The Sunday Salon... and Great Books in my eReader...

 Welcome to The Sunday Salon! What is the Sunday Salon? Imagine Some university library’s vast reading room. It’s filled with people — students and faculty and strangers who’ve wandered in. They’re seated at great oaken dests, books piled all around them, and they’re all feverishly reading and jotting notes in their leather-bound journals as they go. Later they’ll mill around the open dictionaries and compare their thoughts on the afternoon’s literary intake. Thank you to Deb at ReaderBuzz for keeping us all together on Sundays now and hosting The Sunday Salon! 

There are so many great books to talk about this week! I'm limited myself to the 3 I think you've got to hear about first and are availabe right now at your favorite book... 

The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman... 

One brilliant June day when Mia Jacob can no longer see a way to survive, the power of words saves her. The Scarlet Letter was written almost two hundred years earlier, but it seems to tell the story of Mia’s mother, Ivy, and their life inside the Community—an oppressive cult in western Massachusetts where contact with the outside world is forbidden, and books are considered evil. But how could this be? How could Nathaniel Hawthorne have so perfectly captured the pain and loss that Mia carries inside her? Through a journey of heartbreak, love, and time, Mia must abandon the rules she was raised with at the Community. As she does, she realizes that reading can transport you to other worlds or bring them to you, and that readers and writers affect one another in mysterious ways. She learns that time is more fluid than she can imagine, and that love is stronger than any chains that bind you.

Alice Hoffman always writes wonderful, sink your teeth into stories. Some sprinkled with magic, it's been a few years since we've gotten a new story so this is exciting! Just published and released by Atria Books  August 15th, let's journey with Mia as she learns the strength that exists inside of her. This is waiting for me in my eReader courtesy of Atria Books! A thank you to them for the opportunity to review The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman! I can't wait!!

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Molly Molloy and the Angel of Death by Maria Vale... 

Death needs a do-over. Azrael--Grim Reaper, Destroyer, Angel of Death--has messed up. Instead of taking Molly Molloy's soul, he accidentally saves her from choking on a chicken wing. Molly has been visited by Death before. He took her parents, her grandparents. Her first love. But now this utterly unexceptional waitress at a breastaurant in New York can see him. Touch him. Talk to him. Say 'no' to him. Make him doubt. The Powers that Be are waiting for Death to fix his mistake but before he can, he makes one more...

He falls in love.

We've gotten a glimpse of the grim reaper in books and television (Dead Like Me fans should love this book) and it's always interesting to see another aspect of "his" personality. Of course he is the Grim Reaper, so he is gathering souls, but how does he manage to fall in love? This is waiting in my eReader for me too, courtesy of Wild & Ashe LLC who published the ebook. Sungrazer Publishing has published the paperback version. Molly Molloy and the Angel of Death by Maria Vale is now available at your favorite bookstore AND the Kindle version is only $4.99 right now!

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Someone Else's Shoes by JoJo Moyes... 

Who are you when you are forced to walk in someone else’s shoes? Nisha Cantor lives the globetrotting life of the seriously wealthy, until her husband announces a divorce and cuts her off. Nisha is determined to hang onto her glamorous life. But in the meantime, she must scramble to cope--she doesn’t even have the shoes she was, until a moment ago, standing in. That’s because Sam Kemp – in the bleakest point of her life – has accidentally taken Nisha’s gym bag. But Sam hardly has time to worry about a lost gym bag--she’s struggling to keep herself and her family afloat. When she tries on Nisha’s six-inch high Christian Louboutin red crocodile shoes, the resulting jolt of confidence that makes her realize something must change—and that thing is herself. Someone Else’s Shoes is a story about how just one little thing can suddenly change everything.

I love JoJo Moyes writing! I interviewed her for Chick with Books in 2018, when she came out with her book Still Me, which continued the story of Louisa Clark, who we first met in Me Before You. ( You can find that interview HERE ). She writes these characters that just pull you in. Totally relatable, flawed but honest characters. Someone Else's Shoes sounds like a fun romp with the heartwarming characters JoJo Moyes is known for. Published by Pamela Dorman Books, a division of Penguin the beginning of 2023, you can find this at your favorite bookstore! Right now this is on my wishlist!

So, there you have it! 3 books that look like great reads and available right now! Next Sunday, I'll share some books that you should mark your calendars for because they are the ones you are going to want to read next!

What's on your Nightstand? or eReader?

Weekly Wrap-up:

Tuesday...

This week I've been reading about those "Golden Girls" of  a secret government agency taking care of business in Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn. It's my Library Loot for this week and in my eReader. As I get to know these ladies and the story their story, I am obsessively turning those pages to get to what happens next. I love Deanna Raybourn's Victorian Mystery series and so far, the writing here is holding my attention. It's not a "gripping" read, more light reading with a good story. Stay tuned for the review coming...

 And just in case you missed... My Review on The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston. A mix of  Top Chef and a Rom Com.

Hope you've found something interesting here! Leave me a comment and let me know what piques your interest! Happy reading... Suzanne

The Sunday Salon and Feeding Your Soul with a Good Book

Welcome to The Sunday Salon! Yes, it's that day of the week we put aside  a little of our time to talk books… So, grab a cup of joe, find a comfy chair and relax.

My reading week had been engrossed in a book I talked about in last week's Sunday Salon - All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, which takes place during WWII about a blind girl who is raised by her father in Paris and a German orphan boy who grows up to be part of the Nazi intelligence. Their two stories merge when the girl and her father flee to the port city of Saint Malo, when Paris becomes part of the German occupation, and the German boy, now a man, lands in Saint Malo. The writing is wonderful, the story is so interesting and I cannot put it down. More on that after I finish it, but I think it's going to be one of those great stories that will stay with me for a while.

There are a few books that hit my radar when I did manage to poke my head out of the pages of that book…

Our Happy Time by Gong Ji-young… "Already a wildly popular bestseller in South Korea, this gripping and passionate debut novel is a death row love story of crime, punishment, and forgiveness"

Yu-Jung, beautiful, wealthy, and bright, is lying in her hospital bed, recovering from her third suicide attempt, when she receives a life-changing visit. Her no-nonsense aunt, a nun, appears by her side and suggests Yu-Jung accompany her on a charitable visit to death row. At her lowest ebb, Yu-Jung is resistant. But something compels her to go to the prison. There she meets Yun-Soo, a convicted murderer who will soon be put to death. Though she is repulsed by his crimes, something about the depth of his suffering strikes a chord in her. Shaken by their encounter, she returns to visit him the next week. And the next… Through their weekly, hour-long meetings, Yu-Jung and Yun-Soo slowly reveal to each other the dark secrets of their pasts and the hidden traumas that have shaped their lives. In doing so they form a deep, unbreakable bond, helping one another overcome their demons. But Yun-Soo’s hands are always in cuffs, the prison officers are always in the background, and they can never lose sight of the fact that their happy time together is tragically brief.

This book is already a smash hit in South Korea and has gotten rave reviews. In fact, Gong Ji-young is a best selling author in South Korea and this is her first book translated into English. I have a eGalley on my Nook and can't wait to start reading to see if it's going to live up to all the hype. I did take a peek at some of the first few chapters and I loved the intro…

"I am going to tell you a story. It is a story of murder. It is a story of a family that was only capable of destruction, where screaming and yelling and whippings and chaos and curses were their daily bread…"

I'll be sinking my teeth into this book next, so stay tuned for my review!

The Moon Sisters by Therese Walsh… After their mother's probable suicide, sisters Olivia and Jazz take steps to move on with their lives. Jazz, logical and forward-thinking, decides to get a new job, but spirited, strong-willed Olivia—who can see sounds, taste words, and smell sights—is determined to travel to the remote setting of their mother's unfinished novel to lay her spirit properly to rest. Already resentful of Olivia’s foolish quest and her family’s insistence upon her involvement, Jazz is further aggravated when they run into trouble along the way and Olivia latches to a worldly train-hopper who warns he shouldn’t be trusted. As they near their destination, the tension builds between the two sisters, each hiding something from the other, until they are finally forced to face everything between them and decide what is really important.

This is touted as a coming of age novel. I like the idea of the sisters going on this adventure together, and look forward to how the story wraps itself around these two.

The Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman… Coralie Sardie is the daughter of the sinister impresario behind The Museum of Extraordinary Things, a Coney Island boardwalk freak show that thrills the masses. An exceptional swimmer, Coralie appears as the Mermaid in her father’s “museum,” alongside performers like the Wolfman, the Butterfly Girl, and a one-hundred-year-old turtle. One night Coralie stumbles upon a striking young man taking pictures of moonlit trees in the woods off the Hudson River. The dashing photographer is Eddie Cohen, a Russian immigrant who has run away from his father’s Lower East Side Orthodox community and his job as a tailor’s apprentice. When Eddie photographs the devastation on the streets of New York following the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, he becomes embroiled in the suspicious mystery behind a young woman’s disappearance and ignites the heart of Coralie.

Alice Hoffman is a great storyteller and this novel sounds like a quirky love story, with all the elements of a innocent girl being rescued from her evil captor and whisked off to mysterious other world. I look forward to reading, which was published this past February.

Other bookish things this week include my surprise box from Book Riot. Book Riot is part of a program  from Quarterly Company that boxes up little surprise boxes filled with stuff you're interested in. You can subscribe yearly or try one box. Book Riot is all about readers, so they box up bookish things. This was my first "box" and I subscribed because I just love surprises, and couldn't resist a surprise box filled with bookish things. It's a bit expensive - $50 a quarter if you subscribe, $50 plus shipping if you just order one box to try. Was I impressed? Come back Monday and we'll look at what came in the box and I'll tell share my thoughts on fun versus value.

In The News… Amazon Prime members dues are going up. Yes, the fee Amazon Prime members pay for free shipping, free Kindle lending and other member only perks is going up $20 to $99. I have been a Prime Member from the beginning and have more than made my "dues" up in free shipping, but $99 is pushing it just a little. I don't think I'll be unsubscribing, but it did make me pause since I'm using the library more, downloading more eBooks and not ordering as much as I once did of "other things". If you aren't a Prime Member and were considering joining, if you join before the new price is in effect, April 17th, you'll get a whole year at the old price of $79.

How was your reading week? Reading anything you've just got to share with someone?! I'd love to hear about it! I'm always on the lookout for great reads! And what do you think about Amazon Prime? Are you a member? Worth the price?

Have a great week! And don't forget to stop back this week to see what bookish things I got in my Book Riot box!

Happy reading… Suzanne