The cooler weather is hitting us, and what better way to welcome in winter than with hot chocolate?? Grounded Pleasures hot chocolates create some of the most pure and sumptuous chocolate experiences you'll find.
We've mixed things up with their flavours, and have included their original blend, cinnamon-infused, and their Tanzanian blend...which did you receive???
Made by Craig, Sophie and their amazing team in Ballarat, they believe that fine cocoa is as complex as fine wine and great coffee...which absolutely benefits you and me, drinking it as we delve into our June book selections!
Make sure you pop over and follow them on Insta @groundedpleasures
Our book selections for June are:
General Fiction: The Book of Longings, by Sue Monk Kidd
Crime/Thriller: Who We Were, BM Carroll
IT'S BEEN TWENTY YEARS
BUT ALL IS NOT FORGIVEN
Katy is not the shy schoolgirl she once was, and she's looking forward to showing her classmates who she's become.
Annabel was the queen bee. But her fall from grace changed her life forever.
Zach was cruel, but he thinks he's changed.
Robbie was a target. And he never stood a chance.
The reunion will bring together friends and enemies, many for the first time in decades. But someone is still holding a grudge...
Fantasy: The Obsidian Tower, Melissa Caruso
As the granddaughter of a Witch Lord of Vaskandar, Ryx was destined for power and prestige. But a childhood illness left her with broken magic that drains the life from anything she touches, and Vaskandar has no place for a mage with unusable powers. So Ryx has resigned herself to an isolated life as the warden of her grandmother's castle.
At the castle's heart lies a black tower. Sealed by magic, it guards a dangerous secret that has been contained for thousands of years. But when Ryx discovers a visiting envoy attempting to break into the tower, a magical accident leaves her with blood on her hands.
Unwittingly, Ryx has unleashed a threat that could engulf the whole continent. She and an unlikely collection of new-found allies must contain it, and the political conflicts that follow, or else everything she loves will fall to darkness.
Romance: The Switch, by Beth O'Leary
Eileen is sick of being 79.
Leena's tired of life in her twenties.
Maybe it's time they swapped places...
When overachiever Leena Cotton is ordered to take a two-month sabbatical after blowing a big presentation at work, she escapes to her grandmother Eileen's house for some overdue rest. Eileen is newly single and about to turn eighty. She'd like a second chance at love, but her tiny Yorkshire village doesn't offer many eligible gentlemen.
Once Leena learns of Eileen's romantic predicament, she proposes a solution: a two-month swap. Eileen can live in London and look for love. Meanwhile Leena will look after everything in rural Yorkshire. But with gossiping neighbours and difficult family dynamics to navigate up north, and trendy London flatmates and online dating to contend with in the city, stepping into one another's shoes proves more difficult than either of them expected.
Leena learns that a long-distance relationship isn't as romantic as she hoped it would be, and then there is the annoyingly perfect - and distractingly handsome - school teacher, who keeps showing up to outdo her efforts to impress the local villagers. Back in London, Eileen is a huge hit with her new neighbours, but is her perfect match nearer home than she first thought?
True Crime: Cults Uncovered: True Stories of Mind Control and Murder, by Emily G Thompson
Biography/Memoir: Wine Girl, by Victoria James
An affecting memoir from the country’s youngest sommelier, tracing her path through the glamorous but famously toxic restaurant world
At just twenty-one, the age when most people are starting to drink (well, legally at least), Victoria James became the country’s youngest sommelier at a Michelin-starred restaurant. Even as Victoria was selling bottles worth hundreds and thousands of dollars during the day, passing sommelier certification exams with flying colors, and receiving distinction from all kinds of press, there were still groping patrons, bosses who abused their role and status, and a trip to the hospital emergency room.
It would take hitting bottom at a new restaurant and restorative trips to the vineyards where she could feel closest to the wine she loved for Victoria to re-emerge, clear-eyed and passionate, and a proud leader of her own Michelin-starred restaurant.
Exhilarating and inspiring, Wine Girl is the memoir of a young woman breaking free from an abusive and traumatic childhood on her own terms; an ethnography of the glittering, high-octane, but notoriously corrosive restaurant industry; and above all, a love letter to the restorative and life-changing effects of good wine and good hospitality.
Young Adult: Deep Water, by Sarah Epstein
A gripping mystery about a missing boy and a group of teenagers, one of whom knows something but isn't telling, from the award-winning author of Small Spaces.
Enjoy!
xx
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