Connie is back - part three

France 2009, Carcassonne.
Jeroen, me, Peet and Eveline.
We are standing on the bridge connecting The Old Town with the New Town.

My name is Connie. I'm 62 years young
Married to Peet
One son: Jeroen (try to pronounce that!)
One daughter: Eveline
A son in law: Cyrille
A daughter in law: Rianne

I'm Dutch (that might explain some mistakes in my English)
I'm a reader although 75 books a year is a bit much for me.
This is my second year in the 75-ers.

I work at a Highschool and am a assistant to the deans at our school. Although a dean in Holland is something else than a dean in the UK of US.
We help students choose their subjects in the third year and with choosing their next study at an University or College. We have almost 1700 students total.

If you want to ask me something about The Dutch or The Netherlands, please feel free to do so. I will be happy to explain. Other questions are also appreciated.

I'm a member of this group and of the ROOTers.

About My ROOT reading:

My goal is 26 Books of the shelves. That will leave room for new books (just bought) or books that have not been on my shelves long enough.

ROOTs that will count are books that have been on my shelves for more then 12 months. To make the challenge more of a challenge I will read an ABC by last name of the author.




ROOTs read in 2015:

01-A. Kelley Armstrong - Gebeten - 355 pages -
02-B. Luc Besson - Arthur en de Wraak van Malthazard - 173 pages -
03-C. Justin Cronin - De zomergast - 411 pages -
04-D. Lieneke Dijkzeul - Wat overblijft - 284 pages -
05-E. Moeder Everma - Vogeltje - 141 pages -
06-F. Lynn Flewelling - Koninklijk Orakel - 488 pages -
07-G. Nicci Gerrard - In het maanlicht - 383 pages -
08-H. Elizabeth Haynes - Waarheen je ook vlucht - 440 pages -
09-I.
10-J. Robert Jordan - Het Pad der Dolken - 563 pages - *
11-K. Stephen King - De wind door het sleutelgat - 317 pages -
12-L. Benny Lindelauf - Negen open armen - 241 pages -
13-M. George R.R. Martin - Een feestmaal voor kraaien - 739 pages -
14-N. Patrick Ness - Het mes dat niet wijkt - 479 pages -
15-O.
16-P.
17-Q.
18-R. Michèle van Rees - Nr. 19 - 192 pages -
19-S.
20-T.
21-U. Lisa Unger - Mooie leugens - 333 pages - *
22-V.
23-W.
24-X.
25-Y.
26-Z. Carlos Ruiz Zafón - Het middernachtspaleis - 264 pages -

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Extra ROOT's read in 2015

27. Patrick Ness - Het donkere paradijs - 511 pages -
28. Patrick Ness - Lawaai dat nooit stopt - 527 pages -
29. Nicci Gerrard - Het voorbijgaan - 304 pages -
30. Benny Lindelauf - De hemel van Heivisj - 396 pages -
31. Carlos Ruiz Zafón - Septemberlichten - 232 pages -
32. Erin Kelly - De verdorde roos - 347 pages -
33. Julie Kibler - Kom naar huis - 349 pages -
34. G.R.R. Martin - Een dans met draken deel 1: Oude vetes, nieuwe strijd - 673 pages -
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Total ROOTS in 2105 (the 26 for the ABC and some extra ones)

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Other books read in 2015:

01. Diana Gabaldon - Met het bloed van mijn hart (Deel 1) - 549 pages -
02. Peter James - Doodsklok - 379 pages -
03. Harlan Coben - Gevonden - 327 pages -
04. Elizabeth George - Schaduwkant - 328 pages -
05. Connie Willis - Experiment - 239 pages -
06. Tess Gerritsen - Sterf twee keer - 318 pages -
07. Linwood Barclay - Geen veilige plek - 382 pages -
08. Nicci Gerrard - Huis van herinneringen - 320 pages -
09. Jessie Burton - Het huis aan de gouden bocht - 374 pages -
10. Nicci French - Denken aan vrijdag - 334 pages -
11. Diana Gabaldon - Met het bloed van mijn hart - 626 pages -
12. Graeme Simsion - Het Rosie project - 330 pages -
13. Graeme Simsion - Het Rosie effect - 424 pages -
14. Camilla Läckberg - Leeuwentemmer - 369 pages -
15. SJ Watson - Tweede leven - 389 pages -
16. Kate Mosse - De nacht van de vogels - 347 pages -
17. Harlan Coben - De vreemde - 347 pages -
18. Paula Hawkins - Het meisje in de trein - 357 pages -
19. Deborah Harkness - Het boek des levens - 606 pages -
20. Marco Kunst - Kroonsz - 337 pages -
21. Claire North - De eerste vijftien levens van Harry August - 382 pages -
22. S. K. Tremayne - IJstweeling - 318 pages -
23. Samuel Bjørk - Ik reis alleen - 398 pages -
24. Tess Gerritsen - Meisje vermist - 254 pages -
25. Karin Slaughter - Mooie meisjes - 476 pages -
26. Elizabeth Haynes - Alles wat overblijft - 443pages -
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Ebooks read in 2015:

01. Rachel Joyce - De onwaarschijnlijke reis van Harold Fry - 268 pages -
02. Elizabeth Haynes - Bij het vallen van de nacht - 303 pages -
03. Alan Bradley - De smaak van venijn - 276 pages - *

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Total number of books read in 2015




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Books into the house in 2015:
01. James Dashner - De schroeiproeven
02. David Hair - Water & Vuur
03. Charlaine Harris - Date met de dood
04. Michel Faber - Het boek van wonderlijke nieuwe dingen
05. Graeme Simsion - Het Rosie Project
06. Daniel O'Malley - De dame
07. Peter James - Doodsklok
08. Jessie Burton - Het huis aan de Gouden Bocht
09. Harlan Coben - Gevonden
10. Elizabeth George - Schaduwkant
11. David Hair - Staal & Stormweer
12. John Boyne - De jongen die zijn vader zocht
13. Patrick Rothfuss - De muziek van de stilte
14. Camilla Läckberg - Leeuwentemmer
15. Dimitri Verhulst - De zomer hou je ook niet tegen
16. Nicci Gerrard - Huis van herinneringen
17. Linwood Barclay - Geen veilige plek
18. George R. R. Martin - De verborgen geschiedenis van Westeros
19. Nicci French - Denken aan vrijdag
20. Graeme Simsion - Het Rosie effect
21. SJ Watson - Tweede leven
22. Asa Larsson - Zonnestorm
23. Ida Jessen - Leugenaars
24. Kate Mosse - De nacht van de vogels
25. Harlan Coben - De vreemde
26. Cathy Kelly - Wat wil je nou?
27. Cathy Kelly - Wat ze wil!
28. Susan Oudot - Hartsvriendinnen voor altijd
29. Paula Hawkins - Het meisje in de trein
30. Elizabeth Haynes - In de schaduw van de maan
31. Elizabeth Haynes - Alles wat overblijft
32. David Hair - De scharlaken vloed
33. Tess Gerritsen - Meisje vermist
34. Marion Pauw - Grijs gebied
35. James Dashner - De doodskuur
36. Andy Weir - Mars
37. S. K. Tremayne - IJstweeling
38. Karin Slaughter - Mooie meisjes

means: Read

Happy New Thread, Connie. I love your family photo and all your neat lists.

Thanks Barb! I try my best.

Lovely picture: happy new thread :-)

Happy new thread, Connie.

Wow, I'm so jealous you've been to Carcassonne as that place is so heavily featured in Mosse's books and it seems like it is filled with a lot of history.

Happy new thread, Connie. That's a great family photo for a topper.

Thanks, Charlotte, Val and Meg!

Carcassonne is really great.

Here are some more pictures of the Old Town.

Wonderful photos, Connie. Thanks for sharing them.

We'll be staying in the NW part of the Pyrenee this summer. Therefore no visit to Carcassonne.

Happy new thread, Connie! Gorgeous photos!

Happy Friday, Connie! And Happy New Thread! Love the topper. Great looking family.

I also love the Carcassonne photos. Lovely.

Great photos of you and your family in Carcassonne, Connie! I see that this city can be reached by train from Barcelona via AVE's Madrid-Barcelona-Carcassonne-Toulouse service, so I'll keep this in mind for a possible day trip after I arrive in Barcelona later this month.

>12 kidzdoc: That's nice, Darryl. I think it would be great to travel through that part of the world by train.

>11 msf59: Thanks Mark!

I've started ROOT number 16 and book number 29 for the year! And a book for the May-challenge from my book club. The theme this month is: read a book in the original language. And since I read only in the Dutch language I choose a book by a Dutch writer.



Lieneke Dijkzeul - Wat overblijft.

Thriller in a series: Paul Vegter, part 5

It's about a black woman from Somalia, Asli, that has married a Dutch man, partly because she needed to stay in The Netherlands and partly because her husband to be was kind of fascinated by her looks and wanted to act against his father. Now Richard, the husband, is murdered and she is taking care of their handicapped son (deaf and autistic) with no help of her family in law at all.

Hi Connie, happy new thread my dear. Hope you have had a good day, love and hugs.

Hi Connie! Wow. Those are amazing pictures. Wish I had the time and money to travel right now. I used to do quite a bit of it, back when I had less money and more time. :)

Happy weekend and happy new thread!

Thanks, Rachel. The south of France is very popular for a summer vacation. Since I live in the Netherlands we can go there by car, we don't have to fly. We went there for a couple of years in a row.

Connie, I wish you a wonderful weekend. I'm leaving for my holiday tomorrow so no photo today.

Beautiful family and beautiful background.

That is an awesome castle. And provincial me, who has never had the opportunity to travel in Europe, didn't even know it was there until you posted your amazing photos. Thanks!

>18 Ameise1: Happy holiday, Barb! I hope the weather will be great.

>19 streamsong: Well, Janet, I've never been to the US so there must be things there I don't know about. Carcassonne (the old town)is a beautiful city. The Fortress is the most beautiful I've ever seen in real live.

from Wiki;

The city is famous for the Cité de Carcassonne, a medieval fortress restored by the theorist and architect Eugène Viollet-le-Duc in 1853 and added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites in 1997.1 Consequently, Carcassonne greatly profits from tourism but also counts manufacture and wine-making as some of its other key economic sectors.

The fortified city itself consists essentially of a concentric design of two outer walls with 53 towers and barbicans to prevent attack by siege engines. The castle itself possesses its own drawbridge and ditch leading to a central keep. The walls consist of towers built over quite a long period.3 One section is Roman and is notably different from the medieval walls with the tell-tale red brick layers and the shallow pitch terracotta tile roofs. One of these towers housed the Catholic Inquisition in the 13th Century and is still known as "The Inquisition Tower".

Starting in book number 29 of the year:



Graeme Simsion - Het Rosie effect.

Spoiler alert!!

Until a year ago, forty-one-year-old geneticist Don Tillman had never had a second date. Until he met Rosie, 'the world's most incompatible woman'. Now, living in New York City, they have survived ten months and ten days of marriage.

But though Rosie has taught him the joys of unscheduled sex and spontaneous meal planning, life is still not plain sailing for Don. Not least with the sudden arrival of his best friend Gene, serial philanderer, who takes up residence on their sofa.

Then Rosie drops the mother of all bombshells. And soon Don must face her hormonally induced irrational behaviour as he prepares for the biggest challenge of his previously ordered life - at the same time as dodging deportation, prosecution and professional disgrace.

Is Don Tillman ready to become the man he always dreamed of being? Or will he revert to his old ways and risk losing Rosie forever?

Congratulations on your new thread, Connie.

I would agree that Carcassonne is some place and your photos amply demonstrate that.

Thanks, Paul!

Now reading a NON-ROOT again.



Camilla Läckberg - Leeuwentemmer (Lion tamer)

Camilla Läckberg is a Swedish writer and her books are all translated into Dutch. I lover the books written by her.

This is from her own side and is the Blurb, NOT my review.

It is January and Fjällbacka is bitterly cold. A half-naked girl is drifting through the snowy forest, out onto a road. The car appears out of nowhere and does not have time to swerve.

When Patrik Hedström and his team receive the alarm about the accident, the girl has already been identified. She disappeared four months earlier on her way home from the local riding school and has not been seen since. Her body bears the signs of unimaginable atrocities and there is a chance that she will not be the last and only victim.

At the same time, Erica Falck is investigating an old family tragedy that led to a man’s death. She pays countless visits to his wife, who was convicted of the murder, without being able to find out what really happened. What is she hiding? Erica suspects there is something wrong. And it appears that the past is casting a shadow over the present.

Hi, Connie! I've been wanting to read Lackberg for awhile. I think I have The Ice Princess on shelf somewhere. It looks like she would be a good M & M choice.

>25 msf59: Splendid Idea, Mark!

Peet and I have been away for a few days. And I want to share some pictures with you of our trip to the south of Limburg.

We went to a place in the woods called Het hijgend Hert This means: The Panting Deer





This was the view we got





We spend a good part of the afternoon exploring Gulpen, the little town were we stayed the night.





There was one big thunderstorm!!



And we got to see this gorgeous rainbow



With Mammatus clouds



This morning we drove home again and visited the War Cemetery in Margraten.
There is a enormous amount of white crosses with the names of the soldiers that died in WO II













On these walls are the names of those who died but are buried in unknown places somewhere.
Rows and rows of names.



The road to the cemetery was marked by remembrance ribbons around the trees (white with a green stripe. Very impressive. On May 4th we celebrated Remembrance day and the ribbons were still hanging there

And one new book added to the TBR pile



SJ Watson - Tweede leven

She loves her husband. She's obsessed by a stranger. She's a devoted mother. She's prepared to lose everything. She knows what she's doing. She's out of control. She's innocent. She's guilty as sin. She's living two lives. She might lose both . . .

Gorgeous photo's of your trip my dear, shame about the thunderstorm but the rainbow looked lovely. Love and hugs to you my dear.

Wow, what gorgeous photos. Thanks so much for sharing them. I hope you have a lovely afternoon in your garden.

Thanks John and Barbara!

Love the photos, Connie and I love the rainbow! It is right over the beer sign. Hooray!

Oh, beautiful photos - thanks so much for sharing them! It looks like you had a wonderful trip.

What beautiful photos and the rainbow photo is gorgeous. I hope all is well with you Connie.

Hi Connie, I wish you a lovely weekend.

Fabulous photos of your trip with Peet, Connie! The war cemetery and memorial photos are very fitting this week; I'm watching BBC World News now, which is showing excerpts of the Russia Victory Day Parade, and I saw the live coverage of VE Day ceremonies in London on the BBC yesterday.

Have a great weekend!

Thanks Darryl and Barb!

I hope everyone will have a fabulous weekend.

Double rainbow means double the luck.

Wishing you a wonderful Mother's Day Connie.

Thanks, Val!

Another for Septemberlichten by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. The book could have been shorter. In the end there was a lot of the same thing, but overall an entertaining story and again about loyalty and friendship.

Started another ROOT (# 19)

Erin Kelly - De verdorde roos



This is the Blub NOT my review

Paul was led into a life of crime by his boyhood protector. One night, a petty theft turned into murder. Now Paul must bear witness against his friend to avoid prison.

Louisa's dark secrets led her to flee a desperate infatuation gone wrong many years before. Now her days are spent renovating the grounds of a crumbling Elizabethan garden. Her fragile peace is shattered when she meets Paul, the spitting image of the person she never thought she'd see again.

And a e-book

Alan Bradley - De smaak van venijn (Flavia de Luce 1)



This is the Blub NOT my review

Eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce is an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison. In the summer of 1950, a series of inexplicable events strikes Buckshaw, the decaying English mansion that her family calls home. A dead bird is found on the doorstep, a postage stamp pinned to its beak. Later, Flavia finds a man dying in the cucumber patch. For Flavia, who is both appalled and delighted, life begins in earnest when murder comes to Buckshaw.

Hi, Connie! Just checking in, with my pal. I hope you have had a nice week.

Thanks Mark! The weather was very nice in this part of the world. So I spend lots of time in the garden reading.

Good morning, Connie. Do you have also a long weekend or have you to work the whole week? Wishing you a loveky day. Here it's raining.

>42 Ameise1: A long weekend just like you are having Barb. It's cloudy but dry and this afternoon the sun will be shining. Peet and I are going to get the groceries tomorrow and this afternoon I have to vacuum and dust the living room. My book-club is meeting at my place tomorrow for the tenth year. So there will be 14 people for coffee, drinks and dinner.

>43 connie53: 10 years! Congrats and enjoy your meet-up.

I certainly will, Barb. It's always lots of fun and lots of book talk.

Happy book-clubbing, Connie! It sounds like fun!

Thanks Amber. I will post some pictures here on Sunday and tell all about the day! Peet is now making potato-soup and courgette-soup (zucchini). And I'm cleaning the living-room and re-arranging the books.

Peet and I are ready for the Meet-crowd

>48 connie53: Looking good! Have a great time at your book club's meet up. Will there be photos?

Hi Connie, I wish you lots of fun with your meet-up.

Hi Connie, hope you have had a lovely meet-up my dear and I would love to hear all about it, sending love and hugs.

The meet-up was very successful. We had lots of fun and time went by very quickly.

Here is a pictures of the group. I'm in the middle at the back.



The first thing everybody does is donate books to the book-table. And taking books away off course.



Peet and I got a gift card for a dinner out.



Dinner!

Wow, Connie, your meet-up looks very good and also the dinner. Thanks so much for sharing the photos. How often do you meet each other?

BTW which book have you taken from this table?

I wish you a relaxed Sunday.

A relaxed Sunday would be just what I need, Barb.

We meet like this once a year at my house. But most meets are in cities, visiting book-stores. Next month we have planned a meet in the zoo of Rotterdam. I think we meet 6 or 7 times during one year.

I got two books from the table

Asa Larsson - Zonnestorm
Ida Jessen - Leugenaars

Happy Sunday, Connie! I LOVE the book club meet-up photos. Sounds like a blast and I am glad to see gentlemen in the mix.

Fabulous meet up photos and menu, Connie! Thanks for sharing them with us.

>55 msf59: And two of them are a married couple, Mark ;-))). And we all are Fantasy lovers!

>56 kidzdoc: Thanks Darryl. Could you figure out what was on the menu?

I couldn't figure out what was on the menu, but the dishes on the buffet table look yum!

Glad you had a good time at your meet-up! It sounds like a lot of work, but it also sounds like your book club appreciates what you do!

If needed I can give a translation but that will have to wait until tomorrow.

Lovely group photos. Glad you all had a good time, what a great idea for a club.

Hi Connie, lovely photo's of your meet-up my dear and what a gorgeous spread of food.

Bought two new books today!

Kate Mosse - De nacht van de vogels



This is the blurb NOT my review

The clock strikes twelve. Beneath the wind and the remorseless tolling of the bell, no one can hear the scream . . .

1912. A Sussex churchyard. Villagers gather on the night when the ghosts of those who will not survive the coming year are thought to walk. And in the shadows, a woman lies dead.

As the flood waters rise, Connie Gifford is marooned in a decaying house with her increasingly tormented father. He drinks to escape the past, but an accident has robbed her of her most significant childhood memories. Until the disturbance at the church awakens fragments of those vanished years . . .

Harlan Coben - De vreemde



This is the blurb NOT my review

The Stranger appears out of nowhere, perhaps in a bar, or a parking lot, or at the grocery store. His identity is unknown. His motives are unclear. His information is undeniable. Then he whispers a few words in your ear and disappears, leaving you picking up the pieces of your shattered world.

Adam Price has a lot to lose: a comfortable marriage to a beautiful woman, two wonderful sons, and all the trappings of the American Dream: a big house, a good job, a seemingly perfect life.

Then he runs into the Stranger. When he learns a devastating secret about his wife, Corinne, he confronts her, and the mirage of perfection disappears as if it never existed at all. Soon Adam finds himself tangled in something far darker than even Corinne’s deception, and realizes that if he doesn’t make exactly the right moves, the conspiracy he’s stumbled into will not only ruin lives—it will end them.

Hi, Connie! Just checking in. Hooray for new books! I should of read a Harlan Coben for M & M.

Your book club dinner looks like it was a lot of fun. What a nice tradition.

Oooh, new books! Nice!

Great new books. I love both authors.

Looks like your book club has great meetings! Lots of photos on your thread so you must be having enjoyable times!

It does look like fun! And it looks like quite a feast - Yum!

I think you've explained this before, but how does the book table work? Is it for trading books or are these selections for future book club meetings?

>68 streamsong: This is purely for trading books! We select the books we read on-line. Every two months we can nominate books in Dutch we would like to discus. Then there is a poll and the book that gets the most votes is the book we read (on a voluntary basis). In the other months there is a same procedure for books in a foreign language, mostly in English.

Hi connie, I wish you a relaxed weekend.

Thank you, Barb!

It won't be that relaxed! We are going to help Jeroen and Rianne move house. This morning Jeroen brought a basket full of laundry and a basket with clothes to iron. So I have done that. Since my arthrosis is keeping me from moving around much, let alone clean and paint walls, this was what I could do. And Monday is moving day. So I will be in their new house making coffee, doing dishes, making sandwiches and such things. But I will be enjoying it !!

Will they live in the same town or is it somewhere else? Stay safe and don't overdo, please.

Hi Connie, hope you have a lovely weekend my dear, sending love and hugs from both of us.

>71 connie53: Wow, sounds like a busy weekend. Hope you get some time to relax too.

>72 Ameise1:. They stay in this town. In fact they will be halfway my school and our house ;-))
And I won't overdo it, Barb. In fact today I washed all their glass curtains (4 curtains and only one per washer). And I do that in my house, so I have been reading in the garden all afternoon. Peet went up and down by car with the curtains in a basket so they could be hanged in front of the window and dry there. There is no room here to dry such big pieces of fabric and they could not go into the dryer. But this worked too.

I'm glad to hear that you got some reading time.

Sooooo, I've been a bad girl! 5 books into the house!

When I arrived at my brother's yesterday there was a pile of books waiting for me to choose from. The mother of his girlfriend had heard that I love to read and wanted me to have them.
They were not really my taste in books, so I choose three books that could be light reads for the summer.

2 by Cathy Kelly - Wat wil je nou? and Wat ze wil!
1 by Susan Oudot - Hartsvriendinnen voor altijd

And this morning I picked up 2 books that I had bought online.

Paula Hawkins - Het meisje in de trein



This is NOT my review!!

Rachel catches the same commuter train every morning. She knows it will wait at the same signal each time, overlooking a row of back gardens. She’s even started to feel like she knows the people who live in one of the houses. ‘Jess and Jason’, she calls them. Their life – as she sees it – is perfect. If only Rachel could be that happy.

And then she sees something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but it’s enough.

Now everything’s changed. Now Rachel has a chance to become a part of the lives she’s only watched from afar.

Now they’ll see; she’s much more than just the girl on the train…

and

Elizabeth Haynes - In de schaduw van de maan



This is NOT my review!!

In the crisp, early hours of an autumn morning, the police are called to investigate two deaths. The first is a suspected murder at a farm on the outskirts of a small village. A beautiful young woman has been found dead, her cottage drenched with blood. The second is a reported suicide at a nearby quarry. A car with a woman's body inside was found at the bottom of the pit. As DI Louisa Smith and her team gather evidence, they discover a shocking link between the two cases and the two deaths--a bond that sealed their terrible fates one cold night, under a silent moon.

Shameful! No dessert for you until you've finished those five books.

>77 connie53: Only 5 books - that's not bad. I think it shows great restraint.

Happy Friday, Connie! Hope the week went well.

>78 kidzdoc: LOL, since I'm not a dessert girl I will read those books whenever I like to, Darryl.

>79 Familyhistorian: thanks Meg!

>80 msf59: The week went well, Mark. A bit of moving house for my son and work and reading. The weather could be better!

I enjoy a light summer read and keep coming across The Girl in the Train so I look forward to seeing what you think of it.

>82 RebaRelishesReading: You won't have to wait too long Reba. It's going to be my next book!

Wow Carcassonne! Wow place with all the broodjes (love that word because it's so similar to the same in my Hessian dialect) - the gezond one for me, please! :)
And extra-wow for your book-club meet-up! You clearly are wonderful hosts.

Hi Connie, I wish you a fabulous weekend.

Thanks, Nathalie and Barb!

I finished het meisje in de trein yesterday while travelling by train! I thought that was rather appropriate and fun. I gave this book . It is a good story but told by a person in an unusual situation. Rachel is a hardcore alcoholic, that makes it rather special to read, because, as a reader, you never know if what Rachel tells has really happened or is it something she has made up. I really liked it.

Now I'm reading Het boek des levens by Deborah Harkness, part 3 in the All Saints trilogy



This is the blurb, NOT my review

After traveling through time in Shadow of Night, the second book in Deborah Harkness's enchanting series, historian and witch Diana Bishop and vampire scientist Matthew Clairmont return to the present to face new crises and old enemies. At Matthew's ancestral home at Sept-Tours, they reunite with the cast of characters from A Discovery of Witches--with one significant exception. But the real threat to their future has yet to be revealed, and when it is, the search for Ashmole 782 and its missing pages takes on even more urgency.

Hi Connie, I wish you a relaxed weekend.

Thanks Barb. It was really a very good weekend, reading wise! Lots of time in the garden with multiple books! I'm not complaining!

I started reading another ROOT but not from the ABC- list. Just one on the list of additional ROOTs.



Kom naar huis by Julie Kibler

This is the blurb NOT my review.

Eighty-nine-year-old Isabelle McAllister has a favor to ask her hairdresser, Dorrie Curtis. Isabelle wants Dorrie, a black single mother in her thirties, to drop everything and drive her from her home in Arlington, Texas, to a funeral in Cincinnati--with no clear explanation why--tomorrow. Over the years, Dorrie and Isabelle have developed more than just a business relationship: they are friends. But Dorrie, fretting over the new man in her life and her teenage son's irresponsible choices, still wonders why Isabelle chose her. Isabelle confesses that, as a willful teen in 1930s Kentucky, she fell deeply in love with Robert Prewitt, a would-be doctor and the black son of her family's housekeeper--in a town where blacks weren't allowed after dark. The tale of their forbidden relationship and its tragic consequences makes it clear Dorrie and Isabelle are headed for a gathering of the utmost importance and that the history of Isabelle's first and greatest love just might help Dorrie find her own way.

Great to hear. I did some great reading too.

Ha, going to find your thread, Barb!

Yesterday I had an ultrasound made in the hospital.
It went very well. This afternoon I could phone in for the results and it is very promising. I have a bursa inflammation (is that a good term?) in both my hips. That is very painful and very restricting to movement and lying down. On Monday I have an appointment with my GP for some injections that are supposed to work like a charm. So I hope my walking will be better when I meet up with Darryl in Utrecht.

Keep my fingers crossed that everything goes well and the shots will do their work.

Hi Connie, hope everything goes well with the injections my dear and that you will be walking ok when you meet up with Darryl in Utrecht. Sending love and hugs to you and the family, Karen sends her love to you.

Thanks John!

Happy Wednesday, Connie! Just checking in with my pal. How are you and how are those current reads doing?

Hope all is good!

Thanks Mark. I'm doing fine and my reading is even better!

New book:



Tess Gerritsen - Meisje vermist

This is the blurb NOT my review

A beautiful young woman's corpse is found dumped in a garbage-strewn alley. Now laid out in the office of medical examiner Kat Novak is an unidentified body that betrays no secrets except for a matchbook clutched in one stiff hand, seven numbers scrawled inside. When a second victim is discovered, Kat begins to fear that a serial killer is stalking the streets, using a deadly drug to do his dirty work. The police are sceptical. The mayor won't listen. One of the town's most prominent citizens, with a missing daughter of his own, is also Kat's chief suspect. As the death toll rises, Kat races to expose a deadly predator who is close enough to touch her.

And because June is the 'Month of the exciting book' on the Netherlands, I got a novella. This happens when you buy books in Dutch for more than € 12,50.

Marion Pauw - Grijs gebied



Naomi rides home through Amsterdam in the middle of the night and is pulled from her bike. She gets assaulted but there is one witness. A guy standing on his balcony, doing nothing to help her. Why? Do you dare to act when seeing a crime?

Hi Connie, I wish you a fabulous weekend.

I'm sorry to hear about your hip bursitis, Connie. I hope that you'll feel better soon. It may be better if we play Saturday by ear, as I wouldn't want for you to be uncomfortable walking should we decide to meet up.

Good idea, Darryl. But I'm hoping the medicine will work by Saturday. And there is always Coffee and book stores to visit!

By the way when you are In Amsterdam of the Hague be sure to visit the American Book Center!

In Amsterdam: Spui 12
In The Hague: Lange poten 23

Have fun in Holland!

Back from the GP and I got one injection in my right hip. Hoping it will work in a few days so I can walk better when meeting Darryl in Utrecht on Saturday.

Keep my fingers crossed that the shot will do its trick.

Do you also have three weeks to go until summer holiday starts?

Our summer holiday start on July 17, so four weeks to go.

Thanks for the good wishes, Barb.

Hi Connie, hope that your injection is doing what it is supposed to do my dear, sending love and hugs.

Hope you feel better soon. Sounds like you have a great back up plan in place with the coffee and books :-)

Hi Connie, I hope the shots work so that you are able to enjoy your visit.

Hope you are feeling better, Connie. Fingers crossed. Hooray, for a Meet-Up!!

Getting any reading in?

No reading on the job here, Mark.

I'm really feeling less pain! Walking is easier then yersterday.
So Yippie!

So glad to hear the shot is helping. Are you going to have the other hip injected too?

Perhaps, but it might be that that pain is caused by walking wrong to ease the pain in my right hip. So we will see what happens when that pain is gone.

Hi Connie, I wish you a most fabulous weekend with the meetup.

The meetup was really good! I was exhausted just talking English the whole time, but I'm glad I met Darryl, Tad, Julie and Maddy. I really loved the adventure.

Connie, it's great to hear that you had such a wonderful day. Please, say tomorrow Happy Birthday to Peet from me.

I will do that, Barb!

hi Connie

Reading gets a bit easier, so I try to catch up with a few threads :-)
Love the pictures of Carcasonne, we were there in the summer of 2006, so beautiful!

I am sorry to read about bursitis, I had it in my shoulder, very painful. Luckely I did not need injection, painkiller & rest did the trick for me.

I am glad your meet-up with Darryl, Tad, Julie & Maddy went well too, maybe next time when Darryl visits our country we can meet eachother too!

That would be nice, Anita. Darryl has lots of traveling plans for the near future.

Glad to hear reading is getting better for you.

Hi Connie, I am glad your meet up with Darryl, Tad, Julie and Maddy went well my dear, all being well I will be meeting up with Paul again in August.

That's good to hear, John. I liked meeting Darryl, Tad and family a lot. We had fun, but also some serious conversation. It was so funny to see them getting all excited over older houses. We have them a lot as do you in the UK, but being from the US made a difference. The innercity has houses that are more than 300 years old. One was actually build in 1660 .

Hi Connie, I wish you a lovely weekend.

Thank you Barb. It's tropical here. The only thing one can do is sit and read. Today promises to be a bit cooler and I'm planning on doing some house hold things that need to be done.

I'm now reading Claire North - De eerste vijftien levens van Harry August. I like it up till now, although there are lots of scientific things used that I don't understand, like quantum fysics.

Oof. I'm not sure that anyone in this group understands quantum physics, save for our Dear Leader Jim.

I hope the extreme weather in Europe comes to an end soon.

Hey Darryl! Today is better. There were a few nasty bits of rain and thunderstorm today and now it has cooled down a lot. But yesterday was very extreme, about 38 -40 C. And it was the first day of the Tour de France starting with a time trial in the inner city of Utrecht. I watched the footage on TV and saw the canal where we all had lunch passing regularly. If we had planned our meeting yesterday we would have had a terrible day.!

Well I finished the book this afternoon. And I gave it ****. In the end I just read the quantum things and did not even try to understand that part but focused on the relationship between the two main characters, Harry and Vincent. That relationship is formed by having power, love/friendship, hatred and revenge.

Hi Connie, hope you have had a good weekend my dear, I spent yesterday watching the Tour de France and caught the last 50km of today's stage and I must say the Dutch have done the race proud my dear. Utrecht looks lovely and is on our to visit list along with other Dutch cities and if we get over there we will pay you a call to have a good meet up. Sending love and hugs to you and the family my dear.

Thanks John! I would love to meet up with you whenever you visit the Netherlands. That would be real fun.

Which cities are on the list?

I got two new books today:
S. K. Tremayne - IJstweeling



This is the blurb NOT my review

One of Sarah’s daughters died. But can she be sure which one? A year after one of their identical twin daughters, Lydia, dies in an accident, Angus and Sarah Moorcraft move to the tiny Scottish island Angus inherited from his grandmother, hoping to put together the pieces of their shattered lives. But when their surviving daughter, Kirstie, claims they have mistaken her identity – that she, in fact, is Lydia – their world comes crashing down once again. As winter encroaches, Angus is forced to travel away from the island for work, Sarah is feeling isolated, and Kirstie (or is it Lydia?) is growing more disturbed. When a violent storm leaves Sarah and her daughter stranded, Sarah finds herself tortured by the past – what really happened on that fateful day one of her daughters died?

and

Karin Slaughter - Mooie meisjes



This is the blurb NOT my review

Sisters Rae and Sam grew up in the long shadow of their father, a lawyer who devoted himself to defending the helpless and underserved. While for Sam, adult life has meant honoring his legacy—working in his law firm, and staying in their small, sleepy town—Rae is estranged from her family, with a high-flying, well-paid corporate law career in Atlanta. But when Rae sees an unsettling, explosive video of one of her hedge fund clients, she suddenly becomes a target for corrupt and sinister forces. Panicked, she retreats to the home she’d left behind…but someone is watching, and now Rae and Sam are both within his sights. In this gripping thriller—and keenly observant look at the bonds we test, sever, and rebuild

Hi, Connie! That Tremayne book sounds really interesting!

>128 scaifea: thanks Amber. It was real good but not I thought it might be a ***** book. For me it is **** now. I have read to much thrillers and fantasy books so I don't get surprised that quickly any more.

Happy Sunday, Connie. I love Karin Slaughter's books.

I do too Barb! I think I have all the ones that are translated.

Hello Connie, I hope you have had a good day my dear, nice to see you on my thread. Sending love and hugs to you and the family my dear.

Yes, I had a good day. Work is slowing down, due to the summer break in about three days!! And I'm feeling better on the joint side of things. Now I just have to get some sleep (4,5 to 5 hours a night is not good).

Four and a half to five hours sleep per night is not good my dear, hopefully when your summer break starts you will get back to a better sleep pattern. Glad you have had a good day and hope the next three are as good and then it's summer break yay.

Yeah!! I hope my sleeping hours will increase in the break, but I doubt it. It has been this way for a year or so. But I'm seeing my GP in a few weeks and I hope he will have tips for me.

I hope your GP can give you some good tips on sorting your sleep (or lack of it) out my dear.

Hi Connie, I'm glad that soon starts your summer break. Enjoy it and relax. xx

Yes, what Barbara said!

Hi, Connie! Just checking in. Hope all, is well, my friend.

Stopping by to say Hello. *waves*

Hi Connie, hope you have had a good day my dear, have a good last day of term and enjoy your summer break, sending love and hugs.

I hope that your summer break brings relaxation and more sleep. Enjoy!

Hi, Connie! I hope that you're off and enjoying your well deserved vacation.

I miss Utrecht.

Hi all! I'm doing fine! I get used to sleeping only 5 hours a night. But I will talk about it with my GP when I visit him at the end of the month. Thanks for all the well wishes.
I have been doing a lot of reading in the meantime.

I finished IJstweeling by S.K. Tremayne (****) and Ik reis alleen by Samuel Bjørk (****1/2)
And pearl-ruled Nr. 19 by Michèle van Rees (*). A real badly written book. But a ROOT off the shelves and into the carton box to give away.

Now I'm going to read Meisje vermist by Tess Gerritsen.

>143 kidzdoc: I miss Utrecht too and you!

Still one more day to go to school, just the Monday morning. my 'boss' is coming in too and we have to tie up some loose ends. Last Thursday was filled with meetings per class and some students need to change a subject in order to move to the next class. We have to write letters with the new subjects and send them away to be signed by their parents. So that's what we will do on Monday.

On Friday Peet and I leave for a few days in Baden-Baden (South Germany).

Hi Connie, Baden-Baden is beautiful. Enjoy it. :-)

I know, We have been there a few times. We always stay in a hotel in a little village in the neighbourhood. The village is called 'Umweg' (Detour in English) which always makes us smile.

Just finished Meisje vermist by Tess Gerritsen not her best book, entertaining but not really very exciting. (***1/2).

And I have made a start in Mooie meisjes by Karin Slaughter. This book starts very promising.

And another very good book read! Even better than Ik reis alleen.



Mooie meisjes by Karin Slaughter

and some more.

And now I'm very confused. Because the description of the book in English is NOT at all like the story I've been reading in Dutch. It looks like two separate books.

Hi, Connie! Wishing you a happy start to the new week!

Thanks Amber!

We just returned from a weekend in the South of Germany. So I'm a bit behind on threads.
I'm going to work on that in the next week.

It seems like Summer is starting again! We had a week filled with Storm and Rain and Low Temps (all with capital letters) but now the sun is shining and the temps are climbing up. They say it could go up to 20C. So it's time for reading in the garden. I've been preparing for that by doing laundry and some ironing in the early hours of the day. I'm ready for some good reading in Een dans met draken part 1 by G.R.R. Martin.

>150 connie53: Hope you're having a lovely time in the garden reading. I have all sorts of mystery birds visiting our garden at the moment: they're small, they're brown, and they look like nothing I recognize!

Hurrah for normal summer weather! Europe has had some wild extremes (blazing hot, then rainy and cold) over the past month. Hopefully that's all over and done with.

And it was lovely out. I read a lot and had a little nap in my chair.

Hi Connie, glad you had a nice weekend in Southern Germany my dear, we got back from Madeira at 1.20am this morning so I am just catching up on threads as the Wi-Fi around the hotel was poor. Hope you are having a good weekend my dear and I will post later.

Thanks John! I hope you had a lovely vacation! Madeira sounds always very elegant to me, due to an old song about the liqueur by that name.

I'm starting a new thread so please follow me there.