It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

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

Life…

Still busy!

There are two weeks left of the course I am teaching. The bonus about my current job though is being able to meet a friend who works nearby for lunch. We sit out in the sun, share some hot chips and gossip away. It was the same friends birthday this week so our group of girlfriends left the husbands and kids to their own devices and went out for dinner and drinks on Saturday night.

(That is me on the left and the birthday girl on the right)

This Saturday is our nephew’s wedding which will involve a 7 hour round trip to Sydney, all for an hour long ceremony. It is going to be a long day….

What I Read Last Week

Traces of Absence by Susan Holoubeck

Terminated by Rachel Caine

Combustion by Steve Worland

If You Could See What I See by Cathy Lamb

If I Tell You…Ill Have to Kill You by Ed. Michael Robotham

Home Before Sundown by Barbara Hannay

New Posts

(click the titles to read my reviews)

Review: A Girl Like You by Maureen Lindley ★★★

Review: The Dying Beach by Angela Savage ★★★★1/2

Feature & Giveaway: The Green Popular Penguins are Back!

Review: Dancing With the Devil by Keri Arthur ★★★

Feature & Giveaway: Combust with Steve Worland

Review: Combustion by Steve Worland ★★★★1/2

Review: Traces of Absence by Susan Holoubek ★★★★★

Review: Terminated by Rachel Caine ★★★★★

Stuff on Sundays: The Numbers Game

What I Am Reading Today

Alyssa has one week to destroy her enemy, save her spirit… and save her soul.  After her ex-boyfriend commits suicide and her mum’s alcoholism sparks yet another psychotic episode, seventeen-year-old Alyssa Wood flees her small hometown of Broadwater and heads to New York City to stay with her bohemian aunt — a Wicca High Priestess. Alyssa revels in the anonymity of a big city and her new life. Her grades climb, she has a new best friend, and a new guy: the sexy geek Ronan — a saxophone player who prefers jazz to pop. But her newfound peace is soon shattered when she sees a dead body in one of Ronan’s music clips — and she’s the only one who can see it. Worse still, Alyssa recognises the body that has been murdered a week forward! Alyssa doesn’t believe in the supernatural…despite her family’s Wicca background. So how will she overcome evil when it’s closer than she thinks?

What I Plan To Read This Week

(click the covers to view at Goodreads)

Emma and James Hamilton have weathered lots of storms in their ten-year marriage. From the heartbreak of infertility, to the craziness of then becoming parents to two babies in one year, to coping with James losing his job, somehow they have always worked as a team. However, the pressure of moving from Dublin to London for James’s new job – away from familiar surroundings and the family Emma loves – puts them under stress like never before. So when James starts getting texts from a stranger – texts that show startling insights into their lives – Emma is not sure what to think. She is far from home, isolated and before long finds herself questioning everything about their relationship. Maybe those texts are telling her the truth and the life she believed to be solid and secure is just a mirage. Somehow she has to get a grip, but how can she do that when a stranger is set on driving Emma out of her home and her marriage?

Celeste Price is an eighth-grade English teacher in suburban Tampa. She is attractive. She drives a red Corvette. Her husband, Ford, is rich, square-jawed and devoted to her. But Celeste has a secret. She has a singular sexual obsession – fourteen-year-old boys. It is a craving she pursues with sociopathic meticulousness and forethought. Within weeks of her first term at a new school, Celeste has lured the charmingly modest Jack Patrick into her web – car rides after dark, rendezvous at Jack’s house while his single father works the late shift, and body-slamming encounters in Celeste’s empty classroom between periods. It is bliss. Celeste must constantly confront the forces threatening their affair – the perpetual risk of exposure, Jack’s father’s own attraction to her, and the ticking clock as Jack leaves innocent boyhood behind. But the insatiable Celeste is remorseless. She deceives everyone, is close to no one and cares little for anything but her pleasure.

A modern-day Romeo and Juliet set amongst the beauty of Byron Bay and the grind of Sydney. Rip and Sahara have always been together. Primary school friends to high school lovers, their ties to each other are as intertwined and inescapable as the roots of the Byron Strangler Fig. But like that same tree, the tendrils of their love are beginning to stifle and choke, and soon, Sahara finds she must leave, moving to Sydney to pursue her career as an artist. In Sydney, Sahara draws the attention of Sean, a charismatic entrepreneur, and is quickly drawn into his expensive and glamorous world ??? so very different from the quiet, simple place of her youth. But even as she creates a new life, and a new version of herself, Sahara cannot seem to leave Rip behind. Back in the Byron hinterland, Rip moves to a working farm to recover from the wounds Sahara left. It’s here that he begins to understand his past and reimagine his future. But as Rip rebuilds, Sahara unravels, losing herself in Sean’s shiny, but meaningless world and plagued by visions of her previous life and lover. Heartbreaking and haunting, The Inevitability of Stars is a poignant novel about the burden of fate, the viscosity of reality and the resilience of love.

Turn Around Bright Eyes picks up Sheffield’s story right after Love Is a Mix Tape. He is a young widower devastated by grief, trying to build a new life in a new town after his wife’s death. As a writer for Rolling Stone, he naturally takes solace in music. But that’s when he discovers the sublime ridiculousness of karaoke, and despite the fact that he can’t carry a tune, he begins to find his voice. His karaoke obsession takes him to some strange places, whether that means singing a Frank Sinatra song in a senior-citizen community in Florida, attempting a Merle Haggard classic at a cowboy saloon in the Mojave desert, or clearing the room at an after-hours dive in Chinatown. But he finds the music leads him to the most surprising place of all–a new life and a new love. Turn Around Bright Eyes is a story about finding the courage to start over, move on, and rock the mike. It’s about falling in love and navigating your way through adult romance. It’s about how you can learn the weirdest things about yourself just by butchering a Hall & Oates song at 2 A.M. under fluorescent lights in a room full of strangers. It’s about how songs get tangled up in our deepest emotions, evoking memories of the past while inspiring hope for the future. But most of all, it’s a book about all the strange ways music brings people together. Sweet, funny, honest, and full of the music you love, hate and love to hate, Turn Around Bright Eyes is Rob Sheffield at his very best.

Bloody mistakes, ugly scars, and beautiful lies. A tale of corruption. Helen Gardener is murdered on a trans-Atlantic cruise. The Diamond Royale sails from Southampton to New York with her murderer aboard. Set in the 1950s, Poisoned Waters follows the stories of seven unfortunate characters and how they are affected by her death. Was it merely an accident? Mr Phillips, the owner of the ship, and sponsor of the cruise, rules with an iron fist, in search of something or someone. Lies spiral out of control as the suspects try to survive the final days on board. Conflicted by their sense of morals, greed, and lust, they realise what kind of people they really are. Who will rise? Who will fall? Who was Helen’s murderer?

While you are here…

Congratulations to the winners of  1 of 2 print editions of March by Sunni Overend: Erin Patel & Stacy

Australian Readers:

Enter to Win 1 signed copy of Combustion by Steve Worland

Enter to Win 1 of 3 copies of Penguin Crime Classics

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