Sunday, August 7, 2022
Tuesday, July 12, 2022
49. The Hidden One (#14 Kate Burkholder) by Linda Castillo
320 pgs.
Adult Murder Mystery - Series
Goodreads rating: 4.35
My rating: 4
Setting: Contemporary Lewistown, PA
My comments: This episode takes Kate to just outside Lewistown, Pennsylvania, where she is investigating a murder charge that has been imposed on her first love/lover. The story of their encounters when she was 15 and he was 19 are interspersed throughout the story. The murder was of an 86-year old Bishop who was an over-the-top asshole and as she discovers more and more about him the pieces start fitting together. There were a lot of coincidences ... need to sharpen up the story and make it either more believable or less believable, right now I'm not sure! Kept my attention, better than some of her previous ones.
Goodreads synopsis: The discovery of an Amish bishop's remains leads chief of police Kate Burkholder to unearth a chilling secret in The Hidden One, a new thriller from bestselling author Linda Castillo.
Over a decade ago, beloved Amish bishop Ananias Stoltzfus disappeared without a trace. When skeletal remains showing evidence of foul play are unearthed, his disappearance becomes even more sinister.The town’s elders arrive in Painters Mill to ask chief of police Kate Burkholder for help, but she quickly realizes she has a personal connection to the crime. The handsome Amish man who stands accused of the murder, Jonas Bowman, was Kate’s first love. Forced to confront a painful episode from her past, Kate travels to Pennsylvania’s Kishacoquillas Valley, where the Amish culture differs dramatically from the traditions she knows. Though Bishop Stoltzfus was highly respected, she soon hears about a dark side to this complex man. What was he hiding that resulted in his own brutal death?
Someone doesn’t want Kate asking questions. But even after being accosted and threatened in the dead of night, she refuses to back down. Is she too close to the case―and to Jonas―to see clearly? There’s a killer in the Valley who will stop at nothing to keep the past buried. Will they get to Kate before she can expose the truth? Or will the bishop’s secrets remain hidden forever?
Tuesday, July 5, 2022
47. The Ghost Fields by Elly Griffiths
2015
Genre/Level
Finished 7/5/2022
Goodreads rating: 4.09
My rating: 4
Setting: Contemporary Norfolk, England
My comments: Kate is now five years old. The mystery is interesting, a three generation family, the Blackstocks, that live in a huge old manor, finds one of the first generation's sons shot in the head and buried in an airplane in a place where he did not die. Outside of the mystery, Michelle spends a good part of the year cheating on Nelson...and Ruth and Frank get together, though Ruth admits she's in love with someone else (Nelson of course) A good one, though lots of bleakness.
Goodreads synopsis: The chilling discovery of a downed World War II plane with a body inside leads Ruth and DCI Nelson to uncover a wealthy family’s secrets in the seventh Ruth Galloway mystery.
Norfolk is suffering from record summer heat when a construction crew unearths a macabre discovery—a downed World War II plane with the pilot still inside. Forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway quickly realizes that the skeleton couldn’t possibly be the pilot, and DNA tests identify the man as Fred Blackstock, a local aristocrat who had been reported dead at sea. When the remaining members of the Blackstock family learn about the discovery, they seem strangely frightened by the news.
Events are further complicated by a TV company that wants to make a film about Norfolk’s deserted air force bases, the so-called Ghost Fields, which have been partially converted into a pig farm run by one of the younger Blackstocks. As production begins, Ruth notices a mysterious man lurking on the outskirts of Fred Blackstock’s memorial service. Then human bones are found on the family’s pig farm. Can the team outrace a looming flood to find a killer?
Laced with dry humor and anchored by perennial fan favorite Ruth, The Ghost Fields will delight fans new and old.
Tuesday, June 21, 2022
47. The Verifiers by Jane Pek
358 pgs.
Adult mystery
Finished 6/21/2022
Goodreads rating: 3.51
My rating: Wish I could remember, but I'm pretty sure I liked it, so I'll give it a four....
My comments: Well. As I go to write this five months and 40 books later, I discover I never left any notes. Woe is me! From CriminalElement blog: "Claudia Lin was more than happy to leave the stodgy world of corporate finance behind her in order to work at Veracity, a firm that seeks to help the lovelorn verify whether the potential matches they’re talking to online are actually who they say they are. Obsessed with mystery novels since she was a child, Claudia loves the investigative aspects of her new job, where she works in a small office under the supervision of her bosses, Komla Atsina and Becks Rittel."
Goodreads synopsis: Introducing a sharp-witted heroine for the 21st century: a new amateur sleuth exploring the landscape—both physical and virtual—of New York in a debut novel about love, technology, and murder.
Claudia Lin is used to disregarding her fractious family’s model-minority expectations: she has no interest in finding either a conventional career or a nice Chinese boy. She’s also used to keeping secrets from them, such as that she prefers girls—and that she's just been stealth-recruited by Veracity, a referrals-only online-dating detective agency.A lifelong mystery reader who wrote her senior thesis on Jane Austen, Claudia believes she's landed her ideal job. But when a client goes missing, Claudia breaks protocol to investigate—and uncovers a maelstrom of personal and corporate deceit. Part literary mystery, part family story, The Verifiers is a clever and incisive examination of how technology shapes our choices, and the nature of romantic love in the digital age.
Friday, May 27, 2022
42. Kismet by Lauren Blakely
Adult romance
Finished 5/27/2022
Goodreads rating: 3.60
My rating: 3
Setting: contemporary London
My comments: Unusual in that about 2/3 of the way through the book there s no heartbreaking secret that is finally exposed to the other half of the romantic couple! There is nervous anticipation about what is going to happen about the two protagonists being up for the same job, but you never have any kind of nervousness about it because you know it will all be solved. So, no strife, visiting places in London...quite a bit of steam, way too repetititive.....but a very non-angsty feel good novel.
Goodreads synopsis: My first evening in London feels like kismet when I bump into a charming, book-loving Englishman, and by the end of the night, he’s making me see stars. I’m floating when we make plans to meet again.
Then fate decides to pull a fast one on me.Turns out my smoldering new lover is my red-hot competition, and we’re vying for the same promotion at the elite auction house I crossed an ocean for.
If that’s not enough, the hottie and I are forced to work together on a brand new collection.
Every. Single. Tempting. Day.
What's an American woman in London to do?
Staying far, far away would be the safe choice, especially when I learn about his past and how it mirrors mine.
But I don’t always play it safe with my heart…
Contents Include: A grumpy/sunshine office romance, secret gardens, knee-weakening kisses by the river and a hero who loves books.
Sunday, May 15, 2022
Banana Nut Oatmeal Cups
3 cups rolled oats
1 ½ cups low-fat milk
2 ripe bananas mashed (about ¾ cup)
1/3 c. packed brown sugar
2 lg. eggs, lightly beaten
1 t. baking powder
1 t. cinnamon
1 t. vanilla
½ t. salt
½ c. chopped pecans
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Coat muffin tin with cooking spray
Combine all ingredients, fold in pecans last. Divide into muffin cups.
Bake about 25 minutes at 375 degrees – test with toothpick
Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan. Can freeze for up to 3 months.
Nutrition Facts
176 calories; protein 5.2g; carbohydrates 26.4g; dietary fiber 3.1g; sugars 10.5g; fat 6.2g; saturated fat 1.2g; cholesterol
Sunday, May 1, 2022
36. Thornyhold by Mary Stewart
207 pgs.
Adult Historical Fiction
Finished 5/1/2022
Goodreads rating: 3.83
My rating: 5
Setting: southern England
My comments: I’m sure I read this book years and years ago when I first got married… I read a lot of Mary Stewart that I found at the Northeast Harbor Library, where I hung out while Steve was at basic training. However, since this one was written in 1988 and Steve's basic training was in 1971, I must be wrong. I did read lots of Mary Stewart's back then, though!
Saturday, April 30, 2022
Birthdays...
The day was gorgeous, a real spring day, culminating in the low 60s. A stop at Gracefull Heart, where I bought myself a new jade-bead bracelet. Then on to Verizon where I treated myself to a new glass screensaver for my phone - holy shmoley what a difference! From there to Ashcombes, where I purchased a jade plant and had it potted. (It wasn't until later that I realized I bought myself both a jade bracelet and a jade plant. Weird.)
Because I was searching through my stash of cards for a birthday card for Bonnie I discovered a treasure trove of really cool cards I'd bought (and never sent) through the years. I pulled out FOUR and wrote letters to four special people. It felt so good! I haven't actually written in handwriting with pen and ink that much in forever! Sally, Andrew, Fran, and Heather! And that really made me happy. I even mailed them on my way to the Hook & Flask where I met up with Lani, Sandy, Micah, Bonnie, Devera, and Pat for a Pear vodka drink (yum, slurp, guzzle....), chicken wings, and onion rings.
Such a fun day!
And then the actual day.....family! Dinner at Carrabbas. Delicious and oh-so-fun! Grinned my way through it. Photo above.
Tuesday, April 26, 2022
35. The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James
344 pgs.
Mystery/Thriller - with ghosts
Finished 4/26/22
Goodreads rating: 3.94
My rating: 3
Setting: 1970's and contemporary Oregon
My comments: Two great female narrators, loved listening to them. A ghost story, with everything based in reality except for one particular protagonist who is a dad, hateful ghost. It didn't work for me, not at all. Although I may remember this book in the future, it won't go down as a favorite.
Goodreads synopsis: In 1977, Claire Lake, Oregon, was shaken by the Lady Killer Murders: Two men, seemingly randomly, were murdered with the same gun, with strange notes left behind. Beth Greer was the perfect suspect--a rich, eccentric twenty-three-year-old woman, seen fleeing one of the crimes. But she was acquitted, and she retreated to the isolation of her mansion.
Oregon, 2017. Shea Collins is a receptionist, but by night, she runs a true crime website, the Book of Cold Cases--a passion fueled by the attempted abduction she escaped as a child. When she meets Beth by chance, Shea asks her for an interview. To Shea's surprise, Beth says yes.They meet regularly at Beth's mansion, though Shea is never comfortable there. Items move when she's not looking, and she could swear she's seen a girl outside the window. The allure of learning the truth about the case from the smart, charming Beth is too much to resist, but even as they grow closer, Shea senses something isn't right. Is she making friends with a manipulative murderer, or are there other dangers lurking in the darkness of the Greer house?
A true crime blogger gets more than she bargained for while interviewing the woman acquitted of two cold case slayings in this chilling new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Sun Down Motel.
Wednesday, April 20, 2022
33. Sea of Tranquility - Emily St. John Mandel
225 pgs.
Genre/Level
Finished 4/20/22
Goodreads rating:
My rating: 4.5
Setting: Although it keeps going back to Vancouver Island, it takes place all over the world
My comments: What a fascinating story. I bet I'll be thinking about this one for awhile. Time travel, interesting characters, and pondering about what "anomaly" means. Excellent science fiction. The only thing I would've changed were some of the readers, although they read excellently, for some of them their voices were disconcertingly older that I felt they should be.
Goodreads synopsis: The award-winning, best-selling author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel returns with a novel of art, time, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon three hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space.
Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal--an experience that shocks him to his core.Two centuries later a famous writer named Olive Llewellyn is on a book tour. She's traveling all over Earth, but her home is the second moon colony, a place of white stone, spired towers, and artificial beauty. Within the text of Olive's bestselling pandemic novel lies a strange passage: a man plays his violin for change in the echoing corridor of an airship terminal as the trees of a forest rise around him.
When Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a detective in the Night City, is hired to investigate an anomaly in the North American wilderness, he uncovers a series of lives upended: The exiled son of an earl driven to madness, a writer trapped far from home as a pandemic ravages Earth, and a childhood friend from the Night City who, like Gaspery himself, has glimpsed the chance to do something extraordinary that will disrupt the timeline of the universe.
A virtuoso performance that is as human and tender as it is intellectually playful, Sea of Tranquility is a novel of time travel and metaphysics that precisely captures the reality of our current moment.
Tuesday, April 19, 2022
North Carolina Road Trip Spring Break 2022
Cedar Creek & Belle Grove NHP (Closed)
Shenandoah NP Skyline Drive (Last 1/3)
Petersburg NBP (?)
Guildford Courthouse NMP
Blue Ridge Pkway – Just a small bit, in Roanoke VA
1 yarn shop
Wool Workshop – Roanoke, VA
8 letterboxes
9 cemeteries (at least)
Blandford Cemetery, Petersburg, VA
Cedar Grove Cemetery, New Bern, NC
Greenwood Cemetery, New Bern, NC
U. S. National Cemetery, New Bern, NC
Jacksonville City Cemetery, Jacksonville NC
Montford Point Federal Cemetery & Coastal Carolina State Veterans Cemetery, Jacksonville, NC
Oakwood Cemetery, High Point, NC
East Hill Cemetery, Salem, VA
3 Munzee gardens
5 nights in a motel –
Wingate by Wyndham, Short Pump, VA
Hampton (2) New Bern, NC & Waynesboro, VA
Microtel – Jacksonville, NC
Quality Inn – High Point, NC
1 flat tire, Richmond, VA
2 new windshield wipers
1 bookstore
Next Chapter Bks & Art, New Bern, NC
2 museums
Pepsi, New Bern, NC
Guildford Courthouse NMP
1 college
High Point University, High Pont, NC
2 war memorials
Lejeune Memorial Gardens, Jacksonville, NC
Vietnam War Memorial
Beirut Memorial
3 roadside Attractions
5 (of 80) fiberglass bears, New Bern, NC
“Furniture Capital of the World” bureau
2 huge bicycle “sculptures” at the Star on the hill in Roanoke
4/14 Chris Graves is in Short Pump, Virginia.
Lovely
day! I headed down Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park. No bear this
time, but deer, wild turkey, and snake all crossed my path. Overcast, but no haze - beautiful views.
Stopped for the night just outside of Richmond, found a Vietnamese restaurant
and had yummy pho, setting
out for North Carolina in the morning.
3 photos:
tulips, mntns, Skyline Drive sign
4/15 earlier in the day than the next post: Chris Graves is in Henrico, VA.
1 photo inside tire
store
4/15 Chris Graves is in New Bern, North Carolina
4/16 Chris Graves is in Jacksonville, North
Carolina.
Heading south, I got my first-ever taste of
the Outer Banks! I traveled along about 20 miles, from Atlantic Beach to
Emerald Isle. There’s a lot for sale along that roadway! Ocean on both sides,
prime real estate. And lots of public access to the beach on both sides of the
road.
When I got to Jacksonville I visited the
Lejeune Memorial gardens, where I spent a bit of time at both the Vietnam War
Memorial there and the memorial in recognition of American lives lost in Beirut
in 1983. Look it up. Interesting. And sad.
I have no idea where I’ll head tomorrow. That’s the fun of a meandering vacation
4/17 Chris
Graves is in Archdale,
North Carolina
Two standouts today – Guilford Courthouse
National Military Park, a 1781 Revolutionary war battle site near Greensboro NC (It’s not all Civil War battlefields down
here). I asked them if adults ever did the junior ranger programs and she told
me about their not-so-junior-ranger program… for people like me! It was fun,
had to answer all sorts of questions after watching the video, touring the
museum, and driving the auto tour.
A short drive away is High Point University,
where two of my nephews went to school. They both loved it
there, and I love checking out colleges —- I’m so glad I went! This place is unbelievable! I’ve probably seen hundreds of
college campuses, but none ever like this. Huge regal white
buildings, fountain after fountain after fountain, lots of space and green and
flowering plants. But my favorite part was the dozens and dozens of benches
that had bronze statues of famous people sitting in them.. I had quite a conversation with Aristotle, as you can see in
the photos. The town of High Point was once the largest manufacturer of
furniture in the US not so long ago.
Plus some more really interesting cemeteries…
I’ve had a lovely dinner every night, but
tonight was my favorite, a local Mexican restaurant. So good.
4/19 Chris
Graves is in Waynesboro,
Virginia
4/19 Chris Graves is in home in Carlisle, PA
I've got to make this
Gorgeous shawl. Made from bits and pieces of really nice worsted weight wool yarns. Originally, the owner of "Wool Workshop" in Roanoke, Va., wound big balls of 1/5 and 14 skeins of yarn, connecting each with "magic knot." She sold these to make the shawl, you'd need several of her big balls. I think she said 10 different yarns on each ball.
Friday, April 8, 2022
Slow Cooker Cream Cheese (Crack) Chicken
Sunday, April 3, 2022
28. Serpent & Dove by Shelby Mahurin
513 pgs.
Ya Fantasy series
Finished 4/3/2022
Goodreads rating: 4.02
My rating: 5
My comments: A witch and a witch hunter. Never a dull moment, with a huge cliffhanger ending. The love story between Reid and Lou is a clever one, laced with humor, magic, "the church", and machismo. I did love this story. Not even a hint of boring!
Goodreads synopsis: Bound as one to love, honor, or burn.
Two years ago, Louise le Blanc fled her coven and took shelter in the city of Cesarine, forsaking all magic and living off whatever she could steal. There, witches like Lou are hunted. They are feared. And they are burned.
Sworn to the Church as a Chasseur, Reid Diggory has lived his life by one principle: thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. His path was never meant to cross with Lou's, but a wicked stunt forces them into an impossible union—holy matrimony.
And love makes fools of us all.













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