Just FInished!

Wish I'd Started This a Year Ago! 

June 2, 2026

Scrap Strip Clusters

March 29, 2026

Love My Pet ATCs

14. The Last Letter of Rachel Ellsworth by Barbara O'Neal

listened on Audible

395 pgs.

2025
Adult CRF
Finished 3/17
Goodreads rating: 4.35
My rating: 4

My comments: No notes?  Bummer.

Goodreads synopsis: Two women overcoming past traumas embark on a healing journey across continents in a novel about friendship, family, and rediscovery by the USA Today bestselling author of When We Believed in Mermaids.

Recently and abruptly divorced Veronica Barrington is anxious for a new direction when she answers a listing for a travel companion. It’s from Mariah Ellsworth, a young woman adjusting to an injury that ended her Olympic career. She’s also grieving her mother, Rachel, a lauded food writer, and Mariah aims to trace the steps of her mother’s final, unfinished project so she can heal and also honor the woman she misses.

Veronica seizes on the opportunity to experience with Mariah the culture, traditions, and intoxicating aromas of Parsi cafés throughout London, Paris, Morocco, and India. Accompanied by a former war photographer who has a wounded history of his own, and with just Rachel’s letters to guide them, the quest is a chance to not only close a chapter in life but also begin a new one.

Following the letters one by one—each a clue to an illuminating mystery—Veronica and Mariah must face the painful and beautiful challenges of freeing themselves from the dark shadows of the past. Together, far from home, they can find the light.

13. A Solitude of Wolverines by Alice Henderson

#1 Alex Carter

listened on Audible

352 pgs.

2020
Adult Mystery
Finished 3/13/2026
Goodreads rating:  3.91 
My rating: 3.75
Setting: contemporary Montana Wildlife sanctuary  

My comments: Can't find notes, know I wrote them somewhere....

Goodreads synopsis:  The first book in a thrilling series featuring an intrepid wildlife biologist who's dedicated to saving endangered species...and relies on her superior survival skills to thwart those who aim to stop her.

While studying wolverines on a wildlife sanctuary in Montana, biologist Alex Carter is run off the road and threatened by locals determined to force her off the land.

Undeterred in her mission to help save this threatened species, Alex tracks wolverines on foot and by cameras positioned in remote regions of the preserve. But when she reviews the photos, she discovers disturbing images of an animal of a different kind: a severely injured man seemingly lost and wandering in the wilds.

After searches for the unknown man come up empty, local law enforcement is strangely set on dismissing the case altogether, raising Alex’s suspicions. Then another invasive predator trespasses onto the preserve. The hunter turns out to be another human—and the prey is the wildlife biologist herself. Alex realizes too late that she has seen too much—she's stumbled onto a far-reaching illegal operation and now has become the biggest threat.

In this wild and dangerous landscape, Alex’s life depends on staying one step ahead—using all she knows about the animal world and what it takes to win the brutal battle for survival.

12. Girl Gone Missing by Marcie R. Rendon

#2 Cash Blackbear

listened on Audible

208 pgs.

2019
Adult Historical Fiction Mystery
Finished 3/5/2026
Goodreads rating: 3.97
My rating: 4
Setting: North Dakota/Minnesota Line - both sides of the Red River

My comments: darn, no notes.

Goodreads synopsis: Nineteen-year-old Cash Blackbear helps law enforcement solve the mysterious disappearance of a local girl from Minnesota's Red River Valley.

1970s, Fargo-Moorhead: it’s the tail end of the age of peace and love, but Cash Blackbear isn’t feeling it. Bored by her freshman classes at Moorhead State College, Cash just wants to play pool, learn judo, chain-smoke, and be left alone. But when one of Cash’s classmates vanishes without a trace, Cash, whose dreams have revealed dangerous realities in the past, can’t stop envisioning terrified girls begging for help. Things become even more intense when an unexpected houseguest starts crashing in her living room: a brother she didn’t even know was alive, from whom she was separated when they were taken from the Ojibwe White Earth Reservation as children and forced into foster care.

When Sheriff Wheaton, her guardian and friend, asks for Cash’s help with the case of the missing girl, she must override her apprehension about leaving her hometown—and her rule to never get in somebody else’s car—in order to discover the truth about the girl’s whereabouts. Can she get to her before it’s too late?

Rolodex - Dex Appeal - Friendship Blooms - February 2026