Book: Blackpeak Station

Summary: Four generations of the Black family have farmed Blackpeak Station. Next in line, or so she believes, is Charlotte Black, stubborn as rock and unbiddable as the weather. But standing in her way are 150 years of tradition, an older brother, and a father who believes that daughters run families, not farms.

To make her childhood dream of owning the family property come true, she'll have to be as tough as the mountains themselves. There can be no room for romance in Charlotte's life. Or so she thinks, until it arrives at her door. Can she have both love and land, or must she choose? Can Charlotte learn to trust her heart?


What I thought: A new rural romance author to add to my collection but this time from New Zealand. Loved it. Hooked from page 1 :)

Book: Stone Castles

Summary: After ten years pursuing a prestigious career in New York, Pip Martin has returned to the Yorke Peninsula to farewell her dying grandmother. She doesn't intend to linger - there are too many memories in the small country town and not all of them will stay in the past.

Like Luke Trenorden, her childhood sweetheart. A man Pip had promised her heart to, until tragedy stole Pip's family away, and a terrible lie tore both their lives apart. Pip cannot deny there is still a spark between them, even amidst the heartache of losing her Gran and the demands of her new life. But it may not be enough to rekindle a love that has been neglected for so long.
When a long-kept secret is revealed, Pip is free to go back to the life she thought she wanted... unless Luke can break down the stone castle Pip has built around her heart.



What I thought: Another great rural lit read. I was hooked early on and loved it.

Bookgroup: Philomena

Summary: When she fell pregnant as a teenager in Ireland in 1952, Philomena Lee was sent to the convent at Roscrea in Co. Tipperary to be looked after as a fallen woman. She cared for her baby for three years until the Church took him from her and sold him, like countless others, to America for adoption. Coerced into signing a document promising never to attempt to see her child again, she nonetheless spent the next fifty years secretly searching for him, unaware that he was searching for her from across the Atlantic. Philomena's son, renamed Michael Hess, grew up to be a top Washington lawyer and a leading Republican official in the Reagan and Bush administrations. But he was a gay man in a homophobic party where he had to conceal not only his sexuality but, eventually, the fact that he had AIDs. With little time left, he returned to Ireland and the convent where he was born: his desperate quest to find his mother before he died left a legacy that was to unfold with unexpected consequences for all involved. Philomena is the tale of a mother and a son whose lives were scarred by the forces of hypocrisy on both sides of the Atlantic and of the secrets they were forced to keep.

What I thought: I very much enjoyed this. I got angry and sad and happy throughout. Well worth a read - just don't watch the movie as it is very different!