Top Ten Tuesday: May Flowers

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week's theme is May Flowers - Pick your own title for this one to reflect the direction you choose to go with this prompt (books with flowers on the cover, flower names in the title, characters whose names are flower names, stories involving flowers/gardeners).

Here are some flowers that I have received this week!

Back in April, the theme was April Showers and rather than do showers, I thought I would share 10 years worth of April reads. I thought I would do the same with this week's theme. So here are 10 books I read in May over the last few years.

2024 - The Shakespeare Sisters by Juliet Greenwood - I am currently reading this book. I have the second book in the series to read soon too.

2023 - The War Nurses by Anthea Hodgson - I really liked this one when I read it last year.

2023 - A Taste of Italian Sunshine by Leonie Mack - The first book I read by Leonie Mack was set in Paris, this one in the vineyards of Italy, and the last one in the mountains of France. I already have the next book to read by her and this one is set in Spain

2022 - The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles - This was a long, but enjoyable read.

2021 - The Dressmakers of Yarrandarah Prison by Meredith Jaffe - this one is a 5/5 read for me!

2021 - All Systems Red by Martha Wells - I don't read a lot of sci-fi but this series is a lot of fun!

2020  - The Postmistress by Alison Stuart - Australian historical fiction set in a fictitious town inspired by an actual town a few hours away from me that I would love to visit

2020 - The Good Turn by Dervla McTiernan- I do mix things up a little bit genre wise! This is crime fiction!

2019 - The Flat Share by Beth O'Leary - Still the best book by this author that I have read.

2018 - Templar Silks by Elizabeth Chadwick - This is one of my favourite historical fiction authors and yet I don't often read her. Must rectify that!

Top Ten Tuesday: Second Book in a Series

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week is a freebie so I can choose what I like. A few weeks ago now the topic was Dynamic Duos. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to do that topic so I decided instead to do a twist on the topic by playing on the idea of duo meaning two  and do second books in a series. Often, we all remember the first book in a series, but not so much the second book, although that isn't always true.

Silent in the Sanctuary by Deanna Raybourn - Lady Julia Grey series.

The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett - Discworld series

Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon - Outlander series

The Life She Chooses by Maggie Christensen - Granite Springs series

Artificial Condition by Martha Wells - Murderbot Diaries

Secrets of the Railway Girls by Maisie Thomas - Railway Girls series

The Storm Sister by Lucinda Riley - Seven Sisters series

The Endless Beach by Jenny Colgan - Mure series

The Scholar by Dervla McTiernan- Cormac Reilly 

To Say Nothing of the Dog - Oxford Time Travel

What topic did you choose to do this week?

Top Ten Tuesday: Books with no words

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week the topic is Books Too Good to Review Properly (I have no words!) (Submitted by Dedra @ A Book Wanderer). I have decided instead to do a twist on this and do Books with No Words. Now it's not that the books don't have words, it's just that I listened to them and so I didn't actually do the reading.


So, here are the last ten books I listened to on audio.

Taste: My Life in Food by Stanley Tucci- read by Tucci himself. Very enjoyable.

Before the Coffee Goes Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi (translated by Geoffrey Trousselot) - Right now I am all about short, engaging audiobooks and this one fits the bill. I think that the follow up book to this will be my next audiobook.

The Hogfather by Terry Pratchett - Listened to this just before Christmas. Thinking I might do that again too.

The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley  - One of my all time favourite books

The Sun Sister by Lucinda Riley - Part of the Seven Sisters series. I have listened to them all on audio.

The Roommate by Dervla McTiernan - Connected to the Cormac O'Reilly mystery series.

Normal People by Sally Rooney - You don't notice things like missing speach quotation marks when you are listening to a book instead of reading it.

The Switch by Beth O'Leary - One of the narrators of this book was Daisy Edgar-Jones who starred in the TV adapttion of Normal People.

The Good Turn by Dervla McTiernan - This is another of the books in the Cormac O'Reilly series. I think I have listened to them all on audio too.

The Bookshop on the Shore by Jenny Colgan - I enjoy Jenny Colgan's books and this is another author who I tend to read on audio instead of reading the book.

Have you listened to any of these?

Top Ten Tuesday: Most Anticipated Books Releasing In the First Half of 2022

 

 

 

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week the theme is Most Anticipated Books Releasing in the First Half of 2022. 

An Island Wedding by Jenny Colgan (May) - Can't wait to revisit Mure!

Book Lovers by Emily Henry (May) - I have enjoyed both of Emily Henry's previous books and expect the same with this book!

Again, Rachel by Marian Keyes (February)- It will be very interesting to revisit the Walsh family after all this time.

The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn (March) - The Rose Code was one of my favourite reads of last year so I am really looking forward to this one.

A Caravan Like a Canary by Sasha Wasley (March)- I haven't read last year's book by this author yet, but that doesn't stop me looking forward to this one.

Snowy Mountain Cattleman by Alissa Callen (February) - I loved the first book in this series!

The Murder Rule by Dervla McTiernan (May) - It will be interesting to see how this book is as the author is moving away from her previous series which is set in Ireland. This book is set in the US.

The No-Show by Beth O'Leary (April) - Reminds me that I haven't read her last book yet.

One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle (March) - I haven't read any of this author's books but I do think they all sound good. This one sounds particularly good!

The Italian Island by Daniela Sacerdoti (January) - I loved The Lost Village by this author. I do have a couple of other books by her to read too.

What new books are you looking forward to?

Reading Reflections: August 2020

I a little bit surprised to see that I read quite so many books this month. But I do need to be honest and confess that a couple of these were quite short!

You Were Made for Me by Jenna Guillaume - 4/5 (Australian)

A super fun read where a couple of young girls create the perfect boy!  Read my review here.

The Switch by Beth O'Leary - 4/5 (Audiobook)

As soon as I saw that this was available as part of Netgalley's new offering of audiobooks and their app. I enjoyed the book and the performance but the app was a bit glitchy. Read my review here.

The Roommate by Dervla McTiernan - 4/5 (Australian Authors)

This is a prequel to the Cormac Reilly series, featuring a young garda Cormac Reilly as he investigates a murder in Dublin. This one is/was available from Audible for free for members.

The Secrets of Saffron Hall by Clare Marchant - 4/5

Ooopss. I swear I had posted the review for this book but it seems that maybe I only wrote this in my head. Must get onto writing it for real. I love a good dual timeline, and a story of a building with a long hidden history and this book had both!

Matilda Next Door by Kelly Hunter - 4/5 (Australian author)

I really enjoy Kelly Hunter's books at the best of times, and I have previously enjoyed all the books set in the small town of Wirralong. This is the first book in the new quartet called the Outback Brides Return to Wirralong. I am really looking forward to reading the last two books!

Maeve's Baby by Fiona Macarthur - 3.5/5 (Australian author)

No I didn't make a mistake in the last paragraph. I already read the second book in the quartet. I actually completely forgot that I preordered this entire series so it was something of a surprise when this one dropped onto my Kindle, but I did enjoy reading both off these stories over the course of one weekend.

The Last Charm by Ella Allbright (3.5/5)

This is one where I knew that I haven't yet finished the review. I mean I have an opening paragraph, I have a bit near the middle and some of the ending. Just need to fill in the gaps really! Watch this space.

The Deadly Hours by Susanna Kearsley, Anna Lee Huber, Christine Trent and CS Harris (4/5)

This is a collection of  4 stories that follows a cursed watch through history from the 1700s through to the 1940s. I read this because I love Susanna Kearsley, and this story actually feature characters from a couple of her previous books. I enjoyed the last two books but the Anna Lee Huber was the one I enjoyed the most. It clearly is part of a series, and I don't read series out of order but still!

I am linking my post up to the Monthly Wrap up which is hosted at Feed Your Fiction Addiction

This week....

I'm reading...

This week my middle of the night read was The Secrets of Saffron Hall by Clare Marchant. I love a good dual timeline book, especially one where there is an old building filled with secrets, so this book ticks all my boxes. What I had forgotten between the time when I requested this book and when I started reading it was that this is a novel that is set in Tudor times. Back in the day I used to read a lot of Tudor books until I got to the point where I was all Tudored out and it has become much rarer for me to choose to read a book set in this era. This isn't set in the court of Henry VIII but rather in a wealthy Catholic merchant's home, so I assume we are going to be learning more about the dissolution of the monasteries. So far I am enjoying it. I will confess that ones of the reasons I wanted to read this book is because of the cover!

I finished my last audiobook, so I thought that I would listen to the new audio short story that has been released by Dervla McTiernan. It is called The Roommate, and it features a very young garda Cormac Reilly as he investigates a young woman's murder. There is another of these short audio stories available on Audible called The Sisters which I read a while ago now. It's a good way to get a taste of Dervla  McTiernan's writing and to put yourself back in Cormac Reilly's world for just a couple of hours. 

I guess I need to line up my next audiobook given that this one is only just over 2 hours long.

I'm watching...

I mentioned last week that we had started watching a South African series called Trackers. Originally we were just going to watch each new episode weekly as they were released,but we were looking for something else and found the whole series on yet another streaming service. We therefore watched the whole series, and I have to say it was really good. The first episode was a bit slow while they introduced all the characters but after that the series moved at a good pace. The end of the series is definitely set up for a second season, which I guess is par for course these days. I would definitely watch a second series though. I had read one of the books that this series is loosely based on but I would like to read more.

After finishing that we were looking for another series to watch, and we ended up on deciding to start watching series 2 of The Marvelous Mrs Maisel and ended up watching three episodes. We did particularly enjoy watching the first two episodes which were partially set in Paris. Felt a bit like an extension to Paris In July.

This week....

The bad news this week was that we have had to cancel our trip to Uluru in mid September. We booked this weekend away months ago because it is a place that neither of us have ever been to before and it is on our must do list.  We will rebook when we can but for now we don't really have any idea of when we are going to be able to leave our state again as a lot of the state borders are closed to Victorians right now. Luckily the hotel was super quick in refunding. I still have to contact the airline as I think they will only offer vouchers but we will see what happens.

Despite not being able to leave home due to being in Lockdown2.0 we did still have a good weekend. I attended a number of Melbourne Writers Festival sessions and I have a few more to attend this week. I also tried something new this week. I made macarons. I've never done that before so it was a bit nerve wracking, but overall I am happy with how they turned out, even if they do look a little bit like minions!

The other thing that happened this week is that I reached my Goodreads Reading Challenge total! This has surprised me because I haven't reached this number of books for years. I have now revised my target to 75, which is still a long way from my reading hey day of around 250 books in a year, but you know what, I am happy with that. My life is a lot more balanced than it previously was.

Don't forget you can now follow my blog on Facebook here.

Posts from the last week

Top Ten Tuesday: Books with Colour in the Title
Bookish Quotes: Real Art
Weekend Cooking: P is for Pizza
Review: Tiny White Lies
Sunday Salon: MWF Digital Week 1

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

Top Ten Tuesday: 10th Birthday edition

Happy birthday to Top Ten Tuesday! 10 years this week. That's quite a run. Top Ten Tuesday originally started at The Broke and the Bookish but then moved to The Arty Reader Girl in 2018. This week there are a couple of suggested topics, but there is also the freedom to improvise a bit.

While I had been aware of Top Ten Tuesday, I didn't actually start participating until this year, and even then it isn't every week. So, in total, I have participated eleven times. So I thought that what I might do is post one book from every Top Ten Tuesday I have participated in, so in effect a Top Eleven of Top Tens!

The Good Turn by Dervla McTiernan - This was one of my choice for the first time I participated when the theme was most anticipated releases for the first half of 2020. I picked this book for today's because it is one that I have read and loved.

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell - Featured on my 10 newest additions to my TBR pile post back in February. It also featured on a couple of other lists which is why I have included it today.

The Sweet Life by Kate Bracks - For the book cover freebie topic in February I chose to spotlight some cookbooks off my shelf. This book has one of my favourite recipes in it -  Lemon Syrup Cakes. So lemony. So delicious..

The Moon Sister by Lucinda Riley - The theme this time was the books on my TBR I think will be 5/5 reads. I am currently listening to this book so the jury is still out. It's definitely good though. The question will be how good.

Lunch in Paris: A Love Story, with Recipes. by Elizabeth Bard -  This was a love freebie and I chose to do books with a variation of the word love in the title. And the reason I chose this today? Because I would love to be having lunch in Paris today. Even though it isn't possible for many many reasons.

Circe by Madeleine Miller - Featured in my list of books with one word titles. So good.

The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley - Just one of the many books I highlighted in my post about the top 10 reasons I love historical fiction. One of my favourite books of all time.

The Lost Love Song by Minnie Darke - The theme for the week that I chose this book was opening lines and I am sharing it today as this is probably my favourite book of the year. The opening line for this book is

The love song began it's life, not with a fanfare or a crash of cymbals, but instead with a knock at a door.

The Lost Pearl by Emily Madden - my theme for this post was I want to go there. In this case, there was Hawaii which has been on my visit list for a long time.

Henrietta's War by Joyce Dennys - This book featured in my list of books which had been lingering unread on my bookshelves and I couldn't remember why it was there. My post title was Maybe I should read it. And guess what. I did. And it was good!

Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo - This was one of my books on the winter 2020 TBR pile. It's still there, but I will get to it!

So there you go. A selection of books I have mentioned in the eleven times I have participated in Top Ten Tuesday.