Mini Book Reviews: Sad Ghost Club, Temple of Swoon, and The Honey Witch

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized14 Comments

Hello all! Welcome back to another edition of mini book reviews! It seems to be the best way for me to write reviews, in these little bite size reviews.

First up! The Sad Ghost Club

The Sad Ghost Club by Lize Meddings: “The universe is most pleased we met.” You guys this book was just so good. I could relate to this so well; I was so shy and awkward in high school and had such anxiety over social things, much like these characters. This graphic novel is a very sweet look at anxiety, loneliness, feeling like you don’t belong anywhere.. it is just wonderful honestly. I am adding the rest of the series to my library holds ASAP!

Two “ghosts” meet at a party, both out of sync with the rest of the party goers, and it is a wonderful conversation between two people who have possibly found a kindred spirit. If you visit The Sad Ghost Club website, and you are in the UK, there are also helplines posted for those who are feeling like thye need a helping hand.

Temple of Swoon by Jo Segura: I’m an adventurer at heart. While in reality I am an introverted stay at home homeschool mom, there was a time I dreamed of discovering lost cities and digging up relics, having all sorts of wild adventures along the way. I am glad I actually pursued that outside of daydreams, because the reality is I much prefer reading about them in climate controlled, bug free spaces. Temple of Swoon is the perfect read for armchair adventuring archaeologists like me – this book has danger, a steamy jungle, a lost city, some crazy shenanigans, and romance. I ate this book up, like Miri eats her snacks. Miri is the main character, who is smart, resilient, a bit of a goofball, and prides herself on always having the best snacks. I thought she was awesome! Rafa wasn’t too bad either…

This book is for you if you like

🥾 Enemies to lovers
🥾 Indiana Jones
🥾 Cinnamon roll MMC
🥾 Smart women

Also if you like this book I highly recommend the old classic movie, African Queen. It was also an adventure story that made me laugh out loud.

The spice level: It is explicit open door, but it is almost all the way at the very end of the book. If I compare it to Under Loch and Key, which I reviewed last round, it seems tame. I haven’t read many romances honestly so I am still working out a system. Let’s say if Under Loch and Key is 5 jalapenos, this one is 3.5?

“These are the wild women who run barefoot through the meadow, who teach new songs to birds, who howl at the moon together. Wild women are their own kind of magic.” After all of this snow and being indoors – as cozy and wonderful it has been – I am more than ready to wake up to the songs of the birds in the morning and to run around barefoot again, to see colors again! That is why I decided this long gray February of the snow moon was the perfect time to read The Honey Witch – and it did not disappoint. The imagery was beautiful and conjured up long summer lazy summer days, bees buzzing around the garden, fireflies at night. It had a very cool magic system I thought, of a honey witch and an ash witch, a yin and a yang, balance. But the balance was out of order in this book, and Marigold had to find her place as the new honey witch and overturn the curse .. and that is all I will say!

This book:

🐝 Cozy Fantasy
🐝 Enemies to Lovers
🐝 Sapphic
🐝 Slow Burn Romance
🐝 Cool Magical System

For the spice level, which is sapphic, I would give it the same as Temple of Swoon – 3.5 jalapenos. Explicit open door but it is fairly short as well as near the end.

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

Top Ten Tuesday: Books That Take Place in Another Time

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized51 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

This Week’s Prompt: Books Set in Another Time (These can be historical, futuristic, alternate universes, or even in a world where you’re not sure when it takes place you just know it’s not right now.)

I wasn’t quite sure how I wanted to do this one! I decided to do a decade by decade book for each decade of the 1900s. The century that I was born in… lol. Most of these are books that I have read; a few are from my TBR.

A Reliable Wife (1909)|| Girl Waits With Gun (1914) || The Great Gatsby

A Reliable Wife was such a wild ride of a book! It is set in Wisconsin in 1909. All of Goolrick’s books blew me away when I read them.

Girl Waits with Gun is one on my TBR – and I am pretty sure I learned about it from TTT! It is set in 1914.

The Great Gatsby -because really, what better book to represent the Roaring 20s?

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek || City of Thieves || When Women Were Dragons

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek is another TBR book. I had never heard of the Horseback Librarians until a few years ago when we went to a historical event at Greenfield Village near us and there was a woman dressed as one. She told Wyatt and I about these women and gave Wyatt a library card. It was really cute. Anyway, this book is set in 1936. I need to get to it.

City of Thieves is one of my favorite books ever. I recommend this book over and over and over again. It is is set in 1942 in Russia.

When Women Were Dragons is physically sitting on my shelf and I need to read it. Maybe I will this spring. It sounds amazing. It is set in 1955.

The Girls || Joyland || My Best Friend’s Exorcism

The Girls has been on my TBR for a long time. I really need to get to it eventually. It seems like a good summer book so maybe this summer. This book is set in the 1960s.

Joyland is another favorite of mine. I have found that my favorite books by Stephen King are sort of weird compared to other people lol. This is one of them. I just love the whole story- the new adultness, the summertime working at the amusement park, a haunting, a mystery, some supernatural things. It was fantastic. It is set in the 1970s.

My Best Friend’s Exorcism is such a creepy gross book! I loved it though. It is so 1980s that I had to list it here.

The Mall

I am a Gen Xer and yes, so much of my young adulthood centered around the mall. I haven’t read this but it is on my TBR. It sounds like a good read! (if you have read it let me know what you thought!)

And there is my list! I am super excited to see where everyone else is taking us today!

Sunday Afternoon Coffee Catch Up – Tulips on the Window, Bowling, and Scouts

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Coffee Catch UP20 Comments

Hello everyone!! It’s been a wild week around here! It is always crazy to me how we can go from doing absolutely nothing and then have a week that is nonstop. But that is what happened to us this past week. It’s all been good but lots of things were happening!

After our super slow weekend last week, with the big snow and being stuck inside, we hit the ground running on Monday. Wyatt and I had a jam packed day of school, followed by our Cub Scouts meeting at the library, which was awesome. The kids were learning 3-D printing, and Curtis, the librarian in charge of this event, did a fantastic job setting things up for our scouts. He put a lot of thought and work into it! He even had some premade ideas in the program that the kids could customize, like key chains and bookmarks and Cub scout related items. It was very cool. He also surprised Wyatt with a Cub Scout statue with a snail on it, because he remembered Wyatt loves snails. The kids (and the parents) all had a great time!

Then the rest of the week we had therapy and equipment deliveries for Wyatt, a basketball for his cousin – the first he has ever been to, bowling in his new special needs kids league, and I had our blogger Zoom crafternoon event! We are having so much fun with our crafternoons and hanging out that we are going to continue them instead of ending this month as we had originally planned.

Friday we had so much fun in art too. I love when I find an artist that just resonates with us, and Maud Lewis seems to be one of them. I love her whimsical style and bright colors and Wyatt likes them as well. I didn’t know much about her myself before this study, but I am loving her story. She was a Canadian artist, living in Nova Scotia. She lived her life with a disability, one that caused her a lot of pain, as well as affecting her hands and legs and stature. But that didn’t stop her from seeing the joy around her and spreading that to everyone else. One of the videos we watched described her life as “the power of creativity and resilience” and I loved that. We read the book A Tulip in Winter together, and then Wyatt’s art project for the day was to recreate the Maud’s windows! She had brightly colored tulips painted in the windows of her small house, so Wyatt and I used window markers and did the same to our front window. We are both so happy with how it turned out, and every time I see them, it makes me smile. They are hard to see in this photo with how the sun was shining (yes the sun was shining!!) but they are so joyful, and reminds us that spring is on the way.

I spotted this online during my research for this art study, which will continue into March, and I think I need it.

I also learned something new this week! I learned that Japan has stationery awards! How did I not know this before? I have always loved pens and markers and stickers and paper and notebooks. I worked in an office supply store that sold fine pens and stationery and all that good stuff and it was like a dream. I own so many really nice pens from my time spent working there. And honestly, they just aren’t available like they used to be, it seems like. There are so many cool things! I love this little pouch for all of your writing materials!

Billy and I have been watching one of my favorite shows this week, The Great British Pottery Throw Down. This group seems to be very talented, and now I am really inspired to make some cool things with my MIL this spring or fall. She is going to teach me as she is a potter with her own kiln, and I of course have all these big ideas. LOL. I’ll be happy though even if I can only make something very basic. We also started the Gabby Petito documentary as well, and we only have one part left. I find myself getting so very angry while watching it.

Later today we have a family get together to celebrate both Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day. It will be fun to hang out for a bit with everyone.

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

Talk to you later my friends!

Down the Rabbit Hole: How My Crafternoons Led to a New TBR

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized20 Comments

I have always enjoyed my projects. However, I usually enjoy them, alone. My friends are super awesome and I love them to pieces, but they are not makers. It’s not their thing. And that is ok. So usually I do all my sewing and creating of anything by myself. However, recently Lisa from Boondocks Ramblings and I started up a winter Crafternoons thing over Zoom, with a few other bloggers, and it has been awesome. I have so much enjoyed sewing while chatting, and the other women are doing their crafty project or chatting and it has just been the most fun. It has also been really cool getting to know these bloggers on a whole different level – and to hear their voices!

I started thinking about how throughout time and the ages, women gathered together for different reasons, and while we do these things as fun crafts, their intentions were more practical. Despite that, these sewing circles, quilting bees, knitting circles, they all provided community for these women. And my curiosity was piqued by this, so I started reading that they provided even more, including a voice for change, for belonging and identity, cultural traditions. And it made me want to learn and know more. And I have found quite a few books that look amazing. This is a new reading and learning project for me – it will probably take a while to do, as I am a very slow reader of nonfiction.

This topic has always been in the back of my mind. And the book that sparked the spark? Oddly, a cozy mystery by Barbara Michaels, called Stitches in Time. There is a comment in there, about women and quilting and sewing, and in it, they mention that women stitch themselves into their work. Women sew and knit and sometimes, they are sitting around their child’s crib, while their babies sleep. Sometimes they do it while waiting on news, while someone is in the hospital, or a loved one is away at war, and this emotion gets stitched into their work. That is sort of magical thinking, but on some level, it has to be true. There would be no actual emotion stuck to it, but that woman would always think about the time she stitched it, whenever she used it. I also think about what the women would have talked about- it may have been one of the only places they were free to just be, at one point in time. I just have lots of thoughts, and none of them organized, and I am really excited to start this little reading passion project of mine, this rabbit hole of women and handicrafts and community.

I have requested one of these books already from the library, and I am waiting for it to get here. In the meantime, I wanted to share the list of books I have found with you!

That all being said, these are the books I found. I have no idea if they are good, bad, boring, well researched- I don’t know. I guess I will find out! Some of them aren’t quite on the mark but close enough and sounded interesting as well!

Threads of Life || This Long Thread || The Subversive Stitch

Red Paint || A Very Social Time || Craft Communities

This Golden Fleece |Knitting Yarns and Spinning Tales| No Idle Hands

I would love to hear your thoughts on this! I am also interested in hearing any suggestions you might have to add, even if it is podcasts, movies, etc. Oh! That just reminded me of a movie! How to Make an American Quilt!

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Never Reviewed

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized37 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Today’s prompt is all books I read but never reviewed – and whether I liked them. Unfortunately, this one is easy for me. I was very bad about reviewing last year! My goal is to do mini-reviews this year after I read 3 or 4 books and I have been doing pretty well. Granted it is still only February but I am determined!

The Teller of Small Fortunes: I LOVED it!

A Fellowship of Bakers and Magic: Also, loved it

Christa Comes Out of Her Shell: Yes, I liked it!

A Psalm for the Wild Built: Loved it and have recommended it personally to friends but never reviewed it

The Easy Life in Kamusari: It was pretty good.

Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop: Also one I enjoyed.

The Full Moon Coffee Shop: I didn’t care for it too much honestly

Sisters of the Lost Nation: Loved it!!

The Vanishing of Aveline Jones: Loved it. I love this whole series!

To Fetch a Felon: I adored this book and of course, the little corgi as well! I still want a corgi darn it. And, I want to read more in this series!

My Sunday-Monday Post

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized38 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

It’s a winter wonderland here today! We are covered in snow out there. We spent yesterday hurkle-durkling all day long, just staying inside and being pretty lazy. I did a bunch of lesson planning, though, so I did get some work done. I am excited about some of the new studies Wyatt and I are about to embark upon.

Today is another winter storm warning day, with heavy snow predicted so it will be another stay at home kind of day. They cancelled church, and the Pastor is giving her sermon from her home over Zoom. They cancelled Wyatt’s first bowling day as well – I will have to wait another week to see my little “Thunder Turkey” bowl with his team!

I had a big week last week, but I still managed to read two books, although one was a YA graphic novel so it took like 30 minutes. Lol.

Read Last Week:

The Sad Ghost Club was such a sweet read. It is about feeling alone, like you don’t belong anywhere or with anyone, anxiety, overthinking – and then finding someone, maybe just maybe, you can hang out with. I plan on reading the rest of this series as well. I just really enjoyed it.

Temple of Swoon is super adorable and swoonworthy. It is mostly closed door (is that a thing?) and Rafa and Miri are just so cute. It was was just a really fun read.

I hope to have a few more reviews up this week of books, including these two.

Reading This Week:

This week is cold and snowy but spring is right around the corner (maybe) and I am going to read this book and think about the colors of spring and summer. And fresh honey. I don’t think you guys know this about me, but I am obsessed with honey. I love it. Just call me Winnie!

Posted Last Week:

Top Ten Tuesday: Love Quotes!

Friday Morning Coffee Catch Up

Mini Book Reviews: A Death in Door County, Under Loch and Key, The Healing Season of Pottery

Watching:

Billy has a cold and so we haven’t wanted to watch anything we have to think too much about, so we started watching Return to Paradise, which is another Death in Paradise spin-off. It was perfect for the week we had last week. Hopefully Billy perks up soon! He is actually doing not too bad, just a little low energy and coughing which is basically the type of ick that has been going around here lately.

We did veg out yesterday and we all watched Jurassic Park as a family. It was the first movie Billy and I ever saw together, all those years ago in 1993. The theater we saw it in isn’t even around anymore!

And that is it from my corner of the world today. Whatever you do today, try to do something that makes you smile! I think I might try to make a snowman with Wyatt this afternoon, and then follow it up with hot chocolate.

Mini Book Reviews: A Death in Door County, Under Loch and Key, The Healing Season of Pottery

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn book review, books and reading16 Comments

It’s time for another round up of mini-reviews!

Let’s start with A Death in Door County.

A Death in Door County by Annelise Ryan: A Death in Door County is about a whole different lake and set of waters than I usually see here on my side of Michigan, this one on the Wisconsin side of Lake Michigan, and Morgan, a cryptozoologist has been hired to find out if there is something lurking beneath the waters after a few tourists end up dead. It was an interesting read, full of fun trivia about folklore, a bookstore with some other interesting items for sale, and some eccentric characters – and of course, good dog Newt. For the first in a series it was pretty interesting, and I enjoyed it.

This book has:

🌲 Small towns
🌲 Independent heroines
🌲 Loch Ness vibes
🌲 Good dogs

Under Loch and Key by Lana Ferguson: So, I figured I might as well just jump right in to another Loch Ness book. I do enjoy cryptid lore and tales and the Loch Ness is one of my favorites – thank you Scooby Doo for forming a lifelong interest. (does anyone else remember that episode?) Anyone, back to this book. This story is very cute in itself. Key travels to Scotland to connect with her grandparents, whom she has never met, after her father passes away. She meets the annoying, handsome Lachlan, who works for her grandparents. He is a grump, and not only that, but a grump with some pretty big secrets. So, like I said, that whole storyline is interesting and their interactions are funny. Key is a plain speaker, and I like that. She is open and just says what she is thinking and feeling rather than being sulky or playing games. I like her burgeoning relationship with her grandparents, especially her grandfather. I also liked the whole back story, mystery, magic, and family stuff.

Now, let us discuss the spice. I don’t read many romances, and this is definitely an open door book. I would put this at level way high spice, with graphic language as well. I ended up skipping those scenes as I read through the book. However, a YouTuber I watch, the Plant Based Bride, revealed that there is a scene (that she also skipped) that also has a bit of monster transformation spice situation too, so be aware that is in there as well. No judgement here, I guess just know it in case you like it or you don’t like it. I just wanted to put that in here.

This book has:

🌲 Open door
🌲 Family Mysteries and Secrets
🌲 Loch Ness vibes
🌲 Paranormal romance

The Healing Season of Pottery by Yeon Somin: “The reason our coffee tastes good, even when we make it with mediocre beans, is because of the cups.” I believe this, that using a piece that has been handmade with love and care lends a different feeling to what you are eating or drinking or enjoying. That feeling carries through each sip of coffee, each bite of cake eaten from a beautiful plate, echoes in a bowl filled with homemade soup. I may love pottery, btw. And I absolutely loved this book.

Jungmin has been in a cave of her own desire and making since quitting her broadcast writing job, barely setting foot outside for months. One day, dressed completely wrong for the weather, showing just how off balance Jungmin is, how out of season of her life, she stumbles into a pottery studio, thinking it is a cafe. This mistake changes her life. She finds herself enchanted by the pottery, the women who are there, and begins to take lessons. Slowly, slowly, carefully, Jungmin builds a new community for herself, friendships, literally rebuilds herself as she builds objects from clay. Clay has to be tested by fire in order to survive and become something beautiful or practical or useful, and Jungmin learns everyone has a story and fires that they have faced. This was a wonderful book full of found family and the rebuilding of a life.

Have you read any of these?

Friday Morning Coffee Catch Up

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized5 Comments

Hello everyone!! It is sunny this morning and I am so here for it! It has been a very gray week here in Michigan so this is Mother Nature’s little Valentine’s Day gift! And Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!

We don’t really do anything to celebrate here. I am a person who loves little celebrations so much so it is really funny to me that I skip this one for the most part. I do love to decorate for it though, with heart buntings all over my house that will stay up for months because they feel so happy. But we don’t often do anything. This year though I asked Wyatt who he might want to give a Valentine’s gift to, and he told me the library workers. So today we will be delivering cookies to the library staff. I thought this was so sweet, that he thought about the library workers. He also has valentines to pass out to his fellow scouts next week as well. (and he will call his grandmas tonight too, lol)

This week was a bit of a crazy week around here. Billy has had a cold so he is not at 100% Billy, and on top of that, I had three days of Leadership Advocacy training. They were thankfully on Zoom, but they were for three and half hours straight in the morning so we did need some childcare! Thank goodness for grandparents! However, our house was all in a kerfuffle, just all off of our routine.

The training though was an amazing experience and I am so thankful that I took it. I learned so much from it, the trainers, and the rest of the attendees. It was a small group, so we got to know each other a bit more than we would have in a larger group setting, which was nice. I feel like it was challenging in some ways, and I feel that I really grew from it as well.

Our first day was to discuss our why – why did we want to take this training, why did we want to be parent voices and parent advocates? We all had our own “why”s- obviously mine is Wyatt, but there were many other reasons in the group, including a woman who wanted to advocate for homeschool families, to change the image so we don’t look so fringe to the rest of society, and that our children aren’t judged for being homeschooled. I hope she succeeds! We do need people to speak out and change that perception! We also had to share our collages (which I think I shared here already?) about our families and give a two minute introduction to ourselves and our family. I was super nervous about doing this, but I did it you guys! I made it through!

On the second day, we did more of introspective kind of thing – what are our skills, what are our strengths, what do we need to improve sort of things. We had to do a few exercises and activities that really did change some of my thinking, and we also took a personal communication style inventory survey, where we learned what our communication style is. I came back with a tie between two (because of course, that often happens with me) – driver and amiable. Drivers are very decisive, independent, sort of intense, efficient, and people of action. I also got amiable, which is also a group that initiates, but is casual, relaxed, and inclusive. It was an interesting exercise!

Our last day was all about conflict, and how to deal with it, which I found very informative and useful. It also talked about leadership in general, and how boards and committees work. Overall, I found this workshop to be very useful and I learned a lot. When we “graduated” at the end, they had made each of us a little graphic with the leadership qualities that the others felt we displayed. I thought this was so nice. We all like to hear nice things about ourselves! It’s also been so long since I personally did anything like this, so it was fun to do a little learning and be a student again!

However, we didn’t get any school done this week – and I barely got any personal reading done. That is ok though, we had a different kind of week and that is ok. And on top of it Billy was not able to help out as much as he normally would, so our house is, to put it mildly, a disaster. Tomorrow will be spent getting this place back into order, then Sunday Wyatt has his first bowling league.. match? Game? What do you say for this? I signed him up for an accessible league and he is very excited about it. His team name is the Thunder Turkeys, which cracks me up. I can’t wait to see my little turkey out there bowling!

Yesterday I was still in work mode, so I took care of some things I had been putting off, like calling about appointments, that sort of thing. I sent in Wyatt’s scholarship application for Eric “RicStar” Winter Music Camp! We can’t wait to go again and I also had a scheduled phone call about my mom and signing her up for Medicaid. That went really well as she was approved, and it is honestly such a relief now that we know she is taken care of. Just a few more steps! I also read about fifty billion books with Wyatt, which was a nice return to normal.

Oh! That just made me remember I was going to do book reviews today, not this post! Lol. Oh well. Book reviews tomorrow!

And now a few photos from the reel!

And that is it from around here this morning! Happy Valentine’s Day everyone, and whatever you do today, try to do something that makes you smile!

Top Ten Tuesday: Quotes about Love

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized29 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Today’s prompt is a love themed freebie. I went with love quotes from different books that I really liked!

Mr. Rochester…. would we call him a romantic hero? Probably not – sooo many red flags. However, I did really enjoy their story and how Jane returns to him on more equal footing.

I love Tress and Charlie’s romance! Just everything about it makes me smile.

If someone had told me that Stephen King would write a romance story that would make me cry my eyeballs out, I would not have believed them. But it happened.

I hope you all enjoy reading these words as much as I did!

Now I am off to get all filled up with happiness from reading your posts!

My Sunday-Monday Post

On By Erin @ Cracker Crumb LifeIn Uncategorized28 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 had a weird topsy-turvy week last week, for no reason at all. However, I did manage to read two books.

Read Last Week:

I enjoyed both of these books! I absolutely adored The Healing Season of Pottery, and Under Loch and Key was a really fun read. However, this is not a clean romance – it has swearing and spice of the open door kind, just so you are aware.

Reading This Week:

This week I am reading The Sad Ghost Club and Dating and Dragons. I checked out The Sad Ghost Club as part of our library’s Bingo challenge this winter. I needed a graphic novel to read to check off that box and this one just looked good.

Posted Last Week:

Hello February!

Strong Words, Strong Women Gift Guide

Gladwynn Grant Shakes the Family Tree

Coffee Catch Up

Watching:

Billy and I finished up Season one of Severance. Holy cow, that show messes with your head. I love it though! We are letting Season Two build up or even finish before we watch it. I don’t think I will want to wait for episodes! So in the meantime we are catching up on Murdoch Mysteries.

So far this is my favorite scene from Severance.

And that is about it from around here my friends! Stay safe out there! Try to do something today that makes you smile.