It looks like my friend Ralph recommended this to me in 2013. Sorry for taking so long, but I will finish it today, as I am in the last chapter. Yay!
This was probably one of the most yawn-worthy books I have read in a long time, yet it didn’t help me go to sleep. I kept hoping the story would get more exciting, but it didn’t.
Still, it could just be me. Check out the blurbs and comments. Many were quite positive. Well, at least I gave it a chance. It wasn’t horrid.
Welcome! Linda’s here with our twenty-first prompt for Just Jot It January 2025. Our prompt today is courtesy of the lovely J-Dub. Thank you, J-Dub! Please visit J-Dub’s blog to read her posts and say hello. And follow her while you’re there if you’re not already. Your prompt for JusJoJan January 21st, 2025, is “content.” Use it any way you’d like. Enjoy!
While a lot is going on in the world right now, I am just content reading books and watching Jack Black movies (Gulliver’s Travel and The Big Year) and then Friends. My health is worth the energy it takes to stay light. It is the wrong time of year to let things get to you. Winter, dark days. Colder than most, with a lack of snow here. Snow at least makes everything look clean and is rarely as cold as the no-snow days.
When I tried to listen to the text-to-speech of the Kindle version the other day, it didn’t work. I decided to try again last night, and it worked out quite nicely.
I felt a little lost at first as the easter religions and the Dalai Lama are less known to me than the Judeo-Christian Western religions. However, author John Lundin quickly helped us see how familiar those seemingly foreign concepts are. I found myself quite interested.
This book will need multiple reads. This is the first one to get acquainted and see our common interests. But next, I want to go through and practice some of the meditation and kindnesses Mr. Lundin teaches us to use.
I highly recommend this book for seekers and for those who love comparative religions.
“Hi there! I’m back with our nineteenth prompt for Just Jot it January 2025. Today, our prompt comes to us from the wonderful Willow. Thank you, Willow! Please be sure to visit Willow’s blog to read her posts and say hello. And follow her while you’re there if you’re not already.
Why do I write reviews? It started out in the same way as blogging. I needed a place to keep track. What have I read? Sure, I can go to GoodReads to see if I have read a book, but since I try to record bits of my life here, I can see how that book choice or emotions of the day reflect each other. What I read can affect my life. And my life can carry into my thoughts as I read.
Why did I read this particular book? The author gave me the book long ago when I lived in Reno. He live(d) in Lake Tahoe at the time. I promised a review, so I put it on my ‘Currently Reading’ shelf on GoodReads. That was to prompt me to read it soon.
That shelf has overgrown. When a library or Libby book comes up, it goes to the top of the list over those I own. Suddenly, I have 85 books I am supposedly currently reading. Ha! So my new plan is to pull from the bottom of the list (first books added) and then back to the top, the latest added. My plan is to eventually meet in the middle. Does anyone want to take bets on how long that’s going to take?
I was surprised at how much I appreciated this particular book. It seemed to start rather boring. But soon I found that there were answers here I’d been asking, even though I didn’t know I was asking those questions.
Why. The word my kids learned nearly as soon as they could talk. It is an amazing work that mostly keeps me wondering. How often did I hear my babies ask, “Why is the sky blue?” Or just “Why” to nearly anything. I feel we should stay in that frame of mind. Stay young and keep wondering, WHY?
I love this series. It is the only one I truly read. (I usually need audiobooks due to tracking and dyslexia issues). I keep it on my phone on my Kindle and just read it when I have a few quiet moments alone. Laura Bradbury writes in such a way that I never feel lost, even when I have to neglect the read for a while.
The other fun thing about the books is the use of French words or phrases, just occasionally, nothing overwhelming. But it is a great chance to practice my elementary concepts of that language. And don’t worry; it is all contextual and she adds the translation if needed.
The best part is how well you get to know Laura and her boyfriend, Franck, their friends and family. As life continues, you see them grow and learn.
In this episode, Laura needs to take a year of college in Paris to study her educational major. So you learn about her love of ancient French writings. Meanwhile, she and Franck get to visit all the wonders of Paris. I feel I am traveling with them. And Laura learns to stand up for herself and figure out how to do that while in a relationship.
I highly recommend this series. It isn’t too horribly mushy. In fact, I found a few things at 75 that Laura learned when she was still in her 20s.
If you wish you could travel to France, this series, this book is for you.
Where did I hear about this book? I have no idea. But it was a welcome change. I only found the Kindle version at first. And reading this with Text-to-Speech on my older Fire worked out quite well until my Fire died. Then, I was in a tailspin to figure out how to read it. I learned that you can set up TTS on your cell phone. I set it up, but the British TTS’s voice on the phone was horrid. I didn’t know how close to the end, but I wanted to read this while I still remembered what happened. I picked up the Audible version. I did enjoy the voices of the main characters. But sadly, I finished the book within half an hour.
However I read it, I did love this story. It’s a little different than other space travel science fiction books. I don’t like a cliff-hanger. This wasn’t quite that. But I felt the book ended too early. Now, I have to wait for the second and third parts to be published. Maybe I’ll wait for the third one and reread them all.
Maybe, like me, you need the diversion. Try this sci-fi. You might like it, too.
“A senior FBI agent being shot in the precinct’s parking lot is only the first shock in Lieutenant Jane Sparks’s day. The second is Senior Agent Fran Morris is a mirror image of Sparks, an identical twin. After an awkward and confrontational meeting at the hospital while Agent Morris is in recovery, they decide to put their brilliant minds together to not only determine who shot Agent Morris and why but also how they were separated at birth.
How Could It Be? is a fast-paced mystery crime novel filled with lies, deception, and intrigue, and how it all affects a budding relationship between long-lost sisters.”
What better way to explain the story than the blurb from Amazon? I met the author briefly a decade ago, but I see her in the church meetings I Zoom. She doesn’t know me, but I am still proud of her for writing a series!
For a first book, I think this has a lot of promise. The author’s career experience verifies the world the main characters inhabit.
This is a short book—I read it in one sitting—but it was full of promise and intrigue. I can’t wait to read Xiomara Rodriguez’s other books.
First of all, I never learned what the river knows. Second, I didn’t like any of the characters. It’s supposed to be a Young Adult, and I am three or four times the age of the prescribed reader. Still, I usually like YA books, so…
It is supposed to be about magick and fantasy, but it is not consistent or completely helpful. The history is enough that it might bring a young person to Google Cleopatra, Egypt, or Argentina. There is a smattering of very elementary Spanish, making a language student feel smart. But honestly, I felt I wasted time getting to an unsatisfying cliff. It didn’t make me want to continue.
Okay, it could be me. OR it could be that I listened to Text-to-Speech, and I could have used a live narrator who could read all the languages presented.
I hope others will read it and like it. It seems promising, but I don’t plan to read the next part of the series. Still, I’m grateful to Libby for the borrow of the Kindle version.
Time travel is interesting. Yeah, but here we have one more reason for war. The espionage is too much. I can’t handle more reasons to feel paranoid. I read to escape the heavy stuff or to study writing. But this didn’t do either job for me.
Cynthia Farrell’s (the Narrator) voice was good for the story, but sadly, I didn’t feel she saved it.
A friend recommended this to me. Time travel piqued my interest. Here, take a look at the blurb:
Goodreads Choice AwardNominee for Best Science Fiction (2019)
Two time-traveling agents from warring futures, working their way through the past, begin to exchange letters—and fall in love in this thrilling and romantic book from award-winning authors Amal-El Mohtar and Max Gladstone.
Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandant finds a letter. It reads: Burn before reading.
Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, grows into something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future.
Except the discovery of their bond would mean death for each of them. There’s still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win that war. That’s how war works. Right?
Cowritten by two beloved and award-winning sci-fi writers, This Is How You Lose the Time War is an epic love story spanning time and space.
Maybe it was the COVID brain. Maybe I’ll try it again someday. Maybe you will love it. It just didn’t do it for me.
After starting to read this in Kindle with text-to-speech from Libby, I decided to listen to the Audible version. I prefer the narrator, Alexandra Harris, to the TTS. It was a good read.
It has been a week or so since I finished the read. A little case of COVID got in the way of reviewing reads. Still, I do remember this fondly and look forward to more in the series as I can buy them. In the case of fantasy beings this was a different take. It was fun!
Well, this was fun. As a post-menopausal woman, before pre-menopausal was made popular by Oprah, I remembered my mother in her 60s talking about still getting hot flashes. My friend and I celebrated each other’s accomplishments in womanhood and crone with a talk about power surges. So it was nice years later to see our superpowers claimed and made real as all superhero actions work.
Still, it is nice that our younger sisters are finally getting the strength we were not awarded.
Again, the comic book was fun. But I have a huge problem. I hate cliffhangers! Obviously, this is to be a series. I may or may not fall for the next one.
This was brilliantly written. I loved the many tools that Emilia Hart used to tell this story. History, podcasts, journals, and dreams. My Kindle text-to-speech was perfect for this read.
This isn’t your average Young Adult fantasy mermaid story. This one has meat and history, and mysteries on different levels are presented throughout the book.
I was so grateful to get to read this through NetGalley. If you get the chance, it is well worth the time and money to buy and savor.
Working on my series: Haven.
Doodler (zendoodle.com)
Music major: voice and piano
Mom of four great adults
Reiki II practitioner
I have been on disability/retired for 10 years now from depression, anxiety and fibromyalgia.
Hi! my name is Sebastian (You can call me Seb!) ...welcome to my Blog. I'm a photographer from Worcester, Worcestershire, England. Thanks for dropping by! I hope you enjoy my work.
Books, games, music, and life — filtered through the mind of a writer, drummer, and philosopher who thinks too deeply about all of it. If it moves something in your chest, I'm interested.
Creatures of the Abyss by Murray Leinster
Darswords 
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