Warmed up after a Winter's Respite of reading

 

While winter is still hanging about, spring is definitely in the air as we who take part in Seasons of Reading's Winter's Respite are happy to report. The numerous snow storms this past month alone gave us a good amount of time with our books and even allowed for a few substitutions along the way(more on that in a moment).

The first book that I took up and completed for this challenge was The Duke and I, the beginning of the Bridgerton series by Julia Quinn that gained Netflix quite the wider audience indeed.

The heroine of this Regency romance is Daphne, the oldest daughter of the Bridgerton family who is having her third season out in society and finding it hard to find a suitor willing to think of her as more than just a friend.

She then teams up with the newly arrived Duke of Hastings, Simon, who has no interest in the marriage game for deeply personal reasons. The two of them decide to have a pretend courtship in public, in order to get Daphne's romantic prospects on a higher level and keep Simon from being bothered by matchmaking matrons.

Of course, Daphne's older brother Anthony is a good friend of Simon's and disapproves of this arrangement as he knows just how much the Duke is determined not to take a wife. Anthony eventually goes along with this but when Daphne and Simon reluctantly realize that this love game is getting all too real, things get truly more complicated that either of them imagined.

As expected, there are plenty of changes from the book to the streaming version(a certain subplot involving a boorish suitor is nonexistent here) and while I did enjoy the way Julia Quinn arranged great dialogue scenes as well as delightful interactions among the Bridgerton family themselves, I would have like a couple of speeches from the show to have been part of this story. Oh, well, we still have those smoldering lines of dialogue on screen to savor:

I regret to say that while I did start All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot, I have not finished it yet(started that one rather late in the month).

However, I do intend to keep on reading it as the recent PBS miniseries adaptation was rather delightful. Also, Herriot's tales of his early days as a country vet in Yorkshire during the 1930s are heartfelt and enriching, blending humor and sadness at times yet never completely overrun by either sentiment.

Between dealing with ailing animals and their occasionally more troublesome owners, Herriot recounts his time with mentor/employer Siegfried, a man with immense talents and a contradictory nature, as well as Siegfried's younger brother Tristan, whose best skills seem to be for trouble making. That one story about him having to chase an entire herd of pigs through town is too funny!

This is a book that you really want to take your time with and I intend to do just that. Besides, the animal stories are truly grand indeed:

Speaking of best intentions, there were a pair of thrillers that I meant to get to but it was difficult to resist diving into the cozy comfort of the latest entry in Ellie Alexander's Bakeshop Mystery series.

Chilled to the Cone has successful baker Juliet Capshaw considering two major challenges in her life-the first to set up an ice cream pop-up shop as an extension of the ever expanding Torte bakeshop/restaurant. The other is Carlos, her sea faring chef husband who has come to her beloved town of Ashland to make their marriage sail smoothly again.

The ice cream shop seems the easier situation to handle but when a well known and well respected member of the local homeless community called The Wizard is found dead near their new location, Juliet prepares to solve the case by getting the scoop on her new retail neighbors to see who might have had it out for him.

I do like the growing cast of regular characters that Alexander has created here, from her steadfast staff members such as Sterling and Andy(who will be prominently featured in the next book entitled Mocha She Wrote) and Juliet's best friend Lance, who may have found love at last(we shall see!).

Another great thing is how Juliet works out things with Carlos, who did withhold major information from her early on in their marriage but truly seems to be making serious amends for that, so I'll give him a break for now. It's nice to see a mature relationship instead of romantic triangles in this genre for once. Plus, thinking about ice cream flavors(or in this case, concrete flavors-it's a form of frozen custard) is always good fun:

Just last night, I finished a last minute addition to this readathon and it was the first book that I've bought in person since our ongoing health crisis first began last year(granted, I got it at a pharmacy but that still counts!).

Susan Wiggs' The Lost and Found Bookshop focuses on Natalie Harper, who is able to leave the corporate job that she hates due to a family tragedy. With her mother now gone, she takes over the duel responsibility of caring for Grandy, her beloved grandfather and the title bookstore, which is drowning in debt.

With her grandfather refusing to sell the shop(he has full ownership), Natalie tries to keep the place going, not to mention the aging building from falling apart. The latter is greatly helped by Peach Gallagher, a "hammer for hire" whose young daughter Dorothy adores the shop and encourages Natalie to try and get famed children's book author Trevor Dashwood to do a signing.

Turns out Trevor is a local and happy to headline an event for the store. Also, he has a romantic eye on Natalie who is cautious about falling in love again. She and Peach seem to have vibes but both of them are unsure about the other in that department. Can Natalie find real happiness for herself as well as those she cares about, the one thing that her amazing  mother Blythe didn't seem to have?

This is the first time that I've read Wiggs and it won't be the last(already brought The Oysterville Sewing Circle, this time online). She really creates a well developed sense of place and people, making what would be obvious plot points in other hands feel fresh and new. Discovering a new (to me) writer is such a nice treat and one that I would gladly wish on others:

All in all, this was a good way to start the new year of reading and much thanks to Michelle Miller at Seasons of Reading for making this all possible. 

 Hopefully, I will stay more on track with the upcoming Spring Into Horror readathon where I plan to deal with some very wicked women, although none of them know how to use magic, thank goodness( sadly not able to watch WandaVision but can't resist a good villain theme song like this!):