Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week is the theme is Book Series I Want to Catch Up On (or series you’d like to start)
I know that the prompt says series I want to catch up on or start, but I am simplifying it to the most recent books I have read that are part of a series
Heartstrings series by B K Borison -And Now Back to You - I am reading a couple of different series by B K Borison at the moment. This is the second book in the Heartstrings series.
Cruise Escapes series by Caroline James - The Nile Cruise - This also has another cruise based series by this author called Diamond Star Cruises.
Pelican Crossing series by Maggie Christensen - Finding Forever in Pelican Crossing was the ninth book in this series.
Threads of Resistance series by Jenny O'Brien - The Secret Dressmaker is the second book in this series featuring undercover agents in Paris in WWII.
Wartime Librarians series by Kate Thompson - This isn't linked as a series on Goodreads but there are three books connected by theme and some characters. Recently this author announced a new librarians book and she called it the wartime librarians series so I am counting it! The most recent book I read was The Secret Society of Librarians.
Holiday Romance series by Carrie Walker - Escape to the Turquoise Seas is the fourth book in the Holiday Romance series. I haven't read books 1 or 2 yet. I do normally try to read series in order.
The Millbrook series by Hannah Claire - The Book Lovers Bucket List is on Amazon as being part of the Millbrook series
The Ernest Cunningham series by Benjamin Stevenson - Everyone in this Bank is a Thief is the fourth book in the series. I am now all caught up with the Ernest Cunningham series.
Head Over Wheels duology by Leonie Mack - Don't Brake My Heart is the second book in the duology which features professional cyclists.
The Italian Legacy trilogy by Sue Moorcroft - Secrets of the Italian Guesthouse is the first book in the trilogy which is set on the shores of Lake Como.
When Flora Toussaint was a young woman she found herself in the unhappy predicament of being pregnant to an older man. After giving birth to twin girls, she reluctantly hands them over to their father and flees to Ireland with no intention of ever returning to France.
Fast forward 18 years, Flora is now working in a parachute factory in WWII when she is approached by British intelligence. They suspect the girl's father, famous couturier Lucien Lumineau, is a collaborator. More alarmingly, one of her daughters has disappeared.
Taking the opportunity to leave her unhappy marriage, Flora finds herself living in a room above a brothel, her nearest neighbour is a singer named Edith (as in Piaf) and she is tasked with finding out whether Lucien is indeed a collaborator. It also gives her the chance to find out what happened to her daughters. She had believed that Lucien was raising both of their daughters with his glamourous wife Sabine, but it turns out the truth was very different.
Whilst working in the wardrobe department at the famous Moulin Rouge, Flora is able to use her skills as a seamstress to not only help maintain the gorgeous costumes but she also helps develop an ingenious way of delivering messages across enemy lines using a simple code. With the help of her Paris contact, a Paris wine merchant, she is able to work out her own complicated history and maybe find a future. It won't be without danger and challenges though!
There is a lot that happens in this book, and at least two things that I was surprised by. I was also a bit surprised when I realised that there was a character from the previous book, The Resistance Knitting Club which I reviewed here, that played a key role in this book. Don't let that worry you though. I didn't make the connection until I was looking to see if Tomas had appeared in the earlier book or not.
I mentioned Edith Piaf but she isn't the only big name cameo to make an appearance. Lucien's work as a designer brings him into contact with the great, the good and the not so good in Paris!
I am already looking forward to the next book in this series. If I was to hazard a guess, I think the next book might feature Marguerette and it might feature crocheting! Of course, I could be wrong!
I am sharing this review with New Release Challenge hosted at The Chocolate Lady's Book Review Blog and the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge which I host here. This is also one of the books I nominated for 20 Books of Winter. Thanks to the publisher, Netgalley and Rachel's Random Resources for the review copy. Be sure to check out other stops on the blog tour below.
Rating 4/5
About the Book
The Secret Dressmaker
Shelves of sequins in a kaleidoscope of colours. Bolts of silk and tulle against the back wall. The sewing room was the last place anyone had seen her daughter alive.
Northern Ireland, 1942. Flora Toussaint packs parachutes for the RAF, haunted by the twin daughters she was forced to give up eighteen years ago. When British intelligence shows her photographs of her girls – now young women in occupied Paris – her world shifts. One is safe. One has vanished. And their father, the celebrated couturier Lucien Lumineau, is suspected of collaborating with the Nazis.
Flora agrees to a dangerous mission: parachute into France, pose as a seamstress at the Moulin Rouge, and uncover the truth. Lodging above a brothel where Edith Piaf sings after hours and where Pablo Picasso still holds court, she mends costumes between shows, searches for any trace of her missing daughter between curfews, and circles closer to Lucien.
But Lucien isn’t the man she remembers. Neither is their history. And what Flora discovers will unravel everything she thought she knew – about Lucien, about her daughters, and about the night she gave them away.
A sweeping tale of wartime Paris, family secrets and impossible choices. Fans of Kate Quinn, Pam Jenoff and Kristin Hannah will be mesmerised by The Secret Dressmaker.
Jenny O’Brien writes complex thrillers and heartbreaking historical fiction, as well as intriguing romances. Silent Cry, initially self published, topped the Amazon kindle chart in both the UK and the USA. Most of her books have followed suit.
Jenny has over 40 years experience as a qualified nurse. She turned to creative writing as a hobby when her children were born. Now, 20 years later, she's retired from the day job to focus on writing. She's currently working on the third book in the Threads Series.
Born in Ireland, she now lives in Guernsey with her husband and children.
Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week is a cover freebie! (Pick any topic related to book covers. You can make up your own topic or pick one from the list of previous ones!)
I am choosing to go with books that have that word Secret or Secrets on the cover. The reason why I have chosen this is because Secrets was the theme for my read on a theme book club and I was able to read a lot of books that met this theme, and several of them even had the word secret in the title.
So here are the last ten books I have read with either of these words in the title!
The Secret Dressmaker by Jenny O'Brien - A WWII story set in Paris. My review for this book will be up in the next couple of days.
The Secret Society of Librarians by Kate Thompson - This is another WWII story, this time set in London, and it was a 5/5 read
Secrets of the Italian Guesthouse by Sue Moorcroft - The secrets in this book are the family type! (my review)
Everyone this Christmas has a Secret by Benjamin Stevenson - The first of a couple of Christmas secrets! (mini review)
The Secret Christmas Library by Jenny Colgan - This one involves searching for a secret in a Scottish castle at Christmas
The Secrets of the Huon Wren by Claire van Ryn - This is another book about family secrets, including a hidden identity. It is predominantly set in Tasmania. (my review)
A Secret Garden in Paris by Sophie Beaumont - This book had a map to guide you around some hidden gardens in Paris (my review)
Secrets Beneath a Riviera Sky by Jennifer Bohnet - I do enjoy a book about family secrets, but even moreso when it is set on the French Riviera (my review)
The Secrets of the Rose by Nicola Cornick - A dual timeline where the secrets that are being revealed are from the past (my review)
An Italian Island Secret by Victoria Springfield - Set on a small island off the coast of Italy, this book has a touch of Hollywood glamour! (my review)
Welcome to August! And yes, in my head I am thinking how did that happen!
It was a pretty normal reading week for me. I finished a book I had started last week, finished a couple of books and started a couple more! Seems to be my regular pattern at the moment.
The book that I had started last week was Summer at the French Bakery by Jo Thomas. As you might guess from the title it is about a woman who moves to France and starts a bakery. It was also the last book I reviewed for this year's Paris in July! My review is here.
I then had a complete change of pace. I used to read a lot of historical romance but it is very, very rare for me to do so these days. This was not only a historical romance it was also a m/m romance. How to Fake it in Society by K J Charles was so much fun. I originally picked it up as it would have fitted a prompt for the Spring Reading Challenge at Goodreads but then I ended up reading something else. I have already requested another K J Charles book from the library
I have three blog tours this week, so I realised that I needed to focus on those books. I therefore read The Secret Dressmaker by Jenny O'Brien. This is the second book in the Threads of Resistance series. My review will be up later this week.
Another book that I need to review this week is Finding Forever in Pelican Crossing by Maggie Christensen. I love Maggie's books set in Pelican Crossing! I started this and I am about half way through, and it is the same comforting, familiar read! My review for this will be up later this week too!
I did also read the first couple of chapters in A Far-Flung Life by M L Stedman. It almost seems a shame to reading it now. Most years, my read on a theme bookclub decides we will go down the more traditional route of all reading the same book. We have chosen this book to read together in October, but this will be due back at the library long before then.
July was a pretty good reading month. I had one 5 star reads and I did have 4 books that I rated as 4.5/5 reads! I also had a lot of fun with Paris in July (as usual) which was Secret Society of Librarians by Kate Thompson! I have now read and loved all of her WWII librarians books so now I have to wait patiently for the next one of those which I think will be out in a couple of years. In the meantime, I will be starting to work through her backlist.
Books let our imaginations travel where our feet cannot - Nora Nguyen
Bookish travel
At the end of every month I like to look and see where I have visited through the books I have read. Here's where I travelled to in July
USA
Maryland - In the Weeds by B K Borison
Minnesota - Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J Ryan Stradal
Europe
Wales - The King's Jewel by Elizabeth Chadwick
Italy - Secrets of the Italian Guesthouse by Sue Moorcroft
France - Don't Brake My Heart by Leonie Mack, The Island of Mists and Miracles by Victoria Mas, Summer at the French Bakery by Jo Thomas
Ireland - Seascraper by Benjamin Wood, The Story Collector by Evie Woods
England - The Book Lover's Bucket List by Hannah Claire, The Secret Society of Librarians by Kate Thompson, The Palace Women by Jennifer Ryan, How to Fake it in Society by K J Charles
Portugal - Escape to the Turquoise Seas by Carrie Walker
Australia
Queensland - Everyone in this Bank is a Thief by Benjamin Stevenson
I'm watching
We started watching Ride or Die with Hannah Waddington and Octavia Spencer this week. So far we have watched three episodes and we will watch it through to the end.
We also started watching World War II with Tom Hanks which we will continue with. I am, however, a bit surprised that there are twenty episodes to get through, so it might take us a while.
Breakaway Femmes - The Forgotten TDF - documentary about the women's Tour de France in the late 1980s. It was a really interesting documentary and fascinating to think that the rampant sexism and misogyny talked about in this series was so recent! By which I mean in my adult lifetime! And shocking to think that it took until the mid 2010s for the women's TdF to start again. Here's the trailer:
Life
On Saturday we had a lovely day out in the Yarra Valley which is a wine area about an hour and a half away from us. We did something called the Coldstream Food Trail which has about 10 stops on it, although we only did 4 stops. We stopped at a brewery, and then went to a place called Coombe Yarra Valley which is a lovely place that has been created in the former home of world famous Australian opera singer, Dame Nellie Melba. from there we did some cider and cheese tastings. The main reason we went out there was to do a Fondue and Bingo lunch at Chandon which was a lot of fun! I mean, fondue and sparkling wines...what's not to love. It was a beautiful clear winter's day and a lovely way to do some exploration of just one tiny pocket of the Yarra Valley. We did see some amazing looking restaurants that we will go back and visit again at some point!
The other thing that we did last week was go to see the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Winter Gala which featured music from composers such as Bernstein, Gerswhin and Cole Porter! It was a lot of fun, and the tickets were super cheap at only $20 each. My husband loves orchestral music so we go semi regularly, but this was too good an opportunity to pass by.
Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week the theme is Books I HAD to Have Immediately but Still Haven’t Read (this is a throwback topic from 2022). However, given that this is the last Tuesday for me to do a Paris in July related Top Ten Tuesday I am going down that route instead.
During last year's Paris in July, I shared a TTT post which was Historical Fiction set in France. When I put that list together I specifically excluded WWII fiction, so this week my theme is Historical Fiction Set in France - the WWII Edition. I have started with two books that come to mind instantly and then the rest are more recent books I have read set in France during WWII.
A Farewell to France by Noel Barber - in the 1990s I read a lot of Noel Barber books and I have such fond memories of them. I am not sure they would stand up all that well to read now though.
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah - I am looking forward to seeing the movie of this one whenever it ends up actually getting made
The Resistance Knitting Club by Jenny O'Brien - I am just about to read the follow up to this book and can't wait! (review)
The Girl From Normandy by Rachel Sweasey - I really enjoyed this read (my review)
The Madamoiselle Alliance by Natasha Lester - What a fascinating this read was. It is based on a true story which makes it even more amazing! (my review)
The Librarian Spy by Madeline Martin - This one is set in both France and Portugal (my review)
The Paris Dancer by Nicola Rayner - I was nearly going to say WWII Paris, but then I remembered that the whole theme for this post is WWII which makes that kind of redundant! (my review)
The Resistance Bakery by Siobhan Curham - I love a book set in a French bakery so this was always going to be a winner for me! (my review)
The Last Train from Paris by Juliet Greenwood - I thought this was a really great read with an interesting story! (my review)
The Lost Sister of Fifth Avenue by Ella Carey - The title might make you think this one is not set in Paris, but the majority of the story is! (my review)
Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.
This week theme is Books with Handwriting on the Cover (Or fonts that look like handwriting. Titles, subtitles, covers with letters on them, etc.). There is a publisher that I read quite a lot from who tends to put their author names on the cover in a cursive like font, but I am going to see how far I can get but focussing only books where it is the title that is in cursive. On some covers it might be the whole title but on others it is just words like the or on!
A Venice Summer by Lynne Shelby - I read this a couple of months ago and enjoyed it a lot.
The Palace of Lost Virtue by Anthea Hodgson - This one was sitting on my desk right in my eye line so I couldn't not have this on the list even though I haven't read it yet!
This Book Made Me Think of You by Libby Page - same with this one really
An Italian Island Love Story by Leonie Mack - This might look more like handwriting if you squint at it slightly but it is there!
Hopes and Dreams at the Chocolate Pot Cafe by Jessica Redland - Isn't this cover fun?
The Seaside Book Club by Helen Rolfe - This is a cute cover too!
The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa - This is such an eye catching cover. I am glad that it is the one that got.
The Cottage at the Edge of the Woods by Jane Lovering - The contrast between the block letters and the cursive is very effective as we can see on several covers in this list.
The Resistance Knitting Club by Jenny O'Brien - It's only one word but it still counts!
The Boulangerie on the Corner by Susan Buchanan - And now I want to eat France and eat lots of fresh bread.
Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week the theme is Favorite Secondary/Minor Characters. However, I am following on from last week's post and giving you the second part of my 20 Books of Winter list.
Here are the second group of ten books that I am intending to read before the end of August.
The Little Porto Book Club by Rebecca Raisin - I really enjoy this author's books. I already had it on my list as a review book but now I am going to be on the blog tour for it in July.
The Palace of Lost Virtue by Anthea Hodgson - I am attending the Rachel John's Bookclub Readers Retreat in June and this is one of the two book club reads.
The Couples Retreat by Mercedes Mercier - This is the second book club read
The Secret Dressmaker by Jenny O'Brien - This is a blog tour read for July
The Nile Cruise by Caroline James - Another July blog tour read
The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak - This is a library book that I have borrowed a couple of times now. Hopefully I will read it this time!
First Time Caller by B K Borison - I have really enjoyed the two B K Borisin books I have read so I am looking forward to this one!
Seascraper by Benjamin Wood - This is a historical fiction novel that has had good reviews since it's been released
Everyone in this Bank is a Thief by Benjamin Stevenson - This will be a book I read for the Goodreads challenge
Careful, He Might Hear You by Sumner Locke Elliott - This is my Classics Spin selection
It's been a quiet reading week this week. Work is crazy busy and by the time I get home it is all I can do to stay awake!
I did finish The Resistance Knitting Club by Jenny O'Brien which I reviewed last week.
I then started The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters. I need to finish it as I have two other books that can't be extended at the library! I have a feeling that one or both of those will be returned unread and reborrowed but we will see!
I announced over the weekend that I was going to participate in the Classics Club Spin this time around. The number that came up for the spin was #2 which means I am going to try to read The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lamdedusa. I am grateful that the book selected wasn't too much of a chunkster! Now I just need to read it by the end of March!
I'm watching
If you need a show to define feel good TV, the Muster Dogs is the show. The idea is that you follow a litter of puppies as they are trained to be working dogs. This series it is a mixture of collie and kelpie puppies. This time, the trainers are inexperienced so they are learning as they go along.
We have watched a little bit of the Winter Olympics. I daresay we will watch more over the next couple of weeks!
I did watch a Filippino movie this week, which is a first. A while ago I read a book called The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World. Whispers in the Wind talks about the same concept, which is that there is a phone booth in Japan where you can go to talk to those who have passed away. This story had a different focus as we met two Filipinos in Japan. Hannah was caught up in the tsunami which killed so many, and Ren is looking for his mother who abandoned him and his father many years before. It wasn't a bad watch, although it had a bit of a strange twist.
Here's the trailer
Life
We did something a bit out of the ordinary on Friday night and went to see the Victorian Opera performance of Pirates of Penzance. It was lot of fun, and I found myself singing the tune of Modern Major General - cant sing the words because there are way too many!
It never ceases to amaze me how many little known stories there are about the events in WWII that are still being told in new stories. This is another one which features characters who share messages in their knitting and is based on a true story.
When an elderly woman has a stroke, her family is shocked when she suddenly starts speaking fluent French, her family are completely shocked. They had no idea that their mother/grandmother who refused to leave their Channel island home could speak French. It turns out, she had a whole other life that she never told them about.
Young Lennie Gallienne is an orphan who lives a very restricted life on the isle of Guernsey. When she received the dreaded telegram to tell her that her beloved brother is missing presumed dead, she refuses to accept it, and heads to London to try to find the truth. An unexpected meeting in the War Office, sees Lennie in training to be a spy .Of course, the men aren't necessarily happy to have a woman recruit with them. And they are even less enamoured when she uses her knitting to teach herself morse code. Her superior officers find out and think it is a great idea and so they all have to learn to knit.
Lennie finds herself working in a bookshop in Paris, helping distribute tracts and pass information back to London. Being a spy is a dangerous business though. It's hard to know who you can trust and if you catch the attention of the wrong people, it can be a matter of life or death. Even if you make it out alive, you can be left with enduring memories and guilt.
In some ways this book felt a little like a thriller, with each chapter headed by a date and time, with the tension building and building as the time and dates got closer and closer together.
Whilst this book is probably technically a dual time line, the modern parts of the story really only bookends the main story and form a very small part of the book. I do think that it added something even though it was only a very small part.
Unfortunately, the other thing that ended up playing only a very small part of the story is the knitting. Yes, there was a group of knitters that Lennie spent time with in Guernsey before she went to London, and then when she was teaching the other recruits. However, there wasn't much obvious knitting when she was in Paris which is the majority of the book. It feels like a bit of a missed opportunity, particularly given the title of the book.
I did find myself quite engrossed in the story very quickly. This is the first book in a series, and I am definitely intending to read the next book in the series.
I am sharing this review with the New Release Challenge hosted at The Chocolate Lady's Book Review Blog, British Isles Friday hosted at Joy's Book Blog and the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge which I host here. Thanks to the publisher and Rachel's Random Resources for the review copy. Be sure to check out other stops on the blog tour below.
Rating 4/5
About the Book
The Resistance Knitting Club
Inspired by the true story of a woman who used knitting patterns to encode intelligence during World War Two.
Guernsey, 2010. After a stroke, an elderly woman shocks her family by speaking perfect French – a language they never knew she possessed. As her granddaughter unravels seventy years of silence, a hidden wartime story emerges...
Paris, 1941. After her brother is declared missing in action at Dunkirk, eighteen-year-old Lenny Gallienne vanishes into Churchill’s secret army. In a bookshop on Rue de la Pompe, she poses as a simple shop girl while encoding intelligence from Nazi headquarters into knitting patterns. Each sweater smuggled to prisoners contains flight paths. Each scarf holds radio frequencies. Each mistake means execution.
Fellow agent, Harry Dennison is the only person who knows her real name. But when the SS close in, Lenny faces an impossible choice in the Metro tunnels beneath Paris – one that will haunt her family for generations. Because in the resistance, the most dangerous secrets are the ones you keep from those you love most.
Jenny O’Brien writes complex thrillers and heartbreaking historical fiction, as well as intriguing romances. Silent Cry, initially self published, topped the Amazon kindle chart in both the UK and the USA. Most of her books have followed suit.
Jenny has over 40 years experience as a qualified nurse. She turned to creative writing as a hobby when her children were born.
Born in Ireland, she now lives in Guernsey with her husband and children. BOOK NEWS
The Resistance Knitting Club comes out in February, 2026. A blend of Jenny’s two hobbies - knitting and reading. For more check out The Resistance Knitting Club Facebook Page. Join the conversation as well as share your crafting projects.
This week I had finished several books and two of them were 5 star reads. That has to count as a good reading week right? The first one was Us Against You by Fredrik Backman, which is the second book in the Beartown trilogy! I did pick up the third book in the trilogy from the library as well, and it is a very big book! I am looking forward to reading it!
I then finished The Girl from Lake Maggiore by Siobhan Daiko. I actually started this book a few weeks ago but I put it aside. When I was trying to decide what to read after finishing my last book, I figured I should probably finish that one!
I also started reading The Resistance Knitting Club by Jenny O'Brien for a blog tour later this week. So far I am enjoying it a lot
When my read on a theme book club chose the theme of Childhood Favourite, I decided pretty quickly that I was going to read Jean Plaidy as I read every one of her books I could get through my school library when I was 12 or 14. I have a whole stack of her books which I got from someone, and there were two copies of The Goldsmith's Wife so I took that as a sign that I should read that book. It was only on Wednesday night that I realised that I only had two day to get it read before the meeting! I loved it though and gave it 5 stars. That could be related to the nostalgia of reading one of her books after so many years.
There was only a small group of us at book club for the first meeting of the year and these were the books that we talked about. The next theme is a Book Someone Lent You!
Best of
In January I read 14 books and had quite a few that were 4.5 star reads. The two that were 5 star reads for me were Us Against You by Fredrik Backman and The Goldsmith's Wife by Jean Plaidy, which are pictured at the top of the post.
Books let our imaginations travel where our feet cannot - Nora Nguyen
Here are all the places I travelled in my reading this month
Europe
UK - The Sweet Life Café, The Goldsmith's Wife
Ireland - So Late in the Day
Croatia - The Croatian Island Library
Norway - The Arctic Cruise
France - The Boulangerie on the Corner
Sweden - Us Against You
Italy - The Girl from Lake Maggiore
US
New York - The Housemaid
Australia
NT/SA - Everyone on this Train is a Suspect
Asia
Japan - Dinner at the Night Library
Japan/Korea/US - Flashlight
Korea - Soyangri Book Kitchen
I'm watching
Nothing in particular really
Life
On Saturday night we went to a new show that is on at the casino in the city. It was called Piper's Playhouse and is an interesting mix of Paris cabaret, magic, drag, burlesque and circus type acts. The acts were very, very good, and the night was a lot of fun. After the show, the venue turns into a piano bar and the crowd really got into it! I think even the pianist was a bit surprised by some of the things that the crowd did last night!
In the photo above, the show that you see is actually all made of white chocolate and was filled with fresh berries!
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