Life and Things

Well, I had my biopsy this past Thursday. I did end up being put under general anesthesia. The procedure took three hours, and then I needed to stay flat for four hours after that. Now I look like a vampire with one fang bit me…  Here’s hoping they find useful information from the samples they took…

I’m still sticking to my dietary guidelines, and soda now smells sickeningly sweet to me again. I feel cranky sometimes, because of how limited my diet has become, and resentful too. I haven’t eaten anything I shouldn’t (except the day of my biopsy. Then I indulged in a fried banana at the sushi restaurant) but I’ve been tempted sooo many times, and I’m still surrounded by things I can’t have both at work and at home. Gaahh! I’m sure (I hope) that these things will pass soon enough. I did drink some ginger ale after the procedure due to nausea.

On the writing front, I only managed a few hundred words towards LotT this week. I got some editing done on the last Worldshaper installment too, so that’s a yay.

 

Books read, reviewed, and posted/scheduled this past week

The Longing and the Lack by CM Spivy, 4*

Amazon Wisdom Keeper by Dr Loraine Y Van Tuyls, 5*

The Smallest Thing by Lisa Manterfield, 5*

 

Favourite read of the week

The Smallest Thing by Lisa Manterfield

‘The very last thing 17-year-old Emmott Syddall wants is to turn out like her dad. She’s descended from ten generations who never left their dull English village, and there’s no way she’s going to waste a perfectly good life that way. She’s moving to London and she swears she is never coming back.

But when the unexplained deaths of her neighbors force the government to quarantine the village, Em learns what it truly means to be trapped. Now, she must choose. Will she pursue her desire for freedom, at all costs, or do what’s best for the people she loves: her dad, her best friend Deb, and, to her surprise, the mysterious man in the HAZMAT suit?

Inspired by the historical story of the plague village of Eyam, this contemporary tale of friendship, community, and impossible love weaves the horrors of recent news headlines with the intimate details of how it feels to become an adult—and fall in love—in the midst of tragedy.’

 

Current Read

Ann, Not Annie by Sage Steadman

‘Ann, not Annie, is tired of her nominal existence and has vowed to turn things around by dating the hottest guy in school, Jacob Waters. Easier said than done since Jacob isn’t even aware she exists. The truth is, due to Ann’s lively temper she spends more time in detention with the rest of the school rejects than she does fantasizing about Jacob Waters wearing spandex.

Her best friend and devout alien believer, Lisa, doesn’t like the changes she’s seeing in her BFF. Neither does Danny Feller, a fellow detention inmate and resident lost boy who has started keeping an extra watchful and unwanted eye on Ann.

When a chance encounter in an empty hallway changes everything, Ann finds all her dreams coming true and she is well on her way to living the perfect life she’s always wanted. But appearances aren’t always what they seem and Ann is going to have to face not just cold hard facts, but also her past.’

 

Next Up

The Missing by Jerico Lenk

Black Bird of the Gallows by Meg Kassel

Across the Darkling Sea by K Ferrin

Remember, Remember by Anne Elliot (Sherlock)

Your Crossroads, Your Choice by EP Apicello

Sun Born by Kathleen O’Neal and W Michael Gear

 

Book Haul

One hardcopy book and several egalleys. Here are my favs.

 

Part Star, Part Dust by LM Valiram

 

‘A millionaire, a widow and a monk. A plane crash. Three destinies linked for eternity in a tale narrated by Time.

Meet Radha.

She was left in a dumpster on the side streets of Mumbai to die as she was born; premature and undernourished.

Meet Mira.

At sixteen she is to marry a man she has never met before. On her wedding day, she carries a knife.

And Gaurav.

People say love is more important than money. But what happens when having one means you can’t have the other?

Scattered across India, these three are intertwined in unlikely ways: the flower shop owned by Mira’s husband employs Radha’s boyfriend, Mira and Gaurav become partners in business and most importantly, an ill-fated trip to Delhi links them all in death and life. Set in the sensuous worlds of Bombay and Delhi, Valiram’s dazzling novel explores the deep meanings of love, family, and time.’

 

A Mortal Likeness by Laura Joh Rowland

 

‘A photographer in Whitechapel, London, Sarah Bain is also a private detective—skilled at capturing others’ dark secrets, and expert at keeping her own. When a wealthy banker, Sir Gerald Mariner, posts a handsome reward for finding his missing infant, all of London joins in, hoping to win that money for themselves. Usually discouraged by a saturated market, Sarah is instead curiously allured as she realizes the case hits much closer to home than she first thought.

As she dives in, she discovers a photograph of baby Robin Mariner and his mother. But it eerily resembles the post-mortem photographs Sarah, herself, takes of deceased children posed to look as if they were alive. Now it’s unclear whether the kidnapping is a cover-up to hide the reality of his disappearance, or if it’s truly a cry for help.

The clock is ticking and Sarah must uncover the truth before her past catches up to her in A Mortal Likeness, the gripping follow-up to bestselling author Laura Joh Rowland’s The Ripper’s Shadow.‘