Rainy Day Library

  A Little Paris Christmas by Jennifer Shirk ★★★ Jennifer Shirk's Instagram bio describes her as a writer of "closed-door, swoony, Hallmark vibes" books, and "A Little Paris Christmas" definitely delivers that.  This is a nice and low-conflict, low-drama story. The main character is Sophie, who works for the Chamber of Commerce in a small town called Paris in Pennsylvania. Tourism is declining, and Sophie's job is to attract more visitors to the town, which models itself as the small-town American version of Paris, France.  Sophie's new neighbour is Mason, a horror writer with a distaste for Christmas and festivity. The pairing of the Christmas fanatic with the moody Christmas hater is a classic! Mason's fame and notoriety could be the solution to Sophie and the town's tourism problem, but he is reluctant. His little dachshund, Gingersnap, features and becomes a bit of a celebrity himself. Although they don't seem to get along well at first, ...

**Minor spoilers ahead**   In 2023, I read Cleopatra + Frankenstein  by Coco Mellors, and I really enjoyed it. Mellors has a talent for writing deep, insightful and emotional prose, so when her second book, Blue Sisters , was announced, I knew I really wanted to read it.  As an e-book reader, I rarely read new releases because they're just so expensive, and I'm also not massively fussed about being on trend  anyway, so I tend to get to new releases once they're not so new anymore. This was a very anticipated read, and I enjoyed it overall, but it didn't quite live up to the hype. I finished it a few days ago and wanted to sit with my thoughts for a little while. Like her first novel, Mellors has done a fantastic job of giving us insight into living with grief and mental illness. This is the story of three sisters - Avery, Bonnie, and Lucky - who are grieving the loss of their fourth sister, Nicky, who passed away about a year before the novel begins.  I hav...

It's probably not the answer you're expecting. For as long as I can remember, I've been a night owl. Part of it was growing up in a toxic and volatile home - night time was peaceful and quiet, and the only time I felt I could relax a little bit. The other part of it was that, no matter what time I went to bed, I just couldn't get up easily in the mornings. My mother called me lazy. My teachers always assumed I'd just stayed up all night playing video games or watching TV.  I always maintained, even as a kid, that not everyone is a morning person. I would be awoken every weekend day by my mother loudly blasting her "cleaning music" and the vacuum at about 6am. My brother and I would beg her to wait just a few more hours, to let us catch up on some sleep after a busy week. But she would always shout at us that by sleeping in, we were just being lazy layabouts. She'd tell us to go to bed earlier, but I couldn't go to bed any earlier than I already was...