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366W: Man and Fae Woman Have Special Child

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I read this book about 20+ years ago when I was Junior High in the US. It was about this guy who fell in love with a woman from a fae race I believe? I honestly don’t remember that much about it except I think the cover had some art but was green in binding. They had some sort of huge struggle with a type of villain and they ended up together and pregnant. He thought it would be a normal 9 month pregnancy like for humans and her race actually had a 3 year gestation. Their baby was a girl who was very different and inquisitive and wasn’t a normal human child. That’s essentially all I remember.

366V: Picnic with coworkers

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My stumper is a British book which I listened to. It has a female narrator. The main character is a woman whom I believe was unattractive in some way and disliked by her coworkers. The scene that I recall is a picnic, in which some young guys are playing football (or some such) near the main character, and the ball accidentally gets kicked to her. A guy, whose name I think is Beau, comes over to retrieve it, and starts paying the main character attention, much to the scorn of her female coworker.

366U: Fantasy / Swords and Sorcery novel I partially read last year and just can’t remember!

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I never finished it but wanted to but the name has completely slipped my mind. Here’s what I remember:
– A tribe of people, warriors and hunters, living in a frozen North. The main character was mixed race, being partially from a race further up north who were blonde and very Viking like, they were at war I think?
– Main character is exiled on some quest after a previous chief dies and leaves, but his tribe is attacked and scattered. He unites a number of his clan and they fight their way to a settlement.
– Whilst traveling the main character meets a wolf, and shares a Kill with it. The wolf follows him around from then on it saves his life a few times.
– There’s a subplot of one of the clan youngsters making his first kill and escaping after a fight gone wrong.
– The settlement is being attacked by those other northerners and those Northerners have a Sorcerer who has summoned a big monster who’s attacking the settlement but the main character and his crew kill it.
It was very swords and sorcery and its really bugging me that I can’t find it. Any suggestions about what it might be would be terrific!
It’s not Wolf Brother, the main character was an adult. For most of the book the Wolf actually didn’t show up a huge amount. 

366T: Picture book where kid finds clues hidden in a desk that lead to a treasure/inheritance

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The kid in the book receives a desk from his grandpa (uncle?) and a note stating there is a clue hidden in the desk. The note also imposes a time limit that the kid has to meet in order to get the treasure. The kid finds a secret compartment that contains a key and that key takes him to a bus/train station where he uses the key to unlock a locker. There is a duffel bag in the locker that is full of chopsticks. I believe the chopsticks lead the kid to a Chinese restaurant. I can’t remember specifically where it goes from there but I think it ends up leading him back to the desk and the treasure is hidden inside.

Other details:

  • There is a man at a bank that will take control of the treasure if the kid can’t solve it in time
  • The pictures in the book were shades of yellows, browns, whites, and grays
  • There is a secret panel in the desk that reveals a combination style lock face
  • I read this in the 90s but it could be older
  • I think the kid had an animal companion but not 100% sure on that
  • Not Terry’s (Tony’s) Treasure Hunt

366S: “No time, only duration” (Solved!)

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 Forgotten author name, likely American or British – collection of short stories with sci-fi/horror-type themes. I read the book `eons ago’ – so probably 60s or 70s.

The story of interest describes where 3 characters wind up inside a room where there is “no time, only duration,” so they’ll supposedly live forever if they never leave the room. An epilogue then tells us “a building was torn down and 3 skeletons were found in it…..”

The cover had some odd-looking creature on it, reminiscent of the YELLOW SUBMARINE animation style.

366Q: Birthday book where reader is the final guest (Solved!)

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Hi – I’m trying to find a book I loved as a child (UK, 1970s).  I believe it was by Enid Blyton – so obviously written before then – but I can’t identify it from a list of her works.  It was about a birthday party, where every child guest has their own story in a chapter. There were also great descriptions of the party food. The final chapter was a story for the reader, because you were also invited to the party.  Does anyone recognise the book from this description?

366P: Enters baking contest with old oven, wins new oven!

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Trying to help out someone I know. They remember a children’s book
that was available in libraries in the US in the early 2000s (pre 2006
for sure), unclear when exactly it was published but didn’t seem like
a new book at the time it was first checked out and read.

Seems like it was a pretty thin book / short story, completely
fiction, talked about a woman that owned an old oven (or otherwise
damaged it during the baking process), that entered a competition to
win a brand new oven. (Or it was money that she used anyway to buy a
new oven. Like 300$ or 500$ or 1000$) Could have been a picture book,
they don’t remember. But most likely just normal book dimensions, not a
super wide one with big illustrations.

The competition was most likely a cake baking one? But there’s a
chance it could have been pies or food possibly. (unlikely)
There was an Amelia Badelia book they found with a cake baking contest
for money, but it didn’t match the old oven being damaged and getting
swapped out for a brand new oven by the end of the story part.

366O: Woman in a Purple Cloak

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I am trying to find a book I had as a child in the 80s. I can neither remember the title nor the plot nor any characters. All I can remember is an image: a girl/woman in a purple cloak on the right hand side of the book. The purple cloak may have been a dress. It was close to fuschia. In the illustration it was snowing. The colors used were rich & deep. the cloak curved out to the right & the figure was walking to the left. I have found a few images that are very similar, which I am including below. I am fairly certain the artist was either Arthur Rackham or Warwick Goble. I hesitated over the first image, thinking it might have actually been what I remembered, & perhaps it is but the intensity of color faded over time?

366N: Riding the Ponies Across the Moors (Solved!)

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I was born 1968. Sometime around 1978 I read a story about some kids who set out on adventures on their “ponies” and they would stop and camp in the woods and eat “tinned“ food. I believe it had a very UK British feel. They would talk about riding on the “moors” and through forests.
It is possible they were trying to solve a mystery, or just narrating their experiences along the way as they traveled to an ultimate destination- like maybe a beach or shore as on a summer adventure.

I will stop here because I do not want to confuse this with another story in my head.

I think this book might have been a hard cover, about an inch thick, with black paper on the cover inside the dust jacket, and MIGHT have had gold lettering embossed “ONYX” on the cover. MIGHT CONTAIN “nebula” That description might also pertain to a different book but, that is why I am here. They seemed to make a big deal about calling the horses ponies and they all seemed very independent to be traveling without adults. Approx character age 10-15?
I read the story when I was about 10 years old, around 1978, so there’s no telling how much older the story actually is?

I’d really like to get another copy of the story of those children traveling with and riding their ponies, camping or resting while eating food from tins and parcels, and traveling across the moors and forests to get to…?