Archive for March, 2025



Maisie Dobbs (Maisie Dobbs, #1)Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

My friend Kay recommended this series. She’s right. These are fun and engaging.

This first installment came from Libby and was in Kindle form. That meant that I could listen to it with text-to-speech. Since I have my Fire set to a British female voice (think Mary Poppins), it fits quite nicely with this story.

War is a horrid thing. This particular war in England and Europe was one of the worst. Yet, for women, it became a way to escape the housewife, childbearer, whore classification most women were forced into. With the men fighting, the jobs were open for women to learn and show their abilities. Sadly, when the men came home, most of the women lost that step up to being wholly human.

Some women did find careers to move on. Maisie Dobbs is one of the ones it worked for.

This first book lays the groundwork for Maisie’s history and sets up the world she’s in. She’s a woman of spirit that can solve mysteries and make friends with all classes of people.

I have already started book two. I am in for the ride!

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One-Liner Wednesday


Thank you, Linda, for One-Liner Wednesday!

“A happy heart is better than a full purse.” An Italian proverb found by my friend, dragonscrivener on Dragon Scrawls in a Farmers Almanac planner.


Elven Doom (Death Before Dragons, #4)Elven Doom by Lindsay Buroker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was another fun addition to the Death Before Dragons series.

Who doesn’t love a dragon that can transform into a handsome man who is out to save your life while you try to save his?

But in this book, our monster-slayer moves on to another mission even though her dragon-man isn’t around to help.

This book might be the most exciting and scary of this series.

I want to listen to these books on audiobooks because I got lost with the text-to-speech. And I often felt such irritation about how the word ‘finger’ is pronounced ‘fin jer’ or how one of the support characters, whose name is Nin, was repeatedly called Nine Inch Nails. That takes me right out of the story. So before I find the next books in the series, I will try to see if I can find the audiobooks.

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Something Lost, Something Gained: Reflections on Life, Love, and LibertySomething Lost, Something Gained: Reflections on Life, Love, and Liberty by Hillary Rodham Clinton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’m glad I got to read/listen to this as a Libby audiobook. Libby makes sure those of us with meager salaries can still afford to read currently popular books. Unless there is a hold. I didn’t know this had a timeline. Sadly, many like me will read it after the fact. Not that it would have changed my mind. And I doubt those who think differently than me would have changed their minds. Tribes seem set with their own.

I rarely give five stars to autobiographies. Mainly because it feels like I am being judgmental about the author’s life. It was what they lived and what they remembered; what was important in the moment.

What I liked about this book was it felt like we were having a conversation and she was relating her thoughts. And as with anyone you might have a cup of coffee or tea, you feel close. There are times you laugh. And there are times that are deep and honest. And the strong emotions that can crop up. Forgiveable with anyone.

If you have the curiosity, you may enjoy, even if you don’t politically agree, her work with women, here and abroad. Give her and her chat a chance.

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The Dragon Blood Collection, Books 1-3The Dragon Blood Collection, Books 1-3 by Lindsay Buroker
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

My last few nights I read this three-book collection from Kindle Unlimited. It was a nice bedtime book. But, honestly, I didn’t even remember reading (listening to text-to-speech) the book. There were fun times while getting to know dragons who could become human-shaped. And there was a person who reminded me of the supplier of spy gadgets (M?) in the 007 movies. But once I was finished I nearly forgot I read it. Until I found I had ordered the next in the series. Which I will read soon before I forget the rest of what I read.

There was nothing wrong with the books. I think others might enjoy them a lot. Hey, here’s the blurb from GoodReads, to help you decide.

“A thousand years have passed since a dragon has been seen in the world. Science and technology have replaced magic, which has dwindled until it has become little more than an element of myth and legend. There are those who still have dragon blood flowing through their veins, distant descendants of the mighty creatures of old. These rare humans have the power to cast magic, the power to heal, and the power to craft alchemical weapons capable of starting wars… or ending them. But they are feared for those powers, and in recent centuries, they have been hunted nearly to extinction. The few remaining survivors must find a way to change how humanity perceives them or be lost to the world forever. The Dragon Blood Collection includes three full-length novels of action, magic, and Balanced on the Blade’s Edge Deathmaker Blood Charged.”

Give them a try!

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Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “open book, close eyes, point, write.” When you’re ready to sit down and write your SoCS post, open the closest printed matter, close your eyes, point to a word, and use it as your prompt. Use it any way you’d like. Have fun!

So I have a couple books teaching Japanese on one side and my ‘How to Play Piano Despite Years of Lessons,’ on the other side. Thinking about the possibility between Hiragana or Kanji characters or some incredibly boring music theory term, what else could I use?

I immediately looked down at my cell and closed my eyes and pointed. But my fat finger seemed to straddle two lines of Linda’s prompt page. The top word was ‘incredibly’ and the word below was ‘else.’

But my thoughts took me to the incredible difficulties of learning the pentatonic scale in the penultimate measure of Going Home with the added timing complication of duplets versus triplets. What else can I do but grumble and practice some more.

And the YouTube lesson trying to teach me:

What else can you do? It seems simple but it is incredibly hard for me. Time for a nice cup of tea.


Here are some of the projects I’ve been working on this week.

I’m nearly finished with Smiling Turtle, my friend named him Crush.
Oops. The needle is pointing to some weird stitches, so I frogged these toes and started again.
I’m caught back up to where I left off.
I had enough watermelon yarn to make another pair. This yarn is easier to work with than those above.
There was leftover yarn from my brother’s socks to try another pair.
Here are a few of the songs I’m enjoying lately.

They are Beau Soir, God Bless The Child, Going Home, Over the Rainbow, Ave Maria, and Just the Way You Are.

Beau Soir is a leftover from my voice lessons with Alis Clausen in the 1990s. And because it showed up now while I’m playing with the Duolingo French language, I decided to start doing my vocal warmups and challenge myself to learn to play and sing the song. A few others I’m playing are fun to sing, too.

Check out how Beau Soir is supposed to sound. You can see why I love it.


My Grape Wedding (The Grape Series, #5)My Grape Wedding by Laura Bradbury
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I love this autobiographical series! I read them on Kindle on my old phone. These are the only books I actually read with my eyes: no text-to-speech or audiobook. My tracking issues take a long time. But I love the French phrases scattered throughout. With the little bit of French, I do on Duolingo, these are easy enough, and I mostly don’t need help. But Kindle has the feature to show translation if needed or a dictionary lookup for words I might not get, such as food or other things that are foreign to me.

I feel I am traveling as I read these, and I love Laura Bradbury’s family, friends, and her sweet husband.

Look, I know it is a book about a wedding, and the series seems to surround the romance of Laura and Franck, but these are more the growing process and educational adventures of Ms. Bradbury. As I mentioned, it seems more travel and food than the yucky, sweet, snuggling stuff that can get annoying in other books.

I look forward to reading more of this series. Sorry, it takes so long.

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One-Liner Wednesday plus


One-Liner Wednesday is a fun prompt from Linda G. Hill.

Well, sometimes finding a one-liner is harder than writing a book. So my ‘phone-a-friend’ came through on Zoom.

“Coincidence is a messenger sent by truth.” Jacqueline Winspear

(supplied by dragonscrivener on Dragon Scrawls sorry no URL yet)

By the way 1: I have Jacqueline Winspear books on hold on Libby.

By the way 2:

Yep, just when you think it’s Spring, sideways snow.

Claiming OneClaiming One by E.J. Runyon
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was at the bottom of my forever-held ‘currently reading’ shelf. I decided to get to the first books and try to catch up.

I have to admit to being lost. I don’t like short stories. If you read my reviews, they are usually centered around some long, never-ending series. So, bits and pieces of different lives were tough for me.

Don’t get me wrong, the writing was great. E.J. Runyon is great at telling a story. But I felt I was dropped into a moment and then jerked out.

So, here’s the deal: Try for yourself. You may love this kind of collection of stories. It’s just not for me right now.

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