Sunday Salon: Watching the Olympics AND Reading

A collection of short stories by Rosie Thornton arrived courtesy of the author.

Sandlands by Rosie Thornton, to be published October 28, 2016. Book description:
This beautifully written short story collection is inspired by coastal England, by the landscape and its flora and fauna, as well as by its folklore and historical and cultural heritage. Several of the stories focus on a bird, animal, wildflower, or insect characteristic of the locality, from barn owl to butterfly. The book might be described as a collection of ghost stories; in fact, while one or two stories involve a more or less supernatural element, each of them deals in various ways with the tug of the past upon the present, and explores how past and present can intersect in unexpected ways. (publisher)

Also on my desk this week,

The Velvet Hours by Alyson Richman, to be released September 6, 2016, Berkley.
As Paris teeters on the edge of the German occupation, a young French woman closes the door to her late grandmother’s treasure-filled apartment, unsure if she’ll ever return. 
Inspired by the true account of an abandoned Parisian apartment, Alyson Richman brings to life Solange, the young woman forced to leave her fabled grandmother’s legacy behind to save all that she loved. (publisher)

Mercury by Margot Livesey, to be published September 27, 2016 by Harper
Genre: emotional thriller
An optometrist in suburban Boston, Donald is sure that he and his wife, Viv, who runs the local stables, are both devoted to their two children and to each other. Then Mercury—a gorgeous young thoroughbred with a murky past—arrives at Windy Hill and everything changes. (publisher)

Books finished:

Falling by Jane Green, a novel with a twist at the end that makes an ordinary romance memorable. 

 Tahoe Dark by Todd Borg, the 14th in the Owen McKenna Mystery series published August 1, 2016. Set in Nevada and California around Lake Tahoe, the series has always been captivating and suspenseful. In this novel, evidence points to a young woman, Evan Rosen, as the perpetrator of three murders. Owen McKenna doesn't believe she is guilty, however, and sets out to prove it. 

Are you watching the Olympics this week or reading, or both?

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 Date. And Mailbox Monday.

Sunday Salon: Book Titles Found on Social Media

Welcome to the Sunday Salon where bloggers share their reading each week. Visit The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer.

I have started a couple of new books, ARCs, and then put them down, disappointed. It's easier to do than before, as there are so many other books to read.

I have a list of book titles I've jotted down from other blogs, from FB, and from the web, and hope to try the library for these. They include

Forgotten Country by Catherine Chung
Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
The Lover by Marguerite Dumas
Heartburn by Nora Ephron
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

A 1,000 Years of Good Prayers by Yiyun Li
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
The Expatriates by Janice K. Lee
The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende

Have you read any of these? Which do you recommend?

Sunday Salon: Winter Reading

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

A few books came in the mail for review, ending a small book drought.

The Passenger by Lisa Lutz, to be released  March 1, 2016 by Simon and Schuster.
What She Knew by Gilly Macmillan, published December 1, 2015 by William Morrow. I have already read and reviewed this book, so I'll be passing on this copy to another reader. A really good suspense read.
The Daylight Marriage by Heidi Pitlor, paperback published January 5, 2016 by Algonquin. 
Wicked Sexy Liar by Christina Lauren, to be published February 2, 2016 by Gallery Books. Not really my kind of book, so this one I'll be passing on as well.

Books from my shelves that I hope to read this winter:

Under the Influence by Joyce Maynard, to be released February 23, 2016 by William Morrow, contemporary fiction
Dear Lucy by Julie Sarkissian, contemporary fiction
The Drowning by Camilla Lackberg, crime fiction

What books are on your reading list this week? 

Book Review: River Road by Carol Goodman

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

Snow came down suddenly today after a night of cold rain. It's keeping me indoors, plus a sore throat and the sniffles. Good weather for reading.

River Road by Carol Goodman, to be released January 19, 2016 by Touchstone
Genre: suspense

I received this book last week and finished it in two days. Set in a college town in upstate New York, the story is quite compelling. The main character, Nan Lewis, is a creative writing professor who is fighting alcohol addiction and grief over the death of her four-year-old daughter Emily years earlier.

She finds out she is denied tenure during a staff party and drives home that snowy night, hitting a deer that suddenly appeared at a sharp curve of the road, at the same spot her daughter Emily had been hit and killed in a car accident years before.

Nan is sure she hit only a deer, though she can't find sign of the animal after she exits her car and searches. The next day, however, she becomes a suspect in a hit and run accident that killed one of her college students in the same area and at around the same time she hit the deer.  How did this happen and what is the truth, Nan struggles to find out. 

The plot is suspenseful and the characters well drawn. A well written and plotted novel. I enjoyed reading about creative writing students and their teachers and the literary references throughout the book. 

Objective rating: a five-star read. 

Thanks to the publisher for a complimentary review copy. 

Sunday Salon: End of Year Reading

Welcome to the Sunday Salon where bloggers share their reading each week. Visit The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also visit Mailbox Monday.

A few books came in the mail last week, after a spell of "empty mailbox." The new arrivals are two ARC non-fiction and mysteries from the publisher for review. 

The Invention of Science: A New History of the Scientific Revolution by David Wooton, published September 15, 2015 by Harper
(T)he Scientific Revolution, and how it came to change the way we understand ourselves and our world.

Curtains Up: Agatha Christie, A Life in the Theatre by Julius Green, to be released December 1, 2015 by Harper
Julius Green raises the curtain on Christie’s towering contribution to popular theatre, an element of her work previously disregarded by biographers and historians.

Dead to the Last Drop: A Coffeehouse Mystery #15 by Cleo Coyle, to be released December 1, 2015 by Berkley
After the White House asks coffeehouse manager and master roaster Clare Cosi to consult on the coffee service for a Rose Garden Wedding, she discovers a historic pot was used as a CIA “dead drop” decades before. Now long-simmering secrets boil over, scalding Clare and the people around her…

The Readaholics and the Poirot Puzzle: A Book Club Mystery #2 by Laura DiSilverio, to be released December 1, 2015  by NAL
Agatha Christie is on the book club’s reading list in the latest from the author of The Readaholics and the Falcon Fiasco. This time, Amy-Faye and her friends might have to read between the lines to catch a killer.

I could consider myself a readaholic, as do most book bloggers, and was drawn to the title of this new series!

Currently reading: I am now listening to an audio book, Big Little Lies, women's fiction by Liane Moriarty and finding the three main characters very interesting. 
Finished: I have just finished Greg Iles's suspenseful Natchez Burning and want to read the next in this trilogy of the southern states during the Civil Rights era of the 1960s, The Bone Tree. 

The weather is getting cooler and so the flannels are coming out. Reading weather! How about your reading? 

Sunday Salon: Still Reading Library Books

Welcome to the Sunday Salon where bloggers share their reading each week. Visit The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer.

The zinnias in the backyard are hanging on and roses are still blooming on two bushes. It's been an on-again off-again kind of autumn, warm some days and cold on others. I expect that it will get cold for good this week. 

My Halloween pumpkin outside got eaten and the neighbor's pumpkins have also become feasts for the squirrels. I heard that spraying polyurethane on the pumpkins will keep critters from gnawing on them. 

No books in my mailbox last week, but I got some goodies from the library.

The Making of Asian America: A History by Erika Lee, published September 1, 2015 by Simon and Schuster

I am finding lots of interesting facts. One is that the first Asian immigrants came by way of Spanish galleons sailing from Manila to Acapulco over 250 years, starting in the sixteenth century. The Asians were crew members from various countries on the ships; over the years some of them stayed in the Americas. 

The other interesting fact is that Asian migration from their countries came about primarily as a result of European and American contact and interest in the countries, for trade or labor and also through conquest or war - in China, Japan, Korea, India and various Southeast Asian countries. Fascinating stuff, and I am only in the first few chapters. 

The Feast of the Goat: A Novel by Mario Vargas Llosa, published November 13, 2001.

I read and enjoyed this Peruvian Nobel-prizewinning author's most recent book, The Discreet Hero, and decided to try more of his work. I have just started this novel about a woman's experiences during the rule of the dictator Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic.

Book description: Urania Cabral returns to her native Dominican Republic -- and finds herself reliving the events of 1961, when the capital was still called Trujillo City and one old man terrorized a nation of three million. Rafael Trujillo, the depraved, ailing dictator whom Dominicans called the Goat, controls his inner circle (including Urania's father, a secretary of state now in disgrace) with a combination of violence and blackmail. In Trujillo's gaudy palace, treachery and cowardice have become a way of life. But Trujillo's grasp is slipping. There is a conspiracy against him, and a Machiavellian revolution is already under way that will have bloody consequences of its own. 

I am still reading two interesting nonfiction books - 
Hubris: the Tragedy of War in the Twentieth Century by Alistair Horne and
The Evolution of Everything: How New Ideas Emerge by Matt Ridley

After my nonfiction reading kick, I will get back to reading more novels. I've found a few on my shelf that I want to tackle. 

Have you read any nonfiction recently? 

Sunday Salon: Mysteries and a Cookbook

Welcome to the Sunday Salon where bloggers share their reading each week. Visit The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also visit Stacking the Shelves

Featuring several mystery novels, plus a cookbook by Amanda Freitag, whom I watch often on the TV Food Channel program, Chopped.

The Chef Next Door by Amanda Frietag, William Morrow
Depraved Heart (Kay Scarpetta #23) by Patricia Cornwell, William Morrow
The Candy Cane Cupcake Killer by Livia J. Washburn, NAL
The Chocolate Falcon Fraud  by JoAnna Carl, NAL
A Likely Story by Jenn McKinlay, NAL
Murder on St. Nicholas Avenue by Victoria Thompson; Berkley
Trimmed with Murder by Sally Goldenbaum, NAL

Currently reading:

A library book I was lucky to find, the third in the Ibis Trilogy, by Amitav Ghosh. Historical fiction about India and China, the Opium War, and the British in India during the nineteenth century. 

What are you reading at the moment? 

Sunday Salon: Nonfiction Reads

Welcome to the Sunday Salon where bloggers share their reading each week. Visit The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer.

I have been reading nonfiction, thanks to ARCs received recently. Enjoying them too. I must blame it on the cooler weather that I have become interested in these more serious reads.

The Evolution of Everything: How New Ideas Emerge by Matt Ridley, to be released October 27, 2015 by Harper.
The New York Times bestselling author of The Rational Optimist and Genome returns with a brilliant argument for evolution that definitively dispels a dangerous, widespread myth: that we can command and control our world.

Hubris by Alistair Horne, to be released November 17, 2015 by Harper
The legendary historian and author of A Savage War of Peace and The Price of Glory distills a lifetime’s study to reflect on six critical battles that changed the course of the twentieth century.

And some new fiction on the shelf:

Hunters in the Dark: A Novel by Lawrence Osborne, to be released January 20, 2015 by Hogarth
Adrift in Cambodia, Robert Grieve – pushing thirty and eager to side-step a life of quiet desperation as a small-town teacher – decides to go AWOL. As he crosses the border from Thailand, he tests the threshold of a new future. 

The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto by Mitch Albom, to be published November 10, 2015 by Harper
Mitch Albom creates a magical world through his love of music in this remarkable new novel about the power of talent to change our lives

This is the epic story of Frankie Presto—the greatest guitar player who ever lived—and the six lives he changed with his six magical blue strings

I am also reading a library book, a Danish mystery novel about scientists and research on vaccines and immunology.

The Arc of the Swallow by S.J. Gazan,  published April 7, 2015 by Quercus. 
In The Arc of the Swallow, maverick police detective Søren Marhauge returns in an perilous investigation that reveals a profit-motivated conspiracy involving the upper reaches of Big Pharma, government and academia.

That's all for this week. I have other library books and only hope I'll have the time!

Sunday Salon: Shakespeare, Alternate History, and Baseball Verses

Welcome to the Sunday Salon where bloggers share their reading each week. Visit The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also visit Mailbox Monday.

A few new books in diverse genres to share:

The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson, to be released October 6, 2015 by Hogarth
One of Shakespeare's final plays, "The Winter's Tale" is the story of newfound love, treacherous jealousy, revenge, regret, and ultimately, redemption. Award-winning author Jeanette Winterson will introduce this classic in a new and unique way, in the first installment of Hogarth's historic Shakespeare series. (goodreads)

The British Lion: A Novel by Tony Schumacher, to be released October 27, 2015 by William Morrow.
In this alternate history thriller set in the years after World War II, the victorious Germans now occupy a defeated Great Britain. London detective John Rossett joins forces with his Nazi boss to save the commander’s kidnapped daughter as the Germans race to make the first atomic bomb.
Rossett must secretly find Ruth Hartz, a Jewish scientist working in Cambridge. Spared from death because of her intellect and expertise, she is forced to work on developing the atom bomb for Germany.  (goodreads)

Red Sox Rhymes: Verses and Curses by Dick Flavin,  published July 14, 2015; William Morrow.
From the voice of Fenway Park comes a collection of sixty-four humorous and nostalgic poems celebrating the Boston Red Sox.

Season of Salt and Honey by Hannah Tunnicliffe, to be published September 1, 2015; Touchstone
Francesca 'Frankie' Caputo is finally going to marry the man she loves. But when a freak accident cuts her fiancé Alex's life tragically short, Frankie flees from her overbearing Italian-American family to an abandoned cabin in a remote part of Washington forest. As her heart slowly begins to heal, Frankie discovers a freedom that's both exhilarating and unsettling.

So when her old life comes crashing back in, Frankie must decide: will she slip quietly back into her safe, former existence? Or will a stronger, wiser Frankie Caputo stand up and claim her new life?

What's on your reading desk this week?

Sunday Salon: Bitten By Bugs and Books

Welcome to the Sunday Salon where bloggers share their reading each week. Visit The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also visit Mailbox Monday.

In spite of an all day rain, we went to the gym for some walking, stretching, and biking. 
It's been a strange, very wet spring and summer. I can only think this must be like Seattle weather. The garden is green, but swarms of mosquitoes rise up from the grass every time we set foot outside. I have had to buy calamine lotion!

I have a few new books for review:

Scents and Sensibility: A Chet and Bernie Mystery by Spencer Quinn, to be released July 14, 2015 by Atria Books.  I was delighted to get this book, having read his previous ones in the series. Chet is the PI dog who tells the story, from his limited but humorous point of view, and Bernie is his partner in the private investigator team. I am looking forward to a delightful read.

A Head Full of Ghosts: A Novel by Paul Tremblay, published June 2, 2015 by William Morrow. "A chilling thriller that brilliantly blends domestic drama, psychological suspense, and a touch of modern horror." Hope this one is not too horrific as I really don't  read many horror books. We'll see....

The Sunrise: A Novel by Victoria Hislop, to be published July 7, 2015 by Harper Paperbacks.
"...a saga of survival set during the 1974 Cypriot coup d'etat that tells the intersecting stories of three families whose lives are decimated when brewing ethnic tensions erupt into conflict." 
I have read a few of her other historical novels and am looking forward to this one. 

The Untold: A Novel by Courtney Collins, published June 2, 2015 by Berkley.
“[A] page turner…Jessie, the heroine of this tale set in 1920s Australia, sets her own compass…The chase will leave you breathless.”—Good Housekeeping
A book set in Australia, this one got my attention.

Last week, I finished reading
The Truth and Other Lies by Sacha Arango, a mystery, five stars - book review next week.
The Sound of Glass by Karen White, fiction, five stars

I'll be reviewing Hotel Moscow for a book tour next week, as well as The Truth and Other Lies.

How about your book shelf? What will you be reading?

Sunday Salon: Four Books in a Week and a Half

Welcome to the Sunday Salon where bloggers share their reading each week. Visit The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also visit Mailbox Monday 

New books for review:

A Week at the Lake by Wendy Wax, to be published June 23, 2015; Berkley
Genre: contemporary fiction

 ...to heal their friendship and their broken lives, the three women will have to return to the lake that once united them, and discover which relationships are worth holding on to.

Watch the Lady: The Tudor Trilogy #3 by Elizabeth Fremantle, paperback to be published June 9, 2015; Simon and Schuster
Genre: historical novel

The daughter of the Queen’s nemesis, Penelope Devereux, arrives at court. She and her brother, The Earl of Essex, are drawn quickly into the aging Queen’s favour. It seems The Earl of Essex can do no wrong in the eyes of the Queen but as his influence grows so his enemies gather and it is Penelope who must prevent the unthinkable from happening. We see the last gasps of Elizabeth’s reign, and the scramble for power in a dying dynasty. (publisher)

A Study in Death: A Lady Darby Mystery  by Anna Lee Huber, to be published Jly 7, 2015, Berkley
Genre: historical mystery

Scotland, 1831. Lady Kiera Darby is thrilled to have found both an investigative partner and a fiancé in Sebastian Gage. 
Commissioned to paint the portrait of Lady Drummond, Kiera is saddened when she recognizes the pain in the baroness’s eyes. Kiera isn’t sure how to help, but when she finds Lady Drummond prostrate on the floor, things take a fatal turn. (publisher)

Sense of Deception: A Psychic Eye Mystery #13 by Victoria Laurie, to be published July 7, 2015 by NAL. 
Genre: cozy mystery

Abby Cooper senses a convicted killer is innocent, but she’ll need hard evidence to save the woman before it’s too late… Abby's finely honed intuition tells her this woman doesn’t belong behind bars.

 I finished reading 
The Wolf Border by Sarah Hall for a June 12 book tour.
Slated for Death by Elizabeth J. Duncan, a mystery set in Wales that I gave five stars!
The Cat Sitter's Whiskers by Blaize and John Clement, a cozy that I also rated five!
Love May Fail by Mathew Quick, a novel that started out as a five for me but then went to three stars for wandering off into another story altogether before getting back to the main one.

What have you read last week?