books

March Tea and a Book: Stella Gibbons

I am such a fan of Stella Gibbons, so it seems strange that I've only read four of her novels. You can see them above, except for The Woods in Winter, a strange yet endearing story I read on my kindle. Today I want to share Westwood, a story I struggled with and yet...

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February Tea and a Book: WWII Child Evacuee Stories

Recently I read When the War is Over, by Barbara Fox. This memoir of the author's mother, Gwenda Brady Gofton, focuses on her childhood years as a WWII evacuee in Cumbria. After a couple of false starts in other evacuation areas, Gwenda and her older brother Doug...

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January Tea and a Book: Elizabeth Goudge

January has been a good month, for I finally seem to have dragged myself out of the COVID reading slump. I started the year with Kevin Wilson's Nothing to See Here and devoured it in two days. I loved the Tennessee setting, the quirky characters, and the way this...

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December Tea and a Book: Calm Christmas

One of the few positive things about this terrible pandemic is that it's forced us all to spend more time with ourselves. In our own heads. Dreaming, reading, planning, growing. I'll confess that I love being alone. I inherited this trait from my mother, and many of...

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November Tea and a Book: Autumn by Ali Smith

I'd been looking for an "Autumnal" story for some time. I really just wanted a good yarn, maybe with a bit of romance and some charming scenery, organized with a beginning, middle, and end (as one might expect). Well! This "Post-Brexit" novel DID NOT fit the bill....

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Spooky Reads 2020 and a GIVEAWAY

Hey! Don't forget to check out the GIVEAWAY at the end of this post. When the Covid lockdown began, I craved comfort books. (See my recommendations here.) Lately, however, that old familiar yearning for Gothic horror has me in its grip. What a gluttony of horror...

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Quiet afternoons with Emily

My last blog post (written THREE MONTHS ago, yikes) was about Emily Dickinson, and today--once again--it is Miss Emily who inspires me. A NEW BOOK: From the publisher: An engaging, intimate portrait of Emily Dickinson, one of America’s greatest and most-mythologized...

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Tea with Miss Emily & a GIVEAWAY

There's a new picture book about Emily Dickinson and it is marvelous. (Thank you, Best of Books in Edmond, OK, for shipping it so quickly!) This book written by Jennifer Berne and illustrated by Becca Stadtlander is beautiful, inspirational, and quite poignant--I...

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April Tea and Three Cosy Books

Happy Wednesday! If you've been yearning for a comfort read, I have three recommendations. And TEA. The Bookshop on the Corner, by Jenny Colgan Determined to make a new life for herself, Nina moves to a sleepy village many miles away. There she buys a van and...

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Cozy distractions in the time of Corona

Even if you're healthy and safe at home, you may be losing your mind right about now. I've put together a list of things (in no particular order) that might brighten your mood during this surreal quarantine from the rest of humanity. -- First of all, complete your...

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March Tea and a Book: The Invited by Jennifer McMahon

After a long drought, I finally found a book that captivated me, kept me glued to the pages until the end, and only took two days to read because I could hardly bear to put it down. Goodreads synopsis: In a quest for a simpler life, Helen and Nate abandon the comforts...

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A Horror Interlude for February

This past week I visited Dallas for the Highland Park Literary Festival. The festival volunteers always put on a great event, and the highlight for me was spending time with the HPHS students who signed up for my presentation, "How to Build a Horror Hero" (a companion...

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Valentine’s Tea and a Book

ALERT: there's a GIVEAWAY at the end of this post! The other day I was making a mental list of the most romantic novels I've ever read. "This needs to be a blog post!" I thought. Interestingly enough, on this blog I only have ONE previous post related to Valentine's...

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A Tour of Three Indie Bookstores in Philadelphia

I've made it my mission--when visiting an interesting city, I will find the best tea rooms AND explore the independent bookstores, and then I'll share my findings with you. My recent post on a lovely Philadelphia tea room is here. Today it's all about the book stores!...

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