Talkie Tuesday: Padmaavat

 

"War in the name of beauty."

 

Hello everyone!

 

Back to Bollywood tonight.

 

Honestly, I'm pretty pleased with myself.

 

A while ago I made a list of movies I really want to watch, and I've so far managed to trim it down to only a few left!

 

Of course I also keep adding new ones as Netflix adds them to their movie library, but that's obviously a problem for another day LOL.

 

Still, when the streamer gave me advance warning that THIS particular movie was about to launch on their service, I was stoked.

 

It was definitely on my list! And now I could watch it with subtitles and not have to worry about sync and whatnot.

 

So hold on to all you hold dear, lest someone take it: it's time to head back to historical India in tonight's epic, Padmaavat.

 

Talkie Tuesday: Sandokan

 

"We protect what is ours. We fight for what was taken from us."

 

Hello everyone!

 

Happy New Year!

 

I hope that your entry into 2026 was calm enough, and that it's treated you well so far. I know for my part that I'd have LOVED if I could have spent a little more time at home - I got super lazy over the four days off I had LOL!

 

Then I went back to work yesterday and my entire body protested.

 

Such is life.

 

BUT.

 

That said, we are back to blogging on a semi-regular schedule, bby! And I have a special treat for you all with this first post of the year.

 

Because sometimes, tigers get to walk on two legs, and this one's handsome as sin to boot.

 

Introducing: Sandokan!

 

Talkie Tuesday: Blood of My Blood

 

"I will stand with you, whatever comes. We are one."

 

Hello everyone!

 

While I'm still not completely out of the woods yet - this stupid cold is taking absolutely FOREVER, and it probably doesn't help that I have to work in retail every single day, either - I'm feeling okay-ish enough to finally get back to blogging.

 

To a point.

 

It's going to be a much shorter post tonight unfortunately because I'm mostly just super tired all the time, and had to drag myself out of bed just now, BUT.

 

I CANNOT just stay sleeping anymore. It'll ruin my rhythm altogether!

 

So it's time we hop back in time a little bit, and check out the Scottish Highlands yet again.

 

Because nothing says 'welcome back, baby' as an Outlander-related prequel.

 

Blood of My Blood, here we come!

 

Talkie Tuesday: Asoka

 

"Whose journey can be greater than that of an emperor?" 

Hello everyone!

And we are back with yet another Bollywood extravaganza.

I won't even apologize anymore, at this point I've come to resign myself to the fact that about half my blog posts will be about some Hindi movie or other, haha!

Tonight's choice is a historical, epic drama, however, something which I hope will appeal to a lot of the readers who click on these links.

How did I end up watching it? Well, considering the main actor isn't my personal favourite (he's alright, but nah), I kind of landed in it mostly by accident because I was bored, had nothing to do, and it popped up on Netflix (speaking of, Kalki just released on the same platform ...).

So there I was, liking the main actress, and deciding, sure, why not?

Which means we're headed back into the past tonight, everyone, to discuss a movie titled Asoka.

Talkie Tuesday: Jodhaa Akbar

 

"The goal was clear, but the path was unknown."

 

Hello everyone!

 

I know, I know, you're probably getting sick of me by now with these.

 

I wish I'd be capable of apologizing but, I'm honestly REALLY enjoying my foray into Indian cinema, so why would I stop?

 

Although I'll admit it takes some serious stamina. This thing I'm reviewing tonight is over three and a half hours long! That's like ... a lot, compared to most movies nowadays haha.

 

But that said, I actually didn't have that much trouble sitting and watching it through in one go, because apparently, my attention span can and will adapt to what it needs, once I'm interested enough for that to happen that is.

 

So let's not waste too many introductory words, then. We have a lot of ground to cover.

 

Instead, let's travel back in time to roughly 16th century India, in a time when religious upheaval seemed to be rather prevalent. Let's go back and see Jodhaa Akbar.

 

Tome Thursday: Robin Hood

 

Hello everyone!

 

I'm finally back after a bit of a break which unfortunately needed to happen because of some RL stuff I had going on BUT! I return!

 

And I have a book review for you all, first and foremost.

 

Tuesday's blog didn't get written up so it will be bumped to a Synopsis Saturday one, which you'll all hopefully read just as well, as I'm planning on recapping the premiere of Outlander's sixth season. Are we ready for what's undoubtedly going to be a bumpy ride? Hopefully!

 

In the meantime, this blog post is a sort of connected one? Maybe? But our own Fraser was an outlaw for a little bit of time there so I suppose the inspiration was certainly in the works.

 

However MY outlaw is probably the one that's basically the most known across literature and film if you think about it. When someone says rob from the rich and give to the poor, you usually know right off the bat who this is about.

 

There were many authors who wrote about him, but Henry Gilbert's Robin Hood was the first book I ever read about the famous archer.

 

Saturday Snippet: Outlander SEASON 6 TEASER

 

 

 IT'S ALMOST HERE!

 

XX

*video not mine

Tome Thursday: When Calls the Heart

 

Hello everyone!

 

In response to this last Sunday's season finale of the Hallmark channel hit series, When Calls the Heart (which I have reviewed frequently enough on this blog, actually, and the current ending of which I'm not entirely happy with), I decided I had to go back and give the original book another re-read, as I hadn't done it in a while.

 

For those of you who don't know, this is a series of Christian books about a schoolteacher in the Canadian West around the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, who meets and falls in love with a member of the Royal North West Mounted Police.

 

That was its title at the time, though nowadays they are called Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

 

I first found the books because I was looking for the author's original series, Love Comes Softly, but ended up getting the others instead, because, Canada.

 

And since for some reason Hallmark has decided to deviate so strongly away from the original premise, it felt really good to go back in and remind myself why I fell in love with the story in the first place.

 

After all, a teacher and a Mountie on the frontier sounds like an adventure, doesn't it?

 

When Calls the Heart has that and a whole lot more.

 

Saturday Snippet: Bridgerton

 

Reviews look good. Allons-y!

 

xx

*video not mine

Talkie Tuesday: Robin Hood Prince of Thieves

 

"No man decides my fate."

 

Hello everyone!

 

If you look at the title for tonight's blog post, you'll see I finally, FINALLY managed to get around to actually getting to the proper Robin Hood.

 

I've covered quite a few on this blog before but I just haven't had the time to come to this one, which is honestly a shame and I know it. I admit it.

 

Dishonour on my cow.

 

Then this past weekend, surprise surprise, one of the Cinemax TV channels rolled this movie again because, one, it's basically one of the best things to happen, and two, why not??

 

My parents hadn't seen it in a while so they watched it together, and I sort of went in and out of it.

 

But it did remind me that I should do the talking with my fingers.

 

So here it is! Kevin Hood, ahem, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, here we go!

Persuasion (Booktober)

 

"You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope ... I have loved none but you."

 

 

 

What would any fall read-a-thon be without at least one Jane Austen book, am I right? Persuasion may not be one of her more popular or widely-known ones, but it still captures the essence of her writing and brings us characters from the Regency era that we either fall in love with, or want to strangle on sight. Anne and Captain Wentworth might even have benefited from the stronger obscurity that surrounds them as opposed to, say, Lizzie and Mr. Darcy. But if you want a story about constant, lasting love, then this just might be the book for you after all.

Twenty-seven-year old Anne Elliot is Austen's most adult heroine. Eight years before the story proper begins, she is happily betrothed to a naval officer, Frederick Wentworth, but she precipitously breaks off the engagement when persuaded by her friend Lady Russell that such a match is unworthy. The breakup produces in Anne a deep and long-lasting regret. When later Wentworth returns from sea a rich and successful captain, he finds Anne's family on the brink of financial ruin and his own sister a tenant in Kellynch Hall, the Elliot estate. All the tension of the novel revolves around one question: Will Anne and Wentworth be reunited in their love?

(from Goodreads)

xx

*image not mine

The Longest Ride (Booktober)

Midnight Sun (Booktober)

Percy Jackson & the Olympians (Booktober)

The Chronicles of Narnia (Booktober)

Atlantis (Booktober)

Origin (Booktober)

Quo Vadis (Booktober)

Death on the Nile (Booktober)

The Little White Horse (Booktober)

The Sign of Four (Booktober)

Harry Potter #2 (Booktober)

Troublemaker (Booktober)

The Lord of the Rings (Booktober)

Tome Thursday: Virgins

Hello everyone!

Yes, I'm on a sort of Outlander binge, and not just with the television show.

I've been re-reading the books (although in random order since I went with The Fiery Cross, then doubled back to Outlander, and now I'm chewing through Dragonfly in Amber while contemplating starting Voyager instead) and of course the series includes the massive chonks as well as the shorter novellas, and Lord John Grey stories.

I'm telling you, people: you have not lived until you've witnessed the chaos that is Grey's life on a daily basis. I HIGHLY recommend that series.

I still have to review them all on here, and I swear I will!

Meanwhile, I sat down to a prequel yesterday.

I'd known that Diana Gabaldon had written a sort of story-before-the-story covering Jamie's time in France, or part of it at least, and I'd been dying to read it for a while now but never got the chance.

Of course we're in quarantine now, so what else is there to do but catch up?

And you're definitely catching up with Virgins.

Outlander: Mercy Shall Follow Me

"You can't make someone love you."

Hello everyone!

With only two more episodes left in the season, it's becoming clear that there will be a bunch of plotlines jammed into them, as presented on episode ten of Outlander's season five this past Sunday.

I'm not exactly complaining - the books are vast, and while a lot of stuff has to be dropped by necessity, there are things that, also by necessity, have to be snuck in.

To be clear, however, I will say that I disliked the Bonnet storyline in the books themselves.

This has absolutely nothing to do with how the show portrayed him (brilliantly, might I add, Ed Speleers is AMAZING in the role!) or how they went about with the entire thing, but mostly just that I wasn't overly fond of the whole she-bang in the novels, which means I could have done without in the show, and not really batted an eye.

So I'm actually happy with how the episode went, in terms of its conclusion! It's just that it was a 'meh' for me, as a whole, and therefore I'll freely admit to fast-forwarding through some.

Mercy Shall Follow Me kind of allows for it.

Saturday Snippet: Lord John Grey

xx

*video not mine

Outlander: The Company We Keep

"Actions have consequences, Sassenach."

Hello everyone!

So last week, we were keeping company with our favourite Fraser couple as they dealt with their house of horrors and ended up with one dead adult, one missing adult, and one baby on their hands.

It's really only the two of them who manage to get themselves into these kind of conundrums, honestly.

Meanwhile, if you'll recall, Himself, aka Jamie Fraser, tasked Roger and Fergus to take the militia on to Brownsville and start conscripting there while they waited for their colonel to catch up.

In this particular episode, we get to see exactly what happens with the mice when the cats are away, aka what goes on with the kids while their parents are occupied elsewhere?

Jamie and Claire might not be the biological parents of either Roger or Fergus, but they're definitely their parents by marriage to the both of them, and they expect a certain kind of result from them, at that. Meanwhile Roger and Fergus are ... well.

Let's see The Company We Keep and discover what they are, shall we?

Outlander (Booktober)

"Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ!"

If there's one thing you NEED in your October reading life - it's time travel. And good time travel at that. The Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon delivers that, and so much more, from beloved characters (including but not limited to one Jamie Fraser) to a stunning television show adaptation that's proof there are still hopes out there for adaptations in general. The story of a war nurse travelling two hundred years back in time through a stone circle in Scotland, only to find the love of her life, is bound to be a timeless classic no matter how you look at it.

Add in the constant intrigue and characters like Lord John Grey, however, and you have a winner.

Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire is catapulted into the intrigues of lairds and spies that may threaten her life, and shatter her heart. For here James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, shows her a love so absolute that Claire becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire—and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives ...

(from Goodreads)

xx

*image not mine

The Conqueror Series (Booktober)

The Lost Symbol (Booktober)

The Host (Booktober)

The Bridgertons (Booktober)

The Hound of the Baskervilles (Booktober)

The Infernal Devices (Booktober)

Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter (Booktober)

Daughter of Smoke & Bone (Booktober)
Broken Sky (Booktober)

The Shadow of the Wind (Booktober)

Dracula (Booktober)

Life and Death (Booktober)

ACOTAR series (Booktober)

Assassin's Creed: Odyssey (Booktober)

Sepulchre (Booktober)

Pride and Prejudice (Booktober)

Tempting Autumn (Booktober)

Harry Potter (Booktober)

The Hobbit (Booktober)

The Bridgertons (Booktober)

"Can there be any greater challenge to London’s Ambitious Mamas than an unmarried duke?"

Again here with a series, but every once in a while I really feel like mixing it up. In those cases, I go and pick up a book WILDLY different from something I'd read before. In this case, it would be Julia Quinn and her Bridgertons series. These books cover a family in Regency Era England, and all the nine kids are trying to find love in the ton. It's hilarious, there's a Corgi running amok, and of course there's also a figure similar to Gossip Girl.

Not everything makes perfect sense, but occasionally books don't need to make sense. They just need to make you laugh.

Once upon a time, a historical romance author created a family ...

But not just any family. Eight brothers and sisters, assorted in-laws, sons and daughters, nieces and nephews, (not to mention an overweight corgi), plus an irrepressible matriarch who’s a match for any of them … These are the Bridgertons: less a family than a force of nature, and through eight bestselling novels, readers laughed, cried, and fell in love ...

(from Goodreads)

xx

*image not mine

The Hound of the Baskervilles (Booktober)

The Infernal Devices (Booktober)

Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter (Booktober)

Daughter of Smoke & Bone (Booktober)
Broken Sky (Booktober)

The Shadow of the Wind (Booktober)

Dracula (Booktober)

Life and Death (Booktober)

ACOTAR series (Booktober)

Assassin's Creed: Odyssey (Booktober)

Sepulchre (Booktober)

Pride and Prejudice (Booktober)

Tempting Autumn (Booktober)

Harry Potter (Booktober)

The Hobbit (Booktober)

Sepulchre (Booktober)

"For in truth, this story begins not with the absence of bones in a Parisian graveyard, but with the deck of cards: the Vernier Tarot."

 

If you're looking for something appropriately spooky and thrilling to make your way towards Halloween, I strongly suggest Sepulchre, by Kate Mosse. The second in her Languedoc trilogy, you don't necessarily need to read the first book to understand it, but it does bring the magic of Occitan France, tarot cards, intrigue, some ancient spells, and a centuries-old vendetta. 

It's been a while since I've read it myself, but I remember well enough how high into the air I jumped when the tomb itself (sepulchre, natch) started doing things it wasn't supposed to.

The best part, however, is that it FEELS real!

1891. Seventeen-year-old Léonie Vernier and her brother abandon Paris for the sanctuary of their aunt's isolated country house near Carcassone, the Domaine de la Cade. But Léonie stumbles across a ruined sepulchre - and a timeless mystery whose traces are written in blood.

2007. Meredith Martin arrives at the Domaine de la Cade to research a biography. But Meredith is also seeking the key to her own complex legacy and becomes immersed in the story of tragic love, a missing girl, a unique deck of tarot cards and the strange events of one cataclysmic night a century ago ...

(from book jacket)

xx

*image not mine

Pride and Prejudice (Booktober)

Tempting Autumn (Booktober)

Harry Potter (Booktober)

The Hobbit (Booktober)

Pride and Prejudice (Booktober)

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in

 possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."

 

Who didn't see this one coming? Of course you can't really have any kind of autumnal read without a Jane Austen novel. In this case, Pride and Prejudice is pretty much the author's most read and known work, and it also happens to be my favourite (sharing the spot with Persuasion). The timeless classic that features Lizzy Bennett marching across the wet fields to give Mr. Darcy a piece of her mind is one of those you can't miss out on during a long, rainy autumn afternoon.

Pride and Prejudice has remained one of the most popular novels in the English language. Jane Austen called this brilliant work "her own darling child" and its vivacious heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, "as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print." The romantic clash between the opinionated Elizabeth and her proud beau, Mr. Darcy, is a splendid performance of civilized sparring. And Jane Austen's radiant wit sparkles as her characters dance a delicate quadrille of flirtation and intrigue, making this book the most superb comedy of manners of Regency England.

(from Goodreads)

xx

*image not mine

Tempting Autumn (Booktober)

Harry Potter (Booktober)

The Hobbit (Booktober)

Tome Thursday: Cobweb Forest

Hello everyone!

Well, we made it.

Or, at least *I* made it.

The end of a trilogy that I'm still reeling about and trying to wrap my head around, because ... well, just because.

You'll see what I mean through the review itself. 

It's a very original retelling of a myth that's been dear to my heart for a long while now, and I'm SO pleased I picked up the first book when it was offered for free with Kobo. I never would have found the other two otherwise, or the author herself.

As it now happens, I'm hooked and will probably hunt down other books of hers.

When you stumble over something good, readers, you might as well make sure you read it ALL.

But for tonight, for one more night, let's dive into our inner Greek.

Let's take a look at Cobweb Forest, and what happens in it.