Gardening Woes: A Review of Tomato Dreams

Book cover for Tomato Dreams by P.B. Cannon. Image on cover is a rustic painting of tomatoes growing on a row of tomato plants in a garden. Oddly enough, there are several colourful fish swimming between the plants. Maybe they’re underwater? Title: Tomato Dreams

Author: P.B.Cannon

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: March 10, 2019

Genres: Fantasy, Romance, Humour

Length: 34 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

Red has planted her very first vegetable garden. She is tending it when she makes a surprising discovery: fish are growing on her tomatoes. With the help of friends that are… let’s just say they are as unusual as Red, she sets out to learn why this has happened – and why flocks of birds are trying to steal the fish.

(Set in the universe of Cady and Sam, a short story series about werewolves and other paranormals.)

Content Warning: Pregnancy

Review:

Even paranormal creatures need downtime.

Imagine finding fish swimming around your tomato plants! I chuckled at that image in the first scene and couldn’t wait to learn more about why this happened and how the characters were going to react to it. Gardening can be unpredictable for sure, but generally one doesn’t find such bizarre changes to their crops from one day to the next.  I don’t want to give away spoilers by going into too much detail about what was actually going on here, but I thought it was a great way to draw new readers in and help us care about these characters and the silly things they sometimes experience.

As much as I enjoyed the leisurely pace of Red’s life, I did find myself wishing for more conflict to keep my interest levels high. It could have been something as simple as a thunderstorm or a brief argument with a grumpy neighbour. High stakes are not necessary here, but I would have happily gone with a much higher rating if Red had faced a few more challenges as she tried to figure out where all of those fish came from.

Some of my favourite scenes were the ones that explore what magic is and isn’t capable of doing in this universe. This is something that can shift dramatically from one story to the next one in the fantasy genre, so I always approach these explanations with an open mind and with as few assumptions about what should be happening as possible. It was interesting to see how this author described the benefits and limitations of magic in her world, and I wouldn’t mind learning more about it in the future.

This was a standalone tale in a series.

Tomato Dreams made me smile.

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Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Books I Had to Read in School and Liked

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

A hardback book, a quill, and a bottle of ink artfully arranged outside in the grass. The book and quill are propped up so the viewer can better see them. This is going to be a much longer list than the one I had a few weeks ago. I liked to loved most of the assigned reads in school, including:

1. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

2. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare (but I thought these two should have listened to their parents and not been so impulsive or dramatic!)

3. Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White

4. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

5. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

6. The Color Purple by Alice Walker

7. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

8. Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls (even though it made me permanently suspicious of books about beloved pets and what will probably happen to those poor animals by the final scene)

9. The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings by Edgar Allan Poe

10. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez

11. Walden or, Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau (although I wanted a sequel where his poor mother went off into the woods to find herself while Henry stayed home to do all of the washing, mending, gardening, and cooking for once!)

12. Things Fall Apart (The African Trilogy, #1) by Chinua Achebe

13. The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson (I wish we had lived in the same era. I think she and I could have been great friends).

14. Selected Poems by Langston Hughes (I feel the exact same way about Mr. Hughes and wish I could have been his friend, too).

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Top Ten Tuesday: Books with a High Page Count


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Closeup of a huge hardback book. It looks like it has 800+ pages in it. Sometimes I have to include books I haven’t actually read in my answers to Top Ten Tuesday posts because those weekly topics cover things I have little to no experience reading about.

Luckily, this is not one of those weeks! While I didn’t quite come up with a full ten answers, I have read and enjoyed all of these books. If they catch your attention and you’re interested in older tales, consider this a personal recommendation from me.

1. The Pillars of the Earth (Kingsbridge, #1) by Ken Follett (976 pages)

2. Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley (729 pages)

3. Hawaii by James A. Michener (937 pages)

4. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (502 pages)

5. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Earth’s Children, #1) by Jean M. Auel (516 pages)

6. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (1216 pages)

7. The Stand by Stephen King (1152 pages)

8. Dracula by Bram Stoker (488 pages)

9. Watership Down (Watership Down, #1) by Richard Adams (478 pages)

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A Review of The Kingdom in the Middle

Book cover for Kingdom in the Middle (Stories of Lives in Crisis) by Nadi Abdi. Image on cover shows a computer-generated drawing of five mansions that are of equal distances to each other. Each mansion has a road that leads to a smaller house in the centre of this image. Title: The Kingdom in the Middle (Stories of Live in Crisis)

Author: Nadi Abdi

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: May 13, 2025

Genres: Fantasy, Historical

Length: 20 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

The wish that killed five kingdoms. From wishes gone wrong to dreams turned to nightmares, these short stories reflect the desperation that comes with being a human in almost inhumane situations. A drained and exploited kingdom wishing to be free. A loved one who no longer loves you but won’t admit it. A child looking for one moment’s peace in a cruel and chaotic home. A spouse and an immigrant who only wish that promises be kept. They find reprieve in the unlikeliest of places, including in the arms of death itself.

Content Warning: Death. I will not discuss it in my review.

Review:

Be careful what you wish.

Fans of W.W. Jacob’s The Monkey’s Paw might have already guessed what this tale is about as the two share certain similarities. Knowing the plot twists wasn’t as important as following the king as he attempted to make the lives of his subjects easier. It was a noble goal that I wholeheartedly supported and hoped he’d accomplish.

The ending was a bit of a letdown given how abrupt it was. I was okay with the fact that it wasn’t as happy as I hoped it would be, but I also wished the author had spent more time explaining why the king had developed his special power that kicked the storyline into motion and what would happen to his kingdom after the final scene. There was so much more that could have been done with this premise, and I would have happily gone with a higher rating if it had been given additional time to develop and explain why this world worked the way that it did.

I liked the way this story nudged readers to consider every possible outcome of the decisions we make in life, from the ordinary to the unlikely. These scenes when this truly felt like a fairy tale because of how indirectly it made its point and how much it trusted the reader to connect what I thought were fairly obvious causes and effects. Yes, I know that might sound like a little of a contradiction, but it makes sense within the context of something that wants readers to think a little but also doesn’t make it too difficult to understand what’s going on.

The Kingdom in the Middle was thought provoking.

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Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: What I Read When I’m Not Feeling Well

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

Closeup photo of small pills that look like vitamin e vitamin pills to me. They are soft, small, oblong, and slightly yellow. My answers to this question depend on why I’m not feeling well.

If I’m dealing with something like a migraine, I generally won’t be reading due to how symptoms like trouble concentrating, light sensitivity, nausea, etc. strongly affect what I do on those days even if my pain levels aren’t a hindrance in and of themselves

That’s not a very fun answer, of course, so I’m going to assume we’re all talking about less debilitating sick days when, say, one has the common cold or a sprained ankle instead but can still concentrate and enjoy the written word for at least a little while.

There are three things I especially like to read on these occasions:

Poetry

A hardback, cream-coloured book of Persian poetry that has a single red rose lying on the book.Mary Oliver is – or, rather, was – one of my favourite contemporary poets because of how beautifully she would described something as simple as a sunset or seeing a bird flying around in a field.

She wrote the kinds of poems that nearly anyone can relate to because we’ve all experienced nature in some form in our lives, whether you’re walking past pigeons pecking at bread crumbs on a city street or live in the middle of a forest in a little cottage and go weeks without talking to other human beings.

Black River is a good place to start for Oliver.

For more classic poets, Emily Dickinson and Langston Hughes are my all-time favourites. They were both incredibly talented and fantastic at capturing those little moments in life that are so easy to overlook.

Hope is the thing with feathers is one of my favourite Dickinson poems.

Theme for English B is a thoughtful Hughes poem that captures a lot of the most common themes in his work. (I can’t possibly pick a favourite poem from him. He wrote so many fantastic ones).

If anyone has recommendations for other modern (or modern-ish)  poets who write or wrote short, snappy pieces, please share! I have not had great luck finding ones I’ve liked. Yes, it’s fine if your definition of “modern” is 1960 or something. I’m not at all picky so long as they’re a great writer whose work still feels fresh and meaningful to you even if it might have been written last century. 🙂

 

Nonfiction

I especially like history, science, and nature-themed books when I’m not feeling well. Medical topics may or may not be interesting, too, depending on how closely related they are to my ailments. For example, I’d rather not read about the misery of the 1918 flu if I have currently have the flu, but a book about how doctors discovered the existence of vitamins or something else would be fine.

A green wooden bench beneath a mature tree. the bench and tree are facing a peaceful little river whose banks are covered in green bushes and healthy grass.These topics are great distractions from something like a fever, a cough, or mild pain because they transport you to other times and places and teach you all sorts of interesting things about the world.

This summer I have enjoyed these nonfiction titles:

“No One Taught Me How to Be a Man” by Shannon T.L. Kearns (A memoir about gender identity and what is expected of men).

“Ghosts, Trolls and the Hidden People” by Dagrún Ósk Jónsdóttir (Icelandic folktales and the history behind them).  

“Beyond Limits: Stories of Third-Trimester Abortion Care” by Shelley Sella, MD (Stories about people who needed third-trimester abortions for things like terminal diagnoses). 

“The Friendship Bench: How Fourteen Grandmothers Inspired a Mental Health Revolution” by Dixon Chibanda MD (a memoir about senior citizen women offering friendship, advice, and mental health care to young people in Zimbabwe).

I have not read enough nonfiction this year and will try to dig more deeply into it.

 

Rereads

Honestly, this is one of the most common times for me to reread old favourites. There’s something comforting about reading or listening to a story when you already know what’s going to happen in it, especially for a series like the Anne Shirley books or The Chronicles of Narnia where there are many instalments to read if you happen to need multiple days or weeks to recover.

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Top Ten Tuesday: Books Guaranteed to Put an End to Your Book Slump


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

A white cat with grey and black spots is sitting in a white windowsill in Cyprus. Behind the cat is a brilliantly blue window that stands out beautifully. When I’m in a book slump, I immediately take a break from this hobby as even the slightest expectation of reading only prolongs and deepens those feelings for me.

What I need to do instead is get out of the house and exercise, attend non-bookish events like festivals or parades, spend a lot of time in nature, visit museums, socialize in person, try a new food, get a new hairstyle, go on a day trip or full vacation, or whatever else it is I have the money, time, and energy to do to shake up my routines.

In no way do I expect this to be the solution for everyone, but I wanted to mention it as a possible option for anyone who is currently in a terrible book slump. You can be a voracious and enthusiastic reader and still take breaks of any duration when necessary.  Hobbies are supposed to be fun and relaxing, after all!

Okay, now I will buckle down and try to answer this question without going off on a tangent.

If someone is in a book slump and finds that reading is actually helpful in that moment, I’d suggest ideas like:

1) Rereading your all-time favourites

2) Poetry

3) Children’s picture books

4) Exploring genres you rarely or never visit

5) Watching film or TV adaptations of books you’ve read

6) Listening to audiobooks (say, while you’re taking a walk in the park if that’s a safe thing to do in your community!)

7) Stories that are much longer or much shorter than what you typically read

8) Books from cultures or places in the world you do not know much about

Why do I suggest these things?

Well, it’s about getting exposed to tropes, methods of storytelling, and styles that you are not used to.  All of these things vary widely from one corner of the library or bookstore to the next.

As much as I love science fiction and fantasy, I’ve read so much of them that sometimes it’s really nice to pick up a mystery or piece of historical fiction instead and enjoy something that has a different flow to it.

In my experience, sometimes a book slump is actually about feeling deeply tired of reading the same types of plots over and over again. If you can shake things up and try something new, reading can be become a joy again.

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A Review of The Core Directive

Book cover for The Core Directive by Lyam Lockwood & Steven Nimocks. Image on cover shows a side profile of a human-like face looking to the right. it’s grey and looks computer generated. The back of the head and part of the cheek and neck is dissolving into computer code. Title: The Core Directive

Author: Lyam Lockwood & Steven Nimocks

Publisher: Three Notch Publishing

Publication Date: January 11, 2025

Genres: Science Fiction

Length: 37 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

In a world where every action is monitored and every decision is calculated, compliance is the measure of success. His task is straightforward: ensure that the system’s core directive—absolute stability—is upheld. But when discrepancies in the data begin to surface and compliance ratings fluctuate unpredictably, he finds himself drawn into a deeper mystery. What is the true nature of the system he’s sworn to protect? And why does it feel like something—or someone—is watching him more closely than ever?

Content Warning:

Review:

Perfection is possible.

Writing this in the form of journal entries was a creative flourish that isn’t used as often as I think it should be these days, so kudos to the authors for approaching storytelling from this perspective. I was drawn into the question about what was really going on immediately and couldn’t wait to see which clues might be shared next. This wasn’t quite a traditional mystery, but it had elements of that genre that worked beautifully with a narrator who didn’t always know which pieces of information were going to be important in the future or that a human might interpret slightly – or even wildly – differently than they would

Additional world building would have made this an easier read for me. I struggled to understand some of the things the narrator was saying about how this society was set up due to how many euphemisms were used for what happened to people and computers when they were discovered to be flawed in unacceptable ways. While I do think I eventually figured it out, the confusion I felt in the beginning and middle interfered with my ability to enjoy the storyline because I wasn’t quite sure what was going on or which characters I should trust.

With that being said, I was intrigued by the narrator’s methodical approach to its tasks. The way it thought about the world – if, indeed, thoughts are the correct term to use for an intelligent computer – was so wildly different than how the average human would generally describe those same events that it was easy to forget this was fiction. I had glimpses of an intelligence that was nothing at all like my own, and I wanted to learn more.

The Core Directive was interesting.

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Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Books I Had to Read in School and Didn’t Like

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

Photo of a grumpy tabby cat making an angry face.

I don’t own a cat, but this is basically the face I made while reading these tales!

I was one of those bookish kids who loved English class and could find something enjoyable,  or at least relatable, about almost every piece of literature we were assigned.  I’d even read as many sections of our textbook that weren’t assigned as I could because I loved discovering new authors, poems, and stories.

These are the handful of exceptions to that rule. I still dislike these books and authors to this day…although your mileage may vary!

1. A Separate Peace by John Knowles

This bored me due to the slow pacing as well as a setting (a boarding school for wealthy and often terribly emotionally neglected children) that I couldn’t relate to in any way despite honestly trying my best. My family was warm and loving but generally tight on funds for anything other than the basic necessities in life, so the idea of being sent away to an expensive boarding school and not seeing my parents for 9+ months of the year was just as unthinkable as sending one’s child to the moon. Honestly, reading about a moon colony would have been more relatable to me than this!

 

2. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

I hated everything about this book: the glorification of wealth, the selfish, vain characters who valued money and social status over anything else, the bizarre indifference Daisy and her husband whose name I can’t remember felt towards their own child, the way the wealthy characters threw lavish parties and wasted money while the poor people in their communities suffered terribly, and more.

As an adult, I realize that at least some of these passages were meant to be criticisms of the pursuit of wealth and power above all else, and it might come across to me differently if I’d read it when I was older than 16. But being exposed to it at that age, and after growing up in a family whose values were the opposite of the ones these characters held, disgusted me and I have never felt the urge to reread it or check out more of Fitzgerald’s work in general.

 

3. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Technically, this was a long poem from the 1700s we were assigned to read in one of my university courses, but I think it’s close enough to count. It was about an old sailor who kills a harmless albatross that helped their ship escape from an ice jam. I was furious with this sailor for not only killing an animal he wasn’t planning to eat but also for killing one that had just helped him. It was a senseless and cruel decision. Honestly, I rooted for the antagonists for the rest of this poem instead of for the sailor. That’s how mad I was at him.

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Top Ten Tuesday: Nonfiction Books on My TBR List


Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

 

A beige agaric mushroom growing in a lush patch of grass.I am grateful for all of the Top Ten Tuesday participants who blog about nonfiction and enjoy talking about it. One of my quiet hopes for the future for this blog hop is that we’ll get even more nonfiction readers to join in on the fun.

With those thoughts in mind, here are eleven nonfiction books on my TBR list that I’m excited to read.

1. Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot by Mikki Kendall

2. I’m Laughing Because I’m Crying by Youngmi Mayer

3. The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World by Robin Wall Kimmerer, John Burgoyne

4. Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses by Robin Wall Kimmerer

5. Elephants in the Hourglass: A Journey of Reckoning and Hope Along the Himalaya by Kim Frank

6. How to Be Resilient: Simple Steps to Embrace a Positive Mindset and Build Inner Strength by Gail Gazelle MD

7. Happy to Help: Adventures of a People Pleaser by Amy Wilson

8. The Meteorites: Encounters with Outer Space and Deep Time by Helen Gordon

9. Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Pérez

10. How to Share an Egg: A True Story of Hunger, Love, and Plenty by Bonny Reichert

Which genres, if any, do you wish you saw represented more often in TTT posts?

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A Review of Space Snot

Book cover for Space Snot by Jonathan Antony Strickland. Image on cover shows a photo of a shirtless white man standing in a living room in front of a couch and large mirror. Grossly enough, his body is splattered with an overwhelming amount of green snot. Title: Space Snot

Author: Jonathan Antony Strickland

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: December 1, 2019

Genres: Science Fiction, Horror

Length: 12 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

A man gets hit in the head by a meteorite. Then things get a little weird! Friday was the day when a meteorite was shot through my head… Yet here I am! Why? Why did I not die? You may say that I shouldn’t question, say I should consider myself lucky! But the fact is, I don’t!

Content Warning:

Review:

Silliness is underrated.

This is one of those cases where having two narrators in a short story is not only a great idea but makes the execution of a humorous plot line a thousand times better than it would have been if readers had only gotten to know what happened from one point of view instead. Seriously, go read this and see how Mr. Strickland developed both voices and gave them unique speaking patterns and habits that made it so effortless to switch from one of them to the other, sometimes as often as a single sentence at a time. Kudos for pulling this off! It isn’t easy, but it’s so rewarding for a reader when it does happen.

The ending left something to be desired in my opinion. While the most important conflicts were resolved, there weren’t a lot of details about how they were wrapped up or what might happen to the characters next. I’m the sort of reader who likes to imagine what happens next, so even in cases where a sequel isn’t warranted I still like to have a few clues to work with there. It wasn’t quite a cliffhanger ending, but it was vague enough that I felt a bit dissatisfied.

Don’t let the horror genre tag scare you off if you’re not generally a fan of such things. The occasionally gross moments didn’t involve any blood, and they were greatly overshadowed by how playful and wacky this tale was. Sometimes it felt like something written for a middle grade audience instead of an adult one as far as the themes and execution of plot twists played out, although I do believe this was actually intended for adults.

Space Snot made me  shudder, laugh, cringe, and shake my head almost simultaneously. This is a fun read for people who want something zany. 

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