{I've Been Reading} The Nesting

The Nesting by C. J. Cooke

Lexi Ellis, a young woman with no place left to go and no one left to turn to, impulsively steals another young woman's resume and applies for a job as a nanny. She'll be living in an isolated house in Norway, taking care of a widower's two daughters while he builds a high concept house hanging from a steep cliff.  She knows that what she is doing is a bad idea, but she's immediately drawn to the two little girls who recently lost their mother. 

Overall, I enjoyed this book. Haunted houses always appeal to me and there are some chilling scenes with muddy animals prints in the house and  an apparition one of the girls describes as "the sad lady." It includes an intriguing mix of environmentalism and folklore, along with the fact that Lexi is trying to determine whether what she sees is supernatural or a hallucination brought on by her mental illness. She's a likable character who took the job out of desperation and is doing her best to be a good nanny to the children. I did have a hard time accepting the author's description of  the young children and the rigid academic schedule they're supposed  to be keeping, to the point that I had  to stop and look up whether 9 month olds can drink almond milk. (It's not recommended.)

Disclosure -- The publisher provided me with an advance review copy. This post contains affiliate links. 

{I've Been Reading} You Are Invited

One by One by Ruth Ware 

Eight employees of a hot new tech start up gather for a retreat in a luxurious ski chalet. There's tension in the group even before they become stranded on the mountainside and an avalanche partially buries the building -- then members of the team begin to die. This book was chilling, partially from the suspenseful plot and partially from the vivid descriptions of the snow and ice. I don't understand the appeal of Snoop, the app that they all work for, but I really enjoyed the mystery and the way the author conveyed information about the company through the housekeeper. I learned about the company and its employees along with her, instead of in huge chunks of backstory. The ending had me racing through to the end, anxious to know what would happen to the remaining characters. I haven't read many of Ruth Ware's books but I'll definitely be tracking them down as soon as I get the chance. 

 

You Are Invited by Sarah A. Denzil 

Five influencers have been chosen to travel to a Transylvanian monastery to participate in The Event, a highly publicized month long livestream. Before she even arrives at the building, Cath's driver tries to warn her away from the place. Terrible events have happened there in the past and as soon as the streaming starts, unsettling things begin to happen. Cath's medication goes missing. Viewers report seeing shadowy figures on the streams. One anonymous follower offers a million dollars to whichever participant is willing to murder one of his or her companions. 

I had high hopes for this one, but the plot is slow, mildly entertaining, and definitely not scary.

The Corpse Who Knew Too Much by Debra Sennefelder 

The latest food blogger mystery has Hope teaching a blogging class and exploring the world of podcasts, especially the true crime podcast created by one of her childhood friends. After building an audience, Devon has returned to her hometown to cover the unsolved disappearance of her own mother. Not long after she asks Hope for help, Devin is found murdered, all of her carefully compiled notes missing. I enjoy this series, which focuses almost as much on Hope's daily life as a food blogger as it does on the mystery in each book. 

Disclosure -- The publishers provided me with advance review copies. This post contains affiliate links. 

 

{I've Been Reading} The Remaking

 

  The Remaking by Clay McLeod Chapman 

No one can forget the Witch Girl of Pilot Creek. Years ago, Jessica was burned to death with her mother, then buried in the local cemetery under a thick layer of concrete, her grave  surrounded by an iron fence made of interlocking crosses. No one wanted that little girl getting out. and no one will stop telling her story. There was that awful movie from the seventies and the remake two decades later that went terribly wrong, then the podcaster who decided to revisit the site with the actress who starred in both movies...

I absolutely loved the first three-quarters of this book, but the ending fell flat and left me disappointed. The author has a wonderful way of vividly describing things and bringing them to life and he perfectly captures that love for old horror movies and the independent video stores that came long before Blockbuster and Hollywood Video. 

 

The Prized Girl by Amy K. Green

This book has the feel of those young adult "problem novels" from the 1970s, this time written for adults and with a much bleaker outcome. A young pageant queen's murdered body is found in the woods and her estranged half-sister won't accept the official explanation. Virginia's life is wreck, but Jenny was seemingly perfect. The book alternates between Virginia's investigation and Jenny's life in the days leading up to her death and it had me holding my breath and trying to figure out what was going to happen. I loved this one.

 Disclosures -- The publisher provided me with an advance review copy of The Remaking. I got The Prized Girl from the library. This post contains affiliate links. 

Let's Make Baby Quilts! {9/4/2020}

Let's Make Baby Quilts Linky Party Rules: 
Link directly to your post or specific Flickr photo. Your post can be about a baby quilt that's finished, or in progress, or you can be writing about what you have planned,  as long as it's about baby quilts. You're welcome to link to baby quilt posts that aren't brand new, but please don't submit the same post or picture more than once. I'd love it if you linked back to my site, either with a text link or the Let's Make Baby Quilts! button.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

{I've Been Reading} The Stepdaughter

The Stepdaughter by Georgina Cross

Mia was swimming laps in the backyard pool while her stepmother prepared dinner. Then she was gone, and all eyes were on Vanessa. Why wasn't she watching the thirteen-year-old more closely? How could the girl have vanished without a trace?

I'm a sucker for domestic thrillers that involve parenting and this one had me asking a lot of questions of my own about how much supervision a teenager does or doesn't need. I wanted to like this one, but Vanessa is hiding things from the reader and the first big reveal jarred me right out of the book. How could she not bother to mention THAT?! The plot twists and turns and what I was absolutely sure I saw coming wasn't how things turned out.

Disclosure -- The publisher provided me with an advance review copy. This post contains affiliate links. 

{I've Been Reading} Thread and Dead

Thread and Dead by Elizabeth Penney

The second book in the Apron Shop series has everything I love about cozy mysteries. When Iris is invited to visit a reclusive spinster to purchase some antique linens, she immediately adores the older woman and so did I. Eleanor Brady is adorable, and seemingly vulnerable to her nasty nephew. She's also got questions about how her mother, a housemaid, left behind a trunk filled with vintage Chanel. Iris is happy to help her research the family history and she's also pulled into a murder investigation when one of the environmentalists who was renting rooms from Iris for the summer is found dead on nearby cliffs.

Between the murder mystery, the antique linens, and a very entertaining cardboard boat race, I raced through this one.



Crewel  and Unusual by Molly MacRae

Here's another cozy mystery that will make you fall in love with antique linens. I've never seen needlework like the rare antique table cloth that Belinda has for sale in her shop, but I definitely want to...and Molly MacRae's vivid descriptions make me feel almost like I have seen it. Textile expert Kath Rutledge falls in love with the exquisitely stitched piece, but she barely gets a chance to examine it because accusations are flying between rival shop owners. Nervie and Belinda are both calling the other's merchandise fakes and copies and worse. Then Belinda is found dead in her shop, stabbed with a pair of scissors from the shop that Kath owns. With needlework and knitting and a helpful ghost, this one is all kinds of fun.

Disclosure -- The publisher provided me with an advance review copy. This post contains affiliate links. 

{I've Been Reading} Little Disasters

Little Disasters by Sarah Vaughan

Of course emergency room doctor Liz Trenchard is concerned when one of her friends comes into the hospital with her infant. That concern quickly increases when she realizes the extent of little Betsey's injuries and how much time has passed since what Jess describes as a minor fall. Liz follows protocol, transferring the infant into the care of another doctor and alerting the proper authorities, even though she is sure that Jess would never have have hurt her own child. They've known each other for years and Jess has always been the most careful and attentive mother in their group of friends. Liz can't believe that Jess would hurt her own baby, but everything about the situation raises red flags.

At times, this one was difficult to read, partially because the details that describe Betsey's injuries are so perfectly descriptive that I could feel them. One sentence in particular is going to stick with me for a long time. The plot moves between the morning of the accident, the present, and the early days of Liz and Jess's friendship. There are dates at the beginning of each chapter, but they're so close together that I found myself trying to figure out from context when in the sequence of events I was reading about. There are a lot of characters to keep track of, especially kids and husbands. I love domestic thrillers that involve families and this one kept me turning pages to find out what had happened.



Death at High Tide by Hannah Dennison

I absolutely loved this one! Newly widowed Evie Mead is just learning that her wealthy husband's recent business failures have left her with nothing except, possibly, the Tregarrick Rock Hotel. With her sister, she heads to the foggy island, curious to see what the place is like. It's not what she expected. Access to the old Art Deco hotel is by sea tractor and there's only a narrow window each day to get onto or off of Tregarrick Rock. The locals aren't particularly friendly and the owner of  the hotel insists that he never met Evie's husband, let alone used his family's property as collateral to a loan he never repaid. There's a cast of quirky characters, and fantastic atmosphere, and a murder that makes Evie look like a possible suspect... and I can't tell you more than that because I don't want to spoil the fun. I cannot wait for the second book in this series to come out so I can see what happens next!

Disclosure -- The publishers provided me with advance review copies. This post contains affiliate links. 

Flowers in a Window

It turns out that you can have a whole lot of fun with a free pattern, some thrifted aida, and a couple of skeins of ecru floss. 

The chart is Flowers in a Window by Stone Street Stitchworks and it's a free download.

Remember Ripe Apples?

One of my goals for the next few months is to tackle my pile of UFOs. The projects that I'm still actively working on are fine. So are the ones I started and then set aside for a while because there are only so many hours in a day. 

The ones I've set my sights on are the ones that I abandoned because something went wrong. With Ripe Apples, it was the basket and  the stitches I'd left unstitched. With so many similar shades of brown and green, it was the hedgehogs all over again. 

I know that I'll keep making mistakes, but maybe I can learn from them and not do the same dumb thing over and over. It's easier to do the confetti stitching if you don't leave random bits of it scattered here there and everywhere then have to compare your stitches to the chart and figure out what color they're supposed to be.

Those missing stitches on the apples that I saw as soon as I imported the pictures? Those are stitched white highlights that are supposed to be there. I double checked.

Let's Make Baby Quilts! {August 2020)

Let's Make Baby Quilts Linky Party Rules: 
Link directly to your post or specific Flickr photo. Your post can be about a baby quilt that's finished, or in progress, or you can be writing about what you have planned,  as long as it's about baby quilts. You're welcome to link to baby quilt posts that aren't brand new, but please don't submit the same post or picture more than once. I'd love it if you linked back to my site, either with a text link or the Let's Make Baby Quilts! button.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Bee Well

Sill here, still stitching, still doing a lot of reading, and still not managing to take pictures of finished projects to post them. That's why there was no mid-year totals post this year. Well, that and the fact that there weren't a lot of finishes by the end of June. 

I did  finish Bee Well, a free pattern by The Blackberry Rabbit. It would have been a quick stitch, but I had unexplainable trouble with the wings and wound up doing one of them three times. They're probably not perfect, and bees probably do have perfect wings, but I'm not going to lose sleep over it. 

And I'm swooning over this little pressed glass boot, which is the exact color of honey straight from the hive. A few weeks ago, I saw some similar shoes at Goodwill, but they were eight bucks each and I didn't like them quite that much.  I was sure I'd find one at an estate sale if I was patient...and I did. This one was a dollar. And it's the color of honey, so I love it more than the blue ones I saw at the thrift store.

Google tells me that they're by Fenton and apparently people collect them and, compared to etsy prices, the ones at the thrift store were cheap. But I'm not a collector so I'll just keep haunting the estate sales for pretty sparkly treasures.

{I've Been Reading} Gods of Howl Mountain

Gods of Howl Mountain by Taylor Brown

This one caught my interest because it was set in the North Carolina Mountains of the 1950s, with bootleg whiskey and snake handling preachers. What I loved about this book were the descriptions. Never in a million years would I have thought I could get into a book that spent so much time describing cars and how they executed sharp turns, but this book did it. It transported me to another place and time. There was a plot and things happened to the characters, but for me that was secondary to the atmosphere.

Disclosure -- The publisher provided me with an advance review copy. This post contains affiliate links. 

{I've Been Reading} Playing Nice

Playing Nice by J. P. Delaney

Pete Riley opens the door one afternoon to two strangers and the news that his two-year-old son isn't actually his child. Two infants were switched in the NICU.

All of  those words that other thrillers put in their descriptions -- thrilling, unputdownable, gripping, harrowing -- definitely apply to this book. I did a lot of cringing and holding my breath and worrying about what was going to happen as the relationship between the two sets of parents went from amicable to uncomfortable to downright dangerous.

I can't recommend this one enough if you're into domestic thrillers that explore parenting.



Believe Me by J. P. Delaney

Drama student Claire Wright finds herself working for a divorce lawyer, entrapping cheating husbands in hotel bars. It pays the bills and she's good at the job, seeing her interactions as a script in her own mind. The whole thing is an easy performance, until she finds herself tangled up in a murder investigation and working with the police in an even more dangerous role.

One of the things I like most about JP Delaney is that the books are all so wildly different. This one plunges you into the world of Baudelaire's poetry. The plot gets weird, then it gets weirder, and eventually one of the twists near the end completely lost me...but it was an entertaining read.

Disclosure -- The publisher provided me with an advance review copy. This post contains affiliate links. 

Jane Austen Embroidery

I hate to admit that I've never actually read anything by Jane Austen....but I am fascinated by the history of needlework and was happy to have the chance to take a look at Jane Austen Embroidery: Regency Patterns Reimagined for Modern Stitchers  by Jennie Batchelor and Alison Larkin. You don't have to be familiar with Jane Austen's work to absolutely love this book.

The patterns are adapted from originals that appeared in The Lady's Magazine in the late 1700s. Since most of us aren't likely to be creating sprigged muslin gowns or embroidered waistcoats, the patterns have been transformed into cell phone cases and tablet sleeves, along with a housewife and some other sewing accessories.

Even more than the patterns, I love the chapters explaining the original magazines and the needlework being done at the time. For the first time in my life, I actually know what "sprigged muslin" is. And I plan on researching map samplers, because as much as I've read and heard about different types of samplers I wasn't familiar with those.

All of the projects include detailed finishing instructions. The book doesn't assume that you have much, if any, stitching experience so there are stitch guides and explanations of the materials and tools needed.

Disclosure -- The publisher provided me with an advance review copy. This post contains affiliate links. 

Finding a Way Through It....

"Acceptance doesn't mean resignation. It means understanding that something is what it is and there's got to be a way through it." The quote is from Michael J. Fox and Michelle from Bendy Stitchy Designs created the sampler as part of a fundraiser for Parkinson's back in January. The things we're trying to get through have changed since I bought the chart, and changed since I started stitching the chart, and I'm sure they'll change again before I'm finished. 

I'm still here, still stitching and knitting and making plans for quilts. I've finished some things but I haven't worked up the energy and enthusiasm to take pictures and write posts. A little bit of it is on my Instagram feed, but there are more projects I've finished and tucked into drawers and forgotten. 

I've got pictures of my daughter's new house to show you -- she bought a time capsule house complete with a rotary phone on the kitchen wall and all the 1970s decor from my childhood and then immediately brought things up to date because nobody  wants matted shag green carpet that's still holding almost fifty years of cigarette smoke. 

I wrecked the minivan and a couple of weeks later my son in law totaled their new car on the same exact stretch of highway. No people were hurt, but we all hate deer now. And we're not too fond of whoever sideswiped their brand new car in the grocery store parking lot and took off.

We're still here, still healthy, and I'm trying to find a way back into the rhythm of posting on the blog.

{I've Been Reading} Down in Flames

Down in Flames by Cheryl Hollon

Savannah is teaching her students flame-working, a complicated technique that they can use to create glass beads. As always, we get a vicarious lesson in working with glass. That chance to learn about a craft I'm unlikely to tackle in real life is one of my favorite elements of this series, along with the cast of characters I always enjoy spending more time with. As her students are leaving the building, Savannah hears a thud and a scream. A hit and run driver has struck a pedestrian, leaving no evidence at the scene.

Unlike many cozy mysteries, where the victim is someone unpleasant or barely known to the protagonist, this murder hits close to home. The grief is real, and it's intense. I highly recommend this one.



Lies by T. M. Logan

Joe turning into a hotel parking garage after spotting his wife's car, intending to surprise her and let their young son show her the award he got at school that morning. Within minutes he's let another man unconscious and bloody in the parking lot and his life is beginning to unravel.  I liked that the entire book is told fist person from Joe's point of view, with no jumping back and forth in time. From the moment he follows his wife into the parking garage, the plot is moving forward. It bogged down for me a bit in the middle, just as I think things were supposed to be escalating for the reader, but overall it was an enjoyable read.




The Bone Jar by SW Kane

The body of an elderly woman is found in a condemned asylum and even before the autopsy confirms that she was murdered, the authorities have no idea how she could have gotten into the old building.

Police procedurals aren't usually my thing, but this one includes a derelict asylum and urban exploration. Those are the sort of thing that always catches my interest and I found myself really enjoying the book. The setting is seriously creepy and most of the characters are intriguing, especially the former patient who still lives on the asylum grounds. I did get two of the characters confused near the end of the book.


Disclosure -- The publishers provided me with advance review copies. This post contains affiliate links. 

{I've Been Reading} The Safe Place

The Safe Place by Anna Downes

Emily is at the end of her rope. She's just lost her temporary job as a receptionist because she was absent too many times, going to acting auditions that don't work out. She's been evicted from her awful little apartment. Her adoptive parents won't loan her any more money... Then, out of the blue, she gets the offer for a job that seems too wonderful and perfect to be true.

The owner of the company she was just fired from wants her to work at his remote estate in France. His wife, Nina, needs an assistant, someone to help with her projects and some light housework and free up more time for Nina to spend with their daughter who has severe issues with her health.

Something is wrong on the property, something more sinister than the underlying reek of mold that fills the two houses, or the fact that distance and the lack of phone reception completely cuts them off from the outside world. But Emily is able to ignore that as she enjoys long afternoons by the pool sharing bottles of wine and enjoying Nina's fantastic cooking. Nina has created a haven for her little family and Emily is happy to be there with them until the signs that something is very wrong become too blatant for her to ignore.

I enjoyed this one. Emily, despite the fact that she can't keep her life together and is a little too snoopy for her own good at times, is a likable heroine. Nina obviously has problems, but I never guessed at what she and her husband were hiding.  And the setting is fantastic, something different from the domestic  thrillers I usually read.




The New Husband by D. J. Palmer

A year after the disappearance of her husband, Simon steps into Nina's life and she finds herself falling in love again. Simon is attentive and caring, Compared to the things she now knows about her first husband he's absolutely perfect, and he wants to build a life with Nina and her two teenage children.

Nina might have blinders on, but her daughter sees lots of red flags. The plot gets off to an almost painfully slow start, but about halfway through things suddenly get a whole lot more interesting. After that point, it's definitely a page turner. I'm glad I stuck with it.



The School Friend by Alison James

Lucy and Adele have a secret. They've never revealed  the details of what happened at the reservoir that afternoon when they went out with another girl and only the two of  them made it back home. But that's not what this book is actually about, despite what the cover copy implies. The secret that Adele and Lucy share is important, but it pales in comparison to what Lucy is dealing with right now.

The level of suspense in this one is high and I was holding my breath as the plot twisted and the situation got steadily worse. Lucy is in an abusive marriage and the details of her situation were hard to read about as it went from bad to worse. I went into this one expecting the focus to be on what Lucy and Adule had done as children, but that's revealed over the course of a few flashbacks. (The title of this one has changed since I received my review copy, which was titled The Friendship Pact.)

Disclosure -- The publisher provided me with an ARC. This post contains affiliate links.