23. The Summer Guests by Tess Gerritson

#2 The Martini Club, Maine

listened on Audible

363 pgs.

2025
Adult mystery
Finished 5/14/2025
Goodreads rating:  4.30
My rating: 3.5
Setting: contemporary Purity, Maine, on the shore of a lake in a small tourist town on the ocean.

My comments: Susan and her daughter have come to her wealthy new i-laws "cabin" to spread the ashes of her deceased father-in-law.  When her daughter goes missing, the female police chief, Joe, as well as "the martini club", a group of retired CIOA operatives, get to work on the case.  Pretty slow-moving story, and quite difficult to like any of the characters!  Note: The town cop, Jo, seems to be somewhat of an idiot.

Goodreads synopsis:  When former spy Maggie Bird retired to the seaside hamlet of Purity, Maine, she settled in for a quiet life with breathtaking views. But enemies from her past soon threatened to destroy everything.

Maggie survived, thanks to her wits and the collective intelligence of the Martini Club, the circle of ex-CIA friends in her cocktail-sipping book club. Their handiwork, however, caught the attention of young police chief Jo Thibodeau. Now Jo and her neighborhood ex-spies have an uneasy alliance.

After a teenager vanishes—and Maggie’s neighbor becomes the prime suspect—she joins the investigation, determined to prove her friend’s innocence. But the girl’s wealthy family pushes for an arrest. And when authorities discover a long-dead corpse in a nearby pond, the case becomes doubly complicated, with unthinkable ties to long-buried secrets.

As Jo grapples with two unexplained mysteries, the Martini Club races to uncover the truth behind shadowy secrets…before more lives are lost.

Book Shelf Book Pocket

 

Anne Kenlon created a pocket imitating a bookshelf for her book lover's journal (which I must look into further).  It's so cute, cuter than the one I made!  Her short video is here.

Enchilada Casserole

This sounds easy and yummy!  Supposedly freezes well too.

Try halving this, or making it smaller

• 2 Tbsp. 

  extra-virgin olive oil

• 1 

  medium onion, chopped

• 1 

  bell pepper, chopped

• 2 

  cloves garlic, minced

• 1 

  (15.5-oz.) can black beans, rinsed and drained

• 1 

  (15.25-oz.) can corn, drained

• 3 cups 

  cooked, shredded chicken

• 1 

  (4.5-oz.) can diced green chilis

• 2 

  (10-oz.) cans enchilada sauce

• 18 

  corn tortillas

• 2 cups 

  shredded cheddar

• 2 cups 

  shredded Monterey jack

• Sour cream, for garnish

• Freshly chopped cilantro, for garnish

• Diced avocado, for garnish

Directions

• 1. Step 1Preheat oven to 350°. In a large skillet over medium heat, heat oil. Add onion and pepper and cook until soft, 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, 1 minute more. Add beans, corn, chicken, and green chilis and cook until warmed through, 5 minutes. Reserve ½ cup enchilada sauce then pour remaining sauce into skillet, stirring to combine. 
  2. Step 2Spread reserved ½ cup enchilada sauce into a 9”-x-13” then layer 6 tortillas in pan, overlapping to cover the entire pan. Pour ⅓ of mixture over tortillas then top with about ⅓ of each cheese. Top with another layer of tortillas and repeat to make 2 more layers, finishing with cheese. 
  3. Step 3Bake for 30 minutes or until cheese is melty and sauce is bubbling. 
  4. Step 4Garnish with sour cream, cilantro, and avocado.

22. How the Penguins Saved Veronica by Hazel Prior

listened on Libby

355 pgs.

2020
Adult CRF
Finished 5/7/2025
Goodreads rating:  4.09
My rating: 5
Setting: Lockett Island, Antarctica

My comments:  Delightful, charming, and funny....with an edge. Just what I needed. Loved it!  An 85 year-old travels by herself to Antarctica to learn about the penguins that live there, despite the objections of the small scientific crew that work there.  Told in three voices, that of Veronica, her newly found grandson, Patrick, and the podcast of Terry the yound femald scientist who lives at the station on Lockett Island.  I loved the story.

Goodreads synopsis:  A curmudgeonly but charming old woman, her estranged grandson, and a colony of penguins proves it's never too late to be the person you want to be in this rich, heartwarming story from the acclaimed author of Ellie and the Harpmaker.

Eighty-five-year-old Veronica McCreedy is estranged from her family and wants to find a worthwhile cause to leave her fortune to. When she sees a documentary about penguins being studied in Antarctica, she tells the scientists she’s coming to visit—and won’t take no for an answer. Shortly after arriving, she convinces the reluctant team to rescue an orphaned baby penguin. He becomes part of life at the base, and Veronica's closed heart starts to open.

Her grandson, Patrick, comes to Antarctica to make one last attempt to get to know his grandmother. Together, Veronica, Patrick, and even the scientists learn what family, love, and connection are all about.

21. Crow Talk by Eileen Garvin

listened on Libby

368 pgs.

2024
Adult CRF
Finished 5/4/2025
Goodreads rating: 4.13
My rating: 4.75
Setting: Contemporary Washington state - in the middle of a lake

My comments: This story is about two different women, both on uncomfortable paths in their lives, how those paths become connected and smoothed.  Set in the woods on the edge of a lake in Washington state, only accessible by boat as winter is beginning to approach.  Ann, an Irish woman who now lives with her husband in Seattle, is a singer and music teacher whose five-year-old son, Aiden, has stopped talking and communicating.  In the cottage next door is Frankie, an ornithologist, who has butt heads with her mentor and is uncertain if her masters dissertation will be accepted.  And then there are the crows.... 

     It took awhile for me to get into the story, but about halfway through I became enamored as it pulled me in more and more.  And PHEW, a HEA.

Goodreads synopsis:  Nationally bestselling author of The Music of Bees Eileen Garvin returns with a moving story of hope, healing, and unexpected friendship set amidst the wild natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest.

Frankie O’Neill and Anne Ryan would seem to have nothing in common. Frankie is a lonely ornithologist struggling to salvage her dissertation on the spotted owl following a rift with her advisor. Anne is an Irish musician far from home and family, raising her five-year-old, Aiden, who refuses to speak.

At Beauty Bay, a community of summer homes nestled on the shores of June Lake, in the remote foothills of Mount Adams, it’s off-season with most houses shuttered for the fall. But Frankie, adrift, returns to the rundown caretaker’s cottage that has been in the hardworking O'Neill family for generations—a beloved place and a constant reminder of the family she has lost. And Anne, in the wake of a tragedy that has disrupted her career and silenced her music, has fled to the neighboring house, a showy summer home owned by her husband's wealthy family.

When Frankie finds an injured baby crow in the forest, little does she realize that the charming bird will bring all three lost souls—Frankie, Anne, and Aiden—together on a journey toward hope, healing, and rediscovering joy. Crow Talk is an achingly beautiful story of love, grief, friendship, and the healing power of nature in the darkest of times.