📘Have book – will travel….May

We definitely have had some fun recently – we went (armchair) travelling far and wide searching for those elusive A-Z place name titles, racking up those Frequent Flyer Points (or Air Miles as some of you might have) – from Florida to Hawaii then back across to Jamaica.
Turn around, fly west across the Pacific to hot humid Singapore and then up to Vienna. Where we’ve just arrived to pleasant late spring- early summer unlike coolish/cold late autumn – early winter here in Melbourne!
(43,171kms/ 26825 mls plus countless hrs of jet lag😎)

It was a fun ride and I ended up with a book in my hand all the way!
My reads over the month were…..

Florida fling with the Single Dad – Deanne Anders 2022
Inside the front cover it said:- Harlequin Medical – Pulse Racing Passion. Oh this’ll be good I thought😎.
The book blurb said – a fresh start in Key West is just what the flight nurse needs—but is a fling with a single dad?

So I wasn’t quite sure what to expect – it wasn’t too bad, not very long, a quick easy read that was finished in a couple of afternoon, the sort of book you class as a ‘beach read’.
Set in sunny warm Florida Keys, it covers the time a young flight nurse returning to work after recovering from a gun shot wound, transfers from New York for a short contract. .
Add a good looking ‘station boss’ his young daughter, her PTSD, colleagues not sure of her skills plus an instant attraction and we have a little ‘reluctant’ love story (with a couple of ‘spicy’ episodes) in a trauma casualty air ambulance environment. All well that ends well.
****

Meet me in Hawaii – Georgia Toffolo 2021.
‘Her beauty, her smile…his stomach flipped like he’d gone over a bump in the road

Hawaii, where there’s Sun, Sand, Sea and Surf – what’s not to like about that
You never know- there’re may be a little romance as well. After all, it ‘is’ a Mills and Boon.

Two youngish mature (late 20/early30) adults with disturbed’ childhoods – wanting/needing to – providing help for underprivileged children. An initial ‘spark’ – misunderstandings – conflicting emotions – trying to resolve past mistakes – good friends coming to the rescue – coming to a climax finishing the way we knew it would.
Yes, it’s a ‘love story’ – with thoughts and feelings possibly familiar to many of the readers. Accept the past, it’s behind you……. look to the future, it’s all there in front of you.
*****

A High Wind in Jamaica – Richard Hughes 1929 (Vintage Classics 2002).
….a terrible hurricane levels their Jamaican estate, the Bas-Thorntons decide to send their children back to England. On the way their ship is set upon by pirates…… .

Well that’s the ‘blurb’ but it’s certainly not the whole of the happenings. I thought it was going to be a YA book but it also appears geared to adults…….

• from the description of their late C19th life before the storm (with language and attitudes which have offended many modern readers). .
  you can read an abbreviated version of the first few chapters HERE
  

• …..through an auction

• ………a nativity play – with real cattle!

• ……a child’s death, a murder followed by an attempted murder, an encounter with a ship full of ‘circus animals’, mixed reactions to plus disturbing emotions felt between sailors and children, ‘rescued’ returned to England then on to the final chapter where an action in a court case becomes a nasty ending to innocent parties.

An interesting read – one that wouldn’t have happened if I wasn’t finding places for letters
****

Singapore Sapphire- A.M.Stuart 2019.

Historical fiction – murder mystery – Singapore ( a place where we spent several happy years during the 1960s) – 3 ticks from me. I was really looking forward to reading this.

It’s a shame when something you look forward to doesn’t eventuate – the remembered sights, sounds and smells were there but there was something about the words I just couldn’t get on with. I did finish it but if you asked me why I felt so disappointed I’d be hard pushed to tell you.
Maybe an attempt at a reread sometime might be in order

*****.
And now I have just begun…..

A glove shop in Vienna & other stories – Eva Ibbotson 1984

Blurb:- A collection of eighteen romantic short stories from the award-winning Eva Ibbotson, “A Glove Shop in Vienna” will show you the great passions and astute observations of everyday life.

Keeping to my ‘theme’ (letters/places) the little 14 page story (A glove shop in Vienna) is the one I’m interested in and possibly the only one I will actually read.

About the writer’s (possible real or maybe imagined?) Austrian family particularly Great Uncle Max, his former opera singing wife Helene along with his glove selling mistress Susie.
Six pages in and he is enjoying visiting her apartment….

…..which faced inwards, towards a cobbled courtyard with an old pear tree in the centre, and when the shutters were closed (and of course they always were closed when uncle Max was there) the call of street sellers, the carpet beating, the sound of tugboats hooting up the Danube, came as the gentlest, the most undisturbing counterpoint to their secret and illicit love.
And indeed their love was secret. Very secret. It had to be……

It won’t take long to finish- just don’t have enough time at the moment

*****.

This is the state of play Mid May with the Letters and Places Challenge.
Along with what I read in April it’s now 11 down – 15 more to go

Sharing with What’s on your Book Shelf Challenge

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