2021 Reading Challenge: Bookish Jay and the Reading Mermaid

Here it is...The Scented Library and The Redolent Mermaid's fourth annual reading challenge! We've almost made it to 2021, *small sigh of relief, hearts full of hope and fingers crossed. If you, like myself, didn't complete 2020's challenge, no judgement. It turns out I'm not a pandemic reader and I'm ok with that. We all...

Reading Challenge Recap: Part 2…looking ahead

The year 2019 has come and gone but before I put it to rest, I decided to finish off my reading challenge reviews. Yes, I know we are nearly a week into halfway through January 2020 and I’ve started a brand new reading challenge. But, the ghosts of last year’s reads are haunting my brain, rattling...

2020 Reading Challenge: Bookish Jay and the Reading Mermaid

Thank you for joining The Scented Library and The Redolent Mermaid for our third reading challenge! Julie and I enjoy reading and even better, reading with friends. Below are the prompts we created as a guide to reading outside the box. Feel free to join us in challenging ourselves to read them all or simply...

Reading Challenge update part 2: from #bookstagram find to Out of My Comfort Zone

These 5 books could not be more different. A testament to both my eclectic reading style and to the variety of book prompts brought to you by the Bookish Jay and Reading Mermaid's Challenge, co-hosted by The Redolent Mermaid and yours truly. Whether you identify with historical reads, epic adventures or risque Victorian ghost tales,...

Reading Challenge update Part 1: from Bob Ross approved to book from my birth decade

Hello book friends, good news! I've finally reviewed some books for my reading challenge with The Redolent Mermaid: Bookish Jay and the Reading Mermaid challenge. The bad news, depending on how you look at it, I write too much for my brain to handle more than 5 at a time. I'll be adding 5 more...

Farewell, friends (for now)

Currently, my life has much in common with the jigsaw puzzle above; it's overly complicated, exhausting and feels half-finished. And like the two-inch wide black border around this design, I can't seem to make the pieces come together. With that, I'm taking a break from blogging for the first time in 3 years. It is...

Top Ten Tuesday: Upcoming Releases I’m on the fence about reading: help me decide

With a constantly expanding TBR and an ever elapsing lifespan (there's an optimistic thought on an early Tuesday morning) the amount of books which I spend time reading has a direct inverse correlation to the amount of time I have left to read more books. Simply put, most of these 2019 releases won't make the...

Teaser Tuesday: The Gown: a novel of the Royal Wedding

This year, I'm continuing with Teaser Tuesdays whenever I read a relatively new book that I want to share. Published January 8th, 2019, I discovered this novel while scrolling through #bookstagram. The cover photo depicting Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip's wedding day pulled me in, as historical (and modern) photos of royals do. The Gown:...

The Scented Library’s Top Reads for 2019

2018 was a stellar reading year (so many good books) spurring a resolve to read even more in 2019. In that spirit, I'm throwing my blogging ball cap into the ring of all the Most Anticipated New Books of 2019 lists (I do love to write a proper list). Pooling library resources from Bookpage, Booklist,...

Bookish Jay and the Reading Mermaid’s challenge 2019

For last year’s words belong to last year’s language/And next year’s words await another voice/And to make an end is to make a beginning.” T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets Leaving it to T.S Eliot to lay it down, literary style-that turning of the page that only the beginning of a new year can bring. 2018's reading...