Happy hump day! It’s a lovely fine day here in my corner of New Zealand, but with a chilly breeze. The washing that never dried yesterday is fluttering on the line, and as soon as I have finished this post, I am heading out to mow the lawn, which isn’t exactly long but is untidy looking.
I have six new books arrived on my shelf in the past week – I’m not doing too well at cutting down am I? But my shelf total has only increased by one, so I must have had a more productive reading week than I thought.
So, what’s new? . . . .
The Chamber by Will Dean heads this weeks list. The Last One had me on tenterhooks, and I am sure The Chamber will do the same. I have always wanted to learn to dive, but as I am mildly claustrophobic, I don’t think I could do it.
HIGH PRESSURE OUTSIDE On a boat heading out into the North Sea, Ellen Brooke steels herself to spend almost a month locked inside a hyperbaric chamber with five other divers. They are all being paid handsomely for this work – to be lowered each day inside a diving bell to the sea bed, taking it in turns to dive down and repair oil pipes that lie in the dark waters. It is a close knit team and it has to be: any error or loss of trust could be catastrophic.
EXTREME PRESSURE INSIDE All is going to plan until one of the divers is found unresponsive in his bunk. He hadn’t left the chamber. It will take four more days of decompression, locked away together, before the hatch can be opened. Four more days of bare steel, intrusive thoughts, and the constant struggle not to give way to panic. Mind games, exhaustion, suspicion, and, most of all, pressure. And if someone does unlock the door, everyone dies…
Sally Page captivated me with The Keeper of Stories, so I am looking forward to The Secrets of Flowers.
One year on from the death of her husband, Emma feels no closer to moving forward with her life. Seeking distraction, she quits her job and begins working at the local garden centre.
Here, Emma begins to open up and finds herself attending boss Les’ talk on the Titanic. Intrigued, Emma sets out to research who would have arranged the flowers on-board.
Alongside her story unfolds the tale of a stewardess on the Titanic, who Emma can’t help but feel connected to…
Carolyn Brown is an auto-request for me. I love her humor and her characters.
Returning home to Ditto, Texas, is bittersweet for Lila Matthews. Her dear and feisty aunt Gracie has passed away, leaving Lila her estate. That includes a centuries-old house, a field of the freshest strawberries in Atascosa County, more money than Lila can count, and a secret Aunt Gracie took to her grave. All the angels in heaven won’t be able to pry it out of her.
For more than eighty years, generations of folks in Ditto have whispered and gossiped about what the secret could be. When Lila inherits Aunt Gracie’s legacy, ears perk up and tongues start wagging. As Lila reacquaints herself with locals, finds warmth in family—extended and otherwise—and cozies up to a handsome new neighbor, she begins collecting clues to the past. They’re revealing an Aunt Gracie nobody knew—and a life of rebellion, broken hearts, and selfless love that affected more people than anyone realized.
Whatever reason Aunt Gracie had for leaving Lila the secret, will it now be Lila’s secret to keep?
Julie Houston is another auto-request for me. A Class Act is the start of a new series set in the village of Beddingford, Yorkshire.
Robyn Allen is finally getting closer to her dream of West End stardom. And along with her role dancing in the latest hot musical, she’s being wined and dined by an equally hot man – the wildly successful and well-connected Fabian Carrington. But one slip up and her dreams are shattered, and Robyn has to hobble back to the Yorkshire village of Beddingfield, and the life she hoped she’d escaped.
Moving back into her mum’s house with her recalcitrant teenage sister Sorrel, next door to her older sister Jess who’s fed up with picking up the slack, is not how Robyn pictured her year. But there’s more to come. Sorrel needs a new school, and the school needs a new drama teacher. Despite having vowed never to teach again, Robyn knows she has to support her sister.
So together Sorrel and Robyn vow to take on St Mede’s – home to jokers, tearaways and trouble-makers, but with a hidden heartbeat ready to be inspired. And who knows, the kids might have something to teach Robyn about life too…
Dee MacDonald is another author I just can’t pass by. A Murder in the Scottish Highlands is also the first in a new series, cosy mysteries this time, set in the Scottish Highlands.
For recently retired Ally McKinley, the tiny village of Locharran is the perfect place to open the guesthouse of her dreams in a lovingly restored old Scottish malthouse. Before long she is making friends with the locals, including Hamish Sinclair, the earl who owns the nearby castle. But things take an unexpected turn when her first paying guest, American tourist Wilbur Carrington, is found sprawled across her cobblestoned courtyard with a dagger in his back…
With the police baffled, Ally’s instincts get the better of her, and she can’t resist launching her own investigation. In no time at all she and her Labrador puppy Flora are on the case, making enquiries over tea and excellent shortbread. She finds that Wilbur, a keen amateur genealogist, was convinced that he was the rightful Earl of Locharran… Even worse, he had plans that would put many people out of their jobs and even their homes.
But which of the locals resorted to murder? The hotel owner furiously trying to save his business? Locharran Castle’s fiercely loyal housekeeper who’d do anything for the earl? Or the earl himself, whose entire way of life was threatened by what Wilbur knew?
Looking for clues, Ally finds a faded photograph in a hidden drawer in Wilbur’s room. Could this be the key to solving the mystery? But when one of her suspects dies in a suspicious accident, Ally realises that things are getting a wee bit too close for comfort… Can she uncover the truth or will a killer get off scot-free?
And lastly is Forgotten on Sunday by Valerie Perrin and narrated by Elisabeth Lagelee. I started this morning and am besotted!
Justine is 21 years old and has lived with her grandparents and her cousin Jules since the death of her parents. As a nursing assistant at a retirement home, she spends much of her days listening to her residents’ stories.
After bonding with Hélène, an almost 100-year-old resident, the two women slowly reveal their stories to one another. Whilst Justine helps Hélène to relive her memories of love and war, Hélène encourages Justine to confront the secrets of her own past and the loss she keeps buried deep within.
One day, a mysterious phone call detailing a shocking revelation shakes the retirement home to its core. At once humorous and melancholic, Valérie Perrin’s novel depicts the consequences of undeclared love and, in her inimitable way, portrays once again how the past is never really past.
My ARC total has risen one from 525 to 526 – not a bad effort this week I thought! I have 13 pending requests, down three from last week’s 16. And yes, my feedback ratio remains at 72%.
I have a quarterly readathon challenge coming up from 12.01am Friday 7 June to 11.59 pm Sunday 9th June with Aussie Readers, a Goodreads group.
Staying with the Aussie Readers group, I am currently reading the first title of 9 needed to complete the June challenge, Smoke and Mirrors by M.E. Hilliard, and I should finish it tonight. I haven’t yet read any of the 12 titles I have committed to for the Winter challenge. Six of them are backtitles from my ARC shelf, i.e. they have been on my shelf for over 12 months at the start of the challenge (June 01), and six are physical books I have owned for over twelve months at the start of the challenge but haven’t yet read.
So, I had better go get these lawns mowed while the sun is still shining then settle down to read.
Is it just me or are the weeks spinning by at a ridiculously fast pace? It feels like only yesterday I was writing last week’s post.
What am I currently reading? The House at Angel’s Beach by Phillipa Nefri Clark, a new-to-me Australian author.
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…?
On Call by Ineke Meredith is a memoir of a young New Zealand woman of Samoan descent on her journey to becoming a surgeon.
The world of surgery is strange, messy and intense. From a man presenting with fishhooks in his stomach toto being punched in the face by a patient, it’s all in a mad day’s work for a female general surgeon. Even with 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?
And I am listening to One Year After You (One Day With You #2) by Shari Low, one of my January titles.
Four shocking secrets. One tumultuous tale of love, loss and second chances.
One year ago today, Tress Walker’s husband was killed in a car accident, on a trip with his secret mistress whilst Tress gave birth to their son. But as time moves on, Tress has to choose whether to protect her fragile heart or open it to love again.
Noah Clark was equally devastated to discover his wife and his best friend were having an affair. Now the love of his life is asking for a second chance. But can there ever be a way back once the trust is broken?
For forty years, the fabulous Odette Devine has been a beloved actress on a Scottish TV show. Today she is broken, betrayed, and desperate to find out if this is her payback for a lie she told four decades ago.
Noah’s sister Keli Clark has recently been ghosted by the man she loves. When a message from a complete stranger reveals the reason why, Keli will have to decide whether to forgive, forget, or make sure he pays.
I am enjoying all of these to varying degrees.
I have 14 (yes you are reading right!) ARC titles to read for review in the coming week. Not a snowball’s chance in hell, as my late mother was fond of saying! I don’t know what I was thinking – or if I was thinking at all. But, here goes –
Smoke and Mirrors by M.E. Hilliard is the first title on my list and the one I will head for first after I finish The House at Angel’s Beach. I have read earlier books in this series and loved them, but for some unknown reason have missed a few. It’s also a title I have selected for my June Aussie Readers challenge. This will also fulfill a category in my Perks of Being a Book Addict World Book Day Challenge in that the main character is a librarian.
Having spent months quietly investigating in the village of Raven Hill, Greer Hogan returns to New York City determined to find her husband’s murderer. She secures a temporary gig at a private library inventorying the personal collection of a deceased magician. In her free time, Greer sleuths, leaving no stone unturned–even the ones which could be hiding deadly secrets.
Four years earlier, Greer had discovered her husband Dan dead in their apartment. He’d tried to tell her about something strange going on at his office, but she hadn’t had time to listen until it was too late. Worse still, she has always suspected that the wrong man was convicted of the crime. Now, Greer has solved other murders and has a few tricks up her sleeve. She combs through belongings she packed away soon after Dan’s death and interviews his former colleagues and people who were near the scene when he died. Soon, Greer is followed and attacked, so she knows she’s struck a nerve—but whose?
When two more people are killed and Greer realizes she can’t escape the smoke and mirrors surrounding her suspects, she confides in one of her new colleagues, a magician named Grim with whom she’s bonded over similar traumas. Though she knows he’s got secrets of his own, the tricky Grim may be exactly the assistant Greer needs to pull a rabbit out of a hat and shine a spotlight on a killer before the curtains come down on her for good.
I have now read and enjoyed a few books by Victoria Helen Stone and Follow Her Down is her next release due to be published 4th June.
The murder of Elise Rockwood’s sister shattered her family. Their mother’s anxiety kept her housebound. Elise’s paranoid brother, Kyle, saw conspiracies everywhere. Elise numbed her grief in an aimless lifestyle that left her emotionally broken. All of them victims. A local boy eventually confessed, but the damage was already done.
Years later, Elise is reinventing herself. She’s bought a mountain lodge to be close to home again and to find stability. Not even an email from her ex tempts her into revisiting the past. But Kyle won’t let it go. He still believes there’s more to their sister’s murder—and the confession—than meets the eye. When Elise’s ex is found dead in the same forest where her sister went missing decades before, Elise is finally willing to listen.
The traumas of the past are reemerging. So is the truth. Elise’s greatest fear now is who will survive it.
The Skeleton House by Katherine Allum is also due to be published 04 June by @FremantlePress.
Meg’s life is woven into the fabric of St. Stephens. It’s a tapestry made of two precious children, a hidden truth, and a husband whose ideas of a perfect wife do not match her own. When Meg puts her foot down on a third kid, gets a job, and is empowered by the same book group that was meant to keep her in her place, her marriage begins to disintegrate. Set in a tiny Mormon community, this is a novel about resilience and courage – the fierceness of mother-love and the power that comes with never forgetting who you really are.
David Mark is one of those authors who make my heart pound! When the Bough Breaks is another June 04th release.
Traffic cop Sal Delaney’s past is catching up with her . . .
North of England. Cumbria. Salome Delaney didn’t have a great start in life. But her abusive childhood came to a tragic conclusion with the killing of her tyrant mother, Trina, by a jealous ex-boyfriend. At least, that’s what the police say. Sal has never believed kind Wulf, who tried to protect her from her mother’s dark side, could have committed such a crime, but the evidence was irrefutable . . . and who else could have done it?
Now an adult, with a good job as a Collison Investigation Officer, Sal’s done her best to put the past behind her. But one snowy morning she’s called to an accident scene, and she recognizes the body – Barry Ford, the man her mother left Wulf for, all those years ago.
It soon becomes clear this wasn’t just an accident – it was murder. And Wulf, now out of prison, lives very close by . . .
The question of who really killed her mother has haunted Sal her whole life, but as she launches a complex investigation, which gets darker by the hour, she starts to wonder if she really wants to know the answer after all.
Forgotten on Sunday by Valerie Perrin and narrated by Elisabeth Legalee, An unforgettable story about an unlikely friendship and about healing the wounds of a broken past.
Justine is 21 years old and has lived with her grandparents and her cousin Jules since the death of her parents. As a nursing assistant at a retirement home, she spends much of her days listening to her residents’ stories.
After bonding with Hélène, an almost 100-year-old resident, the two women slowly reveal their stories to one another. Whilst Justine helps Hélène to relive her memories of love and war, Hélène encourages Justine to confront the secrets of her own past and the loss she keeps buried deep within.
One day, a mysterious phone call detailing a shocking revelation shakes the retirement home to its core. At once humorous and melancholic, Valérie Perrin’s novel depicts the consequences of undeclared love and, in her inimitable way, portrays once again how the past is never really past.
I adored The Secret Life of Albert Entwhistle and so was excited to receive Matt Cain’s next title, Becoming Ted.
If Ted Ainsworth were to compare himself to one of the ice cream flavors made by his family’s company, famous throughout his sleepy Lancashire hometown, it might be vanilla—sweet, inoffensive, and pleasantly predictable. At forty-three, Ted is convinced there’s nothing remotely remarkable about him, except perhaps his luck in having landed handsome, charismatic Giles as a husband.
Then Giles suddenly leaves him for another man, filling his social media feed with posts about #newlove and adventure. And Ted, who has spent nearly twenty years living with, and often for, another person, must reimagine the future he has happily taken for granted.
But perhaps there is another Ted slowly blossoming now that he’s no longer in Giles’s shadow—funny, sassy, more uninhibited. Someone willing to take chances on new friendships, and even new love. Someone who’s been waiting in the wings too long, but who’s about to dust off a long-ago secret dream and overturn everyone’s expectations of him—especially his own. . .
The art of perfume making has always fascinated me, so The Scent of Hours by Barbara O’Neil was a must-read for me.
Nikki Bridges has it good. An enviable home in an upscale neighborhood, a heavenly-scented hobby making personal-blend perfumes, a cherished daughter, and comfortable rituals with a husband she loves. How was she to know it would all blow up with her husband’s affair, a blindsiding divorce, and an identity crisis she never saw coming?
With little money, less work experience, and a modest apartment, Nikki is tentatively moving on. Along the way: a waitressing job, a bond with an empathetic group of friends, and reentering the dating game at fortysomething. Luring her out of her funk is Niraj, an ex-Londoner with twinkling eyes and a hint of cinnamon and ginger. For the first time in a long time, Nikki feels a warm summer flush—and with it, a spark of inspiration.
On a liberating quest for self-expression and the courage to follow a dream, Nikki is blending the pieces of a new life into a fragrance that is uniquely and passionately her own.
I am so looking forward to visiting with Judith, Suzie and Becks again in Robert Thorogood’s Queen of Poisons, a Marlow Murder Club Mystery.
The Marlow Murder Club is on the hunt for a killer…
Geoffrey Lushington, Mayor of Marlow, dies suddenly during a town council meeting. When traces of aconite—also known as the queen of poisons—are found in his coffee cup, the police realize he was murdered. But who did it? And why?
The police bring Judith, Suzie, and Becks in to investigate the murder as civilian advisors right from the start, so they have free rein to interview suspects and follow the evidence to their heart’s content… which is perfect because Judith has no time for rules and standard procedure. But this case has the Marlow Murder Club stumped. Who would want to kill the affable mayor of Marlow? How did they even get the poison into his coffee? And is anyone else in danger? The Marlow Murder Club is about to face their most difficult case yet…
Stella Quinn is a new-to-me Australian author. Down the Track will be my introduction to her writing.
Dr Joanne Tan is an expert in a lot of things. Love isn’t one of them.
Being thirty-something, broke, divorced and in a cold war with her ten-year-old son is a lot, but Jo’s handling it. Just. At least she is until her job at the Natural History Museum is put in jeopardy. An invitation to dig up dinosaur bones on a remote Queensland sheep station arrives at just the right time.
It’s not her first trip to Yindi Creek, but it’s not as though anyone will remember her from fifteen years ago … And by anyone, of course, she means the pilot she had that fling with. The fling that taught her she’s far safer sticking to science …
Gavin ‘Hux’ Huxtable, helicopter pilot and reluctant sheep-shearer, has turned his broken heart into a secret (and successful) writing career. But running into Jo again, all these years down the track, stirs up a lot more than outback country dust.
A missing person, a fossilised legbone and a nosy country cop force Jo and Hux together and the sparks that start flying don’t go unnoticed by the locals …
Digging up the past isn’t easy. Digging up the truth can be even harder.
I am always excited by a new Faith Hogan title, even more so because this one is set in a bookshop and titled The Bookshop Ladies.
Joy Blackwood has no idea why her French art dealer husband has left a valuable painting to a woman called Robyn Tessier in Ballycove, a small town on the west coast of Ireland, but she is determined to find out. She arrives in Ballycove to find that Robyn runs a rather chaotic and unprofitable bookshop. She is shy, suffering from unrequited love for dashing Kian, and badly in need of advice on how to make the bookshop successful.
As Joy gets drawn into the dramas of everyday life in the town, she finds it more and more difficult to confess why she really came, let alone find the truth about the painting she brought with her. When she does finally summon up the courage, it sets the cat amongst the pigeons in the close-knit, friendly community she has come to love.
Will Dean is another author who always gets my heart pounding, and I am sure that The Chamber won’t be an exception.
HIGH PRESSURE OUTSIDE On a boat heading out into the North Sea, Ellen Brooke steels herself to spend almost a month locked inside a hyperbaric chamber with five other divers. They are all being paid handsomely for this work – to be lowered each day inside a diving bell to the sea bed, taking it in turns to dive down and repair oil pipes that lie in the dark waters. It is a close knit team and it has to be: any error or loss of trust could be catastrophic.
EXTREME PRESSURE INSIDE All is going to plan until one of the divers is found unresponsive in his bunk. He hadn’t left the chamber. It will take four more days of decompression, locked away together, before the hatch can be opened. Four more days of bare steel, intrusive thoughts, and the constant struggle not to give way to panic. Mind games, exhaustion, suspicion, and, most of all, pressure. And if someone does unlock the door, everyone dies…
I always look forward to a new Lucy Foley, and I am looking forward to The Midnight Feast.
Midsummer, the Dorset coast
In the shadows of an ancient wood, guests gather for the opening weekend of The Manor: a beautiful new countryside retreat.
But under the burning midsummer sun, darkness stirs. Old friends and enemies circulate among the guests. And the candles have barely been lit for a solstice supper when the body is found.
It all began with a secret, fifteen years ago. Now the past has crashed the party. And it’ll end in murder at…
THE MIDNIGHT FEAST
Alex Finlay is another author who never fails to please. If Something Happens to Me sounds very intriguing.
The crushing blow to the head. Hands yanking him from the vehicle. His girlfriend’s piercing scream…
For the past five years, Ryan Richardson has relived that terrible night. With no trace of Ali after she is abducted, a cloud of suspicion hangs over him, though he is never charged. Trying to put his past behind him, Ryan changes his name and enters law school.
It’s on a summer trip to Italy that he gets the call: his missing car has finally been found, submerged in a lake in his hometown. But inside the car are two dead men. The only trace of Ali is a cryptic note, the envelope in her handwriting stating If something happens to me…
Reeling from the news, Ryan sees the man who has haunted his nightmares since the night Ali was taken. But how could that be possible, so far from home? His search for answers leads him to England and France, but the truth may lie in the shape of two very different people back in the USA.
So, there we have it. I just won’t be sleeping AT ALL this week.
I have no idea what I am going to read after Smoke and Mirrors, but if you have any suggestions I would love to hear them!
We had a lovely lunch out with Dustin and Luke today. I spent the morning in the garden beforehand picking spinach and mandarins to send home with them, along with Luke’s gumboots and his science books that he left behind after he stayed the weekend a couple of weeks ago.
Pete is busy screwing new boards onto the back porch as a few of them were getting quite spongy and unsafe. After he has finished that we are going to catch up with some friends we haven’t seen for a few weeks.
It is long weekend (King’s Birthday) here in New Zealand so tomorrow is a public holiday and another chance to get a bit more done around the house and yard. I hope the lawn dries out enough that I can mow it. It’s not long, just looking untidy.
Sandy's Book a Day Blog 