Hey There, Hi There, Ho There, Bookworms!
I hope you’re all warm and safe and healthy. I don’t know that I have a ton of readers at the moment, but if any of you are reading this from Texas, I sure hope things have improved for you. What a nightmare! I’m just here in the good old Midwest, trying to make it to spring without mentally imploding. As one does. I mentioned last week that I’d like to wait to send Sam back to daycare until both Jim and I were able to be vaccinated. Alas, I really don’t think it’s going to happen. The rollout is going soooo slowly and I’m at the very bottom of the list. I’m concerned that we’ve actually damaged our kid’s development by keeping him isolated as long as we have. Once we hit spring, I think we’re going to have to take the plunge. Then again, the variants might cause a whole new surge and I may change my mind. I simply don’t have all the answers. This winter has broken me. The whole pandemic has been hard, and winter is always kind of hard for me. The combination of the two? I’m currently just a pile of frayed nerve endings. Frayed nerve endings that can read, though, because books.
A Duke, the Lady, and a Baby by Vanessa Riley- Patience Jordan was born in the Caribbean (the West Indies if we’re using historical lingo) and is heiress to a vast plantation fortune. She married into the English aristocracy for love, only to discover her husband wasn’t exactly who she thought he was. After his mysterious suicide, Patience and her son are left to the mercy of the remarkably unmerciful Markham. He soon has Patience committed to Bedlam and takes on the role of guardian to her newborn son, Lionel. As you can tell, Markham is the ACTUAL WORST. Luckily, Patience falls in with a group known as The Widow’s Grace, whose mission is to right the wrongs done to widows once their influential husbands die. When Lionel’s true guardian is unearthed, the war hero Duke of Repington casts out the wicked Markham and unwittingly hires Patience as a nanny and wet nurse for Lionel. Obviously, Patience has a lot of secrets, but so, as it turns out, does the Duke. And, well, it’s awfully hard not to fall for the dashing, handsome, unmarried Duke who clearly adores your child.
This book was very cute and full of intrigue. It’s also GREAT for those of you who don’t care for explicit love scenes in your reading because there aren’t any. At all. There’s a minimal amount of smooching, but even that is pretty chaste. Admittedly a mild disappointment for me personally, but I’ve gotten accustomed to the steamier side of romance. This is the first in what will undoubtedly be a charming series- I look forward to reading future installments!
Make a Scene by Mimi Grace– Oh my goodness, this book! I loved it so much! Our heroine Retta runs a bakery in a strip mall. She’s thrown for a loop when her ex-boyfriend proposes to her cousin. And it’s not like a “oh we dated in high school” kind of ex. It’s only been a year since they broke up and it was a long-term relationship. Because Retta wants to prove not only that she’s over her ex, but also that she’s moved on and isn’t in the least bit salty about the whole thing, she decides that she HAS to attend the wedding. With a date. Even if it’s a fake date. (Squee!) Enter Duncan- he has just opened a boxing gym in the same strip mall as Retta’s bakery… And they promptly get into a battle over parking spaces. Retta offers Duncan a deal- if he accompanies her to the wedding and they pull off fooling her family (a tall order) she will give up her parking space (GASP.) Of course, the lines between real and fake dating are soon blurred, especially since they cannot keep their hands off each other. (The steam in this book made up for the lack thereof in the previous book.) This book was adorable, funny, and heartfelt. A tasty morsel of a romance you should definitely check out!
I’m moving a bit more slowly through my current reads- one is moving slowly because it’s audio and I rarely have time to listen these days (but it’s soooo good! It’s Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas and I’m loving it!) The other is moving slowly just because. Sometimes that happens, which is good, because staying up until the wee hours devouring romance after romance has a nasty habit of catching up with you. Sleep is important, friendos. Been reading anything awesome lately, Bookworms?
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Somer
Same Same. I’ve read more in the past 2 months than I’ve ever read before. I used to read a book in about 2 weeks, now I’m reading them in about 5 days. Stressed much? We made the decision to put Aidan in an in-home daycare situation. There are only 5 other children, so I feel better about his exposure. With both of us unemployed due to covid, we couldn’t find the time or quiet to do job searching very effectively. I can’t see how you’ve been able to do any work during all of this!
Also, we’re in San Antonio, and things are slowly getting better. You still can’t get any milk or eggs, but the groceries are at about 50% stocked level. Water is still an issue in our neighborhood, but we’ll get by. Thanks for the kind words!
Katie Words for Worms
I’m so glad you found a safe-as-possible situation for Aiden! As far as getting work done, I’ve been super lucky. A lot of my work can be accomplished in bite size tasks, so if I get distracted I don’t necessarily lose my place. Jim has had to kind of lock himself away most of the time because he can’t concentrate with Sam, you know, Samming it up. The numbers in Illinois are looking much better, so I’m cautiously optimistic, especially with warmer weather coming. If we can get out of traditional “flu” season without the variants making a huge mess of things, I’ll feel OK-ish about sending him back to school.
I’m SO relieved that things are looking better in San Antonio! My aunt lives there and my mom was a wreck until someone was able to reach her on her cell. (The elder generation in my family is still landline by default, so when the landline went out there was much scrambling to dig up the correct cell number.)
Somer
Glad your Aunt is okay! These situations are never great for the elderly. My MIL had just put her mother in a home last month, so we got really lucky, she would not have done well in that weather!