This week

I'm reading

It's been a couple of weeks as we have been on holidays but now we are back so it is time to catch up on everything I have read while I was away.

The first book I read was The Tea Planter's Wife by Dinah Jeffries which I chose to read because it is set in Sri Lanka which is one of the places we were going. I carried this book half way around the world with me to try and get a photo of it in a fitting location. It took a couple of attempts but the photo above was taken in front of tea bushes.

Then I read several review books which are all due to be reviewed this week so now I need to get cracking on writing the reviews. Those books were Escape to the Northern Lights by Carrie Walker, A Family for Christmas in Pelican Crossing by Maggie Christensen, A Christmas Gift by Sue Moorcroft and Saving Starlight Hall by Debbie Viggiano

I then read The Lucky Sisters by Rachel Johns which is also a review book but not a blog tour book!

Finally I started reading Dear Mrs Bird by A J Pearce just for fun, and so far it is! I can't wait to read it and I am pretty sure I will be picking up the next book in the series as well.

In October I read a total of 11 books. While most of them were good reads which I gave a rating of 4/5 stars there was nothing that I rated as a 5/5 read. I do want to specifically call out The Lucky Sisters by Rachael Johns which was the only book that I gave a rating of 4.5/5 stars to.

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

Here's where I travelled through books in October

Europe

The Netherlands - A New Life in Amsterdam by Helga Jensen

Lots of countries - Last Stop on the Winter Wonderland Express by Rebecca Raisin

 - Escape to the Northern Lights by Carrie Walker

UK - A Christmas Gift by Sue Moorcroft, Saving Starlight Hall by Debbie Viggiano

America

Minnesota - Heidi's Guide to Four Letter Words by Tara Sivec and Andi Arndt

New York - Christmas on Fifth Avenue by Julie Caplin

Asia

Sri Lanka - The Tea Planter's Wife by Dinah Jeffries

Australia

Queensland - A Family for Christmas in Pelican Crossing by Maggie Christensen

Western Australia - The Lucky Sisters by Rachael Johns

Before moving on I wanted to acknowledge the sad new of the passing of Christopher Gortner, who wrote as C W Gortner. I have read a number of his books over the years and loved most of them. I first met him on the forums at Historical Fiction Online which must have been 22 years or so ago. Since then I have been Facebook friends with him. He was articulate and opinionated and far to young to have passed. RIP Christopher. 

I'm watching

I've pretty much been watching the world go by and watching sunsets. This photo was taken from the sunset cruise we did on our last night in The Maldives. I didn't even watch a movie on the plane even though they were quite long flights.

On Saturday night we watched Operation Mincemeat which was quite interesting. It has quite a few big names from British cinema in it but the main two are Colin Firth and Matthew MacFadyen. The story tells of how sending a body carrying fake papers was the key to the successful landing of the Allied forces in Sicily in WWII. Here's the trailer

Life

We had an amazing time in Sri Lanka and the Maldives. We stayed in some amazing hotels, ate some great food and saw some amazing sites. I will try and share some photos across the next couple of weeks. One downside was that my phone died on day two of our trip so my husband's phone became our phone. Hopefully mine can be fixed without losing all my data as I have lots of photos from our last couple of trips on there that I never quite got around to downloading.

It was our sixth wedding anniversary the day after we got home. We didn't do much this weekend but we are doing a fun meal next weekend to celebrate.

Posts since my last This Week post



Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Have Returned to the Library Unread
Weekend Cooking: Dish Podcast
Spell the Month in Books: October
Top Ten Tuesday: Arches and Windows
Blog Tour: Christmas on Fifth Avenue by Julie Caplin
Weekend Cooking: Making Couscous

Top Ten Tuesday: Books with Weather Events in the Title

Historical Fiction Reading Challenge: November Links

Weekend Cooking: In My Kitchen - October

Six Degrees of Separation: We Have Always Lived in a Castle to The Girl Who Chased the Moon

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