It's no secret that there is a wide emotional gap between men and women. Couples crave love, but don't always know how to express it to their spouse.
LISTS TO LOVE BY FOR BUSY WIVES presents creative, practical ways for wives to bridge that gap and improve their marriage. These thirty lists will carry wives through an entire month of learning to love their husbands more deeply--advice they will come back to again and again. Highlights include:
8 Expectations for a Great Marriage
5 Things Husbands Wish Wives Knew
10 Things Husbands Want to Hear from Their Wives
7 Things You Should Stop Doing to Your Husband in Public
My Review:
Likes:
1. Lists. Just, in General, I like lists.
2. The emphasis on Communication and watching your words
Dislikes:
1. The 'lie back and think of England' approach to sex the author seems to have.
2. Really, this really got on my nerves. I hated it.
Take these lists with a grain of salt. There was a lot I didn't agree with or didn't fit my particular beliefs or ideals. I will back up the author on the importance of asking your spouse questions, watching your words when talking to them, the importance of saying "thank you" and "I appreciate you", etc. Words are Power, but we all know that.
Overall: not a TOTAL waste of time, but still a bit disappointing.
When I was a child, I thought my destiny was to live and die on the banks of the Xiangjiang River as my family had done for generations. I never imagined that my life would lead me to the Forbidden City and the court of China’s last Empress.
Born in the middle of nowhere, Yaqian, a little embroidery girl from Hunan Province, finds her way to the imperial court, a place of intrigue, desire, and treachery. From the bed of an Emperor, the heart of a Prince, and the right side of an Empress, Yaqian weaves her way through the most turbulent decades of China’s history and witnesses the fall of the Qing Dynasty.
My Review:
Once upon a time there was a young girl who wanted nothing more than to take care of her silk worms all day. Then her mother bound her feet. Driven by pain and boredom, she discovered she liked--and was good at-- something else. She was a natural embroiderer. She goes to school, makes a lot of money, and even becomes a very important embroiderer in the Palace.
But things are not all well. There are scenes of assault. There are sacrifices made. There are lies told, and lives lost. And through all that, a mother who never quite acknowledged her daughter as a person.
Likes:
1. Asian stories always get a star, even if it's east Asian.
2. I liked this. I liked it almost as much as SnowFlower and the Secret Fan.
3. She named her daughter for a Tiger.
Dislikes:
1. Yaquin's mom! Really, now.
2. The FEELS. But that'll happen.
Overall, I need more books like this. SO MANY MORE BOOKS. I need ALL the books even remotely like this. Definitely something to consider as a gift, but maybe not for younger or easily triggered readers. Some pretty adult stuff happens to our little Yaquin.
Sora's life was full of magic--until she discovered it was all a lie.
Heir to Mt. Fuji's spirit kingdom, Sora yearns to finally take on the sacred kami duties. But just as she confronts her parents to make a plea, a ghostly army invades the mountain. Barely escaping with her life, Sora follows her mother's last instructions to a heart-wrenching discovery: she is a human changeling, raised as a decoy while her parents' true daughter remained safe but unaware in modern-day Tokyo. Her powers were only borrowed, never her own. Now, with the world's natural cycles falling into chaos and the ghosts plotting an even more deadly assault, it falls on her to train the unprepared kami princess.
As Sora struggles with her emerging human weaknesses and the draw of an unanticipated ally with secrets of his own, she vows to keep fighting for her loved ones and the world they once protected. But for one mortal girl to make a difference in this desperate war between the spirits, she may have to give up the only home she's ever known.
My Review:
Likes:
1. Sora, and Sora's Cahracter, and her dedication to help the people who lied to and betrayed her.
2. Chosen one finds out she's not so Chosen, but tries her best anyway.
3. ASIAN Representation, yo!
Dislikes:
1. Chiyo: Come on. Like really, come on. She got on my nerves more than a few times.
2. Takeo: Clingy, much?
Overall: I liked the plot, the worldbuilding, and the writing itself. But a lot of things (Chiyo and Takeo and almost everything they did or said) annoyed me. And the Dragonfly! The dragonfly wasn't annoying, but deserved better.
I can't say it's my favorite book on my shelf right now, but I will say I wouldn't hesitate to gift it to someone else. My sister, maybe.
Alexia Tarabotti, Lady Maccon, has settled into domestic bliss. Of course, being Alexia, such bliss involves integrating werewolves into London High society, living in a vampire's second best closet, and coping with a precocious toddler who is prone to turning supernatural willy-nilly. Even Ivy Tunstell's acting troupe's latest play, disastrous to say the least, cannot put a dampener on Alexia's enjoyment of her new London lifestyle.
Until, that is, she receives a summons from Alexandria that cannot be ignored. With husband, child and Tunstells in tow, Alexia boards a steamer to cross the Mediterranean. But Egypt may hold more mysteries than even the indomitable Lady Maccon can handle. What does the vampire Queen of the Alexandria Hive really want from her? Why is the God-Breaker Plague suddenly expanding? And how has Ivy Tunstell suddenly become the most popular actress in all the British Empire?
My Review:
SPOILERS AHEAD THERE'S JUST TOO MUCH.
1. What does the vampire of Egypt want from her? --- Well, it was pretty clear from the moment we found she was on Life Support that she wants death. She wants to die. Immortality isn't all that and a bag of chips, as it turns out.
2. Why is the God-Breaker Plague suddenly expanding? --- FLOOTE HOW COULD YOU I EXPECT THIS FROM GENEVIEVE AND THE SUPERNATURALS AND EVEN ALEXIA'S AWFUL SISTERS BUT NOT YOU.
3. And how has Ivy Tunstell suddenly become the most popular actress in all the British Empire? --- She's not. She's really not. She's really only popular in Egypt....for some reason.
Furthermore, can we talk about the utter failure of the vampires trying to kidnap Prudence? I mean, first you take a boy. Then you take a girl who is NOT Prudence. And also, you've already met Prudence so could you not just smell her under the bed???
But Alexia, my heart when she thought Conall was dead. My poor baby.
And I still have a crush on Genevieve, after everything.
Lady Alexia Maccon, soulless, is at it again, only this time the trouble is not her fault. When a mad ghost threatens the queen, Alexia is on the case, following a trail that leads her deep into her husband's past. Top that off with a sister who has joined the suffragette movement (shocking!), Madame Lefoux's latest mechanical invention, and a plague of zombie porcupines and Alexia barely has time to remember she happens to be eight months pregnant.
Will Alexia manage to determine who is trying to kill Queen Victoria before it is too late? Is it the vampires again or is there a traitor lurking about in wolf's clothing? And what, exactly, has taken up residence in Lord Akeldama's second best closet?
My Review:
GENEVIEVE HOW COULD YOU.
But honestly, points off for predictability here. There was just a tad too much foresight here. Although Lord Akeldama comes to the rescue by making sure the Vampires, at least, will stop trying to kill her for a moment.
Felicity remains annoying and petty. Biffy is too sad and I need to give him a hug. (Or a lover but we'll get to that.)
"Madam, I believe you are having the baby."
"Not now, I'm busy!" --- you might think this is a trope, but I do know people like this. I admire it in a woman.
Furthermore, I have just one thing to say to Lyall and Alexia: Secrets get you nowhere.
Quitting her husband's house and moving back in with her horrible family, Lady Maccon becomes the scandal of the London season.
Queen Victoria dismisses her from the Shadow Council, and the only person who can explain anything, Lord Akeldama, unexpectedly leaves town. To top it all off, Alexia is attacked by homicidal mechanical ladybugs, indicating, as only ladybugs can, the fact that all of London's vampires are now very much interested in seeing Alexia quite thoroughly dead.
While Lord Maccon elects to get progressively more inebriated and Professor Lyall desperately tries to hold the Woolsey werewolf pack together, Alexia flees England for Italy in search of the mysterious Templars. Only they know enough about the preternatural to explain her increasingly inconvenient condition, but they may be worse than the vampires -- and they're armed with pesto.
BLAMELESS is the third book of the Parasol Protectorate series: a comedy of manners set in Victorian London, full of werewolves, vampires, dirigibles, and tea-drinking.
My Review:
The biggest thoughts: 1. CONALL IS SO STUPID. Even Lyall, in his Beta way, is trying to make him snap out of it and realize he's totally wrong. 2. Does anyone *not* have a crush on Genevieve?
Alexia loses two sources of supernatural protection, and people are still trying to kill her. So she goes to the people who want to get rid of people like her and her husband. Logic, much? I get that the big bad Vamps can't really get you there, but it's a little frying pan-fire situation, Alexia. Good thing she has Floote on her side.
People are complaining about the ending, but in my opinion I don't think it warranted a fight. That wasn't the point. All the drama came from lack of communication and feelings of abandonment. How is fighting going to fix it at all?
Richy McRich-wolf still gets on my nerves, but I did admire his role in this book. I see you, Channing!
On that note, it's really hard to write about books in a series without spoiling anything. ><
4.5/5.
Alexia Maccon, the Lady Woolsey, awakens in the wee hours of the mid-afternoon to find her husband, who should be decently asleep like any normal werewolf, yelling at the top of his lungs. Then he disappears; leaving her to deal with a regiment of supernatural soldiers encamped on her doorstep, a plethora of exorcised ghosts, and an angry Queen Victoria.
But Alexia is armed with her trusty parasol, the latest fashions, and an arsenal of biting civility. So even when her investigations take her to Scotland, the backwater of ugly waistcoats, she is prepared: upending werewolf pack dynamics as only the soulless can. She might even find time to track down her wayward husband, if she feels like it.
CHANGLESS is the second book of the Parasol Protectorate series: a comedy of manners set in Victorian London, full of werewolves, vampires, dirigibles, and tea-drinking.
My Review:
My Lord, it got better. I wasn't sure, because once love comes into things I start getting bored. But it got better. I do love that Vieve Lefoux stayed in the series. She's becoming quite the interesting character. There were others who managed the change from Finishing school to protectorate, but they're more of just...cameos, really. No more depth than they had in the first series.
Let's talk Scotland. For weeks my house will have a running joke of "Oh my, are you showing KNEES?". And frustrations!!! Conall's behavior, first running off and then AT THE END. And Ivy, please stop being so useless. Just really.
ProTip: Don't read the ending whole at work or school. If you're anything like me, you will be in the WORST mood until you read something happier.
