Books

Wednesday, March 25, 2020

We're fine!

Finally had to bite the bullet and buy a new fridge/freezer.  After throwing out two large crisper drawers of frozen fruit and veg. it had to go.  Anyone who knows my DH knows that we had to go to EVERY store that sells appliances and look at a million fridges (only a slight exaggeration)!!  We were limited as to what size we could get.  The fridges today are wider and taller and as we had a space that couldn't be changed we had to get a smaller fridge.  It doesn't seem smaller though.  Because of the French doors it seems to have a lot more room and everything can be seen.  No more vintage bottles and containers hiding at the back.  I really like the pull out drawer for the freezer as well.  I'm happy with it!!


DS#2 on his flight back from London. He said it was very quiet in London where he was.  Only 3 people on the bus and everybody maintaining proper distancing.  He didn't get to do any shopping as they were confined to the hotel so no goodies for me this trip!  The flight was very basic.  They were giving out lunch packages and bottled water at the beginning of the flight and the same again closer to the end of the flight.  No galley or isle service.  He said no one was complaining.  He's worked all his shifts for this month now and hopes to be able to book just domestic flights for next month.
Very quiet around here.  Neighbours shoveling our snow for us.  We're well stocked for groceries.  Just have to go to the bank tomorrow and then home again.  Went for a walk this afternoon, nice and sunny and only -4C.  Lots of others walking but maintaining the correct distance.  I just wish more people would shovel their sidewalks! 

Wednesday, March 4, 2020

Books 1-5

Not Her Daughter by Rea Frey
Image result for Not Her Daughter by Rea Frey
Gripping, emotional, and wire-taut, Not Her Daughter raises the question of what it means to be a mother—and how far someone will go to keep a child safe.
Emma Townsend. Five years old. Gray eyes, brown hair. Missing since June.
Emma is lonely. Living with her cruel mother and clueless father, Emma retreats into her own world of quiet and solitude.
Sarah Walker. Successful entrepreneur. Broken-hearted. Kidnapper.
Sarah has never seen a girl so precious as the gray-eyed child in a crowded airport terminal. When a second-chance encounter with Emma presents itself, Sarah takes her—far away from home. But if it’s to rescue a little girl from her damaging mother, is kidnapping wrong?
Amy Townsend. Unhappy wife. Unfit mother. Unsure whether she wants her daughter back.
Amy’s life is a string of disappointments, but her biggest issue is her inability to connect with her daughter. And now Emma is gone without a trace.
As Sarah and Emma avoid the nationwide hunt, they form an unshakable bond. But what about Emma’s real mother, back at home?
The story is told from Sarah's and Amy’s points of view and alternates between before, during, and after Emma goes missing. While I did enjoy this book there were parts that were just beyond belief.  She meets a guy and his son in a playground, agrees to go back to their house and stay the night.  Really, that sounds really safe!  The ending was beyond belief!  It's the ending that most people would like but it was so far beyond belief that it kind of spoiled it, for me anyway.

Broken Promise by Tara Thomas
Image result for broken promise by tara thomas"
Charleston Police Officer Alyssa Adams made a promise years ago to protect innocent women from harm.  Now, she won't rest until she can reunite every lost daughter with her family.  Bring closure to every grieving husband.  And, most of all, find out what happened the night her own sister disappeared, more than ten years ago.
As the eldest of the Benedict brothers, Kipling will stop at nothing to protect his family from a threat that aims to destroy them once and for all.  But when a long-lost sibling is kidnapped by a powerful adversary, Alyssa is the only one he can turn to to get her back.
As Alyssa and Kipling band together to find their lost siblings, a powerful attraction builds between them that they can't ignore.  As the truth comes to light, will one broken promise tear them apart.
This book was given to me by a friend and I didn't realize it was the third book of a trilogy. I didn't think much of this book although to be fair I hadn't read books one and two so I was a little confused at times.  It was very obvious from the beginning of the book that the main characters were going to end up in bed together and I think there was a little too much time spent on this aspect of the story.  There was so much other more important things going on so I didn't think they had to spend so much time on the 'hot and bothered' aspect of the story. 

The Perfect Girl by Gilly MacMillan 
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Zoe Maisey is a seventeen-year-old musical prodigy with a genius IQ. Three years ago, she was involved in a tragic incident that left three classmates dead. She served her time, and now her mother, Maria, is resolved to keep that devastating fact tucked far away from their new beginning, hiding the past even from her new husband and demanding that Zoe do the same.

Tonight Zoe is giving a recital that Maria has been planning for months. It needs to be the performance of Zoe’s life. But instead, by the end of the evening, Maria is dead.

In the aftermath, everyone—police, family, Zoe’s former solicitor, and Zoe herself—tries to piece together what happened. But as Zoe knows all too well, the truth is rarely straightforward, and the closer we are to someone, the less we may see.
It is an interesting book. I wouldn't classify it as a thriller or a mystery.  There were parts that I found a bit tedious and wanted to get on with it.  The ending was a little predictable and far fetched in my opinion, but it was an easy read. 

Lethal White by Robert Galbraith

Lethal White

When Billy, a troubled young man, comes to private eye Cormoran Strike's office to ask for his help investigating a crime he thinks he witnessed as a child, Strike is left deeply unsettled. While Billy is obviously mentally distressed, and cannot remember many concrete details, there is something sincere about him and his story. But before Strike can question him further, Billy bolts from his office in a panic
Trying to get to the bottom of Billy's story, Strike and Robin Ellacott-once his assistant, now a partner in the agency-set off on a twisting trail that leads them through the backstreets of London, into a secretive inner sanctum within Parliament, and to a beautiful but sinister manor house deep in the countryside.
And during this labyrinthine investigation, Strike's own life is far from straightforward: his newfound fame as a private eye means he can no longer operate behind the scenes as he once did. Plus, his relationship with his former assistant is more fraught than it ever has been-Robin is now invaluable to Strike in the business, but their personal relationship is much, much trickier than that.

It is another good mystery very much in the same vein as the previous Strike novels. If you have read those you know exactly what to expect here.
It begins where Career of Evil left off, at Robin Ellacott's disastrous wedding to the sullen and resentful Matthew, with Robin over the moon at being reinstated at Strike's detective 
agency as partner.
A very interesting mystery involving politics, the horsey set and  radical left-wing activists.
Apparently JKR finished Book 5 in January but, apparently, the release is supposed to be the end of the year.  Looking forward to it! 

Texas Home by Debbie Macomber
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Welcome to Promise, a small town in the heart of Texas where the neighbors are friendly and you just might find love.
Nell’s Cowboy
Nell Bishop, widowed mother of two children, is turning Twin Canyons into a dude ranch. One of her first guests is Travis Grant: a celebrity of sorts, a wannabe cowboy and an Easterner known for his books about the West. Her kids adore him—and she has to admit she’s drawn to him, too. But it’s too soon to be thinking of love and marriage again. Isn’t it?
Lone Star Baby
When Amy Thornton shows up in town pregnant and alone, she’s looking for some guidance and compassion, so she turns to Reverend Wade McMillan. He might be a minister, but he’s also a man. An unmarried and very attractive one. But is it as a man that he responds to Amy? Or as a man of God? Maybe it’s both. Amy needs the town’s help to get back on her feet. What she wants is the love of a man named Wade…

I was given this book by my neighbour.  I'm not sure it's even one step above a Harlequin romance.  It's so unrealistic, 'pie in the sky' nauseating.  I know lots of people love these books.  It gets 5 star ratings on all the book review sites!!  It's just not my thing, I spend too much time rolling my eyes at what is happening in the story!!   It didn't take very long to read it and if you want a mindless, feel good story this is the book for you-just not me!!!! 

Monday, January 6, 2020

Over for another year

Here it is in all its glory!

 How it looked yesterday!

 Everything back to normal until next year!!

Friday, January 3, 2020

2015 Books 1-7

Edit:  Don't know why this post showed up here from 2015 and don't know how to put it back where it belongs!!

An  Irish Country Doctor
An Irish Country Village
An Irish Country Girl
An Irish Country Courtship
A Dublin Student Doctor
An Irish Country Wedding
Fingal O'Reilly, Irish Doctor
by Patrick Taylor

This is a series of books about the life of an Irish country doctor.  They are fictional but all based in truth.  The author, Patrick Taylor, was an Irish country doctor, from Bangor, who now lives in Canada.  I think he has written 10 books in the series, so far, but I have only read seven of them.  I'm keeping my eye out at the book sales for the other three.

I found these books very interesting because in the early seventies I lived in Belfast, N. Ireland for a couple of years.  The stories take place, mostly, in a fictitious village, just outside Belfast, called Ballybucklebo.  Many of the places mentioned in the books are very familiar to me, as well as the Irish way of life, as the main parts of the books take place in the sixties.
Fingal O'Reilly is the main character in the books and they cover from when he was a student doctor in Dublin through to him taking on a junior partner many years later in Ballybucklebo.










These books are very light reads and would be good summer reads.  Even more interesting if you are familiar with N. Ireland.

Wednesday, January 1, 2020

Books 27-29

The last of the 2019 books that I've read.

The House of Special Purpose by John Boyne
Image result for the house of special purpose john boyne review
Part love story, part historical epic, part tragedy, The House of Special Purpose illuminates an empire at the end of its reign. Eighty-year-old Georgy Jachmenev is haunted by his past—a past of death, suffering, and scandal that will stay with him until the end of his days. Living in England with his beloved wife, Zoya, Georgy prepares to make one final journey back to the Russia he once knew and loved, the Russia that both destroyed and defined him. As Georgy remembers days gone by, we are transported to St. Petersburg in the early twentieth century, to the Winter Palace of the tsar, threatened by bloody revolution.
An unlikely hero, Georgy grew up the son of a peasant farmer, but an act of self-sacrifice brings him into the inner circle of the Romanovs, where he is granted the position of bodyguard to Tsarevich Alexei, son of Tsar Nicholas II and brother to Grand Duchess Anastasia.  Georgy's memories reveal shocking secrets, stripping away decades of deceit until we learn the story of the house of special purpose.
I really enjoyed this book even if there were a lot of historical inaccuracies.  I liked the way it went from the present to the past to tell the story.  I would definitely read more of this authors books.

Ethan Justice: Origins by Simon Jenner
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Waking up beside the gorgeous Savannah Jones, John is shocked to learn she was for hire, and he can’t pay the price - a thousand pounds or broken legs. In desperation, he turns to best friend, Mark, for the money. Only one problem - Mark has a dagger in his back.
John and Savannah are plunged into a dangerous world where wits and adrenaline are their only weapons and trust in each other their only certainty. As the body count mounts, they discover Mark wasn’t the person John thought, and his terrifying invention may well end up killing thousands, John and Savannah included.
A race to recover the missing invention pits the unlikely pairing against ex-SAS psychopath, Gregory Fisher, a man who will stop at nothing and kill anyone in his way to wreak revenge against the Government who stole his livelihood. 
When Smith and Jones team up, the result is explosive.
This is another book that I read on my phone while out and aboutkilling time.I really enjoyed reading this novel and I finished it quickly. The suspense and the action through the book just kept on coming and increased in intensity throughout to finish with the perfect ending.  This book is the first in a series and I will probably read more of them.I enjoyed watching John grow as a person, going from a guy with no real direction to becoming Savannah's hero. I enjoyed watching John develop into a decent human who was capable of many things.

East of the Sun by Julia Gregson

Image result for east of the sun julia gregson review
As the Kaisar-I-Hind weighs anchor for Bombay in the autumn of 1928, its passengers ponder their fate in a distant land. They are part of the “Fishing Fleet”—the name given to the legions of English women who sail to India each year in search of husbands, heedless of the life that awaits them. The inexperienced chaperone Viva Holloway has been entrusted to watch over three unsettling charges. There’s Rose, as beautiful as she is naïve, who plans to marry a cavalry officer she has met a mere handful of times. Her bridesmaid, Victoria, is hell-bent on losing her virginity en route before finding a husband of her own. And shadowing them all is the malevolent presence of a disturbed schoolboy named Guy Glover.
From the parties of the wealthy Bombay socialites to the poverty of Tamarind Street, from the sooty streets of London to the genteel conversation of the Bombay Yacht Club, East of the Sun takes us back to a world we hardly understand but yearn to know. This is a book that has it all: glorious detail, fascinating characters, and masterful storytelling.

It took a while to warm up to most of the characters as they seemed to be pretty shallow. I didn't really feel I developed a deeper understanding of India, although I did feel I had a better sense of what it might have been like to be British during that time in that place. Watching Viva evolve as a woman was a interesting, as did Tor's growth. Rose  could have been a little better - I feel as though I didn't get enough closure regarding her troubles with Jack. I felt for sure he should have been killed off, but he apparently lived to the end of the book. I enjoyed the characters different journeys ...all arriving in the same party and living such different lives so close together. Full of hope and excitement these young women are far from prepared for all that lies ahead of them in India. All looking for that fairy tale ending the girls all become close friends as they mature into stronger individuals.
The young man Guy who is the third young person whom Viva chaperones on the journey, turns out to be a most unpleasant and confused young man due to mental health issues, that were not properly understood. He actually turns out to aggravate a lot of the problems they later have in India and I don't think his story line had a proper conclusion.

Sunday, December 29, 2019

Another Family Gathering

My middle brother always hosts a family gathering for we siblings and families. Missing were my sister and her family who live 600km away in another province, a nephew who lives 200km away and a niece who had to work.  Everyone else managed to attend.  We all take appetizers and desserts and there is tons of delicious food to eat and plenty to drink.
 The hosts, my middle brother Geoff and sister-in-law Mary.  They have 3 sons.
 Son #1, my nephew Kyle and his wife Sarah and their 2 daughters Chantelle and Lydia.
Lydia, my great niece, 7 months old.

 Great niece Chantelle.
 Son #2 my nephew Ryan and his girlfriend Jess.
 Son #3 my nephew Chad and his girlfriend Amanda.
 My oldest brother Chris and his wife Bev.
 My youngest brother Mark and his wife Mary.
 Their son, my nephew, Connar and his girlfriend Cora
 Mark and daughter and my neice Heather.
 Garry and I.
Garry and I and my aunt Anne.  She hates it when I call her aunt as she is only 6 years older than me.  She is great great aunt to Chantelle and Lydia.  That title makes her feel really old,lol!!!
We had a great time visiting with every one and we look forward to this gathering every year.

Wednesday, December 25, 2019

Christmas Eve

What a great evening we had.  13 of us all together, family and friends.  Lots of great gifts, plenty to eat, the time flew by.















Due to sickness our Christmas day is now just the two of us.  Turkey breast is now back in the freezer, maybe we'll have it at new years.  It will be a nice quiet day,  Merry Christmas!!