Meet Domino the mountain barn cat. He has a horse named Buddy.
Wherever Domino goes, Buddy is sure to follow. The cat wears the pants in this relationship.
Just because someone is smaller, it doesn’t mean they can’t call the shots.
Domino has an attitude. Must be from wrassling with the racoons and gophers and squirrels he protects his horse from up on Round House Ranch on Mt. Palomar.
Domino likes to sleep in his saddle in his tree on the mountain. All cats like to sleep in their saddles, not just cowboys like you probably thought.
Buddy is a working horse and loves to round up cattle on the range. He takes charge of the bulls no problem, but Domino? No way.
Domino is more brains than brawn, and that is always more of a challenge for a working stiff like Buddy. Cheers to you from Domino the cat…
Georgie McCool knows her marriage is in trouble. That it’s been in trouble for a long time. She still loves her husband, Neal, and Neal still loves her, deeply — but that almost seems besides the point now.
Maybe that was always besides the point.
Two days before they’re supposed to visit Neal’s family in Omaha for Christmas, Georgie tells Neal that she can’t go. She’s a TV writer, and something’s come up on her show; she has to stay in Los Angeles. She knows that Neal will be upset with her — Neal is always a little upset with Georgie — but she doesn’t expect to him to pack up the kids and go home without her.
When her husband and the kids leave for the airport, Georgie wonders if she’s finally done it. If she’s ruined everything.
That night, Georgie discovers a way to communicate with Neal in the past. It’s not time travel, not exactly, but she feels like she’s been given an opportunity to fix her marriage before it starts . . .
Is that what she’s supposed to do?
Or would Georgie and Neal be better off if their marriage never happened?
My review:
This is the third Rainbow Rowell book that I have read. My favourites up to now have been Eleanor and Park, and Attachments. I still have to delve into the wonders of Fan Girl, (I have heard so many good things about this coming-of-age tale of fan fiction, family and first love.) So I must add it to my TBR list.
Of course Landline was good, but it wasn’t my favourite Rainbow Rowell book. It didn’t quite have the quirkiness of the characters in Eleanor and Park, or the humour of Attachments. I’m not sure if the telephone landline really worked for me, at times it felt a little bit repetitive, the magic of the time travelling phone didn’t quite match up to my expectations.
There were a lot of aspects of the novel that I really enjoyed. At times the story line really touched my heart. Neal and Georgie’s marriage was on the rocks, and by the end of the book I really felt for these two characters and wanted them to work it out and be happy. I enjoyed the role reversal, Neal stayed at home to look after the kids while Georgie went out to pursue her career. Neal was happy with the arrangement at the beginning but nevertheless problems began to show. Neal didn’t fit in to Georgie’s world and Georgie felt left out of the perfect family group of Neal and his kids. Cracks started to show when a wonderful opportunity came up for Georgie to work on a sitcom over Christmas. She expected that Neil would agree to have Christmas in Los Angeles instead of going to Omaha, but Neal surprised her by standing his ground. He took the children with him to Omaha, without Georgie. Georgie’s life started to fall apart. Neal made matters worse by ignoring her calls, and Georgie ended up back at her Mum’s house where she used the old yellow Landline in her room to call Neal. What she actually ended up finding is a way to connect with him in the past. Will this be an opportunity to rekindle the original spark of their love, or to set things right? She started to question the way that she treated Neal, and wondered if she had been taking him for granted. She missed her children terribly, and feared that a life without them would be no life at all. I thought it interesting how she went to live with her mother, behaving like a child herself in need of the security of her family home. I enjoyed her relationship with her co-worker Seth, and her family relationships with her mother, step father and sister. Oh and the pug dogs, and the washing machine were a cute touch. You will have to read Landline to see what I mean! Rainbow Rowell’s strength in this novel is undoubtedly her ability to write about love, families and relationships in a very moving and honest way. Who knows what may have happened in life if you take another path and marry a different person? It is an interesting observation, with no real answers.
My rating:
Overall I enjoyed Landline, and I would give it 3.75 stars.
My favourite quotes:
“You don’t know when you’re twenty-three.
You don’t know what it really means to crawl into someone else’s life and stay there. You can’t see all the ways you’re going to get tangled, how you’re going to bond skin to skin. How the idea of separating will feel in five years, in ten – in fifteen. When Georgie thought about divorce now, she imagined lying side by side with Neal on two operating tables while a team of doctors tried to unthread their vascular systems.
She didn’t know at twenty-three.”
“Nobody’s lives just fit together. Fitting together is something you work at. It’s something you make happen – because you love each other.”
“Having kids sent a tornado through your marriage, then made you happy for the devastation. Even if you could rebuild everything just the way it was before, you’d never want to.”
“That’s what Georgie did to him. She pulled the blood to the surface of his skin. She acted on him. Tidally. She made him feel like things were happening. Like life was happening – and even if he was miserable sometimes, he wasn’t going to sleep through it.”
“Georgie, “he said. “I love you. I love you more than I hate everything else. We’ll make our own enough – will you marry me?”
They are just such so perceptive, wonderfully thoughtful observations about love, marriage, and having kids.
I would recommend Landline to readers of Contemporary, Romance, Chick Lit, and Adult Fiction.
1) The nominee shall display the Wonderful Team Member Readership Award logo on his/her blog.
2) The nominee shall nominate 14 bloggers s/he admires, over a period of 7 days, all at once or little by little, by linking to their blogs and informing them about it.
My Nominees
In case any of my nominees would prefer not to accept the award, please simply consider this a token of my appreciation for your awesome blogs. No worries. 😉
8.Books are delicious. Yes and so is food, so I’m with you on that! Inspiring blog about writing, books and increasing traffic to your site. http://booksaredelicious.com/
9.Pretty books. Yes, I just love gorgeous book covers. http://theprettybooks.wordpress.com. Thanks for your YA recommendations and the twitter hastag #aryaclub.
10. Just Get it Written. http://mscoffeehouse.wordpress.com. For the celebrate the small things Fridays. A member of the Insecure Writers Group, a supportive group for us writers who are full of self-doubt. Myself included. I must join!
11. Marie Abanga – Marie Abanga.com. This woman is just amazing check out her award-winning blog http://marieabanga.com/
14.Amanda’s Nose in a Book. For her reviews, confessions, love of YA, and her own spin on MizB’s WWW Wednesday. Plus her list of affiliates, too! http://amandasnoseinabook.wordpress.com/
From one of Granta‘s Best Young British Novelists, a stunningly insightful, emotionally powerful new novel about an outsider haunted by an inescapable past: a story of loneliness and survival, guilt and loss, and the power of forgiveness.
Jake Whyte is living on her own in an old farmhouse on a craggy British island, a place of ceaseless rains and battering winds. Her disobedient collie, Dog, and a flock of sheep are her sole companions, which is how she wanted it to be. But every few nights something—or someone—picks off one of the sheep and sets off a new deep pulse of terror. There are foxes in the woods, a strange boy and a strange man, rumors of an obscure, formidable beast. But there is also Jake’s past—hidden thousands of miles away and years ago, held in the silences about her family and the scars that stripe her back—a past that threatens to break into the present. With exceptional artistry and empathy, All the Birds, Singing reveals an isolated life in all its struggles and stubborn hopes, unexpected beauty, and hard-won redemption.
It’s about sheep and birds and a lot of animals, and all sorts of things you just wouldn’t expect. Who says a sheep farm can’t be exciting!
The story begins with the words, “Another sheep, mangled and bled out, her innards not yet crusting and the vapours rising from her like a steamed pudding.” What a way to begin, with those initial words I was instantly drawn in and my attention just didn’t waver.
Wyld tells us Jake’s current story in the past tense, and the story of her past in the present tense. An unusual device. Her past is catching up with her always there a menace that she can’t escape from. The tale begins in the past tense, in England on her sheep farm. To begin with I found the main protagonist, Jake Whyte, a shady character. Who is this person? Why has she bought a farm in this remote area of England? Her name sounds like a man’s name. She has a manly physique, she is no weakling, though there are hints at feminine aspects to her persona. She appears a lonely individual separated from the community in which she lives, unable or unwilling to participate. Her only companion is her dog, who is simply named Dog. This lady is not one for frills. She is a strong woman with a disturbing past, who carries the scars of that past on her back. No wonder she wants to stay hidden. Her only concession to human contact on her sheep farm in England is Don, and Don sold her the house and the land. Don regards her reluctance to engage with others as unnatural, and tries to encourage her to mix to integrate into the farming community, to find someone to share her life with, and to live a normal life.
Chapters alternate to reveal her past in Australia when she was working with a sheep shearing gang to her younger adolescent years when she made a terrible mistake that she is still paying for in the present. This earlier chapter of her life is unexpected, and shocking. No wonder she is running. She has the scars to show for it. In Australia she also has only one companion, no dog this time, a male on the sheep shearing gang. She is one woman among many male sheep shearers, yet she seems to fit in well. Gender lines blur.
In present day England something or somebody is violently killing her sheep. To begin with it she thinks it is kids but as the narrative unfolds this impression begins to change. It appears that her past is catching up on her and her poor sheep are being made to suffer for her misdeeds. What beast is tearing them apart? Is it the beast of her past rearing its ugly head?
Wyld uses several different animals within the narrative to suggest human characteristics, this is particularly evident in the portrayal of Kelly, her captor Otto’s dog that she is forced to live with for a time in Australia. Kelly torments Jake with her fierce loyalty to Otto, her captor.This novel is full to buzzing with all sorts of insects, birds, sheep, dogs, fish, oh and a pigeon to mention a few. A quote from the final chapter exemplifies this. “On the beach at low tide after a storm, the sharks that have washed up are the small ones that don’t need to be towed onto the sand spit first. They are just finned on the boats and plopped back into the drink….”
I can’t find much at all to criticise in Wyld’s book. It is wonderfully written, a stunningly clever book. My only slight niggle and it is very slight, I found it strange that she allowed a complete stranger to stay with her alone on her sheep farm in England. This seemed at odds with her reluctance to mix and trust her neighbours. Though perhaps this is a hint that she is prone to making impulsive decisions that can sometimes go badly, as in her past? Several reviewers have found fault with the ambiguous ending of the book. I found the ending a challenge I must say, but after much consideration, I thought it was an excellent ending. It was very thought-provoking. I’m not sure I would say the novel is about forgiveness, I think it is more about trust, doing the right thing, and letting go off the past so that you can allow another person into your life, to share life’s difficulties. But that’s just my impression of it! I read the final two chapters several times before I could come to an understanding and to some closure. It is a novel that makes you draw your own conclusions. All the Birds Singing is without doubt a memorable book that in its quiet way draws you into a narrative that is mysterious and intriguing. One read through may just not be enough!
My star rating – 4.5 stars
I would highly recommend it for readers of Literary Fiction, Mystery, and Contemporary Fiction.
Longlisted for the Bailey’s Womans prize for Fiction 2014. In 2013 Evie Wyld was named among Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists.
http://www.eviewyld.com – Take a look at her website to see all the lovely book covers for All The Birds Singing, they’re stunning.
Have you read All The Birds Singing? Do leave a comment I’d love to hear from you.
Harper Price, peerless Southern belle, was born ready for a Homecoming tiara. But after a strange run-in at the dance imbues her with incredible abilities, Harper’s destiny takes a turn for the seriously weird. She becomes a Paladin, one of an ancient line of guardians with agility, super strength and lethal fighting instincts.
Just when life can’t get any more disastrously crazy, Harper finds out who she’s charged to protect: David Stark, school reporter, subject of a mysterious prophecy and possibly Harper’s least favorite person. But things get complicated when Harper starts falling for him—and discovers that David’s own fate could very well be to destroy Earth.
With snappy banter, cotillion dresses, non-stop action and a touch of magic, this new young adult series from bestseller Rachel Hawkins is going to make y’all beg for more.
My Kyrosmagica Review:
Rebel Belle really tickled me pink! I love the cover, the sword through the girlie necklace. Our debutante shocks us right at the beginning of the novel with a sudden shift in behaviour. I must confess I didn’t pay too much attention to the blurb, I just read the story blind and I was so glad I did. I was stunned when our heroine Harper, the girl who was bound to be homecoming queen, ended up in the toilet of all places kicking ass. At first glance Harper seemed more interested in lipstick and the trappings of being crowned but don’t be fooled, Harper is a Paladin, and Paladin’s aren’t to be trifled with. I liked the title Paladin, kind of made me think of Aladdin! Actually, there are also Mages, and an Oracle too, but no more about that, just thought I’d whet your appetite a bit!
From that opening night she’s drawn into the biggest responsibility of her whole life, and believe me this girl is used to a heck load of responsibilities, and extra curricular activities! She must protect David, the guy that she’s been fighting with since seventh grade. Not only does she have to be his protector but she soon learns that she must protect him at all costs, giving up on all the things she still wants to do, and even to the point of losing her own life. A bit of a tall order! But you get the sense that Harper is up to it, trust me Harper is not one to sit quietly doing nothing. All this with the most important night of her life, Cotillon, just around the corner. Expectations are high, her sister was also homecoming queen, but there is more to this than I want to divulge in this review. It’s a bit of a spoiler so no more said.
I love the characters in Rebel Belle, they are so well crafted and draw you into the story. Harper and her friend Bee are just such good friends, looking out for each other. David is so cute, and so different from her boyfriend Ryan. I loved the way that Harper and David begin by hating each other but slowly understand and develop feelings for each other. With her superpowers it is as if she can now see more clearly and realises that even though her boyfriend, Ryan may be a heartthrob, Mr. Popular, and super nice, he may not be the one for her. She needs someone a bit more quirky, and David could be the one to fit the bill. I also really enjoyed Harper’s aunts, so entertaining. Full marks for characterisation.
The middle section of the novel though good, dragged a little for me, I would say that the beginning and the end of the novel are absolutely first class. So stick with it, it’s well worth it. Some reviews have criticised the love triangle between Harper, her boyfriend Ryan and new love interest David, but I enjoyed this aspect of the novel. I thought some of the details of the magical powers were stretching the believability factor a bit, but overall I really enjoyed Rebel Belle. It’s a lovely, light-hearted read, just don’t take it too seriously!
Pixabay.com
I loved the ending so, so much. In fact it made up for any tiny flaws. I just found it so funny. I won’t go into details as that would spoil it for you, but if you don’t laugh I will have to kill you!
This is a definite Laugh out Loud book, with a wonderful touch of fantasy, if you don’t like stories with these two elements then don’t touch it with a barge pole. But hey, who doesn’t like a good chuckle?
My rating:
My favourite quotes:
“Looking back, none of this would have happened if I’d brought lip gloss the night of the Homecoming Dance.”
“I picked up the nearest weapon I could lay my hands on: a stapler. I lifted it, going for “menacing.” I admit it lacked a certain elegance, but hey. It was worth a shot. David placed his hand on my arm and pushed it back down.
“What?”
“Just . . . that’s embarrassing for all of us,” he replied.”
“The great thing about best friends is that they know you really well. And the terrible thing about best friends is that they know YOU really well.”
“He and I had loathed each other since kindergarten. Heck, even before that. Mom says he’s the only baby I ever bit in daycare.”
“Look at him. Whole life turned upside down, and he’s in there making pizza rolls.”
“I had to get out of this before I was killed with some elaborate cutlery.”
“Aunt May, my sweet Aunt May, who taught me how to knit, who bought me a piece of candy every time we went to the store, jabbed a cocktail fork at my eye.”
Recommended for Young Adult, Fantasy, Paranormal, Magic, Romance, and Contemporary readers. Lots of scope there!
Absolutely agree with Stephen King’s quote. Books have this amazing quality about them, they transport us into another world, a world in which anything is possible. Well with this in mind, let me tell you about a bit of fun I had yesterday, I posted the first few lines of my novel in this website: http://iwl.me/ I write Like. My writing was analysed. I have to say I was astonished when the website matched me to Stephen King. One, I don’t write horror! There are scary bits in my book, and parts of it have frightened me. Though I am easily scared by my own writing. I have too vivid an imagination not to be! This is a bit of a hazard. Two, Stephen King is a legend, and I’m just well a bit of a work in progress, yes a WIP.
Anyway, I now have the I write like Stephen King badge, why not! Nice to collect a few honours!
So I thought I would share some of my favourite Stephen King quotes with you:
“If you liked being a teenager, there’s something really wrong with you.”
(Oops, I loved being a teenager, what can I say?)
“A short story is a different thing all together – a short story is like a kiss in the dark from a stranger.” SkeletonCrew
(And a short story is so difficult to write! It kills me every time, the kiss of death.)
“The thing under my bed waiting to grab my ankle isn’t real. I know that, and I also know that if I’m careful to keep my foot under the covers, it will never be able to grab my ankle.” Night Shift
“Friends. They aren’t any such thing as good friend or bad friend. Maybe there are just friend. People who stand by you when you’re hurt and who helped you feel not so lonely. Maybe they are worth“Maybe there aren’t any such things as good friends or bad friends – maybe there are just friends, people who stand by you when you’re hurt and who help you feel not so lonely. Maybe they’re always worth being scared for, and hoping for, and living for. Maybe worth dying for too, if that’s what has to be. No good friends. No bad friends. Only people you want, need to be with; people who build their houses in your heart.”― Stephen King, It
(I have a mega, enormous fascination with time, and so does Stephen King):
“Time takes it all whether you want it to or not, time takes it all. Time bares it away, and in the end there is only darkness. Sometimes we find others in that darkness, and sometimes we lose them there again.”
“Time’s the thief of memory.”
– The Gunslinger.
(And I can identify with this Stephen King quote so much):
“FEAR stands for fuck everything and run.” Doctor Sleep
“High school isn’t a very important place. When you’re going you think it’s a big deal, but when it’s over nobody really thinks it was great unless they’re beered up.”― Stephen King, Carrie
“Calling it a simple schoolgirl crush was like saying a Rolls-Royce was a vehicle with four wheels, something like a hay-wagon. She did not giggle wildly and blush when she saw him, nor did she chalk his name on trees or write it on the walls of the Kissing Bridge. She simply lived with his face in her heart all the time, a kind of sweet, hurtful ache. She would have died for him..”― Stephen King, It
“You want to remember that while you’re judging the book, the book is also judging you.”
― Stephen King, Night Shift
“If I have to spend time in purgatory before going to one place or the other, I guess I’ll be all right as long as there’s a lending library.”― Stephen King
“Writing is magic, as much the water of life as any other creative art. The water is free. So drink. Drink and be filled up.”― Stephen King
“Reading a good long novel is in many ways like having a long and satisfying affair”― Stephen King
“The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want for nothing. He makes me lie down in the green pastures. He greases up my head with oil. He gives me kung-fu in the face of my enemies. Amen”― Stephen King, The Stand
M J Mallon YA Author and Poet 