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’m on to the fourth book, Set in Stone, in the Rembrandt Stone series by David James Warren after finishing book three, Sticks and Stone, last week. Book four will release on August 10. I am reading it for a book tour being held the week of its release.

Here is a description of the fourth book but be warned there are some spoilers for the first three books:

Trapped in time, he’ll have to use the past to fix the present.

Thirty-eight women. Dead. All the in the past. All because Detective Rembrandt Stone played with fate, and somewhere in time unleashed a serial killer. He can’t undo their deaths, not anymore, but the serial killer is still at large, twenty-four years later, and now it’s personal. Especially when the evidence points to the last person on anyone’s radar: Rembrandt himself.
Now he’ll have to use the clues from his pasts to track down the killer in the present.

But the killer is onto him and puts the one person Rembrandt loves in his cross hairs. Now, Rembrandt must outwit time to save the people he loves.

Because time is playing for keeps.

The fourth installment of the True Lies of Rembrandt Stone will have you holding your breath and leave you gasping for more.

I am also reading Rahab’s Courage by Naomi Craig, which releases August 17. It is a Biblical fiction book and quite good so far.

Here is a description:

A scarlet cord tethers one ruined woman to the salvation of mankind.

Harboring two fugitives in a city slated for destruction, Rahab has one small chance of escape. In exchange for their safety, she bargains for her own. Their agreement rewards her courage, and she flees Jericho and a life of prostitution for a new life among the people of Israel. Never again will she have to depend on anyone—especially men.

Except Salmah won’t take the hint.

High ranking soldier and leader of the tribe of Judah, Salmah is determined not to repeat his parents’ mistakes. He will keep the Lord’s commandments. Rahab’s growing faith fits right in with phase one of his plans: find a wife who loves the Lord and settle down in the new land.

Rahab finds shelter and meaning in the Lord’s ways until her past comes back to haunt her. As her new faith is put to test, she finds herself alone. Isn’t that what she’d always wanted?

With her courage waning, only the Lord can turn Rahab’s life around again, but will He do it before she loses everyone and everything that really matters to her—to her heart?

I will need to finish both books in the next couple of weeks, so wish this slower reader luck. It shouldn’t be too hard since I am taking a news and social media break this next month. I won’t be totally off social media since I administrate a couple of book groups and am releasing a book, but I am planning to be on very, very little, probably once a week.

What’s Been Occurring

This week was full of more time spent watching the little girls who stay with their great-grandmother, our neighbor down the street, during the week. She used to watch them at the same time, but now she only watches one at a time because they are quite active, and she gives out of energy fast. Much of my week was spent watching them play in the yard and ride their bikes in front of the house.

My husband took one of Little Miss’s training wheels off to get her used to balancing more and prepare her to ride her bike without the training wheels. She was so proud of herself she blazed up and down the street over and over again Friday and Saturday. Each of those nights she fell asleep super fast, of course.

This past week was apparently our week to interact with wildlife. Early in the week, my son saw a toad in the yard while he was mowing and caught it for Little Miss and her friend to see.

They put the toad in a bucket and took turns holding him, decided he was a girl and named him, er, her Violet, later released her, found her again when she didn’t moved from where they’d placed her.

Then Little Miss proceeded to fall in love with her and it took a little convincing for Little Miss to release Violet again 20 minutes later, even though Violet had been making terrified little squeals since they had caught her. I don’t know what Violet thought of me but she leaped toward the camera in a bid to escape at one point. It happened so fast, I didn’t have time to focus on her leaps toward me.

Little Miss’s friend told me Little Miss had decided the toad was a girl by “looking.” I have no idea where Little Miss looked to tell the frog was a girl, but I just let it go.

On Friday, Little Miss and her friend traveled with me when I took The Boy and his friend over to my parents so my dad could take the boys to our county fair. On our way back to the house we saw two racoon babies along the road near my parents’ house, but sadly I was too far away to get a good photo of them. About ten minutes later, near our house, we saw a young buck. I actually didn’t notice the deer was a buck. Little Miss’s little friend pointed out his antlers.

I tried to grab a photo of the buck, but my camera kept focusing the grass in front of him instead. He was probably only about five feet away from us at the time, on a small bank above us and near my neighbor’s house.

Little Miss’s friend said her and her Nana saw an adult buck in her backyard yesterday morning. I’m hoping to catch a glimpse of him in our backyard at some point. We haven’t seen as many deer in our yard this year as we did last year.

What We’ve Been Watching

Last week we watched Key Largo with Humphrey Bogart and Edward G. Robinson, which I had never seen before. I really enjoyed it and highly recommend it.

For those who have never seen it, I pulled a description off Rotten Tomatoes.

This classic film noir by John Huston stars Humphrey Bogart as World War II vet Frank McCloud. Visiting Key Largo to pay his respects to the family of his late war buddy, McCloud attempts to comfort his comrade’s widow, Nora (Lauren Bacall), and father, James Temple (Lionel Barrymore), who operate a hotel. But McCloud realizes that mobsters, led by the infamous Johnny Rocco (Edward G. Robinson), are staying in the hotel. When the criminals take over the establishment, conflict is inevitable.

I’ve also been watching a lot of To The Manor Born, a British sitcom from the 70s and Lovejoy to try to avoid news sites.

What I’ve Been Writing

On the blog this week, I wrote a blog post with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs about the schools in our different parts of the world (she lives in a more urban area, and I live in a rural area, so we’ve started a new feature where we compare “our worlds” so to speak).

I also shared some random thoughts/events on Friday to replace Fiction Friday for now, since I am working on completing corrections to the manuscript of Harvesting Hope (which comes out on Kindle August 12) and don’t have another story to share right now..

What I’m Listening To

I’ve still been listening to songs from Danny Gokey’s new album and I highly recommend Agradecido being turned up loudly and repeated at least twice.

So those are my random thoughts for the week. How about you? Share what you are doing, reading, listening to, watching and writing in the comments.