Updated Monday 12/09/22: I have decided to take a few days away from the blog for various reasons (LH’s 70th birthday, YS visiting, ES returning from his holiday) and also because I am feeling totally overwhelmed at the moment. So, I hope to return on Wednesday 21/09/22 with a Reading Roundup post.
Love and best wishes,
Anne
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Mourning (The weeping angel on Franz Bendel’s tombstone), by Kat on Flickr
Hello, fellow reading fans! Welcome to this week’s Reading Roundup. I have enjoyed two books this week and have started a third. Here’s the first one…
I have read a couple of books by Alafair Burke before, so I thought that I would try another. This one was called “The Girl She Was”. First we have the blurb:
“HOPE CAN BE A DANGEROUS THING…
She calls herself Hope Miller, but she has no idea who she really is.
Fourteen years ago, she was found thrown from an overturned vehicle, with no clue to her identity. Hope started a new life, but never recovered her memory.
Now she’s missing. With nowhere else to turn, Hope’s best friend, Lindsay Kelly, calls NYPD detective Ellie Hatcher.
In pursuit of answers, three women search for the truth beneath long-buried secrets. And when their searches converge, what they find will upend everything they’ve ever known.”
The book was entertaining enough and I gave it three stars on Goodreads. This is my response on the site:
The Girl She Was by Alafair BurkeI had seen this book title, “Where the Crawdads Sing”, in several places, but had not thought of reading it until I realised that a film is being made of it. That intrigued me, so I decided to see what all of the hype was about…
Here is the blurb:
“For years, rumors of the “Marsh Girl” have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life – until the unthinkable happens.”
The book was really worth reading and this is my Goodreads’ review:
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia OwensRe-reading some of my reviews sometimes reminds me that my writing, since the stroke three years ago, is not always at its best. Anyway, I hope that you find my responses to the books that I read helpful at the very least!
And now I am going to return to my latest book. What is it? Well, you will find out next week 😁😁😁.
Happy Reading to you all!
Love and best wishes,
Anne
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Apologies everyone! I was so preoccupied that I almost forgot to post. Elder Son has gone away on a week’s holiday and the fuss and bother involved in getting him ready meant that I just buried myself in a book after he set off.
So, I will simply give you this image…
What a woman!
Love and best wishes,
Anne
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Here we are at Friday once again and also the first post of a new month. I was pleased and surprised that the statistics for August were the second best ever! It is so lovely that this little blog is reaching so many people around the world. Thank you all for visiting 💕💗💖💗💕.
You might remember that we took some items to be framed into town last week. Well, we went to pick them up yesterday and so I had to actually get dressed properly. The two items are birthday presents for Lovely Husband’s 70th birthday in a fortnight and I will show them to you after he has seen them. I was really pleased with the final result – the framer did a wonderful job.
This is my full outfit:
Outfit details:
This is a larger image of the dress/nightie:
The pattern on the dress is in a golden beige, darker than in the photos above. There are pockets and side slits that make it very comfortable to wear.
OK, I think that is all for now…
Happy Weekend to you all!
Love and best wishes,
Anne
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I have enjoyed one great book during the last week. It was quite long, so I have not had enough time to read another one…
Regular readers may remember that I am a huge fan of Stuart MacBride’s books. I was thrilled when I found A Dark So Deadly on our Library’s ebook service. Here is the blurb:
“DC Callum MacGregor’s career was going pretty well until he covered up for a cock-up to protect his pregnant crime-scene tech girlfriend.
Now Callum’s stuck on a squad with all the other misfits – the officers no one else wants but who can’t be fired, never likely to get within reach of a decent case again. Until they accidentally get handed the biggest murder investigation Oldcastle has ever seen.
When a mummified body is found in the local rubbish dump, the top-brass assume pranksters have stolen it from a museum. But as Callum and his colleagues investigate, it starts to look less like student high-jinks and more like the work of a terrifying serial killer…”
As I wrote above, this was a long read, but I felt sad when I got to the end! Definitely a five star favourite.
This is my short response on the Goodreads website:
A Dark So Deadly by Stuart MacBrideHow on earth will I follow that? I have a long list of “to reads”, so I will go through them to see what could possibly measure up to a great MacBride book.
Happy Reading to you all!
Love and best wishes,
Anne
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Today has been very annoying so far… grrrrrrr! Sorry, I won’t take it out on you, my dear readers, but I am feeling rather grumpy this afternoon.
Elder Son kindly offered to give our (mine and Lovely Husband’s) bedroom a “spring” clean today. I spend so much time in it that it needs a through going over very frequently. Anyway, he had just got started when we heard a loud noise, followed by some very ripe language. It turned out that one of the heavy curtains plus the track had fallen off the window, breaking all of the connectors. Now, this track is very old and had fallen before. But only three of the connectors broke that time and we had exactly three spare ones. On this occasion, the whole thing has come down. Yet another thing to sort out with this house!
I won’t write much more about this, but we are really struggling to find anyone to do minor or major work on the house and we have a lot that needs doing. We have lived here for over twenty years now and we did a major refurb on the whole house ending about ten years ago. It really needs a second refurb now and we are having so many problems with our health issues, Elder Son and other matters that it all feels overwhelming.
Right, now I had better find a lovely image to help me calm down…
I find it astonishing that something so breathtaking can be carved from stone.
On that note, I will take my leave until Wednesday’s Reading Roundup post.
Love and best wishes,
Anne
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Well, we have arrived at the end of the week once again and I have a proper outfit to show you! If you read Monday’s post, you will have seen that I had to go out to organise Lovely Husband’s birthday presents. Two of his gifts need to be framed, so we went to see an expert who gave us excellent advice.
I decided to wear my bright pink dress from Marks and Spencer with some lovely accessories. Here is the outfit…
Outfit details:
At least I won’t fade into the background wearing that ensemble! I wish I had remembered my bright pink lipstick too.
Here is a larger image of the scarf:
It is a very cheerful and colourful scene and I have no idea why the model looks so miserable wearing it! The colourways of this scarf are wonderful. If you are interested, have a look at my Scarf of the Moment post about it.
Happy Weekend to you all…
Love and best wishes,
Anne
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I do hope that your own reading has been great recently. I have enjoyed two books since I last wrote one of these posts.
The Girl Behind the Wall by Mandy Robotham was one of those random choices from the Library’s ebook catalogue – and such a good choice.
Here is the blurb:
“A city divided.
When the Berlin Wall goes up, Karin is on the wrong side of the city. Overnight, she’s trapped under Soviet rule in unforgiving East Berlin and separated from her twin sister, Jutta.
Two sisters torn apart.
Karin and Jutta lead parallel lives for years, cut off by the Wall. But Karin finds one reason to keep going: Otto, the man who gives her hope, even amidst the brutal East German regime.
One impossible choice…
When Jutta finds a hidden way through the wall, the twins are reunited. But the Stasi have eyes everywhere, and soon Karin is faced with a terrible decision: to flee to the West and be with her sister, or sacrifice it all to follow her heart?”
I may have been a little harsh in my review of the book. Certainly, other readers have been more generous in their ratings. Anyway, this is mine:
The Girl Behind the Wall by Mandy RobothamFrom one historical fiction book to another, this time set in the early 18th century:
I went against all my librarian’s training and…
… chose a book because I liked the cover!!!!! Eek!
Seriously, I also liked the blurb:
“History has all but forgotten…
In the spring of 1708, an invading Jacobite fleet of French and Scottish soldiers nearly succeeded in landing the exiled James Stewart in Scotland to reclaim his crown.
Now, Carrie McClelland hopes to turn that story into her next bestselling novel. Settling herself in the shadow of Slains Castle, she creates a heroine named for one of her own ancestors and starts to write.
But when she discovers her novel is more fact than fiction, Carrie wonders if she might be dealing with ancestral memory, making her the only living person who knows the truth-the ultimate betrayal-that happened all those years ago, and that knowledge comes very close to destroying her…”
Perhaps I was a bit over generous with this response!
The Winter Sea by Susanna KearsleyWell, that has certainly been a lovely week of reading. I hope I can make such good choices for next week!
Happy Reading to you all…
Love and best wishes,
Anne
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Welcome to the new week on the blog!
For the last few weeks, I have been planning for Lovely Husband’s 70th birthday in September. He doesn’t want a big fuss, but I think that it needs marking properly by his closest family. Younger Son is planning to visit, which is great, and I have asked him to organise and cook a lovely celebratory meal for the four of us. Elder Son can be his “sous chef”. LH has always been the cook in the family and YS has enjoyed learning from his Dad over the years. He is now a proficient cook in his own home. As I am unable to commit to going out for a meal, this seemed like a great alternative.
I have also been planning gifts with my two “boys”. We have clubbed together and bought some gorgeous lead crystal wine glasses. In addition, I have organised some cricket memorabilia and have to get two items framed. Unfortunately, as I cannot drive any longer, I have had to tell LH about some of this, so that he can drive me to the picture framers for quotations! I also had an issue resulting from my stroke and had a bit of a meltdown about all of the planning as I couldn’t manage it all on my own. LH kindly stepped in to help. So, some of the surprises aren’t surprises any longer.
Never mind.
Anyway, here is an image of the wine glass from Royal Scot Crystal:
Isn’t it gorgeous?
I will show you some of the other gifts after LH’s birthday as I have at least managed to keep one as a surprise!
Love and best wishes,
Anne
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Hi everyone and welcome to Friday’s post! The really hot weather eased off at the beginning of the week, but I have still felt rather uncomfortable on many days. So, I have only one “outfit” for you this week. As we move towards the end of the summer, I am sure that I will be able to get dressed properly on more days. Those gorgeous scarves need to be worn!
Before I show you the photo, I would like to mention that I have removed some pages from the blog. The other week, I had a bit of a moan/rant on here and many of you kindly responded. I had a think and decided on a few things, one of which was that it seemed the right time to move on from my days as a school librarian. So, I have broken the links to the pages about my career and also the section on diet and exercise. All of this is rather irrelevant now. I haven’t completely deleted anything, just in case the information is needed in the future, but it is all hidden for the time being. Thanks again for your input!
One other change has been made. Some of you may have noticed that the menu sections for my scarves has been moved up the right-hand sidebar. Promoted, if you like. I decided that I would like to give the links more prominence. After all, those Scarf of the Moment posts do take a lot of writing!
Right, here is the “outfit” photo that I took yesterday. The scarf is Hermès’ Escales Mediterranéenes, worn with a purple t-shirt and my pyjama trousers! My earrings (that you can just see) are amethyst and silver by Blue Nile and the mother of pearl scarf ring is by MaiTai. Oh, and I forgot to remove my glasses!
As you can see, I felt too weak to take the photo standing up, so here I am sitting up in bed!
Here is an image of the whole scarf. I love the colours, especially the pretty shades of lilac…
I am going to look through my scarf list and decide which ones I consider to be “summer scarves” – because of the colours or the themes – and try to wear them over the next few weeks.
On that lovely thought – rummaging through beautiful, colourful silks – I will sign off and wish you all a very Happy Weekend!
Love and best wishes,
Anne
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Dear Lisa, thank you so much for your kindness, much love, Anne X
Thank you for posting your kind and helpful comment, but you are replying to a very old one! I hope…
I think I found it on Poshmark! Posting the link if you want it: https://posh.mk/6hQmUhPhB1b
Dear Anne: I always enjoy reading your work. I have my eye on this scarf and while the other colorways…
The Librain
The Librain......retired 
Dear Lauren, you always write the loveliest comments! Thank you so much, love Anne X