Mr. Darcy's Dilemma & Delight - a review

I have actually been reading Pride & Prejudice spinoff stories for several years. When I worked at a school I saw one of the students reading one and then the idea was new to me so I read a few like Mr. Darcy's Diary and Mr. Darcy's Daughters (the latter of which is a part of a series that I really like). Since then I have read several every year. Somehow - according to my Goodreads lists anyway - I always tend to start and end my year reading these spinoffs. This year I mixed it up by reading this one a few months before the end of the year. I am such a rebel. ;)

Mr. Darcy's Dilemma and Delight is a different type of story about how Elizabeth and Darcy come to fall in love. They've already got some history - the history we all know - and then we find out how evil George Wickham truly is.

The story begins in medias res ('in the midst of things' if you're not a lit nerd like me) with Darcy out doing Darcy things like looking majestic on a horse and contemplating his responsibilities when he hears strange sounds that indicate someone is in trouble. He (unseen) witnesses Wickham walking away from - as further investigation enlightens - Miss Elizabeth Darcy sobbing on the ground. That's as descriptive as it gets, in case you were worried. And I promise that isn't giving away too much of the plot as it is in the synopsis as well.

Darcy mans up and gets help for Elizabeth, even going so far as to help her conceal events from her family (ruination for the sisters as well hanging in the balance).

We really breeze right on past the proud Darcy here and jump right into the most thoughtful and caring man on the planet. This man thinks of everything and creates a provision for it and he has a mindful, caring hand in Elizabeth's healing of her emotional trauma. And working through his doubts of how to care for a broken woman whom he still loves despite his hatred of Wickham and the evil that his actions wrap them into was a wonderful progression to read.

Elizabeth, in the meanwhile, is not a total shrinking violet. Obviously she has her rough patches and anxiety moments but she has an active hand in the restoration of herself that was written in a very gentle and believable way. She wasn't always one way or another because humans are not and emotions sometimes rule and sometimes we have good control over those things. If Austen's Elizabeth were a real person she would be very proud of this representation of her.

In the end, the love Darcy and Elizabeth develop is so full and deep it's like gentle waves washing over all the terrible things they've endured and making it all clean. A truly beautiful thing.

And there is no way you walk away from this book not completely in love with Darcy yourself. You thought the original made you love him? You ain't seen nothin' yet.

Amazon has the kindle version for only $4.99 (as of this posting)!


Fun fact: the cover photo - I totally took that. :)

Budget basic bathroom

I really enjoy white in the bathroom, it really helps it feel clean to me. In this case, things I used just happened to be white and then I was able to collect a few to keep it up. Most of the things I used to organize and "decorate" - I'm using that term quite loosely - came from thrift stores so let me show you how I kept the budget way down and kept a clean look.

 First of all, because this room just seems to be moisture prone even on no shower days I've decided against hanging art on the walls until I can figure out something that won't be adversely affected by that. I honestly haven't minded as I no longer use this room to do my makeup in the mornings and I don't stand there for an hour staring at nothing.

My shower curtain was a new in the package thrift store find - what a score!

These cupboards/drawers are hideous and SO HEAVY Need something out of the drawer? Add it to the 12 tasks of Hercules.

I remember when I was first touring this place and getting my key and the apartment manager was pulling on the towel rack to see how well it was attached and was like, "Oh this is a good one." And I looked at her like are you crazy? This thing is wooden! And has watermarks!

What can you do.

On the floor is this adorable doily look bath mat I got from World Market. It was cheaper and cuter than the ones I was seeing at Target, go figure.

On the counter I have a series of thrifted jars holding my extra soaps, Q-tips and cotton rounds.

The little glass tray is a new addition, also found at a thrift store. I was amazed at how clean it made things look even though things are still sitting in the same spot.

In my window, which I posted about previously, is a shutter which adds extra privacy and hair doo-dad storage. 

I wanted to be able to use this "chandelier" I made (see the original post here) but it wasn't waterproof so first I sprayed it with several coats of clear coat. Now it decorates my lightulb instead of the boring fixture that was there previously. Admittedly this works much better when you have a "normal" light bulb.

I'm going to estimate total cost for accessories around $40.

Could you go for a mostly white bathroom? Or would you go nuts and have to hang things on the wall? If you have any suggestions for things to hang that wouldn't be dust catchers or moisture wicking bacteria growers I'm all ears.

Minding Molly - a review

I had planned to not take on any more reviewing tasks for a while since I've been so horribly slow at actually getting my reviews up but when I saw a book about a girl named Molly trying to take control of her life which keeps going end-over-teakettle I felt like I was supposed to read this book.

 This is the third book in the "Courtship of Lancaster County" series. I have a friend who lives in Lancaster County, PA and she takes some beautiful photos of the occasional Amish thing she sees (this one is a favorite) but when I started to read this book I realized how I know absolutely nothing about the Amish and just kept hoping the author wouldn't lead me astray with what I was "learning." There were several words that were unfamiliar (do you know how long it's been since I've even heard the phrase "Pennsylvania Dutch"? Probably high school?) but through context hoped I was getting it. To be fair, most of the words weren't so foreign I couldn't figure most of them out. Dat and Mamm, denke and jah were no brainers but there were others like youngie (which I am still just assuming but...a group of young people? I should google that.) and rumschpringe that left me curious. Sometimes a book will have a glossary explaining words, phrases etc. in the back but this one did not include something like that. Possibly because it was already the third in the series and they figure if you don't have it figured out by now why are you still reading?

Other things like how Molly wore flip flops and carried a cell phone threw me. The arranging for drivers for transportation to places was new to me. Personally I think that sounds great, I hate driving and would love to have a person I could call up that would drive me into the city. The final thing that threw me was a youngie camping trip the characters planned. Instead of being able to concentrate on the story I just kept thinking the Amish go camping? I know people who are not Amish but regular farmers and camping is really rare for them. Especially the dairy farmers I knew because who would milk all the cows? I was halfway through the camping scene before I decided to give up figuring out of that was a real thing or not. When I read in the author's note at the end of the book that she uses Shakespeare as a starting point for her stories and that this one was A Midsummer Night's Dream the camping bit (ie a night in the woods) made just slightly more sense.

Now that my musings are out of the way let's get on to the review.

Minding Molly is the story of Molly Zook who, I believe, is in her early twenties? Maybe twenty? She's currently taken charge of the family farm which grows flowers and nursery stock and hosts a weekend market ever since her dad passed away suddenly (and recently) and it looked like they might lose the farm. Her mom doesn't do well with making business decisions and has been acting so strangely they arrange a CT scan for her, she has a half-brother creeping around trying to buy the place out from under them, her sister doesn't seem interested in helping out around the place and sits around staring into space or writing into a mysterious journal. Then her mom starts pressuring her to marry the neighbor boy who works for them but her best friend is in love with him so she can't do that to her no matter to save their farm or not. Plus she doesn't love him and she wants to at least love whom she marries. The boy working for her best friend's family is from out of state and instantly catches her eye but everything seems to come between them as they try to court.

At home Molly is the organizer, the hard worker, the boss and people respect her authority, decisions and planning. When they decide to go camping everyone suddenly hates her for the same personality/skill set. And everyone - and I mean everyone - groans out their words. I've never read a story where every single page had so and so groaning or so and so moaning. Used appropriately I can understand but this was obviously enough use to catch my attention.

During the camping scene I honestly felt like another story or maybe even another author had taken over the book and plopped it into the plot. Everyone devolved into whining, conniving children. Speaking of children there was a whole thing about a toddler whose parents could not attend so they sent it along on the camping trip with all these young people and their chaperoning couple. Is that an Amish thing? Who in their right mind would actually do this?

Granted, the woods in A Midsummer Night's Dream changed people while they were there but Shakespeare was at least able to put it eloquently. This made me want to bash my head into a wall while they all tramped around the woods glaring at each other and fighting over imagined schemes of stealing boyfriends. I actually reached a point where I thought this was YA fiction (based on the character's behavior) but I don't think it is.

The big question here is will Molly's tumultuous relationships work themselves out? I do feel there was a satisfying ending to the story but I won't be giving away more than that.

There were a few moments in this story that I did like. I connected with Molly in name, in having a father die suddenly, in having a mother start behaving all strangely and in losing the place you loved living and working, There were a few moments with people talking out issues and problems that I thought "yeah that's some good stuff right there." but they were so lost in the rest of the story I just don't feel it was worth slogging through to find them.

The idea of these stories being based on Shakespeare really appeal to me and I want to like it. I've heard the first two were actually pretty good, and the one that's supposed to come after this is a Much Ado About Nothing story line which actually appeals to me and I may give that one a go. Maybe by then I'll have brushed up on my Pennsylvania Dutch.



I received a digital copy of this book for the purposes of review from Bethany House Publishers. Opinions and words are mine.

I really hate writing reviews of books I don't like...this makes me sad.



 

Stranded - a review

Another belated review. This time because I was in the middle of packing, trying to find somewhere to live and then moving. Blech. But in contrast to my previous book review, I quite enjoyed this one!

This third in the series follows a few  of the McKennas - a ridiculously talented and wonderful family from Alaska that I would dearly love to hang out with. The people are flawed but loving and I feel the realism in that at the same time it helps me see the flaws in some of my own behaviors towards people. Helpful.

 I actually read the first in the series and reviewed it some time ago and when I saw this was available for review, I bought the second book so I wouldn't miss out and then read this one in proper order. There is character set up for the next pair (as in 'oh yeah they are so getting together') in each previous book so I suggest to start at the beginning and work your way through.

In this story we follow Darcy St. James (a side character from previous stories) investigating the mysterious disappearance of a friend who had taken a job on a cruise line. Darcy then uses her skills from her old position of undercover investigative journalism to get a job on the cruise line and see what happened as not only does no one seem to care, but they seem to be covering up the disappearance.

She runs into Gage McKenna at some point and there's a series of mistrust, semi-trust, life-saving, man anger, etc. I did not enjoy his constant well you're "undercover" so no matter your reasons for doing so you're just a lying liar pants from Liarstown. But they work out their issues in a realistic way, as opposed to I-hate-you-for-most-of-the-book-just-kidding-I-love-you-the-end. Which I have complained about MANY times regarding Christian fic.

There is a lot of outdoorsy adventure and suspense (near-death kayaking! corpse discoveries! Sketchy "romantic" walks with possible murderers!) as in the previous two which I love and seriously I just love all these people can we be friends already?

There's a 4th book on the way. I am going to be all over that.


I received a copy of this book from Bethany House for the purposes of review.

Sidenote: I got my review copy as an ebook and I can't remember which specific thing it was, double f's maybe? Some letter combination was left out of the entire story. Is that a normal thing so you don't feel all fancy that you got a free book? I found it super distracting and am impressed I was able to read the story without it. Anyone else experienced anything like that?

Rules of Murder - a review

This is extremely belated but...I find this type of review difficult to write. I'm an encourager and I like to find the merit in everyone's writing but I just did not like this book. And if I don't like a book, I have extreme difficulty saying so in a review, I just prefer to put it away and never speak of it again. And if I saw someone reading a book I really hated, maybe slap it out of their hands as I walked by. I was super excited to see it on the list of books I could choose to review as I had heard about it previously and really wanted to read it which just made my dislike all the more sad.

I do really like the cover artwork and I do applaud the author for writing something other than an old west mail order bride or Amish something which seems to be the bulk of Christian fiction last time I checked, so yay?

Drew Farthering, the hero, ends up with multiple murders on his country estate in 1930s England. He loves mystery stories and uses his "knowledge" of them to aid he and his friend Nick (who I kinda liked best of the pair) along with Madeline Parker (love interest/a guest from America and niece to his step-father) as they try to solve the case before the actual detectives do because everyone knows that detectives don't know what they are doing.

 There are some nice twists but I found it difficult to keep track of some of  the who was who and I felt the love portion of the story was a bit silly. As in, I just met you and this is crazy, but here's my number so please never leave I'm in love with you and we should be together forever. There were some odd character encounters that totally threw me like a breakfast scene where they were talking about eating some wonderful food and "Oh you'd eat this forever if you were stranded on a desert island? You must be reading ---" at which point the other character replies the equivalent of , "Nope." and just moves on. I felt like 'what just happened? Is that coming into play later?' It never did. So odd.

I see there are a couple more books in the series, or at least in the works and premises of those are totally drawing me in and making me want to read them so maybe there is hope yet that I will like this series.

This book was provided by Bethany House Publishers for the purposes of review. Obviously they did not dictate what my review would be like or it would not have been this.