"Blessed are the Cheese Makers" by Tricia Goyer and Cara Putman

This was the perfect book to read on Saturday when I was spending all day on the couch, laid up with a cold and resting my voice because I was supposed to sing in a couple of choir numbers at an Advent service that evening.  I just snuggled up with a blanket, this book, a box of tissues, and mug after mug of tea.  It was great, except for blowing my nose all the time.  Wretched cold.

Anyway.  This book was fun.  It's part of a series called Sugarcreek Amish Mysteries put out by Guideposts, and I've not read any of them before, but I think I'll check the library to see if they have others.  I liked the main character in this one, Cheryl, and would like to read others about her.  

Cheryl runs a gift shop called the Swiss Miss in a small Ohio town with lots of Amish people.  Cheryl is not Amish, but she's got lots of Amish friends, and she's very interested in an Amish man named Levi.  I've never gotten into the whole Amish sector of Christian Fiction, but I liked this book, maybe because the main character was non-Amish like me, so I could see their customs through her eyes.

At the start of the story, someone sets fire to a cheese factory.  I love cheese.  Living in Wisconsin for four years was heavenly -- we had a cheese factory near us that we visited every few months.  Oh my, it was delightful.  So I was very invested in finding out who would want to destroy a cheese factory!  What sort of an awful person would do that?  The mystery unfolds slowly, intermingled with Cheryl's busyness running the gift shop at Christmas time, her mother interfering in her non-existent love life, and Cheryl's attempts to help those affected by the fire.  And her attempts to help the police solve the mystery, some of which are actually helpful. 

Cheryl's Christian faith is woven throughout the book in a believable, non-preachy way, which I appreciated.  This was a solidly enjoyable Christmas mystery.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG for mild, clean romance.

This was my second book read for the Literary Christmas reading link-up this year, and my 14th for the Mount TBR 2019 challenge.

"South by Java Head" by Alistair MacLean

While this won't ever be a favorite MacLean book for me, it was definitely a thrilling ride!  It's got spies (more than you realize), daring rescues, extreme escapes, a cute little kid, several nurses, some treachery, several heroes, and various exotic locations.  Also, terrible storms at sea.  Also, submarines.  Also, various explosions.

Basically, the Japanese are overrunning Singapore during WWII, and a bunch of British soldiers (many of them wounded) need to quick get out of there before they get captured and tortured and killed.  Also, there's a spy who has Very Important Information he needs to get to the Allies.  Also, there are nurses and an orphaned little boy.  They leave, they have many brushes with the enemy, people get captured, people escape, and then the whole thing ends VERY abruptly, with basically no denouement at all.

As always, the make-or-break thing for me with this book is the characters.  While I got fond of several, I never really wanted to be friends with any of them, which is why it's not going on my list of favorite Alistair MacLean books.  But it was still worth reading, and I had fun with it.

Particularly Good Bits:

The wind had dropped away now, the rain fined to a gentle drizzle and a brooding hush lay over the darkened city as it faded swiftly into the gloom of the night (p. 34).

Beyond anger lies fury, the heedless, ungovernable rage of the berserker, and beyond that again, a long, long step beyond the boundary of madness, lies the region of cold and utterly uncaring indifference (p. 266).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG-13 for wartime violence, some bad language, hints at what might happen to the nurses if their enemies captured them, and a few discussions of torture (but none depicted).

This is my thirteenth book read and reviewed for the 2019 Mount TBR Reading Challenge!

"Lady of Quality" by Georgette Heyer

This book was just what I needed right now.  It's a frothy, jolly frolic that made me laugh aloud more than once.

Miss Annis Wychwood is a woman after my own heart, and no mistake.  She knows her own mind, she's Sensible, and she's Kind and Helpful.  She even has a penchant for playing fairy godmother, though it's never put in exactly those terms.

But Annis is also Unmarried and twenty-nine whole years old, which makes her practically Unmarriageable in Regency England.  She's wealthy in her own right, not dependent on her brother Sir Geoffrey for anything but friendship, and she wants to live in her own house instead of with his family.  So she gets herself a house in Bath, which scandalizes her brother and threatens to scandalize all of Good Society. An unmarried woman simply cannot live on her own!  It isn't Done.

So when Annis moves into her new home, she brings along her aging cousin, Miss Farlow, to be her chaperone and prove that she's still Respectable.  Miss Farlow's tongue may not be hinged in the middle, but you can't prove it by me.  Before they ever reach Bath, Annis and I were both thoroughly exasperated by Miss Farlow, and exasperated we remained.

On the way to Bath, Annis passes a pair of Young Persons who are in need of Assistance.  Young Miss Lucilla Carleton, orphan heiress, is running away from home, unaided and unassisted and unabetted by her childhood friend and Not-Fiance, Ninian.  I can't remember Ninian's last name.  It's okay.  He's a ninny, and should thus only ever be called Ninian anyway.  Annis takes Lucilla under her wing and into her home, temporarily, until Lucilla's affairs can be sorted out.  She's being pushed into marrying Ninian against her will by his parents and her aunt, and she's run away to avoid this.  Ninian came along because he's actually rather a brick, and he doesn't want to marry her either, and he simply can't allow her to run away alone because it isn't Done.  

Annis makes Lucilla into a Pet Project, or tries to.  Imagine Emma Woodhouse ten years older and still taking in Harriet Smiths.  Except I really love Annis, and Emma drives me batty.  Anyway, it turns out Lucilla has an uncle, Mr. Oliver Carleton, who is actually her guardian, and who is very rude, cross, disobliging, rich, handsome, and possessed of a Very Bad Reputation.  He comes to Bath to find out what's going on with Lucilla, and he and Annis get into a series of Extremely Witty Arguments.  And everyone knows that a series of Extremely Witty Arguments can only lead to one result.

It really is as if Emma Woodhouse from Emma had fallen in love with Mr. Palmer from Sense and Sensibility.  Can you hear me cackling with Glee?  I cackled with Glee a good deal while reading this book, I assure you.  And chortled.  Possibly even guffawed once or twice.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Particularly Good Bits:

"We can't all of us be bookish, can we?" (p. 45).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for some occasional, mild oaths and some mentions of Mr. Carleton's reputation for dallying with women.  Oh, and the word "rape" got used twice, in the context of it being something someone was NOT in danger of.

This is my 12th book read and reviewed for the Mount TBR Reading Challenge this year.

"Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula" by Loren D. Estleman

Hmm.  Well, I liked this well enough to finish the whole book.  And the last sixty pages or so really gripped me.  But overall, I'm afraid this book dragged and was more something I read just to get it off my TBR shelves than because I was enjoying it.

The story is exactly what it sounds like: a mash-up where Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson interact with the characters of Bram Stoker's Dracula and help rid England of the vampire.  

Maybe because I love vampire stories (even though I can't deal with any other kind of horror story), this fell kind of flat for me.  It was very much a re-hashing of Dracula, and we didn't get any new stuff added to that book, really, until those last sixty pages.  That it was new and cool, and I dug it.

Also, Dr. Watson came off as a blundering fool too often for my taste.  It was like this was based more on the Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce movies than on the canon itself, and I objected to that.

Particularly Good Bits:

To be forced to stand by helplessly and watch one's entire world rushing headlong towards calamity is a descent into deepest Hell (p. 157).

Outside the window, the first snowflakes of winter were enjoying a brief moment of glory before being trod into an unrecognisable slush beneath the traffic upon the street (p. 181).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for some scary vampire stuff.

This is my 11th book read and reviewed for the Mount TBR Reading Challenge.

"Grace Alone" by Ruth E. Meyer

Do you like books about damaged people?  Characters who don't have it all together, don't have super lives, don't know how to get through tomorrow... or even today?  If so, you're going to love this book.

Grace is a divorced mother of 4 with some hefty emotional baggage.  She's never seen any point in church or religion.  But then this guy shows up at her kids' lemonade stand, and he's exactly the sort of good, decent, trustworthy man she thought didn't exist anymore.

David is the new principal at the local Lutheran school.  He's given up on ever getting married or having a family.  He has his own unhappy past history, though it's far different from Grace's.

Grace likes David, but she's not sure she likes him enough to find out more about all this God stuff he talks about.  Before she can try to fit him into her family picture, she's going to have to do some soul-searching and come to terms with exactly what she does and doesn't believe.

So, yes, this is a Christian book with a love story AND a conversion story.  Unlike so many conversion-story-based Christian books, though, Grace doesn't come to faith at the very end of the book.  Also, becoming a Christian doesn't fix all her problems or provide a sparkly ending.  Problems still crop up.  Day-to-day struggles don't fade.  Her children continue to be a challenge.  Her extended family continues to have trials and tribulations.  But what Grace's newfound faith does provide is hope, security, and the everlasting peace she's been craving, all of which makes those day-to-day issues more handle-able.

If I had one quibble with this book, it's that the various conflicts get resolved very quickly.  Over and over, there's a problem, and then it's solved within a couple chapters.  But the characters were really relatable, the theology was rock-solid, and the book overall was so enjoyable that I'm eager to read the next book in the series!

Particularly Good Bits:

"I can't imagine spending my life on earth with someone I knew I wouldn't get to spend eternity with in heaven" (p. 117).

"Since we know He'll keep His word about punishing sin, we can also trust Him when He promises that He'll forgive us because of Jesus" (p. 149).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for discussions of heavy topics such as extra-marital affairs and abortion.

This is my tenth book read and reviewed for the Mount TBR challenge.

"The Adventures of the Woman Homesteader: The Life and Letters of Elinore Pruitt Stewart" by Susanne K. George

So, y'all already know that I dearly love Elinore Pruitt Stewart's two collections of letters, Letters of a Woman Homesteader and Letters on an Elk Hunt.  They're flavorful and fascinating and fun.  And the fact that they're mostly based in fact is just sooooooo cool to me.

Well, this is a combination biography of Stewart and a collection of MORE of her letters.  It shows just how much care she put into crafting her writings, more than I'd realized, but also highlights her brave pioneer spirit.  Yes, she consciously wrote many of her letters specifically to reach a wider audience than just the person the letter is addressed to.  Yes, she mixed fiction with facts when recounting some things.  Yes, I like her and her writing even more after learning more about her real self.

I've read a few negative reviews of Stewart's books that seemed like those people felt somehow cheated or deceived by her writing because she did write things specifically for publication.  As if her letters were no longer as true, or that they couldn't trust her.  I don't see her writing that way at all.  I now view her letters as almost like blog posts.  I write my blog intending for many people to read it.  When I recount real-life events like going to a live show, I'm not making up that I went to the show.  But I'm consciously crafting my words.  I'm adopting a bit of a persona -- I might not use the same words and descriptions when telling the story in a private letter to a close friend as I will when writing it up for my blog.  I'm writing as Hamlette, just as she was writing as the Woman Homesteader.  I think her readers in the day understood that, just as you, my blogging friends, understand that.  

Anyway.  Stewart had an amazing, adventurous life.  She chose to share that lifestyle with others through letters both public and private, and the fact that we can read those letters today fills me with joy.

Particularly Good Bits:

To get away from every one is a blessing to be eagerly seized some times and I was deeply enjoying cave man freedom (p. 154).

I must warn you, though, that I cannot be a lady.  I'm just me.  I cannot put on airs (p. 164).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG for descriptions of illnesses, accidents, mild violence, and general hardships.

This is my tenth book read and reviewed for the Mount TBR Reading Challenge!

"Curtains for Three" by Rex Stout

I love Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe mysteries.  They relax and rejuvenate me.  Just hanging out with Archie and Wolfe and Fritz and Saul and Fred and Orrie and Inspector Cramer in the Brownstone on West 35th Street is like a little vacation for my inner being.

This is one of the collections of three short mysteries that are especially delightful when I'm very busy.  If I have to set the book down between stories, I won't have to worry I'll forget what's going on, as the stories won't be related in any way.

Of the three in this book, "Disguise for Murder" was my favorite because it had a pretty big surprise in it that I didn't see coming, though in retrospect, made so much sense.  I love mysteries that do that.  Also, Archie got to engage in some thrilling heroics, which is always extra delightful.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG-13 for murder, violence, peril, and vague discussions of people having extramarital affairs.

This is my 9th book read and reviewed for the Mount TBR Reading Challenge.

"Orphan Train" by Christina Baker Kline

Orphan Train intertwines the stories of two girls searching for a home, one a child in foster care in present-day Maine, the other sent west on an orphan train in the 1920s.  As the story unfolds, the author shows us parallels between their situations, even though they're nearly a hundred years apart.  Also, the two main characters interact in the modern-day sections, which was neat.

I did like things about this book.  The writing is good, the characters are fully fleshed out and kept me invested in their lives, and I liked the way both story lines resolved.  But because I've researched orphan trains myself, I know it's not as representative of the orphan train experience on a whole as the author seems to be implying.  And it's not a book I feel I'll want to read over and over.  Which is kind of exciting, in a weird way, because it's been on my TBR shelves for several years, and now it's not only off those shelves, but I won't have to find a space for it on my to-keep shelves either!  So, I'm glad I read it, especially since people like to talk about it a lot, but I won't be keeping it.

(From my Instagram account)

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-16 for the depiction of a man trying to violate a ten-year-old girl, a make-out scene, and some bad language.

This is my 8th book read and reviewed for the Mount TBR Challenge 2019.

"The Wind in the Willows" by Kenneth Grahame

I remember reading this when I was probably ten or eleven.  I remember my mom reading it aloud to us, too.  And I remember disliking it.  But I couldn't remember why I disliked it.  And people kept telling me it's cute and cheerful and funny and sweet.  So I bought a gorgeous Barnes & Noble edition to bribe myself to read it aloud to my kids.

Now I know why I didn't like it as a kid.  And it's the same reason I don't like it as an adult.

Toad.

I can't stand Toad.  He's thoroughly exasperating.  And annoying.  And irksome.  And awful.  He totally ruins this whole book for me.

Ratty?  Such a dear.  Mole?  Wonderful.  Badger?  So adorably grouchy.  If it was only about the three of them, I would reread it with joy on through the years.  But Toad?  Ugh.

And he never gets his comeuppance.  Not really.  Sure, he gets tossed in prison for stealing a car, but he escapes.  And goes home.  And gets his mansion back.  And supposedly he "changes" by the end, but I don't believe it for a minute.  The first time a motorcar comes past, it'll be nothing but "poop-poop" again and he'll be off on another round of being horrible.

Why on earth are the others still friends with him?

My 7-yr-old liked the book, though, so I'm giving my copy to her.  She liked that nothing really terrible happened to anyone, so hey, there's that.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: G for gratuitous annoyance.  Also, it's very clean.

This is my 32nd book read and reviewed for my second go-round with the Classics Club and my 7th for this year's Mount TBR Challenge. 

"Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holmes" by Loren D. Estleman

Yes, you read that title correctly.  This book puts Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson into the world of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson.  I picked this book up a couple of years ago when I was teaching my niece literature.  We read both The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Strange Case... that fall, and she said she wished someone would write a story where Holmes solved the case.  I said I bet someone had, and lo and behold, I was right.  I found a copy of it, but never got around to reading it until now.

As Holmes pastiches go, this one isn't bad!  I didn't love it, but I enjoyed it.  I think I'll send it to my niece, because she might enjoy it more.  

Estleman's characterizations of Holmes and Watson are faithful to the canon, if a little bit... fanfic-y at times.  Like, using soooo many of their mannerisms and their phraseology and going to great lengths to describe their flat accurately and cram lots of canon characters into it.  We don't gain any new understanding of Holmes or Watson... but that's not terrible.  It was a fun book to read, right when I needed something fun and light, so I did enjoy it.

I find it weird, though, that the cover art inset of half Jekyll, half Hyde looks sooooooo much like Thomas Edison.

(Bookstagrammer!)

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG for violence and dangerous situations.  No cussing or "adult" content.

This is my sixth book read and reviewed for the Mount TBR Reading Challenge.

"Murder at the Mikado" by Julianna Deering

I have mixed feelings about this one.  I had a great time reading it because of all the stuff about Gilbert and Sullivan productions, but the mystery itself dragged in places, and I got very, very frustrated with Madeline all through the book.  So it's probably my least-favorite Drew Farthering Mystery so far.

Drew and Madeline are putting the finishing touches on their wedding plans when a woman from Drew's past shows up and asks him to clear her of the suspicion of murder.  We learn lots of stuff about Drew's past, which is cool.

The reason I enjoyed all the stuff about the Gilbert and Sullivan productions is that I was in three of their light operas when I was in college!  I was only in the chorus, never one of the named characters, but it was incredibly fun.  So when I took a Bookstagram photo of this book, I hauled out my scores to serve as a backdrop :-)

Particularly Good Bits:

Life was fleeting and unsure, how well she knew that just now, but she couldn't be afraid to live it.  She couldn't be afraid to take those blessings God had sent her (p. 314).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG-13 for non-racy discussions of a young man spending one night with a woman he's not married to, discussions of children conceived out of wedlock, mild kissing scenes, and non-gory scenes of dead bodies.

This is my 5th book read and reviewed for the Mount TBR Challenge this year.  

"Five Poisoned Apples" edited by Anne Elisabeth Stengl

Yes, it's true.  I have finally finished reading all five stories in Five Poisoned Apples.  Yes, it took me months.  Let me 'splain.

I started reading it immediately on my Kindle the night it was released in early December.  When my paperback copy arrived, I finished reading "Falling Snow" by Skye Hoffert, the first story in the collection.  And then I got busy, and Christmas happened, and so on, and when I picked the book back up again in January... well, the trouble, you see, is that I love "Falling Snow" by Skye Hoffert so much that I just read "Falling Snow" all over again.  

But then I was a good, well-behaved reader and did move on and read the rest of the stories.  I had to stop between a couple of them because of other need-to-be-read-now books, which happens a lot to me right now.  But anyway, I loved the whole collection.  It's gorgeous.  In fact, I feel a little bad about having such a huge favorite in this collection, because all 5 stories are excellent.  And all so different!  But the truth is, "Falling Snow" speaks to me in a way that few fairy tale retellings have, and so... I love it best.

Full disclosure time.  I was on the judging panel for this contest.  There were multiple judges for the first round, so I only got to read like a sixth of the stories submitted.  I chose my top 5 from the ones I read, plus some honorable mentions.  And then the contest was out of my hands, and others made the final decision of which stories would win and be in this collection.  However... three of the stories in this book are stories I selected as the best from the 20+ I read.  Which makes me feel a special sort of protective love for this collection.  Obviously, this had nothing to do with how good a judge I am, but the fact that I mysteriously got better stories to read than the other judges, it would seem!

My absolute top pick was "Falling Snow."  The first time I read it, it knocked my metaphorical socks off.  The writing was so vivid and unique, the characters intriguing, the plot complex -- I loved it immediately.  I read it a second time, just to savor its special dark-and-zesty flavor.  I let the final judges know in no uncertain terms that I was convinced it should be a winner, and that I would cry if it didn't make the final cut.

But that's as far as my influence could go.  I waited for months, hoping against hope that this story I loved so much would be chosen.  In the meantime, I became friends with Skye Hoffert.  She's such a sweet, humble, talented faun stepping out into the wide world and learning to share her words beautifully, one tiptoed step at a time.  

The night they announced the contest winners, I participated in a live reveal on Facebook, learning in real time who the winners were as the Rooglewood Press team shared them with us one by one.  They saved "Falling Snow" for last, I'm convinced just because they knew it would torture me.  And when they announced that it won, I cried anyway.  Tears of joy and relief and exultation for this beautiful, sharp-edged bauble that would now be shared with the world.

Okay, so this is turning into less of a review and more of a Hamlette-sniffling-quietly-to-herself song of maudlinity.  Time to actually review things.

"Falling Snow" by Skye Hoffert sets the Snow White story in a magical circus where all the performers and circus workers are magical beings... except one young girl.  She works as a clown but aspires to be a tightrope walker, and she has no idea that everyone else is magical.  And she has no idea she's in mortal danger.  But with the help of the circus owner's son and a mysterious newcomer, she almost could have a chance to overcome the evil forces surrounding her.  This story is so sharp and pointy, but also sweet and soft, and altogether dark and delicious... I love it dearly.

"Raven's Heir" by Jenelle Hovde is more what I think of as straight-up fantasy, and it has this little tinge of Robin Hood flavor that I dig.  An orphaned princess seeks to unite her kingdome against her step-mother, who has been ruling as regent ever since the king's mysterious death.  She escapes the castle and finds help from a band of rangers, one of whom turns out to be the boy she was betrothed to when they were both very young.  I liked this one a lot, especially the heroine who disguises herself as a boy, as that's a favorite trope of mine.

"The Fairest One" by Cortney Manning is also straight-up fantasy, but with a very different texture.  Here, humans enslave dwarves and use their magic for their own purposes.  But a young princess befriends a dwarf when she's but a child, and as they grow up, she comes to rely on his friendship and wisdom more and more.  Eventually, he helps her escape her greedy stepmother and seek assistance from the dwarven council to overthrow the evil queen and free the enslaved dwarves.  It's kind of got a bit of the story of Queen Esther from the Bible woven in as well, because there's an emperor seeking a queen who holds a beauty contest that figures into the story as well.  Also a really fun twist on the story.

"Red as Blood" by Maddie Morrow is my other favorite in this collection.  It involves vampires, and I really like vampires.  This story is told from the point of the view of an assassin who's tasked with hunting down and killing a member of the royal family, but not told why, and the near-disastrous results.  It really takes the familiar parts of the Snow White story and twists them in new and fascinating ways.  But it does definitely get dark and a little bit scary.

"Snowbird and the Red Slippers" by Rachael Wallen is the eeriest of these five stories.  It mixes the fairy tale The Red Shoes with Snow White and sets the whole story in a prestigious ballet school in New York City, with a poor North Korean dancer at the center.  Passion, obsession, culture clashes, and envy all play a part, and I found it to be a stunning conclusion not only to this collection, but to this series as a whole.

(From my Instagram account.)

Particularly Good Bits:

I was always performing and I didn't even need a crowd (p. 13, "Falling Snow").

Chayse was a razor blade, sharp and alluring.  To touch him was to accept the risk of getting cut.  And I was already bleeding (p. 19, "Falling Snow").

She was supposed to be just another piece in mother's treasure trove.  A valuable to be coveted, a walking jewel begging to be taken, but to touch it was to ask for death (p. 22, "Falling Snow").

The truth was sharp and cut my tongue as it slid off (p. 77, "Falling Snow").

When exposed to a dangerous adversary, she came at him with everything she had, even if it was just a pocket knife (p. 85, "Falling Snow").

The ceiling wept glittering stalactites, its cold tears ending in jagged points (p. 131, "Raven's Heir").

Lifting the lid, she reached inside and pulled forth the rainbow of beautiful embroidery, her only keepsake of her mother (p. 249, "The Fairest One").

Tingles ran up his spine and blood pounded in his ears.  In her hands was one final message.  If she kisses you, you will die (p. 353, "Red as Blood").

This was home.  Her floors -- the wood flexing under her leaps, dusted with rosin and sticky with sweat.  Her walls -- the severely honest mirrors and the barre, her first pas de deux partner (p. 433).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG/PG-13 for violence, suspense, young people in danger, and some mild romance.  I just handed off my copy to my 11-year-old and I think he'll be fine.  So maybe like a PG-10?

This is my third book read and reviewed for this year's edition of the Mount TBR Reading Challenge.

"Miss Kopp's Midnight Confessions" by Amy Stewart

I loved Girl Waits with Gun.  I adored Lady Cop Makes Trouble.  But I only enjoyed Miss Kopp's Midnight Confessions.  And I think the main reason is that it was not told in the first person by Constance Kopp!  Instead, it was third-person.  And it delved into the point of view of not just Constance, but also Fleurette Kopp and a variety of other characters.  And those characters were central to the story, but they weren't wonderful like Constance.  I'm happy to see that the next book in the series, Miss Kopp Just Won't Quit, looks to be back solidly in first person.  I hope to read it soon.

Don't get me wrong -- Constance Kopp is still the sort of resourceful, level-headed, determined woman I have always striven to be.  And she's finally a full-fledged deputy, with a badge and everything.  I just wish she'd been more central to the story.  Instead, we spent a lot of time with two women who got themselves arrested on charges of improper behavior, basically.  One of them was innocent.  One of them was not.  The book spends a lot of time delving into why a young woman would want to strike out on her own, how limited her options for self-sufficiency were in the early 1900s, and how unfair it is that, even though it takes two to tango, the men involved are never called to account for immoral behavior.  Not that I'm adverse to delving into such unfair truths about the past.  But... I missed Constance.

Still, I flew through three hundred pages of this in just a few days, so it was not boring or something I'm sorry I read!  I just wasn't enchanted by it.  I did really love the historical notes at the end, where Amy Stewart detailed what was totally historical and what she'd fictionalized here and there.  And I liked that World War I played a role in the distance.

Particularly Good Bits:

Mothers go about constantly wondering:  How did this child of mine become a man -- or woman -- of the world? (p. 116)

Nothing -- not a tour with a theater troupe, and certainly not an offer of marriage -- stood a chance against Norma's formidable vocabulary of refusal (p. 151).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  A very stern PG-13 for a lot of discussion of unmarried people behaving like married people.  None of it is lascivious or meant to be titillating, but it's more information that even young teens might need to read about.  Can we call it PG-16 instead?  Anyway, no bad language and not really much violence to speak of at all.  For mainstream fiction, it's astonishingly clean, just like the previous two books in the series.

This is my second book read and reviewed for the 2019 Mount TBR Reading Challenge.

"Old West Christmas Brides: 6 Historical Romances Celebrate Christmas on the Frontier"

This was a fun collection!  My own personal Cowboy said that he thought this was the most Hamlette-ish book he'd ever heard of, since Christmas and the Old West are two of my very most favorite things :-)

Here's a bit about each novella,  and how I liked it:

+ A Pony Express Christmas by Margaret Brownley featured a stubborn young woman trying to find her brother, who used to be a Pony Express rider.  She rescues a man from lynching and gets him to help her on her quest.  This was a nice way to ease into the collection, but didn't strike me as particularly wonderful.

+ A Wife in Name Only by Rosey Dow was definitely my favorite story.   I thought it was going to involve a marriage of convenience, but it completely surprised me by not going that direction at all.  Also, it had lots of cooking and homemaking stuff going on that just delighted me.  In it, a young woman must find a job to help support her parents and siblings, but the rancher who needs a new housekeeper insists on hiring only a married woman, so she lies and says she IS married.  I usually hate stories where all the complications are based on a lie, but this one didn't bug me at all, and I'm still trying to figure out why.

+ Lucy Ames, Sharpshooter by Darlene Franklin was about a female sharpshooter who joins a wild west show, basically becoming the Texas version of Annie Oakley.  While this collection as a whole is overtly Christian, this story preached and preached and preached at me in a very wearisome way, and I didn't care for it much at all.

+ A Badlands Christmas by Marcia Gruver was another favorite for me.  An Australian gentleman and his two daughters move to the Dakotas to begin again after he loses his fortune in New York City.  I've got a fondness for Aussies, and I just visited the Badlands this summer, so I really enjoyed those angles as well as the overall story here.

+ Unexpected Blessings by Vickie McDonough was my third favorite in this collection.  A governess tries to find the uncle of her two recently orphaned pupils.  I loved the supporting cast in this one, as a small town opens its arms to help these two bereaved children and their determined chaperone.

+ A Grand County Christmas by Debra Ullrick was rollicking fun, and I did enjoy all the German words and culture in it, but the whole story hinged very strongly on coincidences, so I didn't like it quite as well as other stories here.  In it, a starving woman stumbles into contact with a widower, who takes her home to his three children and his mother, and she falls in love with all of them and never wants to leave, basically.

(From my Instagram account)

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for some kissing and some dangerous situations.  Otherwise quite clean.

I didn't manage to finish it before the end of the year, so it doesn't count toward my Literary Christmas Challenge, but since I read more than half of it after January 1, I can count it toward Mount TBR 2019 instead!  One down, twenty-three to go.

Wrapping Up Mount TBR 2018 and Signing Up for 2019

I signed up to reach Pike's Peak by reading 12 books I already owned in 2018, and I actually read sixteen!  Hurrah!

My Reader's Block, which hosts this challenge, has once again provided a fun little "complete the phrase" challenge where you use the title of a book you read this year to complete a commonplace saying.  Those are always fun, so here's my attempt at it:

A stitch in time... The Harvest Raise(s)
A penny saved is... Twenty and Ten
All good things must come... If I'm Found
When in Rome... Death Comes for the Archbishop
All that glitters is not... The Choir Immortal
A picture is worth... A Gathering of Days
When the going gets tough, the tough get... The Torrents of Spring
Two wrongs don't make... Murder on the Orient Express
The pen is mightier than.... A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War
The squeaky wheel gets... The Broken Gun
Hope for the best, but prepare for... Death by the Book
Birds of a feather flock... (to) The Family Under the Bridge

And here I go again, signing up for this challenge yet again.  This year, though, I'm aiming higher!  I'm going to climb to Mount Blanc, which means reading 24 books that I owned prior to January 1, 2019.