Genre: Fiction

Weekend Book Friends #32

Greetings you guys! The day has finally arrived! This is the date that all our renovations should be done. The fact that it is not done, is completely irrelevant and it’s only 08:00 here in SA now. So a miracle might still be in the works here. And if it’s not, we really, really don’t care. If my Mommy comes home from school today, she is going to do nothing but read her book. We are busy with such an intriguing read: We did find the opening a bit slow, but it sure is taking off at speed now and I can’t wait for Mommy to come home and we can continue reading. We are quickly going to say hi to @ 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 thoughts and impressions. “WE HAVE YOUR DAUGHTER.’ It’s the first Tuesday in September, the afternoon of her one very bad day and Frida is trying to stay on the road. On the voice […]

Posted June 3, 2022
33 Comments

Never Tell a Lie by Gail Schimmel

Never Tell a Lie by Gail Schimmel Published by Lake Union Publishing on November 30th, 2021 Genres: Fiction, Thriller Pages: 349 Format: Paperback Source: Pan Macmillan SA Buy on Amazon Goodreads From the author of The Aftermath comes the story of a whirlwind friendship―and the dark secrets lurking beneath it. After a tumultuous marriage, Mary Wilson is happy in her uncomplicated life, focusing on her twelve-year-old son. She’s always been content with her little family―but then she finds an old postcard that throws her whole past into question… When an invitation arrives for her high school reunion, Mary jumps at the chance of a distraction from the shock discovery, and meeting her old classmate April feels like a gift. Despite barely remembering April, Mary throws herself into the new friendship and finds her previously quiet social life reinvigorated. But as the bonds between them are forged, Mary finds herself drawn further and further into April’s life and marriage, increasingly fearing that everything is not as perfect as it seems. Is her own painful past clouding her judgement, or is Mary right to suspect that the people she trusts most are the ones with the most to hide? “The whole business […]

Posted June 2, 2022
2 Comments

Weekend Book Friends #30

Greetings you guys! How was your week? Ours was utterly crazy. But I’ll ramble on about it on Sunday. For now, I just want my Mommy to finish up here so that we can read our book. It’s windy out there, so time for a blanky and a nice cup of tea. What fun we are having with the readalong with a few fellow South African bloggers and Instagrammers. Of course it’s fitting that we are reading a book by a South African author. This book is really sooooo goooood and I can’t wait to be done so that we can tell you all about it. It’s got everything we love in a book: Intrigue; mystery; something/someone that gives us the creeps; humor; a bit of romance…. For now, we will share our Book Beginnings and page 56 excerpts with you. For our first stop, we will pay a visit to @ 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 thoughts and impressions. […]

Posted April 29, 2022
41 Comments

The Dog Walkers by Michelle Davis

The Dog Walkers by Michelle Davis on February 1st, 2022 Genres: Fiction Pages: 312 Format: ARC Buy on Amazon Goodreads Ali Doyle, a thirty-two-year-old engineer, discovers her boyfriend – who is also the legal counsel at the suburban Philadelphia software company where she works – has no intention of marrying her. After an uncharacteristically emotional confrontation, Ali ends this two-year relationship. However, the fear of seeing her ex at work and losing all control causes her to feign an illness, self-isolating in her apartment. At first, she’s fine with the solitude, but when Ali tries to leave, she’s incapable of venturing outside. Yet, while feeling lost and hopeless in this self-quarantined state, Ali discovers solace to her loneliness by watching dog walkers from her front window. In an effort to find human connection, she creates imaginative back stories for these strangers and their pets. Ultimately, it’s her concern for an elderly gentleman and his Golden Retriever, as well as advice from an unexpected voice inside of her head, that give her the strength to leave her apartment building and begin her journey to wellness. As Ali reemerges from her isolated state, she meets several of the dog walkers, learning their […]

Posted April 7, 2022
6 Comments

The Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont

The Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont Published by St Martin’s Press on February 1st, 2022 Genres: Fiction Pages: 320 Format: Paperback Source: Book Club Buy on Amazon Goodreads Nina de Gramont’s The Christie Affair is a beguiling novel of star-crossed lovers, heartbreak, revenge, and murder—and a brilliant re-imagination of one of the most talked-about unsolved mysteries of the twentieth century. Every story has its secrets. Every mystery has its motives. “A long time ago, in another country, I nearly killed a woman. It’s a particular feeling, the urge to murder. It takes over your body so completely, it’s like a divine force, grabbing hold of your will, your limbs, your psyche. There’s a joy to it. In retrospect, it’s frightening, but I daresay in the moment it feels sweet. The way justice feels sweet.” The greatest mystery wasn’t Agatha Christie’s disappearance in those eleven infamous days, it’s what she discovered. London, 1925: In a world of townhomes and tennis matches, socialites and shooting parties, Miss Nan O’Dea became Archie Christie’s mistress, luring him away from his devoted and well-known wife, Agatha Christie. The question is, why? Why destroy another woman’s marriage, why hatch a plot years in the making, […]

Posted April 4, 2022
11 Comments

Blog Tour and Review: Letters to Bizzy by John M. Tabor

Letters to Bizzy by John M. Tabor on July 13th 2021 Genres: Fiction, Memoir Pages: 176 Format: ARC Source: Travelling Pages Tours Buy on Amazon Goodreads Letters to Bizzy finds a man, John Tibbits, past his prime staring down the barrel of old age, having to come to grips with his mother’s death and regrettable fact his dysfunctional youth has burdened him with a lifetime of unwelcome baggage. As he sorts through his mother’s personal effects he discovers boxes of unopened letters written some 50 years earlier from a man, Robert Guthrie, to his daughter, Bizzy. They tell the story of a life lived on a barrier island off the coast of North Carolina, Bogue Banks. There is nothing sensational in the telling, average by most accounts. However, through the eyes of Robert Guthrie we come to see beauty in the tragic, humor in the absurd, and sensitivity from the susceptible. It is in fact an apologetic to the ordinary lives we live. Those of John Tibbits and Robert Guthrie are inexplicably intertwined; and, it is only until the end, do we learn how. For both it is a journey through their own private battles. When Jenn at Travelling Pages […]

Posted March 10, 2022
1 Comment

Wish you were here by Jodi Picoult

Wish you were here by Jodi Picoult Published by Ballantine Books on November 30th, 2021 Genres: Fiction Pages: 336 Format: Paperback Source: Book Club Buy on Amazon Goodreads A deeply moving novel about the resilience of the human spirit in a moment of crisis. Diana O’Toole is perfectly on track. She will be married by thirty, done having kids by thirty-five, and move out to the New York City suburbs, all while climbing the professional ladder in the cutthroat art auction world. She’s not engaged just yet, but she knows her boyfriend, Finn, a surgical resident, is about to propose on their romantic getaway to the Galápagos—days before her thirtieth birthday. Right on time. But then a virus that felt worlds away has appeared in the city, and on the eve of their departure, Finn breaks the news: It’s all hands on deck at the hospital. He has to stay behind. You should still go, he assures her, since it would be a shame for all of their nonrefundable trip to go to waste. And so, reluctantly, she goes. Almost immediately, Diana’s dream vacation goes awry. The whole island is now under quarantine, and she is stranded until the borders […]

Posted February 28, 2022
6 Comments

Six Degrees of Separation – No Purrs, Just Talk

Hi there Guys! It’s just me this month for Six Degrees of Separation. We are taking a long weekend and the fluffy ball of fur is at home with the rest of the fur-balls and a babysitter. So no unnecessary meows and purrs today, just straight talk and a quick post so I can get back to my reading, relaxing and drinking wine. This monthly fun meme is hosted by Books are my Favorite and Best: On the first Saturday of every month, a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six other books to form a chain. Books can be linked in obvious ways, for example: same authors, same era or genre, or books with similar themes or settings. Or you might choose to link them in more personal ways: books you read in the same holiday, books given to you by a particular friend or books that remind you of a particular time in your life. The choices are endless here! Our starting point this month is a book I haven’t heard of, but it just landed on my TBR pile: Without Elza, my creativity obviously takes a bit of a nose dive and I couldn’t think […]

Posted February 5, 2022
33 Comments

Over My Dead Body by Jeffrey Archer

Over My Dead Body by Jeffrey Archer Series: Detective William Warwick #4 Published by Harper Collins on October 19th 2021 Genres: Fiction, Mystery Pages: 384 Format: ARC Source: The Pigeonhole Buy on Amazon Goodreads THE CLOCK IS TICKING IN THIS ROLLERCOASTER RIDE OF A THRILLER… In London, the Metropolitan Police set up a new Unsolved Murders Unit—a cold case squad—to catch the criminals nobody else can. In Geneva, millionaire art collector Miles Faulkner—convicted of forgery and theft—was pronounced dead two months ago. So why is his unscrupulous lawyer still representing a dead client? On a luxury liner en route to New York, the battle for power at the heart of a wealthy dynasty is about to turn to murder. And at the heart of all three investigations are Detective Chief Inspector William Warwick, rising star of the department, and ex-undercover agent Ross Hogan, brought in from the cold. But can they catch the killers before it’s too late? My Mommy says she remembers signing up for The Pigeonhole a couple of years ago and then life got in the way…. She hasn’t used the book club in your pocket in such a long time and actually discovered the app again on […]

Posted November 13, 2021
0 Comments

Froelich’s Ladder by Jamie Yourdon

Froelich’s Ladder by Jamie Yourdon on August 2016 Genres: Fiction Pages: 248 Format: ARC Source: Forrest Avenue Press Buy on Amazon Goodreads Uncle Froelich nurses a decades-old family grudge from his perch atop a giant ladder. When he’s discovered missing, his nephew embarks on a rain-soaked trek across a nineteenth century Pacific Northwest landscape to find him, accompanied by an ornery girl with a most unfortunate name. In their encounters with Confederate assassins, European expatriates, and a general store magnate, this fairytale twist on the American dream explores the conflicts between loyalty and ambition and our need for human connection, even at the highest rungs. Froelich’s Ladder is a Tall tale/Folk tale set in the Oregon Territory and features an eccentric cast of rather believable characters and grazing clouds. Note: a “Tall Tale” is an account that is fanciful and difficult to believe. Normally accompanied by the following facial expressions and large amounts of liquor. One of the similarities between fairy tales and folk tales is that living quarters are never questioned. Whether it’s a beanstalk, a tower, a peach or a shoe – we accept it as appropriate living arrangements. In this delightful tale, Froelich finds himself perch atop the fourth […]

Posted July 31, 2016
1 Comment

Genre: Fiction

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