamlet, and how he went on to write Hamlet a few years later.

The book is 5 stars, but please be warned that it is absolutely heart-breaking. Below is the trailer to the movie, Hamnet, that came out last year! (If you’re reading this in email, you may have to click the link.)

I hope you have relaxing plans and good weather for the weekend. Around here we have Opening Day for my son’s baseball team and a Science Fair project to finish! I’m also hoping I can finish my current read: a cozy murder mystery with a setting that includes a “world famous tea shop” in San Francisco – any guesses on the book?

Questions for your weekend:

• Where is your favorite weekend getaway?
• What’s your favorite independent bookstore?
• Have you ever picked up a “blind date with a book?” What was it?