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Every time I return to Middle Earth, it's like visiting an old friend. The familiar faces, the smells of pipe smoke and trees, the quiet hum of the river – it all washes over me with a sense of peace and belonging. Tolkien's world-building is so immersive that I can almost feel the road going ever on beneath my feet and the cool breeze on my face.

The setting is truly a masterpiece, but it's not just that which draws me back. It's the characters. Frodo, with his quiet courage and unwavering determination; Gandalf, Sam all all the fellowship – these are people I've grown to love. Their journeys, their triumphs, and their struggles feel deeply personal.

Then there's the story itself. With each reread, I discover new nuances, hidden meanings, and deeper connections between the characters and the themes. I mentioned the sense of peace in my first paragraph. Of course that is how the story starts - it gets much darker, but that sense of peace is carried in the hearts of the characters as a sense of what is important, it is the reason they struggle against the darkness. This book reminds us what is important in life, in so many ways.

The Fellowship of the Ring is more than just a book; it's a world, a journey, and a friend. It's a place I can always return to and find solace, adventure, and a sense of wonder.

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Overview: Another fun mystery based in Oxford, following Lucy the Knitting Shop owning novice witch who can't knit.

In this book Lucy volunteers to help out at a local production of A Midsummer Night's Dream (or should it be a Midsomer Night's Dream?), but of course there's a murder which Lucy has to help unravel, all while helping her friend Alice with her romantic attachment to the local book seller and helping out with the mystery of the vanishing (kidnapped?) uni student.

The vampire nest in her basement is just an added bother. She's a very busy lady.

On 1st Reading: These are great little comfort reads. OK there is a crime, but you know the good will end happily and the bad unhappily (for them).

On 2nd Reading: I'm really appreciating how the author's skill clearly improves with each novel. The last book was possibly the darkest in the series - this one has a much lighter and warmer feel. Of course there is a serious crime and a well written mystery to get the little grey cells working, but I just had a big grin through much of the book - especially at the very end...

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This is a darn good detective story but also seriously gets you thinking (it’s also a totally different thing to the TV series once you get into it).

Minor – Chapter 1 style - spoilers ahead

The basic plot revolves around two seemingly normal cities existing in the same space somewhere in Europe. One city, Besźel, really reminds me of Bratislava when I first moved there. Lots of beautiful old architecture showing past wealth, but currently crumbling away from neglect. The other city, Ul Qoma is surging ahead economically and is full of glass and steel new construction.

The story follows Inspector Tyador Borlú, of the Besźel Extreme Crime Squad (who strikes me as if Inspector Frost grew up in Bratislava) who stumbles upon a crime that forces him to confront this very complex situation.

This is very much our world with Google and Microsoft Word and without any magic or fantastical elements. Everything is as it is today – if Besźel and Ul Qoma existed somewhere in Europe.

The two cities are physically intermingled. One building might be “in” Besźel the next might be “in” Ul Qoma. This isn’t magic, it’s just that the inhabitants of each city are trained to actively ignore the other, even though the physical evidence of both cities is present. From birth they are trained to see their city and to “unsee the Other”.

Making sure that the system is enforced is Breach. Breach is referred to as “a power” that is “invoked”. The agents of Breach seem to be human, however they seemingly materialise whenever someone “commits an act of breach” by interacting or visibly noticing the other city. These agents are hard to look at and usually simply make the one who committed breach simply disappear. No one understands or knows anything about Breach except that they are there in the same way as gravity. You may not understand it, but it works and there’s no point in arguing with it. If you don’t treat it with respect, it will have you.

If you want a good old fashioned detective story but also want to really explore a setting with a ton of mysteries – this is an excellent read.

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To have journeyed through the pages of this book is a bit like embarking on a sacred pilgrimage. Each paragraph, each sentence, is deeply worth reflecting on.

The Tablets contained within this sacred text are a testament to Bahá’u’lláh's boundless compassion and wisdom, each writing offers invaluable insights to how we should relate to the spiritual world, the material world, and to each other. The Tablet of Wisdom, in particular, is a masterpiece of spiritual contemplation. Its poetic language and profound truths have the power to ignite the soul and inspire us to strive to better ourselves, understand ourselves and live more compassionate lives.

As I reflected each evening on a single paragraph, I was struck by the timeless nature of these revelations. The challenges and opportunities faced by Bahá'u'lláh's time are mirrored in the world today, and His teachings offer a path forward, a beacon of hope in a world often shrouded in darkness.

In conclusion, this book is a sacred text that deserves to be cherished and studied by all who seek a deeper connection to the divine. It is a source of inspiration, guidance, and solace, a testament to the enduring power of Bahá'u'lláh's message.

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#BookReview This book, second in Naomi Novik’s young-adult dark academia fantasy series ‘The Scholomance’, starts exactly where we left off in the first book (ramblingreaders.org/user/clare_hooley/review/558898) with our two main protagonists, our narrator El and and her perhaps boyfriend Orion, now seniors in the deadly school. The end of the senior year is when both of them will face ‘graduation’ - a literal gauntlet run through a room filled with wicked hungry magical monsters (always deliciously well-described by Novik’s writing) that, in a standard year, only about half those entering survive. Of course with El and Orion both being so exceptional, we know this isn’t going to be a standard year. El has mellowed out (grown up) from being quite so whiny and angsty, although her sarcastic streak remains undimmed, and now even has friends. Owing to events at the end of book one, she also can’t be invisible to anyone anymore. This character development makes the book stronger and more engaging than before. I will say though, that the ongoing romance between El and Orion is a bit hormone-driven for me, but that’s not out of keeping with the context and age of the characters. After the first third of the book sees El fighting her way through difficulties much as per book book one, we get a change in the second half, as lessons end and it all becomes about practice for graduation, with plenty more school politics as alliances are formed, then broken, then formed again. At least at first, the overriding theme of the series so far, how different it is for haves and have nots, is continued. In the last third of the book, the twist is gradually revealed; it’s not a give away to say El is expected to save the day. It’s also fair to warn there’s a cliffhanger ending - we don’t know get to learn the precise fate for El and Orion here. Overall, once again, there’s a lot of fun to be had here in our characters’ struggle against the malevolent school, although this still doesn’t feel a very likely world. Our information as to what is really it is going on ‘outside’ has been limited to dialogue with incoming freshman hinting at something very ominous. At two-thirds of the way through the trilogy, it does feel a bit late in the day to only now start exploring the ‘real’ goings on and dark prophecies that have been fed as titbits throughout both books. As good as the writing in it is, I’m hoping we’ll get start to get insight that actually moves the story on beyond heroes versus monsters early in the next book.