Top Ten Tuesday: Authors I'd Love Another Book From

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week's theme is Authors I’d Love a New Book From (These could be authors that have passed away, who have retired from writing, who have inexplicably gone quiet, or who might jut not be able to keep up with how quickly you read their books!)

The first five authors I have mentioned are people who have passed away.

Terry Pratchett - When I was looking at the website, I saw that they have found a "lost" book so there will be something new.

Ariana Franklin - This is an example of a series where a family member continued the series after the author's death.

Sharon Kay Penman - While we will never have a new SKP book, I do still have a couple of books still to read.

Susan Vreeland - I really liked this authors take on historical fiction.

Carlos Ruiz Zafon - I did love Shadow of the Wind so hard

And the next few just don't seem to be writing anymore

Lisa Kleypas - There's an irony that I have three historical romance readers on this list because I just don't really read this genre anymore.

Liz Carlyle - I used to love Liz Carlyle's books but there hasn't been a new one for years now.

Loretta Hill - This author was writing rural fiction featuring women working in really interesting jobs before she just stopped writing.

Laura Florand - A while ago I was going through a huge reading slump and there were only two authors who I was still reading. Laura Florand was one of those.

Tessa Dare - In theory there is going to be another Tessa Dare book but it does keep on getting delayed. The release date is now 3036

Top Ten Tuesday: Books with Colour in the Titles

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week's topic is Books with Colours in the Title.

When I looked at my books read spreadsheet, I realised that I could have done entire Top Ten lists of red and blue books. Instead, I am going to focus on the primary colours - red blue and yellow - to make up my list for this week.

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chinamanda Ngozi Adiche - I have long had an interest in reading books set in Nigeria. This was a particularly good one.

The Girl in the Yellow Vest by Loretta Hill - This is a book features a female engineer working in a construction environment in Queensland. I really enjoyed Loretta Hill's writing. It doesn't look like she is writing anymore which is a shame.

The Yellow House by Patricia Falvey - I do enjoy a book set in Ireland. This one is set in Northern Ireland in the early years of the 1900's which was quite a tumultuous time.

Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland  - This book follows a painting of a girl (in hyacinth blue) through the years from owner to owner. I really enjoyed this book!

Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore - This is the third book in the Graceling YA fantasy series. Just thinking about this book makes me want to revist the series.

Blue Shoes and Happiness by Alexander McCall Smith - This is the seventh book in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series and features a pair of talking shoes.

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant - This book holds a special place in my blogging heart. I read this book and I just wanted to talk to someone about it and it become the first book I wrote a review of. When I read it years later it wasn't a great review but it was the start of this blogging journey.

The Red Tree by Shaun Tan - Shaun Tan writes and illustrates the most amazing books. Whilst The Arrival is my favourite, and probably always will be, this was an enjoyable.

A Red Herring Without Mustard by Alan Bradley - Among the many series that I keep on saying I really need to get back to soon is the Flavia de Luce mystery series, featuring a precocious young girl as the sleuth. This is book 3 in the series.

The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett - I am cheating for this last book because once you have all the primary colours you can make all the other colours, which quite frankly is magic!

What colourful reads do you have on your Top Ten list.

Six Degrees of Separation: What I Loved to A Guide to the Birds of East Africa

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 What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt, a book I don't recall hearing about let alone reading. When I was thinking about what my strategy was going to be in relation to this book, it was almost as though I then thought, "and how exactly can I make this even harder for myself", and a plan was hatched.

My starting point was to think about what Siri Hustvedt's background was, and it turns out that she is an American author, whose family background is Norwegian, so then I thought about what other books I had read either by a Norwegian author or set in Norway, and the first one that came to mind was The Storm Sister by Lucinda Riley, which is the second book in the Seven Sisters series. A lot of the action in this book took place in Norway so this was my first step.

Where I complicated it for myself was then I decided that my links for this month would be based on the books in the Seven Sisters series. I could have done just the books in the series - there's an obvious link - but that would be a bit boring right. So my twist was that my selections will be based on the settings in each of the books from this point on.

The first book in the series is The Seven Series. In the historical part of the novel, we learn the story of how the Christ the Redeemer statue was created. A lot of the book was set in Brazil, but there were significant portions of the book that were set in Paris as the statue was being designed. The only book that I can think of that I have read that was set in Brazil was State of Wonder by Ann Patchett.

The second book in the series is The Storm Sister, which was my link to What I Loved in the first place. This book is set primarily in Norway and looking at the history of Edvart Grieg, the man who composed the music for Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt.

The third book in the Seven Sisters series is The Shadow Sister. This time, the historical section of the book focuses on a young woman who is friends with Beatrix Potter. The modern part of the book focuses on an antique book and life in the country. The characters are looking for a hidden family treasure which reminded me of The Peacock Summer by Hannah Richell where an old house hasn't given up it's secrets yet.

The fourth book in the series is The Pearl Sister which has a significant section of it's story set in the far north of Western Australia. I thought I would choose a contemporary novel - The Girl in Steel-Capped Boots by Loretta Hill. This was one of the early rural romances I read, and I think it would easily stand up to a reread. I certainly have good memories of this one.

The fifth book is the one that I am listening to on audio at the moment - The Moon Sister. This time the author is exploring the history around flamenco dancing in Spain. For another historical fiction novel set in Spain I have chosen The Last Queen by C W Gortner about Juana, the sister of Catherine of Aragon, who married into the powerful Hapsburg family.

The latest book in the series, the sixth, is The Sun Sister. I haven't read it yet, but I understand that it is set in Africa, so for my final choice I am revisiting a lovely book that I read many years ago, A Guide to the Birds of East Africa by Nicholas Drayson. This was such a delightful read which I thoroughly enjoyed but I had forgotten all about!

I have taken us on a journey around the world from Norway to Kenya using the books in the Seven Sisters series by Lucinda Riley as the compass.

Next month's starting point is How to Do Nothing by Jenny ODell. Maybe I will keep it a bit simpler next month, but maybe not. We'll see.

Where has your six degrees taken you this month?

The Girl in the Hard Hat by Loretta Hill

Today I am excited to be participating in the blog tour for The Girl in the Hard Hat by Loretta Hill!

Last year I read and thoroughly enjoyed reading Loretta Hill's debut novel, The Girl in Steel-Capped Boots. The things that really stood out for me in that book were the unusual setting, having the heroine in a truly male dominated environment and the great story. Fortunately, the author has managed to keep all of these same factors in her follow up novel.

When Wendy Hopkins turns up for work at her new job, things couldn't really have gone more wrong. Her uncle Mike has put in a good word for her and the boss comes up with a job. What she doesn't know is that Uncle Mike was blackmailing the boss, and now that there is no need for secrecy, there is no more job! Dan Hullog (the main male character from the last book) does, however, recognise that the skills she has are useful and so he ensures that she gets employed with Barnes Inc, the company responsible for rebuilding a huge iron ore wharf in the Pilbara region of far north Western Australia. Given that she thought she was going to be working for Dan, she turns up on the first day wearing his company uniform which goes down like a lead balloon when she is instructed to go to  the Barnes Inc office instead.  First on the job issue - everyone thinks she might be a spy from the enemy. Add in the fact that she upset one of the few other women on site and ends up in a cabin that is basically uninhabitable, it's not a great start.

Within a few days Wendy has identified any number of breaches in the safety standards, not the least of which is that her immediate boss is incapable of doing the job. When he gets fired, the other Barnes Inc workers have more reason to not like her, and then of all things, she wants them to actually make changes to improve safety, like having safety briefings and other things like that. Before too long Wendy finds herself being the target of several incidents, one of which leads her to be nicknamed 'Sarge'. She also finds herself the target of the advances of notorious flirt Gavin Jones. With around 350 men to 5 women, the last thing that Wendy needs is to be the target of gossip, but when she and Gavin share a steamy kiss she can't help but be interested.

Loretta Hill

Wendy is used to working in a male dominated environment, but it has been a couple of years since she has done so. After something went wrong on a previous job, she took some time off with the plan to travel the world. When she went to get a copy of her birth certificate for her passport application she found that the man she thought was her father really wasn't. Shaken the core by the fact that everything she thought she knew about who she was is in fact a lie, Wendy is now searching for her father. She only knows a few things about him. He is a miner/engineer, he has a distinctive injury to his foot and his name is Hector. Wendy has to balance the demands of her high stress job including trying to build friendships with the other women and gaining the respect of the men with the search for her father. The stress factor climbs through the roof when the client demands a full safety audit after an incident and so Wendy has to get everything up to scratch quickly and, to top it all off, the cyclone season is approaching.

Gavin Jones played a large secondary role in the previous book and I really enjoyed getting to know him a little better in this story. He is originally portrayed as something of a lovable larrikin with an eye for the ladies, but there is much more to him than initially meets the eye. While he is happy to muck around a lot of the time, he is also damn good at what he does. Wendy isn't sure though, there is something that just doesn't add up in terms of his skills and his experience. She knows he is hiding something, but she has no clue what, and to be honest, as a reader I was completely surprised by his back story.

While Wendy and Gavin were both fun characters to read about, and I loved dreading about them both individually and as a prospective couple, one of the other great features of both this book and the previous one is that there is a great cast of secondary characters. From the manager of Barnes Inc, Carl, who still swears like the proverbial trouper and his girlfriend, to Dan and Lena from the first book as well as Wendy's colleague Chub, the pages are filled with humour and charm and, best of all, felt like authentic characters to be populating the Pilbara setting. Loretta Hill has herself worked as an engineer in the Pilbara and I think the authenticity really shows in these books.

I will definitely be keeping an eye out for the next books from this talented new author. I can't wait to see what comes next from her.

Rating 4.5/5

Follow the blog tour

Yesterday, Bree from All the Books You Can Read shared her thoughts on the book. Tomorrow's tour stop will be hosted at Confessions from Romaholics

Synopsis

From the author of The Girl in Steel-Capped Boots comes another funny and deliciously romantic tale of a woman in a man's world.

Wendy Hopkins arrives in the Pilbara to search for the father who abandoned her at birth.

Getting mixed up in construction site politics at the Iron Ore wharf just out of town was not high on her 'to do' list.

But when she takes a job as their new Safety Manager she becomes the most hated person in the area. Nicknamed 'The Sergeant', she is the butt of every joke and the prime target of notorious womanizer, Gavin Jones.

Giving up is not an option, though.

For, as it turns out, only Wendy can save these workers from the coming storm, find a man who wants to stay buried and ... put a bad boy firmly in his place.