I Really Love to Collage - APCs for FUN!

 Sometimes I just like to take a random playing card, a color, and a focal point and see what I can create.  I tend to usually do the same sort of thing each time, but I love it.   JJ&CV in July they're playing "Reindeer Games" and every day there's a prompt for five different reindeer.  I've done a few for PRANCER.  He's the underdog (or should I say underdeer) and I've made a few cards for him this month.

For this one I needed a clock and numbers

This one required wings and something glittery

Fort this, a ticket and a destination (Gorham, Maine, where I went to college and met Steve!)

32. Our Perfect Storm by Carley Fortune

listened on Libby

410 pgs.

2026
Adult Romance
Finished 7/11/2026
Goodreads rating: 4.05
My rating: 4.5
Setting: Contemporary Canada - Toronto, Tofino

My comments: 4.5  I didn't want to like this book as much as I did (I've sort of sworn off romances", but it's a real feel-good story that was hard to put down.  I'm glad I read the end notes, because I learned a lot about the fate of the right whale, who live off the eastern Canadian coast.  The setting is Canada, from Toronto to the west coast to the Bay of Fundy, which was great.

Goodreads synopsis: 

Best friends have one week in paradise to fix their friendship or fall apart in this heart-stopping, utterly romantic new novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Every Summer After and One Golden Summer.

Frankie and George have been best friends since they were eight years old. Both passionate, impulsive, and headstrong—they’ve always clashed . . . and come back together. Until now. It’s the eve of Frankie’s wedding weekend, and she doesn’t know where they stand or even if George will show up as her best man.

Then, at the start of the festivities, in walks George. For one glorious evening, surrounded by her loved ones, Frankie’s life is finally perfect. But it all comes crashing down when her fiancé dumps her the next morning, leaving only a note as an explanation.

Crushed and confused, Frankie returns to her family’s home to wallow. But George has a different idea and a plan for healing Frankie’s broken heart. He wants her to go on her honeymoon. With him. For one week, to the lush rainforests and misty beaches of Tofino.

Frankie agrees, seeing the trip for what it really is: one last chance to repair their friendship. Even if it means unearthing secrets and long buried feelings neither knows how to handle. Even if it means falling apart for good.

31. Storm Tide by Paul Doiron

#16 Mike Bowditch

listened on Audible (purchased)

352 pgs.

2026
Adult Mystery
Finished 7/6/2026
Goodreads rating: 4.38
My rating: 3.5
Setting: Machias/Washington Country and north, Belfast area, contemporary Maine

My comments: 3.5 rated down to 3.  Although throughout this book Mike Bowditch is on leave awaiting the decision whether to reinstate him or let him go because of previous not-following-the-rules violations, he seems to make even more thoughtless decisions than I ever realized before.  Some of this was so totally not-believable.  He's got a newborn baby and he still chooses to do what I consider incredibly reckless, thoughtless things.  No wonder people hardly believe him most of the time.  I've really loved these books, but Mike is starting to let me down a bit, I'm afraid.  I probably should have rated this even lower.  Maybe I'm just grumpy today.

Goodreads synopsis: Game Warden Mike Bowditch investigates a series of brutal killings during a life-changing year in Storm Tide, the harrowing new thriller from Edgar Award-nominated author Paul Doiron.

When the magnificent home of entrepreneur Brian Malloy mysteriously goes up in flames, Maine game warden Mike Bowditch tries to pull Malloy’s burning body from the fire but is too late. Malloy was suspected of murdering his young, illegitimate son. Now it looks like someone else has delivered a verdict.

Miles away, on a lonely stretch of icy railroad track, the body of Axl Deming, once accused of a brutal rape, is found literally cut in half. Though the two murders seem unrelated, a cryptic text from an unknown number draws Bowditch to the scene—and hints at a chilling connection. He suspects someone is orchestrating the executions of criminals who escaped justice, and for reasons he can’t explain, his own name is on the list, but the state police aren’t convinced. His search for the truth takes him through frozen harbors, trackless forests, and remote islands, far from rescue.

Meanwhile, Bowditch is facing a disciplinary hearing that could end his career. His wife Stacey, just weeks from giving birth, is being stalked by a stranger in a white van. And when he realizes someone has also been watching their home, the case turns increasingly personal.

To protect his family, Bowditch must work alone to uncover who’s behind the killings—and stop them before he becomes their next victim.

Chinese Vegetable StirFry with EASY Sauce

 For a 20 oz bag of stir-fry vegetables:

Heat 1–2 teaspoons of a neutral oil (canola, avocado, or vegetable oil) in a large skillet.

Add the frozen vegetables straight from the freezer.

Cook over medium-high to high heat, stirring occasionally.

Let the excess water evaporate. This may take 8–10 minutes for a large bag.

Add the sauce.

If using cornstarch, stir it in and cook another minute until the sauce thickens. (1 t. cornstarch & 2T cold water)

Finish with the sesame oil if you didn't add it earlier.

The Sauce:  

• 3 Tbsp soy sauce
• 1 Tbsp rice vinegar
• 1 tsp honey
• 1–2 tsp jarred garlic
• ½ tsp ground ginger (or 1 tsp fresh if you ever have it)
• 1–2 tsp toasted sesame oil (add near the end)

27. A Blizzard of Polar Bears by Alice Henderson

#2 Alex Carter

listened on Audible

336 pgs.

2021
Contemporary mystery
Finished around 6/15/2026
Goodreads rating: 3.89
My rating: 3
Setting: Contemporary Canadian Arctic

My comments: It's now months since I read this, and I can't seem to find any notes, although, unlike many books I read a while ago, I still remember portions of it, so I must have been interested in it to a degree, although I only rated it a "3".  It's the reason I rated it a three that I wish I could remember!

Goodreads synopsis: Wildlife biologist Alex Carter is back, fighting for endangered species in the Canadian Arctic and battling for her life in this action-packed follow-up to A Solitude of Wolverines, “a true stunner of a thriller debut” (James Rollins) and “a great read” (Nevada Barr).

Fresh off her wolverine study in Montana, wildlife biologist Alex Carter lands a job studying a threatened population of polar bears in the Canadian Arctic. Embedded with a small team of Arctic researchers, she tracks the majestic bears by air, following them over vast, snowy terrain, spending days leaning precariously out of a helicopter with a tranquilizer gun, until she can get down on the ice to examine them up close.

But as her study progresses, and she gathers data on the health of individual bears, things start to go awry. Her helicopter pilot quits unexpectedly, equipment goes missing, and a late-night intruder breaks into her lab and steals the samples she’s collected. She realizes that someone doesn’t want her to complete her study, but Alex is not easily deterred.

Managing to find a replacement pilot, she returns to the icy expanses of Hudson Bay. But the helicopter catches fire in midflight, forcing the team to land on a vast sheet of white far from civilization. Surviving on the frozen landscape is difficult enough, but as armed assailants close in on snowmobiles, Alex must rely on her skills and tenacity to survive this onslaught and carry out her mission.

25. A Drink Before the War by Dennis Lehane

#1 Kenzie & Gennaro, Boston Private Detectives

listened on Libby 

282 pgs.

1994
Adult Murder Mystery
Finished 6/7/2026
Goodreads rating: 3.93
My rating: 3.75
Setting: 1994 Dorchester/Boston

My comments: Have always heard about these "gritty" Boston mystery thrillers, so I decided it was about time to read a Dennis Lehane. And that I'd better start with the first in the series. This one definitely showed its age (written in 1994) and included the "N" word dozens of times, which was really disconcerting - such a horrible slur - but the book WAS written 32 years ago. Grrr.  I won't say any more about that, but it quite unsettled me, to tell you the truth.  As much as I've heard and read about gang violence in our urban areas, to read about it so up-close-and-personal was not fun.

Goodreads synopsis: Kenzie and Gennaro are private investigators in the blue-collar neighborhoods and ghettos of South Boston-they know it as only natives can. Working out of an old church belfry, Kenzie and Gennaro take on a seemingly simple assignment for a prominent politician: to uncover the whereabouts of Jenna Angeline, a black cleaning woman who has allegedly stolen confidential state documents. Finding Jenna, however, is easy compared to staying alive once they've got her. The investigation escalates, implicating members of Jenna's family and rival gang leaders while uncovering extortion, assassination, and child prostitution extending from bombed-out ghetto streets to the highest levels of government. A Drink Before the War , the first in Lehane's acclaimed series with Boston detectives Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro, is a remarkable debut that is at once a pulsating crime thriller and a mirror of our world, one in which the worst human horrors are found closest to home, and the most vicious obscenities are committed in the name of love.

24. Gone by Midnight by Candace Fox

#3 Crimson Lake series

listened 

415 pgs.

2019
Adult Mystery
Finished 5/29/2026
Goodreads rating: 4.15
My rating: 5
Setting: contemporary Australia/ northwest coast

My comments: Number three of a series I started a few years ago, set in crocodile country, Australia.  Two investigators are working on the disappearance of an 8-year-old boy from a local hotel.  I loved the first two books, if I remember right, and I totally enjoyed this one as well.

Goodreads synopsis: Crimson Lake is where people with dark pasts come to disappear—and where others vanish into thin air…

Four young boys are left alone in a hotel room while their parents dine downstairs. When Sara Farrow checks on the children at midnight, her son is missing.

Distrustful of the police, Sara turns to Crimson Lake’s unlikeliest private investigators—disgraced cop Ted Conkaffey and convicted killer Amanda Pharrell. For Ted, the case couldn’t have come at a worse time. Two years ago a false accusation robbed him of his career, his reputation, and most importantly, his family. But now Lillian, the daughter he barely knows, is coming to stay in his ramshackle cottage by the lake.

Ted must dredge up the area’s worst characters to find the missing boy. The clock is ticking, and the danger he uncovers could well put his own child in deadly peril.

22. Dead of Night by Lisa Gray

listened on Audible

264 pgs.

2025
Adult Murder Mystery
Finished 5/5/2026
Goodreads rating: 4.24
My rating: 4.5
Setting: Back & forth time periods, mid-80s, mid-90s, present time on the southern California coastline

My comments:    Pulled me in fast, at first reminded me of another book, especially the setting, but couldn't place it.  Good story, but that the protagonist stayed in this big old "Cliff House" even when she knew someone was sneaking in at night to terrorize her didn't seem very prudent...actually felt stupid.  It just didn't seem like something a real person would do.  Wrapped up very neatly at the end.  Would happily read another by this author.

Goodreads synopsis: A crime writer. A cold case. Will she survive to tell the story?

Since the sudden and tragic death of her partner, bestselling crime author Serena Winters hasn’t written a word. With deadlines looming, she packs up her grief and escapes from New York City to a secluded clifftop house in small-town California, hoping the change of scenery will cure her writer’s block.

But as news of her arrival spreads, Serena finds herself facing strange accusations that she’s here to cash in on the house’s history. When she uncovers the chilling story of a young family who mysteriously vanished from the very same house thirty years earlier, she can’t help asking more questions…

Someone in the local community doesn’t want the past dug up, though. Someone willing to push Serena to the limits of her sanity to keep the truth buried. Caught in a spiraling campaign of intimidation, and harboring a dark secret of her own, Serena soon finds herself in the kind of danger she usually only writes about…

21. Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth

listened on Libby

352 pgs.

2025
Mystery Thriller/CRF
Finished 5/12/2026
Goodreads rating: 4.37
My rating: 5
Setting: small community in Melbourne, Australia (with flashbacks to the 1950s)

My comments: What a wonderful, engrossing novel!  The characters were well-written and (mostly) endearing, the story held enough mystery to keep you interested and guessing, and the flipping back in forth in time helped SHOW instead of tell the story.  Three cheers!

Goodreads synopsis: Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick is eighty-one years old. She's lived on her idyllic street, Kenny Lane, for sixty years--longer than anyone else. Aside from being a curmudgeon who minds everyone else's business, few would suspect that Elsie has a past that she has worked exceedingly hard at concealing. Because when it comes to murder, no one ever suspects little girls or old ladies. And Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick, once a little girl and now an old lady, has a strange history of people in her life coming to a foul end.

When a new little girl (talkative, curious, nosy) moves into the neighborhood and stops at nothing to befriend Elsie, her carefully-constructed life threatens to come crashing down as the secrets in Elsie's past start coming to light. Who was "Mad Mabel" fifty years ago? Who is Elsie Fitzpatrick today? And if the past has a habit of repeating itself, who has the most to lose?

My First MemoryDex Class at Joys

 These are the five I was happiest with on Tuesday night, 5/5/2026.  Really enjoyed it, wish it were more than every other month!

19. The Price of Honey - Lianne Moriarty

read on Kindle, then listened on Audible

34 pgs.

2026
Adult SciFi Short Story
Finished 5/2/2026
Goodreads rating: 3.49
My rating: 4
Setting: anywhere, perhaps 50-100 years in the future

My comments: Interesting, though predictable, short story about a new widow at her billionaire tech husband's funeral.

Goodreads synopsis: When a tech billionaire’s widow and ex-wives gather for his funeral, they witness a final reversal of fortune in this razor-sharp short story by #1 New York Times bestselling author Liane Moriarty.

In the car on the way to her husband’s funeral, Honey Beckett still can hardly believe that Barney is actually dead. Granted, he was more than twice her age. But he was Barney Beckett, visionary tech genius, full of surprises—by turns romantic, inspirational, and controlling. Always in control. At the service, she impulsively goes to sit with the three ex-wives: practical Rita, fiery Svetlana, ambitious Meredith. Each broke up the other’s marriage in turn—and now, one final betrayal awaits.

Liane Moriarty’s The Price of Honey is part of the Deadly Ambition collection, stories about greed, control, and the sinister side of making dreams come true. They can be read or listened to in one bingeable sitting.

Dex Appeal - Rolodex Cards - Spring Awakening

17. First Sign of Danger by Kelley Armstrong

#4 Haven's Rock

listened on Libby - Borrowed from TTPL

337 pgs.

2026
Adult murder mystery
Finished 4/27/2026
Goodreads rating: 4.30
My rating: 4.5
Setting: Contemporary Yukon middle-of-nowhere wilderness

My comments: I was afraid that some of the plotting was getting too similar to others in this and the Rockton series, but this one proved me wrong.  So much "adventure in the wild" in this one, especially listening to it on audio, raising the excitement of crazy things happening in the wild outdoors-in-the-middle-of-nowhere quite a bit!  A good one.  (This one was about lost hikers and the too close-by miner's camp.)

Goodreads synopsis: Author Kelley Armstrong continues the Haven's Rock series as Casey Duncan investigates a threat to their off-the-grid Yukon town.

Detective Casey Duncan and her husband, Sheriff Eric Dalton, are entering a new chapter of life as parents to their six-month-old baby. Their family is hidden away in the sanctuary town of Haven's Rock where they can live safe and private lives. But when they encounter hikers too close to the borders of Haven's Rock, they realize they're in danger of being exposed.

When they find one of the hikers dead the next day, they realize that their paranoia was justified, but they're no closer to finding out who these people were and what they were doing in the vicinity of Haven's Rock. Only by tracing the hikers' movements, as well as examining the recent behavior of their closest neighbors, the workers of a secretive mining camp, will they be able to figure out where the threat is coming from and shut it down. Otherwise, the lives of everyone in Haven's Rock--and their safe, secure new existence--are at risk.

Sinfully Easy One-minute Pocket Folder

Talk about easy/quick and useful! 

All you need is a square piece of double-sided cardstock.

A 6-inch square makes a perfect ATC holder.

Take your square and fold it up on the bottom to the depth you'd like your pocket to be.

Now fold it in half.

CRISP edges, of course.

Cut a very skinny "V" in the center of the pocket.

Glue down the two edges.

Voila!

Pocket will go all the way to the bottom, since it's folded there and not glued.

15. The Arizona Triangle by Sydney Graves

listened on Audible

292 pgs.

2024
Adult Mystery
Finished 4/8/2026
Goodreads rating:   3.44
My rating: 4.5
Setting: Contemporary Arizona - Tucson/Oracle

My comments: Recommended by Gemini.  Wonderful setting in the Tucson/Oracle, Arizona areas.  A 39-year-old private detective gets pulled into the case of her missing, then murdered, ex-best friend.  Although Oracle is called Delphi in the book, and Oro Valley is called something different, the rest of the descriptions have accurate location, names and so much of the setting is described in full that I got ridiculously home sick.  It was a good mystery, though draggy in places, but certainly kept my interest and expectations going.  I've skimmed a few not-so-great reviews on Goodreads, but I really loved this - maybe because of the setting alone, but it wasn't a boring story at all.  And although the protagonist was a late-onset lesbian, other than one small place in the story, there were really no descriptions of that.  I think there's a possibility there may be more coming in this series, and I really do hope so, just for the setting alone.

Goodreads synopsis: In the vein of the bestselling California noirs of Sue Grafton and Sara Gran, a whodunnit about loyalty, love, and the legacy of trauma featuring a hardboiled, queer private eye whose latest case takes her deep into her own complicated past.

On the cusp of forty, Justine Bailen, better known as Jo, works for an all-female detective agency based in Tucson, Arizona. While staking out a cheating spouse, she learns that her long-estranged best friend from childhood, Rose, is missing, and that Rose’s mother wants to hire Jo to find her. This case is all kinds of wrong for Jo, but she has no choice but to head back to her hometown, an hour north and a world away from Tucson.

Back in Delphi, she learns that her high school boyfriend, Tyler—who is probably part of the reason her friendship with Rose went south—is the cop assigned to the case. It doesn’t take long for Jo to realize that he’s all mixed up in it, too. To have any hope of learning the truth about Rose’s disappearance, Jo must finally face the demons she thought she’d escaped.