Top Ten Favorite books by authors I like

On May 26, 2026May 26, 2026 By Lisa R. HowelerIn books and reading, top-ten-tuesday1 Comment

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), and 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!

Now, on to today’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt, which is: My Favorite Books by My Favorite Authors (Pick your ten favorite authors and your favorite book written by each one of them.) (submitted by Cathy @ WhatCathyReadNext)

I’ll be honest, I don’t know if these authors are all “favorites,” but they are authors I enjoy.

Jan Karon

Jan’s book A Light In The Window is my favorite because it is the one where the romance between Father Tim and Cynthia begins.

If you have not read this series, it centers around an Episcopal priest in his 60s who finds love and fatherhood late in life. The 15-book series features sweet, challenging, and thought-provoking stories of faith with a myriad of quirky, fun, and lovable characters.

Lilian Jackson Braun

The Cat Who Talked to Ghosts is my favorite in Lilian’s The Cat Who series. The series is about journalist, and later former journalist, Jim “Qwill” Qwilleran, and his two Siamese cats, Koko and Yum Yum, who help him solve various mysteries.

In this one, a close friend of Qwill’s passes away and he travels to where she lives to find out what happened to her. During the visit he meets a precocious little girl (he is older and in a relationship but has no interest in children), an abused young woman, and other interesting characters.

C.S. Lewis

I still have a lot of C.S. Lewis to read so this book could change, but I really liked The Magician’s Nephew from the Chronicles of Narnia series.

The Chronicles of Narnia are about a magical land called Narnia where children disappear into from the modern world and become kings and queens and meet magical creatures. There is much more to it than that, but that is the short version. The Magician’s Nephew is very magical and where the story of the chronicles really begins.

Agatha Christie

Why Didn’t They Ask Evans is my favorite book so far from Christie.

I know that this is not one mentioned as much when someone talks or writes about Agatha Christie but it is one of my favorites because there is a little bit of romance in it and a lot of humor between the main characters Bobby and Lady Frances “Frankie” Derwent.

A body is found at the bottom of a cliff by the ocean and when Bobby reaches the man, he isn’t in good shape but manages to utter five words: “Why didn’t they ask Evans?”

Bobby decides to find out who “they” are and who in the world was/is Evans and why no one asked this person whatever they were supposed to ask him.

Craig Johnson

I have a lot more to read of Craig Johnson’s Walt Longmire series, but so far my favorite book is The Dark Horse.

Here is a quick description of it from Goodreads: “Wade Barsad, a man with a dubious past and a gift for making enemies, burned his wife Mary’s horses in their barn; in retribution, she shot him in the head six times, or so the story goes. But Sheriff Walt Longmire doesn’t believe Mary’s confession and is determined to dig deeper. Unpinning his star to pose as an insurance investigator, Walt visits the Barsad ranch and discovers that everyone in town–including a beautiful Guetemalan bartender and a rancher with a taste for liquor–had a reason for wanting Wade dead.”

Anthony Horowitz

Moriarty is my favorite book of Horowitz’s so far, but I have a lot more of his to read. Moriarity takes place after Sherlock Holmes and his nemesis, Moriarty, have plunged over the Reichenbach Falls.

Now Pinkerton detective agent Frederick Chase arrives in Europe from New York to find the man who wants to take Moriarity’s place as the most sinister criminal in Europe. Horowitz was given permission by the Arthur Conan Doyle Trust to write this and another book, Silk, using Sherlock Holmes’ character.

L.M. Montgomery

The Blue Castle, which I wrote about in a series of posts earlier this spring, is my favorite of L.M. Montgomery’s books for a variety of reasons. It is poetic, thought-provoking while also being sweet, romantic, and enchanting

You can find my posts about the book here.

Carolyn Keene (or whoever wrote this one)

Nancy Drew: The Clue of the Whistling Bagpipes is my favorite Carolyn Keene book so far.

The Nancy Drew books were written by several different authors under the same pseudonym and this one, about a trip Nancy takes to Scotland to investigate a theft at her great-aunt’s house. This one was not only fun but it was full of interesting facts about Scotland.

P.G. Wodehouse

A Damsel in Distress is my favorite read by P.G. Wodehouse so far. Full disclaimer, I have only read three of his books, but this one, featuring many romantic misunderstandings, is so much fun and full of hilarious moments, if you can push through the old style writing.

Here is a quick description from online: “When Maud Marsh flings herself into American George Benson’s cab in Piccadilly, he believes he has met a damsel in distress. George traces his mysterious travelling companion to Belpher Castle, home of Lord Marshmoreton, where life is hilariously muddled.”

Francine Rivers

A Voice in the Wind (from the Mark of the Lion series). This first book in a series that takes place in Jerusalem during Roman rule fascinated me and kept me on the edge of my seat. It follows the story of a young Jewish girl named Hadassah who is made a slave in the home of a Roman leader.

Have you read any of these? And who are some of your favorite authors?

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/

Sunday Bookends: More Agatha Christie and still sick cat

On May 24, 2026May 25, 2026 By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends, Sunday Salon11 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.

Happy Memorial Day weekend to all the Americans visiting today! To the rest of ya’….happy weekend!

This past week was fairly uneventful other than our oldest cat, Pixel, continuing to battle the same virus all our other indoor/outdoor cats battled. She also wedged herself in a dirty crawlspace in our basement, which led to my claustrophobic son having to climb in and get her out.

The youngest cat did fairly well with the virus but the two older cats ended up at the vet.

This week The Husband took Pixel to the vet 45-minutes away and then we drove up to pick her back up later in the day. She received an antibiotic, a fever reducer, and anti-nausea meds and perked back up some that night.

Thursday and Friday she wasn’t doing well, though, and yesterday she was somewhat better but still sleeping a ton and not eating or drinking much.

Here is Pixel before she got sick. She’s so much skinnier now.

I wrote about the cat and some other things on my Saturday Link Up, which is a new link up for bloggers to share their posts of any kind — weekly round-ups or just posts you’d like to get some eyes on. Old posts are always welcome.

I hope Pixel gets better soon so I can write about more than my sick cats….not that I have a ton else going on in my life.

What I/We’ve Been Reading

Just Finished

I finished The Labors of Hercules this week. It is a collection of short stories by Agatha Christie featuring her detective Hercules Poirot.

I didn’t like the first couple of stories but pushed through and ended up enjoying some of the other stories, especially the final story, which I think should have been included in the collection first. I imagine a lot of people gave up on the collection because the first couple of stories really weren’t very good — well, to me anyhow.

The idea of the book was for Poirot to be working toward retirement and in order to make his last cases interesting, he decides to learn about his namesake, Hercules, and then mimic Hercules Twelve Labors.

There are 12 short stories to match up with the twelve labors. I will have a full review up at some point in the future.

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 currently reading The Cat Who Brought Down the House by Lilian Jackson Braun. It is a very slow-burning mystery. I’m on chapter 9 and the mystery just happened, but that is how Lilian’s books are. I am also reading Summer by the Tides by Denise Hunter. This is a women’s fiction/romance and so far it is heavy on women’s fiction but not heavy topic wise

Up Soon

I’ll be reading ABC Murders by Agatha Christie, Mystery Mile by Margery Allingham, and The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis soon.

What The Family is Reading

Little Miss and I are continuing Heidi.

The Husband is reading Chasing the Bear by Robert B. Parker.

New arrivals to my bookshelf

This week I added Garage Sale Secret by Elizabeth Ludwig to my bookshelf, thanks to my husband, who grabbed it at a local library/used bookshop.

What I/We’ve Been Watching

This week I watched the first episode of The Other Bennett Sister, a movie called My Sister Eileen, and part of the Bette Davis movie The Letter.

This morning I am watching old videos of Just A Few Acres Farm. Sadly, Pete ended his YouTube channel but at least left the old videos up. I felt bad that he shut off all commenting on the video where he announced he was leaving. It seemed rather harsh to not let his fans thank him and say goodbye but I guess he was just over it all already. Plus, mixed in with the good comments will always be some bad and I think he was getting sick of the bad.

What I’ve Been Writing

This week on the blog I shared:

What I/We’ve Been Listening To

I am only listening to Jack Benny at nights before bed. I want to listen to some more music this upcoming week.

Recent Blog Posts I Enjoyed

Mountain Adventures by The Farm Wife Reads

Secondary Characters Who Took Center Stage by Great and Noble Tasks

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 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/

Saturday Chat Link Up: Fake summer, recovering cat, hero sister-in-law

On May 23, 2026May 23, 2026 By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings7 Comments

Welcome to the new Saturday Chat Link Up where you can share a post about your week or a post you want to get more eyes on. The post went live late today, on its debut, but normally, the post will go live Saturday morning

Last week we thought summer was here, so The Husband bought a small, inflatable pool for Little Miss.

It didn’t fill well because we didn’t do all we needed to do to make the bottom of it flat, but Little Miss and her friend had a ton of fun playing in it last Sunday anyhow. They slid down the Slip N’ Slide The Husband bought, jumped up at the end and flung themselves into the pool over and over again.

Sadly, we hadn’t gotten the air conditioners in yet, so we sweated a couple of days and then managed to get one in Tuesday night in Little Miss’s room, which is the hottest room in the house. We have those weird rollout windows so we have to use portable air conditioners with a window cover and a hose pushed out through it.

Before we put them in, they have to be washed out and this year the covers we previously used were wearing out so we had to order new ones.

Little Miss and I do not do well in the heat so we were very cranky the night without AC.

Once we had the AC in, we were much more pleasant to be around.

We only needed it a couple of nights, though, because our temperatures plummeted the next night and as I am starting this post (on Friday night) it is 53 degrees outside. I like being able to cuddle up under my blanket so I am enjoying the chillier temps for now.

I spent a lot of my week not knowing if there would be a good outcome with our oldest cat, who came home last week after being missing for three days but then continued to be very sick. We took her to the vet on Wednesday but are still waiting to see if she will improve. She ate some food and drank after she came back from the vet (where she was treated for a high fever and dehydration) but Thursday and yesterday she refused to drink and eat again.

Then this morning, she found a burst of energy and jumped up on the bed with me and laid on my side. I fell asleep with her there, afraid to move and disturb her, and she stayed with me for an hour and a half before I had to get up to use the bathroom and stretch out my tightened sciatica.

When our second-oldest cat, Scout, was treated for this same virus a couple of weeks ago, she was also very tired and lethargic for about another week, so I am trying to remind myself of that.

Pixel is even more stubborn than Scout. There is a reason I consider her my spirit animal after all.

Our youngest cat, Cass, wants to go outside today but it is 44 degrees and raining and we’ve decided we’ve had enough sick cats for a while so he’s not being allowed out.

All of this drama with our cats had my mom and I reminiscing about the time one of the cats my family had when I was a child got hit by a car.

I should start this story by explaining that my mom is allergic to cats so all of our cats had to live outdoors. (Unlike our cats, who are indoor/outdoor cats). Because of her allergies she thought she really didn’t like cats, but I knew she did because she would talk to them in a sweet Southern accent, and encourage us to pet them and keep an eye on them.

She also realized how much she cared about cats when one of our cats came to her for help.

His name was Marvin, and he was one of two brothers. They used to sit on either side of our front door like two little, cute gargoyles.

The one brother, Morris, had been hit by a car years before, I believe, and now Marvin had been hit and he’d dragged himself home.

My mom saw him suffering in the backyard, and since my brother and I were at school and dad was at work so she found a rug to wrap him in, somehow got him up and to the car and drove him to the veterinarian in the town I now live in. It was just one man (his son is now our neighbor) and when he saw Marvin he told Mom she should try the vet hospital in a town 45-minutes away (the same place we take our pets now and in the town where we used to live). Mom thinks he didn’t want to tell her Marvin wasn’t going to make it. So Mom drove 45-minutes, crying the whole way over this cat she supposedly didn’t like, her face probably itching like crazy.

Marvin ended up having surgery on a broken leg and it cost my parents $300, which is an amount they never could have afforded so I don’t know how they did it.

I would like to say that Marvin survived, but, sadly, he lingered at our house, in the sunroom, for a week or so before contracting tetanus and passing away. My dad cared for that cat and faithfully put medicine on the leg and gave him antibiotics but still felt like he failed him.

Even though Marvin didn’t make it, I’ll always remember how hard Mom fought for him, and how it showed me, and herself, that she truly did love our cats, she just couldn’t pet them because of the terrible itching they caused. When I say itching, it is more like torture for my mom. She’s always had an itching issue, possibly caused by some autoimmune issues, and she just doesn’t itch in one spot, she itches everywhere, including in between her fingers and toes, in her mouth, nose and ears, and even inside her chest. She has to permanently take allergy medicine to make it stop.

One other part of this story involves how Mom always forbad me from telling my grandmother, her mother-in-law, how much we spent on Marvin. My grandmother grew up during the Depression and they used to drown cats so they didn’t have to feed them. (I’m not going to speak on how horrible this is…it was a difficult time and it was apparently kittens they put in a pillowcase and threw in a pond one time. I don’t think it was Grandma that did it…she just knew it happened.)

Still, I have a feeling that if Grandma had been faced with the same situation, with Marvin asking her to help him, she would have done the same thing.

During the uncertainty over our cat, the kids found some joy one night by going outside to look at the tiny sliver of the moon. For some reason it was very bright that night and it caught The Boy’s attention. He called out his sister and they oohed and aahed over it for a bit. It was nice to see them enjoying it together and having a bit of a break from the stress of the week.

Some good news has happened in the midst of all our cat drama — my sister-in-law saved a couple of lives in the last couple of weeks as a 911 dispatcher in a small county near ours.

Over a decade ago she saved the life of a newborn when the baby was born in a bathtub. The baby wasn’t breathing and she walked the father through helping the baby breathe while the ambulance was on its way.

She won a state award for this call and while she didn’t want the attention, her boss asked her to speak about it after she won the award so it would remind people to not simply call 911 and hang up but instead stay on the line because the dispatchers can help them while the ambulance is on its way.

My sister-in-law is a former EMT so there is a lot she can help someone with when they are in an emergency.

Anyhow, recently, another mother delivered a baby at home and my sister-in-law helped the woman until the ambulance could get there. This time the baby was already breathing on his/her own.

In another situation, my sister-in-law helped a young woman in a mental health crisis.

Our family is quite proud of her and what she does.

I hope you are all having a nice Memorial Day weekend (even if it is raining like it is here), if you are in the U.S. and just having a nice weekend if you are not.

How was your week last week?

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.

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.

Spring of Bette Davis: Dangerous (1935) (with spoilers)

On May 22, 2026May 21, 2026 By Lisa R. HowelerIn classic movie impressions, Movie Impresssions, Spring of Bette4 Comments

This Spring, I am watching Bette Davis films.

This week I watched Dangerous (1935) and I will be honest before we get too far — I didn’t like it very much. I feel weird writing that because Bette won an Oscar for this movie and it is regarded as one of her breakout roles besides Human Bondage (1934). I think what I didn’t like about this film was the story. It didn’t seem super well written to me.

There are many film buffs who feel similar, according to what I read online.

Bette seemed a bit too over-the-top for me at times, but then she was playing a woman who wasn’t really mentally stable, especially toward the end of the movie.

The movie is about a former theater star who loses her career due to her alcoholism, but is rehabilitated by an architect/theater buff who falls for her.

I partially didn’t like the movie because, to me, it did what too many movies of the 30s through 50s did and made the woman out to be evil and the man innocent, even if he did the same thing as the woman.

How many movies of that period have you watched where everyone warned people of a man who was a womanizer instead of warning a man about the “floozy woman”?

I’ve watched a fair amount and it gets a bit old.

Bette’s character is a mess, and she does bring ruin to all men she’s around and encounters, yes. She’s also ruined her own acting career with her alcoholism.

You can’t help hoping throughout the movie that she’ll turn her life around, and at least once, it looks like she might.

I won’t give the end of the movie away, in case you ever want to try it, but I will say, don’t hold out too much hope. The ending is complex. Did she turn her life around, didn’t she? I’m not sure what to think, but I believe there was some character development.

The beginning starts with our male main character, Don Bellows (Franchot Tone), who is an architect, hearing about what a trainwreck Bette Davis’s character (Joyce Heath) is, but having fond memories of seeing her on the stage.

Don is engaged to Gail Armitage when he sees Joyce, drunk in a bar, later in the movie (what a coinky-dink, eh?). He feels bad for her and wants to rescue her, so he offers to let her stay at his house in the country (White Knight Syndrome anyone?).

The big issue is that Joyce, and many others, believe that she is bad luck for any man who comes around her.

This proves to be true for poor Don, who falls for Joyce and works to rehabilitate her, even though she acts like a spoiled brat who hates the world. Eventually Joyce starts to act better, like a stray cat that finally lets its rescuer give it a pet. Don breaks his engagement with Gail and puts up his fortune to back Joyce in a Broadway show because no one else will hire her unless he offers money.

He wants to marry Joyce, but she refuses him.

That’s when we learn that dear Joyce is still married to a man who was loyal to her but who she financially ruined. She asks him for a divorce and . .. Well, you will have to watch and see what happens.

Bette almost didn’t make this movie, which seems to be a theme with her actually. I’ve read a couple times that she had to be talked into starring in certain films. Those films were later a success.

I’ve also read a couple of times now how she started affairs with her leading men. This one was no different, other than it might be what kicked off her years-long rivalry and bitter feelings toward Joan Crawford, or Joan’s feelings toward her.

Joan and Franchot (what a name) were engaged when Bette started an affair with him, although she claimed it was an unrequited crush. Years later, producer Harry Joe Brown said it was anything but that when he found the two “in a compromising position.”

Reports say that Crawford knew all about it but didn’t break the engagement. Instead, she simply increased her visits to the set to make Davis jealous. She eventually did marry Tone and, like most of her marriages, it lasted about four years.

Dangerous was originally titled Hard Luck Woman.

In the movie, Bette plays a wide range of personalities, from a drunk woman to a woman who hopes for a better future with a man she loves.

I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t thrilled with the movie overall. Critics didn’t like the story, but they did like Bette’s performance.

One critic is said by TCM.com to have given her one of the most famous reviews of her career:

E. Arnot Robertson in Picture Post wrote: “I think Bette Davis would probably have been burned as a witch if she had lived two or three hundred years ago. She gives the curious feeling of being charged with power which can find no ordinary outlet.”

So, while I didn’t like the storyline of the film as much as some, I did like Bette’s performance.

Up next, I am watching The Letter.

My watch list for this feature:

Jezebel https://lisahoweler.com/2026/05/06/spring-of-bette-davis-jezebel-1938/

Dangerous

The Letter (May 26)

Of Human Bondage (May 28)

Now, Voyager (June 2)

The Petrified Forrest (June 11)

I am tacking another movie on to this list — The Petrified Forrest with her and Leslie Howard and Humphrey Bogart. My husband watched this one years ago and says it is very good so I will use it to round out my Spring of Bette Davis, which will stretch a little bit into the summer.

Sources:

https://www.tcm.com/articles/87882/dangerous

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0026261/

http://thefilmexperience.net/blog/2014/2/25/seasons-of-bette-dangerous-1935.html

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0026261/

https://www.tcm.com/articles/87882/dangerous

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

Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot May 22

On May 21, 2026 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.

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: Beth Wilson

A little about Beth:

I live in the South Bay, in a suburb of Los Angeles. We’re about a mile and a half from the Pacific Ocean as the crow flies. We live in a 1969 typical California tract house (bought in 1988) that we have remodeled. I am a wife, mother, Nana, retired librarian, blogger, professional genealogist, tablescaper, gardener, and cat lover. I have created over 300 themed tablescapes that are posted here on my blog under the heading Tablescapes. I am married to my high school sweetheart and I have a daughter and two sons and six grandchildren. I spend my time researching my ancestors, tablescaping, gardening, reading, spending time with family, and trying to organize decades of stuff. We bought a small mountain cabin in the Sierra Nevada mountains a few years ago, and I will be spending time up there and maybe blogging about it too.

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

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

I Do De Claire is offering simple ways to elevate your outfit

Cat is talking about nostalgic memories of snails and they are so cute

Lydia is sharing what she’s been reading in May

Judee is serving up some tasty looking flourless bagles

Amy is painting an interchangeable truck wood wall decor

Melynda is sharing a Quick and Easy Chilies Rellenos Rice recipe

Important things to know about the link-up:

This link party is for blog posts only. All other links will be deleted.

Please link only blog posts you created yourself.

Please link directly to the URL of your post and not the main address of your blog.

Please do not add links to videos, sales ads, or social media links such as YouTube videos or Shorts, Instagram or Facebook Reels, TikTok videos, or any other “social media” based content.

But do visit other blogs and give the gift of a comment.

Notice: By linking with Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot, you assert that content and photos are your own property. And you give us permission to share said content if your post or blog is showcased.

We welcome unlimited, family friendly content! This can include opinion pieces, recipes, travel recaps, fashion ideas, crafts, thrifting, lifestyle, book reviews or discussions, photography, art, and so much more! Thank you for joining us!

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.

Ten Favorite Secondary Book Characters

On May 19, 2026May 24, 2026 By Lisa R. HowelerIn books and reading, top-ten-tuesday19 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) and you can find a link to it at the top of the page or here.

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: Favorite Secondary/Minor Characters

I had to think pretty hard about this one as I haven’t read as many books as others have, so I don’t have as many books to choose from, and I know I will think of others after I publish this, but here goes.

Samwise Gamgee from The Lord of the Rings series by J.R.R. Tolkien

In some ways Sam is a main character in Lord of the Rings and to me he is one of THE main characters, but he is considered as a secondary character too since he is Frodo’s “sidekick.”

Let’s all be honest, though, Frodo never would have made it to destroy the ring if it wasn’t for Sam supporting him, and sometimes even carrying him, on his journey. Frodo gets the credit for destroying the ring, and he did withstand the temptation of it the longest, but he would have been completely lost without Sam.

2. Diana Barry from the Anne of Green Gables books by L.M. Montgomery

Diana Barry is Anne Shirley’s best friend in the Anne of Green Gables series and especially in book one when they first meet.

She is Anne’s best friend, loyal at all costs, and just so sweet to Anne — even after Anne gets her drunk and disapproves of the man she’s going to marry. Ha!

3. Huck Finn from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

Huckleberry Finn is one of the most fun side characters ever. He’s in the middle of all the drama in Tom Sawyer and then he gets his own book in the sequel. I haven’t read Tom Sawyer all the way through since I was in junior high but I plan to do so this summer.

My son and I read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn a few years ago for school.

4. Polly Duncan in The Cat Who book series…by Lilian Jackson Braun

Polly is the main character Jim Qwilleran (Qwill)’s girlfriend and the town librarian. She is mild mannered, most of the time, sweet and very smart. I don’t like that Lilian describes her as boring and mundane at times and I also don’t like she often comments on her weight (though Qwill doesn’t seem to mind it) and eventually has her have a heart attack, but I do like Polly and how she handles the sometimes rude, maybe a bit chauvinistic Qwill (the books are a product of their time in some ways), and how she likes to take care of Qwill without pushing him toward marriage.

5. Dr. John Watson from the Sherlock Holmes short stories and novels by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Dr. John Watson is Sherlock Holmes’s right-hand man, confidant, and co-sleuth. Sometimes he is as smart as Sherlock and many times he leads an investigation and puts himself in danger while Holmes is working on another area of the case (like in The Hound of The Baskervilles).

As an aside, I was sad to see that David Burke, the actor who played Watson in the first season of the 1980s Sherlock Holmes opposite Jeremy Brett, passed away this past week.

6. Dill from To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

I have to be honest and admit that I did not think of this one on my own. I’m surprised I didn’t since To Kill A Mockingbird is my favorite book. I saw it on a list online about secondary characters, which I looked up to refresh my memory of some of my favorites when my brain started drawing blanks.

Dill is the best friend of main characters Jem and Jean Louise “Scout” Finch. He spends his summers in their town after essentially being abandoned to his aunt’s every summer by his parents. Eventually he begins choosing to visit his aunt so he can see Jem and Scout, who make him feel like he belongs.

He is the catalyst for getting another great secondary character, Boo Radley, to come out of his house and also instigates several other pivotal scenes and moments that make the reader think about a wide variety of issues — one being children and people who feel neglected.

7. Bess Marvin in the Nancy Drew Mystery series by Carolyn Keene

Bess Marvin is one of Nancy’s friends and the cousin of George Fayne, who incessantly picks on Bess.

Bess is described as pleasantly plump in the early Nancy Drew books and her weight is pointed out often, but she’s portrayed, mainly, as the sometimes nervous friend of Nancy’s who gets dragged into many mysteries she’d rather stay out of.

While Nancy’s other friend, and Bess’s cousin, George, is more adventurous and outgoing, Bess prefers to wring her hands a bit and say things like, “Can’t we just go back home? It’s dark in there.”

I can relate to Bess. I’m heavy, not pleasantly, plump, but I am the one in a group who would be suggesting we all go home and let the police handle it.

8. Fairlight Spencer from Christy by Catherine Marshall

When Christy Huddleston moves to the Great Smokey Mountains of Tennessee to be a teacher at rural school in Cutter Gap, she meets Fairlight, an abused mother who wants an education and to improve herself. The two become fast friends and Fairlight teaches Christy about nature and how to communicate with the people of Cutter Gap. Fairlight is just about my favorite character in the book besides Miss Alice. Fairlight loves to pause and admire God’s handiwork by watching a sunset or looking at flowers.

I won’t say much about the end of the book other than I felt Marshall was very unfair to her character. It’s why I doubt I’d read the book again.

9. Eustace Scrubb from The Voyage of The Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis

Eustace is the cousin of the children we know so well from The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe (if you’ve ever read it) — Peter, Edmund, Susan, and Lucy. When he gets pulled into a painting in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader he becomes a central character, but still a secondary character (to me) in the Narnia series.

Eustace starts out miserable, mean, and a little brat. Things definitely change as the book goes on and he is changed by the traumatic experiences that happen to him throughout the book.

10. Marmee March from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

The mother of the ‘little women’ (Jo, Meg, Amy, and Beth) truly isn’t a secondary character. She is the character that holds the book together, in my opinion, even more than Jo. She holds the family and the book together, the guiding light for the little family who faces so many trials, heartache, and also joy. But, I suppose, the girls are the main characters and she would be considered a very, very important secondary character.

How about you?

Do you have some favorite secondary characters?

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.

Sunday Bookends: A missing cat, a returning cat, a good old movie, a bad old movie

On May 17, 2026May 17, 2026 By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends, Sunday Salon24 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. Some weeks, I share what I am listening to.

I hesitate to write about my cat drama yet another week, so I will keep it as short as I can this time around. If you follow my blog on days other than Sunday (and don’t worry if you don’t. There are just so many good blogs out there. It is terribly hard to keep up!) you will see that I already wrote about our family’s cat drama here and then here.

What I will share here is that our elder cat, Pixel, disappeared for four full days and five full nights, and because she is not a cat who has ever wandered away for more than a couple of hours, I was convinced she had died.

She had been sick before she disappeared, and when you grow up in a rural area with outside cats, you learn that they sometimes wander off to die. I did not think that Pixel was that sick when she disappeared so that was bewildering to me.

She’d been let out briefly last week while sick, but seemed to have recovered, and we didn’t imagine she was strong enough yet to take off. Apparently, she was because when we went back to find her under the bush she had been sitting under Sunday morning, she was gone.

To make a really long, emotionally distressing story short — she showed back up on our porch Thursday morning and I was in total shock.

She has been upstairs since then, not coming down to eat but instead preferring we bring her food to her, still recovering from the virus she had when she wandered off. She did jump up on a bed to sleep today, instead of snoozing under my son’s coffee table in his room or a bed or in a spot on the corner of the stairs, which is where she’s been since returning.

The Husband said she even came down to try to get back outside this morning.

I think not, cat. You don’t disappear for four full days and think you’re going back outside anytime soon.

We still do not know if she was in someone’s shed or where in the world she was.

Also, what happened to me making this story shorter?!

So…moving on….

What I/We’ve Been Reading

Just Finished

I finished Nancy Drew: Nancy’s Mysterious Letter by Carolyn Keene.

I decided to put Thrush Green by Miss Read aside for a bit. I was about 50 pages in an just couldn’t get into it the way I had hoped to. I might try again later in the summer. Maybe it will hit me right where I need it then.

In Progress

I am slowly reading Stillmeadow Daybrook by Gladys Taber. Since each chapter is a month, I plan to read a chapter a month.

I am reading The Labours of Hercules by Agatha Christie, which is a short story collection featuring her detective Hercule Poirot. I am not enjoying it as much as the standalone novels of hers I have read.

Up Soon

I found two books on my bookshelf that I want to start soon — one that I said I would read two summers ago but never did and another one that I thought I had read but haven’t.

The one I was going to read two summers ago is Summer By The Tides by Denise Hunter. I haven’ t read any of her books and might not enjoy it since it is romance, but I’m going to give it a try.

The one I thought I had already read is a Cat Who book by Lilian Jackson Braun — The Cat Who Brought Down the House. I have read most of the series, but have not read this one and a few more from the series so I added it to my summer hopefuls list.

What The Family is Reading

I am so proud of The Husband. I actually convinced him to not finish a book he was reading and hating. He usually pushes through no matter what, whining the entire time about how bad the book is. I don’t know why he does that when there are so many good books out there to read.

Maybe the book just isn’t for him. He needs to admit that and move on, so I told him that and this time, for the very first time, he actually listened to me about it. In order to take my advice, though, he said I had to pick out his next book.

I picked out the sixth, and latest, book in the Hawthorn and Horowitz mystery series, A Deadly Episode by Anthony Horowitz. So far he is breezing through it, so I picked well.

Little Miss and I are still reading Heidi.

The Boy is listening to a Warhammer book, but I forget which one.

What I/We’ve Been Watching

This past week I watched Dangerous with Bette Davis and did not like it. It was not very interesting and Bette was super whiney and dramatic in it. Plus it seemed to be a typical movie from the 1930s where “woman bad, man good” was the main theme.

I will talk about it more later this week when I write a blog post about it.

Yesterday I watched The Heiress with Olivia de Haviland and it was so much better than Dangerous and just good overall. Olivia won an Oscar for her performance, and I can totally see why. I plan to write a blog post about this one as well.

I started My Sister Eileen last night as well. This one was recommended to me by my friend Heather. This particular movie is a musical but there is a black and white movie with the same story called The Lady Eve. I plan to watch that one too.

What I’ve Been Writing

Last week on the blog, I shared:

What I/We’ve Been Listening To

I’m still listening to The Jack Benny Radio Show (a podcast with full episodes) when I go to bed. I often fall asleep before I can hear the entire episode, however, so I just load up the que each night and see how far I get – often waking up with episodes still playing and catching a bit more when I fall back asleep (I ask up a lot for a variety of reasons.)

Recent Blog Posts I Enjoyed

Tuesday Tour: that’s a tap

Some Housekeeping

Now It’s Your Turn

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

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.

Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot May 15

On May 14, 2026 By Lisa R. HowelerIn Weekend Traffic Jam10 Comments

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

This has been a rough week that ended up with a good ending. The short version of a very long story is that our old cat who got sick last week disappeared Sunday. I announced on this blog I was certain she was dead for various reasons.

This morning, the cat showed up on our back porch. You can read that saga here: https://lisahoweler.com/2026/05/14/a-totally-baffling-update-on-my-missing-cat/

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

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!

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: This week we are spotlighting: Ink Torrents

I want to apologize that I did not highlight The Canary Family last week. I looked at the wrong date. I guess I was a bit flustered with our cat being sick (she wasn’t good that day but got better) and looked at the wrong blog. So here is a link to the Canary Family blog: https://cannaryfamily.blogspot.com/

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

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

Crafty Gardener Had Some Recent Visitors

Thrifting Wonderland is showing us how to make an event special

Musings and Glimpses is telling us how to make our homes smell like summer

God’s Growing Garden is making amazing peach ice cream

What a delightful bakery!

Doused in Pink is making spring dressing feel easy

Important things to know about the link-up:

This link party is for blog posts only. All other links will be deleted.

Please link only blog posts you created yourself.

Please link directly to the URL of your post and not the main address of your blog.

Please do not add links to videos, sales ads, or social media links such as YouTube videos or Shorts, Instagram or Facebook Reels, TikTok videos, or any other “social media” based content.

But do visit other blogs and give the gift of a comment.

Notice: By linking with Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot, you assert that content and photos are your own property. And you give us permission to share said content if your post or blog is showcased.

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.

A totally baffling update on my missing cat –

On May 14, 2026 By Lisa R. HowelerIn everyday musings18 Comments

On Tuesday, I wrote this post, which detailed my oldest cat being missing since Sunday morning and me deciding she was dead….for various reasons.

Because Pixel rarely wanders from our property (she is an indoor/outdoor cat), and had been sick before this happened (catching it from the other two cats), I truly felt she had gone off somewhere to die.

To get to the point, she did not die but instead showed up on our porch this morning, sitting there like nothing had happened at all.

I promise I am not becoming a cat blog -not that those are bad because I like them, but I probably won’t write much about my cats again after this. Still, I felt I owed an update to readers who had been following the saga of my cats that started with the youngest getting sprayed, developing an eye infection (which turned out to be a virus, I guess), the middle cat getting sick and having a 104 degree fever, and then the third coming down with it last week.

When you live in a rural area, it’s not unusual for cats to wander off for a couple of days and show back up but in this case, Pixel has never wandered off for a long period of time. She might be gone part of a day, but even then she’s usually lounging somewhere near our house. She’s a bit afraid of loud noises — lawn mowers, hammering going as the neighbors renovate, that type of thing, so she will run back toward the house when anything like that is going on.

Our other cat, Scout, has wandered off overnight, one time in below freezing temps. Each time she’d show back up and we figured she found someone to take her in, like our elderly neighbor who has a cat door and is hard of hearing so it’s hard to get an answer from him if the cats are in there or not.

My Dad’s cat has wandered off into the woods for over a week and then returned as well, but he’s a semi-feral cat.

On Sunday, when my husband discovered the cat, he thought was getting better but too weak to go far was not under the bush she’d been under before, he asked our neighbor if she’d wandered in to his enclosed porch to get out of the rain, but our neighbor said he hadn’t seen her.

None of the neighbors had and we couldn’t find her hiding anywhere. I thoroughly convinced myself she’d wandered off to die because that’s what two of my childhood cats did (though I was older when they did.). This was heartbreaking to me and I cried every day for three days, imagining how cold and scared she’d been to crawl off somewhere to die alone. I kept trying to figure out where else to look for her and saying to myself how I didn’t understand why she’d wandered off. I was going to be taking her to the vet and felt she’d recover. My OCD kicked and I started checking the ring cameras every couple of hours, night and day.

In the back of my mind, I thought how stupid I would feel if she showed up in a few days or a week, but there was no way that was going to happen. Not with this cat.

So, imagine my surprise when I looked on the ring camera this morning to check another notification and saw her sitting in loaf position on our back porch.

I honestly didn’t believe it and just kept thinking how weird it was that our youngest cat (also black) looked so fat today.

I was half asleep, upstairs in bed still, and kept zooming in on the image. Then I turned on the mic and made this whispering sound I make to get her to come to me and she turned her head to look for me.

I still wasn’t convinced it was her. See, I’d just woke up from a weird dream where I was petting a cat in our house but wasn’t paying attention to what cat it was because I was talking to my daughter and suddenly realized the cat was Pixel.

I said to Little Miss (in the dream), “Oh my gosh..do you see who this is? She’s been here the whole time.”

I didn’t even remember that dream until I let Pixel in the house…she took her good ole time walking in too.

She’s still sick from what we can tell, but better than she was.

It took Scout a full two weeks to feel and act better. Last night she returned to jumping up on my chest to be held while I sit with Little Miss while she takes a shower (she doesn’t actually need me in there but likes to chat during her shower). Today she cuddled me again. Saturday night she came in from a brief trip outside and ran straight to me and climbed on my lap, which she doesn’t usually do right away when she comes in from outside.

So, there we are, the story of my missing cat who came home. What a crazy story.

What is also crazy is that this is the third story of a missing cat who came home that I’ve heard in two days.

It may sound very weird for me to say this, but I feel like our house is complete again with her home.

I’m so happy but still in total shock about it all, like I’ll wake up and the dream was actually her coming home and instead she’s still lost.

Oh, and she’s going to be an inside cat for at least the next month. I’m not going through that again.

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