It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

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

Life…

Yesterday we celebrated Father’s Day in Australia. My oldest daughter was performing in a fundraiser event one town over so we all went along and met my parents there for lunch. It has been raining for days here but the sun finally came out so we all enjoyed a lovely afternoon by the lake.

The first photo is of my husband with our children, the second is of my dad.

****

Thank you again to all those who stopped by to celebrate Book’d Out’s 4th birthday and leave me messages of congratulations. I am truly grateful and humbled by your kind words and support.

I am thrilled to announce the winners of my 4th blog birthday celebrations

Kathryn T has won the $25 gift certificate to Gone Reading

Winners of the Amazon/Book Depository gift certificates are:

Helen B; Carol M and Tracey S

{Winners will be contacted via email}

****

 

What I Read Last Week

 

Apple and Rain by Sarah Crossan

Mothers and Daughters by Kylie Ladd

Craven by Melanie Casey

Heir of Fire by Sarah J Maas

The Children Act by Ian McEwan

The Moment of Everything by Shelly King

 

New Posts

(click the titles to read my reviews)

Review: Mothers and Daughters by Kylie Ladd ★★★★

Review: Heir of Fire by Sarah J Maas ★★★★1/2

Review: Craven by Melanie Casey ★★★

Review: Apple and Rain by Sarah Crossan ★★★1/2

Review: The Children Act by Ian McEwan ★★★1/2

Weekend Cooking: Tacolicious by Sara Deseran et al

*At the AWWC Blog: General Fiction: August 2014*

What I Am Reading Today

 

Miranda shrank away from him, arm pressed to the driver’s door. ‘What’s your name?’ ‘I’m already dead. That’s my name now. That’s what they called me. I’m Already Dead.’
Journalist Miranda Jack is finally attempting to move on from the death of her husband by relocating up the coast with her young daughter, Zoe. Then a single event changes everything. On a Monday afternoon as she waits at traffic lights, a stranger jumps into her car and points a gun at her chest. Forced to drive at high speed up the motorway, Miranda listens to the frantic, paranoid rants of Brendan Walsh, a man who claims he’s being chased and that they’re both now running for their lives. Two hours later her ordeal is over in the most shocking fashion. Miranda is safe but she can’t simply walk away – not without knowing the truth about that terrifying drive. As a journalist Miranda has always asked questions. But this time the questions are dangerous – and the answers might get her killed . .

What I Plan To Read This Week

(click the covers to view at Goodreads)

An ancient riddle, a broken vow – a modern-day quest for a medieval treasure. Australian-born Dr. Olivia Walker is an Oxford academic with a reputation as one of the world’s leading Crusade historians and she’s risked everything on finding one of the most famous swords in history – Durendal. Shrouded in myth and mystery, the sword is fabled to have belonged to the warrior Roland, a champion of Charlemagne’s court, and Olivia is determined to prove to her detractors that the legend is real. Her dream is almost within reach when she discovers the long-lost key to its location in Provence, but her benefactor – Raimund Blancard – has other ideas. For more than a millennium, the Blancard family have protected the sword. When his brother is tortured and killed by a man who believes he is Roland’s rightful heir, Raimund vows to end the bloodshed forever. He will find Durendal and destroy it, but to do that he needs Olivia’s help. Now Olivia is torn between finding the treasure for which she has hunted all her life and helping the man she has fallen in love with destroy her dream. And all the while, Raimund’s murderous nemesis is on their trail, and he will stop at nothing to claim his birthright.

How well do you really know the one you love?  With her customary page-turning style and potent themes, this is Caroline Overington at her thought-provoking best.  ‘Why do some people decide to get married when everyone around them would seem to agree that marriage, at least for the two people in question, is a terrifically bad idea?’ The year is 1999, and Lachlan Colbert – Colby – has the world at his feet. He’s got a big job on Wall Street and a sleek bachelor pad in the heart of Manhattan. With money no object, he and his friends take a trip to Australia to see in the new millennium. And it’s there, on a hired yacht sailing the Whitsundays, that he meets Caitlin.  Caitlin Hourigan has got wild hair and torn shorts – and has barely ever left the small patch of Queensland where she grew up. But Colby is smitten and for Caitlin, a girl from the wrong side of the tracks, a blissful future awaits – marriage, a big house, a beautiful little boy. But nothing is ever as perfect as it seems. And for Lachlan and Caitlin the nightmare is only just beginning.

“When I was little I believed in Jesus and Santa, spontaneous combustion, and the Loch Ness monster. Now I believe in science, statistics, and antibiotics.” So says seventeen-year-old Zac Meier during a long, grueling leukemia treatment in Perth, Australia. A loud blast of Lady Gaga alerts him to the presence of Mia, the angry, not-at-all-stoic cancer patient in the room next door. Once released, the two near-strangers can’t forget each other, even as they desperately try to resume normal lives. The story of their mysterious connection drives this unflinchingly tough, tender novel told in two voices.

No one steps up to life’s banquet, holds out her tray, and orders, “Grief, please!” But as a child, Candy Pekkala was served a heaping helping of it. Every buffet line has a dessert section, however, and when a cousin calls with a Hollywood apartment to sublet, it seems as though Candy is finally offered something sweet. It’s good-bye to Minnesota and hello to California, where a girl who has always lived by her wits has a real chance of making a living with them. With that, the irrepressible Lorna Landvik launches her latest irresistible character onto the world stage—or at least onto the dimly lit small stage where stand-up comedy gets its start. Herself a comic performer, Landvik taps her own adventurous past and Minnesota roots to conjure Candy’s life in this strange new Technicolor home. Her fellow tenants at Peyton Hall include a female bodybuilder, a ruined nightclub impresario, and a well-connected old Romanian fortune-teller. There are game show appearances and temp jobs at a record company and an establishment suspiciously like the Playboy Mansion, and of course the alluring but not always welcoming stage of stand-up comedy. As she hones her act, Candy is tested by humiliation, hecklers, and the inherent sexism that insists “chicks aren’t funny.” Written with the light touch and quiet wisdom that have made her works so popular, this is classic Lorna Landvik—sometimes so funny, you’ll cry; sometimes so sad, you might as well laugh; and always impossible to put down.

 

 While you are here…

 

Thanks for stopping by!