Tag: reading

Happy Solstice!

~ EMM

Happy Solstice!

We did it! We made it to the shortest day of the year! Hooray! More daylight, starting tomorrow!

I suppose it’s kind of fitting that I just got Joanna Penn’s new book, Writing the Shadow : Turn Your Inner Darkness Into Words, on my Kindle today! I guess it technically releases tomorrow, but it’s tomorrow in New York, so I got my pre-order.

This is one of those books that I kind of bought on a whim. I listen to Joanna Penn’s podcast sometimes. Maybe about half of them. And I’ve heard her talking about this book a few times, but I still don’t really know what to expect. And, yeah, it’s a writing craft book, but it’s going to be the last craft book I buy for a while.

In other, somewhat sad news, I don’t think the seed culture and barm I was trying to make for the panettone is doing what it’s supposed to be doing. It bubbled like mad on the first day, but hasn’t really been as active since then, which is sort of the opposite of what was supposed to happen. So, I think I may have to bail on the panettone plan.

I am kind of bummed about that. I was really excited to try this recipe, but I think I’m just using the wrong kind of flour. I tried using regular flour because I was too busy to go to the store and buy bread floor. I didn’t think it was going to matter much, but apparently it might.

We’ll see how it’s looking in the morning. Who knows. I may try it anyway, just to see what happens. It will be like the year I made the really terrible buche de Noel. Except, in this case, I’ll be expecting it to fail, so it won’t be a surprise when it turns out bad.

But hey! No worries! The shortest day of the year is behind us (until next year)! (If you live in the Northern Hemisphere.) If there’s no panettone, we’ll at least have spaghetti and meatballs. 🙂

I may not have a post tomorrow, but I have several more planned for next week, including all my fave books of 2023, my 2023 reading stats, and my reading goals for next year. In the meantime, I hope you are all having a festive holiday season! Wishing you all the best books and snacks!

Top Five: New Release Book Covers

~ EMM ~ 1 Comment

We’re almost there! It’s the day before the Solstice! Let’s do a top five to celebrate…

I was scrolling through my blog reader and saw that Zezee did a top five post recently, and I followed her credit in that post to a Top 5 Tuesday series that is being organized by Meeghan.

Yesterday’s prompt was “Top 5 covers of 2023.” Love it! Let’s go.

Here are my top 5 favorite book covers released this year:

It’s probably no surprise that the majority of my favorites are from my Fairyloot hardcover special editions. I especially love their covers for The Hurricane Wars, Shanghai Immortal, and The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi. Unfortunately, the picture above does not do these beautiful covers justice.

Here are a few photos to give you a better idea how beautiful these books are in person.

Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries also made my top five favorites from this year. However, I actually prefer the original hardcover edition (which is not the one pictured here). When I saw the regular hardcover at my local bookstore, I really loved the fact that it has no dust jacket. I also like the darker background.

The only non-Fairyloot hardcover to make this list is Consort of Fire by Kit Rocha. I saw this cover online and it immediately caught my eye. Then I read the blurb and had to add it to my Kindle right away (even though, as I’ve discussed already, my end of year TBR is already too full). Just for making me one-click, I’d say that is an effective (and really nice) cover.

On the Last Day of Lightfall (Readathon)

~ EMM

Today was a surprisingly productive day. I didn’t get everything done on my to-do list, but I never do. I also haven’t done any reading, yet. Well, except for the recipe for that baking project I want to try, and it’s a good thing I finally read that!

I wanted to make panettone from scratch this year based on the recipe in my favorite bread baking cookbook: The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. Before I get into that, though, I have to put in a plug for how awesome this book is. If you really want to geek out on bread making, but you also want to understand what you’re doing and why, I highly recommend this book. Every recipe I’ve tried (so far) has been great.

(Side note: I just looked it up, and fun fact, I purchased this book in January 2003! Wow! I have been bread-obsessed for over twenty years!)

Okay, the thing about the recipes in this book is that a lot of them are multi-day projects. But that’s kind of what you need to do if you want to make really good bread. And, as it turns out, panettone is no exception. In fact, since I don’t have a barm ready to go, I need to make that FIRST before I can even get to the panettone making steps. So, yeah. Add four days (at least) to what was already a two day recipe, and now I think I’m going to be having these just in time for Christmas breakfast!

In other fun and festive news, someone in my extended family has requested that we revive my pre-pandemic attempt at doing a used book white elephant version of the Icelandic “Christmas book flood.” Since I am always on board for bookish holiday traditions, I agreed to organize it! Christmas Eve was already shaping up to be pretty fantastic with our plans for a dinner of spaghetti and meatballs with buche de noel for dessert. Now we might get to do a book exchange, too! Yeah baby! I think my holiday cheer may have just returned!

On the Eighth Day of Lightfall (Readathon)

~ EMM

Apologies for the short (and slightly subdued) post tonight. I didn’t get as much writing done today as I’d hoped, and I also didn’t do any reading. We’re less than a week out from the shortest day of the year, and I am feeling it today. I am both extremely ready for the solstice (in terms of craving more daylight hours), and absolutely not ready at all (in terms of what I need to get done before then).

As much as I want to just say “F*** it,” and spend the rest of the weekend reading, I am probably not going to visit any other stores (aka finish another book) before the readathon ends tomorrow night. So, I think I’m going to spend the rest of my time hanging out at the Rich Pigeon Pub.

In other words, I’m not going to start any more books on my Lightfall TBR. Instead, it’s time to go back to reading This Golden Flame, which I temporarily abandoned so I could participate in this readathon. But not tonight, because it’s bedtime. Since I need a book to read on my Kindle before bed, I think I’m going to start reading Paladin’s Hope tonight. It’s not a good fit for any of the remaining Lightfall reading prompts, but it is the next book I need to read.

I keep tweaking my end of the year TBR as we get closer and closer to the end of the month. We’re halfway at this point, and I’m having to cut it back to bare bones. There are four books that I really want to finish reading. Two to complete my 2023 reading goal, and two for a buddy read that weren’t even on my original list.

That’s four books totaling just over 1500 pages. The math on that works out to about 100 pages per day on average. Plus I need to edit the rest of my novel.

Don’t mind me while I quietly freak out… Next year, could someone please remind me to just chill? I think that’s going to have to be my only goal for 2024. Just chill.

On the Seventh Day of Lightfall (Readathon)

~ EMM

I decided to do a little doodling on my Old Favour Passport. I’m creating a different doodle for each shop with the intention of making them look sort of like stamps. The first one I did was a little cat reading a book for Old Tails Bookstore. Then I realized that, with all the visiting I did last weekend, I think I can officially check off the only non-reading prompt (reach out to someone during this festive season). That is for the Rich Pigeon Pub, so I added a pigeon with a top hat doodle in the next circle. (The Pub counts for the loyalty card, right?)

Anyway, if you look closely, you can see that I’ve started sketching out my doodle for Wallice’s Wonderful Winter Wanimals. I’m trying to make the four Ws into something that looks a little like a snowflake. But I’m not going to finish it until after I finish reading A Holly Jolly Ever After.

That probably will be very soon, considering that I devoured nearly this entire book in less than 24 hours. And it’s not exactly short (428 pages!). I’m really enjoying it so far. I love the two main characters, and it’s a scorching read, as expected. The entire concept of this Christmas town in Vermont where they film holiday movies for the “Hope Channel,” combined with the film crew and their adult filmmaking background, is just perfect. I love it so much. And the ex-boy-band heroes in these novels are just chef’s kiss cinnamon rolls.

I predict I’ll be done with this book by breakfast tomorrow, if not sooner. Which is a good thing, because wanting to just keep reading has been a major distraction to me getting much work done today. I really needed this reading break to recover after the usual stress plus side-helping of unexpected drama that accompanied this year’s NaNoWriMo. But I also need to finish this book and get it to my trusted alpha readers before Christmas. So, tomorrow, after I’m done reading A Holly Jolly Ever After, it’s time to get back to it.

We’ll see if I can squeeze in one more book this weekend before the readathon ends, but I’m not even sure where I want to go from here… I don’t really have enough time to finish a tome like Bloodmarked or Sword Catcher. I may have to go with my pick for Occult Premonitions. I’ll make that decision tomorrow. For tonight, it’s time to get back to Christmas Notch.

On the Sixth Day of Lightfall (Readathon)

~ EMM

I did not end up staying up late last night finishing Manslaughter Park, but I did finish reading it this morning. And… I was RIGHT about whodunit! Ha! It was a very satisfying conclusion, and not just because I guessed correctly. I had lots of thoughts about it during my run today. I think I basically drafted an entire review in my head. But I didn’t write it down and after lunch and a shower, I completely forgot about it. I will now attempt to recreate my thoughts.

I really enjoyed this adaptation. When I read the author’s note at the end, I realized something more about what it was that drew me to Mansfield Park when I initially read it. I really like a story featuring a character with a strong moral code. It doesn’t even really matter what it is, so long as they are consistently driven by it. I equally enjoy paladins and mercenaries, mobsters and military. I like it even better when that character’s moral code and worldview are challenged and they have to decide how they are going to behave in the face of that. For a recent example, take Some Desperate Glory, which I loved.

I think this is also why I don’t like polemics. I want to see the character struggling on the page. I don’t want to be lectured and told how the author wants me to think about the moral or ethical dilemma.

And this is why I like Mansfield Park. Fanny Price is very driven by her morals. She makes decisions that I might not make in her place, because she insists on sticking to her moral code, even when it’s uncomfortable for her. And this adaptation kept that aspect of the story in place beautifully.

Now that I’m done at Old Tails Bookstore, stop one on my Old Favour Pass journey, it’s time to wander over to Wallice’s Wonderful Winter Wanimals to visit the winged winter stoats! In other words, I’ve started A Holly Jolly Ever After. Nothing like a little Christmas smut to get you in the mood for the holidays!

So far, the first few chapters have reminded me how much I enjoyed A Merry Little Meet Cute, and also how much I have completely forgotten most of the details of that story. This starts off very much like a continuation from that book. More than I think you usually get from the standard connected-but-stand-alone contemporary romance novels. I think I’m going to be okay not remembering stuff from the first book, but I also think it might be fun to read them back to back. Something I might consider for next year, if there is a new release in this series and I’m feeling up for a re-read.

Oh, hey! It just hit me that I finished reading my first book for the Lightfall Readathon! I think that means I get a stamp on my punch card! Fun! I’m going to go do that now while I’m waiting for my lemon bars to finish baking. (What? Who’s stress baking? Certainly not me…)

Last thing before I go, if you’re looking for some fantasy new releases to add to your TBR, I’m participating in this 12 Days of Fantasy book sale that starts today. Check it out if you’re interested.

On the Fifth Day of Lightfall (Readathon)

~ EMM

Today was another LONG day of adulting with not a lot of writing. Sigh.

It started in the dark, but the sunrise was pretty great…

sunrise on the ferry

I had to head over to one of the other islands for an annual doctor exam, but the inter-island ferry commute and waiting around allowed me lots of time to read Manslaughter Park! Reading also helped distract me from my irrational doctor visit anxiety. I’m now about two thirds through the book, and I think I know whodunit. I’ve had a suspicion about one character since the beginning (I’ll put my guess at the end of this post since it may be a spoiler). I’m kind of hoping I’m right, because I think that would be an excellent twist.

But, now that I’m done running errands and checking things off my to-do list, I want to try to get at least a little writing / editing done before I collapse into bed and get back to reading. Given where I’m at in the story, tonight may end up being a “bad decisions book club” night where I stay up WAY too late just so I can finish the book.

In other news, I’ve been very preoccupied with organizing the chaos that is currently inhabiting my brain. This is requiring a pinch of journaling, a growing to-do list that needs sorting, and a lot of thinking about how I want to structure my planning system for 2024. I think I have the start of a plan, but it’s not quite fully baked yet. So, I’ll save that for a future blogmas post.

And speaking of baking… I have a somewhat ambitious holiday recipe I want to try. The baking supplies I needed arrived today, so now I can actually get started on this project. The recipe involves multiple steps that need to happen over the course of several days. I’d like to wait to do the baking part over the weekend, so I need to have a look at the instructions again and figure out when I need to get started. Pictures, process, and results to be documented in a future post…

Now, what I really want to do is get back to reading so I can see if my guess is right. But first, a little writing and some dinner prep.

Potential spoiler is in white text below… Stop reading now if you don’t want to know my guess for whodunit. (Alternatively, highlight the text on the next line if you want to know.)

I think Edmond is the killer.

On the Fourth Day of Lightfall (Readathon)

~ EMM

Today has been a busy day, packed with catching up on everything I neglected while I was gone for the weekend. I made a little more progress with Manslaughter Park this morning, and I’m about to read a bit more before I go to sleep. But, other than that, I haven’t had much time for reading today.

I’m beginning to wonder when the Crawfords are going to show up, and what role they are going to play. I have a hunch that they are going to arrive within the next few chapters, and I suspect they are going to probably be debt collectors. A couple of chapters ago, Lizzie Bennett (who happens to be Sir Thomas’s lawyer), said the debt collectors were on their way and would likely take up residence until they were paid.

On the Third Day of Lightfall (Readathon)

~ EMM

Another long travel day today, so this is going to be a very short update. I’m still enjoying Manslaughter Park, but something feels off about Tom’s character at the moment. In the scene where the will is read, Tom is acting like a total jerk. I feel like Maria and Julia were the jerks, not Tom (or Edmund, obviously). And his behavior especially doesn’t sit right with me when he’s leaning on misogynistic arguments with his sister (like she can’t possibly own a business, she needs to get married, etc.). It just doesn’t feel right. Unless maybe the author is setting him up to be the killer? That would be an interesting twist on the Sir Thomas / Tom dynamic from the original book…

I was curious about this book because 1) I love a cozy mystery, but also 2) there aren’t a ton of Mansfield Park retellings out there in the world. I think that’s because it’s generally the least liked of the Jane Austen novels. Mostly because everyone hates Fanny. She’s not my favorite Austen character, either, but I think that’s because she ends up being sort of a tool for the narrative that allowed Austen to make more direct commentary on things like class, society, and politics in Mansfield Park that in her other, more popular novels.

What’s interesting about reading this book is that, in addition to comparing it to the original, I keep comparing it to my own (unpublished) Mansfield Park retelling. I’ve been working on that book on and off for MANY years now. I think I started it back in 2009, maybe? Coincidentally, the Tom character in my book is also gay, but Yates is not his boyfriend. And I also tweaked the family tree so that my Fanny character and my Edmund character were not technically related, just raised in close proximity. But these are, I feel, the obvious choices to make when modernizing this novel.

I’ve been really wanting to get back to that story, and I think that’s exactly what I’m going to do. But first I want to finish the novel I’m currently working on. In the meantime, I’m going to go back to enjoying Manslaughter Park and trying to figure out whodunit (before Fanny does).