Since Saturday morning, I've succumbed to a barrage of emotions. What should have been a day of joy and celebration for the holidays suddenly turned to one of sorrow and despair. By now, most of you should have heard of the horrific war which has broken out in Israel. If you haven't, you live under a bigger rock than me. This war is the result of an organized terror attack by the terrorist organization, H@mas, in southern Israel. Women have been raped and murdered, hostages taken, small ...
Musings
WOMS: The Wolf and the Woodsman
This week’s book that’s on my shelf is Ava Reid’s The Wolf and the Woodsman, a novel suggested to me by a fellow writer friend when I asked for good examples of fantasy romance, or as it is quickly becoming, romantasy. It’s a good thing, then, I’m entitled to my own opinion, one which I’ll share now, because I’m not certain I would classify this as that. Then again, perhaps my tastes are too regulated and not varied; maybe I haven’t sampled enough of the different flavours of romantasy to ...
Joy Comes in the Morning
A new year has come and gone, and with it I hope the sorrows of the past. This time of year always brings with it a flood of emotions, but none are more potent than my joy mingled with grief. Last year was probably one of the most painful of my life. Even now, as I write, I’m still grieving; hoping, praying it will be fully released by the end of Yom Kippur next Monday evening, so that I may enter this new year fully revived and content. And yet, though there has been great pain, there has ...
WOMS: Nocturne
Remember how a few weeks back, my husband took me to Barnes & Noble at my behest to get out of the cramped hospital room I'd been trapped in for about a week? And remember how I fondly caressed the cover of Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries? There was another book. That book was none other than Alyssa Wees's Nocturne. It had one of those employee recommendation labels beneath it, describing it as The Phantom of the Opera meets "The Beauty and the Beast." Of course I wanted ...
WOMS: A Sinister Revenge
This week for "What's on My Shelf," it's a Veronica Speedwell mystery, A Sinister Revenge, by Deanna Raybourn! I've shared before with how much I enjoy the plucky heroine of this series, but more especially, how these books helped me fall in love with mystery again. This book is no exception; rather a continuation of why I think these are some of the best historical murder mysteries out there in the market today. In this latest installment, Veronica and Stoker's relationship is a bit ...
WOMS: Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries
For the past six book reviews I've shared, it's been all about the Nine Kingdoms series. This week, I'm changing things up. I don't know if I needed a break from the series or not, but when my husband took me to get out of the hospital room I had been stuck in for almost a week, caring for my parents, we ended up at Barnes & Noble. If I'm honest, I hadn't been to a Barnes & Noble in a while. You probably can tell by the photos I share of the books I'm reading, there's usually, if not ...
WOMS: Gift of Magic
It's time to wrap up the second trilogy of the Nine Kingdoms series with the final installment, Gift of Magic. This trilogy is what I'm calling Ruith's trilogy compared to the first three books which focused on his sister, Morgan. Speaking of her, let's dive right into it, but this won't be spoiler free. Beware! Morgan is in this book!!!! Albeit, her appearance is brief, but she's there all the same. In fact, she saves Sarah from probable death at the hands of the malicious Queen ...
WOMS: Spellweaver
This week we're getting back in the swing of things by continuing on with Lynn Kurland's next book in her Nine Kingdoms series, Spellweaver, and boy howdy did it deliver! As I hinted in my last review of A Tapestry of Spells, Kurland has a way of interweaving her plots together so you can see how the events of her first trilogy and this trilogy interconnect but also differ. In this book, especially, there are greater parallels and crossovers, ones which I had hoped would occur since they were ...
Embracing the Pain
Three weeks ago, my father was rushed to the hospital due to severe swelling, weeping of the skin, traumatic ulcers, and pain in his left leg. A few days later, he underwent an arterial bypass where they inserted a stent. Essentially, as I confirmed with a RN friend, he had a "heart attack" of the leg. During this time, my main concern other than supporting him by being present as often as I could in the hospital with him was caring for my mentally disabled mother. You know, the one who ...
WOMS: The Love Prescription
They never said marriage would be easy, but I also don't think when they warn you of the challenges you'll face as a new couple, those will include both a life-altering health crisis and global pandemic occurring all within the first year of said marriage. I know I've spoken before about some of the challenges my "new" husband and I have faced within the last three, going on four, years of our marriage, but I haven't, I don't think, revealed just how difficult overcoming these challenges has ...
