Friday, August 12, 2022

Five on Friday - August 12, 2022 ~ Summer Bookish Romance Books, The House In The Cerulean Sea Review, August 2022 Little Passports Subscription, Produce Keepers, and Shania Twain: Not Just A Girl Documentary

Happy Friday everyone - I hope you all had a great week. It's been quite a week here - I got back from my Grandfather's service in BC on Sunday night and it's been quite a draining week since. I'm honestly looking forward to my first relaxing weekend of the Summer to recuperate this weekend! 

ONE 

I purchased (or borrowed) everything in this post - this post contains affiliate links

I'm not much of a planner for my reading, but each month I try and stick to a little bit of a reading "theme". Now that we are in to August, what's the perfect read for Summer? Romance of course! But what's even funner is that a whole bunch of new romances have this fun bookish theme! So I rounded up a few fun Summer Romances with a Bookish twist! 

Here's a few Summer books I'm planning on reading soon:
  • Meet Me in Margins by Melissa Ferguson ~ This romance is described as You’ve Got Mail meets The Proposal - featuring a budding romance author and the son of an editor in chief at the book imprint they both work at. It sounds like they write back and forth on her manuscript as they fall in love!
  • The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston ~ This is a book about a "ghost" writer for a popular romance writer who can also see and speak to the dead - she believes love is dead, when she meets her new Editor! This revolves around death, so it's a little quirky, but I've already read it and it was adorable! 
  • Book Lovers by Emily Henry ~ This is one of my favourite books of the year so far! It features a couple of rivals in the New York book world and puts them in a small town by chance together. I love a book that can poke fun at the tropes and in that style, it's really an ode to books and book writing and there is so much love of books sprinkled in this romance! 
  • The Roughest Draft by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka ~ This is about a couple of co-authors that were writing together and they "hit a plot hole" and split - but, they have one more book due on contract together, so they have to come back together to write their final novel! 
  • By The Book by Jasmine Guillory ~ This is another one I've already read - it's actually an adult romance retelling of Beauty and the Beast (but a loose retelling) featuring a reclusive hollywood badboy that's supposed to be writing a book and a literary assistant that goes to check on him! 
This is such a fun little genre of books and I do think they are perfect Summer reads for book lovers! 

TWO 


I'm keeping up with my reviews of books I'm loving, and I just finished reading The House In The Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune and I have to gush about it - I loved it! This is a young adult contemporary fantasy (but honestly, I think that is somewhere between YA and Adult). I'm not sure I understood the world "cozy" for describing a book style until I read this book! I absolutely loved this - it was so cute and so sweet (any how many books featuring an antichrist can you say that about?!)! 

This is has our main character who works for the Department of Control of Magical Youth going to Marsyas Island Orphanage on a classified mission to see if the orphanage full of the "most dangerous" magical children should remain open. His job is to observe everything happening at the orphanage and reporting back weekly to the department. I thought the characters were all amazing in their own way - they had me laughing so much. The love and found family truly shined and you find your self rooting for all these characters while really hitting home that idea of not judging a book by it's cover and getting to know everyone for what they are. There are so many good little tidbits and I thought this was heartwarming! 5 Stars!

THREE 


Elliott was gifted a Little Passports subscription for Christmas, and we just got the ninth delivery! Little Passports is a kids subscription company that focuses on "play-based science and geography kits delivered monthly." They offer 5 different subscriptions for ages 3 - 8+ and they have 3 different Geography based subscriptions and 2 Science subscriptions. 

So, Elliott is getting the Early Explorers meant for ages 3-5 and it's described as "discover the world’s wonders, from oceans to art to animals through hands-on activities, games and stories." This subscription is $27.95 US monthly, and you can also add on a book for $9.95 - you save more if you subscribe to a longer term. The first month comes with a little suitcase and passport to set you up for future months. I think this subscription sends you things based one your subscription term as opposed to having a new set of activities each month (meaning every subscriber will get the Animals theme for month 5 of their subscription term, instead of Animals being only the April 2022 theme). 

So, this is the 9th month the theme is "Let's Celebrate" - each month you will receive a themed package with an interactive souvenir, activity booklet, a puzzle, stickers, and more. This one came with paper crowns, a puzzle, stickers, etc. There has been a puzzle in the last 5 or 6 months and it would be nice if they had a bit more variety in the box! 

FOUR


Okay, have you guys tried produce keepers yet?! Doesn't this feel like a typical 30s thing to talk about tupperware?! But seriously, I really hate food waste so I'm trying to find ways to keep things lasting longer and these really help! These are the President's Choice Produce Keepers Boxed Set and they are great. They come with options for venting, putting water in and a list of what needs what to last longer! So good! 

FIVE 


I haven't watched much new shows lately, but I grew up on some iconic Shania music, so I had to check out this documentary and I enjoyed it! There was actually a lot going on and I didn't realize that lyme disease affected her voice and that's why she had such a long break with her music. She truly shaped music for female artists and has made some pretty huge strides in the music world! 

I hope you all have a great weekend - I'm getting my first relaxing weekend of the Summer and can't wait! 

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