Tag Archive: i-want-to-read-again



Go Tell the Bees That I Am GoneGo Tell the Bees That I Am Gone by Diana Gabaldon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As much as I love all the Outlanders, this may be my favorite. The sad part is that the next book isn’t ready to read. So now I am floundering with Diana Gabaldon’s novellas. And Davina Porter makes Ms. Gabaldon’s writing shine!

Don’t let it scare you; think honey, not stingers. Bees do play a part in telling this story. My takeaway is to always talk to the bees; they want to know.

As with the rest of the series, this book is educational about the American Revolution. It is inspirational as I long to read and research our history to know more than I learned in school. It proves my point that the student will feel curious if you throw in a bit of magic.

Ah, but, Diana, why did you have to leave this on a cliff? Especially knowing that it would be ages until your perfected sequel (as opposed to the Game of Thrones hurried ending by someone else.) But it wasn’t a high cliff, so I’ll tolerate it knowing our heroes will be safe somehow and once again save the day.

I love, love, love all the lessons the Frasiers and friends have to teach us and can’t wait for more.
If you get the chance, please listen to these books in audio form as Davina Porter brings the story to life.

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The Royal Cleaner: Books 1-3The Royal Cleaner: Books 1-3 by L.C. Mawson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Well, this was fun. And different. It is because of the differences that I give it 5 instead of 4 stars.

This was an ARC that I begged to get to review. It didn’t let me down. I don’t know the author so I have nothing forcing the high rating. I liked it. A lot. In fact, I want to read it again. When you read using mostly text-to-speech it is easy to get lost. Luckily, the book was so well written that I wasn’t lost for long. Still, it wasn’t repetitive. Never boring.

There is a lot of magic. Some I wish I knew, including a dream visit situation I don’t want to ruin with spoilers. As if witch and demon relationship isn’t hard enough they are lesbian. Oh, wait, reverse that.

The romance isn’t overdone or overly codependent. What a relief! And though the main characters were fantasy beings their problems seemed human and real.

I loved Coraline but Mina and her daughter grabbed my heart.

Oh, for those that see the title and think it is about house-cleaning. Think Scandal from ABC Thursday line-up. Only not Washington D.C. The kingdom of magic. Kerry Washington would have fainted at the stuff these ladies had to deal with.

If you get the chance read this three in one book. I love reading all straight in a row like that.

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Reiki: Reiki For Beginners, A Complete Guide To The Holistic Healing Modality Usui Reiki Level 2, Reiki: Reiki For Beginners, A Complete Guide To The Holistic Healing Modality Usui Reiki Level 2, “FREE GIFT INCLUDED” Heal Yourself And Increase Your Energy With Reiki.Manual level 2 by Djamel Boucly
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I’ve read a few books on Reiki. Most of them have nuggets of beauty and health. I loved this one. There is something for everyone, Reiki attuned or just curious. There are enough references to learn a lot about metaphysical healing. There are healing avenues addressed in this book, including sound, color, and chakra healings. And it was free when I picked it up.

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The Writer's Digest Sourcebook for Building Believable Characterwriter's Digest Sourcebook for Building Believable Characters SThe Writer’s Digest Sourcebook for Building Believable Characterwriter’s Digest Sourcebook for Building Believable Characters S by Marc McCutcheon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is my go-to book for NaNoWriMo. It is great to set up characters for your book. I don’t know how others do it. I have a program called WriteItNow that is good for generating names. Other people use that program for everything. But I write in yWriter. After I have my names, I go to this book. I have tabs set up for different characteristics and I use a number generator on my phone to give me the characteristic according to the list of each page. I try not to cheat. If the character is very flawed it is easier to write them. Between the name and the characteristics, a story seems to emerge.

The beginning of this book has a character development questionnaire. I have found this handy, also. This is the best book to get me started writing and helps me keep writing unless my characters are stuck behind boulders and not moving. Then I need bigger help. Probably a sprint/prompt=sprompt will get my characters out. Or I’ll pull a George R.R. Martin on them.

If you get the chance to buy this book, you will be buying a treasure!

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A Closed and Common Orbit (Wayfarers, #2)A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I recently read the third book in this series and decided to reread the whole series again. I stand with what I wrote below. I was lucky to find the book on Libby as an audiobook. I have since bought the Audible version as I may have to read this another 100 times. I love Becky Chambers’ writing and these stories SO much!!!! Now I’m ready to read #3 again. I’m a happy camper!

***

Can I give this book 20 stars? This is MY kind of sci-fi! No wars and shooting and one-up-manship. We get to know another social order, the good and bad of it. We watch someone growing up within and without that order. We get to know other beings. We get to travel in space. There just happens to be males and females. In this case, a female lead but it could as easily have been a male. Good choice to have a female to have the adventure. YAY! Male in the story, not necessarily a romantic counter point. A friend. Believe it or not!!!!

Though this is book two in the series it could stand alone. But if you get the chance to read the first book, do so. It was fun, too! You can find my review of the first book in GoodReads under The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet.

What I think I liked best about this book is how the author took us into a young girl’s thoughts without making us feel childish or talking down to us. And how well she matured said girl through the years helping the reader feel that maturity and sense of growth. How a sense of time alone doesn’t become boring as it might if we lived it, but a chance to learn and explore ideas and abilities.

Oh, and one of my favorite reasons for reading sci-fi is to learn new philosophies or enjoy those we might have left behind for a revisit now. I think Becky Chambers may be my new favorite sci-fi author!

This book is now on my gotta buy the Kindle and Audible versions so I can reread it soon!

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My Melancholic DiaryMy Melancholic Diary by Iva Kenaz

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I want to thank my GoodReads friend, A.S. Johnson for recommending this treasure to me. She was right, I did love it!

Once I got the recommendation I found that I could get it through Kindle Unlimited so I set about getting it right away. I already had tons of books ahead of it on my ‘currently reading shelf’, but I got around to it finally. So glad I did!

Where was this book when I was growing up? Oh, yeah, the author probably wasn’t born yet. What a great way to learn how fanciful a diary could be! When I was a young teen I had one of those diaries that had a little lock on it. Why I needed a lock always made me laugh. I rarely wrote anything in it beyond “I breathed in and out today.”

That a person in grade school chose to stay the last year of grade school with her eccentric father in the countryside near Prague in the Czech Republic so that she and he could iron out their differences, shows the maturity of the main character, Lisa, who is 14 nearly 15. But the book is full of mature themes but not in a preachy way. I think there is so much depth in this book that anyone of any age would find something to glean from it.

Lisa, the diary writer, the main character, of course, has a romantic heart and the adolescent inadequate self-esteem. Not too different from most people her age, but when you are that age, you don’t realize that. In fact, I wonder how many people outgrow that?

So seeing Lisa’s musings of her life and loves didn’t feel far from most people I know. Except for the fictional character that becomes alive for her. At first, that is shocking in such a mature girl, but as you watch the rest of her life you see that this ghost from another book guides her as much as she guides him. It is the one relationship that is working for her. What a grand idea! We should all have our own fictional hero/heroine who can speak to us while we write out the character’s destiny. Oh, yeah, we who write do just that! That is if we are writing daily. Gulp. We should be writing daily. Note to self…

Anyway, I highly recommend this book to everyone. I think even males will like it.

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Tell Me WhyTell Me Why by Trista Hendren

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Another amazing gem! This one was dedicated to the author’s son and the male community at large. Still there was a lot of wisdom to be inhaled by all.

Once again, this was one I couldn’t afford right now but when I saw I could get it through Kindle Unlimited, I just grabbed it up and gobbled it down. The illustrations by Elisabeth Slettnes were breathtaking. The quotes by wise ones worth rereading over and over. That’s why I must buy this one once I get paid. Not only do I want the whole series on my Kindle, I want the tree copies to highlight and meditate over.

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Review: Mars Rising


Mars Rising
Mars Rising by Cidney Swanson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I am SO SAD! This is the end of the series. I could live in this series forever. I want to be Jess, or Harpreet. They are my favorite characters. Both are pilots who fly between Earth and Mars and globally on either. Oh, include the moon in that for Jess.

REAL science fiction. Real research involved in the science. These things are all possible and hopefully the space travel will be something we do.

Mars as a colony is grand! Its a believable world peopled according to what is possible in the beginnings of populating another planet.

Creepy things have taken over the political system of Earth. Such a marvelous planet to an outsider. Rain, oceans, breathable air. But recycling bodies? ‘Rebodying’. Ew. Although some of the science might be worth looking into for incurable diseases.

I know. You are looking at what I am saying and wondering what in the world I am talking about. Sorry. I should stick with reviewing. I try so hard not to make spoilers that I find relaying what the book is about nearly impossible. Meanwhile, these are the books I would have died to have to read when I was a kid. Still they hold up for me at 64. Though a little heavy in males, I find that the author has included all ages and sexes which is refreshing. And they learn from each other.

Okay, there is a bit of romance, but Jess isn’t all googly she holds on to herself and the couple completes each other intellectually and emotionally. That, too, is refreshing.

Cidney Swanson, also took a chance an included a sibling that has a disability. Jess’s brother, Ethan, seems to be a bit of a savant or has autism or Asberger’s Syndrome. She never labels his differences as such, just describes him with his assets and problems in ways that he is just human like all of us. Ms. Swanson is amazing in how she portrays this character.

In fact, the writing of these books is fantastic. I think I found an editing oops, but it was so minor that I can’t remember it at all. THAT’s how an author writes!

The series ended very well. I was glad to stick it out to the end. I didn’t have that incomplete feeling I often feel at the ends of books. Even still, I feel I will have to reread them all again and again! I recommend everyone who is a sci-fi buff to read them all. By the way, The first book, Saving Mars, is free right now. But for once I don’t feel bad about spending the money on the rest of the series. I think Ms. Swanson’s promotions of her books are very well done. Please, find these and enjoy them like I did–do.

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Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Libraries, bookstores and friends (family) the true gold of this world. At least for me. Family fits in there, too, but to me, they are friends with common DNA. Just like books in the bookstore or library, a friend/family member is there to lend their uniqueness to your life. Gold.

I borrowed this book from the library. I was lucky that they had it in Kindle form and that text-to-speech was enabled. I think I will have to buy this book in Kindle form and see if there is an Audible version. That would make the book even more golden.

Thank you, my good friends, for recommending this book so highly. Though it fits none of my criteria for my reading goals of ‘books by women with strong female protagonist’, it still has a couple women that are smart and goal oriented. Still, it wouldn’t pass the Bechdel Test http://bechdeltest.com/.

Look, for many of you the title will dissuade you from reading the book. It, frankly, sounds dreary! But as I was telling my husband, it feels as intriguing as Da Vinci Code (sorry, I never read that one–not my kind of book). There are codes to solve and mysteries to unravel all against the background of San Francisco and New York. For me, the best part is that there is no blood and guts to worry about. Yet the story keeps you engaged, wondering what is going to happen next.

I would like to read it again. I look forward to the second book.

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Review: Unbreakable


Unbreakable
Unbreakable by Joann Lee
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Is there anything that befalls womankind that doesn’t appear in this series? Whew! Don’t get me wrong, as much as is covered in these books, these are not thrillers. Suspense is there, but you have a confidence that it will work out. Love seems to pull the characters and reader through it all.

This second book is even better than the first, if that’s possible. The characters are wonderful. I love them all. Well, that is, except the bad ones and even they are believable. This book had more the stresses of life as a rock-star and cop couple who happen to be lesbian. In this book we see the stresses of married life, fertility treatments, adoptions and so much more.

Erotica peppers the two books, but I feel it is fun and a natural part of being a couple. Spice of life, you know?

My favorite parts of the books, aside from the above fun, was the child, Calista. I fell in love with her in the last book, starting with sandcastles and that love continues into this one.

Although I have watched the reality show with Guiliana and Bill and the troubles they had with IVF treatments, I think climbing into the minds of Lynn and Alexis gave me a better appreciation of what women, couples, go through to get and stay pregnant.

That was on top of the bigoted treatment the couple had sustained in their individual lifetimes. When others can’t find it in themselves to love you in spite of the fact that you don’t fit their idea of what is normal and acceptable, yet all you want is love.

Gosh, I miss Lynn and Alexis! Though the author didn’t leave us on a cliffhanger, there were enough threads to let us know we were not finished. I can hardly wait to read book three!

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