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…

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I self administered my first RAT this week because my parents came up to visit on Saturday. Negative, thankfully. I’m triple Pfizer’d , and don’t go anywhere except for grocery shopping once a week, but I had the sniffles (most likely a result of having the aircon on for a solid week) and figured it was better to be safe than sorry since my parents only got their booster shots mid week.

Hubby goes back to work tomorrow after five weeks vacation, and the boys return to school next week. I’m looking forward to having some alone time again, and get back into my routine. Well not exactly alone, Aleah still has a month til University restarts but she likes her own space too. Aleah and I are continuing our late night binging though, right now it’s Motive.

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What I’ve Read Since I last Posted…

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The Dinner Lady Detectives by Hannah Hendy

The Good Son by Jacquelyn Mitchard

Exit .45 by Ben Sanders

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New Posts…

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Review: Love and Other Puzzles by Kimberley Allsopp

Review: The Dinner Lady Detectives by Hannah Hendy

2022 Nonfiction Reader Challenge Inspiration #Climate #Celebrity

2022 Nonfiction Reader Challenge Inspiration #Reference #Geography

Bookshelf Bounty

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What I’m Reading This Week…

Frances quite honestly isn’t that excited about the SpeechMakers annual national conference and public-speaking competition. What she’s excited about (relatively speaking) is that this year there’s a major prize. Frances has a few small problems and forty thousand dollars would go a long way to sorting them out.

Keith is Frances’s probably-ex-mentor, it’s hard to tell since she’s not talking to him, and he disapproves of the prize money. He thinks SpeechMakers should be about self-improvement, not self-enrichment. He wants to win the competition, though. He thinks it might help the situation with his wife Linda.

Neil doesn’t care about the competition at all but Judy, his mother and coach, does, so.

And Rebecca…

Actually, what the hell is Rebecca doing here? Rebecca belongs to Frances’s past, not her present. And certainly not her (hopefully) less-disastrous future.

Katherine Collette, author of the hilarious The Helpline, returns with another sharply observed comedy of manners and a cast of loveable underachievers, headed for self-improvement despite themselves.

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Moonlight and the Pearler’s Daughter is an exquisite historical novel set in a mesmerising yet unforgiving land, where both profit and peril lie deep beneath the ocean’s surface…

Western Australia, 1886

As the pearling ships return to Bannin Bay after a long diving season, twenty-year-old Eliza Brightwell nervously awaits the arrival of her father’s boat.

But when his lugger finally limps in, it brings with it a tale of tragedy: Charles Brightwell, master pearler, has gone missing at sea.

Immediately, whispers from the townsfolk point to mutiny or murder, but headstrong Eliza knows her father; she is sure he is still alive. As the Bay swelters under the heat of the approaching wet season, it falls to Eliza to seek out the truth behind her eccentric father’s disappearance.

But as she delves beneath the glamorous veneer of south sea pearling, she discovers that the sun-baked streets she thought she knew so well are teeming with corruption, prejudice and blackmail.

How far is she willing to go to solve the mystery and save the ones she loves? And what family secrets will come to haunt her along the way? Because the truth may cost more than pearls – and she must decide if she’s willing to pay the price . . .

A gloriously rich and wonderfully assured debut, Lizzie Pook’s Moonlight and the Pearler’s Daughter tells the story of a daughter, a family, a place and a hidden history; rendered with astonishing clarity, it is a novel that marks Lizzie Pook as a name to watch

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Lily Harford is nearing the end of her once joyful life – and for her, it can’t come soon enough. Who will have the courage, kindness and love to grant her last request? A compassionate and heart-felt story for readers of Jodi Picoult, Tricia Stringer and Fiona Lowe.

Knowing she is sliding into dementia, Lily Harford is ready to give up her life … but can she persuade someone to commit the illegal act of taking it from her?

Lily has lived a joyful, independent life in a seaside town in Queensland, running her own business and raising a daughter as a single mother at a time when few women did so. Now health and circumstance have pushed her into a nursing home, and her memory is failing, although events of the past remain fresh. Like pulling back the layers of a Russian doll, Lily recalls the former selves – mother, professional woman, lover, daughter – who still exist inside her.

Lily’s daughter, Pauline, has been pushed to her limits by her demanding job, as well as the needs of her mother, husband, daughter and grandchildren. And now her mother is begging to die. Nurse aide Donna, still recovering from a dysfunctional childhood and the demise of her marriage, finds comfort in Lily’s kindness and down to earth wisdom. As Lily fades, she asks Donna, too, to help her end her life.

A thought-provoking, vivid and moving exploration of how we value a life well lived, and the decisions we make when that life is coming to an end.

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ONE MISSING GIRL. NO SUSPECTS. A TOWN ABOUT TO IGNITE.

Quala, a North Queensland sugar town, the 1970s.

Barbara McClymont walks the cane fields searching for Janet, her sixteen-year-old daughter, who has been missing for weeks. The police have no leads. The people of Quala are divided by dread and distrust. But the sugar crush is underway and the cane must be burned.

Meanwhile, children dream of a malevolent presence, a schoolteacher yearns to escape, and history keeps returning to remind Quala that the past is always present.

As the smoke rises and tensions come to a head, the dark heart of Quala will be revealed, affecting the lives of all those who dwell beyond the cane.

The Cane is an evocative and atmospheric thriller, and announces an exciting new voice in Australian crime writing.

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It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? #IMWAYR @thebookdate #SundayPost @Kimbacaffeinate #SundaySalon @debnance I’m reading #TheCompetition #MoonlightandthePearlersDaughter #LilyHartfordsLastRequest #TheCane