Hello and Happy Saturday! I hope life is treating you well!! Enjoying the sunny weather here as it means lots of butterflies to spot out and about!! Nature rocks!!
And on the book front it's been a pretty good week too - 4 books finished, 3 newbies added to the Netgalley shelves and 2 new books arrived in the post!!
Here's my look back
BOOKS FINISHED
GRACELAND by BETHAN ROBERTS - 3 STARS
ANY HUMAN HEART by WILLIAM BOYD - 4 STARS
THE WILDERNESS by SARAH DUGUID - 4 STARS
BOOKHAUL
Starting with Netgalley! See what they tempted me with this week!!
THE FORGOTTEN BOOKSHOP IN PARIS by DAISY WOOD
publication date - October 2022
From an exciting new voice in WWII historical fiction comes a tale of love, loss and a betrayal that echoes through generations…
Paris, 1940
War is closing in on the city of love, and Jacques has already lost everything he holds dear – except his beloved bookshop, la page cachée. So when a young woman and her children knock on his door during a raid one night and beg for refuge, he knows he has nothing left to lose…
Modern day
Bostonian Juliette and her husband have finally made it to France on the romantic getaway of their dreams – but as the days pass, all she discovers is quite how far they’ve grown apart. She’s craving a new adventure, so when she happens across a tiny, abandoned bookshop with a for-sale sign in the window, it feels fated.
And she’s about to learn that the little bookshop hides a lot more than meets the eye…
A heartbreaking tale of love and loss in war, perfect for fans of Kate Quinn and Rachel Hore.
Paris, 1940
War is closing in on the city of love, and Jacques has already lost everything he holds dear – except his beloved bookshop, la page cachée. So when a young woman and her children knock on his door during a raid one night and beg for refuge, he knows he has nothing left to lose…
Modern day
Bostonian Juliette and her husband have finally made it to France on the romantic getaway of their dreams – but as the days pass, all she discovers is quite how far they’ve grown apart. She’s craving a new adventure, so when she happens across a tiny, abandoned bookshop with a for-sale sign in the window, it feels fated.
And she’s about to learn that the little bookshop hides a lot more than meets the eye…
A heartbreaking tale of love and loss in war, perfect for fans of Kate Quinn and Rachel Hore.
AN ITALIAN GIRL IN BROOKLYN by SANTA MONTEFIORE
publication date - July 2022
Dark secrets and hidden sorrows abound in Santa Montefiore’s spellbinding new novel set in war-torn Italy and the streets of New York.
'Nobody does epic romance like Santa Montefiore' JOJO MOYES
New York, 1979.
It is Thanksgiving and Evelina has her close family and beloved friends gathered around, her heart weighted with gratitude for what she has and regret for what she has given up. She has lived in America for over thirty years, but she is still Italian in her soul.
Northern Italy, 1934.
Evelina leads a sheltered life with her parents and siblings in a villa of fading grandeur. When her elder sister Benedetta marries a banker, to suit her father’s wishes rather than her own, Evelina swears that she will never marry out of duty. She knows nothing of romantic love, but when she meets Ezra, son of the local dressmaker, her heart recognises it like an old friend.
Evelina wants these carefree days to last forever. She wants to bask in sunshine, beauty and love and pay no heed to the grey clouds gathering on the horizon. But nothing lasts forever. The shadows of war are darkening over Europe and precious lives are under threat…
'Nobody does epic romance like Santa Montefiore' JOJO MOYES
New York, 1979.
It is Thanksgiving and Evelina has her close family and beloved friends gathered around, her heart weighted with gratitude for what she has and regret for what she has given up. She has lived in America for over thirty years, but she is still Italian in her soul.
Northern Italy, 1934.
Evelina leads a sheltered life with her parents and siblings in a villa of fading grandeur. When her elder sister Benedetta marries a banker, to suit her father’s wishes rather than her own, Evelina swears that she will never marry out of duty. She knows nothing of romantic love, but when she meets Ezra, son of the local dressmaker, her heart recognises it like an old friend.
Evelina wants these carefree days to last forever. She wants to bask in sunshine, beauty and love and pay no heed to the grey clouds gathering on the horizon. But nothing lasts forever. The shadows of war are darkening over Europe and precious lives are under threat…
ABANDONED TRAIN STATIONS by DAVID ROSS
publication date - August 2022
Mysterious ghost stations forgotten beneath the cities of Paris and London; desolate grand rail hubs in the Pyrenée mountains; metro stations in China that terminate in a wasteland: Abandoned Train Stations looks at some of the thousands of disused station buildings, platforms, lines, tunnels, and rail yards left behind by modernity.
Organized by continent, this book takes the reader to every corner of the globe. Explore Canfranc International Railway Station, once a busy mountain hub of international travel between France and Spain. See the eerily empty platform at Kings Cross Thameslink, London, today a service tunnel following the station's closure in the early 2000s. Examine the grandiose Michigan Central Train Station in Detroit, an historic Amtrak rail depot, and once the tallest rail station in the world. Marvel at the dusty, overgrown shell of Abkhazia's once-beautiful railway station in Psyrtskha, a physical legacy of the former Soviet era in the Caucasus. Abandoned Train Stations provides a fascinating pictorial journey through the little-known remnants of rail transport infrastructure from every part of the world.
Organized by continent, this book takes the reader to every corner of the globe. Explore Canfranc International Railway Station, once a busy mountain hub of international travel between France and Spain. See the eerily empty platform at Kings Cross Thameslink, London, today a service tunnel following the station's closure in the early 2000s. Examine the grandiose Michigan Central Train Station in Detroit, an historic Amtrak rail depot, and once the tallest rail station in the world. Marvel at the dusty, overgrown shell of Abkhazia's once-beautiful railway station in Psyrtskha, a physical legacy of the former Soviet era in the Caucasus. Abandoned Train Stations provides a fascinating pictorial journey through the little-known remnants of rail transport infrastructure from every part of the world.
And then in the post I received this one for review......
THE VERY SECRET SOCIETY OF IRREGULAR WITCHES by SANGU MANDANNA
publication date -August 2022
A warm and uplifting novel about an isolated witch whose opportunity to embrace a quirky new family—and a new love—changes the course of her life.
As one of the few witches in Britain, Mika Moon knows she has to hide her magic, keep her head down, and stay away from other witches so their powers don’t mingle and draw attention. And as an orphan who lost her parents at a young age and was raised by strangers, she’s used to being alone and she follows the rules...with one exception: an online account, where she posts videos "pretending" to be a witch. She thinks no one will take it seriously.
But someone does. An unexpected message arrives, begging her to travel to the remote and mysterious Nowhere House to teach three young witches how to control their magic. It breaks all of the rules, but Mika goes anyway, and is immediately tangled up in the lives and secrets of not only her three charges, but also an absent archaeologist, a retired actor, two long-suffering caretakers, and…Jamie. The handsome and prickly librarian of Nowhere House would do anything to protect the children, and as far as he’s concerned, a stranger like Mika is a threat. An irritatingly appealing threat.
As Mika begins to find her place at Nowhere House, the thought of belonging somewhere begins to feel like a real possibility. But magic isn't the only danger in the world, and when a threat comes knocking at their door, Mika will need to decide whether to risk everything to protect a found family she didn’t know she was looking for....
As one of the few witches in Britain, Mika Moon knows she has to hide her magic, keep her head down, and stay away from other witches so their powers don’t mingle and draw attention. And as an orphan who lost her parents at a young age and was raised by strangers, she’s used to being alone and she follows the rules...with one exception: an online account, where she posts videos "pretending" to be a witch. She thinks no one will take it seriously.
But someone does. An unexpected message arrives, begging her to travel to the remote and mysterious Nowhere House to teach three young witches how to control their magic. It breaks all of the rules, but Mika goes anyway, and is immediately tangled up in the lives and secrets of not only her three charges, but also an absent archaeologist, a retired actor, two long-suffering caretakers, and…Jamie. The handsome and prickly librarian of Nowhere House would do anything to protect the children, and as far as he’s concerned, a stranger like Mika is a threat. An irritatingly appealing threat.
As Mika begins to find her place at Nowhere House, the thought of belonging somewhere begins to feel like a real possibility. But magic isn't the only danger in the world, and when a threat comes knocking at their door, Mika will need to decide whether to risk everything to protect a found family she didn’t know she was looking for....
And then my June book from my subscription to RENARD PRESS showed up.....
MRS DALLOWAY by VIRGINIA WOOLF
First published in 1925, set ‘one Wednesday in mid-June’, Mrs Dalloway charts the lives of several characters across a day in London. While Clarissa Dalloway goes about preparing for a high-society party she is to host that evening, pondering on her childhood and marriage, nearby Septimus Warren Smith, a First World War veteran, is plagued with memories of the war and of his friend who never returned.
Weaving a multitude of voices and eras into one, dressed in the most beautiful of language, Mrs Dalloway has earned its reputation as one of the most iconic novels of the twentieth century and great successes of Modernist fiction.
CURRENTLY READING
FACES ON THE TIP OF MY TONGUE by EMMANUELLE PAGANO
HAPPY READING!!
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