Divine Mistakes

When I worked at Borders, we had the option of picking out ARCs (and sometimes CDs) as a reward for excellent customer service (or when we stayed late, or what have you). I have had several on my TBR shelf for quite a long time now, and Alphabet Weekends by Elizabeth Noble was among them. I chose it because it seemed like it would be some nice fluff reading, ‘chick lit’ as it were, but the peripheral relationships ended up making it much richer than I anticipated.

The book centers around Natalie and Tom, best friends from early childhood who are still single in their mid thirties. Natalie was dumped by her long-term boyfriend right before Christmas, and Tom, who has long been under the impression that their relationship had the potential for more than friendship, suggests spending 26 days/weekends together, doing a different activity according to each letter of the alphabet. By the end of which, he claims, she will be in love with him. However, the book also explores the relationships between Patrick, Tom’s brother, and his wife Lucy, who are both going through different personal struggles, as well as Nicholas and Anna, Natalie’s parents. Continue Reading »

Just when I got my Now Reading plugin to look the way I want, I had to go and break it. :-/ I wanted to change over to Pretty Permalinks, which I’ve done for the rest of my WP entries/pages. Now, the sidebar looks the way I want, and has links to the books, which the plugin has obviously added. However, the library page and individual pages don’t work. UGH. I’m pretty sure wordpress is deliberately trying to break my head. I’ve read through all the old comments and found two people who had the same issue, but no-one ever responded to it. So I brought it up again on the bug tracking forum, so we’ll see how that goes.

Anyway, I got approved for some new fanlistings, so perhaps I’ll just concentrate on those until I can figure out what the heck is going on with this thing.

This book has caught my eye many times since it was originally published (it happens when you work in a bookstore), but I didn’t buy it until this past summer, and haven’t had the chance to sit down with it until now. As a history major, one of my areas of interest has always been the Napoleonic Era, although most of my reading material till now has been focused on the British navy of the period (hello, Hornblower and Aubrey). So, a story that combines one of my favourite historical periods with a modern heroine seeking a graduate degree in History… how could I refuse?

(also, this is my first entry in the What’s In A Name challenge)
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