Sim

Cross Stitch by Diana Gabaldon

A friend lent me this book and said I would love it. And I did. The heading confused me a little at first – why is there a novel about embroidery? Then I realized it was about stitches in time.

It is a beautifully written book. It is so lyrical that the words flow easily. It is set in Scotland in the 1940s and the 1700s. How? Well, it is simple enough – there is a vortex of sorts in an ancient stone circle. Claire, the main character enters the stone circle in the 1900s and gets whisked back two centuries. She has to deal with an ongoing battle between the English and Scotts, her curious history and a marriage!

Cross Stitch is the first in a series by Gabaldon, so I’ll be sure to hunt the rest down.

Tim

The Righteous Men by Sam Bourne

With all the travelling we do for C&M, we often find ourselves with a few hours to kill. The best thing to pass the time is to buy a paperback novel. On a recent trip I picked up The Righteous Men by Sam Bourne, because it looked like an easy but entertaining read, and it was.

A series of murders across the globe at first appear to be unrelated, a bizarre link between the cases is discovered by New York Times reporter Will Monroe. When his wife is kidnapped, he follows a trail of clues and riddles to a mysterious cult and a two-thousand-year-old mystery.

The Righteous Men is not the greatest story you’ll ever read, but it’s the sort of book where you can race through 100 pages without even realising it. Worth a look.

Carly

Chasing Bohemia by Carmen Michael

If there ever once was a book that would make you walk out on your current life and go and live in Brazil, then this is it. Carmen Michael is an Aussie woman who worked in the travel industry. She took three months off to explore South America, and is still there four years later. A great summer read that will have you mixing up your very own  caipirinha’s at happy hour.