Month: October 2025

Comfy Cozy (Creepy) Cinema: The Mummy (1999)

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized13 Comments

 Lisa from Boondock Ramblings and I are back to watching and sharing about comfy cozy (and as we move closer to Halloween, spookier) movies for the fall season. Feel free to join in with us!!

This week’s movie was the 1999 film The Mummy, starring Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, and Oded Fehr.

I absolutely love this movie, for many reasons. I think it is a wild rumpus of a movie, cheesy in parts, creepy in others, with goofy little funny scenes, and Oded Fehr. Yes, he is a reason I love this movie. But we will get into that more later.

Google Overview: “The Mummy is a rousing, suspenseful and horrifying epic about an expedition of treasure-seeking explorers in the Sahara Desert in 1925. Stumbling upon an ancient tomb, the hunters unwittingly set loose a 3,000-year-old legacy of terror, which is embodied in the vengeful reincarnation of an Egyptian priest who had been sentenced to an eternity as one of the living dead.”

I love movies with academic women going out on expeditions. I love books with that as a theme as well. And I think this is the movie that started that love for me. Evie is an awesome female heroine; intelligent, beautiful, human with her mistakes and clumsiness, brave, and best of all, a librarian! Rachel Weisz plays her part so well, she is charming and adorable and funny.

On the other hand, of course like in all movies like this, she is paired with a rough and tumble adventurer, Rick O’Connell, played by Brendan Fraser. And whew his cardio for this movie had to have been intense. Billy and I think he spent 90% of the movie running! All of them really because it was one action scene after another.

The duo is rounded out by Evie’s brother, Jonathan, played by John Hannah, who is a bit a wastrel but she loves him and he loves her. And he does have some worth, as he can also read and speak ancient languages, which is important later on in the movie. Although it cracked me up how many scenes he raced into, to skid to a stop in horror before joining the fight. Despite being comic relief, he is also a valuable member of the team.

And then there is Oded Fehr. He plays Ardeth Bay, a Medjai warrior and chief who is dedicated to preventing Imhotep from returning to life. I guess he wasn’t counting on a librarian spoiling those plans! He rounds out the group as the action and danger really begins.

I also had a huge crush on him after this movie all the way back in 1999. In fact, last night when he came on the screen while we were watching it all together, Billy turned to Wyatt and said “Your mom thinks he is handsome,” in that singsong type of voice. Lol. I couldn’t deny it. And then when I texted that to Lisa, she had a little confession of her own about him as well. Sorry Brendan, had we been Evie our affections would have been for a different man.

Sigh.

Ok, back to the movie. There is a race to the treasure, because of course. Former associate of Rick’s, Beni, an opportunistic thief is leading his own group of men to Hamunaptra, which is said to contain treasure. Evie is interested in a book, because she is a librarian.

Of course, all manner of disasters and mishaps and calamity ensues. People die (all offscreen). Imhotep is obsessed with reincarnating his girlfriend, and plans to use Evie to do it.

This movie has a bit of everything – action, adventure, comedy, horror, romance. A little something for everyone!

However, how much did this movie get right about Egyptology? I was surprised to read that an actual Egyptologist did work with the film, a man named Dr. Stuart Tyson Smith. According to a post from Egypt at the Manchester Museum, there were quite a few things that were accurate, including some very small details. One such detail was the book that Evie was reading near the beginning of the movie, while onboard the boat during their journey to Hamunaptra, is actually a book that someone studying or interested in Egyptology would have been potentially been reading at the time. It was The Dwellers on the Nile, by E. A. Wallis Budge, and was published in 1885. I love that the filmmakers and Dr. Smith thought abut keeping this small little detail so accurate!

I also got sucked into this analysis by Dominic Perry on TikTok. If you are interested in any of the history surrounding this movie, give this a watch. It is fascinating.

Overall, I absolutely love this movie. It is just fun and cute in parts and I don’t think it is particularly scary, but that is all subjective to the person watching of course. Billy loves it as well, and Wyatt seemed to be before he fell asleep. Lol.

Next up, we turn back to the cozy and comfy, watching The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain.

And with that, I will wrap this up and say goodbye! Don’t forget to check out Lisa’s post here.

If you are interested a few years ago I also wrote a post about librarians you would not want to mess with.

I hope that whatever you do today, you do something that makes you smile!

Spooky Season Superlatives

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized7 Comments

Hello everyone! Remember the senior superlatives in school? I was never nominated for anything, but Billy was chosen twice, as Most Unique and Most Artistic. I was not surprised, he was and is both of things, unique and artistic. (and many other things as well). Anyway, I thought it would be fun to “award” superlatives to book characters for this spooky season!

Cutest Couple:

Ellis and Cooper from Falling Like Leaves. They are just adorable! And if you want a book that fully immerses you in the fall season, pick this one up.

Best Dressed:

Clio from Play Nice. She is a fashion stylist and an influencer and as she says in the book, if she says something is fashionable, then it is. She sets the trends.

Most Likely to Succeed:

Is there anyone else who wants so bad to achieve perfection as Annie? She wants to make everyone happy, solve all the problems and look good doing it. She is motivated and driven and has magic up her sleeves as well.

Best Entertainer/Class Clown:

The answer, obviously, is former theater kid Tristan, who turns his ghost tour into another way to play a roles and entertain the crowds.

Biggest Chaos Monster:

Eliza from The Late-Night Witches. She is like the younger sister who just bumbles into all the messes, but has a good heart.

Most Artistic:

Maeve from Uncharmed. I don’t want to give too much away, but she is a very talented young artistic witch!

Most School (Town) Spirit:

No one loves their town more than Sophie!

Most Responsible:

Cassie is basically a single mom of three, who also feels a maternal responsibility for her little sister Eliza (see above). She also becomes the chosen one who has to save humanity. No big deal right? Cassie has a very large sense of duty, and one could definitely rely on her to do the right thing.

Most Daring:

Evie from The Clackity. She is so brave!!

Top Ten Tuesday: Halloween Freebie

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized46 Comments

Today, let’s talk about haunted houses! I love books with ghosts or pretend ghosts or even sentient houses because of mushrooms, haunted by memories – just creepy houses. Gloomy houses. So today’s list is all about the haunted houses.

Bag of Bones || Home Before Dark || Play Nice

Mexican Gothic || A House with Good Bones || The House Next Door

The Haunting of Hill House || Rebecca || The Turn of the Screw

And finally The Shining. Not technically a haunted house, but a very haunted hotel.

Ghosts of My TBR

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized8 Comments

Ooooo today we bring you ghosts of my TBR, books that have been on my list so long I have forgotten about them entirely….

I have gone back on Goodreads to find titles that I added between the years 2015-2020, and chosen one or two from each year. And I have made this sound way spookier than it is. But, it is Halloween week so I am going all out.

Let’s begin at 2020ish and work our way back, shall we? Follow me, and watch your step, you never know what might be lurking here.

The Cold Vanish – From Goodreads: “It’s a tricky thing to write about missing persons because the story is the absence of someone. A void. The person at the heart of the story is thinner than a smoke ring, invisible as someone else’s memory. The bones you dig up are most often metaphorical. While much of the book will embrace memory and faulty memory — history — The Cold Vanish is at its core a story of now and tomorrow. Someone will vanish in the wild tomorrow. These are the people who will go looking.”

Owls Aren’t Wise and Bats Aren’t Blind: From Goodreads: “In this fascinating book, wildlife expert and enthusiast Warner Shedd refutes popular animal myths like squirrels remembering where they bury nuts, wolves howling at the moon, and oppossums “playing dead.”

Have you ever seen a flying squirrel flapping through the air, watched a beaver carrying a load of mud on its tail, or ducked when a porcupine started throwing its quills? Probably not, says Shedd, former regional executive for the National Wildlife Federation. Offering scientific evidence that refutes many of the most tenacious and persevering folklore about wild animals,  Owls Aren’t Wise & Bats Aren’t Blind  will captivate you with fascinating facts and humorous anecdotes about more than thirty North American species– some as familiar as the common toad, and others as elusive as the lynx.” 

Anya’s Ghost: From Goodreads: Of all the things Anya expected to find at the bottom of an old well, a new friend was not one of them. Especially not a new friend who’s been dead for a century.

Falling down a well is bad enough, but Anya’s normal life might actually be worse. She’s embarrassed by her family, self-conscious about her body, and she’s pretty much given up on fitting in at school. A new friend—even a ghost—is just what she needs.”

Toil and Trouble: From Goodreads: “From good witches to bad witches, to witches who are a bit of both, this is an anthology of diverse witchy tales from a collection of diverse, feminist authors. The collective strength of women working together—magically or mundanely–has long frightened society, to the point that women’s rights are challenged, legislated against, and denied all over the world. Toil & Trouble delves deep into the truly diverse mythology of witchcraft from many cultures and feminist points of view, to create modern and unique tales of witchery that have yet to be explored.”

The Man From the Train: From Goodreads: “Riveting and immersive, with writing as sharp as the cold side of an axe, The Man from the Train paints a vivid, psychologically perceptive portrait of America at the dawn of the twentieth century, when crime was regarded as a local problem, and opportunistic private detectives exploited a dysfunctional judicial system. James shows how these cultural factors enabled such an unspeakable series of crimes to occur, and his groundbreaking approach to true crime will convince skeptics, amaze aficionados, and change the way we view criminal history.”

Daughters of the Lake: From Goodreads: “After the end of her marriage, Kate Granger has retreated to her parents’ home on Lake Superior to pull herself together—only to discover the body of a murdered woman washed into the shallows. Tucked in the folds of the woman’s curiously vintage gown is an infant, as cold and at peace as its mother. No one can identify the woman. Except for Kate. She’s seen her before. In her dreams…

One hundred years ago, a love story ended in tragedy, its mysteries left unsolved. It’s time for the lake to give up its secrets. As each mystery unravels, it pulls Kate deeper into the eddy of a haunting folktale that has been handed down in whispers over generations. Now, it’s Kate’s turn to listen.

As the drowned woman reaches out from the grave, Kate reaches back. They must come together, if only in dreams, to right the sinister wrongs of the past.”

The Magic Apple Tree: From Goodreads: “Looking out from Moon Cottage, Susan Hill records the sights and smells, the people, gardens, animals, births, festivals and deaths that mark the changing-seasons in the small Oxfordshire community.”

The House Between Tides: From Goodreads: “An atmospheric debut novel about a woman who discovers the century-old remains of a murder victim on her family’s Scottish estate, plunging her into an investigation of its mysterious former occupants.

Following the death of her last living relative, Hetty Deveraux leaves London and her strained relationship behind for Muirlan, her ancestral home in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides. She intends to renovate the ruinous house into a hotel, but the shocking discovery of human remains brings her ambitious restoration plans to an abrupt halt before they even begin. Few physical clues are left to identify the body, but one thing is certain: this person did not die a natural death.

Hungry for answers, Hetty discovers that Muirlan was once the refuge of her distant relative Theo Blake, the acclaimed painter and naturalist who brought his new bride, Beatrice, there in 1910. Yet ancient gossip and a handful of leads reveal that their marriage was far from perfect; Beatrice eventually vanished from the island, never to return, and Theo withdrew from society, his paintings becoming increasingly dark and disturbing.

What happened between them has remained a mystery, but as Hetty listens to the locals and studies the masterful paintings produced by Theo during his short-lived marriage, she uncovers secrets that still reverberate through the small island community—and will lead her to the identity of the long-hidden body.”

Poet’s Cottage: From Goodreads: “Poets had always lived there, the locals claimed. It was as if the house called to its own…

When Sadie inherits Poet’s Cottage in the Tasmanian fishing town of Pencubitt, she sets out to discover all she can about her notorious grandmother, Pearl Tatlow. Pearl was a children’s writer who scandalised 1930s Tasmania with her behaviour. She was also violently murdered in the cellar of Poet’s Cottage and her murderer never found.

Sadie grew up with a loving version of Pearl through her mother, but her aunt Thomasina tells a different story, one of a self-obsessed, abusive and licentious woman. And Pearl’s biographer, Birdie Pinkerton, has more than enough reason to discredit her.

As Sadie and her daughter Betty work to uncover the truth, strange events begin to occur in the cottage. And as the terrible secret in the cellar threads its way into the present day, it reveals a truth more shocking than the decades-long rumours.

Poet’s Cottage is a beautiful and haunting mystery of families, bohemia, truth, creativity, lies, memory and murder.“

I still don’t know if I will get to these, ever. They will continue to haunt me for years to come.

How is the state of your TBR? Any ghosts lingering from a five, ten years ago…maybe even longer?

My Sunday-Monday Post

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized16 Comments

My Sunday Post is hosted by Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer

Sunday Salon is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date

Hello everyone! I hope that you are all doing well! We are finally experiencing a real Michigan fall here, with the blazing colors and cool temps, and I love it. It’s perfect weather for reading! I did get new glasses last week though, and I had ordered progressives because I was tired of taking my glasses on and off constantly (I need glasses to read) and I am having a hard time adjusting. Is this normal? I did buy a pair of $7 readers from Amazon that I wear at night when reading in bed, and I don’t need to transition or multi-task and that is helping, but I didn’t realize I could do that until near the end of the week. I had a hard time reading books with my “good” glasses and at least now I have these cheaters to help. I do really like my new glasses during the day, when I am cooking, etc because they do make my life easier that way.

Anyway, I didn’t get through the books I wanted to last week because of this adjustment period, so I am behind on my own self-imposed schedule. Lol. So this week I am reading hopefully two of these. We will see how it goes! Why did I have such an enormous spooky reading list??

I am sort of leaning towards The Bewitching and What Moves the Dead but we will see. What Moves the Dead is a retelling of The Fall of the House of Usher, and we are watching the Netflix series of Usher right now, so I sort of want to read that one. But then I am also sort of feeling the Lazy Bones Bookshop and Crazy Spooky Love. Ugh. Problems, problems. Lol.

Posted Last Week:

Top Ten Tuesday: Cozy Reads

Mini Book Reviews: The Late-Night Witches, Falling Like Leaves, Uncharmed

Comfy Cozy Cinema: Coraline

Friday Morning Coffee Catch Up

Watching:

Billy and I have been watching the Netflix series of The Fall of the House of Usher, which is fantastic but I have to cover my eyes a lot. Mark Hamill is in it, and wow, his performance is amazing. I feel like he steals the show. You wouldn’t even know it was him! It is definitely not for the faint of heart though, and is very creepy and scary. It is a modern reworking of the Edgar Allan Poe story and the writers were so clever, and I love all the little hidden Poe easter eggs. (Roderick Usher Enterprises= R.U.E., etc)

When we need something not scary, we go to an old favorite, and watch the BBC series Victorian Farm. (we watch all of them all of the time, but right now, Victorian is the one we are rewatching)

We are also watching Halloween cartoons and movies with Wyatt, like Charlie Brown Halloween, and Coraline. I think tonight we will watch Hotel Transylvania, which is so cute, or Casper. It’s going to be a tough choice!

Lisa and I watched Coraline for our Comfy Cozy (creepy) Cinema last week, and this week we are going big with The Mummy, starring Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz. Then we settle back down into cozy.

Other Internet Happenings:

Lisa and I have also paused Crafternoons for the holidays, and will be resuming in January. We will start our Comfy Cozy Christmas in December, so stay tuned for that.

And that is it from me today! I hope that whatever you do today, you do something that makes you smile!

Friday Morning Coffee Catch Up

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized10 Comments

Hello everyone!! it is actually cold here this week, and temps next week will be cold as well. I think it is safe to say autumn is here for real.

And it seemed to blow in all at once. We were having a warm sunny day the other day, then all of a sudden it was overcast, gray, and a storm and rain moved in. And that was that. Fall was here in a flash.

We have just been moving along over here. We had a few Halloween events last week, where we gave Wyatt’s costume a trial run, and then a family get together with my brother’s family and my cousin’s family. Billy, Wyatt and I also went to the apple orchard, one of my favorite outings of the season, if not my very favorite.

Let’s start there. It was sort of a neat moment – we went on the same day, October 18th, that we went to the very first time we went to this orchard with baby Wyatt. When Wyatt was a baby, I wanted to find an orchard that we could make our tradition, like I had when I was a kid. The one I grew up going to has turned into a circus, with too many bounce houses and people with tables selling things – it’s just too much. I wanted a more simple experience. Pumpkins and cider and doughnuts and apples – we don’t need anything else. I found one online, Bennett’s Orchard, and off we went with tiny Wyatt. And we have been going there ever since. So this past Oct. 18th was our ten year anniversary of sorts, of going, and it was ten years to the day.

They also have this gentle Lab who will sometimes join you in your wanderings. He has to be getting up there in age now, and is such a sweetie. I love when he joins us.

We had such a good morning at the orchard, although I couldn’t talk Wyatt into wearing a pumpkin hat for old times sake.

The next day was the party at my cousin’s house. He and his partner had it all set up for the kids, and it looked so good! They did a great job making a nice party for our kids of all ages, from 16 years down to 2. There were pumpkins to paint and sticker, doughnuts, pizza, and we brought a jug of hard cider from the orchard to share, while my brother brought different chips and dips. It was such a nice time!

I also picked up my new glasses this week, and just in time, because I broke my only pair! I really like my new pair but I got progressives for the first time and I am finding them confusing. I like them when I am doing stuff around the house, because I only need them for reading and I don’t need to take these on and off all the time, but when I am just sitting and reading and not multitasking I am having a difficult time. So I bought a pair of $7 readers from Amazon that work perfectly for that. It however made for a slower week of reading until I figured out I could do that.

It was a week for reading and hanging out with Brian, my cousin this week, because I hung out with him again on Wednesday! We tried out a place in Detroit called Sip N Read, which is like a bookstore bar. It was cold and rainy and really the perfect night to sit somewhere warm and read. Sip N Read is so pretty inside too! I loved the velvety furniture in shades of green and burnt orange, the space itself was so inviting! There is a small bar when you walk in, and then on the opposite wall are bookshelves. The books are there to be perused and read while you enjoy libations, and they offer wine and mocktails to their patrons. You can either choose to buy the book or not, or just read from different books, or whatever you choose. We had so much fun just reading and hanging out with our drinks. It reminded me of an adult version of when we were kids and would go to the library, check out some Stephen King, and head to his house where we would drink Capri Suns and read together. It was pretty empty but I am chalking that up to the night – it was a Wednesday, and it was so cold and rainy! We had a great time, reading and chatting, and then Brian treated me to the book I was reading as an early birthday gift!

I also did some baking this week – I made cinnamon apple scones, and chocolate chip cookies. I think I am going to be baking more since life is so expensive these days, and the groceries I am buying look different now too. I bought a whole chicken yesterday to turn into a few meals, as it was a better cost value than buying anything else. We are also having meals that turn into leftovers, like chili and stew, and Billy is going to start baking his sourdough again this weekend. Every bit helps!

It’s been fun baking again though. I am not great at it, but I have fun bopping around the kitchen to Oingo Boingo, Taylor Swift, Yaelokre (an Icelandic band my brother introduced me to that has really cool story and lore behind it), and also listening to the In the Meadow Podcast.

All in all, it’s been a pretty darn good week! The leaves are finally turning to fire, the weather is fully fall, and things are getting pretty cozy around here!

I hope that whatever you do today, you do something that makes you smile!

Comfy Cozy Cinema: Coraline

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized11 Comments

 Lisa from Boondock Ramblings and I are back to watching and sharing about comfy cozy (and as we move closer to Halloween, spookier) movies for the fall season. Feel free to join in with us!!

This week’s movie was Coraline!

I always make Lisa watch an animated movie. I don’t know why. I even know which one I am picking next year, already. Lol. This year, I decided on Coraline, one of my favorites. I once dressed as Coraline for Halloween, and this year, my niece is dressing as Coraline, because she now loves the movie too. She even sort of looks like Coraline, but with curly hair.

IMDB summarizes this movie as: “Wandering her rambling old house in her boring new town, a young girl discovers a hidden door to a strangely idealized version of her life that seems too good to be true.”

Coraline is a curious and feisty girl, a bit snarky, and 100% with the attitude of basically all 10/11 year olds. Her family moves from Pontiac, MI to the Pink Palace Apartments in Oregon, and she is booooored. She meets Wyborn “Wybie” a neighbor, who gives her a doll that looks very very similar to Coraline, which is ..creepy. She also meets the lanky black cat who has a pretty important role in the story. She is not impressed immediately with Wybie, probably because she is a kid who just moved across the country and left her home and friends and school behind to a very sad looking apartment with parents who work all day. And it is evident as well, that the family is struggling. The apartment is fairly bare, dull, blah, even Coraline’s bedroom, and their meals lackluster. Coraline is pretty much stuck there, hanging around the apartments while her parents work from home on a gardening catalog, and one day, she discovers a small door in the wall. After convincing her mom to open it, it reveals nothing but a brick wall.

Later that night however, Coraline finds herself going through that door which now has a tunnel instead of a brick wall, and encounters her Other Mother and Other Father, who are cheery, welcoming, and seem to just want to make her happy. It is colorful, and is everything Coraline could want – even if the Other Mother and Other Father have buttons for eyes. The Other Father even plays a song, just for her, about her, which was performed by They Might Giants.

Coraline wakes up the next morning at home, in her real home, and tells her mom all about her adventures. She spends the day visiting her other neighbors, who are very eccentric – Spink and Forcible, two former burlesque performers with a love of schnauzers, and Mr. Bobinsky, who used to be a gymnast, and a liquidator, (and is voiced by Ian McShane). He is also blue, and has a mouse circus.

Coraline again visits the Other Mother and Other Father, and this is when things take a turn. This story moves fast! I loved the pacing in this movie, it just kept everything moving along. The Other Mother and Other Father present Coraline with an option – she can choose to stay with them, if only she lets them replace her eyes with buttons. And from here, if you want to know what happens, you will have to watch! Let’s just say, there are ghosts, black cats who can straddle both worlds, plants that are sentient, and for Coraline, a very high stakes game.

I love this movie because Coraline is a smart, resourceful, clever girl. She doesn’t give up or quit, is determined, and knows what she wants. She also has a great sense of style – I used to have a version of the hat she wears and I miss it. Her mother has enrolled her in a school where she has to wear a boring gray uniform, and Coraline is bummed. How can she stand out? Where is the color? The opportunity to show her uniqueness and originality? She does find a pair of gloves that would add some flair to her uniform, but at $24.99 a pair, her mom says no.

This movie is stop-action animation, and took 500 people to make. LAIKA Studios has a few videos on YouTube if you interested in some behind the scenes looks at how everything was achieved. And it was a work of art, truly.

There are also little hidden Easter Eggs within the movie, which you can read about here. However, my favorite little detail is about Mr. Bobinsky, the eccentric blue neighbor, and former liquidator and gymnast. If you look closely, he is wearing a medal in every scene, and upon closer inspection, it is a medal that was awarded to the emergency workers who cleaned up after the Chernobyl disaster. Just a little reason he might be blue. These workers were given the title “liquidator” by the Soviet Union, hence why he is a retired liquidator. A little story within a story!

Overall, I love this movie, and I love Coraline, although the author of this story is no longer one I choose to support much anymore. I love Coraline’s independence and spunk and spark and curiosity.

And not to spoil anything, but in the end, Coraline does get her gloves.

Next week we are going all out, in our way, with The Mummy, starring Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz. I love the character Evie. I am excited although it has been a while since I have seen it!

Be sure to check out Lisa’s post as well!

I hope that you are all enjoying the season, wherever you are on the spooky spectrum!

Mini Book Reviews: The Late-Night Witches, Falling Like Leaves, Uncharmed

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn book review, books and reading13 Comments

Hello everyone! I am having such a great time reading my fall picks. All the witches and ghosts and fall ambiance a girl could ask for!

I am loving Auralee Wallace’s books this fall. This is the second book that I have read of hers, and I know I want to read more of hers in the future.

” ‘There. You’re perfect. So pretty.’ She smiled. ‘But you might want to wash your hair later.’ “

I loved this book! It reminded me of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but with a suburban mom of three as the chosen one. It cracked me up, and it was not too scary or gory either, in my opinion. Sort of Buffy-like/Charmed even there, I guess! The main character Cassie is a witch from a family of witches for generations – although she didn’t know it until the big baddie vampire woke up from his quarter century of slumber. This book is about family and duty and also being true to yourself and believing in yourself. It was such a great spooky-not-spooky read, with fun characters and lots of shenanigans.

Taking a step away from the paranormal for a minute, to just enjoy a small-town fall, that could be a Hallmark movie (YA).

“Come for the apple picking and pumpkin carving, stay for the coziness.”

This book is the epitome of fall cozy, with its small town feel and endless autumn activities during it’s Falling Leaves Festival, that includes things like pumpkin proms and bonfire nights, cafes filled with cats, and delicious baked goods and coffee. If I could transport myself to Bramble Falla for their autumn fest I absolutely would.

I also appreciated this book for the just plain high school experiences that made up a large part of the plot. Ellis is not good at being a normal teenager and when her mom moves her to Bramble Falls against her will, she sees her future disappear in front of her. Or so she thinks. This is a clean YA romance that just made me smile throughout the book. 

And now, a little Mary Poppins-like witch. Wait, was Mary Poppins a witch?

“Everybody knows that any kind of productivity is at least seventy-five percent reliant on the appropriate notebook and pen selection.”

I LOVED this book, although I have to say I was uncomfortable about how closely I could relate to some of Annie’s quirks! I mean, I 100% believe in having the appropriate notebook and pen, and then of course that hesitation over even using it because “what if make a mess on the first page, ruin the whole thing with ugly handwriting, or bad spelling?” I just might be a little Type A about some things.

Annie is a witch who believes in always going the extra mile, never having a hair out of place, the perfect outfit, the perfect thing to say, perfect perfect perfect. However, her perfect life gets upended when she meets Maeve, an orphaned teenager with big big magic, and agrees to be her guardian and mentor until she gets her magic under control. This might be a task that Annie can’t keep perfectly controlled.

This whole book is a wonderful cozy journey, full of realizations and delicious sounding coffee, baked goods that inspired me to bake apple cinnamon scones, love, and finding that perfection is maybe not all that great after all.

Have you read any of these? Do you think Mary Poppins is a witch? And are you Team Pumpkin Spice or Team Apple Cider? I hope that whatever you do today, you do something that makes you smile!

Top Ten Tuesday: Cozy/Atmospheric Reads

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized44 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Today’s Prompt: Cozy/Atmospheric Reads

So today, instead of making a list of cozy/atmospheric books that I have read, because I feel this is pretty much everything I read and I talk about the ones that I have read all of the time, I am going to make a list of ten books on my TBR that fit the prompt.

I am thinking about the months ahead, which here in Michigan will be cold and gray, maybe with snow, maybe without. I am going to need books to curl up with on those long dark nights, that are made for reading. So I went with all cozy reads today.

This post does contain Amazon Affiliate links. I would receive a small commission if you were to click a link and make a purchase at no extra cost to you.

Sugar Shack || Natural Barn Killer || The Hidden World of Gnomes

The Enchanted Greenhouse ||Dinner at the Night Library|| A Fellowship of Librarians & Dragons

The Vanishing Cherry Blossom Bookshop || Yeonnam-dong’s Smiley Laundromat || The Amberglow Candy Store

A Spell for Midwinter’s Heart

I hope that whatever you do today, you do something that makes you smile!

My Sunday-Monday Post

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized22 Comments

My Sunday Post is hosted by Kimba the Caffeinated Book Reviewer

Sunday Salon is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date

Hello everyone! I hope that you all had a good week! We have been just keeping on over here, having school, going to therapy, and attending appointments. We did make some time for some fun but it has just been life going on over here.

Read Last Week:

Falling Like Leaves was so adorable and the most autumn book I have read. I loved everything about it!

I am almost done with Uncharmed, and it is also pretty darn cute. It’s been a good week of reading!

Reading This Week:

I am so excited for these two. I was waiting until a bit closer to Halloween – and we are finally there!

Posted Last Week:

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Wish I could Read Again for the First Time

Comfy Cozy Cinema: The Young in Heart

Friday Morning Coffee Catch Up

Watching:

Billy and I have been watching a few different things lately. We were watching Twin Peaks, but then my cousin reminded me that we hadn’t watched The Fall of the House of Usher on Netflix so we started that. It is so creepy but so good! We also started watching classic Twilight Zone episodes as well as episodes of The Haunted Hotel which we watch with Wyatt.

Last night we watched It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown with Wyatt. I love that he loves Charlie Brown too – probably because Billy and I love it. It would be neat if Wyatt grows up feeling nostalgic about Charlie and the gang too.

Lisa at Boondock Ramblings and I are hosting Comfy Cozy Cinema again, and last week we watched an oldie but goodie – The Young in Heart. This week we are making things a little spookier, and we are watching Coraline.

I also just started listening to a podcast called In the Meadow. It’s been a nice, relaxing podcast to chill out to while cleaning. I have only listened to like two episodes, but they were good listens.

On the Internet:

Lisa and I decided to pause Crafternoons until after the upcoming holidays, which will put us into the new year – can you believe we are getting closer to 2026? So crazy! I am still participating in the link ups like this one, Top Ten Tuesday, The Weekend Traffic Jam, and A Good Book and a Cup of Tea too. And of course Comfy Cozy Cinema. We have a few weeks left if you want to watch along!