Saturday, March 13, 2021
#TheSundayPost Goal This Week: Mason Bee Open House
Thursday, March 11, 2021
#BookBirthday "The Disappearance of Emily" is Out Today!
Tuesday, March 9, 2021
#SeriesinaMonthChallenge A Princess in Theory and An Avocado Tree (in theory)
The hubs and my dear daughter eat avocados all the time, so I thought, why not try to grow a tree from one of the pits that usually goes into the compost bin. Hope springs eternal as they say.
Here is a link to the handy Good Housekeeping Article on how you can grow an avocado tree from a pit.
I have a planter all ready to pot an avocado tree provided that my pit decided to make roots.
I'll keep you all updated on the pit situation moving forward, you shall be the first to know if we get growth!
And now on to the first book in my #SeriesInAMonthChallenge! A Princess, in Theory, the first book in the Reluctant Royals series by Alyssa Cole. I was able to borrow the audiobook from my library so I listened to the book at 1.5 speed via the Libby App.
The audiobook is read by Karen Chilton who is incredibly good. She gives each character their own voices with just the right accents. If you are deciding between reading the book and listening to the audio, in this case, do yourself a favor and listen to this book.
Reading this book, I'm amazing at how Alyssa Cole is so skilled at taking the tropes of fairy tales and regency romance and updating it so that it is grounded in the 21st century. This book starts off with Naledi Smith getting emails she thinks are spam telling her she is supposed to marry an African Prince! It's like someone said to Alyssa Cole, I bet you couldn't write a story based on an email scam and she said, watch me!
In this story, we have Naledi Smith who was raised in the foster care system and doesn't know her roots. She is studying epidemiology as a graduate student. Along comes Prince Thabiso who plans to swoop in and tell Naledi he is her Prince, and that they have been betrothed since they were practically babies. But then there is a misunderstanding and now the Prince is some guy named Jamal who is a server. Sparks begin to fly, Prince Thabiso has to keep up his pretense and we know the stage is set for a great romance with comical elements and smart, smart people.
It's so delightful and I am glad that I decided to read this series in a month! Alyssa Cole writes intelligent, environmentally-responsible characters who fall into steamy romances and she doesn't forget to add some humor along the way. Go ahead and read this one and next week I'll be reviewing A Duke By Default the second book in the series featuring Naledi's BFF!
4.5 Stars to A Princess in Theory!
Sunday, March 7, 2021
Public Libraries are The Best! and Fairy Godmothers, Inc. #BookReview
Not only was I able to borrow Fairy Godmothers, Inc. by interlibrary loan, I also won a Fitbit! You see, my local library has reading challenges for kids and adults in the summer and in the winter. This winter I decided to put all my virtual tickets in the Fitbit drawing and I won! Not only that but during the pandemic, our library has also been putting together activity and craft kits for kids and adults. This month the craft kit included everything to make some nice sugar and salt scrubs and beeswax lip balm!
The moral of the story, take advantage of your local library, it really pays off!
Now on to my review of this new book by Saranna DeWylde, Fairy Goodmothers, Inc. This is the first book in a new series, it came out in December 2020 and the second book titled Men Are Frogsm is slated to be out this summer. So read this book now, and then this summer you'll be ready for a trip back to Ever After, Missouri.
Lucky Fujiki believes she is the opposite of her name. In fact throughout her life so far, she's even been able to share her disastrous luck with people by giving them unlucky hugs. She's lived with the limiting belief that she is under a curse for her entire adult life. Ransom Payne has loved Lucky for years and years, but whenever they get together---bad stuff happens! We are talking feral pigs, tornadoes, etc.
How is Saranna DeWylde going to get Lucky and Ransom to a HEA? This is a romance after all! The how of the HEA is a wild ride because Ever After, MO is populated by all the fairy tale characters you thought were fiction. Little Red Riding Hood is there, the 7 Dwarfs, tailor mice, Prince Charming, and of course the Fairy Godmothers! Setting a romance series in a fairy tale town in the middle of America is clever and the more familiar you are with the fairy tales of your youth the more references and Easter Eggs you will find in this book.
I think my jam in romance stories is when the protagonist has to learn to love themselves as they are and stop waiting for their prince (or princess) to come. That's what makes this story extra special. Lucky could take advantage of the three wishes her Fairy Godmothers offer her, but if she were to do that, will her luck ever change?
"For a single, selfish moment, she wondered when it was going to be her turn. When someone would save her, but maybe that was the lesson all along. She had to learn how to save herself."
Or Maybe there was no lesson at all. Maybe this was just how things were." (page 221)
For me, this quote summaries Lucky's journey, does she need to let go of hoping to be saved and learn to save herself, or maybe she just needs to let go and just be? Wanting to find out the answer lead me to read this book in two days!
Fairy Godmothers, Inc is packed with loads of humor, and all the delights of Fairy Tales, chocolate, and love!
5 Stars! I recommend you add Fairy Godmothers, Inc. to your TBR pile ASAP!
The Dollar Tree has little figurines for making fairy gardens so I picked up a gnome for my thyme! I think I will make a little fairy garden on our porch in one of my larger pots once it's warm enough for flowers and plants outdoors again!
Saturday, March 6, 2021
The Sunday Post! Marching into March!
I wrote about Magic for Liars,
Speaking of coffee, I am taking a MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) class this month and our current homework is to practice the techniques daily. Today I tried a coffee mindfulness meditation!
Thursday, March 4, 2021
#FriYay! #2021AudioBookChallenge Magic For Liars
This year I'm participating in the Caffeinated Reader's Audiobook Challenge. Today's review is an audiobook that I picked up from the Chirp website, it was less than $5.00 USD! Such a deal, plus if you want to use my referral link you can get 20% off your first order.
Tuesday, March 2, 2021
Repurposing A Wine Bottle and #COYER Spring Challenge! Join us!
The other day my other half picked himself up a bottle of wine from Walgreens and I thought to myself, that is a good-looking wine label. So once the wine was gone. I repurposed the wine bottle and added it to my bookshelf. I am tempted to find books to put on the shelf that goes with the Firefly theme.
In case you are wondering what I did, I just took a string of LED lights I got from Aldi over the holidays and stuck the little lights into the wine bottle to get the effect of having fireflies in a mason jar, and then I used some velcro to attach the battery pack on the back of the bottle. Easy peasy, that is the extent of my DIY skills.
As you may recall this year I am joining reading challenges. To the right of this post, you can see the Read a Series in a Month Challenge button which you can click to join! My post on that challenge is here: Two Challenges To Talk About.
I am also participating in the COYERS Seasons Challenge, which means it's time for my COYER Spring Challenge post! You can read all the details and join me in the challenge here. I'm really excited for this part of the challenge because now that physical books are included it gives me an incentive to read the books I got for Christmas and some books I won in contests.
In addition to the gentle nudge to read books that I already own, COYERS offers community! I love being part of the group. It's nice to read with others, and have a chance to talk about books outside of a traditional book club.
I hope the beginning of March is going well, the anniversary of when the pandemic began to affect most of our lives is just about here. I hope you are in a good place and soon to be vaccinated or already vaccinated!
Sunday, February 28, 2021
Happy Pulaski Day! A Holiday Only Celebrated in Illinois! #BookReview
Some local government offices and some schools are closed today in honor of Casimir Pulaski who according to Wikipedia: "is praised for his contributions to the U.S. military in the American Revolution and known as "the father of the American cavalry".
Saturday, February 27, 2021
The Sunday Post: Waiting To See if March Will Come in Like a Lion
Thursday, February 25, 2021
How Weird Would It Be To Have Wings? #BookReview