the_castle_library's reviews
72 reviews

Book 4 in "The Invisible Library" series. 

When Dragons pull a Librarian into their politics, Irene is sent to a 1920s America to find the Librarian in question and find out how much trouble he was in with the Dragons and bring him back to The Library to answer for his breach. Irene and Kai face gangsters, blackmail, and Noble Dragons trying to persuade her to take their side. 

I enjoyed how the storyline unfolded and the speed in which it did. Once it took off, it was like rolling down the first hill of a rollercoaster and continued at that pace with momentary slowdowns in a cycle until the very end. All of the books so far in this series have been paced as such.

This is a cute enemy to lovers book my heart needed 🥰 Prudence is the definition of punctual and exact while Quint is the definition of laid back and easy going and together they do not make a good team...or do they? 🤔

They're lab partners who couldn't be more opposite. Prudence worked very hard over the last few months to nail their final biology project on ecotourism and Quint hasn't helped at all. The grade they receive is unacceptable for Pru so she sets out on a mission to redo it, with or without him. She goes to their local sea life rescue center to volunteer and help her with research for her project. What she gets instead is a summer full of firsts and a change of heart and mind. My rating for romance is 💖💖💖

I have been working on being gentler for the past 2 years now and just needed a little refresher course to ensure I'm staying on the right path to bring my children up to be the best humans they can be for this world. Gentle does NOT mean permissive. I DO say "No" and there ARE boundaries. The title "Gentle Parenting" is very misleading as it does have structure and discipline (not punishment). How can we expect children to think for themselves or stand up for themselves if they are raised only to obey? They have thoughts and feelings, just like adults and if they don't feel heard, how can they grow to be empathetic towards others and mentally & emotionally stable?

This is a Historical Fiction based on real people and real historical events, but have been slightly manipulated by imagination and speculation from missing information. *If you aren't familiar with her story, this book does contain mention of child loss and the grief that comes with it.*

🗓️ The Morgan Library & Museum in NYC is dedicating an exhibit to Belle from Oct 25, 2024 - May 4, 2025.

Belle Marion Greener is an African American woman in 1906 trying to find her place in a very racial and segregated United States. At the time, one of the main careers for women was teaching, but she was not passionate about that, she was passionate about art, introduced to her at a very young age by her father, Richard Greener. 

She starts off working at Princeton as a librarian while she sends money to her family in New York City to help them get by. Since their move to New York City from Washington D.C. when she was 11 or so, they have been passing as having a Portuguese heritage to pass as White, changing her name to Belle da Costa Greene to give the family a fighting chance at a better life. She sees an announcement that J.P. Morgan is building a personal library and is looking for a librarian to help him run it. Belle seizes the opportunity and applies for the job...and gets it!

How crazy and unrealistic is it for an African American woman to lend a job with THE financial tycoon, J.P. Morgan?! Again, no one knows her true ethnicity or identity, but to her and her family, this is an amazing accomplishment! She goes on to thrive in the world of art and owns her place in the world of high society. Internally, she faces so many challenges of hiding her secret, longing to be free of it without losing all she's worked for, and longing for love and a family she knows can never exist. My ratings for romance and spice are 💖/🌶️

My 9 year old son has recently been diagnosed with ADHD and is really struggling in school with completing assignments and staying focused. His specific diagnosis came along with the grief of losing 3 very important people very close together. I'm struggling with finding him a behavioral therapist who is covered under his insurance that is available after school hours, so I decided that until then, I will just have to walk him through strategies and coping mechanisms to help him get back to some level of normalcy. This book is very informative and helpful. I will be referencing it often until I get the hang of things.

This is not a one and done book. It makes you look at yourself, your current parenting style, and the parenting styles of your parents and grandparents. I have found myself yelling more as my kids get older and household dynamics change as a result of being a blended family with children who come from a very different household structure with their other parent. Yelling makes everyone feel worse so if I can start to heal myself and recognize my triggers, then I can start approaching these challenges calmer and more beneficially. There are a lot of exercises and techniques to help regulate and in turn, be calmer.

It is set in 1941, leading up to Hitler's reign of terror. Dr. Ernst Viktor is a psychiatrist and in 1918, treated Adolf Hitler for psychological madness following his time in the German Revolution. He has a medical journal proving Hitler is unstable and wants it transcribed and published. He hires Fräulein Katja Heinz to help him do so after they meet at an interview and he finds out that they are on the same side of the war line. When a French friend of Viktor's tells them he may have connections to get the notes published, they meet in Paris to show the first 3 chapters of the transcript. Katja catches her eye on a man she feels a deep pull to that will unknowingly end up in her path again sooner than she realizes. Trouble ensues when Hitler comes to their little German town for a big battleship reveal and keeping the notebook and transcripts hidden and a secret becomes a life or death task that Katja isn't sure she can handle when pressure starts to come down on her, her job, and her family. My rating for romance is 💖💖💖

In 2002, Julie Powell writes a blog inspired by Julia Child and her cookbook "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" to fill the void she feels being trapped in a job she hates because her dream of being a writer hasn't taken off, she's childless struggling with PCOS, and is coming up on her 30th birthday.

It was also later in life that Julia Child's life fell into place. She got married in her mid 30s and learned to cook when she was 37. She wrote "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" because her and her husband, Paul, were stationed in Paris in the late 1940s and none of the cookbooks were translated for Americans. When she realized that she wanted to cook, she started off in an Advanced class of all G.I. men. She caught on quickly and at the end of the class, she earned a diploma that certified her as a chef. From there, she started the cookbook and even started a cooking program broadcast on television.

Rest In Peace Julia Child 8/15/1912-8/13/2004
Rest In Peace Julie Powell 4/20/73-10/26/22