The Sunday Salon... Happy Mothers Day and "Mother"" Books

Happy Mothers Day!

Welcome to The Sunday Salon! It's the place where Book Bloggers from around the world share their bookish finds with one another in a virtual place called The Sunday Salon. Thank you to Deb at ReaderBuzz keeping us all together on Sundays and hosting The Sunday Salon now! I also visited with Kim at The Caffeinated Reader, another Sunday gathering place for us bookish people called The Sunday Post!

Happy Mothers Day to all the women who have nurtured us, taken care of us, and raised us ❤️! Here is my wonderful mother and me at the beginning...

We all have a mother, but there is so much more that giving birth that makes a mother, a mother... My mother took the time and patience to nurture me and help me grow into the woman I am today. I've known her for a very long time (more years than we both care to admit). She was and has always been my BFF. I am lucky that I can still pick up the phone and talk to my mom when I need advice or just to talk to her to hear her voice. Love you Mom, and Happy Mothers Day (I know she reads my posts and will be reading this one too!)

There have been a lot of books about "Mothers", so for today's Sunday Salon we have "Mother" books...

Mother, Mother by Zia Rayyan... 
Iris Blackwood always knew her mother didn’t love her. It’s why she left six years ago and never looked back. But when her aunt—her mother’s identical twin—and her stepfather die in a tragic accident, she’s forced to return home. The cruel woman she remembers is gone. In her place is someone who cooks breakfast with a smile and says, “I love you.” Iris wants to believe it’s real. But then she finds a journal in the attic. One that reveals her mother and aunt used to switch places all the time. And when her car mysteriously won’t start, she begins to fear the truth. She came home to the wrong mother. And now she may never leave.

This book was independently published back in 2025 and is a psychological thriller

*******************************

The Wrong Mother by Charlotte Duckworth... 
One mother on the run. A safe place to hide. But you can't escape the past forever. Faye is 39 and single. She's terrified she may never have the one thing she always wanted: a child of her own. Then she discovers a co-parenting app: Acorns. For men and women who want to have a baby, but don't want to do it alone. When she meets Louis through it, it feels as though the fates have aligned. But just one year later, Faye is on the run from Louis, with baby Jake in tow. In desperate need of a new place to live, she contacts Rachel, who's renting out a room in her remote Norfolk cottage. It's all Faye can afford - and surely she'll be safe from Louis there? But is Rachel the benevolent landlady she pretends to be? Or does she have a secret of her own?

Published by Quercus Publishing in 2023, this is a psychological thriller.

*************************

The Mothers by Brit Bennett... 
It is the last season of high school life for Nadia Turner, a rebellious, grief-stricken, seventeen-year-old beauty. Mourning her own mother's recent suicide, she takes up with the local pastor's son. Luke Sheppard is twenty-one, a former football star whose injury has reduced him to waiting tables at a diner. They are young; it's not serious. But the pregnancy that results from this teen romance—and the subsequent cover-up—will have an impact that goes far beyond their youth. As Nadia hides her secret from everyone, including Aubrey, her God-fearing best friend, the years move quickly. Soon, Nadia, Luke, and Aubrey are full-fledged adults and still living in debt to the choices they made that one seaside summer, caught in a love triangle they must carefully maneuver, and dogged by the constant, nagging question: What if they had chosen differently? The possibilities of the road not taken are a relentless haunt.

In entrancing, lyrical prose, The Mothers asks whether a "what if" can be more powerful than an experience itself. If, as time passes, we must always live in servitude to the decisions of our younger selves, to the communities that have parented us, and to the decisions we make that shape our lives forever.

Published by Riverhead back in 2017, this is a literary fiction, coming-of-age story.

**************************

For more recently published "Mother" books, you have The Mother Daughter Book Club by Susan and James Patterson and The Mother Daughter Murder Night by Nina Simon. 

Do you have any suggestions 

for a good "Mother" book?!

Memoir Monday... A memoir about 2 women living together! A smash hit in South Korea.

New Books Tuesday... An amazing selection of 10 books!

First Lines Friday... A book that will have your head in the stars!

And that's all for this past week. Next week look for a review on a soon-to-be published book on Mahjong! Yes, I've secretly wanted to learn to play Mahjong for years. I recently signed up for an intro lesson, and then this book pops up from a publisher for me.to review! I've been studying this book and have to say, it has really taught me a lot! and I'll share that with y'all next week. Do you play Mahjong?

Hope you all have a wonderful Mothers Day and that you found some fun "Mothers" books here today! 

Happy reading... Suzanne

 

The Sunday Salon and... The Women Behind the Legends: 3 Stories History Almost Let Slip Away.

Welcome to The Sunday Salon! It's the place where Book Bloggers from around the world share their bookish finds with one another in a virtual place called The Sunday Salon. Thank you to for Deb at ReaderBuzz keeping us all together on Sundays and hosting The Sunday Salon now! I also visited with Kim at The Caffeinated Reader, another Sunday gathering place for us bookish people called The Sunday Post! 

It was another crazy week weather wise in South Carolina this week. A few days of 70 degree weather and then back to the cold 40's. I finally DID plant those seed snails this week! I have been misting them daily and babying them like my first borns. I'll keep you updated on their progress and see if they actually sprout. In the meantime, let's talk about March...

March is Women's History Month, which honors the contributions of women to American history, society, and culture. I’m especially drawn to stories that reimagine these women with vivid detail—pulling us into their worlds in a way that is imaginative, but still honoring the truth of their lives.

There’s something irresistible about stepping into the margins of history—the quiet spaces where women lived, loved, created, and endured… often just out of frame. The ones who inspired greatness, shaped legacies, or carried brilliance of their own, yet somehow didn’t get top billing.

This Women’s History Month, I’m leaning into the stories that rewrite the narrative. 

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain... Chicago, 1920: Hadley Richardson is a quiet twenty-eight-year-old who has all but given up on love and happiness—until she meets Ernest Hemingway. Following a whirlwind courtship and wedding, the pair set sail for Paris, where they become the golden couple in a lively and volatile group—the fabled “Lost Generation”—that includes Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

 

Though deeply in love, the Hemingways are ill prepared for the hard-drinking, fast-living, and free-loving life of Jazz Age Paris. As Ernest struggles to find the voice that will earn him a place in history and pours himself into the novel that will become The Sun Also Rises, Hadley strives to hold on to her sense of self as her roles as wife, friend, and muse become more challenging. Eventually they find themselves facing the ultimate crisis of their marriage—a deception that will lead to the unraveling of everything they’ve fought so hard for.

I love Paula McLain. She knows how to unbury the lives of forgotten women and give us fresh ways to see them. In The Paris Wife, we meet Hadley Richardson—not just as Ernest Hemingway’s first wife, but as a woman navigating love, loss, and ambition in the glittering chaos of 1920s Paris. (Paula McLain also wrote one of my favorite books, Circling the Sun, about the incredible life of Beryl Markham. Another women left behind in history, and a book I reviewed back in 2016.

Under the Wide and Starry Sky by Nancy Horan... At the age of thirty-five, Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne has left her philandering husband in San Francisco to set sail for Belgium—with her three children and nanny in tow—to study art. It is a chance for this adventurous woman to start over, to make a better life for all of them, and to pursue her own desires.  Not long after her arrival, however, tragedy strikes, and Fanny and her children repair to a quiet artists’ colony in France where she can recuperate. Emerging from a deep sorrow, she meets a lively Scot, Robert Louis Stevenson, ten years her junior, who falls instantly in love with the earthy, independent, and opinionated “belle Americaine.”

Fanny does not immediately take to the slender young lawyer who longs to devote his life to writing—and who would eventually pen such classics as Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In time, though, she succumbs to Stevenson’s charms, and the two begin a fierce love affair—marked by intense joy and harrowing darkness—that spans the decades and the globe. The shared life of these two strong-willed individuals unfolds into an adventure as impassioned and unpredictable as any of Stevenson’s own unforgettable tales.

Another brilliant writer and one of my favorite authors, Nancy Horan also breathes life into the women behind the curtain. In Under the Wide and Starry Sky, Fanny Stevenson refuses to be a footnote, living a bold, unconventional life that spans continents and defies expectations. I loved this book and reviewed in back in 2014. Read my review! (Another wonderful read by Nancy Horan is Loving Frank, about Mamah Borthwick Cheney and her love affair with Frank Lloyd Wright).

The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray... In her twenties, Belle da Costa Greene is hired by J. P. Morgan to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, books, and artwork for his newly built Pierpont Morgan Library. Belle becomes a fixture in New York City society and one of the most powerful people in the art and book world, known for her impeccable taste and shrewd negotiating for critical works as she helps create a world-class collection.

But Belle has a secret, one she must protect at all costs. She was born not Belle da Costa Greene but Belle Marion Greener. She is the daughter of Richard Greener, the first Black graduate of Harvard and a well-known advocate for equality. Belle’s complexion isn’t dark because of her alleged Portuguese heritage that lets her pass as white—her complexion is dark because she is African American.

The Personal Librarian tells the story of an extraordinary woman, famous for her intellect, style, and wit, and shares the lengths she must go to—for the protection of her family and her legacy—to preserve her carefully crafted white identity in the racist world in which she lives.

 

I have had this in my TBR pile for a long time. It's the perfect time for me to crack the spine during Women's History Month. Belle is another strong and powerful woman who secretly smashes the roof off of the racism that surrounded her. 

These novels don’t just revisit history—they reclaim it, placing women firmly at the center of stories that were never meant to orbit someone else.

Let’s step behind the spotlight for a moment… because that’s where some of the most fascinating stories begin.

Are You Reading Anything Special Because of Women's History Month?

Other great books to consider for Women's History Month (and just for a great read)... The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, A Million Nightingales by Susan Straight, The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah, The Women by Kristin Hannah.

********************************************

Weekly Wrap-Up...

Memoir Monday... A Daughter Looks Back on the Woman Who Changed Everything.

Book Release Tuesday... Love, Lies and Larceny: 3 Books Everyone will Be Talking About.

First Lines Friday... Does a Dystopian Love Triangle Sound like Fun?

Book Review... Rivals, Romance and a Whole Lot of Heat: Two Can Play by Ali Hazelwood. I really liked this book, check out my review to see if it's something that you'll like too. One of Library Loot books this year. 

Have you added to your TBR list from my post today?! I hope you've found some great reads! What are you reading this week? Share your bookish finds right here!

 

The Sunday Salon Reading list for April...

Welcome to The Sunday Salon! It's been a few months since we've talked, but there were still books to be read and authors to be appreciated! What have I been reading? Not a heck of a lot. I feel like I've been hibernating along with the bears and the birds that find a cave to hide in or fly South. And since I already live in the South, these birds fly South "er". But with the warm weather comes the urge to crack the spine of a book and immerse myself in a different place and meet new people...

This week something special came in the mail from one of my favorite authors, Sheila Roberts! Sheila sent along a copy of her new book, Sunset on Moonlight Beach! Here's the publishers blurb...

"Jenna Jones has been standing on the shore of the Sea of Love for too long. Even with two good men interested in her, she's been afraid to wade in. According to her best friend, Courtney, she should. The water’s fine. Life is great! Practically perfect, if you don’t count Courtney’s problems with her cranky ex-boss. Maybe Courtney’s right. It’s time to dive in. When tragedy strikes, everything changes and Jenna's more confused than ever. But this fresh heartache might help her figure out at last who she can turn to when times get tough."

Sheila always writes wonderful romance novels that have great storylines behind them. This book is the 5th in her Moonlight Harbor Series and I am sure it will not disappoint us fans or first time readers! Mark your calendar for April 27th because that's when you can purchase the Kindle version or paperback!

This week I also have lined up our reading groups selection which is The Babbling Brook Naked Poker Club by Ann Warner...

"In Book One of this cozy mystery series, a morose parrot with a reputation for biting sums up Brookside Retirement Community for reluctant resident, Josephine Bartlett. But when Brookside turns out to be a setting for art theft, dodgy dealings, and naked poker it becomes vastly more interesting. Josephine investigates the unusual goings on with friend and handwriting expert, Lill Fitzel. And the two befriend a young woman Josephine tries to prevent from making the same mistakes she has made."

This is a cozy mystery that sounds like a nice fun light read. As it says in the blurb above, it is book 1 of the series and if you enjoy reading it, there are 4 more in the series. This first book is FREE on Kindle right now, so if you like cozy mysteries, you should definitely download it because you have nothing to lose!

And if those two books weren't enough to whet your interest, this one will definitely do it...

Are you ready?... Are you an Outlander fan?....

Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone by Diana Gabalson, book 9 of the Outlander series, is coming this November! 

"The past may seem the safest place to be . . . but it is the most dangerous time to be alive. . .  Jamie Fraser and Claire Randall were torn apart by the Jacobite Rising in 1743, and it took them twenty years to find each other again. Now the American Revolution threatens to do the same... It is 1779 and Claire and Jamie are at last reunited with their daughter, Brianna, her husband, Roger, and their children on Fraser’s Ridge. Having the family together is a dream the Frasers had thought impossible... Yet even in the North Carolina backcountry, the effects of war are being felt. Tensions in the Colonies are great and local feelings run hot enough to boil Hell’s tea-kettle. Jamie knows loyalties among his tenants are split and it won’t be long until the war is on his doorstep... Brianna and Roger have their own worry: that the dangers that provoked their escape from the twentieth century might catch up to them. Sometimes they question whether risking the perils of the 1700s—among them disease, starvation, and an impending war—was indeed the safer choice for their family... Not so far away, young William Ransom is still coming to terms with the discovery of his true father’s identity—and thus his own—and Lord John Grey has reconciliations to make, and dangers to meet . . . on his son’s behalf, and his own... Meanwhile, the Revolutionary War creeps ever closer to Fraser’s Ridge. And with the family finally together, Jamie and Claire have more at stake than ever before."

I have almost read thru the Outlander series, and then watched the Starz series with much delight, but I am so excited to see a new book in the series! And actually the television series will continue eventually too. I just love this time traveling story and the history it lives in. What about you?

So, what new books have you been reading?  

Do you get the urge to read more in the warmer weather?

April is also National Poetry Month! Have you been reading any poetry? I have and we'll talk more about it in the week ahead. I've got some great new poetry books I think you might enjoy...

Until then... Happy Reading... Suzanne

The Sunday Salon and Talking Turkey... Gobbler's and Good Books

Welome to the Sunday Salon!  It's that time of the week we sit back, relax and talk books! Grab a cup of joe, find a comfy chair, and let's talk... Turkey! Next week is Turkey Day, but instead of the turkey visiting us, let's talk about visiting the Turkey, or rather visiting Turkey, the country, through the pages of a good book! Here are a couple books that will whisk you away...

Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernières ... from Goodreads: Louis de Bernières creates a world, populates it with characters as real as our best friends, and launches it into the maelstrom of twentieth-century history. The setting is a small village in southwestern Anatolia in the waning years of the Ottoman Empire. Everyone there speaks Turkish, though they write it in Greek letters. It’s a place that has room for a professional blasphemer; where a brokenhearted aga finds solace in the arms of a Circassian courtesan who isn’t Circassian at all; where a beautiful Christian girl named Philothei is engaged to a Muslim boy named Ibrahim. But all of this will change when Turkey enters the modern world.

The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk... from Goodreads: “It was the happiest moment of my life, though I didn’t know it.” So begins the new novel, his first since winning the Nobel Prize, from the universally acclaimed author of Snow and My Name Is Red. It is 1975, a perfect spring in Istanbul. Kemal, scion of one of the city’s wealthiest families, is about to become engaged to Sibel, daughter of another prominent family, when he encounters Füsun, a beautiful shopgirl and a distant relation. Once the long-lost cousins violate the code of virginity, a rift begins to open between Kemal and the world of the Westernized Istanbul bourgeosie—a world, as he lovingly describes it, with opulent parties and clubs, society gossip, restaurant rituals, picnics, and mansions on the Bosphorus, infused with the melancholy of decay—until finally he breaks off his engagement to Sibel. But his resolve comes too late. For eight years Kemal will find excuses to visit another Istanbul, that of the impoverished backstreets where Füsun, her heart now hardened, lives with her parents, and where Kemal discovers the consolations of middle-class life at a dinner table in front of the television. His obsessive love will also take him to the demimonde of Istanbul film circles (where he promises to make Füsun a star), a scene of seedy bars, run-down cheap hotels, and small men with big dreams doomed to bitter failure. In his feckless pursuit, Kemal becomes a compulsive collector of objects that chronicle his lovelorn progress and his afflicted heart’s reactions: anger and impatience, remorse and humiliation, deluded hopes of recovery, and daydreams that transform Istanbul into a cityscape of signs and specters of his beloved, from whom now he can extract only meaningful glances and stolen kisses in cars, movie houses, and shadowy corners of parks. A last change to realize his dream will come to an awful end before Kemal discovers that all he finally can possess, certainly and eternally, is the museum he has created of his collection, this map of a society’s manners and mores, and of one man’s broken heart. 

This is one of those books that has been in my TBR pile for some time. This post is a nice reminder of why it's there and I should finally read it! 

AND, something for the little ones on Thanksgiving Day...

Turkey Trouble by Wendi Silvano... Turkey is in BIG trouble! It's almost Thanksgiving and he doesn't want to be the main course! So, what's a turkey to do?!? A disguise of course! First, he ties a brush to his head and wears a tiny saddle to look like a horse, because no one would eat a horse, right? But the barnyard animals recognize him anyway. Open the pages of this delightful picture book and follow Tom's idea's on out smarting the Farmer with these funny disguises! You're children will enjoy it and so will you! Written with 3 - 7 year olds in mind, this would be a great book to read to the little ones at Thanksgiving!


Do you enjoy reading stories set in far away countries? Have you ever read any set in Turkey? I hope you enjoy your Thanksgiving!AND enjoy visiting Turkey through a good book!

Happy Reading... Suzanne

*P.S. Stop by on Thanksgiving Day and listen to a reading of Turkey Trouble by Wendi Silvano!