Books from Countries I Haven’t Visited

The informal reading challenge from Emilie Richards Facebook Readers’ Page calls for a book with a country setting you haven’t visited as the August theme. So I have been scrambling around. I am not in the mood for something too serious so looking for mainly light!

I haven’t been to Italy so this book The Italian Daughter by Soraya Lane which publishes in September and I have from NetGalley through Bookoutre.

When Lily is called to a lawyer’s office in London, she has no idea that her life is about to change forever. There, she is told that her grandmother was born at Hope House, a home for unmarried mothers, and is given a box containing the only clues to her true heritage. Peeling back the delicate layers of paper she finds an Italian recipe and a theatre programme.       And off she goes to Italy.

I’ve not been to Russia either, and this book has been sitting on my bookshelf waiting.  It could be a possibility although I think it might be my next slow read where I read a book over a few months. Will think and consider it though.

I haven’t got this one but its very appealing and is fairly cheap on Kindle.  Divorced and on a deadline, bestselling novelist Bea Pinkerton has a serious case of writer’s block. With her agent breathing down her neck, Bea will do ANYTHING to avoid writing another word.

So an invite to a reunion with her old school friends at a beautiful chateau in France, is Bea’s perfect chance to escape. Surely here, relaxing with old friends and drinking cold fizz, Bea will find inspiration?chateaux in France.  I haven’t been to France either.

I haven’t been to Scotland and it would be a country I’d like to visit. A Secret Scottish Escape looked like a light Scotland read that would be good to try.

When Layla’s fiancée has an unexpected heart attack and dies – in another woman’s arms, no less – Layla is determined to pack up and leave Loch Harris, the village she’s always called home. But an unexpected inheritance and love for her quiet corner of Scotland send her down a new path.   I could get this through our local library. I read one of her books recently and it was decent enough.

Set in Japan and I’ve not been to that country. So The Little Teashop in Tokyo could fit the bill.

Grab your passport and escape to the land of dazzling skycrapers, steaming bowls of comforting noodles, and a page-turning love story that will make you swoon!

For travel blogger Fiona, Japan has always been top of her bucket list so when she wins an all-expenses paid trip, it looks like her dreams of the Far East are coming true.

So a decision to make in August.

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? a place to meet up and share what you have been, and are about to be reading over the week. It’s a great post to organise yourself. It’s an opportunity to visit and comment and er… add to your groaning TBR pile! So welcome in everyone. This meme started on J Kaye’s blog and then was hosted by Sheila from Book Journey. Sheila then passed it on to Kathryn here at The Book Date.

Jen Vincent, Teach Mentor Texts, and Kellee of Unleashing Readers decided to give It’s Monday! a kidlit focus. If you read and review books in children’s literature – picture books, chapter books, middle grade novels, young adult novels or anything in those genres – join them.

Hope all the northern hemisphere readers are managing the heat. It seems very hot. I was just listening to a quilt podcast where I asked the podcasters what is the plus and minus of living in Nevada. It made me curious as to why people live in the desert. Well I learned no personal tax but also they seemed to prefer the heat to the snow conditions. I was also thinking this morning not many to no trees so I guess no forest fires? Well that would be a plus.

Anyway its winter here and we do have taxes! I prefer the cold to the heat, although it hasn’t been quite so cold this winter, but well enough for heating and a fire at night.

I had a rinse and repeat kind of week and enjoyed it very much, today is overcast and I have planned to drop books off for a book fair, drop clear out stuff to the Salvation Army shop and then to pick up groceries and then home to hibernate!

What I read last week:

What I am reading now:

About to start both of these.  The Agatha Christie one helps me along in an informal reading challenge and this is the one I found at the library.

Time to listen to another in this series.

Up next:

This one because it came in at the library.

 

Last Week’s Posts

Murder Spills the Tea.  Vicki Delany

The Five Books Read from my Shelf in July

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Books Read from my Shelf in July

I’m aiming this year – 2022, to read five books of my print shelf each month, and I have already achieved that for July.  Three were from 2022, one from 2021 and one from 2018.

About one quarter of the way through Nightwork I was ready to fire this book into the “get rid of pile” and concede I’d made a buying mistake. A hero who is a thief just didn’t wash with me.

But Its Nora Roberts! Plus at this point I read Debbie’s review at The Reading Frenzy and that sort of encouraged me.

And within a few more lines I was hooked. The plot turned a little, I became more involved with the characters and I increasingly liked this thief. And what a gifted one at that. Only 4.5 stars though for giving me a “poor start.” Which probably says more about me the reader than the book, but there you are!

I so wanted to love it, but Out of the Clear Blue Sky did not provide me with the reading I desired. Everything is going down the drain and very little of it is uplifting. The main character Lillie is a hot mess of a victim who does some downright retaliative mean and nasty things. I think they were meant to be funny but I thought they were so sad. Melissa the “other woman” has very little going for her, although there is a little hope she might improve. Lillie is a homemaker for sure and I guess she and Ben will one day be a great pair, but we just had to read and read all the whiny victim stuff. KH has been up until now an automatic buy, now I will most likely read the next one, but will be via the library. And hubby? Well what. a wet blanket! Best characters – the dogs! Cover does not relate to the book at all.  2.75 stars.

Birds of a Feather by Australian author Tricia Stringer drew me in well at the beginning and then ensnared me in the day to day lives of three women. One in her seventies, one mid life and one the mother of two young children. They find themselves together and slowly some sincere and important relationships are formed. As well as that each of the three share and come to terms with what has been eating at them from the past and enables them to embrace their futures.  4 stars

A delightful book, With Love From London was one that is both full of love and loss, so both heart warming and tinged always with a sense of sadness. If only relationships could have worked out perfectly, but no. However what lasts, lasts and in a way in the end love wins. Plus a charming bookstore, books loved and a bookstore cat. Good reading.  4.25 stars.

An enjoyable story set in Scotland and involving a manor and a teashop and some fun characters. It has family and romance and new beginnings, nicely told, warm and cozy. The cover is especially delicious and does match the book! 3.75 stars.