The High Lord, by Trudi Canavan

The High Lord by Trudi Canavan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

What a disappointment! I was counting that at least the last book of the trilogy would be fool of excitement and revelations, but even though some happened, the plot still continues to develop too slow for my taste and I didn't enjoy at all the character's evolution.
The heroine, Sonea, has changed very little from the beginning, except for embracing magic. But Akkarin, the High Lord, loses his shade of mistery and his actions justification doesn't get any better.
On top of that, there are, in my opinions, some flows in the context of the story, with a side story without big connection to the main one, with some unclearness in some way on how magic is used and with some unexplained items hanging as question marks there and then.
It is a pity though, because I think it had the bases for becoming an exciting story, but it lost its charm when the author spent too much time in passages that didn't give that much to the thrill the reader might expect.
Despite everything, though, I still wanted to know how it turned out for Sonea after all the troubles she went through!

View all my reviews

The Novice by Trudi Canavan

The Novice by Trudi Canavan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I really do not understand why the author can't skip a lot of irrelevant parts of the story in order to make it more interesting. For how much I still want to read the trilogy and know how it is going to end, I find myself wondering if certain passages are really needed or not. Maybe everything will be clarified, finally, in the third book? Or maybe not... how many times have we seen Sonea harassed by the other novices?
It is also interesting to notice that there are very much similarities between this and Harry Potter. Sonea is not as the rest of the magicians and her antagonist bluntly resembles Malfoy.
And also, why can't her, being the protagonist and surely reserving a lot of surprises about her strenght, being a bit less of a wimp? Her development is slow and doesn't give in a lo of surprises.
Finally, when Akkarin appears on the scenes, the story gets a bit of bite into it, but it is still a very evasive presence.
Interesting is the fact that is presented the odd topic (for a fantasy book) of homosexuality, even though - no knowing what is coming next - I wonder if it will be really of use for the the general plot in the last book of the trilogy.
Generally, I think there are better fantasy books to read...

View all my reviews

The 11th of February

The 11th of Feburary is Mattias' birthday. But not only! It is also the day Elsa Beskow was born, 100 years earlier than Mattias.
Short said, Elsa Beskow is a Swedish author of children books, which she also illustrated. I haven't read anything of her, so I can't say so much about her books, but her drawings are very pretty and Mattias points out all the time that they are "jugend-inspired". And we know we are into our jugend phase, although we are not young anymore, especially considering that Mattias turned 40 this year ;-) (jugend means young!)

Mattias' present

Design House Stockholm has created a line of products with Elsa Beskow's drawings as inspiration. Mattias got 4 mugs and a kitchen towel.

The Magicians Guild by Trudi Canavan

The Magicians' Guild by Trudi Canavan
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I was quite disappointed by this book, although I managed to get engaged in the story at the very end. However, I suspect I would not be the only one to feel so since at least half the book is a waste, in my opinion. The story doesn't progress, nothing relevant happens, nothing interested is said by the characters. Said this, the first half of the book is definitely boring.
Finally, something happens and one manages to get interested in reading the book. This is not high fantasy and the world in which the story is set is not described in very high details and there is not so much information about the context, but it is also true it is not very necessary for the plot.
It is nice though to see that the end of the book is leaving an open question, which I suspect will be the red thread to follow in the coming two volumes and it ends with a positive note.
Maybe Trudi Canavan should not write trilogies but just single books, since the first volumes of her two trilogies that I have read so far as slow beyond redemption.

View all my reviews

Owning a IRobot Roomba 5xx serie?

We are happy owners of this magical toy which vacuum cleans while we do something else.
However, after few years of usage I had started to notice a problem: for how much I was cleaning/emptying it, it kept complaining that the brushes were dirty!
I did some search on the web and I found this nice thread, who has saved my day and made it possible to use the robot for more than 5-10 minutes in a row.
Read HERE if you have problems of a "dirty" Roomba!

Christmas Day menu

As we did for Christmas Eve, we mixed recipes and traditions also for Christmas Day.
First, Santa Claus came and pay a visit to us, distributing presents to everyone. The children were completely fascinated by him (and the adults also ;-D).

Also in this occasion, unfortunately, time was an issue so I didn't follow up on the recipes nor took that many pictures. Let's see if I can recollect the menu properly!

Starters

• Assorted cold cuts

Main Dishes (all homemade)

• Classical lasagne
• Prinskorv (prince-sausage)
• Oven cooked chicken with potatoes and onions
• Glazed ribs
• Saffron fennel (which was a disappointment)

Dessert

• A wonderful panettone, decorated with a holy scene, covered in chocolate (coming from Rome!)

Recipe for the Glazed Ribs

Ingredients for a buffet for 6 people:

• 1 and half kg short ribs
• 2 yellow onions in ckives
• Salt according to the description below

For the glaze:

• 1/2 dl honey
• 2 spoons of concentrated tomato
• 3 spoons of soya sauce
• 1 tea spoon white wine vinager
• 1 spoon finely grated ginger
• Grated skin of one orange

Put the ribs and the onions in a big pot and cover it with water. Put 1 and half spoon of salt for each liter of water. Let it light boil it for about half an hour.

Turn on the oven to 225 degrees. Take the ribs from the pot and put them on an oven pan. Brush the ribs with the mixture of all the ingredients of the glaze.
Grill it in the oven until it gets a nice surface for about 30 minutes. Brush it with the glaze several time while it is cooking in the oven. Turn the ribs the last 10 minutes. 

Recipe for the Saffron Fennel

Ingredients for a buffet for 6 people

• 2 fennel
• 2 garlic cloves
• 2 and half dl of white wine
• 0,25 g of saffron
• 2 star anise
• 50 gr of cold butter
• Half tea spoon of salt
• A quarter of a tea spoon of ground black pepper

The ingredients

Turn on the oven to 225 degrees.Clean and slice the fennel in the cloves. Put it in a baking dish with the finely chopped garlic.

Fennel and garlic

Mix the wine, the saffron, the star anise and pour it over the fennel.

The wine mix

Put the butter in small quantity over the fennel.
Add salt and pepper and let it cook in the middle of the oven for about 30 minutes.

Ready for the oven

Oscar's arrival

As his sister, also Oscar knows what a plan is, despite some little variation.

Door wreath done by me, my mother and Mattias

This is the time where we try to adjust to this change. This is definitely hitting all of us (well, maybe not Pico or Romeo with the same extension as Isabella's arrival did) and it is taking more energy than with Isabella. Maybe we are just getting old :-)

And as symbolf of our son, here is what I got from my sweet husband, who has been very supportive in order to make this delivery much better than the first one:

Efva Attling jewelry

If you are interested in doing this alternative door wreath, look below! In Italy it is common to do something called "Birth ribbon". People bring it even at the hospital and one can put it outside the door. But I didn't think a conventional one, usually embroided with the baby's name, would have survived Skåne's climate, so I thought of doing something more "Swedish" for the style.

A wreath, some paper roses, an zinc heart and few ribbons

The main decoration: light blue roses

Details of a ribbon: little baby boy decorations. Unfortunately, not a good picture

We started by rolling the light blue ribbon around the wreath

Then we added also the baby boy one

We tied the heart to the blue ribbon and we glued with the glue gun the blue roses. Small roses have been hooked allover the wreath.

Here it is!

The final result!