Aicha Amano

A really sweet, easy read. Best enjoyed with a glass of iced honey tea. I've always had a place in my heart for characters that sound like they're from the "polite" southern parts. In my head I always hear their endearing drawl, and I'm always reminded of their prim and proper ways. The heroine of The Wedding Bees is just that: Proper, polite and charming to a fault. But she's no pampered southern belle. Sugar Wallace is a beekeeper and a whiz at honey-making. She earns her keep, traveling across the country with her honeybee queen, Elizabeth VI, and all the bee drones, in tow. Her bees led her to set up her beehive on the balcony of an apartment in New York, where despite the stark difference to the southern states from which she hails, she gets to meet and help the residents of the building. Her southern manners and charm provides a refreshing change in the gray lives of her neighbors. Sugar has resolutely tried to stay out of the path...

I've just about settled here in Manila, yet my address is giving me a headache. I've only been used to a residential address, not a condominium unit number so I'm always worried about lost mail. I didn't think that my Harper Collins books would find its way to me. Until one fine morning: I was absolutely crazy happy. I have very little faith in Manila postal offices due to horrendous reports of misdirected mail, opening of packages, and even high taxation of mailed goods which is so ridiculous #thirdworldproblems and all that. I received two packages from Harper Collins on the same week, so you can just imagine me jumping for joy. Here are the books I received from several months' worth: I am an avid fan of Harper Collins, even before they noticed me and my blog. They are one of the publishing houses that I love because their editors and agents are AMAZING! They source out new authors and get them published, and those are testament to their great ...

Hello~ It's been a good month since I last posted, so you can tell I've been very busy! Busier than ever and working as hard as I can. Book-wise, I would like to say that I have  made a substantial success in reordering my books: filtering the books that I want to give away and ensuring that all my favorites are accounted for and sitting prettily in my shelf. Because I'm the type of reader who doesn't give away the books after I'm done reading, I always have a couple of stacks of books around my bed, my table, my dresser and cabinet, and even in various places in our house :) My novels stacked high, my artbooks haphazard among my stuffed toys I've been compiling some books that I also want to sell, and I've been doing a good deal of trading ( the "selling my books so I can save up enough to buy different ones" kind of trading XD ) at Blink.com.ph so if you want to catch some of my titles and to some different sellers, you can definitel...

Whenever I chance upon reading historical fiction, and the story is centered on a woman's plight, it gives me a sense of honor to read a special kind of bravery and steadfastness in the midst of oppression or chaos. This is because most of the historical fiction I read has a basis in the lives led by women during the most uncertain times, and that somehow, at some point, it is a reflection of the life led by all women of that era. It's not always a picture of gentle days and idyllic time, because even in the years past when women were revered, as there were also women in history who were abused, undermined, traded as a commodity, beaten, and treated in a most unjust and unfair manner just for being who they are. The Story: In this book, All The Flowers In Shanghai by Duncan Jepson , it is a moving display of bravery and will to keep one's head above tumultuous waters by a 17-year-old girl. She was swept off the quiet world she knew and unable to fight against the o...