Book Review: “Letters for Phoebe” by Sally Britton

Hi there.

Over the Christmas holidays, I came across two series of books written in the genres: Regency-Era and clean romance on YouTube. Since I was in the midst of publishing Blogmas content, I really wanted to listen to a story rather than read it on my own, and I was actually surprised of my enjoyment on the stories I had found, but I was only able to finish one of the two series, but I’ve got them saved up for next Christmas and I’m excited to get back into them and hopefully share them with you.

In January, I was in a very historical, fantasy kind of mood, and towards the end, I wanted another book outside of the two main genres, so i went looking for novellas on YouTube like I had back in December, and I came across one titled “Letters for Phoebe” by Sally Britton and decided to give it a shot.

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When Phoebe starts receiving anonymous letters, she never once thinks the most irresponsible man in London is her correspondent. Or that she will fall in love with him.

Phoebe Kimball grew up believing in love, but after failing to find a gentleman capable of capturing her heart, she has turned more practical than romantic. She is determined to find a husband in London this Season. If only the annoying Mr. Fenwick would stop appearing every time she sets her cap at someone! When an anonymous letter arrives warning her that her current target is unsuitable marital material, Phoebe begins a relationship with the letter writer that promises something more than a practical alliance.

Griffin Fenwick does not usually care for women on the hunt for a husband, but Miss Kimball’s quick wit and refusal to admit she enjoys his company intrigues him. When he realizes the gentlemen on her list of eligible bachelors is full with scoundrels, he warns her the only way he can – through a letter. As he comes to know Phoebe better, he soon realizes he wishes to put his own name on her list. If only she liked Griffin as much as she liked her anonymous correspondent.

When Phoebe realizes its been Griffin writing her all along, will she put aside practicality for love, or spurn Griffin for even trying to woo her?

taken from Goodreads.

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What I found most interesting about this series, is that it’s center around this group of girls Lavinia, Marah, Isabel, Daphne and Phoebe. They make a pact to not settle for anything less than a lovable marriage, which in the Regency Era or the Victorian/Edwardian times, a person wasn’t allowed to marry for love. Everything was about inheritance and political.

As far as personality, I’d say Phoebe was posh or stuck-up around people. I just wasn’t a big fan of her overall attitude, but I did grow to understand her better as the story went on.

For the love interest, I fell in love with Griffin. He was charming and friendly.

I felt he took a big gamble in his role with these letters to Phoebe. This was another real aspect of the time, a woman wasn’t allowed to do anything without an older chaperone, and accepting letters from a stranger, warning her of unlikely suitors was not acceptable.

I’m used to dirty, smut books, and with these clean romances, I am out of my element but. I enjoy the fact I’m not so lost in the lyrical and crazy sex scenes. I feel like, I notice various traits of the characters than I do with other historical romance books.

Honestly, this was a great novella. I tried to read the next story, continuing to talk about the girls in Phoebe’s group. I can’t find any of them on YouTube, which really sucks, but they are available on Kindle Unlimited (this book is not though!) and they are written by other authors. This is something that I am learning and it’s interesting to see how these other women talking about these young women of this era.

Have you read Sally Britton's "Letters To Phoebe" yet? What are other novels or novellas should I look into on YouTube? Leave me your thoughts below!

February Playlist

Hello!

This month has been interesting.

Let’s talk about books first, because I have done a LOT of reading lately.

In January, I began reading the Plantagenet and Tudor novels by Philippa Gregory. I was obsessed with the first book, it’s called “The Lady of the Rivers” and it discusses the young life of Jacquetta of Luxembourg. I was hesitant about getting into these books because I loved Starz first adaption with The White Queen. which covers Jacquetta’s oldest daughter Elizabeth, who becomes the new king’s wife, Unfortunately, I did not have as much success with the second book but I’m not giving up on the rest of the series though. I want to learn more about Lady Margaret Beaufort “The Red Queen” and “The Kingmaker’s Daughters” which is focused on Lady Anne Neville.

The next thing I do specifically for Black History Month is attempt reading more black and brown authors, characters and world(s). I was able to find three — one year I’m going to read Toni Morrison! Since I could anything to her, I switched it up and focused on kid books and found I Am You: A Book about Ubuntu by Refiloe Moahloli and Zinelda McDonald” and this was SO adorable! I liked how they had visible characters dressed up to represent their cultures, plus a few others with some kind of disability. It was a gentle read, and I liked the fact it was written in South Africa and its cultures.

My second attempt was Lila by Naima Coster. I knew this book would be short and I was fine with it, I enjoyed reading about these characters and how they were trying to navigate life in New York City. I liked Naima’s writing to be flowy and modern, but I did not like how it ended, it just stops. and I felt very frustrated with it. And the other boy I chose was Over Him: Not a Love Story… A F*cking Story by Shantel Davis. I didn’t finish it because I thought the story itself wasn’t written that well, but I understood the gist of it as well.

After three years, I finished Kendare Blake’s “Three Dark Crowns” series. This is my seventh book series overall and I’m still reeling from the events in the final book. I hope to get my toes on the novellas Kendare wrote within these characters and this world in the near future. And finally, I read “Puck Shy” by Kelsey Grosse. I had found it in early January and saw it would be available on KU Valentine’s Day, so I waited as long as possible, and that was a good solid novella. I think I might do a review on it as well.

Now, as far as music goes. I had a fun time. I rediscovered my love of K-Pop girl group Dreamcatcher. They don’t have a lot of pop-y songs like the majority of the Korean groups, both male and female. I enjoy for their rock and roll style. I also listened to quite a few of new albums were eerily similar, there was “The Glory and The Fallen” by Leah and “Femmes Fatales” by Exit Eden as they both do symphonic metal, but Leah leans more into Celtic mythology.

I should probably tell you; I included a few episodes of LuAnna: The Podcast. This is my way of spamming you (my own readers) like I do my family and friends on Instagram with cute and hilarious reels! I tried Sophiena’s Secret Mum Club two weeks ago, I just couldn’t get into it – they sound too much like Luisa and Anna, and that rubbed me the wrong way. I am currently giving Toni and Ryan a try and I have seen some clips on Insta and enjoyed them so, I’ll try to give you an update on them in March’s post.

Here are my Top 20 songs for this month. If you’d like to check out the full playlist, click here.

Bye Bye by Gryffin featuring Adara
V.A.N. by Bad Omens x Poppy
Vicious by Bohnes
Looking At Me by Sabrina Carpenter
The Village by Wrabel
American Horrow Show by Rain Paris
Code of Life by Epica
High Horse by Kacey Musgraves
Let Me Out by Hidden Citizens x Ranya
FTCU (Metal Remix) by Lauren Babic
Wings Of Time by Leah
Where Do Broken Hearts Go? by One Direction
Friendly Fire by Linkin Park
Scream by Dreamcatcher
Bad Blood by SETOURSAILS featuring Adrian Estrella
Somebody Loves Plumb
Gloves Up by Little Mix
Trophy Hunter by Within Temptation
Circus by Halocene
The Catalyst by Amaranthe

I am sharing two other playlists I’ve made lately. Since I told you about finishing the “Three Dark Crowns” series, I actually made an aesthetic playlist to go along with the four books. These are the songs I thought fit in certain events and the characters. It is a massive list, but I couldn’t help myself. And the other is nothing but, in your face, upbeat songs. There are no rhyme or reason for it, but I wanted to give it to you anyways.

So, that’s it. I am hoping I’ll be in a mood to blog more, but I don’t want to force anything either. I hope you are doing well and have great last days of February and going into March.

January Playlist ’24

Hello!

Well, we have nearly finished our first month of 2024. I don’t know about you, but January is always a really slow month.

We finally had our first big snow or blizzard. We didn’t get any snow in November or December. Our temperatures had never gone down into a single digit until two weeks ago, and it was so weird. Every device oddly had a different number but when they all say 1 degree, that shit’s cold! My dad had to break out his thermal clothes and wear them with his overalls and hoodies and put on his chunky boots just to go out into his man cave and work on his new projects.

Let’s get into the playlist now. Here are my Top 15 songs, and if you’d like to listen to the rest, just click here.

Try by Colbie Caillat
Moorlough Shore by Celtic Woman
What I Am by Crown The Empire
Might Love Myself by Beartooth
I Found You by Rebecca Brunner
More by The Warning
One Eyed Bastard by Green Day
Leave A Light On by Papa Roach
Everything In My Mind by Nevertel
A Symptom of Being Human by Shinedown
Dirty Thoughts by Chloe Adams
Machine by Neoni
Sugar by Sofia Carson
Unholy by Sam Smith featuring Kim Petras
New Noise by Refused
Boy Problems by ASTON

Before I go, I wanted to share a new “aesthetic” or mix playlist I put together as I was reading Philippa Gregory’s “The Lady Of the Rivers”. I love creating these types of playlists for books I’ve recently read. I’m in the middle of “Two Dark Reigns” by Kendare Blake. and I’m trying to update that on a daily basis. I’ll share it with you along the February post.

What were you listening to this month?

February Playlist

Hello!

For the past two months, I’ve been somewhat out of it. I haven’t wanted to blog at all, and for a time it was purely laziness on my part because I rush to get everything done during Blogmas and I don’t get to enjoy everything that makes the holidays exciting.

Just one little thing….

I’ve had this feeling for about three or four years now. I’ve wanted to stop blogging. There wasn’t anything wrong with my content or schedule, I think it’s me. Maybe it’s time to take a break from everything about Got Meghan’s Blog.

For now, though, I will only be on here every other month and publishing new posts within the last two weeks of each month. I may not even go on for six days, it just might be book reviews and playlists, sometimes you may see other stuff. It’ll be interesting how long this idea lasts, whether I continue blogging or not, I’ll always be around and on my social media too. You can find them on the right side of my site.

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Within the last two months I’ve listened to an array of albums.

In January, I was thoroughly obsessed with power/symphonic metal band Kamelot’s older records like Epica (2003) and Poetry for the Poisoned (2010) featuring original vocalist Roy Khan. I really love current leader Tommy Karevik’s voice, but I’ve never really given Roy’s voice a chance, so I started going through their past albums, which hasn’t seemed odd now that I’ve seen they are releasing a new album this year, called The Awakening in March, which sounds really cool, so I’m very excited about it!

The second band I was into, was Sleeping With Sirens. I watched the music video of “Let You Down” with Charlotte Sands and I really enjoyed it, and I’ve never been into male vocalists with a falsetto voice, but once I heard that song and then later on I heard the title track of their new album, “Complete Collapse” on SXM Octane, I decided to give it a chance one night where I couldn’t sleep, and I like it. My favorite was “Us” with Dorothy.

For February, I was pulled into two more albums. An old favorite of mine: Xandra, they are a symphonic metal based in The Netherlands, and they recently introduced their new singer, her name is Ambre, and she does both clean and harsh vocals on their album, “The Wonders Still Awaiting” and I actually love this album. Xandria’s been through a hard road, with everchanging vocalists, but I’m glad to see this band pushing through and releasing a brand-new album for their fans.

The final band I’ve been crazy for is I Prevail. Now I’ve liked certain songs from them in the last five years, like “Every Time You Leave” with Delaney Jane. And I heard their songs “Deep End” and “Body Bag” on Octane, and after getting out of the last three bands, I decided to give their album “TRUE POWER” a shot and again, I loved it! I like how you have the harder and up-beat songs at the front of the record and the ballads toward the end. Since they have two separate vocalists, I find this arrangement gives each person a place to showcases their talent fairly.

If you haven’t listened to any of these albums, I highly suggest you do so! I’ve included several songs in my January and February Spotify playlists. If you want to check out the January list, click here. Now, here are my Top 14 songs for this month, and this is your link for that playlist.

Special by Georgi Kay
Queen by Loren Gray
Brooklyn by MALINDA
Hold Me, Help Me by Halocene
Fantasy by Mariah Carey
Black Sheep by Dorothy
Ghetto Supastar (This Is What You Are) by Pras featuring Ol’ Dirity Bastard & Mya
Lost by Linkin Park
Beaver Cage by Butcher Babies
Get There First by Austin Snell
Drowning by Atreyu
Dead Reckoning by Pop Evil featuring Fit For A King
Bad Man by Disburted
The Reason by Hoobastank

As my final note, I wanted to talk to you about one of my favorite bands ever, Linkin Park releasing a new single called “Lost” for the 20th Anniversary for their second album Meteora, and it’s the first song that the band’s released in a long time. Since the passing of Chester Bennington, they’ve been somewhat quiet as a band. Mike Shinoda released a solo album a couple of years ago and it did very well, but all of the LP soldiers wonder how the band will continue and being able to put something like this little gem was beautiful. One thing I thought was interesting in the first time listening to it, was while Chester was doing the second verse, seemed to bring out some emotional feelings for Chester. Did you notice it too?

What were your favorite albums and/or songs for both January and February? Let me know in the cemments!

Royal Baby | A Sibling for August Brooksbank!

Hello everyone!

I am back for another royal baby post; I bet a lot of you out there were wondering when I’d want to discuss all of the possibilities for the Brooksbank family. Honestly, ever since the announcement came out, I had at least four stuck in my mind. I was going to wait until mid-April to say anything about it, but I really wanted to unleash my thoughts in a post, so I hope you are ready for it today!

When I wrote my first list for when Princess Eugenie was pregnant with August, I went with an artistic and literary style, and it looks like I had the right idea, as it is featured in the book Wonder by R.J. Palacio but August in itself can be a royal twist, as the majority of the Hanoverian royals, used “Augustus” (and “Augusta for girls!) before Queen Victoria and her descendants stopped using it in their children, except for the lines in Prussia, Germany, Lichtenstein, etc.

Every part of August’s name is honored by various family members between the former Princess of York and her common born husband Jack Brooksbank. So, when I started to come up with this list, I paid attention to their family trees, but I also wanted to include some things like their recent move to Portugal last year. What kind of names they would have been introduced there. My final objective was to stay in the lines I used when guessing for August too, so I added some interesting, but trendy British names as well.

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Algernon Christopher Stamp

I recently went through the couple’s family trees. While I was on it, I went back through Sarah Ferguson’s family, and found a few gems, especially Algernon. Algernon Ferguson was the Duchess of York’s grandfather. And like Augustus, it also fell out of favor in the last several years, however, I think it is due to make a comeback as it is so handsome and would go well with Jack’s middle names. I can’t be the only one who thinks August and Algernon as siblings wouldn’t be absolutely adorable, right?

Rafferty Charles Henry

Now let’s say they wanted a totally cute, but laidback type of first name instead. I think Rafferty would be a great gender-neutral contender. I first heard about it back in 2021, at the time I had found like five interesting “R” names, and this was definitely one of my favorites. You could use “Rafe” for a nickname as a child or “Ralph” for an adult sort of name instead, but I find it cute just the way it is.

As for the middle names, I had some issues coming up with anything that would rival to Algernon, but then I thought about the upcoming coronation of Eugene’s uncle, King Charles III. She is still asked to represent the King, Queen consort, and the rest of the Commonweath with her own patrons, so I feel like this would be a nice way to symbolize her love and support than to name her child after him. In the past, Princess Eugenie has had a good relationship with her cousin Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex. We don’t know how she and Jack feel about his memoir “Spare” but then again, it isn’t any of our business either; so, they could also add Henry into the mix as well.

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When I was thinking about girl names, I was thoroughly surprised in the fact that I wasn’t pulled into the realm of female royal names. Don’t get me wrong, later on, I made up for it! Anyways, I was thinking of “Willa” at first as it’s not really high in the various charts, but once I started the collecting process that’s when it quickly disappeared from the lineup. Here is what I am thinking about now.

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Isabeau Victoria Helena

The name Isabeau is a very old name, but it has roots within the French royals with Isabeau of Bavaria who was the wife of King Charles VI of France in 1385. Isabeau is a great variation on the more popular Isabel/Isabella/Isobel, and since the princess has a goddaughter by the name of Lady Isabella Windsor, I didn’t think “Isabel” would be a great idea, but with this spelling, it feel like this could allow some of the older royal names like Isabeau to come into the 21st Century. I also thought this would be a great way to showcase her love for her grandmother, the late Queen Elizabeth too.

Personally, I would love using “Beau” for a nickname would be lovely against her aunt Beatrice and of course older brother Augie.

Now since I used Jack’s middle names with Algernon, I thought it was only fair to lend Eugenie’s middle names with Isabeau and honestly, I find both to be very bold and regal with the additions of “Victoria” and “Helena” as they are driven by the former Duchess of York’s love of Queen Victoria. I really feel like it would be fitting to honor both of these great queens and familial favorites in the York women.

Phoebe Charlotte Beatriz

Okay, let’s get out of the sophisticated names for a minute and imagined the Brooksbank family using a fairly common name for their daughter. The name “Phoebe” was calling out to me a day after the announcement broke and I took it as a sign obviously. Phoebe is an adorable name and has become a favorite to many families lately and I absolutely love it! It’s not that popular with the US couples, but if the Princess would use it for her first daughter, I could see it being added onto the charts.

I think it’s important to remember that the royals love reusing certain names. The name “Edward” has been used twice within the Queen and Prince Philip’s younger children. The Duke of York (Eugenie’s father) was born as “Andrew Albert Christian Edward” and The Earl of Wessex and Forfar was named “Edward Antony Richard Louis.” Fast forward in time, and we have the similar situation with the name “Louis” when The Prince and Princess of Wales were naming their sons, their first is “George Alexander Louis” and youngest was given “Louis Arthur Charles.”

Another name was shared among cousins as both August Brooksbank and Princess Anne’s daughter Zara and her husband Michael Tindall named their son Lucas. They each have the name “Philip” as part of their middle names as The Duke of Edinburgh had died some months before the the birth of his great-grandsons.

I didn’t mean to spiral down like that, but I wanted to explain why it is somewhat popular for the newest generation of royal babies to be named after someone close to them. And with that being said I believe the name of “Charlotte” will be used as a middle name for the Brooksbank family. It is a very beloved name worldwide, and it’s definitely one of my ultimate favorites, but I thought it would be interesting to see it again amongst the lower branches of the royal family.

I read an article last year, about the Brooksbanks had moved to Portugal as Jack had been offered a job and the entire family went with him. So, I thought about honoring their new home and went with the Portuguese variation of Beatriz for Princess Beatrice. The York sisters are very close, so it was a no-brainer to not include it in the post. To be honest, I thought this way was unique compared to the other “Beatrix” as I believe this to be too popular, but then again August is also a favorite too, so I might be wrong with my assumptions anyway.

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I’ve written over 10 royal baby posts and honestly, I enjoy collecting a bunch of names and seeing how bad or good my guesses are at the end. I am usually wrong, but I keep coming back and creating these posts and I hope anybody that is a fan of the royals or in need of some inspiration for their child’s name, they can check out my other posts and have a hey day with them.

Even though it’s early, do you have any guesses bubbling to the surface? Are you focused on a certain family member or gender? Let me know all of your thoughts in the comments.