January 2017: Reading Month in Review

Welcome in, do join me by sharing your link to your look back at this month. I'm looking forward to visiting and seeing what everyone has been up to.  The link will be open for you to share your post whenever you post over the next few days.  Do visit each others' posts.

Well January passed by rather quickly. I had a very good reading month, and in accordance with my goals read less! I made sure I wasn't rushing through books and although I couldn't keep my review books down in total, at least in coming months I can see a little more control coming !  My aim is to shift some of those books that sit on my shelves already!

Total books read this month: 12

Bridge of Scarlet Leaves   Kristina McMorris
Meet Me at Beachcomber Bay    Jill Mansell
Anne of Green Gables   L. M. Montgomery
Pretty Little World   Elizabeth LeBan   Melissa DePino
Wild Horse Springs    Jodi Thomas
Truth to the Highlander   Barbara Longley
Accidents of Marriage   Susan Randy Meyers
Shotgun Wedding Ainslie Paton
On Second Thought   Kristan Higgins
The Wicked City  Beatriz Williams
Staying For Good   Catherine Bybee
Who's Afraid Too?  Maria Lewis

Book Formats:

Paperback	Four
E-Book	Six
Audiobook	Two
From TBR shelf	One
Review Books	Eight
From my New Shelf	Zero

Genres Read

Contemporary Romance	Four
Crime/Suspense	Zero
Fantasy	One
Contemporary Fiction	Three
Historical Fiction	Three
Memoir	Zero

New to me authors.
Elizabeth Le Ban  Melissa DePino
Susan Randy Meyers

Top Book for 

All books were great reads however I think I need to name the following as the most outstanding.

Bridge of Scarlet Leaves   Kristina McMorris

Looking Forward to Reading in February...

This is the next in a series and I'm really looking forward to catching up with the women's stories.

Incoming Books.

Paperback Books Purchased:
Nothing.

E Books Purchased:
I have wanted to read this author for awhile and so bought an earlier book of hers. Now to make the space to read it!

From Hachette NZ 

Books coming from NetGalley or Edelweiss

Review Audio Book From eStories

So how did your reading month pan out?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is a place to meet up and share what you have been, are and 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 that ever growing TBR pile! So welcome in everyone. This meme started with J Kaye's Blog   and then was taken up by Sheila from Book Journey. Sheila then passed it on to Kathryn at the Book Date. And here we are!

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

Well we are at the end of January. Flew past. And I am still waiting for summer, haven't been above 20 degrees C or 68 F so....!!!!! Today - drizzle. Sunshine please show your face.

I have spent time reading and quilting and chores. First two always enjoyable. I am learning to free motion quilting which is all about practice to gain skills. It is a bit like learning to drive a car or ride a bike, you have to get that point of balance and co-ordination and I am not there yet. But I like learning something new. When a former colleague asked me how I was learning I said "Online". She laughed because she said "That is so you". I was online with all my class much of the time learning when I was teaching. All I can say opportunities are there, and if they are not in your own town well where else to go! Yay for online.                            

What I read last week

Reviews to follow on both of these.

What I am reading at present:

This is an urban fantasy. I read the first one last year Who's Afraid? It is about Tommi a new werewolf, but not a slow one!

I am listening to

And also 

Up next:

Posts from Last Week.

Shotgun Wedding Ainslie Paton

Wild Horse Springs   Jodi Thomas

Shotgun Wedding. Ainslie Paton

Published: Supervised by Cats
Date: January 2017
Format: e-ARC
Pages: 148
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Source: Thank you to the author
Rating:
                   

Warning: Do not read this book if you dislike weddings.

Reid wants a ring on Zarley’s finger, but Zarley doesn’t need a wedding to feel married to Reid. Owen is ready to start a family, but Cara isn’t sure she wants kids. Sarina is pregnant and proposed to Dev and he wants a wedding—by the weekend.

Venue, guest list, invitations, the dress, the suit, rings, vows, catering. It’s a lot to get done in a few days. What could possibly go wrong?

Only one thing is certain with this shotgun wedding, love is the trigger and hearts will take a direct hit of happiness.

For better, for worse, forever.

This is for readers who enjoy catching up with the HEAs of couples in the Sidelined series. All the stories in Sidelined can be read independently, in any order, except Shotgun Wedding, which is more fun if read after Offensive Behavior, Damaged Goods and Sold Short.

Shotgun Wedding is like a giant epilogue to the Sidelined books by Ainslie Paton. It is full of rounding off and weddings. More than anticipated.  Totally delicious and perfect. 

It is a time to revisit the three couples and see how they are getting along with each other. Rather well actually. And Dev and Sarina - the last couple to get together are the first kids off the block when it comes to marriage. The wedding is going to be fast and simple and the perfect venue is found. The perfect celebrant is found and finally Dev faces his family with the news.

Owen and Reid would very much like to be married too, but their women are not so keen. Owen and Cara have an issue because Owen would really like to have children in the future and Cara is just so not sure she wants to be a mother, and if not now not even maybe in the future.  So how does this get resolved or will they just give each other up because they want different things. Oh, but of course they love each other so...

Reid too wants to be married, he wants to be legally bonded with Zarley so that if anything ever happens to him she'll be well provided for. Well that's what he says, but actually I think he just wants Zarley married to him, full stop. But Zarley is adamant she will not be married. So...

This was a delightful, romantic finish up and I loved it. It was great to meet up with the couples again, see them being themselves but more than themselves. 

This book though needs to follow the three before it and I did and loved them all.

Sidelined.

Offensive Behavior

Damaged Goods

Sold Short

Shotgun Wedding

Wild Horse Springs. Jodi Thomas

Published: HQN Books
Date:January 24th 2017
Format: e-ARC
Pages: 384
Genre: Contemporary romance
Source: Publisher via NetGalley
Rating:
                          
A Word from the Author.

While I was traveling around signing copies of SUNRISE CROSSING, a story I dearly loved, characters were lining up in my brain for the next book.  Some wait patiently, whispering their story, while others start yelling from the back of the line.

The character yelling for his story was Cody Winslow, my ex Texas Ranger.  He’d lived after his best friend died and he was riding full out along the edge of Ransom Canyon not caring much if he lived or died.

When he tumbled into the canyon breaking bones, he prayed for a quiet death but fate sent him Tess Adams.  A bossy, no make-up woman wearing a uniform and determined to save him.  To make matters worse, she came with eight junior park rangers about four feet yall who all wanted to practice their first aid on Cody.

The whisperer was Sheriff Dan Brigman.  He’d waited his turn.  He’d been in other books.  Always a good guy.  Always a good father and friend, but he never took center stage.  He never got his love story.  Now, in his forties, he’d given up until he found a fancy boot in the road one night.

He took on the mission to find the lady that the boot might belong to.  She had to be something special to step out in knee high rhinestone boots.

And she was…every fantasy he’d ever allowed himself to have.

When I was finally home and started writing, I had no idea how the two stories would fit together.  It was a fast write.  My fingers danced across the keyboard with the characters making me laugh and cry and worry.

So step into the adventure and enjoy.  I think WILD HORSE SPRINGS will keep you up late reading just one more chapter.  J

Jodi Thomas 

Wild Horse Springs by Jodi Thomas is #5 in the Ransom Canyon series, and I loved it. Jodi Thomas has a gift for setting her story in Texas and bringing them to life. Her characters are ordinary, heroic, loveable and I just want to live there among them. There is always a bit of a danger in writing a small town story, there are so many out there, I get bored by them at times. Not so with this series, so entertaining.

We meet some much loved characters and some new ones, in Wild Horse Springs. I love the way the author introduces a character and then tells their journey over a number of books. She has done this with Don Brigman the sheriff and his daughter Laura and her friends Lucas and Tim. And That or Thatcher Jones has been around a little while too, a character with a big heart. We also get to meet a few new characters - Brandie a singer on the road, with a deep  sadness in her soul and a hurting heart. Also there are Cody and Tess - Rangers but of different kinds who kind of spark it off in unusual circumstances.

I loved the 'hook in' as Dan Brigman finds a wonderful boot in the snow and goes in search of his Cinderella. He might seem a bit boring and predictable but he has been alone long enough and when he finds the owner of the boot perhaps he might meet his match.

The delightful Thatcher Jones is in trouble - again and enjoying the hospitality of the town jail, while all his needs are being met by the townsfolk who are looking after him. However there might be someone looking for him that doesn't look on him so benignly.

I loved the humor in the book, one time I just put the book down and chuckled and chortled. I'll say it again Jodi Thomas has a gift for writing characters that just worm their way into my heart, they are such fun.

There is plenty of action, resolution for some loves but not for others. An extremely well written book, and ... am waiting impatiently for Lauren to go off and find herself. #6 can't come soon enough.

Find Jodi Thomas 

Website

Facebook

Twitter

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is a place to meet up and share what you have been, are and 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 that ever growing TBR pile! So welcome in everyone. This meme started with J Kaye's Blog   and then was taken up by Sheila from Book Journey. Sheila then passed it on to Kathryn at the Book Date. And here we are!

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

Welcome in everyone. Hope your week was filled with some good reading. Mine was. And also with link ups with friends. And now we have a long weekend so all is great.

I watched with interest the change over of the presidency in the US. The Obamas will be missed world wide. Such a couple filled with humanity, compassion, integrity warmth and a spirit of service. 

We shall now wait to see what happens next. 

What I read last week:

As it turns out two review books and one from my back log of books bought over a year ago now. All very good reads.

What I am reading at present:

Still listening to ...

Up next:

Posts from last week
Meet Me at Beachcomber Bay  Jill Mansell
Pretty Little World   Elizabeth LeBan and Melissa DePino

Pretty Little World Elizabeth LeBan and Melissa DePino

Published:Lake Union
Date: 17th January 2017
Format: e-ARC
Pages: 320
Genre: General Fiction
Source: Little Bird Publicity via NetGalley
Rating:
                

On a cozy street in Philadelphia, three neighboring families have become the best of friends. They can’t imagine life without one another—until one family outgrows their tiny row house. In a bid to stay together, a crazy idea is born: What if they tear down the walls between their homes and live together under one roof? And so an experiment begins.

Celia and Mark now have the space they need. But is this really what Celia’s increasingly distant husband wants? Stephanie embraces the idea of one big, happy family, but has she considered how it may exacerbate the stark differences between her and her husband, Chris? While Hope always wanted a larger family with Leo, will caring for all the children really satisfy that need?

Pretty Little World by Elizabeth LeBan and Melissa DePino is about three families who live side by side in narrow houses with a basement and a few stories to them. It all begins when a burst water pipe causes a crisis and a gap between two of the houses, and the plan is born. Knock down the walls of the main street floor and turn it into communal living, with each family having their own floors above separate. And quickly and with no hiccups it is done.

The couples were interesting, although I have to say I had to have written in front of me who was married to whom and.... ah who had their eye on whom! Celia and Mark have three children and just so need to sell up and move to a bigger house. As well as the burst water pipe this is the catalyst for the idea to remove the walls. They are also not really getting along swimmingly with each other.

Leo and Hope are another couple. Leo loves to cook, Hope wants another child but isn't having any success. They also don't seem to be all of what a happy couple is about. Stephanie and Chris make up the third couple. Stephanie is an organizer, she has her own business for that. Chris is not that happy in his job and is wanting change.

So how does this commune like living go? Well suffice it to say it has its advantages and disadvantages. There is a sense of community among them, but little cracks keep appearing.  Some crises bring them together and some send them apart.

All of them seem to be in mid life crisis, none of them struck me as happy or fulfilled. I couldn't see any satisfaction in life or their partners. They didn't communicate well with the right people and I often wondered how they had all ended up like this. 

The ending was interesting but not particularly satisfying for this reader. I just felt no real growth or progress  had been made by any of the characters and I couldn't see how life was going to improve for them in the future. 

A well written book that did make me think and would make a great book club book.  I am sure it would engender much discussion.

Elizabeth Leban is the author of The Tragedy Paper, which has been translated into eleven languages, The Grandparents Handbook and The Restaurant Critic's Wife. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and two children.

Melissa DePino lives in Philadelphia and is a founding partner and principal of LeapFrog group, a marketing communications firm specialising in non-profits.  In her spare time, she reads voraciously, writes fiction, practices yoga, and enjoys live music.