I hope everyone is having a good week so far. I thought it was time for a post about my recent escapades.
Walking and Step Challenge
I am still trying to complete my final medal for the Lord of the Rings walking challenge run by The Conqueror Challenges. The final medal is very long but I really enjoy the challenges and it keeps me moving. If anybody would like to join a challenge here is a link for 10% off. I have also signed up for the 1 million step challenge run by Diabetes UK. This runs from July and is three months long. Here is a link if you want to see what it is about. To be honest averaging 11,000 steps a day is proving quite challenge and I am slightly behind because I got Covid but hopefully I will manage the challenge and get some decent sponsors.
Witley Court
We went for a recent visit to one of our favourite English Heritage properties, Witley Court. I always love visiting but I also find it rather sad to see the ruins of what would have been a wonderful house. I do however find it very shocking that they ripped out the library and replaced it with a ballroom! The ballroom is huge so would have been an amazing library. Walking around the ruins and grounds also meant a good step count.
Brockhampton
Another favourite is Brockhampton which is a house owned by the National Trust. It was a beautiful day so we did loads of walking. The house is also really interesting and is deceptively a lot bigger inside than it appears on the outside. I also really enjoyed how each room was set up as a different time period from the house’s history.
We are limited in how far we can go at the moment and we sadly don’t have a summer holiday in sight because our house is still covered in scaffolding and we have people working on the house 5 days a week until possibly September.
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 had a lovely morning teaching primary school students about woodwind instruments, between teaching I have managed some reading as well.
What I am Currently Reading
I’m still plodding along with these books. I keep taking a break at the weekends to read a more light hearted book which is probably slowing my progress.
What I have Recently Finished Reading
Thoroughly enjoyed this and it was the perfect comfort read whilst I had covid. Review will follow shortly.
What I Think I will Read Next
As usual I have no idea what I will read next but it might be one of these books.
Please drop me a comment with your WWW Wednesday and I will head over for a visit.
Things change; we have to recognise that; the world will not stay still. What we must hope is that the new is better and stronger than the old. Anno Domini 1546. In a manor house in England a young woman feels the walls are closing round her, while her dying husband is obsessed by his vision of a chapel where prayers will be said for his immortal soul. As the days go by and the chapel takes shape, the outside world starts to intrude. And as the old ways are replaced by the new, the people of the village sense a dangerous freedom. The Book of Days is a beautifully written novel of lives lived in troubled times and the solace to be found in nature and the turning seasons.
Review
This is my first book by Francesca Kay and I will be honest I really didn’t gel with the book for the first half and almost gave up several times. I loved the imagery used in the book and the detailed descriptions of the scenery and different seasons but I found the book lacked direction and spent a lot of time meandering around and not really going anywhere.
Alice is a character who is basically lost which seems strange because her world is so small and isolated. She is desperate for children but she is married to a much older man who is dying and she is trapped on her husband’s estate with no possibility of adventure. When Alice escapes the sick room of her husband she explores the grounds and also spends a lot of time seeing all the improvements taking place on the chapel. The chapel is her husband’s obsession and his plan is to one day be laid to rest in a grand tomb and have prayers said everyday for his soul. It is clear Alice’s husband is worried about his immortal soul but we don’t know why. However, the outside world is about to encroach on Alice’s small and sheltered world and it is not going to go well and her husband’s plan for his immortal soul might not be going according to his wishes. The way people worship and use their churches is about to change and the change will not be gentle.
There were so many times in this book that I wanted to shake Alice. She is such a gentle soul but her step daughter Agnes is clearly trouble and clearly in need of a firm hand which nobody seems willing to give and to me Alice should have been that firm hand and also put her foot down to how Agnes treated her. Alice just wants to be friends with everyone and nice to everyone and sometimes that just means you get walked over and this happens to poor Alice.
The thing that saved this book for me was the detail and imagery because the characters and lack of direction really put me off at times. I also didn’t enjoy the latin snippets in the book because I found they detracted from the flow of the text and didn’t really add anything. I give this book 3 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
Francesca Kay’s first novel, An Equal Stillness, won the Orange Award for New Writers in 2009. She lives in Oxford with her family.
Goodreads Monday is now hosted by Budget Tales Book Club. 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. My chosen book to feature off my Goodreads TBR today is one that has sat on my Goodreads TBR for a very long time. I added The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society way back in 2019.
To give them hope she must tell their story.
It’s 1946. The war is over, and Juliet Ashton has writer’s block. But when she receives a letter from Dawsey Adams of Guernsey – a total stranger living halfway across the Channel, who has come across her name written in a second hand book – she enters into a correspondence with him, and in time with all the members of the extraordinary Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.
Through their letters, the society tell Juliet about life on the island, their love of books – and the long shadow cast by their time living under German occupation. Drawn into their irresistible world, Juliet sets sail for the island, changing her life forever.
Took a break from these over the weekend to read a comfort read but I’m now back to reading them. I’m finding Queens of the Age of Chivalry so interesting as I am learning so much I didn’t know before about this period of history.
As we are now half way through the year I thought it was time for a check in on my Bookish Goals for 2024.
What were my goals…
Read 50 books
Read 24 books that I own in 2024 (official list will be published soon)
Finish the Shardlake series by C. J Sansom
Read at least one chapter from The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan a day. I started The Shadow Rising yesterday and have read just over 2 chapters so far.
Keep going with my Maigret, Agatha Christie and Classics Club challenges.
Keep up to date with my book reviews.
Read 50 books
I really lowered my target for this year because I planned on reading some very big books. However, this target is not going very well because so far I have only managed to read 19 books of that target. I’m really hoping to catch up during the summer holidays but I am worried I might have fallen too far behind.
24 Books in 2024
Technically I should have read half of the list by now but yet again I am behind! Here are the books I have read off the list so far.
The Midnight Folk by John Masefield
The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors
Blade Breaker by Victoria Aveyard
The Shadow Rising by Robert Jordan
A History of the Roman Empire in 21 Women by Emma Southon
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
Finish the Shardlake series
Well this isn’t going to plan because I haven’t picked up a Shardlake book all year! Hopefully I will manage to read the next book in the series but I doubt I will finish it this year.
Wheel of Time
My original plan for this challenge was one Wheel of Time chapter a day but I have slightly adapted it. Basically I am now reading the Wheel of Time books at night. This means sometimes I manage a few pages and sometimes I manage several chapters. I’m making steady progress with the books which I’m happy about.
Maigret, Agatha Christie and Classics Club Challenges
These challenges are sadly not progressing at the moment. I really hope to get moving on them soon though and have several books lined up for my summer reading.
Book Reviews
So far I am up to date on my book reviews which is big progress because every year I am usually way behind.
Overall, my challenges are not going well but I am really hoping I will manage to pull them back soon.
I hope everyone has made better progress with their challenges than I have so far this year.
I hope everyone has some fun plans for the weekend. I now only have one more week of school and I am so excited to gain more reading time over the summer holidays.
My chosen poem today is by the American lyrical poet and playwright Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950).
Afternoon on a Hill
I will be the gladdest thing Under the sun! I will touch a hundred flowers And not pick one.
I will look at cliffs and clouds With quiet eyes, Watch the wind bow down the grass, And the grass rise.
And when lights begin to show Up from the town, I will mark which must be mine, And then start down!
It’s 1949, the freedom granted women by the Second World War is over, and stifling social conventions are once more at play. Edith Sloan, the rebellious, well-educated heroine of An Open Door returns in The Hedgerow to pursue her dreams of owning a thriving bookstore on Harvard Square and establishing a poetry press to publish the silent and underserved. Free of her dreary marriage to Walter, she receives a proposal from Henry, a wealthy British peer and the man who made the purchase of her bookstore possible. When she accepts, is it from love or gratitude? Will being his wife help or hinder her plans? Edith soon finds herself at the intersection of free expression and censorship. Duty competes with desire, while serious endeavours are undermined by trivial pursuits. As she tries to balance the competing demands in her life, troubling facts from Henry’s past come to light. Edith also discovers that being a pioneer in publishing comes with consequences she hadn’t foreseen. The decade draws to a close and delivers one more surprise Edith must summon extraordinary courage to face.
Review
Firstly, a huge thank you to Mindbuck Media Book Publicity for sending me a free copy of this book for an honest review.
I was a little concerned when I first started this book as I hadn’t read the previous book but thankfully this concern was not warranted as I didn’t feel the book lacked anything because I hadn’t read the first book. This book is set predominantly in America in the year 1949 and shows the freedom that women now have because of the Second World War but also about the constraints a woman still faces in 1949.
The main character is Edith Sloan. I will be honest I admire Edith and I think she is great and her accomplishments are fantastic but I really wouldn’t be her friend. Edith has separated from her husband because of quite a few reasons but the big reason is that Walter wanted Edith to be the ideal wife for his career and didn’t care less about her needs or dreams of a career. So Edith now finds herself living with a British peer called Henry and she makes use of him. Henry helps Edith purchase her bookshop, he supports her and caters for her every need when she leaves Walter but this leads to Henry asking a question that Edith really does’t want to hear. Edith has plans, big plans for her bookshop and publishing company and she is not sure Henry fits into these plans.
The one I felt for in this book was poor Henry. Yes he had some bad traits, mainly due to his upbringing but he really loved Edith and when he really needs her she isn’t there. Henry has some problems which really become clear as the novel progresses and sadly he doesn’t have the support he needs. He does have Alistair his manservant though. Alistair has been there for Henry for years and years and seen Henry at his worst and best.
This is a beautifully written book and I loved Parrish’s writing style, her style really reminds me of Dorothy Whipple. It was a quiet little book which showed the struggles women of that period had to cope with and I loved the storyline. However, I didn’t like any of the characters. This is probably the first book I have loved but disliked the characters. I give this book 4 out of 5 Dragons.
Anne Leigh Parrish lives in a forest in the South Sound Region of Washington State. She is the author of thirteen previously published book which include short stories, novels and poems. She has recently ventured into the art of photography.
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 started the Diabetes Uk Step Challenge this week so my spare time has involved a lot of walking so far this week but I have managed a good bit of reading today as well.
What I am Currently Reading
I took a little break from these last week but today I have been completely absorbed with Lord of Chaos. Queens of the Age of Chivalry is plodding along nicely and I am learning loads!
What I have Recently Finished Reading
I will be honest and say I did struggle to get into this book but I’m glad I persevered. Review will follow soon.
What I Think I will Read Next
There are so many books that I want to read currently. I’m really hoping once teaching slows down I can get some real reading in.
Please drop me a comment with your WWW Wednesday and I will head over for a visit.
Lady Book Dragon 