Ten mysteries I hope to read this summer

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn books and reading, top-ten-tuesday5 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

If you are new to my blog, I just wanted to share with you that I co-host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea (no, you don’t have to drink tea to participate) with Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) and Cat (Cat’s Wire). You can find a link to it at the top of the page. The link party is for all book-related posts from reviews and recommendations to …well, anything related to books at all. Including Top Ten Tuesday, if you want to link your top ten there too!

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt is:  Books on My Summer 2026 To-Read List

Since I listed 15 books I want to read this summer in a blog post last week, I thought today I would list 9 mystery books I want to read this summer and one I already read. There are four Agatha Christe books listed here — one I already read, two I’ll be reading for the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge (July and August) and one I threw in for extra.

Already read: 1. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

Description:

The peaceful English village of King’s Abbot is stunned. The widow Ferrars dies from an overdose of Veronal. Not twenty-four hours later, Roger Ackroyd—the man she had planned to marry—is murdered. It is a baffling case involving blackmail and death that taxes Hercule Poirot’s “little grey cells” before he reaches one of the most startling conclusions of his career.

2. The Ivory Dagger (A Miss Silvers Mystery) by Patricia Wentworth (already started)

Description: When Lila Dryden is discovered standing over her fiance’s body with dagger in hand, Miss Silver is called in to investigate, only to discover Lila’s sleepwalking patterns, the return of her former lover, and the victim’s circle of acquaintances–all of whom occasionally wished him dead. 

3. Clouds of Witness by Dorothy Sayers

Description: In a shocking scandal, the likes of which has not been seen in the English aristocracy since the 18th century, the Duke of Denver stands accused of the foul murder or his sister’s fiance, shot through the heart on a cold, lonely night at Riddlesdale Hall in Yorkshire. The Duke’s brother, Lord Peter Wimsey, attempts to prove Denver’s innocence, but why is the Duke refusing to cooperate? And what does his sister, Lady Mary, know about the affair? Trying to reveal the truth, Wimsey uncovers a web of lies and deceit within the family and finds himself faced with the unhappy alternative of sending either his brother or his sister to the gallows – until he himself becomes a target…

4. Mystery Mile by Margery Allingham

Description: A red chess piece… An improbable suicide… A disappearing judge… These were the clues to a killer whose victims never escaped. Judge Lobbett has found evidence pointing to the identity of the criminal mastermind behind the deadly Simister gang that is terrorizing New York. After four attempts on his life, he seeks the help of enigmatic and unorthodox amateur sleuth, Albert Campion, during his travel to England. For safety, Campion sends the Judge and his family to a secluded house in an island on the Suffolk coast.

But that safety is it seemed fitting that odd things should happen in a town called “Mystery Mile”. Soon after their arrival the local vicar is killed – a clear message from the gang. Its a race against time for Campion to get the judge to safety and decipher the clue to their mysterious enemy’s name. But even a connoisseur of crime as Scotland Yard’s Albert Campion had never encountered such elusive clues. He had to trace a mastermind of crime in time to save his client’s life–and his own. Luckily for Judge Lobbett, underneath his constant stream of banter, Campion displays a diamond-sharp intelligence and a natural detective’s instinct… Blackmail, abduction and sudden death bring matters to a climax.

5. Murder, She Wrote: Slaying in Savannah by Donald Bain

Description: Jessica is saddened when her eccentric old friend Tillie Mortelaine passes away—and surprised to learn that Tillie has left her a million dollars. But there are strings attached. Jessica must use the money to help the literacy fund she and Tillie established years ago in Savannah, Georgia. And she will receive the money only if she can solve a mystery within the month: the murder of Tillie’s fiancé, Wanamaker Jones.

As Jessica settles into Tillie’s Savannah mansion and meets Tillie’s boarders, she also discovers that the spirit of Wanamaker Jones haunts the grounds. And that there are those in Savannah who are looking to cash in on Tillie’s demise—and Jessica’s failure…

6. ABC Murders by Agatha Christie

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Description:

When Alice Asher is murdered in Andover, Hercule Poirot is already looking into the clues. Alphabetically speaking, it’s one letter down, twenty-five to go.

There’s a serial killer on the loose. His macabre calling card is to leave the ABC Railway Guide beside each victim’s body. But if A is for Alice Asher, bludgeoned to death in Andover, and B is for Betty Bernard, strangled with her belt on the beach at Bexhill, who will then be Victim C? More importantly, why is this happening?

Often considered to be one of Agatha Christie’s best.

7. By The Pricking of My Thumbs by Agatha Christie

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Description:

Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, Agatha Christie’s delightful sleuthing duo, investigate the strange and troubling doings behind the scenes at a gothic British nursing home in By the Pricking of My Thumbs

When Tommy and Tuppence visit an elderly aunt in her gothic nursing home, they think nothing of her mistrust of the doctors; after all, Ada is a very difficult old lady.

But when Mrs. Lockett mentions a poisoned mushroom stew and Mrs. Lancaster talks about “something behind the fireplace,” Tommy and Tuppence find themselves caught up in a spine-chilling adventure that could spell death for either of them.

8. Pigeon Pie Mystery by Julia Stuart

Description: When Indian Princess Alexandrina is left penniless by the sudden death of her father, the Maharaja of Brindor, Queen Victoria grants her a grace-and-favor home in Hampton Court Palace. Though rumored to be haunted, Alexandrina and her lady’s maid, Pooki, have no choice but to take the Queen up on her offer.
     Aside from the ghost sightings, Hampton Court doesn’t seem so bad. The princess is soon befriended by three eccentric widows who invite her to a picnic with all the palace’s inhabitants, for which Pooki bakes a pigeon pie. But when General-Major Bagshot dies after eating said pie, and the coroner finds traces of arsenic in his body, Pooki becomes the #1 suspect in a murder investigation.
     Princess Alexandrina isn’t about to let her faithful servant hang. She begins an investigation of her own, and discovers that Hampton Court isn’t such a safe place to live after all.
     With her trademark wit and charm, Julia Stuart introduces us to an outstanding cast of lovable oddballs, from the palace maze-keeper to the unconventional Lady Beatrice (who likes to dress up as a toucan—don’t ask), as she guides us through the many delightful twists and turns in this fun and quirky murder mystery. Everyone is hiding a secret of the heart, and even Alexandrina may not realize when she’s caught in a maze of love.

9. Sad Cypress by Agatha Christie

Description:

Beautiful young Elinor Carlisle stood serenely in the dock, accused of the murder of Mary Gerrard, her rival in love. The evidence was only Elinor had the motive, the opportunity, and the means to administer the fatal poison.

Yet, inside the hostile courtroom, only one man still presumed Elinor was innocent until proven Hercule Poirot was all that stood between Elinor and the gallows.

10.The Cat Who Had 60 Whiskers by Lilian Jackson Braun

(Little nervous about this one as it is the last in the series before Lilian died and the later books really weren’t very good.)

Description: A twenty-ninth installment of the popular series finds Moose County in an uproar over a string of lucrative inheritances and a bee sting-related death, throughout which Polly departs for Paris, Koko the irrepressible Siamese meets a piano tuner, and Qwill writes a play.

Have you read any of these? What did you think of them?

On Thursdays, I am part of the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot blog link party. You can find the latest one in the sidebar to the right under recent posts.

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

If you would like to be the first to get news about my books or just have access to special posts for supporters, you can do so here for $2.99 a month : https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/

Book recommendation: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn book reviews3 Comments

You don’t have to guess who is going to die in this Agatha Christie book since the title is The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

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But who killed Roger Ackroyd is going to get complicated and you’ll need to strap yourself in for the rollercoaster ride.

The book was originally presented as a serialization entitled Who Killed Ackroyd? From July to September of 1925 in the London Evening News.

The book is about a doctor, James Sheppard,  who lives in the small English village of King’s Abbot with his spinster sister Caroline and gets wrapped up in the mystery of the murder of well-known village resident Roger Ackroyd, which occurs within 24-hours after another village resident commits suicide.

From Goodreads: “Considered to be one of Agatha Christie’s greatest and also, most controversial mysteries. ‘The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd’ breaks the rules of traditional mystery.”

I didn’t realize this was a Hercule Poirot book before I started it. This is actually the third Poirot book, which I found interesting since in it he is talking about retirement. Dr. Sheppard narrates this book in first person, creating a unique and entertaining way to introduce Poirot.

This is my seventh Agatha Christie read this year as I work through the books on my own and through the 2026 Christie Reading Challenge.

Before I was done with this one, someone online (I can’t remember if it  was a comment on my post or someone else’s post, spilled the beans that the ending was shocking. They said there was a surprising twist so that had me trying to figure out the twist through most of the book, which means I figured out the killer but still had to be sure I was right and still wanted to know how Agatha lead the reader there.

I was right but I still enjoyed the book immensely. Agatha really was ahead of her time with her plot twists and stories overall. Never before, or maybe I should say, rarely before, had mystery writers taken readers down such psychological roads with endings that left the reader not just thinking about the mystery’s solution, but also about the nature of humans and why they do what they do.

I’m not going to say she was the first to do this (hello, Conan Doyle, Allingham, Sayers, etc.), of course, but she did pull off the twists in interesting ways. I would say that the ending of Crooked House was one of the darkest and uncomfortable twists in any era, let alone the Golden Age of Mystery era.

As in any Poirot book, there were hilarious or interesting quotes.

Among them was one that came from Poirot after he accidentally hits Dr. Sheppard with a marrow (squash):

“I demand of you a thousand pardons, monsieur. I am without defence. For some months now I cultivate the marrows. This morning suddenly I enrage myself with these marrows. I send them to promenade themselves — alas! Not only mentally but physically. I seize the biggest. I hurl him over the wall. Monsieur, I am ashamed, I prostrate myself.”

Dr. Sheppard doesn’t know who Poirot, who has moved in next to him and his sister, is at first. He thinks he might be a hairdresser.

“Clearly a retired hairdresser,” he thinks at one point. “Who knows the secrets of human nature better than a hairdresser?”

 Dr. Sheppard calls him “Porrott” and is bewildered by the clues the man is giving him. Poirot also has no idea Dr. Sheppard doesn’t know he’s a famous detective.

“Mr. Ackroyd knew me in London, when I was at work there,” Poirot tells him after the marrow hitting incident. “I have asked him to say nothing of my profession down here.’
Sheppard continues by saying, “I see,” and is amused at Poirot’s “patent snobbery.”

“But the little man went on with an almost grandiloquent smirk,” Christie writes.

“One refers to remain incognito. I am not anxious for notoriety.  I have not even troubled to correct the local version of my name.”

“Indeed,” I said, not knowing quiet what to say.

Another funny quote that I took as a bit of a self-deprecating jab at herself by Christie, since she once wrote romances too: “What made you notice Ralph Paton?  His good looks?”

“No, not that alone — though he is unusually good-looking for an Englishman — what your lady novelists would call a Greek God. No, there was something about that young man that I did  not understand.”

Up next in my Agatha Christie reading journey is a different book for Agatha — The Rose and the Yew Tree — a tragedy written by Agatha under the name Mary Westcott.

Have you read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd? What did you think?

Sunday Bookends: Cow beauty pageant and new authors to me

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends, Sunday Salon21 Comments

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what the rest of the family and I have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing.

I’ve been enjoying the cooler temps we’ve been having. I am not a summer girl, but I do like nicer weather where I can sit on the back porch and read. We’ve had that a lot the last week or so and I have been making the most of it.

I stayed home and enjoyed the nice weather and a quiet day yesterday while Warren (The Husband) and Little Miss went to a cow beauty pageant.

Yes, you’ve read that correctly. It was a cow beauty pageant. They judged cows in front of the county courthouse, choosing the prettiest one. One-hundred years ago, a similar contest was held so the county tourism board or ag board, I can’t remember which, decided to hold it as a nostalgic event.

Little Miss sent me plenty of photographs of the event, many of them taken behind the county’s veteran’s memorial, which is actually quite nice and impressive for a small county. The county they went to is the one next to ours, so it’s a bit bigger with 50,000 to 60,000 people, while ours has about 5,000.

Then later that night, she and her dad went to our county’s dairy parade downtown. I can’t show you many photographs of that because she took a video and the majority of it is of the sidewalk while she looks down to pick up all the candy that was thrown at her. She was on a corner where hardly any other kids were so she made out like a bandit. When she came home, though, she told me she’d hardly gotten any candy and The Husband said he was surprised they didn’t throw out as much candy at this parade as they used to.

Then he opened his camera bag and dumped out a huge pile of candy onto the chair in the living room.

It was a fun day for them. Today we are going to see my parents for Father’s Day.

What I/We’ve Been Reading

Just Finished

I finished The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie last week. Someone online spilled the beans that the ending was shocking and a twist so that had me trying to figure out the twist through most of the book, which means I figured out the killer but still had to be sure I was right and still wanted to know how Agatha lead the reader there. I was right but I still enjoyed the book immensely. Agatha really was ahead of her time with her plot twists and stories overall

In Progress

I am slow reading Stillmeadow Daybrook by Gladys Taber. Since each chapter is a month, I plan to read a chapter a month. I’m also reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.

I am finally reading my first D.E. Stevenson book, Miss Buncle’s Book, and so far it is very fun and entertaining. It was written in the 1930s so it’s got an older, slower-paced style, but that’s fine for me.

The premise of the book involves Miss Barbara Buncle writing a book to earn some extra money and being excited when a publisher accepts it.

When it is released, the people in her small town start to recognize themselves in the pages. The names are different but the personalities and situations are the same. They don’t know who has written it, though, because Miss Buncle has used a male pen name. I believe the majority of the book is going to be them trying to figure out who wrote this book about every day life in a small English village where nothing really happens, but, for some reason, it’s still entertaining. That’s exactly Miss Buncle’s Book. It’s just a book about everyday life in an English village with a bit of a bonus plot of the people in the village trying to find out the identity of the author, but somehow it is very entertaining.

I am also reading The Ivory Dagger (A Miss Silver Mystery) by Patricia Wentworth. I’m enjoying it so far, though I’m not sure where Miss Silver comes in. This is my first book by this author, too so this is a week of new-to-me authors.

Up Soon

After these two, I have another Agatha on tap – The Rose and the Yew Tree, which she wrote under the pen name of Mary Westcott and a Margery Allingham, Mystery Mile.

What The Family is Reading

The Husband is reading The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead and Little Miss and I are halfway through Heidi (we didn’t read it very much this past week).

New arrivals to my bookshelf

Nothing this week!

What I/We’ve Been Watching

This past week I watched The Thin Man Goes Home, a 1930s Nancy Drew Movie called Nancy Drew Detective, two more episodes of The Other Bennett Sister, a couple more episodes of As Time Goes By, Around The World in 80 Days, and The Lady Eve.

I ended my Spring of Bette Davis feature but I will be writing about Around the World in 80 Days with David Niven and The Thin Man Goes Home this week.

What I’ve Been Writing

I made a lot of progress on book four of The Gladwynn Grant Mysteries!

This week on the blog I shared:

What I/We’ve Been Listening To

I am listening to Murder, She Wrote: The Maine Mutiny by Donald Bain on Audible.

Some Housekeeping

Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs), Cat (Cat’s Wire) and I host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea.  This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!). Each link party will be open for a month. You can find that link up for this month here.

Each week, I host the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot with some great hosts. It goes live Thursday night, but you can share any kind of blog posts (family-friendly) there until Tuesday of each week. You can check my recent posts on the sidebar to the right for the most recent link party.

Now It’s Your Turn

What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing?

This post is linked up with The Sunday Post at  Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer,  Deb at with Deb at Readerbuzz, and Book Date: It’s Monday! What are you reading hosted by Kathyrn at The Book Date and Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Reading Reality.

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

If you would like to be the first to get news about my books or just have access to special posts for supporters, you can do so here for $2.99 a month https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/

Classic Movie Impressions. Spring of Bette Davis: The Petrified Forrest (1936)

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn classic movie impressions, everyday musings, Movie Impresssions4 Comments

I have been watching Bette Davis movies for the last couple of months and today I am writing about the final one in the list I made for myself for this feature — The Petrified Forrest.

It  took all those Bette Davis movies all those online lists said were “must watches” to get to one I liked the most (other than Jezebel).

I know why they suggested the others — they highlight Bette’s talents more than this one does.  She was the star in  most of the other movies I watched, while in this one it was Humphrey Bogart and Leslie Howard who were the stars — well, actually Leslie Howard was the big star at that time.

Dialogue-wise, though, I preferred this movie over them all (except for Jezebel).

This movie is based on a hit Broadway play of the same name written by Robert Sherwood.

First, let’s give you a description of the movie from Google: “In this film adaptation of the Robert E. Sherwood play, a drifter, a waitress and a notorious gangster cross paths in the Petrified Forest region of Arizona. Alan Squire (Leslie Howard), a destitute writer, goes into the diner where Gabrielle Maple (Bette Davis) works. Gabrielle dreams of studying art, and she and Alan connect as they talk about Europe, and she tells him her ambition. But gangster Duke Mantee (Humphrey Bogart) shows up and takes the customers hostage.”

I read before that there was some friction between Bette and Leslie in the film (their second together after Of Human Bondage) the chemistry between them worked very well here, maybe because Leslie was so good in this one.

Gabrielle works as a waitress at her father’s diner in the desert.  Employee, beefy former football player, Boze Hertzlinger (Dick Foran) is smitten with her but is very pushy and borders on an aggressor who forces a kiss onto her at the same moment Alan wanders on scene after crossing the desert.

She’s not really interested in Boze and when she starts talking to Alan, she realizes there are much better fish in the sea. She talks to him about the poetry she is reading, her paintings, and just life in general.

“The problem with me Gabrielle, is that I belong to a vanishing race,” he tells her. “I’m one of the intellectuals. Brains without purpose. Noise without sound. Faith without substance.”

Gabrielle’s father has gone to a meeting of the something or other reenactment guard before Alan arrives. Her grandfather has been rambling on about Duke Mantee being on the loose to anyone who will listen.

With all this foreshadowing, we viewers, of course, start to assume we will see Duke at some point.

That will come after Alan bids farewell to Gabrielle with a quick kiss and Mr. and Mrs. Chisholm arrive in their fancy car looking for directions and a drink. Their black chauffeur is driving them. His race will come into play later in the movie so I did not mention it for no reason.

Alan decides he’s going to leave, much to Gabrielle’s disappointment so she arranges for him to travel with the Chisholms.

The Chisholms and Alan don’t get too far, though, before they find a group of men broken down on the road who wave them down. As soon as they pull over, Duke raises a gun and orders them out so he can take their car. It’s here we learn the couple isn’t exactly having a great marriage journey, especially when Mr. Chisholm does nothing to stand up for his wife and she calls him out as soon as Duke and his men leave.

Mr. Chisholm says he didn’t stand up to him because that was Duke Mantee, the gangster they heard about on the radio who was responsible for killing a bunch of people.

Alan hears Duke’s name, which he knows about because of Gabrielle’s chatty grandfather, and worries he’s headed toward Gabrielle, so he starts walking back to the café.

This is not a high-action film until the end. The movie takes place mainly in one place, and while Bogart plays a gangster, this movie is more cerebral than active.

Almost the entire film was filmed on a soundstage in Hollywood, but I didn’t even think about it because the dialogue and the performances were the main stars, in my opinion.

While Jeremy Arnold, a writer for TCM, believed the dialogue was a bit “stagy” but writes that, “unlike other films for which such qualities are the kiss of death, The Petrified Forest is vital and engaging, partly due to the strength of the play itself and partly due to its first-rate performances. All the actors underplay their roles quite effectively. (Even Bette Davis, as the The New York Times reviewer noted: “Davis demonstrates that she does not have to be hysterical to give a grand portrayal.”)”

Earlier, I mentioned that the race of the chauffeur, Joseph, would come into play in the movie and it does when Slim, Duke’s black member shows up. He is one of the gang, not a servant, as he points out to Joseph when he offers him a drink, and the chauffeur asks permission from Mr. Chisholm first.

“Listen to him,” Slim mocks. “Is it alright, Mr. Chisholm? Ain’t you hear about the big liberation? Come on, take your drink, Weasel.”

This was Bogart’s breakout movie, and he had Howard to thank for it.

When the studio said Bogart wasn’t good enough for the role, especially since he hadn’t been a big hit at all yet, and probably never would, Howard said if they wouldn’t hire Bogart, then he was out too.

Bogart, according to author Eric Lax, knew who had given him his first chance and as a tribute named his second daughter with Lauren Bacall, Leslie, after Howard.

It helped Bogart that he looked a lot like John Dillinger because the play’s author based the character Duke Mantee on Dillinger, who was wanted by police in 1936. Bogart reportedly studied film footage of Dillinger to perfect his mannerisms and when moviegoers found out he was doing a Dillinger impression, they flocked to the movie to see Bogart’s version.

There are some great quotes in this one, thanks to the writer of the play and screenwriters Charles Kenyon and Delmer Daves, who adapted it.

Alan Squier: Tell us, Duke, what kind of a life have you had?

Duke Mantee: What do you think? I spent most of my time since I grew up in jail. And it looks like I’ll spend the rest of my life dead.

***

Gabrielle Maple: Petrified forest is a lot of dead trees in the desert that have turned to stone. Here’s a good specimen.

Alan Squier: So that was once a tree? Hmmm. Petrified forest, eh? Suitable haven for me. Well, perhaps that’s what I’m destined to become, an interesting fossil for future study.

***

Alan Squier: I’ve never kidded anybody, outside of myself.

***

Bette asks Leslie at one point, “What are you looking for?”

He ponders this question and says, “I don’t know. I suppose I was looking for something to believe in. Something worth living for, worth dying for.”

***

Mrs. Chisholm: I was married to this pillar of the mortgage loan and trust. He took my soul and stenciled it on a card and filed. And that’s where I’ve been ever since, in an odd metal cabinet.

***

Duke to Alan: “You can talk sitting down. I heard you doing it.”

Alan Squier: ‘The Hollow Men’… refers to the intellectuals who thought they’d conquered nature. They damned it up and used its waters to irrigate the wastelands. They built streamlined monstrosities to penetrate its resistance. They wrapped it up in cellophane and sold it in drugstores. They were so certain they had it subdued. And, now- ? Do you realize what it is that’s causing world chaos? Well, I’m probably the only living man who can tell you. It’s nature hitting back. She’s fighting with new instruments called neuroses. She’s deliberately afflicting mankind with the jitters. Nature’s proving that she can’t be beaten, not by the likes of us. She’s taking the world away from the intellectuals and giving it back to the apes.

***

Alan Squier: You better come with me, Duke. I’m planning to buried in the Petrified Forest. I’ve formed a theory about that that would interest you. It’s the graveyard of the civilization that’s shot from under us. The world of outmoded ideas. They’re all so many dead stumps in the desert. That’s where I belong. And so do you, Duke. For you’re the last great apostle of rugged individualism.

I’m taking a break from an actor-themed movie marathon for the rest of the summer, but in the fall I’ll be watching Jimmy Stewart movies.

This summer, I will be finishing up my rewatches and blog posts about The Thin Man movies and also writing about some other old movies I’ve watched or will be watching.

Thank you for coming along on this Bette Davis marathon with me.

If you would like to read about the other movies I watched this spring, you can find the list here:

Sources and additional resources:

https://www.tcm.com/articles/31568/the-petrified-forest

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028096/quotes

If you want to find clips and thoughts about vintage movies and TV, you can visit me on Instagram on my Nostalgically Thinking Account (https://www.instagram.com/nostalgically_thinking/) or on my YouTube account Nostalgically and Bookishly Thinking here: https://www.youtube.com/@nostaglicandbookish

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube and Facebook.

Notice: This post may contain affiiate links. If you purchase the product from these links I will receive a small compensation at no extra charge to you.

Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot June 19

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Weekend Traffic Jam8 Comments

Welcome to the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot, where we offer a place for bloggers to link up and get a fresh set of eyes on their posts. We also feature one blog a week, letting our readers know about the blog and providing a link so readers can learn more about it. Please feel free to post new blog posts or old ones you want to bring attention to again.

Look for the post to go live about 9:30 PM EST on Thursdays.

We have had fall-like temperatures this week and it has been so nice. Cool during the day and cool at night.

I wasn’t sweating when I went out to look at the wild roses and peonies in my side and back yard and that was very nice.

Now, let’s introduce our current hosts for the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot:

Marsha from Marsha in the Middle started blogging in 2021 as an exercise in increasing her neuroplasticity.  Oh, who are we kidding?  Marsha started blogging because she loves clothes, and she loves to talk or, in this case, write!  

Melynda from Scratch Made Food! & DIY Homemade Household  – The name says it all, we homestead in East Texas, with three generations sharing this land. I cook and bake from scratch, between gardening and running after the chickens, and knitting! 

Lisa from Boondock Ramblings shares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more. 

Cat from Cat’s Wire is a bookworm, movie fan, crazy cat lady, armed with beads, cabs, wire and a very jumpy brain which loves to go down rabbit holes!

Rena from Fine, Whatever writes about style, midlife, and the “fine whatever” moments that make life both meaningful and fun. Since 2015, she’s been celebrating creativity, confidence, and finding joy in the everyday.

We would love to have additional Co-Hosts to share in the creativity and fun! If you think this would be a good fit for you and you like having fun (come on, who doesn’t!) while still being creative, drop one of us an email and someone will get back with you!

WTJR will be highlighting a different blogger each week this year! We invite you to stop by their blog, take a look around and say hello!

This week we are spotlighting: Shoreline Journeys



A little about Jennifer:

Hi, I’m Jennifer, the founder of Shoreline Journeys and a Sandals Silver Elite Advisor. I specialize exclusively in crafting unforgettable vacations to Sandals Resorts for couples and Beaches Resorts for families. My passion is helping travelers plan effortless, luxury all-inclusive Caribbean getaways with personal touches and exclusive perks.

Thank you so much for joining us for our link-up!

And now some posts that were highlights for me this past week:

Apple Street Cottage has upscaled an American flag just in time for our 250th celebration!

Mummastylish showcased some Wide Leg Jeans

Shelbee cracked me up with this post about kindness and …. farts

Katherine is showing off a bomber jacket and what it can be paired with

Erin shared some fun mini book reviews

Lisa beautifully contemplated the idea of human fragility

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Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube and Facebook.

Book recommendation: Amish Inn Mystery, Stolen Past by Tara Randel

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn book reviews, books and reading2 Comments

I was looking for a simple cozy mystery with lovable characters and a straight mystery recently and that’s what I found in Stolen Past by Tara Randel.

The book is part of the Amish Inn Mysteries from the now defunct Annie’s Attic.

The books were written by a few different authors, but all feature the same characters: inn owner Liz Eckhardt and her friends Mary Ann and Sadie, mayor (love interest but subtle) Jackson Cross and lazy bulldog Beans.

This time around the town of Pleasant Creek is set to celebrate a special anniversary but someone in town is stirring up trouble by stealing historically-related items and threatening to make trouble if a play about the signing of the town charter isn’t presented the way we want it.

This series includes a very slow burn romance between Liz and the mayor with just a few mild hints made here and there but very secondary to the mystery itself.

Liz’s friends Sadie and Mary Ann are “older ladies” who often pop up in the mysteries and in this one Sadie plays a bigger role than usual as a former friend comes out as the front runner for being the possible town thief.

This one may not have you on the edge of your seat, but it will have you pondering who the guilty party is while enjoying reading about the connections between Liz and her friends.

If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.

On Thursdays, I am part of the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot blog link party. You can find the latest one in the sidebar to the right under recent posts.

Notice: This post may contain affiiate links. If you purchase the product from these links I will receive a small compensation at no extra charge to you.

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube and Facebook.

If you would like to be the first to get news about my books or just have access to special posts for supporters, you can do so here for $2.99 a month https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/

15 Books I Hope To Read This Summer

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn books and reading14 Comments

I have a list of Summer hopeful reads to share today.

Yes, I call my list “hopefuls” because a “to be read list” sounds too much like school to me and takes the fun out of reading.

I need to add that I am a mood reader, so I don’t often stick to the list, even though I have fun making it.

Here is my list for now:

Sad Cypress by Agatha Christie

Pigeon Pie Mystery by Julia Stewart

Clouds of Witness by Dorothy Sayers

The Pink Motel by Carol Ryrie Brink

Thank you, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse

Mystery Mile by Margery Allingham

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

Murder, She Wrote: Slaying in Savannah by Donald Bain

Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck

The Cat Who Had 60 Whiskers by Lilian Jackson Braun

By the Pricking of My Thumbs by Agatha Christie

ABC Murders by Agatha Christie

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

Miss Buncle’s Book by D.E. Stevenson

The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis

Have you read any of these books? What did you think of them?

Sunday Bookends: school’s out for … a month anyhow. Watching musicals.

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends, Sunday Salon17 Comments

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what the rest of the family and I have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing.

Thursday was a relaxing day that was ruined at the end by outside forces but Friday was super relaxing with lots of reading and movie watching, which was very nice.

 Wednesday, the kids and I drove 50 minutes to our homeschool evaluator. The Boy went as a backup in case I needed it because my neck has been bothering me lately.  Due to a detour, we got a longer tour of the area we used to live in, and while I don’t miss that area immensely, I do miss some of the convenience of it.

Little Miss will be going into sixth grade next year, and we are excited to have a break from school for a little while. She will be taking art classes online this summer through the program we’ve been using throughout the school year, but otherwise, we will be lax on strict lessons until mid-July.

My Gladwynn Grant Mysteries are on sale this weekend through next week on Amazon if you are interested in reading them. The first book is free.

What I/We’ve Been Reading

Just Finished

I finished two books, Stolen Past by Tara Randel and The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis.

For children’s books, the Narnia books are quite thought-provoking. Very in fact.

In Progress

I am slow reading Stillmeadow Daybrook by Gladys Taber. Since each chapter is a month, I plan to read a chapter a month. I am also reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.

I am currently reading The Murder of Roger Ackroyd on my Kindle.

Up Soon

I will be starting Miss Buncle’s Book by D.E. Stevenson this week.

What The Family is Reading

Little Miss and I are making good progress on Heidi.

New arrivals to my bookshelf

I obtained (bought when I shouldn’t have) three new books: The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis, Miss Buncle’s Book by D.E. Stevenson, and The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes (to read with my daughter).

What I/We’ve Been Watching

This past week The Husband (who I am just going to call Warren from now on. Anyone who knows me, know his first name anyhow) and I watched The Petrified Forrest, a Bette Davis movie that I felt was better than most of the other movies I watched during my Spring of Bette Davis feature. I will share a blog post about it later this week.

I also watched The Other Bennett Sister and several episodes of As Time Goes By, a British sitcom that is a comfort watch for me.

Little Miss and I watched My Fair Lady, or finished, last night. She was disgusted that Eliza ended up staying with Professor Higgins, who was “old” and “horrible.”

Some things she said as she watched it, “Dude. I’d just punch him. Dump that tea on him! Throw that pot at him!”

“She won’t miss you, you narcissist!”

“You don’t deserve to have her!”

“Go off, Queen!”

“That’s right, you tell him!”

“I don’t care if he’s a senior citizen! I’ll throw him in front of a bus!”

“He’s old enough to be your father!”

“Gravity is natural, right? We can push him off a building and say he died of natural causes.”

“No! You are in a toxic relationship! This girl can’t walk away from a toxic relationship.”

“They make women in these movies out to be morons!”

When I told her the ending of the play was that she leaves with Freddy, she dropped to her knees, raised her arms, and cried, “yes!”

We are making our way through the old musicals I grew up on.

I’ve already shown her Singing in the Rain, but she was very young so I need to show her again. It’s my favorite movie, next to The Quiet Man.

Next up is West Side Story. Some others on the list: South Pacific, Oklahoma (which I’ve never actually watched myself), and  The Sound of Music.

Which others should I show her to rage-bait her into another ten-minute rant about old movies and musicals and how they portray women?

What I’ve Been Writing

I’ve been working on book four of the Gladwynn Grant Mysteries, Gladwynn Grant Goes Back to School.

Last week on the blog, I shared:

Recent Blog Posts I Enjoyed

Cat’s chat about how many books people read at a time was very interesting and fun for me.

Photos From Last Week

Some Housekeeping

Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) and I host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea.  This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!). Each link party will be open for a month. You can find that link up for this month here.

Each week, I host the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot with some great hosts. It goes live Thursday night, but you can share any kind of blog posts (family-friendly) there until Tuesday of each week. You can check my recent posts on the sidebar to the right for the most recent link party.

Now It’s Your Turn

What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing?

This post is linked up with The Sunday Post at  Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer,  Deb at with Deb at Readerbuzz, and Book Date: It’s Monday! What are you reading hosted by Kathryn at The Book Date and Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Reading Reality.

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

If you would like to be the first to get news about my books or just have access to special posts for supporters, you can do so here for $2.99 a month https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/