Doctor Who: The Silent Stars Go By - Review and Giveaway

The Silent Stars Go By

Paperback: 320 pages

Publisher: BBC Books (April 23, 2013)

For centuries the Maintainers have worked. With no help from other worlds, they subsist on the food they can grow and that''s little enough. But their purpose, their whole life is to maintain the machines that will one day make their world as habitable as old Earth. Life used to be hard. Now as their crops fail, livestock sickens, and the temperature drops, it''s becoming impossible. This year''s Winter Season Feast won''t be the usual celebration. It''s not a time for optimism or hope - and it''s not a time to welcome unexpected guests. The Doctor, Amy, and Rory find a society breaking apart under the strain. Tensions are mounting, old rivalries are coming to the fore, people are dying... And then the Doctor''s old enemies, the Ice Warriors, make their move. With the cold-hearted threat of invasion, the real battle for survival begins. Or does it? The Doctor begins to suspect that behind everything lies a deadlier, and even more chilling danger...

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I love books, love love love books, but I also love, adore, am obsessed with Doctor Who....so when this opportunity came my way I was beside myself with excitement.

If you're one of my blog readers, you know how much I love Doctor Who, we are a true Whovian family and there are quite a few Doctor Who related items in this household, not to mention the Tardis Cake that was made a few weeks ago for my daughter's birthday.

Anyway, sorry, I get carried away when it comes to this amazing show.

The Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Collection: Eleven classic adventures. Eleven brilliant writers. One incredible Doctor.

OH.MY.WORD!  Imagine if you will a collection featuring all 11 doctors and fun well written stories.

I love all the doctors but my favorites are by far the 10th Mr. David Tennant, and the 11th Mr. Matt Smith, and luckily for me, I was able to receive and enjoy the 11th doctor's book "The Silent Stars Go By".

I will say right now that I can't stand Amy, I have never liked her, matter of fact she almost made me stop watching the series, but more than not liking her, I adore the show and the doctor himself, so even though she and Rory feature in this book, I didn't let that ruin it for me.

The Doctor, Amy and Rory are hoping to spend a good Christmas in Leadworth, what they get instead is a world where Winter has been getting worse every year, and it's to the point where it could eradicate a whole civilization.

In true Doctor Who form, they are wrongly accused for the disappearance of a local girl, but set free by her sister, they set out on a journey to find where the girl disappeared to and what exactly is going on.

Very early on in the story, actually right in the beginning, The Doctor and Amy are separated from Rory which in itself brings about a few hiccups.

What I love about the author is that he was able to capture on paper and through words, Matt Smith's quirky personality, when I was reading his words, I was envisioning him in my mind and could actually see him saying and doing the things he was.  That was awesome and brought me right into the story.

And guess what?  The Ice Warriors are back.

It was just a fun, fun read, I didn't want to put it down and managed to read the whole book in about two days, and would have done it faster if I didn't have children and a husband to take care of.  Haha

I plan on getting the whole series for our household, it would be amazing to have all the books.

Who-Ology

Hardcover: 352 pages

Publisher: BBC Books (June 11, 2013)

The official miscellany, celebrating 50 years of Doctor Who.

If that wonderful book wasn't enough, we were also lucky enough to receive Who-Ology as a thank you for reviewing.

I am honestly speechless when it comes to this book, it is truly a Doctor Who fan's best companion.

I will tell you that I received the book in the afternoon, and by nighttime I had read more than half, I couldn't put it down, the kids and I went through page after page, reminiscing, laughing, learning things we didn't know.

It is chock full of trivia and interesting tidbits about the doctors.  Let me give you some examples, like

First and Last Words:

The First Doctor
First:  "What are you doing here?"
Last:  "Ah, yes!  Thank you.  It's good.  Keep warm."

The Tenth Doctor
First:  "Hello!  Okay - oh.  New teeth.  That's weird.  So, where was I?  Oh that's right.  Barcelona."
Last:  "I don't want to go."

Food the Doctor claims he invented:

Banana Daiquiri (The Girl in the Fireplace)
Pasta (Pond Life)
Yorkshire Pudding (The Power of Three)

Trivia:

Wanna know all the episode names since the first Season to the current????  It's in there.
Ever wondered what the Hierarchy of a Time Lord is?  It's in there.
The Doctor's Family Tree?  A cute diagram showing it.
Want to know the Doctor's abilities?  Hypnotise people, mimic, sense danger, ease pain, speed write, speak 5 billion languages....and, and...and more.

Brilliant book, it is going on our shelf right next to the family books which we all love and treasure.

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And now comes the best part.  Up for grabs is a copy of The Silent Stars go by by Dan Abnett OR Who-Ology by Cavan Scott & Mark Wright.

All you need to do is leave me a comment and let me know if you won, which book you would want and if it would be for yourself or someone else.

AND here's another great part of this giveaway, it is open to EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE.  That's right, International Giveaway.

So if you're a Doctor Who fan or know someone who is, here's your chance to get your hands on one of these amazing books.

The contest will run until Wednesday the 22nd of May.  I will then draw a winner using Random.Org.

Please remember that you have 48 hours to claim your prize after I've emailed you, if I don't hear back within that time frame, I will have to draw another winner.

Good Luck!

Thank you to TLC Book Tours for providing me with a review copy.

Cooking Thursday - Baked Ziti

Good morning :)

Well, here we are, another Thursday and another opportunity to share a recipe.

This feature on my blog has been going on for many many years, it started back in 2006, but as with everything else, it's lost steam over the years and is barely just plugging along right now.

With that said, I've decided to give it a break for a bit, at least for the rest of the month and hopefully when I return to it in a few weeks, I will be motivated to change it up a little or have more recipes to share or something.

I just feel that it needs a revamp but not quite sure which way to go with it. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to drop them here, maybe together we can come up with something that will actually get people joining in and involved :)

With that said, here is the last recipe before this Hiatus :)

6

Baked Ziti

INGREDIENTS:

* 1 pound dry ziti pasta
* 1 onion, chopped
* 1 pound lean ground beef
* 2 (26 ounce) jars spaghetti sauce
* 6 ounces provolone cheese, sliced
* 1 1/2 cups sour cream
* 6 ounces mozzarella cheese, shredded
* 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

DIRECTIONS:

1. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add ziti pasta, and cook until al dente, about 8 minutes; drain.
2. In a large skillet, brown onion and ground beef over medium heat. Add spaghetti sauce, and simmer 15 minutes.
3. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Butter a 9x13 inch baking dish. Layer as follows: 1/2 of the ziti, Provolone cheese, sour cream, 1/2 sauce mixture, remaining ziti, mozzarella cheese and remaining sauce mixture. Top with grated Parmesan cheese.
4. Bake for 30 minutes in the preheated oven, or until cheeses are melted.

What I'm Creating Wednesday!

Crochet, crochet, and more crochet :)

Though I have quite a few projects going at once, this week has been devoted to crochet and a few projects I'm still working on.

Like the ripple blanket....

And the granny squares green blanket....

And a doily in crochet thread....

All three have been taking up my time and I'm switching between them, in an effort to knock these out so that I can start concentrating on crocheting some things to maybe start selling on Etsy.

Maybe, it's something I'm still deciding on and not even sure if we need another crochet Etsy store out there since everyone and their mother seems to have one LOL

But, it's something I've wanted to do for many years and never really got around to it, thing is with the uncertainty of our lives at the moment and how the economy seems to be doing, any extra income is welcome.

So yeah, throwing that idea around in my head and I'll make a decision very soon :)

Anyway, that's what I'm working on, what are YOU creating this week?

So far this week.....

Hello friends, I hope you had a wonderful weekend and a good start to your week.

I can hardly believe that it's already Tuesday, but so is life right?  Always busy busy and time just flies.

I've been busy puttering around the house, doing my daily chores, enjoying homemaking, cooking, baking and working on finishing this school year, by Friday we will be all done and officially on Summer break.  Can't wait :)

Yesterday morning, I opened my last jar of Tomato and Apple Jam from the pantry.  I have to make more this weekend which officially kicks off my canning season.  YAY!

I have a homemaker's uniform.  I know many don't but for me, the minute I tie the apron strings around my waist, it means business, it means cleaning and straightening out and dusting and ironing and doing all the things that make up my day as a homemaker.  And I love every single moment of it....you may think I'm just saying that, but I'm not, I really do love what I do :)

While the washing was going, I hung out the towels to dry outside in the clothesline, then came inside and got to work washing all my fresh organic Kale.  Took quite a few rinses to get it squeaky clean and ready for cooking.

Most of it went into today's lunch.  I make a lot of soups for mine and the kids lunches, thankfully they love soup and I feel that they're getting something healthy, full of veggies and much better than junk food.

The weather has been so hot here already but it's been breeze too, so the windows have been popped open and the curtains allowed to blow freely, and is there anything quite as homey looking as beautiful curtains blowing in the wind? :)

The flies have already started tormenting me, so I keep all food that is out under screen covers.

It's a fight anytime we open one of the doors, even for the dogs to go potty.  We open the door and a zillion flies rush in, drives me insane.

Tomorrow is grocery shopping day, so I've been working on the new menus, which means looking through my cookbooks :)

My tomato plants are looking gorgeous, and I've still got them inside until I can get the tomato covers ready, otherwise the birds will eat them.

In between all my busy housework, I managed to get some sourdough starter in the fridge.  This is my favorite starter which comes from one of my Amish cookbooks.  It will sit in the fridge for 3 to 5 days, then I'll feed it, let it sit overnight, then the next morning pull out a cup for fresh bread and just keep feeding it every 3 to 5 days.

I can honestly say that it's the best sourdough starter and bread I've ever had, and I've tried a lot.

I do take my homemaking as a serious business, I believe that if I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it right and I'm going to give it 100%, so I take great pride in everything that I do.

And honestly the easiest route at times IS to make the quickest easiest meals possible, but I'm all about going the extra mile and I want my kids to grow up remembering the special treats that mom fixed for them.  It's those memories that I want them to pass on to their own children.

For breakfast this morning, I whipped up a quick batch of old fashioned doughnuts, they are so yummy especially when paired with a glass of milk, or a cup of coffee if you're a mama :)

This recipe actually came from an amazing little ebook that my friend Jen brought to my attention.  It was free yesterday and unfortunately no longer free today, but it's a gem.  It's called History Lover's Cookbook.  Filled with yummy recipes, history stories and beautiful photography, and I can't wait to try more recipes and share them with you :)

So, there you go, that's what I've been up to so far this week.....nothing exciting but plenty of simple days which is what I'm all about.

I'm off to enjoy a cup of tea, finish my Doctor Who book for review and maybe watch some TV.  I finished Fringe and am so upset and sad LOL  I so enjoyed the show and the characters, will be hard to find another show that will keep me as entertained.

Anyway, off I go, have a restful night everyone.

The Cottage on Glass Beach - TLC Book Tour

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial; Reprint edition (May 7, 2013)


Married to the youngest attorney general in Massachusetts state history, Nora Cunningham is a picture-perfect political wife and a doting mother. But her carefully constructed life falls to pieces when she, along with the rest of the world, learns of the infidelity of her husband, Malcolm.

Humiliated and hounded by the press, Nora packs up her daughters--Annie, seven; and Ella, twelve--and takes refuge on Burke's Island, a craggy spit of land off the coast of Maine. Settled by Irish immigrants, the island is a place where superstition and magic are carried on the ocean winds, and wishes and dreams wash ashore with the changing tides.

Nora spent her first five years on the island but has not been back to the remote community for decades--not since that long ago summer when her mother disappeared at sea. One night while sitting alone on Glass Beach below the cottage where she spent her childhood, Nora succumbs to grief, her tears flowing into the ocean. Days later she finds an enigmatic fisherman named Owen Kavanagh shipwrecked on the rocks nearby. Is he, as her aunt's friend Polly suggests, a selkie--a mythical being of island legend--summoned by her heartbreak, or simply someone who, like Nora, is trying to find his way in the wake of his own personal struggles?

Just as she begins to regain her balance, her daughters embark on a reckless odyssey of their own--a journey that will force Nora to find the courage to chart her own course and finally face the truth about her marriage, her mother, and her long -buried past.
 

About Heather Barbieri

The author of two previous novels, The Lace Makers of Glenmara, and Snow in July, Heather Barbieri has won international prizes for her short fiction. She lives in Seattle with her family.
Visit Heather at her website and connect with her on Facebook.

Summer time, getaways, lazy afternoons on the beach with a good book.....and this one is perfect for that.

This was such a good story for me.  Unfortunately I didn't get to enjoy it while laying on a beach towel with my feet buried in the hot sand....but it did make me wish I was there.

Now.....I don't even quite know where to begin, I guess we could say that as the story takes off and we are learning about Malcom's infidelity, I start immensely disliking him, and I can tell you that I never stopped, he just irked me from beginning to end.

But this story is not just about heartache, it is a little of everything, romance and pain and adventure with a little mythical goodness thrown in.

Nora is heartbroken by her husband's infidelity, so she packs up her two daughters and heads back to her old hometown of Burke's Island, Maine....this beautiful small town.

As she learns to deal with the aftermath of her failed marriage and the pain her husband inflicted on her, she meets a mysterious man, deals with her daughter's own adventures and delves into her own past.

The kids are, well kids, but I must say that there were times I wanted Nora to step in, put her foot down and remind them who's boss.  It almost felt like she was being completely walked on by her 12 year old, quite frustrating.

All in all, I enjoyed the story, it had a bit of this and a bit of that and it just worked, honestly it's a great book to take along on a vacation.

Thank you to TLC Book Tours for providing me with a review copy.