It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

The It’s Monday! What Are You Reading meme is hosted at Book Journey. I’m delighted that Sheila has found the strength to to revive the meme this week.

Life…

This past weekend was the first in months that I had no plans, convenient because I spent ten hours binge watching the new season of Longmire produced by Netflix. I’m a fan of the show and I was worried about what might change, but I loved it! Have you watched it yet? What a killer season cliffhanger!

Next week my children start two weeks school vacation so this week is cluttered with end of term activities: parent/teacher conferences, assembly’s, school parties and sports presentations.

What I Read Last Week

The Perfect Comeback of Caroline Jacobs by Matthew Dicks

Miss Dreamsville and the Lost Heiress of Collier County by Amy Hill Hearth

The Replacement Wife by Rowena Wiseman

The Art of Crash Landing by Melissa DeCarlo

Is This My Beautiful Life? by Jessica Rowe

Is Fat Bob Dead Yet? by Stephen Dobyns (DNF)

New Posts

(click the titles to read my reviews)

Review: The Perfect Comeback of Caroline Jacobs by Matthew Dicks★★★★

Review: Miss Dreamsville and the Lost Heiress of Collier County by Amy Hill Hearth★★★

Review:  The Replacement Wife by Rowena Wiseman ★★1/2

Review: The Insanity of Murder by Felicity Young ★★★★

Review: The Art of Crash Landing by Melissa DeCarlo ★★★★1/2

Review: Is This My Beautiful Life? by Jessica Rowe

What I Am Reading Today

Is love really written in the stars? Fledgling romance author Simona Gemella is hoping the rugged wilderness of South Australia’s Kangaroo Island will help reignite her creative spark after her husband walked out.  She’s joined her best friend, Nessie, on a health and wellness retreat at a mysterious old manor on the island, run by an astrology guru.  Though Simona’s sworn off men, she can’t help being distracted by a dangerously handsome man with a scorpion tattoo – Denham Cobalt – who’s also staying at the manor. Then strange things start to happen, including uncanny accidents and even a possible murder. It all culminates at a masquerade party on the night of a total lunar eclipse. Will Simona survive – with her heart intact?

 What I Plan To Read This Week

(click the covers to view at Goodreads)

From Kat Spears, author of Sway, comes a new novel that asks the question: when a group of four best friends begin to drift apart, what will it take to bring them back together? When Jason Marshall’s younger sister dies, he knows he can count on his three best friends and soccer teammates — Mario, Jordie, and Chick — to be there for him. With a grief-crippled mother and a father who’s not in the picture, he needs them more than ever. But when Mario starts hanging out with a rough group of friends and Jordie finally lands the girl of his dreams, Jason is left to fend for himself while maintaining a strained relationship with troubled and quiet Chick. Then Jason meets Raine, a girl he thinks is out of his league but who sees him for everything he wants to be, and he finds himself pulled between building a healthy and stable relationship with a girl he might be falling in love with, grieving for his sister, and trying to hold onto the friendships he has always relied on.  A witty and emotionally moving tale of friendship, first love, and loss, Breakaway is Kat Spears at her finest

How can four sisters build the futures they so desperately want, when the past is reaching out to claim them? When the Patterson daughters return home to Meadow Brook to be with their father after their mother’s death, they bring with them a world of complication and trouble. The eldest sister, obstetrician Madeleine, would rather be anywhere but her hometown, violinist Abigail has fled from her stellar career, while teacher Lucinda is struggling to have the children she and her husband so desperately want. The black sheep of the family, Charlie, feels her life as a barista and exercise instructor doesn’t measure up to that of her gifted and successful sisters. Dealing with their bereft father who is determined to sell the family motel, their loves old and new and a series of troublesome decisions doesn’t make life any easier, but when they go through their mother’s possessions and uncover the shocking secret of an old family curse, they begin to question everything they thought they knew.

Rachel Blum and Andy Landis are eight years old when they meet late one night in an ER waiting room. Born with a congenital heart defect, Rachel is a veteran of hospitals, and she’s intrigued by the boy who shows up all alone with a broken arm. He tells her his name. She tells him a story. After Andy’s taken back to the emergency room and Rachel’s sent back to her bed, they think they’ll never see each other again. Rachel, the beloved, popular, and protected daughter of two doting parents, grows up wanting for nothing in a fancy Florida suburb. Andy grows up poor in Philadelphia with a single mom and a rare talent that will let him become one of the best runners of his generation. Over the course of three decades, through high school and college, marriages and divorces, from the pinnacles of victory and the heartbreak of defeat, Andy and Rachel will find each other again and again, until they are finally given a chance to decide whether love can surmount difference and distance and if they’ve been running toward each other all along. With honesty, wit, and clear-eyed observations about men and women, love and fate, and the truth about happy endings, Jennifer Weiner delivers two of her most memorable characters, and a love story you’ll never forget.

Vega Jane was always told no one could leave the town of Wormwood. She was told there was nothing outside but the Quag, a wilderness filled with danger and death. And she believed it – until the night she stumbled across a secret that proved that everything she knew was a lie. Now just one thing stands between Vega Jane and freedom – the Quag. In order to leave Wormwood and discover the truth about her world, Vega and her best friend Delph must find a way to make it across a terrifying land of bloodthirsty creatures and sinister magic. But the Quag is worse than Vega Jane’s darkest imagining. It’s a living, breathing prison designed to keep enemies out and the villagers of Wormwood in. The Quag will throw everything at Vega Jane. It will try to break her. It will try to kill her. And survival might come at a price not even Vega Jane is willing to pay. Master storyteller David Baldacci unleashes a hurricane of action and adrenaline that takes readers to the breaking point.

Of all the charming misfits on television, there’s no doubt Raj from The Big Bang Theory — the sincere yet incurably geeky Indian-American astrophysicist — ranks among the misfittingest. Now, we meet the actor who is every bit as loveable as the character he plays on TV. In this revealing collection of essays written in his irreverent, hilarious, and self-deprecating voice, Kunal Nayyar traces his journey from a little boy in New Delhi who mistakes an awkward first kiss for a sacred commitment, gets nosebleeds chugging Coca-Cola to impress other students, and excels in the sport of badminton, to the confident, successful actor on the set of TV’s most-watched sitcom since Friends.

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