Stephanie > Recent Status Updates

Reading for Read Christie 2026.
March's Theme: Biggest Impact on You as a Young Reader

"The only thing that stays the same is change."

Reading for Read Christie 2026.
February's Theme: Beloved Character(s)

"Does that matter? Whether it's chanting, praying, or saying an incantation, the more self-important you appear, the more belief others have in you."

"I'm more concerned with knowing who would do something like this."

"History repeats itself."

Reading for the USA's 250th Anniversary Book List.
Category: The United States
State: Alaska

"What do you have left?"

"Say what you meant while you could.”

“Life over here is short and regret lasts forever. Maybe happy now, happy for a moment, is all we really get.”

“We all can break.”

I fear it's only going to get worse in terms of soap opera drama. It makes me wonder if Part 2 is worth sticking around for, or if I should just give up and walk away. 🤔

"Words were creators of worlds. You had to be careful with them.”

“There was no winning in war. Not this war anyway. There was just pain, death, and destruction.”

“War looked one way for those who saw it at a safe distance. Close up, the view was different.”

Reading for the USA's 250th Anniversary Book List.
Category: The United States
State: Alabama

"Trust can come and go. It can be earned and lost. Losing trust in others can sting. A fact I knew well. But losing trust in yourself can pierce like a wolf's bite and shred to pieces any semblance of self. All belief in reality. Any understanding of truth."

"Grief does strange things to us.”

End of Part II.

"Kings know the penalty for treason better than any man."

"All of us are evolutions of ourselves, changing overtime as the calendar moves forward. Who we are when we leave this world is not who we were when we entered.”

“We think we know so much. We think we are the superior species, and yet there is so much we don't know, like the songs of birds. We hear the tune, but we don't know the words. We only know what we want to hear."

End of Part I.

“I believe in old fashioned things, like love and honesty and vows.”

“It's a good feeling to love what you do.”

A mixed bag, so far. I like reading about (and learning about) the time period, but I hate how soap opera-y Hannah's characters are. 😑

"Sometimes routine offers certainty. Action without having to give thought. A practice that doesn't require questioning. Sometimes it offers comfort. Sometimes when we lose those routines, we lose ourselves.”

"Women can be heroes."

“Over here, the men lie and they die.”

“We laugh, so we don't cry.”

“With life, there had to be hope.”

"... time has a way of changing; a subtle, secret metamorphosis that surprises us later."

"Sometimes the memories we keep are the ones we'd rather forget, but they have a way of finding us in the night, whispering along the wind, so we remember."

Reading for Read Christie 2026.
January's Theme: Best Opening

"Though my rational mind knew ghosts didn't exist, my imagination could be convinced otherwise. Mirrors might hold haunted things, but windows showed reality."

"It's surprising how much you can miss someone you're not sure ever really loved you."

"How many times had I stopped myself from speaking up? But silence had been the better companion for far too long."

“... fate would deliver whatever outcome it so wished.”

“A mother always knows her baby. It's our intuition.”

“They say women forget, but we don’t. We tuck away the throes deep in our bones, forever carrying the memories in the recesses of our bodies.”

"They are always inventing new words for old things."

"Stories have a way of finding us at just the right, or sometimes the most fragile, moment."

"By now, it was too late to change. It was who they expected me to be, so I played along."

"Of course, sometimes we forget that dreams and nightmares are two sides of the same coin."

"The realization of our mortality came slowly, in dribs and drabs, until we bleakly acknowledged that everything was on loan to us for a short time—the world, our possessions, the people we knew and loved. But we could not spend our time dwelling on our mortality; we still had to behave as if the worst would not happen, for otherwise we would not do very much, we would be defeated and give up."

"When you bet against the lions, you lose more than your purse."

Sandor's back! I didn't realize how much I missed him until he appeared again. It does make me wish [REDACTED] had gone with him, though. Oh, if only she had...

"Never be put off by rudeness, Mma. It is the rude person who is rude, not you."

Oh goodness, I was not expecting that to happen to [REDACTED]. 😨

I'm glad the operation was a success, but I'm worried how the aunt will retaliate.

"We all had to say things that weren't strictly true in order to protect others from hurt."

“It's not easy to be unhappy all by yourself, you know.”

"It's the parents who give children stupid names. It is the fault of the parents."

I knew the younger apprentice's name was going to be revealed in this one (thanks again, Daniel, for letting me know!) so I'm pleased it was in the very first chapter! I'm also pleased we're getting to know more about him.

“We get more frightened as we get older, Mma, or that is what I sometimes think. More and more frightened of everything.”

Does the younger apprentice not have a name? It's been 9 books, and he's still always referred to as “the younger apprentice.” Give the young man a name, please! 😭

Oh, well, I wasn't expecting that backstory for one of the cases.

"There were plenty of people who came out of thin air. They turned up in our lives, and we accepted them without question."

Precious Ramotswe is indeed precious. She's such a wonderfully written character.

"Perhaps we should all keep a few things—a few mementos—to remind us of what we used to be, just in case we forgot."