Last night I had the opportunity to join in author Erin McCole Cupp’s Sabbath Rest Book Talk. Erin has been producing these short fiction talks built around a specific theme for several months, but this is the first group edition in which she was joined by the lovely Rebecca Willen and me!
Here are the featured books that we discussed:
I know all the months roll by quickly, but really, February’s short. Add to that the fact that this bizarro “winter” has delivered only about four inches of sticking snow to our Pennsylvania home (here and gone), and I’m really not sure what month it is. The trusty calendar, however, says March 1, so it’s time to break open our books and see where we’re at!
It’s been a few months since my husband has read a beer book, right? I can post another, can’t I? He’s currently working his way through The Complete Beer Course: Boot Camp for Beer Geeks: From Novice to Expert in Twelve Tasting Classes by Joshua M. Bernstein. This book has sent him scurrying to bottle shops in three counties seeking the beers needed for the course. Completion of the course will, I assume, elevate him to heretofore unknown levels of beer snobbery knowledge. Because there is a list of beers to procure, one thing that my husband said would be a helpful companion to the book is a checklist of some sort available in an app or a .pdf file. Lugging an oversize hardcover book to the bar would certainly be cumbersome. (If I were the author, this is an extra I’d offer as an incentive for signing up for my newsletter.) This would make an excellent gift for the beer lover in your life.
I zipped through the second book in the Chesapeake Valor Series, Still Life by Dani Pettrey. There’s A LOT going on in this book – multiple crimes, several romances, and series-long arcs. The author handles it well, in my opinion, making this book stronger and better than the first book in the series, Cold Shot. I also enjoy that this series takes place relatively close to my home. While the first book included scenes from one of my favorite haunts, Gettysburg National Military Park, this one centers in and around Baltimore. I’m looking forward to more in the series.
An Unexpected Role by Leslea Wahl is a much simpler story than Still Life, but like her first novel, The Perfect Blindside, an ideal book for teens. It only took me several pages to adapt to the first person, present tense point of view, which works well for the main character, Josie. Sixteen-year-old Josie makes a summer escape to the beach, fleeing the petty meanness of the high school scene. Hoping to rediscover herself and enjoy a summer romance in the process, she’s disappointed to find Ryan, a boy from her school, on the same South Carolina island. Not everything or everyone is as they seem, however, and with a little mystery culminating in peril for both Ryan and Josie, she realizes what’s important, who she really is, and the value of authentic relationships. Recommended especially for musical theater buffs.
My eighth grader just finished up last month’s read (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes) and is ready to pick out something new. In the meantime, he’s been reading Game On!: All the Best Games: Awesome Facts and Coolest Secrets. (What’s with the two colon titles this month?) Not exactly a literary classic, but he enjoys these types of books. He appreciates the gaming tips and the ease of picking the book up when he has a few minutes to read here and there.
My daughter checked out Key to the Treasure by Peggy Parish from her school library. Apparently, the school’s collection is from another era, with cringe-worthy covers that even my nine-year-old is embarrassed to be seen with. (I may have ruined her – or given her a discerning eye – by sharing some truly awful book covers with her.) Thankfully, the content between the covers is good. I hadn’t realized that the Amelia Bedelia author wrote chapter books as well.
We let our kids pick out one book each at the Scholastic Book Fair during Catholic Schools Week. There is, however, a price limit on their purchases, so I helped my little girl find 
The Great Shelby Holmes by Elizabeth Eulberg, which seemed to suit both her interests and our price cap. The title character is a play on Sherlock Holmes. She started it right away, declared it good, then promptly misplaced it for weeks. Sort of. She re-discovered it right where she left it, so, I don’t know. Kids.
Both books I’ve been reading to my little kids are short on words and big on illustrations. When I had my first child, I’ll admit that I didn’t really get these types of books. It’s not that I didn’t see the appeal of the illustrations. It’s just that books, in my mind, required words. Lots of words. Rhyming words are especially nice in kids’ books. It took a while for me to warm up to the idea of playing with the inflections in the few words I was given as a narrator and lingering over illustrations, studying them, finding interesting aspects, and asking questions. (I also discovered these are great books to “read” when you can barely hold your head up or your eyes open, for whatever reason. It’s a lot easier to get through one of these at two o’clock in the morning with a child who is sick or cannot sleep than a chapter book. Trust me on this one.) 
We are currently savoring No, David! by David Shannon, a Caldecott Honor book. I’d heard of this book many times, so when my son snatched it from the take-home table after story time at the library, I was pleased. The other book we’ve been re-reading is George Shrinks by William Joyce, first published in 1985. (Apparently it became a Canadian/Chinese animated series in the early 2000s. Missed that.) To my mind, 1985 isn’t long ago, yet I enjoy noticing the out-of-date details in the illustrations, such as corded phones and two-prong electrical outlets. Ah, the good old days.
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For the past several weeks, despite soaring, unseasonable temperatures, it seems that everybody is sick. Stomach bugs, flu, bacterial infections, etc. Each time I hear or read someone bemoan the sickness in their home or complain of this winter as the worst ever for illness, I internally cringe. Because our family has enjoyed what is probably our healthiest winter ever. (Don’t get me wrong, there’s been migraines and sinus headaches, sniffles and coughs, an injured knee, recovery from oral surgery, and an epic and ongoing battle with warts. But all in all, super healthy.)
Now, I don’t consider myself a superstitious person, but I’m summoning all sorts of courage to type this. It feels like an invitation for a variety of degenerating, lingering, maleficent ailments to descend upon our home and ravage our bodies.
Why can’t I simply enjoy this unexpected winter free from the minor suffering sickness brings? Why do I sit and wait with worry for the proverbial shoe to drop?
In this season between Christmas and the arrival of Spring, it’s easy to fall into slumps of all sorts. I’m linking to Top 5 Wednesday (#T5W) on Goodreads to share five books to get you out of a slump. My intention was to do a short video, but it’s been a long day. It’s late. And I’m just not up for the demands of video. So, a blog post it is. All of these books are highly recommended whether you’re slumping or not.
There’s nothing to get the heart pounding like nail-biting suspense paired with a blooming romance, one fanned to flame my mortal peril. Here are a handful that I’ve enjoyed in recent months. (All are inspirational/Christian novels, but none are heavy-handed, and faith is woven naturally into the stories.) Continue reading
I’m happy to host the blog tour for Page Zaplendam’ s latest release, The Egyptian Elixir: A Regency Vampire Novella, the second book in The Unofficial Chronicles of John Grissom.
What could possibly go wrong on a surveillance trip to Parliament? Apparently everything.
Vampire bacteriologist John Grissom and vampire hunter Van Helsing are unlikely friends and coworkers. As members of Bow Street’s newly founded clandestine investigative division, Odd Crimes, they find themselves witnesses to an assassination attempt on the Marquis of Wellesley. And discover London’s most notorious purveyor of stolen goods at the bottom of it.
But Sir Antony’s ability to influence people is unusual to say the least. The vampire and the hunter investigate, but the Egyptian elixir may prove the undoing of them both. Continue reading
Release Date: February 14, 2017
Published by: Three Amigas Press
Genre: Historical Romance, Women’s Fiction
Available from: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Createspace.
I’m happy to host the blog tour for Olivia Folmar Ard’s latest release, This Dread Road, the third book in The Bennet Series. Jump ahead if you’d like to the book summary, my review, excerpts, and about the author! Continue reading
The early part of this week left me feeling as if I were suffocating under a growing list of “to-dos.” Each task I accomplished added three to the list as I realized yet something else that needed to be done. From meals to chores to decluttering to blogging and writing – I felt the weight of the many little straws threatening to break this camel’s back. I’ve tried to re-frame my discouragement with gratitude in terms of the blessings in disguise.
The bills never stop coming, do they? Online billing is supposed to simplify this process, but while I don’t have to use as many stamps as before, I find myself logging into and out of accounts, checking balances, scheduling payments, and discussing (via text message) with my husband where the money is going to come from. Top that off with the incomes taxes due, requiring multiple reports and paper shuffling, and I’m pretty tired of dealing with money issues. It’s my hope that the taxes will be filed before this blog posts, and I won’t have to worry about income taxes for another year.
Blessing: My husband has had uninterrupted employment. We have a roof over our heads and are able to afford all of the necessities and then some. Continue reading
