This week....

I'm reading

This week I finished off my Goodreads Summer Reading Challenge by finishing reading One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle and then reading The Shampoo Effect by Jenny Jackson. Both of these were okay reads without being spectacular.

I also read Other Birds by Sarah Addison Allen which was a much more enjoyable read!

Now I am reading The Way We Are Now by Julie Houston for a blog tour later this week! It is set in the early 1980s in Yorkshire and so far it is really good! This is a new author to me.

This weekend it was my read on a theme book club meeting. Our theme was environment and interestingly two of us read the same book which was Wild Dark Shore and another person read another book by her as well! Next time we are doing our annual meeting where we do read the same book like most other  bookclubs. We will be reading A Far-Flung Life by M L Stedman. I am looking forward to reading that book!

I had a fun afternoon on Sunday afternoon when I went to an author event from Tess Woods where she was talking about her new book, The Cairo Bridal Shop. The cover on this book is gorgeous, and I am really looking forward to read it! I also got to have a delicious cocktail, listen to interesting conversation and meeting new people. There were a few people who didn't like some of the conversation because it was a bit political, but I didn't mind too much!

Before we look forward to September, I am going to take this opportunity to think about what my best reads were for the month of August. I read 15 books for the month and had some great reads. My one 5 star read was The Little Porto Book Club by Rebecca Raisin, but I also loved books Minnie Darke, B K Borison and the aforementioned Charlotte McConaghey.

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

Every month I also like to look at where I travelled through the pages of the books I read! Here's where I travelled in August

Europe

France - The Secret Dressmaker, Kate and Frida

Britain - Unruly: The Ridiculous History of England's Kings and Queens

Portugal - The Little Porto Book Club

Italy - Italy and Forever, The Secret Diary of Rome, One Italian Summer

Australia

Queensland - Finding Forever in Pelican Crossing

Antarctica (Australian territories) -  The Wild Dark Shore

Various states - Three Juliets

Africa 

Egypt - The Nile Cruise

America

Washington - Kate and Frida

Maryland - And Now, Back to You, Mixed Signals

Asia

Japan - The Vanishing Cherry Blossom Bookshop

I'm watching

Nothing new really.

Life

On Sunday afternoon we went and had a traditional afternoon tea at a place called Mary Eats Cake. It was a place that I had been looking forward to trying for a while!


Max

A couple of months ago we changed Max's medication, and he is obviously feeling pretty good! Yesterday we were all out, and so he was home by himself. He helped himself to a huge helping of pasta that my son had left on the cupboard. I was very surprised that he could stand up on his back two legs long enough to even eat a small bit let alone have a bit of a feast. Who knew!

Posts from the last week

Historical Fiction Reading Challenge - September links
Top Ten Tuesday: Books with Place Names in the Title
Three Juliets by Minnie Darke
Blog Tour: The Secret Diary of Rome by M A McLaughlin

In My Kitchen: August

Six Degrees: Wild Dark Shore to Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close



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

Six Degrees of Separation: Wild Dark Shore to Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

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 and A Good Book and a Cup of Tea hosted at Boondock Ramblings. 

This month the starting prompt start was to start with your book group’s current selection (or if you’re not in a book group, start with the book that you’re currently reading). my read on a theme book club theme this month was "environment" and I chose to read Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghey, so that is where I am starting this time!

My first link uses the word shore as the connection. Dawn on the Distant Shore by Sara Donati is the second book in the Into the Wilderness series.

Another shore, again distant, so my next selection is A Distant Shore by Peter Yeldham. 

My next connection only uses the word distant, and is The Distant Hours by Kate Morton

If I think about a different word for distant, I have the word far, so I have chosen The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton. To be fair, it was only as I found the cover that I realised that the title is Faraway and not Far Away.

The opposite of far is close, and so I have chosen The Mystery of Mercy Close by Marian Keyes. (review)

My final selection uses the word close as the link. My selection is Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer (review)

Next month, the starting point is Rachel Cusk’s latest novel, Life of M. Normally I find myself having an idea as soon as the prompt is revealed and I write the post straight away, but I must admit this time I am drawing a blank. Good job I have a month to think about it!

Will you be joining us next month?

Sunday Salon: Aussie authors mini reviews

My reviewing goal for the last couple of years has been to review all historical fiction and all Australian authors I read. It turns out I am a bit behind on both of these! August is also Aussie Author August so today I am doing two mini reviews for Aussie books I have read recently! I was going to be doing three mini reviews, but I had so much to say about the third book that it became a full review which I will post later this week!

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConnaghey

Confession time. I am part of a read on a theme book club. There are times when we are choosing the next theme that I may nominate themes that would force me to read something I already have on my schedule. This month is one of those months given that this book was one that I chose to read for a GR Summer Challenge prompt. The theme that we chose was "environment" which I feel would probably work for any of Charlotte McConaghy's books

When a woman is washed up on the shore of Shearwater Island, an isolated island not far from Antarctica, it complete turns the lives of the four inhabitants upside down. Once upon a time, this was an island that was home to many researchers, but now it is just home to Dominic Salt and his three children Raff, Fen and Orly. They too are packing up to leave. Their last task is to take the essential seeds from the world's largest seedbank to save them. The rest are going to be left to Mother Nature. Shearwater is now too dangerous for human occupation with the sea levels rapidly rising. 

As Dom and his family nurse the woman, Rowan, back to health, she begins to notice that there are a number of things that don't make sense. He's lying to her, and she doesn't know what about. Then again, she hasn't been honest about why she was trying so hard to get to Shearwater either. There are layer upon layer of secrets that need to unravel before we get to the end of the book

All of the characters in this book are damaged by various events from their lives, and we see them trying to make sense of the world that they love as it is being torn apart by forces outside their control. There is grief, a lot of grief, anger, feelings of betrayal at what they are being asked to and so much more.

Charlotte McConnaghey is an author who I have wanted to read for a while. Now that I have read one of her books I am absolutely going to have to go and read them all. I will say I was quite surprised by the ending of this book. I hope they don't all end in a similar way.

Everyone in this Bank is a Thief by Benjamin Stevenson

This is the fourth book in the Ernest Cunningham series and Ern and his partner Juliette find themselves at a private bank in a small country town. The reason they are there is that they have decided to set up a detective agency so that they can be paid for solving crimes. However, things take a turn when their visit to the bank turns into a hostage situation. It soon becomes clear that not everything is as it seems.

Given that they are all locked inside the bank, when a body is found, it is clear that someone inside the bank is a murderer, but who and why.

Right from page 1 we know that Ern has managed to get himself into another deadly situation. The question is, will he be able to survive long enough to tell us the whole story so we know exactly who the murderer was, and who stole what!

There was at least one decision that Ernie makes that made me go.....huh? Why would he do that! Some days I feel sorry for Juliette, but I guess that she knows what to expect from Ern by now!

I had nominated this as one of my 20 Books of Winter. Hopefully by the time we put together next year's list there will be another Ernest Cunningham that I can read and enjoy!