BW17: Sunday's Book Babble - Bookish Miscellanea


 

It's book Week 17 in our 52 Books quest. Did you know today is World Penguin Day? My favorite documentary is March of the Penguins narrated by Morgan Freeman, and the movie Happy Feet always makes me want to dance and sing along with Mumble, and Mr. Poppers Penguins makes for a  charming, amusing read as well as a wonderful movie.  This week's odd holidays include taking time out this week to eat a pretzel or a steak, tell a story, kiss your mate, read a poem or dance by the light of the moon, to the music of a sax or trombone, while the horses race a mile and we have fun with a new hairstyle.  I'm sure I can find a book theme in there somewhere. 

The latest book in J.R. Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood has been released - Lover Unveiled. Have added it to my stacks to read soon.  While watching Ward's Facebook Virtual release day video, she very enthusiastically talked about Jennifer Armentrout's newest book in her Blood and Ash series - The Crown of Gilded Bones which also released on April 20th.   Which led me to picking up the first book From Blood and Ash since you know I'm a series gal and have to start all series at the beginning (most of the time).  I haven't been able to put it down since.  

It's a unique perspective on vampires (vampyres) and werewolfs (wolven) and a maiden who has been isolated from a young age as the one who will save the world.  Plot twists, good versus evil, and of course romance plays a part.  So very good.  And back to Ward's video, she dropped a lot of author names including Christopher Rice (son of Anne and a few more I want to check out.   Far warning should you want to watch the video and aren't familiar with J.R. Ward, she drops the f bomb a lot however she's very amusing.  

"A Maiden…

Chosen from birth to usher in a new era, Poppy’s life has never been her own. The life of the Maiden is solitary. Never to be touched. Never to be looked upon. Never to be spoken to. Never to experience pleasure. Waiting for the day of her Ascension, she would rather be with the guards, fighting back the evil that took her family, than preparing to be found worthy by the gods. But the choice has never been hers.

A Duty…

The entire kingdom’s future rests on Poppy’s shoulders, something she’s not even quite sure she wants for herself. Because a Maiden has a heart. And a soul. And longing. And when Hawke, a golden-eyed guard honor bound to ensure her Ascension, enters her life, destiny and duty become tangled with desire and need. He incites her anger, makes her question everything she believes in, and tempts her with the forbidden.

A Kingdom…

Forsaken by the gods and feared by mortals, a fallen kingdom is rising once more, determined to take back what they believe is theirs through violence and vengeance. And as the shadow of those cursed draws closer, the line between what is forbidden and what is right becomes blurred. Poppy is not only on the verge of losing her heart and being found unworthy by the gods, but also her life when every blood-soaked thread that holds her world together begins to unravel."


 

Bookish Notes: Reading Michelle Diener's Breakaway

 


Good morning from my part of the world.  New read is from Michelle Diener's science fiction series Verdant Springs -  #1 Breakaway

"She's the key to everything . . . Sofie has a choice--she can eke out an existence in the shadow of Felicitos, the tethered way station where she works on the breakaway planet of Garmen, or she can to bring it crashing down. When she teams up with Leo, a man who's dedicated his life to fighting her enemies, her choices start to narrow, until her secrets are the only thing keeping her alive.

Leo is all too aware he doesn't know enough about Sofie, something his own security detail is not slow to point out, but he can't keep away. When Sofie reveals her links to the resistance, and shows him those in control of Garmen have begun swimming in dangerous waters, he realizes his plan to overthrown them in a careful operation of a thousand cuts is no longer workable.

The time has come for a single, lethal strike--and that will not be without consequences . . ."

 

Current reread is from Nora Robert's series Bride Quartet, #1 Vision in White. 

"Wedding photographer Mackensie "Mac" Elliot is most at home behind the camera, but her focus is shattered moments before an important wedding rehearsal when she bumps into the bride-to-be's brother...an encounter that has them both seeing stars.

A stable, safe English teacher, Carter Maguire is definitely not Mac's type. But a casual fling might be just what she needs to take her mind off bridezillas. Of course, casual flings can turn into something more when you least expect it. And Mac will have to turn to her three best friends—and business partners—to see her way to her own happy ending."

BW16: Sunday's Book Babble -- National Poetry Month

 


It's book week 16 in our 52 Books quest and April is National Poetry Month.  Time to build a rhyme.  Use a letter, use a vowel, write an ode to a towel, or write rhapsodies about an owl. From blank verse to free verse, from haiku to dodoitsu, from nonet to sonnets, from the abstract to the sublime, be it weighty or flighty, anyone can do it, if you dare write a line.     

 

Ode to C

 Big C 
Little C
What Begins with C
Thanks to Dr. Seuss
We won't end up in a Tree

 Calliopes and carousels
chugging, chanting, caroling. 
Circling without a care. 

 Courteous citizens
develop the knack,
Reaching, stretching.
Fingers to snatch
That colorful, oval,
 brass ring.

 

Homonyms

 As the son walked in the sun, he couldn’t decide if he was right to write about the tale of the tail.  Who would believe it would affect him so and change the effect of the rain when he decided to reign? Nobody told him to fold his cards or fold his clothes.  He preferred to bail out the boat rather than to bail out his brother. She preferred to count out her cents and ignore all common sense while the scent of the horse made him hoarse. The whole time he dug the hole, she was at the inn, jammed in the door jamb. The knight came in the night to pick up the male only to discover it was only mail.  Who was she to meddle with the medal and allowed him to speak aloud?  He was awed even though she was odd, when she offered him cash and instead handed him her cache of keys.  The boy was rather coarse when he showed him the course.   

 

Okay your turn.  Are you drawing a blank? Sit with paper and pen and don't think, just write, let your brain play and see what you have to say.   If I can do it, so can you. 

 

 Blank

 What do you see
When you draw a blank?
Letters, foggy and fuzzy
 Roam and flee.

 Words, simple.
Yet not.

Like butterflies about to land.
Do you catch them or wait?
As they sit on the tip of your tongue.
or the back of your hand.

 Rhythm and rhyme,
Let it be.
Make you see.
Take your time. 

 Words, simple.
Yet not.

 Pens bleed
Across the page.
Strokes and symbols
Take on need.

 Blank and blind
Thoughts and letters,
Illuminate and illustrate
What comes to mind.

 Words, simple.
Yet not.

  

BW15: Sunday's Book Babble - The Cloistered Life


Saint Guilhem Cloister

It's week 15 in our 52 Books Quest and this week's 52 Books Bingo category is The Cloistered Life. 

Years and years ago when I was a teenager...  Why does it sound like the opening crawl to Star Wars?   "In a galaxy far far away...."   *grin* 

No, I did not wish to become a nun when I was younger, but was always fascinated by the idea. Our high school religious class took a field trip to a cloistered convent and it was an interesting experience to say the least.  We were allowed to talk to the sisters through a screen in which they could only see us from the waist up, a privacy screen raised in case any outside visitor was inappropriately dressed. They were a giggly group of ladies who enjoyed their simple life of prayer and work inside the convent walls.  

The experience stuck with me which is probably why I enjoy stories about hermits and anchorites, monks and nuns, abbeys and monasteries, and lives lived in solitude.  Books such as historical fiction The Anchoress by Robyn Cadwallader, biographical stories such as And Then There Were Nuns by Jane Christmas and  Thomas Merton's Seven Storey Mountain, and fictional books such as Dean Koontz's suspense story  Innocence in which a young man lives beneath a city in solitude and Louise Penny's The Beautiful Mystery in which Armand Gamache tries to solve a murder within a cloistered monastery. 


I finished Genevieve Cogman's The Lost Plot #4 in the Invisible Library series  which was very very good and our spy librarian Irene was put to the test in trying to complete her mission while on the run from the fae, dragons, mobsters and gun molls, and the human police.  Continuing the Invisible Library series saga with #5 The Mortal Word.

 "Peace talks are always tricky, especially when a key diplomat gets stabbed. This rudely interrupts a top-secret summit between the warring dragons and Fae. As a neutral party, Librarian-spy Irene is summoned to investigate. She must head to a version of 1890s Paris, with her assistant Kai and her detective friend Vale, where these talks are fracturing. Here, she must get to the bottom of the attack – before either the peace negotiations or the city go up in flames.

Suspicions fly thick and fast and Irene soon finds herself in the seedy depths of the Parisian underworld. She’s on the trail of a notoriously warlike Fae, the Blood Countess. However, the evidence against the Countess is circumstantial. Could the killer be a member of the Library itself?"

This week's 52 Books theme fits right in with my 10 x 10 Get thee to a Nunnery category and I have a number of books on my shelves to choose from. 

Next up, Kathleen Norris's The Cloister Walk

BW14: Sunday's Book Babble - Fictional librarian of the month is Irene Winters


 It's week 14 in our 52 Books Quest and this month's fictional librarian is Irene Winters from Genevieve Cogman's Invisible Library series. 

I'm in a flufferton state of mind and thoroughly enamored with Julia Quinn's  Bridgertons.  I currently on #6 When He Was Wicked

I haven't been able to get into my space opera Ancestral Night so will set it aside until I'm, Ahem, in a sci fi state of mind.  * Grin * 

The poor Count is also idle but I hope to get back to him soon.   Meanwhile he has the Abbe to keep him company.  

I have The Plot Hole, # 4 in the Invisible Library series waiting in the wings and #5 Mortal Word on my shelves as well.  Irene is a wonderful character and enjoyed the first three books.