Romance – Sandy's Book a Day Blog

Watching what I’m reading . . .

Happy Sunday afternoon! We’ve had a very busy day with having Luke to stay. We came home from Hamilton yesterday after hockey. Luke got player of the day which he was very excited about. We stuck around afterwards for a while and helped with the fundraising efforts which pays for their uniforms and fees to the hockey grounds. It was nice to meet and chat with some of Luke’s friends’ parents too. Luke and I stayed up a little later than usual and watched Dr Doolittle. I think I enjoyed it more than he did.🤣🤣This morning he and I walked down to the local high school (not far) and played tennis on the courts and then Luke practiced his ball handling skills with his hockey stick while I hit the tennis ball against the wall. This afternoon we have been picking mandarins for Luke to sell for Lego money.

He has also written his first book review (see my earlier post – Kelpie Chaos) which has been added onto mine.

I haven’t had much time to read since we left for hockey yesterday morning. I was so tired last night, my eyes closed the moment my head hit the pillow and Luke was up and about super-early this morning so there was no lying in bed with my books!

So, what am I currently reading? . . . A New Dawn at Owl’s Lodge by Jessica Redland is my current ARC read. I have read a few books by this author now and they never fail to enchant me.

Could one chance meeting change your life forever?

Zara is at a crossroads in life. While she adores her job as a producer’s assistant working on hit TV shows, travelling around the country means she doesn’t truly feel that she has a home. With a fractured relationship with her family and unrequited love weighing heavily on her heart, she is torn about what her next step in life should be…

Snowy is hiding from the world. He’s devoted his life to home schooling his young son and caring for sick owls at his home, Owl’s Lodge, deep in the Yorkshire Wolds countryside. While he’s passionate about both, it’s a lonely existence and he’s starting to question his decisions. But how do you step back into a world you’ve pushed away for years…?

When Zara brings an injured owl to Owl’s Lodge, its frosty, reclusive owner is far from welcoming. Despite hostilities, there’s a connection that neither could ever have prepared themselves for. As they discover a shared passion, a new friendship blossoms, but both Zara and Snowy are used to shutting people out.

Can they both find the courage to open up and the strength to move on from their pasts? And what could this mean for their future happiness?

My current backlist book is from my 2019 ARC backlog – All That’s Bright and Gone by Eliza Nellums. It is told from the POV of a six year old girl.

I know my brother is dead. But sometimes Mama gets confused.

Six-year-old Aoife knows better than to talk to people no one else can see, like her best friend Teddy who her mother says is invisible. He’s not, but Mama says it’s rude anyways. So when Mama starts talking to Aoife’s older brother Theo, Aoife is surprised. And when she stops the car in the middle of an intersection, crying and screaming, Aoife gets a bad feeling–because even if they don’t talk about it, everyone knows Theo died a long time ago. He was murdered.

Eventually, Aoife is taken home by her Uncle Donny who says he’ll stay with her until Mama comes home from the hospital, but Aoife doesn’t buy it. The only way to bring Mama home is to find out what really happened to Theo. Even with Teddy by her side, there’s a lot about the grown-up world that Aoife doesn’t understand, but if Aoife doesn’t help her family, who will?

And my read for pleasure is The Shelley Bay Ladies Swimming Society by Sophie Green. I read my first book by this author a few weeks back and loved it so picked this up when I was in the library during the week.

It’s 1982 in Australia. THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER is a box office hit and Paul Hogan is on the TV. In a seaside suburb, housewife Theresa takes up swimming. She wants to get fit; she also wants a few precious minutes to herself. So at sunrise each day she strikes out past the waves. From the same beach, the widowed Marie swims. With her husband gone, bathing is the one constant in her new life. After finding herself in a desperate situation, 25-year-old Leanne only has herself to rely on. She became a nurse to help others, even as she resists help herself. Elaine has recently moved from England. Far from home and without her adult sons, her closest friend is a gin bottle. In the waters of Shelly Bay, these four women find each other. They will survive bluebottle stings and heartbreak; they will laugh so hard they swallow water, and they will plunge their tears into the ocean’s salt. They will find solace and companionship and learn that love takes many forms. Most of all, they will cherish their friendship, each and every day.

I have six books to read for review this week – The Art of Murder by Fiona Walker is the first.

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.

The Sisters of Blue Mountain Beach by Kalan Chapman Lloyd, a new-to-me author.

The Sisters of Blue Mountain Beach is a gripping tale revolving around the lives of three remarkable women who suddenly go missing in the devastating aftermath of a ferocious hurricane on Florida’s renowned 30A.

Arden, the youngest, finds herself at a crossroads in her life, grappling with difficult decisions and a sense of longing for something more. Cilla, newly retired and ready to start anew, has recently received a devastating diagnosis of cancer, causing her to confront her mortality and the urgency to live each day to its fullest. Mary Fran, the oldest, is mourning the loss of her beloved husband and the secrets he left behind, wondering if there is more life for her in a world that feels tilted on its axis.

As they navigate their individual struggles, they find solace in each other’s company, sharing memories, heated arguments, and countless meals together amidst the serene backdrop of Blue Mountain Beach. The emerald waters of the Gulf of Mexico serve as a poignant reminder of the beauty and fragility of life.

As the search for the missing women intensifies, the bonds between Arden, Cilla, and Mary Fran become stronger than ever. With each passing day, they find hope, in and with each other. But as secrets are uncovered and hidden truths emerge, the sisters’ lives are forever altered.

In the Midnight Rain by Barbara O’Neill

Biographer Ellie Connor is in Gideon, Texas, to research blues singer Mabel Beauvais who, on the verge of fame, mysteriously disappeared more than forty years ago. Gideon holds another mystery for Ellie. It’s the truth about her parents—a restless mother who died young and a father she never knew. They are an unsettled piece of Ellie’s own past. Somewhere in this town is the answer to both of her quests.

No one is more accommodating than charismatic Laurence “Blue” Reynard, a local with deep roots in Gideon. Sexy and charming, he’s also getting under Ellie’s skin like a smooth jazz rhythm. Yet beneath his seductive facade is a soul damaged by loss. Tragic, wanting, and beautiful. So wrong for a woman just passing through town. If only his passion and vulnerability weren’t so irresistible.

As Ellie pieces together Mabel’s puzzling life and that of her father, Blue takes the surprising journey with her. What then for Ellie? Follow her instincts and say goodbye, or follow her heart?

Still Waters by Matt Goldman, an author I read for the first time last year.

If you’re reading this email, I am dead. I know this will sound strange, but someone has been trying to kill me.

Liv and Gabe Ahlstrom are estranged siblings who haven’t seen each other in years, but that’s about to change when they receive a rare call from their older brother’s wife. “Mack is dead,” she says. “He died of a seizure.” Five minutes after they hang up, Liv and Gabe each receive a scheduled email from their dead brother, claiming that he was murdered.

The siblings return to their family run resort in the Northwoods of Minnesota to investigate Mack’s claims, but Leech Lake has more in store for them than either could imagine. Drawn into a tangled web of lies and betrayal that spans decades, they put their lives on the line to unravel the truth about their brother, their parents, themselves, and the small town in which they grew up. After all, no one can keep a secret in a small town, but someone in Leech Lake is willing to kill for the truth to stay buried.

The Charmed Friends of Trove Isle by new-to-me author Annie Rains.

Ten years after she left her hometown of Trove Isle, NC, Melody Palmer is back to receive an unexpected inheritance—her great aunt’s thrift store, Hidden Treasures. There, in a glass case beneath the register, Melody spies the long-lost charm bracelet she shared with her high school friends, Liz and Bri, and her younger sister, Alyssa. After a devastating prom night accident, it disappeared, and the girls’ friendship evaporated with it. Slipping the bracelet on her arm for safekeeping, Melody soon finds herself crossing paths with her former friends once more.

While Melody fled, Liz has stayed in Trove Isle, helping with her parents’ business instead of pursuing her photography goals. Guilt still weighs on her after that fateful night when they lost Alyssa. For Bri, the consequences were even more stark. After spiraling into self-destruction, Bri served four years in a women’s state prison and is about to be released—but can Trove Isle ever feel like home again?

Yet despite everything that’s changed, the promise that the bracelet once held—of adventures, achievements, love, and lifelong friendship—hasn’t quite faded. And together, they might yet find a way to reconcile their pasts and futures, one charm at a time . . .

and, finally, The Blood Promise by another new-to-me author, Liz Mistry. (more birds on the cover! – I feel haunted.)

A deadly gift

Imogen Clark wakes up on her 16th birthday to find her parents dead at the breakfast table, along with a message from their killer.

A twist of fate

Detectives Jazzy Solanki and Annie McQueen join the investigation, but the more they discover, the more Jazzy suspects that the killing is a twisted message for her. Jazzy shares the same birthday as Imogen, and believes that this is more than a coincidence.

A race to catch a killer

When Jazzy discovers the connection between the killer and the stalker who has been following her for years, she is forced to confront the dark past she was desperate to keep hidden. She must stop at nothing to solve the case, before she becomes the next victim…

Once again, I doubt very much that I will get all these read but, as usual, I will do my very best.

I have received this email twice from Amazon in the past week: <i>An initial warning has been sent to you. Because of your repeated violation of our Community Guidelines we’ve removed your ability to participate in Community features. </i>

They have provided an email address to contact them re their decision, so twice I have emailed them asking for clarification on:

Precisely what guideline/s I have violated; and
When I might be permitted to commence posting my reviews again.

No reply to date and they have actually REMOVED all my reviews. Has this happened to anyone else? Any tips on how to deal with it?

We have quite a social week coming up with two friends having BIG milestone birthdays and throwing parties to celebrate. So next weekend might be a bit lean on reading too!

Happy reading!💕📚

What’s new on my bedside table? . . .

Happy hump day! It’s a stormy day here in New Zealand. Heavy rain but thankfully not particularly cold. I have been to Book Club at the library today and we had some very spirited discussions! I have come home with a bag of books to read – one library, the others borrowed from other group members. The librarian also talked to us about an app called Beanstack which a lot of libraries are using for inter-library reading challenges. I have been logging my reading on it for almost 3 weeks now and participating in the Master of Minutes challenge and the Bingo Genre Challenge. I’ll update you on my progress later in the post. But first, lets see what new books have arrived on my bedside table in the past week

I’ll deal with the library book first – On Call, a memoir from the life of a surgeon, daughter and mother by Ineke Meredith.

The world of surgery is strange, messy and intense. From a man presenting with fishhooks in his stomach to being punched in the face by a patient, it’s all in a mad day’s work for a female general surgeon. Even wit emergency operations in the wee hours and constantly being mistaken for a nurse, there are still moments of laughter and tenderness amid the chaos.

When Ineke’s parents in Samoa fall ill, she becomes torn between her roles as a surgeon, a daughter and a single working mother, leading her to ask: are the sacrifices of a life in scrubs worth it?

This is an extraordinary memoir from inside the operating room about the heart it takes to survive.

Now for my NetGalley ARC shelves: 5 new titles this week, which is better than the seven last week, BUT it has still pushed my total of books on my ARC shelf a few points higher. 😖

I selected Queen Macbeth by Val McDermid for two reasons. Firstly, I love Val McDermid’s writing, and secondly it fills the criteria of a retelling of one of Shakespeare’s plays for the World Book Day challenge on one of my Goodreads groups.

A thousand years ago in an ancient Scottish landscape, a woman is on the run with her three companions – a healer, a weaver, and a seer. The men hunting her will kill her – because she is the only one who stands between them and their violent ambition. She is no lady: she is the first queen of Scotland, married to a king called Macbeth. As the net closes in, what unfurls is a tale of passion, forced marriage, bloody massacre, and the harsh realities of medieval Scotland. At the heart of it is one strong, charismatic woman, who survived loss and jeopardy to outwit the endless plotting of a string of ruthless and power-hungry men. Her struggle won her a country. But now it could cost her life.

Thank you to my Goodreads friend CarolG for putting me onto The Fells by Cath Staincliffe. This is a new-to-me author.

A missing woman. A cold case. A dark secret, buried deep beneath the Yorkshire Dales.

Summer 1997. Vicky Mott slips out the door of her remote stone cottage, and into the pale dawn light. She won’t wake her friends. Not after the night they just had.

She scrawls a note, her hand trembling with excitement. Gone to see the sun rise. V xxx

That’s the last anyone ever hears from vibrant twenty-year-old Vicky.

Everyone warned her. Of the predator stalking the lush green fells. Convicted killer Terence Bielby. He strangled three hikers before he got to Vicky. Now he has her blood on his hands, too.

It’s only a matter of time until the evidence surfaces . . .

2019. A human skeleton is discovered in a dark and treacherous cave beneath the Dales. The final resting place of Vicky Mott?

Detectives Leo Donovan and Shan Young think they’ve found the key to this decades-old mystery. But every answer they unearth only leads to more questions.

All Donovan’s instincts tell him that, this time, Bielby’s innocent.

But if the Fellside Strangler didn’t do it, then who?

I discovered Australian author Janet Gover earlier this year and just loved her writing! Her new book, Wedding Bells by the Creek (a Coorah Creek novel) is due for publication in July.

Are there some things that can’t be forgiven?

Helen Walsh has never stopped searching for the daughter who ran away from home when she was just fifteen. Now Tia has found her. Helen longs for her daughter’s forgiveness. Will a Coorah Creek wedding help heal their rift?

Ed Collins has walked Helen’s path, and he knows that she needs more than her daughter’s forgiveness. Ed feels compelled to help her, as he is increasingly drawn to her kind and loving heart.

Then Ed’s wife Stephanie returns to the tiny outback town – thirteen years after she deserted Ed and their young son, Scott. Steph was his first and only love, and now Ed is being asked to forgive.

But how do you forgive what you will never forget?

Maddie Please is an author who never fails to please me. Her latest book, Old Girls on Deck is another July release.

It’s never too late to sail a new course…

When retired Jill Parker wins an all-expenses paid mediterranean cruise for two she is thrilled! At 63 life in retirement has got a little bit bland for Jill and this might be just the holiday she and husband Eddy need to get the sparks back in their marriage.

But when Eddy admits he would much prefer to build his patio and look through the latest DIY magazine, Jill is left with only one other option – her sister Diana.

Diana has become rather reclusive since her husband, Caspar died, but perhaps this is the push she needs to bring some excitement back into her life, too?

Could this trip be just what both sisters need to reconnect and chart a new path for their futures?

Excited to be exploring new horizons and catching up, the sisters soon discover that not everything is smooth sailing on board. And as they enjoy cocktails together at sundown, they discover that they are both actually a little all at sea…

I’ll be reading Silent Ritual by Andrew James Greig thanks to Ceecee, another Goodreads friend. He is also a new-to-me author.

An ear-shattering scream pierces the quiet Glasgow street as a mother stands frozen in her doorway, groceries strewn at her feet. Her son holds a bloodied knife while his father lies dead before him.

As Logan Martin begins his prison sentence for the brutal murder of his father, the eighteen-year-old’s aunt hires private investigator Teàrlach Paterson. She believes Logan is innocent and wants Teàrlach to uncover the truth.

Teàrlach’s visit to the Martin family home yields two disturbing discoveries: a pentagram etched under the carpet in Logan’s sister’s bedroom, and a link to the sinister deaths of their elderly neighbours—a journal with the same ominous symbol lies in the couple’s home.

While ritualistic murders plague the city, bodies placed precisely on an occult pentagram, bound in intricate knots, Teàrlach and his team unearth the sinister inspiration behind the killings in a mysterious ancient map.

Then, two young women are reported missing, and Teàrlach fears the worst. He’s inching closer to a killer who is weaving a complex web of murder rooted in Glasgow’s pagan past. But can Teàrlach stop the twisted soul from carrying out another cruel ritual? This time, one of his own is about to be in grave danger.

With my doing a fair bit of reading for pleasure in the past week, and a wee requesting spree, I have increased the number of titles on my NetGalley shelf from 515 to 519. I need to stop reading my friends’ reviews!🤣🤣 My feedback ration is somehow still at 72%, and I have 15 pending requests, down from 23.

I am a little ahead of schedule for my Aussie Readers May challenge having completed 6/10 reads I signed up for, and I have started the seventh book.

I am right on target to complete my Aussie Readers Autumn Challenge with 11/13 titles read and a little over two weeks to go.

Since I joined Beanstack 22 days ago, I have logged 6227 minutes reading and read 29 books. Our library has set a target of 2,000,000 minutes for the year. I have completed 7/24 genre challenges on my bingo card.

I am off to Dustin’s tomorrow. He is off on his annual boy’s weekend away with the mates he went through Tech with, so I am staying with Luke for the night, taking him to his hockey game Saturday morning then bringing him down to our place for the rest of the weekend. Dustin will pick him up Sunday night after he gets back. Luke and I are planning some serious brainstorming on the story we are writing – The Magic Island. I will do some work on it after aquarobics and grocery shopping this morning.

Sorry this post is late out. We had terrible weather yesterday and the internet kept cutting in and out, phone calls were dropping. I just couldn’t get the book covers to download. The weather is still stormy this morning, but my computer seems to be better behaved!

I had better get moving. I need to get ready for aquarobics and get on my way.

Happy reading! 💕📚

The Birds and Other Stories by Daphne du Maurier

EXCERPT: The birds had been more restless than ever this fall of the year, the agitation more marked because the days were still. As the tractor traced its path up and down the western hills, the figure of the farmer silhouetted on the driving-seat, the whole machine and the man upon it would be lost momentarily in the great cloud of wheeling, crying birds. There were many more than usual, Nat was sure of this. Always, in autumn, they followed the plough, but not in great flocks like these, nor with such clamour.

ABOUT ‘THE BIRDS AND OTHER STORIES’: How long he fought with them in the darkness he could not tell, but at last the beating of the wings about him lessened and then withdrew…

A classic of alienation and horror, The Birds was immortalised by Hitchcock in his celebrated film. The five other chilling stories in this collection echo a sense of dislocation and mock man’s sense of dominance over the natural world. The mountain paradise of Monte Verità promises immortality, but at a terrible price; a neglected wife haunts her husband in the form of an apple tree; a professional photographer steps out from behind the camera and into his subject’s life; a date with a cinema usherette leads to a walk in the cemetery; and a jealous father finds a remedy when three’s a crowd…

MY THOUGHTS: A collection of six stories; mostly novellas with a couple of short stories mixed in. Du Maurier’s writing is compelling. Even when not particularly enjoying the story (I blew hot and cold on Monte Verità), I could no more have stopped reading than I could turn down a piece of my favorite chocolate. She has a particular way of writing, of creating an atmosphere, of creating characters that worm their way into your psyche.

The Birds – this was one of my 2 favourite stories in the book. Unrecognisable from the movie and, sorry Mr Hitchcock, a better tale for it. A sinister story about the unrealised power of nature should she decide to turn on us. Brilliant, dark, chilling.

Monte Verita – this was quite a long story, and one I blew hot and cold on. It was simply too long and, in the end, I was glad to turn the last page. The moral of the story is that paradise/beauty comes with a price.

The Apple Tree – A man is not exactly heart-broken when his wife dies. He finds himself enjoying life rather more than he had done when she was alive. But there is a stunted apple tree in his orchard that reminds him somewhat of her and he is determined to be rid of it.

The Little Photographer – A beautiful marquise who is bored with her life of luxury embarks on an affair with a villager while on holiday, with far reaching consequences.

Kiss Me Again, Stranger – A man has a chance meeting with a girl who captivates him. An interesting short story of obsession that unfortunately, I quickly figured out.

The Old Man – A short story that is very cleverly written and has an unexpected twist in the tail.

A ‘must have’ collection for any fan of Du Maurier.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

#DiscoverDuMaurier #NetGalley

THE AUTHOR: In many ways her life resembles a fairy tale. Born into a family with a rich artistic and historical background, she and her sisters were indulged as children and grew up enjoying enormous freedom from financial and parental restraint. Her elder sister, Angela du Maurier, also became a writer, and her younger sister Jeanne was a painter. Daphne spent her youth sailing boats, travelling on the Continent with friends, and writing stories.

Daphne du Maurier produced ‘old-fashioned’ novels with straightforward narratives that appealed to a popular audience’s love of fantasy, adventure, sexuality and mystery. At an early age, she recognised that her readership was comprised principally of women, and she cultivated their loyal following through several decades by embodying their desires and dreams in her novels and short stories.

She is most famously known for her novel Rebecca.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Little Brown Book Group UK, Virago, via NetGalley for providing a digital ARC of The Birds and Other Stories by Daphne Du Maurier for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

One Long Weekend by Shari Low

EXCERPT: ‘Och bugger, I’ve lost my hairbrush.’
“I’ve got one in my bag, if you want to risk potential botulism by diving in there. I’m sure there’s a Coronation chicken sandwich from last week lurking in the bottom.’
‘I’ll take my chances,’ I laughed and was about to close my bag when a wrecking ball of realisation slammed into the picture and hit me right in the stomach. Oh, dear God, no.
My eyes searched as my hands frantically began to pull every single thing from the bag. Phone. Purse. Perfume. Lipstick. Electricity bill. I had no idea why that was there, because I was sure I’d paid it. Make-up compact. Boarding pass. Hair bobbles. Don’s comb. A plastic spoon I always carried in case little Buddy needed an emergency yoghurt. Assorted tissues. A packet of mints. Some loose change.
No brush.
The wound in my chest burst wide open yet again.
And no little pouch.
My precious rings were gone.

ABOUT ‘ONE LONG WEEKEND’: When all seems lost, hope remains… Val Murray has mislaid her most precious mementoes of the people she’s loved and lost. Can her family, the wonders of technology and a little divine intervention somehow mend her shattered heart?

Sophie Smith had to take a rain check on a marriage proposal. Will her bid to turn back the clock lead her to her greatest love or yet another heartbreak?

Alice McLenn stood by her husband, Larry when a scandal cost them everything. When he hits the headlines again, Alice has an opportunity to leave – but can she find the strength to finally walk away?

Rory Brookes was forced to turn his back on his parents to save his career and marriage. Now, he’s lost his job and wife on the same day. Is it too late to make amends with the one person who never let him down?

Three days. Four broken hearts. Just one weekend to make them whole again.

MY THOUGHTS: This is a stunning multi-generational drama cum romance. Val pops up regularly in Shari Low’s novels, and she is an absolute darling, and a hoot!

There is an author’s note at the beginning, talking about how this book came to be and, at the end, another with the outcome of her own experience. Don’t skip these. There’s also a precis of the characters at the beginning, but the four we need to concern ourselves most with are the four whose points of view narrate the story: Val Murray, mother, grandmother, friend and widow who has a love of caramel wafers; Alice McLenn, a cleaner who is tied to a man she despises and mother of Rory; Rory Brookes McLenn, Alice’s son, married to the glamorous Julia, and currently weathering yet another personal storm; and Sophie Smith, a primary school teacher in search of the ex she has never forgotten.

One Long Weekend is a book that had my anxiety levels soaring through the roof. I am paranoid about losing my rings! So I felt every bit of and empathised with Val’s panic and stress. After reading this I am going to be even more vigilant!

The bulk of the story takes place over a four-day weekend, so the pacing and emotions are intense. I don’t want to say anything more about the plot because there’s nothing I can say that isn’t going to act as a spoiler. Suffice it to say that this is classic Shari Low fare – it’s amusing, entertaining and utterly heart-wrenching as the various characters come together in search of Val’s rings. If you haven’t read a Shari Low book before, what are you waiting for? – now is a great time to start!

⭐⭐⭐⭐.5

#OneLongWeekend #NetGalley

THE AUTHOR: Once upon a time Shari met a guy, got engaged after a week, and thirty-something years later she lives near Glasgow with the one they said would never last. Their children have now grown and scattered across the world, so she spends an inordinate amount of time on video calls and aeroplanes.

DISCLSOURE: Thank you to Boldwood Books via NetGalley for providing a digital ARC of One Long Weekend by Shari Low for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

Watching what I’m reading . . .

HELP! I am completely lost with the changes to this site . . . Where has everyone gone? I can’t find the posts of everyone I follow. I miss you! This is not fun! Put it back to how it was, WordPress, please . . .

Meanwhile if you have managed to navigate the new system, please pass on some tips, ’cause I am just spinning around in circles going nowhere!

Currently I am reading The Birds and Other Stories by Daphne Du Maurier. The Hitchcock movie sure is different than Du Maurier’s story and sorry, Mr Hitchcock, but I greatly prefer the original story to your screenplay. It’s definitely creepier.

‘How long he fought with them in the darkness he could not tell, but at last the beating of the wings about him lessened and then withdrew . . . ‘

A classic of alienation and horror, ‘The Birds’ was immortalised by Hitchcock in his celebrated film. The five other chilling stories in this collection echo a sense of dislocation and mock man’s sense of dominance over the natural world. The mountain paradise of ‘Monte Verità’ promises immortality, but at a terrible price; a neglected wife haunts her husband in the form of an apple tree; a professional photographer steps out from behind the camera and into his subject’s life; a date with a cinema usherette leads to a walk in the cemetery; and a jealous father finds a remedy when three’s a crowd . . .

I am listening to a title from my 2019 backlist, We Hope for Better Things written by Erin Bartels and narrated by Steina Neilson. This is a powerful debut novel telling the story of three generations of Balsam women, told against the backdrop of racism and violence in America.

When Detroit Free Press reporter Elizabeth Balsam meets James Rich, his strange request–that she look up a relative she didn’t know she had in order to deliver an old camera and a box of photos–seems like it isn’t worth her time. But when she loses her job after a botched investigation, she suddenly finds herself with nothing but time.

At her great-aunt’s 150-year-old farmhouse north of Detroit, Elizabeth uncovers a series of mysterious items, locked doors, and hidden graves. As she searches for answers to the riddles around her, the remarkable stories of two women who lived in this very house emerge as testaments to love, resilience, and courage in the face of war, racism, and misunderstanding. And as Elizabeth soon discovers, the past is never as past as we might like to think.

And my pleasure read this week is Hannah Richell’s The Search Party. I have read and loved everything this author has written.

A spellbinding locked-room mystery about a glamping trip gone horribly wrong when a powerful storm leaves the participants stranded and forced to confront long-held secrets and a shocking disappearance.

Max and Annie Kingsley have left the London rat race with their twelve-year-old son to set up a glamping site in the wilds of Cornwall. Eager for a dry run ahead of their opening, they invite three old university friends and their families for a long-needed reunion. But the festivities soon go awry as tensions arise between the children (and subsequently their parents), explosive secrets come to light, and a sudden storm moves in, cutting them off from help as one in the group disappears.

Moving between the police investigation, a hospital room, and the catastrophic weekend, The Search Party is a propulsive and twisty destination thriller about the tenuous bonds of friendship and the lengths parents will go to protect their children.

I must admit to being a little creeped out by the birds appearing on the cover of two out of three books that I am currently reading. Don’t laugh, but even chickens terrify me. The only good place for them is in the oven.

This week I have a total of five ARCs to read for review. I am very much looking forward to getting into Behind a Closed Door by J.D. Barker.

Would you kill a total stranger to save someone you love?

Sugar & Spice is the latest app craze taking the world by storm, but for Abby and Brendan Hollander, downloading it leads to a dangerous game of life and death. When the app assigns them a series of increasingly taboo tasks, they soon find themselves caught up in a twisted web of seduction and violence.

Old Girls Behaving Badly by Kate Galley will, I believe, be the perfect antidote to J.D. Barker’s dark read.

Something old, something new, something stolen…?

Gina Knight is looking forward to the prospect of retirement with her husband of forty-three years. Until, to her surprise, said husband decides he needs to ‘find himself’ – alone – and disappears to Santa Fe, leaving a Dear John letter in his wake.

Now Gina needs a new role in life, not to mention somewhere to live, so she applies for the position of Companion to elderly Dorothy Reed. At eighty-nine, ‘Dot’ needs someone to help her around the house – or at least, her family seems to think so. Her companion’s first role would be to accompany Dot for a week-long extravagant wedding party.

But when Georgina arrives at the large Norfolk estate where the wedding will take place, she quickly discovers Dot has an ulterior motive for hiring her. While the other guests are busy sipping champagne and playing croquet, Dot needs Georgina to help her solve a mystery – about a missing painting, which she believes is hidden somewhere in the house.

Because, after all, who would suspect two old ladies of getting up to mischief?

We Were the Universe by Kimberley King Parsons will be my next read. I really enjoyed Black Light by this author.

The trip was supposed to be fun. When Kit’s best friend gets dumped by his boyfriend, he begs her to ditch her family responsibilities for an idyllic weekend in the Montana mountains. They’ll soak in hot springs, then sneak a vape into a dive bar and drink too much, like old times. Instead, their getaway only reminds Kit of everything she’s lost lately: her wildness, her independence, and—most heartbreaking of all—her sister, Julie, who died a few years ago.

When she returns home to the Dallas suburbs, Kit tries to settle in to her routine—long afternoons spent caring for her irrepressible daughter, going on therapist-advised dates with her concerned husband, and reluctantly taking her mother’s phone calls. But in the secret recesses of Kit’s mind, she’s reminiscing about the band she used to be in—and how they’d go out to the desert after shows and drop acid. She’s imagining an impossible threesome with her kid’s pretty gymnastics teacher and the cool playground mom. Keyed into everything that might distract from her surfacing pain, Kit spirals. As her already thin boundaries between reality and fantasy blur, she begins to wonder: Is Julie really gone?

I have loved every book by Jessica Redland that I have read – thank you Carla @CarlaLovestoRead for introducing me to her books. Her latest is A New Dawn at Owl’s Lodge.

Could one chance meeting change your life forever?

Zara is at a crossroads in life. While she adores her job as a producer’s assistant working on hit TV shows, travelling around the country means she doesn’t truly feel that she has a home. With a fractured relationship with her family and unrequited love weighing heavily on her heart, she is torn about what her next step in life should be…

Snowy is hiding from the world. He’s devoted his life to home schooling his young son and caring for sick owls at his home, Owl’s Lodge, deep in the Yorkshire Wolds countryside. While he’s passionate about both, it’s a lonely existence and he’s starting to question his decisions. But how do you step back into a world you’ve pushed away for years…?

Can they both find the courage to open up and the strength to move on from their pasts? And what could this mean for their future happiness?

And finally for the week is a collection of short stories by Amor Towles, Table for Two.

Millions of Amor Towles fans are in for a treat as he shares some of his shorter fiction: six stories based in New York City and a novella set in Golden Age Hollywood.

The New York stories, most of which take place around the year 2000, consider the fateful consequences that can spring from brief encounters and the delicate mechanics of compromise that operate at the heart of modern marriages.

In Towles’s novel Rules of Civility, the indomitable Evelyn Ross leaves New York City in September 1938 with the intention of returning home to Indiana. But as her train pulls into Chicago, where her parents are waiting, she instead extends her ticket to Los Angeles. Told from seven points of view, “Eve in Hollywood” describes how Eve crafts a new future for herself—and others—in a noirish tale that takes us through the movie sets, bungalows, and dive bars of Los Angeles.

Written with his signature wit, humor, and sophistication, Table for Two is another glittering addition to Towles’s canon of stylish and transporting fiction.

Does anything there interest you? Or perhaps there’s something that’s already on your shelf . . . let me know.

Happy reading! 💕📚

Secrets of Riverside by Mandy Magro

EXCERPT: Riverside Homestead shone like a beacon amid the lush thick tropical landscape, and just beyond that the Riverside Roadhouse invited passers-by into its welcoming hospitality. Bright pops of colorful flowers adorned the perimeter, the pink hibiscus, orange birds of paradise, yellow frangipani, red gingers and lobster claw heliconias he and Tommy had planted a few years ago in full bloom. Alongside the Queenslander-style building – sitting on one-metre-high stilts with cool, wide, wrap-around verandahs to while away the time with a beer or coffee in-hand – the well-known truck stop’s car park was jam packed with campervans, semitrailers and road trains, some loaded with cattle.

ABOUT ‘SECRETS OF RIVERSIDE’: After losing her family in a tragic fire when she was a child, Amelia Price has battled to put the shattered pieces of her life back together. Even so, she’s never felt like she belongs anywhere, and she longs for stability and love. When a mysterious letter turns up at her apartment with hints that she’ll uncover the truth behind what happened all those years ago if she goes to the sleepy, picturesque town of Riverside, she sets off on a journey to tropical Far North Queensland.

Jarrah King owns and runs the Riverside Roadhouse. He loves the simpleness of country living, and the fact it gives him complete anonymity. Over the years he’s made a life for himself under a new name, however his past has never stopped haunting him.

When a sassy blonde takes up the new cook position, he can’t help but be drawn to her vivacious personality. But he can tell there’s also pain hiding underneath her bubbly facade and he longs to erase those shadows. However, lowering his defences to let her in may risk his new identity, as well as everything he holds dear.

Can Amelia show him that love is worth the risk? Or will the secrets of their entwined past tear them apart forever?

MY THOUGHTS: Secrets of Riverside didn’t work as well for me as Gum Tree Gully, the first book I read by this author, did. I really disliked the first few chapters which gave the backgrounds of both main characters, Jarrah King, owner of Riverside, and Amelia (Millie) Price. I thought these would have been better woven into the fabric of the story as it progressed. It was an information overload.

The writing just didn’t seem to flow easily. There was frequent use of cliches, the use of terms I haven’t heard in years such as scalliwag and that I wouldn’t expect to hear from the lips of people in Jarrah’s and Millie’s age groups. There was also some strange use of language/words in places e.g. ‘her headlights ignited the road sign’ . . . this is by no means an isolated example.

I liked both Millie’s and Jarrah’s characters – except for Millie’s reliance on alcohol as an escape anytime anything went wrong – but Tommy fell well and truly short in the believability department. To start: who is going to make an eighteen-year-old manager of a roadhouse? He just wouldn’t have the skills or maturity to handle such a position.

Which brings me to another point: the roadhouse. I have worked in a few over the years. I have never worked in one that opens at 7am and closes at 2pm, plus closes one day a week. That’s a cafe. Roadhouses are traditionally open seven days a week – the trucks don’t stop! – and long hours if not all 24.

Ultimately I was disappointed in this read. It fell short of satisfactory in so many areas. The author obviously hasn’t done her research. The two redeeming factors for me were the Queensland setting and the romance between Jarrah and Millie. That was interesting and well written.

⭐⭐.5

#SecretsofRiverside #NetGalley

THE AUTHOR: Mandy Magro lives in Cairns, Far North Queensland, with her daughter, Chloe Rose. With pristine aqua-blue coastline in one direction, and sweeping rural landscapes in the other, she describes her home as heaven on earth. A passionate woman, and a romantic at heart, she loves writing about soul-deep love, the Australian rural way of life, and all the wonderful characters that live there.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Harlequin Australia, HQ & MIRA, via NetGalley for providing a digital ARC of Secrets of Riverside by Mandy Magro for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

When Cicadas Cry by Caroline Cleveland

EXCERPT: 2017 – I never meant to kill the first one. She was an accident – her own fault, for the most part. And that second one? She was a casualty of necessity. Wrong place, wrong time. But this one . . . this one was different.

ABOUT ‘WHEN CICADAS CRY’: Zach Stander, a lawyer with a past, and Addie Stone, his indomitable detective and lover, find themselves entangled in secrets, lies, and murder in a small Southern town.

A high-profile murder case— A white woman has been bludgeoned to death with an altar cross in a rural church on Cicada Road in Walterboro, South Carolina. Sam Jenkins, a Black man, is found covered in blood, kneeling over the body. In a state already roiling with racial tenson, this is not only a murder case, but a powder keg.

A haunting cold case— Two young women are murdered on quiet Edisto Beach, an hour southeast of Walterboro, and the killer disappears without a trace. Thirty-four years later the mystery remains unsolved. Could there be a connection to Stander’s case?

A killer who’s watching— Stander takes on Jenkins’s defense, but he’s up against a formidable solicitor with powerful allies. Worse, his client is hiding a bombshell secret. When Addie Stone reopens the cold case, she discovers more long-buried secrets in this small town. Would someone kill again to keep them?

MY THOUGHTS: When Cicadas Cry is an absolutely stunning debut novel. Atmosphere oozes from every page. The tension in the final chapters left me with half-moons dug into my palms. I feared for Addie’s life.

Caroline Cleveland is one of those rare authors who can hit the ball right out of the park in all three elements of the successful novel – characters, setting and atmosphere. It is impossible to read this without coming to care greatly for the characters: Zach, who really needs to figure out just what he wants; Eli, the accused Sam’s grandfather; Colleton Burns, Eli’s great friend and a respected retired lawyer; Sam who is overly economical with the truth to his own detriment; and Addie with the big heart, quick mind and an ambition Zach isn’t currently sharing. Honestly, there were times I wanted to give Zach a quick slap upside his head – he can be extremely obtuse!

Cleveland captures the racial tensions around the BLM movement and uses it to great advantage in when Cicadas Cry. We have the two opposing factions, each wanting their very own brand of justice, never mind whatever the truth happens to be.

Pressures arising from the case cause tension between Zach and Addie, causing Addie to volunteer to investigate a cold case from some thirty odd years earlier, never dreaming to do so might put her life in danger. Now, I thought I had this all figured out, but was I ever wrong! Yes, I’m eating Humble Pie (with lashings of ice cream 😉)

The story is told from multiple points of view, including that of the killer, as in the excerpt above. This added another layer of mystery and even more tension to the storyline.

When Cicadas Cry is a beautifully written novel that held me entranced from beginning to end. The author’s notes at the end are particularly interesting so don’t be tempted to skip them.

⭐⭐⭐⭐.5

#WhenCicadasCry #NetGalley

THE AUTHOR: Caroline Cleveland is the founding partner of the law firm Cleveland & Conley, LLC, where she represents private and public employers, including law enforcement. A native South Carolinian, she inevitably writes from a Southern perspective. She gravitates — both as a writer and a reader — toward mystery and suspense, and she cannot resist a character with a dark secret.

She lives in Charleston, South Carolina with her husband, David.

DISCLOSURE: I was privileged to receive both a digital and audio ARC for review. My thanks go to both Union Square & Co., a subsidiary of Sterling Publishing and Dreamscape Media respectively. The audiobook is ablely narrated by Adam Barr.

All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

What’s new on my bedside table? . . .

Do you have problems with deciding where contemporary fiction ends and historical begins? I certainly do. Is a book set in the 1960s or 70s historical fiction? It doesn’t feel like it to me, because I have lived through those times. But to someone in their 20s, it must seem so. Does anyone have any guidelines which may help iron out my confusion and indecision? I’d be grateful if you share them.

So here we are on hump day again. I have finally decided to stop fighting the greys in my hair and give in to them. My hair grows really fast, so two weeks after I have been to the hairdresser, I have a noticeable skunk stripe. It’s extremely frustrating, because I end up pulling my hair back into a ponytail all the time in an effort to make it less noticeable. Can you see Pete smirking? Because he says it doesn’t work. He’s probably right. I went to the hairdresser yesterday and Tracy put an ash blond through my hair to match my ‘skunk’ stripe as my husband so eloquently terms it, and I love it! I really don’t know why I was so anti going grey for so long!

So, what’s new on my bedside table this week?

I have had more book mail from Fremantle Press – just the one this time. Thank you, Clare and Adam. Right Way Down and Other Poems is an anthology of poems for children chosen by Rebecca M/ Newman and Sally Murphy, and illustrated by Briony Stewart. I have been dipping in and out at odd moments and am mostly loving what is offered. Expect my review soon.

Stand on your head with Sally Murphy.

Explode some dynamite with Cristy Burne.

Shoot some hoops with Cheryl Kickett-Tucker.

Grow a poettree with Meg McKinlay.

Curl up next to your cat with Amber Moffat.

Watch a bit of Stink-o-Vision with James Foley.

These and loads more poems by Australian poets are there to discover in Right Way Down. With striking illustrations by Briony Stewart, these poems will have you laughing, thinking, and playing with words – whichever way you read them.

And, oh dear! I have seven new ARC titles from NetGalley. How did that happen?

I’ll blame aliens . . . or computer hackers. Or alien computer hackers! (sorry, Luke and I have been working on a story together and I am very much still in stories-Luke-would-like mode.)

Death is No Excuse by David Baker jumped out at me because Pete and I are STILL procrastinating over our wills. I know, I know. But hopefully this book will have all the answers and get me motivated to finish everything.

What do Abraham Lincoln, Pablo Picasso, Aretha Franklin and Howard Hughes all have in common? They died without wills, left messy estates and tormented their surviving families who had to lawyer up and fight through the resulting nightmares for years.
Whether the reasons for this are death denial, penny-pinching or just too busy to be bothered, the majority of Americans will die in exactly the same predicament—no wills, no planning and nobody lined up to help their surviving families get what’s coming to them.
“Death Is No Excuse” is an insightful roadmap through the legal potholes of unplanned death and disability, offered by a veteran attorney who’s handled the worst of these cases for over forty years. It’s a plain-spoken, surprisingly entertaining guide to everything you need to know about planning for death or disability, as well as other calamities that can occur along the way, be they divorce, avoidable tax burdens or getting ripped off as you toddle into old age.
Told in twenty-three brisk chapters, each punctuated with a case history of life gone off the rails when people ignore the insights this book offers, “Death Is No Excuse” tells you how to avoid the pitfalls of un-planned death and disability.

Most of you will know by now that Stuart MacBride is one of my very favorite authors. His latest book is In a Place of Darkness and due for publication June 2024 (that’s so as all you other Stuart MacBride fans can preorder it.)

THE CLOCK IS TICKING…

Detective Constable Angus MacVicar has just landed his dream job – transferred out of uniform and assigned to Oldcastle’s biggest ongoing murder investigation: Operation Telegram, hunting the ‘Fortnight Killer’.

Every two weeks another couple is targeted. One victim is left at the scene, their corpse used as a twisted message board. The second body is never seen again.

This should be the perfect chance for Angus to prove himself, but instead of working on the investigation’s front line, he’s lumbered with the forensic psychologist from hell. A sarcastic know-it-all American, on loan from the FBI, who seems determined to alienate everyone while dragging Angus into a shadowy world of conspiracies, lies, and violence.

It’s been twelve days since the Fortnight Killer last struck, and the investigation’s running out of time. Angus’s shiny new job might just be the death of him…

I was excited to be approved for Amor Towles collection of short stories, Table For Two. That cover makes me think of Sean Connery as James Bond and his martini, ‘shaken not stirred’. Yes, I know it’s a wine glass and Sean Connery would probably have assassinated the bartender for such a transgression, but it’s the vibes the cover gives off.

Amor Towles

shares some of his shorter fiction: six stories based in New York City and a novella set in Golden Age Hollywood.

Both this title and the next were a case of cover love! As winter is rapidly closing in (we had a frost last night and another expected tonight) I am drawn to anything summery. The End of Summer is by new-to-me author Charlotte Philby.

Your mother is not who you think she is…

When the phone rings in Judy McVee’s Languedoc farmhouse, she knows her past has finally caught up with her. It’s her daughter, frantically asking why there are journalists on her London doorstep making terrible accusations.

Decades earlier, Judy was a girl with big plans – to ensnare a rich husband, to make something of herself, to rise above her upbringing and leave behind past tragedies. Wealthy young widower Rory Harrington seemed the perfect target – but Judy hadn’t reckoned on actually falling in love with him.

Now her daughter Francesca, who has secrets of her own, must come to terms with the realisation that the mother she thought she knew wasn’t real. Where has Judy gone – and was anything she told her family true?

The Next Mrs Parrish by Liv Constantine is a sequel to The Last Mrs Parrish, which I am going to have to get from the library or pick up from a secondhand shop.

Amber Patterson Parrish has come a long way. Hard work and immaculate planning turned her from invisible wallflower to prominent socialite, but there have been bumps along the way. Less than a year after her husband Jackson’s tax-evasion scandal, Amber reigns supreme over the Bishops Harbor community. But with Jackson being released from prison, Amber’s free time – and money – is vanishing.

Meanwhile, Daphne Parrish left Bishops Harbor after her divorce from Jackson, swearing she would never go back. But when one of her daughters runs away from home, desperate to see her father, Daphne agrees to return for the summer. Jackson swears he’s a changed man, but Daphne knows all too well that he can’t be trusted.

When a ghost from Amber’s past emerges looking for revenge, these three find unlikely allies in one another. But who is playing who? When all is said and done, they’ll have to fight tooth and nail for everything they have left in this zero-sum game.

I have read several of Kate Quinns books with varying degrees of success, but after reading a few rave reviews of The Briar Club I knew I just had to have it and, what do you know, it was ‘read now’ for me! It was meant to be. 😉

Washington, D.C., 1950

Everyone keeps to themselves at Briarwood House, an all-female boarding house in the heart of the US capital, where secrets hide behind respectable facades.

But when the mysterious Grace March moves into the attic room, she draws her oddball collection of neighbours – a poised English beauty, a policeman’s daughter, a frustrated female baseball star, and a rabidly pro-McCarthy typist – into an unlikely friendship.

Grace’s weekly attic-room dinner parties and window-brewed sun tea become a healing balm on all their troubled lives, but she hides a terrible secret of her own. And when a shocking act of violence tears the house apart, the Briar Club must decide once and for all: who is the true enemy in their midst?

And last but not least is the audiobook of The Other Year by Rea Frey, and narrated by Brittany Pressley.

Can the entire course of a life be traced back to a single moment?

On a coveted two-week beach vacation, working mom Kate Baker’s nine-year-old daughter, Olivia, vanishes suddenly among the waves—a heart-dropping incident that threatens to uproot her entire reality. But in the next moment, Olivia resurfaces, joyously splashing.

What would I do if she didn’t come up? Kate wonders. How would I live without her?

In another set of circumstances that hold a different fate, Kate doesn’t have to wonder. Because in that “other” world, in the pulse-pounding seconds after Olivia goes under, she doesn’t come back up.

Told in parallel timelines, Kate begins to live two lives—one in which Olivia resurfaces and one in which she doesn’t. In the reality that follows her daughter’s death, she maneuvers through every mother’s worst nightmare, facing grief, rage, and the question of purpose in the aftermath of such profound loss. She endures, day by day, in a world without her daughter.

In her alternate timeline, while she explores a tremulous romance with her best friend, Jason, she finds herself grappling with the ex-husband who abandoned Kate and Olivia years prior. Even as Kate scrambles to hold her daughter close, Olivia pulls further away. The line between joy and loss seems to get thinner with each passing day.

Woven into a single story, both Kates discover a breathtaking fragility and resilience in their respective journeys. Bringing to light the drastic polarities dire circumstances often create, The Other Year explores truths about love, loss, and the sharp turns any life can take in the blink of an eye.

Well I hope you see something there that gets your requesting finger twitching!

I had a lovely afternoon with Luke yesterday, picking him up from school (i had trouble finding his new classroom and was late!😬) then taking him to swimming class. He is swimming like a little fish now. We played in the playground at the pool complex for a while then headed home to inspect the new cattle, as yet unnamed, and the chicken coop. After hockey Saturday morning Luke is going to pick up the eight chickens he has bought. The breeder has said that they should start laying in the next 2 – 3 weeks, then he will have eggs for sale at the gate. He is a very enterprising seven-year-old!

Pete should be home soon with his new (well new to us) Toyota Hilux ute! Me thinks he has watched too many Barry Crump ads over the years 😂🤣If you have never seen them, do a search for Barry Crump Toyota advert. It is classic kiwiana!

Well, the temperature is dropping so I need to get the clothes off the line, shut all the windows and doors which have been wide open through the middle of the day, and light the fire. I also need to think about what to have for dinner tonight because, right now, I have no ideas!

Have a wonderful week.

Watching what I’m reading . . .

Happy Sunday afternoon from New Zealand. We are having an absolutely beautiful day with clear blue skies and the sun has some real heat to it. I have been out in the garden, the clothes are drying in the breeze that has sprung up, and we are off to catch up with friends later in the afternoon. It’s homemade hamburgers and wedges for dinner tonight.

Currently I am reading and listening to When Cicadas Cry by Caroline Cleveland and narrated by Adam Barr. I have two theories as to who is behind both this current murder and the historical double murder Addie is investigating. But will I be right? This is a superbly intriguing and atmospheric read and Adam Barr is an excellent narrator. Even the cover is superbly atmospheric!

A high-profile murder case

A white woman has been bludgeoned to death with an altar cross in a rural church on Cicada Road in Walterboro, South Carolina. Sam Jenkins, a Black man, is found covered in blood, kneeling over the body. In a state already roiling with racial tension, this is not just a murder case: it’s a powder keg.

A haunting cold case

Two young women are murdered on quiet Edisto Beach, an hour southeast of Walterboro, and the killer disappears without a trace. Thirty-four years later, the mystery remains unsolved. Could there be a connection to Stander’s case?

A killer who’s watching

Stander takes on Jenkins’s defense, but he’s up against a formidable solicitor with powerful allies. Worse, his client is hiding a bombshell secret. When Addie Stone reopens the cold case, she discovers more long-buried secrets in this small town. Would someone kill again to keep them?

With Winter Comes Darkness is the second book I have read by Australian author Robbi Neal and she is certainly keeping me in the dark . . . I have no idea what the outcome of this is going to be.

A terrible accident burns down a family’s life on the same day a murder is committed. From the ashes of these acts comes revelation, darkness, and the truth. Psychological suspense and profound family drama meet in this heartrending and original Australian novel.

1975, Ballarat Alice is happy in her world and in return for her happiness the world is good to her. She has everything she needs – a lovely house and children, and a devoted husband. Even though her journalism job doesn’t pay much, she doesn’t have to worry about the bills. All is well with her world until a terrible accident rips a child from her, a profound betrayal is uncovered, and things fall apart.

On the same day Alice’s world collapses, a man is found brutally murdered on respected teacher Ellery’s farm. Ellery can’t remember what happened but there is blood on his clothes, and he is arrested.

Neither Alice nor Ellery realise that their paths in life are about to intertwine and a desperate bargain is about to be made. A bargain that could save or destroy them in their quest to draw some light and fathom the darkness that surrounds them.

The Inaugural Meeting of the Fairvale Ladies Book Club by Sophie Green has totally captured my heart. Sophie Green is a new author to me, and I am going to be reading everything she has ever written!

Books bring them together – but friendship will transform all of their lives. Five very different women come together in the Northern Territory of the 1970s by an exceptional new Australian author.

In 1978 the Northern Territory has begun to self-govern. Cyclone Tracy is a recent memory and telephones not yet a fixture on the cattle stations dominating the rugged outback. Life is hard and people are isolated. But they find ways to connect.

Sybil is the matriarch of Fairvale Station, run by her husband, Joe. Their eldest son, Lachlan, was Joe’s designated successor but he has left the Territory – for good. It is up to their second son, Ben, to take his brother’s place. But that doesn’t stop Sybil grieving the absence of her child. With her oldest friend, Rita, now living in Alice Springs and working for the Royal Flying Doctor Service, and Ben’s English wife, Kate, finding it difficult to adjust to life at Fairvale, Sybil comes up with a way to give them all companionship and purpose: they all love to read, and she forms a book club.

Mother-of-three Sallyanne is invited to join them. Sallyanne dreams of a life far removed from the dusty town of Katherine where she lives with her difficult husband, Mick. Completing the group is Della, who left Texas for Australia looking for adventure and work on the land.

These five women are united by one need: to overcome the vast differences of Australia’s Top End with friendship, tears, laughter, books and love. Books bring them together – but friendship will transform all of their lives.

I have seven books to read for review in the coming week – excuse me for rolling around the floor, 😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣. It just ain’t gonna happen. However I will, as always, do my best. I have already started When Cicadas Cry, so you never know . . . I might just get there, or somewhere close.

The Birds and Other Stories by Daphne Du Maurier is a great way to start the week. I can remember being scared silly by Alfred Hitchcock’s movie adaptation of Du Maurier’s short story as a teenager.

I couldn’t help but be attracted by the title Death Cleaning and Other Units of Measurement by Nancy Burke. So this is two volumes of short stories to start my week with.

We’ve heard of Swedish Death Cleaning. With a bit of fatalistic humor, we purchase books on how to do this, and discover why it is so freeing. In the title story of this new collection, “Death Cleaning,” a recently retired man is cleaning out, but not his closets. Instead he faces memories, mistakes, regrets, and selfish ways in a spiritual cleaning after he finds himself locked out of his house in his bathrobe one snowy January morning.

In the “Other Units of Measure” a man is in love with the voice of his GPS, a teenage couple hides their flaws as they discover love, and a young wife is inspired by a dead seagull to do what she needs to do. All contend with the virtual yardsticks inside that drive their judgment of others and themselves, creating hierarchies of value that can be randomly and unjustly applied in life’s circumstances. These stories suggest we reconsider some of our own.

I have never read Barbara O’Neal before, but the title and cover of The Goddesses of Kitchen Avenue called to me, and I couldn’t say no.

A loving wife and a mother of three accomplished children, forty-six-year-old Trudy Marino has an uncomplicated life—until she’s blindsided by her husband’s affair. But in Trudy’s close-knit neighborhood, she’s not alone in navigating the sudden surprises in a woman’s life.

Her neighbor Roberta has just lost her husband of sixty-two years and struggles with bittersweet memories and grief. Roberta’s granddaughter Jade is a divorcée who has taken up a cathartic new hobby to get over her cheating ex. And there’s Shannelle, whose creative aspirations are fracturing her marriage.

Then Trudy meets Angel, a sensual young man with the vulnerable heart of a poet who awakens her to invigorating new sensations. With a bracing confidence and three dear friends coming together in confusion, anger, and hope, Trudy is encouraged to take control of her life, to reflect on the choices she didn’t make, and to fulfill the youthful dreams she abandoned. As a new world opens up, Trudy can only marvel at where to go from here.

Again it was the title and cover of the Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club by Helen Simonson that attracted me here. It sounds like such fun!

It is the summer of 1919 and Constance Haverhill is without prospects. Now that all the men have returned from the front, she has been asked to give up her cottage and her job at the estate she helped run during the war. While she looks for a position as a bookkeeper or—horror—a governess, she’s sent as a lady’s companion to an old family friend who is convalescing at a seaside hotel. Despite having only weeks to find a permanent home, Constance is swept up in the social whirl of Hazelbourne-on-Sea after she rescues the local baronet’s daughter, Poppy Wirrall, from a social faux pas.

Poppy wears trousers, operates a taxi and delivery service to employ local women, and runs a ladies’ motorcycle club (to which she plans to add flying lessons). She and her friends enthusiastically welcome Constance into their circle. And then there is Harris, Poppy’s recalcitrant but handsome brother—a fighter pilot recently wounded in battle—who warms in Constance’s presence. But things are more complicated than they seem in this sunny pocket of English high society. As the country prepares to celebrate its hard-won peace, Constance and the women of the club are forced to confront the fact that the freedoms they gained during the war are being revoked.

I can never resist anything that is set in the Hamptons, and so Summer After Summer by Lauren Bailey has also found its way onto my shelf.

Olivia Taylor’s marriage is in a death spiral when she agrees to come home to the Hamptons to help her father and sisters pack up the family estate. If it looks like she’s running away from her soon-to-be-ex Wes and New York City, well, she is. But someone has to take care of things and that’s always been Olivia’s role in the family. After years of financial trouble, someone’s finally bailing them out with a huge offer to buy their beachfront property, which is a good thing, although it means losing the home she grew up in, where her mother died, and where she first met Fred, the love of her life.

It’s been five years since the last time things blew up between Olivia and Fred, but much longer since the first time. At this point, Olivia fears it was never meant to be, so there’s no reason to feel butterflies in her stomach at the idea of seeing him again. They’ve already tried, and tried again…and again…but she’s newly single, and she isn’t the same person she was the last time–and Fred has changed, too.

This time, things will be different. Maybe, just maybe, the fifth time’s the charm.

My final book for the week will be The Revenge Club by Kathy Lette, an author I haven’t read for a number of years.

WHEN THE ODDS ARE AGAINST YOU, IT’S TIME TO GET EVEN.

Matilda, Jo, Penny and Cressy are all women at the top of their game; so imagine their surprise when they start to be personally overlooked and professionally pushed aside by less-qualified men.

Only they’re not going down without a fight.

Society might think the women have passed their amuse-by dates but the Revenge Club have other plans.

After all, why go to bed angry when you could stay up and plot diabolical retribution? Let the games begin…

Have you read any of these?

Are any of these on your reading radar?

What are you reading this week?

I’m going to head back outside and make the most of this marvellous weather – it’s apparently going to be wet tomorrow.

Happy reading my friends. 💕📚

The Flower Sisters by Michelle Collins Anderson

EXCERPT: Flowers Funeral Home faces Main Street in downtown Possum Flats and my upstairs room overlooks the back alley, where Grandma takes her ‘deliveries’ twenty-four hours a day. Not much there except dumpsters and stray cats and, over the buildings, the tip-top of a church steeple. From the front sidewalk of the funeral home, you can see east down Main to the downtown square that has banks on opposite corners and a boring limestone courthouse in the centre with a silver flagpole waving the U.S. and Missouri flags.
Possum Flats. Seriously? It sounds like roadkill – and it’s every bit as dead.

ABOUT ‘THE FLOWER SISTERS’: At birth, Violet and Rose Flowers were identical, save for a tiny bluish-purple mark gracing Violet’s slender neck. By nineteen, their temperaments distinguish them, as different as the flowers their mother named them for—Violet, wild and outgoing, and Rose, solitary and reserved. Still, they are each other’s world. Then, on a sweltering, terrible August night in 1928, an explosion rocks Lamb’s Dance Hall in Possum Flats, Missouri, engulfing it in flames, leaving one twin among the dozens dead, and her sister’s life forever changed.

Fifty years later, Daisy Flowers is dumped on her grandmother Rose’s doorstep for the summer. A bright, inquisitive fifteen-year-old, Daisy bargains her way into an internship at the local newspaper—where she learns of the mysterious long-ago tragedy and its connection to her family. Rose, now the local funeral home director, grows increasingly alarmed as her impulsive granddaughter delves into Possum Flats’ history, determined to uncover the horrors and heroes of the fiery blast.

For a small town, Possum Flats holds a multitude of big secrets, some guarded by the living, some kept by the dead. And through Rose, Daisy, Dash—a preacher who found his calling that fateful night—and others, those ghosts gradually come into the light, forcing a reckoning at last.

MY THOUGHTS: After a breathtaking start in both timelines, I settled in for what I thought was going to be an exceptional read . . . but it didn’t quite work out that way. It sort of fizzled out and never really regained its momentum.

Of the two timelines, I much preferred the 1978 story. Daisy is a lovely character and I enjoyed watching her personal growth after her arrival in Possum Flats. I felt that a lot of the 1928 story could have been better told better in flashbacks as Daisy uncovered what actually happened. There are too many points of view, and we get the full background story on each and every one of them. It was just too much. And while they say there is no one so devout as a reformed sinner, the character of Pastor Emmonds (known as ‘Dash’ in his wilder days) was totally overdone. In contrast, his grandson Joe was a breath of fresh air.

The ending was a little too tidy for me – life just isn’t like that and it came across as manufactured and, dare I say it?, twee.

I really enjoyed the Author’s note at the end which tells the story of the explosion in her hometown in 1928 that was the basis for this novel, but the execution of the actual novel itself left a lot to be desired. While I didn’t feel compelled to abandon the read, my attention frequently wandered and I would have to backtrack to pick up the thread again.

⭐⭐.9

#TheFlowerSisters #NetGalley

THE AUTHOR: Michelle Collins Anderson grew up on a farm in the Missouri Ozarks — a place and a way of life that has shaped her writing.
Michelle has been an adjunct professor at the University of Missouri and Stephens College, taught creative writing at her local elementary school, and serves on the board of The Missouri Review.
She and her husband, Clay, have three adult children and live in St. Louis, Missouri, with a rambunctious border collie and two sister cats.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Kensington Books via NetGalley for providing a digital ARC of The Flower Sisters by Michelle Collins Anderson for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.