Sunday Salon: Weeks of Very Hot Weather Produce Flowers

Getting ready for more hot weather: It's been high 80s into the 90s the past 10 days or so and seems this will continue another week, with temps going up to 100 degrees midweek. Thank heavens for our central air, which we put in last year. 

The garden is going great, however, due to the rain in spring.  

A galley from Netgalley:

Moonflower Murders by Anthony Horowitz

Nov. 10, 2020 publication by HarperCollins

Description: a brilliantly complex literary thriller, the follow-up to Magpie Murders.
Susan Ryeland is asked to return to England from her home in Crete to solve the murder of a man whose death was solved in a book she edited and published some years ago. 

Book club selection for August:

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

March 26, 2019, Penguin

Description: In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery. 

What are you reading this week?

Memes: The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, and Sunday Salon

It's Monday: Contemporary Fiction

I have gone back to a monthly subscription for ebooks, Kindle Unlimited, a wide selection of books that suit my reading tastes just fine. I've found books I would not normally have chosen to read, ones outside of my usual genres.

Just finished a contemporary fiction/romance, Sorry I Missed You by Suzy Krause,  recently published. Enjoyed it. 

Sorry I Missed You 

Next, I'll be reading Krause's first book, Valencia and Valentine, published June 2019.

Valencia and Valentine

This one is about a 35-year-old Valencia who's afraid of flying, and Mrs. Valentine, a lonely, elderly woman desperate for company.  I'm interested to see how their stories intersect. 

For more serious subject matter, I'm reading historical fiction, 

The Library of Legends by Janie Chang, set in China 1937

The Night Tiger by Yangtze Choo, set in 1930s Malaysia

What are you reading this week?

Memes: The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, and Sunday Salon

Sunday Salon: Lantern Men and Three Souls

Weather

The humidity at 4 a.m. this morning was 94 degrees outside. My bad knee complained and woke me up! I haven't been back to sleep, trying this and that to calm my agitated knee and have just applied a rub that heats up the muscles.

Books

I am now reading Elly Griffith's latest in the Ruth Galloway, forensic archaeologist, series set in Norfolk and Cambridge, U.K. It's excellent reading for mystery lovers.

The Lantern Men, June 16, 2020

I'm also reading Three Souls, a novel set in the Shanghai of 1935 during the war with Japan, as told by a woman who has just died and remains a ghost with a mission to be completed before she can enter the afterlife.  

 Three Souls by Janie Chang , August 2013

All my current reads are e-books, since the libraries have not yet fully reopened. I am also now into audiobooks! 

What are you reading this week?

Memes: The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, and Sunday Salon

Sunday Salon: Virtual Romance and Adventure

Audiobooks

I see on FB that lots of women readers lighten their chores by listening to audiobooks while they do housework, gardening, cooking, laundry, or even driving. As a result, I've decided to give it a try and get my house spic and span effortlessly, lol. 

Just finished Lucky Suit by Lauren Blakely, a light and lively romance set in Miami and NYC. Though I confess I didn't do more than empty the dishwasher and wash some pots and pans while listening.

Lucky Suit, January 2019 audiobook, is an enjoyable story about a long-distance romance that is brought about by a grandmother Lulu, who thinks she has found the perfect match for her granddaughter Kristen. 

Lulu plots to get Kristen in touch with her online poker playing friend, Cameron, and goes out of her way to make the meeting happen, though Kristen lives in Miami and Cameron in NYC. A fun book to listen to, well narrated and plotted.   

Next on my audiobook list:

Dumped, Actually by Nick Spalding, July 2019, Audible Audio

Genre: romance 
About: Journalist Ollie asks the subscribers of his website: how did they get over their failed relationships? Chaos ensues when he follows their advice.

Finished reading:

Killing Maine by Mike Bond, December 2019

Genre: suspense, environmental thriller 

Another fast paced book by Mike Bond, this one on the wind industry's deleterious effects on people and the environment - noise pollution and the destruction of birds, bats, and other animals by giant wind turbines. This time it's in Maine. Crooked politicians and officials are paid off by a wind industry corporation to look the other way in return for hefty financial rewards and backing.

Suspenseful thriller with an environmental theme, similar to Bond's other environmental book, The Last Savannah. 

Also finished Mike Bond's Tibetan Cross, published October 2014, a thriller involving the CIA helping the Tibetans against the Chinese. Full of action and atmosphere. Set in Tibet and Nepal, of course. 

As you see, I enjoy action and adventure novels. 

What are you reading this week?

Memes: The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, and Sunday Salon

Sunday Salon: Renewed Reading

That Strawberry Moon hanging behind the trees outside my window has me in thrall. It has for the past two early mornings, too. It was most beautiful and golden Friday morning way before dawn.

My brief period of distaste for books lasted a day or two, and happy to say, I'm back in the reading mode. I've finished

The Last Mrs. Summers by Rhys Bowen 

Publication: August 4, 2020, Berkley

Genre: historical mystery

Georgie, of Her Royal Spyness fame, travels to Cornwall with her friend Belinda, who has inherited a cottage there from her late grandmother. 

They meet Rose, an old childhood acquaintance of  Belinda's, who invites them to stay at her mansion, where Rose lives in lonely splendor, waiting for her husband Tony to return from his business travels. 

The author says this book is loosely based on DuMaurier's Rebecca, but the plot is different enough to make it interesting. There is a spooky and threatening housekeeper who runs things efficiently, as in Rebecca, and Rose seems out of her comfort zone in the stately mansion, as did the heroine of DuMaurier's novel. However, there is enough difference to make the mystery novel suspenseful enough to keep your interest. There is a murder, for one. 

I give this a five for entertainment and originality in spinning the plot of Rebecca into a new weave!

Our House by Louise Candlish

Publication: August 7, 2020, Berkley

Genre: thriller, domestic suspense 

A warning about fraud in real estate deals; sales made and transferred online can be intercepted and stolen. The story was entertaining and informative, as well as suspenseful. A woman returns home after a short trip and finds strangers moving into her house saying they are the new owners. Then she has to figure out how the mistake was made and what her husband Tony has really been up to. The ending is a surprise. Four stars.

The Last Savannah by Mike Bond

Published November 19, 2013, Mandevilla Press

Genre: thriller, travel adventure

Bond uses his international settings to point out political and environmental problems that affect the people and their world. This book deals with wildlife poaching in Africa. Going after poachers from Somalia, who enter into Kenya to gather valuable elephant tusks, Bond goes on a tortuous journey to save a female archaeologist kidnapped by the poachers for ransom. The novel is both an adventure, a thriller, and a romance. I gave this read five stars for plotting, suspense, atmosphere. I've dropped a couple of books along the way, as too uninteresting or improbable. But I'm currently enjoying a few others, such as the one below. All This I Will Give You September 1, 2018 Domestic drama set in Spain Translated novel Novelist Manuel Ortigosa learns that his husband, Álvaro, has been killed in a car crash and finds out that Alvaro has been hiding his past all these years.

What are you reading this week?

Memes: The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, and Sunday Salon

Sunday Salon: Two Paradises and the Wrong Mother

I am reading less. For many reasons, reading has lost its appeal, gradually, since the beginning of the stay-at-home orders. I've also canceled subscription to Kindle Unlimited, so several books will disappear from my e-reader at the end of today.

 But there are lots of books on shelves waiting to be picked up and read, and the library has many e-books to lend. 

Along with the disinclination to read a lot as I used to, comes the disillusionment with my once favorite genres - psychological thrillers whose plots I cannot remember or keep straight even though I enjoyed them while I was reading; police procedurals which seem dry and unoriginal; contemporary fiction that seem superficial and thus uninteresting. 

Whatever the reason, I hope to find the odd book that will grab my attention again. I just finished Saving Paradise by Mike Bond, whose thrillers on politics and international affairs I still enjoy.

Saving Paradise

Saving Paradise is set in the Hawaiian islands and features a surfer and Special Forces veteran, Pono Hawkins, who gets involved in fighting corporations and politicians wanting to change parts of the islands into giant windmill farms. 

Pono discovers the body of Sylvia, a journalist covering the island windmill deals, and vows to find her killers, thus putting himself in danger from those involved in national and international interests threatening his beloved islands. 

The suspense of chases across the islands and on the ocean separating the islands made the book entertaining. Some armchair travel and an intriguing plot with unusual characters made this book one I was able to stick with! 

Another book I liked:

The Wrong Mother

The Wrong Mother's compelling and intricate plotting made me want to read more of Sophie Hannah's books.
Just when you had it figured out and all seems to be revealed in this psychological mystery, you are turned on your head. The ending is brilliant.

On my ebook reading list:

The Library of Legends

The Price of Paradise

What are you reading this week?

Memes: The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, and Sunday Salon

Sunday Salon: A Man by Keiichiro Hirano

Finished reading:

A Man by Keiichiro Hirano, June 1, 2020, Amazon Crossing  

Genre: psychological thriller, family drama, legal thriller 

Setting: Japan 

Source: Kindle Unlimited

Loved this thoughtful and philosophical mystery novel. Akira Kido, a lawyer, is asked by his client, Rie, to find out who her recently deceased husband Daisuke really was. His family don't recognize his photo as their family member, whom they have been estranged from for many long years.

Kido determines that the husband had switched his legal information and identity to become Daisuke. A hunt ensues to unentangle the threads to identify the real name of the husband for Rie, his befuddled widow. While doing this, the lawyer tries to make sense of his own marriage which he sees as failing.

I didn't want the book to end. There were literary references to mythology and criticism, psychology, and philosophy. This made the book more than an ordinary mystery novel and fascinating to read.

The novel won Japan's Yomiuri Prize for Literature and is the first of the author's novels to be translated into English. 

The Divided Child by Ekaterine Nikas,  March 2013, Little Fox

 Genre: romantic mystery . Setting : Corfu,  Greece.  Source: Amazon Unlimited ebook 

British tourist Christine Stewart, on vacation in Corfu, gets herself invited to a luxurious villa on the Greek island after rescuing a young boy from falling masonry. 

Since the accident seems suspicious, Christine wants to keep a watchful eye on young Michael, who lives in the villa with his young stepmother. Michael's father had died in a car accident recently and the stepmother and Michael's uncle are in a fight for custody of the boy. 

Reminiscent of the romantic mysteries of Mary Stewart, who also set some of her books in Greece, The Divided Child held my interest because of the well described setting as well as the  compelling mystery and romance plots.  Five stars. 

The Dilemma by B.A. Paris,  January 1, 2020, HQ 

Genre: family drama, contemporary fiction  

Family drama of couples and their grown children. The dilemma both parents of Mandie have are different but both are reluctant to reveal the situations to each other. The consequences of their withholding important information from each other about their daughter are startling. Four stars. 

Currently reading

Can You See Her by S.E. Lynes,  April 22, 2020, Bookouture 

Genre: psychological thriller  Rachel feels invisible, as if no one ever sees her. But did she feel so invisible that she could commit murder?

What are you reading this week?

Memes: The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, and Sunday Salon