Hello and Happy New Year!! A whole new year of reading adventures ahead of us all, with all the fun that entails!! Bring it on!!
And it’s been a promising start to the year book wise!! Managed to finish off 5 books and avoided Netgalley completely! Some new books have arrived from the Waterstones sale as well – those vouchers needed spending haha! – and I’ve also received a book to review from the author!
Here’s my look back!
BOOKS FINISHED
THE JOURNEY by JAMES NORBURY – 5 STARS
A GOOD CATCH by FERN BRITTON – 3 STARS
THE THIRD MAN & FALLEN IDOL by GRAHAM GREENE (audiobook) – 4 STARS
SHIVER by JUNJI ITO – 4 STARS
BIRDS by JIM MOIR – 4 STARS
BOOKHAUL
I had vouchers to spend…. there was still a sale on…..
I, MONA LISA by NATASHA SOLOMONS
Listen to my history. My adventures are worth hearing. I have lived many lifetimes and been loved by emperors, kings and thieves. I have survived kidnap and assault. Revolution and two world wars. But this is also a love story. And the story of what we will do for those we love.
In Leonardo da Vinci’s studio, bursting with genius imagination, towering commissions and needling patrons, as well as discontented muses, friends and rivals, sits the painting of the Mona Lisa. For five hundred tumultuous years, amid a whirlwind of power, money, intrigue, the portrait of Lisa del Giocondo is sought after and stolen. Over the centuries, few could hear her voice, but now she is ready to tell her own story, in her own words – a tale of rivalry, murder and heartbreak. Weaving through the years, she takes us from the dazzling world of Florentine studios to the French courts at Fontainebleau and Versailles, and into the Twentieth Century.
I, Mona Lisa is a deliciously vivid, compulsive and illuminating story about the lost and forgotten women throughout history.
THE WEATHER WOMAN by SALLY GARDNER
Neva Friezland is born into a world of trickery and illusion, where fortunes can be won and lost on the turn of a card.
She is also born with an extraordinary gift. She can predict the weather. In Regency England, where the proper goal for a gentlewoman is marriage and only God knows the weather, this is dangerous. It is also potentially very lucrative.
In order to debate with the men of science and move about freely, Neva adopts a sophisticated male disguise. She foretells the weather from inside an automaton created by her brilliant clockmaker father.
But what will happen when the disguised Neva falls in love with a charismatic young man?
It can be very dangerous to be ahead of your time. Especially as a woman.
THE SEVEN MOONS OF MAALI ALMEIDA by SHEHAN KARUNATILAKA
Colombo, 1990. Maali Almeida—war photographer, gambler, and closet queen—has woken up dead in what seems like a celestial visa office. His dismembered body is sinking in the serene Beira Lake and he has no idea who killed him. In a country where scores are settled by death squads, suicide bombers, and hired goons, the list of suspects is depressingly long, as the ghouls and ghosts with grudges who cluster round can attest. But even in the afterlife, time is running out for Maali. He has seven moons to contact the man and woman he loves most and lead them to the photos that will rock Sri Lanka.Ten years after his prize-winning novel Chinaman established him as one of Sri Lanka’s foremost authors, Shehan Karunatilaka is back with a “thrilling satire” (Economist) and rip-roaring state-of-the-nation epic that offers equal parts mordant wit and disturbing, profound truths.
A wedding in a small English village attracts a malicious spirit, forcing deep secrets to surface–a hypnotic tale of sisterhood, first love, and hauntings.
As a teenager, Kate found a safe harbor from her parents’ constant fighting in the company of the four Gonne sisters, who lived with their strict grandparents next to Small Angels, a church on the edge of dense green woods. The first outsider to ever get close to the sisters, Kate eventually learned the family’s secret: The woods are home to a capricious, menacing ghost whom generations of Gonnes had been charged with stopping from venturing into the village itself. But as the sisters grew older, braver, and more independent, bucking against the family’s burden, the bulwark began to crack, culminating in a horrifying act of violence that drove a terrible wedge between the sisters and Kate.
Chloe has been planning her dream wedding for months. She has the dress, the flowers, and the perfect venue: Small Angels, a charming old church in the village where her fiancé, Sam, and his sister, Kate, grew up. But days before the ceremony, Chloe starts to hear unsettling stories about Small Angels–and worse, she begins to see, smell, and hear things that couldn’t possibly be real.
Now Kate is returning home for the first time in years, for Sam and Chloe’s wedding. But the woods are coming alive again, and Kate must reconnect with Lucia, the most troubled of the sisters and her first love, to protect Chloe, the village, and herself. An unforgettable novel about the memories that hold us back and those that show us the way forward–this is storytelling at its most magical. Enter Small Angels, if you dare.
And then I was very lucky to receive this copy from the author in return for a fair and honest review…
NEW BEGINNINGS FOR THE SURPLUS GIRLS by POLLY HERON
Manchester, 1923: Jess Mason is determined to make her own way in the world. When she’s appointed manager for Holly Lodge, a new home for old soldiers, she must convince the owner that she can run things just as well as any man – if not better.
To everyone around him, Tom Watson seems a cheerful and sociable man, but he has secretly vowed to go through life alone. However, when he takes on the renovation of Holly Lodge and meets Jess, the walls he has built around himself start to crumble.
As the opening of the new soldiers’ home proves to be less than straightforward, Jess must fight tooth and nail to hold on to her precious new role. And with her affections for Tom growing stronger by each day, she can’t help but wonder if there is room in her life for both love and the career she’s always dreamt of.
CURRENTLY READING
THE IT GIRL by RUTH WARE (audiobook)
Books and Me! 
Fabulous haul hope you enjoy them all! xx
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thanks! Whenever I get round to reading them that is… haha!! xx
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