Cloak & Dagger Christmas TBR

Hello, my lovelies.  Sorry, but this is just going to be a very short post today.

Yes, I am taking part in the Cloak and Dagger Christmas readalong - and I am sooo excited!  Plus, being a glutton for punishment I am also modifying this TBR for the 12 Days of Cozmas readalong as well.  Thank God everyone decided to do cosy mystery readalongs otherwise I would be royally screwed ;-D

Let me know in the comments if you are going to be participating in either (or both?) readalongs, and what you will be reading.

Thank you for watching, and until I see you next time...

 

October Reading Update

So, my October TBR is coming along pretty well.  I am taking part in #Victober this year, as well as my own Halloween Reads challenge.

Victober 

• Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
• Wives and Daughters - Elizabeth Gaskell

Halloween Reads

• Thornyhold - Mary Stewart
• Pet Sematary - Stephen King
• Four Past Midnight - Stephen King

Of these five books, I have so far completed Thornyhold and Jane Eyre - both on the 1st of October - but since then I have not picked up anything else from my set TBR.  I did read Time's Convert by Deborah Harkness (which I bought on the 28th September), and one historical romance on my iPad, but since then I signed up for a trial of Netflix, and I have been hooked! ;-D

This weekend I am planning on starting one of the four short novels from Four Past Midnight, maybe Secret Window, Secret Garden?, anyway, I won't be missing out on any Stephen King because I can now watch Gerald's Game and 1922 movies that they adapted for Netflix.

A proper review video for Jane Eyre, Thornyhold, Time's Convert and whichever Stephen King I finish, will be up later in the month.  Until then, I'm heading back to catch up on some Netflix.

See you later,

 

November wrap up

Hello my lovelies!  I hope you are having a better day than I am.  It is quite chilly and pouring rain - in November! - when it usually is hot enough to fry an egg under the blistering Australian sun.  Don't get me wrong, I love this kind of weather... however, it is becoming clear that the weather has no idea what it is supposed to be doing ;-D

November has been quite a good reading month for me.  I've had a very very late order arrive, ticked a few more books off my TBR list, and bought a few more books in current series.  Favourite reads of the month so far have been White Hot and Wildfire by Ilona Andrews, as well as Hardcore 24 by Janet Evanovich (even though it didn't get a high rating from me).

Biggest dud was Come Sundown by Nora Roberts.  Can't believe how much this didn't enthuse me.  Perhaps it's because I loved Obsession (ignore the first 80 pages) and have reread that so many times since it was published.  Oh well, will keep my fingers crossed that Year One will redeem her in December.

I've managed to make my way through two more Agatha Christies.  Murder on the Orient Express and After the Funeral were quick and compelling reads.  Not my favourites, but not too shabby either.

Still have a lot of books sitting on my ever expanding TBR pile.  Still have to get around to Artemis and Vigil before the end of the year and am saving the Decameron for next years Big Book project.

I think that's about it.  I need to get off the computer as the storm has picked up and the rain in bucketing down.  Don't need to be online if the power craps out ;-D

So until I see you next time,

 

A quick reading update

Yes, this is just a really quick update on what's on my desk at the moment.  I am currently rereading Archangel's Heart by Nalini Singh for the umpteenth time (I adore this series, but the author is running out of characters to centre her books on!) and after I finish AH I'll be picking up Archangel's Viper, again.  This is one of those series that I can reread over and over again without becoming bored.

Also, I did walk up to the Post Office after filming this only to be told that they hadn't even opened the bag containing parcels, let alone got them sorted *le sigh*  I hate it when this happens.  Looks like I'll be making an extra trip.  Good thing my PO is quite close so it's only a few minutes walk, but still... I don't want to do it.

So, my video is edited and posted, I've put my laundry on the line and now I need to get my butt in gear and start some general cleaning so the bedrooms don't look like a bomb has gone off in them.

Cheerio for now, and until I see you next time

 

Bookish update (with free tangent included)

Hi there!  Welcome back to my not so short rambling update where I just talk about a few of the books that I read recently.  As it says on the tin, there is a free tangent on Anita Blake included (and about how the amped up sex in the series really ruined it for me), but it's short so don't worry.  But it gave me an idea, so this will be a topic I'll get more into in a future video.

My reading has been a bit all over the place lately, and with Summer fast approaching I think my reading time will be sorely interrupted with pesky chores like mowing and other necessary outdoor maintenance. Oh the joys of being a homeowner - not.

Anyway, I must dash.  I'm absolutely famished and need to make some lunch.  One small croissant for breakfast (before 7am) just isn't doing it.

Until I see you next time,

 

The Stand Reading Update #1

Hi there!  Here's a quick video where I ramble on about The Stand by Stephen King.  I'm enjoying my foray into this post-pandemic landscape.  While it's not exactly how I had imagined it, I am flying through the chapters.

I will hopefully get another update done before I make a full review.

Let me know in the comments if you've read The Stand, and what you through of it.  Do you have a dream cast?  Let me know below ;-D 

 And until next time,

A King Quickie

Hello, my lovelies!

I have a new video up!  Yes, I've finally joined the BookTube crowd.  Not sure how it'll go, but it hasn't been too torturous editing video's so far ;-D

This one is just a few King bits and bobs that have come my way this week. 

Have a lot more King books en-route to me from various places around the world, and will make a video as often as possible.

Until next time,

GWTW Update

Oh, where do I start with this book?  In the beginning I found the language used by the slaves, talking about other slaves as well as the poor white folks, to be offputting to say the least.  And Scarlett?  She is such a manipulative, conniving, schemer that I really did have to pull myself up at times when I would go off on a tangent about her behaviour.  Little Miss Hot-pants is only 16 years old.  Marriage fodder during those times, but still... not sure what to think of her as a person.  Scarlett's almost pathological need to be the centre of attention - the prettiest girl in the county, having the tiniest waist, having all the men attend to her - just got annoying.  By the third chapter I was ready to consider that perhaps GWTW was not the novel for me and DNF it and move on.

But then I realised that Rhett still hadn't blessed us with his presence, and I was itching to find out what would happen when Scarlett finally did get her face-to-face meeting with Ashley Wilkes.  Oh, it was glorious!  Not only did she burn her bridges there (she slapped him but good!), but she found out what the other girls thought of her, and the old saying that eavesdroppers never hear any good was definitely true in Scarlett's case.  Mortified and humiliated, she nearly did a runner, but instead made a far worse choice when she happened to come across Charles Hamilton (a suitor of her sisters, or friend?) and he asks her to marry him, and she says yes on a whim.

Now, two chapters was all I was going to read last night, but on discovering this little nugget I couldn't help but continue.  What happens next made me feel sorry for Charles, and Wade - trying not to spoil stuff here - and Scarlett's attitude towards Wade didn't endear her to me at all.  I might have felt sympathy for her after she get's that letter regarding the death of Charles, but her uncaring attitude and emotional detachment is just hard to understand.

So I ended up finishing Part One of GWTW in my quest to find out what happened.  Hopefully Part Two will be a little more compelling and less involved in backstories (such as the 21 pages on Gerald and Ellen's lives, and then how Gerald and Ellen met and married was just waaaay too long.  Three pages would have sufficed!).

Thinking about how much I disliked the book to start with, I will give Margaret Mitchell credit for creating a character that you know is bad news, and will create havoc in peoples lives, and yet you still want to continue reading - even if it is only to see it all blow up in their face, which my motivation for reading.

Progress as of this morning.  I'm nearly out of tabs, people! ;-D

UPDATE

It's now Saturday, 5th November, and before I upload this post I wanted to let you know what's been going on in my reading battle with GWTW.

Yesterday I read about 50 or so pages, and I was feeling okay about the story.  The war was still ongoing, more men that Scarlett had known from childhood were being called up to fight - even as the General was retreating more land to the Union - and Scarlett had suffered the loss of the Tarleton boys.  Rhett was being a pain, and had ostracized nearly all of polite society in Atlanta.

Then I woke up early this morning, and by the time it was light enough to read I thought I'd only finish the next chapter and be done.  But noooo, I read until 9:38am (about 4 and a bit hours), and am now on p.522.  Scarlett has returned to Tara only to find her world turned upside down.  Her beloved mother is gone, and she is now in charge of Tara, fighting to keep mouths fed, and prepare for the future.  Rhett has been MIA for over a year (I think), and Melly has had her baby, Ashley finally returned, and once again Scarlett has tried to get him to admit that he loves her - only for him to admit it and rebuff her advances.

This, of course, threw Scarlett into another tissy of sorts.  It couldn't have come at a worse time since exorbitant taxes have been levied against Tara, and the 'white trash' daughter of the family that gave Typhoid to the O'Hara's has come calling with her husband (Tara's former overseer who was fired) and they make trouble.  Scarlett, in a real mood now, decides in a moment of madness that she just needs a man with money to fix the problem.  So with a new goal in site, Scarlett is determined to marry Rhett (once she finds him) in order to save Tara.

I had to stop here because I could see another doomed marriage on the horizon - and not to Rhett I'd wager! - as Scarlett soldier's forth in her battle to save her beloved home.  In the meantime, Ashley is having pangs of guilt at the thought that he's driven her to this - like he drove her into Charles arms - and I don't know if he and Melly, and the still nameless son, will even stay at this point, or move on?

I'm curious to know what happens - and how she can screw up her life so royally at times, and I think that this book is growing on me as I am starting to want to read ahead, follow Scarlett on her disasterous journey into the post-civil war years - and yet I still don't like her!  But I can understand why this was adapted for film as it is promising to be an epic story.

So those are my thoughts on GWTW.  I'd like to know what you thought of Scarlett?  Let me know in the comments ;-D

Until next time,