What’s new on my bedside table . . . ?

Photo by Tatiana Syrikova on Pexels.com

Two days to go and it is officially winter – although it feels like it has already arrived as it is an icy cold and stormy day today. We lost power for a little while this morning, so I went to my cousin’s for coffee as there was still power on her side of town. There is quite a bit of water on the roads which are also littered with broken branches.

Six new ARCs dropped into my inbox in the past week, one more than last week.

This is Why We Lied by Karin Slaughter was the first. It is #12 in the Will Trent series.

One toxic family. Eight suspicious guests. Everyone is guilty. But who is a killer?

Welcome to the McAlpine Lodge: a secluded mountain getaway, it’s the height of escapist luxury living.

Except that everyone here is lying. Lying about their past. Lying to their family. Lying to themselves.

Then one night, Mercy McAlpine – until now the good daughter – threatens to expose everybody’s secrets. Just hours later, Mercy is dead.

In an area this remote, it’s easy to get away with murder. But Will Trent and Sara Linton – investigator and medical examiner for the GBI – are here on their honeymoon.

And now, with the killer poised to strike again, the holiday of a lifetime becomes a race against the clock…

Michael Wood’s new title, Vengeance is Mine, is a standalone thriller.

A GRUESOME MURDER

Twenty years ago, a young girl vanished from a quiet street in Northumberland. When her body was found in an attic close to her home, the whole neighbourhood was shocked.

A DEVASTATING SECRET

For her entire life, Dawn Shephard has never known her father. But when news breaks that a murderer is about to be released from prison, her mother has no choice but to reveal his identity.

THE ORIGINS OF EVIL

As Dawn digs into her father’s history, she lands on a chilling connection. And the closer she gets to the truth, the more dangerous it becomes. Just how far will she go to discover if a killer’s blood runs through her veins?

Sarah Easter Collins is a new author to me, but she comes highly recommended by Karin Slaughter who describes Things Don’t Break on Their Own as ‘A captivating, haunting, and twisty story’.

She could be anyone. She could be you.

Nobody ever found out what happened to Laika Martenwood, the girl who vanished without a trace on her way to school one morning. But for her sister Willa, life shattered into tiny pieces that day, and she has never been able to put them back together again.

Willa sees Laika everywhere: on buses, at parties, in busy streets. It’s been twenty-five years, and the only thing that has kept her going is her belief that her sister is alive, somewhere. 

But when a dinner party conversation about childhood memories spirals out of control, a shattering revelation from one of the guests forces Willa to rethink everything she thought she knew about her past. And, out of the debris of that explosive evening, the truth of what really happened begins to emerge. Piece by piece.

It was the title that got me – you have to love English village names – with The Murders in Great Diddling by Katarina Bivald, another new-to-me author.

The best stories are the ones we didn’t know needed to be told

The small, rundown village of Great Diddling is full of stories—author Berit Gardner can feel it. The way the villagers avoid outsiders, the furtive stares and whispers in the presence of newcomers… Berit can sense the edge of a story waiting to be unraveled, and she’s just the person to do it. In fact, with a book deadline looming over her and no manuscript (not even the idea for a manuscript, truth be told), Berit doesn’t just want this story. She needs it.

Then, while attending a village tea party, Berit becomes part of the action herself. An explosion in the library of the village’s grand manor kills a local man, and the resulting investigation and influx of outsiders sends the quiet, rundown community into chaos. The residents of Great Diddling, each one more eccentric and interesting than any character Berit could have invented, rewrite their own narrative and transform the death of one of their own from a tragedy into a new beginning. Taking advantage of Great Diddling’s new notoriety, the villagers band together to start a book and murder festival designed to bring desperately needed tourists to their town. What they couldn’t have predicted is how the new story they’ve begun to tell will change all their lives forever.

Just About Coping is a memoir about training to be a psychotherapist by Dr Natalie Cawley.

At the psychologist’s clinic of an NHS hospital, Noah needs help with procrastination, Bill compulsively lies, Steph is coping with rejection and their therapist, Dr Natalie Cawley, is dealing with her own emotional crisis, breathing into a paper bag between patient sessions.

In this honest, often poignant and frequently funny memoir about training to be a psychotherapist, we meet the patients grappling with mental health issues, from OCD and addiction to self-deception and toxic relationships, and see how Dr Natalie helps them understand and change these attempts to self-soothe.

Full of lightbulb moments, Just About Coping is a journey into our inner worlds, where the drama of our break-ups, breakdowns and breakthroughs takes place. In times of stress and suffering, Dr Natalie reveals, we are all just about coping. None of us is immune – not even your therapist.

And, lastly, I received a widget this morning for Talking to Strangers by Fiona Barton whose previous novels I have adored.

Three women. One Killer.
Talking to strangers has never been more dangerous…

When the body of forty-four-year-old Karen Simmons is found abandoned in remote woodland, journalist Kiki Nunn is determined this will be the big break she so desperately needs.

Because she has a head start on all the other reporters. Just a week before Karen was killed, Kiki interviewed her about the highs and lows of mid-life romance. Karen told her all about kissing strangers on the beach under the stars, expensive meals, roses. About the scammers, the creeps, the man who followed her home the other night…

While the police appear to be focusing on local suspects, Kiki sets out to write the definitive piece on one woman’s fatal search for love. But she will soon learn that the search for truth can be just as deadly…

There’s not a lot of light reading arrived this week, is there!

I have increased my reading load by three books overall from last week. There are now 525 books on my NetGalley shelf and I have 16 pending requests, one up from last week. But I have two books I should finish reading today, so that will make it not quite so bad. And yes, I am still hanging on quite tenuously to my 72% feedback ratio.

I have so far read 110 books this year of my target of 225, and I am on track to finish another 3 or 4 books before the end of the month. I am at 49% of my target and 19 books ahead of where I should be, which is good – I like to have a little wriggle room.

I completed the All About Books readathon last weekend, but was we had a very social weekend, my total pages read for the three days was only 544 pages, which I can often read/listen to in one day.

I have so far listened to 24 audiobooks this year.

I have read or listened to 16 books which from my backlist, i.e. have been on my shelves for over twelve months.

I have read or listened to 30 books from my local library.

I have read 80/150 NetGalley titles for my NetGalley Addicts reading challenge, and the same for my NetGalley Readers chllenge, 13% ahead of schedule.

I hope to finish Wind in the Wires by Joy Dettman (Woody Creek #4) today which will complete my Aussie Readers May Challenge. I have selected all my books but one for the June challenge.

I have finished 11/13 books for my Aussie Readers Autumn challenge and am almost halfway through #12. I have until midnight Friday to read #13 so I should scrape in! I have also selected all but two books for the Winter challenge.

I will post my selections for these challenges in the coming weeks.

I have completed 7 of 24 categories for the World Book Day reading challenge in The Perks of a Reading Addict Goodreads group challenge.

Beanstack – I have clocked up 1465 reading minutes in the past week bringing my total minutes read since I joined to 9,052, and I have completed reading 27 titles. I have completed 7 activities on my Bingo card and another will be added when I finish Wind in the Wires.

That’s my end of month Challenge round up!

Now I’m going to go throw another log on the fire and heat up some homemade chili tomato soup for a late lunch. That should warm me up! We haven’t even hit double digits in the temperature yet today and are unlikely to do so. I think reading in front of the fire sounds like a good way to spend the remainder of the day.

Happy reading!💕📚

Author: sandysbookaday

I love good quality chocolate. I love the ocean and love to be in, on or beside it. I read any and every where. I am a proud mum and Nana. I like wine, gin, Southern Comfort, a cold Heineken on a hot day. I am very versatile like that. I cross stitch, do jigsaws, garden, and work on a farm. I am an occasional scribbler. I have far too many books I want to read to ever find the time to die. I am an active member of Goodreads as Sandy *the world could end while I was reading and I would never notice* and review on Amazon under the name Sandyj21. My Goodreads reviews are automatically linked to my Facebook page. Groups I belong to and participate in on Goodreads include: The Mystery, Crime and Thriller Group; Mysteries and Crime Thrillers; Psychological Thrillers; Reading for Pleasure; Crime Detective Mystery Thrillers; English Mysteries; Dead Good Crime; Kindle English Mystery, All About Books and NZ Readers. April 2016 I made the Top 1% of Goodreads reviewers (As follows) Hello Sandy *The world could end while I was reading and I would never notice*, In our community of readers, you stand out in a notable way: You're one of the top 1% of reviewers on Goodreads! With every rave and every pan, with every excited GIF and every critical assessment, you've helped the Goodreads community get closer to a very important milestone – the 50 Million Reviews mark!

23 thoughts on “What’s new on my bedside table . . . ?”

  1. So pleased your challenges are going so well Sandy! Good luck with continuing on. This week’s additions look very tempting–The Murders in Great Diddling appeals to me the most.
    Winter–I can’t believe that not two months ago I was wishing for winter to go away and now at 46oC I’d be happy to have it back, ha ha 😀 Have a great week ahead!

    Liked by 1 person

  2. It’s been cold here in Rotorua today too. I’ve had the fire going most of the day. And my little cat has been curled up in front of it the entire time

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    1. I had an appointment in the morning and if not for that and the power cut, I wouldn’t have ventured out either, Nic. Beautiful day today but a cold southerly blowing. 💕📚 I don’t think my cat moved off the bed yesterday.

      Liked by 1 person

    1. I had the woodfire burning downstairs Susan, and was sitting in my book nook right beside the chimney upstairs, reading. I also had the gas fire in the lounge and the heat pump down the bedroom end of the house going. Yes, I had thick socks on too!🤗🔥

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  3. You sure live where some cold wet weather hits, its cold here but we didn’t get the stormy weather you were hit with. Sun is coming up today. I’ve read one Katarina Bivald book The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend. All the other authors new to me except for Karin S. You sure are doing really well with your challenges.

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    1. The King Country is cold, Kathryn, but if we are getting rough weather there’s generally somewhere else around us getting it much worse. Yes, the sun is up here today too but with a cold southerly which is good for getting the washing dry. I am not going near NG this week, except to post reviews. I have had 2 new ARCs arrive off my pending list this morning. 😉💕📚

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