Jan 31, 2015

Two Different Reads: Tahoe Blowup by Todd Borg and What Maisie Knew by Henry James

What I've been reading: a thriller and a novel of manners and psychology.

Tahoe Blowup (Owen McKenna #2) by Todd Borg, published September 1, 2001 by Thriller Press. A thriller set in Tahoe - from it I learned a lot about preventing and causing forest fires, besides arson, and the controversy over controlled or non controlled burning. I also learned about rescue dogs, the anthropomorphic qualities attributed to them that may not be so anthropomorphic after all. Dogs do have emotions similar to ours. A good thriller, the second in the series, the books only get better as they progress. There are now about 12 or so.

What Maisie Knew by Henry James, a free ebook on Kindle. I recently witnessed a divorce case and the effects on children, so this novel about a young girl being used as a pawn between two disagreeing parents was particularly interesting to me. Daisy is bandied back and forth not only by her separated and then divorced parents but later on by her stepparents as well. She comes out of it okay, had to pretend sometimes to be more obtuse then she really was, and in the process learns a lot just by observing the behavior of the adults around her. James is a master in the psychological novel. I discovered him later in life (after college, that is) and am a great fan of his.

What books have you finished this week?

Jan 30, 2015

Book Beginning: AMHERST by William Nicholson

The Friday 56: *Grab a book, any book. *Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader  *Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it) that grabs you. *Post it. *Add your (url) post in Linky at Freda's Voice. Also visit Book Beginnings at Rose City Reader.
Amherst by William Nicholson, bo be published February 10, 2015 by Simon and Schuster.

Book beginning:
The screen is black. The sound of a pen nib scratching on paper, the sound amplified, echoing in the dark room A soft light flickers, revealing ink tracking over paper. Follow the forming letters to read: 
I've none to tell me to but thee 
The area of light expands. A small maplewood desk, on which the paper lies. A hand holding the pen.
My hand, my pen, my words. My gift of love, ungiven. 

page 56:
"It's so like you to want to build a graveyard," his wife said to him. "Why are we to be always thinking about death?"
Book description:... a novel about two love affairs set in Amherst—one in the present, one in the past, and both presided over by Emily Dickinson.

Alice Dickinson, a young advertising executive in London, decides to take time off work to research her idea for a screenplay: the true story of the scandalous, adulterous love affair that took place between a young, Amherst college faculty wife, Mabel Loomis Todd, and the college’s treasurer, Austin Dickinson, in the 1880s. Austin, twenty-four years Mabel’s senior and married, was the brother of the reclusive poet Emily Dickinson, whose house provided the setting for Austin and Mabel’s trysts.

Alice travels to Amherst, staying in the house of Nick Crocker, a married English academic in his fifties. As Alice researches Austin and Mabel’s story and Emily’s role in their affair, she embarks on her own affair with Nick, an affair that, of course, they both know echoes the affair that she’s writing about in her screenplay.

Interspersed with Alice’s complicated love story is the story of Austin and Mabel, historically accurate and meticulously recreated from their voluminous letters and diaries. Using the poems of Emily Dickinson throughout, Amherst is an exploration of the nature of passionate love, its delusions, and its glories. This novel is playful and scholarly, sexy and smart, and reminds us that the games we play when we fall in love have not changed that much over the years.

What do you think? Is this a novel for you, as a reader?


Jan 28, 2015

Book Review: Hausfrau byJill Alexander Essbaum

Hausfrau by Jill Alexander Essbaum will be released March 17, 2015 by Random House. I consider it general or women's fiction and rated it 2.5/5.

I enjoyed reading the first half of this novel about Anna, the American homemaker married to a Swiss and living near Zurich, becoming a hausfrau or German housewife. I could sympathize with Anna at the beginning for feeling isolated in a country with a different language and customs and a husband who becomes mostly unfeeling, unaware.

In the second half of the book, Anna becomes less sympathetic, acting irrationally, spinning out of control in spite of going regularly to see a psychoanalyst. I didn't feel she was a tragic figure, though the author tried to make her one. She seemed just a confused and contradictory personality.

The ending was unsettling as I found it disappointing and the overall character development not quite believable.

I'd love to hear comments from others who have read the book.

I received a review galley of this book from the publisher. 

Jan 25, 2015

Sunday Salon: Historical Fiction and Mystery

Welcome to the Sunday Salon where bloggers share their reading each week. Visit The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also visit It's Monday: What Are You Reading hosted by Book Journey, and Mailbox Monday.

Two uncorrected proofs arrived from Harper Collins which I am looking forward to reading.

John the Pupil
John the Pupil by David Flusfeder is to be released March 3, 2015. 
It's described as "a medieval road movie, recounting the journey taken from Oxford to Viterbo in 1267 by John and his two companions, at the behest of the friar and magus Roger Bacon, carrying a secret burden to His Holiness Clement IV. The holy trio are tried by thieves on the road and tempted by all sorts of sins – and by the sheer hell and heaven of medieval life. ‘John the Pupil’ reveals a world very different and all too like the one we live in now."
A Dangerous Place
A Dangerous Place by Jacqueline Winspear will be released March 17, 2015.

Spring 1937: Maisie Dobbs returns in a story of political intrigue and personal tragedy: a brutal murder in the British garrison town of Gilbraltar leads the investigator into a web of lies, deceit and danger.

Am on the last few pages of a book from my own collection, bought at a library sale:

The Art Thief
The Art Thief by Noah Charney was published September 18 2007 by Atria Books.

It's about three simultaneous art thefts - a Caravaggio altarpiece from a church in Italy, a 20th century modern masterpiece from a vault in Paris, and another modernist painting just purchased for over six million pounds from an art gallery in London.

The book is worthy of a reader who is a chess master, as the plot is a challenge to follow and to keep all the pieces in mind. Math, figures, and art history, art forgery and events are put together in a complex pattern. Nevertheless, I had a good time trying to follow along. And the humor lightens it up here and there.

Next, I have to decide - read one of my library finds or one of my own books?
   

Jan 24, 2015

Virtual Poetry Circle: TERMINUS by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Join Savvy Verse and Wit's Virtual Poetry Circle, every Saturday. Look at a line, a stanza, sentences, and images; describe what you like or don’t like; and offer an opinion. 

Here's my choice this week -

 Terminus BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON
It is time to be old,
To take in sail:—
The god of bounds,
Who sets to seas a shore,
Came to me in his fatal rounds,
And said: “No more!
No farther shoot
Thy broad ambitious branches, and thy root.
Fancy departs: no more invent;
Contract thy firmament
To compass of a tent.
There’s not enough for this and that,
Make thy option which of two;
Economize the failing river,
Not the less revere the Giver,
Leave the many and hold the few.
Timely wise accept the terms,
Soften the fall with wary foot;
A little while
Still plan and smile,
And,—fault of novel germs,—
Mature the unfallen fruit.
Curse, if thou wilt, thy sires,
Bad husbands of their fires,
Who, when they gave thee breath,
Failed to bequeath
The needful sinew stark as once,
The Baresark marrow to thy bones,
But left a legacy of ebbing veins,
Inconstant heat and nerveless reins,—
Amid the Muses, left thee deaf and dumb,
Amid the gladiators, halt and numb.”

 As the bird trims her to the gale,
I trim myself to the storm of time,
I man the rudder, reef the sail,
Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime:
“Lowly faithful, banish fear,
Right onward drive unharmed;
The port, well worth the cruise, is near,
And every wave is charmed.”

This poem, which I found today, expresses how I felt on walking out of my place of employment after umpteen years, announcing my retirement and the death of my mother, on the same day.

How well said, for all those who wondered Why? Why would you do that? The first six lines expressed my sentiments. It was time to go and "mature the unfallen fruit."

Jan 21, 2015

Waiting on Wednesday: An Historical Novel and a Psychological Thriller

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Breaking the Spine to introduce new books that we are waiting to be released.

Here are two to wait on, to be published February 10, 2015 by Simon and Schuster and Touchstone.


Amherst by William Nicholson is described as : a novel about two love affairs set in Amherst—one in the present, one in the past, and both presided over by Emily Dickinson. Sounds interesting, right?

Crazy Love You by Lisa Unger is about a childhood relationship that becomes dangerous for one of them when they become adults. The psychological thriller is described: Darkness has a way of creeping up when Ian is with Priss. Even when they were kids, playing in the woods of their small Upstate New York town, he could feel it.

What new books are you waiting to be published? 

Jan 20, 2015

First Chapter: Enter Pale Death by Barbara Cleverly

First Chapter, First Paragraph is hosted weekly by Bibliophile by the Sea. Share the first paragraph of your current read.

My current read is a book from the library by an historical mystery novelist whose books I've enjoyed before.This one doesn't disappoint either.

Published December 2, 2014 by Soho Crime.

First paragraph:
Prologue
England, April 1933 
"Gingerbread? You're sure it was gingerbread she asked for, Gracie?" 
The odd request was the very last thing a housekeeper wanted to hear at this moment. Mrs. Bolton stood in the center of the heaving kitchen overseeing her troops with a discipline firm enough to have impressed the Duke of Wellington himself. But, ever alert, the Iron Duke would, like her, have had his attention snagged by an unexpected detail. 
Book descriptionOne morning before dawn in the stables of her country estate, Lady Truelove meets a violent death in an encounter with a dangerous horse. Classified as “death by misadventure,” this appears a gruesome accident. But Scotland Yard Detective Joe Sandilands suspects foul play

Would you continue reading?

Jan 18, 2015

Sunday Salon: The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

Welcome to the Sunday Salon where bloggers share their reading each week. Visit The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also visit It's Monday: What Are You Reading hosted by Book Journey.

Got a new book for review, thanks to St. Martin's Press!

The Nightingale
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah seems to be an historical novel of WWII and is described as " an epic love story and family drama set at the dawn of World War II....the stories of two sisters, separated by years and experience, by ideals, passion and circumstance, each embarking on her own dangerous path toward survival, love, and freedom in German-occupied, war-torn France."

What's new on your bookshelf?

Jan 17, 2015

Cozy Mystery Books for Winter

On a cold winter weekend, what better than some cozy mystery reads. Here is what I've read and am reading so far...
Arsenic and Old Books
To be released January 27, 2015; thanks to Berkley for a review copy. This is the first in the Cat in the Stacks mystery series that I've read and I hope to read others now that I've been introduced to the Maine Coon cat Diesel and his owner, librarian Charlie Harris. Diesel doesn't solve mysteries but he keeps his owner company while his owner, Charlie, does.

A Bite of Death
Read this as an e-book in the Dog Lovers Mystery series. I loved this one, the third in the series, as I did all the others I've read. Made me want to own a Malamute, in spite of the fact I probably am not alpha enough.

Now I'm reading
Darned If You Do
a Needlecraft Mystery, to be released officially on February 3, 2015. I enjoy that all these mystery novels are stand-alone reads, and can be read out of order.
 

Jan 14, 2015

New Cozy Mystery Series

I am always curious about new cozy mystery books and amazed at how prolific mystery writers are to come up with new settings and characters for a new series. Here are a few new ones.

By Hook or By Crook: A Lighthouse Library Mystery by Eva Gates is a new series that is due out on February 3, 2015. Set in a lighthouse library on Bodie Island on the Outer Banks, a librarian gets involved in the loss of a rare first edition Jane Austen and the murder of the chair of the library board. The setting grabs me.

Well Read, Then Dead: A Read 'Em and Eat Mystery by Terrie Farley Moran was published August 5, 2014. Set in a bookstore cafe on Fort Meyers Beach, the cozy has the two cafe owners solving a crime.

Death Is Like a Box of Chocolates: A Chocolate Covered Mystery by Kathy Aarons is the first in a new series that was published September 2, 2014. A photographer is poisoned by truffles in a bookstore and chocolate shop in Maryland, and the owners become amateur sleuths.

Any of these new books grab you?


Jan 13, 2015

Book Review: A Groovy Kind of Love by Karen Wojcik Berner

First Chapter, First Paragraph is hosted weekly by Bibliophile by the Sea. Share the first paragraph of your current read. Also visit Teaser Tuesday hosted by MIzB to share favorite sentences from your read. 
A Groovy Kind of Love
Title: A Groovy Kind of Love (The Bibliophiles #3) by Karen Wojcik Berner
Published January 12, 2015 by Karen Berner Books
Genre: women's fiction, contemporary fiction
Objective rating: 5/5

First chapter:
We all have a first memory, one dug deepest in that part of the brain that commemorates the dawn of our cognizance. For some, maybe it's their first plush toy. Others might recall bouncing on their fathers' knees. Thaddeus had none of these. His awakening began the first day his mother brought him to the library. (from galley; final copy may differ)
Book teaser:
"....Can I ask you something? You and this Thaddeus guy. Is it serious?" He searched her eyes for a response. (ch. 23, final copy may differ).
My comments: This novel took me right back to memories of the 1960s and the hippie generation - the lighter memories of flower paper dresses (in my case) and antiwar protests. It's also a novel for book lovers and romance lovers, as the main setting is a classics book club in the picturesque village of Naperville, Illinois, where two very different people meet, their major similarities being their love of reading.

Spring is a flower child, a product of her hippie generation parents. Thaddeus comes from a traditional family with more reserved parents. How they meet and complement each other is the heart of this story. And how they face tragedy while expecting a normal life is also part of this exquisite romance and contemporary novel. 

I heartily recommend it for those who love books, the British classics, and those who want to reminisce or learn more about the history of the 1960s in the U.S.

Book description: Uptight British lit lover meets a free spirit at a book club, and his world is turned upside down! 

After placating to his father’s demands that he play Little League baseball and major in computer programming in college rather than his beloved English literature, Thaddeus assumed that several years into his career, he would finally get some peace and quiet. 

Then he met Spring Pearson, the younger, free-spirited daughter of Hippie parents, at a book club meeting. Instantly smitten, Thaddeus finally worked up the courage to ask Spring out. But will an old college pinkie-swear promise Spring made fifteen years ago get in the way of this bibliophilic romance

 "A Groovy Kind of Love" is the third and final installment of Karen Wojcik Berner’s Bibliophiles series. Written as stand-alone novels, each book focuses on one or two members of a fictional suburban classics book club, revealing their personal stories while the group explores tales spun by the masters.

About this author


Karen Wojcik Berner writes contemporary women’s fiction, including the Bibliophiles series. An award-winning journalist, her work has appeared in several magazines, newspapers, and blogs, such as The Chicago Tribune, Writer Unboxed, Women's Fiction Writers, and Fresh Fiction. She is a member of the Chicago Writers’ Association.

When not writing, she can be found on the sidelines of her youngest’s football or lacrosse games, discussing the Celts with the oldest, or snuggling into a favorite reading chair with a good book and some tea.


Visit her on facebook or at her webpage

Thanks to the author for a review galley of this novel.

Jan 11, 2015

Sunday Salon: Library Reads

Welcome to the Sunday Salon where bloggers share their reading each week. Visit The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also visit It's Monday: What Are You Reading hosted by Book Journey.

It's  way too cold for the mailman to lug packages here, I guess, LOL, so I had no books arriving last week! But I have some library books I'm getting through and some on hold too.

I'm reading about teens involved in a murder at a posh boarding school in Ireland. The Secret Place by Tana French is intriguing and a very good read, as were her other books. 


The Secret Place

The Narrow Road to the Deep North
The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan deals with war, with more themes of life and love. Did you know that the Japanese poet Basho's poems are collected in a book also titled The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches ? Basho is one of my favorite haiku writers.

There are two books on hold at the library for me that I hope to pick up today. A Cat Sitter cozy, the latest in the series, and one other book. Libraries rule!

What are you reading this frigid January? We are envious of those of you living in warm Florida and California!

Jan 9, 2015

Book Review: The Oracles of Delphi by Marie Savage

The Friday 56: *Grab a book, any book. *Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader  *Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it) that grabs you. *Post it. *Add your (url) post in Linky at Freda's Voice. Also visit Book Beginnings at Rose City Reader.



Title: Oracles of Delphi: A Novel of Suspense by Marie Savage
Published October 15, 2014; Blank Slate Press
Genre: historical mystery

Book beginning:
Nikos's heart pounded against his rib cage like a siege engine. He pressed his back into the stone wall, closed his eyes and tried to calm his breathing. He couldn't believe he had been such a fool. "Next time I'll surrender the prize," Charis had always promised. Next time he would claim it, he always hoped. But instead ....
page 56:
"I don't know No one familiar with the cult's traditions would suspect such a thing. They would never sacrifice one of their own."
Where and when: Delphi 350 BCE, Greece 
The plot: Right off the bat, you find out who is killed and who is responsible for the death. Charis, a handmaiden of the head priestess of Gaia, is killed accidentally while trying to blackmail Nikos, son of a priestess. Nikos hides her body on the altar of Appolon to make it look like a sacrifice. "...the priests of Apollon are not on good terms with the priestesses of Gaia." A conflict emerges between these two cults. Who murdered Charis, and why? 
Recommendation: A good mystery plot that is enhanced by the setting and time - ancient Greece with the ancient religions vying for prominence. The characters seem very modern in their desires, strengths, weaknesses, their romances and love interests, even in much of their speech. But the location and time makes this mystery unique. 
I have always wanted to visit Delphi and the place of Apollo's oracle. Hopefully, someday I will! In the meantime, I have read this book for its setting and historical background. I do wish though that the details of Charis's death/murder had been left in the dark till further in the novel, to enhance the suspense. Give it a try, mystery lovers!


Marie Savage is the pen name of Kristina Marie Blank Makansi, co-founder and publisher of Blank Slate Press, an award-winning small press in St. Louis, and founder of Treehouse Author Services. Books she has published and/or edited have received several awards. She is on the board of the Missouri Center for the Book and the Missouri Writers Guild. She has co-authored The Sowing and The Reaping (Oct. 2014), the of a young adult, science fiction trilogy. Visit Kristina Makansi’s website and the Blank Slate Press website. You can also follow Krisina Makansi and Blank Slate Press on Twitter.

Blog Tour Schedule

Monday, December 8
Review at The Mad Reviewer
Review & Giveaway at Luxury Reading
Tuesday, December 9
Review at Oh, For the Hook of a Book
Wednesday, December 10
Spotlight & Giveaway at Passages to the Past
Thursday, December 11
Interview at The Maiden’s Court
Spotlight & Giveaway at Teddy Rose Book Reviews Plus More
Monday, December 15
Review at Book Nerd
Tuesday, December 16
Interview at Oh, For the Hook of a Book
Thursday, December 18
Guest Post at Just One More Chapter
Monday, December 22
Review at Book Lovers Paradise
Tuesday, December 23
Review at Book Babe
Tuesday, December 30
Guest Post & Giveaway at The Book Binder’s Daughter
Thursday, January 1
Review at With Her Nose Stuck in a Book
Friday, January 2
Review at Svetlana’s Reads and Views
Monday, January 5
Review at A Bookish Affair
Tuesday, January 6
Review at Book Drunkard
Wednesday, January 7
Review at bookramblings
Review & Giveaway at Brooke Blogs
Spotlight at CelticLady’s Reviews
Friday, January 9
Review at Book Dilettante

Thanks to Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours and the author for a review copy of this book. 

Jan 7, 2015

The 100+ Book Challenge 2015

The 100+ Book Challenge 2015 will help keep a list of books read during the year. Join in!

The goal is to read at least 100 books. They can be ebooks, print or audio. There is no page limit, though it has to at least be a short story/novella to count. List your books as you go and be sure to add each review to the Linky that Freda provides each month.

Here is my Books Read list so far this year, under several genres. Click on the titles to see my reviews or my ratings on Goodreads.

Mystery/Thriller

1. Tokyo Kill by Barry Lancet
2. The Secret Place by Tana French
3. Arsenic and Old Books by Miranda James
4. A Bite of Death by Susan Conant
5. Oracles of Delphi by Marie Savage
6. Enter Pale Death by Barbara Cleverly
7. Tahoe Blowup by Todd Borg
8. Japantown by Barry Lancet
9. Memory's Lie by Jamie Mason
10. Sherlock Holmes, the Missing Years: Japan by Vasudev Murthy
11. A Dangerous Place by Jacqueline Winspear
12. Hush Hush by Laura Lippman
13. Shady Cross by James Hankins
14. Death By a Honey Bee by Abigail Keam
15/ Bird Brained by Jessica Speart
16. Steeped in Evil by Laura Childs
17. The Metaxy Project by Layton Green
18. As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust by Alan Bradley
19. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
20. Death of a Liar by M.C Beaton
21. Horse of a Different Killer by Laura Morrigan
22. If I Fall, If I Die by Michael Christie
23. World Gone By by Dennis Lehane
24. Bittersweet by Miranda Beverly Whittemore
25. Murder on the Champs de Mars by Cara Black
26. Grave on Grand Avenue by Naomi Hirahara
27. Bittersweet by Susan Wittig Albert

General/Literary fiction

1. Hausfrau by Jill Alexander Essbaum
2. What Maisie Knew by Henry James
3. The Bookseller by Cynthia Swanson
4. A Memory of Violets: A Novel of London's Flower Sellers by Hazel Gaynor
5. My Father's Wives by Mike Greenberg
6. The Moon Sisters by Therese Walsh
7. The Precious One by Marisa de los Santos
8. The Last Good Paradise by Tatjana Soli
9. All That Ails You by Mark J. Asher
10. I Regret Everything: A Love Story by Seth Greenfield
11. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doer
12. A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler
13. Girl in the Moonlight by Charles Dubow



Poetry

1. Joy Street by Laura Foley
2. Doll God by Luanne Castle

Children's books

1. The Monster That Ate My Socks by A.J. Cosmo
2. Donkey's Kite by Liana-Melissa Allen



Last year's Books Read in 2014.

Poetry Review: Joy Street by Laura Foley

Paperback: 46 pages
Publisher: Headmistress Press (July 8, 2014)
Genre: poetry

Each poem in this radiantly plainspoken collection offers subtle and penetrating observations that swell to a rich tapestry of ordinary life, beheld from a stance of grace and buoyancy. Starting with intimations of desire in childhood, these poems travel through ordinary domestic scenes to the blessing of a maturity in which the narrator, still embracing desire and wild promise, thrives in the midst of life’s darker gifts. This collection is truly a joy to read. It puts to shame those of us who walk through our days with “the din of loneliness,” ignoring life’s many invitations for bliss. (publisher)

My comments: Through this short book of poems, the author shares her past and her intimate moments with her partner, Clare, who like herself, was once in a traditional marriage. We see a joy even though Clare has been unwell, and her poems of self perception. Their dog and pet is part of this celebration of a relationship.

The author's descriptive phrases also give a wider meaning to her surroundings as seen in these two poems. 
Bay Winds 
Sandy from a day at the beach, 
we sleep on top of our sheets, 
windows open wide, 
little feet running over us. 


Late-Night Low Tide  
Around our feet, 
the scritch-scritch-scratch 
 of claws on sand, 
ancient sounds 
of midnight rounds, 
of seemingly solid ground  
shifting under us: 
revealing worlds below our own. 
I enjoyed the simplicity of the poems, revealing and honest, and Foley's wonderful use of words and imagery.

Visit the book tour schedule for other reviews of Joy Street. 

About Laura Foley

Laura Foley is the author of four poetry collections.  The Glass Tree won the Foreword Book of the Year Award, Silver, and was a Finalist for the New Hampshire Writer’s Project, Outstanding Book of Poetry. Her poems have appeared in journals and magazines including Valparaiso Poetry Review, Inquiring Mind, Pulse Magazine, Poetry Nook, Lavender Review, and in the anthology, In the Arms of Words: Poems for Disaster Relief.  She won Harpur Palate’s Milton Kessler Memorial Poetry Award and the Grand Prize for theAtlanta Review’s International Poetry Contest. She lives on a woody hill in South Pomfret, Vermont with her partner Clara Gimenez and their three dogs. Please visit her website for book information or more poems: laurafoley.net.

Purchase Links:  Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Thanks to TLC Book Tours and the author for a review copy of this book. 

Jan 3, 2015

Sunday Salon: January Books

Welcome to the Sunday Salon where bloggers share their reading each week. Visit The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also visit It's Monday: What Are You Reading hosted by Book Journey.

A few books came in this new year - three ARCs from Harper Collins and a hardcover for review from William Morrow.

The Precious One by Marisa de los Santos - ARC

World Gone By by Dennis Lehane- ARC

My Father's Wives by Mike Greenberg- ARC


A Fine Summer's Day by Charles Todd.

Seems as if I have my January reading cut out for me.

What books are on your shelves this week?

Jan 2, 2015

First Book of the Year: 2015


Join Book Journey and other fellow book bloggers as we feature our first book read in 2015.

I got this book from the library, wanting to start out the year with a good thriller in an international setting. So far so good.



Tokyo Kill is the second in the series by Barry Lancet. I hope to read the first book as well.

Goodreads describes the thriller: 

...antiques dealer-turned-P.I. Jim Brodie matches wits with an elusive group of killers chasing a long-lost treasure that has a dangerous history.

What is your first read of 2015? 

Jan 1, 2015

My Life in Books 2014


Got this meme from a couple of bloggers a few years ago and have done it the past three years.  My Life in Books, Join in if you like. It can be fun. 

Which book (titles) read in 2014 describe your life so far?

Describe myself:
Sweet and Deadly

How do I feel:
OMG...Am I a Witch?

Describe where I currently live:
 The Sea Garden

 If I could go anywhere, where I would go:
Fog Island Mountains

My favorite form of transportation:
Last Train to Paris

My best friend(s) is/are:
Dark Spies 

My friends and I are:
Keeping Mum

What’s the weather like:
Stillwater

Favorite Time of Day:
Night of the Living Thread

What is life to you:
Butterflies in November

You fear:
 The Demon Who Peddled Longing

What is the best advice you have to give:
 Think Like a Freak

Thought for the day:
You Cannoli Die Once

How I would like to die:
Aground on St Thomas

My soul’s present condition:
One Step Too Far 

I looked up past memes and see I filled out some for 2011 and before. Join in and have fun with it.

Click on each book title to see the review of it.

Sunday Salon: French Windows and The Venus of Salo

  In the Mailbox French Windows  by Antoine Laurain, publication June 25, 2024 by Gallic Books Source: ARC from Meryl Zegarek Public Relatio...