Every time I start on the next book of this series. I realize I need to work on the previous books’ review too. I can’t get too mad at it as I feel like I’m coming out of my blogging rut, and branching out to check out a genre of books I thought I would hate forever. I owe a lot of credit to certain classics like Charles Dickins and Daphne du Maurier in the last year or two.
If you’d like to check out my reviews of the other books in the “Ladies of Devon” series, click on the titles mentioned here. The Jewels of Halstead Manor and The Lady of Larkspur Vale.
Can true love break the curse?
Amelia Fawn is cursed—or so she believes. How else can she explain each of her husbands’ deaths within the first year of marriage? So after the ton names her the Black Widow and warns eligible men to stay clear, Amelia vows never to marry again. Not even if she falls in love.
Charles Fremont has loved Amelia Fawn his entire life. But after enduring countless rejections and watching her get married three other times, he’s finally had enough. He swears a vow to never ask anything from her again. Even if it kills him.
Book three in the Ladies of Devon series, The Widow of Falbrooke Court, is a clean Regency romance continuing the story of the four women who make up a literary society in Devon and form a lasting friendship.
taken from Goodreads.
I was fairly excited to learn more about Amelia Fawn since I started reading this series in late April. She was brought to Halstead Manor in a hope to become a friend to the newcomer Giulia. My first impression of Amelia was that she’s very proper and understands her role in life is to be a good wife, mother and mistress of an estate, but within the first meeting with Giulia, you are told she’s a newly widow, but isn’t told much else until the ladies attend a literary society meeting with two other women of Devon, Mabel and Hattie.
While you meet Amelia in Giulia’s story, you also learn about Charles Freemont in the second book, as Mabel, Pippa and Charles are cousins. Charles is mentioned to have always been in love with Amelia, but she does not feel the same way about him. As much as I was into Amelia’s character, I’ve also lived like Charles, loving a person from afar. Charles does in fact try to give her all of the space they desperately need, but they are being pulled together by unseen forces–well, Miss Hattie Green helps just a little with her own quest to find romance. You can look forward to that review coming soon!
Amelia Fawn had married three times. It was a truth generally accepted between those who knew her intimately, as well as the majority of the local parishioners, that Amelia would never, ever marry again.
These two characters are very caring. I found myself drawn towards Charles, especially after he promised a man by the name of George Halpert, he would look on his wife and unborn child if anything was to happen to him. Amelia and her brother Andrew, who is an early doctor of the Regency period, allow the widow to stay at Falbrooke Court to heal and recover, and this makes an awkward but lovely awakening for Amelia and Charles.
The one thing that messed with me was hearing about Amelia’s feelings about not being able to fulfill a life that many ladies were doing at that time. She completed a Season with other ladies her age to find a husband, and it was an actual love match which is wild in the Regency-era (hell, it was practically nonexistent throughout the Victorian and Edwardian times as well!) but getting married was the easy part, making the marriage last long enough to produce children was another part of life.
“Trust me, Amelia. A man does not purposefully spend so much time in any woman’s company unless he has feelings for her,” Charles said, his voice dropping.
The poor woman has been made a widow three times. This is a lot of heartache for someone to take, doesn’t matter the age or sex, that kind of experience of loss is largely traumatic. She has been the blunt of gossip in society, but her friends are there for her to show her how much love she has on her side. She’s a wonderful lady who does deserve a rich marriage and children. I understand her hesitation of wanting to quit hoping for those things, but you sense she can be a jealous woman, despite not having any feelings for Charles early on.
I mean, Charles is in the same boat. He’s never been married or had any mistresses in the past. He’s a perfect catch for any woman, but as much as he’d like to forget about Amelia, he can’t and they start to pull into each other that reminds readers, everything happens for a reason.
Have you read the third book, “The Widow of Falbrooke Court” by Kasey Stockton yet? If so, please leave me your comments below!
A couple of years ago, I finally finished reading Glass Sword and it wasn’t an easy journey, as I thought it was very boring. Despite my love for these characters and the story Victoria had written, that book was awful! Once I completed it, I really didn’t want to quit the series–I was worried about it–but I tried my best to have some faith… and I’m happy to say, I enjoyed King’s Cage a lot.
TRIGGER WARNINGS: Some things like degradation, forced prisonment, childhood trauma, PTSD are included in the book and this post. So, if you’re not into any of these themes, please ignore the review.
In this breathless third installment to Victoria Aveyard’s bestselling Red Queen series, allegiances are tested on every side. And when the Lightning Girl’s spark is gone, who will light the way for the rebellion?
Mare Barrow is a prisoner, powerless without her lightning, tormented by her lethal mistakes. She lives at the mercy of a boy she once loved, a boy made of lies and betrayal. Now a king, Maven Calore continues weaving his dead mother’s web in an attempt to maintain control over his country—and his prisoner.
As Mare bears the weight of Silent Stone in the palace, her once-ragtag band of newbloods and Reds continue organizing, training, and expanding. They prepare for war, no longer able to linger in the shadows. And Cal, the exiled prince with his own claim on Mare’s heart, will stop at nothing to bring her back.
When blood turns on blood, and ability on ability, there may be no one left to put out the fire—leaving Norta as Mare knows it to burn all the way down.
taken from Goodreads.
One of my somewhat favorite things about having multiple POVs (point of views) telling the story. I wasn’t a big fan of it at first, but I thought they were essential to the narrative because Mare Barrow has always been the heart of the series, adding newblood Cameron in the beginning shows you the inner workings of The Scarlet Guard. She also has a different intention for joining the Guard, and she develops a “friendship” with Farley, so you get to see that highly respectful and intimating character in a softer tone compared to the previous books.
A prison where I was kept. Starved, neglected, forced to watch people around me wither and die because they were born…wrong.
While I wasn’t for the sudden stop of seeing Cameron’s POV, you do get another one, with Evangeline. This was an interesting look into the imposing character that is Lady Evangeline Samos. She has a bigger role concerning Maven, as she is now engaged to the other Calore brother. She is still an enemy to Mare, but once as the reader gets into her first chapter, you realize there is a lot at stake for her, and goes back to a theme that surrounds everyone, and that is their families.
My only thing about the entire book was the big battle. I believe a lot of it could have been saved for War Storm, but then again, the direction as the characters moved wouldn’t feel as authentic without some of the elements featured in the last bit of the book. I love a good battle, but again, I would have enjoyed it more if we were able to let Mare take a break and find her footing again. And maybe once I get into the thick of the final book, my tone will change of those last ten or so chapters. However, that’s just my opinion.
“Not a god’s chosen, but a god’s cursed,” I murmur, recalling the words he scrawled in a forgotten book.
I am thoroughly excited to start on the final book. I have already read a few chapters and I love it, mainly because we get yet another point of view that may be interesting to see later on.
Unfortunately, I’m not allowed to spend a lot of time outside, we have really bad mosquitos and since we are heading into the summer heat faster than usual, that is yet another factor in my quest to read my fantasy, larger-than-life books with my cats. So, in other words, don’t expect the next review of this series to come out anytime soon.
Have you read “King’s Cage” by Victoria Aveyard yet? If you have, what were your thoughts on this book?
It’s been a while since I’ve been on here, publishing anything, but I’m hoping you will enjoy a snippet of what I am currently loving and reading this spring.
I don’t really how I continue to devout my reading time with the holidays and observations happening in a month. I’ve done three years of books that match up well with their month’s representation. It can be a challenge, within its own challenge, but I’ve actually had a lot of fun discovering new books this way. It is how I ended up finding out about Kasey Stockton’s books. I found her series Myths of Moriagh trilogy as my way to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in a different way than others. I was able to get through the first book “Journey to Bongary Spring” but it was enough to pull me back into another series of hers that is based in the springtime.
She can only stay as long as the invalid needs her… so he makes it his business to need her forever.
When a cryptic invitation brings Giulia Pepper to her uncle’s remote estate in Devon, she arrives in dire need of a benefactor, only to discover that her uncle never sent her any invitation—nor does he want her there. Forced into a corner, Giulia must contrive a way to convince him to allow her to remain, just long enough to figure out where to go next.
Nicholas never asked for an earldom, but when an aged lord arrives at his door and tells Nicholas that he is next in line for the title, he willingly goes to Halstead Manor to learn the role. But someone isn’t pleased with the heir, and after a gunshot wound in the arm, Nicholas must discover who is out to get him.
When Giulia stumbles—literally—over a fallen man on the lane to Halstead, she has her she can stay at Halstead and nurse her uncle’s heir back to health. But as mystery builds and danger mounts, will Giulia and Nicholas be able to solve the puzzle before the Earl forces Giulia to leave for good? And furthermore, can they manage to work together without losing their hearts in the process?
taken from Goodreads.
To be honest, I didn’t really know what to expect when I finally decided to start on “The Jewels of Halstead Manor” as I was just scrolling through my feed on YouTube and I just went for it. The series as a whole, Ladies of Devon was on my everlasting TBR list but, I didn’t think I’d actually get to it.
The story itself reminded me of Danielle Steele’s The Duchess as they were based in roughly the same era, and I enjoyed reading about how strong these young women were, even though they were forced to live after their beloved families died and there was little to do about gaining any inheritances because they would go to the next male heir in line.
Hmmm. Miss Pepper. Never before had he imagined his own surname would sound so enticing.
Giulia Pepper is in a similar situation as she’s reeling through her father’s death, but she finds a letter inviting her to Halstead Manor as it was once her father’s childhood home, but as she’s making her way, she finds an injured man on the side of the road. She does not know him, but she is willing to do whatever she could to help him.
The mysterious man is Nick Pepper, the heir of the Earldom and distant cousin to Giulia and he’s been shot on the property of the manor. In the darkness, he does not see his attacker, and trying to stay alive when a young woman tries to keep him alive with her voice. He is drawn to her by her kindness and ready to solve a mystery (or three!) about why a piece of the manor’s past might be hunting them.
I never thought I would enjoy clean romances. This might be an odd thing, but I am usually into more erotic stuff, but I wasn’t into Bridgeton like everybody else, which still freaks me out! Since the Regency era was full of indulgences, mainly food and sex. I found I like the romance between characters set in this time period is somewhat innocent. I don’t think it feels uncomfortable at all, because the romance is enough and works with the underline of the plot.
At the time of this post publishes, I have probably made it through half of the second book in the series, The Lady of Larkspur Vale. It is about one of the young women introduced in the story, Mabel, Amelia and Hattie. I have no idea if I will write a review of it, but we’ll see what happens once I’m finished. I will say, I feel really close to the main female character, I see a lot of myself in my personal life within her that I wasn’t aware I’d find, so because of this, I really hope I find a way to give you a book review next month.
Have you read “The Jewels of Halstead Manor” by Kasey Stockton? If you have, what was your favorite character and/or scene? Were you into the mellow romance of the story? Let me know below!
It has truly been a while since I have written a blog post.
I’ve been dealing with mental health issues lately and unfortunately; my blog has published less and less content. It’s a sad concept as I love my blog; for a long time, it was my sanctuary, but like with many things, nothing is permeant.
However, I have never accepted defeat lightly. I want to blog, that’s why I’m here, writing this post right now. I enjoy sharing my likes and thoughts with my readers. Whether you’re new or old, I hope you find this post entertaining and maybe a new favorite or two in the end.
Music can bring out the best in us, and that’s why I am here to share with you today. It’s a combination of what I was into for both March and April. As in my previous posts, I will give you the Spotify playlist for each month so you can listen to everything.
March marked a new phase of unique music for me. I was reading two very different books, and their characters and settlings sparked their own aesthetic playlists and with that, I was able to do some research on Spotify and found a plethora of various artists that worked fairly well while I created their own playlists. I was never able to finish The Poppy War by R. F. Kaung, but I did with Heart of the Valkyrie by Melanie Karsak. I was literally traveling around the world via the music I found on Spotify and YouTube.
I had a lot of fun diving deep into the depths to capture the full picture of who these characters are in my mind. and music is my medium to use generate the people and obstacles with music than anything else. Well, besides using a Pinterest board. This is a good way to see everything going on without ever having to listen to the music. I’ve attached “The Poppy War” aesthetic playlist’s to the “March” banner.
Here were my Top 20 songs for March. Click here to be redirected to the Spotify playlist.
Into The Mist by Elvor Voices by Shaman’s Harvest Heart and Soul by Heuy Lewis & the News Teir Abhaile Riu by Celtic Woman Chokehold by Will Ramos x Nik Nocturnal Wonder by Lights & Motion EENIE MEENIE by Chung Ha featuring Hongjoong of ATEEZ A Girl’s World by Mia Mormino Altay by Otyken featuring Ummet Ozcan Bats by Hafdis Huld Ylva by Ayla Nereo Weeping Willow by The Hellfreaks YESSIR by 3YE Peasant’s Throne by Lillith Max Some Type of Skin by Aurora Best For Me by Joyner Lucas featuring Jelly Roll Formaldehyde Footsteps by BertieBanz Rage by Samantha Margot LABOUR – the cacophony by Paris Paloma Marjorie by Taylor Swift
April has intertwined with the previous month at first. This isn’t a weird thing to do, I try to keep this collection of music close by, in case I have found a similar book to explore further and would need inspiration to create the next aesthetic playlist. I continued to read The Poppy War, but not for long as I tend to stop longer books for another time. I may be an odd duck, but if I can’t finish a book before the months end, I usually push them back to start another book and its own aesthetic.
Since I was able to go outside and enjoy sitting out on the back deck with our cats, they love the little breakfast-in-bed table just as much as I do but are somewhat lenient to share the table with my book and Post-It colored tabs to keep any quote, I found to be a key for later or share my favorite quotes in a book review on here. Anyways, the book I have taken outside is King’s Cage by Victoria Aveyard, the third book in the Red Queen series. I started this book early spring, and I had made myself well aware to the possibility of not finishing it, but I’m really, really close to moving on to War Storm before we end up in summer!
I also have started on the full Red Queen aesthetic playlist on Spotify. I wish I had created it when I had started the series, but that was over 11 years ago, and that wasn’t the best year to create these kinds of playlists anyway.
I’ve tried to give each book/chapter/character they’re own theme, and the only song I could work for the beginning of the King’s Cage section starts at Will Ramos from Lorna Shore’s and Nik Nocturnal’s cover of Sleep Token’s “Chokehold”. It’s an odd, but perfectly song and word that matches up on the outlook for both King Maven Calore and Mare Barrow. This section will continue to grow until I finish and began reading the fourth and final book of the series: War Storm. To listen to this playlist, click the “April” banner.
Other than that, let’s see what I enjoyed in the month of April. Again. come check out the entire playlist here.
Sheesh by BABYMONSTER And She Translated Into the Sky by Levi Patel A Fool’s Parade by Within Temptation featuring Alex Yarmak Eyes Closed by Imagine Dragons This Is The Way by Five Finger Death Punch featuring DMX So Fresh, So Clean by OutKast Queens and Kings by Alessandra Feel Me Now by If Not For Me Escalate by Tsar B In My Soul by Flannel Graph Come What May by The Last Bloom Ocean Lullaby by Colossal Trailer Music Undefeated by XG x Valorant I Am Defiant by The Seige Made For This by WE ARE FURY x Takaayla Bad by Royal Deluxe Black Velvet Sun by My Indigo Frozen by Victoria K. Dead Man Walkin’ by Rebecca Brunner Just Won’t Die by Halocene
Well, I think that is it for now. If you’re still here at the end, sorry for the rambling! I didn’t mean to make a whole story about the music I’ve listened to these past months, but I’m glad to share this part with you freely again.
What have you been listening to lately? Do you create aesthetic playlists? Are they for yourself, friends or other stuff like mine? Let me know in the comments below.
I was going to give a life update in the June playlist like I usually do in those posts, but the longer I thought about it, the more I realized I was away for TWO MONTHS. As you may know, a lot can happen in 60+ days, so ultimately, I decided to have a separate post for this.
The month of April was good. We were supposed to go visit family up north for my nana’s birthday, but again, plans changed like always. My little niece Kimber is a little terror at night according to my sister. She also cries and screams quite a bit, and before anybody freaks out, they’ve tried various ways to stop these things, but nothing has worked. Now they believe she could be teething, but so far we haven’t seen anything along her gums.
Other than that, she’s a very happy girl and thoroughly enjoys causing a bit of trouble. When she was about two or three months old, she discovered rolling over on every surface, including her parents. After she conquered this, she moved onto crawling and she is a big crawler, but recently she decided to stand up on her own, so she continues to find ways to freak everybody out–honestly, I’m very proud of her for it.
We have done a lot of gardening lately. In early April, my dad asked me if I wanted to help him plant the seeds of our tomatoes (my dad has a LOT of them!) and at first the only job I could do was put the dates on the Styrofoam cups and I was content with that, but within a day or two, my dad gave me an even bigger job, which was to actually plant the seeds into our little nursery containers. I’ve worked on tomatoes and radishes, plus our zinnias and sunflowers. I loved having a chance to get my toes dirty with the soil and see whether or not my toes would be too large to grab them; if this happened, I used the tweezers.
I was going to get me some raised beds this year, but we just don’t have the room – between our dog Rumer and then the cats, I just don’t think it would have been something I’d be able to keep up with like my parents do in the gardens. So, I really cherished the opportunity to help dad with his stuff, and we even built our new deck furniture, and I helped holding things in place for him as it was a pain in the ass to screw together. We made it through, and they do look nice, but mom and dad haven’t had a chance to enjoy them.
As the month was ending, we had a sad moment.
Technically, we have five cats: Midge, Grumpy, Stormy, Felix (Fifi) and Nelson (Linus, as my dad calls him!) and we feed them and being around us has made them less feral in a way. They enjoy pets, some cuddles here and there, etc. Out of the five, I personally claimed Stormy and he has always struggled with allergies, it didn’t matter if it was winter or summer, he had nose issues like hard sneezing, nose bleeds, and his eyes were goopy and gross, poor dude was an absolute mess!
When I went to stay in the nursing home back in October, he was in a bad shape. He holed himself up in his favorite Styrofoam box house and slept in there, only to come out for eat and go to the bathroom. I hated seeing him like that, and it was around this time where I came to accept him passing away before I came home. However, by the time I did come home, he had regained his energy and strength and would jump up onto the deck with the other cats. Everybody was thrilled to see him do all of this again.
And once we made it to spring, his allergies were starting to come raging back and we kept the same routine my parents did last time, but one day he just decided to roam around the neighborhood, which wasn’t like him at all. We hollered and searched for him, but he was gone. I thought it was odd because Stormy rarely leaves the property. He’ll go visit my sister every once in a while, but he would always come out of a familiar haunt, but this time he didn’t. One morning while my mom was doing some cleaning outside, she found him in his house. He had passed away in his favorite place.
I am still grieving over my Stormy Eugene. Yes, he had a middle name. The majority of our cats have middle names actually! Anyways, I don’t think I’m the only one. I truly believe Fifi is also coming to terms with the loss. Stormy and Fifi were basically attached at the hip, so I figured if any of the cats actually mourn for him, it would be him. He wasn’t in the mood of loving in the beginning, until recently. Oddly enough, when I came home from the nursing home, Stormy had recovered but Fifi was the one with health issues. He’s doing much better now, and enjoying the one-on-one time with me again. While I was trying to gain Stormy’s trust, I had already developed an relationship with Fifi but once I spent most of my time with Stormy, he kind of took a backseat.
Honestly, since Stormy’s passing, Grumpy, Fifi and Nelson have become snuggle bugs. Grumpy and Fifi have always been like this, but Nelson has been eerie of people, including us, but he has been enjoying the morning loves. He runs up against my feet and we chat about our morning so far. I’ve been calling him “chatterbox” lately because he is constantly meowing at us.
Now, let’s discuss the things that happened in May.
I was able to help do some of the planting again. This time I did more than put dates on the cups. I had the job of filling the trays for our nursery, and this was something that brought me back to my childhood,
One time my sister and I were digging around their huge trees, and we had found something very white and tough, we were slightly confused in our discovery but otherwise very happy with ourselves too! After a few seconds, our mom came out to see what we had dug up and she squashed our dreams and told us it was part of the sewer/water pipes and we needed to find another spot to dig to China. We were pretty sad but put the dirt back and moved to the other side of the sidewalk.
Anyways, as I was filling each hole, I was also told that I needed to make a two-inch hole with this wooden stick that was just the perfect width for me to grip in between my toes. Once I was finished with that, he gave me a packet of seeds and I began to drop those into their fresh beds.
Speaking of plants, I do have some bad but good news to share. My first little plant my mom got me at the start of 2021, it was a bonsai or money tree I named Yuri Lilliekoi, well unfortunately, it sort of died sometime last year. It was very odd, but it had looked like crap for a couple of months so, we knew something was up with it. I was very sad to let it go, but then this past May, it was Nurse’s Week and my mom and all of the other nurses were given a goodie bag and succulent plants, and she was so happy she ended up giving it to me. Once she showed it to me, I fell in love with it and of course like my other plants, it was given a name.
Succulents are native to desert areas in Africa and Mexico. I already have a plant named for the Mexican region, she is a spider plant but looks like a spot of very long grass, and she was named Paulina Sylvia or PS as they mean “little forest” in Spanish. So, I knew I would have to find her name within the African culture. I found out the Aken people tend to name their children the day of the week they were born, which I thought was pretty cool, and since mom gave me this plant on a Thursday, I went with “Yaba” (Yaa-Ba) and I really like it. As for the middle name, I wanted a way to honor all nurses, so I decided to go with “Florence” dedicated to Florence Nightingale herself. My mom giggled at my explanation of the plant’s name, but she approved of it though.
Our dog Rumer was out most times while we were working on the flowers, and when I was done with everything, I would go into the living room and hang out with her. She and I are becoming best friends. She is starting to understand the word “cuddle” now. I have my own spot in the living room. It’s next to our sofa and opposite of our bathroom. I literally sit in front of two vents, so I’m usually always cold, but I lean over onto the armrest of the couch, and she’s lie down on the other side, and we’ll cuddle. She sniffs my hair and cleans my face and ears. She is in love with ears, and it can get a bit weird, but whenever this happens, she is as close to me she can be and I know that’s when I can hug her freely. For the most part, she really gentle with me and we know she enjoys it just as much because she’ll stay there for quite a while.
Last month was actually her birthday month. We are certain that she had to have been born around Memorial Day weekend, since we got her in the middle of August. We celebrate both days since figuring out the math there. So, she is in face two years old now. I still consider her a “puppy” though because she is so goofy. I don’t know about other dogs, but Rumer has learned to clean her face. When she is done eating, she’ll jump up on the couch and plop her nose right into the edges of the couch and rubs her face all around the back of the sofa. I’ve never seen a dog do that before, but it cracks us up everytime.
My little nephew just had his birthday, and I was going to blog about it, but there were quite a few people and children in the photos, so I decided against it to protect their privacy. However, I wanted to share something about Nolan today.
We have a large collection of different blocks. We still have a bag he’s had since he was about two years old, but over Christmas, he got two more packages of blocks–technically, it was one, because the other is actually a set of Jenga blocks! I’ve tried to teach him on how the game works but he’s fine with using them as the base of ALL of his buildings. I love to see his mind at work, so I just lie down in my bed and watch him do it all on his own. Honestly, if I try to help, he gets mad because it wasn’t what he was looking for in the first place!
He loves to create houses, fountains, zoos, fireplaces, trains, etc. His mind is everchanging and it is amazing to see him work out the different designs. For his birthday, I found a Lego build of a penguin, because they are one of his favorite birds. I thought it would be cool to see him build something more complex. The kid managed to do a Rubik’s cube twice, so I know he will enjoy the challenging experience.
I think I am officially finished with this post. I need to make a warning for myself for later to not wait two months to write about everything that happened. I know I’ve forgotten things, but I think you’ll be fine with what I was able to remember, right? I enjoy writing these posts, but I can never condense things, and I’ve always been this way. It takes me a good hour o finish a story, so feel bad for my parents who are told the majority of my stories…I do hope you have enjoyed everything though.
How was you? What were you up to in April to June? Let me know in the comments below!
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