2022

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.

Happy Monday!

I hope everyone has had a good start to the week so far. My featured book this week is one that I have tried to read in the past but I was hampered by the copy I owned. I read the first 50 pages and then the book started again. The whole book was made up loads of copies of the first 50 pages. I really should have bought another copy and carried on reading it but I never got around to it. Hopefully, I will get to read it soon as I would love to finish it.

Tom Jones is widely regarded as one of the first and most influential English novels. It is certainly the funniest.

Tom Jones, the hero of the book, is introduced to the reader as the ward of a liberal Somerset squire. Tom is a generous but slightly wild and feckless country boy with a weakness for young women. Misfortune, followed by many spirited adventures as he travels to London to seek his fortune, teach him a sort of wisdom to go with his essential good-heartedness.

This ‘comic, epic poem in prose’ will make the modern reader laugh as much as it did his forbears. Its biting satire finds an echo in today’s society, for as Doris Lessing recently remarked ‘This country becomes every day more like the eighteenth century, full of thieves and adventurers, rogues and a robust, unhypocritical savagery side-by-side with people lecturing others on morality’.

Purchase Links

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Please drop me a comment if you have taken part in Goodreads Monday and I will head over for a visit.

Happy Reading

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The Weekly Brief

Hello!

I hope everyone has had a good weekend. I must admit my weekend has been another busy one due to work and I am already looking forward to my next day off later in the week.

Posts this Week

Currently Reading

Only 100 pages left of the Sansom and the Simenon is my Grand Prix reading this weekend.

Happy Reading

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Blind Spot by Paula Hawkins (Review)

Blind Spot by Paula Hawkins

Blurb

Since they were kids, Edie, Jake and Ryan have been the closest of friends. It’s been the three of them against the world. Edie thought the bonds between them were unbreakable. So when Jake is brutally murdered and Ryan accused of the crime, her world is shattered.

Edie is alone for the first time in years, living in the remote house that she and Jake shared. She is grief-stricken and afraid – with good reason. Because someone is watching. Someone has been waiting for this moment. Now that Edie is alone, the past she tried so hard to leave behind is about to catch up with her…

Review

I do love a Quick Reads book. The series has introduced me to so many amazing authors and sometimes I just fancy a quick book that I can basically read in one sitting.

This book centres around the character Edie. Edie is married to Jake but since she was a child she has always been best friends with Jake and Ryan. The three of them are a team, Edie believes there are no secrets between any of them but when Jake is brutally murdered and Ryan is accused of the murder her world starts to unravel.

Edie is left alone, living in a remote house that she shared with Jake. She is left with mounting bills, the debts she finds out that Jake had secretly taken out and the prospect that one day the house will fall off the cliff it is on. Edie has no job, no real friends and she is afraid. She is afraid because it soon occurs to her that someone is watching her, someone knows her every move. Edie’s past has come back to haunt her.

I really enjoyed this story but I did find Edie very annoying. Edie was one of those people who happily ignores what is right at the end of her nose because it suits her circumstances. She is oblivious to anything other than herself or Jake and Ryan and anything outside of the trio she does not want to know. This way of thinking has been going on since childhood with damning consequences.

I had no clue who the murderer was in this book until I got towards the end and started to have my suspicions. Considering the book was so small it kept me hooked and constantly wondering what would happen next. It was brilliantly written and I will definitely be reading more by Paula Hawkins. I give this book 4 out of 5 Dragon.

🐲🐲🐲🐲

Purchase Links

Book Depository | Foyles | Waterstones | Wordery

About the author

Paula Hawkins (1972) is a British author best known for the novel The Girl on the Train.

If you enjoy reading my blog and would like to make a donation I would be very grateful. Thank you

Friday Poetry: Mary Ann Hoberman

Happy Friday!

I hope you all have good plans for the weekend.

My chosen poem this week is by the author and poet Mary Ann Hoberman (1930).

Mayfly

Think how fast a year flies by
A month flies by
A week flies by
Think how fast a day flies by
A Mayfly's life lasts but a day
A single day
To live and die
A single day
How fast it goes
The day
The Mayfly
Both of these.
A Mayfly flies a single day
The daylight dies and darkness grows
A single day
How fast it flies
A Mayfly's life
How fast it grows.

Mary Ann Hoberman

Happy Reading

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April 2022 Wrap Up

Hello!

Well April was thankfully a much better month on the reading front and I actually managed to read more than 3 books.

Statistics

Books

Pages: 536

Format Read: Paperback

Dragon Rating: 🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲

Review

Pages: 192

Format Read: Hardback

Dragon Rating: 🐲🐲🐲🐲

Review

Pages: 160

Format Read: Hardback

Dragon Rating: 🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲

Review

Pages: 416

Format Read: Paperback

Dragon Rating: 🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲

Review

Pages: 152

Format Read: Paperback

Dragon Rating: 🐲🐲🐲

Review

Pages: 84

Format Read: Paperback

Dragon Rating: 🐲🐲🐲🐲🐲

Review

Goodreads Challenge: 17/60

Happy Reading

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Mid Week Quote: Yoda

May the Fourth be with you all!

I do love Star Wars so I thought I would go for a quote from the one and only Yoda.

“Always pass on what you have learned.”
Yoda

Happy Reading

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WWW Wednesday: 4/05/2022

WWW Wednesday is a meme hosted by Sam at Taking on a World of Words.

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. Today was my first day back at school teaching piano, flute and ukulele after the Easter holidays and it was bit of a shock to the system. I did manage some reading during my lunch break which was good because I haven’t been doing much recently sadly.

What I am Currently Reading

This has been a bit slow for me but thankfully it has started to pick up because I was getting a little bit bored in the middle.

What I have Recently Finished Reading

Really enjoyed this quick read and was just what I needed this week. Sometimes it is good to just read a short book.

What I Think I will Read Next

I’ve been thinking a lot about what I will read next and I honestly have no idea. I think I want a standalone and an easy read. However, this all might change tomorrow as I am a mood reader.

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

Top 5 Tuesday: Snacks for Reading

Top 5 Tuesday was created by Shanah at Bionic Book Worm, and now being hosted by Meeghan reads.

Hello!

I will be honest I only really have one reading snack and it’s really a drink not a snack but I do occasionally treat myself to a snack or two whilst reading.

Anyway, here are the snacks/drinks

Tea – I love tea, when I wake up in the morning I’m thinking about tea. I would happily chain drink tea and nothing beats curling up with a book and a huge mug of tea.
Cake – On the rare occasion that I have been baking I will also happily curl up with book, a mug of and a huge slice of cake.
Chocolate – Who doesn’t love a piece of chocolate when reading? Obviously, you have to make sure the chocolate doesn’t melt because you don’t want melted chocolate on your book.
Hot chocolate – A couple of years ago my wonderful husband bought me a velvertiser by Hotel Chocolat for my birthday and I love it. A perfect accompaniment to a Christmas book in front of a nice fire.
Porridge – A random one but I used to read when I was eating breakfast and my favourite breakfast is porridge.

What are your favourite reading snacks?

Please drop me a link if you have taken part in Top 5 Tuesday 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

Top Ten Tuesday: One Word Reviews for the Last 10 Books I Read

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. For more info please check out Jana’s blog.

Hello!

It has been quite a while since I have taken part in Top Ten Tuesday but I loved the prompt for today so I thought I would join in. This weeks prompt has really made my brain hurt. Turns out I am not very good at thinking of one word reviews.

Blind Spot by Paula Hawkins

Unexpected

2. Women of Holy Week: An Easter Journey in Nine Stories by Paula Gooder

Reflective

3. A Crime in Holland by Georges Simenon

Frustrating

4. The New Magdalen by Wilkie Collins

Beautiful

5. Big Panda and Tiny Dragon by James Norbury

Thoughtful

6. Roverandom by J. R. R. Tolkien

Magical

7. Nemesis Games by James S. A. Corey

Exhilarating

8. The Night at the Crossroads by Georges Simenon

Mysterious

9. Wonderlands by Una McCormack

Melancholy

10. Galatea by Madeline Miller

Disappointing

Please drop me a link with your Top Ten Tuesday and I will head over for a visit. Also please feel free to leave a comment if you want to chat about any of the books.

Happy Reading

If you enjoy reading my blog and would like to make a donation I would be very grateful. Thank you

Goodreads Monday: 2/05/2022

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 and welcome to the first Goodreads Monday of May.

My chosen book this week is actually one I have read before but one I have put back on my TBR pile because I absolutely love it and want to reread it this year.

Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe is the third novel by George Eliot, published in 1861. An outwardly simple tale of a linen weaver, it is notable for its strong realism and its sophisticated treatment of a variety of issues ranging from religion to industrialisation to community.

Purchase Links

Book Depository | Foyles | Waterstones | Wordery

Please drop me a comment if you have taken part in Goodreads Monday and I will head over for a visit.

If you enjoy reading my blog and would like to make a donation I would be very grateful. Thank you