Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett – Emily Wilde #2
📚Summary
Following the publication of her encyclopaedia of faeries, Emily Wilde is embarking on a new project, a map of the faerie realms. She is also considering the proposal of marriage made by Wendell Bambleby, a fellow scholar who is actually an exiled faerie king. After assassins show up in Cambridge to attack Bambleby, he and Emily, along with her niece and a fellow academic, travel to the Austrian Alps to look for the door to his homeland. While in the Alps, they are drawn into another mystery regarding another dryadologist who disappeared years ago.
📃My Thoughts
I really enjoyed this book. While it was a continuation of a series, it had a lot of new adventures and new information about the faerie world. They didn’t seem to get as involved with the locals as in the first book, but there was a lot more interaction with the fairy folk. Emily continued to develop, especially in her relationships – both platonic and romantic – but she still presented as a realistic autistic-coded character, which I appreciated.
Whimsy Garden House is a 300-piece puzzle from PieceRelax, and the artist is Olivia Gibbs. I love her artwork and was excited to come across this one when I was first checking out the PieceRelax website. PieceRelax puzzles are different because the pieces are plastic and the white borders are interchangeable pieces.
I took this puzzle with me on my recent trip to Illinois and did it in the hotel room one morning. Since it came with a poster, I just took that along with the bag of pieces so it wouldn’t take up much room in my suitcase. And since the pieces are hard plastic, I could just pack the puzzle flat without taking it apart for the trip home.
This was a nice, easy puzzle, although as you get more and more pieces in, it can take more pressure to make the pieces snap fully into place. As a bonus, it came with a free puzzle magnet. I have done one other puzzle from this brand, so this is my second puzzle magnet. I love that they include those with their puzzles.
Here is the magnet:
I would definitely do more by this brand or by the related brand Pintoo.
Manhattan is filled with galleries and deep-pocketed collectors who can make an artist’s career with a wave of a hand. But one man toils in obscurity, his brilliance unrecognized while lesser talents bask in the glory he believes should be his. Come tomorrow, he vows, the city will be buzzing about his work.
Indeed, before dawn, Lt. Eve Dallas is speeding toward the home of the two gallery owners whose doorway has been turned into a horrifying crime scene overnight. A lifeless young woman has been elaborately costumed and precisely posed to resemble the model of a long-ago Dutch master, and Dallas plunges into her investigation.
📃My Thoughts
I am a huge fan of this series and read them the second I can get my hands on them. While they do follow a somewhat predictable pattern, it’s a pattern that works. This one did have a little extra excitement thrown in during the last part of the book that was a nice surprise. Very fun read!
Vintage Travel Tickets is a 500-piece puzzle from Galison, and the artist is Troy Litten. I picked this up at a puzzle swap recently. I thought it might be kind of tricky, but it was surprisingly easy and very fun.
Tom Hazard has just moved back to London, his old home, to settle down and become a high school history teacher. And on his first day at school, he meets a captivating French teacher at his school who seems fascinated by him.
But Tom has a dangerous secret. He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old, but owing to a rare condition, he’s been alive for centuries. Tom has lived history–performing with Shakespeare, exploring the high seas with Captain Cook, and sharing cocktails with Fitzgerald. Now, he just wants an ordinary life.
📃My Thoughts
Simply put, I loved this book! I love the idea of someone living for so long and all the challenges it would bring. Having to move around so people don’t get suspicious, falling in love knowing your loved one will age much more quickly than you, not being able to share your life story with people.
Add to that a society of people like you with their own rules and motivations and you get a gripping story with exciting twists and turns. Highly recommend!
Michael and I after checking in for our first flight
I am not much of a traveler because I get so anxious about the logistics of the trip as well as having to find my way around an unfamiliar place and interact with so many strangers. I also have difficulty with a lot of physical activity because I am out of shape as well as dealing with arthritis in my right hip. But I hadn’t been to visit my parents since 2022, and my son Michael hadn’t seen them since 2019, so it was definitely time to make the trip.
After researching flight options and costs, I decided we would fly out on a Saturday and return on the following Wednesday. Since we would just be in the Quad-Cities where my parents live, we didn’t plan any sightseeing and decided to just focus on spending time with family.
Our first flight left at 6:45 am, which meant we had to get up at 3:45 am. Next time I will definitely book a later flight and also try to have a longer layover. Walking across O’Hare is exhausting!
The flights were uneventful, other than a half-hour delay leaving Chicago due to having to wait for our turn on the runway. I have a problem with my ears not popping and being quite painful when they do. I tried a product called Earplanes, which are earplugs that control how fast the pressure changes affect you. They helped a lot on takeoff. I still had some pain with the descent, but I did notice that afterwards I felt fine. Normally I have problems for a couple of days afterwards.
Since we arrived in Moline before noon, we took my mom to lunch at Red Lobster. That is a favorite for her and she also gets to take lots of leftovers home to enjoy later. We hung out at her place for a couple of hours and then headed over to check in to our hotel.
The hotel was basic but decent. They had a full breakfast which was just okay, but the room was very clean. Sunday morning I did a quick 300-piece puzzle while waiting to go meet my Dad & Carolyn for lunch. It was good to see them. We had a nice chat over lunch and then we took some pictures outside of the restaurant. After that, Michael and I just chilled the rest of the day.
On Monday we hung out with my mom and my youngest brother Jeff; then we all went out to dinner at Texas Roadhouse. Tuesday morning I took my mom to her neurologist appointment, where we learned that she does not have Alzheimer’s. Her previous blood test had suggested she was borderline, but her MRI was negative and her new blood test was negative. Her current diagnosis is mild cognitive impairment due to chronic small vessel disease in her brain. So not great news, but better than it could have been.
We also visited most of her doctors to fill out paperwork so that Jeff and I can both speak to the doctors about her health. Mom wanted to get her hair cut and then chose Applebee’s for lunch. After that, we spent some time at her place and took some pictures.
Wednesday morning we checked out of the hotel and met my dad for breakfast. Unfortunately Carolyn wasn’t feeling well due to side effects of a new medication, so she didn’t join us. After breakfast, Michael and I had some time to kill before going to the airport, so we headed to the library and hung out for a while.
We arrived home Wednesday night around 10:30 pm and were greeted very loudly by our cat, who was quite put out that we had been away. The friend who had checked on him every day had said he was very talkative with her as well. It was so nice to be home and still have two more days of vacation, since we had both scheduled our time off through Friday.
I am so thankful that the trip went well and we didn’t have any trouble making our flights or getting around in the Quad-Cities. It was so good to see my parents and brother and have Michael get to spend some time with them as well. Given how well things went, I am open to planning another trip with Michael if we can agree on a place where we could find interesting things to do and see.
I have purchased a few puzzles recently that I am excited about. I am trying to get more smaller piece counts because most of the ones I have on my to do shelf are 1000 pieces. I was somewhat successful!
Puzzles in this haul:
Rainbow Sunrise – Buffalo Games – 500 pieces – Josie Lewis
Street Market is a 1000-piece puzzle from Ravensburger, and the artist is Angela Holland. I just love the cozy scene with all of the vendors. There is just so much to look at, and so many great colors and textures.
Because the image is quite busy, most of it was done by a pick and place method. That is just what it sounds like – you pick up a piece, look at the box, and put it where it goes on the puzzle. I was able to put together a few larger areas before starting that, but not a lot.
I have another street market puzzle on my to do shelf, so it will be interesting to compare them once I do that one. It has more buildings and a lot less people. Here is a picture of the box; it’s called Market Day and it’s from Elena Essex.
Kellogg’s Cereal is a 6-pack of 100 piece puzzles from Spin Master Games. The puzzles include Corn Flakes, Frosted Flakes, Honey Smacks, Raisin Bran, Rice Krispies, and Froot Loops.
These puzzles were so cute and fun to build. I actually think they would work well for puzzle chess, so I will probably hold onto them for that. The Honey Smacks puzzle had an extra piece in it, which is better than missing a piece but probably means someone else will be missing it.
An account I follow on Instagram shared a list of ten books they want to read by the end of the year and my first thought was that’s what I need to get my reading mojo back. I have only read two books so far this month, which is pretty low for me.
Here are the ten books I want to read before the end of this year:
Funny Story by Emily Henry
Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout
The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods
What You Are Looking For Is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama
Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood
The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston
A December to Remember by Jenny Bayliss
The Paris Cooking School by Sophie Beaumont
Modern Persuasion by Sara Marks
Loveless by Alice Oseman
Have you read any of these? Do you have books you want to get in before the end of 2025?
In So Many Words 