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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Summer has finally announced itself and it’s been too hot to do much this past week. My thoughts are with NZ though whose North Island has been hit by unprecedented flooding and landslides.
We had a public holiday for Australia Day on Thursday (I support the call to change the date so I don’t acknowledge it as such), and my husband’s boss gave everyone Friday off as well so he’s had an extra long weekend, spent mainly playing Minecraft.
My youngest goes back to school this week to start his last year of high school. It’s only three weeks until my elder son moves onto campus for his first year of university and we still have a fair list of things to do before then.
It’s the last Monday of the month, so here’s my challenge update
Nonfiction Reader Challenge: 0/12
Historical Fiction Challenge: 1/25
Cloak and Dagger Challenge: 8/36
Books in Translation Challenge 1/6
Monthly Motif Challenge: 1/12
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What I’ve Read Since I last Posted…
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Red Dirt Road by SR White
Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Fairies by Heather Fawcett
A Man and His Pride by Luke Rutledge
I’ll Leave You With This by Kylie Ladd
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New Posts…
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Review: The One and Only Dolly Jamieson by Lisa Ireland
Review: Headland by John Byrnes
Review: Love to Loathe You by Ali Hazelwood
2023 Nonfiction Reader Challenge Inspiration #FOOD #SOCIALMEDIA
2023 Nonfiction Reader Challenge Inspiration #SPORT #RELATIONSHIPS
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What I’m Reading This Week…
Taking on law’s old boys club can have deadly results… A gripping thriller from a bold new voice about misogyny, corruption and the legal industry.
‘Everyone is going to say what a great guy and a great lawyer he was. He wasn’t. He was a prick … And a shithouse lawyer.’
Gavin Jones is dead at thirty-nine. As an in-house lawyer who controlled millions of dollars in fees per year, he was legal firm Howard Greene’s biggest client and wielded that power with manipulative contempt. But he saved his worst behaviour for women, at work and at home.
The partners of Howard Greene relied on his favour to fund their lavish lifestyles. If sycophantic admiration of the man was all it took to secure work from Gavin, that’s what they delivered.
But no one liked Gavin. The list of those who suffered from his cruelty was long enough to include pretty much everyone who had contact with him. So who actually killed him?
A fast-paced and wickedly funny thriller about power and revenge set in the pristine towers of capitalism, How to Kill a Client is a scorching debut straight out of tomorrow’s headlines.
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John Lacey’s lust for power and gold brings him riches and influence beyond his wildest dreams. Only he knows the terrible crime he committed to attain that wealth. Years later, as Lacey ruthlessly presides over the town he has built and named after himself, no one has the courage to question his power or how he wields it.
Brothers Ernst and Joe Montague are on the run from the law. They land in Lacey’s town and commit desperate crimes to avoid capture. Lacey vows retribution and galvanises those in the town to hunt them down. But not everyone is blind to Lacey’s evil, and a reckoning is approaching.
A visceral, powerful dissection of dispossession, colonisation and the crimes committed in their name, The Death of John Lacey is also a moving and tender account of the love between brothers and a meditation on the true meaning of mercy and justice.
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1948. An unidentified dead man is found on Somerton Beach, Adelaide. Officer Kitty Wheeler yearns to work the case – but the city’s women police are typically assigned to more domestic matters. A wryly funny, sharply observed novel about one of Australia’s great mysteries, and the life choices available to mid-century women.
December, 1948. Officer Kitty Wheeler is a member of the Women Police, responsible for ‘upholding the moral virtue’ of Adelaide’s at times unruly and amorous citizens. Patrolling Somerton beach one night, Kitty and her partner spot a man leaning against the sea wall, apparently drunk. It’s late, they’re tired, and they leave him to sleep it off …
The man is dead, his identity unknown, and Kitty has missed a career-making opportunity. In the following months, the case of the Somerton Man grips first Adelaide, then Australia, as bizarre clues point towards international espionage, Eastern mysticism or salacious scandal. Kitty, preoccupied with the case, joins the investigation wherever she can, although the men are firmly in charge. Meanwhile, she must decide whether she wants husband and family, or a career – in 1940s Australia, she can’t have both. Her boyfriend Peter wants to pop the question, but Kitty is keener on solving the case …
Olivia Wearne has threaded Kitty’s story into the real-life 1940s mystery of the Somerton Man. This intriguing, sharply observed and wholly engaging novel explores the life and crimes of a city and its people, few of whom are without their secrets.
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What is lost when knowledge is withheld?
In 1914, when the war draws the young men of Britain away to fight, it is the women who must keep the nation running. Two of those women are Peggy and Maude, twin sisters who work in the bindery at Oxford University Press in Jericho. Peggy is intelligent, ambitious and dreams of going to Oxford University, but for most of her life she has been told her job is to bind the books, not read them. Maude, meanwhile, wants nothing more than what she has. She is extraordinary but vulnerable. Peggy needs to watch over her.
When refugees arrive from the devastated cities of Belgium, it sends ripples through the community and through the sisters’ lives. Peggy begins to see the possibility of another future where she can use her intellect and not just her hands, but as war and illness reshape her world, it is love, and the responsibility that comes with it, that threaten to hold her back.
In this beautiful companion to the international bestseller The Dictionary of Lost Words, Pip Williams explores another little-known slice of history seen through women’s eyes. Evocative, subversive and rich with unforgettable characters, The Bookbinder of Jericho is a story about knowledge who gets to make it, who gets to access it, and what is lost when it is withheld.
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Thanks for stopping by!
It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? #IMWAYR @thebookdate #SundayPost @Kimbacaffeinate #SundaySalon @debnance #HowToKillAClient #TheDeathofJohnLacey #TheWomanWhoKnewTooLittle #TheBookbinderofJericho
I just finished up Emily Wilde and I loved it! But the ending! Lol.
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Best of luck for the new school years!
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Wow! University and high school… Crazy. My son started high school back in September and I had a major moment of “when did you get to this age?!!!” I don’t feel like I’m old enough! lol.
Hope you have a good week!
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I have heard of the floods! It’s really depressing to see that now, every year, it’s a mix of fires and floods.
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Last year of high school, first year of university… big life changes happening in your family. Good luck getting everything done in the coming days!
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Ugh summer…why must summer get so HOT? lol
I hadn’t heard anything about the call to change the date of Australia Day. I will Google and educate myself.
I hope you don’t have any trouble finishing up the things before your son moves on campus.
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Well we are here with some cold temps coming next weekend (below freezing with snow possible), but around 60F / 15C this weekend which has been very nice. You’ll be an empty nester before you know it. They grow so quickly. I love seeing all the Cloak & Dagger challenge reads. I’m very into mysteries at the moment; I think because there is a solution and answers with the world having too many uncertainties right now.
Anne – Books of My Heart This is my Sunday Post
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I hadn’t heard about the tragedy in NZ but I looked it up and that is so tragic!! This has been just the weirdest weather year. Good luck to both students as they are off to new school years!
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The Bookbinder of Jericho sounds promising. I haven’t read any historical fiction in a long time.
Enjoy your time with your sons!
You have done well with your reading this month.
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I wish it would warm up here, mostly having to cold for Florida days.
Your doing a great job with your reading challenge.
I hope you sons enjoy their new school year!
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The Woman Who Knew Too Little looks interesting. I hope you enjoy your books!
My Sunday Post.
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Good luck with the school year for your kiddos. Sorry it is too hot where you are, we have had snow this week, but I am not complaining. I hope you have a great week!
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Lots of changes! Kids going to uni is always bittersweet. 🙂 I hadn’t heard thatabout NZ, oh no.
The Wearne book sounds pretty good.
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The challenge that I’m doing the best on so far is the Nonfiction Reader! (3/12)
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I hope your kids enjoy the new school year!
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I can remember that the Southern Hemisphere and the Northern Hemisphere have opposite seasons, but I always forget that the school years start at different times! Best of luck to your kids in school this year!
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Thanks for you thoughts about Auckland floods, it sure is very sobering. And they are about to get another bout of it tomorrow. Hope you enjoy those books planned.
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It’s interesting that the Somerton Man has been in the news quite a bit lately. There is a suggestion that they now at least know who he is.
I am interesting in both that book and the Pip Williams.
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Looks like some good books.. you have already read so much in a month!
I didn’t know about the controversy around Australia Day.. I just googled it.
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The Bookbinder of Jericho looks good, and the cover also catches my eye. Good luck to both your kids as they prepare to return to classes. Hope you have a good week!
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Good luck to the kids! Have a great week.
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Happy Monday and happy almost February! Wishing you lots of amazing reads this week.
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How quickly those kids grow up! Enjoy your visits and planning ahead with them.
Your books look good! Here are my WEEKLY UPDATES
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Hot weather sounds good to me. It is currently -13F (-25C) as I’m visiting blogs this morning. Nice looking assortment of books too. Come see my week here. Happy reading!
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I’ve seen Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Fairies mentioned quite a bit on Tiktok, so I hope you enjoyed it 🙂
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I did!
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I’m no ready for summer yet. It been cold to mild where I live.
Have a great week.
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There’s been a lot of flooding and sink holes in California this month. It’s better now. The weather is just crazy. Hope you enjoy the day off and your new reads! Have a lovely week!
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Big changes coming your way with another one out of the house.
Poor NZ and all the other areas suffering from the climate catastrophes!
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I have snow currently where I live in the U.S. Hope you have a great week!
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Emily Wilde is on my TBR. It looks gorgeous. I hope your youngest’s first week back at school has gone well and you’re having a great week!
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I am so curious about The Woman Who Knew Too Little — I listed to a true crime podcast of the Somerton man and found the case sooo interesting!
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It’s hard to imagine you wilting in the heat while we’re all struggling to stay warm here… What a shame we can’t share the climate around a bit more! You’ve had a great reading week – I particularly love the sound of How to Kill a Client. I hope the coming week isn’t too unbearable and you get to read more good books:).
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