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

Linking to: It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? at BookDate; Sunday Post @ Caffeinated Reviewer; and the Sunday Salon @ ReaderBuzz

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Life…

Christmas shopping progress: 3/15

It’s that time of year when I start to think about which reading challenges I will take part in the following year. I have what I consider to be three ‘standard’ challenges, these are ones which fit in with my usual reading habits, and include:

Australian Women Writers Challenge

Aussie Author Challenge

Historical Fiction Challenge

Naturally I participate in my own challenge

Nonfiction Reader Challenge (SIGN UP NOW)

And then I usually add two to three challenges that I select in order to push me out of my comfort zone a little. Conveniently there are several book bloggers who compile lists of challenges each year. I’m still considering my options at this point, there are just so many to choose from, but if you too are curious about your options, I suggest you browse the following sites:

The 2021 Master List of Challenges

2021 Challenges (to help feed your challenge habit)

Ready For A Reading Challenge

What challenges are you considering joining in 2021?

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What I’ve Read Since I last Posted…

Love in Lockdown by Chloe James

Electric Blue by Paul F. Verhoeven

The Lies You Told by Harriet Tyce

Things You Should Know by Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant

Dark Tides by Philippa Gregory

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New Posts…

Review: The Champagne War by Fiona McIntosh

Review: The Lost and the Damned by Olivier Norek

Review: Love in Lockdown by Chloe James

Review: Electric Blue by Paul F. Verhoeven

2020 Nonfiction Reader Challenge: Monthly Spotlight #10

Review: The Lies You Told by Harriet Tyce

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What I’m Reading This Week…

Looking out over an ebb tide from the back verandah was like watching God paint stripes…

Disgraced former lawyer Clementine Jones is on the shores of paradise—Queensland’s Great Sandy Straits—trying to outrun her past.

Bored with her house-sitting gig, she becomes a reluctant recruit to the local environmental group, campaigning to save an endangered turtle as developers close in. Then a body is found at the base of a quarry, and Clem’s world is turned upside down.

The police say suicide. Clem’s convinced it was murder. She also knows she’s the only one interested in tracking down the killer.

Well, the only one apart from her friend Torrens, ex-con and reformed standover man. And he’s got his own fight on his hands

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Beautiful, beguiling and treacherous … Big Little Lies meets Picnic at Hanging Rock in a secluded valley over the Blue Mountains.

Four women and their children are invited to the beautiful but remote Capertee Valley for a much-needed holiday.

Once home to a burgeoning mining industry, now all that remains are ruins slowly being swallowed by the bush and the jewel of the valley, a stunning, renovated Art Deco hotel. This is a place haunted by secrets. In 1948 Clara Black walked into the night, never to be seen again.

As the valley beguiles these four friends, and haunts them in equal measure, each has to confront secrets of her own: Nathalie with a damaged marriage; Emmie yearning for another child; Pen struggling as a single parent; and Alexandra hiding in the shadow of her famous husband.

But as the mystery of what happened seventy years earlier unravels, one of the women also vanishes into this bewitching but wild place, forcing devastating truths to the surface.

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A tense, unputdownable thriller from the author of Hangman.

Timothy Blake has nothing to lose. He’s headed to an isolated house in rural Texas with a hammer in his pocket and murder on his mind. His target is Fred, the ringleader of a criminal empire on the dark web. Once Fred is gone, Blake can disappear for good.

But it turns out that Fred isn’t alone. Five other psychopaths live in the house. They work together and call themselves the Guards. Torture, extortion and death are their business. Blake manages to convince them that he’s one of their online associates. Soon they think he’s a monster, like them. They’re not wrong.

Blake decides to pick them off one by one. But when a Guard is found with a bullet in his skull, Blake realises that someone else in the house may have the same idea – and he might be their next target.

Meanwhile, who are the desperate people chained up in the building behind the house? One of them will change everything . . .

A bloody, twisted roller-coaster of dark action and suspense from the acclaimed bestselling author of Hangman

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Confronting, confessional and wildly entertaining, Sunshine lays bare the business of stripping and what goes on in the backrooms of ‘gentlemen’s clubs’. Coming to TV in 2021!

There are a lot of Ambers in the stripping world. And Aprils and Summers, and Skys and Rains. There are quite a few gems: Sapphires, Diamonds, Rubies and even an Amethyst. And exotic creatures: Tigers, Cheetahs, Phoenixes and Kitties. Plenty of weather conditions, like Misty, Stormy and Cloudy. There are, of course, a selection of fruits: Cherry, Berry, Peaches and Apple. And confectionery to go with it, like Candy, Lolly and Caramel. And then there are the generic hot-girl/sexy names: Lolita, Tiffany, Chanel, Lulu, Sasha and Brigitte.

Meet Sunshine. That’s her stage name. Follow her downstairs into the shadowy underworld of the so-called Gentlemen’s Clubs, where men hide in dark corners and pay gorgeous women like Sunshine to take their clothes off. Follow her to the private rooms where the lap dances happen, the hustle plays out and the real money flows. Sit with her in the back room with the other dancers, her friends and colleagues, who laugh and cry and rake in the dollars and party as though a zombie apocalypse is on the horizon.

Sunshine tells us in her own brutally honest and audacious words what it’s like to work as a stripper, both in Australia and overseas.

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Thanks for stopping by!