This is my weekly post where I share what I am reading, watching, writing and occasionally what I am listening to.

What I’m Reading

I’m jumping around to different books right now. I feel like a Christian looking for a new church at this point.

I’ve been bouncing back and forth between And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, which I am enjoying; a Christian fiction romance called Rescue Me by Susan May Warren, which is so-so; and a Christian suspense book, Northwest Counter-Terrorism Taskforce Book 1 by Lisa Phillips.

Rescue Me is unrealistic in many ways, like most romances (and my books. *wink*).

First of all two of the main characters are stuck on a ledge at one point in a van after an accident, with teenagers and having a heart to heart, flirting session in the front seat. Everyone can hear them. This isn’t the time to be all gushy. The kids have just gone through a a car accident and this is after one of their friends was mauled by a bear a week earlier (but somehow lived) and a few weeks before that stranded in a flood. All of this, mind you, happened under the watch of the same girl who is pouting in this book because the church had decided she shouldn’t be the youth leader anymore. I can’t imagine how they let her take the kids anywhere after the bear mauling and what in the world kind of youth group is this that the go on all day and all night hikes every weekend? It is extremely far fetched to me.

I think the reader is supposed to feel sorry for the main character and hope she gets together with the love interest but I don’t feel sorry for her. Every comment made to her about how stupid she was is justified. Every thought she has that she is awful for being in love with her sister’s boyfriend is spot on. It is rare I dislike the main character from a book I am reading as much as I do this one. I want to throttle her despite her awful upbringing by a crazy woman who took her to live in a commune as a child. In real life some of the supporting characters of this book (her sister, her sister’s boyfriend, the pastor and his wife, and the youth pastor) would have already throttled her.

Despite all the “complaints” here, (I am teasing about most of it) I can’t seem to put the book down and I do want to know what happens. It is still well written and at least my complaints aren’t as rude as one of the negative reviews of it that I read on Amazon.

I couldn’t read the following review without picturing a woman with clenched teeth pounding on her keyboard, seething with absolute jealousy. You have to read it in a really snotty, “Karen” type voice. I also left in all the typos: “Susan apparently lives in a city, and doesn’t use search engines to research her writing. In this book, I had to skim several pages to avoid the absolute ignorance displayed in this book about, well, anything related to mountains, rescue, or climbing. It’s too back the background for the book is RESCUE. It simply ruins the book. The highlights are a group of kids and adults crossing a mountain river WITHOUT A ROPE, which they were carrying, or how about the grizzly 15 feet above a ledge taking a swipe at the rescue folks below (where do I start on that?) who then SPIDER REPEL (for those not in the know. which is everyone but Susan and her editor, it’s repelling head first) . *Clue clenching teeth, pounding keyboard* Clearly Susan should get out, you, know, get a clue, or actually research what she’s poorly attempting to write about. *Cue jealousy and inability to spell…even worse than me* Oh, and Susan, not everyone is beautiful, hansom, capable, and oh so desirable….like ALL of your characters. Oh, wait. Maybe you were writing about Olympus? I hear all the gods and goddesses there are hansom, beautiful, and quite desirable!

Two books I am looking forward to coming out in February are ‘Til I Want No More by Robin W. Pearson:

And a non-fiction book (which I rarely read), Andy Ngo’s Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy, which Antifa is currently trying to get banned from all major bookstores because ya’ know – “freedom of speech ain’t real, ya’ll”.

Their efforts to censor the book was why my husband and I preordered a copy to help it climb up the bestseller list on Amazon. I don’t know, when someone wants to ban something, or squealch free speech, it makes me want to know why. I figure there must be a wee bit of truth in there if certain people are afraid for it to go public. An aside, Andy was beat by Antifa last year while peacefully filming their terroristic activities and left in the hospital with a brain bleed. He’s been covering Antifa as an independent journalist for several years now.

When I heard that thin-skinned people wanted to ban Jordan Peterson’s new book, 12 More Rules for Life, I decided to pre-order that one as well.

I find Jordan Peterson fascinating and I don’t know if I agree with all his observations, but I haven’t heard anything he’s said that should be banned. So I’m looking forward to his book in March and hope to get his first book before it arrives. I like to have hard copies of non-fiction books, that way I can make notes in them if I want to.

I plant to talk about this renewed trend of banning books and other things we don’t like in a post later this week. Should be fun. Will probably step on some toes, but everyone is offended these days so what’s new?

What I’ve Been Watching

I’ve been watching a lot of The Andy Griffith Show, which I watch when the world feels off kilter and I am watching Murdoch Mysteries with the hubs most nights. We are taking a break from Doc Martin. We are still traumatized from “the scene” I mentioned last week (which will from now on be just referred to simply as The Scene) but I am also dreading future episodes becaues I worry that the romance that has been blossoming between Martin and Louisa is just going to implode and make me weepy.

What’s Been Occurring

Nothing has been occurring. Not really anyhow. We’ve been iced or snowed in for a couple of weeks now. We had to escape one day this week because Little Miss was exhibiting symptons of a bladder infection but it turned out she didn’t have one. After some research, we have decided her frequent urination may be caused by stress she is feeling from only friends moving away, from all the world stuff I haven’t done a good enough job sheltering her from, and simply growing pains. It may have also been caused by her drinking more juice than she should have and causing some irritation of her bladder.

The doctor we took her to had no idea and wasn’t very helpful other than saying if it doesn’t clear up we can take her to a specialist. The doctor (who is actually a physician assistant, technically) was very nice, however. The nurse and PA were both nice, even when my daughter looked them straight in the eye and announced, in a very firm, non-emotional tone: “I don’t want to be here.” She was extremely indignant I made her pee in a cup as well, but the nurse was very nice and had me come to the office and pick up the cup so Little Miss could pee into the cup in the comfort of her own home. By Saturday, the issue had started to improve immensely.

What I’m Writing

I started writing The Farmer’s Son this week and I am working on edits/proofreading of The Farmer’s Daughter. On the blog, I rambled out some random thoughts and shared a prologue to The Farmer’s Son for Fiction Friday.

What I’m Listening To

Brandon Lake has a new life album on Apple so I’ve been checking that out and also a new band called CAIN.

So that’s my week in review. How was yours? Let me know in the comments.