Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Never Reviewed

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week's them is Books I Never Reviewed. When I set my reading/blogging goals this year, I said that I wanted to make sure that I reviewed all the historical fiction I read and all the books by Aussie authors. So far, I have well and truly exceeded that and have reviewed just about everything I have read. It isn't my intention to go back to reviewing every book I read as there is too much "I am so far behind" pressure that comes with that, but when it happens organically....great.

So I will start with the couple of things I have read but not reviewed this year, and then go back to last year's list to see what I can find there!

The Wedding People by Alison Espach - I read this a couple of weeks ago and absolutely loved it! It's a 5 star read for me. I intend to review this later this week.

Never Want to Sea You Again by Leonie Woods - This is a short story freebie from the author's Substack page. It's a fun, forced proximity romance. One fun thing is that you can choose if you want to read the spice version or the not so spicy version of the story! I chose the spicy version. A billionaire's secret daughter hides on board a yacht and finds herself in the middle of the ocean with a grumpy sailor! 

The Venice Hotel by Tess Woods - I read this towards the end of last year and really enjoyed it! It brings together a group of characters in a Venice hotel at Christmas time and they end up having to work together to help one of the guests. It was darker than I expected but very good!

The Missing Sister by Lucinda Riley - You know, I have read all but the last book in this series and never reviewed any of them! I listen to them all on audio and they are big books. I do find the accents that are used, and the fact that there are different narrators for every audiobook, a bit odd. Maybe when I finish the series I will do some kind of retrospective review!

The Last Night in London by Karen White - I meant to pick up a Madeline Martin book when I started this one, but I liked it nonetheless!

The Ex Factor by Rachael Johns - This was another free short story and is still available on Substack. In this story a woman returns to the town and the husband she left behind so that she can get her divorce papers signed. This one was a bit spicy too!

Before We Forget Kindness by Toshikazu Kawaguchi - This is part of the Before the Coffee Gets Cold series. I have reviewed a couple of them but not all of the. Seeing this author at Melbourne Writers Festival was one of my bookish highlights of last year. I listen to this series on audio too!

The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods - Another audio read. I liked this one, without loving it. It's about a bookshop that has disappeared and a modern quest to find out what happened there. I am super excited about Evie Woods next book which is out soon called The Mysterious Bakery on Rue de Paris!

The Last List of Mabel Beaumont by Laura Pearson - Yes, another opportunity to gush about how amazing Laura Pearson is. I have now read three of her books and they are all so unusual with really imaginative ideas! And, of course, great reads! My favourite is The Beforelife of Eliza Valentine, but this comes a close second.

The Yellow Wood by Minnie Darke - I have been a huge fan of Aussie author Minnie Darke since I read The Lost Love Song which is an absolutely beautiful book. This was an Audible only book about a free spirited woman who doesn't want to be tied down to anyone or anywhere and the artist who loves her and is trying to move on.

The Presidents Hat by Antoine Laurain - Over the last couple of years I have become a bit of an Antoine Laurain fan girl. There's every chance I will still review this for Paris in July later this year.

And yes, I know that is eleven choices but I thought I would throw in an extra given that two of them are short story freebies from the authors!

Have you read any of these?

This week...

I'm reading

Last week I started reading Last Night in London by Karen White. It's not the book I intended to read, but never mind! I enjoyed it nonetheless. I did pick the major twist in the story pretty early on, but I was a little bit surprised by one of the other twists.

Next up I read a super short and sex story by Rachael Johns called The Ex Proposal. It was originally released as part of an anthology, but now the authors have the rights back and so Rachael released it. The link is available on her author Facebook page. 

Next up I read A Christmas Surprise in Pelican Crossing by Maggie Christensen. I really enjoy everything I read by Maggie Christensen and this was no exception. My review will be up in a couple of days

I then started reading Judie Leigh's new book, The Silver-Haired Sisterhood. The review for this one will also be up later this week. Then I have one more review due and then a month or so before the next one. Of course I will be reading to get ahead of due dates, but there will also be some time for me to just read whatever I like which I am looking forward to!

I was listening to The Missing Sister by Lucinda Riley, but I have put that aside for now. Last year I listened to the Secret History of Christmas by Bill Bryson twice, and I felt like listening to it again, so I did. It's full of very interesting Christmas facts! I then began my annual listen to Hogfather by Terry Pratchett. Once I have finished this I will go back to The Missing Sister. I did recently hear that Richard Armitage narrates the next book in the series, Atlas: The Story of Pa Salt, so I will need to get onto that asap! But I also have the new Nora Roberts book waiting for me, and so many other audiobooks too!




I'm watching

SailGP is back! We therefore watched the first race last week. Last year we went to Sydney to watch a live SailGP race, and the year before we went to Christchurch but this year we will only be watching from home.

We finished watching Nobody Wants This which was a lot of fun. It stars Kristen Bell and Adam Brody. I think I will try to start the new Ted Danson series next or maybe we should continue with some of the series we already have on the go?

I also watched Meet Me Next Christmas which was a fun Christmas movie. I am hoping to watch more Christmas movies, but I don't really seem to have enough time which is a bit weird!



Life

How on earth did I ever have time to work. The second half of last week was super busy, featuring a brunch on Thursday, lunch at Geelong, people around for lunch on Saturday, and then visiting a Christmas market on Sunday. 

The other thing that we did on Friday night was to go and visiting the Da Vinci exhibition at Lume. We had seen it before, but this time there was a quintet from Melbourne Symphony Orchestra playing which made it a really nice experience.

Posts from the last week

Top Ten Tuesday: Back to the Beginning
Blog Tour: Casa Paradiso by Francesca Scanacapra
Blog Tour: Celebrating 25 books by Sue Moorcroft
Weekend Cooking/Cook the Books: Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
Historical Fiction Reading Challenge: December Links
Festive Treats: November


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

This week...

 I'm reading

There's nothing like a bit of plane time to help get through some reading! This week I had two four hour flights where the in flight entertainment was only available on your own device, so I decided to read for a fair portion of that time!

First up, I finished reading Crying at the H Mart by Michelle Zauner, which is the current Cook the Books selection. I will have my review up for that one on the weekend.

I felt like a change of pace was in order so I read the new festive short story from Jenny Colgan called The Christmas Book Hunt, which was available as an Amazon First Reads this month. It was a bit of fun. It has been an age since I read a Jenny Colgan book and I am not really sure why given that I do like them. 

The next book I read was Casa Paradiso by Francesca Scanacapra. This was an interesting read. It's the fourth book in a series that starts in WWII, but this book is actually the history of the house that features in the story starting a couple of hundred years earlier. I need to write the review for this one for Wednesday.

I then went back and finished The Restaurant of Lost Recipes by Hisashi Kasiwai. I had started it a few weeks ago but had to put it down to read some other things, so it was good to be able to finish it. It did have me wishing that I could google a few things while I was reading it but I wasn't going to pay for plane wi-fi for that. 

And then, in a case of mistaken book identity, I intended to start reading a Madeline Martin book but instead started The Last Night in London by Karen White. I am really enjoying it so I am definitely going to keep going with it and hopefully get to Madeline Martin in due course.

I've also decided to join in on the 12 Books of Christmas Challenge hosted by Katie at Just Another Girl and her Books. I have read quite a few Christmassy books already and I am sure I can find some more without trying too hard.

Last week I mentioned that I have set up a specific Insta account for my book stuff. You can find me @intrepidreaderandbaker and I would love it if you added it, and I will follow back!

I'm watching


Being away for most of the week meant I didn't really get to watch much this week. I will need to catch up on the finales for both Great Australian Bake Off and Dessert Masters. I know who won one of those and I think I can guess who one the second but hopefully I will get to watch them both soon.

We did watch Greg Wallace's Christmas Escapes, where he spends a weekend in both Copenhagen and Vienna, visiting a few different places, but focusing mainly on Christmas Markets. We have watched them before but they are still lovely to watch and brought back memories of our own visits to Christmas markets a couple of years ago.

One thing we did do in Perth was go to the movies. My sister, my cousin and I went to see Wicked, which was fab. It was a bit long, but other than that I thought they did a great job. We now have a year long intermission to see the second half. 

Life


We went to Perth last week to spend some time with family and spread my Dad's ashes. He died just over a year ago, but with my sister and I living in a different state we needed to go back over there just to do this one final goodbye. I don't remember going to the place he had chosen before, but it was a lovely spot and very fitting for my dad who loved the land in WA and also loved water.

We visit Perth quite regularly, but I still like to find new things to do. I had not intended to visit Fremantle this time, although it is one of my favourite places, but in the end we went down there to see a digital exhibition that they have on called Empress Josephine's Garden. It was very interesting in that it spoke about the French exploration of Australia, including sending lots of plant and animal specimens back to Empress Josephine's chateau at Malmaison. She was a serious collector, and I was surprised by a couple of things I learned such as the fact that she had correspondence with Sir Joseph Banks for some time, until France (under Napoleon) and England went to war.

Given we we were in Fremantle I had to do my customary visit to the wreck of the Batavia, which is part of the Dutch related history of Australia, and then have some fish and chips.

Another highlight is that we did the Rio Tinto Christmas Lights Trail through Perth. We had dinner at a very cool Asian restaurant, and then we walked from one end of Perth to the other visiting 20 Christmas lights installations around the city. It was great to be able to do this with my cousin and her family, my aunt and sister. We definitely got our steps in. Now I need to find something Christmassy to do here in Melbourne

I will do a bigger post about this at some point in the next couple of weeks, but here was my favourite video which I managed to get completely by coincidence. I love that you can see that I am walking through the bubbles. It's very short at only 4 seconds! 

Posts from the last week

Top Ten Tuesday: Not New!

Weekend Cooking: A Recipe for Christmas by Jo Thomas



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

Six Degrees of Separation: Hydra to The Lost Summers of Newport

 

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. 

 

The starting point this month is Hydra by Adriane Howell,which was nominated for the Stella Prize shortlist.

The hydra is a creature from Greek mythology.  My first book this month is call The Forgotten Palace by Alexandra Walsh. This is a book that has dual timeline. The historical timeline is about a young woman who works on an archeological dig in Knossos and the book also explores the myth of the minotaur, another creature from Greek mythology

Another series which has a female archaeologist  is the Amelia Peabody mystery series by Elizabeth Peters, set in Egypt. For the purposes of this chain I have selected the thirteenth book, Lord of the Silent.

The first book in Deanna Raybourn's  Lady Julia Grey series is Silent in the Grave, another Victorian lady investigator. It has one of the few opening lines that I remember reading in a book. Normally I don't remember opening lines.

To say that I met Nicholas Brisbane over my husband's dead body is not entirely accurate. Edward, it should be noted, was still twitching upon the floor.

You may notice we have a theme which is running through these first few choices. My next choice is the first book in the Pink Carnation series, The Secret History of the Pink Carnation by Lauren Willig. Whilst this isn't a mystery in terms of figuring out who the murderer is, it is a spy mystery.

My next choice is Karen White's The House on Tradd Street. This series is a historical mystery but only because the story is of a modern woman who is solving old mysteries.

I really needed this month to have seven degrees of separation so I could include a book by Beatriz Williams. Instead my last choice is a book that is jointly written by Lauren Willig, Karen White and Beatriz Williams. They have written a number of books together but the one I am going to choose to round out my chain today is The Lost Summers of Newport.

The starting point for next month is Friendaholic by Elizabeth Day

Coming Soon: The Strangers on Montagu Street by Karen White

Given that this book is coming out next week there hasn't much buzz until the last few days! As soon as I saw that it was coming out I put in a request at the library but it was really when I read the blurb yesterday that I got a bit excited. This is the third book in the Tradd Street series. One of these days I will read some of Karen White's other books too!

Can't wait to see how this all plays out!

Psychic Realtor Melanie Middleton returns — only to be greeted by a house full of lost souls.

With her relationship with Jack as shaky as the foundation of her family home, Melanie’s juggling a number of problems.  Like restoring her Tradd Street house — and resisting her mother’s pressure to “go public” with her talent, a sixth sense that unites her to the lost souls of the dead.  But Melanie never anticipated her new problem…

Her name is Nola, Jack’s estranged young daughter who appears on their doorstep, damaged, lonely, and defiantly immune to her father’s attempts to reconnect.  Melanie understands the emotional chasm all too well.  As a special, bonding gift, Jack’s mother buys Nola an antique dollhouse — a precious tableaux of a perfect Victorian family.  Melanie hopes the gift will help thaw Nola’s reserve and draw her into the family she’s never known.

At first, Nola is charmed, and Melanie is delighted — until night falls, and the most unnerving shadows are cast within its miniature rooms.  By the time Melanie senses a malevolent presence she fears it may already be too late.  A new family has accepted her unwitting invitation to move in — with their own secrets, their own personal demons, and a past that’s drawing Nola into their own inescapable darkness…  

The House on Tradd Street by Karen White

This review was originally supposed to be posted over at Royal Reviews in the next week or so, but unfortunately the lovely Annie, Alaine and Sheree have decided to close their doors. The challenges that they are running will remain up for this year, but there will be no further new reviews put up on the site. I will miss them, but I couldn't waste an already written review! I don't do them that often anymore. **Update - Royal Reviews isn't closing now, but will be under new management!**

Practical-minded Melanie Middleton hates to admit - even to herself - that she can see ghosts. But she's going to have to accept it, because an old man she met just days ago has died, leaving Melanie his historic Tradd Street home, complete with a housekeeper, a dog, and a family of ghosts anxious to tell her something.....
Enter Jack Trenholm, a gorgeous writer obsessed with unsolved mysteries. He has reason to believe that some diamonds that went missing from the Confederate Treasury are hidden in Melanie's home. So he decides to charm the new tenant, only to discover he's the smitten one.

But it turns out that Jack's search has caught the attention of a possibly malevolent ghostly presence. Now, Jack and Melanie need to unravel a mystery of passion, heartbreak, and even murder. And they must hurry...for an evil force - either dead or alive - lies in wait.

I first remember wanting to go to the American South,  and Atlanta and Charleston in particular,  after reading Gone With the Wind. I realise that the idea of the plantation house like Tara are much rarer than they might be in my imagination, but from what I can tell, there are still many gorgeous old homes that have been protected in the heart of Charleston. Just a quick Google will bring up homes for sale in the area that are just beautiful (in fact, I just wasted half an hour doing this instead of actually finishing my review!)

Realtor Melanie Middleton is at the top of her game, and her game is selling the historical homes of Charleston, but for Melanie herself, she can imagine nothing worse than buying one of these money pits which require huge amounts of money and work just to maintain, let alone to have to renovate within the rules stipulated by the city council. Melanie likes her sleek, modern and minimalist home, if for no other reason that there are no ghosts to talk to her.

When she goes to visit elderly Mr Vanderhorst, little does she know that her worst nightmare is about to come true. She visits him with a view to getting him to sell his crumbling house on Tradd Street, but even before she enters the house she already is off balance having seen the ghost of a woman near a rope swing in the garden. An urgent call on a weekend brings the news that Mr Vanderhorst has died and that he has left the house to her, on the condition that she must do the house up using the funds that will be made available to her.

Melanie usually prides herself on her self control, but for many people she gives off an aura of iciness. One person who is prepared to try and break through her frosty exterior is Jack Trenholm. He is a local author who specialises in books about unsolved mysteries, but he has recently been badly burned in the media and so he is regrouping. Jack believes that there are secrets to be revealed inside of the Tradd Street home, specifically what exactly happened to Mr Vanderhorst's mother who was rumoured to have run off with one of the local gangster's in the 1930s.

Jack is my kind of guy. Funny, charming, urbane, suave and interesting. Melanie is determined that she is not going to fall for him, yet increasingly he is the one that she turns to when things start going bump in the night in her house, to help her work out what the connections are between the Vanderhorst's and her own family, and to help with the renovation on the house. More often than not he also finds himself running interference between Melanie and her parents. Her father is an alcoholic who Melanie is not prepared to give any more chances after being disappointed so many times over the years, and her mother is something of a diva who walked away from her family to pursue an opera career many years before.

As the spirits become restless, Melanie finds herself in danger physically. Is it the ghosts or are there other factors at play here? There are also many questions to be resolved. Why would an apparently loving and devoted mother disappear without a trace and never contact her child again? And how do some missing diamonds from the Confederate Treasure tie into the mystery of what happened to Mrs Vanderhorst? Can Melanie resist Jack's charms and will she ever grow to like the house that seems to have taken over her life?

Part ghost story, part mystery and part romance, this is a book that ticks all the boxes. I am waiting very impatiently for my library to get the next book in the series, so that I can come back and spend more time with Melanie, Jack, and the colourful array of secondary characters that will hopefully accompany them in the next adventure, The House on Legare Street.

Rating 4.5/5