Top Ten Tuesday: Author sisters

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week's theme is Things Characters Have Said (Maybe a character said something really profound or romantic or hilarious or heartbreaking. You could share witty one-liners, mic-drop moments, snippets of funny dialogue between multiple characters, catchphrases, quotes that have become a part of pop culture–like “May the odds be ever in your favor.”, etc.)

I always struggle with TTT when the theme is about quotes as they are just not something I keep an eye out for, so I am going to go back to an old post I have had in draft for a while. I originally put this post together when the theme was Relationship Freebie (Pick a relationship type and choose characters who fit that relationship as it relates to you. So, characters you’d like to date, be friends with, be enemies with, etc. Bookish families you’d like to be a part of, characters you’d want as your siblings, pets you’d like to take for yourself, etc.), but I didn't get to post it at the time. I think we were away.

I previously did a post featuring the word sisters in the title, so this time I am going to share some authors who are sisters! Let's start with some Australian author sisters:

Liane, Jaclyn and Nicola Moriarty - Whilst Liane is probably the most famous of the Moriarty sisters, Jaclyn and Nicola have also been writing successfully for a long time. Jaclyn writes more in the YA space and Nicola more women's fiction. My favourite book by a Moriarty is probably Paper Chains by Nicola.

Back in 2012 I did a Q and A with Jaclyn Moriarty and asked about the fact that all three of them were writers and this is what she said

Both of our parents are enthusiastic story tellers. We are always saying to Mum, ‘Give us the short version’, and Dad is always advising, ‘Never spoil a good story with the facts’. We had shelves full of books to read when we were kids. Also, instead of giving us pocket money, Dad would commission us to write stories. So I guess we grew up thinking it was the only way to make money.

Here's my review of A Corner of White (it's actually a joint review with Shelleyrae from Book'd Out which I had completely forgotten we did together), and a quote about doing Tim Tam Slams from Free-Falling by Nicola Moriarty

Kate Forsyth and Belinda Murrell - Kate Forsyth is one of my favourite Australian authors, even though I haven't managed to fit in any of her books for quite some time! She writes amazing fairy-tale retellings, is an awesome guest speaker and avid read. Her sister, Belinda Murrell, writes kids books. Interestingly, their great-great-great grandmother, Charlotte Waring Atkinson, wrote Australia's first children's book. Pretty amazing historical connection!

Here's my review of Bitter Greens. 

A S Byatt and Margaret Drabble - Whilst these two are sisters, they were estranged for many years .A S Byatt is best known for the book Possession and the book I remember reading from Margaret Drabble is The Red Queen. Here is my review.

Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte - It feels like it would be wrong to have a list of literary sister authors and not include the Brontes who have give us books like Jane Eyre, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Agnes Grey. They also published a book of poetry under the names of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell

Do you know of any other famous authors who are sisters?

This week...

I'm reading

We are going away at the end of this month, so I wanted to get a bit of a head start to my reading so that I can write all my posts before I go away. I therefore read I Knew You Were Trouble by Aussie author Sandy Barker, which is the fifth and final book in the Ever After Agency series.

I then started reading Out on a Limb by Hannah Bonam-Young. I am not really sure why as I already had multiple books on the go, but sometimes you just have to do what you have to do! I have heard lots of good things about it!

I also started reading If You Could See My Now by Samantha Tonge. My review for this book will be up later this week!

Last week I had mentioned that I had started listening to Mis-directed by Lucy Parker but I was falling asleep on the couch. In the end, I started it again, and found myself sitting at the desk just listening to it! I got through it in two days as I couldn't stop listening. I did have to remind myself that Lucy Parker had written the book - it wasn't Nicola Coughlin sharing some of things that go on backstage on a period TV series.

I have now gone back to listening to The Truth by Terry Pratchett. I started this in January but put it aside to listen to Pride and Prejudice for book club. I expect I will finish The Truth this week.

Speaking of Jane Austen, I went to a library event on Friday night. It was a one woman show where she acts as the author whilst dressed in accurate period clothing, sharing letters that she sent and received, as well as excerpts from Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Emma. Given that I have only recently read P&P, the section she read was very familiar to me!

I'm watching


I've seen a few movies this week. I watched The Dolce Villa which is about a young woman who buys a 1 Euro house in a small village in Italy. Her dad comes to try to persuade her that this is a mistake. He clashes with the female mayor straight away but he does start to come around. They did get all the renovations done very quickly, and there were some nice foodie scenes!

I then watched a movie which has been given an English title of Honeymoon Crasher, but in French it is called Lune de Miel Avec Ma Mere or Honeymoon with My Mother! And that pretty much describes the movie. A man is dumped at the wedding ceremony  and so he is convinced to go on the honeymoon with his mother. Queue all the jokes about him being married to a much older woman. It was fun as he began to see her as someone in her own right, not just as his mother. The movie was set in Mauritius which looked gorgeous!

On Sunday I went to see Bridget Jones 4: Mad About the Boy at the cinema. I am not sure that I remember seeing movies 2 or 3, but I did quite enjoy this one. I cried several times, and I laughed! I might go and see if I can rewatch the first three movies.

We also started watching season 2 of Rogue Heroes. We really enjoyed the first series which is about the development of the SAS - Special Auxiliary Service. It is very much a smash em, bash em, blow em up kind of series, but it is a lot of fun!


Life

Not much to report here!

Max

Max is definitely better than he was last week, but we are struggling to get his sugar reading down. Hopefully we can work it out this week. He's very happy in himself though which is a relief.


Posts from the last week


Top Ten Tuesday: Books Set in Another Time

Blog Tour: A Santorini Secret by Rose Alexander

Blog Tour: From Provence with Love by Alison Roberts

Historical Fiction Reading Challenge - March links

Weekend Kitchen: What I Baked in my Kitchen in February 

Six Degrees: Prophet Song to My Father's House







I've linked this post to It's Monday, what are you reading? as hosted by Book Date and Sunday Salon hosted at Readerbuzz

Six Degrees of Separation: Prophet Song to My Father's House

Welcome to this month's edition of Six Degrees of Separation, which is a monthly meme hosted by Kate from Books Are My Favourite and Best. The idea is to start with a specific book and make a series of links from one book to the next using whatever link you can find and see where you end up after six links. I am also linking this post up with The Sunday Salon, hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz.

The starting point this month is the 2023 Booker Prize winner, Prophet Song by Paul Lynch.

For my first link I am going to use two connections. I am choosing The Bee Sting by Paul Murray because of the name Paul but also because this book was listed for the 2023 Booker Prize. 

Last year, I saw Paul Murray at the Melbourne Writers Festival. Another writer I saw on the same day was Japanese author Toshikazu Kawaguchi (I posted about that here). He has a number of books but I am going to choose his latest book Before We Forget Kindness, and not just because I can play off the sound Bee!

If I think of the word Kind, there is a famous quote from both the book and the movie The Help by Kathryn Stockett which goes "You is kind. You is smart. You is important."

Originally I was thinking that I would look for another book to movie that Octavia Butler starred in but she wasn't in the movie I was thinking of. Then I realised that Jessica Chastain was in the movie of The Help and she was also in one of my favourite movies based on a book, The Martian by Andy Weir.

It probably isn't a spoiler to say that The Martian is set on Mars, which leads me to the book The Iron Hand of Mars by Lindsey Davis. This is part of the Marcus Didius Falco series set in ancient Rome

Another mystery series set in Rome is the Rome Escape Line series. The first book in the series is My Father's House and the author is Joseph O'Connor, who I only recently learned is the brother of the famous singer Sinead O'Connor. The second book has just been released and is on my TBR pile.

Paul Lynch, Paul Murray and Joseph O'Connor are all Irish authors so I have managed to go full circle which I don't normally manage!

Next month, the starting point is Salman Rushdie’s memoir, Knife.

Will you be joining us?

Weekend Cooking: What I Baked in my Kitchen in February

Welcome to the first Saturday of the month where I usually share everything I have made over the previous month. Here's what I made in February.

A while ago now I tried to make New York Cookies using a video recipe from Brooke Bellamy. In the instructions it talks about putting the cookie dough balls in the fridge so that they don't spread too much. Well, that wasn't a problem as they didn't spread at all and I ended up with giant balls of cookiee dough which had a bit of a crispy shell and then uncooked dough in the middle. 

I got the book Bake with Brooki for Christmas and noticed that the recipe was different and so I decided to try and make them again! They turned out exactly right! The day I made these we had brunch at a cafe we love and they had some of these cookies for sale for $8. Given how big they are, I do get how they are that expensive but still. They are delicious but they are too big, so when I make them again I will need to make the cookies half the size, and maybe half the batch.

We had been talking about having scones for a couple of weeks, and we took the opportunity to make them when my sister and her husband came around for afternoon tea. I made a half batch of lemonade scones but they just didn't work, so then I grabbed an older cook book that I have had on my shelf for years called Merle's Kitchen and made the more traditional recipe and they turned out nicely!

When my sister and her husband visited they bought us a heap of lemons, so then I had to come up with something to use them. We had some people coming for dinner on Sunday night and so I made Lemon Angel Food Cake using this recipe. One of the things I like about this recipe is that you use all the egg yolks to make curd, and there is lots of curd left over, so this weekend I am thinking of some ways to use yet more lemons and some of the curd.

Outside of the kitchen, we went for a lovely lunch at a winery which I posted about here.

I did go and here Australian historical fiction author Mary-Lou Stephens talk about her new book The Jam Maker. I started reading it this week so hopefully I will have a review of it at some point during March!

52 Recipes Challenge

We only tried a couple of new recipes this month.

Hunters Chicken (Chicken Cacciatore) - Gennaro Contaldo's book Slow was the Jamie Oliver  cookbook of the month for January. Whilst we didn't want to buy the book I did try this which was one of the taster recipes. It was tasty. 

One Pot Cajun Chicken and rice - This is a Nagi Maehashi recipe. I think I had gone out this night and my husband and son ate it.

Weekend Cooking posts from the last month

What I Ate in One Week (Stanley Tucci style)

Spell the Month in Books - February 

Two Japanese Foodie Novel Reviews

Baked Tuscan Chicken (Adam Liaw)

What I Baked in My Kitchen in January

Weekly Meals

Saturday - Out for dinner
Sunday - Baked Tuscan Chicken and Rice
Monday - Beef and Broccoli Noodles
Tuesday - Normandy pork and mash
Wednesday - Take away
Thursday - Swedish meatballs, mash and broccoli
Friday - Out for dinner

I am sharing this post with In My Kitchen hosted at Sherry's Pickings.

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page

Historical Fiction Reading Challenge - March links

Thank you to everyone who contributed a review in February for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge. Currently there are more than 50 links for the month! I will be back next week with all the statistics for the month!

I am looking forward to reading your reviews throughout the rest of the year! I am sure there is going to be a lot of great historical fiction discovered and shared with fellow HF lovers over the course of this year!

If you haven't already signed up, it's not too late! The sign up post is here.

Just to recap what participants need to know. At the beginning of each month I will put up a post which will have a Mr Linky embedded into it for you to add your link.

Please remember...

• add the link(s) of your review(s) including your name and book title to the Mister Linky we’ll be adding to our monthly post (please, do not add your blog link, but the correct address that will guide us directly to your review). A direct link to your Goodreads review is also acceptable
• any kind of historical fiction is accepted (fantasy, young adult, graphic novels...)
• if you have time, have a look some of the other links that are present. You never know when you will discover new blogs or books!

You can also join the challenge group on Facebook which you can find here and don't forget to use the #histficreadingchallenge hashtag on the socials.

Let the reading begin!!

Blog Tour: From Provence with Love by Alison Roberts

 

Last year I read Falling for Provence by Alison Roberts and at the end of it I was really hoping that we would get to read more about the sisters in the story. Luckily for me, we do, and this is Laura's story. 

Laura Gilchrist is a woman in control. She's a successful real estate agent who is charge of her own life, organised and efficient, and who knows what she wants and what she doesn't. After inheriting a share in a run-down cottage in France, what she wants right now is to get it done up and sold. If that means that she has to be in communication with the absolutely gorgeous, motor bike riding French realtor Noah Dufour then so be it. And if that communication turns into flirtation, and that flirtation turns into a whirlwind weekend affair, then again, c'est la vie.

Whilst their weekend affair is brief, it is also intense and they cover a variety of subjects including the fact that neither of them want children. So when Laura realises that she has accidentally fallen pregnant she isn't looking forward to telling him, especially not over the phone, and she also needs to come to terms with her own change in priorities as well. 

When Laura has to travel to France for a family celebration, she has the opportunity to tell him face to face, and he pretty much reacts as expected. However, while I realise that sentence probably makes him sound a bit insensitive, which he is, he also has his reasons and as he works through his past traumas and heartbreaks hopefully he will see sense.

Noah is depicted as a successful bad boy. He knows all the best restaurants for wining and dining, but he is not afraid to share his favourite places with Laura, so he is not just a one dimensional characters. One other thing about Noah. When we first meet him he is a smoker. Ugh...so horrible to even read about. Just shows how ingrained the anti-smoking message is these days. 

The book is broken into three parts. The first few chapters are in effect a recap of the last book, but told from Laura's perspective, rather than Ellie's. At the same time, we are seeing what is going on with Laura and Noah. I recall Ellie having some kind of thought in the first book but boy, it was much more intense than she thought. The second part are the weekend and the immediate aftermath, and then the final act is about dealing with the fallout after the announcement. 

In fiction there is something about Provence. I did go there many years ago but I would love to go back now and see if I could catch the magic that so many other people do. In the mean time, I will just have to make do with feeling the magic through the pages of books like this. At one point Noah says

"The South of France is like a sigh, n'est-ce pas?" he asked. "Like breathing out slowly because you've found what you've been looking for all along, even if you didn't know what it was that you were looking for."

It certainly made me sigh.

Alison Roberts again brings the medieval villages, the lavender fields and the food and restaurants to life in the pages of this book. Bonus points that some of the book is set at Christmas so we get some festive descriptions as well.  She did live in the location that these books are set in, and it shows in the writing. Roberts also has written many straight romance novels, and I do think that there are times when that shows as well, but I am okay with that!

The stage is all set for us to find out now what the story is with Fiona Gilchrist, why she has been estranged from her family and only on the very edges of the story for the last two books. I am looking forward to seeing what her story is!

I am sharing this review with the New Release Challenge hosted by The Chocolate Lady's Book Reviews. Be sure to check out other stops on the tour shown below. Thanks to the publisher, Netgalley and Rachel's Random Resources for the review copy. 

Rating 4/5

About the book

From Provence, With Love

A lifechanging encounter, a whirlwind affair... an unexpected consequence

Laura Gilchrist has always made sensible choices. But a trip to Provence to sell an inherited stone house leads her face to face with Noah Dufour. Her wild, irresistibly attractive real estate agent. And within an instant she’s bewitched. Without a second thought, she decides she’s going to accept his offer to ride on the back of his motorbike and see the beauty of the South of France though his eyes. She’s never acted on impulse before, but Noah makes her feel spontaneous and free – and a little bit excited.

Weeks later, with the memories of their passionate fling refusing to fade, Laura waits for her life to return to normal. But she can’t shake the feeling something has changed. And then her instincts are confirmed by the sight of two blue lines. Their connection was a whirlwind; perfect yet brief. But Noah has become a chink in her buttoned up armour and she knows her news is going to blindside him. Now she must return to Provence to find out whether they can both take a leap of faith based on one brief yet perfect holiday romance…

Purchase Link - https://mybook.to/ProvenceWithLove

About the Author 

Alison Roberts is the author of over one hundred romance novels, joining Boldwood to write ‘wish you were here’ fiction set in the South of France.

Social Media Links –

Twitter: @RobertsAli54060

Newsletter Sign Up: https://bit.ly/AlisonRobertsNews

Bookbub profile: @rosi3

Blog Tour: A Santorini Secret by Rose Alexander

 

Carrie's life is on a precipice. She is barely making ends meet as an author of children's books, her mortgage payments are about to sky rocket due to rising interest rates, and her teenage daughter Nell is going through a very difficult stage. Carrie was only able to buy her home thanks to a small inheritance from her Great Uncle Sol. Nell's father, Jack, is present for his daughter, but Carrie has not spoken to him since even before she knew she was pregnant after she caught him in a compromising position. Carrie needs to come up with an idea for a new book soon, in the hopes that she will be able to make some money.

One day, she receives a postcard from her friend Xanthe who now lives on the Greek island of Santorini. When she was a young woman, she had visited the island and had a brief holiday fling with a gorgeous young man named Krys. Now, Xanthe is inviting her back to the island.  Whilst Carrie would love to go, and to take Nell with her, she knows that she can't do that right now.

When visiting her parents, Carrie's mum suggests that she should go through some of Sol's possessions, Carrie finds an old sketchbook filled with pictures of soldiers, and also with a picture of a beautiful young woman and Carrie is intrigued. She also finds a ring, engraved in Greek. 

Sol never talked about his activities in WWII, and he certainly never explained why it was that he was never interested in marrying anyone after he came back to civilian life.  When Carrie gets some money from an unexpected source, she and Nell head to the island to try and find out more. There she learns about Vassia, the young woman in the picture.

In 1944 the island of Santorini was held by the German army. She is shocked when one day a man turns up at their house asking her father for assistance. He is a member of the Special Boat Service (SBS) who have secretly come to the island to perform a raid on the island. They were a group of soldiers who went from island to island in the Mediterranean performing lightning raids and then escaping to move onto the next target. The man needs help from the locals with food and water to guide them to the best places to attack the Germans. 

Whilst it isn't ideal, Vassia is drawn into this activity, and she does so knowing that there are risks involved, but she never expected the reprisals to be so brutal and swift after the attacks. She also does not expect to find that one of the group of men has been left behind - Sol. With her family devastated, she does what she can to help, ever conscious of the growing attraction she has to him. The race is on to get him safely off the island. And she would never have believed that any kind of betrayal would come from any of her friends or family.

As Carrie and an initially reluctant Nell uncover more, it is not only Sol's secrets which are revealed. Vassia's own story is filled with tragedy and betrayals that have continued to have impacts through the generations. 

I know that there has been some talk around about whether WWII (and dual timelines) are getting a bit tired as a subject for historical fiction, but the reality is that there does still seem to be a lot of stories that haven't been told before like the SBS in this book! The fact that this book was also set in Greece doesn't hurt. I have read several WWII books set in Greece before but they are not the normal setting!

Given the recent news about the earthquakes in Santorini, it was kind of poignant to be reading about this island at this point in time. The author did a great job of bringing the island to life. I also really appreciated that, whilst there were dramatic moments in the story, the author didn't necessarily wrap things up in the most obvious way. 

I hadn't read Rose Alexander before. I really, really enjoyed this story. I was totally engrossed in the book, and I am looking forward to reading more from her!

I am sharing this review with the New Release Challenge hosted by The Chocolate Lady's Book Reviews, and the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge which I host here.  Be sure to check out other stops on the tour shown below. Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the review copy. 

Rating 4.5/5

About the Book 

Santorini, Greece, 1944. A village nestled in the mountains where children play together beneath the endless blue sky. A cottage once full of the laughter of family and the joy of a new baby. But when the Nazis arrive on the island, a devastating tragedy and an impossible choice will break this family apart…

Present day. Single mother Carrie arrives on the sun-drenched island of Santorini, her adored uncle Sol’s tattered sketchbook clutched to her chest. Heartbroken at his death, Carrie is certain Sol – who refused to speak about how he spent the war in occupied Greece – was hiding secrets all his life: and that the drawings he made of a striking young woman with wavy hair will hold the answers. Tucked away with the sketchbook was a beautiful diamond ring engraved in Greek, and Carrie cannot bear the thought that her uncle never had the chance to give it to his love.

Even as she explores the winding cobbled alleys Sol drew in his book, Carrie is filled with childhood memories. And asking around the close-knit locals, the elderly women Carrie meets speak of a brave young woman named Vassia, and a secret allied mission to rid their beautiful island of German troops. But when pressed, they refuse to say more…

Then she finds a letter written by Vassia herself. She’s shocked to read how Sol was left stranded, fighting for his life, and how Vassia risked everything to save him before a terrible betrayal tore them apart. When Carrie finally unravels the truth, the secrets will shatter the small community, and change the course of her life forever…

A Santorini Secret is an epic tale of love, loss and secrets in World War Two that will sweep you away to the hidden coves and sun-kissed beaches of Santorini. Fans of Victoria Hislop, Fiona Valpy and The Letter won’t be able to put this beautiful book down.

 

About the Author


Rose Alexander has had more careers than she cares to mention and is currently a secondary school English teacher. She writes in the holidays, weekends and evenings, whenever she has a chance, although with three children, a husband, a lodger and a cat, this isn't always as often as she'd like. She's a keen sewist and is on a mission to make all her own clothes.


https://www.rosealexander.co.uk/
https://www.instagram.com/rosealexanderauthor/
https://twitter.com/RoseA_writer


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Buy Link:
Amazon: https://geni.us/B0DQVJSKHXsocial


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Top Ten Tuesday: Books set in another time

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week's them is Books Set in Another Time. You may be aware that I host the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge, so I have decided to share 10 books that were reviewed more than once in last year's Historical Fiction Reading challenge. Most of these were reviewed three times during 2024, with the last two being reviewed four and five times respectively! There were 600 individual titles reviewed for the challenge which is impressive! You can find more statistics from last year's challenge here.

The Phoenix Crown by Kate Quinn and Janie Chang

The Household by Stacey Halls

The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon

The Briar Club by Kate Quinn

James by Percival Everett

Gabriel's Moon by William Boyd

Every Time We Say Goodbye by Natalie Jenner

Hungry Ghosts by Kevin Jared Hosein

The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club by Helen Simonson

The Women by Kristin Hannah

Have you read any of these? I have several of these on my TBR pile.

Do you love historical fiction? Do you love reading challenges? It's not too late to join us. All the details can be found here!

This week...

I'm reading

It was a busy reading week this week! I read several books, a short story and finished an audiobook. 

Firstly, I finished The House of Light and Shadows by Lauren Westwood which I reviewed here. If you like a book where a house is an integral character in the story, then this might be for you.

Happily Ever After by Jane Lovering also has a house like that and for added measure each chapter is named for a famous house in literature. Here is my review.

I was then excited to see that The Bookstore Keepers by Alice Hoffman was available. This is the third short story in the Once Upon a Time Bookshop stories. These are the first Alice Hoffman stories I have read. I will be reading more as I am amazed how much story and feeling she fits into these short stories.

I was then hoping to get a bit of my reviews for March and also read an Aussie author, but the book I wanted wasn't quite ready. I therefore started A Santorini Secret by Rose Alexander which I really loved. Will be searching out some of her other titles. The review for this one will be up later this week.

I am now sneaking in a non-review read. A couple of weeks ago I went to see Mary-Lou Stephen talk about her book The Jam Maker and so I have started that one!

I also finished listening to Pride and Prejudice, narrated by British actor Rosamund Pike. I then started 

Mis-Directed by Lucy Parker which also has a couple of celebrity narrators, Nicola Coughlin and Gwilym Lee. I sat on the couch to listen to this and may have fallen asleep so I need to rewind a bit. Generally I listen to audiobooks on walks or in the car. 

I'm watching

We watched Unbreakable: The Jelena Dokic Story which was heartbreaking and inspiring in equal measures. Jelena Dokic was a young tennis player back in the late 1990s and early 2000s. She came to Australia as a refugee and then represented Australia, until she announced that she was going back to Yugoslavia. She was infamous because of the way her father, Damir, acted, even getting thrown out of major tournaments due to his aggressive behaviour. However, what the public saw was only the tip of the iceberg. The abuse that Jelena was receiving at home was horrific. She is now estranged from her father, and she is a respected tennis commentator and body image advocate. Here's the trailer

Tuesday night I went to see a preview screening of The Last Journey, a Swedish documentary in which a man and a friend decides to take his elderly father on a road trip to the south of France, to try and spark him back into life. It was a lovely movie, and we went to see it in a fab art deco theatre I had never been to before. The son and his friend, who are famous in Sweden, who produced the movie were at the screening and there was a Q and A session after. It was so touching, because when it started it was about the son not understanding how aging had affected his father, and by the end it was about him accepting that his dad was getting old. Along the way they reminisced about their summers in France. If you get the chance to see it, do so, but maybe take some tissues. It's now the highest grossing Swedish documentary of all time.

Life

We went for a lovely lunch for Valentine's Day which I posted a bit about here. Other than that it was all about the dog this week.

Max

Our lovely boy had a relapse and is not well at all. Late last year he was really unwell and was diagnosed with Addison's disease, liver enlargement, muscle shrinkage in his head and brain, and hyperthyroidism. Despite that for the most part he is a happy dog. He is a Labrador though, so you know there is something wrong when he goes off his food and water, so we ended up at the emergency vet on Thursday. He now has a couple of more things medically and so the vets talk about him having a complex medical history. He takes more medication than Robert and I do combined!

He is recovering, but we have had to have some serious conversations about what happens next time. His a very handsome boy, and has a great nature but he is not genetically blessed and wouldn't have done well in the wild! 

Posts from the last week

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Have Never Reviewed
Blog Tour: The House of Light and Shadows by Lauren Westwood

Blog Tour: Happily Ever After by Jane Lovering

The Wedding People by Alison Espach
Weekend Cooking: What I Ate in One Week (Stanley Tucci Style)


I've linked this post to It's Monday, what are you reading? as hosted by Book Date and Sunday Salon hosted at Readerbuzz