Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion Vols. 5, 6, 7, 8

 

I'm going to take a meandering path here, so bear with me (or skip to the end, my feelings won't be hurt). 

I was just starting Vol. 8 this weekend and remembered there is a Vol. 9. I went online to put it on hold, only to discover my library didn't own it. Then a terrible thought occurred to me: what if it wasn't out yet? So I looked and sure enough, it will be published in February of 2027. 

I almost wept. 

Years ago, Stephen King put out "The Green Mile" in six installments, one every month, because it irritated him that his readers would race through his books and not savor them like he thought they should. I bought the first installment, read it, and then realized I'd have to wait a month for the next one. So I waited until all six installments came out and then read them all at once in one big gulp, because no one is going to tell me how I should enjoy a book, thank you very much. 

I'm so spoiled now with nearly instant gratification. I remember having to wait years for the next season of a TV show (still do, sometimes). Or even worse, when the "X-Files" would end a season on a cliffhanger (every year) in May and I'd have to wait until November before the next season would premier. Season 7 hit especially hard: Scully announced to Skinner that she was pregnant. I screamed: shock, joy, disbelief, all of it. Then I screamed again when I realized I would have to wait SIX MONTHS to find out how this miracle happened. Six months!! I literally wept. But I remember the giddiness when season 8 premiered. So I'll try to keep that in mind as I (im)patiently wait for Vol. 9. 

In the meantime, though, off to Vol. 5!

Emma is grief stricken over burying Maxwell. Pierce (the Tenant) tries to lift her spirits but he doesn't have much luck. She owes Jack a favor, and he makes her go to his dying mother's bed with him and pretend to be his pregnant wife. She is outraged and feels terribly guilty, until Jack leaves the room and his mother tells her she knows he's lying to spare her feelings. On the plus side, Jack does feel guilty about the deception and tells Emma he owes her a big favor in return. 

The men all give Emma a different book for Christmas, but Hawkes' really hits home: he tracked down one of her father's books (she had to sell her dad's library after he died in order to pay for school--the men were horrified when she told them). 

1884 dawns and with it, Emma turns 21 on January 13. The long awaited day of her independence (or so she thinks). The men gift her with an antique lion pendant, a really amazingly perfect gift. The Reprobates 10 stand outside her window and serenade her in the middle of the night (also perfect, but in a different way). 

Emma gains employment in the form of a month long trial as a secretary to a lady married to a wealthy man of industry. The first two days she goes, the teenage son proves to be a pest, but nothing Emma can't handle. It's when the lady's brother (the Uncle) shows up that things get bad. He puts his hands on her, and she swings a fireplace poker at him, breaking an urn filled with the ashes of their dead pets. Needless to say, Emma does not survive the trial and is still unemployed. She didn't tell any of the men what happened, though. I would have. It would have been nice to hear about the three of them knocking the stuffing out of that slimeball. 

The book ends on rather exciting note (and boy was I glad to have Vol. 7 ready to go!) when Pierce KISSES her and she kisses him back! I wondered which of the three it was going to be! Oh what a choice, though! They're all so amazing in different ways. 

Emma and Pierce are navigating their courtship, which is made dangerous by the fact that Pierce lives under the same roof and Emma doesn't actually have a chaperone. He's much more concerned about her reputation than she is. 

Her overbearing Aunt Eugenia and Arabella arrive unexpectedly, driven from their home by a leak in the roof. Her aunt expects to meet her (fictional) chaperone, Mrs. Dowd, and when Emma protests that she's 21 and no longer needs a chaperone her aunt refuses to hear it. So Emma calls in her favor from Jack who, thankfully, provides a perfect Mrs. Dowd and she plays the part to perfection for a few days until the roof is repaired and Aunt Eugenia and Arabella are on their way. 

The Season begins and Aunt Eugenia is running poor Emma ragged, determined to snag Arabella the most eligible bachelor she can find. She and Islington are at a ball together, arguing in a corridor when Islington is taken ill and collapses into Emma's arms. Of course someone sees them, and in order to avoid having to propose marriage, Islington says her father appointed him her chaperone until she marries. Aunt Eugenia strongly objects to this (despite the fact that Islington is a Duke) until he produces a letter written by Emma's father, naming the bearer of the letter his daughter's chaperone. It turns out the letter is actually Hawkes', but he lent it to Islington. Emma is outraged but understands she has to go along with it and at least pretend that Islington has some guidance over her life. 

Meanwhile, her friend Mary has become enamored of a widowed professor she's been working with, and Tybalt (the cat she and Pierce have been keeping for his friend who was out of the country) has to go home with his owners. Emma is devastated. 

May Day brings a festival to St. Crispian's, and Hawkes shows off his boxing prowess and defeats a strongman who was making fools of the good men of the village. Emma writes a rousing story of his match that gets published in the local Gazette, and Pierce and Islington both speculate as to which man wrote it, since it was so good (Hawkes knew Emma wrote it because she told him, but I have a feeling Hawkes would have known anyway). I was surprised at Pierce and Islington for thinking it had to be a man. Have you two learned nothing from spending time with Emma? Jeez. A fortune teller reads her palm and tells her she had one amazing love that is now over, but there are two other men, equally perfect for her but in different ways. Which one she chooses will be up to her. Oh dear. Pierce and...Hawkes? Islington? Jack? Roland? A dark horse? 

Islington invites everyone to his country seat, Stonecrop, in June and Emma is delighted to go. Pierce loses a lot of money in the American stock market and as a result he has to stay in London to work, but he does visit Stonecrop as often as he can. During one visit they go to a nearby village and it turns out it's the village where he grew up. They run into his sister, Nance, who begs him to come home and see their mother, so he does, taking Emma with him. He asks after his stepfather and is told he's taken ill (he had a stroke). Pierce goes in to see him and lashes out in anger: turns out he'd beaten and abused Pierce as a child and tried to drown him, causing Pierce, at the age of twelve, to run off and stow away on a ship to America, where he worked as a photographer's apprentice, taking pictures of the Civil War. Emma is horrified for him, and Pierce is not in a good place, but Hawkes and Islington are able to bring him around after a few days. 

Emma thoroughly enjoys the freedom and loveliness of Stonecrop, although she learns that Islington had a twin sister, Hannah, who died when they were just 20. His older sister warns him about keeping better care of her reputation (Emma overhears them arguing while she's out searching for a pen in the bushes that she lost). 

While sitting around with the men one night, Islington asks if they all want children. Emma says she does, and so does Islington, but Pierce is a definite no. Uh-oh. Trouble in paradise. 

I will be eagerly awaiting Volume 9!!

Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion Vol. 4

 

I'm really enjoying these books but I'm sad there's only nine of them, which means I'm almost halfway done 😒

Cousin Archibald is now, unfortunately, mobile and Aunt Eugenia has taken Arabella to the Country now that the London season is over. Emma gets to know her neighbor and tenant, Niall, better and they bond over her memories of her childhood sweetheart, Maxwell, who was killed in Afghanistan. Niall took photos from the war and at Emma's insistence, let her look at them. 

In addition to being ceremoniously crowned Queen by the Reprobates Ten, Emma finds herself spending more time with the Duke of Islington, Niall, and Young Hawkes. The four of them end up in the same place at the same time together frequently and have struck up a friendship. The three men are appalled at the way Emma has been treated by her aunt, cousin, and various others in her life and marvel at how she's able to stay so positive (me too, honestly. She has the patience of a saint. I would have tossed Cousin Archibald out the garret window). 

Emma finds out by reading a newspaper that Maxwell's family located his body and have brought him home to be buried. She's upset that Maxwell's older brother didn't write to tell her like he promised he would, and distraught that she doesn't have the funds on such short notice to travel to Maxwell's home. Niall steps in and saves the day, buying them both train tickets and paying for their lodgings, and accompanying her. He also finds just cause to punch Maxwell's brother in the face, refusing to tell Emma what he said that upset him so (good for you, Niall. I'm sure he deserved it). 

On a side note, I've always been fortunate in my life to have really great male friends, so reading about Emma hanging out with the men reminded me of some fun times in my life. None of my male friends, however, could banter as well as Niall, Islington, and Hawkes do. I wish they did, but alas, I'm afraid men like that only exist in books. 

Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion Vol. 3; Henry "Chips" Channon Diaries Vol. 1; Rock*

 

First up, volume 3 of the Emma M. Lion series. This one was a little bigger and had more going on, so that was nice. 

Emma and her cousin Archibald (the most unlikely of duos) have teamed up to try to follow the clues in order to win tickets to the St. Crispian's secret annual performance of Julius Caesar. Emma figures the clues out (naturally, Archibald is about as helpful as a bag of hair) and gets the tickets, but Archibald breaks his leg when Emma and Niall's (the tenant) cat startles him. In a fit of spite, he eats his ticket rather than allowing Emma to choose someone to go with her, which was a damn shame. I was curious who she would have picked. There are so many eligible young men flittering around her!

And she's invited to a soirée at Lady Trewartha's house where she's seated at a table with nine rowdy young men and Young Hawkes, the minister, who call themselves the Reprobates Ten. Emma has a terrific time bantering with the spirited group, although the Duke of Islington seems rather less excited at how much fun she's having. Is that a spark of jealously I see, Islington? Oh my. I can't wait to read Volume 4. 

This brick of a book, oh my gosh. It took me months to read it, but I really did enjoy it. 

Henry "Chips" Channon was an American who was in Paris during World War I and that's when his diary starts: the end of the war. He renounces his American citizen to become British and inserts himself into high society and eventually gets elected to the House of Commons. He roamed with everyone back in the day: the Prince of Wales, who later became King Edward VIII before abdicating, the Duke and Duchess of York, who later became King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, and many others. He married Honor Guinness, a wealthy heiress to the Guinness fortune, and they had a son named Paul. Chips dallied with both men and women as a youngster and apparently when London society found out he'd been keeping a diary many a peer went white with fear as to what he'd said about them. The answer is: probably something very catty and unflattering. But luckily for them, he stipulated that the diaries wouldn't be published in full until long after his death. 

I'm actually really excited for the second volume, which will cover WWII. Since Chips was a fan of Germany and Hitler, I'm interested in what he thought of the whole thing and when he changed his mind and realized that the Third Reich was evil. 

And finally, a really fun one: Rock, an Alternative History. Klosterman writes it as nonfiction. It was pretty funny. What if the Beatles were never really that popular (also, they never broke up and John Lennon never died) but instead Rock began in 1967 with the Velvet Underground, who were the most influential rock band on the planet? 

Well, quite a few things change. Grunge was relegated to a not very influential or popular movement, it was mostly a Northwest Regional phenomenon (Nirvana wasn't even mentioned). The magazine of record was called Velveteen, not Rolling Stone, since the Stones weren't popular and broke up in the mid-'70s. Music became the most important part of American culture and a very powerful union of music critics called NARC exerted their influence over everything. Blockbuster movie scores had to be completely rock (imagine Star Wars with a Kinks song instead of John Williams, if you will), all music played in buildings and outside had to be rock and it wasn't optional--you had to play music. Even in libraries (imagine again if you will, Highway to Hell playing in the New York Public Library. Which, honestly, is probably pretty on point). Rap music was reclassified as an offshoot of Country, so as not to interfere with Rock. I pictured the Wu-Tang Clan on the stage at the Opry and about died laughing. Madonna became the height of Christian Rock in the '80s with her pro-life anthem, Papa Don't Preach. 

Like I said, the book was funny, but it's also kind of interesting to contemplate how one small change could have upended everything we know. Is there an alternate universe out there where Lou Reed was the voice of a generation instead of Paul McCartney and John Lennon? Maybe. 

Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion Vol. 2

 

I'm really enjoying this series, they're so clever and witty.

Emma meets the Tenant, Niall Pierce, by exchanging notes through a crack in the shared wall in the garret. He is alarmed by her life (we all are, Niall) and also that they have mice and suggests a solution. She agrees and they end up with a shared cat named Tybalt. 

Emma also meets the Duke of Islington at a party her Aunt Eugenia makes her attend, and then later his journal ends up in their kitchen cupboard (this is a common phenomenon in St. Crispian's--items wander. They even have a centralized return location so residents can retrieve their lost possessions). Emma reads it and is enchanted by his outlook on life. She does return the journal to him and admits her indiscretion, and the Duke is Not Pleased. 

Back at the awful school she used to attend, the shared copy of "Jane Eyre" the students passed around has been confiscated by the formidable headmistress, Mrs. Wade. Emma's friend from school, Mary, has hired a con artist named Jack to pose as her cousin and chaperone so she can move about society freely and Jack offers to help Emma get the books back. They pose as a married couple and meet with Mrs. Wade. Jack distracts her and breaks into the desk and gets the books back, but now Emma owes Jack a Favor. Which sounds ominous. 

It was a lot of fun and for someone who considers herself a bit of a shy, retiring person, Emma has a *lot* of male acquaintances who are clearly interested in a more romantic relationship with her. I can't wait to see how it goes. 

Dragonfly in Amber

 

I think this is only the second time I've read this one, since it's not one of my favorites (while John Grey 🦊© is introduced he's just a child and only in one short scene). It was better this time around though, I enjoyed it. 

I'm about to spoil it, so be warned.

The book starts in 1968 in Scotland. Claire Randall and her daughter, Brianna, visit Roger Wakefield while on holiday in Scotland and Claire tells them both the story of how she fell through the stones and landed in 1743 and met and married Jamie Fraser. They traveled to France to see if they could stop the Jacobite uprising, but they fail and end up coming back to Scotland to fight with Prince Charlie's army. At Culloden, Jamie takes Claire back to the stones and tells her to go back to her time and to Frank. She's pregnant with their second child (their first, Faith, was stillborn earlier in the story) and he wants them to be safe. Claire doesn't want to go but in the end she does and Jamie returns to Culloden to die with the other men from Lallybroch. 

Brianna refuses to believe that Frank Randall was not her real father, but Roger believes Claire's story. She tells him about Geillis Duncan and how she believes he is her descendant. Since Geillis came through the stones in 1968, she wanted Roger to be able to make the decision on whether or not to try to contact her and warn her about what will happen. They do try, but it's too late - they arrive in time to see Geillis vanish through the stones. And then the book ends with Roger telling Claire that he doesn't think Jamie died at Culloden.  

Making of American Girl

 

I still have the very first American Girl catalog I ever received in the mail when I was a kid, back when it was still Pleasant Rowland's company and not Mattel. 

I was of an age where I was considered "too old" to be playing with dolls, but I didn't care. I grew up loving "Little House on the Prairie" and reading those books over and over again. I loved stories about the "olden days". Partner the gorgeous dolls with all the amazing accessories plus the historical factor? I was obsessed. 

Unfortunately, my parents couldn't afford them. My parents did buy us the books, so we had Kirsten, Samantha, and Molly's stories to read over and over, just not the dolls themselves. I was in my early twenties when I finally got my American Girl: Kit, who grew up during the Great Depression. And I still have her 😀 I went to Chicago with a group of girlfriends in 2010, and I drug them to the American Girl story on Michigan Ave. I had a splendid time. The other women? Probably not. 

American Girl is very different now than it was when I was a pre-teen. Pleasant sold the company to Mattel, who has done away with the historical dolls and all of their wonderful accessories (for the most part). I thoroughly enjoyed seeing how the company was brought to life and all of the research and work that went into creating the original dolls. I thought they were expensive until I read about how much effort went into them, now I realize they were actually kind of a bargain. This was a beautiful book that reminded me that there's always room in your life for imagination and whimsy, no matter how old you are. 

Summerall: On and Off the Air; Outlander

 

As promised, I was able to borrow a copy of Pat Summerall's autobiography, "On and Off the Air". The nights of drunken debauchery were not as exciting as I'd hoped, but that was okay, his life story was interesting. 

Pat was born with a club foot and his right leg twisted backwards. A doctor was able to correct it, and thought he would be okay to walk once he got older but probably not ever run or play sports. Pat defied the odds, playing all kinds of sports as a kid and a teenager, he loved all of it. 

He ended up playing football for a few teams, including the New York Giants when they had both Tom Landry and Vince Lombardi as assistant coaches. When he retired from football he took up broadcasting and was paired with Tom Brookshier. The two of them were great friends as well as drinking buddies until CBS split them up and put Pat with Coach Madden. Eventually his family and friends held an intervention and convinced Pat to go to the Betty Ford clinic for his alcoholism. Pat went and never drank again. 

Due to his years of alcohol abuse, Pat ended up needing a liver transplant and lived for another ten years. He sounded like a humble, grateful man at the end and I'm glad he got the chance to turn his life around. 

I've read "Outlander" before but a friend at work who loved the show just started reading the books and after talking with her about them it made me nostalgic to go back and reread them. I took advantage of the long, rainy weekend and tucked in with book one. 

The year is 1945 and Claire Randall, a nurse who served on the battlefields of France during WWII, and her husband, Frank, are vacationing in Scotland before Frank takes up a position at Oxford. They were apart during the war and they're trying to reconnect. While looking at some flowers at Craigh na Dun (a rock formation like Stonehenge), Claire falls through a portal back in time to 1743. 

A band of Scottish Highlanders rescue her from Captain Black Jack Randall, an ancestor of her husband, and take her under their protection. As part of being kept from Black Jack's murderous hands, she ends up marrying Jamie Fraser. At first for convenience, since she's determined to get back to the stones and go to her own time, but she and Jamie fall in love and she decides to stay. 

And yes, I know I have a million library books (not to mention all the ones I own) that I haven't read yet but there's no point fighting it. I've learned over the years 😊