If you love an easygoing, full of humour, historical but also with some supernatural elements and a romance to die for manga/manhwa/manhua then this is the right one to pick up.

Short summary in my own words:

The female protagonist, Qian Yunxi, was raised on a Mt. Lin Yun because she has the ability to see the supernatural which is deemed bad and that it brings bad luck. She is the prime minister's daughter and although she is the older sister she is a concubine's daughter so she is not held up to such high standards as the second sister who is the legitimate wife's child. Prime minister wants more power so he is not on great terms with the royal family so when the order comes that his daughter must marry one of the princes he sends the daughter he doesn't care about. Qian Yunxi accepts this proposal because she wants to get off the mountain. Marriage goes through and on the first night the prince tells her she is not wanted and there is one other he considers to be good enough to be his wife. Qian is sent to the worst rundown part of the palace. But for Qian, this is not so bad. She, as a wife, has enough freedom and yet, she doesn't need to do her marital duties. She takes this situation as a positive and with a positive attitude and extreme bravery slowly changes the lives of everyone around here, as well as the cold prince's heart.

My thoughts:

In my opinion, this is almost as good as it gets in this genre of manga or if you will, manhua or manhwa (manga not produced in Japan). It is on point of everything it presents itself to be. It is very funny (I laughed my heart out in the scene where she throws a chicken she purchased at the market, just trust me on this one, go read please), it is very romantic, it is serious when it needs to be, the supernatural element enriches the whole plot, it doesn't shy away from the political discussions and we come to the most important part perhaps - the heroine - she is amazing.

The heroine is truly a heroine. She is independent, she is extremely intelligent and capable, she knows how to handle herself in most situations, she is not a damsel in distress, she is the one who often saves those around her, she kicks as% and she has a pure heart. I have not come across such a capable and well written heroine in a very long time.
The prince starts off as an unlikable tyrant-like-bastard who is cold, ruthless and cunning but unwilling to deal with anything that doesn't personally benefit him. As the story develops we actually see that that is just a front. He has much more layers and a lot of the things he has done can be interpreted differently with the right context. He grows significantly when around our capable heroine. He has a great aura about him and the way he handles situations makes me giggle and blush like a little girl. But he has his vulnerable side too and later on we learn that he is actually much more innocent than we could ever have imagined. Now that is great character writing, totally takes you by surprise.
There are many more other characters who are more or less important, and more or less developed but I believe it is better left for the actual reading experience now that the basics have been laid out.

The romance is the type that makes your heart skip a beat, you blush and you also wish you were the heroine. Prince is the possessive type and I really honestly love that. I know some people don't and that is okay. We are all different. I respect people who say they don't like even a little jealousy or possessiveness but for me that is absolutely amazing. The prince takes care of our heroine and he would go to the depths of hell for her. Since this is a fictional story I think it is safe to enjoy it and savour it. Boy, is this romance delightful.

The Chinese setting and the animation style is absolutely beautiful. I enjoyed every single page, every single image. It is different, it is unique and it is definitely worthy of reading and admiring.

For the final note. The anime that was made based on this manga is pretty much faithful to the manga, although there are differences. As always, manga has much more details, much more characters, a lot of the special moments between our hero and heroine that anime just cannot condense the same in a dozen episodes. If you are interested in this story I would definitely say go first with the manga and then enjoy the anime rendition.

by Snoopy

You know, I'm amazed I never read this whole book before. I've seen a lot of the individual cartoons in newspaper comic sections over the years, but it never occurred to me to get the collection. It was going used for a penny so how could I resist when I saw the category for a Dark and Stormy Night on Halloween Bingo!

I think this should be required reading for all wannabe writers. Not only is it a great collection of classic Snoopy cartoons, but it highlights some of the inner thoughts of the writer within many of us.

Highly recommended!

by Jeremy Feig

Non-fiction.

This is an amusing book. It's not very long, about 100 pages in print, but filled with comparisons of how the attitude of the author's cat can be applied to his own real life situations and philosophy. Things like owning your looks, whatever they are; taking control of what you can and learning to live with the things you can't. The only thing I think he gets wrong is on the subject of perfume. The cat makes herself not stink by washing! She doesn't splash on aftershave! Do you know how many women hate perfume on a man?

In places he seems to be forcing things to fit, but overall it's a very good source of advice about life and how to be a good person as well as a happy one. Many of the stories about his little cat, Shelley, made me laugh and appreciate how co-operative my own cats are!

I might question some of his advice about relationships, but overall I would say it's a good guidebook for how to get along in life with whatever hand you've been dealt. It's targeted at male readers, but most of it could apply to anyone. And of course the comparisons to the attitude of most cats provides much food for thought!

by Terry Pratchett

This was a weird concept, even for Pratchett. The Hogfather has ceased to be and Death thought he would just fill in for him, with the expected series of misunderstandings of human antics.

The daughter of his adopted daughter, Susan, gets caught up in things, much to her chagrin. She tries so hard not to see things other humans can't and to forget about he childhood as Death's granddaughter. She works as a governess and kills monsters for the children, of course.

There are a lot of metaphysical antics in Pratchett style, with assassins attempting to kill the Hogfather despite the fact that he's an immortal and Death himself coming under threat. There's also a trigger when a character casually mentions drowning a kitten.

I've enjoyed Pratchett's later books a bit less than some of his classics like the Guards and Witches series. Death is actually one of my favourite characters, but towards the end of this story it got a little too convoluted and 'out there' for my taste. Of course then Death comes out with some amazing philosophical statements about humans that are worthy of great literature, just to confuse the issue.

I'm glad I read the story but this is a read once for me. It also loses a star for the kitten.

My apologies for being away from Booklikes for so long! 

As a way to say sorry, and to offer you something to read as we all social distance, I'm giving away electronic copies of my award-winning satire of the Internet of Things and the technological singularity, The Fridgularity. 

You can download The Fridgularity here!

“With plenty of humor and much more, “The Fridgularity” is an exciting, sci-fi view askew, highly recommended.”  ~Midwest Book Review

“If you’re looking for a combination of humor, romance and a power hungry refrigerator, look no further than The Fridgularity, a very enjoyable read. 5 stars!”  ~IndieReader.com