Updates

July Recap 2018

We are done traveling (long haul at least) for the summer! I know most people would not be as excited about this as I am, but it is exhausting.

I put a photo recap down below under books and bookish things because most everything we saw was connected to books, except for my friend’s wedding. We drove over 24 hours in total while we were visiting and it was awesome because we saw parts of the country I’ve never seen except by train or plane. The above photo is our full trip with a photo of our northern post point Ben A’an and our southern most point Brighton.

We did so many bookish things that I’ll just include a slide show below and put a caption explaining what they are rather than write them all out. We didn’t even set out to do that many it just happened (mostly because Tim told me this was our last trip to the UK for some time). Continue reading “July Recap 2018”

Updates

Elite Eight

Eight. Years. That’s how long I’ve been blogging almost continuously.

I have written about every book I’ve read in the last seven of those eight years because that first year was a bit iffy. When was the last time any of us did anything for eight years? I guess school would qualify, but I got summers off with that. With the exception of a couple of unplanned hiatuses this has been going strong for EIGHT YEARS. [Don’t you love that nod to sports – I’m hip right?]

Continue reading “Elite Eight”

Updates

June Recap 2018

If I ever write a novel I plan to write it like a lifetime. Super slow where every day feels like an eternity and have it evolve overtime into crazy fast super hectic chapters like how fast time seems to be going.

I remember when it used to feel like it took ages to walk the less than 10 minutes to my best friends house and now 10 minutes goes by in what feels like seconds. AKA once again where in the hell did June go.

Continue reading “June Recap 2018”

Books

Book 553: Dear Mr. Knightley – Katherine Reay

This book is what I was worried of when I found out these were categorized under clean romance and Christian fiction. It could’ve been A LOT worse, but it was just enough to start to put me off toward the end of the novel. That being said, I know there’s a HUGE market for both clean romance AND Christina fiction, so I can’t really fault it too much because it was just a little too preachy for me at some points. I’ll talk more about this later.

I’m still not sure where to categorize this for my own references. I think they’d be more accurately described as inspired by Austen rather than the traditional fan-fiction/fanfiction. Reay does a great job weaving in the stories and characters from Austen’s works but doesn’t necessarily use them as frameworks or even plot outlines. I’ll read the other’s books in her oeuvre that are Austen/Brontë connected because they’re such quick reads, but I’m not sure I’ll follow her into the future.

Continue reading “Book 553: Dear Mr. Knightley – Katherine Reay”

Books

Book 551: The Austen Escape – Katherine Reay

I picked this up at the library after reading about it on Jane’s blog greenish bookshelf, and wasn’t sure what to expect. I do occasionally like a clean romance, but let’s face it I also enjoy some pretty trashy and raunchy novels/works. I also wasn’t 100% sure where this would rank on the romance scale with it often being categorized as Christina Fiction, but I did ultimately enjoy the book. I have also complained multiple times about the books where characters jump right in to sex and living together and the whole book happens in two months. So basically, I don’t know what I want in a romance novel. But seriously though, coat it in Austen or Brontë, no matter how tenuous, and I’ll be happy!

Continue reading “Book 551: The Austen Escape – Katherine Reay”