Book Review: “The Fortunes of Captain Blood,” by Rafael Sabatini

Genre: historical fiction; adventure

Playlist…

Plot Summary: The adventures of Captain Blood—gentleman doctor, turned rebel– continue to exasperate fellow pirates and the Spanish Main!

My Book Review: My enjoyable experiences with the first two Captain Blood books (Captain Blood; Captain Blood Returns) led me to the third and final installment of the trilogy by Rafael Sabatini.  As it was with #2 in the series, the short story adventures of #3 take place within the time frame of #1.

However, I was a little disappointed in this one.  The exploits are still witty and exciting, but I could have done with more sword fighting, battle scenes, and tales of Blood’s comrades.  Instead we get much more solo adventures of Peter Blood and how he cleverly navigates the upper hand in various situations such as freeing a slave, seeking revenge, or helping damsels out of their distresses.  Books 2 and 3 could have been better if they’d featured Blood’s love interest, Arabella.  But they do include other females of both good and ill repute that provide some feminine interest.

One troubling issue was that although enslaved whites in the Caribbean (political prisoners) were viewed as a terrible thing by the Captain, blacks in slavery did not seem to bother him or effect the same kind of sympathy.  I would have liked to have seen his abhorrence toward ALL slavery.

The Peter Blood books all contain much swearing, but the author keeps us from hearing the worst of it.  The Captain is always chivalrous and considers himself as answering to a higher moral code than most other seafaring rapscallions or government authorities.  This particular book contained five or six short stories (lengthy chapters).  It was hard to determine which story was my favorite, as each one seemed just as interesting as the last.  However, it did become difficult to keep all the different villains straight and I would often forget who characters were from one chapter to the next.  I’m sure in a few months, I won’t remember any of it—but the best part of the adventures was the exciting atmosphere itself!

This book will complete your Peter Blood-lust.  Unfortunately, it just wasn’t as great as the preceding books.

 

Random Book Post: It’s Been a Long, Long Time

Used book sales, oh how I’ve missed you!

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  I hope this will be a decent, clean read.

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  My pastor has been at me to read this for about a year now.

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  A gift by my pastor.

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  I hope this is as good as it sounds.

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  This cover has me hook, line and sinker.

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  A little (somewhat) local history, true crime style.

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  How lucky! I’m in the process of rearranging my bedroom furniture right now!

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  Because I don’t.

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  A subject that never gets old with me.

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  I’ve heard of other books by Lovelace, but this was the first I was able to find and snag.

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  I read the Betsy Tacy books while in high school. Just buying this one to replace one I gave way.

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  This is a little older, but I couldn’t resist when I saw this at a yard sale.

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  Another fun book on art journaling.

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  Have yet to read this author. Can’t wait!

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  I am often having to look up mythological references from the classics I read. Glad to have this for reference!

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  Art journaling has been a major hobby since the beginning of the year.

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  Picked this up for free, and especially excited after hearing a recent live streaming talk and Q&A with Sally Clarkson!

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  So many heartbreaking stories in the world of religious leaders breaking faith and preying on the flock. I want to be aware so I’m not taken in.

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  I’m trying to gather quality history books before they are censored.

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  May need this.

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  What a great find! My only regret is that I couldn’t find a Vol. I.

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  This book has been on my TBR since I first began making one– more than half my life ago!

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  Picked this up after having seen an interview with Jordan Peterson in which he said Lawrence was a favorite author.

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  I have been getting back into my calligraphy a little this year.

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  I don’t know why I do this to myself; I guess I just want to understand how it happened so it never does again.

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  This series by Linda Chaikin is a little hard to find.

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  I’m interested in reading this after having read another book by Gire this year.

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  Is that a mullet?

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  I have a newer version, which I think I forgot I had when I picked this up. I’ll have to compare…

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  Not sure if I will eventually exchange this for The Silmarillion some time.

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  This will tide me over until I find The Silmarillion.

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  This classic is so rich with characters; I’m now proud to own it.

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  Just for reference, as I have acquaintances who have read this book and I want to be ready for conversation even though I disagree with this author.

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  A classic, and one my friend recommended to me.

 

Book Review: “The Shape of Sand,” by Marjorie Eccles

Genre: historical fiction; mystery

Playlist…

Plot Summary: It is 1946.  When Vigilance Assurance buys the old Charnley House to renovate for modern offices, a dreadful secret is discovered behind the walls.  Family members of the pre-WWI era are contacted, but the police have more important things to do than investigate a cold case nobody cares about anymore.  Except the living relatives do care.  Beatrice Jardine left behind three young adult daughters the night she disappeared, all of whom are haunted by what they perceive happened.  What occurred on their mother’s fashionable trip to Egypt at the turn of the century?  Did the mysterious Mr. Iskander- part Egyptian, part Russian- have anything to do with her disappearance?  And what is eldest sister Vita hiding?  Can middle daughter Harriet and her niece Nina piece together the events to figure out what really happened?

My Book Review: I have no remembrance of how this title came recommended to me or how I discovered it.  I think it’s been on my TBR so long that I don’t remember how long.  But give me a cozy mystery—cold case fashion—and throw in a dash of the exotic and you’ve got me hooked.

I love the atmosphere of Agatha Christie’s foreign novels (Death on the Nile, Murder in Mesopotamia).  I love archaeology, I love all things Egyptian.  This book’s flavor definitely satisfied those desires.  The mystery had me immersed from the very beginning—switching from the more modern story of Harriet in post-WWII Britain to 35 years previously when her family resided at the glamorous country estate.  A cast of intriguing characters kept my attention.  And the story didn’t lag halfway through like so many often do.

The suspense was kept up through to the very end- to the epilogue and beyond, in fact.  I really have to give the author credit.  This is so hard to do and can be rare even in many cozy mysteries.  I liked that there wasn’t a lot of gore or bad language.  Is it a clean read?  This is a little difficult to answer, as a mystery by definition isn’t going to feature lots of people with pure motives.  SPOILER ALERT: There are characters who have had affairs; some characters live with each other unmarried; some characters have trysts.  There is an implied gay relationship.  END OF SPOILER.  However, none of this is gone into very descriptively, which I appreciated.

What I loved most about is that the author leaves the mystery open at the end, leaving you on your own to surmise what happened.  Here is my opinion of Who Did It and Why SPOILER ALERT: Clara Hallam, Beatrice’s maid genuinely believed she had killed her mistress all those years ago, and confessed and killed herself at the end of the book.  However, Beatrice was clearly still breathing when her husband entered the room.  Amory, who suspected that his wife was having an affair with his friend, Lord Wycombe, finished her off for a mixture of reasons.  One, because she was humiliating him behind his back, flirting with numerous fellows; two, because Lord Wycombe was actually his lover as well and Beatrice was coming between them, creating a love triangle.  Lord Wycombe entered the room soon after and knew Amory had killed his wife.  He helped his friend dispose of her body (he never was very keen on his affair with Beatrice) and the two kept each other’s secrets, only reluctantly calling in the police when it began to look too suspicious that they weren’t.  END OF SPOILER.  (My sister informs me that one has to have a dirty mind to figure this out. 😉 )

One thing I did wish was a little different was that I kept thinking Harriet was going to find lots of clues in the old box found at the beginning of the book.  It did include her mother’s diary, which did provide some information.  But the box wasn’t a treasure trove of clues needing to be pieced together.  I also thought that Harriet and her sisters were going to somehow “recreate” their mother’s birthday party as nearly as they could to that fateful night to help them stomp out who did it.  But this didn’t happen, either.  I think the book could have been even more interesting if it did.

I had never read anything by Marjorie Eccles before, but I am glad I started with this one as I feel the ending was genius and I have to say I’m impressed.  I think it can even compete with some of Christie’s mysteries.  Lovers of Downton Abbey will also enjoy it, I’m sure.  I am wanting to add a few more of her titles to my TBR.  They are the kind that give you anticipatory tingles!

 

Book Review: “The Country Beyond”

Genre: classic; romance

Playlist…

Plot Summary: An outlaw living on the edge of civilization falls in love with a girl who is abused by her foster parents.  But how can there be a future for them with him on the run?  When an unexpected killing turns the tables on them, he finds his path marked with loneliness.  He is told his destiny lies with Nada in the Country Beyond, but where will he ever find them?  Told through the eyes of a dog named Peter.

My Book Review: I remember trying to read “Old Yeller” when I was a kid.  I must have tried starting three or four times, and never could get much beyond “Little Arliss…”  I guess it just wasn’t for me.  I haven’t read many dog stories in my life, but this one seemed different from the typical.  For one thing, it wasn’t a children’s book.  Set in the Canadian north woods, this classic contained sweeping descriptions and all the atmosphere one could desire.  You could nearly smell the spruce, cedar and balsam the author talked endlessly about.

The first third of the story was full of action and I made it through quickly.  Unfortunately, the middle lags as the main character named Roger McKay and his dog Peter cover mile after weary mile on foot through the Canadian wilderness, always trying to outsmart and outrun the Mounties.  I don’t want to give anything away, but the last few chapters pick up again and there was no way I could have guessed how the ending would turn out.

I can see why this author is a classic and I don’t believe the dog’s point of view hurt the story any.  It gave it an interesting perspective that elevated it from the ordinary.  However, the plodding middle had me yawning a bit.  It also contains Native American spirituality, and the Christian missionary lacks a solid doctrinal stand which made the book’s philosophy a bit wishy washy.  By the time the book ended, I was just ready to return it to the library and check out something else.

Apparently this book was made into a movie twice (1926 and 1936) but both deviate from the plot drastically.  After doing some research on the author James Oliver Curwood, I learned that he had at one time been the highest paid author per word in the world at his time (he died in 1927 from a bug bite).  I found that he lived not too far from where I do and that he built a French chateau-inspired mansion which has been turned into a museum.  So I’m thinking of planning a day trip and checking this thing out!  You know… some day after COVID. 😉

You can listen to the audiobook for free here.

PS- After spending most of the book trying to figure out what these characters looked like in my head, I came up with the following pair:

Alicia Vikander as Nada Hawkins

James McAvoy as Jolly Roger McKay

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If you liked this, I also recommend:

 

Book Review: “Saffire,” by Sigmund Brouwer

Genre: historical fiction; Inspirational; intrigue; mystery; humor

Playlist… 

Plot Summary: James Holt has held a lot of jobs in his life: rancher, Rough Rider, Wild West showman, father.  But being hired as an investigator has never been one of them until now.  Arriving in Panama in 1910, he figures he will quickly turn the job down and return to his ranch in the Badlands.  But a young girl who reminds him of his daughter needs his help, and he soon finds himself in the hot mess of political intrigue.  What happened to Saffire’s mother?  What are the canal builders hiding about the recent mysterious deaths?  Who are the masked men behind his torture?  And just why has he been hired in the first place?

My Book Review: I remember enjoying Brouwer’s Accidental Detective mystery series when I was a kid.  I could never get enough of them!  But it’s been my experience that good children’s writers don’t make such good adult ones.  Since this was the first adult book I’d read by him, I wondered how this would prove.

It turns out that I didn’t have a problem with his level of writing.  A lot of the elements of what I loved from the kids’ mysteries were present in Saffire: lots of witty banter, surprising plot twists, hints of romance and lots of danger.  James Holt surely did get a few chuckles out of me.

However, as a mystery novel this escaped me but good.  Even when I concentrated hard, reread and reread what I just reread, I couldn’t get the same connections Holt seemed to be drawing.  The “revealing epilogue” only got me more confused and I still don’t understand what was supposed to have happened.  It sort of felt like Brouwer had had a lot of editing to do, the result being lots of missing links.

There were lots of characters- many of them the same type so that they all ran together, or wait- maybe they were the same ones just playing charades, except I couldn’t remember them from their previous appearance in the story.  The most interesting ones only surfaced two or three times at most and the title character was dropped a third of the way into the story.  T.B. Miskimon (who serves as Holt’s comedic dart board) was almost overused.

This book is published under the Inspirational genre, but there really isn’t more than a sentence to categorize it as such.  Just know it’s a clean read and that’s a plus.  One of my favorite parts was Holt’s tender father-daughter connection with Saffire.  I also liked that the romance wasn’t an overt theme.

I always enjoy learning history in my novels, so it was fascinating reading about the determined American spirit which built the Panama canal, how enormous and innovating the project was.  This was one of the things that made Theodore Roosevelt such a great president.  What new advances could Americans make with the same grit and ardor, I wonder?

If you like dry, sarcastic humor, I think you will like this one.  But if you’re going into it for the intrigue you might be disappointed.

This video the author made is pretty cool!  Check it out if you’re at all curious about T.B. Miskimon… Brouwer makes a remarkable discovery.

 

Book Review: “Between Us Girls,” by Sally John

Genre: Christian Inspirational, romance; contemporary fiction

Playlist…

Plot Summary: Jasmyn Albright was comfortable and contented with her life in small town Valley Oaks, Illinois.  Until a tornado completely destroyed her home on St. Patrick’s Day.  Devastated, she takes a solo trip to San Diego and immediately feels a strange sense of welcome and belonging.  The residents at the condo neighborhood of Casa de Vida are a mixed and sometimes kooky bunch but they come to find that they need Jasmyn as much she needs them.

My Book Review:  I was really looking forward to this book on my reading list because of the topic of friendship. I like stories of heroines who start over to find themselves and Jasmyn was one of those characters. She is not the only person who changes over the course of the book, as many characters exhibit growth. In that way, it was a great story of the power of friendship, community and belonging.

But it wasn’t the most amazing read ever. I think I was expecting the story itself to be more powerful. It just didn’t get to me down deep inside. I felt like there were too many “coincidences” to be believable all in one book.

There is some romance that springs up for a couple of the heroines, but I wouldn’t say romance was the starring genre. In fact, there was hardly any kissing so there was obviously no need for concern over content!

People won’t find this a preachy Christian book and they may like it that way. I don’t necessarily need the four spiritual laws spelled out in every book I read. However, when I read a “Christian story” I do look for characters that genuinely live out the Gospel of faith. The older motherly figure in the book, Liv, certainly lives out grace, mercy and love and is always in prayerful dialogue with the Lord. Jasmyn and her friend Sam do come to realize the love of God, but I hope they come to an even deeper personal knowledge of Jesus as their Savior.

There is a sequel that continues with the story of these and other characters from Casa de Vida, but the first book wasn’t enough for me to want read it. However, others may be looking for a quintessential beach read and find it in “Between Us Girls.”

 

Book Review: “Love’s Awakening,” by Laura Frantz

Genre: Christian Inspirational, romance; historical fiction

Playlist…

Plot Summary: The story of the Ballantyne family continues with Silas and Eden’s youngest daughter Elinor.  The apple of her father’s eye, Ellie grows up knowing only love and privilege in the bustling city of Pittsburgh.  The Ballantynes are respected businesspeople, but also harbor fugitive slaves as they work with the Underground Railroad.  Danger lurks literally right next door as the rival Turlock clan head up a posse of bounty hunters to stamp out the acts of the abolitionists.  But Jack Turlock strikes Ellie as a more gentle soul, and his young sister looks up to her as a role model as she teaches Pittsburgh’s first finishing school.  Where will Jack’s loyalties lie when his father pressures him to break the law?

My Book Review: “Love’s Reckoning” (read my review here) was my favorite read from last year, so I was really looking forward to Laura Frantz’s next in the series!  Again, the book cover art is so vivid and gorgeous and it alone deserves 5 stars.  However, I had mixed feelings about LA…

The Ballantynes come across as being a very real family, real characters and it was delightful picking up to read about them again.  Their grace and faithfulness is wonderful—toward each other, their neighbors and even their enemies.  Ellie has grown up watching her parents love each other and wishes for the same kind of love for herself.  The trusting relationship Ellie had with her father was lovely; no doubt it helped her spot a good man when she saw one.  I also enjoyed reading about the prosperity Silas and Eden had established at the time this book takes place.  New Hope certainly sounds like a wonderful home in which to live and no wonder the escapees begged to live there at the risk of being recaptured!

He who pursues righteousness and love finds life, prosperity and honor.  (Proverbs 21:21)

LA has a very different feeling to it than LR.  Whereas #1 felt gritty, wintry and tragic, #2 felt full of spring lilacs and roses.  That’s not a bad thing, but for ¾’s of the book I wasn’t very engaged or interested.  It felt like a typical Christian romance and I felt disappointed.  But.  Then there was a plot twist which I am now beginning to really appreciate from this author, and the waterworks started up.  Just as I was reaching for my kleenex, there was another plot twist, and !

Unfortunately, the overall reading experience was not as good as the first, but I love how Frantz is able to leave you hanging at the end of her books (at least, the two I’ve read so far).  I am definitely going to be reading the last in the trilogy and can’t wait to read others by her.

I think older teens could enjoy this series as well.  The heroines are young women who grow in virtue and lovely character.  These are romances, and Frantz doesn’t deny sexual tension.  However, it is carefully worded (not titillating), nothing inappropriate happens between hero and heroine, and the curtain is drawn to keep the marriage bed sacred.

So if you are wanting something light and perfumed, I think you’re going to enjoy Love’s Awakening.  Note, I don’t recommend reading this as a standalone without reading LR first.

PS- I found this on Laura Frantz’s Pinterest and loved seeing how she envisioned the characters.  To be honest, Jack was hard for me to picture so this helps to “fill it in”, but at the same time it’s not even close to how I thought he might look.  Ansel on the other hand looks very much how I imagined!

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I also recommend…

 

 

Book Review: “The Woman in White,” by Wilkie Collins

Genre: classic; romance; gothic; mystery; thriller; suspense

Playlist… 

Plot Summary: Walter Hartright, a young drawing teacher, is employed by a wealthy Cumbrian benefactor to teach his two wards painting.  Over the course of a pleasant summer, he falls in love with the beautiful heiress Laura Fairlie.  But she is engaged to another man.  A stranger arrives with a note containing warnings about Miss Fairlie’s intended.  Who is telling the truth?  Who is the young woman in white who looks like Laura?  And who will emerge from this story sane?

My Book Review: This is my third book by Wilkie Collins, and by now he is at the top of my list of favorite authors and I am quite a fan.  I loved “The Moonstone” when I first read it over twelve years ago and now that I’ve finished WiW I realize I love this one even more!  It is a very thick novel, and switches first person accounts as Moonstone did, and which I love.  It gives the story more of an air of authenticity.  There are three very distinct seasons within the story (or epochs, as Hartright calls it): 1) Limmeridge House; 2) Blackwater Park; 3) investigations from London.

Geniuses are ahead of their time, and that’s what makes this book so riveting.  It covers the themes of mental illness, women’s rights and narcissism.  But it also upholds the “old-fashioned” values of honor, faithfulness and compassion.

One of the best characters of the book, Marian Halcombe, is a strong heroine.  She is not beautiful but she has a capable mind and is a match for the villainous Count.  I loved reading about her standing firm on principles.  She makes mistakes anyone could have made in her discernment but they were honest ones and she had good intentions.  If it weren’t for her physical weakness and loyalty to her half-sister Laura, she could have beaten Count Fosco at Blackwater Park.  I was on the edge of my seat throughout that ordeal!  I felt like I was about ready to go crazy myself, so bizarre were some of the happenings.  Not all perceptions by all good characters are correct, because they only have half the tale.  Neither are all antagonists what they fully appear.  What a great storyteller Collins was!

SPOILER: Walter’s restraint from pursuing Laura when he could have had her was touching.  He could have overpowered her, influenced her, manipulated her just as easily as Sir Percival or the Count could have.  But he is aware of her unavailability (maritally and mentally).  END OF SPOILER.  Love is patient.  Love is kind.  It is not self-seeking… and that is the picture we see in this hero, aptly named.

Wow, these characters were so developed.  You could make a psychological study of almost all of them.  Skipping past the “goodies”, let’s look at some “baddies”.  Count Fosco is definitely the strong evil one of the piece.  He had the hold on people somewhat like a cult leader.  His extreme narcissism and magnetism with which he controlled others were apparent.  But looking at the symptoms his wife exhibited were even more telling.  She worshiped and served him without question.  She is described as having had a completely different personality before her marriage to him.  She had no thought of her own (only programmed by the Count), and would go into a paranoia if she thought his position threatened.  I was doing some interesting reading on this.  Her cold, motionless staring, even her repetitive “busywork”– endlessly rolling the Count’s cigarettes—seemed indicative of a classic textbook Geschwind syndrome or temporal lobe epilepsy, similar to the brains of long-term cult victims.  And Wilkie Collins wrote this in 1859??  Fascinating!

It was interesting that not everything that happened was part of the scheme of the villains.  Certain things backfired on them.  Part of me was disappointed in finding this out in the end because I liked thinking the Count was a Complete Mastermind Evil Being.  But it actually served to make it more realistic and believable.  The ending was not entirely explained [SPOILER: Who was the assassin? END OF SPOILER], but then not everything in life is.  The character Pesca sort of fizzled out at the end for me and he needed a stronger ending.

But really, this has been one of my favorite reads of the year.  I can see why it is such a classic.  There’s so much depth for analyzing and going deeper and I would love to hear/read/discuss more of it!  I’m also looking forward to watching different film versions.

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I also recommend:

 

Book Review: “Ashenden,” by Elizabeth Wilhide

Genre: historical fiction

Playlist…

Plot Summary: The history of an old English manor house is told from the point of view of successive generations of owners, servants, and occupants.

My Book Review: I think I might have discovered this book on the shelf at the library, or among goodreads recommendations.  It’s been a long time since I’ve read a book that wasn’t a classic or by a Christian author.  I think it’s time I start investigating other books out there and this looked like an interesting place to start.

Split narratives between past and present are it’s own genre now and its nothing new.  But this book looked interesting to me because the main character is really about a house, and how history treats it.  From the time it is built in the late 1700’s through to present day inheritors Charlie and his sister Ros, we are swept through history chapter by chapter.  In one way this kept me from growing close to the characters.  In another it kept my interest in what happened next.  We know a few things from the first chapter about how the house is in it’s present state, but then we are taken back to the beginning and are clued in as to how it happened.  And then the overall question at stake is, what will be its future?

Despite the interesting plot, there were a lot of things that kept me from liking this book.  There is a small amount of foul language and ‘observations’ I could have done without.  Around chapter 2 I wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue with it, but it takes a lot to deter me from finishing something once I start.  There are several characters who have mistresses or sleep around and have affairs.  In one instance, a man stumbles across a couple having sex which is briefly but graphically described.  So yeah, there are content issues.

However, I liked the conclusion the book makes [SPOILER] in that it doesn’t matter if there is a long uninterrupted line in a single family that owns a place so much as it does if the people who live there are happy and love it and can care for it.   [END OF SPOILER]

I would have to say that my favorite time era depicted was probably when the original architect James Woods goes back twenty years later with his two nieces to visit the house he built.  I liked the idea of Maria carving her initials for Reggie and Bunny to find more than a hundred years later.  They have no idea the context for it, but they appreciate it as being a part of the history of the place as indeed it is.  I wish there were more “easter eggs” like that throughout the book.

You might like this if you enjoy the manor house genre, and especially if you are into Downton Abbey.  Enjoy with a good cup of tea!

I’ve heard that Ashenden Park is based on real-life Basildon Park in Berkshire, but I don’t know this to be 100% certain.  It certainly sounds very similar, featuring honey-color stone and an octagonal room to boot:

I also recommend…

 

March 2020 Word List

Every month (and other alternative timelines), The Lost Challenges provide new scavenger lists of up to 50 words to look for while reading whatever you choose to read (for example, the current list includes the word “emerald”). If I come across that word while reading, I mark it down. It’s fun to see how many I can find by the end of the month. This works well if you have more than one book going at a time like me, or read very fast. I do it along with another person I know and we compare lists to see who found the most words.

1. Apple ~ “My dear fellow, he will guard it as the apple of his eye.”  [The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes]

2. Avocado ~

3. Bird ~ And after luncheon they visited the aquarium and the top of the Singer Building and took the subway uptown to spend an hour with the bird of America in their habitats.  [Dear Enemy]

4. Bottle ~ They brought up three rifles, and each man took the lead of a camp of Indians, and passed the afternoon in a bottle-shooting contest, with a prize for the winning camp.  [DE]

5. Bug ~

6. Cactus ~

7. Clothes ~

8. Cucumber ~

9. Dress ~ “The colonel’s renovations are solid work, of excellent quality,” William remarked to me when we were briefly alone before dressing for dinner.  [Enchantress of Numbers]

10. Emerald ~

11. Envy ~

12. Evergreen trees ~

13. Eyes ~ My only eyeball flashes from its pit/ Like a red snake trapped in a sunken snare– /I do not like my eye.  [Broken Hearts]

14. Forest ~ The blessed peace and solitude of our Somerset estate was a welcome remedy for my exhaustion and strain, and after I had enjoyed a good rest, I joined my husband and children in romps through the gardens, long walks along the seashore, and exhilarating horseback rides through the forest.  [EofN]

15. Frog ~ Did it always eat frogs, and had it hurt its other foot?  [DE]

16. Gem ~

17. Glasses ~

18. Grapes ~

19. Grass ~ I inhaled deeply, taking in grass and earth and late-summer blossoms, and I imagined my father here as a young man full of hope and impatience and ambition, breathing in and breathing out, grinning as he envisioned how magnificent the estate he had inherited would be after he restored it to its former glory.  [EofN]

20. Insects ~

21. Ireland ~ “Can’t you get hands from Ireland?”  [North and South]

22. Ivy ~ An open davenport stood in the window opposite the door; in the other there was a stand, with a tall white china vase, from which drooped wreaths of English ivy, pale-green birth, and copper-colored beech-leaves.  [N&S]

23. Jade ~ “The saucy jade!”  [N&S]

24. Jealousy ~ The moon’s abroad– /She is not jealous of my fountain love; /She sheds her gentle light upon our tryst /And decks my love with diamonds of her own!  [BH]

25. Jelly bean ~

26. Kelly ~

27. Kiwi ~

28. Leaf ~ Side by side the two trunks stretched upward to the sky, separate but unified, their branches growing, intertwining, to form a single leafy green canopy.  [EofN]

29. Lettuce ~

30. Lime ~

31. Markers ~

32. Mint ~

33. Money ~ My pittance of pin money could not even begin to pay off my losses, so I borrowed from my mother, claiming that I needed the funds for books and fine gowns for court.  [EofN]

34. Moss ~

35. Nature ~ Jesus’ full human nature means God has said YES! to the whole of His creation.  [Becoming Worldly Saints]

36. Olive ~ I don’t know what our poor doctor would prefer; olive green with a mansard roof appears to be his taste.  [DE]

37. Onion ~

38. Paint ~ They brought the prize with them– an atrocious head of an Indian painted on leather.  [DE]

39. Parrot ~ Tell Jervis to send us some more of those purple pine-trees from Honduras; likewise some green parrots from Guatemala.  [DE]

40. Pea ~

41. Pear ~

42. Pepper ~ Please pepper your letters with stamps, inside and out.  [DE]

43. Shamrock ~

44. Snake ~ *See Eyes

45. Tennis ball ~

46. Trees ~ He was known as “The Wicked Lord,” and “the Devil Byron,” two interesting sobriquets to find on one’s family tree, to say the least.  [EofN]

47. Turtle ~

48. Watermelon ~

49. Woods ~ This was called the Devil’s Wood, planted by the Wicked Lord and strewn with statues of fauns and satyrs.  [EofN]

50. Yarn ~ “Why,” said he, “the Americans are getting their yarns so into the general market, that our only chance is producing them at a lower rate.”  [N&S]