The Duke and I by Julia Quinn

It surprised me how much I enjoy the Bridgerton televion series. My family is not surprised--I loved Downton Abbey and watched it on my own. We usually watch this sort of light television fare together and therefore it is unusual for me to soldier through a multi-season series without them, so it is notable, but these period drama/soap opera series do have a tendency to hook me in. This is the starting book of the series that the series is based on, and I did a combination of reading and listening to it. I was somewhat hampered by having seen it already, and being pretty sure it had a different ending, at the very least, because it is not the stuff of romance novels, to put it mildly. The series has otherwise stayed pretty close to the novel, albeit with a larger cast of characters and more fleshed out personalities. The inner thoughts in both Daphne and Simon's heads are nice to hear--that doesn't happen much when the book goes to the big screen, and while I would do it in the reverse order as a rule (book first, screen version second), I enjoyed this, and have already started the second book in the series.

The Last Letter From Your Lover (2021)

This is unabashedly romantic and more of a rmoantic drama than a comedy. It is based on a book of the same title by Jo Jo Moyes, and while I do not read much of her work, this seems more sentimental than even she usually goes. There are two times here--which is easier to see than it is to write about, at least here it is. There are also two different love stories here. In the present day, Ellie, a journalist who has no interest in romance, is assigned to write about an editor who has recently died. She has to get past a rather frosty and formal archivist named Rory to get access to the editor’s archive, and there she finds a swooningly That part of the story is set in 1965 London: there’s the wealthy and gorgeous young couple, Jennifer and Lawrence Stirling--he's a bit distant and she's a bit young. Through a series of flashbacks we learn of her passionate affair with a journalist that her husband introduced her to, and the series of near misses that they have at happiness. In the present day Ellie is busy unraveling the story in the present day, hunting down who they were and what happened to them, and then it all comes together in the end. This was surprisingly tense to watch and surprisingly sweet in the end.

The Heir Apparent by Rebecca Armitage

This Reese's Book Club pick is on the lighter side. It is a bit of a mash up of The Princess Diaries with a dash of Hamlet on the side. Princess Alexandrina Villiers is a 29-year-old living in self-imposed exile in Tasmania, working hard as a medical resident. he thought she was free of palace constraints, as her twin brother and father stood ahead of her in the line of succession. She had renounced royal duties to forge a life on her own outside the spotlight that is honed on all things royal, and thought she was out of woods, with a brother to follow in her father's footsteps and a plan for her twin to sire an offspring or two. However, after a tragic avalanche claims the lives of her brother and father, Lexi is suddenly thrust to the front of the line of succession and there is her uncle vying for the crown--much like Princess Margaret, he thinks he is better suited to the job and with Lexi taking herself out of contention, that he will have control of the royal reigns when his mother dies. Lexi has other plans--she comes back for a year into palace life and shifts all the pieces about on the royal chess board, leaving the royal succession looking a bit tossed up in her wake.

Cheryl Arkison: Improv Is My Love Language

I very much enjoyed this talk by a Canadian quilter who spoke to the Sew Squad that is hosted by the incompable Libs Elliot. She talked about the kind of quilter that she is and then went on to explain what it is about Improvisation that really speaks to her. Improv is definitely not my love language, but as she went through the various sorts of quilters it gave me some time to reflect on what kind of quilter I am. The list is as such: 1. Quality Control 2. Replication 3. Artisanal 4. Expressive 5. Improvisational The quality control quilted is all about the control. The seam ripper is always at hand because this quilter is acutely aware of the mistakes and is obsessive about fixing them. They are pinners. They have great pride in the craft of precision quilting. This is decidedly not me--I am attracted to gluing and I do occasionally pin. I also seam rip with more frequency than I would like to admit, but it is needs must, not fixing something that is a tich off. The replication quilter finds kits very appealing. They cannot imporvise even if they run out of fabric. They look for the exact fabric that is pictured in the pattern. While I am a big fan of a pattern, this is decidedly NOT me. I love doing a different color way, and if I run our, or as happened recently, the kit didn't have enough fabric, I just winged it and the other kit I bought I am already planning substitutions for my next one. I am surprised to find that Artisanal is my jam--handwork gets me excited! I love hand dyed and woven fabrics. They warm me. I do have a comfort with wonkiness that is part of improv, and I want more access to that, but I am not there yet, and I am also working on expressive, where I am getting to a point of view and how to tell the story. So her lecture taught me a lot about myself as a quilter.

The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett

This may be unpopular but I really enjoyed The Help, both the book and the movie that followed. I say that as a white woman from the North, so basically I have no lived experience with the people and events that are depicted in the book, so given that handicap, the depiction of deeply embedded racism in the American South rings true with my experience of traveling there and observing the culture rather than being part of it. This book depicts Mississippi in 1933, and revolves more around poverty, although racism is alive and well in the Depression-era South. There are two narrators: Birdy is a single woman moving past marriagable age (early 20's) and Meg, who is an 11 year old consigned to an orphanage even though both her parents are living. Birdy has a good head on her shoulders, but is under employed with her talents wasted, as many women of the era were. She goes to Oxford to ask her sister's in laws for money, only to discover a slowly unfolding disaster there. The characters in this book are vividly drawn and for the most part sympathetic--there are some notable exceptions to that, and while good and evil are maybe a little too characteristically drawn in places, overall the players are nuanced and human. The novel does a great job capturing the plight of women and the many ways they had to adapt, endure, and fight for their space in a societal model designed to limit them. In light of the present unraveling of civil rights, morality and decency, as well as democracy in the United States, there are some important lessons on how to navigate our way back to a functioning community. There’s also thoughtful attention to racial divisions and social hierarchies, and how those systems shaped everyday life.

Hoppers (2026)

This is a good one--maybe even nomination worthy. It is a story with warmth, humor, exciting action, endearing characters, and a reassuringly expansive notion of community. It has charm and a touch of magic, but it is grounded—literally. The conflict at the center of the story is between Mabel Tanaka, who loves a stretch of pristine land populated by wildlife, and Jerry Generazzo, the town’s energetic and glad-handing mayor, who wants to build a Beaverton Beltway through the property. There is an equally compelling conflict within Mabel. This is where Pixar’s signature compassion for our most human vulnerabilities really shines. They understand that anger tries to fool us into thinking it comes from a place of strength and will help get us what we want. But more often, it comes from fear, and it doesn’t help at all, this time at Mayor Jerry and the planned destruction of the glade. He says he can proceed because it is no longer an animal habitat. All the animals are gone. Which is true--Mabel needs a bewver to return to the glade to make a healthy water source and a place for the animals to come back to--through a series of events Mabel herself becomes that beaver--literally--and fights the good fight against cheating politicians. Heart warming eco-animation for the whole family .

Latinísimo by Sandra Gutierrez

My on line cookbook group is cooking out of this book this month, and I am surprised by a number of things about it. The first is that I did not know this book had been published--it is a relatively comprehensive cookbook covering all 21 Latin countries in the Americas. That is both its strength and its weakness. Do you need to own it? I would say yes--I have been going to Central and South America since I was a child, and I have been an avid home cook for almost 50 years and there were many things that I learned about the region and the cuisine from reading this book. There is a lot of information about the differences in cuisine across the region, including the kinds of peppers and what you can do with them that are worth the price of admission. The downside is that while it is almost unliftable in weight, it lacks depth into any particular cuisine--that it unsurprising, but this is not the be all and end all of Latin American cooking--rather it is an excellent starting point and one that should be explored. It is available on used book sites for under $10 and well worth it.

Libs Elliott and Rebel Tech Quilting

What an amazing quilter, and I recently heard her speak about her process for design. Libs Elliott is a quilt artist renowned for blending computer algorithms with traditional crafts. Her random generator design uses Processing—an open-source coding language—to algorithmically randomize geometric shapes, block rotations, and color palettes.

The Generative Process that she uses, which is open source code, is something that she took our guild behind the curtain and showed how it could work for us. First there are Algorithmic Layouts: The code randomizes variables like block orientation, color distribution, and scale. It outputs endless unique compositions, which she then filters and selects for her designs. Each design is unique--it can be saved as a PDF (which she does, thousands of times over), but once you click on it again, it is not coming back. You can add a lot of elements, like how much of each color you want represented, and and what elements to add, and how much rotation you want, but then it is randome. Then comes the Human Element: Once a digital pattern is finalized, she uses it as a precise map to cut and sew fabric, introducing beautiful "human" imperfections into the mathematically driven design. She may use only a small portion of the pattern to make a quilt, and she may change things, it is really more of a starting place than the destination, but it is so cool. Now I have to get this pattern and see for myself.

Say You'll Remember Me by Abby Jimenez

I have read several of this author's romance novels and have very much enjoyed them. This one less so. It is not because of the serious content, which is family members dealing with early dementia. It is more the 'love at second sight' aspect that seems off. Samantha meets Xavier when she takes her rescue kitten in for veterinary care. is bedside manner puts her off, but when she raises an impossible amount of money for the surgery her kitten requires, she does warm to him. Unfortunately, even though they shared a perfect first date, it’s obvious to Samantha that she can’t pursue a relationship as she’s bound for home to help take care of her ailing mother. Xavier refuses to let any obstacles get in the way of their happiness, try as he might. He isn’t ready to let go of her just yet. The thing that seems off is that he has had a childhood that lacks support and affection, and yet he dives into the relationship with Samantha with both feet. The build up to change and a traditional romance ending was enough to convince me to try the second book in the series, so I would give this a one thumb up.

A Private Life (2026)

I watched this on a plane en rout home from a very restful vacation. I had just had a joint replacement in my dominant arm, which was boring and painful and a little scary because there was so much I could not do that is important to me. I could not cook, write, or sew, and it was hard to type. While I love to read and watch movies, when that is all you can do it quickly wears thin. So the trip was as much about getting out of my house as it was about exploring a new place, and it was very successful indeed. This is is a 2025 French mystery thriller Jodie Foster in her first French-language acting role. She plays renowned and vaguely arrogant psychiatrist Lilian Steiner, who has an old school psychoanalytic approach to the profession, complete with the couch. When she is informed that her patient Paula has taken her own life, she refuses to accept the official ruling. Convinced that foul play is involved, Lilian launches her own quirky, private investigation into the circumstances of Paula's death. Along the way, she enlists the reluctant help of her affectionate ex-husband, Gabriel (Daniel Auteuil), and navigates the absurdities of her own unraveling personal and professional life. It is odd, slightly bizarre and completely out of step with modern psychiatry but in the end, I enjoyed it.