So it seems my blog theme, which hasn’t been supported for years, will no longer cooperate with the WordPress Editor. As such, I have no choice but to replace it.
I’m really not sure how smooth or fast the transition will be, so please bear with me while I make the necessary adjustments so that I can continue posting.
Thank you for your patience!
Enjoy the 2022 Sydney Fireworks.
The It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? meme is hosted at BookDate
I’m also linking to The Sunday Post @ Caffeinated Reviewer
And the Sunday Salon @ ReaderBuzz
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Thank you for indulging my #mummybrag post last week… 3 exams down, 3 to go!
📚 I’ll be all about the bookish things today! 📚
Are you a fan of Miss Phyrne Fisher in print or on TV? Sisters in Crime Australia features the series author Kerry Greenwood in their weekly Crime Craft series on YouTube. Watch it here, and check out the rest of the videos too!
If you like reading, you should be subscribed to Australia’s Good Reading Magazine.
Nonfiction November starts next month! To learn more visit any of the hosts Doing Dewey Decimal, JulzReads, What’s NonFiction, and Shelf Aware
Is Christmas on you radar yet? It seems too early to me but I’ve added these to my wishlist. A fun pair of socks (zoom in to read) from bookgeek.com.au and this DIY Miniature Library Kit by Robotime (available from Amazon)
It’s the last Monday of the month so time to check in with my challenge progress.
Nonfiction Reader Challenge: 11/12
Australian Women Writers Challenge: 61/50
Aussie Author Challenge: 23/24
Nerd Reading Challenge: 38/52
Historical Fiction Reading Challenge: 26/25
SwordsnStars Challenge: 7/10
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Black Cloud by Sandi Wallace
Trust by Chris Hammer
Letters From Berlin by Tania Blanchard
An Unusual Boy by Fiona Higgins
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Review: Letters From Berlin by Tania Blanchard
Review: Trust by Chris Hammer
Review: Black Cloud by Sandi Wallace
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So,’ said Mora Piozzi, her lawyer, looking down at her laptop. ‘In brief: you are charged with the murder of Stuart Robert Rees, on December 21st, between the hours of ten-forty in the morning and half-past three o’clock in the afternoon.’
Tabitha is accused of murder. She is in prison awaiting trial. There is a strong case against her, and she can’t remember what happened on December 21st. She is alone, frightened and confused. But somehow, from the confines of her cell, she needs to prove everyone wrong.
House of Correction is beautifully written, clever, shocking, twisty, so believable and utterly compelling. This is another stunningly brilliant novel to relish from Nicci French.
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Lucky’s is a story of family.
It is also about a man called Lucky.
His restaurant chain.
A fire that changed everything.
A New Yorker article which might save a career.
The mystery of a missing father.
An impostor who got the girl.
An unthinkable tragedy.
A roll of the dice.
And a story of love, lost, sought and won again, (at last).
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At nearly ninety, retired nature writer Hattie Bloom prefers the company of birds to people, but when a fall lands her in a nursing home she struggles to cope with the loss of independence and privacy. From the confines of her ‘room with a view’ of the carpark, she dreams of escape.
Fellow ‘inmate’, the gregarious, would-be comedian Walter Clements also plans on returning home as soon as he is fit and able to take charge of his mobility scooter.
When Hattie and Walter officially meet at The Night Owls, a clandestine club run by Sister Bronwyn and her dog, Queenie, they seem at odds. But when Sister Bronwyn is dismissed over her unconventional approach to aged care, they must join forces — and very slowly an unlikely, unexpected friendship begins to grow.
Full of wisdom and warmth, The Great Escape from Woodlands Nursing Home is a gorgeously poignant, hilarious story showing that it is never too late to laugh — or to love.
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Winter in Tiverton.
Constable Paul Hirschhausen has a snowdropper on his patch. Someone is stealing women’s underwear, and Hirsch knows enough about that kind of crime—how it can escalate—not to take it lightly.
But the more immediate concerns are a call from the high school, a teacher worried about a student who may be in danger at home. Another call, a different school: a man enraged about the principal’s treatment of his daughter.
A little girl in harm’s way and an elderly woman in danger. An absent father who isn’t where he’s supposed to be; another who flees to the back country armed with a rifle. Families under pressure. And the cold, seeping feeling that something is very, very wrong.
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The It’s Monday! What Are You Reading meme is hosted at BookDate
I’m also linking to The Sunday Post @ Caffeinated Reviewer
And the Sunday Salon @ ReaderBuzz
A quiet week for me.
Hubby and I have been watching Dark Matter (SyFy Channel), so annoyed that it was cancelled so that there was no resolution. Not sure yet what we are going to watch now, maybe a rewatch of something like Burn Notice. I’m delighted to be watching the new season of The Great British Baking Show,
Australian rural romance author Fiona McArthur had a signing nearby this past weekend for her newest release, The Desert Midwife, and I was delighted to meet her.
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Missing Person by Sarah Lotz
A Question of Us by Mary Jayne Baker
The Fact of A Body by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich
A Month of Sunday’s by Liz Byrski
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Review: Missing Person by Sarah Lotz ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Review: The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Review: A Question of Us by Mary Jayne Baker ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Review: The Fact of A Body by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Six Degrees of Separation: A Gentleman in Moscow to The Farm
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You always remember your first love… don’t you?
If there’s anything worse than being fired from the lousiest restaurant in town, it’s coming home early to find your boyfriend in bed with someone else. Reeling from the humiliation of a double dumping in one day, Georgina takes the next job that comes her way—bartender in a newly opened pub. There’s only one problem: it’s run by the guy she fell in love with years ago. And—make that two problems—he doesn’t remember her. At all. But she has fabulous friends and her signature hot pink fur coat… what more could a girl really need?
Lucas McCarthy has not only grown into a broodingly handsome man, but he’s also turned into an actual grown-up, with a thriving business and a dog along the way. Crossing paths with him again throws Georgina’s rocky present into sharp relief—and brings a secret from her past bubbling to the surface. Only she knows what happened twelve years ago, and why she’s allowed the memories to chase her ever since. But maybe it’s not too late for the truth… or a second chance with the one that got away?
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Leaf through your cookbooks, and you’re likely to find a bit of paper with a recipe written in a familiar (or not-so-familiar) hand. It could be a family secret finally divulged, a scribbled interpretation of something seen on TV, even a culinary experiment long since forgotten. What happens to these recipes when the books are passed on?
By day, Michael Popek works in his family’s used bookstore. By night, he’s the voyeuristic force behind the websites ForgottenBookmarks and HandwrittenRecipes, where he shares the weird, wonderful objects he has found among the stacks at his store.
“Handwritten Recipes” is a treasury of Michael’s most fascinating found recipes. You’ll find classic Americana like pies and casseroles alongside ethnic mainstays such as Italian cookies, springerle, and German dumplings. Some are perfectly clear and complete, while others leave crucial elements–like cooking times and ingredient measurements–to the reader’s imagination. You can venture to try any recipe, or just enjoy Popek’s findings as a time capsule from kitchens of generations gone by.
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The year is 1883, and in New York City, it’s a time of dizzying splendor, crushing poverty, and tremendous change. With the gravity-defying Brooklyn Bridge nearly complete and New York in the grips of anti-vice crusader Anthony Comstock, Anna Savard and her cousin Sophie—both graduates of the Woman’s Medical School—treat the city’s most vulnerable, even if doing so may put everything they’ve strived for in jeopardy.
Anna’s work has placed her in the path of four children who have lost everything, just as she herself once had. Faced with their helplessness, Anna must make an unexpected choice between holding on to the pain of her past and letting love into her life.
For Sophie, an obstetrician and the orphaned daughter of free people of color, helping a desperate young mother forces her to grapple with the oath she took as a doctor—and thrusts her and Anna into the orbit of Anthony Comstock, a dangerous man who considers himself the enemy of everything indecent and of anyone who dares to defy him.
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Thanks for stopping by!
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Linking up with The Monthly Wrap Up at
It’s that time of the month or near enough, so here is what I have added to my shelves recently.
Click on the cover images to view at Goodreads
For Review (print)
For Review (electronic)
Book’d Out 