Under the Rainbow by Susan Scarlett 😍❤️🌈📗

Happy Furrowed Middlebrow Friday, Friends!! 🤩🌟📚

So excited to share this review of Under the Rainbow by Susan Scarlett! 

Book Rating: 5🌟

Sheer delight!! Susan Scarlett (aka Noel Streatfeild) does it again with another wonderful light and cozy romance novel. From the very beginning of the book, I was invested in this head-in-the-clouds vicar, Martin Richards, and his new parish in the village of Saltings. Everything about Under the Rainbow is appealing (even horrible Aunt Connie and the very clingy widow Lady Blacke) because of the sunshine-y personality and practical goodness of the lovely Judith Griffiths.

It was a joy reading about Judith's integration into the Richards family as a caretaker for Martin's newly orphaned niece Polly and nephew Andrew. She's the type of person who would bring peace, happiness, good sense and organization to any home. Seeing how she maneuvers her way around the nasty mind of Aunt Connie and the jealous tendencies of the wealthy Lady Blacke is brilliant (although, also sad in some ways, too).

I don't want to say too much because the journey from the beginning to the end of this charming book is such a treat. Though I felt anger at the meanness and frustration for selfishness, I found myself mostly surrounded by the warmth, love and understanding created by the rest of the characters. There is a level of depth to this seemingly light novel that really stays with you long after you finish reading.

I adore books that leave me with a feeling of  hope and inspire me to be a better person—and also to seek out more friends like Judith. Under the Rainbow was <i>absolutely</i> this type of book.

I'm very grateful to Susan of the Girls in White Dresses blog for inspiring me to finally read this book that I'd been saving on my shelf for months!! This is definitely a new favorite Susan Scarlett book!

Many, many thanks to Dean Street Press Ltd. for republishing so many of Susan Scarlett's books. I've been loving them so much! I can't wait to read (and buy!) more of her books on my DSP shelf—yay!

SUSAN SCARLETT BOOK RATINGS: 

(Click on each title to read my full review—more to come!)

Babbacombe's 4.5🌟

Clothes-Pegs 4🌟

Sally-Ann 4.5🌟

I'm off on a trip down south for a family celebration and I'm extra excited because I'll be able to visit one of my very first Bookstagram friends, Marjorie (@marjoriepaper)! Yippppeeee!! 

We've only met in person once, but it was such a fun day of lunch and book shopping that we're going to do it again this time. 🥳💜🍽🛍📚 Even though we chat at least once a month about so many fun things (books, crafts, kids, oracle/tarot, fountain pens, etc.), it'll be amazing to see her beautiful face in person. 😍

Marjorie and I in January 2023

Wishing you the loveliest and most enjoying book-reading week, friends! Thinking of you and thank you for all the comments and love on Instagram. It means so much to me!!! 

P.S. I'm hoping to reach 2K followers by the end of the year 🤞🏼🤞🏼 If you have other bookish friends that might like my account, please consider sharing it with them. Thank you!!! 🥰❤️📕

 

 

 

Vintage Barbie Book Collection! 👱🏻‍♀️🎀💙📚✨

This Christmas, I finally completed my vintage Barbie book collection thanks to awesome Ian and my parents! Yay!! 🥳💜

My Vintage Barbie Book Shelfie!

Ian found me a very affordable (and lovely) edition of Barbie's Easy-as-Pie Cookbook on eBay and it’s SOOO cute! The illustrations and recipes are adorable. This is one of my new favorite vintage cookbooks and, bonus, the cookbook actually has a mini story as an introduction to each recipe section. They're super fun to read!

My 2025 journal, knitting and this sweet Easy-as-Pie Barbie Cookbook!

Breakfast Tips!

Love the duotone illustrations!

Such cute chapter intros!

Sounds like a yummy punch!

Also, I’d been searching for the Ghost Town Mystery book for at least a few years. Even if I glimpsed a copy somewhere out in the wacky world wide web, it was snatched up before I even had a chance to look at the listing. 😭

Yipppeee!! The Ghost Town Mystery is finally in my hands!

When I DID manage to find copies of this book (or the Easy-as-Pie Cookbook) for sale, vendors were asking no less than $100-$150 (even in terrible condition) 😩

But, one day after the holidays, I just happened to be on Thrift Books and I saw this hard-to-find book listed for only $25! I couldn’t believe it (whaaa???? 😱), but I bought it immediately (using Christmas money from my mom and dad). I seriously did not think it would axtually arrive, but it did! And, it was in great condition. BEST DAY EVER! 😍❤️

Even though I’ve only read a few books in my collection so far, they’ve all been really good—with much better writing than you’d expect from a middle grade chapter book based on a popular doll of the time. 

Vintage Astronaut Barbie, Barbie Comics and Barbie Books!

I can’t tell you how happy I am to finally have them all! Woooo! 🥳💜

BOOK RATINGS:

• Here's Barbie 3.5🌟
  
• Barbie's New York Summer 4.5🌟
  
• Barbie's Candy-Striped Summer 3.5🌟
  
• Barbie's Easy-As-Pie Cookbook 4.5🌟

It's funny because I've not only been to New York in the summer (at least a few times), but I was also a candy striper when I was young and, now, my work is writing articles (and occasionally creating recipes) for a very popular vegan food blog (which is essentially an online cookbook). Isn't that cool? Maybe someday I'll have a fashion success, solve a mystery, visit Hawaii and perhaps be on television (though, if you count YouTube as television—like this What's in My Purse video—I already am!) 😂😂

9/13 Barbie Series Book Collection

VINTAGE BARBIE SERIES LIST: 

Characters include: Barbie Millicent Roberts, Ken Carson, Midge Hadley and Allan Sherwood. Published from 1962-1965.

1. Here's Barbie by Bette Lou Maybee/Cynthia Lawrence
2. Barbie's Fashion Success by Bette Lou Maybee
3. Barbie's New York Summer by Cynthia Lawrence
4. Barbie & Ken by Cynthia Lawrence
5. Barbie Solves a Mystery by Cynthia Lawrence
6. Barbie's Hawaiian Holiday by Bette Lou Maybee
7. Barbie's Secret by Eleanor K. Woolvin
8. Barbie in Television by Marianne Duest
9. Barbie, Midge & Ken by Cynthia Lawrence
10. Barbie's Candy-Striped Summer by Eleanor K. Woolvin 
11. Barbie and the Ghost Town Mystery by Eleanor K. Woolvin
12. Barbie's Easy-as-Pie Cookbook by Cynthia Lawrence
13. The World of Barbie by Cynthia Lawrence/Bette Lou Maybee (this is a compilation of the first three books in one volume)
    

Although I don't own The World of Barbie, I do own the first three books. I'm very undecided whether I should purchase this last book or not. What do you think? 

The eBay vendor sent me this vintage peignoir as a surprise gift with my book!

Many thumbs up to Random House for publishing such fantastic books in the 1960s! I think Lil of @lilsvintageworld would really love these books, too!

Let me know if you loved Barbie growing up (my little sister Kim and I did!!) and if you collect any vintage Barbies or Barbie books!

My little sister, Kimberly, and young ME! (approx. 1977 or 1978)

Many January hugs!! 💕❄️🤗❄️💕

Here are more pics of my vintage Barbie/Barbie Book collection! 🤩

Vintage Astronaut Barbie and Comics! I loved Astronaut Barbie!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Speaking of astronauts...did I tell you that I went to Space Camp when I was 15 and also first attended college with a major in Aerospace Engineering? I switched to Mathematics, but I still loved my time at Space Camp/Academy. Here I am wearing my flight suit from 1988—it still fits!

Love this vintage Barbie case I found on Facebook Marketplace!

Not a great story (lol), but really fun to listen to and such a great cover!

Victorian Elegance Barbie I found at a flea market for $5!

Vintage Barbie Book Stack!

Favorite 24+ Books of 2024! 🤩🌟🎉📖

Happy January, Friends!!! 

I wish I could give you all the biggest New Year's hug 🤗🤗 Grab a cup of tea (or fav beverage) and a little treat (wish I could share my homemade cranberry orange scone with you!) and let's get caught up with favorite books!

I had another awesome reading year with 241 books under my book belt - woo-hoo! 🥳 Here are the books that brought me the MOST JOY last year 🥰   

Find all of my Goodreads reviews HERE! 

REPUBLISHED BOOKS

🌟You know how much I love out-of-print books that are brought back to life by amazing new publishers. These Dean Street Press Furrowed Middlebrow, British Library Women Writers and Manderley Press books stole my heart this year! Every single Ruby Ferguson book I read was a 5 star rating and I can't wait to read the last two Molly Clavering books in my collection.

NON-FICTION BOOKS 

 🌟 I love reading memoirs, almanacs, nature journals and finding favorite quotes. These books were absolutely wonderful and lovely to read before bed. Month-by-month books are my favorites—The Shape of a Year by Jean Hersey is now a new all-time favorite! (I'm currently reading her first book, A Sense of Seasons, each month during 2025.) The Elizabeth Goudge memoir touched my heart so much and, after reading this book, my admiration for her has grown even more! (Note: The Elizabeth Goudge Book Club, hosted by Julie, will be reading The Joy of the Snow this June 💚)

🌟 Unearthing the Secret Garden by Marta McDowell was also amazing!! I had no idea that the life of Frances Hodgson Burnett was so fascinating! She is definitely a person (along with Agatha Christie, Gladys Taber and Elizabeth Goudge) that I wish I could go back in time to meet. I'd also love to add a few more Susan Branch books to my collection this year! (I think I'm only missing a few...)

VINTAGE BOOKS
🌟 I enjoyed SO many Kathleen Norris (loved buddy reading this author's books with Andrea @sorrythankyou79 😍) and Marcia Willett books (thanks to Caro @carosbookcase 😁) this year. Kathleen Norris writes vintage romances (primarily set in California) that are full of cozy and descriptive details, twists, turns and (usually) thrilling endings. Marcia Willett is a new favorite of mine with her compelling family dramas. You can really get lost in her stories! Also, it's no surprise that another Ruby Ferguson and DE Stevenson title are also featured here! (Blow the Wind Southerly is alternate title for Charlotte Fairlie.) Dear Mad'm was definitely a surprise—rustic, humorous and very charming!

VINTAGE CHILDREN’S BOOKS
🌟 More brilliant books by Ruby Ferguson and Frances Hodgson Burnett! I plan on reading at least a few more children's books by BOTH authors this year. Yay! Also, The Maida and Mary Jane series are adorable, refreshing and so fun to read. Thanks to Caro (again!) for recommending Castaway Christmas and for our lovely buddy read in December 🥰🎄

 

BONUS A: CONTEMPORARY CHILDREN’S BOOKS
📘 I loved reading the entire Willam Horwood's "Tales of the Willows" series with @carosbookscase 🥰  I'm so excited that we'll be doing a re-read this year - yes!! I was so happy to find more vintage childrens/middle grade lighthouse books that have become favorites. I'd love to read more. Do you have any suggestions for me? (I might look into getting a lighthouse shaped bookcase for my lighthouse books!)

The two Bushel & Peck books are so beautiful (both in construction and story) and they now have a permanent place on my favorites book shelf! Pansy Goes to Paris was absolutely adorable (especially after my trip to Paris this year with Beth and Liz!) I'd love to read Clarence Goes to The Chelsea Flower Show next 😄

BONUS B: CONTEMPORARY BOOKS
🌼 These six books were fabulous!!! Even though I accidentally shared a photo of the wrong Laura Wood book (I meant to share a photo of A Season for Scandal), this first book was awesome, too! I'm impatiently waiting for A Game of Scandal (due out mid Feb 2025!) Dying to read more books by Valerie Perrin (especially Forgotten on Sunday), Ginny Moyer, Barbara Matteson and Lynda Marron 🤩 If you haven't read any books by these talented authors, it's time!! You'll love them!

MY TOP FAVORITE VINTAGE AUTHORS THIS YEAR
💓 Ruby Ferguson
💓 Kathleen Norris
💓 Molly Clavering
💓 Gladys Taber
💓 Frances Hodgson Burnett
💓 Jean Hersey

Dean Street Press Furrowed Middlebrow Favorites!!! Love!

Love and thanks to all of my 2024 buddy reads with Bookstagram friends! ☺️📚💚
@carosbookcase
@sorrythankyou79
@beth.bonini
@pony.books
@marjoriepaper
@elizabethgoudgebookclub
@bagfullofbooks
@gina.stanyer.books
@sabines.literary.world

Such vibrant and brilliant books! I just love the Women Writers series!

Many thanks to The British Library for sending so many books for me to review this year!! ❤️

Love the gorgeous books published by Manderley Press!

Rebeka has been so kind to send me postcards and bookmarks for each of the Manderley Press books the past year or so! She's thoughtful, generous and so talented!! 🥰💕

Warm wintery hugs to you! 💕🌸🤗🌸💕 Let me know what you're currently reading and loving! (Stay tuned for a personal blog update in the next week or two!) Much love 😍