12 Jun 2016

Month in Review / May 2016

As you can tell from the time of the month of June this post is going up that the month of May and the start of the month of June have been absolutely crazy for me.  I am currently in the process of unexpectedly having to move house.  I currently rent and learned recently that the house I am living with is being sold so I have to move.  Needless to say, it has been an extremely stressful time but let's say that things are looking good and I hope to be moving at the beginning of July.

Something that I have come to learn about myself is that when I am stressed, tired and busy trying to pack up my entire house there is no way I can read, which is something that I was not aware of myself until now.  For the past few weeks I have loved nothing more than relaxing as and when I can in front of the TV catching up on shows I have missed and watching movies.  That said, I did read four books in May, four of which were pretty great reads. 

My favourite of the month has to be a split between Flawed and Off the Page.  With Off the Page (which is the second book in this duology/series) I loved going back into this world and finding out what happens next.  This was such fun to read.  With Flawed, firstly, I absolutely adore Cecelia Ahern so I was so excited about this one.  I loved the fact this book has such a great message to learn - just because someone is flawed it doesn't mean that you should punish them for it.  Such a great read. 

I did DNF (did not finish) one book in the month of May and that was book 2 in the Balefire Series, A Circle of Ashes.  Honestly, I just wasn't feeling the story.  I enjoyed reading the first book but it didn't grab me.  I think this was more a case of wrong book wrong time rather than the book was bad.  I plan to pick this one up again, maybe more when it gets to winter (that's another thing I've learned about myself - the weather does tend to dictate what I am in the mood to read).

I hope you have all had a great month of May (even though it seems like ages ago now!) and that you are well into a great reading month of June. :-)


BOOKS READ


BOOKS RECEIVED

SOLDIERS WIVES (Book 1)  SOLDIERS' DAUGHTERS (Book 2) CIVVY STREET (Book 3)

This page-turning soap opera interweaves the stories of three women trying to get to grips with military life.

Chrissie, orphaned young, finds solace in her career as a medic in the regiment, but will love for a married man prove her undoing?

Maddy, a brilliant Oxford graduate, is bogged down with a fretful baby and a super-ambitious officer husband. Will she be able to stand life as a regimental wife?

And Jenna - glamorous, bad girl Jenna, who doesn't believe in rules and regulations. Will she destroy her husband's career? Or will it destroy her?



NINA IS NOT OK
Nina does not have a drinking problem. She likes a drink, sure. But what 17-year-old doesn’t?

Nina’s mum isn’t so sure. But she’s busy with her new husband and five year old Katie. And Nina’s almost an adult after all.

And if Nina sometimes wakes up with little memory of what happened the night before , then her friends are all too happy to fill in the blanks. Nina’s drunken exploits are the stuff of college legend.

But then one dark Sunday morning, even her friends can’t help piece together Saturday night. All Nina feels is a deep sense of shame, that something very bad has happened to her…



DANGER SWEETHEART
Blake Tarbell has a town to save. Rich, carefree, and used to the Vegas party lifestyle, Blake is thrown for a curve when his former cocktail-waitress mother pleads he go back to her roots to save the town she grew up in. Blake's used to using money to solve his problems, but when he arrives in Sweetheart, North Dakota, this city boy has to trade in his high-priced shoes for a pair of cowboy boots...and he's about to get a little help from the loveliest lady in town...

Natalie Lane's got no time for newbies. The prettiest gal to ever put on a pair of work gloves, there's nothing she can't do to keep a farm up and running. But when a handsome city-slicker rolls into town with nothing but bad farmer's instincts and good intentions, Natalie's heartstrings are pulled. She's about to teach him a thing or two about how to survive in Sweetheart. And he's about to teach her a thing or two about love...


AND I DARKEN
No one expects a princess to be brutal.

And Lada Dragwlya likes it that way. Ever since she and her gentle younger brother, Radu, were wrenched from their homeland of Wallachia and abandoned by their father to be raised in the Ottoman courts, Lada has known that being ruthless is the key to survival. She and Radu are doomed to act as pawns in a vicious game, an unseen sword hovering over their every move. For the lineage that makes them special also makes them targets.

Lada despises the Ottomans and bides her time, planning her vengeance for the day when she can return to Wallachia and claim her birthright. Radu longs only for a place where he feels safe. And when they meet Mehmed, the defiant and lonely son of the sultan, who’s expected to rule a nation, Radu feels that he’s made a true friend—and Lada wonders if she’s finally found someone worthy of her passion.

But Mehmed is heir to the very empire that Lada has sworn to fight against—and that Radu now considers home. Together, Lada, Radu, and Mehmed form a toxic triangle that strains the bonds of love and loyalty to the breaking point.


WOLF HOLLOW
Growing up in the shadows cast by two world wars, Annabelle has lived a mostly quiet, steady life in her small Pennsylvania town. Until the day new student Betty Glengarry walks into her class. Betty quickly reveals herself to be cruel and manipulative, and while her bullying seems isolated at first, things quickly escalate, and reclusive World War I veteran Toby becomes a target of her attacks. While others have always seen Toby’s strangeness, Annabelle knows only kindness. She will soon need to find the courage to stand as a lone voice of justice as tensions mount.

THE NEARNESS OF YOU
Falling in love isn't a choice...

Since the moment they met, Ryan and Taylor have shared an unspoken bond. Taylor's drawn to Ryan more strongly than she thought possible and for some reason only he seems able to lift her out of the darkness in her past.

But Ryan is with Marcy - her best friend.

Marcy stood by Taylor when everything else had fallen apart, and Taylor refuses to risk their friendship now. Somehow she needs to resist what she's feeling. Yet, when Marcy leaves for a few weeks just as Ryan moves in to their shared flat, the tension grows to unbearable proportions. As the line between right and wrong becomes blurred, Taylor will have to decide whether she can - or should - turn away from what might be the love of her life.
 

NEARLY ALWAYS  
Lucy Bailey is not a girl to take no for an answer. When she asks her friend Billy Wellington to help her rescue a stray dog, she has no idea of the potential repercussions. A serious crime is committed while Billy is absent from the children's home where he lives and, when suspicion falls on him, the police decide that the safest thing for everybody is to lock him away in a mental institution.

Lucy refuses to believe that Billy has done anything wrong, and enlists her cool-headed teenage brother Arnold to help. DI Daniel Earnshawe, who has his own doubts about the police's conclusions, turns out to be unexpectedly helpful, and Billy has someone else on his side too: Helen Durkin, a beautiful, damaged girl who has been seeking to make amends for her past.

With so many daring and resourceful people battling on his behalf, it looks as though Billy's freedom will soon be won - before an unexpected development sees Arnold too fall foul of the law. Refusing to give up hope of winning freedom for them, Lucy chases up the few remaining clues while Daniel and Helen resort to an alternative form of justice . . .

 

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