It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? #SundayPost #SundaySalon

The It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? meme is hosted at BookDate

I’m also linking to The Sunday Post @ Caffeinated Reviewer

And the Sunday Salon @ ReaderBuzz

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Life…

Please forgive the following #mummybrag…

My youngest daughter’s high school graduation was held this past week. Due to Covid-19 regulations, no audience was permitted so they live streamed the event for parents to watch from home. My daughter has always worked hard and been academically successful, but it’s been a tough final year with attendance interrupted by fire, flood, and of course the virus, so we weren’t really sure what the outcome may be.

I am absolutely bursting with pride to announce Aleah placed FIRST IN THE YEAR! She also placed FIRST in 4 of her 6 subjects – Ancient History, Extension History, Biology and Advanced Mathematics, (second in Chemistry by half a mark and third in Advanced English). She was also awarded the History Essay Award, and The University of New England Vice-Chancellor’s High Achievement Prize.

(These are screenshots from the livestream)

This week the Higher School Certificate (HSC) starts, these are state-wide externally administered exams held over three weeks, the results of which help determine a state-wide mark, and a state-wide (with a National equivalence) ranking – the Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) used to determine eligibility for entrance into university. For Australian University’s, you apply to be admitted to a specific course at a specific university with a set of five preferences, and those courses have a minimum ATAR requirement to be considered.

The minimum can change from year to year depending on the demand for the course, last year the minimum for the course Aleah wants to study (Forensic Science) was 85% (meaning it selects only from those students who apply that gained results in the top 15% of the state). Aleah already has guaranteed entry into her first choice course no matter her ATAR result based on an early offer scheme from one particular university, but still needs to do well so that she has options in case she changes her mind at the last minute, so it’s going to be tense around here for a few weeks. The HSC, ATAR, and first round offers of university placements are disseminated in December.

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What I’ve Read Since I last Posted…

Home Stretch by Graham Norton

Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman

Unfollow Me by Charlotte Duckworth

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New Posts…

Review: The Night Letters by Denise Leith

Review: Home Stretch by Graham Norton

Review: Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman

Review: Unfollow Me by Charlotte Duckworth

Bookshelf Bounty

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What I’m Reading This Week…

How many lives can one incident shatter?

For one Daylesford cop, this will be their last callout. Another may not make it. A third will call it quits.

Black cloud on a winter’s morning signals what nobody could’ve seen coming. An anything-but-routine welfare check by two Daylesford police officers at a farm in Korweinguboora. A fatal house explosion that leaves a rural community reeling.

Local cop John Franklin and Melbourne journalist Georgie Harvey are among the first responders at the property. The crime scene is compromised by fire and tonnes of water, and speculations run rife. Murder-suicide? Accident or sabotage? An isolated incident or just the beginning?

As lives hang in the balance, Franklin seeks answers and someone to hold accountable while Georgie investigates her toughest story yet. But will one of them crack?

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He violated her past and haunts her present.

Now he’s threatening their future.

She breathes deeply, trying to quell the rising sense of panic. A detective came to her home, drugged her and kidnapped her. She tries to make sense of it, to imagine alternatives, but only one conclusion is possible: it’s her past come to claim her.

Martin Scarsden’s new life seems perfect, right up until the moment it’s shattered by a voicemail: a single scream, abruptly cut off, from his partner Mandaly Blonde.

Racing home, he finds an unconcious man sprawled on the floor and Mandy gone. Someone has abducted her. But who, and why?

So starts a twisting tale of intrigue and danger, as Martin probes the past of the woman he loves, a woman who has buried her former life so deep she has never mentioned it.

And for the first time, Mandy finds denial impossible, now the body of a mystery man has been discovered, a man whose name she doesn’t know, a man she was engaged to marry when he died. It’s time to face her demons once and for all; it’s time she learned how to trust.

Set in a Sydney riven with corruption and nepotism, privilege and power, Trust is the third riveting novel from award-winning and internationally acclaimed writer Chris Hammer.

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Berlin, 1943

As the Allied forces edge closer, the Third Reich tightens its grip on its people. For eighteen-year-old Susanna Göttmann, this means her beloved adopted family including the man she loves, Leo, are at risk. His mother – Susie’s godmother – is forced to register as a Jew and wear the Star of David, bearing the resentment of the village she has always called home.

Desperate to protect them any way she can, Susie accepts the help of an influential Nazi officer. It means she must abandon any hope of a future with Leo and enter the terrifying world of the Nazi elite.

But all is not lost as her newfound position offers more than she could have hoped for … With critical intelligence at her fingertips, Susie seizes a dangerous opportunity to help the resistance.

The decisions she makes could change the course of the war, but what will they mean for her family and her future?

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Meet Jackson – a very unusual boy in a world that prefers ‘normal’…

Julia Curtis is a busy mother of three, with a husband often away for work, an ever-present mother-in-law, a career, and a house that needs doing up. Her fourteen-year-old daughter, Milla, has fallen in love for the first time, and her youngest, Ruby, is a nine-year-old fashionista who can out-negotiate anyone.

But Julia’s eleven-year-old son, Jackson, is different. Different to his sisters. Different to his classmates. In fact, Jackson is different from everyone. And bringing up a child who is different isn’t always easy.

Then, one Monday morning, Jackson follows his new friend Digby into the school toilets. What happens inside changes everything; not only for Jackson, but for every member of his family. Julia faces the fight of her life to save her unusual boy from a world set up for ‘normal’.

An extraordinary boy. The mother who loves him. The fight of their lives.

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Thanks for stopping by!