The Poisoned House by, Michael Ford

Young Abi is an orphaned servant girl in the house of Lord Greave, the head of the household staff Mrs. Cotton, is the sister of the late lady of the house who rules with an iron fist. It has been a year since Abi lost her mother who was nurse/governess to Lord Greave’s son Samuel, Abi and Samuel grew up together and were closer than master & servant should be. In the year since her mother died Lord Greave has been slowly losing his mind and Samuel went off to war and came back injured. The worst thing is that Abi is seeing the ghost of her mother but what is she trying to tell her.

I really enjoyed this book it was hard to put down; it had just the right amount of spookiness and mystery. The build up to the reveal was great and what you think is going on is actually quite different then you are led to believe. The whole atmosphere of the story really took you back to 1856 Victorian England, the big house with its ghosts plus a little upstairs/downstairs. Abi was a great character as were the rest of the household staff I ended up really liking them and thought the postscript was a great touch!

If you like Victorian gothic with ghosts give this book a try!

I received this book from netgalley.

4 stars

fathermothergod:My Journey Out of Christian Science by, Lucia Greenhouse

Title: fathermothergod:My Journey Out of Christian Science Author: Lucia Greenhouse

Publisher: Crown Publishing Group

Imprint: Crown

Pub Date: 08/09/2011

ISBN: 9780307720924
Category: NONFICTION - ADULT: Biography & Autobiography

Description from publisher:
Lucia Ewing had what looked like an all-American childhood. She lived with her mother, father, sister, and brother in an affluent suburb of Minneapolis, where they enjoyed private schools, sleep-away camps, a country club membership, and skiing vacations. Surrounded by a tight-knit extended family, and doted upon by her parents, Lucia had no doubt she was loved and cared for. But when it came to accidents and illnesses, Lucia's parents didn't take their kids to the doctor's office--they prayed, and called a Christian Science practitioner.

fathermothergod is Lucia Greenhouse's story about growing up in Christian Science, in a house where you could not be sick, because you were perfect; where no medicine, even aspirin, was allowed. As a teenager, her visit to an ophthalmologist created a family crisis. She was a sophomore in college before she had her first annual physical. And in December 1985, when Lucia and her siblings, by then young adults, discovered that their mother was sick, they came face-to-face with the reality that they had few--if any--options to save her. Powerless as they watched their mother's agonizing suffering, Lucia and her siblings struggled with their own grief, anger, and confusion, facing scrutiny from the doctors to whom their parents finally allowed them to turn, and stinging rebuke from relatives who didn't share their parents' religious values.

In this haunting, beautifully written book, Lucia pulls back the curtain on the Christian Science faith and chronicles its complicated legacy for her family. At once an essentially American coming-of-age story and a glimpse into the practices of a religion few really understand, fathermothergod is an unflinching exploration of personal loss and the boundaries of family and faith.

My Review:
I didn’t know much about Christian Science when I started this book except for the fact that they don’t believe in going to doctors that the Lord will heal them however, I did not realize it is the symptoms of an illness or sickness itself that they don’t believe in.

I also don’t understand when they say things like have you tried science when referring to Lucia who wants to get her eyes checked, isn’t medicine science? So, I do not understand the name Christian Science when they don’t use Science like going to the doctor.

This book was a rare and fascinating look into a religion that I had little previous knowledge of and Lucia’s narrative on her family and upbringing alternately makes your heartbreak, makes you angry and makes you shake your head in disbelief that anyone could believe some of the things after going through what they went through in the latter part of the book. I felt so bad for Lucia and her siblings but also even through it all, her parents.

What was amazing is how her parent’s belief in this religion impacted the extended family too and how her parents virtually cut themselves off from any non-believer so no one could see what was really happening. Also Lucia confused feelings of wanting to get help for her mother and wanting to protect her parents must have been so hard I don’t know how she stayed sane through it all.

This was a great read and was very hard to put down, if you like memoirs about different religions or dysfunctional families I highly recommend this book it is a fascinating read.

4 Stars


Full Disclosure: I received this book from netgalley

Vixen ( The Flappers #1) & Ingenue (The Flappers#2) by, Jillian Larkin

I loved this book! It is so unique being set in the 20’s. This is the story of three friends. Gloria society girl engaged to Sebastian Grey a most eligible bachelor, Lorraine the neglected little rich girl wanting to be loved by a boy who doesn’t see her as anything but a friend, and Marcus the handsome playboy living his life to the fullest. Then there is Clara Gloria’s cousin who has come to Chicago in disgrace to “help with Gloria’s wedding” but there is more to Clara than meets the eye.

The excitement of rebelling against society and going to an underground speakeasy. For Gloria it is to try to live a little before she marries the boring Bastian. For Lorraine she just wants to get out from under Gloria’s shadow and be the center of attention. At the speakeasy Gloria meets Jerome part of the jazz band she finds she is attracted to him but there is a huge problem as Jerome is a man of color and this is the 1920’s.

This book has it all friendship, betrayal, secrets, forbidden love, and gangsters. From the uptown society of Chicago to the seedy underground I loved every minute of this book. Jillian Larkin takes you back to the 20’s and puts you right there the feel the music the clothes. She brings this period piece to life. I liked that the love story was sweet and not the usual fare. There is a lot of drinking as it is set during prohibition and they go to a speakeasy and a lot of smoking which in the 20’s was something everyone did. One just needs to remember that this is historical fiction and the author has re-created the atmosphere very well.

This is a great debut and a great beginning to a fun series. The ending is a cliffhanger that left me salivating for the next installment. Bravo Miss Larkin you have me completely hooked!

I received this book from Barnes & Noble First Look Program thank you for the opportunity to read this book.

4 ½ Stars










Ingenue (The Flappers#2) by, Jillian Larkin

We start up this second book in the Flapper’s series in New York City, Gloria and Jerome hiding out from the mob, Lorraine working for the mob, Clara is back in the city that almost ruined her, can she stay away from her old life or is it too much of a temptation and Vera trying to find her brother and hopefully save his life and make up for what she had done in Chicago. Relationships go through some growing pains in this one! You’ll be surprised who ends up the happiest in the end.

This one was a lot of fun again with some major intrigue as the stories and people converged for the climax and what a climax it was! It isn’t really a cliffhanger but the end of one chapter and the next book will be a new one because parts of this story were wrapped up very well, yet with just enough mystery to keep fans reading to see what happens next.

I so enjoy the atmosphere in this series, the 20’s ,flappers, bootleggers, booze, gangsters and some famous people of the time play into this story! I love who Vera meets backstage at the Cotton Club and who engineers some of the bad things that happen! (No Spoilers)

I think this is a great YA historical fiction series that teens and adults alike will enjoy no fantasy involved just a look at life in a different time when women were just starting to come into their own, segregation is in effect except of course that it’s ok for the African Americans to entertain you but they must come in the back door and an interracial relationship will get you in trouble I think it gives a great look at a life we can only imagine and hope that we have moved far away from. I do love books that that show strong women and this one is full of them , women in 1920 leaving the notions and traditional roles their parents have laid out for them to make their way in the world on their own, scary as that is.

I look forward to the next installment of this series!

4 stars

The Tudors TV Series

The Tudors TV Series




I really enjoyed this series but it is not for the young the sex scenes are extremely graphic and there are some scenes that are just there for the shock value and in my opinion were not needed at all (the scene where Henry umm takes care of himself). I was also disappointed that it ended where it did it should have just been called Henry the VIII. I wanted more I think the young lady (Sarah Bolger) who played Mary Tudor future Queen Mary has the acting chops to pull off the role very well. It could have ended when Queen Elizabeth took over because there are 100’s of movies out there about her but very few about Mary so I would have liked it if it had gone through Mary’s reign.


I liked all the actors in this show Jonathan Rhys Meyers kind of came into his own or just grew on me as the series progressed and of course you just can’t go wrong with Henry Cavill. I thought this series was very well done and I kept hopping over to Wikipedia to see what really happened was surprised at how well they actually stuck to true history considering it was a tv show.


I highly recommend this series to Tudor fans and it made me want to go back and re-read some Allison Weir or finally read some Jean Plaidy or Antonia Fraser.

Do you have any favorite Tudor books?

The Weird Sisters by, Eleanor Brown

This is the story of 3 sisters raised by a Shakespeare scholar who talks in quotes from the bard a mother who stayed at home but seemed melancholy at times, the sisters were close and not close 3 very different personalities Rose is the caretaker, Cordy (Cordelia) the wild child and Bean (Bianca) who wanted to make her way in the big city with all its trappings. Their mother has been diagnosed with cancer which brings Cordy & Bean home but is it the only reason or are there secrets that would have brought them home anyway?

I am glad I read this book on my nook so I was able to highlight the many many great quotes or I would have filled up a notebook writing them all down! Here are a few:

Instead, we were going to wrap ourselves in cloaks woven from self-pity and victimhood, refusing to admit that we might be able to help each other if we’d only open up. Instead, we’d do what we always did, the only thing we’d ever been dependably stellar at: we’d read.

“What I mean is, I still feel like me. It’s not like I wake up and think, I am a responsible adult. I just look in the mirror and see myself. The same stupid person I’ve been looking at for years.”

She never managed to find herself in these books no matter how hard she tried, exhuming traits from between the pages and donning them for an hour, a day, a week. We think in some ways, we have all done this our whole lives, searching for the book that will give us the keys to ourselves, let us into a wholly formed personality as though it were a furnished room to let. As though we could walk in and look around and say to the gray-haired landlady behind us, "We'll take it."

"There are times in our lives when we have to realize our past is precisely what it is, and we cannot change it. But we can change the story we tell ourselves about it, and by doing that, we can change the future."

"We all have stories we tell ourselves. We tell ourselves we are too fat, too ugly, or too old, or too foolish. We tell ourselves these stories because they allow us to excuse our actions, and they allow us to pass off the responsibility for things we have done-maybe to something within our control, but anything other than the decisions we have made."

This a book for the reader and lover of books it also reaffirms that you can go home again. These sisters each with their own set of problems 2 who ran far from home and 1 who never wants to leave. The growing up the looking at your life and analyzing everything you’ve done and how it brings you to who you are now. This was a very enjoyable book and I fell in love with these sisters and their parents watching the sisters bond through their troubles and differences.

I highly recommend this book to readers and book lovers whether you are a Shakespeare fan for not I think you will enjoy this character driven book.

4 ½ Stars

My Summer Immersion Into the Stargate Franchise

Now that I have finished my summer immersion into all things Stargate I suppose I should get my thoughts down. And I really do mean immersion I watched all 3 series back to back every night and weekend all summer that is 349 episodes of Stargate. I enjoyed the humor in all of them well SGU didn’t have much humor but SG-1 & Atlantis had just the right amount! All in all these shows were a great summer escape and SG-1 may be a yearly one!

I enjoyed all the incarnations however none lived up to the original SG-1, I enjoyed the chemistry of the original 4 they are SG-1 to me you just can’t go wrong with Sam (Amanda Tapping) Daniel ( Michael Shanks) & Teal’c ( Christopher Judge) & Of course Jack O’Neill ( Richard Dean Anderson), it took me awhile to warm up to Mitchell (Ben Browder) but I really enjoyed Vala’s (Claudia Black) character she was fun and spunky and was good for a laugh. I have heard these two Black & Browder starred in Farscape and that because I haven’t watched that series I didn’t get certain references in episode 200 which was hilarious by the way. So after I have watched Farscape I plan to go back and watch episode 200 again.I do think that Jack O’Neill (Richard Dean Anderson) became a bit a caricature of himself ala the 200th episode and more and more in his recurring roles in Atlantis & SGU. The movies Ark of Truth & Continuium closed up the stories left hanging in when the series ended.

I enjoyed Stargate Atlantis however they did sometimes feel like regurgitated SG-1 episodes. I however did love the Douglas Adams references! I of course liked Ronon Dex (Jason Momoa) especially since I watched this after he was Khal Drogo in A Game of Thrones and now he will be playing Conan, a movie I didn’t care about till I saw who was playing him!

*************Spoiler Alert**************


My other favorite character was Carson Beckett (Paul McGillion) and when sad things happened I was upset then relieved when happy things happened is that unspoily enough well I put a warning just in case



SGU is a much darker incarnation of the Stargate franchise although well acted it just doesn’t have what the earlier shows had but I am still hooked and wondered where it would go and then came the last episode…


******SPOILER ALERT******


****RANT ALERT**********



Really that’s how you’re going to end it they all go into stasis and we don’t know if Eli was able to fix the problem and go into stasis too????!!?? I think fans at least deserve a 3 years later movie come on give us something more!



All in all these shows were a great summer escape and SG-1 may be a yearly one!

Teaser Tuesday~The Weird Sisters

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current read
Open to a random page
Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

"Instead, we'd do what we always did, the only thing we'd ever been dependably stellar at: we'd read."

~~The Weird Sisters by, Eleanor Brown