We had good luck in our bookstore interleaving newsprint with the smelly book's pages. Removes many odors. Let it sit in a box or container or brown paper bag, refresh the newsprint every couple of days between different pages. Took time but worked better than most methods and was inexpensive.

Congratulations on passing your test!

I enjoyed Novik's whole Scholomance series. Very different!

The Instant Pot is my favorite way to boil eggs. I set them on a trivet, add the water, then it’s 5-5-5: 5 min high pressure, 5 min natural pressure release, 5 min cold water bath. Easy peel. Some prefer 6 min timing for harder yolks.

Fun!!

'allo

That book is tough going. I did find it useful to check off the old skool romance tropes--abduction, forceful hero, etc. as I read. Heyer loaded them all in that book. It was helpful to have read These Old Shades before Devil's Cub, so that I understood that Cub comes by his jackassitude naturally.

I've really enjoyed both seasons of the show. The costumes, the complexities of the characters, are what do it for me. I've been comparing this series with The Gilded Age and I enjoy Lidia much more, for something set in roughly the same suffrage era.

I will give Biltmore Christmas a try. I saw Hot Frosty and A Merry Scottish Christmas recently. (Don't bother with Merry Scottish. The romance arcs didn't work for me.)

Even pickled beets taste like dirt to me.

You can always ping me if you have self-publishing questions. I have rolled my own for a while now, and assisted others. :-)

*waves*

Agreed on the punctuation. This one skirts the edge of "real words" for me.

Oh no!

Huzzah!

I could be way wrong, but I don't believe the eye of Hurricane Milton passed over Tampa. It came ashore farther south.

No worries. I used to handsell books for a living. Spoilers don't bother me in the least. :-D