Its Monday! What Are You Reading?

The Its Monday! What Are You Reading meme is hosted at Book Journey.

Life…

It’s been a busy week here with my children home on school holidays and it will be more of the same this week with trips to the indoor play center, outdoor bike track  and the aquatic center planned. I don’t get quite as much time as usual to read or be online so I fell behind last week  meaning two titles carry over onto this weeks reading list.

On a bookish note,  I have two great giveaways running this week so make sure you enter! This week I have guest posts from two great Australian authors, Jennifer Scoullar and Dianne Blacklock and I am interviewing author Kathryn Fox on Friday and I look forward to sharing our chat with you.

What I Read Last Week

The After Wife by Gigi Levangie Grazer

Second Chances by Charity Norman

Deadly Hemlock by Kathleen Peacock

Brumby’s Run by Jennifer Scoullar

The Secret Ingredient by Dianne Blacklock

Reviews Posted

(click the titles to read  my reviews) 

Burning Lies by Helene Young ★★★★★

**AWW Feature: Helen Young and Giveaway**

The Happiest Refugee by Anh Do ★★★★

Second Chances by Charity Norman ★★★★

After Wife by Gigi Levangie Grazer ★★★★

Deadly Hemlock by Kathleen Peacock ★★★

What I Am Reading Today

It is Christmas afternoon and Peter Martin gets an unexpected phonecall from his parents, asking him to come round. It pulls him away from his wife and children and into a bewildering mystery. He arrives at his parents house and discovers that they have a visitor. His sister Tara. Not so unusual you might think, this is Christmas after all, a time when families get together. But twenty years ago Tara took a walk into the woods and never came back and as the years have gone by with no word from her the family have, unspoken, assumed that she was dead. Now she’s back, tired, dirty, dishevelled, but happy and full of stories about twenty years spent travelling the world, an epic odyssey taken on a whim. But her stories don’t quite hang together and once she has cleaned herself up and got some sleep it becomes apparent that the intervening years have been very kind to Tara. She really does look no different from the young women who walked out the door twenty years ago. Peter’s parents are just delighted to have their little girl back, but Peter and his best friend Richie, Tara’s one time boyfriend, are not so sure. Tara seems happy enough but there is something about her. A haunted, otherworldly quality. Some would say it’s as if she’s off with the fairies. And as the months go by Peter begins to suspect that the woods around their homes are not finished with Tara and his family…

What I Plan To Read This Week

(click the covers to view at Goodreads)

In the tradition of Downtown Abbey comes a vivid story of life in the servant’s quarters. Waratah House, a beautiful mansion in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, is the only home Marina has ever known. Orphaned at a young age, Marina finds a new family in the colourful characters that occupy the bustling servants’ quarters of this stately house. But not every resident of Waratah House has Marina’s best interests at heart and she finds herself forced into exile. Years later, Marina’s daughter Emily discovers the past has a way of repeating itself. She must fight for her chance at happiness – a chance that some will do anything to prevent .

One afternoon, Julia Evarts and her five-year-old daughter, Gracie, arrive home to find an unexpected gift on the front porch: a homemade loaf of Amish Friendship Bread and a simple note: I hope you enjoy it. Also included are a bag of starter, instructions on how to make the bread herself, and a request to share it with others. Still reeling from a personal tragedy that left her estranged from the sister who was once her best friend, Julia remains at a loss as to how to move on with her life. She’d just as soon toss the anonymous gift, but to make Gracie happy, she agrees to bake the bread. When Julia meets two newcomers to the small town of Avalon, she sparks a connection by offering them her extra bread starter. Widow Madeline Davis is struggling to keep her tea salon afloat while Hannah Wang de Brisay, a famed concert cellist, is at a crossroads, her career and marriage having come to an abrupt end. In the warm kitchen of Madeline’s tea salon, the three women forge a friendship that will change their lives forever. In no time, everyone in Avalon is baking Amish Friendship Bread. But even as the town unites for a benevolent cause and Julia becomes ever closer to her new friends, she realises the profound necessity of confronting the painful past she shares with her sister.

Three women … two families … one secret … When Zoe, restless black sheep of the Porter family, discovers that her biological father is a North Queensland cattleman, Peter Fairburn, her deep desire to meet him takes her from inner-city Brisbane to a job as a stockcamp cook. Zoe’s mother, Claire, is wrestling with guilt over Zoe’s discovery. She swears Zoe to secrecy, fearing that the truth could ruin the career of her high-profile politician husband. But when she is forced to confront her past, Claire also reassesses her marriage. Virginia Fairburn is happily married to Peter, but she’s always lived with the shadow of the other woman her husband loved and lost. On the muster at Mullinjim, Zoe meets brooding cattleman Mac McKinnon, who knows from painful experience that city girls can’t cope in the bush. Every instinct tells Mac that Zoe is hiding something. As the pressure to reveal her mother’s secret builds, Zoe fears she must confide in Mac or burst. The truth has the potential to destroy two families. Or can it clear the way for new beginnings?

No money, no groom, no hope? Matilda Geoffrey risked it all for love. She left Australia to be with Barry—the man who had swept her off her virtual feet. Now, wearing a wedding dress, she’s alone on Main Street in small-town Wisconsin, and things aren’t working out exactly as planned… In town for his annual family visit, Marc Olsen had never seen a bride quite like Matilda—staring into a storefront window, holding a tottering wedding cake, and looking desperately in need of a groom. He may not have any warm feelings for his hometown, but meeting Matilda just as she discovers she’s been scammed by her online “fiancé” stirs something in him.  Matilda is not the kind of woman Marc imagined himself with, and Marc is anything but the romantic hero that Matilda has always dreamed of. But as unlikely circumstances throw them together, can they let go of their misconceptions and risk their hearts for love?

While you are here…

Enter my Giveaways!

1 signed edition of Burning Lies by Helene Young – open worldwide, enter HERE

1 of 5 copies of Second Chances by Charity Norman – Australian residents only, enter HERE

This week don’t miss…

AWW features of authors Jennifer Scoullar and Dianne Blacklock

Thanks for stopping by, I’ll be along to visit you shortly!