travel

Not all days are reading (or writing) days

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I had an unexpected road trip to the city of Newcastle today. Hubs and I left the dogs in the care of our sons and headed out early in the morning. Newcastle is an approximately 3 hour drive north of Sydney. I’m only here for two days however it is the first time I have ever been here so I spent the day walking around rather than reading. I forgot to take photographs of the city itself but I did manage to take a couple of photographs. The first is of the mouth of the Hunter River looking across to Stockton. The second is of the Pacific Ocean taken from Newcastle Beach. I have a rubbish old phone with a rubbishy camera which takes rubbishy unfocused photographs. My family tells me that the technology is not to blame. Operator error and all that.

Enjoy!

Looking out to Stockton. The horizon is uneven. Sun is glaring through dark clouds.
A landscape photograph. Blueish cloudy sky, blue steel like Zoolander ocean with a sandy shore. 3 surfers bobbing in the water.

Shallow travels in the United States and Canada

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This year I will be varying my Saturday posts between sharing of my shallows and pieces that I (may indulgently) write and share. To begin with though, here is a post about my trip to Canada and the US  from last July-August. I completed writing it in early September 2017 but it has sat languishing in my drafts as work, study, illness and family took precedence. When I started writing this post, it was just going to be a short one. A collection of my online postcards (Twitter and FB). Instead, it has turned into a long, rambling epistle. Here are some hyperlinks that may help if you don’t want to read it all. Enjoy! and onward to my Journeys:

In transit to Canada and onwards to Niagara

New York! New York! 

Boston and Upper Massachusettes

Stephenkinglandia *ahem* Maine

Onwards to Quebec and Oh Montreal!

Comparers

Home Continue reading →

Train travel, sexy baklava and a retro Anne McAllister romance: a running commentary

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I was in Melbourne a few weeks ago. As a total wimp and the catastrophising human that I am, instead of braving a one hour flight each way, I caught the 10 hour train to and from Melbourne instead. On the return trip I reread an old favourite Sexy Mills & Boon by the wonderful Anne McAllister called The Antonides Marriage Deal  and I wrote running commentary while I read and travelled. All the photographs are my own taken with the thoughtful and precise skills developed over the years which my sons lovingly (I’m sure) call “The Veros School of Photography”.

Though I am posting this in time for SuperWendy’s TBR Challenge, the only thing that is paranormal about it is the smokey jackaroo….

Oh. And a warning: FULL of SPOILERS!

You can fast forward to the end of the blog for the review part.

The TL:DR for this book is Tis Great!

The Antonides Marriage Deal by Anne McAllister

The Antonides Marriage Deal

by Anne McAllister

The Greek tycoon’s takeover…
Greek magnate Elias Antonides has single-handedly regained his family’s fortune. So when his father gambles away a vital share he’s furious! Elias now has a new business partner…stunning heiress Tallie Savas.

The terms of the deal…
Tallie’s eager to prove herself, but she hasn’t counted on Elias being so sexy. Elias has underestimated Tallie, and now wonders if he can make their business arrangement personal — as in marriage!

 

 

 

8:00am Melbourne

The Yarra River in Melbourne, AustralianI’m at Southern Cross Station having just received a text informing me that my train was being replaced by buses

Successful business man Elias Antonides is fending off phone calls from his mother, his sisters, his brothers and other business partners like a pro. He is deliberate in keeping his fickle father waiting on hold but is unable to shake him. His dad, as the majority owner of the company but totally inept of keeping it afloat, insists that his son who saved the family biz from bankruptcy meet with him. The two meet just for μπαμπα to tell Elias that he has sold off half the company from under him to a buy-and-destroy self-made Greek magnate Socrates Savas.

Socrates is an Old Skool Greek man who props up his footloose sons (as Greek sons are known to be ζαχαροπαιδα/sugar boys who dissolve if they aren’t treated as though they are something special – trust me on this) and dismisses his sharp and intelligent daughter Tallie as a possibility to work in his company and instead keeps trying to match her up with Greek dudes (that said, you get to meet Tallie’s brother Theo in The Santorini Bride and he is far from a ζαχαροπαιδο in his romance with Martha, Elias’s sister). Continue reading →

ShallowreaderBingo! May Edition!

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It’s already the end of May and woot woot! A Willful Woman has won this month’s ShallowreaderBingo! Not only did she win Bingo early in May but she tells me she has scored a book for every single square! So excitement!!!

Seinfeld celebration - all four main characters are running and dancing on the spot with their arms up high.

As for me… *sigh* my own reading has slowed down due to having to do not-so-shallowreading (see my new page on this here blog). Stay tuned for the June Bingo sheet which will be much easier than May’s doozy! Link me to your own Bingo scorecards or tweet to me!

So my squares: Continue reading →

ShallowreaderBINGO! March edition!

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It’s March and Willaful won the ShallowreaderBingo!!!! Woooooot! Big shout out!

 

Screen Shot 2016-03-31 at 10.41.16 pm

To this, I say congratulations!

giphy

Meanwhile, I didn’t even manage a straight line! However here are the squares that I did score:

Screen Shot 2016-03-31 at 11.11.25 pmLeonetti’s Housekeeper Bride

by Lynne Graham

Bingo Square: It was a dark and stormy night

Oh Lynne Graham novel, how do I love thee! Let me count the ways:

  1. Poppy, the Goth M&B heroine!
  2.  Heroine Chin Swag (see Miss Bates)
  3. Lots of Genre Meta
  4. Lynne Graham Zingers!
  5. Fake Fiance!
  6. Childhood crush!
  7. Virgin!
  8. The phrase “a dark, stormy night”
  9. And of course, lurve!

Screen Shot 2016-03-31 at 11.02.11 pm Continue reading →

My travel reading and a sense of setting

shallowreader 7 Comments

I’m rubbish at reading while on holiday. Where other people relax at the beach with a book, I reject all reading materials as I am either in the water swimming or racing around looking at every museum, shop, historical building that is close by. To add to this, my latest trip was a combination of work and play (I marked student assignments, along with PhD related conference paper writing and archive visiting), which even further lessened my reading time.

However, I did manage to read 5 novels while I was away (I won’t count the numerous picture books I read to my cousin’s kids). So for this blog only I will write about the place I read each book in as well as the book.

Alexander the Great statue in Thessaloniki

Alexander the Great statue in Thessaloniki

Before I discuss these other books I need to point out that I am both impressed and horrified that I have reverted in my reading habits. 4 years ago, I bought myself a SONY ereader and during an 8 week holiday I did not enter a single book shop and I did not buy a single book. All my reads were downloaded from my local library and Project Gutenberg. My luggage was liberated. Hallelujiah to more space for more shoes. But my latest trip has shocked me. Not only did I not use my tablet for reading but I found myself carting print books across the globe. Thoughthey are much more cumbersome, I love them soooo much more than ebooks. I can write in the margins (I don’t but I could if I chose to), I can dog ear pages (I do), I can litter my book with post it notes, bookmarks made of receipts, ticket stubs, serviettes and beer coasters. Each item becoming in itself a souvenir of the moment that I was reading. I am enjoying my reversion. I want a badge that says “Tried ebooks, didn’t work, print is my swag”. I also want to point out that I always forget to take photos when I am on holiday. I guess I am too busy being on holiday to document it. Continue reading →