Welcome to my Sunday Bookends post where I talk about my previous week, including what I’m reading, watching, listening to, writing and doing.

What I’m Reading

I had to document this for prosperity’s sake, I finished three books last week: The Cat Who Knew A Cardinal, Journey to ChiYah, and the second book in the Rembrandt Stone series, No Unturned Stone by David James Warren. Three books? I can usually barely finish one! It’s a miracle! Anyhow . . .

I am trying to read the first three books in the Rembrandt Stone series because I am participating in a blog tour for the fourth book in August. I received an advanced reader’s copy of book four this past week and am excited to jump into it. First, though, I have to finish book three, Sticks and Stone, which I started Friday and am already halfway through. The books are written serially, coming out every three months or so, and are only about 50,000 words.

The series is written by two well-known Christian fiction writers, James L. Rubart and Susan May Warren, and Warren’s sons, David Warren, but it is not a Christian fiction book. This is a time-travel thriller series. The books are fairly clean but do have some language and descriptions that some more sensitive readers of CF would not be very happy with. I mean, one of my characters not my book said “hell” and two women almost fainted when they let me know they were offended. In these books there is talk of drinking, drug use, premarital sex, murder, sexual assault, alcoholism, and various other topics without anyone getting a good tongue lashing or the main character dropping to his knees in repentance. While there is “talk”, though, there are no graphic descriptions, so the books are still quite clean.

I reviewed Journey to ChiYah by Kimberly Russell earlier this week.

I have not reviewed any of the Rembrandt Stone books yet but will in August.

I never review The Cat Who books, since they are comfort reading to me, but this one was one of the better ones I have read over the years. There are 29 books in the series (people with OCD are tweaking right now, but the author died before the 30th book could be finished and bring the total of books to a more unified number) and I have read probably about 10 of them over the years. I have a long way to go to read them all, in other words.

With those books behind me, I am on to book three in the Rembrandt Stones series, as I mentioned above, and will probably start book four, Set in Stone later in the week.

Also, this week I have started The Rhise of Light by Max Sternberg, which is a fantasy novel, something I don’t normally read. Max is in a writing group I am in, however, and I’ve heard good things about it. I’ve started it and so far, I am hooked.

Little Miss and I are still on The Little House in the Big Woods.

The Boy is not reading a boon because, “it’s summer, Mom. Come on.”

What’s Been Occurring

Last week every day was filled with two little girls as I helped my neighbor watch her great-granddaughter who is a year older than Little Miss. In the afternoons I took the girls to a two-hour Bible camp called The Good News Camp at a local church. On the first day, my daughter was almost the only child, but I called my neighbor to see if her great-granddaughter had arrived yet. She had so I asked her little friend if she would like to attend as well.

For the rest of the week, two teenagers played with and taught the girls Bible lessons, driving a half an hour each way. They had another camp near us in the morning and I felt bad they had to spend their afternoon with only two children, but the girl told me that they hold a camp even if they only have one child. I tried to drum up more interest in the camp via my dad’s Facebook (he has more friends than me on there. Mainly because he used to be addicted to Facebook and sometimes still is but usually only in the winter) but no one took us up on it and the girls were the only two for the entire week.

They didn’t mind because the teenagers played games with them and were essentially their daily playmates each day.

Before and after camp, Little Miss’s little friend would come to the house and play. Neither of the girls are “bad.” They are simply very energetic and always coming up with new ideas of what to do. I love that they are coming up with new ideas of what to do but I would prefer that they ask me before they initiate activities that will result in paint being spread all over our hardwood floors or them possibly being bit by a snake. Yes, they are still looking for the many garter snakes living on our street and in our yard.

This week we have a break from camp, but not from little girls as the other little friend’s sister comes to stay and will probably be visiting throughout the week. She’s a little less adventurous than her older sister. She and Little Miss sit and play Barbies for hours. I might actually get some writing done. We will see. The week after this week, there is another Vacation Bible School event being held by four local churches in our community. I am going to try to take Little Miss to that as well so she has more interaction with children her own age.

What I’m Writing (Blog and Otherwise)

I’m finishing edits of Harvesting Hope this week. The book goes live on Amazon on August 12 and is available for preorder for blog readers for 99 cents. While I’m editing, I’m also working on book three. I’m not doing a lot of writing at this point, just brainstorming. I’m still trying to decide if the book will be only about Ginny Jefferies, the 53-year-old librarian, or also about Liz, Molly’s best friend. My mom and a friend of ours are helping me hammer out the plot and I was quite shocked how quickly they suggested I kill a character off. That probably won’t happen, but I appreciate their suggestions (or not).

This week on the blog I shared:

Hometown Views: Libraries (a new feature with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs). Next week we are focusing on schools.

A little fiction on Thursday: Harvesting Hope Chapter 25

Fiction Friday: Harvesting Hope Chapter (I don’t know. I’ve lost count. Oh wait…I remember now) 26

Saturday Fiction: Harvesting Hope Chapter 27 and 28 (final chapters)

What I’m Watching

This week I continued watching Jonathan Creek, a British crime show,but wondered why. The show completely went off the rails in the fourth season. Not only was one of the main characters replaced, but the plot of the shows went downhill big time. Apparently, they hired new writers who had no idea what they were doing. It was also odd to hear an f-bomb being dropped in a show which had minimal swearing previously. That was a bit jarring. I will probably keep watching just to see how far in the gutter the show goesZ

The husband and I continued to watch Lovejoy, a British show about an antique dealer who always seems to get himself into trouble.

Later this week, we are planning to go see the 1951 movie The Maltese Falcon in a theater about an hour from us. The theater is showing old movies for a reduced ticket price as a promotion.

Last night my husband picked an episode of Miami Vice for us to watch, which was different for me since when I was a kid and it was actually on TV, I was not allowed to watch it. “All those half naked women!” my mom would say. Not only that but it came on very late on Fridays and I was supposed to be in bed.

My husband wanted to show me what I had been missing and let’s just say by my repeated utterances of “this is ridiculousness”, I don’t think I missed much. Not even the repeated scenes of Don Johnson with his shirt off did anything for me.

Favorite Blog Posts from the Week

I probably won’t remember to do this every week, but I do save my favorite blog posts on my phone app so I can share them later, in case I do remember to add this in my weekly round-up posts.

A Major Fault – Fuel for the Race

A Short Story on Perseverance For His Purpose

Flash Fiction – Micro 60 Prompts by PenWending

For the Love of Words on Hope, Hearts, and Heroes

What I’m Listening To

This song has been on repeat most of the week:

That’s my week in review. Let me know what you’re reading, watching, or doing in the comments.