Stacking the Shelves #38

Stacking the Shelves is a meme hosted by Tynga @ Tynga’s Reviews.

For Stacking the Shelves, I take the opportunity to share what books I've bought, won or received for review. Click on the book cover to go to Goodreads and find out more information.The week gone... I read and reviewed Silver Clouds by Fleur Mcdonald and had the pleasure of chatting with the author on my blog. Another Aussie book review was also posted for The Railwayman's Wife by Ashley Hay and I've continued my Reading on Location posts with a (brief) list on books set in Germany that I want to read.Bought: Two more books arrived in the mail that are set in France that I'm excited to get to shortly. I also picked up a copy of Kate Forsyth's novel Bitter Greens. After enjoying The Wild Girl I thought it was about time I read Bitter Greens as I've seen so many great reviews for it.

Anna is looking forward to her senior year in Atlanta, where she has a great job, a loyal best friend, and a crush on the verge of becoming more. Which is why she is less than thrilled about being shipped off to boarding school in Paris--until she meets Étienne St. Clair. Smart, charming, beautiful, Étienne has it all...including a serious girlfriend.

But in the City of Light, wishes have a way of coming true. Will a year of romantic near-misses end with their long-awaited French kiss?

One of E. M. Forster's most celebrated novels, "A Room With a View" is the story of a young English middle-class girl, Lucy Honeychurch. While vacationing in Italy, Lucy meets and is wooed by two gentlemen, George Emerson and Cecil Vyse. After turning down Cecil Vyse's marriage proposals twice Lucy finally accepts. Upon hearing of the engagement George protests and confesses his true love for Lucy. Lucy is torn between the choice of marrying Cecil, who is a more socially acceptable mate, and George who she knows will bring her true happiness. "A Room With a View" is a tale of classic human struggles such as the choice between social acceptance or true love.

An utterly captivating reinvention of the Rapunzel fairytale weaved together with the scandalous life of one of the tale's first tellers, Charlotte-Rose de la Force.

Charlotte-Rose de la Force has been banished from the court of Versailles by the Sun King, Louis XIV, after a series of scandalous love affairs. She is comforted by an old nun, Sœur Seraphina, who tells her the tale of a young girl who, a hundred years earlier, is sold by her parents for a handful of bitter greens...

Selena is the famous red-haired muse of the artist Tiziano, first painted by him in 1512 and still inspiring him at the time of his death, sixty-four years later. Called La Strega Bella, Selena is at the centre of Renaissance life in Venice, a world of beauty and danger, seduction and betrayal, love and superstition, retaining her youth and beauty by the blood of young red-haired girls.

After Margherita's father steals a handful of parsley, wintercress and rapunzel from the walled garden of the courtesan Selena Leonelli, he is threatened with having both hands cut off unless he and his wife give away their little red-haired girl. And so, when she turns seven, Margherita is locked away in a tower, her hair woven together with the locks of all the girls before her, growing to womanhood under the shadow of  La Strega Bella, and dreaming of being rescued...

Three women, three lives, three stories, braided together to create a compelling story of desire, obsession, black magic and the redemptive power of love.

So, that’s it for me. What books have you added to your shelves this week?