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Showing posts from February, 2018

Magic and Macaroons: A Magical Bakery Mystery by Bailey Cates

               I went into Magic and Macaroons a little bit hesitantly, I’ll be honest.   After Declan’s behavior in the last book , I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from him in this one.   Katie deserves to be with someone who wants her for who she is, not someone who will scoff at her for it.   Unfortunately, Declan has turned into the scoffing type.                 It was pretty much like any other spellbook club meeting for Katie Lightfoot and her fellow coven members.   Then a woman looking for Katie banged on the door.   When she was let into the bakery, the woman collapsed onto the floor before anyone could learn who she was or what she wanted.   Of course, these were secondary concerns to that of getting the woman some help.   Once they did, though, then Katie and the coven went about figuring out who the woman was and...

The Devil in Music: A Novel by Kate Ross

               Here is the final Julian Kestrel novel.   There is a short story which I don’t think I have read, but I will try to find.   Whether I find the short story or not, it is sad to see Julian’s story come to an end.                                Julian Kestrel is traveling across Europe with his dear friend Dr. MacGregor.   While traveling, he comes across the story of Lodovico Malvezzi, a Marchese who was murdered years ago in Italy, and becomes determined to solve the case.   Dr. MacGregor does not think Julian’s investigation is such a great idea.   Julian’s valet, Dipper, doesn’t think it is either.   Julian, however, dismisses their concerns and decides to go to Italy, whether anyone likes it or not.        ...

My Love, Don’t Cross That River

              This documentary film is such a sad, sweet love story.   In so many ways it’s absolutely heartbreaking, but it is not a film to miss.   If anything, you must see this film to see that great loves truly do exist.                 Jo Byeong-man and Kang Kye-yeol are a South Korean couple who have been married for over seventy-five years.   They live alone in a somewhat rural area, and are madly in love.   Arranged in marriage when Kye-yeol was only fourteen and Byeong-man was about nineteen, this couple has lived the ups and downs of life side by side.   Six of their twelve children died at a young age, and they worked hard to have the possessions they have now.                 Even though they are in their nineties, this couple still acts like a young cou...

Last Christmas in Paris: A Novel of World War I by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb

              I told myself I would stop reading at 7:00.   Then it was 8:00.   Finally, I stopped reading about 8:17.   A few hours later I picked Last Christmas in Paris up again and read until the end.   Nothing else I had to do mattered.   I was going to read, and finish, this book.                 Structured in mostly letters and telegrams, Last Christmas in Paris is a great love story.   It is also a reminder as to how intimate letter writing can be.   Evie Elliott and Thomas Harding certainly found that out as they wrote to each other during the first World War.   As Thomas was the best friend of Evie’s older brother, Will, Thomas and Evie had known each other practically their entire lives.   They just did not see each other as anything other than friends.   Then Thomas and Will go off to war and the letters s...

Still I Rise: The Persistence of Phenomenal Women by Marlene Wagman-Gellar

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Image obtained from mango.bz.             I was sent Still I Rise by its publishing house, Mango Publishing, with zero promise of a review on my part.   My plan was to read the book and then decide whether or not to write a review, as I do with all the other things I have written about.   What I found as I was reading, was a book that I truly believe others need to experience for themselves.   It is full of stories about women that should be learned about and remembered.   While I found all of these women’s stories interesting, there was one that stuck in my mind in particular.                 The main focus of this book is stories of women who struggled through hard times yet managed to succeed anyways.   As I had already read Behind Every Great Man , another of Ms. Wagman-Gellar’s books, I found at least one woman I had already read about.   Others included in th...