PURPLE QUEEN FAIRY READS

October 2017 I am writing this reflections even in October of 2017 but I know I wont post this till December 2017 but feeling very demotivated I am not sure if I am in the right frame of mind to reflect on 2017 as I might just rate it super low... It's a very challenging year...even from the start and at this point, I don't know if it can get even lower but you know what, I have been in worse situation and I know I will get up for I refuse to get knock down but being down, sometimes you are just so tired that you want to be down...it's not comfortable being down but it's such a struggle to get up. December 2017 I decided the leave the above which was reflected in October and when I was extremely challenged from many facade.  From work to family to studies, things seems to be not moving in the right direction and I was dead bone tired.  I think I didn't read any book for that month.  As the local here says, 'no heart to read or do anything.  Basically...

Synopsis : Rachel and Alice are an extremely rare kind of identical twins-so identical that even their aunt and uncle, whom they've lived with since their parents passed away, can't tell them apart. But the sisters are connected in a way that goes well beyond their surfaces: when one experiences pain, the other exhibits the exact same signs of distress. So when one twin mysteriously disappears, the other immediately knows something is wrong-especially when she starts experiencing serious physical traumas, despite the fact that nobody has touched her.  As the search commences to find her sister, the twin left behind must rely on their intense bond to uncover the truth.  But is there anyone around her she can trust, when everyone could be a suspect? And ultimately, can she even trust  herself ? This is what I say : My introduction to Jessica Warman was Between , bought and read last year.  Beautiful Lies was bought as a result of both of us liking Betwee...

Synopsis : Welcome to Harriet Langton's world. All her life she's dreamt of travelling the globe - fate always got in the way. Working as a travel agent, the closest Harri comes to her dream destination of Venice is booking the trip for someone else. But everything changes when travel fanatic Alex drops in.  With her boyfriend Rob tied up with work, Harri is persuaded to help Alex in his quest for love. But in her attempts to help, Harri soon discovers that she's alienating those around her.  Desperate to leave her life behind, will her dreams finally come true? Or will Harri's leap of faith be her biggest mistake yet? This is what I say : To me this is a good holiday read especially if you want to hide from the world when the world is busy with unreal celebrations which you don't feel like being part of. This is a good read especially when you're on a reading marathon with time in your hand and you can read and stop anytime you fancy and pick it ...

Image credit to Lancer My Best and Warmest Wishes  to you and your family for this season. Image from web May you know the reason for this season. Have a wonderful celebration and  stay safe Lots of love from purplequeenfairyreads.blogspot.com Image from web

Synopsis : S ing Them Home is a deeply moving portrait of three grown siblings who have lived in the shadow of unresolved grief since their mother’s mysterious disappearance when they were children.  Everyone in Emlyn Springs, Nebraska, knows the story of Hope Jones, the physician’s wife whose big dreams for their tiny town were lost along with her in the tornado of 1978. For Hope’s three young children, the stability of life with their distant, preoccupied father, and with Viney, their mother’s spitfire best friend, is no match for their mother’s absence.  Larken, the eldest, is an art history professor who seeks in food an answer to a less tangible hunger; Gaelan, the only son, is a telegenic weatherman who devotes his life to predicting the unpredictable and whose profession, and all too much more, depend on his sculpted frame and ready smile; and Bonnie, the baby of the family is a self-proclaimed archivist who combs the roadsides for clues to her mother’s legacy, ...

Books Second Time Around in Hills Mall is coming to an end.  Sunday, 17 December would be their grand finale here for the year. I went there two night ago, for the second time just to see if there's still any books that catches my attention with the purpose of trying out my luck in locating titles from authors such as Mark Gimenez, Carlos Luiz Zafon and maybe Joseph Finder. My first visit there was when they first started the fair in early November. I was in luck (in a way) as I managed to locate a title by Joseph Finder that I have not read before.  My first introduction to Joseph Finder was in Buried Secrets   August last year.   From there, I bought Paranoia from the same sale last year and it's only now that I bought the third of Joseph Finder's title, Company Man.  Can't wait to get started on it! Bought two more Chicken Soup Titles to add to my collection but let's not talk about that * f eeling guilty *. So, if you are in my city, remembe...

Finally, all that I am supposed to do are done!! * h a p p y d a n c e * In fact, as at yesterday, at five in the afternoon local time, it was a temporary jail break for me...at least until after the new year :) before the next challenge begins. Technically I have one month to focus on my work, my reading, my house cleaning, my everything else before I have to delve into another world again... This weekend and during the forthcoming holidays, I intend to do some marathon reading.  For some of you, that's normal but for me it's not but it's a luxury to be able to do so nowadays. So which book gets the privilege? Well, say hello to Sing Them Home by Stephanie Kallos - a family saga with a bit of peek on life after death., I am thinking of attempting a couple more books.  However, am not too confident if I can do it.  What do you think? If I can identify a couple more titles, I shall update them here.  So, do come back, ya :) In the meantime, wis...

Family of Women A story of three generations of women: Bessie: scarred by a childhood of poverty in the slums of Victorian Birmingham and left a young widow with four children, is a hard, bullying woman who will go to disturbing lengths to keep her family under her thumb. Violet: one of Bessie's four children, marries young to escape, into the arms of a man whose life will be broken by war, Linda: grows up on a large housing estate in the 1950s with older sister Joyce and her beloved young sister Carol. Intelligent and energetic, she craves education and something more than the life she sees around her. Torn f rom her longed for place at the grammar school, she gives up hoping for anything better. It takes a tragic love affair to make her question the limitations of her life and the secrets which haunt her family. Miss Purdy's Class In the New Year of 1936, Gwen Purdy, aged 21, leaves her home to become a schoolteacher in a poor area of Birmingham. Her parents are horr...

Books Second Time Around has been around in Kuching for the past years.  The standard variables are : They will be in Hills Shopping Mall They will be here in November and December There are lots of books There are lots of titles Some books are super old  Some are relatively new - depends on your ability to locate All books are second hand They are very reasonably priced I love going there I am scared to go there as I know I will leave the place rich in books but poorer in wallet It's actually the only time I go to Hills Shopping Mall I went there last night I know I will go again...and again...and again... They have a whole section this year just for Chicken Soup. I am in trouble.

Is it even possible to wish someone ' Happy Halloween ' when it's a season that is associated with fear and tricks and pranks? Anyway,  Halloween  is a culture that is not celebrated in my part of the world but due to cultural exposure and commercialism, Halloween is being celebrated here in recent years and it's mostly associated with parties and dressing up in costumes, having fun and etc.  It certainly is not a family celebration and I quite doubt that those partying Halloween style even know what and why they are celebrating.  In my opinion, it's just very much a case of an excuse to have fun Anyway, I would just associate this celebration of boos!! with some pretty creepy books. that I have in my collections and which I must just have a go at them once I am done with what's keeping me away from reading. What are the titles? you might ask :)...well in the spirit of treat or trick, let me firstly present to you, my version of  Trick or Treat . ...

Synopsis : A member of one of the most distinguished and honored families in Iraq, Mayada grew up surrounded by wealth and royalty.  But when Saddam Hussein’s regime took power, she was thrown into cell 52 in the infamous Baladiyat prison with seventeen other nameless, faceless women from all walks of life.  To ease their suffering, these “shadow women” passed each day by sharing their life stories. Now, through Jean Sasson, Mayada is finally able to tell her story—and theirs—to the worl d. This is what I say : By the fact that I am having this post, you might probably would have guessed that I brought this title with me on a recent holiday .    Mayada, Daughter of Iraq is a real story...pretty much an autobiography and I am always caution in reviewing such books.  I mean, who am I to review what a person has gone through and say that it's a good read or otherwise. All I want to say about Mayada is that I am humbled by her.  It is heartbr...

Recently, I took eight titles from my collection that I no longer read and have them exchanged for new titles. The place where this took place is a coffee cafe in town that hosts a book corner.  Their offer is 'two for one' that is for patrons to bring and exchange two titles/books for one title/book from their collection. Some might say ' hey, that's not fair, shouldn't it be a one for on e' but to me it is quite okay.  I do not mind exchanging two titles that I no longer read anyway for a title that I would want to try reading.  Yes, I would end up with less books but when reading it concern, quantity is not the game plan here.  Moreover they are not selective of the titles and accepted all the titles that I brought whereas I have a choice of my preferred titles from their shelves. So, from the eight books that I brought, I selected four of the above and the madamoiselle   was kind enough to let me take another title when she saw me still browsing thr...

If you have been looking through my post of previous years, you will find a pattern of the importance I placed on what I termed 'Holiday Read', i.e. simply, novels that I would want to read while I was on holidays. Sometimes having the right book or wrong book (for that matter) can make or break a holiday as it affects my mood. The right book will just compliment everything whereas a wrong one would just throw me off tangent. Well, I have not been on much holidays the recent years except for a couple here and there and the recent one  here  but there's just one more coming right up and I am so excited as to what to bring along with me...I am excited about where I am going too for that matter! It's a holiday with some friends (I haven't had holidays with friends for like many, many and plenty of many years) and we're going to the land of beautiful people and plastic surgery and no! we're not going for that but we would happy just to be admiring the many...

Image selected from web.  I think that's the cover of the copy I read years ago. Synopsis : Three young doctors-their hopes, their dreams, their unexpected desires... Dr. Paige Taylor: She swore it was euthanasia, but when Paige inherited a million dollars from a patient, the D.A. called it murder. Dr. Kat Hunter: She vowed never to let another man too close again-until she accepted the challenge of a deadly bet. Dr. Honey Taft: To make it in medicine, she knew she'd need something more than the brains God gave her. Racing from the life-and-death decisions of a big major hospital to the tension-packed fireworks of a murder trial, Nothing Lasts Forever lays bare the ambitions and fears of healers and killers, lovers and betrayers.   This is what I say : I don't think this is the first time I am reading Nothing Lasts Forever .  I have a feeling I read it before as the story was quite familiar but I just couldn't remember it.  If I read it, it must be before ...

Synopsis :  Heartbreak, headlines and Hermes – welcome to Brooke's new world… Brooke and Julian live a happy life in New York – she's the breadwinner working two jobs and he's the struggling musician husband. Then Julian is discovered by a Sony exec and becomes an overnight success – and their life changes for ever. Soon they are moving in exclusive circles, dining at the glitziest restaurants, attending the most outrageous parties in town and jetting off to the trendiest hotspots in LA. But Julian's new-found fame means that Brooke must face the savage attentions of the ruthless paparazzi. And when a scandalous picture hits the front pages, Brooke's world is turned upside down. Can her marriage survive the events of that fateful night at Chateau Marmont? It's time for Brooke to decide if she's going to sink or swim… This is what I say : I wasn't expecting this with such title and such cover.  I'ts pretty misleading in my opinion. I mean I g...

Synopsis : Ever wondered where lost things go? Ever since the day her classmate vanished, Sandy Shortt has been haunted by what happens when something – or someone – disappears. Finding has become her goal. Jack Ruttle is desperate to find his younger brother who vanished into thin air a year ago. He spots an ad for Sandy's missing persons agency and is certain that she will answer his prayers and find his brother. But then Sandy disappears too, stumbling upon a place that is a world away from the only one she has ever known. Now all she wants, more than anything, is to find her way home. This is what I say : At one time of my reading life, I was pretty crazy about Cecelia's title.  It was one collection that I want to ensure it's complete in my shelf.  That craze has since passed but I still enjoy Cecelia's titles once in a while.  My all time favourite has to be Rosie Dunne aka Love, Rosie aka Where Rainbow Ends which I read about 2 or was it 3 times...

Synopsis : When Elspeth Noblin dies of cancer, she leaves her London apartment to her twin nieces, Julia and Valentina. These two American girls never met their English aunt, only knew that their mother, too, was a twin, and Elspeth her sister. Julia and Valentina are semi-normal American teenagers--with seemingly little interest in college, finding jobs, or anything outside their cozy home in the suburbs of Chicago, and with an abnormally intense attachment to one another. The girls move to Elspeth's flat, which borders Highgate Cemetery in London. They come to know the building's other residents. There is Martin, a brilliant and charming crossword puzzle setter suffering from crippling Obsessive Compulsive Disorder; Marjike, Martin's devoted but trapped wife; and Robert, Elspeth's elusive lover, a scholar of the cemetery. As the girls become embroiled in the fraying lives of their aunt's neighbors, they also discover that much is still alive in Highgate, inclu...

Synopsis : Two abandoned souls are on the hunt for one powerful man. Soon, their paths will cross and lead to one twisted fate. Danny Hansen is a Bosnian immigrant who came to America with hopes of escaping haunted memories of a tragic war that took his mother's life. Now he's a priest who lives by a law of love and compassion. It is powerful men and hypocrites who abide by legal law but eschew the law of love that most incense Danny. As an avenging angel, he believes it is his duty to show them the error of their ways, at any cost.  Renee Gilmore is the frail and helpless victim of one such powerful man. Having escaped his clutches, she now lives only to satisfy justice by destroying him, regardless of whom she must become in that pursuit.But when Danny and Renee's paths become inexorably entangled things go very, very badly and neither of them may make it out of this hunt alive.   This is what I say : The Priest's Graveyard is not Ted Dekker's usual ...

Image from web.  My exact sentiments. Time seems to be going by faster than I remember them.  As it is, it's already mid August and in another four and half months, the year 2017 would end and  we would start a new year all over again. This year, I am again reading so much less than the years before.  One good 'excuse' hahaha... is that I embarked on a new course of studies early this year and it will take me two years to complete this course so I am still reading but just that I am reading stuff of a different kind than what I normally do. With that and with work and family and other stuff, leisure reading is really taking a back seat and a quick count shows that I have read just about twenty seven books since the year began.  That is very much less than what I am used to so with just four and half months to go, my goal of fifty books for this year might not be achievable. However, with three holidays to look forward to these few months, I might be ab...

Synopsis : Andi is a woman who has spent much of her adult life looking for the perfect man, and at thirty-seven, she's finally found him.  Ethan—divorced with two daughters, Emily and Sophia—is a devoted father and even better husband.  Always hoping one day she would be a mother, Andi embraces the girls like they were her own.  But in Emily’s eyes, Andi is an obstacle to her father’s love, and Emily will do whatever it takes to break her down.  When the dynamics between the two escalate, they threaten everything Andi believes about love, family, and motherhood—leaving both women standing at a crossroad in their lives and in their hearts. This is what I say : I got extremely frustrated when reading this book.   Another Piece of My Hear t made me want to give the characters a piece of my mind! Basically no one stands out.  Andi was quite a contender for being outstanding but her character took a change and she just somehow blend into the l...

Synopsis : The true story that inspired the major motion picture The Intouchables As the descendent of two prominent, wealthy French families and Director of Pommery Champagnes, Philippe Pozzo di Borgo was not in the habit of asking for help.   Then, in 1993, right on the heels of his beloved wife's diagnosis of a terminal illness, a paragliding accident left him a quadriplegic. He was 42 years old and unable to do anything - even feed himself - without help.  The only person who wasn't bothered by Philippe's condition was someone who had been an outsider his entire life - Abdel, the unemployed Algerian immigrant from the outskirts of society who would become Philippe's unlikely caretaker. As they say never judge a book by it's cover.  I certainly made the mistake of judging this book by it's cover....and it's title.  I thought it's a book of second chance, of hope and motivation and going on against all odds.  Maybe in a way it is about that b...

Synopsis : This is my family:  Vanished without a trace… Justin and Libby Denbe have the kind of life that looks good in the pages of a glossy magazine. A beautiful fifteen-year old daughter, Ashlyn. A gorgeous brownstone on a tree-lined street in Boston’s elite Back Bay neighborhood. A great marriage, admired by friends and family.  A perfect life. This is what I know:  Pain has a flavor… When investigator Tessa Leoni arrives at the crime scene in the Denbes’ home, she finds scuff marks on the floor and Taser confetti in the foyer.  The family appears to have been abducted, with only a pile of their most personal possessions remaining behind.  No witnesses, no ransom demands, no motive.  Just an entire family, vanished without a trace. This is what I fear:  The worst is yet to come… Tessa knows better than anyone that even the most perfect façades can hide the darkest secrets.  Now she must race against the clock to uncover the Denbes’ i...