The Wee Writing Lassie’s 300 Books in a Year – Book 232

Thomas Cromwell: A Life by Diarmaid MacCulloch

Goodreads Blurb: Thomas Cromwell is one of the most famous – or notorious – figures in English history. Born in obscurity in Putney, he became a fixer for Cardinal Wolsey in the 1520s. After Wolsey’s fall, Henry VIII promoted him to a series of ever greater offices, such that in the 1530s he was effectively running the country for the King. That decade was one of the most momentous in English history: it saw a religious break with the Pope, unprecedented use of parliament, the dissolution of all monasteries, and the coming of the Protestantism. Cromwell was central to all this, but establishing his role with precision has been notoriously difficult.

Diarmaid MacCulloch’s biography is the most complete life ever written of this elusive figure, making connections not previously seen and revealing the channels through which power in early Tudor England flowed. It overturns many received interpretations, for example that Cromwell and Anne Boleyn were allies because of their common religious sympathies, showing how he in fact destroyed her. It introduces the many different personalities contributing to these foundational years, all worrying about what MacCulloch calls the ‘terrifyingly unpredictable’ Henry VIII, and allows readers to feel that they are immersed in all this, that it is going on around them. For a time, the self-made ‘ruffian’, as he described himself – ruthless, adept in the exercise of power, quietly determined in religious revolution – was master of events. MacCulloch’s biography for the first time reveals his true place in the making of modern England and Ireland, for good and ill.

(Goodreads Page)

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Goodreads Review: A fascinating look into the real man behind Henry the VIII’s reformation of the English Church. Or at least what’s left of him after Henry had his head chopped off.

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The Wee Writing Lassie’s 300 Books in a Year – Book 231

The Magnificent Nine by James Lovegrove

Goodreads Blurb: An old flame of Jayne Cobb’s, Temperance McCloud, sends a message to Serenity, begging him for help. She lives on the arid, far-flung world of Tethys, and bandits are trying to overrun her town to gain control of their water supply: the only thing standing between its people and dustbowl ruin. Jayne tries to persuade the Serenity crew to join the fight, but it is only when he offers Vera, his favourite gun, as collateral that Mal realizes he’s serious.

When the Serenity crew land at a hardscrabble desert outpost called Coogan’s Bluff, they discover two things: an outlaw gang with an almost fanatical devotion to their leader who will stop at nothing to get what they want, and that Temperance is singlehandedly raising a teenage daughter, born less than a year after Temperance and Jayne broke up. A daughter by the name of Jane McCloud…

(Goodreads Page)

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Goodreads Review: This book’s ending made me cry, and that’s all I’ve got to say about that.

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The Wee Writing Lassie’s 300 Books in a Year – Book 230

Odyssey by Stephen Fry

Goodreads Blurb: Read the final book in Stephen Fry’s acclaimed internationally brestselling Greek Myths series telling the story of the Odyssey—Can a hero find his way home?

Follow Odysseus after he leaves the fallen city of Troy and takes ten long dramatic years—battling monsters, the temptations of goddesses and suffering the curse of Poseidon—to voyage home to his wife Penelope on the island of Ithaca.

(Goodreads Page)

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Goodreads Review: That was a weird ending … did Stephen Fry just go on a rant about AI and compared it favourably to the Greek Gods? I think … I think I may have hit my head because surely that didn’t happen.

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The Wee Writing Lassie’s 300 Books in a Year – Book 229

Fresh Off the Boat by Eddie Huang

Goodreads Blurb: Assimilating ain’t easy. Eddie Huang was raised by a wild family of FOB (“fresh off the boat”) immigrants—his father a cocksure restaurateur with a dark past back in Taiwan, his mother a fierce protector and constant threat. Young Eddie tried his hand at everything mainstream America threw his way, from white Jesus to macaroni and cheese, but finally found his home as leader of a rainbow coalition of lost boys up to no good: skate punks, dealers, hip-hop junkies, and sneaker freaks. This is the story of a Chinese-American kid in a could-be-anywhere cul-de-sac blazing his way through America’s deviant subcultures, trying to find himself, ten thousand miles from his legacy and anchored only by his conflicted love for his family and his passion for food. Funny, moving, and stylistically inventive, Fresh Off the Boat is more than a radical reimagining of the immigrant memoir—it’s the exhilarating story of every American outsider who finds his destiny in the margins.

(Goodreads Page)

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Goodreads Review: Way more intense than the show. I’d recommend it for nothing but that alone.

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The Wee Writing Lassie’s 300 Books in a Year – Book 228

The Jewel of Seven Stars by Bram Stoker

Goodreads Blurb: An Egyptologist, attempting to raise from the dead the mummy of Tera, an ancient Egyptian queen, finds a fabulous gem and is stricken senseless by an unknown force. Amid bloody and eerie scenes, his daughter is possessed by Tera’s soul, and her fate depends upon bringing Tera’s mummified body to life.

(Goodreads Page)

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Goodreads Review: That was a book with very beautiful proses, an intriguing mystery, and an ending that was just a tad too ambiguous for my liking. It was good – I would have just liked more of my questions properly answered.

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The Wee Writing Lassie’s 300 Books in a Year – Book 227

Black Beauty by Anna Sewell

Goodreads Blurb: As a young horse, Black Beauty is well-loved and happy. But when his owner is forced to sell him, his life changes drastically. He has many new owners—some of them cruel and some of them kind. All he needs is someone to love him again….

Whether pulling an elegant carriage or a ramshackle cab, Black Beauty tries to live as best he can. This is his amazing story, told as only he could tell it.

(Goodreads Page)

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Goodreads Review: Thank fuck this had a somewhat happy ending, otherwise it would have completely broke me 😂

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The Wee Writing Lassie’s 300 Books in a Year – Book 226

Light of the Jedi by Charles Soule

Goodreads Blurb: It is a golden age. Intrepid hyperspace scouts expand the reach of the Republic to the farthest stars, worlds flourish under the benevolent leadership of the Senate, and peace reigns, enforced by the wisdom and strength of the renowned order of Force users known as the Jedi. With the Jedi at the height of their power, the free citizens of the galaxy are confident in their ability to weather any storm. But even the brightest light can cast a shadow, and some storms defy any preparation.

When a shocking catastrophe in hyperspace tears a ship to pieces, the flurry of shrapnel emerging from the disaster threatens an entire system. No sooner does the call for help go out than the Jedi race to the scene. The scope of the emergence, however, is enough to push even Jedi to their limit. As the sky breaks open and destruction rains down upon the peaceful alliance they helped to build, the Jedi must trust in the Force to see them through a day in which a single mistake could cost billions of lives.

Even as the Jedi battle valiantly against calamity, something truly deadly grows beyond the boundary of the Republic. The hyperspace disaster is far more sinister than the Jedi could ever suspect. A threat hides in the darkness, far from the light of the age, and harbors a secret that could strike fear into even a Jedi’s heart.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Goodreads Review: Okay, I’ll come clean – I think those pirates are the coolest villains Star Wars has come up with yet.

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The Wee Writing Lassie’s 300 Books in a Year – Book 225

Pack Darling: Part Two by Lola Rock

Goodreads Blurb: After a disaster of a first heat, I’m ready to swear off alphas and escape to a cabin in the woods.

My body has other plans.

Now that I’m awakened, I can’t survive another heat alone.

Problem is, I hate alphas, hate packs, and really super hate the so-called mates I can’t forgive and can’t forget.

Now my biological clock’s ticking too fast to handle, and I can’t wait on Wyvern Pack to figure out their damage.

I’ll take care of my own needs.

And if you can’t give me what I want, then get out of my way.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Goodreads Review: Well done, a fitting ending to the characters’ story with a good hook for a sequel.

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The Wee Writing Lassie’s 300 Books in a Year – Book 224

The Raven in the Foregate by Ellis Peters

Goodreads Blurb: It is Christmas, A.D. 1141, Abbot Radulfus returns from London, bringing with him a priest for the vacant living of Holy Cross, also known as the Foregate. The new priest is a man of presence, learning, and discipline, but he lacks humility and the common touch. When he is found drowned in the millpond, suspicion is cast upon a young man who arrived with the priest’s train and was sent to work in Brother Cadfael’s garden. Indeed, he is soon discovered to be an impostor. To Brother Cadfael, now falls the familiar task of sorting out the complicated strands of innocence and guilt.

(Goodreads Page)

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Goodreads Review: My first experience of this story was through the Cadfael tv show, and I have to say I enjoyed the book far more. There’s a bitterness, and surprising sexism in the show’s interpretation – and it’s adding of useless secondary characters – that just isn’t there in the book.

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The Wee Writing Lassie’s 300 Books in a Year – Book 223

Pack Darling: Part One by Lola Rock

Goodreads Blurb: After surviving childhood at the snooty, stuck-up boarding school for budding omegas, I have everyone convinced I’m a dud.

My awakening? Never gonna happen. Heat, mates, and a fairytale pack life? Maybe next reincarnation.

All I want is to be left alone.

I’m invisible, headed to a blissful solo future until the Wyvern Pack destroys my dream of independence.

Atlas, Hunter, Finn, Jett, and Orion are poison candy. They don’t want an omega, but they need one, even if there’ll never be a real spot for me in their pack.

Who needs a pack? I’ll keep myself safe, same as always.

I’ll never awaken, and I’ll never ever give the Wyverns my heart… Because all they’ll do is rip me apart.

(Goodreads Page)

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Goodreads Review: I love it when characters’ greatest foes turns out not to be the gangsters chasing them at all, but rather themselves. 🤩🥳

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