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Seasons of Splendour: Tales, Myths and Legends of India - Madhur Jaffrey

Author: Madhur Jaffrey Illustrator: Michael Foreman Genre: Children's Fiction, Indian Culture, Mythology Rating: 4.25 stars. In a Nutshell: A beautiful storybook that took me down memory lane. This is for those interested in genuine Indian folklore, mythological as well as cultural. Madhur Jaffrey is known in India mainly for being a cookbook writer so this collection came as a wonderful surprise to me. I devoured every story with glee. The collection begins with a wonderful author’s note that details her childhood and how storytelling played a part in it. I relished it because it made me all nostalgic about my childhood years, though I didn’t grow up with a huge extended family, unlike the author. The tales are arranged in the order of the lunar calendar, which generally begins around April. This is significant as Hindu festivals are celebrated as per the lunar cycle. The structure of the book is thus simple. The author gives a brief intro of the upcoming segment, mostly through a...

AUTHOR: Lenka Karpiskova GENRE: Children's Nonfiction, STEM. PUBLICATION DATE: January 27, 2026 RATING: 4 stars. In a Nutshell: A fully-illustrated nonfiction work about how we encounter chemistry in our homes. Aimed at middle-graders and teens. Recommended. This book is a part of a series with three standalone books. I recently read Book One: ‘The Awesome Physics in Your Home’ and found it quite impactful and enlightening. But as Book Two was also about Physics (The Awesome Physics in Your City), I decided to change subjects and try Book Three instead with Chemistry as the focus. Kids are often told in school that cooking is the most common chemistry, but this book explains how chemistry in our daily lives goes far beyond the kitchen. Just as in the Physics book, the content is divided not by chemical concepts but by the parts of the house such as living room, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom and so on. This ensures that we get a practical view of several routine activities where chem...

AUTHOR: Silvia Moreno-Garcia GENRE: Horror-Fantasy PUBLICATION DATE: July 15, 2025 RATING: 2.5 stars. In a Nutshell: A multi-generational horror-suspense focussing on three women and their dark experiences with witchcraft. Good historical atmosphere and a couple of compelling characters. Needlessly intricate, guessable antagonists, dragged pacing. One incestual relationship (not sure if it’s culturally/historically accurate). The horror comes only in bits and spurts. I liked some parts of this novel but wasn’t too impressed. Not sure if this was because of the audio version. Plot Preview: 1998. Minerva is a graduate student who wants to write her dissertation on the life of Beatrice Tremblay, a talented but relatively obscure horror author with one famous novel and who had been a student at the same college in the 1930s. As Minerva tries to find more information on Beatrice, she finds herself grappling with the same dark forces that Beatrice once did and referred to in her novel, which...

AUTHOR: Dawn McMillan ILLUSTRATOR: Ross Kinnaird GENRE: Children's Picture Book PUBLICATION DATE: September 1, 2012 RATING: 2 stars. In a Nutshell: A children’s picture book with some questionable inclusions. My low rating isn't because this talks about butts, but because I found it poorly written. Plot Preview: Written in first person, the young narrator is sad at having discovered a crack in his butt. He wonders where and when he might have broken it. (He’s fairly certain a fart caused it to split.) He then mulls over various butt options he could try as a replacement, going from the arty to the outrageous. But will these options work on a broken bottom? It is a truth universally acknowledged that kids like good butt stories. And this one seemed to have the makings of one. But I don’t get its appeal. Honestly, the title got me cracking up. I was hoping for a cheeky story about how the boy discovers that all butts are cracked. However, while the story started off excellently, ...

AUTHOR: Gabrielle Meyer SERIES: Dollar Princess, #2 GENRE: Historical Romance PUBLICATION DATE: June 9, 2026 RATING: 4 stars. In a Nutshell: A historical romance that is not just a historical romance. Retelling of the classic Hollywood musical ‘Seven Brides for Seven Brothers’. Interesting characters, great historical feel, wonderful setting. Christian fiction. Slightly slow and repetitive in the second half. A nice option for fans of the genre and of the movie. The second book in the Dollar Princess series but can be read as a standalone. Plot Preview: 1884, England. Twenty-year-old American heiress Lily Parker is taken by surprise when the reclusive Duke of Severton, Ames Welby, proposes to her almost as soon as they meet. She knows that he is in desperate need of money to repair his ancestral home, and as she has wealth as well as an interest in leaving the crazy chaos of London, she accepts. What she doesn’t know is that life at Pickering Castle will be just as chaotic. Ames’ four ...

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