Hello! Happy Saturday!! Been a rather chilly week here, lots of frosty days but beautiful sunshine! And no snow for us! We missed out on the fun again! AT least it beats the grey, rainy weather!
And on the book front it’s been a very good week!! Managed to finish 6 books this week which pleased me greatly!! Just 1 new addition to the Netgalley shelves too, along with 1 physical book for review!
Here’s my look back!
BOOKS FINISHED
ONCE UPON A TOME by OLIVER DARKSHIRE – 4 STARS
HORTUS CURIOUS by MICHAEL PERRY – 4 STARS
RECIPE FOR MR PERFECT by ANNI ROSE -5 STARS
THE TOLL HOUSE by CARLY REAGON – 4 STARS
THE DARLINGS OF THE ASYLUM by NOEL O’REILLY – 4 STARS
NEW BEGINNING FOR THE SURPLUS GIRLS by POLLY HERON – 5 STARS
One temptation at Netgalley this week….
HOMECOMING by KATE MORTON
publication date – April 2023
Adelaide Hills, Christmas Eve, 1959. At the end of a scorching hot day, beside a creek in the grounds of a grand and mysterious mansion, a local delivery man makes a terrible discovery. A police investigation is called and the small town of Tumbeela becomes embroiled in one of the most shocking and perplexing murder cases in the history of South Australia.
Sixty years later, Jess is a journalist in search of a story. Having lived and worked in London for almost twenty years, she now finds herself laid off from her full-time job and struggling to make ends meet. A phone call out of nowhere summons her back to Sydney, where her beloved grandmother, Stella, who raised Jess when her mother could not, has suffered a fall and been raced to the hospital.
Stella has always been a vibrant and strong presence: decisive, encouraging, young beyond her years. When Jess visits her in the hospital she is alarmed to find her grandmother frail and confused; it’s even more alarming to hear from Stella’s housekeeper that Stella had been distracted in the weeks before her accident, and that she fell on the steps to the attic – the one place Jess was forbidden from playing when she was small.
At a loose end in Stella’s house, Jess does some digging of her own. In Stella’s bedroom, she discovers a true crime book, chronicling the police investigation into a long-buried tragedy: the Turner Family Tragedy of Christmas Eve, 1959. It is only when Jess skims through the book that she finds a shocking connection between her own family and this once-infamous crime – a crime that has never been resolved satisfactorily. And for a journalist without a story, a cold case might be the best distraction she can find . . .
An epic novel that spans generations, Homecoming asks what we would do for those we love, and how we protect the lies we tell. It explores the power of motherhood, the corrosive effects of tightly held secrets, and the healing nature of truth. Above all, it is a beguiling and immensely satisfying novel from one of the finest writers working today.
And in the post I was very thankful to receive this book for review…
1989 by VAL McDERMAID
publication date – February 2nd 2023
It’s 1989 and Allie Burns is back.Older and maybe wiser, she’s running the northern news operation of the Sunday Globe, chafing at losing her role in investigative journalism and at the descent into the gutter of the UK tabloid media.But there’s plenty to keep her occupied. The year begins with the memorial service to the victims of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, but Allie has barely filed her copy when she stumbles over a story about HIV/AIDS that will shock her into a major change of direction.The world of newspapers is undergoing a revolution, there’s skulduggery in the medical research labs and there are seismic rumblings behind the Iron Curtain. When kidnap and murder are added to this potent mix, Allie is forced to question all her old certainties.
CURRENTLY READING
EMILY WILDE’S ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF FAERIES by HEATHER FAWCETT
Books and Me! 
