I love Jennifer Ryan‘s books - especially when I need some happily ever after. That‘s not to say there‘s never sorrow or loss in her book, but there‘s always hope in the end. I discovered this other WW2 era book that uses the same stock photo. Both books were published this year.

The Ellery women have always had magic and they have used it as a positive force. Daisy‘s abilities manifest in being able to infuse her baked goods calm, confidence, and even death. Through a referrals only process Daisy assists women in getting justice or in ridding themselves of abusive men. She struggles with whether or not she is using her power appropriately. . More feminist than I expected. I loved this book!

I‘m looking forward to reading this! I received this from @Aims42 as part of the #recipeswap exchange. Funny story - it‘s the May selection for a reading challenge I‘m participating in! I can‘t wait to try the soup recipes since the PNW spring has been wet & cold. @BennettBookworm

Libro.fm is having a great audiobook sale! These books were all $5 each. There are lots of great titles and you can support your local independent bookstore at the same time. I had the tagged audiobook from the library, but I‘m enjoying it enough that I think I‘ll want to listen to it again at some point.

I admit to being a Mira Grant/Seanan McGuire fangirl who is finally getting to this series. This is a well built world with interesting characters. This won‘t be everyone‘s cup of tea considering the last 2 years, but I appreciate the research she puts into her books. I also love her sense of humor - danger seeking bloggers are called Irwins & the MC is named for George Romero.

I dropped my #LitsyRecipeSwap package to @Aims42 off at the post office this afternoon! Thanks again to @BennettBookworm for hosting this swap.

Received my package for the #LitsyRecipeSwap from @Aims42 today. Waiting until May 15th to open it will be tough. My package will go out this week. 📦 Thanks to @BennettBookworm for hosting this swap!

The weather has been crazy with snow/hail/cold temps and I hit a reading slump. My husband checked out all the Scott Pilgrim books on Hoopla so I am reading those. Having fun & loving the books even more than the movie. This is from book 2 I think.

Someone at BOTM decided I only needed the tagged book. I‘m waiting to hear back from customer service about True Biz. This is the first issue I‘ve had in 6 years of membership so I‘m happy. There was the box that was almost destroyed, but that was USPS!

I have really enjoyed other books by Bethany C. Morrow, but this one didn‘t stick the landing for me. This was a creative idea but Farrah‘s inability to see what was happening & her lack of curiosity bothered me. I‘ve seen it compared to The Other Black Girl, but I enjoyed that one more.

I am so happy I am reading this indoors while there is still a chill in the air because I would be freaking out about flying insects if I was reading this outdoors in the Summer.

Mira Grant (Seanan McGuire) is an automatic buy author. I can count on my husband giving me Subterranean Press editions. When the rifts open Susan is on the side of a reality she recognizes; her sister Katharine is stuck in a twisted, dark version of our world. Susan becomes a scientist to study the rifts and search for a way to reach her sister. I loved this & would welcome more stories in this world.

Lots of book mail today! 📚My BOTM choices for March, tagged book for #challengeyourshelf run by Bettie‘s Pages in Lowell, MI and the mystery looked fun. Sticker is from the same challenge.

A little thing that made a big difference to me. When commenting on someone‘s poor food choices Olive says they‘re going to develop Type 2 Diabetes. I love that she made the distinction from T1. So much confusion between the two & they are very different.

1. Seanan McGuire/Mira Grant & Catherynne Valente
2. A cozy couch
3. Nope. Weekends are too crazy & I read a lot anyway.
#wondouswednesday @Eggs

This book was fine. The library aspects were fascinating & I‘d be interested in nonfiction about rare books. I don‘t mind not liking any of the characters but I really disliked Leisl. Her decisions & behavior drove me crazy.

This is a fascinating look at how the Home Ec I took in high school came to be. There is so much more to it than I ever knew. My grandmother was a Home Ec teacher. My grandfather was a County Extension Agent - a career that owes a lot to Home Ec. Pics are from a 1943 textbook I found at a used bookstore recently.

Enjoying an unexpected snow day by reading and cuddling with Chloe. #booked2019 #IrishAuthor

1. Lemon Crinkle Cookies
2. The tagged book - I went shopping on the 2nd.
3. 29
4. Retellings of Tam Lin, both novels & picture books. Mermaid stories.
5. Hopefully to Canada, but all other planned trips (so far) are stateside.
#HumpDayPost

Ugh. Please don't bring me a book to borrow unless I request it because then I feel obligated to finish it. I am halfway through and I just don't care, but the coworker who brought it in for me expects to talk about it. There are so many other things I'd rather be reading.

An interesting take on the vaccine/no vaccines debate. What happens when compromised herd immunity opens the door to a new form of measles that has devastating effects on the survivors? I don‘t want to give too much away, but it is so easy to see how some of the uglier behavior in this book could happen. I love Mira Grant (Seanan McGuire) and the attention to detail she gives to the science in her horror stories A great start to 2019!

We celebrated the New Year and 2nd Christmas with friends last night. These titles snuck in as my last book acquisitions of 2018. Having great friends who know your taste in books is such a blessing! Here's to a happy, healthy 2019 with lots of 5 star reads!

Cherie Priest is great at creepy! Denise finds a comic hidden in the attic of the house her folks are fixing up in NOLA. Pages from the comic are interspersed w/the prose. Bad things start to happen when Denise reads the comic. I love the attention to detail on the book cover and jacket. Tara O'Connor is one of my favorite comic writers/illustrators and I love Cherie Priest. Double win for me!

1. Chloe and I are chilling while we wait for everyone else to wake up.
2. I‘m off work until January 3rd, so I hope so!
3. No shoes right now, but blue slippers are on the floor beside me.
4. Bed, 2 dressers, 2 side tables (full of books), a trunk, and a small bookshelf.
5. A burger and BBQ Chips at my favorite tavern.
@MinDea #HumpDayPost

Books from some of my favorite authors and noise cancelling headphones. My husband knows and loves me! And Barda finally able to get back under the tree now that we've opened presents. The Charles De Lint & Mira Grant are limited runs from Subterranean Press. Merry Christmas!

I'm revising the view I've held on this book for 30 years. I hated it when I had to read it in college. But you have to admire a character who throws shade like Mrs. Sparsit. My new thought is that Dickens is best performed because I thoroughly enjoyed the BBC audiobook. This was my "Read a Book You Hated" for Bookriot's #ReadHarder2018 challenge.

I took the quiz twice because I couldn't decide if I wanted to Smash More Patriarchy or Take More Baths. Both results are good, but I really need to work on my TBR. Diversity in my reading is really pretty good.
https://bookriot.com/2018/12/05/reading-resolution-quiz

Started this on the drive home tonight. Very disappointed that Mr. Pollan began by incorrectly saying the bee working in his garden was a “he.” “A bumblebee would probably would probably also regard himself as a subject in the garden and the bloom he‘s plundering for its drop of nectar as an object. But we know this is just a failure of his imagination.” Sigh. My 7 year old neighbor would be happy to explain that the worker bees are all female.

1. I really don‘t know, but I do get tired of multiple viewings of A Christmas Story. Rare Exports is my favorite with Die Hard a close second.
2. Morning. I need something to help wake me up.
3. It was Kay. When I got married, I changed it to Weston - my maiden name. Now my initials are “AWW.”
4. Housework, errands, reading.
#friyayintro @howjessreads

A creepy audiobook made more so by the gloomy drive home. What a terrifying situation to be in! I'm looking forward to the movie when it airs on Netflix. Now excuse me while I go make sure all the curtains are closed.

I was able to fill the Winter section of the #booked2019 challenge with 2or 3 titles I already own for every category except Podcast. These are my current plans:
1. Female Detective - Aunty Lee's Delights
2. Fairytale Retelling - The Queen of Spells
3. Happy Place - Homemade Life (kitchen)
4. Podcast - Monsoon Mansion (The Reading Women)
5. Irish author- The Secrets of Roscarbury Hall
6. New to me author - The Child Finder

1. I read this entire book the Summer I was 9 or 10. Between climbing trees & going swimming.
2. Pie, if it is peach or pecan. Otherwise, give me cake!
3. Baking. And crafty dabbling.
4. Victoria B.C.
#friyayintro. @howjessreads

Loving this as much as I did Dumplin'! Looking forward to seeing both on the big screen. There is so much in these books that remind me of my own high school days in Texas! No one else understands mums...

This was my favorite type of book when I was a tween - a curse, a family mystery to solve and a brave, intelligent narrator. Ruth has been sent to live with her Great Aunt Doll in Newfoundland for the Summer. She meets her cousin Ruby and learns that both their mothers (twins) died on the same day. The girls learn about a family curse that always leaves the new generation of twin daughters motherless at a young age. Can they solve the mystery?

My current book and audio book selections. I thought these made a good pairing. Especially ironic since, when left to my own devices, I tend to favor jeans and t-shirts these days.

1. Cats
2. Dragons
3. Spiders 🕷 They are beautiful & can be beneficial, but they freak me out. They stay outside, they stay alive.
4. My patronus is the Nebelung Cat.
5. In case you haven‘t guessed, I‘d be a cat.
@wanderinglynn

Traveling to the opposite coast for work means lots of reading. Finished this on the flight to Baltimore. I was interested enough to finish this story about the "Haves" and the issues they face in the Argentinian financial collapse of the 90's-00's but I'm not going to rush out and tell anyone else to read it. This fulfills my book in translation/translated by a woman for the Reading Woman Challenge.

While this look at life in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban was fascinating, there has been a lot of controversy about the author endangering the women she wrote about. My problem was her wanting Afghanistan to bend to her way of life. She complains that Xmas was just like any other winter day and wants her husband to be more affectionate. She became a 2nd wife, but is hurt when the 1st wife gets pregnant. Sigh. It was still interesting.

Oh my goodness! This is my embarrassment of riches from @CSeydel in the #hometownswap Too generous! The coffee smells amazing and I didn't even think about music - looking forward to listening to the CD. Thank you for the sweet letter. My hubby is going to love the Snoop Dogg book! All the book choices sound great too!

So I'm a little older than the kids in this story - but I still like the '80's setting. I've finished volume 2 and am still deciding how much I like it. Rick Remender has a tendency to go for the easy tropes, but there are great bits like this scene.

Of course the library has this on CD instead of an MP3 file just as we hit what counts as a heat wave in the PNW. I know I could download it to my phone, but I'm too lazy to load 11 CDs!

The worst thing about this book is that it is the 1st in a trilogy and isn't even out until Oct. so I have to wait a minimum of a year to find out what happens next. Yumeko, a half Kitsune girl, narrates alternating chapters with Tatsumi, the demon slayer of the Shadow Clan. She is protecting a scroll he is seeking for his master. This book was exciting & full of surprises. That said, I would have loved a glossary. Does anyone do those anymore?

1. Going to Bellingham to see my daughter since she has to work on her birthday next week & can't come home for the 4th
2. 5
3. Summer I guess; Winters in the PNW are too grey & wet. I don't like the heat, but my husband's garden is beautiful.
4. Nick Cave - last year or the first time I saw him in 2008. Both shows we're electrifying.
5. 🙂
#FriYayIntro

What do you do when you're VERY early to book club even after visiting the independent bookstore and the comic shop next door? You go ahead and order a cider and start in on one of the new acquisitions.

I was thrilled to receive this book from LibraryThing Early Reviewers because I love to bake! ❤️ Both recipes I've tried so far have been hits - Butterscotch Potato Chip Balls & Curried Candied Cashews. I appreciate how the author explains where she got each recipe and how she tweaked it. Chocolate Molasses Crinkles or Mexican Hot Chocolate Bavarian Pie will be next. The photographs are beautiful.

My used copy of the tagged book showed up with its own forgotten bookmarks! I love finding what other people used to mark their place when I buy a second hand book.

@arubabookwoman totally spoiled me in the #LetsCook swap. A notebook with lots of yummy recipes, tea, a rosemary planting kit, a mermaid notepad, a journal, and a bookmark summing up my philosophy. I can't take a picture of the chocolate bar cause I already ate it! Thank you for all the wonderful goodies!
@LazyDays

Finally getting my #LetsCook package out to @Austen_Nerd My package to @arubabookwoman will go out soon - I'm waiting for something & she lives closer so it won't take long to get to her. I hope they like my recipes!

1. Helen Mirren - always, but especially in the movie based on the tagged book.
2. Yes. I aim for 10:30.
3. Fiction
4. The mixer. I'm a baker...
5. Library is closer. Ironically the library I use the most is not the one closest to my house.
#HumpDayPost

1. Gerbera Daisies - they are so cheerful and bright!
2. Asparagus or butternut squash
3. My husband has both - flower garden, no veggies except my tomatoes. 🍅
4. The tagged book. Claire runs a catering business. She uses the flowers and edible herbs she grows in her garden. Her food has a magical effect on people. She never uses the apples from the tree in her backyard though - you‘ll have to read to find out why.
#GardenParty