Nanci’s Comments (group member since Jan 29, 2016)

Nanci’s comments from the Nothing But Reading Challenges group.

DQ Day 3 Chapters 11-13. Message 176

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

DQ Day 3 Chapters 11-13

11. Do you think the author has been able to give Bess and Alexandra individual voices? Do you like books with multiple points of view?

I agree with most of you that I enjoy stories that have multiple POV as long as they're well identified. Bess and Alexandra are very different and the author does a good job of it. Alexandra is such a "pitiful pearl" that it helps me to relate to her, rather than just learning about her through another character's POV.

12. What do you think ‘Eliza’ and Agnes were talking about in the kitchen? Do you think either Agnes or Maria know that Charlotte came from the Foundling home?
They seem very loyal to Alexandra, even though Alexandra worries that they might just take off on her. My suspicion is that they do know that Charlotte is not biologically Alexandra's daughter, although I'm not sure they know she came from the Foundling home.

13. I think that Alexandra will get much worse re her fears of the outside after the mask prank. Do you think her thoughts about ‘Eliza’ will suffer because of it?
That was a horrible thing that happened to Alexandra. I don't think it was purposeful on Dr. Mead's part given his reaction, but I do think it's going to make Alexandra even more paranoid.

14. Do you believe that Dr Mead was telling the truth about not knowing about what happened to Alexandra’s parents? Why has he lied about who ‘Eliza’ is?
I maintain my stance that Dr. Mead wants Eliza and Charlotte to be able to be together, even if it's only in a false sense. I don't think Dr Mead knew about Alexandra's parents. He has a soft spot for Alexandra and I don't think he would do anything intentional to upset her.

Vicki wrote: "Jessica wrote: "On an extra note, I don't trust this Dr. Mead fellow. Why is he playing both sides of this field. He's got some motive going on here! I can feel it"

I agree as well. I especially b..."

Good points! I think Dr. Mead has best intentions. I think he saw the pain Bess has gone through in wanting to be with her daughter and is thinking that this is a way she can still be with Charlotte.

Dawn wrote: "DQ Day 2: Ch. 6-10

6. Were you surprised to find out Daniel had a wife? I personally was super surprised as I originally believed him when he said he was single. What do you think of the way Danie..."

I've read ahead in the book, but I forgot about the mention of the crippling headaches until you mentioned it. Good catch!

What???? Well it worked! I didn't do any of the other letters and symbols you told me to use, I just right clicked on the time stamp and copied it. Although Message 89 is not a hyperlink, it still took me exactly to my message 89 when I clicked on the above link, so I'm good with that! Thanks for telling me about the timestamp, E! That is very helpful! Now, if I can just remember it when I need it again down the road! :)

Grrr. I've tried for about 30 minutes to get this correct. I'm out of patience. Thanks for your directions, but I'll just go with the old way for now.

DQ Day 2 Chapters 6-10
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... Message 89

DQ Day 2- Chapters 6-10
6. Were you surprised to find out Daniel had a wife? I personally was super surprised as I originally believed him when he said he was single. What do you think of the way Daniel died?

I wasn't surprised that Daniel had a wife. I also wasn't surprised about his sudden death. Back in the mid 1700's people died so easily of even an infected cut or a myriad of other very solvable things in today's medical world. I was wondering if his death was malicious like murder or something.

2. How do you think Alexandra Callard knew about Bess and her daughter?

I thought maybe Dr. Mead had informed her and that Alexandra wanted the child to have a living part of Daniel.

3. What do you think of the way Alexandra and Charlotte live? Do you think Alexandra keeps Charlotte home to stop her from being recognized or because she is truly scared of the real world?

I believe Alexandra suffers from agoraphobia, fear of going outside. She has had this condition for a long time. I'm guessing it has something to do with how her parents died, maybe. I think she doesn't want Charlotte to go out for fear something will happen to her more than her fear that someone will recognize her.

4. "Eliza" has been fired on her first day. What do you think of Alexandra's reasoning for firing her? Do you think part of Alexandra knows that she is Charlotte's real mom?

I thought Alexandra over-reacted by firing her. It's obvious Alexandra's already a bit jealous/threatened of how Charlotte has already really taken to Bess. There's a part of me that thinks that Alexandra is suspicious that Charlotte is the real mom. I don't think she had a clue to this at all when Dr. Mead asked her to employ Bess.

5. Do you think Bess will find a way to still see her daughter? How?
Absolutely! Charlotte is the love of Bess' life. She will do anything to be in her life now that she knows where she is. I could see her stealing Charlotte, although I can't imagine how she could get away with that without money or someone outside of their area to lend housing and support.

The above comment is just a trial. I'm still working on it, E and Stacie! As you can see, clicking on the link takes me to the first page, but not my particular message. I'll keep trying!

Message48

Hey Stacie,
Thanks for your help. I've tried a bunch of times, but still not working. I'm sure I'm doing something wrong with your great directions.
Here's what I did:
I put in the less than sign and then typed a href=. I then pasted my link and typed the less than sign along with forward slash a and greater than sign. I then put the less than sign typed in Message 48 and typed in forward slash a and then greater than sign.

I hope that makes sense! Learning these things are so much easier to actually have a live conversation! Anyway, if you've patience enough to let me know what I did wrong that would be great!

Question for Vicki...how did you make your link go directly to your message? I'd love to be able to do that! I only know to copy the page link. TIA!

DQ Day 1- Chapters 1-5


1. How are you liking the writing style ? Are you enjoying the story so far?
I loved this story immediately! The writing style is so friendly to read and I have had a hard time putting it down! So much so that I'm on page 177, so I'll be careful not to give anything away!



2. After reading that opening scene, what do you think of the practice of the Hospital taking babies based on a lottery (the coloured balls in the bag) ?
That part was extremely upsetting to me. I could clearly imagine the terrific stress of the new mothers being observed like bugs under a microscope, at such an impactful part of their lives and that of their babies was being decided. How totally heartless for the rich to make it into a social affair. It really points out the huge gap between the social elite and the poor.

3. At some point Bess says that "knowing she [Clara] could be anywhere instead of nowhere at all was torture even more exquisite." Implying that not knowing where her child is is worse than knowing she's dead. What's your opinion ? Or would you rather not know ?
The "not knowing" is definitely the worse. Twice we had two of our outdoor cats disappear. The first time we never did find her and to this day, I still wonder what happened to her. The second time, a distant neighbor found her in her woods after she died there. It was so much better to have closure.

4. What do you make of the child's father, Daniel Callard ? Everyone keeps asking Bess if he's really dead. Do you suspect there's more to Daniel than we've been told so far ?

Here's my answer as to how I felt at the time of my reading, so as not to reveal anything. I never questioned that he was really dead, but I was hopeful more would be revealed about him and the relationship he and Bess shared.

5. Time for your theories ! Who do you think claimed Clara on the 28th of November 1747, the day after Bess gave up her baby ?
I had no idea, although I had a few suspects including possibly one of the wealthy women watching who perhaps was unable to conceive and was drawn to Bess and her baby.

I checked on the BOM thread and sadly our team wasn't chosen to write DQs for the first book. I am reading it and will answer the first set of questions and link them back here when I'm done.

DQ link for chapters 1-5 of The Lost Orphan. Message 42:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Eldarwen wrote: "Nanci wrote: "I was out in Denver the past 5 days helping our youngest daughter plan for her wedding and didn't have my laptop, so just now catching up on all these posts. Phew! I am so glad I'm no..."

August 6 is the wedding date. Planning a wedding during Covid has been a true challenge. Their venue is gorgeous, atop the mountain of Crested Butte! The problem is that in Colorado Covid mandates are based on the county and Crested Butte couty is extremely conservative. The numbers allowed in attendance keep changing even though it's an outside wedding. First they told her 150, then 100 and now only 50 people allowed. We have had to disinvite family members and now we have to narrow it down even further. I keep telling her there are worse things, but at 34 years old and finally finding her true love after being in tons of weddings (and dating a few toads over the years), it's a harsh reality and very stressful for a normally laid back daughter. It will all work out, of course, and she has found such a terrific, kind man! That's all that matters and we are very excited for them!

Way to go, Kari on completing our first book! Lots of places to use it too!

I was out in Denver the past 5 days helping our youngest daughter plan for her wedding and didn't have my laptop, so just now catching up on all these posts. Phew! I am so glad I'm not the only newbie here! All these questions are so helpful and thanks, E, for so patiently and thoroughly answering them! My level of understanding has moved from muddy brown water to Atlantic gray. I'm hopeful as the weeks progress I'll become Caribbean blue!

Excited that we are now able to read!

Fingers crossed team DEATH gets lucky for the DQ writing! Our team name will hopefully scare the randomized into choosing us! ;)

Eldarwen wrote: "Hello and good morning team DEATH!

In just a few more days, we are off on our reading adventure for Tower Teams 8!

Do you know which book you're going to start the challenge off with? Or maybe yo..."

I'm planning on starting with the first BOM in case my name is chosen for write DQs. After that I may read the next BOM. I also have The Book of Two Ways which is longer that I'm hoping to read. Still working on my UNO books, but I'm a planner, so once that's done I'll be getting my books in order!

Very helpful Stacie, LaurLa and E! I'm just used to tracking sheets from other challenges, so wasn't sure how this was organized. Works for me to just post in the thread here. I am planning on reading all 3 books for May BOM. Two have already come in from my library, so fingers crossed I get chosen to write DQs for one of them, or I can be a backup writer if someone else on the team is chosen. I still have books to finish for UNO and Big Brother challenges, so no problem waiting until this one begins to start reading.
I will post as I complete using the format provided on page 1 of this thread! Thanks for all the guidance!

So I asked to get permission to edit the SS as it's just view right now. Was that the correct thing to do? I don't see anyone entering anything on it, which seems odd to me, so I figured maybe that's what I needed to do?? Or maybe it's just not ready yet for us to start adding books? Sorry, newbie to this challenge!