Linking to: It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? at BookDate; Sunday Post @ Caffeinated Reviewer; and the Sunday Salon @ ReaderBuzz
Life…
I hope you all have had a wonderful week, whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza or nothing at all! Our Christmas plans changed last minute due to a misunderstanding and we ended up at my parents house for lunch. The weather held, which was good, and a lovely time was had by all. I forgot to take a photo though!
This time between Christmas and New Year is a liminal space where no one has a clue what day it is and we never seem to run out of ham. My husband and youngest son don’t go back to work until the 12th of January, and the other two don’t resume studying until the end of the month. I’m proud to say my youngest daughter has been accepted into the Forensic Science Online Master’s Degree at Florida University (in the USA) and my oldest son will also be starting his Masters in Writing and Publishing. My eldest (who doesn’t live at home anymore) is not so lucky, she and her partner were both back at work today.
It is my youngest’s 20th birthday tomorrow, so I will officially no longer have a teenager in the house, rendering me ‘properly old’, or so I was told. Eek! He and his girlfriend have plans for a fancy dinner date, and then he will be joining his mates at the pub for a few (likely too many) drinks. (*a reminder that 18 is the legal drinking age in Australia)
Thank you for sharing 2025 with me, and I wish you all a very happy, healthy and peaceful New Year.
What I’ve Read Since I last Posted…
Cruel Winter With You by Ali Hazelwood
Merry Ever After by Tessa Bailey
Only Santa’s in the Building by Alexis Daria
All By My Elf by Olivia Dade
Merriment and Mayhem by Alexandria Bellefleur
Good Spirits by BK Borison
Friends of Dorothy by Sandi Toksvig
New Posts…
Quick Review: Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy
Quick Review: The Enchanted Hacienda by JC Cervantes
Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Hope Santa Brings
Quick Review: The Christmas Bookshop by Jenny Colgan
What I’m Reading This Week…
{Covers link to Goodreads}
A fugitive sister. A dangerous father. A terror cell hiding in plain sight. Kit McCarthy hasn’t seen her identical twin sister, Billie, in more than a decade. The sisters don’t see eye to eye, which is understandable, considering Kit’s a police officer and Billie followed their violent father into a life of crime. Kit is no angel. Burnt out by years working in child protection, she has been accused of using excessive force in the arrest of a violent drunk. Kit has just been ordered to take time off work when she gets a frantic message from Billie, telling her she has a young son and that somebody is trying to kill her. And then Billie disappears. Determined to find her estranged sister, Kit’s only lead comes after visiting their father in prison. Malcolm McCarthy claims Billie married a former United States Marine and has been living with a group of sovereign citizens in the desert country of the New South Wales Riverina. Kit’s journey to find Billie takes her through shuttered towns destroyed by drought, where everybody owns guns, nobody talks to cops, and people get lost for a reason. Out here a war is brewing between a ruthless bikie gang and a separatist community that is re-engaging with society in the most violent way. Kit will risk everything to find her sister and the nephew she never knew she had.
With the tenacious spirit of Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand and the long-lived verve of Thursday Murder Club comes a heartwarming story of a curmudgeon and a newcomer who strike up an unlikely friendship over cutthroat Scrabble at their retirement home, outrageously starting something new in their golden eras. As a new resident of Golden Grove, an independent living community for active seniors, Sally wants to do everything in her power to start off on the right foot. But between navigating unspoken social rules of the community and leaving two struggling adult children back at home, fitting in becomes harder than she expected. So when she sees flyers advertising the Scrabble Club, she thinks she might as well give it a try. She quickly realizes her faux pas when she walks into the library to find just one man, Walter Kretzer, who has a reputation for being “a bit intense.” Walter has taken his Scrabble club a pinch too seriously in the past, but when he meets Sally, with her golden-flecked eyes and sensible style, and discovers she is something of a prodigy at the game, he can’t help but feel his fate is about to change. As he draws Sally into the world of high-stakes Scrabble tournaments, his feelings for her grow and inspire him to take a hard look at his life. When the truth about Sally’s reasons for moving to Golden Grove are suddenly exposed, Walter finds himself with the gumption to make his last chapter in life the best yet.
It’s a beautiful day to be alive, Bill Dickerson thought, seconds before he fell from the viaduct onto the jagged rocks below . . . His awful death made national news. But still, one year on, Bill’s widow Carol has received no explanation about what happened. Was it suicide? An accident? Maybe murder? So Carol hires lawyer Ryan Bradley in her fight for justice. Ryan has just returned to the remote town of Nashville after ten years away, so he’s in no position to turn down work. Except the case seems hopeless from the start. Bill’s employer is denying responsibility, Carol’s friends are shunning her, and the only witnesses – co-workers Gav Coates and Wati Reynolds – can shed no light on the tragic fall. Even Senior Sergeant ‘Stinger’ Nettle is too busy turning a blind eye to Wati’s illegal schemes to dig deeper into the death. But in small towns, nothing is quite what it seems. And for one Nashville resident the wrong question will come at a deadly price . . .
Thanks for stopping by!
It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? #IMWAYR #SundayPost #SundaySalon New year, new books for review! #DarkDesertRoad #TheLastLettersofSallyandWalter #TheFirstLawoftheBush #reading #books #bookblogger #bookreviews
Book’d Out 
