I thought it was time to share what I have been up to outside of reading this week as it has been rather an exciting week.
Dissertation writing continues and I am still enjoying it so that is a good sign.
Elephant Hunting
I met up with my two best friends for the first time in nearly two years and we went to Worcester to do the elephant trail. It was so much fun and so lovely to spend time with friends again.
Safari Park
I have also been to the safari park this week and it was wonderful to see all the animals. I haven’t been to the safari park for over ten years so it was wonderful to see everything again and the new addition of the Red Panda. My husband loved the Red Panda and bought a massive cuddly toy of one. I had a little elephant toy.
Family Party
At the weekend we had a get together with my husbands side of the family which was wonderful to see everyone. It was an evening of good food, drink and excellent conversation.
It was so nice to get away from teaching this week and go on some adventures. Hopefully, we will be going on some more soon.
Happy Reading
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I missed last weeks Mid Week Quote sadly, but thankfully I remembered this week.
The quote I have chosen this week is by Euripides. Euripides who was born in Athens around 485 BCE. Euripides was a playwright who is thought to have written around ninety tragedies but sadly only nineteen have survived.
“The greatest pleasure of life is love.”
Euripides
Happy Reading
If you enjoy reading my blog and would like to make a donation I would be very grateful. Thank you
The rules are answer the questions below and share a link to your blog in the comments section of Sam’s blog.
What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you will read next?
Hello!
I hope everyone is having a good week so far. I am enjoying my week off so far and have loved meeting friends that I haven’t seen since before covid.
My reading has gone a bit crazy this week, usually I am a one book at a time person but currently I have three books going, which is most unlike me.
Here is my WWW Wednesday!
What I am Currently Reading
The Book Lover’s Bucket List is my dip in book and I absolutely love it. I am building a lovely little list of all the places I desperately want to visit. I am still plodding on with Sistersong and although it isn’t blowing my socks off I am enjoying it but I do find my attention wavering when reading it. I started Death of Darkness over the weekend and I am thoroughly enjoying it and I am wondering why I have put off reading it for so long. Death of Darkness is a kindle book though, so I have slightly deviated from my plan of only reading hardback books this month.
What I have Recently Finished Reading
I spent a lovely afternoon yesterday reading books with my best friends son and these were my two favourites. Due to a busy week dissertation writing these are the only books I have finished this week.
What I Think I will Read Next
I am still only trying to read hardbacks this month and I might continue next month as well because I do have a lot of hardback books to read.
There is my week.
Please drop me a message with your WWW Wednesday and I will head over for a visit.
Happy Reading
If you enjoy reading my blog and would like to make a donation I would be very grateful. Thank you
I have had a Bookstagram for a while now but just recently I have been really getting into it. This has led to my TBR pile getting even higher but I have also met some wonderful fellow Bookstagrammers.
I love the Bookstagram community and I was wondering if any of my fellow book bloggers also have a Bookstagram account? If you do I would love to follow you on your Bookstagram as well.
So if you have a Bookstagram and would like a follow please drop me your Bookstagram below and I will head over for a follow and if any of you would like to follow my Bookstagram look for
theladybookdragon
I look forward to meeting you in the Bookstagram world.
Happy Reading
If you enjoy reading my blog and would like to make a donation I would be very grateful. Thank you
Goodreads Monday is hosted by Lauren’s Page Turners. All you have to do is show off a book from your TBR that you’re looking forward to reading.
Happy Monday!
I hope everyone has had a good start to the week. I am taking a week off teaching this week, so today I have done three hours of dissertation writing, some fun reading, a nice walk and baked some cookies. A very relaxing day.
I am sticking with my classics theme and hopefully I will have built up a nice list of classic books to start reading once the dissertation is all finished and handed in.
Thrown in prison for a crime he has not committed, Edmond Dantes is confined to the grim fortress of If. There he learns of a great hoard of treasure hidden on the Isle of Monte Cristo and he becomes determined not only to escape, but also to unearth the treasure and use it to plot the destruction of the three men responsible for his incarceration. Dumas’ epic tale of suffering and retribution, inspired by a real-life case of wrongful imprisonment, was a huge popular success when it was first serialized in the 1840s.
One of my all time favourite books is The Three Musketeers and I have read it more than once so I really want to read The Count of Monte Cristo to see if it is just as good. I know it will take me a long time to read but I do like reading longer books.
Please drop me a comment if you have read this book, I would love to hear your thoughts. Also please drop me a link to your Goodreads Monday and I will head over for a visit.
Happy Reading.
If you enjoy reading my blog and would like to make a donation I would be very grateful. Thank you
I hope everyone has exciting plans for the weekend. I have a family get together on Saturday and an actual day off on Sunday.
My chosen poem this week is by the English poet Wendy Cope (1945).
Shakespeare at School
Forty boys on benches with their quills,
Six days a week through almost all the year,
Long hours of Latin with relentless drills
And repetition, all enforced by fear.
I picture Shakespeare sitting near the back,
Indulging in a risky bit of fun
By exercising his prodigious knack
Of thinking up an idiotic pun,
And whispering his gem to other boys,
Some of whom could not suppress their mirth -
Behaviour that unfailingly annoys
Any teacher anywhere on earth
The fun was over when the master spoke:
Will Shakespeare, come up here and share the joke.Wendy Cope
Happy Reading
If you enjoy reading my blog and would like to make a donation I would be very grateful. Thank you
The rules are answer the questions below and share a link to your blog in the comments section of Sam’s blog.
What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you will read next?
Hello!
I hope everyone is having a good week so far.
So here is how my week has been going.
What I am Currently Reading
I’ve just started reading Sistersong and I must admit I am struggling to get into it at the moment but I will keep going.
What I have Recently Finished Reading
I really did not get on well with The Man in the Brown Suit (review) and to be honest it almost put me into a reading slump. Thankfully, Mrs England (review) was amazing and got me out of the reading slump.
What I Think I will Read Next
This month I am only reading hardback books so that will limit my selection and hopefully help me to choose what to read next.
Please drop me a comment with your WWW Wednesday and I will head over for a visit.
Happy Reading
If you enjoy reading my blog and would like to make a donation I would be very grateful. Thank you
When newly graduated nurse Ruby May takes a position looking after the children of Charles and Lilian England, a wealthy couple from a powerful dynasty of mill owners, she hopes it will be the fresh start she needs. But as she adapts to life at the isolated Hardcastle House, it becomes clear there’s something not quite right about the beautiful, mysterious Mrs England. Ostracised by the servants and feeling increasingly uneasy, Ruby is forced to confront her own demons in order to prevent history from repeating itself. After all, there’s no such thing as the perfect family – and she should know.
Simmering with slow-burning menace, Mrs England is a portrait of an Edwardian marriage, weaving an enthralling story of men and women, power and control, courage, truth and the very darkest deception. Set against the atmospheric landscape of West Yorkshire, Stacey Halls’ third novel proves her one of the most exciting and compelling new storytellers of our times.
Review
I thought I was in the beginning of a reading slump but then I started reading this book and the reading slump soon disappeared. I just could not put this down it kept me riveted from beginning to end.
This book is mainly set in Yorkshire and is a true gothic novel with more than one mystery to solve. Ruby May is a Norland nurse who spends her time keeping busy with her charges and sending all the money she can afford home to help her family but it is also clear that Nurse May has a secret in her past and this secret she keeps locked up in a tin in her trunk but you can tell that the secret weighs heavily on Nurse May and she is never free from it.
Nurse May finds herself working for the England family but soon realises something is not right with her mistress Mrs England but she can’t work out what it is. Due to Mrs England’s aloofness Nurse May directs all questions about the children to Mr England and soon finds Mr England to be the perfect master. However, something is still not right about the house and Nurse May can sense this and you soon realise as the reader that there is another mystery to try and work out that surrounds the house.
The setting in the Yorkshire countryside really adds to this book, the wild crags, waterfall and forest all make the characters seem isolated and in danger. The other fact that all doors need to be locked at all times really adds to this fear of something or someone.
I loved reading this book the atmosphere and the mystery meant that I just could not stop reading the book until I had all the answers I wanted. I will definitely be reading more books by Stacey Halls and I give this book 5 out of 5 Dragons.
(All purchases made using one of the above affiliate links gives a small percentage of money to myself with no extra cost to yourself. All proceeds go towards the upkeep of this blog. Thank you ever so much, your support is gratefully received.)
About the author
Stacey Halls grew up in Rossendale, Lancashire, as the daughter of market traders. She has always been fascinated by the Pendle witches. She studied journalism at the University of Central Lancashire and moved to London aged 21. She was media editor at The Bookseller and books editor at Stylist.co.uk, and has also written for Psychologies, the Independent and Fabulous magazine, where she now works as Deputy Chief Sub Editor. The Familiars is her first novel.
If you enjoy reading my blog and would like to make a donation I would be very grateful. Thank you
Goodreads Monday is hosted by Lauren’s Page Turners. All you have to do is show off a book from your TBR that you’re looking forward to reading.
Hello!
I hope everyone has had a good start to the week so far.
I’m really craving some classics at the moment and have decided once I have finished my dissertation I will go on a classics binge read. So I have decided to choose a classic for my Goodreads Monday.
Here is my chosen book.
Serving on the jury at a murder trial, Prince Dmitri Nekhlyudov is devastated when he sees the prisoner – Katyusha, a young maid he seduced and abandoned years before. As Dmitri faces the consequences of his actions, he decides to give up his life of wealth and luxury to devote himself to rescuing Katyusha, even if it means following her into exile in Siberia. But can a man truly find redemption by saving another person? Tolstoy’s most controversial novel, Resurrection (1899) is a scathing indictment of injustice, corruption and hypocrisy at all levels of society. Creating a vast panorama of Russian life, from peasants to aristocrats, bureaucrats to convicts, it reveals Tolstoy’s magnificent storytelling powers.
Two of my favourite books are Anna Karenina and War and Peace so I am really looking forward to reading this.
Please drop me a comment with your Goodreads Monday and I will head over for a visit.
Happy Reading
If you enjoy reading my blog and would like to make a donation I would be very grateful. Thank you
Lady Book Dragon 