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Jewels by Lindelea	8 Review(s)
Mirkwoodmaiden	Reviewed Chapter: 12 on 5/1/2025
Lindelea! This is what happens when I don't mark where I left off! I have read further on in this wonderful story so some of the below review may not make sense! Alas! (((hugs))) MM Author Reply: MM! There's at least one fairly recent story (I don't remember which one, but it's on either the first or second page of stories listed on SoA) where I posted two reviews of the same chapter, and pretty close together, timewise, and from the second-posted review, it appears that I didn't remember reading the chapter previously. To make a long story short, I can certainly empathize! (((hugs))) Lin

Mirkwoodmaiden	Reviewed Chapter: 12 on 5/1/2025
Lindelea! Review part 2! "Esmeralda watched this special nephew as he plied his spoon, talking and laughing with his uncle and cousins. She remembered other bouquets, half-wilted, clutched in a grubby hand, brought to her on the couch where she lay for so many months as she directed the domestic doings of Hall and kitchen." Ahhh! Sweet! "The first time she noticed the missing finger she grieved for the marring of the fine hand, but truly, the slim fingers were so often busy about something that soon she ceased to think of it. When Frodo was not out riding or walking with his cousins, he was sitting, but not idle. His hands carved wooden whistles for wee hobbits, fashioned sails for little boats, sketched pictures, gestured descriptively while telling a story, splashed skillfully in water battles in the shallows of the River... in other words, they were almost never at rest." Frodo seems wonderfully happy! Yeah! And Yes, I am assuming that Frodo is visiting after he has made the decision to leave. Oftentimes the decision made does bring peace. "'Not at all!' Pippin said with a sly nudge for Merry. 'After all, we aren't going all the way to Bag End! Only part-way, and right at that spot there's a side-branching road leading to the North Farthing...'" They are going the Grey Havens aren't they? sigh wibble Long Cleeve you say...and a certain Diamond...and of course a fine table set. Lovely! You write Hobbits so well!! Thanks for the chapter! (((hugs))) MM Author Reply: MM! I see from you next review that you have now read further, and so you got through the next chapter and the Grey Havens part. But this idea is both fascinating and insightful (even though it wasn't the case in this story, it sounds like a very likely scenario): I am assuming that Frodo is visiting after he has made the decision to leave. Oftentimes the decision made does bring peace. Thank you so much for reading and for taking the time to share your thoughts and encouragement. I am a bit behind in editing chapters to post for Friday, but reading reviews has got me motivated to see if I can update another story or three for this update rather than giving in to distractions (or laziness?) and leaving them for my planned Monday update. I had to completely rework the next chapter of Thain after getting rather confused by the differences in the different sources I consulted, including JRRT, who seemed to offer two contradictory descriptions of troop movements. I think I've got it figured out now, but it took several rewrites. Hopefully it'll make sense when compared to the LOTR map. I am up past midnight, but I wanted to reply to your reviews before heading for bed. And enthuse all over again about your Éowyn stories... (((hugs))) Lin

Mirkwoodmaiden	Reviewed Chapter: 12 on 4/30/2025
Lindelea!! Hello! I haven't been reading for a while because at your behest I have been working Chapter 25 of Destiny's Child! Should be ready for posting hopefully sometime today, latest tomorrow. Hubby is my beta now! wee-hee! In the reply to my review last chapter you were talking about your family who were WWII vets. I have many uncles who served, but they all lived out of town so war memories were not plentiful but a friend of mine who is English, her father was in bomb disposal and he only ever talked about the funny stories of the war but NEVER anything else. War is scarring. In "Leaving Home; Coming Home." I have Eowyn talking to Telion, a young jeweler's apprentice and they bond over their experiences in the Ring War. But Onwards. "Esmeralda nodded, somehow unsatisfied. It seemed as if the Shire owed more to him after what he'd done." So very true. Frodo never gets the credit that he deserves though he doesn't think he deserves any because he finally submitted to the Ring. He feels as if he failed when he so didn't!! Nobody else kept it as long except Bilbo, but it wasn't at full power over those years! "He's Cousin Bilbo's heir, and now that all the mess has been straightened out he ought to be settling down." Ahhh. Glorious hobbit understatement. The Ring War referred to as "all that mess". Wonderful!! "Saradoc and Esmeralda had always had a special fondness for the orphaned lad who had gone off to live amongst those odd folk in Hobbiton. They were glad to see that he had not been too badly warped by it, probably because of his solid Buckland upbringing before he was adopted by Bilbo. LOL!! Love the Buckland viewpoint! Must dash to work! Review part two later today! (((hugs))) MM Author Reply: MM! So glad to hear from you! Oh my. From the little bit I know about bomb disposal (and most of that from watching British television shows, but also from reading show notes, like for Foyle's War, detailing the historical facts built into particular episodes), I'm not at all surprised about your friend's father. Now I'm going to need to re-read "Leaving Home; Coming Home" again! I remember Éowyn and Talion talking, but I don't remember the details. That's a good point about Bilbo vs Frodo; the Ring was asleep, more or less, when Bilbo had it. But when Gollum was taken prisoner in Mordor, the Ring's maker and owner "woke it up" in a manner of speaking and exerted his power to draw the Ring to himself again. Poor Frodo. He really was the best hobbit in the Shire, as Gandalf and Bilbo thought. Gotta love those hobbits and their light talk! I'm also intrigued by the thought of the Oldbucks (the original Thains) moving to Buckland, after which the Thains came from the Took clan. There's got to be a backstory there (of some sort or another)... I hope you had a good day at work, and I'm looking forward to part two! And your chapter 25!!! What a wonderful treat to look forward to! ((((hugs)))) Lin

Periantari	Reviewed Chapter: 12 on 3/30/2025
It's good to see a cheerful Frodo and i like the conversation he had with Pippin about strategy and then lightened the mood with a race to the river. Author Reply: I love (and have loved) writing a cheerful Frodo! From some of the feedback I received when I first published this story, I got the feeling that a lot of fanfic in the early 2000s portrayed a sick, depressed, morose Frodo, but I chose to see him as relieved, even happy, once the Quest had been achieved. At least until his anniversary illnesses made him realise that Saruman's prediction was true and not just malice. Shirebound's lovely "Quarantined"-verse stories, in which Frodo did not sail West, are very well done, if you haven't come across them yet. Since I've been away from fanfic for more than a decade due to real-life constraints, I'm not sure how fanfic authors currently portray him during the time between the ending of the Quest and his sailing to the West. Thanks for reading and pausing to leave a comment!

PSW	Reviewed Chapter: 12 on 2/25/2025
Hmm … the good table, that’s why they’re going. Sure. (Well, at least some of the reason.) It’s lovely to be able to have a nice long visit with loved ones, to catch up on inside jokes and see how others are faring. I’m sure this was a wonderful visit! Author Reply: Of course, of course... hobbits can explain any choice they make in terms of food, and make it sound eminently reasonable if the food sounds good enough! I really enjoyed this chapter, myself, and was tempted to create an AU version of the post-Quest Shire where Frodo didn't have to sail. (And I actually wrote at least one AU story where he didn't sail, probably as a result of that thought.) Thanks so much for reading and taking the time to share your thoughts!

Pearl Took	Reviewed Chapter: 12 on 10/19/2006
Oh, Lin, I loved this!!! I put it off a bit as I didn't want to face the usual "gloomy gus" Frodo. What a wonderful surprise!!! You have a happy, sly, loving Frodo - much more the way I always pictured him being for most of his first year home. MEWD!!! Author Reply: O good, we're still thinking along the same lines. I liked giving him a peaceful year in the Shire, marred only by anniversaries. I'm sure he savoured peace, and watching the Shire grow green again, and life resume its pattern. That's the way I wrote him in "A Short and Passing Thing", anyhow, which sort of spun off this chapter and the next two. Author Reply: oops, meant "Small and Passing Thing" but I was trying not to type "Long and Passing Thing" which is something of a joke between EF and myself.

harrowcat	Reviewed Chapter: 12 on 10/19/2006
a Favourite Nephew who works hard to reassure his favourite Aunt and Uncle! Lovely Picture with the flowers. Author Reply: Thank you! I love that picture--I can see it in my mind's eye, an echo of when Frodo was a little lad and brought his auntie fistfuls of half-wilted wildflowers.

Larner	Reviewed Chapter: 12 on 10/19/2006
And someone is already smitten, after all. Good to see Frodo already seeing to it that Pippin is prepared for the day when it is he as Thain, and I suspect he already is starting to realize he won't remain all that long. Yes, Frodo the Slender, slated to grow moreso that way before he finds himself again. Author Reply: Yes, Frodo is looking ahead to the future, although I don't think at this point he completely realises--I think that happened after the October anniversary, more.

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