Tag: book review

Sunday Bookends March 29: Book buying ban officially broken (whoops!), Agatha Christie reads, and the need for something light in reading this week.

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends, Sunday Salon8 Comments

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.

I broke my book buying ban for March and April yesterday when The Husband, Little Miss, and I visited a used book sale at a local library.

Okay. Fine.

I actually broke it two weeks before when I purchased two books online at the beginning of March.

But I really broke it yesterday when I came  home with 11 books and The Husband came home with four more.

Actually, if I want to get technical, he purchased the books for me so maybe I didn’t really break my book-buying ban. Ahem.

Well, whatever, I have 11 new books and will probably also read at least two of the ones he picked  up.

Oh, I forgot he picked up a fifth book at an indie bookstore in the same town.

So we have a book addiction.

It could be worse. It could be drugs.

Here are the books we picked up yesterday:

Have you read any of them?

I plan to do my best to renew my commitment and not buy any books in April.

Wish me luck?

What I/We’ve Been Reading

Just Finished

I finished Crooked House by Agatha Christie Friday and oof. What an ending. I had figured out less than halfway through who the murderer was but was really hoping I was wrong.

I was not wrong. Sadly.

Even though I knew, I wanted to know how Agatha would get us to the solution and what the guilty party would have to say for themselves.

If you have not read this one, I would highly recommend it.

In Progress

I started Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis this past week, and have to admit I already feel a bit stupid. Clive is much smarter than me and your average, every day citizen.

Looking for a pallet cleanser after Crooked House, I turned to A Damsel in Distress by P.G. Wodehouse.

Up Soon

I am planning to start Heidi this week as a buddy read with Erin from Still, Life with Cracker Crumbs for the month of April.

While I’m reading Heidi, I’ll also be reading A Caribbean Mystery by Agatha Christie for the 2026 Reading Christie Challenge.

I hope to start Thrush Green by Miss Read after those two.

What The Family is Reading

Little Miss and I will finish The Singing Tree by Kate Seredy this week and plan to start Rascal by Stirling North.

What I/We’ve Been Watching

In an attempt to bond with our son, I watched the first episode of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Wednesday night. We were sitting in our car waiting for Little Miss who was attending a meeting of a kid’s church program. I thought I’d hate it because I knew it was connected to Game of Thrones, which I refuse to watch for many reasons. Still, he likes the show and I wanted to connect with him so I braced myself and dove in.

I was pleasantly surprised with the first episode. It wasn’t as bad as I feared. It was actually very good.

We had time when the first episode ended so I suggested we watch the second one. The Boy was surprised.

He may have been even more surprised when I suggested we watch episodes three, four, and five Thursday.

We still have episode six, the last episode of the season, to watch this week.

There is harsh language, some nudity, and violence (less than I expected of all) so I wouldn’t recommend it for everyone, but the story is really interesting and a lot lighter than GoT.

Looking for lighter fare after Crooked House and episode five of A Knight of The Seven Kingdoms, I watched a couple of episodes of Two’s Company, a British sitcom.

I also watched the Christmas special of All Creatures Great and Small and the 1942 movie, Her Cardboard Lover, with Norma Shearer and Robert Taylor earlier in the week.

This week I hope to watch a Bette Davis film to get ready for my Spring of Bette feature.

What I’ve Been Writing

Last week on the blog I shared:

I am also working on book four of my cozy mystery series. This week I restructured it and it is working so much better. I hope to release it in the fall.

Photos From Last Week

I

Some Housekeeping

Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) and I host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea.  This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!). Each link party will be open for a month. You can find that link up for this month here.

Each week, I host the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot with some great hosts. It goes live Thursday night but you can share any kind of blog posts (family-friendly) there until Tuesday of each week. You can check my recent posts on the sidebar to the right for the most recent link-party.

Now It’s Your Turn

What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing?

This post is linked up with The Sunday Post at  Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer,  Deb at with Deb at Readerbuzz, and Book Date: It’s Monday! What are you reading hosted by Kathyrn at The Book Date. Sunday Bookends with Boondock Ramblings and Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Reading Reality.

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

What I love about writing my books

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Books I've Written6 Comments

I don’t think I make it clear enough when I share about my books, how much fun I have writing them.

I share about how I am stuck on book four.

I share about not feeling good enough as a writer and a marketer.

I share about imposter syndrome and writer’s block.

But I keep forgetting to share how much I love my made up characters.

I love Gladwynn Grant, but I don’t even think I’ve scratched the surface of really getting to know who she is.

I love that Gladwynn and Lucinda (her grandmother) are a mix of my grandmothers.

I love the quirky characters that surround her.

I don’t love that I started a love triangle. That has stressed me out more than the mysteries and is one reason I dragged my feet on book four so long.

I’ll figure it out eventually.

The bottom line is that writing my cozy mysteries has brought me some stress but a lot more joy.

They are not best sellers and this is going to sound weird, but I totally love that too! I love having this little, lovely group of readers who like my characters and like to tell me that.

I need to pause more and share what I love about writing – instead of what stresses me out about it!

If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.

On Thursdays, I am part of the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot blog link party. You can find the latest one in the sidebar to the right under recent posts.

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

Book Recommendation: Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn book reviews5 Comments

I read Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie for the first time this month as part of Read Christie 2026 with the Official Agatha Christie site.

I’ve read plenty of Christie’s books already but have always steered clear of the “big ones” that everyone knows because I’ve usually seen the movies and know the stories. I have learned, though, that there can be changes in the movies and sometimes they aren’t always for the better.

One example was And Then There Were None. If you have not read that one, you really need to, even if you saw any of the movies. It was the first Christie I read and … whoa. I sat there at the end feeling horrified and in awe at the same time. What a twisted, but well-written story.

(An aside…anyone who doesn’t think Agatha disappeared for 11 days as a way to get back at Archie and buys the whole “temporary amnesia” story hasn’t read enough of Agatha’s books. The woman had a million ideas how to get back at someone and how to kill them.  If you don’t know what I am talking about – do a quick online search. It’s like the plot of one of her books but actually real life.)

For those who have never read this one, here is simple summary: a group of people end up stranded on the Orient Express (a train in Europe) during a blizzard when one of them is murdered. Too bad for the murderer, renowned detective Hercule Poirot has hopped on at the last minute and is working hard to solve the case while everyone waits for help to arrive.

What is so funny in the Poirot books is how Poirot always expects everyone to know who he is, and most people look at him in confusion when he introduces himself.

It’s always like, “Surely you must know me,” and then the other person looks confused and says, “No, I’m afraid not.”

Here are some actual quotes from the book that I enjoyed:

“Mon ami, if you wish to catch a rabbit you put a ferret into the hole and if the rabbit is there he runs. That’s all I have done.”

***

“When he passed me in the restaurant,” he said at last. “I had a curious impression. It was as though a wild animal — an animal savage, but savage, you understand — had passed me by.”

“And yet he looked altogether of the most respectable.”

“Precisement! The body — the cage — is everything of the most respectable — but through the bars, the wild animal looks out.”

***

“But I know human nature, my friend, and I tell you that, suddenly confronted with the possibility of being tried for murder, the most innocent person will lose his head and do the most absurd things.”

***

“You’ve a pretty good nerve,” said Ratchett. “Will twenty thousand dollars tempt you?”

It will not.”

If you’re holding out for more, you won’t get it. I know what a thing’s worth to me.”

I, also M. Ratchett.”

What’s wrong with my proposition?”

Poirot rose. “If you will forgive me for being personal – I do not like your face, M. Ratchett,” he said.”

***

“All around us are people, of all classes, of all nationalities, of all ages. For three days these people, these strangers to one another, are brought together. They sleep and eat under one roof, they cannot get away from each other. At the end of three days they part, they go their several ways, never, perhaps, to see each other again.”

***

I’ve already read my Christie for this month, but I’ve tossed Crooked House in the mix as an extra Christie read because my husband recommended it.

In April, I’ll be reading a Miss Marple — A Caribbean Mystery.

Have you read this one or any Christie books? If you have read her books, do you have a favorite?

If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.

On Thursdays, I am part of the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot blog link party. You can find the latest one in the sidebar to the right under recent posts.

I also post a link-up on Sundays for weekly updates about what you are reading, watching, doing, listening to, etc.

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

Sunday Bookends: Taking social media breaks, finally finished with Return of the King, O’Hara gets a DNF

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends, Sunday Salon29 Comments

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.

I mentioned in my Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot post on Thursday that I am pulling back from social media. This is something I’ve been trying to do for months because I know it will help  my mental health.

I stay on social media (Instagram) because I have fun sharing old movie clips or posts about books but it has started to really consume me and take away from more productive things I could be doing.

It is interesting that the same weekend I deleted Instagram from my phone (not forever but for a few days at least), YouTube suggested a video about scrolling less and experiencing life more.

If you are also trying to break the social media addiction (and I am happy for those of you who don’t have one!), here is a video with some ideas on what to do instead.

You can catch up on what I’ve been up to lately in yesterday’s Saturday Afternoon Chat.

What I/We’ve Been Reading

Just Finished

I finally finished Return of the King by Tolkien. I don’t want to talk about it. The last several chapters were like torture. The book just would not end. Still, I loved the trilogy overall, the friendships, the way the ring was destroyed which was not how people make it out to be, the good writing.

But I felt like the last five or six chapters were a slog.

I’m ready for lighter fare now.

I tossed the Maureen O’Hara book aside. I have thoughts on that one – oh do I. I plan to write a separate review because I got through enough of it that I can write one.

Maureen says in the beginning she waited 70-some years to get revenge on people and boy did she – I think she made up half of what she wrote just to do that.

And she also made sure she came out looking like quite the victim and yet also the savior through most of it.

 I’ll explain my issues with the book further in a future post, but rest assured, I wasn’t the only one who got the same impression.

In Progress

I am reading Crooked House by Agatha Christie and A Damsel in Distress by P.G. Wodehouse.

Up Soon

I will be reading Heidi in April. I also hope to read Thrush Green by Miss Read, Nancy Drew and The Mysterious Letter, and Murder, She Wrote: Aloha Betrayal.

What The Family is Reading

Litte Miss and I are almost done with The Singing Tree.

What I/We’ve Been Watching

Eternally Yours (a 1939 movie with David Niven and Loretta Young), The Mirror Cracked (awful movie from the 1970s based on an Agatha Christie book), and the British Sitcom Two’s Company.

What I’ve Been Writing

This week on the blog I shared:

What I/We’ve Been Listening To

Little Miss and I are listening to Gone Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright. I read this to her last year but we are enjoying listening to it again.

I have started listening to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain.

Recent Blog Posts I Enjoyed

Reading Through The Hardy Boys by Pages Unbound

Tea Time Kitchen Talk by The Farm Wife Reads

The Double Turn 1956 by Cross Examining Crime.

The Miracle Before Our Eyes by Grace Filled Moments

Some Housekeeping

Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) and I host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea.  This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!). Each link party will be open for a month. You can find that link up for this month here.

Each week, I host the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot with some great hosts. It goes live Thursday night but you can share any kind of blog posts (family-friendly) there until Tuesday of each week. You can check my recent posts on the sidebar to the right for the most recent link-party.

Now It’s Your Turn

What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing?

This post is linked up with The Sunday Post at  Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer,  Deb at with Deb at Readerbuzz, and Book Date: It’s Monday! What are you reading hosted by Kathyrn at The Book Date. Sunday Bookends with Boondock Ramblings and Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Reading Reality.

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

If you enjoy the kind of content on my blog and all that goes into it, you can support my writing for $2.99 a month or a single donation. Learn more here: https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/

Sunday Bookends: Three seasons in one week

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends, Sunday Salon20 Comments

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 past week we had three seasons in one week. Warm weather – spring – then sort of warm like Autumn and then Friday night it snowed.

Good grief. The weather is weird but that’s how Pennsylvania is this time of year. One March we had spring weather and were all excited and a few days later we were hit with two feet of snow.

This next week winter is going to try to hold on a bit longer.

My poor skin needs a reprieve. It is so dry and cracked I just want to cry some days.

I enjoyed reading on the front porch last weekend but this weekend there was no chance due to a windchill of 18 degrees.

The only thing I am not looking forward to in spring is pollen because my allergies have been worse the last few years and the allergy meds make me dizzy.

On the warmest day this week the kids were able to visit my parents’ pond and the creek behind it with Zooma The Wonder Dog.

They found three deer carcasses in the woods, which was quite odd and made me wonder if they had been hit by lightening or something similar because Little Miss said one of the deer had clearly been killed by a falling tree. All three of the deer were mainly skeletons. I’m not sure why I shared that, but it was an unusual part of the week. Little Miss was so disturbed she had to jump in the shower as soon as we got back to the house.

What I/We’ve Been Reading

Just Finished

In the last couple of weeks I finished The Tower Treasure by Franklin W. Dixon, Whispering Walls by Mildred Wirt Benson, The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery, and Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie.

In Progress

‘Tis Herself by Maureen O’Hara (not sure what I think about this one. Sometimes I think it is better not to know so much about actors’ personal lives.)

Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien, which I should finish this week because I only have about 150 pages left.

Up Soon

After I finish these two books, or as I finish them, I hope to start A Damsel in Distress by P.G. Wodehouse and Murder, She Wrote: Aloha Betrayed.

After that I am looking at whatever interests me.

What The Family is Reading

Little Miss and I are still reading The Singing Tree by Karen Seredy.

What I/We’ve Been Watching

Last week I watched the third Thin Man Movie (Another Thin Man), a movie with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. called It’s Tough To Be Famous, and Libeled with Myrna Loy, William Powell, Spencer Tracy, and Jean Harlow.


I didn’t watch much else because I read more last week than I watched things.

The week before I watched The Puzzle Lady and All Creatures Great and Small, Saving Grace (the 2010 movie), and The Crystal Ball (1943).

What I’ve Been Writing

Recent posts on the blog:

Photos From Last Week

Some Housekeeping

Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) and I host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea.  This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!). Each link party will be open for a month. You can find that link up for this month here.

Each week, I host the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot with some great hosts. It goes live Thursday night but you can share any kind of blog posts (family-friendly) there until Tuesday of each week. You can check my recent posts on the sidebar to the right for the most recent link-party.

Erin and I also host a Drop-In Crafternoon once or twice a month. This is where we meet with other bloggers on Zoom and do some crafts while we chat.

We one scheduled for Sunday, March 22 at 1 p.m. If you are interested in taking part you can learn a little bit more about it from Erin’s original post about our Crafternoons and by emailing her at crackercrumblife@gmail.com or me at lisahoweler@gmail.com or leave a comment below.

Now It’s Your Turn

What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing?

This post is linked up with The Sunday Post at  Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer,  Deb at with Deb at Readerbuzz, and Book Date: It’s Monday! What are you reading hosted by Kathyrn at The Book Date. Sunday Bookends with Boondock Ramblings and Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Reading Reality.

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

If you enjoy the kind of content on my blog and all that goes into it, you can support my writing for $2.99 a month or a single donation. Learn more here: https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/

A Good Book & A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Link Party for March

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings9 Comments

Welcome to the A Good Book & A Cup of Tea (A Monthly Bookish Link Party)!! This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!).

Each link party will be open for a month.

My co-host for this event is Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs! You can link up with either of us!

Some guidelines.

1. For Bloggers, you can link unlimited posts related to books and reading. They can be older posts or newer posts. These can be posts about what you’re reading, book reviews, books you’ve added to your shelf, reading habits, what you’ve been reading, about trips to the bookstore, etc. You get the drift.

2. Link to a specific blog post (URL of a specific post, not just your website). Feel free to link up any older posts that may need some love and attention, too.

3. Please visit at least two other bloggers on this list and comment on their posts. Have fun! Interact! Get some book recommendations.

4. Readers can click the blue button below to visit blog posts.

5. If you add a link you are giving me permission to share and link back to your post(s).

Please be sure to visit other posts in the link-up and support each other!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter
https://fresh.inlinkz.com/js/widget/load.js?id=c0efdbe6b4add43dd7ef

Sunday Bookends: book buying ban and traumatized cats

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends, Sunday Salon17 Comments

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.

What’s Been Occurring

I am putting myself on a book buying ban in March and April.

I have so many books that I need to read right now. All of the books I chose for my spring hopefuls list are paperback books so that will help me work through that pile.

Also, I think my cats are traumatized by how it was 52 degrees yesterday and today we have snow on the ground. One climbed onto me in bed this morning for cuddles (or her laying on me even though I need to move and then hissing at me to lay back down) and the other reached up to be picked up while I was trying to used the bathroom. I did pick her up and looked down to see the other cat now at my feet. I’m guessing the teenager cat was out in the snow playing with it.

It makes me think of this poster I want to get for our bathroom:

 

I mentioned on the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot that Little Miss was sick last week. We aren’t sure what she had but she had stomach issues to start then two days of a runny nose and done. So far, no one else in the family has had it.

It was super hard to see her so down and quiet and miserable.

We didn’t go to see my parents all week to make sure we didn’t give them anything but hopefully we can resume seeing them this upcoming week. 

What I/We’ve Been Reading

In Progress

Last week I continued reading Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien and The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery.

I added one of The Hardy Boys books — The Tower Treasure by Franklin W. Dixon and a Mildred Wirt Penny Parker book, Whispering Walls. Mildred was the original first author of the Nancy Drew books, if you don’t know that.

They are both quick and light reads, which I need right now.

Up Soon

I’ll  be writing a separate post about my hopeful spring reads later this week, but for now I do know I plan to read A Damsel in Distress by P.G. Wodehouse, The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis, and Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie after I finish these books (or while I’m reading Return of the King since it is my slow read).

What The Family is Reading

Little Miss and I are still reading The Singing Tree by Kate Seredy and listening to The Green Ember by S.D. Smith (though we aren’t fond of the narrator – he is very dramatic and makes the female rabbit sound like a drama queen.)

The Husband is reading Welcome to Pawnee by Jim O’Heir.

 

What I/We’ve Been Watching

This past week I watched more of The Puzzle Lady and All Creatures Great and Small. I also watched The Bride Came C.O.D. with James Cagney and Bette Davis.

Today I am watching the sermon online and if my YouTube farmer has a video today I’ll watch that.

 

What I’ve Been Writing

Last week on the blog I shared:

Recent Blog Posts I Enjoyed

|| Murder, She Wrote: Unraveling The Enduring Charm of Jessica Fletcher by Between the Bookends ||

|| Tuesday Tour: Newer Than Yesterday by Mama’s Empty Nest ||

|| The Personal Reading Experience by Cat’s Wire ||

Some Housekeeping

Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) and I host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea.  This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!). Each link party will be open for a month. You can find that link up for this month here.

Each week, I host the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot with some great hosts. It goes live Thursday night but you can share any kind of blog posts (family-friendly) there until Tuesday of each week. You can check my recent posts on the sidebar to the right for the most recent link-party.

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 of your weekly wrap up below!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter
https://fresh.inlinkz.com/js/widget/load.js?id=c0efdbe6b4add43dd7ef

This post is linked up with The Sunday Post at  Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer, The Sunday Salon with Deb at Readerbuzz, and Book Date: It’s Monday! What are you reading hosted by Kathyrn at The Book Date. Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Reading Reality.

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

If you enjoy the kind of content on my blog and all that goes into it, you can support my writing for $2.99 a month or a single donation. Learn more here: https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/

The Blue Castle Chapters 11 to 23 discussion. Spoilers galore!

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Read Along, The Blue Castle5 Comments

We’ve been reading The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery and this week we are discussing chapters 11 to 23. You can find the discussion on Chapters 1 through 10 here.

An original copy of The Blue Castle.

When I first read this book, the chapters we are discussing today were where I really fell in love with the book, and it wasn’t any different this time. I fell in love with the story and book again in these chapters. There are so many swoonworthy moments in this book it makes me question how our dear Maud was not called one of the greatest romance writers in history.

In these chapters, we see Valancy Stirling finally spread her wings, leaving behind her family to take care of a dying woman and also finding love. All of this is to the horror of her family, of course, but Valancy ignores her family and doing so feels amazing to her.

The family dinner is where her rebellion really kicks in as she levels mouthy comebacks after mouth comeback at her aunts, uncles, cousins,  and mother.

It’s a sight to behold – or a chapter to read and laugh at in the least.

Something has snapped in Valancy, who believes she is dying of a heart condition. She decides she has nothing to lose, so she goes full bore on saying what she wants when she wants.

Her uncle Benjamin is always making silly jokes that he expects everyone to laugh at. When Valancy doesn’t, he is offended and calls her disrespectful.

“Doss,” said Uncle Benjamin. “When I am dead you may say what you please. As lon as I am alive I demand to be treated with respect.”

Valancy (whose nickname is Doss, which she hates) says, “Oh, but you now we’re all dead. The whole Stirling clan. Some of us are buried and some aren’t — yet. That is the only difference.”

It goes on like this throughout the night, her comments becoming more and more biting and caustic and her chest starts to hurt so she goes to bed.

This is the first time we really start to see Valancy rebel beyond simply cutting at a rose bush that was given to her but never bloomed.

Then the local drunk comes by to make repairs in the house and when he tells Valancy about his dying daughter and how he needs help caring for her and the house, Valancy jumps at the chance. It will get her away from her family, but she also feels it is the right thing to do.

“’Cissy Gay is dying,’ she said. ‘And it’s a shame and disgrace that she is dying in a Christian community with no one to do anything for her. Whatever she’s been or done, she’s a human being.”

For years, there have been all kinds of rumors about the dying girl. One was that she had a child out of wedlock, and that child died as punishment for her sins. The other rumor is that Barney Snaith, a free spirit whom Valancy has already met, was the father.

Valancy goes to live with Abel and Cissy, and her mother about dies from the shock and scandal of it all.

It is at Roaring Abel’s house that Valancy learns more about herself and what she is actually capable of, but also bonds with Cissy, who she knew in her childhood. At the Stirling home, Valancy was always told that she was too weak or sickly to do. At Abel and Cissy’s, she cooks food and cleans, but most importantly, she gives companionship to Cissy.

And she also gets to know Barney Snaith more because he often stops to see or bring treats to Cissy to help cheer her up.

It is in these chapters that Valancy realizes she’s fallen in love with Barney.

Her family keeps trying to bring her home, even sending the pastor, their greatest weapon. She almost caves to him but then ….

“Valancy was on the point of obeying Dr. Stalling. She must go home with him — and give up. She would lapse back to Doss Stirling again and for her few remaining days or weeks be the cowed, futile creature she had always been. It was her fate — typified by that relentless, uplifted forefinger. She could no more escape from it than Roaring Abel from his predestination. She eyed it as a fascinated bird eyes the snake. Another moment —

‘Fear is the original sin,’ suddenly said a still, small voice away back — back — back of Valancy’s consciousness. ‘Almost all the evil in the world has its origins in the fact that someone is afraid of something.’

Valancy stood up. She was still in the clutches of fear, but her soul was her own again. She would not be false to that inner voice.”

I just love this part. I love the idea that she was afraid and did it anyway. She stood her ground and refused to go back home and become oppressed and sad again. She got a taste of the wind, a feel of it under her wings, and she was never going back.

This makes me think of all the years I tried to please people and make everyone happy, and how I slowly stopped doing it and caring what others thought. It isn’t that I didn’t care about people, but I realized I didn’t have to do everything everyone wanted me to do. I felt a freedom to be myself and to ignore disapproving words or looks.

This has been even more true in the last couple of years as I have stood up for myself in various situations and walked away from situations I would have put up with a lot longer in the past.

I love this line: “She was still in the clutches of fear, but her soul was her own again.”

She was afraid, even of all the new freedom she had, but she owned that fear, had chosen that fear, had allowed her soul to waken up. She wasn’t about to put it all back to where she had been before — with no choice and no life of her own.

Dr. Stalling is, of course, appalled that Valancy will not go back home simply because he tells her to, but there are better things in store for Valancy.

Love is in store for Valancy.

She has already started noticing she feels different around Barney, but those feelings are growing.

“Valancy was conscious that Barney had sprung from it and was leaning over the ramshackle gate. She suddenly straightened up and looked into his face. Their eyes met — Valancy was suddenly conscious of a delicious weakness. Was one of her heart attacks coming on? But this was a new symptom.”

***

“Good evening, Miss Stirling.”

Nothing could be more commonplace and conventional. Anyone might have said it. But Barney Snaith had a way of saying things that gave thm poignancy. When he said good evening you felt that it was a good evening and that it was partly his doing that it was. Also, you felt that some of the credit was yours. Valancy felt a this vaguely, but she couldn’t imagine why she was trembling from head to foot — it must be her heart. If only he didn’t notice it!”

Then Valancy takes her biggest step of freedom yet by going to a late-night party with Abel. She gets a bit more than she bargained for, though, and is completely relieved and smitten when Barney comes to rescue her from some very handsy men.

When Barney’s car runs out of gas as they are fleeing, Valancy has even more time to process her feelings for him.

I love the passages Montgomery writes about Valancy’s love for Barney. To me, they are more romantic than most romance books of today.

“Valancy was perfectly happy. Some things dawn on you slowly. Some things come by lightning flashes. Valancy had a lightning flash.

She knew quite well now that she loved Barney. Yesterday, she had been all her own. Now she was this man’s. Yet he had done nothing, said nothing. He had not even looked at her as a woman. But that didn’t matter. Nor did it matter what he was or what he had done. She loved him without any reservations. Everything in her went out wholly to him. She had no wish to stifle or disown her love. She seemed to be his so absolutely that though apart from him — thought in which he did not predominate — was an impossibility.

She had realized, quite simply and fully that she loved him, in the moment when he was leaning on the car door, explaining that Lady Jane had no gas. She had looked deep into his eyes in the moonlight and had known. In just that infinitesimal space of time everything was changed. Old things passed away and all things became new.

She was no longer unimportant, little old main Valancy Stirling. She was a woman, full of love and therefore rich and significant — justified to herself. Life was no longer empty and futile, and death could cheat her of nothing. Love had cast out her last fear.”

Whew!

And what is fun about this book is that there is even more to come.

What did you think of these chapters?

Of Valancy refusing to go home and the reactions of her family to these refusals?

Let me know in the comments.

This cover is so ridiculous if you’ve read the book. At least to me! This makes it look like some ridiculous romance book and it is much more than that. Also, that dude looks nothing like Barney is described.

In two weeks, we will discuss chapters 23 to 35.

To read previous posts about the book:

The Blue Castle: Chapters 1 to 10. Spoilers/discussion availability ahead.

Introduction: Read The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery with me. First, a Little History.

If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.

How to read more classics and enjoy them while you’re doing it (if you don’t enjoy them already)

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn books and reading12 Comments

 

 I recently saw a YouTube video where a booktuber suggested reading just 12 pages a day of a classic to make it feel less daunting for readers who don’t usually read classics.

There are a couple of reasons he suggested this tactic.

One: it gives you time to read slowly and truly immerse yourself in the story.

Two: it helps you pay attention to the writing, the words connected together, the style of that particular author.

Three: Gives you time to write notes about what you are reading or underline a quote that really stands out to you. This gives you time to really think about that quote or section that really stands out to you.

Four: It gets you off a device. Stops you scrolling on “the attention hog” that has trained you to keep scrolling through 30-second to 1-minute clips. Doing this mentally and physically fatigues us. The makers of social media know how to addict us but our mind biologically loves to dwell on things, to feel like it is learning something and this is done better at a slower pace. Reading instead of scrolling releases the brain from repeated dopamine hits.

Five: Creates a sense of patience, self-control,  and a “stick-to-it” attitude. As humans we feel a sense of pride when we push through something and accomplish what we set out to do.

Six: It helps to quell comparison to other readers that we need to do; the fear-of-missing-out tendency, the desire to “have read” certain books. We want to be able to say “I have read…” but don’t want to sit and really read something well. Reading this way, we can focus on reading well — taking our time to really take it in and not worry about rushing on to the next book. Those books will be there when we are done with this one.

Extra tips: Doing this at night can help you feel like you don’t have to rush and “get through” your allotted pages before you have to do something else.  You can do this with other books, not just classics.

What do you think of reading some books this way? Yay or Nay? What say you?

Source: Tristan Reads Classics. Video: The One Tip You Need More Classics and Enjoy Them.

If you want a fuller explanation of what Tristan was talking about, you can watch his video here: