Random number generator: These Old Shades

Posted on April 26, 2025 by Yrsha

I found myself finishing an audiobook with no plan on what to read next. I thought the random number generator would be fun so I went on Goodreads, checked the length of my to-be-read shelf and generated a random number based on this. We hit number 205. This book happened to be Regency Buck by Georgette Heyer, number three in the Alastair-Audley series. I do not think these books needs to be read in order but my audiobook service did not have Regency Buck. It did have the first book in the series, These Old Shades, and I think that counts!

These Old Shades – Georgette Heyer
Original title: These Old Shades (1926)
Series: Alastair-Audley #1
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Format: Audiobook
Narrator: Sarah Nichols
Length:12 hours, 1 minute

Synopsis from Storytel:
Society believes the worst of Justin Alastair, the notorious Duke of Avon. When he encounters a young boy, Léon, who is running from his abusive brother, Avon employs the boy as his page, parading him around parties and other society events in full view of his bitter rival, the Comte de Saint-Vire.

But the truth is soon uncovered: Léon is in fact a girl named Léonie and is actually the legitimate child of the Comte and his wife. While Avon is intent on his plan to reveal the Comte’s duplicity and ruin him publicly, he is charmed by Léonie’s kindness, falls in love, and becomes a changed man.

First impression (5% in): When I looked into this book before starting it I saw that it was published in 1926 and that surprised me a bit. Most books I have read from this time period have been cosy murder mysteries so I was expecting that kind of slow-going writing style. Cosy in a way that is pleasant but not exciting in a way that makes you want to read at every change you get. This book has so far surprised me. We have not come long in the story yet but I do feel the excitement to pick it up again.

I saw on Goodreads that Tamora Pierce rated this book highly, and other than me just having finished one of her books, I find it a little amusing that we in These Old Shades so far have a girl pretending to be a boy and is going to be someone’s page, sharing some plot points with Alanna: The First Adventure.

I find the main male character to be a bit of an ass, like how he speaks to “the boy” but I guess we will see if it can be justified.

8% in: Wait, is this going to be a 20 year old gap sort of book?

25% in: We are getting somewhere. This is different to any romance I have previously read. I am still a little concerned for the age gap thing even though I am aware that the age gaps were larger historically. The point of view, how we are perceiving the story is quite different and that I really enjoy. The pace of the story is quite slow but I do not mind.

29% in: Does she want to continue to be a boy for real or just because she does not want to change things between them?

52% in: Half way in and I think we just got to follow the story from Léonie’s perspective for a while?

69% in: It feels like even though she praises the duke so much, she has a very strong will and does not do something she does not want to.

76% in: There are so many people! I can not keep track of who is who in the social gatherings. Except the pig person, his wife and the prince?

86% in: I do not want to stop listening but I have to work. Things are happening and it squeezes my heart.

Final thoughts: I really liked this book! I am a little surprised that it has aged to well. In the afterword, written by someone who I think wrote a biography about Heyer, it said that Heyer started writing this when she was only 19. I would have guessed that someone older wrote this.

I think some words might have changed meaning since this was written, and today’s society does not typically have these age gaps (but was probably much more common when the book takes place?). I can see why this book has been recommended many times and why it is still being read.

I did find the utter devotion a bit repetative and annoying at times but it was also a bit endearing and since Léonie also has a very strong will and is stubborn, it makes the relashionship dynamic (rather than if there had only been a blind following) between them work better.

How this story was written is very different to many other romances I have read. The perspectives we get to follow are rarely from Léonie and I think that this makes a big part as to why I liked it.

I give this book 4 out of 5 stars — I really liked it!

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Down the TBR-hole #15

Posted on April 21, 2025 by Yrsha

It is time for another round of Down the TBR-hole, where I go through the books in my To Be Read shelf on Goodreads and try to decide if I still want to read them (should they stay?) or not (should they go?).

The Faerie Guardian – Rachel Morgan
I was feeling semi interested when I read the description now but I see that it is available on my audiobook service. I’ll give it a chance.
Verdict: Stays

The Masked City – Genevieve Cogman
I read the first book in the series a couple of years ago and really liked it. I do not remember anything about it now though. I think I will do a re-listen to the first book in the series to freshen up my memory before I decide if I should let this one go.
Verdict: Stays

A Walk to Remember – Nicholas Sparks
This book was recommended to me by a friend, I will get to this one eventually.
Verdict: Stays

Fall of Giants – Ken Follett
This one was also recommended to me by a friend. Added it to my audiobook account (it is almost 40 hours long!).
Verdict: Stays

Renegades – Marissa Meyer
I really liked The Lunar Chronicles books that I read and I should probably try to finish reading this series. I am not feeling a strong urge to read this one so I will let it go from the TBR. I might revisit it when I finish the Lunar Chronicles though…
Verdict: Goes

Pride, Prejudice, and Cheese Grits – Mary Jane Hathaway
I am torn. I do like a Pride and Prejudice story. But I was not very intrigued when I read the synopsis now. And it seems to be expensive to get ahold of. I think it will have to go.
Verdict: Goes

The Unexpected Mrs Pollifax – Dorothy Gilman
This one sounds like it could be a delight! A woman (older than the typical main character) that becomes a CIA agent?
Verdict: Stays

The Perfect Horse – Elizabeth Letts
I find this book intriguing. It is a second world war book about the rescuing of horses? Does not seem to be easily found on my audiobook service or the library but I think I will keep it here anyway.
Verdict: Stays

Avalons dotter (Skin) – Ilka Tampke
My library has this one, I think I will give it a chance.
Verdict: Stays

Bonny’s Big Day – James Herriot
I was pleasantly surprised that my library had this one! It is a short childrens’ book and I very much enjoy the books about James Herriot so this read was a no brainer. I reserved it.
Verdict: Stays

Walk on Earth a Stranger – Rae Carson
I can not remember adding this book to my shelf but I do see that I have a couple of Goodreads friends have added it as well (none of them has read it though) so a good guess is that I saw it passing by in the timeline. My audiobook service had is as an audiobook so I saved it to give it a try.
Verdict: Stays

Deception’s Princess – Esther M. Friesner
This book will sadly leave. It is not available in my library or my audiobook service and I do not want to read it badly enough to buy it. It is a beautiful cover through and that is probably why it landed on my shelf to begin with.
Verdict: Goes

How did it go this time?
Books in the TBR shelf at start: 240
Number of staying books: 9
Number of leaving books: 3
Total amount of leaving books: 50
Number of reserved books at the library: 1
Number of books put in to-borrow-shelf: –
Number of books added to audiobook-account: 3
Current amount of books in my TBR shelf: 269

Mostly staying books in this round. I am pleased that quite a few of them were available in the library or on my audiobook service.

I am going to do a new try to keep these posts more regular. It would be fun to get the number on this shelf down a bit. When I take too long in between the posts, I have time to add so many books…

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Weekly update #89 – caught a cold

Posted on March 5, 2025 by Yrsha

I have been home with a cold for a couple of days and I am now starting to get back some energy. Yesterday was mostly spent in the sofa but I did manage to fasten some threads on the squares for my book blanket.

Today, I have been listening to Emperor Mage by Tamora Pierce (book three in The Immortals Quartet). This series is a comfort read and it has been relaxing to listen to while being ill. I carefully laid out the squares on the floor (moving gives me a headache) to see where we are in the square status.

I think I have finished three yellow squares today with one more in progress. You might notice that this layout might not correspond to the latest update I gave you. After I did lay out them last time I thought that the blanked would benefit from being a bit wider so I adjusted it a little.

There are a few squares to go to being up to date with what I have read. If I were up to date, the blanked would look like this:

I am hoping to get a dark blue Tetris block (shape mirrored to the orange) in soon, fitting nicely in above the yellow 10. I am currently reading Let Sleeping Vets Lie by James Herriot, the third book in the series about James, that will give me that block.

I think that will do for today, I hope you are at least half as excited as me about my book blanket. It does encourage me to pick up books from a bigger release year span. Let Sleeping Vets Lie was published sometimes in the 70s, a decade that is not a common one in my bookshelves.

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Weekly update #88 – book blanket update

Posted on February 10, 2025 by Yrsha

Hello friends!

January passed in a blink!

I did a lot of thinking about my book blanket last month and I finally settled on my blocks and have started to crochet. I did in the end choose to go with the original colours of the blocks and chose yarn colours that had a good contrast so that the colours would not be too similar.

My online version of the blanket looks like this at the moment (the numbers represent in which order they have been placed, and yes it starts with two):

My reading is a bit affected by this blanket. I try to mix up my reading to not get too many of the same time span in a row, and I am more selective in which books I pick up (and put down) knowing that they will be represented in the blanket. But, in the end I am a mood reader so that will always be what is deciding what I pick up next. This week I have one purple and one yellow coming up and then we will see what is coming.

I have started to read the thickest book in my unread collection: The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon. It is over 800 pages so it is a big one! In the beginning there was a lot of world building and information so it was hard to know what would be important to remember. I think I am past that point now and things are going to take off. I have really enjoyed reading it so far!

I met up with my university book circle last week to discuss Färskt vatten till blommorna (Changer l’eau des fleurs / Fresh Water for Flowes) by Valérie Perrin. We were a bit divided in our opinions so it was an interesting discussion! For my part, I can understand why it has gotten the hype its gotten but it was not a book for me.

This Thursday we are going to discuss Sleeping Beauties by Stephen and Owen King at work. It is also a thick book (over 700 pages) so it has taken us quite some weeks to read it together. It will be interesting to hear everyone’s final thoughts.

What are you reading this week?

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Happy New Year!

Posted on January 2, 2025 by Yrsha

A new year has begun and the yearly book counters has been set to zero.

How did last year’s reading go?

I did squeeze in a Nancy Drew the last hour of the year to reach my goal of reading 80 books.

I tried out a new book app (Fable) the last part of 2024 and they summarized my reading like this:

My most read author was by far Eric Ugland with 15 books. The series The Good Guys and The Bad Guys have been warming my ears since July and I still have 11 to go before I am all up to date, and then one book in the series The Grim Guys.

My average rating 3.4 is slightly lower than 2023’s 3.8, but higher than 2022’s 3.2.

I have a spread where I in the beginning of each year attempt to set a goal to read my thickest books. Last year I managed to read two of those books, Fourth Wing (5 stars) and The Spanish Love Deception (4 stars)

Reading plans for 2025

I have set my Goodread’s (and Fable) goal to 50 books. The reason behind my lowered goal is to make room for those thicker books and also to actually read more in German. Both of these goals are quite familiar, they have been set before, but let us give it a go again.

The thicker books have now an updated spread with the following books:

Let us see if I can tick off at least two of these books.

The German reading goal is a little trickier. I do have the second Harry Potter book in German (unread) at home and have read the first previously. I am pondering rereading the first one before starting the second or if I should go directly to the second. I have been looking for other books to read in German and I find this quite tricky. Ideally I want a book where I know the story well so that I recognise it and have an easier time following the story.

My audiobook service are offering some books in German (both audio and ebook) but many, where I know the story, are abridged and I want the full length ones. I do not think that the Swedish book sellers have a big selection of books in German either. I will have to keep digging for a bit to find a suitable book.

A few days ago, I stumbled upon someone online making a book blanket. The wheels in my head started turning and I am playing with the thought of making one of my own as well. The most common version seems to be using granny squares. I finished my granny square blanket not too long ago and am therefore thinking about doing something different. And since I am planning on reading less this years, I might not get as many squares anyhow. The current idea: a Tetris blanket!

I am still playing around with the details but I am leaning towards doing a Tetris blanket where each block represents one book published during a certain time span. This will hopefully also encourage me to pick up books from different time periods. Each block will probably consist of four squares so the blanket will hopefully not grow too slow.

I am still playing around with the colour scheme and have yet to settle on one.

I think that is it, my book thoughts at the moment. I will also leave my good old Bookshelf tracker here. It shows the current book status of the books that was unread in my book collection at the start of 2020 and the ones added since. I noticed last year when I tried to keep track of my unread pages on a monthly basis with this app that it was not accurate but I think it is fun to get a rough idea on the status anyway.

Do you have any book related goals this year?

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Alien Claimed

Posted on September 11, 2024 by Yrsha

Alien Claimed – Julie K. Cohen
Series: Zyanthan Warriors #1
Original publication year: 2021
Type of book: ebook

Synopsis from the author’s page:
Ivy
Earth isn’t exactly paradise, not since the Coalition took control, but it was home… until Ivy’s brother shoved her onto an alien ship to be a mail-order bride. Against her wishes. Without asking her.  Without caring about her.  Quite frankly, she was better off without the murderous psycho, but that doesn’t mean she was prepared for the universe. She only knows she won’t marry some horned alien.  She’ll make her own way back to Earth and stay far away from her brother and his nefarious ties to the Coalition. Nothing will change her mind.  Not even a tall, sweet, protective warrior who makes human males look like boys and the universe look much more appealing than she ever thought possible.

Quinnov
Quinnov’s alone in the universe.  Except for his planet… war torn, burned out Zyan.  No one in his family survived the war, except maybe his older brother Jaizon. Quinnov’s been searching for him since the war ended.  But when he crosses paths with his heartmate, his priorities shift.  To keep her safe from those hunting her, he may have to return her to her world, even though she makes his heart soar and both of his cocks harden.

I do not think that I have a lot to say about Alien Claimed but let’s do a little sharing of thoughts anyway.

Everything went very quickly. They had this heartmate thing going on, so I half buy the story but if she did not have the bond the same way as a human, it went too quickly.

His two … things … was a bit weird. I get that it might be a thing in monster romance but it was a bit weird. It is good that she liked it anyway, whatever floats your boat or how the saying goes. Not really my taste though.

I am a bit sceptic to reading more books in this series. I did read it because I downloaded it for free during one of those stuff your kindle days and it was fun to try but it was just that.

I gave it 2 out of 5 stars – it was okay.

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Weekly update #87 – reading update

Posted on September 4, 2024 by Yrsha

I hope you are having a good week! Today I am showing you my latest finished books and my current Goodreads goal.

Starting from the bottom: Divine Rivals was a book that I thought had a promising start but I am not sure I agreeing with the turns of the story towards the end. Haven’t decided whether I want to continue the series or not.

Home, Siege Home was good, I included it in the review of the first six books in The Good Guys series. I have started listening to the next one in the series. Might take a break from the books after this and listen to something else before moving on to the next book.

Alien Claimed was a book that I grabbed while it was free on Kindle. I did download it to the Kindle app and read it on my phone. Not sure that I am going to review this one, I do not think that I have so much to say about it. It was okay. The alien has two thingies and I see what the author tried to do with that but I am not quite sold on that concept.

Strimmor av hopp (Between Shades of Gray) was recommended to me by a friend. It depicts a horrible history but from a viewpoint I have not read from before. I thought it was a really good book and I can see why it has so many good reviews. I typically do not read “depressing” stories but I am very glad that I picked up this one. I thought I would have a harder time reading this than I did. Thanks for the recommendation!

I am just about to read the final pages in our book circle book for work; Enklaven (not translated to English that I know of). It will be very interesting to hear what people thought of the book. We are going to have a discussion about the last couple of chapters tomorrow and then we will talk about the whole book next week. I think that we will be joined by a couple of more people that has read this book previously as well then.

Goodreads goal wise I am on track and ahead a couple of books. I got in a good reading mood during my vacation and have managed to keep it up. I am hopefully going to start on a pretty chunky book soon and that might slow down the number of finished books a while. But numbers are not the important part, even though they are quite nice to look at (when they are looking good).

What are you currently reading? Do you have a reading goal for this year? If so, how is it going?

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Series: The Good Guys #1-6

Posted on August 30, 2024 by Yrsha

Series: The Good Guys by Eric Ugland
Books 1-5: One More Last Time (2018), Heir Today, Pawn Tomorrow (2018), Dungeon Mauling (2018), Four, The Loot (2019), Dukes and Ladders (2019), Home, Siege Home (2019)
Narrator: Neil Hellegers

I might have mentioned that I am currently listening to the series The Good Guys, a series where a guy happens to find himself inside a computer game. While he is there, all he wants to do is to relax and fish. Lets just say that this is not exactly what happens.

This series belongs to a genre called LitRPG, short for literary role-playing game. This genre is new to me so I cannot compare the series to others of the same type but I am intrigued by this one enough to have the ambition to explore more in the same genre.

I really enjoy listening to these books. The main character has a bit of a trouble past from earth and does his best to redeem it in this new world, good intentions but might not always think (so much) before he acts. Montana, our main character uses a lot of references to our world that the other characters do not get so they think he is a bit weird.

In the first book we get a lot of stats and character sheets, things are repeated when things are changed and we get to see all the notifications. In the later books, these are not as important anymore. I think the first book does a great job of setting the game environment but I can understand if some people think that it gets a bit repetitive while listening, it is not as easy to skim read those stats and notifications when one listens.

I am currently listening to book number seven in the series, The Bare Hunt. There are still some unanswered questions regarding the world, and things yet to be used. This makes it feel like the author has a plan for the series and drives the story forward, I just hope there is a plan and that it is not forgotten.

A lot of the times I have no idea where the stray is headed, what side quests he is going on get stuck in or who (or what) he going to run into next. But, I also feel that the further into the story we get, the more predictable the character gets. But maybe we are just getting to know him and know how he would act? But things are also very easy for him and sometimes running a bit too smoothly at times.

These books are funny and the narrator does a great job in telling the story. I will definitely continue this series!

I gave these books 4 out of 5 stars – I really liked them.

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Weekly update #86 – I have been to the library

Posted on August 26, 2024 by Yrsha

During that time where we all were a bit afraid of germs, I stopped going to the library. It was mainly because the library was closed but also because of the germs part. I love libraries and think that they are great but after that time, I have not really gotten back into reading library books. I am working on changing that. So, I have been to the library twice the last two weeks. Mondays are a good day, then the library is open after I get home from work.

This stack is a mix of books that I reserved and those I picked up on a whim while I was there. Two of these books written by Ruta Sepetys has been recommended to me by my friend Js. I am currently reading Between Shades of Gray (Swedish title Strimmor av hopp). It is well written and from a perspective of the Second World War that I have not read from before.

I am very close to finishing Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross. I have seen this being hyped a while back, and lately not heard anything about it. I am not sure what I was expecting from it but not this. I have been enjoying reading it and at this point I do not know where the author is going to leave the story in the end. I think it is part of a series, Letters of Enchantment, and I feel like we are going to leave off on a cliffhanger.

We have decided the next books in my two book circles. With work, we will be reading Sleeping Beauties by Stephen and Owen King and with my university friends we will be reading Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin.

Are you in any book circles? What are you currently reading?

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