The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by The Caffeinated Book Reviewer, Showcase Sunday is hosted by Books, Biscuits and Tea, Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Tynga's Reviews, The Sunday Salon is a new facebook group I've joined and Monday Mailbox is hosted by Marcia to be Continued.
Summer is finally here! We hit 100 in Arizona yesterday and the pool is up to 75, so today should see me floating with a good book. It's my favorite way to relax.
I had an exciting add week. I have been trying to go easy on adding new books to my TBR pile, but there were so many books I really wanted to read that I couldn't resist.
The highlight of my book week was getting an ARC of the upcoming Alice Hoffman book. She is definitely one of my all time favorite authors and this looks like a good one.
I loved Laura Elliot's Stolen Child, so I was really excited to get the chance to read Prodigal Daughter.
And I got some approval from St. Martin's Press, which publishes some of my favorite authors. They rarely have a miss in my book, so I'm always happy to take a chance on their debut authors.
Here's what I got.
From NetGalley
The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler....I came across this book at
Simon Watson, a young librarian, lives alone in a house that is slowly crumbling toward the Long Island Sound. His parents are long dead. His mother, a circus mermaid who made her living by holding her breath, drowned in the very water his house overlooks. His younger sister, Enola, ran off to join the circus six years ago.
One June day, an old book arrives on Simon's doorstep. Fragile and water damaged, the book is a log from the owner of a traveling carnival in the 1700s, who reports strange and magical things-including the drowning death of a circus mermaid. Since then, generations of "mermaids" in Simon's family have drowned-always on July 24, which is only weeks away.
As his friend Alice looks on with alarm, Simon becomes increasingly worried about his sister. Could there be a curse on Simon's family? What does it have to do with the book, and can he stop it in time to save Enola?
The Prodigal Sister by Laura Elliot....Cathy fled her Dublin home was she
Rebecca was eighteen when her parents died and she took responsibility for her younger sisters. Years later, she is haunted by fears she hoped she'd conquered.
Freed from family duties, mother of three Julie is determined to recapture the dreams of her youth but at what price?
Married to a possessive older man, Lauren embarks on a frantic love affair that threatens to destabilise her fragile world.
Anxious to make peace with her three sisters, Cathy invites them to her wedding. But as the women journey together through New Zealand towards their reunion, they are forced to confront the past as the secret shared histories of the Lambert sisters are revealed.
Accompany the Lambert sisters on their unforgettable journey – fans of Jojo Moyes and Liane Moriarty will be spellbound.
Little Black Lies by Sharon Bolton....In such a small community as the
When another child goes missing, and then a third, it's no longer possible to believe that their deaths were accidental, and the villagers must admit that there is a murderer among them.
Even Catrin Quinn, a damaged woman living a reclusive life after the accidental deaths of her own two sons a few years ago, gets involved in the searches and the speculation.
And suddenly, in this wild and beautiful place that generations have called home, no one feels safe and the hysteria begins to rise.
But three islanders--Catrin, her childhood best friend, Rachel, and her ex-lover Callum--are hiding terrible secrets. And they have two things in common: all three of them are grieving, and none of them trust anyone, not even themselves.From Edelweiss
Little Pretty Things by Lori Rader-Day....OLD RIVALRIES NEVER DIE. BUT
Juliet Townsend is used to losing. Back in high school, she lost every track team race to her best friend, Madeleine Bell. Ten years later, she’s still running behind, stuck in a dead-end job cleaning rooms at the Mid-Night Inn, a one-star motel that attracts only the cheap or the desperate. But what life won’t provide, Juliet takes.
Then one night, Maddy checks in. Well-dressed, flashing a huge diamond ring, and as beautiful as ever, Maddy has it all. By the next morning, though, Juliet is no longer jealous of Maddy—she’s the chief suspect in her murder.
To protect herself, Juliet investigates the circumstances of her friend’s death. But what she learns about Maddy’s life might cost Juliet everything she didn’t realize she had.
The Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffman....From the New York Times
Growing up on idyllic St. Thomas in the early 1800s, Rachel dreams of life in faraway Paris. Rachel’s mother, a pillar of their small refugee community of Jews who escaped the Inquisition, has never forgiven her daughter for being a difficult girl who refuses to live by the rules. Growing up, Rachel’s salvation is their maid Adelle’s belief in her strengths, and her deep, life-long friendship with Jestine, Adelle’s daughter. But Rachel’s life is not her own. She is married off to a widower with three children to save her father’s business. When her husband dies suddenly and his handsome, much younger nephew, Frédérick, arrives from France to settle the estate, Rachel seizes her own life story, beginning a defiant, passionate love affair that sparks a scandal that affects all of her family, including her favorite son, who will become one of the greatest artists of France.Building on the triumphs of The Dovekeepers and The Museum of Extraordinary Things, set in a world of almost unimaginable beauty, The Marriage of Opposites showcases the beloved, bestselling Alice Hoffman at the height of her considerable powers. Once forgotten to history, the marriage of Rachel and Frédérick is a story that is as unforgettable as it is remarkable.
The Telling by Jo Baker....Rachel travels to her mother's isolated country
However, along with the memories of her mother, Rachel feels something else, a presence. She grows ever more convinced that the house holds a message for her.
Can the ghosts of the past be nudging their way into the present?
