Author: elzaread

Ten Books I’ve send to the Shelter

Ten Books I’ve send to the Shelter

Greetings you guys! Good grief, you honestly only just about see me for Top Ten Tuesday this year. At least we haven’t disappeared completely – it has to count for something. Agh, we just love Top Ten Tuesday and we can see that Jana over at That Artsy Reader Girl, is also quite busy with life outside of blogging. So we are ever so grateful to her for still hosting TTT! Today’s prompt is Ten most recent books I did not finish. I’m  not really good with this DNF thing. I normally prefer to finish what I start. That’s a cat-thing. If you chase the mouse, you don’t give up until you’ve made the kill. Mommy on the other hand, quite easily puts a book down. The problem is that she normally don’t even keep it on her Goodreads page and it gets lost in oblivion. What she does do, however, is place a book in her abandoned shelf. That is almost like taking a pet to a shelter if you can’t take care of it anymore or lo and behold – don’t want it anymore.  Taking a pet to the shelter is way better than just dropping it at the side of the […]

Posted July 25, 2023
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Wednesday Wisdom from Go As A River by Shelley Read

Wednesday Wisdom from Go As A River by Shelley Read

Go As A River by Shelley Read Published by Transworld Digital on March 7th, 2023 Genres: Historical Fiction Pages: 299 Format: Paperback Source: Book Club Buy on Amazon Goodreads On a cool autumn day in 1948, Victoria Nash delivers late-season peaches from her family’s farm set amid the wild beauty of Colorado. As she heads into her village, a dishevelled stranger stops to ask her the way. How she chooses to answer will unknowingly alter the course of both their young lives. So begins the mesmerising story of split-second choices and courageous acts that propel Victoria away from the only home she has ever known and towards a reckoning with loss, hope and her own untapped strength. Gathering all the pieces of her small and extraordinary existence, spinning through the eddies of desire, heartbreak and betrayal, she will arrive at a single rocky decision that will change her life for ever. GO AS A RIVER is a heart-wrenching coming-of-age story and a drama of enthralling power. Combining unforgettable characters and a breathtaking natural setting, it is a sweeping story of survival and becoming, of the deepest mysteries of love, truth and fate. “What I have learned most about becoming, is […]

Posted July 5, 2023
4 Comments
Top Ten Tuesday – Fun with Flags

Top Ten Tuesday – Fun with Flags

Greetings you guys! Welcome to this week’s edition to Top Ten Tuesday. As you all know by now, TTT is proudly hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl. Top Ten Tuesday is a fun way to connect with your fellow bloggers and to just have some fun with books. Or that is our interpretation at least! Today’s prompt is Book Covers In the Colors of My Country’s Flag (It’s the 4th of July in the USA today, so tell us what country you live in and share book covers that match the colors of your country’s flag!) Both me and my Mommy are born and bred in South Africa. We are mostly proud of that (as you can see on our brand new graphic in the sidebar). For today’s prompt, we are going to have a bit of fun with our current loadshedding debacle here in SA. If you don’t know what “Loadshedding” means, you can read our Wondrous Words Wednesday post with a full description here South Africa has a very bright and colorful flag. We can’t say the same of our night skies at the moment. It’s mostly very dull and dark. I’ll quickly go through the first […]

Posted July 4, 2023
43 Comments
Alfie all Alone by Holly Webb

Alfie all Alone by Holly Webb

Alfie all Alone by Holly Webb Series: Animal Stories #2 Published by Stripes Publishing on January 1ste, 2007 Genres: Childrens Pages: 128 Format: Paperback Source: VCS Buy on Amazon Goodreads Evie is overjoyed when she is given her very own puppy, Alfie. Alfie adores Evie – he loves to be cuddled, sleeps on her bed and welcomes her home from school every day with a wag of his tail. But it’s not long before another new member of the family arrives: Evie’s baby brother, Sam. Suddenly no-one has much time to look after Alfie, let alone play with him and take him for walks, and soon he finds himself unwanted and all alone… Greetings you guys! It’s time for another book review from one of our eager readers from Victory School. This amazingly throrough review landed on my Mommy’s desk with a lovely note from Gia Josephs. Gia is in Grade 5 and she loves reading so much! No wonder she is second in her class for this term. Gia decided to write her first book review (I have another by her waiting to get published!) on one of the Holly Webb Animal Stories books. Holly Webb is a very […]

Posted June 22, 2023
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10 Turkish Books on my I-don’t-care-what-season-it-is Reading List 2023

10 Turkish Books on my I-don’t-care-what-season-it-is Reading List 2023

Greetings you guys! Welcome to Top Ten Tuesday. As always, hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl. Today’s prompt is one of those that we get every season and it is usually a wonderful way to sort your reading list for the next couple of months. Books on my Summer Reading list.  It’s anything but summery weather across South Africa this week. It’s dreadfully cold with wind and rain here in our little coastal town. Mommy was fortunate enough to catch a cold, but school only closes on Friday. So she just has to push through. Luckily she has a few really great books waiting at the moment. That always helps! Most excitedly at the moment, however, is Mommy and Daddy’s upcoming trip to Turkey! Yes, it’s still 5 months to go, but she is already very excited and of course she has to prepare as well as possible. What better way to prepare than by reading a whole selection of books! We spend the whole of Saturday searching for books set in Turkey, or with a Turkish setting in some or other way. So this is our upcoming reading list for this season. At once a fiendishly devious mystery, […]

Posted June 20, 2023
42 Comments
The Classics Club Spin #34

The Classics Club Spin #34

Greetings you guys! It’s time for another Classics Club spin! I don’t participate with every spin and tend to just hop on when I just happen to spot one. And of course we love taking part. How else will we ever get through our Classics Club Reading list?! What is the spin? It’s easy. At your blog, before next Sunday 18th June, 2023 create a post that lists twenty books of your choice that remain “to be read” on your Classics Club list. This is your Spin List. You have to read one of these twenty books by the end of the spin period. Try to challenge yourself. For example, you could list five Classics Club books you have been putting off, five you can’t WAIT to read, five you are neutral about, and five free choice (favourite author, re-reads, ancients, non-fiction, books in translation — whatever you choose.) On Sunday 18th, June we’ll post a number from 1 through 20. The challenge is to read whatever book falls under that number on your Spin List by the 6th August, 2023. I’ve said it before and I will probably still have to say it numerous times – my Mommy is not good with lists. In […]

Posted June 18, 2023
10 Comments
Weekend Book Friends #38

Weekend Book Friends #38

Greetings you guys! It’s Friday and a long weekend here in South Africa. We celebrate Youth Day today. My Mommy says she can really start to feel her youth slipping away a bit as she is dead tired and just want to lie on the couch and read her book. Of course we can go and do that. As soon as we’ve  managed to post our second Weekend Book Friends post for this year. Dreadfully shameful, I know. But I do understand that my Mommy just want to go and snuggle with her book. Our choice for this weekend really is a beaut. We’ve actually just started it last night, but we already know this is going to be a book we will love. We fell in love with Shelley Read’s writing style from the word go. Let’s see what my fellow weekend readers will think of this one. Our first stop is with  @ Reading is my Super Power for First Line Friday and to Gilion @ Rose City Reader for Book Beginnings.  Every Friday you can link up and share the first sentence of your current read (or the one you plan to devour over the weekend), as well as your initial […]

Posted June 16, 2023
18 Comments
The Sunday Post #94

The Sunday Post #94

Greetings you guys! How have you all been doing? Gosh, it really does feel as if we are stuck in a time warp at the moment – it’s astounding! Time is fleeting. Madness takes its toll…. Are we the only ones who feel that time is spinning slightly out of control at the moment? How did we get to June? My oh my, May just flew by! And I don’t even have anything exciting to tell you. How dreadful is that. Life is treating us quite good at the moment. It would be nice to have Mommy home a bit more and I believe the feeling is mutual. But not to worry – midyear holidays are coming up in two weeks time and she did promise to take a couple of days off to just relax and spend time with me. I do hope that means that she will lock the pups outside for at least a day, A full day. So that I can have a change to snuggle up while she just lies on the couch reading. Puppies truly are the most dreadful things on the planet. Especially when they don’t realize that chasing cats around are the worst […]

Posted June 11, 2023
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Blog Tour & Review: Reaping the Whirlwind by Rosey Dow

Blog Tour & Review: Reaping the Whirlwind by Rosey Dow

Reaping the Whirlwind by Rosey Dow Series: Trent Tyson Historical Mystery #1 on June 13th, 2023 Genres: Historical Fiction, Mystery Pages: 378 Format: ARC Source: Travelling Pages Tours Buy on Amazon Goodreads The doctor claims the old woman’s heart gave out, and Deputy Sheriff Trent Tyson doesn’t give the case another thought until the medical examiner finds poison. This death is just one in a series of unusual deaths happening in Tyson’s quiet town, which takes the deputy sheriff on the hunt for answers while the rest of the town is cause up in local hysteria, starstruck by visiting celebrities William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow. Within a week, Deputy Sheriff Trent Tyson is on the tenuous trail of a serial killer who snuffs out the unwanted, the disabled—the most helpless and lovable—without reason and with no mercy. Reaping the Whirlwind is a historical mystery set during the real events of the Scopes evolution trial in 1925 Dayton, Tennessee. The mystery weaves through trial events in an accurate portrayal of this pivotal case that forever changed the U.S. education system. Greetings you guys! Welcome to our stop on the blog tour for Reaping the Whirlwind: A Trent Tyson Historical Mystery by […]

Posted June 8, 2023
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Review & Excerpt: New Normal by Michelle Paris

Review & Excerpt: New Normal by Michelle Paris

New Normal by Michelle Paris Published by Apprentice House on May 2nd, 2023 Genres: Fiction, Humor Pages: 294 Format: ARC Source: Lola’s Blog Tours Buy on Amazon Goodreads After the sudden death of her husband, Emilie Russell just wants to feel normal. But being a middle-aged widow doesn’t come with a how-to manual. Her well-meaning friend, Viv, believes the cure to all that ails is simple: a new man. So, she sets Emilie up with her handsome and charming new neighbor, widower Colin. There’s only one problem with the plan-Colin is gay. Emilie embarks on a rollicking journey of self-discovery with Colin as her mentor and best friend. From learning to swipe right without cringing while midlife dating in constricting shapeware to cougar moments in Key West, Emilie reenters the dating pool with both humorous and soul-crushing results. With the encouragement of her friends, including a new furry one, plus a little therapy, Emilie begins forging a new life, one where she exchanges tears for laughter, and one that maybe-just maybe-includes the courage to find love again. Greetings you guys! Welcome to our stop on the Blog Tour for New Normal by Michelle Paris – a heartfelt story about a young widow […]

Posted June 5, 2023
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