Gift 4

This autumn I'll really enjoy this apple scented candle when I'm doing my evening reading. Aren't those gifts fabulous? You may want to check out once upon a book club. 

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Gift 3

This will be a great container for my lucky found coins. 

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Gift 2

This charm bracelet is my favorite. I love its delicacy and its book themed charms.

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Gift one

This was the first book related gift: a skull cookie cutter. I'll give it to Amber, our family's Halloween queen. Quite on brand for a scary story author and fan of all things R. L. Stine.

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Six Of Sorrow (YA chiller)

     When Amber came over on Mother's Day carrying a Once Upon a Book Club package you'd better believe my eyes lit up! I knew I was in for a quality immersive reading experience. It contained not only a superb YA novel, but four narrative themed gifts to open at certain points in the book...

     ...And what a book it was! Isabeau, Reuel, Georgina, Cori, August, and Solaina were born on the same day. Some took their first breaths far from Sorrow, a small town named after a witch. But they and their families returned. Most of their lives the girls were inseparable. People  couldn't help noting the highly inprobable coincidence of the birth date. One older woman whispered that they were blessings from the witch. But something happened on their thirteenth birthday that split them. Narrator Isabeau only spends time with Reuel.

"We are surrounded by death. 

     For a breath, we simply pause together, Reuel and I, standing inside the arched gates of Greenbrier Cemetery. The wet air rustles the trees around us, the Spanish moss dripping from their branches, like cobwebs strung from the corners of the night sky, which is so dark it looks like it's been colored with the blackest ink."

     Probably not the ambiance in which you'd want to celebrate your sixteenth birthday. But it's where Isabeau and Reuel go to drink, exchange gifts, and make wishes that night. They also cut themselves to take a blood oath.

     The next day Reuel has vanished without a trace. Wherever she is, she's left her phone in her room. Ominously all the plants in her home have died overnight. A search yields no clues. But it does bring the remaining girls together...

     ...Strangely it brings the mothers together. They, for the most part, don't even like each other. And they seem to be keeping secrets from their daughters...

     ...one night Isabeau wakes to find Reuel in her room eating her cigarettes as if they were French fries. Reuel is gravely ill with symptoms that defy diagnosis. And she can't remember a moment of her missing days. Then Georgina disappears from a sleepover and returns gravely ill and lacking memories. 

     Despite reassurance from the medical community the other girls know their friends are getting worse, possibly fatally so. And they have reason to believe that an unseen being is targeting them all. 

     Could it be Sorrow, the witch?

     Could it be a far more malignant entity?

     Could it somehow be the unintended consequence of a spell their mothers tried to cast back when they were teens and best friends?

     I highly recommend Six Of Sorrow for YA chiller affecianados. The girls are given well defined and distinctive identities. Reality and fantasy are integrated seamlessly and plausibly. And the suspense builds up perfectly to a fever pitch. 

On a purrrsonal note, at Clean Sweep we're in the final stages of preparation for opening tomorrow. Pricing and labeling and all that stuff. Today I came to campus in shorts and a tee shirt. The air-conditioning made me cold 🥶. I dug through one of the clothes mountains, hoping for random stuff that fit and was able to put together in less than ten minutes a coordinated outfit--white jeans, a white with gold dots sweater, a coordinating soft belt, and gorgeous feather earrings--that everyone loves. Emma says I have a gift for putting outfits together. I love having that gift.

A great big shout out goes out to the fabulous and talented Clean Sweep crew of '26 and our fearless leader, Lisa Morin. 

Jules Hathaway 

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More finds

These are some of the Squishmallows I found. I also acquired a huge owl.

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Another find

Can you believe someone left these? They fit me just fine. All they need is laces.

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