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Yesterday I finished a fantastic book. It isn’t often that I find myself so gripped by a story that I can’t put it down, but this one certainly did. And, to top it off, the genre isn’t one I usually read; historical fiction is not really the sort of thing I enjoy. I tend to think that the history itself is enough and a fictional account woven through it is not necessary.
Of course, that’s just me. Mirinda, for instance, loves a good story set in a real time and place. And, of course, I do love the Sharpe books of Bernard Cornwall and you don’t get more historical fiction than Richard Sharpe. I will call that the Gaz Exception.
Speaking of reading, today the BookBusters reading group had an erudite email from Nicoline suggesting that our current book was rather repetitive and questioning this habit of current American writers. I wonder if this is because of short attention spans bought on by doom-scrolling short content. Readers have to be constantly reminded what they are reading about therefore repetition is necessary.
Anyway, the book I just finished does not suffer from repetition. It races through, never stopping long enough to repeat anything that just happened in the previous chapter. And, for anyone who enjoys a good, sparse read, I highly recommend it.
The book is The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargraves. I can’t remember who recommended it to me, but I thank them very, very much. I absolutely loved it.
Anyway, moving on from that, today saw Freya take another downturn just as we thought she was recovering from the mystery that is ailing her. She spent the day mostly asleep and refused food until Mirinda hand fed her late into the night. Even then she didn’t eat much.
She sleeps so much that I have to keep checking that she is still breathing. Needless to say, she didn’t go for a walk today. If for no other reason than her difficulty in standing up and walking.
Of course, I did, given I had to go shopping this morning. On the way back, through the woods, a small brown frog hopped onto the path in front of me. It was about the size of the top of my thumb which is no real size at all. I was concerned it might come undone, squished by someone not observant enough to see it or greedily snatched by one of the numerous Trosa crows.
I spent a bit of time, ushering it off the path. I smiled and bid it good day as it eventually disappeared off into the undergrowth on the opposite side.
Maybe it was looking for water. If so, it was in luck as we had some rain today. Not much. Just enough to wet a tiny frog.
