Sunday Post/Mailbox Monday 1/28/18 Books, crochet etc.

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news. A post to recap the past week, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up for the week on our blog…

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came in their mailbox during the last week. Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists….

Good morning all, I hope you are enjoying your weekend. It’s a rainy Sunday morning here. After another hectic week at work, I have spent most of my weekend relaxing at home. We’ve been working in the middle of construction at the office building since the end of last year and were temporary relocated to another area while they renovated our department for a few months, so working in between departments has been stressful to say the least. You don’t fully unpack your things and you’re often looking for stuff you need and trying to remember what box you put what in etc. We finally moved our things over to our newly renovated area on Friday so on Monday I’ll finally be back at my own cubicle. Sigh of relief. Everything is nice and new so that’s good too. I can stand up now and work that way if I want to, my desk rises with the touch of a button.

Onto books….

One Book in my Mailbox This Past Week:

In the mail this week is a Goodreads win, The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer.
I look forward to reading it and it is nice because The Ten-Year Nap by this author was one of the first books I received in the mail for review many years ago when I began my first book blog. I still have alot of those old review books on my shelves.

“From the New York Times-bestselling author of The Interestings, an electric, multilayered novel about ambition, power, friendship, and mentorship, and the romantic ideals we all follow deep into adulthood, not just about who we want to be with, but who we want to be.”

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The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

source: free ARC via the publisher
title: The Ocean at the End of the Lane
author: Neil Gaiman
genre: fantasy
pages: 181
published: June 18th 2013
first line: I wore a black suit and a white shirt, a black tie and black shoes, all polished and shiny: clothes that normally would make me feel uncomfortable, as if I were in a stolen uniform, or pretending to be an adult.
rated: 5 out of 5 stars

blurb:
Sussex, England. A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn’t thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she’d claimed was an ocean) behind the ramshackle old farmhouse, the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.

Forty years earlier, a man committed suicide in a stolen car at this farm at the end of the road. Like a fuse on a firework, his death lit a touchpaper and resonated in unimaginable ways. The darkness was unleashed, something scary and thoroughly incomprehensible to a little boy. And Lettie—magical, comforting, wise beyond her years—promised to protect him, no matter what.

A groundbreaking work from a master, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is told with a rare understanding of all that makes us human, and shows the power of stories to reveal and shelter us from the darkness inside and out. It is a stirring, terrifying, and elegiac fable as delicate as a butterfly’s wing and as menacing as a knife in the dark.

my thoughts:
Reading a Neil Gaiman is like having a magical experience. The imagery he creates and the feelings he evokes while I am reading his stories are what draw me in. He writes beautifully and he makes you almost believe that the fantasy he creates could be reality.

Sunday Post/Mailbox Monday 1/21/18: A Memoir, Crochet and Roses etc.

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news. A post to recap the past week, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up for the week on our blog…

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came in their mailbox during the last week. Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists….

Good morning all. January has been a long, cold month but a good one for reading. Bring the Spring please, I am ready.

Reading-wise, I am just about finished with a memoir called Spinster: Making a Life of One’s Own  by Kate Bolick. I wanted to get a third book read this month and I am nearly there so I am really happy with that. I will be onto the fourth book soon after. That is alot of reading for me for one month, since #1 I am a slow reader and #2 sometimes with working full-time and everything else I don’t always have the time to read.

I’ve also made it a goal to get through my review books, some of which I have had for years. I’ve been doing pretty good with it these past couple of months, I also read The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman this month and the Kate Bolick book was an ARC from a few years back. I got my review of The Duchess Deal up yesterday and two more book reviews will be up this coming week I hope.

I finished watching The White Queen on Amazon Prime this past week. I have been obsessed. Like totally obsessed with this show. It takes place mainly during the War of the Roses. This is my favorite historical time period so I have been truly enjoying this series.

The Duchess Deal (Girl Meets Duke #1) by Tessa Dare

source: purchased
title: The Duchess Deal: Girl Meets Duke 1
author: Tessa Dare
genre: regency romance
pages: 368
published: 2017
first line: Emma Gladstone had learned a few hard lessons by the age of two-and-twenty.
rated: 5 out of 5

blurb:
When girl meets Duke, their marriage breaks all the rules…

Since his return from war, the Duke of Ashbury’s to-do list has been short and anything but sweet: brooding, glowering, menacing London ne’er-do-wells by night. Now there’s a new item on the list. He needs an heir—which means he needs a wife. When Emma Gladstone, a vicar’s daughter turned seamstress, appears in his library wearing a wedding gown, he decides on the spot that she’ll do.

His terms are simple:
– They will be husband and wife by night only.
– No lights, no kissing.
– No questions about his battle scars.
– Last, and most importantly… Once she’s pregnant with his heir, they need never share a bed again.

But Emma is no pushover. She has a few rules of her own:
– They will have dinner together every evening.
– With conversation.
– And unlimited teasing.
– Last, and most importantly… Once she’s seen the man beneath the scars, he can’t stop her from falling in love…

my thoughts:
My first read of 2018 was a good one. The Duchess Deal: Girl Meets Duke 1 nicely kicks off Tessa Dare’s Girl Meets Duke series. It is regency romance with a beauty and the beast vibe to it.

The Duke of Ashbury has been badly scarred at war and lives his life in solitude with his servants as company. He was engaged but it was broken off after he returned from the war. Emma Gladstone is the seamstress that was working on the Duke’s bride to be’s wedding dress and now that the wedding is off, she finally shows up at the Duke’s doorstep hoping to collect the money they owe her for the dress. The Duke has been thinking that he needs an heir to leave his wealth to and he wants to find a wife. When Emma Gladstone comes knocking at his front door the timing can’t be more perfect. He makes her the offer. Marry him and she will be set for life with his wealth, all that he asks for is she provide him an heir. He believes himself unlovable due to the scarring.

Sunday Post/Mailbox Monday: The Met, Van Gogh, crochet etc.

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news. A post to recap the past week, showcase books and things we have received and share news about what is coming up for the week on our blog…

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came in their mailbox during the last week. Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists….

It is another cold and windy Sunday by me and I am more than happy to be spending it inside in my pajamas today. This was a good reading week for me, I participated in the Bout of Books read-a-thon and I finished up the Tessa Dare book plus I read The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman. Thank you all for cheering me on. 🙂 My reviews will be up this upcoming week. I like that my reading year is off to a good start. I still have time to at least read one more book this month, hopefully two.