The Book Date

These are the ~~ten~~ twelve books I am looking forward to their publishing in the second half of 2026. I haven’t included the review books I have – only a few.
I read ten out of the fourteen I had wanted for the first half of the year. Another one is on its way from the library – The Shippers. I’ll get Moonlight Murder in audio at some point.

The Romance Revival. Christian Lauren. Most likely the audiobook. Contemporary Romance. July
Queen of Lombard Street. Lisa Kleypas. Victorian Historical Romance. Not sure which version I will look for. October.
State of Unrest. Marie Force. Kindle version. Romantic suspense. July.
The One Who Walked Away. Karen Rose. Library – print. Romantic suspense. August
A Married Little Christmas. Abby Jimenez. Audiobook or Kindle version. Christmas Romance short story. October.
Murder in Blackfriars. Jennifer Ashley. Kindle or Library if they get it. Historical Cozy Mystery. August
Falling for Peachtree Bluff. Kristy Woodson Harvey. Audiobook version. Contemporary Fiction/Romance. September.
Miss Wolcott’s Ghost. Louise Penny. #21. Print. Thriller/Mystery. October.
Cold Redemption. Nalini Singh. Print/signed. Paranormal Romance. December.
Birth of the Witch. Nora Roberts.#1 Audio or Kindle. Paranormal Romance. November
The Me I Used to Be. Kristan Higgins. Print or Kindle. Contemporary Fiction. September.
The Thoroughbreds. Elin Hildebrand/Shelby Cunningham. Audio. Contemporary. September.

#IMWAYR

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

June 29, 2026June 29, 2026 Kathryn

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? a place to meet up and share what you have been, and are about to be reading over the week. It’s a great post to organise yourself. It’s an opportunity to visit and comment and er… add to your groaning TBR pile! So welcome in everyone. This meme started on J Kaye’s blog and then was hosted by Sheila from Book Journey. Sheila then passed it on to Kathryn here at The Book Date.

Jen Vincent, Teach Mentor Texts, and Kellee of Unleashing Readers decided to give It’s Monday! a kidlit focus. If you read and review books in children’s literature – picture books, chapter books, middle grade novels, young adult novels or anything in those genres – join them.

Hope you are all well. Negotiating the weather whatever it be!

What I finished reading last week:

This looks like a lot of reading but a couple of these are slow reads that I just finished. Plus we had windy, cold, rainy weather coming up from the Antarctic this past week. What could I only do but sit by the fire and… read!

What I am reading now:

And listening too…

Slow Reads:
The Power of Writing it Down.
One Last Question, Prime Minister. Untold stories from the House of Parliament. NF.

Up next:

Last Week’s Posts

Books on my Winter To Read List. #TTT
Personal Journey Memoirs: Annie B. Jones & Pax Assadi
Tracking my Books: My Reading life.

Book Haul

Tracking My Books: My Reading Life

June 28, 2026 Kathryn

Some kindle books, mostly to add to my Lisa Kleypas books as I want to read her backlist that I haven’t read. Plus a bargain Mimi Matthews and Cathy Lamb. And one author I haven’t read before. I am thinking of having more of a focus on historical romance in 2027 so getting ready! Notice how the word ready has the word read in it!

And some paperbacks because I couldn’t either get copies in kindle or they may have been well priced. Mistborn after a Top Ten Tuesday when I saw it with a fun cover, (not this one) and its well reviewed on GR plus I just want to try a Sanderson book.

Print books bought locally in last two months.

Audiobooks.
I have already listened to three of these. I bought so many audiobooks in a sale earlier in the year I don’t have to be looking too hard for a book. However I use most of the credits for the recently released or one I have heard good things about like The Rose and the Thistle. (BookFanMary).

Library Books.
There have been quite a few but I have read them all so not listing them here.

Reading challenge, Review

Personal Journey Memoirs: Annie B. Jones and Pax Assadi.

June 26, 2026 Kathryn

Published by Harper One 2025
Narrated by the Author.
Audiobook: 6 hours 7 min
Own audiobook.

Annie B. Jones, the host of the podcast From The Front Porch, writes about her life, looking back and looking forward. And as she puts it – staying put, living near enough to where she grew up. She shares some deeply personal things about her own story, I found it triggering me into thinking and viewing things in my own life. She encourages each of us to examine our own story.

I especially appreciated her religious and spiritual journey, although that’s just part of what she shares. I listened to the audio version and while I missed some details because of that, I liked the easy listening experience. While many will enjoy this book, perhaps if you don’t want to spend time exploring someone’s personal religious experience then may not be for you. However there is a lot more to it than that aspect. (Annie owns and runs a bookshop called The Bookshelf in Georgia USA.)

Published: Penguin Random House NZ
Date: 5th May 2026
Print book from library.

Pax Assadi is a New Zealand comedian. His parents are from Iran and Pakistan. Pax chooses some very embarrassing moments in his life and shares them with the reader. He encourages us to look back at those embarrassing moments of our own and welcome them as a gift and make peace with them.

This was an honest and very entertaining read. It was also very informative. What is it like to be the child of immigrant parents growing up in New Zealand. You are a New Zealander but you have a social and cultural background that means you don’t quite know what is okay in a situation. Pax Assadi writes this experience really well and makes some very insightful remarks along the way. He might be a comedian but he has the wisdom of a therapist. Each chapter is so good. I liked especially his encounter with the policeman, it was a very poor example of policing, but a good description of the racism inherent in NZ. I also liked his explanation of Iran and the Bahá I Faith, because of the understanding I gained. I laughed often, but paused too to reflect. Great read.

Ordinary Time: General Non Fiction challenge- grazer.
Mortified. Humour.

Top Ten Tuesday

Books on my Winter 2026 To Read List

June 23, 2026 Kathryn

This was a good chance to organise what I might be reading next. As its winter here I chose my reads for winter rather than summer, not that I really think there is much difference in what I read in winter as opposed to what I read in summer.

One Golden Summer Carley Fortune. Contemporary Romance
Powerless. Lauren Roberts. YA Fantasy Romance
Swordheart. T. Kingfisher. Romantasy
Just one look at you. Jill Mansell Contemporary Romance
The Palace Women. Jennifer Ryan. Historical Fiction. Also titled The Queen’s Coronation.

His Captive Lady. Anne Gracie. Historical romance
Paradise Valley. Jennifer Scoullar. Contemporary romance
Death at a Scottish Halloween. Cosy mystery
How to Write a Love Story. Catherine Walsh. Contemporary romance
The Shippers. Katherine Center. Contemporary romance.

#IMWAYR

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

June 22, 2026June 22, 2026 Kathryn

As usual the week sped by. I think my tomato plants finally came to an end which really is way past when they usually stop. Climate change! I went into Wellington (city) and we walked around a new walk/bicycle way along the harbour. It was beautifully done and we enjoyed it, although the weather was somewhat wet to begin with. However no wind in the windy city which was appreciated. Saturday night I watched the rugby game and our Hurricanes team won the finals, loved it. I guess the USA are seeing a bit of soccer at the moment, hope it is going well.

I had a good reading week on the whole. Divine Rivals was good but not totally rushing for the next one. Where There’s Smoke – loved, Road Trip was great and Mortified was an excellent immigrant experience. Pax Assadi is a NZ comedian I really enjoy.

What I read last week:

What I am reading now:

Listening to…

Slow Reads…

Pachinko. Page 462/531
The Valley
The Power of Writing it Down

Up next:

#IMWAYR

It’s Monday! What Are you Reading?

June 15, 2026June 15, 2026 Kathryn

A mixed week. Winter has set in now and all the deciduous trees seem to have lost their leaves now. I had a mixed week, some days home and some days quite full. Sunday I went to a 50th celebration of a couple of sisters (nuns) and 250 celebration of their order. So that included travel and a lovely Mass. Then we went to the school for something to eat and drink.

I taught at that school 40 years ago, same layout but all modernised. All the corridor walls had been taken out so one long corridor with classrooms open to the corridor. I looked at the corridor and it was even longer than I remembered. It made me remember a long ago time when I taught the 5 year olds there and the rest of the school went across the road for some kind of practice.

One of my students went into a severe asthma attack and I took him up the corridor to try and get help. No one there, trying to phone his mother, no answer. Can you believe the public health nurse walked into the school at that point. She whipped the child off to the hospital – if she hadn’t he would have died. (It was my first experience of asthma). Sometimes I think someone is watching over us. No cell phones in those days. I can’t remember if I ever went mad at the Principal for emptying out the school with no back up for me. These days I would but as a young person I can’t remember what I did. Anyway I then returned to the thirty odd students down that long corridor all by themselves!

What I read last week:

All good and I loved Dolly all the Time on audiobook.

What I am reading now:

From my own shelf… bought back in January this year.

And listening to…
Road Trip I am in the last third and I am about to start The Marriage Method.

Slow Reading.

Pachinko
The Power of Writing it Down
The Valley.

Up next:

In from the library…

Last Week’s Posts

Books with Handwriting on the Cover. #TTT
Lead Me Home. Catherine Bybee. Review.

Review

Lead Me Home. Catherine Bybee

June 12, 2026 Kathryn

Published: Montlake
Date: June 9th 2026
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

Luna Canning trusts numbers more than people—and for good reason. As a forensic accountant who specializes in exposing fraud, she knows numbers never deceive, unlike the toxic family she’s spent a lifetime trying to escape. Now living in her grandmother’s Victorian home, Luna has built a carefully ordered life behind walls she thought were unbreakable.

When her car is stolen from an airport parking lot, former FBI agent turned PI Nate Warren steps in to help—and proves more dangerous to her defenses than any thief. Despite Luna’s ironclad rules about mixing business with pleasure, their chemistry ignites, and for the first time, she considers letting someone past her guard. But just as their relationship begins to blossom, Luna’s manipulative mother arrives unannounced, dragging with her a dangerous man and decades of unresolved trauma that threaten everything Luna has built.

Now Luna must confront the ghosts of her past—both metaphorical and possibly literal, as strange occurrences in her historic home suggest she’s not alone. With a violent threat looming and her heart on the line, Luna discovers that sometimes the hardest person to trust is yourself.

I am a fan of Catherine Bybee’s books and have read quite a few of them. It was therefore with anticipation that I picked up this book, Lead Me Home, no doubt the start of at the very least a trilogy.

It is set in a lovely, old big house that has been left to Luna and her brother and sister. Luna lives there with her friend Miley. Luna is a free lancer and very good at her work. Talented in fact and very good hearted. She is just starting to work on a case with ex FBI Nate who is now a PI and he is rather a good guy too.

Life goes along and while there were a few discordant notes I was finding myself pushing myself to keep reading – unusual for me, as I said – Catherine Bybee reader here. Perhaps something was going to happen – perhaps not. Until…

Yes the last third of the book really ramped up and things very quickly turned in a very worrying way. It took on even more significance as I read the author’s note at the end.

I can safely say I am still a Catherine Bybee fan and I will certainly want to continue on with the next book with either the brother or the sister. I’d like it to be brother Ash but we shall see.

Review

Books with Handwriting on the Cover.

June 9, 2026 Kathryn

Books with Handwriting on the Cover (Or fonts that look like handwriting. Titles, subtitles, covers with letters on them, etc.)

And I have limited the books to those on my TBR on Goodreads. It makes me look at them again and think, yes still want to read!

The Rainy Day Bookshop RaeAnne Thayne
Paradise Valley. Jennifer Scoullar
The Mis-Arrangement of Sana Saeed. Noreen Mughees
North Country. K.A. Tucker
Moonlight Murder. Uzma Jalaluddin

The Ministry of Time. Kaliane Bradley
The Shippers. Katherine Center.
One Golden Summer. Carley Fortune
The Path Through the Coojong Trees. Leonie Kelsall
All Together for Christmas. Sarah Morgan

#IMWAYR

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

June 8, 2026June 7, 2026 Kathryn

Last Monday (being a long weekend) I went book shopping because there were deals going. I was browsing when a shop assistant asked did I need any help. “Not really thanks.” Then she went on to say she was really good at picking out books for people. “Okay,” I said reluctantly. She wanted to know what genre did I like. “Romance”. Well I have just the book and she picked out The Wedding People. It’s so good and so funny she said. “Ah I bought that book from that very spot on the shelf and I didn’t find it funny at all and didn’t really like it. I know lots of readers did but well not me”. She looked at me in horror and can’t quite understand. I know, she said and grabbed another book I’d borrowed from the library and hadn’t really been enthused about. “Yes I read that it was just okay.” She looked at me in horror and decided thankfully to leave me to it. I picked out two books for myself, bought and left. I went to another bookstore and thankfully no one asked me do I need help and I spend a long time browsing and picking out another two books I think I might like.

Do you like to browse and be left alone in a bookshop or do you want help?!

What I read last week:

What I am reading now:

A reread for a challenge that requires a book about siblings. I read it last back in 2017. I like this author, my sister doesn’t. It’s told with humour, but with serious themes.

Slow Reads. Still reading Pachinko and The Power of Writing it down.
A friend has lent me this book about the criminal justice system in NZ so I am adding that to my slow reads.