A Saturday evening in April

Wow.  April already.  I turn 35 this month.  I'll be house-sitting towards the end of it.  It was in the low 80s today.  Today Fiona and I got together with a couple I've been friends with since I was 11 or 12.  There's a comfort in spending time with people who've known you for a while and still manage to like you. 

I'm wrangling Fiona's school schedule/transportation issues again.  I'm pondering another post about that issue, with regard to parenting in general. 

I have pictures to post, coming soon.

Hoping to meet soon with the lawyer who is looking over my divorce paperwork.  It will be good to know I'm really finished with it -- hopefully I can get to that point before the end of the month.  A week or so ago my husband and I met to go through our (my former) apartment and talk about what I'll be taking with me when I get my own place (I'm currently living with friends.)  It went well and it was nice to have that accomplished.  I need to type up the list so we each have a copy.

Fiona is coloring and we are getting ready to read some more of The Hollow Bettle.  We'll do a library trip tomorrow or Monday.

Peace to you all on this April night.

Book Beginnings & Friday 56 -- The Hollow Bettle by Susannah Appelbaum

Book Beginnings on Friday is a meme hosted by A Few More Pages. Anyone can participate; just share the opening sentence, or two, of your current read, making sure that you include the title and author so others know what you're reading.

Many things begin with an end, and the story of Caux is no exception.  In this case, it was the end of a life.

What a great beginning, eh? 

The Friday 56 is a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice. Check out the rules and join in the fun.

Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
Turn to page 56.
Find the fifth sentence.
Post that sentence (plus one or two others if you like).

Rowan took it upon himself in this moment to swing his robes up and over his shoulder, revealing a baggy set of unofficial long underwear.  Flushed with indignity, he was up on the tracks in a flash and with his newfound freedom reached down for Ivy.  

It was at precisely the moment that Rowan's hand encountered Ivy's, and she was halfway hiked up the earthen wall, that a second one grabbed her ankle.

This is a new series my daughter and I have started, The Poisons of Caux series by Susannah Appelbaum.  It's taken me a while to get into the world, and in fact I may have some more travelling to do before I'm really there, but Fiona is certainly enjoying it and poisonings have now crept into her imaginative play. :)  We've already got the second one waiting on us beside the bed.

From the book flap:

Eleven-year-old Ivy Manx lives in the kingdom of Caux, where evil King Nightshade rules with terrible tyranny and the lay of the land is poison or be poisoned.  Without a Guild-accredited taster by your side, your next meal could be your last.

Theme Thursdays -- Animals -- The Distant Hours by Kate Morton

Theme Thursdays is a fun weekly event that will be open from one Thursday to the next. Anyone can participate in it. The rules are simple:

• A theme will be posted each week (on Thursdays)
• Select a conversation/snippet/sentence from the current book you are reading
• Mention the author and the title of the book along with your post
• It is important that the theme is conveyed in the sentence (you don’t necessarily need to have the word).
  

This week's theme is:  animals --

Cover of The Distant Hours: A Novel

"Animals know when their end is coming, Miss Burchill.  They do not wish to be a burden.  They are not like human beings, seeking always to be comforted."  She inclined her head, indicating that I should follow her around the corner, and I felt foolish and small and resolved to offer no further words of sympathy. 

p. 456-7, The Distant Hours by Kate Morton

I've been dreadfully sick for the last 36 hours and this book kept me company.  I just finished it up and hope that by morning I'll be finished with the sickness as well!  It is a labyrinth of a tale that weaves its way through nearly a century of family history --- largely the family of Raymond Blythe, the author of The True History of the Mud Man.  Edie Burchill becomes captivated by Milderhurst Castle (the Blythe family home) after learning that her mother lived there as a child, evacuated from London during WWII.  She senses more to the story and wants to better understand her mother.  In the process, she uncovers much more that her mother was ever keeping secret.

Teaser Tuesdays -- The Distant Hours by Kate Morton

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by MizB @ Should Be Reading. To participate, all you have to do is the following:

• Grab your current/upcoming read
• Open to a random page
• Share 2-3 "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page
• Be careful not to include spoilers! (You do not want to ruin the book for others.)

Cover of The Distant Hours: A Novel

It is impossible to recount everything that was said and seen that day at Milderhurst, and, for the purposes of this story, unnecessary.  So much has happened since, subsequent events have bowed and bent and mixed in my mind so that it's difficult to isolate my first impressions of the castle and its inhabitants.  I will stick, then, in this account, to the sights and sounds that were most vivid, and to those events pertinent to what came after, and what came before.

~ page 60, The Distant Hours by Kate Morton

History repeating itself

Thanks to Jon for sharing this link.

Fortune Like the Moon by Alys Clare

Fortune Like the Moon, set in 1157, is the first in Alys Clare's Hawkenlye mystery series featuring Josse d'Acquin and Abbess Helewise.  It was published in 1999 but this is my first time with the series. 

As I read, I kept going back and forth on whether I liked the book or not.  By the end, I decided that the storyline wasn't a super draw for me, but that I was starting to enjoy the friendship between d'Acquin and Abbess Helewise and that alone might be enough to make me try to pick up the second.  I also liked learning more about the time period. 

When Richard Plantagenet (son of Eleanor of Aquitaine & Henry II) becomes king he releases all prisoners, in the hope of creating a favorable image for himself.   When, soon after this, a nun is murdered at Hawkenlye Abbey,  King Richard sends d'Acquin to investigate, solve the murder, and, in the process, prove that there is no connection to the recently released prisoners. 

Who else has read these?  Opinions about continuing with the series?