Hello everybody! Last week was a really good week. My needs are few – a relatively stress-free work week and a weekend spent at home – and I had just that so I’m very refreshed as I type this! I work from home every Monday which is why I prefer to do my blog post that day. As I speak, the heater is on in every room, I’ve got a steaming mug of Yorkshire Biscuit Tea (my go-to everyday tea), I’m full from breakfast (butter and strawberry jam toast, Greek yoghurt with maple syrup and cinnamon and an apple with cinnamon and peanut butter) and Julien is off on his driving lesson. He’s sitting the driving licence exam on Wednesday, fingers crossed!
We’ll be celebrating our three-year anniversary this week with a Disneyland Paris stay, I can’t wait to tell you more next week! He is my absolute treasure and brings me every happiness. I LOVE LOVE LOVE being alone and being single was a joy but this is an adventure and I’m so so happy. My greatest wish is to have him with me forever and ever.
In the meantime, here’s what I absolutely loved this week:
Costume Dramas
Doctor Thorne (2016). I hadn’t watched this Anthony Trollope adaptation when it came out. I remember trying it because I’m addicted to costume dramas and thinking it was filmed weirdly (too many close-ups) and gave up. I’m so glad I gave it another chance. Doctor Thorne is a kind physician who took orphan Mary under his care when she was a little girl. Mary grew up as a friend of the Gresham family, gentry who are fallen on hard times.
What a cosy, funny, lovely story. I loved the cast (Ian McShane, Tom Hollander, the actor who plays Harry in The Gilded Age). The romance between Mary and Frank is so sweet, the female friendships are so endearing (this is one of my favourite things ever) and in just three episodes, it made me deeply care for all the characters including the secondary ones (I loved Miss Dunstable, an American heiress who befriends Frank and is refreshingly honest about the marriage mart). It’s a story of domesticity and inheritance and is about money and how it affects families on a small scale. I’ve only read The Warden by Trollope and was a little bored but I’d always planned to give him another go and if his stories are anything like this, please sign me up!
Princesses
I’m keeping up with my Disney Project and watched Sleeping Beauty last week. What a marvel. This film is absolutely gorgeous. The animation is so detailed (just look at this gif alone, can you see all the trees they drew in the distance, even the vegetation in the foreground and the tree trunk) and Aurora is so incredibly beautiful. The Fairies, Flora, Fauna and Merryweather are the best part of this film with tons of personality and are such a good found family (‘Oh I love happy endings!‘). I love their friendship and bantering and all the domesticity of this film – drinking tea, dressmaking, enchanted baking. Aurora’s cottage in the woods when she’s hidden as Briar Rose is the stuff hobbit dreams are made of – there are paintings and engraving everywhere. The woodland animals are just darling – the squirrel is folded like a cinnamon roll on its tree branch and Aurora dancing with the owl dressed as the Prince then the Prince is absolutey enchanting. Maleficent has got such charisma too. There’s also a frame of a sunset seen from the castle and drunken kings sparring with fish. I’m in love. What a gem. I’ll rewatch it often in the future, this is a beautiful movie.
Cosy Mystery Books
Murder by Cheesecake (A Golden Girl Cosy Mystery #41) by Rachel Ekstrom Courage. I received an ARC for this from NetGalley.
‘Who’s that you’re talking to, Rose, a new beau?’
‘Oh, it was just one of those prank calls.’
‘For twenty minutes? I’ve had dates that ended quicker than that.’
WOOHOO WHAT A RIOT!!! I hope every Golden Girls fan has a chance to read this, it’s just as fun and witty as the show, with great heart. I expected a lot because it’s my favourite thing on TV, but this was even better.
My favourite Goldenverse episode is an episode of The Golden Palace, the sequel to The Golden Girls where Blanche, Rose and Sofia decide to run a hotel in Miami. In the best episode of Palace, You’ve Lost that Livin’ Feeling, a food critic drops by to test their restaurant and ends up dead at the table – the girls spend the next 20 minutes of screen time trying to hide the body from other hotel guests, journalists, and a health inspector. I only laugh this much reading P.G. Wodehouse. It’s THE BEST and I’ve always thought a cosy mystery version of the show would do so well!
Enter Murder by Cheesecake, which is everything I hoped for – deeply funny with killer lines, our four girls being their own fabulous selves and a plot that’s so bonkers it works. Rose decides to throw the perfect St Olaf wedding for her niece in Miami while Dorothy tries to find a plus one. When her date is found dead in a freezer full of cheesecake and Dorothy is the main suspect, our girls have no choice but to investigate, with hilarious consequences.
I LOVED THIS!!! It’s so brilliant, I don’t know how the author managed to get each voice right but every girl is perfection and even though we get a lot more of Rose and Dorothy’s perspectives than Blanche and Sofia’s, the dialog felt exactly right and razor-sharp. Rose’s catalogue of St Olaf traditions had me kicking my feet laughing and the writing is incredibly immersive. This is a must-read for any fan of the show and of cosy mysteries, I’m BEGGING for a sequel!
Ballet Books
Jane Leaves the Wells (#5 in the Sadler’s Well series) by Lorna Hill. Magical, simply magical. I think Lorna Hill can write just about anything and I’ll read it. This is the fifth book in the Sadler’s Wells series (which contains 14 books) and everyone everywhere agrees that the first two are the best so since those first two (which are, indeed, masterpieces), I’ve braced myself for a mediocre book every time. Jane Leaves the Wells blew me away.
The title is a massive spoiler. Jane has taken over from Veronica as principal dancer at Sadler’s Wells after Veronica gets married to Sebastian and leaves on her honeymoon (which lasts several months lucky girl). Jane is doing extremely well but a Hogmanay spent in the Scottish mountains has her questioning what she really wants out of life. Meanwhile, her friend Mariella, a famous dancer’s daughter, is slavishly in love with Nigel, who takes advantage of her, and it’s also up to her to find herself amidst this infatuation.
There are so many things I loved here –
– We see old favourites here again, Veronica, even selfish and spoiled Fiona, can’t keep away from the main story for too long.
– Guy is the loveliest loveliest boy and his and Jane’s story is beautiful, I adored them both so much.
– The description of the mountains is so precise Lorna Hill included a map of them and all this book makes you want to do is to book a holiday to go hike for yourself. Guy’s love of the mountains and of this part of Scotland is contagious and it’s an absolute treat to have him as your guide.
– The writing is absolutely gorgeous (a few passages made me gasp) – descriptions of food, of feasts, of silk, Dior, clothing. Lorna Hill knows exactly what life’s treats are and she spends a lot of time on them, my favourite kind of writer.
She reminds me of Mary Stewart and of Eva Ibbotson. What a special, special author. I can’t tell you how much I loved this, wow. What a gem.
Victorian Books
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. This was soooo good!! I’d never read it before even though I love this story and Mickey’s Christmas Carol and The Muppet Christmas Carol are both films I rewatch every single year, it was great to read the book for the first time.
What a genius Dickens is. This is so inventive and the characters are so vividly drawn and it’s got lovely Christmassy scenes at the end. Scrooge’s transformation is so heartfelt. I loved this. The quote in the title of this post is from A Christmas Carol.🎄🥰
Women’s fiction Books
The Christmas Cottage by Sarah Morgan. Imogen works for an event planning company and is the best at her job – she’s had to, because she can only rely on herself. Her mother doesn’t want anything to do with her and she has no other family or friends. To blend in, she pretends to her coworkers that she’s got a dog and a boyfriend, both of whom are nonexistent. After a disaster day at work, her boss forces her to take some time off and Imogen makes some surprising discoveries that fill the hole in her life and her heart.
I’m really loving Sarah Morgan. I loved this less than The Christmas Book Club because it was harder to read (what Imogen goes through is so difficult) but her writing is so good and she truly excels at writing found families. I loved all the characters in this book and could picture Holly Cottage so well. This was so heartwarming and has a sense of belonging that’s rare in fiction. This book truly welcomes you home.
Cosy Fantasy Books
Goblins & Greatcoats by Travis Baldree. A super sweet and funny 14-page closed door cosy mystery set in a tavern where a goblin named Zyll comes in to investigate two murders. I love Travis’s writing and the dialog is so excellent and hilarious. This is a perfect story. 🥰 You can grab it for free from Subterranean Press.
That’s it from this week, I’m going to catch up on Heartland and have a little snack (I’m thinking truffle goat cheese since I’ve got a little bit leftover and muscat grapes), lunch will be a tomato salad with shallots and soft-boiled eggs and chips dipped in a Boursin sauce – heaven! I hope your week is magical, lots of love and hugs! ❤️❤️
Magical Emma Rose 