A little late today. I drove up to my sister’s house last night to watch the NCAA Division I Volleyball National Championship game between Nebraska and Stanford. I was, of course, cheering for Nebraska, but sadly they couldn’t pull off winning the championship for the second straight year. They lost to Stanford in five sets. Alas! Better luck to them next year!

Because the game went to five sets I didn’t get home until midnight, and because I did a load of laundry at my sister’s house during the game, and because I just can’t leave a completed load of laundry in the basket I ended up folding clothes at 12:30 am. I didn’t want my cat curling up on my freshly washed clothes and leaving cat hair all over them.

Last week was another six-day work week peppered with fun social obligations. My book club met for brunch last Sunday morning, my friend’s low-key birthday party was Friday night, and then out to my sister’s last night for the volleyball game. Fun times! The book club is meeting tomorrow night for a holiday party where we will watch the best Christmas movie of all time: Die Hard.

And now for the books!

What I Finished Last Week:

• The Monster Baru Cormorant (The Masquerade #2) by Seth Dickinson

I will have a review for this one sometime soon, but I’m still trying to sort out my thoughts about it. It is an action-packed story and filled with political intrigue, but I’m not sure if all the action added to the story or distracted from it.

 

What I’m Currently Reading:

• The Secret Place by Tana French, audiobook narrated by Stephen Hogan and Laura Hutchison
• Henry VIII and the Men Who Made Him by Tracy Borman, ARC provided by NetGalley
• Kingdom of the Blazing Phoenix (Rise of the Empress #2) by Julie C. Dao

The Secret Place continues to perplex me. With Tana French’s other books, I could at least guess at who the killer might be. I was usually wrong, but I could make an educated guess. But in this installment of the Dublin Murder Squad books, I can’t even make a blind guess, and it’s fantastic.

Henry VIII and the Men Who Made Him is a popular history of Henry VIII’s life with an emphasis on the men in his life. We usually view Henry VIII as he related to his six wives, so it’s interesting to view him in relation to the men in his court, like Thomas More or Thomas Wolsey. So far, it’s not a book I would recommend to people who are only just developing an interest in Tudor history, as there are a lot of names that go in and out, and it’s helpful to have an idea of who the major figures in the Tudor court are first before delving into a book like this one.

I’m not that far into Kingdom of the Blazing Phoenix, but it’s been enjoyable so far. I was planning to read it early in 2019, but I saw it on the YA New Releases shelf at the library and with that beautiful cover, I couldn’t resist.

 

What I Plan to Read Next:

• The Paragon Hotel by Lyndsay Faye, ARC Provided by NetGalley.

I’m not sure how much reading I’ll get done this week. I have today off, and I plan to get a lot of writing done, what with 2018 wrap-ups and a book review or two. But after today I have a stretch of eight workdays followed by a three-hour drive to my parents’ house on Christmas Eve. I’m going to be one tired Kim by the end of it.

The latest installment of my Lord of the Rings Reread, ‘All the Pretty Horses‘ went up yesterday. I discuss the goings-on in Edoras, Gandalf’s true nature, and do a bit of gushing about a fantastic horse named Shadowfax.

My snarky read of Sarah J. Maas’s Heir of Fire is going. Slowly. Every time Manon’s family name, Blackbeak, comes up I misread it as ‘Buckbeak’. And then I picture Manon as played by Luna Lovegood as played by Evanna Lynch. Hilarity ensues. But two sentences later I’ll come across something ridiculous or overly dramatic, and I’ll have to keep my eyes from rolling out of my head. I am taking notes. There will be blogging about this experience.

 

What’s Making Me Happy This Week (hint: it’s mostly food):

• The quality Christmas chocolates we got at work
• The Irish Coffee fudge I bought when my friend and I stopped in to see a new chocolate store/restaurant
• Coffee.
• Time with my friends and family
• Coffee