#phaedra patrick

[bookaddict24-7]

"You should always make time for books."

―The Library of Lost and Found by Phaedra Patrick

[nat-reviews-books]

The Library of Lost and Found by Phaedra Patrick

Martha Storm is a librarian who does her best to help out the people in her life, but is getting annoyed with all of the things people are asking her to do. One day, a mysterious story book is left at the library for her, with a note from her grandmother, dated three years after she had died.

This was a cute, cozy story. I liked the mystery and the character growth. I also liked that we got to look back in time to Betty, Martha's mother. I will say that any time Thomas was mentioned, my blood started to boil. I hated him so much.

I really liked that our main character was a 52-year old woman, because it reminds us that no matter how old you are, you can start a new path in life.

[friendly-neighbourhood-librarian]

When Martha stepped inside the library, she closed her eyes and inhaled the earthy, almond scent of the books. If she could bottle the aroma, she'd wear it as a perfume, L'eau de la Bibliothèque

—Phaedra Patrick, The Library of Lost and Found

[thelonecalzone]

At long last, here is the official reading list for There'll Be Some Changes Made, and a few recommendations from some of the readers! It's long, so hopefully there's a little something for everyone.

Thank you again to the wonderful readers, both for your encouragement, and for helping me compile this list <3

Recommendations (Named Throughout TBSCM)

The Pearl - John Steinbeck The House in the Cerulean Sea - TJ Klune The Great Alone - Kristin Hannah The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde Upon the Blue Couch - Laurie Kolp In the Dream House - Carmen Maria Machado The Price of Salt - Patricia Highsmith Paradise Rot - Jenny Hval Tipping the Velvet - Sarah Waters Fingersmith - Sarah Waters Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit - Jeanette Winterson Rubyfruit Jungle - Rita Mae Brown Under the Udala Trees - Chinelo Okparanta In at the Deep End - Kate Davies Some Girls Do - Jennifer Dugan This is How You Lose the Time War - Amal El-Mohtar, Max Gladstone  The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - Taylor Jenkins Reid Lavender House - Lev AC Rosen My Brilliant Friend - Elena Ferrante Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe - Fannie Flagg Straight Jacket Winter - Esther DuQuette and Gilles Poulin-Denis

Source Books (Referenced, but not named)

The Odyssey - Homer The Yellow Wallpaper - Charlotte Perkins Gilman The Glass Menagerie - Tennessee Williams Hamlet - William Shakespeare The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald Come Along with Me - Shirley Jackson (unfinished novel) We Have Always Lived in the Castle - Shirley Jackson A Certain Hunger - Chelsea G. Summers The Poison Garden - AJ Banner

Honorable Mentions:

The Haunting of Hill House - Shirley Jackson Different Class - Joanne Harris The Lost Girls of Ireland (Book 1) - Susanne O’Leary The Girl Next Door - Jack Ketchum The Broken Girls - Simone St. James Dear Fahrenheit 451 - Annie Spence The Canterville Ghost - Oscar Wilde One Last Stop - Casey McQuiston Ash - Malinda Lo Everything Leads to You - Nina LaCour Camp Slaughter - Sergio Gomez The Silence of the Girls - Pat Barker The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka A Slow Fire Burning - Paula Hawkins The Other Boleyn Girl - Philippa Gregory The Miseducation of Cameron Post - Emily M. Danforth Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

Banished (Under the Coffee Table) Books - DO NOT READ:

Ulysses - James Joyce Everything I Never Told You - Celeste Ng A Little Life - Hanya Yanagihara The Hunting Party - Lucy Foley My Sister’s Keeper - Jodi Picoult The Book Thief - Markus Zusak In the Darkroom - Susan Faludi Marley & Me - John Grogan

Recs from Fellow Readers

Things We Lost in the Fire - Marina Enriquez Her Body and Other Parties - Carmen Maria Machado The Well of Loneliness - Radclyffe Hall Stone Butch Blues - Leslie Feinberg Mouthful of Birds - Samantha Schweblin  The Safety of Objects - A.M. Homes Crush - Richard Siken The Taming of the Shrew - Shakespeare I’ve Got a Time Bomb - Sybil Lamb The Thing Around Your Neck - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Last Night at the Telegraph Club - Malinda Lo Sadie - Courtney Summers The Messy Lives of Book People - Phaedra Patrick The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires - Grady Hendrix The Final Girl Support Group - Grady Hendrix The Lying Lives of Adults - Elena Ferrante They Were Here Before Us - Eric LaRocca The Patience Stone - Atiq Rahimi Agamemnon - Aeschylus Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - Tom Stoppard Cat's Eye - Margaret Atwood Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz's poetry - (start with "You Foolish Men") The poems of Sappho - (“Anactoria”, the book of fragments, and “Goatherd” specifically)

[lafcadiosadventures]

Madame Putiphar Groupread. Book Two, Chapter XXVIII

Under the shade of a Rousseaunian forest, Patrick stops to rest after fleeing the petit-trianon. This chapter is a twin of the previous one, where we got to see how Pompadour dealt with unexpected negative emotions. Now we get to see Patrick’s side. Last chapter we also saw Pompadour and Patrick both had a tendency to dwell in their own misery, this chapter is all about what sets them apart. So, while Pompadour lies in her luxuriant palace bed, Patrick the Rousseaunian man rejects the civilized comfort of an inn in the village (because he wouldn’t find one open so late, it’s true, but this is still heavily rousseaunian romanticism coded) and wanders aimlessly from the farms to the dark forest.

Hartmann Schedel, Man with a dog head from the Nuremberg Chronical

Patrick has some lycanthropic features as we have seen back in Ireland when he fled Cockermouth Castle. However his wolf side is not a threat to the beasts of the forest, who feel at home with him, his stillness is such they continue their lives as if he weren’t there or as if they accepted them as one of their own. Deer, hares, symbolic animals in fables surround him, and he looks like one of those illustrations (allusion to a familiar and industrialized art form, relying on stereotype for characterization) Aesop, Phaedra (there's a scene in Seneca’s Phaedra where she claims that even the wildest beasts can be tamed by love) or La Fontaine.

The forest seems enchanted even to Patrick who is part dog, part wolf and completely used to spending nights in the woods. Even he is tricked by the moonlight filtered through the moving foliage and thinks he’s seeing sprites. The woods in this novel might be the only place that cannot become a prison and that cannot become a place of comfort, no matter how familiar you are with them, they are eternally surprising and destabilizing.

Consequently Patrick cannot relax and sleep, but in the moments of stillness he is invaded by a deep sorrow (while Pompadour felt rage, wounded pride/thwarted lust, all emotions that lead her to acting, rathern than contemplation and resignation) Patrick looks back at his life so far and defines it as a painful pilgrimage. He considers his past is awful, not even thinking of Deborah as an exception (perhaps because they both think of each other as extensions of themselves, twin souls sharing in this dark fate)

In this relative calmness, Patrick expresses regret for having rejected Pompadour now. (in my opinion, because he fears her retribution. Correctly so.) It’s strange because, as he thinks back to what happened, he attributes his rejecting her not to his spontaneous disgust over her trying to drug him and take him by force and coerce him with her power, which seemed like his chief motivation, but to a kind of dogmatic goodness linked to religion.

The deeply religious Patrick dares question god, wondering what kind of reward is reserved for him in heaven to deserve so much suffering in the earthly plane... (hi theme of the sadistic god who punishes his most loyal followers to test their faith) Patrick already knows via Fitz-Harris’ experience what is Pompadour’s preferred method of chastising, so he knows exactly what awaits him, -an underground cell-as expressed in his inner monologue.

The narrator tells us Patrick was able to calm himself by thinking of others who had it much worse than him. What is curious* is that Patrick, a man who has grown up in a country ravaged by colonialism, who has served as a soldier, who has definitely seen a lot of sorrow in his young life, can only think of a literary example (*it is not curious, it is nota Romantic book if we don't have a moment where the protagonist compares theirself to a work of fiction) and it is no mere work of fiction but a landmark of protoromanticism, (protonihilism, proto absurdist theatre and mooore) the tempest scene in King Lear. The tempest rages on outside, reflecting Lear’s inner turmoil and madness and there’s no resolving this Sublime with the balm of reason. (it is interesting how it seems like people in France during this period -1830's-40's- understood Lear as a kindly old man? Balzac’s narrator in his King Lear adaptation Le père Goriot also attempts to portray its Lear figure as a benevolent man-the "christ of paternity"- wronged by his children. I wonder if the balzacian narrator attepmting, sometimes against what we see happen in the action of the novel, to protray Lear/Goriot as a saintly old man represents this contemporary, simplistic reading of Lear as a saintly old man and his two daughters as sadistic villainesses)

Another interesting instance of this Lear scene is that he strips himself of his clothes and with them of all social status, anything marking him as the king of England he can no longer be. It is a gesture of refusal of civilization, he wants to be wild and live in the forest. But it’s not even wanting to be wild, he cannot be anything else anymore. It seems fitting with Borel’s interest in lycanthropy and his mistrust of civilization.

However like a pawn of fate, Patrick returns to the musketeer garrison, and sleeps for some minutes before being awoken by the man who comes to arrest him (secretly and clandestinely and without being informed of any cause of his arrest)

Why doesn’t Patrick attempt to run? If he is afraid of vigilance posts at city gates, etc, he is capable of laying low and surviving in the forest for a while. (if he is afraid of abandoning Deborah, well, his arrest won't help her either) Unlike Lear, he cannot break away from civilization and returns to the garrison as a lamb to the slaughterhouse.

His fatalism is completely negative (allow me a comparison with Diderot’s Fatalist, whose own sense of lacking free will and any agency in the choices of his life, both due to a kind of secular life philosophy and to his own status as a manservant and a soldier, drove him to acts of courage and boldness because everything he did was written on the Great Scroll in the Heavens anyways. In his turn, Patrick is rendered dull, passive and apathetic. Is this (also) a critique of Catholicism?)

(@sainteverge @counterwiddershins )

[nerdywriter36]

Hey love! ❤️ For the end of year book ask:

3, 4, 10, 18

Hello, my dear! Thank you for the ask! ❤️

3. What were your top five books of the year?

Ah, the impossible question. In no particular order:

Assistant to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer

Dance/Vow of Thieves by Mary E. Pearson

The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams

The Bodyguard by Katherine Center

The Prison Healer/The Gilded Cage by Lynette Noni

4. Did you discover any new authors that you love this year?

Katherine Center was an author whose work I first read this year, and she is now an auto-buy author! She writes good fluffy, clean romance (my preference) with such fun storylines and characters that you get so easily attached to. Also Phaedra Patrick and Hannah Nicole Maehrer!

10. What was your favourite new release of the year?

Assistant to the Villain for SURE. That book consumed my brain for weeks and made it hard to read anything else, and I still think about it at least once a day. Courtesy of the person who sent in this ask, I now have a necklace with The Villain's name on it that I actually just wore today, so. I love this book, if you can't tell.

18. How many books did you buy?

Oh, way too many. Let me see if I can figure out how many, roughly.

*calculation noises*

29, that I can think of. That's tallying all of my online orders and the three that I recently bought on vacation. That is not including the books that I bought in-store, so I'll estimate 35? Maybe?

thank you for the ask! feel free to send more, here is the link ❤️

[rockislandadultreads]

National Library Lovers Month: Fiction

The Library of Lost and Found by Phaedra Patrick

Librarian Martha Storm has always found it easier to connect with books than people - though not for lack of trying. She keeps careful lists of how to help others in her superhero-themed notebook. And yet, sometimes it feels like she's invisible.

All of that changes when a book of fairy tales arrives on her doorstep. Inside, Martha finds a dedication written to her by her best friend - her grandmother Zelda - who died under mysterious circumstances years earlier. When Martha discovers a clue within the book that her grandmother may still be alive, she becomes determined to discover the truth. As she delves deeper into Zelda's past, she unwittingly reveals a family secret that will change her life forever.

The Library of the Unwritten by A.J. Hackwith

Many years ago, Claire was named Head Librarian of the Unwritten Wing - a neutral space in Hell where all the stories unfinished by their authors reside. Her job consists mainly of repairing and organizing books, but also of keeping an eye on restless stories that risk materializing as characters and escaping the library. When a Hero escapes from his book and goes in search of his author, Claire must track and capture him with the help of former muse and current assistant Brevity and nervous demon courier Leto.

But what should have been a simple retrieval goes horrifyingly wrong when the terrifyingly angelic Ramiel attacks them, convinced that they hold the Devil's Bible. The text of the Devil's Bible is a powerful weapon in the power struggle between Heaven and Hell, so it falls to the librarians to find a book with the power to reshape the boundaries between Heaven, Hell….and Earth.

This is the first volume “Hell’s Library” series. 

The Last Chance Library by Freya Sampson

Lonely librarian June Jones has never left the sleepy English village where she grew up. Shy and reclusive, the thirty-year-old would rather spend her time buried in books than venture out into the world. But when her library is threatened with closure, June is forced to emerge from behind the shelves to save the heart of her community and the place that holds the dearest memories of her mother.

Joining a band of eccentric yet dedicated locals in a campaign to keep the library, June opens herself up to other people for the first time since her mother died. It just so happens that her old school friend Alex Chen is back in town and willing to lend a helping hand. The kindhearted lawyer's feelings for her are obvious to everyone but June, who won't believe that anyone could ever care for her in that way. To save the place and the books that mean so much to her, June must finally make some changes to her life. For once, she's determined not to go down without a fight. And maybe, in fighting for her cherished library, June can save herself, too.

The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman

Irene is a professional spy for the mysterious Library, a shadowy organization that collects important works of fiction from all of the different realities. Most recently, she and her enigmatic assistant Kai have been sent to an alternative London. Their mission: Retrieve a particularly dangerous book. The problem: By the time they arrive, it's already been stolen.

London's underground factions are prepared to fight to the death to find the tome before Irene and Kai do, a problem compounded by the fact that this world is chaos-infested - the laws of nature bent to allow supernatural creatures and unpredictable magic to run rampant. To make matters worse, Kai is hiding something - secrets that could be just as volatile as the chaos-filled world itself. Now Irene is caught in a puzzling web of deadly danger, conflicting clues, and sinister secret societies. And failure is not an option—because it isn’t just Irene’s reputation at stake, it’s the nature of reality itself...

This is the first volume in “The Invisible Library” series. 

[xkoqueen]

Review: The Year of What If by Phaedra Patrick

☆☆➹⁀☆4 stars ☆➹⁀☆☆ The Year of What If by Phaedra Patrick #contemporaryromance #fiction #travel #NetGalley #Harlequin #HarperCollins #ParkRow #PhaedraPatrick #TheYearOfWhatIf

☆☆➹⁀☆4 stars ☆➹⁀☆☆ About the Book: Can the future be rewritten? On the verge of her second marriage, Carla Carter knows she’s found the one. She and her fiancé, Tom, met through Logical Love, a dating agency she founded for the pragmatically minded, and she’s confident that, together, they’ll dispel an old family curse claiming Carter women are unlucky in love. But when Carla’s superstitious…

[colemckenzies]

Books I read in November ranked best* to worst:

How To Be Human by Paula Cocozza

How To Be A Girl by Marlo Mack

Jane the Determined by Helen B. Davison

Man With Bombe Alaska by Kate Behrens (poetry)

Cannery Row by John Steinbeck

Small Worlds by Caleb Azumah Nelson

Come Again by Robert Webb

A Pocketful of Happiness by Richard E. Grant

A Zero Waste Family by Anita Vandyke

The Book Share by Phaedra Patrick

The Good, The Bad, and The Little Bit Stupid by Marina Lewycka

Time and How To Spend It by James Wallman

[nat-reviews-books]

Currently Listening: The Library of Lost and Found by Phaedra Patrick

[friendly-neighbourhood-librarian]

The Library of Lost and Found - Phaedra Patrick

Martha Storm is in a dead-end rut. After spending several years caring for her ailing parents, their deaths have left her with a void of purpose in her life that she attempts to fill by doing favours for everyone who asks her. But then a very curious book falls into her hands: it is filled with stories she wrote when she was a child, but even more curious is the inscription — written in her grandmother's handwriting, dated 3 years after her grandmother's death. As Martha investigates the origins of the book and the rift that always existed between her parents and grandmother, she also begins to reclaim the life she thought she had lost her chance at.

More bookish books

[memoriesfrombooks]

A bookcase on the cover. A book about life. A book about book people. I was sold based on the cover and title alone of The Messy Lives of Book People by Phaedra Patrick. The book proves to be a middle age version for coming of age story – a journey of self discovery that allows family paradigms to be reinvented and reminds us that dreams are always possible. While somewhat far-fetched and neatly packaged at the end, the book is a lighthearted, easy read. 

Reviewed for NetGalley.

[storyxonline]

Caffeinated Reviewer | The Little Italian Hotel by Phaedra Patrick

23rd Jun Sophia Rose is here with a favorite author. The Little Italian Hotel by Phaedra Patrick delivers a delightful women’s fiction about relationships. Come check out Sophia’s review. Little italian Hotelby Phaedra Patrick Genres: Women’s Fiction Source: Publisher Purchase*: Amazon | Audible *affiliate Rating: When a relationship expert’s own marriage falls apart, she invites four…

[annarellix]

The Little Italian Hotel by Phaedra Patrick - EXCERPT

Park Row Books

When a relationship expert’s own marriage falls apart, she invites four strangers to Italy for a vacation of healing and second chances in this uplifting new novel from the author of The Messy Lives of Book People.

Ginny Splinter, acclaimed radio host and advice expert, prides herself on knowing what’s best for others. So she’s sure her husband, Adrian, will love the special trip to Italy she’s planned for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. But when Ginny presents the gift to Adrian, he surprises her with his own very different plan—a divorce. Beside herself with heartache, Ginny impulsively invites four heartbroken listeners to join her in Italy instead while live on air. From hiking the hills of Bologna to riding a gondola in Venice to sharing stories around the dining table of the little Italian hotel, Ginny and her newfound company embark on a vacation of healing. However, when Adrian starts to rethink their relationship, Ginny must decide whether to commit to her marriage or start afresh, alone. And an unexpected stranger may hold the key to a very different future… Sunny, tender and brimming with charm, The Little Italian Hotel explores marriage, identity and reclaiming the present moment—even if it means leaving the past behind.

Buy Links: HarperCollins: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-little-italian-hotel-phaedra-patrick?variant=40799581339682 BookShop.org: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-little-italian-hotel-phaedra-patrick/18772980?ean=9780778387121 Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-little-italian-hotel-phaedra-patrick/1141998435 Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/dp/0778387127  

The Author: Phaedra Patrick is the bestselling author of several novels, including The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper, which has been translated into twenty-five languages worldwide. Her second novel, Rise and Shine Benedict Stone, was made into a Hallmark movie. An award-winning short story writer, she previously studied art and marketing and has worked as a stained glass artist, film festival organizer and communications manager. Phaedra lives in Saddleworth, UK, with her family.

Social Links: Author Website: https://www.phaedra-patrick.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/phaedrapatrick Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/phaedrapatrick/   GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14203653.Phaedra_Patrick Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/phaedrapatrick

EXCERPT:

Mountains

“Hi, it’s Ginny Splinter, I’m listening. Tell me your wor¬ries…” It was something she said so many times a day on her Just Ask Ginny radio show it had become second nature, like sprin¬kling sunflower seeds on her muesli or kissing her husband, Adrian, on the cheek before he left for work each morning. Ginny arrived early at the Talk Heart FM studio that day to pass a financial planning article to a security guard who’d confided to her he was struggling to pay his rent. She stopped to chat to the young receptionist whose boyfriend wouldn’t commit to anything more serious between them. “You shouldn’t rely on him for your own self-esteem. Never forget you’re a prize worth winning,” Ginny told her with a kind smile. “Come talk to me anytime.” The receptionist wiped a tear from her eye. “Do you re¬ally mean that?” “A promise is a promise. Stay strong, sweetheart.”

Ginny walked away with a glow in her chest, touched when others trusted her with their personal issues. She wasn’t one to toot her own horn, but when her friends wept into their char¬donnay, she was the one they turned to for good advice and packets of tissues. Where others saw paths littered with bro¬ken glass, she chose to picture the sun rising over the moun¬tains. It was probably why thousands of folk from Greenham, Ginny’s leafy northwest England hometown, tuned in to her daily advice show. Throughout her fifteen years on the air, there wasn’t a prob¬lem Ginny hadn’t tried to fix, whether it was loneliness, retire¬ment worries, body dysmorphia, noisy neighbors or bullying at work. She offered solutions for the lost loves, secret loves and the never-been-in-loves. Empathy was her superpower. Other people’s issues made her appreciate her happy mar¬riage all the more. Her twenty-fifth wedding anniversary was just around the corner and she couldn’t wait to celebrate it in style. Whenever Ginny thought about the surprise holiday she’d booked for her and Adrian, in Italy, she couldn’t help smiling. Next month, in June, they were going to be stay¬ing in a gorgeous little village, Vigornuovo in Bologna, for three whole weeks. It would also be the perfect opportunity to renew their wedding vows, to reaffirm their love and com¬mitment to each other and to have some fun, too. The thought of spending quality time alone with her hus¬band made a rush of warmth flood her skin. Ginny couldn’t wait to wander the side streets of Venice at dusk and admire Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. More than anything, she wanted to reignite the spark in her marriage. She and Adrian had been so busy recently that they were like cars speeding along a motorway in opposite direc¬tions. It made her feel uncharacteristically listless, especially now that their daughter, twenty-four-year-old Phoebe, had left home to move in with her fiancé, Pete, and was busy ar¬ranging her own wedding. Ginny usually advised fellow empty nesters to keep busy by taking up a new hobby, perhaps home baking or walking a neighbor’s dog, but she was struggling to practice what she preached. Her hormones had felt out of balance for some time and sticking HRT patches to her backside, to banish her hot flashes, hadn’t proved to be the wonder cure she’d hoped for. Last week, she’d had a worrying urge to rip open her blouse on the high street and flash her lacy bra to passersby. “See, I’m here, still desirable, not invisible!” she’d wanted to shout. But really, she wanted her husband to make her feel that way. The Italian holiday was going to be the perfect solution. When she stepped into the elevator at work, Ginny was faced with a new life-sized poster of herself. She had an au¬burn high ponytail with a trademark curl at the end, and was wearing a pastel blue skirt suit with animal print heels. Her face had been airbrushed, removing every wrinkle, and she’d been given a golden halo and wings. Ginny Splinter, Advice Angel, said the tagline. Ginny pursed her lips. She didn’t like that her lines had been erased. She’d earned them over forty-nine years of life experience, like gathering stamps in a passport. In the office, she waved at her latest producer, Tam. There was a conveyor belt of young graduates keen to join Talk Heart FM, using it as a training ground before migrating to bigger and better roles elsewhere. Tam was the latest recruit. She buzzed with ideas and her oversized black-rimmed glasses screamed ambition. Tam propelled her chair across the office at great speed while sitting in it. “Gin, babe,” she said, tapping a pen against her teeth. “Thought we’d shake things up today and take some live calls, if you’re up for it?” Ginny sat down at her desk and frowned. “Are you sure that’s sensible? We’ve got time to run through the show and handpick a few problems. It gives me time to digest them and give my best advice.” Her mind flicked back to a live call during which a woman had set fire to her husband’s clothes after discovering his affair. Fortunately, he’d not been wearing them at the time. After¬ward, Ginny had fielded lots of calls from concerned listeners and had to assure them everything was okay. Since then, all her producers preferred to pre-record conversations. Tam drummed her fingers on the table. “Come on, Gin. Today’s lead news story is about a herd of sheep escaping into Greenham town center.” She fanned a yawn with her hand. “You must be bored of the same old format, too. We don’t want Just Ask Ginny to become the missionary position of ad¬vice shows.” Ginny narrowed her eyes. She knew her audience well. “Playing some great music, reading out listeners’ letters and giving them advice on air, plus a few pre-recorded interviews is a proven formula,” she said. “And the new poster makes me look like someone off Love Island.” Tam slow-blinked and tapped her teeth again. “Hmm…” she said, looking Ginny up and down critically. “Not sure about that.” Ginny was increasingly aware she was now twice the age of her colleagues. It felt unbelievable, laughable even, that she and Adrian would both turn fifty later that year. She always told callers that age was just a number, but she was finding the milestone confusing. One minute, she treated herself to a new pair of sparkly stilettoes, and the next she found herself reading reviews for thermal nightdresses. She bought pretty lingerie and vitamins to improve her energy levels. She was far from being old, but her youth sometimes seemed like a distant memory. “I’ve made my decision.” Tam pointed her pen at Ginny’s chest like a pistol. “Let’s go for the live calls.” Ginny tried not to growl. A few minutes later, she went live on air, playing songs by Ed Sheeran, Adele and Coldplay, slotting in a couple of her own choices by Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Strokes. Many of the callers seeking advice used a pseudonym and sometimes even affected a fake voice. Ginny nervously gnawed the inside of her cheek as she took a live call from Confused of Greenham. The woman didn’t know whether to enter a third marriage with a kind, generous man she didn’t love, or to pursue a fling with a younger pizza delivery guy. “Picture yourself five years from now,” Ginny said. “You’re lying on your sofa, wrapped in a blanket with a dose of the flu. A hand gently sweeps the hair off your clammy forehead. You open your eyes and see someone holding out a cup of hot tea and some aspirin for you. Is it your fiancé or the pizza guy?” “My fiancé, I suppose,” Confused said. “Then there’s your answer. You can get pizza anytime from any place. Care and understanding are more difficult to come by.” Ginny wrapped up the call and Tam’s weary voice came through her headphones. “Try making the next call sexier, Gin,” she said. “We don’t want listeners nodding off.” “I’m here to help, not titillate,” Ginny said through gritted teeth. She ran a hand down her ponytail and picked up a call from the next person on the line. “Hello, it’s Ginny Splinter, I’m listening. Tell me your worries.” The woman’s voice sounded shaky. “Oh, hello. It’s Miss…Peach.”

“Well, hi there, Miss Peach. Thanks for joining me today,” Ginny said. “Is there anything you’d like to share?” The caller’s words stuttered out. “I only stayed with my husband for the sake of our child. You make a promise and then you’re stuck with it, for life. I wish I’d got out while I had the chance… I’ve wasted so much precious time and now I don’t know what to do.” A familiar ache of compassion rose in Ginny’s chest. It was something she welcomed but had also learned to control, so other people’s problems didn’t affect her too deeply. “I’m sorry to hear that,” she soothed. “It sounds like you’ve been through a tough time. There’s nothing you can do to change the past, but you can take control of your future.” “What if it’s too late for that?” “It’s never too late to move on. Focus on yourself and con¬sider what you really want from life—” “And what if I don’t know?” Miss Peach snapped. “What if I’ve forgotten how to think about me?” Ginny hmm’d and delivered a sympathetic pause while considering what advice to give her caller. People often just needed a gentle push in the right direction. “Why not make a list of all the things you enjoy, perhaps a walk in the country or a trip to the cinema. Try to get to know yourself again and—” “As if that will work,” Miss Peach interrupted, her tone growing more brittle. “And what do you know anyway? You think you’re little Ms. Perfect, don’t you?” Ginny’s scalp prickled and her mouth dried. Her uneasy sensation made the room tilt a little. She waved a hand, try¬ing to get Tam’s attention through the glass partition, but the producer was busy scrolling on her phone. “This call is about you, not me,” she told Miss Peach. “Please don’t let your re¬grets eat you up.” “I’ve seen photos of you and your husband in a magazine. Adrian, isn’t it? You think you have such a marvelous life to¬gether.” Ginny’s heartbeat began to thump ominously in her ears. A few thousand people would be listening in to this conversa¬tion. Oh, god, she hoped Adrian or Phoebe weren’t tuning in. Organizing a wedding was stressful enough for her daughter without this. Ginny drew a finger across her neck, indicating to Tam she was thinking of cutting the caller off. Her producer didn’t notice. “Shouldn’t you address your own problems before you lec¬ture other people?” Miss Peach continued. “Do you even know what your husband gets up to at work? How well do you really know him?” Ginny hesitated and rubbed the double lines between her eyebrows. Of course she knew Adrian, from the way the moles on his back formed a diamond shape, to how he liked his toast served warm, not hot, and with butter spread right to the edges. He didn’t like the bedroom to be stuffy so he slept with the window ajar, even if it meant Ginny had to wear socks in bed during winter. He thought Porsches were works of art but would feel like a cliché owning one. He could be grumpy until his morning coffee kicked in and he enjoyed a nice glass of Rioja most evenings. He loved dogs, hated cats, liked dark chocolate but never white and sang Oasis songs while he shaved. Nevertheless, something icy seemed to slither down her spine. “Miss Peach, what do you mean by—?” Ginny started. “Ask him,” Miss Peach said. “Ask him what?” But there was a click and the line went dead.

Excerpted from The Little Italian Hotel. Copyright © 2023 by Phaedra Patrick. Published by Park Row Books, an imprint of HarperCollins.

[awritersnotebooksblog]

I have been quite woeful in keeping up. Things are happening and I am glad that soon my life will start to return to normal (for me).

While I have been away, I managed to binge on almost all the books I brought from home - library books, via the Libby app, and the books that I own.

Here is what I have read since I got here:

Broken Places & Outer Spaces by Nnedi Okrafor

American Sirens: the Incredible Story of the Black Men who Became America's First Paramedics by Kevin Hazzard

The Messy Lives of Book People by Phaedra Patrick

Shadow and bone by Leigh Bardugo

Eating to Extinction: The World's Rarest Food and Why We Need to Save Them by Dan Saladino

Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo

The Ghost Sequences by A.C. Wise

Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo

The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan

Outer Order, Inner Calm: Declutter & Organize to Make More Room for Happiness by Gretchen Rubin

How Carrots Won the Trojan War: Curious (but True) Stories of Common Vegetables by Rebecca Rupp

I don't usually read this many books in about a month. But I was also sincerely bored.

And here's what I'm currently reading:

Say the Right Thing: How to Talk about Identity, Diversity and Justice by Kenji Yoshino and David Glasgow

Before Your Memory Fades by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

And I have a couple of romance books on deck as well:

Paris Daillencourt is about to Crumble by Alexis Hall

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston

And I ordered three books which will hopefully be at my house when I return:

Romancing the Beat by Gwen Hayes

 Libertarian Walks Into a Bear: The Utopian Plot to Liberate an American Town (and Some Bears) by Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling

The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig

Anyway, that's what I'm reading. If you feel like it, what are you reading? What would you recommend?

[thethirstyspittoon]

If You Have Friends, You Might Enjoy Reading These With Them: “The Curious Charms Of Arthur Pepper” ; Phaedra Patrick