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I can’t believe that February is nearly here. I come to you on this cold, dreary morning full of reading mojo. I swear, I am on fire right now with my reading. My “picker” has been spot-on. The last two books I picked up in the morning and finished the next morning and they were good too! That is why I am stressing a little over my next read. I don’t want to break the chain. We are supposed to get three days of heavy rain so a good read is a must.

I am thinking about this one, or that one. The latter is a review copy and comes out in March.

I am leaning towards the Yu book. I liked his previous book How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe.

Other than that, things around here have been okay. Some of you sent me vegetarian recipes to try and I am so grateful. I needed a little inspiration. My favorite quick meal right now is curried lentils made with a splash of coconut milk over brown rice. My daughter enjoys this too so it makes for a nice, quick lunch. I do have the Moosewood cookbooks buried in my kitchen somewhere so I will dig them out soon and this gem, by the same author, The New Enchanted Broccoli Forest. It was my first vegetarian cookbook, purchased a decade ago and it has a lot of easy recipes. Tasty too.

The college audition process continues. For the most part, she is done. There are “walk-in” auditions being posted by some schools so she is carefully watching that list to see if she wants to audition for any others but now we wait.

What are you going these days? With all this rain we are getting, it actually snowed for a bit the other day, walking may not be in the cards for the pup and I. Tell me how you are keeping busy.

Miss Benson’s Beetle
By Rachel Joyce
Dial Press Trade Paperback, 9780812996708, November 2020, 368pp.

The Short of It:

What a treat. Fans of Joyce won’t be disappointed.

The Rest of It:

Margery Benson is a schoolteacher in 1950’s London, and not a very good one at that. She can barely get by, is harassed by her own students and isn’t comfortable in her own skin. Pushed to her limit after a particularly bad day in the classroom, she takes off on an expedition to New Caledonia in search of a rare golden beetle that her father once told her about.

But first, she needs an assistant. The last person she had in mind for the job is the one who eventually shows up to take it. Enid Pretty, with her shock of yellow hair, her cotton candy pink suit and her pom pom sandals trots into Margery’s life and from day one is a major annoyance. But Margery is pressed for time as her ship is about to leave the port and she knows she can’t do it alone, so Enid is it.

What a charming story. Although the expedition is a little far-fetched, I found myself hanging on every word as these two take off on their adventure. Two, very headstrong, quirky women traveling to the other side of the world with little to no experience under their belts. This makes for a very entertaining read but it’s not all fun and games. Very early on you are tipped off that something larger is at play. This is one of those stories that you can’t put down because it’s so fun and quirky and yes, different but you know, you just know there is going to be a serious payout. That was definitely the case here.

Fans of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine would do well by picking this book up. It has the same tone and feel and the way this friendship develops is quite sweet. Overall, it’s a feel-good book although there are two things that happen that made me a little sad. Those who have read it know what I mean. However, don’t let that stop you because I wish I still had more of the story to read. It’s that kind of story. I’ve read two other books by this author, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry and The Music Shop and I loved them as well. Joyce knows how to write a good story.

Source: Review copy provided by the publisher.
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

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