Good morning!  Today’s post will link up to Sunday Salon, The Sunday Post, and Mailbox Monday!

I had a very busy week, between hanging out with grandson Noah, who is on summer vacation now, and purging my bookshelves.  Here are some boxes I filled from my shelves.

I thoroughly enjoyed my blogging and reading, in between these activities.  Here’s what went on at my blogs.

ON THE BLOGS:

Musing About a Delicious Read:  W is for Wasted

Tuesday Potpourri:  Intros/Teasers – The Glass Wives

The Journey Continues:  An Excerpt

Book Hoarding:  A Plan to Curb Those Impulses

Serendipitous Wednesdays:  Dark Witch

Friday Potpourri:  More Book Purging

Friday Sparks:  Book Beginnings/56 – Innocent Little Crimes

Sweet Saturday Sample:  Homeward Bound

Reading: (Click Titles for Reviews)

Flora, by Gail Godwin

Coming Clean:  A Memoir, by Kimberly Rae Miller

44 Charles Street, by Danielle Steel (From Mt. TBR)

No Child of Mine (e-book), by Susan Lewis

***

And now for incoming books!  I did not receive any in the mail, but downloaded one e-book (my purchase).

Is This Tomorrow? (e-book), by Caroline Leavitt

In 1956, Ava Lark rents a house with her twelve-year-old son, Lewis, in a desirable Boston suburb. Ava is beautiful, divorced, Jewish, and a working mom. She finds her neighbors less than welcoming. Lewis yearns for his absent father, befriending the only other fatherless kids: Jimmy and Rose. One afternoon, Jimmy goes missing. The neighborhood—in the throes of Cold War paranoia—seizes the opportunity to further ostracize Ava and her son.

Years later, when Lewis and Rose reunite to untangle the final pieces of the tragic puzzle, they must decide: Should you tell the truth even if it hurts those you love, or should some secrets remain buried?

***

Today I’m reading a book I borrowed from the library:  Stay, by Deb Caletti.  I thoroughly enjoyed He’s Gone, which I read a couple of weeks ago.

What was your week like?  What’s coming up for you?  I hope you’ll stop by to chat.

In Alex’s background, her own horrific issues reveal themselves throughout No Child of Mine, and as she struggles with those and with her increasing empathy and compassion for a three-year-old child named Ottilie, with whom she feels a special connection, it is very clear that this is not going to be a simple case to solve. But Alex persists. And just when she is moving toward that conclusion, something happens and Alex is reunited with the birth mother she hasn’t seen since age three.

On the brink of finally connecting the dots and collecting the evidence to rescue Ottilie, one horrific night full of tragedy takes Alex on a completely unexpected course of action.

The setting of this story is lovely, in one of the small villages in England. Living in a rectory that had belonged to her adoptive parents, Alex once had everything she thought she wanted. And now everything is about to change.

I could not put this book down. As lengthy as it was, I was able to read quickly, primarily because it was so riveting. And also because I could totally relate to the story. Even though my years of social work were in the States, the similarities are greater than the differences. Charged with protecting children is one of the most important and most thankless jobs….and when something goes wrong, everyone is ready to point fingers. This read earned five stars.

Good morning!  Welcome to another Serendipitous Wednesday when we celebrate the upcoming book releases we’re eager to read.  Check in over at Breaking the Spine to see what others are anticipating.

Today I’m excited about the first book in a new Nora Roberts trilogy:  Dark Witch: Book One of The Cousins O’Dwyer Trilogy.

I love the cover!  And how about this blurb?

With indifferent parents, Iona Sheehan grew up craving devotion and acceptance. From her maternal grandmother, she learned where to find both: a land of lush forests, dazzling lakes, and centuries-old legends.

Ireland.

County Mayo, to be exact. Where her ancestors’ blood and magic have flowed through generations—and where her destiny awaits.

Iona arrives in Ireland with nothing but her Nan’s directions, an unfailingly optimistic attitude, and an innate talent with horses. Not far from the luxurious castle where she is spending a week, she finds her cousins, Branna and Connor O’Dwyer. And since family is family, they invite her into their home and their lives.

When Iona lands a job at the local stables, she meets the owner, Boyle McGrath. Cowboy, pirate, wild tribal horsemen, he’s three of her biggest fantasy weaknesses all in one big, bold package.

Iona realizes that here she can make a home for herself—and live her life as she wants, even if that means falling head over heels for Boyle. But nothing is as it seems. An ancient evil has wound its way around Iona’s family tree and must be defeated. Family and friends will fight with each other and for each other to keep the promise of hope—and love—alive…

Don’t miss the next two books in the Cousins O’Dwyer Trilogy

Shadow Spell
and
Blood Magick

***

I love books set in Ireland…and with the family secrets and underlying evil, I am hooked.  What are you eager to grab?

Good morning!  Today’s post will link up to Sunday Salon, The Sunday Post, and Mailbox Monday!

After endless repetitive posts on Sundays and Mondays, I’m trying something new.  Even old dogs can learn new tricks.  So first we’re going to take a look back at my week in blogging/reading, followed by a line-up of incoming books.

ON THE BLOGS:

Serendipitous Mondays:  Musing About Reading Habits

Tuesday Potpourri:  Intros/Teasers:  Flora

Sweet Anticipation:  Waiting for “Accidents Happen”

So Many Choices, So Little Time:  Choosing

Taking a Risk on a Friday:  Coming Clean

Saturday Snapshot:  New Beginnings & Family Connections

Sweet Saturday Sample:  A Respite by the Bay

Reading-Click Titles for Reviews:

What Alice Forgot, by Liane Moriarty

Kind of Cruel, by Sophie Hannah

The Lost Husband (e-book), by Katherine Center

All the Available Light, edited by Yona McDonough

All the Days of My Life (so far), by Alison Sweeney

***

And Now for the Upcoming Week!  Mailbox Monday! (Click Titles/Covers)

Anne of Green Gables E-book Collection - from Doma Publishing

Doma Publishing presents to you The Anne of Green Gables Collection, which has been designed and formatted specifically for your Amazon Kindle. Unlike other e-book editions, the text and chapters are perfectly set up to match the layout and feel of a physical copy, rather than being haphazardly thrown together for a quick release.

This edition also comes with a linked Table of Contents for both the list of included books and their respective chapters. Navigation couldn’t be easier.

Divas by the River (e-b00k), by Juno Ross ( a free Kindle book)

This romantic coming-of-age novel follows three young singers who experience events both humorous and wrenching as they struggle to get known. Their steamy romances are set off when a jazz club acquires a new owner. Bitter rivalries and bedroom intrigue chip away at a world its performers once took for granted.

Avis worries about being replaced as the singer in her husband’s trio. Also straining their shotgun marriage is his lingering insecurity after a bout with drugs. When a wealthy insurance client makes his move, can she continue to resist him? Even when pressures at the club cause her peaceful, loving husband to turn violent?

College girl Lorraine hasn’t “lost it” yet, but she’s more concerned about getting her first gig. Meanwhile, she falls for the club’s house pianist—a fantastic bandleader, but terribly unappreciated. She’s his cheerleader, and he becomes her mentor. But he’s a brooding enigma with dark secrets and has no qualms about exploiting her innocence. Then again, who is exploiting whom?

Izzy, former cantor and cross-dressing diva, really knows how to bring down the house. Heir to a department store fortune, he wants to sing instead of helming the family business. He’s also secretly in love with his best friend from high school. Begs her to leave her abusive husband—again. Things go from bad to worse, including his own drinking problem. Lighting his way is the beacon-like smile of worst singer of the jams—the beauty whose voice empties out half the room. He’s terrified of love. What woman could truly accept him for him, and not for his money?

 

Waiting for the Moon, by Kristin Hannah (My purchase)

Award-winning author Kristin Hannah creates her most spellbinding and compelling novel yet…a passionate tale of obsession, redemption, and the magic of true love.
WAITING FOR THE MOON
She doesn’t remember who she is or how she came to the mansion on the isolated Maine coast. Lost in a strange world filled with even stranger faces, Selena finds comfort in a man whose eyes reflect her own aloneness.
He is Ian Carrick, a brilliant physician turned recluse, hiding from life in the anonymity of this small sanctuary, haunted by a telepathic gift that has destroyed his desire to heal.
Selena comes to him, the only person he’s ever met who is immune to his psychic powers. A mesmerizing innocent, she turns his life upside down, bringing light into the darkness and laughter into the silence. For her, he begins to believe in life again, to believe in himself. And then a mysterious figure from the past arrives, threatening to destroy their glorious love and the fantasy world they have created together….

***

And that’s my week so far….what have you been doing?  What lies ahead?

As usual, I’m headed back to bed with my breakfast tray, movies, and books.  I’m reading Flora, by Gail Godwin.

Welcome to Musing Mondays, hosted by Should Be Reading.

Every Monday, we ponder various bookish topics:

Describe one of your reading habits. • Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s). • What book are you currently desperate to get your hands on? Tell us about it!  • Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it. • Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us! • Instead of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!

***

Today I’m going to chat about reading habits.  Before blogging, all I did was read and move on.

When I started seriously reviewing books and blogging about them, I decided I needed a blog where I could document my reading/reviewing journey.  So Curl up and Read was born.

At that time (October 2009), I had a huge TBR stack of books, just waiting to be read.  Around 166, to be precise.  I photographed the stacks and posted them on my About page.

I then started tracking books, creating a page for each year on that blog.  Recently, I’ve revised the pages to simplify things.  Bookshelves 2010 (Books Purchased, Read and Reviewed, Review Books), etc.  As I buy a book, I enter it on the appropriate page.  When I read and review it, I enter it and link to the review. (Same thing with review books).

My challenges also go on this blog, with the exception of the Cozies Challenge, which is on Chocolate & Mimosas (Guilty Pleasures blog).  But I do have an image link in the sidebar at Curl up and Read, taking you to Chocolate & Mimosas.

Obsessive/Compulsive much?

That is what’s working for me…so far.

What are you musing about today?

Good morning, and welcome to another Sunday Salon, where we gather around and share tidbits about the past week, and what lies ahead.

Wow, what a great week it was!  For those who remained “behind” during BEA week, we had Armchair BEA, and here are some of those posts:

Armchair BEA Day One, Day Two, and Day Three.

Monday Potpourri:   Musing About Bookish Things

Tuesday Potpourri:  Intros/Teasers – “He’s Gone”

Rolling Out the New for June:  Books, Blog Designs, Etc.

Guest Post with Lisa Ellis (Blog Tour)

Sweet Saturday Sample:  Moving On

May Reading Wrap-Up (16 Books Read in May, 85 YTD)

Reviews: (Click Titles for Reviews)

Finding Lily (e-book), by Lisa Ellis (Blog Tour)

Sweet Salt Air, by Barbara Delinsky

He’s Gone (e-book), by Deb Caletti

The Husband’s Secret, by Liane Moriarty

Dark Places (e-book), by Gillian Flynn

Every book was hard to put down!  I seemingly whirled through the stack.  And now I’m reading another book that I can’t put down.  After reading The Husband’s Secret, I had to grab What Alice Forgot, by Liane Moriarty.  I got my copy from the library.

***

What did your week look like?  What are you planning for today?  I’m taking my breakfast in bed, Sunday style.

Good morning!  Welcome to a morning of sharing our serendipitous finds, otherwise known as upcoming releases.  Join Jill, at Breaking the Spine, to see what others are awaiting.

I’m a big fan of Joyce Maynard, so I was really excited to learn about her newest release, coming on August 20, 2013.  After Her is a story about what can happen during a long, hot, and dry California summer.

It’s the summer of 1979, and a dry, hot, northern California school vacation stretches ahead for Rachel and her younger sister Patty – the daughters of a larger-than-life, irresistibly handsome and chronically unfaithful detective father who loves to make women happy, and the mother whose heart he broke. Left to their own devices, the inseparable sisters spend their days studying record jackets, concocting elaborate fantasies about the life of the mysterious neighbor who moves in down the street, and playing dangerous games on the mountain that rises up behind their house. When young women start showing up dead on the mountain, the girls’ father is charged with finding the man responsible, known as The Sunset Strangler. Seeing her father’s life slowly unravel when he fails to stop the murders, Rachel embarks on her most dangerous game yet: setting herself up as bait to catch the killer, with consequences that will destroy her father’s career and alter the lives of everyone she loves. It is not until thirty years later that Rachel, who has never given up hope of vindicating her father, finally smokes out the killer, bringing her back to the territory of her childhood, and uncovering a long-buried family secret. As with her novel, Labor Day, Maynard’s newest work is part thriller, part love story, Loosely inspired by the Trailside Killer case that terrorized Marin County in the late seventies, her tale delves deep into the alternately thrilling and terrifying landscape of a young girl’s first explorations of adult sexuality and the loss of innocence, the bond between sisters – and into a daughter’s tender but damaged relationship with her father, and what it is to finally trust a man.

***

I am very excited that this book will be coming to me before the summer is over!  What are you eagerly awaiting?

Good morning to all those who enter!  Sunday Salon is our weekly gathering place….and a kind of respite from the week behind us.  What lies ahead?  What happened before?  That’s what we’re here to discover.

And to chat….we do love our beverages, like coffee, tea, or even mimosas.

First of all, I hope everyone had a great week.  I’m so out of it that I thought last weekend was Mother’s Day…I feel as though I lost a week in there.  LOL

My blogging week included these posts, among others:

Tuesday Potpourri:  Lusting After Books

Author Interview:  Ruth Francisco

Thursday Potpourri:  Not Hump Day, and Not Yet Friday

Sweet Saturday Sample (Excerpt):  The Guardian Angel

And for next week, watch for my guest post from Author Lisa Ellis, along with a review of Finding Lily — at Rainy Days and Mondays, on May 30 and 31.

Reading:Click Titles/Covers for Reviews:

1.  Don’t Go (e-book), by Lisa Scottoline

2.  Some Are Sicker Than Others(e-book), by Andrew Seaward

3.  The K Street Affair (e-book), by Mari Passananti

And I’m currently reading Sweet Salt Air, by Barbara Delinsky.  This book feels like a vacation from reading, from blogging, and from everything.  Interestingly enough, the two MCs are writing a cookbook, and one of them is a blogger.  Fun?

***

Now…breakfast in bed, with movies!

Enjoy your day!  Come on by and let’s chat….

Welcome to another Tuesday celebrating bookish events, from Tuesday/First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Bibliophile by the Sea; and Teaser Tuesdays hosted by Should Be Reading.

My feature today is Sweet Salt Air, by Barbara Delinsky.

Intro:  (Prologue)

Charlotte Evans was used to feeling grungy.  As a freelancer, she traveled on a shoestring, getting stories other writers did not, precisely because she wasn’t fussy about how she lived.  In the last twelve months, she had survived dust while writing about elephant keepers in Kenya, ice while writing about the spirit bear of British Columbia, and flies while writing about a family of nomads in India.

She could certainly survive a mizzling, as the Irish called it, though the heavy mist seeped through everything—jeans, boots, even the thick fisherman’s sweater she wore.  The sweater was on loan from the woman under whose roof she was sleeping on this least populated of the three Aran Islands, and though Charlotte did have a fireplace in her bedroom, hot water was in short supply in the small stone cottage.  She could have used a steamy shower, a thorough washing of her clothes, and a solid day of sun.

***

Teaser:  The words echoed.  Nicole looked around, thinking that someone else had said them, because if she was the one, it would be a betrayal of the worst kind.  (p. 58)

***

Blurb:  Charlotte and Nicole were once the best of friends, spending summers together in Nicole’s coastal island house off of Maine. But many years, and many secrets, have kept the women apart. A successful travel writer, single Charlotte lives on the road, while Nicole, a food blogger, keeps house in Philadelphia with her surgeon-husband, Julian. When Nicole is commissioned to write a book about island food, she invites her old friend Charlotte back to Quinnipeague, for a final summer, to help. Outgoing and passionate, Charlotte has a gift for talking to people and making friends, and Nicole could use her expertise for interviews with locals. Missing a genuine connection, Charlotte agrees.

 

But what both women don’t know is that they are each holding something back that may change their lives forever. For Nicole, what comes to light could destroy her marriage, but it could also save her husband. For Charlotte, the truth could cost her Nicole’s friendship, but could also free her to love again. And her chance may lie with a reclusive local man, with a heart to soothe and troubles of his own.

***

Doesn’t this sound delicious?  Now I’m off to see what the rest of you are sharing….

Gather around in our Sunday Salon and let’s chat about books, our lives, and whatever we’ve enjoyed this week.

I’ve had a bit of a busy week with other things….family stuff.  But I’ve still managed to do a little blogging and reading.

Over at Story Corner, I’m eagerly anticipating Some Kind of Cruel (which I’ll be getting this week from Vine!)

Thursday showed us how to enjoy old favorites in Comfort Foods for the Soul.

At Chocolate & Mimosas, I changed the look of my blog and raved about my Newest Guilty Pleasure:  Online Soap Viewing.

And my Sweet Saturday Sample brought the aftermath of a frightening event:  Now What?

Now for the reading! (Click Titles/Covers for Reviews)

The Bodyguard & the Show Dog, by Christy Tillery French

Walled-In, by J. Elke Ertle

Just Breathe, by Susan Wiggs (From Mt. TBR)

And…still reading, but almost finished with Somewhere Off the Coast of Maine, by Ann Hood.

***

Now I’m going to enjoy breakfast in bed while watching movies.  Yesterday I picked some old favorites to enjoy, like The Jane Austen Book Club.

***