Sunday Salon: Christmas Lights Up!

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.

Got some multi-colored lights put up on the tree in front. Let the holiday festivities begin!

A few new books to share:

The Great Christmas Knit-Off by Alexandra Brown, published October 13, 2015 by William Morrow
Genre: fiction
Heartbroken after being jilted at the altar, Sybil has been saved from despair by her knitting obsession and now her home is filled to bursting with tea cosies, bobble hats, and jumpers. But, after discovering that she may have perpetrated the cock-up of the century at work, Sybil decides to make a hasty exit and, just weeks before Christmas, runs away to the picturesque village of Tindledale. (goodreads)

Lone Star by Paullina Simons, published November 24, 2015 by William Morrow paperbacks
(T)he unforgettable love story between a college-bound young woman and a traveling troubadour on his way to war—a moving, compelling novel of love lost and found set against the stunning backdrop of Eastern Europe.

The Indifferent Stars Above by Daniel James Brown, published September 22, 2015 by William Morrow
Genre: historical fiction
In April of 1846, twenty-one-year-old Sarah Graves set out west from Illinois with her new husband, her parents, and eight siblings. Seven months later, after joining a party of emigrants led by George Donner, they reached the Sierra Nevada Mountains as the first heavy snows of the season closed the pass ahead of them. In early December, starving and desperate, Sarah and fourteen others set out for California on snowshoes and, over the next thirty-two days, endured almost unfathomable hardships and horrors.

What are you reading this week? 

Waiting on Wednesday:Two Mystery Novels

Waiting on Wednesday is hosted weekly by Jill at Breaking the Spine. What new releases are you eagerly waiting for. Link your post to Breaking the Spine.
These books are to be released in a week, December 1, 1015. They do look good!

Pouncing on Murder by Laurie Cass, the fourth in the Bookmobile Cat Mystery.
Springtime in Chilson, Michigan, means it's librarian Minnie Hamilton's favorite time of year: maple syrup season! But her excitement fades when her favorite syrup provider, Henry Gill, dies in a sugaring accident. 

On the bookmobile rounds with her trusty rescue cat Eddie, Minnie meets Adam, the old man's friend, who was with him when he died. Adam is convinced Henry’s death wasn’t an accident, and fears that his own life is in danger. (publisher)

What She Knew by Gilly Macmillan, William Morrow Paperback.
Gilly Macmillan explores a mother’s search for her missing son, weaving a taut psychological thriller. Rachel Jenner is walking in a Bristol park with her eight-year-old son, Ben, when he asks if he can run ahead. It’s an ordinary request on an ordinary Sunday afternoon, and Rachel has no reason to worry—until Ben vanishes.  (publisher)
What books are you waiting for to be published?

First Chapter: Playing with Fire by Tess Gerritsen

Bibliophile By the Sea hosts First Chapter, First Paragraph every Tuesday. Share the first paragraph(s) of your current read or book interest, with information for readers. Also share a teaser from the book with Teaser Tuesday at A Daily Rhythm.

My choice this week is a library book:

Playing with Fire: A Novel by Tess Gerritsen, published October 27, 2015 by Ballantine
Genre: thriller
Source: library
A beautiful violinist is haunted by a very old piece of music she finds in a strange antique shop in Rome.

The first time Julia Ansdell picks up The Incendio Waltz, she knows it’s a strikingly unusual composition. But while playing the piece, Julia blacks out and awakens to find her young daughter implicated in acts of surprising violence. And when she travels to Venice to find the previous owner of the music, she uncovers a dark secret that involves dangerously powerful people—a family who would stop at nothing to keep Julia from bringing the truth to light
(publisher)

First chapter, first paragraph:

From the doorway I can already smell the scent of old books, a perfume of crumbling pages and time-worn leather. The other antiques stores that I've passed on this cobblestoned alley have their air conditioners running and their doors closed against the heat, but this shop's door is propped open, as if inviting me to enter. It's my last afternoon in Rome, my last chance to pick up a souvenir of my visit. Already I've bought a silk tie for Rob and Lily, but I haven't found anything for myself. In the window of this antiques shop, I see exactly what I want. 

 Teaser:

"Beware the ignorant, Lorenzo. They're the most dangerous enemy of all, because they are everywhere."

I have just gotten the book from the library and am looking forward to reading it, having read a few of her other books.

Tess Gerritsen's first medical thriller, Harvest, was released in hardcover in 1996, and it marked her debut on the New York Times bestseller list. Her suspense novels since then have been: Life Support (1997), Bloodstream (1998), Gravity (1999), The Surgeon (2001), The Apprentice (2002), The Sinner (2003), Body Double (2004), Vanish (2005), The Mephisto Club (2006), and The Bone Garden (2007). (goodreads) 

I guess her space thriller, Gravity, was published before the movie with a similar plot was made. Here's a description from goodreads of her 2004 book: An experiment on micro-organisms conducted in space goes wrong. The cells begin to infect the crew with deadly results. Emma Watson struggles to contain the deadly microbe while her husband and NASA try to retrieve her from space, before it's too late. Sounds thrilling.

What are you reading this week, and would you read Playing with Fire based on the beginning and teaser? 

Sunday Salon: Snow in November and some New Mysteries

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.

It's snowing in November, and it's quite pretty outside, but.....too soon, I am thinking. But it doesn't matter if it's colder, we are still painting that bedroom today. 

Two books came in. One a drama set in a newsroom, always good fodder for a novel. The other is a South American crime novel.

Betty Boo by Claudia Pineiro, to be published February 9, 2016 by Bitter Lemon Press
Genre: crime fiction set in Buenos Aires, Argentina
Source: publisher
When a Buenos Aires industrialist is found dead in an exclusive gated community called La Maravillosa, the novelist Nurit Iscar (once nicknamed Betty Boo owing to a resemblance to the cartoon character Betty Boop) is contracted by the editor of a national newspaper, to cover the story. Nurit teams up with the paper’s veteran crime reporter. Soon they realize that they are falling in love, which complicates matters deliciously.

The murder is no random crime. Five members of the Argentine industrial and political elite have died in apparently innocent circumstances. The Maravillosa murder is just the last in the series and those in power in Argentina are not about to allow all this brought to light. (publisher)

The Newsmakers by Lis Wiehl, to be published January 19, 2016 by Thomas Nelson
Genre: mystery
Source: publisher
Television reporter Erica Sparks has just landed her dream job at Global News Network. Erica moves to Manhattan to join GNN, leaving Jenny, her adored 7-year-old daughter, in the custody of her ex-husband. Erica witnesses a horrific Staten Island ferry crash. Then she lands a coveted interview with presumptive presidential nominee Kay Barrish. During the interview Barrish collapses. Erica valiantly tries to save her with CPR. The footage rivets the world—GNN’s ratings soar and Erica is now a household name.

What a strange coincidence that both events should happen on her watch. It’s almost as if they were engineered. Erica’s pursuit of the truth puts her life and that of her daughter in danger. 

Both of these novels sound riveting. Hoping to read them before they are published next year.

Current reads from the library: 
Am still reading that thick novel, The Bone Tree by Greg Iles, and glad to say I'm a little more than half way through. 

Picked up another crime novel, this one set in Thailand, The Hot Countries by Timothy Hallinan.

From my shelves, I've found I had overlooked this crime novel by Camilla Lackberg, 

The Drowning by Camilla Lackberg, published September 15, 2015 by Pegasus
Genre: crime novel
Source: ARC from publisher

Christian Thydell’s debut novel, The Mermaid, is published to rave reviews. So why is he as distant and unhappy as ever?
When crime writer Erica Falck learns he has been receiving anonymous threats, she investigates the messages and the author’s mysterious past…Erica’s husband, Detective Patrik Hedström, has his worst suspicions confirmed as the mind-games aimed at Christian and those around him become a disturbing reality. But, with the victims themselves concealing evidence, the investigation is going nowhere. And what is the secret they would rather die to protect than live to see revealed?  (publisher)

I seem to have all mystery novels this week. I guess they are still among the books I prefer reading, though women's fiction comes in a close second. 

What are your reading preferences this week/month?

Book Beginning: The Story of Land and Sea by Katy Simpson Smith

The Friday 56: *Grab a 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 Beginning at Rose City Reader.

The Story of Land and Sea by Katy Simpson Smith, hardcover published 2014 by Harper
Genre: historical fiction
Source: ARC
Set in a small coastal town in North Carolina during the waning years of the American Revolution, this novel follows three generations of family—fathers and daughters, mother and son, master and slave, characters who yearn for redemption amidst a heady brew of war, kidnapping, slavery, and love. (publisher)

Book beginning:

On days in August when sea storms bite into the North Carolina coast, he drags a tick mattress into the hall and tells his daughter stories, true and false, about her mother. The wooden shutters clatter, and Tabitha folds blankets around them to build a softness for the storm. He always tells of their courting days, of her mother's shyness. She looked like a straight tall pine from a distance; only when he got close could he see her trembling. 

page 56:

Above decks he takes his plate of meat and bread and accepts the stares of the seamen, who know he carried the fever onto their ship. 

I haven't read many books on this time period, the days at the end of the American Revolution and right after, The writing captured my attention and I'm eager to read it though I got the ARC about a year ago.

What book are you sharing this week?

Sunday Salon: Vive la France!

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.

Devastated by the vivid news on CNN and other channels of the tragic events in Paris. Just a few days ago, I was thinking of that city, seeing very vividly the Seine at night, flanked by trees, calmly lit up by lights and barges on the water and thinking I'd love to have an apartment in Paris with that exact view. Thinking of the people in that beautiful city....

I am still reading The Bone Tree by Greg Iles, the second in the trilogy based on the Civil Rights era of the 1960s, the murders of civil rights workers in the south, and theories linking a New Orleans Sicilian mobster and the death of President John F. Kennedy. 

I also have three nonfiction books that I''m slowly getting through. 

New books that arrived:

Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier, a novel published September 1, 2015 by William Morrow Paperbacks. 
I have read this one before but am eager to reread it. Du Maurier wrote such wonderful romantic suspense, such as this one set on the Cornish coast. 

The Witch's Market by Mingmei Yip, to be released November 24, 2015 by Kensington.
Set in the Canary Islands, the novel deals with a research project on witches by a San Francisco professor. It involves a journey of intrigue, romance, and self-discovery.
The book was sent by the author for review. I am looking forward to reading it.

What's on your reading desk this week? 

Book Beginning: The Hypnotist's Love Story by Liane Moriarty

The Friday 56: *Grab a 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 Beginning at Rose City Reader.

The Hypnotist's Love Story by Liane Moriarty, published June 14, 2012 by Penguin Adult.
Genre: contemporary fiction, women's fiction
Source: library

Ellen O’Farrell is a professional hypnotherapist who works out of the eccentric beachfront home she inherited from her grandparents. It’s a nice life, except for her tumultuous relationship history. When she meets Patrick, she’s optimistic. He’s attractive, single, employed, and best of all, he seems to like her back. Then comes that dreaded moment: He thinks they should have a talk. 

It turns out that Patrick’s ex-girlfriend is stalking him. Ellen thinks, Actually, that’s kind of interesting. She’s dating someone worth stalking. She’s intrigued by the woman’s motives. In fact, she’d even love to meet her.

Ellen doesn’t know it, but she already has. (publisher)

Book beginning:

I had never been hypnotized before.I didn't really believe in it, to be honest. My plan was to lie there and pretend it was working, and try not to laugh.

Page 56:

He said, "She's calling off the wedding? Because of you?"

I've read three of Moriarty's other books and really liked What Alice Forgot  (review) and Big Little Lies. I hope this one will be just as good.