I am really excited to participate in The Sunday Post hosted by Caffeinated Reviewer and Stacking the Shelves hosted by Reading Reality.
My Life
Happy Easter to every celebrating today! If you are celebrating, what are your plans for the day? I am headed over to my mom’s house later today. My sister and her family, a cousin, my oldest daughter, and her boyfriend will all be there. I am in charge of dessert and deviled eggs. If you are reading this Sunday morning, there is a very good chance that I am in the process of decorating a bunny cake. I will try to post a photo next week if it doesn’t look too bad.
My staycation is almost over. It was fun while it lasted. I usually take time off with my husband because we need to do something. It has been a long time since I had a week mostly to myself and I have to say that I liked it. I was pretty lazy and spend most of the week with a book in my hand. I have no regrets.
More of my flowers bloomed this week. It looks like we have several variations of daffodils and just a couple of tulips that add a nice pop of color. My hostas and peonies are growing quickly as well. I really need to get busy and do the work in the yard that I keep talking about. To be fair, there was some rain this past week that made it harder to get outside on some days.
How was your week?
What I’m Reading
I finished 7 books this week. Yes, 7! They were shorter books/novellas so don’t get too excited but it was nice to be able to scratch so many books off my tbr in a single week. On Sunday, I finished reading A Mirror Mended by Alix E. Harrow and loved it. I then listened to The Furies by Katie Lowe. If you read my review earlier this week, you know that I wasn’t a big fan. Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher may be my favorite read of 2022 so far. I then focused on Heroic Hearts edited by Jim Butcher and Kerrie L. Hughes and thought that most of the stories in the collection were absolutely amazing. I was in the mood for a cozy so I decided to pick up Renovated to Death by Frank Anthony Polito and thought that it was really well done. I listened to The Curve by Leslie Pike straight through while I did a few things around the house. Next up was a book that I bought, The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi which turned out to be a wonderfully entertaining escape.
I started reading The Last Victim by Jordan Dane the other day. I am about a third of the way through the book and hope to maybe finish before heading back to work on Monday. This is an older NetGalley book and the formatting isn’t great. I have seen worse but it isn’t great. The strange thing is that every time I try to open it on my Oasis, my device freezes up, reboots, and loses my place in the book. I finally pulled out my Voyage, which is older, and it seems to be okay on this device. Have you ever had this happen? It seems strange. I had one expired NetGalley book years ago that would not download on my new device but this is the first time I have had a book lock up my Kindle.
Books Added
I Told You This Would Happen by Elaine Murphy (NetGalley); Flirting with Fate by J.C. Cervantes (Publisher)
Favorite Instagram Post of the Week
What books do you add to your shelves this week?
I, for one, am excited to see your bunny cake. Hope your Easter was wonderful with the family, and whoo hoo! for seven books. Staycations can be very relaxing. I like when my time off has a balance of some amusement, but also a good amount of down time. Glad your vacation was a success.
Hopefully, the cake ends up looking okay.
Glad you enjoyed your staycation! I took Friday off myself for a floating holiday and though I didn’t do anything of real interest, it was still nice being off and hanging out with my family. I was even able to start and finish a book before the holiday came up! We’ve family coming over and I expect it to be chaos with 5 little ones and 1 angsty tween coming over! Lol.
Nice new reads! Those are new to me ones but I hope you enjoy them all! Happy Easter!
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Have a GREAT day!
Old Follower 🙂
I hope that you had a good Easter, Jessica. A day off to just hang out is always nice.
I’m so glad you had a nice week and you shouldn’t have any regrets. You read some great books. Sophia is reviewing Flirting with Fate. I have Heoric Hearts coming up quickly in my TBR. Happy Easter!
Anne – Books of My Heart This is my Sunday Post
Heroic Hearts is a really good collection! I think that you will enjoy most of the stories, Anne.
Happy Easter, Carole!
What a fun week of reading.
I hope that you had a great Easter, Sophia Rose!
Even if the books are shorter, that is still amazing you were able to get so many books read though. And I love Tulips, they just are so Easter feelin.
I am really enjoying my tulips but I don’t have all that many. I may have to plant some more for next year!
7 books in 7 days.. you are living the dream my friend.
It was nice to be able to spend so much time reading!
Awww flowers! All mine are buried under snow, sobs
Hopefully, you will get to have some flowers soon. (And no more snow!)
Happy Easter! It’s great to hear that you had a nice staycation Carole. And sounds like you had a blast with your reading 😊
I did have a great time. Thanks, Vanessa!
Happy ester to you as well and happy reading!
Thanks, Melliane!
I don’t really celebrate Easter and was planning on just kicking back all day but then last week my mom asked me to host a traditional Easter lunch. So there went my relaxing day. I was exhausted by the time everyone left. Ugh. I hope your cake turned out well! Glad you enjoyed your staycation. I’m in need of one of those. 🙂
I have had many Easters that we just stayed home but my mom wanted to celebrate so we did. It is exhausting to have a gathering.
Hope you had a nice Easter and enjoyed the food and company. I’d love to do a staycation with nothing to do but read! I’ll need it once everything is done. I need it now! I want Heroic Hearts just for Assil’s story!
I don’t think that I got a thing read while we were in the process of moving. I really enjoyed Asil’s story!
Thanks for sharing Carole. When I worked I almost always took staycations as traveling for me is a real chore especially if you only have a week and I liked being a tourist in my own town. But six years ago I had to quit to stay home to take care of my husband full time, he suffers from Parkinson’s, end stage wet macular degeneration (blind in one eye) and other neurological issues as well. We did travel to Destin a couple of years ago with our youngest daughter and her husband and that was fun. We had two of our kids plus one grandson for Easter, an adult egg hunt and a wonderful dinner being together.
Bunny cake pics please 🙂
I like staying close to home and there are so many things to do locally. Spending time traveling just doesn’t sound like as much fun as it used to. I am glad that you had a nice Easter. I will post a pic of the cake on my next Weekly Wrap Up. (or you can look on Instagram if you want to see it sooner)
I’m looking forward to seeing the pictures of the bunny cake! Deviled eggs are one of my favorite things but I can’t make them. Something about hard boiled eggs grosses me out (which makes no sense since I love deviled eggs I know) so I can’t get past that step! I love the flower pictures. We didn’t really have a good tulip year here though the hydrangeas and hostas are starting to come up and will hopefully do well and our azaleas are looking really good. I’m so glad you enjoyed your staycation! Have a wonderful week!
The bunny cake came out okay but I wasn’t thrilled with the eyes. Oh well, it tasted good so that is what matters. My azalea bush bloomed late last year and I suspect it will do the same this year.
I hope you had a nice Easter.
Thanks, Mary! It was a great day.
Thanks for reading — and posting about — Renovated to Death 🙂
It was really good! I will be posting my review in just a few weeks 🙂