It's Wednesday, what are you reading?

book description from inside flap,
At Madeline’s Tea Salon, the cozy hub of the Avalon community, local residents scrapbook their memories and make new ones. But across town, other Avalonians are struggling to free themselves of the past: Isabel Kidd is fixing up her ramshackle house while sorting through the complications of her late husband’s affair. Ava Catalina is mourning the love of her life and helping her young son grow up without his father. Local plumber Yvonne Tate is smart, beautiful, and new to Avalon, but finds that despite a decade of living life on her own terms, the past has a way of catching up—no matter where she goes. And Frances Latham, mother to a boisterous brood of boys, eagerly anticipates the arrival of a little girl from China—unprepared for the emotional roller coaster of foreign adoption.

Enter Bettie Shelton, the irascible founder of the Avalon Ladies Scrapbooking Society. Under Bettie’s guidance, even the most reluctant of Avalon’s residents come to terms with their past and make bold decisions about their future. But when the group receives unexpected news about their steadfast leader, they must pull together to create something truly memorable.


This was a    l o n g  read.  Chick Lit, which I've been enjoying over the past few weeks.  Just a nice story.

Missed Sunday Salon...

Sunday Salon, or should I say Monday, finds me finishing up Anne Rivers Siddons, The Girls of August.  I didn't get to the beach this summer, at all... so I thought I'd read about others who did.

Product Description

Every August, four women would gather together to spend a week at the beach, renting a new house each year. The ritual began when they were in their twenties and their husbands were in medical school, and became a mainstay of every summer thereafter. Their only criteria was oceanfront and isolation, their only desire to strengthen their far-flung friendships. They called themselves the Girls of August. But when one of the Girls dies tragically, the group slowly drifts apart and their vacations together are brought to a halt. Years later, a new marriage reunites them and they decide to come together once again on a remote barrier island off the South Carolina coast. There, far from civilization, the women make startling discoveries that will change them in ways they never expected.



I don't usually read this type of book, however,  I needed some enjoyable reading, with not so much catastrophe, although this did "spark" in more than one spot.

What's next, I'm going to give Gone Girl another go,  I abandoned it earlier this year.

Sunday Salon...

Sunday Salon finds me completing "the Night Guest", Fiona McFarlane.  What a good book, a little out there, but then again so am I.  I wonder. will I be Ruth, with two sons?  I know I won't have the $ Ruth had, so perhaps I won't be such a tempting target.

from Amazon.ca

Ruth is widowed, her sons are grown, and she lives in an isolated beach house outside of town. Her routines are few and small. One day a stranger arrives at her door, looking as if she has been blown in from the sea. This woman--Frida--claims to be a care worker sent by the government. Ruth lets her in.
Now that Frida is in her house, is Ruth right to fear the tiger she hears on the prowl at night, far from its jungle habitat? Why do memories of childhood in Fiji press upon her with increasing urgency? How far can she trust this mysterious woman, Frida, who seems to carry with her own troubled past? And how far can Ruth trust herself?
The Night Guest, Fiona McFarlane's hypnotic first novel, is no simple tale of a crime committed and a mystery solved. This is a tale that soars above its own suspense to tell us, with exceptional grace and beauty, about ageing, love, trust, dependence, and fear; about processes of colonization; and about things (and people) in places they shouldn't be. Here is a new writer who comes to us fully formed, working wonders with language, renewing our faith in the power of fiction to describe the mysterious workings of our minds.

So if you are elderly or have an elderly person in your life, check on them... before Frida comes to stay.


Thank You Annie for suggesting this title, it was a very good read.

Sunday Salon... Tiger Lily

Sunday Salon finds me starting a new book.  I'm ever so slow, nursing these allergy related headaches, limits my reading time. On Friday I finally finished Ice Queen, a good read, "I love it when a plan comes together"  I think the only thing that bothered me about the story line was the "infidelity".  I have a hard time with men thinking with their underwear (so says the mother of two boys). 

Product Description (Ice Queen)

The body of 92-year-old Jossi Goldberg, Holocaust survivor and American citizen, is found shot to death execution style in his house near Frankfurt. A five-digit number is scrawled in blood at the murder scene. The autopsy reveals an old and unsuccessfully covered tattoo on the corpse's arm--a blood type marker once used by Hitler's SS. Pia Kirchhoff and Oliver Bodenstein are faced with a riddle. Was the old man not Jewish after all? Who was he, really? Two more, similar murders happen--one of a wheelchair-bound old lady in a nursing home, and one of a man with a cellar filled with Nazi paraphernalia--and slowly the connections between the victims becomes evident: All of them were lifelong friends with Vera von Kaltensee, baroness, well-respected philanthropist, and head of an old, rich family that she rules with an iron fist. Pia and Oliver follow the trail, which leads them all the way back to the end of World War II and the area of Poland that then belonged to East Prussia. No one is who they claim to be, and things only begin to make sense when the two investigators realize what the bloody number stands for, and uncover an old diary and an eyewitness who is finally willing to come forward. 


Suffice it to say:  If you're EVIL, you PAY at some point in your life.


There are a few fictional characters, aside from Atticus Finch, that I like.  King Arthur, Camelot, Robin Hood, and Peter Pan, and thus the choice of Tiger Lily.  I've only just begun, so we shall see how things progress.  I also like dragons, and beautiful horses, (stay tuned for my drawing adventures.)

I've also indulge myself in binge watching the BBC series Endeavour,  love Morse, and the beginnings are a little weird watching but.... on season two tonight.  thank goodness S. Vincent likes him too.

Have a wonderful Sunday,  Handy Andy and I are off to Ikea and the battle begins. We won't go out for lunch, because by then I'll want to throw food at him.

Well we left for Ikea at 11;45 and home by 1:00, it was packed solid, not many a parking space, big huge rented vans packed full for students to move off to college.  We were in and out, I needed frames as did Handy Andy, I kept trying to lose him, but he stayed with me, first time ever.

Sunday Salon...The Ice Queen

Sunday Salon finds me still reading The Ice Queen, it's quite intense, and certainly a genre I enjoy, so what's taking so long... I think I need to find a beach...

Teaser Tuesday...

 Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of A Daily Rhythm. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Here's my teaser:

"Well I have to go.  It's almost four thirty, so my mother might drive up.'(little girl)
"what time will you be here tomorrow? (old man)
School's out at two forty.  so about quarter after three. (little girl)
Where do you go to school? (old man)
Gatzert.  (little girl)
Isn't that a long walk? (old man)

O.K. so I'm reading along, thinking "too much information" little girl and my heart is pounding.

Now just to be clear this is very early in the book, but still... scary.

Teaser Tuesday...Just Grace

WELL! my first book of 2015 is a little story about Just Grace,Charise Mericle Harper.  Over the holidays I noticed my little grand nieces reading books that I feel are a little mature for them, and me always fearing they'll stop reading because they just won't get it! decided to investigate books for young girls.  The Just Grace books were reviewed on one of the blogs I follow, I think, Bermudaonion
if not sorry I don't remember, and my note taking is somewhat careless.  So my Teaser Tuesday is as follows, I certainly can relate to this...

I did not get to be a singing and dancing corncob in the Thanksgiving play because I was the only girl tall enough to fit into the tree costume who didn't cry real boo -hoo baby tears when she was asked, "Could you please not be a corncob, because what we really, really need is a tree and we already have way more than enough corncobs."

Teaser Tuesday is hosted by Should be Reading.

I always hoped to pick books that young readers/my kids would associate with, and while I love me a good scary read, learning a lesson is always a good thing, even at my advanced years.   I'm sure people on the bus wondered why I was reading Just Grace. 

Happy Reading