Book Club & English Tea Party

As I mentioned in my previous post, my book club just finished reading Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca.  We met tonight to discuss the novel, and in honor of the English setting, we decided to have a tea party.  I made a pie, Annie made scones, and Jill brought several different varieties of tea.  There were seven of us.  The talk was lively, the smell of the teas was heavenly, and the scones were delicious!  Tonight was SO much fun.  My house still bears the lingering scent of the teas and oh, I wish it would smell this way all the time!  We all had such fun that it seems the tea party is going to become a staple in our gatherings, and that makes me happy.
For next month, we're going to read Heaven Is For Real by Todd Burpo with Lynn Vincent.  For the month following that, we'll read Jane Eyre (which I have read previously and loved.)  Then for October, we'll read Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express.  I've never read any of Agatha Christie's work, but having seen several of her Poirot mysteries performed for the BBC's "Masterpiece Mystery" television series, my interest has been piqued and I am very much looking forward to that read!

retail therapy :-D

I've been oh-so-homesick lately, but I won't be able to make it home until after Christmas. So today, I went to Barnes & Noble and engaged in some retail therapy. Here's what I bought:

Love, Rosie by Cecelia Ahern - one of my favorite authors!

What difference do it make? by Ron Hall, Denver Moore, and Lynn Vincent - a sequel, of sorts, to The Same Kind of Different as Me by Hall & Moore, which was an incredibly touching book written by the unlikeliest of friendships.

Heat Wave by Richard Castle - a fictional author, haha! Fans of ABC's hit show, Castle, will recognize it, though, and fans of Nathan Fillion will appreciate the author's picture on the back of the book! I read the first eleven chapters online before ABC took all but the first ten down, and I just couldn't leave it unfinished! I bought what I believe was the last copy at the Barnes & Noble in Jonesboro, after seeing on Twitter that the books were sold out. I was quite happy to see this copy on the shelf!

The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner's Dilemma by Trenton Lee Stewart - This is the third installment in the MBS series. I loved the first two, and heard a while back that there was a third. It came out this month!

The Best of Mystery: 63 Short Stories Chosen by the Master of Suspense by Alfred Hitchcock - Anyone who knows me knows that I positively adore Alfred Hitchcock. This compilation of stories from his Mystery Magazine was all of ten dollars and, according to the back flap, "is not recommended for late night reading. These masterful tales are guaranteed to unnerve." Sounds wonderful to me!