Synopsis: Ropa Moyo’s ghostalking practice has tanked, desperate for money to pay bills and look after her family she reluctantly accepts a job to look into the history of a coma patient receiving treatment at the magical private hospital Our Lady of Mysterious Ailments. The patient is a teenage schoolboy called Max Wu, and healers at the hospital are baffled by the illness which has confounded medicine and magic.
Ropa’s investigation leads her to the Edinburgh Ordinary School for Boys, one of only the four registered schools for magic in the whole of Scotland (the oldest and only one that remains closed to female students).
But the headmaster there is hiding something and as more students succumb Ropa learns that a long-dormant and malevolent entity has once again taken hold in this world.
She sets off to track the current host for this spirit and try to stop it before other lives are endangered.
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I read the first book in this series and enjoyed it. Looking forward to this one.
Connecting with others to talk about books plus a little about our personal lives
Kimberly hosts the Sunday Post each week. I like to take part because it gives me an opportunity to look back at last week and forward to next week in both my personal life and my blog and book life! I also love to see what other people are doing and what books everyone is reading.
Personal life
We’ve had some beautiful sunrises and sunsets so far this month, but no snow! Apparently there’s only a 25% chance for snow in the Indianapolis area at Christmastime!
Our menagerie
Blaze
Duke begging me to put Blaze down so they can play
Olaf is carefully watching what Duke is doing and Blaze is watching me!
Sleeping together
Duke helping me read my book!
Not only do we have a new kitten in our household, but we’ve also been taking care of our son’s mini dachshund this month. Our son is moving from Seattle to New York City this month so we offered to keep Duke for him while he packed up and left Seattle and then rented an apartment in NYC. He found an apartment this week and he arrives back at our house tomorrow. We are all excited to see him!
Olaf and Blaze (our cat and kitten) and Duke all get along well so they’ve all had fun together. It’s very cute how Duke sometimes runs up to them to break up the wrestling match when Olaf and Blaze are playing together. I think he’d like to play with them, too, but none of them quite know how to do that!
Baking
Chocolate Chip CookiesChocolate CrinklesMolasses Spice Cookies
I’ve baked quite a few cookies so far this month and hope to get some more baking done this week. I made Ginger Cookies also, but forgot to take a photo of them. These are all new recipes I made this year, but they’re all drop cookies so easy and quick to make. The cookies all taste great. I was concerned because the chocolate chip cookies didn’t brown very much on top, but my husband has taste-tested and says they’re the best chocolate chip cookies I’ve made!
Neighbors
We’ve delivered some of the cookies I’ve baked to some of our neighbors. We also had some of our neighbors to our house to get to know them a little better. That’s been nice and I think we’ll get together with some of them again after Christmas.
Christmas
I’m so excited to spend our first Christmas here in our new house. Our three kids will be here which is wonderful.
Our son arrives tomorrow and our Illinois daughter arrives on the 23rd and we’ve got tickets to hear Handel’s Messiah that evening. I think we’re going to watch Christmas movies on Christmas Eve plus we always play some games during the Christmas holiday. Of course, we’ve got lots of cooking and baking planned and even some time with no particular plans!
Blog
I haven’t read any Christmas themed books this year. I started one and liked it pretty well, but just wasn’t feeling like reading it very much. I finally had to return it to the library and I’d only read 50% of it.
However, I’ve read other books in the last couple of months that I’ve really enjoyed–especially some fun urban fantasy books. So even though I was five books behind at times this year with my Goodreads Challenge Goal of 100 books I’ve completed the challenge. So far I’ve read 101 books and hope to read at least two or three more before the end of the year.
What are you doing next week? If you celebrate Christmas what are some of your traditions? If you don’t celebrate Christmas do you have other celebrations at this time of year?
Check out the books that made my short list for November & December published books
I keep a list of all the books I might want to read and add to it as the year goes on. As each month comes along I create a list on my blog for others and for me to keep track of as the months go by.
I hope people reading my post may find some new books to read. I also hope these people will point me toward books I might not know about! The links to the following books will take you to the book on Goodreads.
I don’t buy all these books–since I already have way too many books to read and some of the new books are very expensive. I’m trying to stick to a budget! I always check my library for the expensive books and I add authors to eReader IQ which then tells me when the authors’ books have gone on sale.
Since I didn’t have many books published in November or December I want to read I’ve combined my November and December lists. Even though there aren’t many books on my list I’m still late getting this posted.
Synopsis: Robin Blyth has more than enough bother in his life. He’s struggling to be a good older brother, a responsible employer, and the harried baronet of a seat gutted by his late parents’ excesses. When an administrative mistake sees him named the civil service liaison to a hidden magical society, he discovers what’s been operating beneath the unextraordinary reality he’s always known.
Now Robin must contend with the beauty and danger of magic, an excruciating deadly curse, and the alarming visions of the future that come with it–not to mention Edwin Courcey, his cold and prickly counterpart in the magical bureaucracy, who clearly wishes Robin were anyone and anywhere else.
Robin’s predecessor has disappeared, and the mystery of what happened to him reveals unsettling truths about the very oldest stories they’ve been told about the land they live on and what binds it. Thrown together and facing unexpected dangers, Robin and Edwin discover a plot that threatens every magician in the British Isles–and a secret that more than one person has already died to keep.
Synopsis: A most unexpected client shows up at Charlotte Holmes’s doorstep: Moriarty himself. Moriarty fears that tragedy has befallen his daughter and wants Charlotte to find out the truth.
Charlotte and Mrs. Watson travel to a remote community of occult practitioners where Moriarty’s daughter was last seen, a place full of lies and liars. Meanwhile, Charlotte’s sister Livia tries to make sense of a mysterious message from her beau Mr. Marbleton. And Charlotte’s longtime friend and ally Lord Ingram at last turns his seductive prowess on Charlotte–or is it the other way around?
But the more secrets Charlotte unravels about Miss Moriarty’s disappearance, the more she wonders why Moriarty has entrusted this delicate matter to her of all people. Is it merely to test Charlotte’s skills as an investigator, or has the man of shadows trapped her in a nest of vipers?
Synopsis: London, 1878. One April morning, a small boat bearing a young woman’s corpse floats down the murky waters of the Thames. When the victim is identified as Rose Albert, daughter of a prominent judge, the Scotland Yard director gives the case to Michael Corravan, one of the only Senior Inspectors remaining after a corruption scandal the previous autumn left the division in ruins. Reluctantly, Corravan abandons his ongoing case, a search for the missing wife of a shipping magnate, handing it over to his young colleague, Mr. Stiles.
An Irish former bare-knuckles boxer and dockworker from London’s seedy East End, Corravan has good street sense and an inspector’s knack for digging up clues. But he’s confounded when, a week later, a second woman is found dead in a rowboat, and then a third. The dead women seem to have no connection whatsoever. Meanwhile, Mr. Stiles makes an alarming discovery: the shipping magnate’s missing wife, Mrs. Beckford, may not have fled her house because she was insane, as her husband claims, and Mr. Beckford may not be the successful man of business that he appears to be.
Slowly, it becomes clear that the river murders and the case of Mrs. Beckford may be linked through some terrible act of injustice in the past—for which someone has vowed a brutal vengeance. Now, with the newspapers once again trumpeting the Yard’s failures, Corravan must dredge up the truth—before London devolves into a state of panic and before the killer claims another innocent victim.
Synopsis: One man has a Big Idea for reversing global warming, a master plan perhaps best described as “elemental.” But will it work? And just as important, what are the consequences for the planet and all of humanity should it be applied?
Ranging from the Texas heartland to the Dutch royal palace in the Hague, from the snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas to the sunbaked Chihuahuan Desert, Termination Shock brings together a disparate group of characters from different cultures and continents who grapple with the real-life repercussions of global warming. Ultimately, it asks the question: Might the cure be worse than the disease?
Synopsis: G’day. I’m Pet. Heirling. Biter of fae lords. Trouble.
I have a lot of names these days—including my own, real name. Unfortunately for me, someone else knows that name too; not to mention the names of my other heirling friends. Now those heirling friends have disappeared, stolen by the current King Behind for a fight to the death where only one contender to the throne remains.
The rules say there’s no way in and only one way out of that fight, but I’ve always preferred to work outside the rules. I just have to trust my friends to help each other stay alive long enough for me to get them out—without becoming a contender for the throne myself.
Because one thing is for sure: I am absolutely not planning on being the next King Behind.
What November or December books are you looking forward to reading? Have you already read some of these books?
Synopsis: Things are heating up for Lila Macapagal. Not in her love life, which she insists on keeping nonexistent despite the attention of two very eligible bachelors. Or her professional life, since she can’t bring herself to open her new cafe after the unpleasantness that occurred a few months ago at her aunt’s Filipino restaurant, Tita Rosie’s Kitchen. No, things are heating up quite literally, since summer, her least favorite season, has just started.
To add to her feelings of sticky unease, Lila’s little town of Shady Palms has resurrected the Miss Teen Shady Palms Beauty Pageant, which she won many years ago–a fact that serves as a wedge between Lila and her cousin slash rival, Bernadette. But when the head judge of the pageant is murdered and Bernadette becomes the main suspect, the two must put aside their differences and solve the case–because it looks like one of them might be next.
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I read the first book in this series last spring and really enjoyed it. I found out all sorts of things about Filipino culture and food as well as getting to read an entertaining book.
Synopsis: When COVID-19 sweeps through New York City, Jamie Gray is stuck as a dead-end driver for food delivery apps. That is, until Jamie makes a delivery to an old acquaintance, Tom, who works at what he calls “an animal rights organization.” Tom’s team needs a last-minute grunt to handle things on their next field visit. Jamie, eager to do anything, immediately signs on.
What Tom doesn’t tell Jamie is that the animals his team cares for are not here on Earth. Not our Earth, at at least. In an alternate dimension, massive dinosaur-like creatures named Kaiju roam a warm and human-free world. They’re the universe’s largest and most dangerous panda and they’re in trouble.
It’s not just the Kaiju Preservation Society whose found their way to the alternate world. Others have, too. And their carelessness could cause millions back on our Earth to die.
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John Scalzi is one of my favorite authors so I’m happy to see that he’s written a new science fiction.
Connecting with others to talk about books plus a little about our personal lives
Kimberly hosts the Sunday Post each week. I like to take part because it gives me an opportunity to look back at last week and forward to next week in both my personal life and my blog and book life! I also love to see what other people are doing and what books everyone is reading.
Personal life
Life has been busy around our house and I haven’t gotten a post done for a couple of weeks. As you read more of my post you will understand why I’m so busy!
Thanksgiving
A walk through a park
The Thanksgiving feast
Brunch at our house
carrousel the kids rode on
My sister-in-law gave us a huge Christmas dog!
Kids playing on stones
Thanksgiving was so much fun. About 45 adults and children came. My husband and I hosted a brunch at our new Indiana home. Most of our family hadn’t seen our house so it was fun to show them around. Our kids all helped get the brunch put together and we kept things simple.
Thanksgiving dinner was at our niece’s house. She lives about 20 minutes away from us. There was lots of food since everyone who comes contributes something. I cooked two 14 pound turkeys instead of one large turkey since smaller turkeys are so much easier to cook. We had lots of activities for the kids. Lots of the family arrived on Tuesday so on Wednesday kids and parents went to the Children’s Museum in Indianapolis. We had homemade soups at the hotel one night so all the kids who wanted to could swim. There was a treasure hunt and hiking in a park. It’s so great to see cousins playing with and getting to know each other. Such a fun time for everyone!
Christmas decorations
Bailey getting into the decoratingI made crockpot ham bone soup from the Thanksgiving ham boneJuneau also got into putting on a light show
We put up our Christmas tree and decorated our house on Thanksgiving weekend. I plan to make cookies later today and during the week. We’re working on Christmas cards. Thanksgiving, the time before Christmas and Christmas are just about my favorite times of the year.
A new kitten
We got another ragdoll kitten this week. We’ve had him less than a week and he and my two year old ragdoll cat are getting along great! As I type this they’re sleeping together on my lap. We’ve named the new kitten Blaze since he has a blaze running up the middle of his face. He’s a mitted (meaning his front paws are white) seal point with a blaze. Olaf, my two year old cat, is a mitted blue point cat. I’m so relieved they’re getting along so well.
Blog
I’m hoping to read some blogs this week and leave a few comments. However, I am going to be very busy so realistically I’ll just have to see how it works out.
Notes from a Readerholic 