After much consideration, I have decided to amend my holiday reading list. In my post, titled "Holiday Reading for Spring/Summer 2013", which you can find here, I listed six books, some of which dealt with serious issues, such as depression, murder, suicide and the protagonist's endless list of personal demons. I shall be away for 9 nights next month, at a beautiful sunny resort in St. Lucia. I think I deserve a little light reading, also, don't you? Therefore, my current holiday reading list goes as follows:
1) The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. The black sign, painted in white letters that hangs upon the gates, reads: Opens at Nightfall Closes at Dawn. As the sun disappears beyond the horizon, all over the tents small lights begin to flicker, as though the entirety of the circus is covered in particularly bright fireflies. When the tents are all aglow, sparkling against the night sky, the sign appears. Le Cirque des Reves The Circus of Dreams. Now the circus is open. Now you may enter.
2) The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones by Cassandra Clare
It’s after dark in New York City, and Clary Fray is seeing things. The best-looking guy in the nightclub has just stabbed a boy to death – but the victim has vanished into thin air. Her mother has disappeared, and a hideous monster is lurking in her apartment.With her life spiralling into darkness, Clary realises that she has stumbled into an invisible war between ancient demonic forces and secretive Shadowhunters – a war in which she has a fateful role to play…
3) Dark Places by Gillian Flynn
Libby Day was seven when her mother and two sisters were murdered in “The Satan Sacrifice of Kinnakee, Kansas.” As her family lay dying, little Libby fled their tiny farmhouse into the freezing January snow. She lost some fingers and toes, but she survived–and famously testified that her fifteen-year-old brother, Ben, was the killer. Twenty-five years later, Ben sits in prison, and troubled Libby lives off the dregs of a trust created by well-wishers who’ve long forgotten her.
The Kill Club is a macabre secret society obsessed with notorious crimes. When they locate Libby and pump her for details–proof they hope may free Ben–Libby hatches a plan to profit off her tragic history. For a fee, she’ll reconnect with the players from that night and report her findings to the club… and maybe she’ll admit her testimony wasn’t so solid after all.
4) Gold by Chris Cleave
Kate and Zoe are friends but also ardent rivals - athletes at the top of their game, fighting to compete in the world's greatest sporting contest. Each scarred by tragedy, and each with a great deal to lose, they must choose between family and glory and ask themselves: what will I sacrifice?
5) After the Fall by Charity Norman
In the quiet of a New Zealand winter's night, a rescue helicopter is sent to airlift a five-year-old boy with severe internal injuries. He's fallen from the upstairs veranda of an isolated farmhouse, and his condition is critical. At first, Finn's fall looks like a horrible accident; after all, he's prone to sleepwalking. Only his frantic mother, Martha McNamara, knows how it happened. And she isn't telling. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
Tragedy isn't what the McNamara family expected when they moved to New Zealand. For Martha, it was an escape. For her artist husband Kit, it was a dream. For their small twin boys, it was an adventure. For sixteen-year-old Sacha, it was the start of a nightmare.
They end up on the isolated east coast of the North Island, seemingly in the middle of a New Zealand tourism campaign. But their peaceful idyll is soon shattered as the choices Sacha makes lead the family down a path which threatens to destroy them all.
Martha finds herself facing a series of impossible decisions, each with devastating consequences for her family.
As you can see, I decided to bump The Good Father and The Innocents off my list. The former will take up residence on my To Be Read pile, but the latter I'm currently undecided about. I've read some rather scathing reviews online, although I do think I should make up my own mind about it. Perhaps I'll put it near the bottom of the ever-growing pile.
What will you be reading this spring/summer? Which books will you be packing in your suitcase or downloading onto your e-reader?
I like big books and I cannot lie...
— Miss_JB (@KidnapMeFiction) May 28, 2013
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