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Although On the Beach by Nevil Shute is not on my original list of Books I am Rereading Before I Give Them Away, it is a book that I had heard about a bunch of times before adding it to my cart and accidentally buying […]
We are getting closer to the finish line with our first list of 10 Books I am rereading before giving them away with this week’s book, When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka. When I first started this list I had high ambitions about […]
The latest book in my series 10 Books I am Rereading Before I Give Them Away Part 1 is the namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. I am most of the way through my list of books to read and will be posting Part 2 coming up pretty soon. I had books set out for both part 2 and 3 but everything got shuffled back together when we were packing for our move so I will have to create new lists.
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Once again I didn’t really remember much about this book before reading it again but I was pleasantly surprised. The Namesake is about a family from India that moves to the United States and how they navigate living in a new country with all of the different ways of doing things. The reader starts out in India with the story of the parents’ lives there and move to the United States with them. As the story progresses there are births, marriages, deaths and many more life events that change and shape all of the characters. The story focuses on the son Gogol later in the book and how he navigates life at college and with holding onto the traditions of his parents while also growing up in a completely different country from them.
The namesake is very well written and I read it very quickly because I just couldn’t put it down. I last read this when it first came out maybe around 20 years ago and it hit differently this time now that one of my kids is grown up and out of the house and my parents are much older. This is a great book for people of all ages to read and get a different experience out of.
I absolutely loved this book and I highly recommend it to anyone who loves to read. I am however not sure if I will keep it or not. It is very good but I also could get this one from the library very easily and I am not sure if I need to read it again. Space is tight at our new house so I will keep this one for now and reevaluate once I have my books unpacked and I have read through a few more lists of books.
Look out for new book reviews most Fridays from now until the end of 2024. The next couple of books are When The Emperor was Divine by Julie Otsuka and On the Beach by Nevil Shute.
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March is upon us and it is time for new monthly goals. This year my focus is on finishing up projects that I have so it should come as no surprise that my main goal for March is to work through my project backlog. I […]
The fourth book in my first Rereading Books Before I Give Them Away Series was “We’ll Meet Again” by Mary Higgins Clark. As usual I am writing a brief review of the book with my decision to either keep the book or give it away. […]
I am pretty excited about our January 2024 shop update! We have some great pinks and red this month with new holographic stickers and a new cross stitch design. I am so in love with my Dahlia photos I had to make postcards out of them. Let me know in the comments if you would like to see more of the Dahlias or our cute little heart man. I was thinking of doing greeting cards, a calendar or maybe something else. What do you think?
This site participates in affiliate links and receives a small fee for affiliate recommendations at no cost to you. As always we only recommend products we have tried ourselves. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
Our first new item is our beautiful Dahlia postcards. These 6″ x 4″ postcards feature a soft touch front and matte back for easy writing and are priced at $10.00 for a pack of 10 with a bonus mini-sticker sheet. I really love the photos I took of these flowers at Volunteer Park last fall. There was a slight drizzle going on and most of the petals were covered in drops of water which added depth to the photos.
My favorite one has got to be the one of the two orange dahlias. I am not sure what variety these were but they looked like fluffy cushions and I could totally imagine a fairy sleeping in the petals on a warm day.
Next up we have our Holographic Heart Gifting Pink and More Pink Sticker. Whew. That is a mouthful! I wanted to heavily feature our Heart Man from our original Holographic Bright Rainbow Flowers Sticker design that was the precursor to our popular Holographic Midnight Rainbow Flowers sticker. Our Heart Man is giving his lover a heart across a pink landscape with our signature lined rainbow in the background. This sticker is great for Valentine’s Day or anyone who loves pink!
Speaking of our Heart Man, I also made a Holographic Heart Man sticker this month to celebrate his cuteness! This sticker is about 2 inches tall by 1 inch wide and sells for $3.00. It is the first of many stickers in our Heart Man line with muted colors and a shiny holographic effect. Do you have any ideas for how I should dress him up in the future? His wine barrel look may need some updating!
Next up we have our five pack of Mini Pink Holographic Rainbow Hearts selling for $4.00. This one inch hearts are sparkly, shiny and all things pink! They are great for planners, closing envelopes, and decorating hard surfaces such as your phone case, laptop, helmet or water bottle. These fit right in with our Hearts and More Hearts collection and have inspired me to think about releasing a holographic version of our other mini hearts.
Last we have our Mini Heart Man Earrings in a teeny tiny one inch hoop on 25ct fabric. I really like my tiny Mini Heart Man cross stitch design but I am not selling the pattern yet because I am going to make a larger pack of mini patterns so it is a better value for people purchasing them. I am also working on making mini pillows for miniature fans and have a separate listing of them with just the hoop so you could hang it on a dollhouse wall.
Thank you for joining us in our exploration of self-care, art and doing things we love! I have really appreciated everyone’s support over the past year and look forward to doing more creative things for 2024!
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Holographic Heart Gifting Pink and More Pink Sticker
5 Pack Mini Pink Holographic Rainbow Hearts
Our November shop update is small but mighty in Oscoey Shop. We are introducing two different cotton canvas tote bags! I am super excited about them and hoping you like them too. Both bags feature our Midnight Rainbow Flowers design and can be used for […]
At the end of September, faced with a mountain of books I had not read in almost a decade, I decided to start sorting through my books and reread any of those that I was unsure of keeping. I originally created this list of ten […]
When I created my post about rereading books kept in storage for too many years I wasn’t sure whether I would actually have time to read the books on my list. My post “Rereading Books Before I Give Them Away Part 1” was an attempt to get started with a small pile of books from the many boxes in storage since our move eight years ago. I reluctantly started “Pearl Cove” by Elizabeth Lowell and it was hard for me to get back into reading it but once I got going I remembered how much I love this book.
This site participates in affiliate links and receives a small fee for affiliate recommendations at no cost to you. As always we only recommend products we have tried ourselves. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
“Pearl Cove” is a typical action adventure romance novel set in the Pacific surrounding a murder at a pearl farm. This is the third book in the series and I have no idea where I bought it or why I haven’t read the first two books but I will definitely look at my library to see if they have the first two. I may even purchase them from a second hand store if I like them, but I am not sure yet. I am supposed to be narrowing down my collection right?
The book is set in both Australia and Seattle focusing on the pearl trade and the murder of the creator of a rumored rare black rainbow pearl that is highly coveted. I will whole heartedly admit that I knew nothing of pearls before reading these books, or that Seattle had a pearl district. I have not yet done any research into the pearl trade in Seattle but I will tell you that this book gave me more respect for the humble pearl as a piece of jewelry. There are enough facts about pearl growing in this book to keep it interesting and the plot behind the pearls fits really well with the story. It does make me wonder more about the pearl trade in general and if more modern technologies have made pearl seeding easier. A quick google search did reveal that black rainbow pearls are a real thing and that they are beautiful. The would fit in very well with our Midnight Rainbow aesthetic over at Oscoey Shop.
As far as the plot of the book goes, it fits in with a fairly standard romance novel, but I feel like I am missing quite a bit of back story by not reading the first two books. I am going to read the first two books before I comment on any of the continuity between them but from what I understand, the main characters Archer Donovan and Hannah McGarry in this book have previously met in another book. Hannah was married to Archer’s deceased half-brother which provides some conflict in their relationship. Their relationship in this book is strained and then magically better after a misunderstanding is cleared up which I feel is pretty typical of romance novels.
Overall I liked both Archer and Hannah but I felt like their characters could have had more depth. I am not sure though if that was because I didn’t read the first two books or if it was to keep the book at a shorter length. There was some macho man behavior going on with Archer but honestly this time around it didn’t bother me nearly as much as when I was reading Ecotopia. With romance novels I come to expect that sort of writing much more than with a more serious piece like Ecotopia.
I am not sure if I would recommend these books or not. I know that is kind of a cop out but I really feel like I should read the first two before passing any judgement so this review will be pretty short. I did not realize this was a romance novel when I added it to my list. My memories were more of the action/adventure parts of the book, of which there is plenty, but be fair warned this is technically a romance novel. I would definitely recommend starting with the first book in the series, “Amber Beach“, if you want a more complete read but as it is, “Pearl Cove” does stand alone as a great read!
Stay tuned for our next book review from our list, An Inconvenient Woman by Dominick Dunne.
Pearl Cove by Elizabeth Lowell
An Inconvenient Woman by Dominick Dunne
Eight years ago when we moved into our house I pared down my book collection by about 25% and put the rest into boxes. Until a few months ago those boxes largely remained untouched as we navigated life and I stopped reading all together while […]
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