November was something of a strange month in these parts: from the weather jumping straight to Winter to the start of holiday festivities and gatherings, to miscellaneous weird things popping up. Not to mention a second hawk encounter, this time with actual injuries. {Thankfully Pepper has recovered well and has new feathers coming in!} Surprisingly, I did not find myself reading as much in November – although I also scratched my cornea and was unable to read for a few days while that was healing. For the most part I did enjoy what I read, and there were also a couple books left stranded to finish in December, so counting November as a successful reading month.
📖 The Secret Christmas Library | Jenny Colgan | ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Jenny Colgan is the master of wild, remote Scottish settings. Place is a character in her novels, and this one is so good. She’s also clearly a book fangirl: anytime books feature in her stories, there’s extra magic. A bit disappointed at there not being a Secret Christmas Library {it was such a perfect opening!}, but it is Christmas, there are books everywhere, and secrets are plentiful.
📱 Murder at Beechwood | Alyssa Maxwell | ⭐⭐⭐⭐
This third installment picks up some 10ish months after the events of book 2, and wow does Emma find herself busy! There’s an abandoned baby, a lot of bodies, family drama on a very large {and multiple families} scale. Did I mention the bodies? I felt like there were extra this time. Still a fascinating dip into the Gilded Age, and I look forward to binging more.
📖 Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife | Martin Edwards | ⭐⭐⭐⭐
I was intrigued when I saw this at Barnes & Noble, and immediately placed it on hold when I saw the Library added a copy. This was such a wild ride! There are 2 mysteries, a load of red herrings, more than a few twists, and it’s all around one of those classic-feeling mysteries.
🎧 The December Market | RaeAnn Thayne | ⭐⭐⭐
Did not enjoy this one as much as the first one; I felt like we kept getting stuck in a thought loop – for both main characters – and more is not always a good thing. {Especially when it comes to heavy emotional baggage}. Loved getting to see more of the small town of Shelter Springs though.
📖 Pumpkin Spice and Everything Nice | Katie Cicatelli-Kuc | ⭐⭐⭐
The buzz definitely got me on this one, and I snagged the pretty sprayed-edge edition for $5 from B&N. A friend told me she DNFed this one, and once I got into the reading I can see why. It reads young. Yes, this is YA, but the characters themselves read young, not acting – or rather reacting – their age. That said, it is very fallish and fairly low stakes.
Listening:
Other than my single audiobook, I did not really listen to anything. In large part because I was keeping my ears open to sounds of alarm from the chicken pen, following the hawk attack. It actually came back the next day and stood on the ground outside the fence watching my chickens! Pippin sounded the alarm and I chased it off. Mercy! Guess that’s the Farm Wife Life experience.
Watching:
Cold nights are the perfect time to cuddle on the couch and watch something. And with those nights starting earlier, I can often watch something and still read before bed. Double win! There is also a definite theme to my viewing habits at the moment, see if you can tell.
- 📺 Great British Bake Off | Netflix
Finished the newest season, and this is such a perfect season for the show that I’m going back and rewatching old seasons. Also: the Holiday Special. - 📺 The Diplomat (Season 3) | Netflix
Whew. This show is ridiculously twisty. I’m glad they added a couple extra episodes to this season, because good gravy. What just happened? - 🎬 Jurassic World: Rebirth (2025) | Library DVD
It has been … more than 20 {perhaps closer to 30} years since I watched Jurassic Park, and I’ve not seen any of the subsequent movies between that one and this one. But for some reason, we decided this one looked interesting, so I snagged a copy from the Library. Can we, as a human species, all agree to never bring back dinosaurs? - 📺 Baking Impossible | Netflix
I stumbled upon this competition – the brainchild of former GBBO runner-up Andrew Smyth. The idea of blind-pairing an engineer + a baker and asking them to create delicious desserts that can withstand “stress tests”? Insane, genius, good entertainment. - 📺The Holiday Baking Championship | HBOmax
Thanks to a fabulous Black Friday deal, we rejoined HBOmax and I can watch this year’s contest. Always a good time, although what happened to Carla?! She was my favorite judge!
On the Blog:
As a weirdly wild and sometimes wonderful year is drawing to a close, is it any surprise that the final months seem to want to end things with gusto? From waking up to a completely unexpected dusting of snow one morning to falling asleep with auroras dancing overheard the same night. I shared my finals walks of the CBWC challenge, and the delicious recipe for chocolate cobbler. An eventful chicken update rounded out the non-book-related posting.
On the bookish front, we’re clearly focused on festive reading, including Sugarplum-Free reading options. You can see the TBR versus Impulse/Bonus read tally is rather unbalanced in my latest check-in post as well. Oops? And of course, some Jane Austen nonfiction thoughts.
It’s hard to believe we’re already in December, and I’m thinking ahead to “year in review”-type posts and planning things to come in 2026. I don’t want to miss the season however, so we’re not getting too far ahead of ourselves. There’s plenty of time left in 2025 for posts and reading and living.
Hopefully you all had a wonderful November to start a cozy and restful holiday season.
What’s the best thing you’ve read or watched lately?
And do you have any recommendations for similar shows to Bake Off?
My mother was flabbergasted lately to learn that my ladyfriend and I like to watch cooking shows on Youtube — but not stuff like British Bakeoff, more like garden-to-kitchen homesteading ones. There’s one channel we like where this couple has a 19th century cabin on their land, and they use it for educational purposes: they cook period recipes with the same wooden cookstove the original residents would have used. I’d link to it but I’m at work and I don’t think my boss would appreciate me loading up youtube! XD
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Yes! We love garden-to-table homesteading stuff too, and watch a good bit of that on YT too 🙂 I feel like I’ve maybe seen one of those videos – or something like it. Such a fascinating concept!
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oh my gosh I hope Pepper didn’t get too badly hurt by the hawk, that’s scary! I’m hoping your cornea injury isn’t also hawk-related :S. I love the GBBO but haven’t watched it in a while! I’ve not heard of Baking Impossible before but it sounds so fun, now I want to find that.
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She had a few punctures, and lost a LOT of feathers. Massive feather loss and damage, but with some extra Black Soldier Fly larvae (packed with protein) and other nutrient-dense treats + lots of cuddles she’s already starting to grow back the feathers! Yay! My cornea scratch was not hawk-related, but it did happen later the same day! 😮 Such a wild ride … glad it’s over.
Baking Impossible was so fun! Definitely look it up if you get the chance 🙂
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Oh no, poor girl that sounds awful 😦 ! Glad to hear her feathers are growing back and she’s getting lots of TLC!
My goodness I’m glad there were no hawks near your eyes at least but that day sounds intense, glad it’s over for you too! 🫂. Yes will try to do that!
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Sounds like a busy month but a good one in shows and reading.
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Wish you a lovely December and holidays.
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Thank you! I hope you have a lovely December as well!
And yes, it was overall a good month of books and binging shows 🙂
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Oh my goodness, scratching your cornea sounds terrible, as does the hawk attack! You did have a wild month! I hope December will be much more calm!
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It was such a wild month! So far December is somewhat calmer … I think? LOL We shall see how things go!
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Im so sorry to hear that Pepper had a hawk encounter, I’m glad she’s recovering well though. Im also sorry to hear about your eye too.
It looks like you got to some great books at least. Murder At Beechwood certainly sounds dramatic and I adore an author who can make a setting come alive as you’ve described with the first title. Ive been eyeing up the Miss Winter one too and love that it has two mysteries going on. It is a shame to hear that the Pumpkin Spice one read so young though, books that do that are definitely hitting me more now. They tend to really frustrate me 😬
I missed the latest season of GBBO but I’m glad you loved it. I also never got around to trying the latest Jurassic movie. The one prior to that put me off although I had loved the movies up until that point and someone told me this latest is stronger so I will watch it eventually.
I hope the hawk encounters stop soon, it certainly sounds intense.
My watch obssession atm is House. I decided to finally check it out on a whim and now I’m 100% hooked 😅
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I am loving the Gilded Newport series, that Murder at Beechwood is part of. Glad to have found a nice cozy series I can binge on, as I discovered it well into its run 🙂 Colgan is a master of place/location, and I always want to travel after reading her.
I’m not sure why we decided this Jurassic Park movie needed to be seen, since we haven’t seen any of the preceding ones. It was a decent movie, just we really do NOT need to bring back dinosaurs. Ever. 🤣
Thankfully we’ve been hawk free for a month. Or rather, the ones around have been interested in mousies and not my chickens. Those are fine. It’s the chicken eaters I don’t need/like. Pepper has recovered nicely, and has lots of new feathers coming in 😍
Oh man, I haven’t seen House in ages! I may have to see if it’s available for streaming…
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Ooh that’s the best part about discovering series late, no lengthy waits for more 😂😂 I hope you have lots of fun with the series.
Oh I totally agree, it can look kind of magical originally but definitely not worth it when you see everything that goes wrong. And as amazing as some would be to see you do not mess with nature like that 😬
Im glad to hear it. I didnt realise any went for chickens like that. Hopefully one being in the area was a weird fluke. That’s great to hear that Peppers doing so well.
Ooh I didnt know youd seen it. I cant believe how much I’m loving it so far. Its on Netflix where I am but I know content varies by location
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I remember watching House some when it was airing originally. I didn’t get to watch it super consistently, but enough to keep up with the storyline (mostly? lol) 🙂 I’ll have to see if it’s streaming somewhere here – or if the library has the DVDs.
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Ive had shows like that before. And others Ive loved but somehow never continued into the later series 🙈 I hope you manage to find some way to watch it.
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