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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What I’ve Read Since I last Posted…

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You and Me on Vacation by Emily Henry

The Newcomer by Laura Elizabeth Woollett

The Other Side of Beautiful by Kim Lock

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What I’m Reading This Week…

 

Three aching hearts, a ramshackle country pub and a tangled web of secrets.

PR executive Gabrielle Moreau knows she has an easy life, but when her business partner claims she lacks career passion she takes ownership of a dilapidated pub in a tiny riverside settlement to prove she can be a success without falling back on her privilege.

Eighteen months ago, Settlers Bridge stonemason Hayden Paech had it all: a job he loved, good mates and a close family. All he needed was the right woman to come along, and he was ready to settle down. But one poor choice stole that chance and he’ll never risk caring for anyone again.

Living at Wurruldi Hotel for … goodness, so many years, Ilse has seen more changes of ownership than she can recall. Clinging to her failing memories, she’s tired of trying to protect the property her grandparents built. With the arrival of the elegant Gabrielle Moreau, however, it seems that finally an owner may recognise the importance of recapturing the grace and dignity of Ilse’s past.

For Ilse to find peace, Hayden forgiveness and Gabrielle her true passion, three aching hearts must reveal their secrets.

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Some secrets you try to hide. Others you don’t dare let out … Twin Peaks meets The Dry in a deliciously dark and twisted tale that unravels a small town

Ambitious young journalist Marlowe ‘Lo’ Robertson would do anything to escape the suffocating confines of her small home town. While begrudgingly covering the annual show for the local paper, Lo is horrified to discover the mutilated corpse of Lily Williams, the reigning showgirl and Lo’s best friend. Seven strange symbols have been ruthlessly carved into Lily’s back. But when Lo reports her grisly find to the town’s police chief, he makes her promise not to tell anyone about the symbols. Lo obliges, though it’s not like she has much of a choice – after all, he is also her father.

When Lily’s murder makes headlines around the country and the town is invaded by the media, Lo seizes the opportunity to track down the killer and make a name for herself by breaking the biggest story of her life.

What Lo uncovers is that her sleepy home town has been harbouring a deadly secret, one so shocking that it will captivate the entire nation. Lo’s story will change the course of her life forever, but in a way she could never have dreamed of.

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Mother. To three small children, their heritage dual like hers. 

Daughter. To a mother who immigrated to make a better life but has been rejected by her chosen country.

Wife. To a man who loves her but who will not defend her to his intolerant family.

Woman: Whose roles now define her and trap her in a life she no longer recognises… 

Meet Monica, the flawed heroine at the heart of LIVES LIKE MINE.

With her three children in school, Monica finds herself wondering if this is all there is. Despite all the effort and the smiles, in the mirror she sees a woman hollowed out from putting everyone else first, tolerating her in-laws’ intolerance, and wondering if she has a right to complain when she’s living the life that she has created for herself.

Then along comes Joe, a catalyst for change in the guise of a flirtatious parent on the school run. Though the sudden spark of their affair is hedonistic and oh so cathartic, Joe soon offers a friendship that shows Monica how to resurrect and honour the parts of her identity that she has long suppressed. He is able to do for Monica what Dan has never managed to, enabling her both to face up to a past of guilty secrets and family estrangements, and to redefine her future.

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THE WHOLE COUNTRY IS ASKING.

BUT THEY’RE NOT TELLING . . .

At a children’s party . . .

Nothing ever happens in a sleepy American town like Middlebrook. Until the shocking events of one hot Saturday afternoon when, at a back-to-school party, nine children sneak off to a barn. And one child is shot by another.

In the media storm that sweeps the nation . . .

The press are asking questions. About the type of parents who let their children play unsupervised in a house with guns. About how damaged a child must be to commit this kind of atrocity.

In the ensuing police investigation . . .

Two questions are the most urgent, and the most baffling. Of the nine children who were present in that barn, which one actually pulled the trigger?

And why are the others staying silent?

Incredibly gripping and gorgeously written, this is a spellbinding novel that asks how far we’ll go to protect our children, and how we can come together when so much divides us.

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