Two meh and a win

RIP Terence Stamp. First saw him in The Limey and swooned.

Boy, did I have trouble finding pics for this post. So, we’re being really random.

We appear to have mostly exited our heatwave but who knows what September will bring.

Today, it’s two more of the samples I got with NVC Eshal, both of which I bought for the name. I seem to have the attention span of a gnat when it comes to choosing perfume samples these days. Unless it’s something that has been recommended or that for whatever reason I’m actually actively looking for it, I’ve reached a stage where it’s more fun to do pick and mix by name.

And after those a new book series that I’ve taken a deep dive into.

So, here we go.

First off, we’ve got Odette Parfums Petit Gâteau. Caky, as the name states. Notes include honey marzipan, Chantilly cream, brown butter, toasted tonka bean, brûléed vanilla. Sweet, sweet and then a bit of sweet. I’m all for a good one of these. Sadly, this is not one. It might layer well and but I’m not paying to layer.

This smells like almond croissant on me – and that’s it. It just sails along as adequate quality almond croissant with little development. Longevity is fine. If you’re after almond croissant you could do worse. Linear.

So, clearly, this was a meh.

Number two is Marissa Zappas Flaming Creature. Now, that’s a name I couldn’t resist.

This one is pink pepper, juniper, orange ring pop, night blooming jasmine, wormwood, sandalwood, cedarwood smoke, patchouli and rum.

Alas, this does not live up to the name. It’s more Orange Julius (really dating myself here): smooth, chemical orangy, sweet. OJ was my mum’s thing. Never floated my boat (I adored papaya drinks from Gray’s Papaya in NYC).

So, meh again.

Which leads us to the win which was not a perfume clearly.

I stumbled upon the Greg Iles Penn Cage series because someone quoted a small bit from the most recent release (Southern Man) on a Twitter (I refuse to call it the other name) post that ended up for no good reason on my Facebook feed. Did you follow that?

So, I followed up and ended up with used copies of the first six books. And then got the latest one because I was going through these like a hot knife through butta.

This is … crime/thriller/legal set in a town in Mississippi. The writing is very good, the characters are good, the story lines keep your interest. That gives little sense of how good these are. To the extent I’ve made it through three since the beginning of August and these are not short books (number four, which I’m in the middle of, is close to 900 pages).

Reading the books is my reward for making sure I do French practice every day. My assignments from my teacher, memorising verb tenses, listening to podcasts in French, talking to the village animals in French. Ah, Duolingo: J’aime les oranges, Nous habitons à Berlin, Julia et Paul travaillent au zoo, Duo est une chouette!

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