It's Monday!

This week I'm working extra shifts, so my reading plans may be a tad ambitious!

However I'm already half way through Euphoria (& loving it), so I have high hopes.

Mother Zen is an ARC I picked up at work last work. It's due for an April release through Harlequin Australia.
I confess to knowing nothing about about the author or the debate that she sparked by her article a few years ago. However her story resonated as I had had a similar expereince when I first became a stepmum.
I was given almost nothing but doom and gloom reports about step parenting.
I then felt guilty, and that maybe I was doing something wrong, when I found it easy & mostly delightful.

But, for now, here are the back blurbs on each book.

Euphoria by Lily King

National best-selling and award-winning author Lily King’s new novel is the story of three young, gifted anthropologists in the 1930s caught in a passionate love triangle that threatens their bonds, their careers, and, ultimately, their lives.

English anthropologist Andrew Bankson has been alone in the field for several years, studying a tribe on the Sepik River in the Territory of New Guinea with little success. Increasingly frustrated and isolated by his research, Bankson is on the verge of suicide when he encounters the famous and controversial Nell Stone and her wry, mercurial Australian husband Fen. Bankson is enthralled by the magnetic couple whose eager attentions pull him back from the brink of despair.

Nell and Fen have their own reasons for befriending Bankson. Emotionally and physically raw from studying the bloodthirsty Mumbanyo tribe, the couple is hungry for a new discovery. But when Bankson leads them to the artistic, female-dominated Tam, he ignites an intellectual and emotional firestorm between the three of them that burns out of anyone’s control. Ultimately, their groundbreaking work will make history, but not without sacrifice.

Inspired by events in the life of revolutionary anthropologist Margaret Mead, Euphoria is a captivating story of desire, possession and discovery from one of our finest contemporary novelists.

Zen Mother by Jacinta Tynan

 In 2010 Jacinta Tynan innocently sparked a media storm when her article in the Sun Herald exposed a fault line in our perception of motherhood. Her premise - that motherhood could be easy - split the parenting community down the middle. One side agreed with Jacinta, the other argued that motherhood was arduous and thankless, and both sides were passionate about their beliefs.

Part memoir about her expereinces as a new mum, part passionate manifesto, Mother Zen questions whether society's default position - that parenting is a tough and unrewarding job - is a valid one and opens up an important debate.

Butterfly by Sonya Hartnett

 
Plum Coyle is on the edge of adolescence. Her fourteenth birthday is approaching, when her old life and her old body will fall away, and she will become graceful, powerful, and at ease. The strength of the objects she stores in a briefcase under her bed —a crystal lamb, a yoyo, an antique watch, a coin —will make sure of it. 

Over the next couple of weeks, Plum’s life will change. Her beautiful neighbor Maureen will begin to show Plum how she might fly. The older brothers she adores will court catastrophe in worlds that she barely knows exist. And her friends, her worst enemies, will tease and test, smelling weakness. They will try to lead her on and take her down. 

Butterfly is a gripping, disquieting, beautifully observed coming-of-age novel by an acclaimed author at the top of her form.

What will you be reading this week?

This post is part of It's Monday! What Am I Reading?