Watching what I’m reading . . .

Here we are at the end of autumn and winter staring us in the face in the southern hemisphere. It is a wintery day today with sudden showers accompanied by equally sudden drops in temperature, cold winds and only the odd, brief glimpse of the sun. It’s definitely time for me to pack away my summer clothes and to bring out my winter woolies.

I have signed up for the Goodreads Aussie Readers Winter Challenge, and I will post about that later in the week.

What am I currently reading?

Paris Echo by Sebastian Faulks is a title from my 2018 NetGalley backlist which I am finding fascinating reading.

Here is Paris as you have never seen it before – a city in which every building seems to hold the echo of an unacknowledged past, the shadows of Vichy and Algeria.

American postdoctoral researcher Hannah and runaway Moroccan teenager Tariq have little in common, yet both are susceptible to the daylight ghosts of Paris. Hannah listens to the extraordinary witness of women who were present under the German Occupation; in her desire to understand their lives, and through them her own, she finds a city bursting with clues and connections. Out in the migrant suburbs, Tariq is searching for a mother he barely knew. For him in his innocence, each boulevard, Métro station and street corner is a source of surprise.

The first in a new series (The Village Detective) is The Art of Murder by Fiona Walker. If you are looking for a humorous and light-hearted cosy-mystery, this will definitely fit the bill!

Welcome to the beautiful English village of Inkbury. Tucked deep in the North Wessex Downs, its only claim to fame is the picturesque riverside that once appeared in a Richard Curtis movie. That is, until the murder…

Former stand-up comic Juno Mulligan has been suffering a serious sense-of-humour failure. Not only has she lost the love of her life, but she’s having to relocate to the (admittedly idyllic) village of Inkbury to watch out for her elderly mother, who she’s genuinely worried might be marrying a wife-killer.

She hopes that her old friend, disgraced-journalist-turned-novelist Phoebe Fredericks can help her crack the case of whether her mother’s perma-tanned, iceberg-smiled, three-times-a-widower fiancé is hiding a murderous past.

But before they have a chance, the local art dealer washes up distinctly dead in the village’s famous river. His lover is in the frame, but Juno and Phoebe suspect that there is a deeper secret… One that relates to Phoebe’s own past and Juno’s present.

Will the unofficial Village Detective Agency solve the mystery before the killer strikes again? In sleepy Inkbury, as they soon discover, living one’s best midlife can be murder.

This is the last of my reads needed to complete my Aussie Readers May Challenge. It is book #4 in Joy Dettman’s Woody Creek series – Wind in the Wires.

The wind is whispering in Woody Creek…Change is in the air

It’s 1958 and Woody Creek is being dragged kicking and screaming into the swinging sixties.

Jenny’s daughters, Cara and Georgie, are now young women. They have inherited their mother’s hands, but that is where their similarity ends. Raised separately, they have never met.
A mistake from Cara’s teenage years looms over her future, but she believes emphatically in the white wedding and happily ever after myth. Georgie has seen enough of marriage and motherhood. She plans to live her life as her grandmother did, independent of a man.

But life for the Morrison girls has never been easy, and once the sisters are in each other’s lives, long-buried secrets are bound to be unearthed, the dramatic consequences of which no-one could have predicted…

I have four reads for review scheduled this week. They are:

Feels Like Summer (Oh, how I wish it did!) by Wendy Francis a new-to-me author.

For three sisters, this Memorial Day weekend is a much-anticipated reunion—and a sizzling escape—where secrets, lovers, and betrayals collide in a small coastal town.

It’s Memorial Day weekend, the annual kickoff to summer for the Lancaster sisters. But the festivities take a deep dive when a mysterious boating accident occurs off their seaside town, sparking questions about how well the sisters know their neighbors—and each other.

Kate, whip smart and rich, lives a charmed life—if only her lawyer husband wasn’t always disappearing for his next big case. Older sister Shelby, when not selling houses, is falling hard for an on-again, off-again lover. He’s perfect for Shelby in many ways, and so wrong in others. And Bree, the youngest, is reeling from a recent breakup and in desperate need of her sisters. They’ve always been there for each other, but as secrets arise and gossip spreads like wildfire, the idyllic weekend takes a dramatic tailspin. Will this summer’s troubles change their bond before their sisterhood is righted again?

Goyhood by Reuven Fenton, another new-to-me author.

When Mayer (née Marty) Belkin fled small town Georgia for Brooklyn nearly thirty years ago, he thought he’d left his wasted youth behind. Now he’s a Talmud scholar married into one of the greatest rabbinical families in the world – a dirt poor country boy reinvented in the image of God.

But his mother’s untimely death brings a shocking revelation: Mayer and his ne’er-do-well twin brother David aren’t, in fact, Jewish. Traumatized and spiritually bereft, Mayer’s only recourse is to convert to Judaism. But the earliest date he can get is a week from now. What are two estranged brothers to do in the interim?

So begins the Belkins’ Rumspringa through America’s Deep South with Mom’s ashes in tow, plus two tagalongs: an insightful Instagram influencer named Charlayne Valentine and Popeye, a one-eyed dog. As the crew gets tangled up in a series of increasingly surreal adventures, Mayer grapples with a God who betrayed him and an emotionally withdrawn wife in Brooklyn who has yet to learn her husband is a counterfeit Jew.

Guilty Mothers by Angela Marsons is #20 in the Kim Stone series, every book of which I have loved! So you know where my reading journey for the coming week is going to start, don’t you!

She lies on the floor, her blue eyes wide and unseeing, arms outstretched as if begging for help. Kneeling next to her, wearing a purple sequinned ballgown and holding a knife in shaking hands, is her daughter…

In a quiet kitchen, where two mugs wait by the kettle to be filled, Sheryl Hawne lies in a pool of blood. Her only daughter, Katie, is found at her side, still clutching the murder weapon and apparently incapable of speech. To Detective Kim Stone, the case seems open and shut. But Katie is in no state to be questioned, so Kim and the team must dig deep to understand what triggered this brutal act.

Soon, they learn that Katie participated in beauty pageants as a child, and her mother kept a shrine to her achievements. As Kim gazes at the golden trophies and shiny rosettes, she is forced to wonder if this was what set Katie on the path to murder…

But then Kim receives a shocking call. Another woman is dead. And with Katie safely locked up, she cannot be the killer. The second victim also entered her daughter in pageants, and a broken tiara is found thrust down her throat. Someone clearly feels that these mothers are guilty – and that they deserve to die. Forcing back the memories of her own monstrous mother, Kim vows to find justice for these women, no matter what pain they caused.

Now more than a day behind their killer, Kim races to learn more about a competitive world where appearances are everything and mothers will go to any lengths to ensure their daughters triumph. Buried somewhere in this dark past is the key to unlocking the case… but will Kim be able to find it before another family is destroyed forever?

My final read is also by a new-to-me author, Australian Phillipa Nefri Clark.

Ivy Ross left Rivers End ten years ago, vowing never to return. Her heart broken, her trust gone, the father she adored behind bars. But when her sister Jody begs Ivy to return to finalise their inheritance, the majestic Fairview House, she is drawn home. And when she finds a collection of heartfelt letters hidden in her father’s library, everything she thought she knew is called into question.

The anonymous letters reveal a heartbreaking love story that force Ivy to rethink the terrible night that tore her family apart. And when Ivy meets Leo, the man whose life was also devastated by her father’s crime, she realises that it’s time to uncover the truth. But that’s not the only secret waiting for them in Fairview. Can facing up to her shocking family history lead Ivy to a future she could never have imagined…?

Are any of these books on your reading radar? Let me know!

Have a great week and happy reading!💕📚