Welcome to the Week 12 wrap-up! Happy Fall Solstice! Whatever the weather is like for you, Summer is officially over. Yesterday was also Hobbit Day, the celebration of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins birthdays. I learned about Hobbit Day celebrations yesterday and I’m really excited. I love any excuse to share food with others and now I can have Hobbit Day parties in lieu of birthday parties. MsWas and I also have birthdays on September 22. I can’t speak for MsWas, but while I love celebrating, […]
A little disappointing
Codename Charming by Lucy Parker
I have read all of Lucy Parker’s books, and she’s been a favorite romance author of mine for years now. I always look forward to when another book of hers is published. So, when I saw Codename Charming (2023) was available and not at my library, I bought it immediately. Then I saved it for my backpacking trip, so I’d have something fun and distracting to read. Unfortunately, I was a little disappointed in this one. Part of the problem was that most of the characters in […]
From Serf to Empress
Tsarina by Ellen Alpsten
CBR 15 Bingo – History: This is a historical novel which in following the rise of Catherine I recreates the world of late 17th century Russia. Born a serf, Marta manages through her cunning and luck to rise through society until she becomes the mistress and later wife of Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia. This is an insane story of stratospheric social mobility, and I am shocked I hadn’t heard of it beyond Alpsten’s books. There’s plenty of shadowy corners in Catherine’s biography in […]
I suspect a complete lack of physical affection has led the British monarchy to where it is today.
Spare by Prince Harry
CBR15 Bingo: Politics – The internal politicking of the British royal family is intriguing and horrifying. While not a British royal super fan, I’ve always been interested in them. Queen Elizabeth’s corgis were part of the reason I got a corgi of my own. I thought I knew the broad strokes of Harry’s early life; trouble in schools, some drugs, partying, two stints in the military, and then he seemed to come into his own as an adult. In recent years, I’ve followed the royals […]
An aptly named memoir
Scattershot: Life, Music, Elton & Me by Bernie Taupin
Cbr15bingo on the air I like Elton John’s music. I know people who are super fans, and I am not one of those, but growing up in the 1970s with older siblings, I heard his music all the time on the radio or on our stereo at home. Between my sibs and me, we probably had most of his albums from the 1970s, and then with the ’80s and MTV, you couldn’t miss his videos. Recently, I heard part of Marc Maron’s interview with Bernie […]
“Families are like fingerprints; no two are the same, and they tend to leave their mark.”
Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney
CBR 15 Bing0 – Politics This is my first Alice Feeney and it is a good book for spoooooky season. Feeney does her own spin on an Agatha Christie-style “And Then There Were None” story, in that she sort of cribbed from it entirely in a number of key ways. Britain? Check. Isolated group on an island? Check. Creepy rhymes (in this case, poems)? Check. People starting dying one by one? Check. That said, her take on the construct was refreshing and kept me turning […]
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