Sunday Bookends: Preparing winter reads, finishing book two in the series, and looking for cozy Christmas reads

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what the rest of the family and I have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.

This week I’m joining up with Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer and Kathyrn at The Book Date.


What I/we’ve been Reading

I finished Walls Crumbling by Alicia Gilliam last night. She’s a very good writer and I enjoyed this second book in her Seth Browne series. I’ll have a review up later this week or next, depending on how my week goes.

In the evening, right before bed, I am reading a chapter or two of Little Women. I have seen the movies so I know the story but I’m so glad I’m reading. I feel like I am getting to know the characters even more. I look forward to that time when I can snuggle down with. It’s such a nice escape, even though I know some sadness is coming.

The Husband suggested The Spectacular by Fiona Davis so I am trying that, but I will be moving into my winter reads this week too.

I have a collection of winter short stories by Agatha Christie I want to add to that list, as well as more cozy, Christmas reads. If you have any idea of any cozy Christmas reads please let me know in the comments.

Hopefully, anything I pick will be better than the book I picked up recently that I thought was a cozy mystery but dropped two f-bombs in the first two sentences so I immediately sent it back to Libby. I had high hopes for it based on the title and theme and it isn’t that I don’t read books with swearing but it was a little abrupt right out of the gate and I was in the mood for a more cozy feeling book so it grabbed be surprise – not in a good way.

Little Miss and I are still reading The Black Stallion at night. I might be enjoying it a bit more than her but she still likes it so far – or at least she isn’t complaining too much.

The Boy and I will be starting a fiction book soon but I haven’t decided which one I want him to read for English. We have a literature-based history course we are doing for school this year and they have a wide variety of books as part of it but some of them are just very tedious to read so I am picking and choosing something from the list that won’t leave us severely depressed.

What’s Been Occurring

Not much happened last week. It was mainly at-home stuff – washing dishes, homeschool lessons, and making corrections on my manuscript for Gladwynn Grant Takes Center Stage.

I did ramble about some stuff in my post yesterday if you want to check that out.

Today we went to my parents and I spent most of the day making corrections to the copy of the manuscript The Husband printed out so my mom could read the rest of the book and help find typos for me as well.

I will have a break this week from correcting the manuscript and I hope I can use that time to work more on Cassie, the book that comes out in August 2024 as part of a multi-author project.

What We watched/are Watching

Last week Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) and I watched Fisherman’s Friends for our Comfy, Cozy Cinema and wrote about it on our blogs. Yesterday I watched the sequel to the movie, Fisherman’s Friends: One and All and while I don’t usually like sequels to movies, this one was actually quite good, heartwarming and full of great music.

Erin and I are taking a break for a couple of weeks so I may write about it for a movie impression post later this week.

Here is a trailer for it for now.

I also watched an episode of Miss Scarlet and am planning to re-watch Rosemary and Thyme this week.

What I’m Writing

I am writing Cassie, as I mentioned, but will start more in earnest once I get finished with the corrections to Gladwynn’s book two.

I already have ideas for Gladwynn’s book three but I won’t start that one until I finish Cassie … probably anyhow.

This week on the blog I shared:

What I’m Listening To

This past week  I listened to a lot of those Jazz channels with the sound of rain behind them for background sound while I edited.

Now it’s your turn. What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.


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11 thoughts on “Sunday Bookends: Preparing winter reads, finishing book two in the series, and looking for cozy Christmas reads

  1. I don’t like even mild language when I read. I would have DNF’d the one with the F word as well. I’ll overlook it if it has some mild swearing, but the one you started reading sounded extreme. If you haven’t read A Christmas Candy Killing, by Christina Romeril, I recommend that one. It’s a clean Christmas-themed cozy mystery. I’ll be reading the second one, A Nutcracker Nightmare soon. Also, the Murder, She Wrote book series has some Christmas cozies and they don’t need to be read in order. I only listened to one in the Murder, She Wrote series so far, Murder on Parade, but it was also clean and had a good mystery. It was a 4th of July theme and it had all the feels, so I’m guessing the Christmas ones will also have holiday feels. I’ll be interested in knowing which ones you choose. Have a great week! 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    • Thank you for those ideas! I am going to go look them up now and I’ll keep you updated on which one I choose to start with.

      I’ve been hearing more about that Murder She Wrote series. I’m very interested in it.

      Have a great Friday and a great weekend! Thank you again for the tips.

      Liked by 1 person

    • That’s the thing – it isn’t that I’ve never read a book with swear words or that word but when it’s excessive and serves little purpose, I don’t get it. This book hadn’t even started. I didn’t know anything about the characters but I guess that was a sign about what kind of characters they were going to be and I wasn’t in the mood for that type of book.

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  2. I seem to remember reading The Black Stallion as a kid. I was never one who was too much into horses but I did enjoy it. I seem to be reading a lot of cozy mysteries lately but haven’t any suggestions for winter themed ones. Come see my week here. Happy reading!

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  3. If you are looking for a good cozy Christmas book, I highly recommend the Mrs. Claus Mysteries, starting with Mrs. Claus and the Santaland Slayings. They are a little different and work in fantasy since we are talking about the real Mrs. Claus living at the North Pole here, but I find them very delightful.

    And there are all the Christmas entries in Donna Andrews’s long running Meg Langslow series.

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  4. I finished one of my scrapghans and am trying to get another finished soon. I think I finished two books this week, too. I just started another by Taylor Jenkins Reid (or maybe it’s the other way round). It seems OK. We are watching All the Light We Cannot See. I read the book a while ago so I don’t know if it’s following the book closely or not. I completely forgot I had an article due for church so I got that in just in the nick of time! I’m just listening to the ringing in my head as my tinnitis seems worse lately.

    Have a wonderful week, Lisa!

    https://marshainthemiddle.com/

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