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…

I’m afraid I’ve been terribly distracted since the latter half of the week. Last year it was fire, this year it is flood. We are currently surrounded by floodwaters with access to and from cut, essentially rendering us an island. Thankfully my house is above the flood line, though we did have an indoor waterfall feature for a few days because the guttering couldn’t cope with the sheer amount of rain, and it found its way inside to run down the glass sliding doors that lead out from our lounge room. We’ve had to drill holes in the roof of our verandah which seems to have solved the issue for now. Electricity and internet services have also been a little erratic, and we are expecting more rain for the next two-three days. Schools have been closed, and my husband can’t get to work.

The images below shows part of my town, Taree in NSW, and the tiny red dot in the larger photo shows approximately where my house is. Though we are less than 100m from the river edge, we are on the high side. The first photo in the collage shows my son’s workplace, the others around the main town streets, the last two show the bridge into town that usually sits around 4m above the river, it went under at the floods peak which was 5.85m. That mightn’t sound high but Taree sits in a valley, but a minor flood warning is issued at 1.5m, a moderate warning at 2.4m and a major flood warning at 3.7m.

In addition to all of that, the area where my in-laws and daughter are living in the Hawkesbury region of NSW are also experiencing record flood levels. My sister in law and her family have had to evacuate tonight, my mother-in-law and other SIL and her family are on a warning, as are my nephews and their family’s. My daughter is safe on campus so far, and we are hoping evacuation won’t be necessary for her, but no one is sure yet how bad it will get…. they have used that terrifying word -unprecedented.

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What I’ve Read Since I last Posted…

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The Iron Raven by Julie Kagawa

One Last Dance by Emma Jane Holmes

Wonderworks by Angus Fletcher

Nowhere River by Meg Bignell

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New Posts…

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Review: The Codebreakers by Alli Sinclair

Review: Tipping by Anna George

Review: The Iron Raven by Julie Kagawa

Bookshelf Bounty

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What I’m Reading This Week…

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Warm, funny, life-affirming and true, The Best Things is the joyous debut novel from much-loved comedian, writer, actor and presenter Mel Giedroyc.

It’s the story of a family who lose everything, only to find themselves, and each other, along the way.

Sally and Frank Parker have it all. Then one day, because of Frank, they don’t.

As the bailiffs move in and the money runs out, Sally realises that she and her children don’t have a clue about how to survive. Or do they?

The Parkers are about to discover that the best things in life aren’t things at all.

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Five women come together at a New Year’s Eve’s party after decades apart, in this thrilling story of desire, revenge and courage, based on a brave group of Australian and British WWII servicewomen

Burma, 1945. Bea, Plum, Bubbles, Joy and Lucy: five young women in search of adventure, attached to the Fourteenth Army, fighting a forgotten war in the jungle. Assigned to run a mobile canteen, navigating treacherous roads and dodging hostile gunfire, they become embroiled in life-threatening battles of their own. Battles that will haunt the women for the rest of their lives.

Oxford, 1976. At the height of an impossibly hot English summer, a woman slips into a museum and steals several rare Japanese netsuke, including the famed fox-girl. Despite the offer of a considerable reward, these tiny, exquisitely detailed carvings are never seen again.

London and Galway, 1999. On the eve of the new millennium, Olivia, assistant to an art dealer, meets Beatrix, an elderly widow who wishes to sell her late husband’s collection of Japanese art. Concealing her own motives, Olivia travels with Beatrix to a New Year’s Eve party, deep in the Irish countryside, where friendships will be tested as secrets kept for more than fifty years are spilled.

Inspired by the heroic women who served in the ‘forgotten war’ in Burma, The Last Reunion is a heartbreaking love story and mystery by the international bestselling author of The Botanist’s Daughter and The Silk House. It is also a tribute to the enduring power of female friendship.

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They’ll kill to get more time. She’ll die to stop them.

In a world where each person’s life span is limited by law, time is a lucrative commodity that some people will do anything to get more of.

Fourth-dimension physicist, Dr Varya Galanos, invented the technology that time thieves used to murder children by stealing their remaining years of life. Although it was destroyed 10 years ago, and the thieves brought to justice, she still suffers from the burden of guilt.

Masquerading as a lowly lab technician at the Minor Miracles Foundation, Varya finds a certain peace searching for cures for rare childhood diseases, like the one which took her 4-year-old son, Kir, away from her.

The Foundation is secretly funded by Varya and her employee and confidante, Marisa Volkov, by selling illicit time tabs to wealthy patrons. When dissolved on the tongue, a single time tab grants a person four extra hours in their day.

The time tab technology is highly valued – and highly illegal – in a society where Time Chips are inserted into each child’s brain stem at birth. Lives are limited to just sixty-five years to conserve the planet’s ever-dwindling resources.

Varya’s tenuous peace is shattered when children start disappearing again. She fears the worst – that the time thieves have returned and have somehow resurrected the technology to steal precious years from children.

Varya is the only one who can find a way to reverse the time drains and save the returned children. But doing so could cost the lives of those she holds dearest.

When her best friend’s son becomes a victim, returned with just hours to live, she is faced with an impossible choice.

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Welcome to The Emporium of Imagination, a most unusual shop that travels the world offering vintage gifts to repair broken dreams and extraordinary phones to contact lost loved ones.

But, on arrival in the tiny township of Boonah, the store’s long-time custodian, Earlatidge Hubert Umbray, makes a shocking realisation. He is dying . . .

The clock is now ticking to find his replacement, because the people of Boonah are clearly in need of some restorative magic.

Like Enoch Rayne – a heartbroken ten-year-old boy mourning the loss of his father, while nurturing a guilty secret.

Like Ann Harlow, who has come to the town to be close to her dying grandmother. Though it’s Enoch’s father who dominates her thoughts – and regrets . . .

Even Earlatidge in his final days will experience the store as never before – and have the chance to face up to his own tragedy . . .

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