It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

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

Life…

Another busy week has flown by, of special note was my youngest son’s linking ceremony as he graduated from Joey’s to Cubs, the first in the pack to do so,  and yesterday was Father’s Day though we didn’t do anything particularly special as the three younger children spent the previous night at a fundraiser for the homeless via Mission Australia, sleeping in cardboard boxes and were exhausted.

Though I seemed to find a lot of time to read this week, mainly in the car waiting for one activity or another to finish, I have fallen behind on getting some reviews done and this week promises to be just as busy as the last few so I’m not sure how much I will actually accomplish!

It is the first Monday of the month so here are my challenge updates:

The Eclectic Reader Challenge 10/12

Australian Women Writer’s Challenge 84/50

Aussie Author Challenge 12/12 – Finished!

What I Read Last Week

Clean Burn by Karen Sandler

Just Between Us by Various

Please Don’t Take My Baby by Cathy Glass

Zero At The Bone by David Whish-Wilson

Sierra Court Blues by Lawrence Parlier

The Returned by Jason Mott

Pursuing Love and Death by Heather Taylor Johnson DNF

Blood Secret by Jaye Ford

New Posts

(click the titles to read my reviews)

Review & Giveaway: Nefarious Doings by Ilsa Evans ★★★★

Giveaway: Book’d Out is 3!

Review: Clean Burn by Karen Sandler ★★★★

Review: Just Between Us: Australian writers tell the truth about female friendships ★★★1/2

Review: Please Don’t Take My Baby by Cathy Glass ★★

Review: Sierra Court Blues by Lawrence Parlier ★★★

 What I Am Reading Today

Everything seems to be going perfectly in Madeleine’s life – she’s a successful publicist in a book publishing house, and through work has met the love of her life, children’s author Henry Darrow, who she’s convinced is the loveliest man on earth. Things haven’t always been so perfect for Madeleine, though. When her father died suddenly, it hit her hard; at the same time she struggled with the demands of her lifestyle and felt as though her life was spinning out of control. Until she met Henry. Now they are set to marry and live happily ever after when their best man arrives in town – handsome, charming and ever attentive, Aiden is a welcome visitor. But his presence soon causes ripples in the happy couple’s world, as he brings secrets with him – and starts to unravel some of Madeleine’s. As the big day draws closer, Madeleine starts to question her commitment to Henry: Is he really the one she wants to spend the rest of her life with?

What I Plan To Read This Week

(click the covers to view at Goodreads)

California girl Livvi Gray has always been haunted by a terrifying nightmare of an eerily beautiful stranger in a shimmering silver dress. Shortly before Livvi’s thirtieth birthday she will come face to face with the stranger from her dream, an encounter that will not only alter Livvi’s future, but change much of what she thinks she knows about the past. The Book of Someday tells Livvi’s story in parallel with that of a brilliant Boston photographer named Micah and a young Long Island wife and mother named AnnaLee. Like Livvi, these two women are swiftly moving toward events that will prove to be the ultimate turning points in their lives, the places where devastating secrets will be exposed–secrets about the unexpected ways in which we choose to protect, and betray, the people we love…

He’s gone. And telling the truth won’t bring him back… When a baby goes missing on a lonely roadside in Australia, it sets off a police investigation that will become a media sensation and dinner-table talk across the world. Lies, rumours and guilt snowball, causing the parents, Joanna and Alistair, to slowly turn against each other. Finally Joanna starts thinking the unthinkable: could the truth be even more terrible than she suspected? And what will it take to make things right? The Cry is a dark psychological thriller with a gripping moral dilemma at its heart and characters who will keep you guessing on every page.

On the trail of a brutal killer with a meat cleaver and a grudge they’re also watching their backs as new technologies threaten their jobs. A throat-stopping, heart-thumping mystery from one of Australia’s most acclaimed crime writers.  A woman dies in her sleep in a houseboat on the Thames; the apparent cause of death, an unflued gas heater. It all seems straightforward, but DI Kathy Kolla isn’t convinced. Both Kathy and DCI Brock run up against opposition in their investigation. An aggressive new Commander seems to have a different agenda, focusing on the new realities of economic constraints, and favouring emerging technologies over the traditional policing methods. Old-fashioned coppers like Brock and Kolla are being squeezed out. To make matters worse, there’s a new Task Force moving in on their patch, and a brutal killer, Butcher Jack Bragg, to be tracked down and caught. It’s one of Brock and Kolla’s bloodiest investigations yet. A heart-thumping read, The Raven’s Eye gives us Brock and Kolla under pressure; it’s a clash between the menacing ever-present eye of computer surveillance versus the explosive threat of a man with a meat cleaver and a grudge.

Shelly Parker never much liked Faith Dobbins, the uppity way that girl bossed her around. But they had more in common than she knew. Shelly tried to ignore the haints that warned her Faith’s tyrannical father, Pastor Dobbins, was a devil in disguise. But when Faith started acting strange, Shelly couldn’t avoid the past—not anymore.  Critically acclaimed, award-winning author Ann Hite beckons readers back to the Depression-era South, from the saltwater marshes of Georgia’s coast to the whispering winds of North Carolina’s mystical Black Mountain, in a mesmerizing gothic tale about the dark family secrets that come back to haunt us

They went to war and fought for love … Although Madeleine has grown up in the shadow of her grandfather, the renowned artist David Harrow, she knows little about him. For David died long before she was born, and his paintings sold off to save the family property, Sunset Ridge. Now, decades on, with the possibility of a retrospective of David’s work, Madeleine races to unravel the remarkable life of her grandfather, a veteran of the Great War, unaware that his legacy extends far beyond the boundaries of the family property… It’s 1916, and as Europe descends further into bloodshed, three Queensland brothers -Thaddeus, Luther and David Harrow – choose freedom over their restricted lives at Sunset Ridge. A ‘freedom’ that sees them bound for the hell of the trenches. With the world on fire around them, the brothers bear witness to both remarkable courage and shocking carnage. But they also come to understand the healing power of love – love for their comrades, love for each other, and love for the young, highly spirited girl they left back home… This is a story of bravery and misadventure, of intolerance and friendship, most of all it is the story of three young men who went to war and fought for love.

While you are here…

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ENTER TO WIN 1 of 4 copies of Trouble Brewing by Jane Tara (Worldwide)

Congratulate winners of  1 of 6 copies of  Deadly Virtues by Jo Bannister

Print Edition: Becky S; Electronic Editions: Claire H, Paula, Kristia, Bruce, Brenda

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