This week....I mean month..

I'm reading

Well....I was intending to keep on doing these weekly posts while I was on holidays, but it turns out I was too busy having a great time, so I have missed the last three weeks, but I am back now.

I don't normally read much while I am on holidays but this time I managed to read quite a lot, mainly because we weren't doing all that much driving. We used a lot of public transport, and we were on a coach for the best part of a week.

Since the last time I posted I finished reading The Mapmaker's Promise by Catherine Law which I really enjoyed and which I reviewed here.

I then read The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. No, I can't believe I have never read it before either! This is the current selection for Cook the Books so I will be sharing my review once I have figured out what I am going to cook to go with the post.

Next up was Look What You Made Me Do by Amy Andrews which I reviewed here.

I then read The Start of the Story by Jane Lovering. The book itself is set on the moors, I was reading it while we were driving through Scotland and it felt like a really timely read. 

From the moors, my reading then took me to France where I read A French Country Escape by Jennifer Bohnet. My review for this and the previous book will be up shortly.

Still in France, I then decided to read something just for fun and so I chose The President's Hat by Antoine Laurain.

In the last post I talked about a collection of short stories that I had read a couple of while on the first plane trip of our holiday. I read another one of those on the last plane trip. This time it was Amelia's Shadow by Marie Benedict.

Finally, I started Written in the Stars by Helen Rolfe, which I finished today. 

Last night I started reading The Before Life of Eliza Valentine by Laura Pearson. So far I love this book! As in really love it. Hopefully it will continue to be amazing.


I'm watching

After watching quite a lot on our first flight I didn't watch much at all on the next four flight. On the last flight we couldn't watch anything anyway given that the entertainment system wasn't working. The same thing happened when we had an overnight flight from Singapore last year too.

The one movie I did watch was Bernadette, which is called The President's Wife for it's English release. It's the story of Bernadette Chirac, wife of the French President, Jacques Chirac from 1995-2007. It was a movie that I wanted to see as part of the French Film Festival but couldn't fit it in so I was very happy to find it available to watch.

Here's the trailer:

Life


Life's pretty good when you are on holidays!!

Posts since last time 


Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Have Read on Holidays
Blog Tour: The Secret Keeper by Renita D'Silva
Weekend Cooking: What We Ate on Holiday - South Africa
Weekend Cooking:What We Ate on Holiday - London
Blog Tour: The Map Maker's Promise by Catherine Law
Weekend Cooking: What We Ate on Holiday - Scotland
Historical Fiction Reading Challenge - September links
Blog Tour: Look What You Made Me Do by Amy Andrews
Weekend Cooking: What We Ate on Holiday - Scotland/Hong Kong

Six Degrees of Separation: After Story to The Stolen Hours




I've linked this post to It's Monday, what are you reading? as hosted by Book Date

Six Degrees of Separation: After Story to The Stolen Hours

Welcome to this month's edition of Six Degrees of Separation, which is a monthly meme hosted by Kate from Books Are My Favourite and Best. The idea is to start with a specific book and make a series of links from one book to the next using whatever link you can find and see where you end up after six links. I am also linking this post up with The Sunday Salon, hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz.

The starting point this month is After Story by Larissa Behrent, who is an indigenous Australian author.

One of Larissa Behrendt's upcoming projects is a take on Pride and Prejudice, told through the lens of an indigenous woman. I first heard about this at a reader event I attended earlier this year when I met Dr Anita Heiss who who is the Publisher at Large of Bundyi imprint of Simon and Schuster publishing which will be publishing this book. My first connection this month is therefore Anita Heiss's latest novel DIRRAYAWADHA, which means Rise Up in the Wurundjeri language!

The reader event was organised by Rachael Johns so my next choice is The Other Bridget which is her latest book.

I don't know about you but I hear the name Bridget and the first book I think of is Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding.

Recently I read a book called A Love Letter to Paris by Rebecca Raisin. The main character, sells old letters and diaries from her market stall in Paris

My next choice is Letters from Sky by Jessica Brockmole. Whilst I chose this because of the word letters, we were also in Scotland a couple of weeks ago and we visited Skye!

My last choice has a Scottish connection as well. Recently I read The Stolen Hours by Karen Swan which is the second book in the Wild Isle trilogy. This tells the story of the people who were forced to leave the island of St Kilda back in 1930. The book tells us about the lead up to the evacuation but also then what happened after they had left the island. Which I guess means that it is a before and after story, which links it to the starting book this month. In my mind at least!

Next month our starting point is Long Island by Colm Toibin.

Weekend Cooking: What We Ate on Holiday - Scotland/Hong Kong

Normally, this would be the day that we talked about What I Baked in my Kitchen but we've been away for a month so not a lot of baking going on. We have bought some kitchen related items on our travels but I will share those next month.

Mostly this post is going to be about Hong Kong, but we did have one last day in Glasgow. We decided to spend our day visiting a couple of museums. First we went to the Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery. It's an amazing building which is filled with all kinds of things, and you never really know what you are going to see around the next corner. For example, in one of the main halls there is a Spitfire plane hanging directly above an elephants. We were lucky enough to be visiting there was a pipe organ recital happening, which was a lovely accompaniment to wander around the buildings to.

We were also fortunate that this day was one of the few sunny days that Glasgow has had this summer, and so we were able to sit outside in the nearby gardens. We had an Empire Biscuit which is two shortbread biscuits, sandwiched together with jam and then covered in icing! It's a pretty typical Scottish bakery treat and it was delicious.

From there we headed to the River Museum where we had a very short time to wander around. If we had of known what it was like we would have spent more time as it was great. It is basically a transport museum, but the way it is set out is fabulous!

While we were at Kelvingrove we saw some information about famous designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and our next stop was for afternoon tea at Mackintosh at The Willow Tea Rooms. This tea room, located at the site of an original tea rooms in the city, has been renovated using Mackintosh designs. We had afternoon tea here, which I will talk more about at another time, but the treats looked amazing..

The next day we had to be at the airport so we had a leisurely morning, tried burned cream at the airport, which is basically a British version of creme brulee and then made our way to Hong Kong.

The first thing that hit us as soon as we left the airport in Hong Kong was the heat and humidity. We love visiting new places like Hong Kong and Singapore before it, but we are not built for such humid conditions. However, while we might complain about it, we still get out and see and do what we can. Our first stop after checking into the hotel was to go down to the harbor. We were originally planning to just watch the Symphony of Lights, which is the daily light show featuring all the buildings on both sides of the harbour. 

The next day we went took the Green and White Ferry across from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island and then up to Victoria Peak via the Peak tram (amazing), walked through Hong Kong Park, went and saw the worlds longest travelator (my husband was underwhelmed by this part of the day) and otherwise generally wandered around Hong Kong Island. 

After a swim at the hotel, we headed out to the Temple Street markets where we ate at one of the restaurants. 

This was the night that we discovered the Japanese bakery in the shopping centre across the road. We may have visited this place a couple of times. This cake was a Peach cake and it was oh so good. I did find myself having quite a few peach treats while we were in HK. 

One of the things that we knew we wanted to do was to do a day trip to Macau, so we took the bus from Hong Kong and then hired a driver to take us to the main sites. The original plan was to do the hop on hop off bus, but I am glad that we didn't. He took us to places we didn't even know about. Apparently, very few Western tourists make the trip to Macau these days.

Macau has a lot of Portuguese history and so looks and feels quite different to Honk Kong, despite the fact that they are quite close to each other. There are parts of the old town where the buildings are very colourful. We visited Senado Square, the ruins of St Paul and the nearby fortress which houses the Macao Museum and a great view from the top. Fortunately there are escalators all the way to the top. We also visited the A-Ma Temple.

We finished the day in Cotai, home of many amazing casinos. We are not gamblers, so that didn't interest us but the buildings did. We visited The Venetian and The Parisian casinos, and the insides of the buildings were amazing! We also did not miss the chance to try some Portuguese tarts. We then caught the jet boat back to Hong Kong.

On our final day we knew we had to be at the airport by about 5pm, so we had planned some activities that would have meant that we would have had a full day, but it was then announced that there was a Typhoon warning at level 3, so I was quite cautious as I didn't really want to get stuck out in a typhoon. We therefore had a bit of a sleep in, a late breakfast and then wandered across to the shopping centre across the road for a wander around.

We couldn't not take the opportunity to share some dumplings. We have a favourite restaurant here, where they do amazing Xiao Long Bao dumplings. These dumplings have a pork based filling but they are also filled with soup, so you when you take a bit you get both the soup and meat in one go. These were plain pork and soup and they were good. I also had a pineapple and mango juice which was so good. 

After one last visit to the Japanese bakery for cream puffs filled with cream and custard, it was off to the airport. We got there pretty early as I didn't want too risk getting caught out in any weather, so we had time to go and get a foot reflexology treatment which I thought might help with my feet swelling on the flight.  I am still deciding if it was good or not. I mean, I think my feet swelled up less than normal, but oh my goodness that treatment was painful. We also had time for one last holiday drink at the amazing Sky Bar at the airport, which I needed after that treatment.

While we were at the airport, they changed the typhoon warning level to an 8 but luckily, we took off before the worst of it hit so we weren't impacted too badly.

So, that's our big holiday for this year done. We covered a lot of ground, ate a lot of great food and have some great memories to look back on.

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page

Blog Tour: Look What You Made Me Do by Amy Andrews

 

If you keep track of your reads for long enough, you can see how much your reading changes over a period of time. For example, around 12 years ago I went through a phase of reading sports romances. More precisely, I went through a phase of reading sports romances written by Jaci Burton mostly. I did read some other authors as well, but I really don't recall when I last read one. I do know that sports romances are kind of a big deal at the moment but still, it's not my first choice. So what made me agree to read this one for this blog tour? It was the fact that the author, Amy Andrews, is an Aussie! 

Ella Lucas is the principal of a struggling high school. She has come along way from her small home town, where everyone assumed that she would turn out just like her mum (or should I say mom!). She left town as early as she could with some scandalous rumours swirling in her aftermath.  Another person who has left that same home town behind is Jake Prince, He made it all the way to the NFL until he was forced to retire in mysterious circumstances.

The book opens with an encounter between Ella and Lucas when they both happen to be back in town. Ella is there for her mother's funeral and Jake for his father. They both have long term parent issues and both can't wait to get back out of town as soon as possible. That is a little bit complicated for Ella as it turns out that she has a brother that she didn't even know about who is now her responsibility. 

Fast forward two years, Ella's school is in danger of being closed down completely. After running into Jake at his newly opened sports bar, one of her friends suggests that one way she could help the school is to set up a football program. If they were successful it could raise the profile of the school enough to save it. Who better to coach the team  than a retired superstar? Jake reluctantly agrees, but he has some conditions. The main one is there must be no media involvement. He wants no media. She needs a high profile success story. What could go wrong?

If having work issues is not enough, she also has to raise Cameron, her brother. He too has grown up with all the fallout from being his mother's son and he blames Ella for not saving him earlier. Luckily, Ella has some support in the form of her best friend Rosa, and her eccentric aunties. They are Ella's found family and biggest supporter. They know that Jake and Ella will be good for each other way before Jake and Ella know that for themselves.

I don't know much about high school football in America. I do know that it is unlikely that you would be able to set up a new football program and achieve the success required in such a short time. However it does make for a good story as you see the way that the team comes together, about the difference having pride in themselves and their school has on them.

I read quite a few romances from this publisher, Boldwood. Mostly they are second chance romances or escape lit, where the main characters move to locations like France or Italy. This book surprised me a bit as it is spicier than normal. Maybe there are other spicier books on the publisher's list, but I don't normally read them!

As I was writing this review, I happened to see the copyright information and found out that this is actually a rework of an early book called Holding Out for a Hero. Guess what? I read this book 11 years during the phase I was talking about in my opening paragraph! It has been revised and it definitely feels fresh, fun and contemporary! This version is the first time that the book has been released in the UK, so I am going to count this for the New Release Challenge hosted at The Chocolate Lady's Book Reviews.

My read on a theme book club chose the theme of Sports at their last meeting, so this will be my choice for that as well.

Thanks to the publisher, Netgalley and Rachel's Random Resources for the review copy.

About the book:

Look What You Made Me Do

A disgraced football star, a high school in need of saving and a reunion too hot to handle

Headteacher Ella Lucas and football star Jake Prince have a very complicated history! Their mind-blowing encounter two years ago is proving impossible to forget now Jake is back, in her small town after being kicked out of the NFL.

She knew he was trouble then, but Ella has enough on her plate without having to worry about Jake Prince. Her school’s on the brink of closure, and she needs help. Then it dawns on her that maybe they can benefit each other - in more ways than one! Ella will help Jake to restore his disgraced reputation, if he can coach the football team to a winning streak. With nothing to lose, Jake reluctantly agrees....

As the school season heats up so does the inevitable chemistry between them. Far from being stuck in the past, the sparks between them are still there. And although he may look like her next mistake, Ella is determined that she will keep her hands off Mr Anti-hero even though she has an itch longing to be scratched. Because Ella's has one golden rule: this is strictly business, they are never ever getting back together....

Purchase Link - https://mybook.to/lookwhatyousocial

About the author:

Amy Andrews is an award-winning, USA Today best-selling, Aussie author who has written eighty-nine contemporary romances. Her books bring all the feels from sass, quirk and laughter to emotional grit and steam. She loves frequent travel, good books and great booze. For many years she was a registered nurse which means she knows things, anatomical things, and she’s not afraid to use them! Amy lives in a pretty little coastal town where she gets to stare at the ocean all day.

Social Media Links –  

Facebook: @AmyAndrewsAllStars

Twitter: @AmyAndrewsbooks

Instagram: @amyandrewsbooks

Bookbub profile: @AmyAndrews

Historical Fiction Reading Challenge - September links

 

Thank you to everyone who contributed a review in August  for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge. Currently there are more than 40 links for the month! I will be back in the next couple of weeks with the statistics for the month!

I am looking forward to reading your reviews throughout the rest of the year! I am sure there is going to be a lot of great historical fiction discovered and shared with fellow HF lovers over the course of this year!


If you haven't already signed up, it's not too late! The sign up post is here.

Just to recap what participants need to know. At the beginning of each month I will put up a post which will have a Mr Linky embedded into it for you to add your link.

Please remember...

• add the link(s) of your review(s) including your name and book title to the Mister Linky we’ll be adding to our monthly post (please, do not add your blog link, but the correct address that will guide us directly to your review). A direct link to your Goodreads review is also acceptable
• any kind of historical fiction is accepted (fantasy, young adult, graphic novels...)
• if you have time, have a look some of the other links that are present. You never know when you will discover new blogs or books!

You can also join the challenge group on Facebook which you can find here and don't forget to use the #histficreadingchallenge hashtag on the socials.

Let the reading begin!!

Weekend Cooking: What We Ate on Holiday - Scotland

Welcome to the Scottish leg of our trip. We actually have one more day here in Scotland before we head back to Australia via Hong Kong, and we have one more foodie experience today so I will talk about that a bit later.

Let's get the most obvious question answered first - yes, we tried haggis! More on that later.

After spending the week in London, we caught the train up to Edinburgh. It was so fast, only taking around 4 hours, so we had the afternoon to wander around the city. After having a truly terrible pizza at a place on the Royal Mile for lunch, we took a slow stroll up the hill. We were fortunate enough to be here right at the end of the Edinburgh festival, so there was a great atmosphere with part of the street closed off, street performer, touts for comedy shows and just generally some great opportunities for people watching. For dinner we had really great Thai at one of the newer shopping centres in town.

The reason why we came to Edinburgh before our tour though was to go to the Military Tattoo which was an amazing experience. It had been quite warm during the day, but we did get absolutely drenched when the rain started falling about half way through the show! These days the tattoo is not just about your traditional style of pipers, dancers, military bands etc, those were still the highlights for me. Overall it was an amazing experience that I have grateful to have been at. If we never have the opportunity to go again that will be okay, but if we do have the chance to go again I would jump at it!

Here's a taster

When we were planning what to do on the Saturday, we wanted to do something outside of Edinburgh as we knew we were coming back as part of the trip. We therefore chose to do a day trip to Hadrian's Wall. As our guide said, we came to Scotland only to then go back to England!

Our first stop was in a pretty town called Jedburgh, which has a ruined abbey (not the last ruins we would see in this part of the trip) but also has a museum about Mary Queen of Scots, who spent some time in the town.

We then crossed the border and stopped at Steel Rigg which is part of the wall, and then onto a Roman site called Vindolanda. Vindolanda was a Roman fort which pre-dated the wall, and is an ongoing archeological dig. It was very interesting. After a final stop at the wall, we headed back to Edinburgh, we had Italian for dinner. 

The next day we hired a car for the day to go from Edinburgh to Glasgow. It really only takes an hour but we chose to go and explore a bit. We started at Falkirk where we visited The Kelpies and also visited the Falkirk Wheel. We were hoping to go on the wheel but unfortunately it was booked out, so we just had to watch. What a fascinating piece of engineering this is. It replaces many locks with one single contraption where the canal boats sail into a cradle, which then transports the boat down to the lower level of water, and then the boat sails off along the canal.

At the Kelpies we tried something new to us called tiffin. It's a chocolate slice with biscuit chunks in. We have something very similar at home which we call Chocolate Hedgehogs. Whatever your call it, it was delicious.

We then visited the battle site at Bannockburn and then headed to Glasgow to meet our tour. The next morning we had a tour of Glasgow and some time to wander around and then we headed to Stirling Castle which I absolutely loved! I could easily have spent more time there. 

On the way to Edinburgh we stopped in the lovely village of Culross and then to our hotel for a quick refresh and then we chose to go on an optional inclusion which was a Spirit of Scotland dinner. At this event there were dancers, a piper, a fiddler and a piano accordion and we were treated to lots of traditional Scottish music...and yes...food!

The evening started with the piping in of the haggis, and then the address to the haggis.

We then got to taste haggis. Now I have had haggis before so I did know what to expect but not everyone in our group did. Whilst I wouldn't choose to eat haggis if it was on a menu it is okay to eat. We then had a three course meal. My starter was a fig and strawberry thing (not sure how traditional that it but never mind) and then Cullen Skink Pie (which is a fish pie) and then Cranachan for dessert, which is whipped cream, oats and raspberries - delicious! It was a fun night.

The next day we visited Edinburgh castle. We had quite a bit of free time here so we were able to wander around, visit the various parts of the castle, visit a couple of the regimental museums as well as the Scottish National Military museum.

We then went to the Royal Britannia yacht to see how the royal family lived when they were basically on holidays. We headed straight for the tea rooms and had scones and clotted cream and then finished wandering around the boat, including this very impressive formal dining room. We could have easily spent more time on the yacht.

After this, we headed to an Italian restaurant in the city, for what was probably the best meal of the tour. Some of the hotel food was pretty average. I will say,  it surprises me how much fish I ate on this trip.

From Edinburgh we headed to the highlands, with stops at St Andrews where we saw the golf course and then walked to the ruined castle and cathedral, the to the spa town of Pitlochrie which was gorgeous, and a visit to Culloden.

The next day we visiting the town of Ullapool where we had Scottish Seafood Soup and then onto Loch Ness where we searched to no avail for Nessie, and then we visited a small town on the Isle of Skye before heading back to Glasgow via Glenfinnan (home to the Harry Potter viaduct), Glen Coe and Loch Lomond.

I literally have hundreds of photos of mountains and lochs that I could share but this post is already way too long. Today, we are visiting a museum and then going for afternoon tea, and then tomorrow we make our way to Hong Kong, but I could definitely see ourselves coming back to Scotland to explore some more.

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home pa

Blog Tour: The Map Maker's Promise by Catherine Law

I was supposed to post this last week but I am travelling and we have been having trouble getting the laptop to connect to wi-fi, so apologies for being late.

Clare has a good job working at the BBC, but when she finds herself compromised by a married man, her parents disown her due to the shame, without making any effort to understand what happened. Pregnant and alone, she moves to Scotland to live with her sister until the baby comes. However, soon after, she finds herself called upon by a former colleague asking her to come and do her part for the war effort.

This means leaving behind her baby, Mirren, with her sister and her husband to look after, but at least Clare knows that she will be safe in the last house on the lochan. Anne and Allistair are good people, and she knows that they will take good care of Mirren, especially seeing as they have not been able to have children of their own. There are also some other people who Clare will be sad to leave behind, including the friendly postmaster, Cal McInnis.

I have read quite a few books about women who helped break the codes at Bletchley, but this is the first time I have read anything about the kind of work that Clare does, which is about taking existing maps, and adding in the new information that is obtained  from spy photographs. These new maps are then going to be used to determine targets for bombing runs. This work was done in the house of the former British prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli.

Clare is good at her job, but she is very aware that the work that she is doing is contributing to the death of many people, and this is something that weigh's heavily on her. Combined with the lasting impact of the events which led to her pregnancy, Clare is somewhat emotionally fragile.

Fast forward to the 1980s and Mirren is trying to deal with her past and how it has impacted her present. She knows that Clare is her mother, but she has very few memories of her, and the only tangible link she has is a pair of earrings. When she is given some letters she finally begins to understand her full story, but is it possible for these new truths to help her put her own life back together.

I love a good dual time but I am concious that they don't always work. This one did.  I understood Mirren's feelings of being abandoned and how that impacted on her relationships through her life. I also really loved the 1980's references sprinkled throughout the book. For example, at one point Mirren and her husband sit down to watch the Band-Aid concerts which was a fun detail.

The timing for me to read this book was also fortuitous as I started to read this book just before landing in the UK, and now, as I write this review, we are just about to start our tour of Scotland which will take us into the Highlands.

I hadn't read Catherine Law before but I will definitely read more from her as I really enjoyed her storytelling. 

Thanks to the publisher, Netgalley and Rachel's Random Resourses for the review copy of this book. I am sharing this review with the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge which I host, and also with the New Release Challenge hosted at The Chocolate Lady's Book Review blog.

About the book

The Map Maker’s Promise

One night, everything changed…

It is yet another night of air raids, and instead of heading to the basement of her London workplace – risking being in the same vicinity as him, the man who hurt her in the worst way possible – nineteen-year-old Clare runs to the first place she can think of…

… and makes a decision that will haunt her for the rest of her life.

Over a year later, and Clare is heartbroken to be saying goodbye to her newborn Mirren. Leaving her in the care of her sister, in the remotest – and therefore safest – village in Scotland, she heads back south to take up the position of mapmaker in the Air Ministry department.

The work is tough, and Clare struggles with the fact she has a direct hand in hurting the enemy – hurting people. Combined with the guilt for leaving her sweet angel behind, the dark thoughts could destroy her… or make her stronger than ever.

A heart-breaking tale of love, loss, and redemption, this is a moving and poignant story of motherhood and the complexities of healing in the aftermath of war.

Purchase Link - https://mybook.to/mapmakersocial

About the author

Catherine Law writes dramatic romantic novels set in the first half of the 20th century, during the First and Second World Wars. Her books are inspired by the tales our mothers and grandmothers tell. Originally a journalist, Catherine lives in Kent.

Social Media Links –

Facebook: @catherinelawbooks

Twitter: @AuthorCathLaw

Instagram: @catherinelawauthor

Newsletter Sign Up: https://bit.ly/CatherineLawNews

Bookbub profile: @lawcatherine