It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

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

Life…

I got to share a quick coffee and a chat with Carol from Reading, Writing and Riesling today. She and her hubby are currently traveling around Australia and happened to be passing my town on their way to Queensland so we met up at a highway service station. Her husband was fairly eager to get back on the road so we didn’t have a lot a time together but it was really lovely to meet her! I forgot to get a photo though!

Feeling more relaxed and well read this week. I’m nearly back on track!

 

What I Read Last Week

A Year After Henry by Cathie Pelletier

The Caller by Juliet Marillier

The Secrets in Silence by Nicole Trope

Lick by Kylie Scott

Present Darkness by Malla Nunn

The First True Lie by Marina Mander

 

New Posts

(click the titles to read my reviews)

AWW Feature: Kate Belle & Being Jade: Born of Myth & Dreams

Review: Being Jade by Kate Belle ★★★★1/2

Review: The Caller {Shadowfell #3} by Juliet Marillier ★★★

Review: The Blue Mile by Kim Kelly ★★★★

Review: The Secrets of Silence by Nicole Trope ★★★★1/2

Review & Giveaway: Lick {Stage Dive #1}  by Kylie Scott ★★★

Stuff On Sunday: Weekend Cooking: Cinnamon Swirl Cake

*On the AWW Challenge Blog: MAY 2014: General Fiction Round Up*

 What I Am Reading Today

In Italy, passion and danger share the same bed. When Ornella vacations in Sicily, she meets Hugh, an archaeologist working on a dig in the beautiful town of Taormina. Hugh convinces Ornella to join him on a trip to the island of Stromboli, where they hike up a live volcano at dusk.  After a passionate night together Ornella, an actress usually focused on her career, suspects she’s in love. But after breakfast the next morning, Hugh vanishes.  Ornella is left with Hugh’s phone, sunglasses and a sudden end to the love affair she thought she didn’t want. Desperate to know if Hugh ran out on her or if he’s met with disaster, she wants to search for him. But with an important screen test in Rome and her agent impatiently waiting for her, Ornella faces a dilemma. Little does she know the danger Hugh is in – and that she is the key to his survival

 What I Plan To Read This Week

(click the covers to view at Goodreads)

 

 Currawongs appearing at the Manor in vast numbers had come to portend one thing… Death was on its way.When photographer Elizabeth Thorrington is invited to document the history of Currawong Manor for a book, she is keen to investigate a mystery from years before: the disappearance of her grandfather, the notorious artist Rupert Partridge, and the deaths of his wife, Doris, and daughter, Shalimar. For years, locals have speculated whether it was terrible tragedy or a double murder, but until now, the shocking truth of what happened at the Manor that day has remained a secret. Relocating to the manor, Elizabeth interviews Ginger Flower, one of Rupert’s life models from the seventies, and Dolly Shaw, the daughter of the enigmatic ‘dollmaker’ who seems to have been protected over the years by the Partridge family. Elizabeth is sure the two women know what happened all those years ago, but neither will share their truths unconditionally. And in the surrounding Owlbone Woods, a haunting presence still lurks, waiting for the currawongs to gather… An evocative tale set in the spectacular Blue Mountains, Currawong Manor is a mystery of art, truth and the ripple effects of death and deception.

Prudencia Prim is a young woman of high ideals, intelligence and achievement, with an extensive knowledge of literature and several letters after her name. But when she accepts the post of private librarian to a wealthy bibliophile in the secluded village of San Ireneo de Arnois, she is unprepared for what she will encounter there. Her employer, a philosopher and intellectual, is dashing yet contrarian, always ready with a stinging critique of her beloved Austen and Alcott. And the neighbours are also capable of charm and eccentricity in equal measure, determined as they are to preserve their singular little community from the outside world. Thoughtful, gentle Prudencia might have hoped for friendship in San Ireneo but she didn’t expect to find romance – nor did she expect the course of her new life to run quite so rocky, to offer challenge and heartache as well as discovery, joy and delicious regional pastries. The Awakening of Miss Prim is a delightfully unusual and entertaining tale of literature, love and the search for happiness.

The Skeleton Cupboard is Professor Tanya Byron’s account of her years of training as a clinical psychologist, when trainees find themselves in the toughest placements of their careers. Through the eyes of her naive and inexperienced younger self, Tanya shares remarkable stories inspired by the people she had the privilege to treat. Gripping, poignant and full of daring black humour, this book reveals the frightening and challenging induction faced by all mental health staff and highlights their incredible commitment to their patients. Powerfully moving and beautifully written, The Skeleton Cupboard shares the tales of ordinary people with an amazing resilience to the challenges of life.

SOCIETY IS DIVIDED Silicon Valley has taken virtual sex to the extreme, encouraging men to act out their darkest and most violent sexual fantasies. Militant feminists and churches are bitterly opposed. Powerful corporations battle for market control. In the midst of a fierce protest campaign, a bomb goes off in San Francisco. TWELVE ARE DEAD Daniel Madsen is one of a new breed of federal agents armed with a gun, a badge and a handheld lie detector. He’s a fast operator and his instructions are simple: find the bomber before he strikes again. A NIGHTMARE AWAITS Madsen plunges headlong into a sleazy, unsettling world where reality and fantasy are indistinguishable, exploitation is business as usual and the web of corruption extends all the way to Washington . only to discover the stakes are higher than he could ever imagine.

At twenty-three, after leaving graduate school to pursue her dreams of becoming a poet, Joanna Rakoff moves to New York City and takes a job as assistant to the storied literary agent for J. D. Salinger. She spends her days in the plush, wood-panelled agency, where Dictaphones and typewriters still reign and old-time agents doze at their desks after martini lunches, and at night she goes home to the tiny, threadbare Brooklyn apartment she shares with her socialist boyfriend. Precariously balanced between glamour and poverty, surrounded by titanic personalities and struggling to trust her own artistic sense, Joanna is given the task of answering Salinger’s voluminous fan mail. But as she reads the candid, heart-wrenching letters from his readers around the world, she finds herself unable to type out the agency’s decades-old form response. Instead, drawn inexorably into the emotional world of Salinger’s devotees, she abandons the template and begins writing back… Poignant, keenly observed and irresistibly funny, My Salinger Year is a memoir about literary New York in the late 1990s, a pre-digital world on the cusp of vanishing, where a young woman finds herself swept into one of the last great stories and entangled with one of the last great figures of the century. Above all, it is the coming-of-age story of a talented writer and a testament to the universal power of books to shape our lives.

While you are here…

 Enter To Win Lick by Kylie Scott

Thanks for stopping by!