Solving Logic Puzzles Doesn’t Make Me a Detective, as I said in last week’s post, but solving the Wordle every day takes just as much logic…and usually makes me feel really really smart. 😊 In fact, I like Wordle so much that, when we went on a cruise recently, I made sure we had an Internet package so that we could play the Wordle daily.

I started playing Wordle 197 days ago, when it started becoming a sensation and before it was purchased (and some say ruined) by The New York Times. If you don’t play Wordle and you even semi-enjoy word games, you should totally be playing Wordle.

For those of you who don’t know what Wordle is, every day there is a new five-letter word, and you have six tries to figure it out. When you enter a word, the program indicates in yellow the letters you have correct but in the wrong position and in green the letters you have correct and in the right position.

People have different philosophies about how to “win.” Some people choose a random word as their first guess. Others use the previous day’s word as their first word. Neither of these make sense to me because the point is to figure out the word in the fewest number of rows, in six guesses or less. Using the previous day’s word is completely illogical because you know it can’t possibly be that word. Choosing a random word doesn’t make sense to me either.

My logic (see what I did there?) is to maximize letter elimination until I have a good sense of possible letter combinations. For example, if the word doesn’t contain a U, it likely doesn’t contain a Q. If it ends in a T, I try to determine based on letters I’ve already eliminated whether it could end in ST, NT, RT, LT, etc. If the word ends with an H, it’s likely SH, TH, PH, or CH.

It’s like a puzzle I have to put together. When I do a puzzle, I do the edges first, like most people. In Wordle, my first row is always the same word and uses three vowels. Always. Unless I get three letters (sometimes four) confirmed in that first word, my second word is also always the same and uses the other two vowels. And yes, I have a third elimination word that uses the Y if the first two give really bad results.

There are plenty of times that I get to row four with either no idea where the puzzle is going or there are multiple options for the final word. Those are nerve-wracking days, and I might spend rows four and five ignoring the letters I know and thinking of words that use as many of the possible remaining letters.

What further complicates things is when the Wordle of the day has duplicate letters…or two duplicate letters. 😠 On day 98 of my Wordle-ing, when I had a perfect 97-day streak, the word was “vivid.” I had my sights set on 100 days straight, and I was devastated at the miss.

Do I sound a little obsessive? A lot? I can accept that considering I also have my own Google sheet with my stats since Wordle likes to reset and lose your stats at random. And if I’m going to work so hard at keeping my streaks alive (and the fact that I’ve only missed the Wordle twice so far), I want a record of it. 😉

There’s a new book coming out with characters who have to piece together clues from another character with an unreliable memory due to Alzheimer’s. As a reader, I found myself also trying to figure out how everything fit. I was close. But if it had been a Wordle, I would have missed at row six. 🤦🏻‍♀️

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Book Review

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
5 Stars for The Couple at Number 9 by Claire Douglas

400 pages
Publisher: Harper Perennial and Paperbacks
Publication Date: August 2, 2022
I received an advance copy of this title from NetGalley and Harper Perennial and Paperbacks.

Publisher’s Description

The Victims…
When pregnant Saffron Cutler moves into 9 Skelton Place with boyfriend Tom and sets about renovations, the last thing she expects is builders uncovering human remains. The remains of two bodies, in fact.

The Investigation… 
Forensics indicate the bodies have been buried at least thirty years. Saffy has nothing to worry about—until the police launch a murder inquiry and ask to speak to the cottage’s former owner. Her grandmother, Rose.

The Witness…
Rose is in a nursing home and Alzheimer’s means her memory is increasingly confused. She can’t help the police, but it’s clear she remembers something. 

The Killer…
As Rose’s fragmented memories resurface, and the police dig ever deeper, Saffy fears she and the cottage are being watched.

The Truth…
What happened thirty years ago? Why did no one miss the victims? What part did her grandmother play? And is Saffy now in danger? 

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Main Characters:

• Saffron (Saffy) – 24 years old, 14 weeks pregnant, living with her boyfriend Tom in the cottage her grandmother used to own
• Lorna – almost 41 years old, had Saffy at 16, was a bit of a wild child when she was a teenager, moved to Spain shortly after Saffy met Tom
• Rose – 75 years old, living in a full-time care home suffering from Alzheimer’s, has increasingly fewer lucid days and begins to talk about things from her past that don’t make sense to the people around her
• Theo – 33 years old, head chef at a nearby restaurant, married to Jen and trying to start a family, does not get along with his father, his mother died 14 years ago from a fall down the stairs

I was sooooooo close to figuring this out. Literally one piece that I missed. The author does such a great job of offering up a number of possibilities. Coupled with the fact that the person with the answers (Rose) is unreliable because of Alzheimer’s, the twists and turns make for an amazing thriller.

Saffy and Tom live in her grandmother’s former cottage, which Rose gifted to her daughter Lorna 10 years prior. Lorna doesn’t remember living in the cottage. Having always been a bit unsettled in life, she has been living in Spain but returns home when two bodies are found buried in the garden. Immersed in a hometown she doesn’t remember, Lorna experiences flashes of memories and tries to piece them together with her mother’s ramblings.

Theo is an unknown at the beginning of the book, having no real connection with the others that we’re aware of as readers. About midway through Part Two, there’s an “ah ha” moment, and as the story progresses, of course, we find out the complete connection.

Narration of the story alternates between Saffy (first-person), Lorna (third-person), and Theo (third-person) in the current day, supplemented by first-person accounts from Rose 30 years prior. What drives this story forward, in part, is the lack of reliability of Rose’s memories. And that’s what makes it so hard to figure out.

The notes I made while devouring the story touched on all but one piece, as I said. I was right on the cusp of figuring it out…and that’s what I loved about it. Pick this one up. You won’t be disappointed.

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