The Sunday Salon...and some Library Love

 

Welcome to The Sunday Salon! It's that day of the week bloggers gather all over in a virtual library and chat about books! Pull up a chair, pour yourself a cup of Java and relax..

Here's my Library books this week. It's funny how it's feast or famine sometimes when you request books. When they're not available and you have to wait for them to come back to the library, and wait for your turn, sometimes they all come in at once! And that's what happened to me this week. I'm excited though! I picked up The Charm Bracelet while I waited for the new Jennifer McMahon book, The Children on The Hill, and then read some great reviews about The Love of My Life by Rosie Walsh and requested that when it came back in. Wow, I have some great reading ahead of me...

The Children on The Hill by Jennifer McMahon...

1978: At her renowned treatment center in picturesque Vermont, the brilliant psychiatrist, Dr. Helen Hildreth, is acclaimed for her compassionate work with the mentally ill. But when she’s home with her cherished grandchildren, Vi and Eric, she’s just Gran—teaching them how to take care of their pets, preparing them home-cooked meals, providing them with care and attention and love. Then one day Gran brings home a child to stay with the family. Iris—silent, hollow-eyed, skittish, and feral—does not behave like a normal girl. Still, Violet is thrilled to have a new playmate. She and Eric invite Iris to join their Monster Club, where they catalogue all kinds of monsters and dream up ways to defeat them. Before long, Iris begins to come out of her shell. She and Vi and Eric do everything together: ride their bicycles, go to the drive-in, meet at their clubhouse in secret to hunt monsters. Because, as Vi explains, monsters are everywhere. 2019: Lizzy Shelley, the host of the popular podcast Monsters Among Us, is traveling to Vermont, where a young girl has been abducted, and a monster sighting has the town in an uproar. She’s determined to hunt it down, because Lizzy knows better than anyone that monsters are real—and one of them is her very own sister.

I love the writing of Jennifer McMahon! I am never disappointed. She writes suspense stories, sprinkling in a bit of a ghost story here and there and always with some great twists and turns. The Children on The Hill was released in April by Scout Press. BTW, one of my favorite Jennifer McMahon book is Dismantled... check that one out too! 

The Love of My Life by Rosie Walsh...

Emma loves her husband Leo and their young daughter Ruby: she’d do anything for them. But almost everything she's told them about herself is a lie. And she might just have got away with it, if it weren’t for her husband’s job. Leo is an obituary writer; Emma a well-known marine biologist. When she suffers a serious illness, Leo copes by doing what he knows best – researching and writing about his wife’s life. But as he starts to unravel the truth, he discovers the woman he loves doesn’t really exist. Even her name isn’t real. When the very darkest moments of Emma’s past finally emerge, she must somehow prove to Leo that she really is the woman he always thought she was . . But first, she must tell him about the other love of her life.

Rosie Walsh is a new author to me. I was reading reviews a few weeks ago and came across a starred review of The Love of My Life from Kirkus Reviews. Sounded great, lots more literary love for it on the internet, and I found it available to request at my local library! I can't wait to dive into this one too! Published by Pamela Dorman Books this past March, it's available now at your local bookstore OR your local library. Want to read an excerpt? Here's a link to Chapter One of The Love of My Life.

Libraries are a great source for reading material. In my little town in South Carolina, our library is part of the County and 3 other library towns. We can check books out of any of them, which helps if my local branch doesn't have the book I want, but one of the other branches do. And this included eBooks too!

Do you use your library? 

I'm about half way thru The Charm Bracelet by Viola Shipman and am enjoying it. It's a very light read, just what a summer afternoon almost requires. I believe these other books will have a bit more meat on their bones, but still qualify as summer reads, which tend to be more relaxing reads. 

I do have on my TBR list some much heavier books because I was reading about The International Booker Award for this year and everything (except for the winner) sounded so interesting. First, what is The Booker Award?

"The International Booker Prize is awarded annually for a single book, translated into English and published in the UK or Ireland."

And the winner this year was Tomb of Sand written by Geetanjali Shree and translated by Daisy Rockwell. When a majority of the reviews I read said it was work to get thru the novel, I pause before enthusiastically picking it up. And I wonder sometimes why certain novels win these awards. It may be that this book checks off some serious politically correct boxes? You can read about Tomb of Sand here. But quite a few of the other books really caught my eye... Let's talk about them later this week...

Let me know what the last library book you took out was! And do you follow book awards? Stop back later in the week and I'll talk about those International Booker Prize runners up...

Happy Reading... Suzanne