This week....

I'm reading

And just like that August is over, winter is over for another year and spring has sprung. Well, actually it's still pretty cold today but it should start to warm up a little bit. We are certainly seeing quite a few blossoms starting to appear on the trees.

I have had a pretty busy reading and a very wintery reading week which might be appropriate given that it was the last week of winter. I read Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson which was a whole heap of fun. It is set in the Australian Alps during the winter so there was a lot of snow.

I then read A Winter Wedding Adventure by Leonie Mack which is the second book in the Wedding Adventures series and was set in the Italian Alps. so plenty of snow  I also read Meet Me Under the Northern Lights by Mandy Baggot which is for a blog tour this week. This one was set in Iceland. And yes, there was snow.

We don't get snow where I live but I certainly read a lot about snow this week!

In non snow related reading I read The Mad Women's Ball by Victoria Mas which was a fascinating French historical fiction novel. I really enjoyed this one.

I also started The Magic of Lemon Drop Pie by Rachel Linden. It's due back at the library so I am not sure if I will get it finished or not. I hope so.

Yesterday I also started reading The Last Love Note by Emma Grey and it was a real push to get it read so that I could count it as one of my Aussie August reads. I only just made it but it was so worth the effort!

This week I finished listening to Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt, which is an audiobook experience I would highly recommend. I loved the way that Marcellus the Octopus was voiced and I was pleased to learn that the same guy is going to be giving Marcellus a voice in the upcoming movie! 

I started listening to Daughters of Batavia which is a debut novel by Australian author Stefanie Koens. I I have long been fascinated by the story of the Batavia shipwreck. It does always take me a little while to get used to listening to Australian audiobooks but I think I am getting there now. 

Books let our imaginations travel where our feet cannot - Nora Nguyen

Here's where I travelled this month through books

Australia 

Sydney - One Hundred Years of Betty 

Canberra - The Last Love Note

The Alps - Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone

Americas

Washington DC - The Briar Club

Washington State - Remarkably Bright Creatures

Asia 

Japan - The Library of Heartbeats, The Convenience Store by the Sea, Butter

Europe 

England - The Summer Before the War, Will You Stay Another Day?, The Midnight Bakery The Girl from the War Room, The Friendship List

Italy - Glorious Exploits, The Florence Sisters, A Winter Wedding Advenuture

Scotland - The Whisky Widow

Austria  - So This is Christmas

France - The Mad Women's Ball

Iceland -  Meet Me Under the Stars

August was an exceptional reading month both from a numbers and quality wise and to be honest I am a bit shocked. I managed to read 20 books this month, which is surprising since I went back to work full time early in the month.I truly expected my reading to drop right off, and yet it didn't really. And then of those books I rated half of them as either 4.5 or 5 star reads Here are the books that rated either 4.5 or 5 out of 5 with the first three books being 5/5 reads. 

I'm watching

We watched an older superhero movie called Bloodshot with Vin Diesel last night. It was supposed to be the first in a series based on the Valiant comics. It wasn't bad. I've certainly seen worse. It doesn't appear that any more movie set in this world got made though.

We did watch The Thursday Murder Club on Saturday night, and really enjoyed it. It has a phenomenal British cast including Dame Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Richard E Grant, David Tenant and more. It had a good storyline and I did laugh several times. Here's the trailer:

On Sunday night we watched a documentary movie called The Last Journey which tells the story of a Swedish man who takes his dad on a driving adventure to France in a bid to try and shake him out of is post retirement blues. Along the way he learns that ageing is something that is inevitable and can't just be shaken off. I have seen it before at the cinema a while ago and it was just as lovely the second time around.

Life

On Tuesday night we went to see Keith Urban's High and Alive tour. I think this is maybe the ninth or tenth time I have seen him and he was great as always! He always puts on such a great show!

Have you ever done DNA testing. I did mine this week, and I was a bit surprised by. The test says  that I am only 3% Welsh and 14% Germanic. Given that I believed that my mother's father was Welsh, it is something of a surprise. And I have no idea where the Germanic comes in. Guess I will have to start looking to see what I can find!

Posts from the last week


Top Ten Tuesday: Aussie August 2025
Blog Tour: So This is Christmas by Helen Rolfe
One Hundred Years of Betty by Debra Oswald
The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson
Weekend Cooking: The Midnight Bakery by Emma Davies
Sunday Salon: 3 Mini Reviews for Women in Translation Month
Historical Fiction Reading Challenge: September links

I've linked this post to It's Monday, what are you reading? as hosted by Book Date, Sunday Salon hosted at Readerbuzz and the Good Book and a Cup of Tea link up hosted at Boondock Ramblings