2020 NEW RELEASE CHALLENGE - My Sign Up Post

Hosted by: Brandee and Lexie at (un)Conventional Bookworms
Challenge period: 1st January to 31st December, 2020
Sign Up: By 1st September, 2020
Aim: To read and review books released in 2020.

All the information can be found here on the sign-up page.

As I didn't reach my target of 61 books to read and

AUSSIE AUTHOR CHALLENGE 2020 - My Sign-Up Post

Hosted by: Jo at Book Lover Reviews
Challenge period: 1st January to 31st December, 2020
Sign Up: Anytime during the year
Aim: To showcase the quality and diversity of the books being produced by Australian authors.

All the information and how to join is here on the sign-up page.

This year I'm participating at the same level as last year

AUSTRALIAN WOMEN WRITERS CHALLENGE 2020 - My Sign-Up Post

Hosted by: Australian Women Writers.
Challenge period: 1st January to 31st December, 2020.
Sign Up: Throughout the year until 30th November, 2020.
Aim: To help overcome gender bias in the reviewing of books by Australian women.

Further information about the challenge and how to join can be found here.

CAN'T-WAIT WEDNESDAY: I Can't Wait for The Shifting Landscape by Katherine Kovacic

Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Tressa at Wishful Endings, to spotlight and discuss the books we're excited about that we have yet to read. Generally they're books that have yet to be released. Find out more here.

READING CHALLENGES 2019 - My Wrap-Up Post

Aussie Author Challenge 2019

This year I participated at the Wallaroo level: read and review 6 titles written by Australian Authors of which at least 2 of those authors are female, at least 2 of those authors are male, and at least 2 of those authors are new to you; Fiction or non-fiction, at least 2 genres.

My statistics show that I read a total of 29 books by Australian authors: 26 by female authors, 3 by male authors and 1 by a father and daughter team. What I

BOOK REVIEW/BLOG TOUR: Written in Their Stars by Elizabeth St.John

Publication Date: November 19, 2019
Falcon Historical
eBook & Paperback; 384 Pages
Series: The Lydiard Chronicles, Book 3
Genre: Historical Fiction

Synopsis

London, 1649. Horrified eyewitnesses to King Charles’s bloody execution, Royalists Nan Wilmot and Frances Apsley plot to return the king’s exiled son to England’s throne, while their radical cousin Luce, the wife of king-killer John Hutchinson, rejoices in the new republic’s triumph. Nan exploits her high-ranking

CAN'T-WAIT WEDNESDAY: I Can't Wait for Lilies, Lies and Love by Jackie French

Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Tressa at Wishful Endings, to spotlight and discuss the books we're excited about that we have yet to read. Generally they're books that have yet to be released. Find out more here.

SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION: From Daisy Jones & The Six to Shepherd

It's the first Saturday of the month and time to play Six Degrees of Separation, the first for 2020. This meme is hosted by Kate of Books Are My Favourite and Best. The aim is to link six books to each other from the starting point.

Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Read is this month's starting point. It is about a fictional 1970s rock and roll band.

Again, I haven't read the book we are starting with, which makes it that little bit harder to launch the chain. The book's blurb, however, contains the phrase coming of age. A classic coming of age story, and a

GUEST POST: Disability in the 18th Century: An interview with Lucy May Lennox, author of The Adventures of Tom Finch, Gentleman

Today I'm pleased to bring you news of a recently published novel, The Adventures of Tom Finch, Gentleman, and a guest post in the form of an interview with Lucy May Lennox. I hope you enjoy reading what inspired the author to create her hero as an 18th century blind man as much as I did.

Publication Date: November 12, 2019
Paperback & ebook
Genre: Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction

Synopsis

London, 1735. Covent Garden offers a world of pleasures and diversions, even for a blind man. Tom Finch, composer of broadsides and assistant conductor in the nearby opera houses, considers himself the luckiest of men, as he has both education and freedom to do as he pleases. Blindness is to him merely an inconvenience, and no impediment to his favored pastimes: playing music and lushing it in a public house in the

BOOK REVIEW/BLOG TOUR: Beyond the Moon by Catherine Taylor

Publication Date: June 25, 2019
The Cameo Press Ltd
eBook & Paperback; 496 Pages
Genre: Historical Fiction/Time Travel

Synopsis

Outlander meets Birdsong is this haunting debut timeslip novel, where a strange twist of fate connects a British soldier fighting in the First World War and a young woman living in modern-day England a century later.

In 1916 1st Lieutenant Robert Lovett is a patient at Coldbrook Hall military hospital in Sussex, England.

BOOK REVIEW: Shepherd by Catherine Jinks

Synopsis

My father trained me to silence the way he trained his dogs, with food and a cane. Speech, he said, was poison. It scared the game, alerted the gamekeepers and betrayed your friends and family.

Tom Clay was a poacher back in Suffolk. He was twelve when he was caught, tried and transported to New South Wales.

Now, assigned to a shepherds’ hut out west, he is a boy among violent men. He keeps his counsel and watches over his sheep; he steers clear of blowhards

SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION: From Sanditon to Khaki Town

It's the first Saturday of the month and time to play Six Degrees of Separation, the final one for 2019. This meme is hosted by Kate of Books Are My Favourite and Best. The aim is to link six books to each other from the starting point.

Today's starting point is Sanditon by Jane Austen. Again we're starting with a book I haven't read. It's not one I'm interested in reading at this stage, but I'm looking forward to the TV series. Jane Austen died before she could finish this book.

A number of authors have died leaving unfinished works, but the one that sprang to mind immediately