By Golly, Ollie!

  • Keeping Cozy with the Reading Nook Blend

    Keeping Cozy with the Reading Nook Blend

    Michigan has enjoyed a warm Autumn this year– “warm” being a relative term; although, temperatures did peak at a toasty 70 degrees on Friday. Of course, they also plummeted to the 30s on Saturday, and we experienced our first snowfall of the season. But that’s the north for ya’.

    Most of my co-workers are grumbling about the weather, but I’m a bit of an odd duck; I actually look forward to the cold season. Admittedly, I’ll probably spend the next five months white-knuckling it as I drive my tiny Ford Fiesta amongst maniac SUV drivers along poorly plowed, snowy roads. Still, there is a lot to look forward to when the cold settles in…

    Like Thanksgiving, for example! It’s my favorite holiday because it involves one of my favorite pastimes– feasting. And, the world gets a little quieter this time of year because people stay indoors and blankets of snow muffle noise pollution; as an introvert, I appreciate this. It’s also an ideal time of year for soups and stews and roasts and mugs of hot tea or hot cocoa. Perhaps best of all, it’s my favorite kind of reading weather! I love spending the weekend afternoons cozying up in blankets with a mug of hot tea and a good book, and I recently found a most appropriate tea for afternoons just like this– the Reading Nook Blend by Plum Deluxe Tea.

    The Reading Nook Blend is a black tea blended with rosebuds, lavender, chamomile, love, gratitude, and natural flavor, and when served with a drizzle of honey, it has the power to whisk you away to warmer and sunnier days. It’s like liquid Springtime. The Book Nook Blend is as fragrant and floral as the ingredients would lead you to believe, but it doesn’t overpower the palate. The label indicates this tea “pairs with creativity, reading, and writing”, which I most definitely agree, but I’d also like to add that it pairs with cozy mystery novels and the TV series Rosemary and Thyme.

    A sample of the Reading Nook Blend was provided for free in exchange for an honest review. And honestly, it was delicious.

  • Four Reasons Why I Would Never Want to Live During the 1800s| Madame Presidentess by Nicole Evelina

    Four Reasons Why I Would Never Want to Live During the 1800s| Madame Presidentess by Nicole Evelina

    Have you ever been asked the question, “If you could go back in time and live, which year/decade/century would you choose”? After reading Madame Presidentess by Nicole Evelina, I can, with certainty, tell you that I wouldn’t want to live in America during the 1850s and 1880s.

    madame-presidentessMadame Presidentess by Nicole Evelina

    Released: July 2016
    Publisher: Lawson Gartner Publishing
    ★★★★☆
    Add to Goodreads
    Purchase: Amazon|B&N

    Forty-eight years before women were granted the right to vote, one woman dared to run for President of the United States, yet her name has been virtually written out of the history books.

    Rising from the shame of an abusive childhood, Victoria Woodhull, the daughter of a con-man and a religious zealot, vows to follow her destiny, one the spirits say will lead her out of poverty to “become ruler of her people.”

    But the road to glory is far from easy. A nightmarish marriage teaches Victoria that women are stronger and deserve far more credit than society gives. Eschewing the conventions of her day, she strikes out on her own to improve herself and the lot of American women.

    Over the next several years, she sets into motion plans that shatter the old boys club of Wall Street and defile even the sanctity of the halls of Congress. But it’s not just her ambition that threatens men of wealth and privilege; when she announces her candidacy for President in the 1872 election, they realize she may well usurp the power they’ve so long fought to protect.

    Those who support her laud “Notorious Victoria” as a gifted spiritualist medium and healer, a talented financial mind, a fresh voice in the suffrage movement, and the radical idealist needed to move the nation forward. But those who dislike her see a dangerous force who is too willing to speak out when women are expected to be quiet. Ultimately, “Mrs. Satan’s” radical views on women’s rights, equality of the sexes, free love and the role of politics in private affairs collide with her tumultuous personal life to endanger all she has built and change how she is viewed by future generations.

    This is the story of one woman who was ahead of her time – a woman who would make waves even in the 21st century – but who dared to speak out and challenge the conventions of post-Civil War America, setting a precedent that is still followed by female politicians today.

    First reason why I wouldn’t want to live during the second half of the 1800s (or the first half, really): everybody was dying during the war or from tuberculosis and dysentery (leading cause of death during all of my Oregon Trail efforts [RIP greenhorn]) and splinters and stuff. That being said, the atmosphere, grim though it may be, was perfect for spiritualism (you know, the Fox sisters? Ectoplasm? This post I wrote a few months ago?), and our dear Victoria Woodhull was a believer, nay! a practitioner of the art. Madame Presidentess explores Woodhull’s relationship with spiritualism throughout her life. Exploited by family, at a young age, Woodhull and her sister, Tennie, entertained clients by contacting the spirits from beyond. Then, during adolescence and early adulthood when she wanted to gain independence, Woodhull made a fortune as a traveling magnetic healer. (Later, she would earn another fortune after opening her own stock brokerage firm on freaking Wall Street. No bid deal.)

    Second reason why I wouldn’t want to live during the second half of the 1800s: everybody seemed to be pretty awful to each other. Following the abolition of slavery, racial tensions soared (I mean, the KKK was founded). Luckily for business owners though, the Fair Labor Standards Act didn’t exist, so they were free to overwork and underpay their employees (who were frequently children). Women didn’t fare so well either. At times, Madame Presidentess was difficult to read because Woodhull was physically and sexually abused throughout her youth and young adulthood. Particularly devastating was the abuse by the hand of her first husband, Canning Woodhull, who was a womanizer with a penchant for alcohol and laudanum (damn Libertines!). “Penchant” is probably definitely an understatement here. Woodhull was a fierce young women though and divorced that sucker.

    Third reason why I wouldn’t want to live during the second half of the 1800s: women didn’t have the right to vote. Which is why Victoria Woodhull is such an important figure. She fought to give women a voice. She launched her own newspaper, through which she published articles advocating women’s suffrage, sex education, and free love. She rubbed elbows with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and infiltrated the male dominated world of business and politics. Then, she ran for president and named abolitionist leader, Frederick Douglas, as her Veep! (She lost though. Obviously. Which maybe isn’t the worst thing since she also promoted eugenics).

    Fourth reason why I wouldn’t want to live during the second half of the 1800s: internet, video games, Jets BBQ chicken pizza, sneakers, Harry Potter, and Adagio tea did not exist. But, I digress…

    If I had to sum up Madame Presidentess in one word, I would definitely choose “fascinating”. What a life this woman lead! I’m not saying her stances and actions were always ethical, but Woodhull was certainly a powerhouse, who for some reason was written out of the history books. If you’re looking for an engaging and fast-paced historical fiction novel about subject not often explored in the genre, be sure to check out Madame Presidentess by Nicole Evelina.

     

    TLC Book Tours

    This novel was provided for free from the publisher and TLC Book Tours in exchange for an honest review.
  • And the Award for Best Characters Goes to…|The Survivor’s Guide to Family Happiness by Maddie Dawson

    And the Award for Best Characters Goes to…|The Survivor’s Guide to Family Happiness by Maddie Dawson

    I may have over-committed myself this October. I had these grand plans to devour a collection of spooky novels and write all about them, but instead I found myself in a bit of a reading rut after abandoning three books back to back to back. I can’t decide if the books were particularly uninteresting to me or if I was just distracted. I did, after all, get married this month (more on that later though!). When I finally sat down to read The Survivor’s Guide to Family Happiness by Maddie Dawson, I was certain my reading rut would affect my ability to appreciate the story. Sometimes negativity begets negativity, you know? But, that’s not what happened. In truth, I actually kind of loved The Survivor’s Guide to Family Happiness.

    the-survivors-guide-to-family-happiness-coverThe Survivor’s Guide to Family Happiness by Maddie Dawson

    Released: October 25, 2016
    Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
    ★★★★☆
    Add to Goodreads
    Purchase: Amazon|BAM!|B&N

    Newly orphaned, recently divorced, and semiadrift, Nina Popkin is on a search for her birth mother. She’s spent her life looking into strangers’ faces, fantasizing they’re related to her, and now, at thirty-five, she’s ready for answers.

    Meanwhile, the last thing Lindy McIntyre wants is someone like Nina bursting into her life, announcing that they’re sisters and campaigning to track down their mother. She’s too busy with her successful salon, three children, beautiful home, and…oh yes, some pesky little anxiety attacks.

    But Nina is determined to reassemble her birth family. Her search turns up Phoebe Mullen, a guarded, hard-talking woman convinced she has nothing to offer. Gradually sharing stories and secrets, the three women make for a messy, unpredictable family that looks nothing like Nina pictured…but may be exactly what she needs. Nina’s moving, ridiculous, tragic, and transcendent journey becomes a love story proving that real family has nothing to do with DNA.

    It is entirely possible that Maddie Dawson’s cast of characters are my favorite for the year of 2016. They’re so…believably flawed. Nina Popkin is impulsive and a bit flaky as she mourns over the death of her adoptive mother, navigates a new relationship following a recent divorce that she’s not quite over, and tries her hand at parenting even though she’s convinced she is not capable of such a feat considering her biological mother abandoned her when she was an infant. Then, there is Lindy, Nina’s sister, who has a perfect life, or at least tries to portray she has a perfect life; she may have a successful business, great hair, and a coach purse, but she’s never felt more disconnected from her husband, and she has a disorder that compels her to count things, like the tiles between her chair and the door, and dear god, please let there be an odd number of tiles because odd numbers are lucky. The relationship between Nina and Lindy is strained at first because after 30+ years of existence, they just found out they are biological siblings, and while impulsive Nina wants everything to do with her biological family, prim and proper Lindy doesn’t appreciate the black mark on her birth record. However, through the course of the novel, Nina and Lindy grow from strangers to sisters, and it’s really kind of heart-warming.

    Of course I can’t forget to mention Carter, Nina’s dreamy new boyfriend, who is about 20 years older than she is and kind of a distracted parent. His wife left him, and then she followed her dream of becoming a kale farmer (do people really dream of becoming kale farmers?). She left behind her daughter Kayla, who is a 15 year-old with blue hair and is hella angsty. But, Kayla’s got a heart of gold, she’s compassionate, and when it comes to animal rights, she is proud to take a stand (even if her methods leads to madness). She also left behind a son, who is graduating the top of his class but has zero interest in attending college even though he was accepted into freaking Vanderbilt.

    And by the way, Lindy and Nina’s biological mom is now a chain-smoking vegan, who used to be a 1980’s pop icon. But…attaining dreams of stardom is not why she put her babies up for adoption. The true story is much more twisted and devastating.

    The Survivor’s Guide to Family Happiness was just the book to pull me out of a reading rut. Dawson writes a character-driven story that is both dramatic and heart-warming, and her characters are well-crafted with impeccable chemistry. It’s hard not to root for them, to hope everything turns out better than alright.

     

    TLC Book Tours

    This novel was provided for free from the publisher and TLC Book Tours in exchange for an honest review.
  • I Had Hoped for a Boarding School Novel but was Taken on a Wild Ride Instead | Deliver Her by Patricia Perry Donovan

    I Had Hoped for a Boarding School Novel but was Taken on a Wild Ride Instead | Deliver Her by Patricia Perry Donovan

    I may have hyper-focused on the portion of the synopsis that mentions that Alex Carmody is shipped off to the Birches, a boarding school in New Hampshire. That coupled with a beautiful cover of a young woman standing in what I perceived to be the campus of a boarding school in the middle of Autumn in New England– I didn’t stand a chance. But, if you’re looking for a novel that takes place at a boarding school– one where the main character navigates cliques in the cafeteria at lunchtime, enrolls in fascinating classes that exists only in our imaginations, or discovers a group of exceptional friends– look somewhere else. If you’re looking for a novel full of suspense and deceit and a journey both metaphorical and literal, look no further than Deliver Her by Patricia Perry Donovan.

     

    deliver-herDeliver Her by Patricia Perry Donovan

    Released: May 2016
    Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
    ★★★☆☆
    Add to Goodreads
    Purchase: Amazon|BAM!|B&N

    On the night of Alex Carmody’s sixteenth birthday, she and her best friend, Cass, are victims of a terrible car accident. Alex survives; Cass doesn’t. Consumed by grief, Alex starts cutting school and partying, growing increasingly detached. The future she’d planned with her friend is now meaningless to her.

    Meg Carmody is heartbroken for her daughter, even as she’s desperate to get Alex’s life back on track. The Birches, a boarding school in New Hampshire, promises to do just that, yet Alex refuses to go. But when Meg finds a bag of pills hidden in the house, she makes a fateful call to a transporter whose company specializes in shuttling troubled teens to places like The Birches, under strict supervision. Meg knows Alex will feel betrayed—as will her estranged husband, who knows nothing of Meg’s plans for their daughter.

    When the transport goes wrong—and Alex goes missing—Meg must face the consequences of her decision and her deception. But the hunt for Alex reveals that Meg is not the only one keeping secrets.

    This novel is both predictable and suspenseful

    I knew fairly early on how this novel would end, and yet I still found myself compelled to read on. Because it’s the ride the author takes the reader on that makes Deliver Her so worth while. Donovan slowly reveals the tragic past of a broken family, and at the same time, she propels the reader forward across icy roads blocked by moose and car rides from creepy strangers to reach a place of healing that is both literal and metaphorical.

    This novel has crossover appeal

    Deliver Her is told from multiple POVs. First, there is Meg Caromdy, who is a mother who seems to have reached the end of the road in her relationship not just with her husband but also with her daughter. Then, there is Alex Carmody, who is battered by the guilt that she may have been the cause of her best friend’s death. And finally, there is Carl, a recovering addict, whose role is to transport Alex to the Birches safe and sound. Deliver Her isn’t explicitly a young adult novel or an adult novel, so the reader spends half of the novel caught up in the psyche of a teenage girl and the other half in the mind of a mother at her wit’s end. Further, Donovan manages to strike a  gentle balance of writing from the teenage perspective without bogging the narration down with angst that I think make this novel appeal not just to a young adult audience but to readers who may be reluctant to pick something up that is labeled “YA”.

    I’m strangely okay that this novel doesn’t take place at a boarding school

    It’s hard to feel disappointed that Deliver Her isn’t a novel that takes place at boarding school because Donovan paints such convincing and heartbreaking picture of a dysfunctional family. One where family members are so caught up in their lives, regardless of how mundane they may be, that they don’t even see how disconnected from one another they really are until it’s too late. One where family member’s harbor secrets to protect others or tell lies to one another just to make it through the day peacefully, without confrontation.

    Every single character, from Jack, Alex’s naive little brother, to Carl, a recovering addict, who transports the troubled youth to rehab centers, garners sympathy and yet, most of the time I kept thinking, gosh I hope my marriage doesn’t turn out this way, or I hope my child doesn’t end up like this.

     

    TLC Book Tours

    This novel was provided for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

     

     

  • When Expectations Do Not Meet Reality | The Readahoics and the Gothic Gala by Laura DiSilverio

    When Expectations Do Not Meet Reality | The Readahoics and the Gothic Gala by Laura DiSilverio

    It’s not uncommon that I start a cozy mystery novel somewhere near the middle of the series. I can only think of three series where I started with book one (Lending a Paw by Laurie Cass, Crepes of Wrath by Sarah Fox, and the Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum by Kirsten Weiss). And honestly, I’ve never had a problem starting in the middle of a cozy mystery series; the books tend stand up by themselves, although if a book is particularly intriguing, I tend to read other books in the series, like the Ghost Hunter Mystery series by Victoria Laurie. But I’ve gotta tell ya…I really struggled with the Readaholics and the Gothic Gala by Laura DiSilverio.

    readaholics-and-the-gothic-galaThe Readaholics and the Gothic Gala by Laura DiSilverio

    Released: August 2016
    Publisher: NAL
    Add to Goodreads
    ★★☆☆☆

    Reading the gothic classic Rebecca already has the Readaholics spooked, and the chills only get worse when someone in town actually gives up the ghost….
     
    Amy-Faye Johnson has her hands full coordinating the Celebration of Gothic Novels in Heaven, Colorado. The festivities start off smoothly, but the weekend is soon cursed with large egos, old resentments, and uninvited guests. Matters become truly grave when a dead body is found at the gothic-themed costume party.

    The out-of-town authors claim not to know the victim, but Amy-Faye has doubts. With skeletons turning up in all of the suspects’ closets, Amy-Faye and the Readaholics must tap into their knowledge of gothic literature to find a killer who lurks in the shadows…

     

    Expectations did not meet reality

    The summary put a lot of emphasis on not only the Gothic Gala but also on the book club that main character, Amy-Faye, participated in, yet the Gothic Gala concluded by the third chapter (roughly), and Amy-Faye only met with her reading group twice in 300+ pages. I…was kind of disappointed. I mean, part of me understands that a crime could not take place and be solved during the course of a charity event, but a girl can dream, right?

    There were a lot of characters

    And I mean A LOT. Considering I usually start mid-series with cozies, I still do not struggle with keeping all of the characters in line. But, that was not the case with the Readaholics and the Gothic Gala. Not only does it appear that the usual cast of characters is pretty large (the reading group + Amy-Fayes employees + the entire town of Heaven, Colorado), but all of the additional, out-of-town characters at the partie(s) are quite large too, so it was hard to keep track of everyone.

    The ending really caught me by surprise

    But not in a good way. Mostly because I couldn’t remember which character was which, so when the murderer was revealed, I found myself flipping to the beginning of the book for reminders. Also, I don’t think enough clues were revealed throughout the course of the novel about the victim’s identity. The motivation really caught me by surprise, but again…not in a good way.

    Overall, I’m kind of let down, and when I try to think of how to sum up my feelings about this story, all I can conjure up is a shoulder shrug. The storytelling in this particular novel was not up to par, and honestly it discourages me from exploring other books in this series. That being said, I can tell Laura DiSilverio is a wonderful writer, and I am curious about her other series.

About the Blogger

My name is Jackie, and I am a millennial / mother / Michigander / blogger / wannabe runner / accountant / local library enthusiast / gamer, kinda. This is a personal blog, which means I’m not entirely certain what you’ll find here, but it will definitely not show up on the first page of Google search results.