Linking to: It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? at BookDate; Sunday Post @ Caffeinated Reviewer; and the Sunday Salon @ ReaderBuzz
====================
*
Life…
*
It’s been a quiet week for me, I still haven’t quite shaken off this cough so I haven’t been sleeping well, and with the cold grey weather, I’m not particularly motivated to do much.
I’m thrilled my eldest son is home for the next month though. As none of his classes this semester have formal exams (it’s all assessment based), he’s been able to come home at the beginning of Stuvac, giving him an extra two weeks break in addition to mid year holidays.
My youngest daughter’s university runs on a different timetable, so she won’t be home for her break until after he has gone back.
Meanwhile, my eldest daughter and her boyfriend are going on a four day cruise from Sydney to Moreton Island this week, their first holiday together.
Winter has slowed trade at the riverside restaurant where my youngest son works after school so he’s had fewer shifts which means he is home a bit more, when he’s not at his girlfriend’s place anyway.
I don’t have any particular plans for the coming week, just more reading, blogging and TV. I have a few things on my ‘to-watch’ list, but lately I’ve been binging Escape to the Country (a UK real estate show) almost nonstop. It’s been running for 23 years and I have streaming access to about a ten seasons, most of which have around 70 episodes. It’s such a soothing show, and not faked like House Hunters et al. Have you seen it?
*
——————————————-
*
What I’ve Read Since I last Posted…
*
Kookaburra Cottage by Maya Linnell
Time After Time by Karly Lane
The Summer Place by Jeanette Paul
The Road to Dalton by Shannon Bowring
After She Wrote Him by Sulari Gentill
*
———————————————
*
New Posts…
*
Review: Time After Time by Karly Lane
Happy Pride Month! Fiction by Australian Queer Authors
Review: Put Your Feet in the Dirt, Girl by Sonia Henry
2023 Nonfiction Reader Challenge Monthly Spotlight #5
*
———————————————
*
What I’m Reading This Week…
A long, burning summer in Sydney. A young woman found murdered in the deserted grounds of an elite boarding school. A serial killer preying on victims along the banks of the Parramatta River. A city on edge.
Adam Bowman, a battling journalist who grew up as the son of a teacher at Prince Albert College, might be the only person who can uncover the links between the school murder and the ‘Blue Moon Killer’. But he will have to go into the darkest places of his childhood to piece together the clues. Detective Sergeant Rose Riley, meanwhile, is part of the taskforce desperately trying to find the killer before he strikes again. Adam Bowman’s excavation of his past might turn out to be Rose’s biggest trump card or it may bring the whole investigation crashing down, and put her own life in danger.
xxxxxxx
For readers of Hidden Valley Road and Patient H.M. , an “intimate and compassionate portrait” (Grace M. Cho) of the Genain quadruplets, the harrowing violence they experienced, and its psychological and political consequences, from the author of The Unfit Heiress.
In 1954, researchers at the newly formed National Institute of Mental Health set out to study the genetics of schizophrenia. When they got word that four 24-year-old identical quadruplets in Lansing, Michigan, had all been diagnosed with the mental illness, they could hardly believe their ears. Here was incontrovertible proof of hereditary transmission and, thus, a chance to bring international fame to their fledgling institution.
The case of the pseudonymous Genain quadruplets, they soon found, was hardly so straightforward. Contrary to fawning media portrayals of a picture-perfect Christian family, the sisters had endured the stuff of nightmares. Behind closed doors, their parents had taken shocking measures to preserve their innocence while sowing fears of sex and the outside world. In public, the quadruplets were treated as communal property, as townsfolk and members of the press had long ago projected their own paranoid fantasies about the rapidly diversifying American landscape onto the fair-skinned, ribbon-wearing quartet who danced and sang about Christopher Columbus. Even as the sisters’ erratic behaviors became impossible to ignore and the NIMH whisked the women off for study, their sterling image did not falter.
Girls and Their Monsters chronicles the extraordinary lives of the quadruplets and the lead psychologist who studied them, asking questions that speak directly to our How do delusions come to take root, both in individuals and in nations? Why does society profess to be “saving the children” when it readily exploits them? What are the authoritarian ends of innocence myths? And how do people, particularly those with serious mental illness, go on after enduring the unspeakable? Can the unbreakable bonds of sisterhood help the deeply wounded heal?
xxxxxxx
In this shocking thriller, two unlikely mothers race to uncover the truth behind a horrific attack—even after it becomes clear that the truth will destroy one of their families.
Julia Bennett has worked hard to create a stable life for her daughter, Cora, in Southern California. So when Cora leaves for college, the worst thing Julia expects on move-in day is an argument with her ex-husband and his new wife. But a sudden attack leaves the campus stunned—and only Julia’s quick actions save Cora’s life. Shaken in the aftermath, and haunted by a dark secret, Julia starts to wonder: What if the attack wasn’t as random as everyone believes?
Newly pregnant Ren Petrovic has an unusual career—she’s a trained assassin, operating under a strict moral code. Ren wasn’t on campus that day, but she knows who was: her husband, Nolan. What she doesn’t know is why Nolan has broken their rules by not telling her about the job in advance. The more Ren looks into the attack, the more she begins to question: Who really hired Nolan? And why did one woman in the crowd respond so differently from all the rest?
Julia and Ren each want answers, but their searches quickly pit them against each other. One woman is a hired killer, but the other is a determined survivor. And both mothers will defend their families to the bitter end.
xxxxxxxx
TWO HOURS TO VANISH
Ten people have been carefully selected to Beta test a ground-breaking piece of spyware. Pioneered by tech-wunderkind Cy Baxter, FUSION can track anyone wherever they are on earth. But does it work?
ONE CHANCE TO ESCAPE
Each participant is given two hours to ‘Go Zero’ – to go off-grid and disappear – and then thirty days to elude the highly sophisticated Capture Teams sent to find them. Any Zero that beats FUSION will receive $3million in cash. If Cy’s system prevails, he wins a $90 billion-dollar contract with the CIA to develop FUSION and revolutionize surveillance forever.
ZERO ALTERNATIVES
For contestant Kaitlyn Day, the stakes are far higher than money, and her reasons for entering the test more personal than Cy could have ever imagined. Kaitlyn needs to win to get what she wants, and Cy will stop at nothing to realize his ambitions. They have no choice but to finish the game and when the timer hits zero, there will only be one winner…
———————————————
Thanks for stopping by!
It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? #IMWAYR @thebookdate #SundayPost @Kimbacaffeinate #SundaySalon @debnance On the schedule this week #BlackRiver #GirlsandtheirMonsters #GoingZero #BeforeSheFindsMe A mix of #crimefic #Nonfiction #Psychthriller and #Specthriller
Book’d Out 