Let's Bust a Recap : Series Update

Over the past few years, I have started reading through several of the series I've accumulated. Some series are tailor-made to be binged like your favorite TV show on Netflix. Finish one book, pick the next one up till you've reached the satisfying, final conclusion. (I'm lookin' at you Harry Potter, Lunar Chronicles, To All the Boys I've Loved Before, Penderwicks.) I love a good immersive, unputdownable series. But then there are others. Books that feature the same spunky protagonist(s), but that don't necessarily need to be read in order. Each book can stand on its own. And when you come to the end of one, you can wait a while before you visit with that character again. These are the series I want to look at today. I kept putting this post off hoping to finish another Flavia and/or Jeeves book by the end of the year, but it didn't happen and what with 2024 being the year of the TBR Jar, I'm ready to put these books back on the shelf and see where the winds take me.

First up: Flavia de Luce. I picked up the first Flavia book back in March of 2021 right as we were in the thick of selling our house in Florida and packing up to move to North Carolina. I loved this little mischievous 11 year old right off the bat, and I ended up reading the second installment in her series in November of 2022. The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag (pictured above) was published in 2010, a year after the debut The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. In this episode of Flavia's exploits, a famous puppeteer turns up dead at the end of his own puppet show, and Flavia figures out that his murder is somehow connected to the suspicious death of a little boy from several years before. Can our feisty, poison-loving protagonist solve both cases? Of course she can, and Flavia was just as charming in this second novel as she was in the first, but I'll admit it took me a bit longer to get into this one. Because one of the cases involves the hanging of a five year old little boy, The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag was decidedly darker than The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. But even so, I'm still a fan of the series and looking forward to continuing it. I wasn't able to get to the third book—A Red Herring Without Mustard—last year, but we'll see if the TBR Jar turns it up in 2024. 

Next up, we have the fourth installment in the Maisie Dobbs series. I first started Maisie Dobbs right after the world shut down in 2020. My parents have since read all seventeen books in the series, but I've steadily read one a year and am thoroughly enjoying them as they come. Messenger of Truth was published in 2006. Jacqueline Winspear has done a pretty admirable job of cranking a new one out almost every year since she started writing them and the final novel is set to be published this year. In this fourth chapter, if you will, Maisie is approached by an artist's twin sister after he falls to his death from some scaffolding on the eve of his major art exhibit. The police have ruled his death as an accident, but given the fact that the masterpiece of his show is missing, and no one knows what it even is, his sister is convinced there is more to his death. Here's the thing I'm coming to realize about the Maisie Dobbs books: they are set after the Great War and so far all of the mysteries that Maisie has been commissioned to solve are closely connected to the war. Without exception, these first four books have all made me deeply sad when I reach the end of them. I can't imagine that changing as we get closer and closer to the second world war. But despite the melancholy I feel when I read Maisie Dobbs—or perhaps even because of it—I think it's a phenomenal series, and taking it one book per year is the perfect pace for me. 

Finally, I read the first book in The Mysterious Benedict Society series this year. This first book in what is now a series of five was published in 2007 and remained on the New York Times Best Seller list for over a year. I saw these books all over the place and finally added them to my wishlist after my sister Caroline recommended them after reading the first two aloud with my niece and nephews. My other sister Lyndsey promptly got them for me for my birthday, and Bob's your uncle, I was reading the first one last year. The Mysterious Benedict Society chronicles the adventures of four clever children who are brought together by the eccentric Mr. Benedict and given a top-secret mission which basically amounts to them saving the known world. While I did really enjoy this middle-grade novel and all the fun riddles the kids have to solve in their audition to join the Society, it took me a while to get into it and ultimately took me over two months to read. There was definitely a turning point where I had to know what happens but it took a while to get there. 

All in all, I'd recommend any of these series and I'd love to see any of these come out of the TBR Jar this year. 

How do you approach book series? Do you like to binge them as fast as possible? Or stretch it out as long as you can?

Let's Bust a Recap : The Emily of New Moon Trilogy

Hello again! How's your 2023 going now that we've got almost two months under our belt? Here in Western North Carolina, it's been cold and grey and dreary and this Florida girl has been feeling a bit blue lately. After finishing up Polk and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea at the beginning of January, I decided to snuggle in with one of my favorite authors and picked up the first Emily of New Moon book. I flew through this charming trilogy the last week of January though I have to admit: Emily of New Moon is my least favorite of Lucy Maud's leading ladies to date. My friend Ereina once told me that if Montgomery's Anne books are the sun, then her Emily books are the moon. After having read them, I'd say that's an apt description and as for me and my house, we'll take the sunshine of Anne Shirley over the moonlight of Emily Byrd Starr. 

Emily of New Moon, Emily Climbs, and Emily's Quest were published in 1923, 1925, and 1927 respectively. At the beginning of Emily of New Moon, we meet eleven year old Emily Byrd Starr who is unceremoniously informed by her hateful (but well-meaning) housekeeper Ellen that her father is going to die any day. Unfortunately, Ellen is telling the truth, and after two glorious last weeks together, Emily is left an orphan. Her mother's people are the proud Murray clan whom Emily has never met because they disowned her mother for eloping with her father. Their pride won't allow them to leave Emily to the care of others, so shortly after her father's death, they descend upon her to decide who will be responsible for her upbringing, and the duty falls to stern Aunt Elizabeth, sweet Aunt Laura, and simple Cousin Jimmy of New Moon. Emily discovers a world of beauty at New Moon and befriends her wild next door neighbor Ilse Burnley, the artistic Teddy Kent, and Perry Miller the hired boy from Stovepipe Town. Throughout the trilogy, we see these children grow into men and women, determined to turn their dreams into reality. Emily in particular is an aspiring authoress, and we get to see her earn the respect of her family as her writing develops and is eventually published. 

Montgomery, as always, brings her signature wit and poetic prose to Emily's story, and I enjoyed it very much, particularly the middle installment, Emily Climbs. Her ability to create a colorful cast of unique characters leaves nothing to be desired. However, there were times when Emily's letters to her father and diary entries—devices Montgomery employed a lot to fill out this narrative—seemed to drag a bit for me, and by the third book, Emily's Quest, I was ready to shake the Murray pride right out of our moody protagonist. But even so, I had a lovely time in New Moon. 

Nevertheless, I won't be the frequent visitor there that I am at Green Gables.

Any recommendations for my next book by Lucy Maud?

Let's Bust a Recap : The Blue Castle

Up to this point in my life, I would tell you that I am a huge fan of Anne Shirley. In every scenario where I'm mysteriously left on a deserted island until the end of time, the Anne books are the ones I'm taking with me. I have two entire sets of the eight book series: my beloved paperbacks that my mom gave me when I was in the fourth grade, and the gorgeous hardcovers my husband found for me at an obscure online Canadian bookstore. I've lost track of how many times I've read this series from beginning to end, most recently finishing them up once again in January of last year. These books are always in my rotation, and much as I might try, I cannot choose a favorite from among them.

But this post isn't about Anne of Green Gables. My point is: up to this point in my life, I would tell you I'm an Anne Shirley fan—not a Lucy Maud Montgomery fan. Much as with my darling Christy Miller and Robin Jones Gunn, I had some secret aversion to venturing outside of the Green Gables canon into Montgomery's other work of which there is much to be explored. But just as I discovered a deeply held love for Gunn's work outside the world of Christy and friends, I have recently dipped my toes into Montgomery's Blue Castle and have found myself just as charmed and delighted with her writing as I might have expected given she authored my favorite books in the world. 

And now there's no turning back. 

For some reason that I can only chalk up to retail therapy (of the bookish variety) in the midst of the monster life changes we were going through, I found myself adding a host of L.M. Montgomery paperbacks to my AbeBooks shopping cart last summer. Instead of just buying a couple titles to ease myself slowly into this venture, I checked out with thirteen. Because go big or go home, right? And a few months later around my birthday, I decided to treat myself to one to fill the "book from your favorite genre" box on my unread shelf book bingo card. 

And that one was The Blue Castle, originally published in 1926. This novel is one of the very few adult works of fiction that Montgomery penned in her career and the only one set entirely outside the setting of Prince Edward Island. In it, we meet twenty-nine year old Valancy Stirling who is now very much considered an old maid by her nag of a mother and the rest of her dreadful extended family. After being diagnosed with a terminal heart condition (which she keeps secret), Valancy decides to start making up her own mind about things beginning with a little brutal honesty with her family—leading them to believe she has lost her ever-loving mind—and eventually resulting in a marriage proposal to the town renegade Barney Snaith—leading them to absolute shock and horror.

And I loved every word. L.M. Montgomery's wit is razor sharp and her prose as lovely as ever. I was drawn into the story, and while the plot certainly wasn't earth-shattering, I still enjoyed the journey all the way to the pleasant conclusion. 

While nothing will ever supplant my precious Anne books (or my Christy books for that matter), I am very much looking forward to continuing my jaunt through the rest of Montgomery's work, and am so pleased to find I have a whole new set of books I can count on when I need a guaranteed reading success. I'd definitely recommend The Blue Castle, and in fact, I promptly pressed it into my mother's hands nearly as soon as I finished reading it myself. 

What author never lets you down when you need a guaranteed good read? And where should I head next with L.M. Montgomery? I'm thinking Emily of New Moon.

Let's Bust a Recap : The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

Well, we're halfway through June and I'm somehow just now recapping a book I read in the middle of March. So as you can see, things are going real well over here. 

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley was published in 2009 after he won the Debut Dagger Award in 2007 for submitting the first chapter and a brief synopsis of the book. His win sparked a bidding war, he sold the publishing rights in three different countries, and then he spent the next several months developing that first chapter into a full-length novel which was published well after he was 70 years old. After the smashing success of The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, he continued to write more Flavia de Luce mysteries turning it into a ten-book series over the next ten years. Amazing, right?

And guess what. It's my favorite book of 2021 so far. (Well, in all honesty, it's now tied for first with another book I read more recently, but that's neither here nor there. And you'll just have to stick around to find out what the other front-runner is.)

In The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, we meet 11 year old Flavia de Luce, the youngest of three sisters who live at their country estate Buckshaw in the 1950s with their widowed father. When a red-headed stranger turns up dead in their cucumber patch and their father is hauled in as a suspect, Flavia decides to take matters into her own hands, hops on her trusty bicycle Gladys, and single-handedly solves the case. 

I loved everything about this "delightfully old-fashioned mystery" and about Flavia herself. An aspiring chemist with her own fully-equipped laboratory at Buckshaw, Flavia is whip-smart, laugh-out-loud funny, and a mischievous little prankster. Bradley's writing style has been described as reminiscent of the Golden Age of crime writing. As a reader who cut my teeth on The Boxcar Children and Nancy Drew, falling into Flavia's world was utterly charming and somehow nostalgic of what drew me to a love of reading in the first place. I ended up using The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie to check off the "book that reminds you of childhood" slot in The Unread Shelf's 2021 Unread Book Bingo. 

Ten out of ten, would recommend. Flavia de Luce is a riot, and I can't wait for my next visit with her.

What books made you love reading? Have you read any of the Flavia de Luce mysteries? 

Let's Bust a Recap : The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God

Y'all. It's October (what?!) and I still haven't recapped books I finished in August (oy). And the book I'm recapping today, I just finished last Thursday. So obviously my priorities are completely whack and this whole blog is going to pot. Whatever. There's a pumpkin spice candle burning, and I've discovered the goodness of Cherry Vanilla Pepsi. We'll survive. 

The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God by D.A. Carson was first published at the end of 1999 and provides a compelling perspective on the nature of God and His complex love for the world. 

I know what you're thinking: What does the "D.A." in D.A. Carson stand for? I can't be the only one who has an irrational need to know what initials stand for. I'll answer: Donald Arthur. Bless him.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's talk about this slim power-packed volume before everything I just learned falls back out of my head. 

To start, let me give you a piece of the publisher's blurb about this book:

"The only aspect of God's character the world still believes in is His love. His holiness, His sovereignty, His wrath are often rejected as being incompatible with a 'loving' God. Because pop culture has so distorted and secularized God's love, even many Christians have lost a biblical understanding of it. The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God seeks to restore what we have lost."

This 93 page treatise (84 pages if you don't count the endnotes and indexes) on the love of God was originally a series of four lectures that Carson has given a number of times at various colleges and churches around the world. I thought it would be a quick Saturday read, but it ended up taking me a week to get through. And just like the book took longer to read than I anticipated, so this blog post will probably be longer than you'd expect for such a short work of non-fiction. Stay with me. We'll take it chapter by chapter.

In the first chapter "On Distorting the Love of God", Carson outlines why the doctrine of the love of God must be judged difficult in the first place, five different ways the Bible speaks of the love of God, and some preliminary observations on the distinctive ways of talking about the love of God. I personally found the first chapter to be the most interesting and helpful section of the whole book. As Carson explained five of the different ways God loves and how absolutizing and defining God's love in only one way is detrimental to a right view of Him, I found myself appreciating how vital it is to abide by the whole counsel of God and realizing anew that the only way to even begin to understand any attribute or aspect of God is to take it in context with every other attribute He has. Just reading this chapter alone would be worth your time.

The second chapter, "God is Love", goes over how not to proceed vs. how to proceed with the topic at hand, namely: context is key. We can't just pick one verse out of the Bible, John 3:16 for example, and get a complete picture of God's love from that one sketch. We have to view God's love in light of His justice and sovereignty and His many other attributes. This chapter was the most difficult for me as Carson delved more deeply into the intra-Trinitarian love of God. I felt that I was swimming a bit out of my depth with a lot of this chapter, but that's to be expected anytime you start to study the nature of the Trinity. God is so infinitely high above us that some most things about Him will remain a mystery that we will never understand. If we could comprehend Him fully, He would not be God.

In the third chapter, "God's Love and God's Sovereignty", Carson expounds more on God's love for humanity and argues the point of whether God's love is emotional or impassible. The answer, as you might imagine, is complex, but I found this chapter to be extremely interesting and educational. I ought to note that throughout the entire book, I found nothing to disagree with Carson on, and I appreciated the way he handled tired Christian clichés and even certain Christian terminology. It's rare that I agree with every aspect of a theological work of non-fiction, but in this instance, I did. 

In the fourth and final chapter, "God's Love and God's Wrath", Carson tackles the tough question of the compatibility between the two. He builds on the ideas he introduced in the previous chapter regarding the emotional aspects of God's love which naturally would translate to His wrath as well. He works out the intent of the atonement, and he also brings everything together by talking about our response to this difficult doctrine. 

This book is by no means an exhaustive or comprehensive look at the doctrine of the love of God, nor does it claim to be, but it is an intelligent, rational, and biblically sound introduction to it that I found exceptionally helpful. I would recommend this with fair warning that you may need a dictionary in hand to get you through. I think I'd eventually like to read The Gagging of God, but over 600 pages of Carson does seem a little daunting after the dense 84 I just read. 

Have you read anything by D.A. Carson? What book was intellectually challenging but ultimately highly satisfying for you? What does the love of God invoke in you?

Let's Bust a Recap : The Good Girl's Guide

Oh boy, we're in it now! For those of you who follow my blog closely, you know I've been reading through The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex by Sheila Wray Gregoire. Well, I've finished it. And even though I feel a bit awkward discussing this so publicly (I mean, the word "sex" is right there in the title--no avoiding it), I really, really appreciated this book so I decided to soldier on and write a quick recap. Am I making too big a deal of this? I guess I'm just of the opinion that the topic of S-E-X should be private, and our culture has cheapened, familiarized, and devalued sex to a degree that truly is grievous. Is anything sacred anymore? Is there nothing left that still has the capacity to make us blush? I've strayed so far from the matter at hand....what am I even typing? #avoidancetactics

Anyway, I was given this book as an engagement present, and I've just now gotten around to reading it...nearly four years into my marriage. This book was wonderful and practical from start to finish, and I really regret not reading it sooner. In The Good Girl's Guide, Sheila not only shares some *ahem* tips on how to spice things up in the bedroom, she talks about the importance of the spiritual connection, the friendship, and the physical fireworks between a husband and wife. 

What I really found to be so beneficial in reading this book is the way Sheila focused on managing expectations in marriage--particularly Christian marriage. In so many Christian circles (or at least in my case), there seems to be all this pressure to get sex right, to satisfy your husband, to be the perfect wife. And while I understand that all of that is important (except for being the perfect wife--that's just impossible), I don't hear a lot of voices in the Church talking about how difficult becoming one flesh actually is and reminding those embarking on the overwhelming journey of marriage that they have the rest of their lives together to figure it all out. There were a lot of tears (I'm talking ugly, snot-nose bawling) my first year (heck, my first MONTH) of marriage because I was so sure I was screwing it up. I had June Cleaver levels of expectation for myself--hot dinner on the table when my man walked into his immaculately clean home every night with me standing there holding out a cold drink for him dressed up in pearls and ready to rub his feet. And, of course, all the physical stuff would come naturally and be mind-blowingly amazing every single day because that's obviously how marriage works. Oh yes. I expected myself to have it all together from Day One. That's unrealistic. That's soul-crushing. That's a dangerous mentality. (Thankfully, my husband is eternally patient and abundantly kind to me, and he didn't go running for the hills when all the emotions came out.) 

The truth is, becoming one flesh in every sense of the word doesn't happen in one night. Connecting with someone physically, emotionally, and spiritually takes time and effort. Going from taking care of yourself to laying down your life for another is not natural so it doesn't come naturally. But that's the beauty of it, too. Marriage is supposed to be making me more like Christ, and my marriage should be a picture of His relationship with the Church. That's not going to happen in one night. That's going to take the rest of my life.

I'm not saying that reading this book before I got married would have solved any and all of the problems I faced in those first few tender months of being a newlywed (and let's be honest, all the problems I still run into now as a young married woman), but I am saying that reading this book was incredibly encouraging, affirming, and helpful, and I would highly, HIGHLY recommend it to any woman who is about to get married, just recently got married, or has been married for years. If we're friends in real life, and you'd like to borrow it, holla at me. This will definitely be my go-to gift at bridal showers in the future. And for any of you who'd like to get a taste of Sheila Gregoire immediately, check out her blog To Love, Honor, & Vacuum. I'm now a faithful subscriber.

There now. That wasn't too painful. To wrap it up, let me whet your appetite with some of my favorite lines from this book. 

"Many of us live in difficult marriages, but this does not mean that our lives are rotten. We will just have to adjust our expectations for our marriages. It is often in these most difficult situations that God cements couples together in a new way or else draws hurting spouses closer to Him...Marriage is not an easy road, but it is also not one that God asks you to walk alone. Some of us have harder things to bear in marriage than others, but God is big enough to woo you, to help you feel loved, and to let you know that you are precious, lovely, and desirable to Him. So take that resentment toward your husband and turn that energy into prayer. You just may find that God will take you on a new journey that is lovely, though it's not what you originally planned."

"If there are two words not exactly linked in the Christian mindset, they would be holy and hot. I don't think that's because God separated them; I think it's because we separated them...But what does 'holy' sex really mean? And is it possible to be holy and hot at the same time? Actually, I think that's the biblical view of sex. It's purity and passion together, and that's what makes it so wonderful!"

"The key to a passionate marriage is not to be as sexually adventurous as possible, but to be as passionate about God as possible."

"Life is so busy that you can always find reasons for ignoring your husband. Don't accept them as excuses. When you start to see yourself falling into a rut of exhaustion, overcommitment, or worry, it's time to turn more to your husband, not less. Don't live in survival mode."

"Marriage is all about becoming one. But that 'becoming' is a process--it doesn't happen overnight. Sure, it may happen instantaneously in God's eyes, but it usually takes time and effort for us mortals to truly feel 'one': to truly become intertwined in every sense of the word."

"Don't settle for the status quo. You aren't meant to have a blah marriage."

Have you ever read a book that was so encouraging you just had to share it with others? Are there any life-alteringly great marriage books out there that I should look into? Am I the only one who had an emotional breakdown (or two....or twenty) her first year of marriage? Tear up the comment section, y'all, 'cause the only thing I can think of that's worse than writing a sex-post is not getting any feedback on it.