TMST

 

 

Tell Me Something Tuesday is a weekly discussion post where bloggers discuss a wide range of topics from books and blogging to life in general. Weigh in and join the conversation by adding your thoughts in the comments. If you want to do your own post, grab the question and answer it on your blog. Feel free to leave your links in the comments if you are participating.

5/6/2025 What is your least favorite thing about spring?

Least favorite thing? Oh there is no least favorite thing. Maybe cos it is so short? We can have snow still in April, which means over 6 months of winter if it is bad, and then maybe one month of spring before summer.  After that long you long for spring even if winter is lovely. So yeah nothing bad.

5/13/2025 Share some book covers you love from the past year.

5/20/2025 Do you have a fitness routine or exercise you enjoy?

5/27/2025 Which books are you looking forward to reading this Summer? (Jun-Aug)

6/3/2025 Paper, electronic, audio... How do you read? Has it changed in recent years?

6/10/2025 New to me authors: who have you discovered in the past 12 months?

6/17/2025 How do you choose what to read next?

6/24/2025 Do you have any travel or staycation plans for the summer?

Tell Me Something Tuesday is a weekly discussion post where bloggers discuss a wide range of topics from books and blogging to life in general. Weigh in and join the conversation by adding your thoughts in the comments. If you want to do your own post, grab the question and answer it on your blog. Feel free to leave your links in the comments if you are participating.

If you are interested in participating in TMST or receiving periodic emails that list the upcoming TMST topics and questions,  please fill out this GOOGLE FORM.  Participation is optional and never required.

Carole´s Monday: The Charm School

 

Author: Susan Wiggs

Title: The Charm School

Series: The Calhoun Chronicles #1

Genre: Historical Romance

Format: ebook

Pages: 384

Published: April 1, 1999

Where I got It: Borrowed from library

Summary: 

As the ballrooms of 1800s America glitter, romance is afoot...

Boston and Rio de Janeiro, 1851

An awkward misfit in an accomplished family, Isadora Peabody yearns to escape her life as a wallflower in Boston society. Fate intervenes when she learns that a ship bound for Rio de Janeiro is in need of an interpreter—a pursuit she very much enjoys. The only problem? The surly and handsome captain is adamantly opposed to a woman taking the role.

Sea captain Ryan Calhoun used to have a good family name. But he’d purposely walked away from everything it afforded him, driven by his quest to right an old wrong. When he finds himself falling for the meek young woman who comes aboard his ship, he’s determined to stay away from her—if only to keep her out of his secretive, dangerous plans.

As the tides of attraction flow between them, Ryan and Isadora must risk it all for love. For a true lady must learn to speak her mind, and Isadora is ready to put her newfound charms to the test.

Review:

This was voted for our DNF 2nd Chance challenge. I try to do this challenge twice a year, because sometimes a book (like some people) deserves a second chance. 

Isadora is awkward and a misfit in an accomplished family. She is nothing but a wallflower in the society of Boston. Fate has a funny way of intervening, and she finds herself on a ship bound to Rio de Janeiro as an interpreter. Everything seems golden.....except for the surly and handsome captain. Ryan used to have a good family name, but he walked away to right an old wrong. Isadora is something he wants to avoid so he can keep his secretive and dangerous plan...well...a secret. Attraction and lust have other plans for them though. 

I still don't get what the title means. There is no school. Ryan doesn't do much to teach her. Is it the boat? Is it the sea? Is Isadora self-teaching? Beh. 

Ryan is meh. 

Isadora is meh. 

Their chemistry seems forced and I just can't buy it even at the end. I did enjoy some of their quips though. I actually chuckled a bit.

The locations are the best part of the story! So refreshing, but sadly I still didn't warm up to these two as a couple. 

I managed to get to the end just so I could see the hows and whys. Morbid curiosity I guess.

All-in-all, I DID finish this so I can safely say it is a slight win for the DNF 2nd Chance challenge. However, my opinion barely changed. I'll give it a bonus star for the locations and the quips. 2 stars from me.  

Favorite Character(s): the boat

Least Favorite Character(s): Isadora's family.

 Challenge(s):

- Library love #10

The Housemaid by Freida McFadden

Series: The Housemaid (#1)

Format: 336 pages, Paperback

Published: August 23, 2022 by Grand Central Publishing

Thriller/own

I really do not want to say too much about this one. You have to experience it for yourself.

Millie needs a job, but as an ex convict that is hard. She gets a job as a housemaid. The wife is a total B*tch, the kid is a brat, and the husband rather handsome now isn´t he.

She sleeps in the attic in a strange room that locks from the outside. Jane Eyre vibes here

I would have quit that horrid place. She got so much shit, and she is just trying her best because she needs money.

But...yes twists, a punch in the gut, and I just did not see things coming. Recommended.

Will I read more? Honestly, I am not that interested. The only bad thing about the book is that it gave us an insight into what happens next and they kind of lost me there. So like round 2? Not that interested in that.

But yes read this one!!! And if someone has read book 2...is it just the same formula again? I have read one and I am happy. I like when I do not see things coming

Every day I clean the Winchesters’ beautiful house top to bottom. I collect their daughter from school. And I cook a delicious meal for the whole family before heading up to eat alone in my tiny room on the top floor.

I try to ignore how Nina makes a mess just to watch me clean it up. How she tells strange lies about her own daughter. And how her husband Andrew seems more broken every day. But as I look into Andrew’s handsome brown eyes, so full of pain, it’s hard not to imagine what it would be like to live Nina’s life. The walk-in closet, the fancy car, the perfect husband.

I only try on one of Nina’s pristine white dresses once. Just to see what it’s like. But she soon finds out… and by the time I realize my attic bedroom door only locks from the outside, it’s far too late.

But I reassure myself: the Winchesters don’t know who I really am.

They don’t know what I’m capable of…

Audio: Master of Mayhem by Mary Wine

Series: Book 2, The Enchanted Well

Release date: 04-29-25

Length: 5 hrs and 56 mins

Narrated by: Antony Ferguson

Historical romance/to Review from Tantor Audio

In book Sabine´s sister was taken by Scots, and now Sabine venture out to dance on May Day. And what enfolds is that she too is taken away by a Scot.

Ruben Lindsey is enthralled by the English Woman he meets and after some trouble he can only see to her safety by taken her to Scotland. And yes as always, the Scots are not happy because she is English after all. 

Sabine is falling for Ruben, but they can not marry! I thought the villain would be this cranky Cook we meet, but there is another villain emerging. In these days only men knitted in guilds to sell things. And oh no Sabine can knit! I even had to go google it and yes there used to be knitting guilds with men only.

There is some arguing as they butt heads, some danger as some do not want her there and me wondering if there ever can be a happy ending.

I have listened to a lot of books by Ferguson, all Wine books, and I always enjoy his narration. I am very used to it and it would not be a Wine, or Scottish book without it.

Legend has it that looking into the enchanted Midnight Well on a full moon will reveal your true love’s face and bind your fates together... forever.

Ruben Lindsey, heir to the Lindsey lands, was only tasked with delivering a letter but when he happens upon the mythical midnight well and sees the face of a beautiful woman in its waters – the same face of the woman he must deliver the letter to – he simply can't ignore the pull he feels to her.

Sabine “Modesty” Hawlyn feels confined by her rigid Puritan life enforced by her extremely religious father who has arranged for her to marry a man she does not want. She yearns for freedom and when a handsome stranger brings news from her eldest sister Prudence who was whisked away across the border to Scotland, she can’t help but hope for something more – especially now that she has also seen the Scotsman’s face in the waters of the well.

During May Day celebrations, a last piece of joy and freedom for Modesty, she is unexpectedly attacked by the Queen’s men. To her relief the handsome Scot comes to her rescue, but when her savior becomes her captor, she begins to question what fate has in store for her.