Quilts and Books

This book came out nearly 2 years ago in January 2007 and it’s been sitting on my PDA for about that long. That’s the great thing about ebooks. You can carry several dozen of them around at once and your purse or pocket isn’t any heavier than it would be otherwise. Of course, it’s also easy to forget what’s there or get distracted by other, newer titles like The Bazillionaire’s Pregnant Virgin Mistress (B comes way before W in the alphabetical list, see) that I end up reading first.

Anyhow, this is Book 2 in her 4-book series, Last Man Standing, about 4 friends in Victorian England who make a tontine over who will be the last one to get married. Book 4, Seduction of a Proper Gentleman came out in August. Anyhow, here’s the blurb:

Nigel Cavendish knows he'll marry one day, but hopefully that day is many years—and many women—in the future! Until then, the handsome, unrepentant rake intends to enjoy life's pleasures to the fullest!


From the moment Lady Felicity Melville spies the …

Every 10 seconds a person dies from diabetes-related causes.
Every 10 seconds two people develop diabetes.
Over 250 million people live with diabetes worldwide. In 2025, this figure will reach 380 million.
More than 200 children a day develop type 1 diabetes.
In developing countries, close to 75,000 children live with diabetes in desperate circumstances.
Type 1 diabetes is increasing fastest in pre-school children, at a rate of 5% each year.Type 2 diabetes has been reported in children as young as eight.
Type 2 diabetes affects children in both developed and developing countries.

I'd like to call special attention to those 200 children who develop type 1 diabetes every day. Today was picked as World Diabetes Day because it is the birthday of Frederick Banting, who along with Charles Best, is credited with discovering insulin in 1921. Before that discovery, those 200 children were condemned to death within about six weeks of diagnosis. Even today, in many parts of the world, insulin is ha…

I'm at a workshop today and I'm learning nifty things about Blogger. Here I am sending a post via email. Nifty.

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"She makes her own quilts"--Prov. 31:22 (NJB)

Recently I saw a review or a blurb for the October release, Intimate Beings by Jessica Inclan and I was intrigued enough that I made a note of it. When I saw that IB is the second in a trilogy, I knew I’d have to read #1 first, which is Being with Him. I finished it over the weekend and really enjoyed it. Here’s the blurb from BWH:

They are here among us...

Far from home, gifted with special abilities, hunted for their powers. And they are desperate to find their other, the one who completes them...before it's too late...

Sometimes, Time Really Does Stand Still

Mila Adams has always known she was different. For as long as she can remember, she has had the ability to shift time, and who would believe that? Certainly not the obnoxious blind dates her mother keeps foisting off on her. But Mila can't help feeling there's someone out there for her, a soul mate who might understand her unique ability. And when she looks into the dark eyes of financial whiz Garrick McClellan, s…

October was a busy month with me wrapped up in baseball and with a quilt deadline, so it doesn't seem as if I did as much reading as usual. But I did manage to find a few favorites that deserve to be mentioned:

5. Rake's Ransom by Barbara Metzger. This was my October TBR read and a thoroughly delightful traditional Regency. I really liked the snappy dialogue and the way the heroine turned from an immature girl into a young woman.

4. The One I Want by Nancy Warren. I've read a few of Nancy Warren's "Bad Boys" novellas but this was the first full-length novel of hers I'd read. This is a fun story of a spoiled rich girl who leaves her native England for Texas when her parents decide she needs to be on her own and earn a living like the rest of us. She decides to start a business that's the opposite of match-making: she'll help couples break up in a gentle, civilized way. She arranges through a friend to rent a house from a former cop who happens to l…

First, we have to celebrate! Phils win! Phils win!

My preoccupation with the World Series coupled with a quilt deadline has resulted in fewer lengthy chunks of time for reading. So mixed in with the full-length books I finished this month are a couple of anthologies. And I just got started on a third. I love 100-page novellas. I can usually knock one off in an hour and get back to whatever other stuff is waiting for me. It's often chancy with novellas. Some authors are very, very good with them. Some.... eh, not so good.




I pretty much lucked out with these two. The first one, It Happened One Night, is a Regency collection that was an interesting experiment inspired by an idea of Mary Balogh's. What if 4 authors agreed to write stories based on the same basic plot? How similar or different would the stories be. Mary was convinced the stories would be quite different, and she was right. In this case the plot is 2 lovers reunite after a chance encounter at an inn. The 2 haven't…

When Signet was still publishing traditional Regencies, they would occasionally reissue two older titles in a combined volume. It was a great way for newer readers to acquire classic books from favorite authors. I picked up a few of these back in 2005 and 2006 and this is one I never got around to reading. This particular duo was reissued in 2006. I love Barbara Metzger’s old Regencies. Like Mary Balogh and Carla Kelly, Metzger has a unique voice. Unlike the other two authors, though, Metzger’s books tend to be much lighter. When I want a dash of humor, I can usually count on a Metzger. Her dialogue sparkles and her books are easy to read.

This duo consists of Rake’s Ransom, originally published in 1986, and A Loyal Companion, originally published in 1992. Interestingly, the stories are very similar (other duet reissues I have don’t have stories that mirror one another as much as this book does). Both books include:

A young heroine, raised in the country, spoiled by her widowed father…