#(It's probably enough to make Susannah's head spin!)

[beatingheart-bride]

"I...I suppose you could say that," Philippe nodded, somewhat caught off-guard by Susannah's kind words. He supposed he shouldn't have been surprised: already, it was apparent that she had a good heart beating within her, but he hadn't expected her to be so sympathetic to his plight. It must've sounded like such a minor thing to complain about, given all of her struggles...Philippe almost felt guilty for complaining, knowing that Susannah's life was so much harder than his would likely ever be.

But still, even knowing that...she sympathized with his plight. She didn't scoff, thinking he had nothing to complain about. It was one thing to have Doreen understand, having endured a similar upbringing to his own...but Susannah, having lived a life that was the opposite of his in almost every way, understood. She'd even apologized to him. Her kindness and understanding almost left him awe-struck: she had every reason not to empathize with him, and yet she did.

"It's been especially frustrating the last couple of years," he sighed, showing a vulnerable side of his own. "For years now, they've been trying to pair me with every eligible bachelorette in Louisiana. They keep introducing them to me, hoping that one day, I'll give in and accept to take one as my bride. If they had it their way, I would've been married and starting a family by now."

@beatingheart-bride

"He...he was."

For so much of her life, August Pace had been Susannah's whole world: She had some memories of her mother, true, but her death in a boating accident when her daughter was three years old had left those memories as being few and far between. Most of what she knew came to her second-hand, stories her father fondly recalled of their courtship, their marriage, and how happy they were to welcome their one and only child into their life.

But beyond these stories keeping the memory of her mother alive in her heart, August Pace was Susannah's one and only family member, and thus, was always by her side, loving and supporting and encouraging her every step of the way. They looked out for one another, they leaned on each other for comfort, they made each other laugh on hard days, they celebrated each other's victories, no matter how small...thus, it was so bizarre, to be on her own now. To be alone.

"He was the best father I could have ever had," she admitted with a small smile. "He was very...warm and gentle. He loved to garden and to cook; most every fruit or veggie we cooked with, he grew himself in our garden. He worked hard, in every job he had, he gave it his all, and even when he didn't get his due despite that, he didn't let it slow him down. He was kind and had a good sense of humor and...I miss him very dearly."

Quickly brushing away the little teardrops pricking the corners of her eyes (hoping Philippe wouldn't notice), Susannah then asked, "Wh-What about your parents? Wh-What are they like?"

[sarahsimsstoryteller]

The Waste Lands by Stephen King - A Five Star Review

Another fantastic entry in King's Dark Tower series. The opening scenes with Shardik were so much fun (well, it was a giant bear with a satellite sticking out of its ear and once he'd been felled and the fear was over I found dark humour in my own imaginings of what he looked like as well as the evil Tonka trucks they come across soon after) and I loved seeing both Eddie and Susannah rise up to show their true colours as gunslingers. Oy is my new favourite character (who can resist a loyal and intelligent dog? Sure he's slightly wacky-looking, but billy-bumblers are clearly the dogs of Mid-World.) and I nearly couldn't keep reading when it looked like Roland was sending Oy in to sacrifice himself for Jake. That's the most scared I've been by a King book so far. One of my favourite scenes was Jake's exit from his world into Roland's via The Mansion. I haven't seen any of the Freddy movies in years, but after reading the plot summaries of the first three on Wikipedia I think that the scene I was remembering was from #3: Dream Warriors. One of the characters created a model of Freddy's house because it had been featuring in their recurring dreams and when the kids all went into Kirsten's dream to battle Freddy that was one of the locations for the battle and at one point Freddy's head pushed it's way through a wall to get to one of the kids (if I'm remembering correctly, please tell me if I'm not). I'm no good at riddles, so while I enjoyed the idea I wasn't able to work any of them out for myself at all (I only know one riddle which has two answers, a silly one and a semi-smart one - Q: what's black and white and red/read all over? A: a sunburned penguin or a newspaper), but I found a lot of enjoyment in my own little puzzles - hunting for the little clues that connect the book to other King books. I also picked up on a few interesting comments/descriptions that I thought might have been hints to exactly what Mid World is - the world of The Stand after many hundreds, maybe even thousands of years have passed. I thought the way Lud was described matched too closely to what you might imagine New York would look like after a plague had torn through the population long ago. Since I highly doubt there are any coincidences in King's books - coincidences are never what they seem - I'm sure that he added those 'coincidences' with great purpose and probably a sense of glee as he contemplated his readers picking up on a single word or phrase and connecting it to something he wrote five years earlier After Oy was saved my only complaint was the way the book ended - with a cliff hanger! I really didn't expect that from King. He attempted to explain in an author's note at the end that the book had written itself and he hadn't known exactly where it was going and before he realised it the page count was over 500 and he didn't believe he could satisfactorily finish the book at a non-cliff hanger point, but I feel that that's when editing comes into the process - you find a good spot (one where the characters don't appear to have a date with death) and make it so that the book can end there. The only positive spin I can put on that ending is that at least no one was literally hanging off a cliff and we're left not knowing whether they were going to fall, or not (well, they weren't going to fall immediately, at least). Thank goodness I don't have to wait six years for the next one like contemporary readers did, although it may be a little while as I had to make an order for it at my library (Can you believe that?! They had books one, two, three, five, six, seven, and even four point five, but not four!). This is another book I'll be buying for my own collection (when I find it at a decent price) as I can definitely see myself wanting to read this often enough to warrant paying for it in both money and bookshelf space.