First Chapter: How to Party With an Infant by Kaui Hart Hemmings

How to Party with an Infant by Kaui Hart Hemmings, August 9, 2016
"A quirky single mom in San Francisco tiptoes through the minefields of the "Mommy Wars" and manages to find friendship and love."

First paragraph:
The afternoon holds the beautiful promise that it will soon be over. A rusty gold light falls through the clouds, the cold air has an even sharper edge, and white halogen headlights from cars on Fell and Oak make the little playground light up like a stage. Mele Bart eats cashews from a Dora cup and watches her daughter play on the purple slides.

Ellie, a wonderful mistake, is two and a half years old.

This is my current read. What's yours?

Meme: Every Tuesday First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros are hosted by Bibliophile By the Sea. Share the first paragraph sometimes two, of a book you are reading or plan to read soon.

Sunday Salon: I'd Rather Read than.....

I have decided to stop watching too much political news so I don't find myself rolling my eyes and generally acting like a teen. To control myself, I will stay with reading good books and watching Christmas movies on TV.

Here are two new arrivals I'm reading right now: contemporary fiction and a mystery.

Love, Alice by Barbara Davis, December 6, 2016, Berkley
... new Southern women’s fiction novel set in Charleston, about forgiving the past one letter at a time...

Egg Drop Dead by Laura Childs, the 7th in the mystery series, December 6, 2016, Berkley
Suzanne, Petra, and Toni—co-owners of the Cackleberry Club Café—track down the culprit in another whodunit.

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.

Clever Cozy Mystery Titles

These covers and titles caught my eye! I hope they are as good to read! Notice they are both food related!

The Good, the Bad, and the Guacamole by Rebecca Adler, a Taste of Texas Mystery, November 1, 2016. Tex-Mex waitress and part-time reporter Josie Callahan and her chihuahua Lenny solve the mystery of the country singer Jeff, found face down in a bowl of guacamole. 

A Killer Kebab: A Greek to Me Mystery by Susannah Hardy, November 1, 2016. 
Georgie Nikolopatos looks forward to fixing up her Greek restaurant and historic landmark—until her renovation plans hit a fatal snag. In other words, she finds a body and has to solve the murder!

Recipes are included in both these books! Yum!

Sunday Salon: Bookish Cozy Mysteries

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. 

It's been a while since I've featured cozies. Here a few with bookish themes.

Twice Told Tail: A Black Cat Bookshop Mystery by Ali Brandon, November 1, 2016.
At Pettistone's Fine Books,  an anonymous bidder is offering a suspiciously high price for an antique book—and Darla the owner doesn’t need her cat Hamlet’s special senses to know that something isn’t quite right. (publisher)

A Likely Story: A Library Lover's Mystery by Jenn McKinlay,  November 3, 2016.
Library director Lindsey Norris has befriended two elderly brothers, Stewart and Peter Rosen. She enjoys visiting them in their treasure-filled, ramshackle Victorian on Star Island until she discovers that Peter has been killed and Stewart is missing. (publisher)

I finished The Blue Bath by Mary Waters-Sayer, May 3, 2016, St. Martin's Press and was torn between giving it a 4 or a 5. I wasn't very sympathetic to the protagonist toward the end but could understand the conflicts she had, having to choose between her young son's future and her sentimental and demanding former artist lover. 

My next read is a detective novel, 

Diana's Altar by Barbara Cleverly, an Inspector Joe Sandilands, Scotland Yard, mystery, well written with interesting plots. I hope I'll like this one as well as many of her former ones. 
The book: Doctor Adelaide Hartest bears witness to the final moments of a dying stranger. The situation becomes very complex, as Scotland Yard is soon to find out. 

The Blue Bath by Mary Waters-Sayers: Book Beginning

Moving between the London art world and the days of a love affair in a dusty Paris studio, life and art bleed together for now married Kat Lind and her former artist lover, David. 

The Blue Bath by Mary Waters-Sayer, May 3, 2016, St. Martin's Press

Book beginning:
Prologue

Entering the front hall, Kat saw it coming, but could not stop it. The swift and silent arc of the sledgehammer came to its own abrupt end as it smashed through the smooth plaster wall. She squeezed her eyes shut, momentarily stunned by the force and the sound of the impact ....

Chapter I: 
Sometime after the arrival of the second builder and the ensuing chorus of intermittent hammering, Kat left the house and made her way through Holland Park, glad for the relative peace of its wooded paths. The tops of the trees strained to catch the low, rose-colored sun....

Page 56:
Jorie spoke French to anyone who was not immediately identifiable as English.

Comments: Half-way through this library book and really liking it so far. 

Memes: The Friday 56. Grab a book, turn to page 56 or 56% of your eReader. Find any sentence that grabs you. Post it, and add your URL post in Linky at Freda's Voice. Also visit Book Beginning at Rose City Reader.

This or That Book Tag

~ RULES ~

Mention the creator of the tag.

Thank the person who tagged you.

Tag other people and spread the love.

Thanks to Pat from Posting For Now and Suko at Suko's Notebook for tagging me in the This or That Book Tag, and to Ayunda from Tea & Paperbacks, the creator of this book tag.

1) Reading on the couch or reading in bed?

    Both!

2) Main character: Male or Female?

Female, for the most part.  

3) Sweet or salty snacks while reading?

Both! Bring on the Snickers and the chips!

4) Trilogies or quartets?

Trilogies, though I have read few.  

5) First Person or Third Person POV?

Both.  

6) Night or morning reader?

Morning, day, and night.

7) Libraries or bookstores?

Bookstores for new books. Library for older books, though I sometimes am lucky and find brand new releases.

8) Books that make you laugh or books that make you cry?

Both, depending on my mood.

9) Black or white book covers?

I prefer colorful and attractive covers. 

10) Character driven or plot driven stories?

Both, though I tend to prefer character driven plots, psychologically complex individuals. 

The Book Bloggers I tag are:

Laurel-Rain at Laurel-Rain Snow Creates

Bookfan Mary at Bookfan

Greg at Greg's Book Haven

Mystica at Mystica

Deb Nance at  ReaderBuzz

If I haven't tagged you but you would like to participate, please do join in!

Sunday Salon: Books from My Shelves

Books from my shelves, revisited. I featured this book on a Waiting on Wednesday post last year and have pulled it to be read this winter!

The Summer of Good Intentions by Wendy Francis, July 7, 2015; Simon and Schuster
Genre: contemporary women's fiction

The Herington girls - Maggie, Jess, and Virgie -  are together again, with their husbands and kids, for another summer in the family’s old Cape Cod house.

When their mother, Gloria, announces she’s coming for an unscheduled visit—with her new boyfriend—no one is more surprised than their father, Arthur, who has not quite gotten over his divorce.  (publisher)

Here's another that I hope to read soon:


Iris and Ruby: A Novel by Rosie Thomas, April 5, 2016 by The Overlook Press
Setting: Cairo

Iris Black's Cairo house is disturbed by the arrival of willful granddaughter Ruby from England. Ruby helps Iris document deteriorating memories of glittering, cosmopolitan Cairo and her WWII one true love, enigmatic Captain Xan Molyneux, who was lost to war. Iris’ early devastation shaped her daughter, granddaughter, and leads them into terrible danger in the Egyptian desert. (publisher)

Any older books from your shelves you are currently reading/hoping to read? 

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.