Whoopee!!!! After a really difficult week, I am feeling quite cheerful this afternoon! Over the last few days the new Spring/Summer 2022 scarves, shawls and twillies are beginning to appear on the Hermès website. As usual, I have no self-restraint and have already bought my first one, which I will show you all next week.
Anyway, here are some hints…
Hermès’ Spring/Summer 2022
These are a mixture of sizes and formats: 90cm, 70cm, shawls, double-faced, etc. For more information and to see the new season as it rolls out, it is really worth following the Spring/Summer 2022 scarves thread on The Purse Forum.
It’s Wednesday again and that means Reading Roundup time! I have three books to write about this week, both chosen at random from our library’s ebook collection.
Before I Say I Do by Vicki Bradley
The first of the three was Before I Say I Do by Vicki Bradley. Here is the blurb:
”It’s Julia’s wedding day. Her nerves are to be expected – every bride feels the same – but there’s another layer to her fear, one that she cannot explain to her soon-to-be husband, Mark. She’s never told him the details – and she is determined he never finds out.
As she begins down the aisle, spotting Mark in his tailored suit, she knows she is taking her first steps to happiness – her past is behind her, it can’t catch her now. Mark turns to face her . . .
But it isn’t Mark in the beautiful suit – it’s his best man.
Because Mark is missing.
And Julia’s past is closer than she thinks . . .”
Well, I thought that blurb sounded intriguing, so I took the plunge and this is my three star response…
This book was a really mixed bag. I thought that the first half was a good and interesting mystery, with plenty of twists and turns. Then the second part became rushed and badly written, with a string of implausible revelations that careered towards the finish line. There was so much stuffed into the plot that it burst at the seams! So, all in all, OK but not note-worthy.
So, that book was a bit “meh” and I hoped for an improvement after that. This was my next choice:
Sixteen Horses by Greg Buchanan
This was another serendipitous choice: Sixteen Horses by Greg Buchanan. Here is the blurb:
”Near the dying English seaside town of Ilmarsh, local police detective Alec Nichols discovers sixteen horses’ heads on a farm, each buried with a single eye facing the low winter sun. After forensic veterinarian Cooper Allen travels to the scene, the investigators soon uncover evidence of a chain of crimes in the community – disappearances, arson and mutilations – all culminating in the reveal of something deadly lurking in the ground itself. In the dark days that follow, the town slips into panic and paranoia. Everything is not as it seems. Anyone could be a suspect. And as Cooper finds herself unable to leave town, Alec is stalked by an unseen threat. The two investigators race to uncover the truth behind these frightening and insidious mysteries – no matter the cost.”
This next review comes with a content warning, although I felt that the book deserved at least four stars…
First of all, a warning! Do not read this book if you don’t have a strong stomach and/or if you are particularly partial to horses.
This is a bleak, grim and gruesome murder/mystery and was very hard for me to read. I cannot say that I enjoyed it, because there was nothing to leaven the sheer horror of the book. Several times I nearly put it down, but something kept me reading.
This is a pretty amazing first book and is very well written with a unique style, in my opinion. But only try it if you can stand a very black tale.
My third book of the week was another powerful and well-written tale…
The Bone Cay by Eliza Nellums
The Bone Cay by Eliza Nellums was such an unusual choice, or so it seemed at first! This is the blurb:
“Magda Trudell is the present-day caretaker of Whimbrel Estate, the Key West home of the famous poet Isobel Reyes. Isobel’s suicide at the residence in 1918 has nearly overshadowed her creative legacy–but Magda, a botanist and avid historian, is determined to protect it. Over the past decade, Magda has lovingly restored the house to the exact condition Isobel would have known. And even though a fierce October hurricane is headed straight for the Keys, she isn’t about to abandon her life’s work to evacuate.
As the mighty storm makes landfall, the dangers mount. First, a fire and flood threaten to destroy the house. Then the storm claims most of Magda’s supplies. When part of the house collapses, she unearths an old steamer trunk in the rubble that contains a woman’s remains. Is there more to Isobel’s story than Magda knows?
The unexpected appearance of a teenage girl and her father seeking shelter from the storm poses unnerving new questions. Are they really who they seem? And could they have a connection to the house’s shadowy past? As the storm rages, Magda desperately tries to solve the real mystery of Isobel’s death–and keep the living in one piece.”
This was such an unexpected find. Chosen at random, I began the book wondering whether it was for me. The setting, an old house on the Florida Keys, with echoes from the past life of a young female poet, was so atmospheric that it held my interest as the story began. The main character was also very engaging. Then the plot developed as a hurricane approached.
Eventually I became totally gripped by this immensely well-written thriller as I continued to read. Revelations came, and new characters arrived and the pace of the tale picked up as the winds picked up speed.
I am so glad that I chose this book and will look for others by the same author. She has such wide-ranging skills. Why not try this for yourself?
Well, that was a fabulous week of reading! And most unexpected. I have a load of great books in my queue that I don’t want to read quite yet as they are the final parts of series or books I have been waiting for for a while. So, instead of reading those, I have been choosing books from the library. Very successfully!
I do hope that all of my visitors/readers/friends had a very pleasant weekend and that, if you celebrate Christmas, your preparations are going well. Most of the gifts that I have ordered for the family have now arrived and I am only waiting for a couple now.
There has been a small issue niggling at me with reference to one retailer, who I am not going to name. We usually give our “boys” money at this time of year, but in addition I always buy them some t-shirts and sweatshirts so that they have something to open. Anyway, I was amazed when the very large retailer emailed to say that all six items would not be arriving as one parcel, but as – not two, or three – SIX separate parcels! Can you believe this? What a waste of fuel, time and packaging!
I know that the whole online purchasing business is not very “green”, but I have to do my shopping this way as I cannot travel any more.
At the same time as all of the planning, shopping and card writing, we have been struggling with Elder Son’s autism issues again. I won’t go into any details, but it has been such an emotional struggle again. He always finds the run up to Christmas hard, but now he is trying (and not really succeeding) to cope with worries about COVID-19 variants, my health, his Dad’s health, his future, his job and now OCD. This is becoming almost unbearable for LH and I to cope with and we are very concerned about the future.
Right, I now need to try to focus on something else for a while. Perhaps a good book, a pot of tea and a nibble will help? I will leave you with this image (well, I think it’s a funny visual pun!).
I had a lovely post planned for today. Yesterday, I was supposed to get my hair done and I had a gorgeous outfit laid out on my bed with all the accessories. But it was not to be. Instead, I felt terrified by the prospect of leaving the house, had a nasty coughing fit, then cancelled the appointment.
This is the outfit and I will try to wear it next week and take a quick photo…
Outfit of the day 09/12/21 with Fetolia’s Olympian Gods scarf
I am not sure about the pearl earrings, so I might choose something different from my collection. Oh, and I must say that in real life these greys blend really well. I had also intended to carry my Massaccesi croco leather Victoria handbag in “grape” as a contrast – I think it would have worked…
Victoria handbag in grape croco leather by Massaccesi
Or, perhaps this silver and pewter leather Diane handbag also by Massaccesi would have been better?
Diane handbag by Marco Massaccesi
OK, I will now try to nurse myself into a better state with plenty of tea and a good book! I do hope that you all have a great weekend.
It is now a fortnight since I last wrote one of these posts and you might be expecting quite a few book reviews today. Unfortunately, as I wrote in Monday’s post, I suffered from a serious issue for a few days and was unable to concentrate on reading. Anyway, I do have two books to write about in this week’s Reading Roundup.
Here is the first book…
Five Ways to Forgiveness by Ursula K Le Guin
The book was Five Ways to Forgiveness by Ursula K Le Guin – a collection of short stories based around her Science Fiction writing. This is the blurb:
”Here for the first time is the complete suite of five linked stories from Ursula K. Le Guin’s acclaimed Hainish series, which tells the history of the Ekumen, the galactic confederation of human colonies founded by the planet Hain. First published in 1995 as Four Ways to Forgiveness, and now joined by a fifth story, Five Ways to Forgiveness focuses on the twin planets Werel and Yeowe, two worlds whose peoples, long known as “owners” and “assets,” together face an uncertain future after civil war and revolution. In “Betrayals” a retired science teacher must make peace with her new neighbor, a disgraced revolutionary leader. In “Forgiveness Day,” a female official from the Ekumen arrives to survey the situation on Werel and struggles against its rigidly patriarchal culture. Embedded within “A Man of the People,” which describes the coming of age of Havzhiva, an Ekumen ambassador to Yeowe, is Le Guin’s most sustained description of the Ur-planet Hain. “A Woman’s Liberation” is the remarkable narrative of Rakam, born an asset on Werel, who must twice escape from slavery to freedom. Joined to them is “Old Music and the Slave Women,” in which the charismatic Hainish embassy worker, who appears in two of the four original stories, returns for a tale of his own. Of this capstone tale Le Guin has written, “the character called Old Music began to tell me a fifth tale about the latter days of the civil war . . . I’m glad to see it joined to the others at last.””
I gave this collection four stars on Goodreads and wrote the following short review:
An excellent collection of short stories. I have only read one book set in this world: Left Hand of Darkness, and it is one of my favourites. These tales were all interlinked and covered a range of important issues, such as slavery, sexism and feminism, as you would expect from Le Guin. The book has inspired me to read more and I hope that ai can find them as ebooks.
On finishing this book, I had a browse around the Library’s ebook collection and this was one of my choices…
Behind the Red Door by Megan Collins
Behind the Red Door by Megan Collins was my rather randomly chosen book. First, we have the blurb:
”When Fern Douglas sees the news about Astrid Sullivan, a thirty-four-year-old missing woman from Maine, she is positive that she knows her. Fern’s husband is sure it’s because of Astrid’s famous kidnapping—and equally famous return—twenty years ago, but Fern has no memory of that, even though it happened an hour outside her New Hampshire hometown. And when Astrid appears in Fern’s recurring nightmare, one in which a girl reaches out to her, pleading, Fern fears that it’s not a dream at all, but a memory.
Back home in New Hampshire, Fern purchases a copy of Astrid’s recently published memoir—which may have provoked her original kidnapper to abduct her again—and as she reads through its chapters and visits the people and places within it, she discovers more evidence that she has an unsettling connection to the missing woman. As Fern’s search becomes increasingly desperate, she hopes to remember her past so she can save Astrid in the present…before it’s too late.”
I read this book fairly quickly and awarded it four stars. This is my short response:
This was a gut-churning (for me), excellent psychological thriller. A tale of multiple kidnapping, dreadful parenting, recovering memories and child abuse. As I am suffering from my own difficult mental issues, I found the book hard to read, but I didn’t want to put it down. The whole plot was unusual and interesting, also gripping in parts. The characters were very varied.
I am now about halfway through my next book, which I will tell you about next week. Also, I have some great books in the queue, most of which I have actually purchased! Yes, that is unusual for me 😁. So, there is plenty to keep me occupied for quite some time.
Well, I’m back! It has been an “interesting” time since I last posted: some lovely days, some awful days and some in the middle.
There were definitely some lovely days with Younger Son visiting. He brings lightness, hugs, happiness and a quirky sense of humour which really help to put smiles on all of our faces. Several useful things were done, with his help, including putting up the Christmas Tree. He also went out with Elder Son for a meal, which was so nice.
Unfortunately, I had a few really difficult days. As it turns out, a medicine mix up meant that I was actually taking a double dose of one tablet and a zero dose of another. This caused me horrible mental issues on several afternoons. In fact, because these nasty symptoms hit me at the same time on each day, I eventually worked out what was happening. After taking the correct meds for a few days, I began to feel like my usual self and was able to really enjoy the rest of YS’s time with us. With any luck, we will see him again soon for his Christmas visit.
For now, I will leave you with this gorgeous image…
Leap by Victo Ngai
Now I will return to my book so that I have something to write about for Wednesday’s Reading Roundup post!
Once again, it has been a difficult week for us. There has been a lot of stress in the house, brought on by a number of incidents together with my and Lovely Husband’s medical issues. I just hope that everything will calm down, especially with Younger Son visiting next week.
As my health has been so poor this week, I have been snuggling up in my cashmere shawls. As I now have three, I have been using them in rotation. Here is a quick photo with my gorgeous Hermès Plumes en Fête cashmere/silk shawl…
And here are all three shawls: Hermès’ Plumes en Fête cashmere/silk, Johnstons of Elgin’s Pixellated Check cashmere stole and Liberty of London’s Hera cashmere/silk. These images are not to scale, e.g. the Hermès and Liberty shawls are the same size at 140x140cm.
Hermès’ Plumes en Fête shawl (H243433S 04)Johnstons of Elgin’s Pixellated Check cashmere stoleLiberty of London’s Hera cashmere/silk shawl
Next week, whilst Younger Son is here, I am going to make a huge effort to get out of bed and dress properly, even if I only manage this on a couple of days. Also, I am taking a break from posting on the blog so that I can spend time with him.
So, I do hope that you have a good weekend and that next week is great!
Well, my reading experience last week was rather, what shall I say, muddled! I started a couple of books, read a few chapters, then decided that they were not worth continuing. In the end, it took a while before I settled on two books, which I will write about in today’s post.
Normal People by Sally Rooney
My first book of the week was Normal People by Sally Rooney. This is the blurb:
”Connell Waldron is one of the most popular boys in his small-town high school–he is a star of the football team and an excellent student, and he is never wanting for attention from girls. The one thing he doesn’t have is money. Marianne Sheridan, a classmate of Connell’s, has the opposite problem. Marianne is plain-looking, odd, and stubborn, and while her family is quite well off, she has no friends to speak of. There is, however, a deep and undeniable connection between the two teenagers, one that develops into a secret relationship.
Everything changes when both Connell and Marianne are accepted to Trinity College. Suddenly Marianne is well liked and elegant, holding court with her intellectual friends, while Connell hangs at the sidelines, not quite as fluent in the language of the elite. Throughout their years at university, Marianne and Connell circle each other, falling in and out of romance but never straying far from where they started. And as Marianne experiments with an increasingly dangerous string of boyfriends, Connell must decide how far he is willing to go to save his oldest friend.
Sally Rooney brings her brilliant psychological acuity and perfectly spare prose to a novel that explores the subtleties of class, the electricity of first love, and the inescapable challenges of family and friendships. Normal People is a book that you will read in one sitting, and then immediately jump up to share with your friends.”
It was interesting to read the responses from both friends and strangers on Goodreads. The book has had very mixed reviews. Here is mine:
Well, what can I say about this book? I have read through a lot of the responses on here and they are quite polarised. In the end, I fall onto the negative side. I persevered with the book, although at several points I nearly stopped reading it. But I felt that I simply had to reach the end. Perhaps something amazing was about to happen, I thought. But, nothing amazing ever happened, the storyline just kept trundling along. The characters were rather tedious and unlikeable too.
After this I simply had to turn to something that would be more reliable!
Sword of Kings by Bernard Cornwell
I was planning to save this book for another week or two, but I had to read something that I could really enjoy: Bernard Cornwell’s Sword of Kings, #12 in The Last Kingdom series. First we have the blurb:
An oath of loyalty. Two warring kings. A destiny he didn’t choose…
England is in turmoil as Vikings and Saxons battle for territory. Rumours build about the fatal sickness of the King, and the country awaits an heir.
A violent clash at sea forces the warrior lord Uhtred to lead his men from his Northumbrian fortress to London and plunge into the eye of the storm. For two kings claim the empty throne, and a new kingdom cannot be born without bloodshed.
Uhtred’s sword will leave one king dead and the other victorious. But sometimes it is hard to know the will of the gods…”
Another absorbing and fast-paced read in this fabulous series! The writing is so good that I lose myself in the story and hardly manage to come up for air or food until I have finished.
I enjoyed the book, despite noticing a few flaws. The storyline was not as good as usual, especially in the first half, with Uhtred and his companions travelling back and forth all over land, sea and river to no positive purpose. It also amazes me how Uhtred manages to fight so well against much younger men, despite being in his sixties and carrying injuries. Surely he would have slowed down considerably by now? (Of course, I am secretly pleased that he hasn’t!) He still makes the same impetuous mistakes that he made as a young man.
But, all in all this is such a great series and I am sad that there is only one more book!
After this, I am really not sure what I am going to read next. I think I will leave the final Last Kingdom book for a while, so I will probably have a browse on the Library’s ebook site.
So, until next week’s Reading Roundup post: Happy Reading to you all!
Apologies, but there will not be a post this evening as I am feeling very weak and ill. I have not been able to get out of bed for more than a few minutes for over a week and I cannot think clearly.
I will try to write a Reading Roundup post on Wednesday.
Well, these are not really full outfits. Instead, these two photos show different ways to wear the same scarf with the same knot, using the same scarf ring. Just by turning the scarf around, the knot shows off the scarf in a different way.
The photos above show my Hermès Lazy Leopardesses 90cm silk scarf with a hammered pewter scarf ring. I also wore my Woolovers dark grey v-neck jumper and silver earrings. If I had been going out, I would have worn either my grey cord trousers or grey jeans, both from Lands’ End, with my new pewter leather Hotter shoes.
I have news! We were all thrilled the other day when Younger Son told us that he will be visiting soon. As we haven’t seen him since the summer, I am really looking forward to being with him. So, I will try to write the usual three posts next week and then will take a break the week after, while he is here.
Former professional school librarian, now retired through chronic illness. Trying to keep cheerful by reading, drinking lots of tea, blogging my new life, and my love of bling!
The Librain
The Librain......retired 
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