YOP: Week 37

    I didn't do any crafting what so ever this past week.  We had my parents and brother over for lunch on Sunday.  I cooked up some of the green beans from my garden that I had frozen.  They were very good.  We had a nice meal and it got one of the two turkeys out of the freezer.  When I was going to work Friday morning I noticed one of our neighbors had put a fridge or stand-up freezer out by the road with a free sign on it.  I called my husband immediately and told him where I had seen it.  He grabbed it right away.  It's an upright freezer from probably the 60s or 70s so it's solid.  We put it in the garage and moved the few things that were left in the "middle" chest to that one so the chest freezer could be defrosted and cleaned.  We're still waiting for the new one we ordered from Lowe's.  They know its been shipped but have no idea where it is.  At one point they thought it was in Pennsylvania; then they thought Arizona.  We're going to give them a few more days, then probably cancel our order and ask for a refund.  It's a good thing we have enough freezer space in the middle freezer in-case we can't get one before the pigs are done.  

    I read all this past week.  I finished The Cerulean Sister by Katrina Calandra.  It was excellent, just as good if not better than the first book, the Viridian Priestess.  The series is science fiction romance.  I can't say that I've found anything else quite like these books.  They have sort of a Star Wars vibe, but yet not.  There is some pretty grand mythos at the base of the story.  It seems that at one point the three worlds were one planet and they broke apart.  Now they are very different and the people each accept technology at different levels.  There is another faction of people called First Son.  It is not really explained where these people reside exactly.  There are also totally fantastical creatures that exist and magic and supernatural powers are also normal and abundant.  The main character, Ferren, lives on Cosima, one of the three worlds.  She is a lesser Priestess in the religion found on all three planets.  The religion on Cosima is the most prominent and strict.  She leads a very conformed and regimented life.  Her only real goal and focus is to ascend.  She is also a scribe and is attached to an academic named Mary.  Ferren helps Mary translate books and they are both getting ready for the Conjunction.  The Conjunction seems to be both an astrological and religious event.  It seems that the planets move back together or nearly so and there is a convergence of the three worlds.  Each world has a stone.  All three of these stones need to be gathered together for a ceremony.  Cosima keeps their stone in the temple.  Viathan keeps their stone with the third plant's stone on that third planet Frith.  Frith is totally agrarian and doesn't use any technology at all.  Ferron and Mary are to be the ones who travel to Frith with the Viathan representatives to retrieve the other two stones and bring them back to Cosima.  Viathan accepts technology and has an elite force of soldiers called Commanders.  They wear armor complete with helmets.  The highest ranking commander forsakes his name and goes by a number, they go in succession.  The 99th Commander is the Viathan representative.  He is imposing and a man of very few words.  Viathans in general distrust the religious order.  There is an uneasy alliance between these three worlds.  Ferren is instructed to hide that she is a Priestess.  Being naive, sheltered and essentially oppressed, she is extremely intimidated by 99 and his other two Viathan companions.  She has also never been off-world before, so anything outside the grounds of the Estate where she's lived her entire life is new, overwhelming and foreign.  The ship they travel on is a small cargo freighter, so the quarters are cramped and filled with technology Ferron has never encountered before.  She is completely out of her element.  Mary is older, she was the representative for the last conjunction, so this journey is familiar to her but she is far older than she was last time and is experiencing fatigue and pain from arthritis and such.  Only a day or two into the journey to Frith, the crew finds that Mary has passed away in her sleep, due to natural causes.  But now Ferren is the one who must complete this mission.  One of the Viathan crew mates is a sleeze bag and gets in Ferren's face about a few things.  August, the other Viathan is very nice and tries to put Ferren at ease as much as possible.  When the ship gets to Frith Vickers the sleeze bag Viathan confronts Ferren and threatens her.  A power she didn't have previously manifests and she blows 99 and Vickers right out of the ship with her green energy.  She really can't explain where it came from or what she even did, since she didn't previously have this power.  Because of this 99 took precautions so she couldn't hurt him or August.  The three of them need to travel trough an enchanted forest to get to the main Frithian village so they can talk to the elders there to get the stones.  Some mystical things happen in the forest and there is some forced proximity.  I don't want to give too much away, but as 99 and Ferren are forced to work with each-other to make it through the forest unscathed and keep August safe, there is an attraction that begins to develop.  The first novel is a slow burn, but is a decently paced book, so about half way through good stuff starts happening.  The first book ends on a cliff hanger, the second book takes over after only a little time has passed.  More information about the religion and the political situation comes out in the second book.  Basically most of what Ferren had been taught or told about what was happening had been a lie.  There are family dynamics that come out concerning both 99 and Ferren.  Overall the whole situation between all the worlds is very interesting and I'm hoping more will be explained in the third book.  I'm hoping more of the mythos is explained as well.  The peoples of all three worlds are referred to a human and there are pretty in depth descriptions of two other very non-human creatures, but its explained that all are "children" (creations) of the over-arcing deity First Mother, so I'm hoping a creation story or something is explained a bit more and I'd love more information on First Son.  They are described as shadowy figures, yet they can seem human and disguise themselves by wearing clothing, so I'm still at a loss for exactly what or who they are.  The third book The Garnet Daughter comes out on the 26th of this month.  

    While I'm waiting for that book to come out; I finished reading the book I put down back in January of 2024.  It was Dance of Kings and Thieves by LJ Andrews which is book 6 in the Broken Kingdoms series.  I should have gone back to the beginning of this book and skimmed back through what I already read.  I forgot large chunks of this book; but as I was reading I started remembering details.  This series is slower paced and less spicy than what I've been reading, but the author comes out of her shell as she continues to write.  I found her with The Ever King, then when back to her first series once I learned that they're all interconnected.  She creates a very large cast of characters, so it can be a little daunting keeping everyone straight, especially after putting down a book for the better part of 2 years.  Once I finished that book I started Broken by Daylight by Elizabeth Helen, which is book 4 in the Beasts of the Briar series.  This had a nice re-capping intro, although I remember this series much better.  The author is a duo of sisters and they are very active on social media so I see posts almost daily involving these books.  Both Elizabeth Helen and LJ Andrews have gotten traditional publishing deals so all these books are being re-released.  I plan to get hard copies of several of them.  (I've been reading everything on Kindle)  I've also added a ton of books to my TBR thanks to going down the Bookstagram rabbit hole again.  

    Well this was probably a boring blog.  I do have a project picked out and in a project bag for when my knitting mojo comes back.  In the mean time, I'm very happily traveling to far off worlds and kingdoms instead of tending to my mostly dead garden....  Speaking of.  The deer has found my second batch of peas, so if I get any it'll be another miracle.  That's it for me this week.  Happy Crafting.