. . . it is time . . .

This is the second book by Graeme Simison and I loved it.  I laughed and luaghed :) ‘We’ve got something to celebrate,’ Rosie said. I am not fond of surprises, especially if they disrupt plans already in place. I assumed that she had achieved some important milestone with her thesis. Or perhaps she had been offered a place in the psychiatry-training programme. This would be extremely good news, and I estimated the probability of sex at greater than 80%. ‘We’re pregnant,’ she said. The Rosie Project  was an international publishing phenomenon, with more than a million copies sold in over forty countries around the world. Now Graeme Simsion returns with the highly anticipated sequel,  The Rosie Effect. Don Tillman and Rosie Jarman are now married and living in New York. Don has been teaching while Rosie completes her second year at Columbia Medical School. Just as Don is about to announce that Gene, his philandering best friend from Australia, is coming to stay...

I  am enjoying an eclectic approach to reading currently.  Here are the current books I have on the go: What if almost everything we believed about finding happiness turned out to be inaccurate, misleading, or false? And what if those very beliefs were making us miserable? A growing body of scientific research suggests that we are all caught in a vicious cycle whereby the more we strive for happiness, the more we suffer. This book provides an escape from "the happiness trap", via a revolutionary new development in human psychology: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). ACT helps people to create a rich, full and meaningful life, whilst effectively handling the pain that inevitably comes with it. This book shows you how to apply ACT in your own life to increase self-awareness, develop emotional intelligence, and transform painful feelings so they have much less impact and influence over your life. Take the Next Step "The Secret" contains clear princ...

My dear friend Terri discovered Mia King  is a pen name for  Darien Gee  the author of the much enjoyed Friendship Bread and  The Avalon Ladies Scrapbooking Society . I enjoyed this book despite it's predictability.  It took me nearly three weeks to read.  This indicates either it didn't grip me or I am too busy doing other things.  I think in this case it is balance of both. Good Things: Living simply isn’t simple. Deidre McIntosh is 40, single, and host of Seattle’s premier lifestyle TV show, Live Simple and Simply Live. But when her show is abruptly cancelled, her seemingly perfect life ends along with it. It’s a godsend when Kevin Johnson offers her a place to stay, even if her new living arrangement is literally a shack in the woods. As she slowly begins to practice what she once preached, Deidre takes the first step toward a new kind of success, and maybe even love.

Terri lent me to read while I was away in Darwin this week.  I have finished it before I have even left!  Thank you Terri it was a really enjoyable read and I half worked out the mystery :) Silver Clouds is the fourth novel by Fleur McDonald. Previously titled Silver Gums, Silver Clouds is an enthralling rural saga about a young woman who must come to term with past mistakes and a major tragedy in order to find peace, happiness and love. When marketing executive Tessa Mathison leaves London to attend her great-aunt’s funeral in Australia, her life is in turmoil. An indiscretion during a boozy night out has resulted in Tessa’s name being mud in London’s cliquey marketing scene, and soon after she arrives in her homeland she discovers she’s been sacked. Tessa’s childhood home, Danjar Plains, is an isolated station which holds some bad memories for her. She plans to escape it as soon as the funeral is over, but then an unusual request in her Aunt Violet’s will makes it imp...

The Avalon Ladies Scrapbooking Society At Madeline's Tea Salon, the cosy hub of the Avalon community, six women find their memories are shaping their future. Here you'll meet Connie Colls, fiercely independent and full of promise longing for a past she's never had, Bettie Shelton, the founder and president of the Avalon Scrapbooking Society and Ava Catalina whose hurting past won't leave her yet. There's also Isabel Kidd, still paralysed by the consequences of her late husband's love affair, Yvonne Tate and Frances Latham who both have demons of their own. The Avalon Ladies Scrapbooking Society is a poignant and heartwarming story, celebrating the friendship of six women born from their love of scrapbooking. As their memories are preserved and the dreams of both their pasts and presents are shared, surprising truths are revealed.   When my friend Jaki blogged this a great read and a follow on from Friendship Bread (which I read in February) I jumped o...

I read this while we were away on our road trip to Victoria.  We spent 2 nights with Michael's brother Peter and SIL Margie in Wagga Wagga. It was lovely being with family.  Peter owns a book shop and he let me choose a book.  I had this on order at the local library, but decided that it would be read before we returned home. It was the most entertaining book I have read. Don Tillman, 39, a successful but odd genetics prof, designs a questionnaire for his Wife Project: punctual, non-drinker, non-smoker. Rosie, a spontaneous, outspoken barmaid, smokes, curses, and adjusts his clock when he complains about his schedule. Yet an unlikely partnership blooms when Don agrees to help Rosie find her biological father.

I returned the last book to the library and instead of borrowing another I thought about all the books at home that I haven't read.  Michael and I so enjoyed the Dark Materials series by Phillip Pullman, that Michael couldn't leave this one behind when it spotted it in his travels.  It was a lovely light read and I managed it in a day (as well as karate, catch ups with friends in the morning and the afternoon and the washing !). In this new prequel episode from Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials universe, Lee Scoresby--Texan aeronaut and future friend to Lyra Belacqua--is just 24 years old, and he's recently won his hot-air balloon in a poker game. He finds himself floating North to the windswept Arctic island of Novy Odense, where he and his hare daemon Hester are quickly tangled in a deadly plot involving oil magnate Larsen Manganese, corrupt mayoral candidate Ivan Poliakov, and Lee's longtime nemesis from the Dakota Country: Pierre McConville, a hired ...

I really enjoyed this book.  I had read Wildflower Hill while on holiday last year, so I wasn't surprised that this was just as compelling. I managed to read it in a week as well!  Not much else gets done though. Lighthouse Bay Kimberley Freeman A compelling tale of love, secrets, and the power of forgiveness. 1901: Isabella Winterbourne has suffered the worst loss a woman can know. She can no longer bear her husband nor his oppressive upper-class family. On a voyage between London and Sydney to accompany a priceless gift to the Australian parliament, Isabella is the sole survivor of a shipwreck off the sun-drenched Queensland coast. But in this strange new place, she finds she cannot escape her past quite as easily as she d hoped. 2011: A woman returns from Paris to her beachside home town to reconcile with her sister. But she, too, has a past that is hard to escape and her sister is not in a mood to forgive her. Strange noises at night and activity at the ...

Friendship Bread by   Darien Gee   Thank you Terri for lending this to me.  You are a true  friend  (Book #1 for me for 2013). An utterly delicious tale of sisterhood and forgiveness in a small town so endearing, you won't want to leave. One afternoon, Julia Evarts and her five-year-old daughter, Gracie, arrive home to find an unexpected gift on the front porch: a homemade loaf of Amish Friendship Bread and a simple note: I hope you enjoy it. Also included are a bag of starter, instructions on how to make the bread herself, and a request to share it with others. Still reeling from a personal tragedy that left her estranged from the sister who was once her best friend, Julia remains at a loss as to how to move on with her life. She'd just as soon toss the anonymous gift, but to make Gracie happy, she agrees to bake the bread. When Julia meets two newcomers to the small town of Avalon, she sparks a connection by offering them her extra bread starter. W...

Reading The kids are keeping up with their reading, encouraged by Michael, who is on leave with them.

The Golden Land I have a lovely friend who read 160 books last year! She reports that her sister read more! Well I managed to read two :)  This was the second one and I read it between Christmas Day (when I received it from my dear friend Jenny - thank you) and New Years Eve. Natalie is a young Gold Coast mother with a loving husband, two small children and a happy lifestyle. While helping her mother move house, she finds a little box containing a Burmese artefact. When Natalie learns its unique history through a letter left by her great-great uncle, it ignites an interest in its country of origin and her uncle's unfulfilled plans for this curio. Her investigations collide with her own dramatically changing circumstances and create a catalyst for a moral dilemma that challenges the core of her marriage as she finds herself immersed in two very different golden lands.

Author:  Kimberley Freeman In 1920s Glasgow, Beattie Blaxland falls pregnant to her married lover Henry just before her nineteenth birthday. Abandoned by her family, Beattie and Henry set sail for a new life in Australia. But life is not about to follow the plan that Beattie had hoped for and fate will play her a cruel hand... In 2009, London, prima ballerina Emma Blaxland-Hunter is also discovering that life can also have its ups and downs. Unable to dance again after a fall, Lydia returns home to Australia to recuperate. But on arrival she is presented with some surprising news - her recently deceased and much-loved grandmother Beattie Blaxland has left her Tasmanian property to  Emma . Told through the eyes of a young Beattie Blaxland and a contemporary  Emma  Blaxland-Hunter, this is an emotionally charged, seductive tale of self-discovery, secrets and surprises. It has been a long time since I have had time to read a novel.  Terri recommended...