Join me on my journey through the worlds of perfumes and books
Happy Easter to all my readers celebrating Easter.
A little postcard from our day today
The new perfume collaboration by Neela Vermeire and Bertrand Duchafour – Ashoka (eau de parfum).
The only problem I see here – it’s going to be available in early autumn 2013. 😉
I can’t help but wonder, judging by the notes, if it would make a good spring perfume…
Now, this was a ride! 🙂
From the start you can tell this will be a medically-oriented novel, even the metaphors are going in that directions. But what you don’t know is how fast-paced, intriguing and scary it will get. And when I say scary, I don’t mean horror but real-life possibility. Which I find to be even scarier.
“The South Pole’s Amundsen Scott Research Station is like an outpost on Mars.
Winter temperatures average 100 degrees below zero; week-long hurricane-force
storms rage; for eight months at a time the station is shrouded in darkness.
Under the stress, bodies suffer and minds twist. Panic, paranoia, and hostility
prevail.
When a South Pole scientist dies mysteriously, CDC
microbiologist Hallie Leland arrives to complete crucial research. Before she
can begin, three more women inexplicably die. As failing communications and
plunging temperatures cut the station off from the outside world, terror rises
and tensions soar. Amidst it all, Hallie must crack the mystery of her
predecessor’s death.
In Washington, D.C., government agency director Don
Barnard and enigmatic operative Wil Bowman detect troubling signs of shadowy
behavior at the South Pole and realize that Hallie is at the heart of it. Unless
Barnard and Bowman can track down the mastermind, a horrifying act of global
terror, launched from the station, will change the planet forever—and Hallie
herself will be the unwitting instrument of destruction.
As the Antarctic winter sweeps in, severing contact with the outside world, Hallie must
trust no one, fear everyone, and fight to keep the frigid prison from becoming
her frozen grave.”
At some point you realize there must be a previous book featuring Hallie and Wil Bowman meeting and having an adventure after which they become an item. That book is now on my TBR list (and it does exist). 🙂
But, you don’t actually have to read the first one in order to fully enjoy the second one. The only reason I felt bad for not reading it is because I believe it might be great and I missed it (but not for long).
Hallie is a wonderful character, a military brat grown into an intelligent, fit and extremely capable woman (that is what I read from the story). At some points, her adventures are more of the James Bond type but they are nevertheless great.
Basically, it’s a very good thriller, featuring more or less realistic characters (I believe there are many gifted people in the world but some seem to have been gifted by their writers rather well), nevertheless, it feels realistic and unfortunately believable.
I wonder if as I grow older I’ll start believing in conspiracy theories. If I keep reading things like this it’s quite possible…
The world population is a rather big issue and seeing morals and ethics being put aside for the greater goal makes me feel scared that it might easily happen.
My copy of the book came from NetGalley.
is Natalie! 🙂
Please send me your address so I can get the winnings in the mail.
Thank you, once more, everyone for the lovely comments and participation. 🙂
A Guest Post that will be appearing on several blogs today in preparation for the celebration of Easter. Featuring my favourite character from the New Testament, one whose name I share (my Christening name that is).
Today we taking a fragrant journey back in time with Jordan River from The Fragrant Man.
We also have a gift to give away. 🙂 Brie in New York has made some spikenard foot oil especially for this post. If you would like to encounter this scent and look after your own or your loved one’s feet please leave a comment below.
The gift recipient will be announced on Easter Sunday and mailed to you on Tuesday.
Spikenard or nard originates in India and Nepal, high in the Himalayas. The root of the plant is the source for one of the rarest and most precious oils.
Brie would like to say that she is not a professional perfumer. This is an interest for her. She blends with the best of intentions, carefully choosing oils for their healing properties as well as for the enjoyment of smelling. Brie says that spikenard is quite tenacious and challenging to work with as in her experience it takes over the blend (similar to tea tree oil).
Are you spending too much on perfume? Here is a scented tale for you.
The Oil in the Alabaster Box
There are many faiths in this world. There are also many myths and legends. It’s up to you to find the truth on your fragrant journey. Let’s travel to the east this Easter to visit with a woman living on the boundaries of her culture. She has recently met a man. She believes him to be her spiritual guide. He is surrounded by men at a dinner party. She is uninvited and has to make her way past the guests to be able to offer her teacher a scented gift. The gift is spikenard oil, a costly perfume ingredient which at this volume, a Roman litra, costs the equivalent of spending a year’s salary on a scent; a scent so potent that the home where this story takes place becomes filled with fragrant air.
The room grew still
As she made her way to Jesus
She stumbles through the tears that made her blindShe felt such pain
Some spoke in anger
Heard folks whisper
There’s no place here for her kindStill on she came
Through the shame that flushed her face
Until at last, she knelt before his feet
And though she spoke no words
Everything she said was heard
As she poured her love for the Master
From her box of alabasterDon’t be angry if I wash his feet with my tears
And I dry them with my hair
You weren’t there the night He found me
You did not feel what I felt
When he wrapped his love all around me and
You don’t know the cost of the oil
In my alabaster box– lyrics: Janice Sjostran
for chanteuse Cece Winans
– an interpretation of Mark 14:3-9
Judas the accountant thought this money would have been better spent feeding the poor. Nevertheless the teacher accepted this gift from a woman’s heart.
Jesus looked at her with a smile “your deed will never be forgotten. Your story will be told throughout all the lands and for all time and in ways you have never even dreamed of“.
Little could she have imagined that one day the story of her alabaster box would be told on the World Wide Web.
– a Roman litra ~ 327 grams
Album Version – Cece Winans – The Alabaster Box
A more melodic version.
Ines:
I’m guessing that by now you all know who was the person I spoke of in my introduction. Long before I had any connections to the world of perfume, back when I was a child choosing to have a baptism after the fall of communism, my heart chose the name of Magdalene. She was the character from the New Testament I somehow understood the best and felt a connection to. It was only recently I learned she was also the patron saint of perfumers (shame on me for being so slow in learning that information).
Although that is no wonder if she chose such a precious fragrant gift for Jesus. 🙂
Visit other participating blogs for more chances to win. 😉
Since I wrote my first post. 🙂
I can’t believe how time flies.
I still think my blog is a work in progress and keeping it personal allows me to get away with not writing regularly or about perfume as much as I’d like to.
Which is why I want to thank you, all my readers, for sticking with me and still checking out my musings even though they don’t come often.
And to celebrate another blog year gone by – I’m giving away a Croatian box of chocolates and an 8ml roll-on bottle of Dawn Spencer Hurwitz Festive perfume to one lucky commenter.
Here’s champagne for all of you my dear readers!
Sometimes I look back on a book I read and find it funny that I read it. 🙂
I mean, there’s nothing really to recommend this book but the story. Ok, that is something. You don’t learn anything from it, the characters are annyoing the first half of the book (the two main characters, and they’re not even teenagers) and then the premise is rather shaky when you consider how Sapphire acts in her day to day life.
But, the story is actually interesting and fun to read and certainly makes for a more interesting night than what is usually on TV here.
Despite the illusion Sapphire Dubois presents to the rest of the world, she is not just your stereotypical 22-year old Beverly Hills heiress; she hunts serial killers. While her fellow heirs spend their nights with trending celebs and drugs at the hottest club, Sapphire secretly spends hers luring, capturing, and anonymously handing over So-Cal’s most wanted killers to the police — just your average Tuesday night.
What Sapphire doesn’t know is that one of her adversaries is watching her every move, aware of both her true identity and her unconventional hobby. Needless to say, he doesn’t approve. Used to being the one who redefines the definition of predator and prey, Sapphire’s world abruptly shatters when a gruesome ‘gift’ arrives for her at the Beverly Hills Country Club. With her involuntary crush, handsome Detective Aston Ridder, close on her tail, Sapphire now has to rethink her routine strategy and figure out how to capture a killer who already knows she’s coming.
Now, it might seem I am not very satisfied with the book when actually I am. I am already looking forward to the second one (the ending of the first one implied it) and hopefully we’ll get some better characterisation of basically everyone except for Julia (that character is the only one who seemed well done).
This book should be taken as a light read and you shouldn’t expect much from it aside some fun storytelling. And that is in the end why I enjoyed it – I had fun reading about a serial killer not killing his secretary because she finally learned her job (so choosing somebody else instead), or wondering who is the killer stalking Sapphire or reading about what an idiot Aston is (not that Sapphire lags much behind).
I said recently for The Romanov Cross how it comes off as very realistic and possible. Well, this one doesn’t but still, if you take it as a fun and easy read, you won’t be disappointed (probably).
So many times in my life I thought about how I wished I knew if I was going to like a book or not. Reading blurbs just doesn’t happen and often I finish a book and then I have this terrible problem of deciding what next might prove interesting.
I am ashamed to say that I have quite a lot of titles I received from NetGalley and I’m not really going through them in a timely fashion – I can’t decide from the blurbs which one might be very good. So I decided to randomly start reading them and see how it goes.
It proved to be a rather good idea as I quickly both discarded some and found an interesting one to read. 🙂 The Romanov Cross.
“Nearly one hundred years ago, a desperate young woman crawled ashore on a desolate arctic island, carrying a terrible secret and a mysterious, emerald-encrusted cross. A century later, acts of man, nature, and history converge on that same forbidding shore with a power sufficient to shatter civilization as we know it.”
What I liked about this book is that even though there are some “supernatural” parts to the story, the 
rest seems realistic. People and their actions sound real which is usually something I find lacking in novels taking place in the real world. And the fact that it deals with the possible outbreak of the Spanish flu only makes it even more interesting in my mind.
If you’re wondering where do the Romanovs feature in the Spanish flu outbreak, I am not going to tell you, and you will never guess either.
I find the whole idea of the novel very intriguing and I finished the book wanting to learn more about what happened in Russia and with the Romanovs, just so I could check whether the ideas I got from this book are based in fact or the author made it work for him.
It takes a while for the story to pick up pace, in the beginning you have no idea why are you reading two different stories but once they start coming together, you’re hooked.
And now I’ve said that the story seems realistic, I should add that the storytelling has some horror elements. 🙂 The horrifying part being they seem possible.
Also, at some point, before you realize there are some supernatural parts to the story, you start wondering how some things would be possible (a pack of wolves surviving on a rather small island for decades?) but once the story gets you to realize there are some unexplained spiritual things happening in this world, you just go with it.
Which brings me to the fact that after reading the book, I was left wondering about the religious/spiritual inclinations of the author. There is a mention of both in the novel, but in a positive way when it’s spiritual, and less positive when it’s religious in the modern-day sense (being a believer of a particular religion).
It only dawned on me yesterday that I am the most conservative type of person when it comes to perfume application. That was a bit of a shock! 🙂
As that is the label I would never apply to myself.
Anyway, my perfume applicating ways haven’t changed much in the recent days but I did evolve from applying it on the sides of my neck and sometimes doing a sweep and applying some on my decollete as well, to taking advantage of the fact that I have short hair and applying some on the back of my neck, thinking it would make for a nice sillage circle. 🙂
So that’s what I’m doing these days.
Which is what got me thinking – what are the places where you apply perfume? Do you have some more innovative ones? Do some work better than others?
The only time I have perfume somewhere else on my body is when I’m testing it. And that only applied to arms.
I really am a conservative perfume wearer it seems…
I realize I’m only writing about books lately but I promise I do have some perfume reviews coming up in the near future. 🙂
Now, I wonder why it took me so long to find my way back to the world of Vlad Taltos. Well, it’s not his world but as the story is told from his perspective, I’m calling it his.
The funny thing about this series is, you read one book but since they aren’t coming out chronologically 
talking about Vlad’s life (we move back and forth some), you read one of the novels as a self-standing book wondering why? what was the point of this story? only to learn that two books down the road.
That was my experience so far. With these two, you do not get to learn what they mean in the grand scheme of things but you do get to ask the questions. 🙂 And they just pile up one on top of each other.
I shouldn’t admit to this, but it only got clear to me with Dragon that as each book represents one line of the Dragearan society, the story of that book depicts the characteristics of that line. I’m pretty sure every reader of Vlad T. books had realized that long before now.
So, in Dragon we get a very convincing description of what war feels like in one’s mind. We also get to read about daily activities, but I found the stream of thought in fighting more interesting.
As for Issola, that line of Drageareans is known for their courtliness and surprise and we get to see Vlad actually displaying some of both. 🙂 We (the readers) get surprised as well I should add.
I’m already looking forward to reading on (I just have this little problem of not being able to find the next book – I know I have it, I just don’t know where it is).
It actually reminds me a bit of Scott Lynch’s Gentleman Bastards series. Or as I read the Taltos books first, it’s vice versa. Only without the swearing. 😉
All I am - a redhead 