Saturday Evening Chat: Meeting fellow bloggers, no link party here, and flowers are blooming

June 21, 2025June 21, 2025 / Lisa R. Howeler / 18 Comments

Hello! Good Saturday evening. This was supposed to go up this afternoon, but life got busy so it got delayed.

Sit down and have some tea and a snack with me. My sister-in-law sent a whole bunch of tea with my brother when he visited last week so I have a variety for you to choose from. A honey ginger tea, green tea with lemon, Earl Gray, one for relaxation (I may ten cups of that tonight!), and a couple of others. And, of course, I have my go-to, plain peppermint.

First, a bit of housekeeping:

This post will no longer be a link party. Why? Because there are so many link parties out there already that I am a part of or participate in and they are great. And because I like my Saturday posts just to be a chat post with my blog followers.

If you are looking for a link party to participate in, I co-host one with three lovely blogger ladies that goes live on Thursday nights. The Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot goes live about 9:30 p.m. each Thursday (unless I’m late like this week. Whoops!) and if you scroll on my right-hand sidebar you should find the link to the latest one.

I also have added a link to parties I participate in at the top of my page.

I am going to leave up my monthly link-up for all things book-related. You can find a link to the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea link party at the top of my page.

With all of that out of the way, on to today’s post which will be about pretty much nothing. Ha!

No, it will be about something. I did actually do a few things this past week.

One very exciting something I did this past week was meet the blogger at Mama’s Empty Nest this past week. I don’t know if she shares her first name on her blog or not, since I’ve never seen her do it, so I won’t share it here. I’ll just call her C.

Over the years, I have loved reading C’s stories about her various trips across our country or into Canada. I have also been blessed and encouraged by the posts she shares about her faith. She’s hit a bit of a snag with her blog lately because WordPress says she is almost out of storage space and is trying to force her to upgrade. She likes to share photos from her various travels, so this has created quite the conundrum for her. and I am about in the same boat. The snag has led to her taking a bit of a break from her blog while she tries to reduce what’s in her storage. It’s also led to her and I both feeling like Wordress stinks a bit as a blog host.

C and her husband are trying to travel to each county in the state of Pennsylvania in the next few years. They are from the western part of Pennsylvania and I am in the East so they were able to mark a few more counties off their list this week, including mine.

C was also able to mark off seeing yet another covered bridge, which is another goal of hers. We have a beautiful covered bridge about 20 minutes from us that is located next to one of our favorite restaurants, so I suggested that as our meeting place. It let C check off two of her goals in a row — visiting another county and seeing a covered bridge.

Of course, they actually did see our county on their way through to visit Williamsport in Lycoming County. They were even able to see our county’s one stoplight in the middle of the town I live in. How terribly exciting for them. Ha!

The Husband had a later-than-planned day of work that day and The Boy wasn’t feeling well, so in the end it was just Little Miss and I who met with them. We were excited to introduce them to our local Philadelphia cheesesteak place. The restaurant is owned by someone who is originally from south Philadelphia. There are a variety of different ways to make a cheesesteak in Philadelphia and Big Mike (the restaurant owners) offers it a few different ways. C and her husband had never tried a cheesesteak with cheese whiz so they were excited to try one.

We had a nice dinner of cheesesteaks and chicken salads, sweet potato fries, and fried pickle chips, sitting on the picnic tables by the restaurant, overlooking the Loyalsock Creek and the Forksville Covered Bridge.

Little Miss is very shy around her peers and tends to open up more to adults at times. She usually opens up more when she gets to know a person, but for some reaso,n she connected immediately with C and her lovely husband.

C said later, maybe it is because they gave off “cool grandparent vibes” and Little Miss had to agree.

C and her husband have four grandchildren, one of them Little Miss’s age, and from what I have read on her blog, they really are the cool grandparents.

Little Miss loved sharing all kinds of stories with them and showing them photos of a range of pets and people from her life. She also enjoyed feeding the birds and a chipmunk hopping around the outside tables.

After filling our bellies and chatting, C and her lovely husband were back on the road again, with plans to leave the next day for home. Before leaving C gifted me with a box of Amish Inn Mysteries books after she read on my blog that I have been reading them. I’d take a photo of them to post here but they are in the back of my car, which isn’t here at the moment since my husband is using it to pick up a friend of Little Miss’s for a playdate.

I am not including photos of myself here, even though we took a photo together, because I don’t enjoy photos of myself, but here is a lovely photo of the covered bridge.

C and I met on Wednesday. On Thursday I went to my parents to help clean and ended up chatting the afternoon away with the wife of a man who came to purchase some old collector bottles from my dad.

My grandmother collected bottles for years and also won awards for her collection. Those bottles are still at my parents but with them getting older and me not having room for the collection my dad is beginning to sell them off.

It will be hard to let them go but there simply isn’t any way to keep everything.

On Friday, the kids and I had to stop at two government offices for various reasons and pick up groceries. It was a frustrating day in many ways and that really isn’t a surprise since the previous sentence included the words, “government offices.”

I believe frustration is the main feeling you end up with after dealing with government offices. That and anger. Sometimes even rage — especially when those offices have new rules every time you walk in the door.

One week they allowed us to use certain documentation to obtain a replacement social security card for our son and two weeks later they denied us the ability to do the same for our daughter. I truly feel that government employees either don’t actually know the rules, don’t care about the rules, or change the rules every time a new person comes in just to make their own, mundane life more exciting.

We did come home with what The Boy needed from his government office visit, but not what Little Miss needed.

After we came home, I tripped over a shovel in our garage and fell hard on my hands and needs on the concrete floor. I landed on both knees but more so the knee which had only just healed up from a fall on our sidewalk last summer.

There are many reasons I hate summer, and I can add falling on my face at least once during the season to that list now, apparently.

I actually didn’t fall right on my face, but close to it.

I bent my glasses, possibly cracked my phone (I found that crack later in the evening), and was left with a very bruised knee. Despite all that, I feel very lucky. Usually, a fall like that leaves me very, very sore the next day and could have left me with a broken bone, but I’m doing fairly well today. The knee isn’t feeling too great, but it isn’t as painful as it was last year when I twisted it.

While I was sitting and trying to recover from my fall, my mom called and said my dad was having chest pains that were radiating to his back so The Husband ran out the door and drove him to the ER. Dad refused an ambulance.

Because my mom has been having falls lately (luckily ones that have just left her on her bottom and not seriously injured), I headed over to stay with her, limping into the house. I left there at midnight after Dad had a clean-bill of health from the ER. They determined he had gas and a severe muscle pull.

This afternoon I had a Crafternoon with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and others. I am also not leaving my house for the next several days for my mental and physical health.

We are scheduled to have dangerous heat for the next four or five days and my nerves are a bit shot from yesterday. We already have a heat advisory in place. Humidity is supposed to be very high on top of temperatures in the low to mid-90s.

Heat and I don’t mix well together. It bothers my asthma and other issues.

The roses outside my house bloomed in full force this week but are quickly falling off and will be gone by the end of the week most likely. I will miss them as they seem to be one of the few highlights for me in summer.

The rest of summer is a muggy, hot, yucky mess that leaves me not feeling good. This year we won’t have a pool at my parents because it has become too much for my dad and us to maintain. This is disheartening to both me and Little Miss because we enjoyed it so much.

So there has been a mix of sadness and happiness going on in my neck of the woods lately.

How about you? How was your week last week?

I’d love to hear about it in the comments, or you can leave me a link if you have a weekly round up post of some kind.

Lisa R. Howeler is a blogger, homeschool mom, and writes cozy mysteries.

You can find her Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find her on Instagram and YouTube.

Summer of Angela: National Velvet (1944)

June 20, 2025June 28, 2025 / Lisa R. Howeler / 17 Comments

This summer I am watching movies starring or co-starring Angela Lansbury.

Up this week I watched National Velvet, which Angela only has a very small part in. It was her third movie and she was 19-years old.

This was after she had won an Oscar in her first movie, Gaslight. This was certainly not a film I would expect an Oscar-winning actress in, but it was a sweet, cozy, and wholesome film.

I find it funny that Angela was playing a character who was supposed to be younger than she actually was in real life.

Her character, Edwina Brown, was supposed to be 14 in the movie. She was the most mature 14-year-old I ever saw.

But let’s get back to what National Velvet is about.

Movie description:

When Velvet Brown (Elizabeth Taylor), an equine-loving 12-year-old living in rural Sussex, becomes the owner of a rambunctious horse, she decides to train it for England’s Grand National race. Aided by former jockey Mi Taylor (Mickey Rooney) and encouraged by her family, the determined Velvet gets her steed, affectionately called “The Pie,” ready for the big day. However, a last-minute problem arises with the jockey and an unexpected rider must step in as a replacement.

The movie, released in 1945 was based on the 1935 book, National Velvet, by Enid Bagnold. It was directed by Clarence Leon Brown.

It begins with Velvet Brown and her sisters at school. Her older sister is daydreaming about boys while Velvet is daydreaming about horses.

She wants to ride horses all of the time and on her way home from school she sees a horse after meeting wandering jockey Mi Taylor, who is actually on his way to see her mother. She doesn’t know Mi is a former jockey, but she thinks he is fascinating anyhow. The horse Velvet sees is called The Pie, or at least that is what she calls him. He’s wild and crazy and escapes the paddock where he is kept, leading an absolutely huge stone wall.

Mi is excited when he sees the jump but it isn’t until later that we will learn why.

Velvet stops The Pie from running and the owner says she should be more careful because he is wild. Velvet takes Mi home to her parents and he presents an autograph book to her mother. The book has her name in it and he wants to know how she knew his father.

She doesn’t tell him that night but we learn later in the movie how they knew each other. After some humorous moments, Mi is invited to stay with the family and later in the movie The Pie, a troublemaker horse, is auctioned off and the Brown family buys a ticket, hoping to win him for Velvet.

Highlights for me:

This movie had beautiful scenery.

It was supposed to take place in England but was actually filmed primarily in California and very few of the actors used British accents, other than a couple of actual English actors, including Angela.

I love watching The Pie race across the gorgeous hills with the backdrop of the ocean.

Angela wasn’t in the movie very long at all but when she was, she had some fun moments, and it was really fun to see her so young. I’m really looking forward to watching her in Gaslight, when she was even younger.

I loved Velvet’s mother. The actress (Anne Revere, who won an Oscar for her performance) pulled her off perfectly. She seemed stern at first, but she was truly the glue that held the family together and the motivation for Velvet to reach for her dreams.

Velvet’s mother crossed the channel when she was young, something no other woman had done before. When Velvet wants to race her horse in England’s Grand National, her mother wanted her daughter to have the same excitement she had with her accomplishment.

“We’re alike,” Mrs. Brown tells her. “I, too, believe that everyone should have a chance at a breathtaking piece of folly once in his life. I was twenty when they said a woman couldn’t swim the Channel. You’re twelve; you think a horse of yours can win the Grand National. Your dream has come early; but remember, Velvet, it will have to last you all the rest of your life.”

Mrs. Brown had quite a few good quotes in the movie actually. Here is another one:

“What’s the meaning of goodness if there isn’t a little badness to overcome?”

She was my favorite character.

What I thought of Angela in the movie

As I’ve mentioned above, Angela was in this movie very little. In the parts she was in she was very good and provided humor or sweet moments.

Here character, Edwina, was starting to get interested in boys and Velvet was excited to tell their teacher about Edwina meeting a boy later that night after the last day of school. Of course, when Edwina walks past the boy she intends to meet later she ignores him.

Velvet says she doesn’t understand why she did that and Edwina responds with, “Velvet, you’re too young to understand some things.”

The sisters, their arms around each other as they walk, talk about growing up.

“Haven’t you really felt keen about anything?” Edwina asks.

“Oh yes!” Velvet says looking at a horse as they pass.

“Horses!” Edwina says with an eyeroll. “What’s it feel like to be in love with a horse?”

“I lose my lunch,” Velvet says.

“Oh no,” Edwina says with a dramatic flourish, touching her hand to her throat and upper chest. “It’s here where you feel it. It skips a beat.”

And off she wanders to follow Teddy who has just ridden by on his bike.

Later, when Mr. Brown is tucking the three girls in at night, Edwina has just come in from seeing Teddy a bit earlier and is now in bed with the covers up to her chin. She’s “fast asleep” and her father is amazed she can sleep through all the noise.

Before he leaves the room he tells Edwina she’d better change into her nightclothes and Edwina is furious he found her out.

I’m guessing that she intended to sneak out that night.

Later in the movie she shows her true teenage self when she yells that she’s sick of hearing about Velvet’s horse and hopes he dies.

She apologizes for this outburst before Velvet leaves to go the Grand National, hugging her sister and telling her she should have never said it.

What I thought overall:

I didn’t expect to like this movie. Elizabeth Taylor’s little child voice was a bit annoying to me at first because it was almost as if it was overdone.

I just decided that was her voice and got used to it finally. Then I really enjoyed the movie, especially the humorous moments among the family members, including Velvet’s little brother Donald. He was hilarious and reminded me of kids I’ve met before.

This exchange was so cute:

Donald Brown: I was sick all night!

Mr. Herbert Brown: Donald, you told a story, didn’t you?

Donald Brown: Yes, sir, it was a story.

Mr. Herbert Brown: Well, you know what to do.

Donald Brown: What?

Mr. Herbert Brown: You say you’re sorry.

[Donald puts his head on his hand]

Mr. Herbert Brown: Well?

Mrs. Brown: He’s thinking.

Mr. Herbert Brown: [to Donald] Well, make up your mind.

Donald Brown: Alright, I’m sorry.

[continues eating his dinner]

Mr. Herbert Brown: Well, go on. Sorry for what?

Donald Brown: For being sick all night!

Mr. Herbert Brown: That boy will make a lawyer.

What Angela said about the movie:

At a Lifetime Achievement award ceremony for Elizabeth Taylor, Angela talked about meeting Elizabeth and how she (Angela) felt like she was superior to Elizabeth who was seven years younger.

“I had already done Gaslight and I was playing a 14-year-old, your sister and I thought I was really beyond that, you know, I was all of 18 and smoked cigarettes with Charles Boyer and worked with Ingred Bergman,” she said with a laugh.

In an interview with Studio 10 shortly before she died, Angela said she and Elizabeth remained friends from the time they met on National Velvet until Elizabeth died in 2011. Angela presented Elizabeth with the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1993 and talked about Elizabeth’s impact on the industry and said when she first met her on the set of National Velvet she knew there was something special about her.

I couldn’t find many other interviews where Angela talked about National Velvet, but I am sure they are out there.

A bit of trivia or facts:

Elizabeth, 11 when filming started, did most of her own riding and stunts, bonding with the horse for months leading up to the film.
The Pie, real name King Charles, was gifted to Elizabeth Taylor for her birthday when filming was over.
Andy Rooney’s scenes had to be filmed first and in one month because he had been drafted by the Army and was expected to show up for duty June of 1944.
The movie was released during World War II, during a time when a wholesome story was really needed.
The equine star, The Pie, was played by a 7-year-old Thoroughbred called King Charles. A grandson of the legendary Man o’ War, King Charles was reportedly purchased by MGM for $800.
Elizabeth was originally told she couldn’t have the role because she didn’t yet have boobs. Over the next few months Elizabeth, who loved the National Velvet book, started a special diet full of high protein, trained heavily, exercised and grew three inches from October to December. She returned to tell the producer who said she needed boobs that she had come back with boobs!
National Velvet won a total of five Academy Award nominations, including one for Brown as Best Director; and two Oscars — for Anne Revere as Best Supporting Actress as Velvet’s understanding mother and Robert Kern for Film Editing.
After the winners of the Oscars had been announced, an Academy spokesman said that Taylor had narrowly missed winning a special Oscar for best juvenile performance — an award that went instead to Peggy Ann Garner for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1944).
Anne Revere’s performance as Mrs. Brown was so entrancing that neither audiences nor critics pointed out that it was rendered with a pronounced New York accent.
King Charles, playing The Pie, was first-cousin of champion thoroughbred Seabiscuit, subject of two biopics. Both had Man o’ War as grand-sire.
From IMDb: “The story that Mi Taylor (Mickey Rooney) tells Donald Brown (Jackie ‘Butch’ Jenkins) about a shipwrecked horse is a legend based on fact. In 1904, a New Zealand-bred thoroughbred named “Moiffa” won the Grand National race. It was reported at the time that Moiffa had survived being shipwrecked on a deserted island. However, according to the Grand National’s web site, another horse named “Kiora,” who also ran in the Grand National that same year, was the shipwreck survivor. In January, 1901, a steamship bearing Kiora had gone down in a storm in the Cape of Good Hope. Kiora escaped the shipwreck, and swam to Mouille Point, a beach in Cape Town, South Africa, where he was rescued by local fishermen. In 1904, the newspaper reporters simply assumed that Moiffa, the Grand National winner, was also the shipwrecked horse. In 1979, Mickey Rooney starred in The Black Stallion (1979), which was about a shipwrecked horse that goes on to win a major race.”

Next week I will be writing Bedknobs & Broomsticks.

Other movies I will be watching (the dates are the day I will be writing about them):

July 4 – Gaslight

July 11 – The Shell Seekers

July 18 – Murder She Wrote: The Celtic Riddle

July 25 – The Mirror Cracked

August 1 – The Court Jester

Additional Resources:

National Velvet Movie Facts: https://www.willowbrookridingcentre.co.uk/national-velvet-movie-facts/

National Velvet Trivia IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037120/trivia/

National Velvet article on TCM.com: https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/84601/national-velvet#articles-reviews?articleId=12668

Lisa R. Howeler is a blogger, homeschool mom, and writes cozy mysteries.

You can find her Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find her on Instagram and YouTube.

Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot June 20

June 19, 2025 / Lisa R. Howeler / 9 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.

Summer is finally showing up in our neck of the woods and I’m not too happy about it. I am not a summer person. My body just doesn’t handle the heat well at all. I feel very sick in it so I spend more time inisde than out during the summer.

Still, I’ve really enjoyed seeing the flowers in my yard bloom, including the wild roses and the peonies and since the weather hasn’t been super hot I’ve been able to go out and get a few photos of them.

I hope you have all been having a nice summer.

If you are interested, I am hosting a monthly blog link-up for anything related to books. This can be posts about books you’ve read, want to read, are collecting, have found, etc. Etc. If it is related to books, it is welcome this monthly link up.

June’s link-up can be found here: https://lisahoweler.com/2025/06/08/a-good-book-a-cup-of-tea-june-2025-party/

Now, let’s introduce our 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.

Sue from Women Living Well After 50 started blogging in 2015 and writes about living an active and healthy lifestyle, fashion, book reviews and her podcast and enjoying life as a woman over 50. She invites you to join her living life in full bloom.

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: I do declare

A little about Laura: I’m Laura and I started I do deClaire way back in 2013 a few months after our first daughter, Claire was born. After I became a mom for the first time I didn’t want to lose my love of fashion and clothing. I started blogging as a way to hold myself accountable and show others that fashion doesn’t have to be time consuming, expensive, or uncomfortable. It’s all about finding what you love and what you feel best in. And you can do it all on a budget!

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

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

Love these beautiful red outfits!

(More red from Chez Mireille Fashion Travel Mom!)

(Kate’s Dino Garden is so cute from Two Chicks and a Mom)

Important things to know:

You may add unlimited family-friendly blog post links, linked to specific blog posts, not just the blog.
Be sure to visit other links and leave a kind comment for each link you post (it would be too hard to visit every link, of course!)
The party opens Thursday evening and ends Wednesday.
Thank you for participating. Have fun!

*By linking to The Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot Link Up, you give permission to share your post and images on the hosts’ blogs.

Lisa R. Howeler is a blogger, homeschool mom, and writes cozy mysteries.

You can find her Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

Top Ten Tuesday: 10 Books I want to read this summer

June 17, 2025 / Lisa R. Howeler / 25 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

Today’s prompt is: Books on My Summer 2025 to-Read List

I have already posted about 15 books I hope to read this summer so I’ve narrowed it down to the top ten I hope to finish by the end of the summer. I’ve also swapped some books out after doing some research on them and deciding they most likely aren’t really my thang, ya’ know.

As always, these are subject to change, and other books may catch my attention and take precedence.

1. The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Woodhouse

I’ve already started this one and I am enjoying it, so I am sure I’ll finish it in the next couple of months at least.

2. The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie

I’ve also started this one, but just a few pages. I need a good mystery right now.

3. The Clue in the Diary by Carolyn Keene

I’ll probably read a couple Nancy Drews this summer. I usually do.

4. Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis

Children’s books are apparently my thing this summer.

5. But First Murder by Bee Littlefield

Because I like Betti and want to see what’s going on with her. Plus…more mystery, which I like.

6. Spill the Jackpot by Erle Stanley Gardner

Cool and Lamb. Yes. I need some more of their wicked bluntness and mystery.

7. The 100-Year-Old-Man Who Climbed Out The Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonassen

I have no idea if I will like this or not, but I am going to give it a try anyhow.

8. The Happy Life of Isadora Bentley By Courtney Walsh

I swapped this one out with Summer of Yes because it has better ratings.

9. Dave Barry is Not Taking This Sitting Down by Dave Barry

I need some humor. Like bad. That is all.

10. The Unlikely Yarn of the Dragon Lady by Sharon J. Mondragon

What books are you looking forward to this summer?

Lisa R. Howeler is a blogger, homeschool mom, and writes cozy mysteries.

You can find her Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find her on Instagram and YouTube.

Summer of Angela: The Manchurian Candidate

June 16, 2025June 18, 2025 / Lisa R. Howeler / 25 Comments

This summer I am watching movies starring or co-starring Angela Lansbury.

This week I watched The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

Angela was nominated for an Oscar for best supporting actress for her performance as Eleanor Shaw and, wow, did she deserve that nomination.

First, a description of the movie from Google:

Near the end of the Korean War, a platoon of U.S. soldiers is captured by communists and brainwashed. Following the war, the platoon is returned home, and Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey) is lauded as a hero by the rest of his platoon. However, the platoon commander, Captain Bennett Marco (Frank Sinatra), finds himself plagued by strange nightmares and, together with fellow soldier Allen Melvin (James Edwards), races to uncover a terrible plot.

Highlights for me:

The opening scenes are completely mental and crazy. Scary too. I don’t want to give too much away in case you’ve never seen this. So I won’t. All I can say is seeing one of the Baldwin sisters from the Waltons ask a man in her sing-song voice if he’s ever killed anyone messed me up just a bit.

An interesting cinematography tactic used a few times in this movie is to make the character closest to the camera blurred out and the person in back in focus. This is something photographers sometimes do, commonly by using the rule of thirds, but it is more common to have the forward subject in focus and the person in back blurred out. I find this director’s decision to film scenes this way very interesting and visually interesting.

Frank Sinatra’s acting is superb in this. I have never seen him in a serious role, so it threw me a bit, but he was so good.

I can’t recall if I have ever seen Laurence Harvey in a movie before, but he was very compelling as Raymond Shaw.

What I thought of Angela:

Angela was nominated for an Oscar for best supporting actress for her performance as Eleanor Shaw, the mother of Raymond Shaw.

Nothing about the character in this movie reminds me of the Angela who is in Murder She Wrote. Now, of course the woman played many roles, but I am most familiar with her on Murder She Wrote so I had to prepare myself for seeing someone completely different and that is exactly what I got. Eleanor Shaw is absolutely not Jessica Fletcher.

Eleanor Shaw is vindictive, mean, and hungry for money and power.

“It’s a horrible thing to hate your mother,” Raymond tells Bennett at one point. “I didn’t always hate her. As a child I just sort of disliked her.”

That was before she did something he could not forgive.

Eleanor is completely domineering with her second husband, Raymond’s stepfather, and a senator.

She tells him what to do, when to do it, and how to do it.

“I keep telling you not to think.” She tells him at one point in the movie. “You are very, very great at a great number of things, but thinking isn’t one of them, hon’.”

Eeek.

She gave me chills.

(photo)

Here is a clip of Angela as Eleanor.

What I thought overall:

I was so nervous during this movie. I was nervous they wouldn’t believe Frank’s character about the dreams he was having and that the movie would just keep going on this nightmare path of him trying to prove he wasn’t crazy.

It was just a total mind trip all the way through, and I kept wondering who was a spy or sleeper agent and who wasn’t.

I figured out the ending before it happened and I was certain what one of the final scenes would be but I was still biting my nails.

I was actually very excited when part of the ending I thought would happen did happen. I was a little sad at the part of the ending that I didn’t expect.

The acting in the movie was outstanding across the board. Of course the messaging was a bit too timely for today and that was unnerving.

A bit of trivia:

There was a rumor that this movie was pulled from ever being shown on TV because of how it featured similarities to the assassination of Kennedy and speculation by some that the idea for his assassination came from the movie. Some say that Frank Sinatra locked the movie up in his vault because he controlled the rights to it. Another movie he starred in that involved assassination, Suddenly (1954) also disappeared for years after the Kennedy assassination.

According to an article on TCM.com, “. . . Sinatra’s control only extended to the film’s rights after seven years. There is, however, apparently some truth to the story that after JFK was murdered a year after the picture was released, some exhibitors requested it be given another run to capitalize on the event but that United Artists refused.”

Another disputed theory involved a financial and legal disagreement between United Artists and Sinatra but that was later said to not be true. Some even said Sinatra simply neglected to keep the movie in distribution. (Guess he was too busy with the mob, etc. *wink*). To this day there isn’t really a definitive answer on why the movie fell out of existence for so many years but I lean toward all of the fall out from Kennedy’s assassination.

“What is certain is that during its “lost years,” the film built up a great reputation,” the TCM article states. “’The movie went from failure to classic without passing through success,” noted its screenwriter, George Axelrod. When it was finally re-released in 1988, it was a big box office hit (as well as a success on its subsequent video/DVD release) and earned even more rave reviews as one of the best pictures of that year.”

I thought it was so odd that Kennedy was given a copy of the film to preview in 1962.

A few more trivia tidbits (some of these may not be totally accurate but I don’t have time to vet each one):

Frank Sinatra reputedly had a swimming pool designed with a large painting on the bottom of the Queen of Hearts playing cards … I won’t say why in case you haven’t seen the movie.
Director John Frankenheimer once claimed The Manchurian Candidate didn’t do well financially because the studio chose to promote another Sinatra picture, The Pride and the Passion (1957), but that film had actually been released five years earlier.
Frank Sinatra broke the little finger of his right hand on the desk in the fight sequence with Henry Silva. Due to on-going filming commitments, he could not rest or bandage his hand properly, causing the injury to heal incorrectly. It caused him chronic discomfort for the rest of his life.
The movie was filmed in only 39 days (!!)
According to executive producer Howard W. Koch, the budget was $2.2 million. Of that amount, $1 million went for Frank Sinatra‘s salary, with another $200,000 for Laurence Harvey, leaving only $1 million for everything else.
The topic of this movie was considered politically so highly sensitive that it was censored and prohibited just before its theatrical release in many of the former “Iron Curtain” countries, such as Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria – and even in neutral countries such as Finland and Sweden. The theatrical premiere for most of those countries was held after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1993.
By his own admission, Frank Sinatra‘s best work always came in the first take. Writer, producer, and director John Frankenheimer always liked the idea of using the freshness of a first take – so nearly all of the key scenes featuring Sinatra are first takes, unless a technical problem prevented them from being used.
(Sources, Imbd and TCM.com).

What Angela said about the movie:

Frank Sinatra actually wanted Lucille Ball for the roll of Eleanor Shaw.

“That would have been fascinating,” Angela said. “You wouldn’t believe that she could be this devil incarnate though.”

As for how she got the part she said, “I think Frankenheimer (the director) just put his foot down.”

“I had just finished working with John on We All Fall Down and he came into the room where we were looping some lines and he slapped this very heavy book on the table and he said to me, ‘There’s your next role.’”

He told her what the book was, who wrote it, who was going to write the screenplay and added, “You’ll be fabulous as the mother.”

Angela was actually only three years older than the man who played her son. Say what??!

To become an older woman she simply acted as she felt the character would act, without worrying about age, she said.

In an interview she said many people asked her what it was like to work with Frank Sinatra and she always tells them she doesn’t know because they didn’t have any scenes together other than a quick one where they were getting their coats on.

It wasn’t until later she learned that Frank Sinatra was an integral part of making sure the movie was made.

“I know that Frank wasn’t the easiest person for John to work with,” she said. “But they seemed to have an alliance. I think Frank understood what a tremendous opportunity it was for him to play this role. He knew that his friend (President) John Kennedy adored the book. Frank talked to JFK about the role and one of his questions oddly enough was ‘who’s playing the mother?’”

Of the suspense of the movie, Angela said, “You really didn’t know who anybody was.”

Of the movie overall she said, “I think we all knew we were in rather racy territory. We were doing something pretty unique and different. This is going to turn a few heads you know.”

“It was out of circulation for many, many years,” she said. “It came back in 1988 as a revelation to be had. The whole generation saw it, who recognized it for what it was and they absolutely took it to their hearts and it became the most important piece of work any of us had ever done. Suddenly John Frankenheimer was recognized, Frank Sinatra was recognized as an actor. I was recognized as an actress who played one of the most evil women in human history. I had a whole new acceptance from an audience who didn’t know who the devil I was. So I have great feelings of fondness for The Manchurian Candidate for that reason.”

Have you seen this movie?

I rented it on Amazon, but it is also streaming on Google Play, Pluto TV, Apple TV and Fandango. Or your local library might have it.

Later this week I will be writing about a totally different movie than The Manchurian Candidate, National Velvet.

Other movies I will be watching for this Summer of Angela are:

June 27 – Bedknobs & Broomsticks

July 4 – Gaslight

July 11 – The Shell Seekers

July 18 – Murder She Wrote: The Celtic Riddle

July 25 – The Mirror Cracked

August 1 – The Court Jester

The Manchurian Candidate trailer:

____
Additional sources:

Trivia & Fun Facts About THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (TCM) with spoilers!! :https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/19293/the-manchurian-candidate#articles-reviews?articleId=136794

Angela Lansbury talks to Alec Baldwin about The Making of The Manchurian Candidate: https://youtu.be/Sjqs66SoTXQ?si=MeU5SbwFRMBnlRhP

Angela Lansbury looks back at the making of The Manchurian Candidate: https://youtu.be/kLwO-2_GIbM?si=cWQoMwa1ARwzzAX6

Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot June 12

June 12, 2025June 12, 2025 / Lisa R. Howeler / 8 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 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.

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: Southwest Rambler

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

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

The Sunday Morning Detective Agency

Deb’s World is working on her 65 Things to do Before 65!

(Beautiful blooms in Amy’s garden!)

Important things to know:

You may add unlimited family-friendly blog post links, linked to specific blog posts, not just the blog.
Be sure to visit other links and leave a kind comment for each link you post (it would be too hard to visit every link, of course!)
The party opens Thursday evening and ends Wednesday.
Thank you for participating. Have fun!

*By linking to The Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot Link Up, you give permission to share your post and images on the hosts’ blogs.

Now on to your posts!

Lisa R. Howeler is a blogger, homeschool mom, and writes cozy mysteries.

You can find her Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

Episode recap: The Hardy Boys The Mystery of the Flying Courier

June 12, 2025June 12, 2025 / Lisa R. Howeler / 2 Comments

I have been sharing my takes on the episodes from The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries show from the late 70s off and on for the last few months.

The show was, of course, based on the separate series of books from the 1930s and switched off between featuring The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew each week for most of the first season. Eventually the “teen” sleuths would combine their efforts in joint episodes.

*Disclaimer: These posts do spoil the entire episode. Also, I do joke around a lot about the cheesiness or plot holes or the “weird” 70s hairstyles, clothes or music, but please know it is all in good fun. I have fun watching these and the mysteries are often very interesting. Please don’t leave me comments enraged that I am making fun of your favorite show. *wink* I make fun of my favorite shows too!

This week’s episode was with The Hardy Boys and was called The Mystery of the Flying Courier.

We start out with Frank (Parker Stevenson) Callie (their dad’s secretary and maybe Frank’s girlfriend), and Chet (the boy’s friend), heading into a bar or restaurant where Joe’s band is playing. Of course Joe (Shaun Cassidy) is singing because that’s what Shaun Cassidy did back then as a teen heartthrob.

And he’s singing “Da Doo Ron Ron,” which is pretty much one of the most annoying songs I have ever heard — apologies to the original performers, The Crystals, who recorded it in 1961.

The song was Cassidy’s biggest hit other than That’s Rock N’ Roll. *spoiler alert* That song is not rock n’ roll.

When it was recorded by The Crystals the person in the song was “Bill” and not “Jill” by the way. I am sure you wanted to know that.

Okay, back to the show. The camera pans away from Frank and the rest walking inside to two official looking men in suites. One says, “She’s in there now,” and the other says, “We’ll wait for her to come out.”

While sitting and listening to Joe “rock out” (eye roll…it was NOT rock, but pop) Frank spots a girl across the bar and says she looks exactly like Susie Wilkins.

Susie dropped out of sight three years ago, he tells Callie. His father was trying to track her down because her parents were worried about her.

All Fenton Hardy’s leads dried out but now she’s sitting in the bar with them. He’s sure of it.

Frank tries his best to focus on his brother’s performance, but he can’t help stealing looks at the girl and at one point when he looks, she’s gone.

She’s followed the DJ back into his office, but Frank doesn’t know this yet. We, the viewers, do.

She’s telling the DJ that she needs the money he promised her and he better get it to her, but the DJ is saying he doesn’t have it. Not only that, he doesn’t even want to do the project with her anymore because two other men were there asking about her.

She tells him to get it done and get her the money or he’s going to “be the one shot down.”

Whatever that means.

When she leaves, Frank confronts her and calls her Susie. She says he’s mistaken and that’s not her name. She rushes out with him and Callie behind her and all three are met in the parking lot by the men in suits.

They tell Frank that her name is Sandy, not Susie, and they are there to arrest her. Frank runs back into the bar and calls Fenton and says he saw Susie. Fenton tells Frank to get to the police station and see if it is her and why she was arrested.

At the police station, the chief tells him they haven’t arrested a woman but asks for the girl’s information.

Frank goes back to retrieve Joe, and they set out to see if they can find Susie and who has taken her.

The next thing we know the kids are at a junkyard where they find Susie’s car, a little red bug, being destroyed while some men look through the car. I am super confused how they found the car or the junkyard, but let’s just go with it.

Frank sneaks off and climbs in the car to find out more infobot while he’s in there a large magnet comes and picks up the car and carries it off to be crushed.

Callie and Joe follow the car and scream for Frank to get out but then watch in horror as the car is crushed under the machine.

Now they are both crushed in a different way, crying in each other’s arms as they think Frank has become a human pancake.

That’s when Frank pops up from behind some cars behind them after he hears Callie comforting Joe.

“Joe?! What about me?” he asks and suddenly he’s been hugged and they’re crying over him, relieved he is still alive.

Fenton is upset that the boys and Callie took the risk, but Frank says he thinks it was worth it because he found a pay stub in Susie Wilkin’s glove compartment that proves she exists and had a job somewhere not long ago.

The next morning, we find Susie looking for her car, but with no explanation on where she’s been. She’s simply wearing the clothes she had on the day before.

A man pulls up and says hello and she asks him if he knows where her car is.

“You’ve brought this on yourself,” he tells her but then invites her to climb in the car.

She totally does. Like a moron.

They drive off and then we are back to Frank and Joe who are going to “go find us a girl.”

In the meantime we are suddenly at a record making factory where the man has brought “Sandy” and is telling her that he’s short on product because she hasn’t delivered the tapes she promised him

“I told you my terms,” she says. “If you don’t like it, you’ll have to get them yourself.”

What tapes are these? It’s driving me crazy, but not as much as the plot hole where we weren’t told how Frank and Joe knew to go to the junkyard.

So, the man takes Sandy to her crushed car and when she asks why he would do that he says it’s because he gets angry when a friend lies to him.

We find out a few minutes later, these two have been more than friends in the past. Susie, er Sandy, says so.

That’s why she didn’t go to the cops to the tell them about the tapes, she says with a flirtatious smile.

He tells her that she better have the tapes soon because she’ll be in the next car that is crushed. Oooh…

She says she doesn’t have the tapes on her and she just needs a little more time.

Next thing we see is the DJ ripping a house apart, looking for something. He’s interrupted when Frank and Joe pull up. I still don’t know how they’ve gotten here, other than they had her paystub so it must have had her address on it.

They call for her, but she doesn’t answer so they simply walk right in and find the place trashed.

Then they find a 8 track cassette of a song they say would have been pre-released to DJs and they wonder why she had it. A photo of her and the DJ together let the boys know that the two know each other somehow and are pretty cozy. (Just an aside but Susie seems a bit loose to me…if ya’ know what I mean.)

The DJ and the two men posing as cops are meeting in the next scene, and the men tell the DJ that they tried to get Sandy to tell them where the tapes were but she insisted they were in a safe deposit box and she didn’t have the key. They believed her and let her go. They said pretending to be cops to question her was one thing but kidnapping her was a line they wouldn’t cross.

The men suggest that the DJ just give her the money and get the tapes back and it will all be over.

The men leave the DJ at the same time Frank and Joe pull up. They enter the bar and ask the DJ if he knows Sandy.

“Why me?” he asks.

“She said she was a close friend of yours,” Frank answers.

The DJ, at his swarmy best, grins and says, “Well, all the little girls do.”

Ick. Ick. Ick. Shudder. Shudder. Shudder.

The DJ thinks the boys have left, but actually they’re hiding behind the bar when the DJ leaves so they can snoop around.

When Joe accidentally triggers the sound system, which sounds like a bunch of guns going off, Frank dives behind the booth where Sandy had been sitting. Once the sound has been shut off, Frank stands to reveal a small envelope with a key inside it.

Joe scoffs at it. “You mean we found what those guys were looking for?”

Apparently.

Also apparently, Frank has called the cops before they arrived at the bar, hoping they’d have a reason to arrest the DJ. Now the cops are going to find them inside the locked bar. Uh-oh. The boys are in trouble for causing problems…again.

Next scene brings us to the police station where the DJ is being asked if he knows a Sandy Wolford.

He denies it and the chief asks the boys if they were looking for this Sandy in the bar. They admit it and then tell the chief about Sandy’s car being crushed and her house being ransacked.

The DJ is listening in to all of this and when they produce the key, he appears to be very anxious and interested.

We, of course, know why.

The chief recognizes the key from a safe deposit box at a place where he also has a box. He says they have every right to go find that box and open it now that they have the key with a number on it.

But when they open the box, whatever was in there is gone.

The lady at the safe deposit company says the owner came back and removed what was in the box earlier in the day. Hmmm…why didn’t she tell them that when they asked to see the box to open it? I have no idea.

The chief gets a call while he’s there and it’s his office telling him they picked Susie/Sandy up at a movie theater and have brought her into the station.

Susie is all smiles in the station in the next scene, saying she is Susie Wilkins and she’s just fine. She wasn’t arrested by the police but a couple federal “hot dogs” who made a mistake of her identity.

Frank and Joe try to get Susie to tell them what’s really going on but yet again she denies there is anything bad going on.

Frank tells her that they’re just worried about her.

“Yeah, just like your father three years ago,” Susie snaps. “He had me on the run every minute until I established a new identity.”

I still don’t get why, if she established a new identity, she’s still in the same town she grew up in but maybe it’s supposed to be a bigger town than I think it is.

Anyhow, she leaves the station but tells Joe to have his bandmates pick him up there for practice and follows her outside. Wow. Nice brother. Especially since Susie turns him down for a ride and he decides to just start the van and begins to leave without Joe anyhow.

He doesn’t actually leave alone, though, because Susie sees the guy who threatened her in a car and jumps in the van with Frank.

She doesn’t tell him they are being followed right away but Frank figures it out and asks her to be straight with him and tell him what is going on.

So, Susie finally lets some of her guard down and says the man following them deals in records and any other illegal businesses.

A chase ensues.

“I’m the go-between, Frank,” she confesses. “I get the demos for him from the companies.”

She told Miles, the bad guy, that she’s holding back his early copies of the demos unless he gives her more money.

She says something about “splitting for good” after she sells the tapes back to so-and-so (I honestly never caught what she was saying, even with a replay) and makes more money than she did buying them.

She’s selling them back because the tapes were sequenced with different songs and coded in a way that would help the original record company find out which DJ was bootlegging them and releasing them ahead of their release dates.

“Oh, Frank I don’t want to go to jail. I ran away from one at home. Always being told what to do, how to dress, where to be, who to be.”

Frank makes Susie promise she will tell his dad what she told him.

She “agrees,” but when they get stopped in traffic, Susie thanks Frank before telling him, “This isn’t going to work.”

She jumps out of the van and takes off running.

Susie finds a pay phone and calls the DJ and tells him she has the tapes ,and she will sell them back to him that night. He wants the tapes so no one finds out that he was the one releasing them to radio stations ahead of time.

So they are back at the bar where the DJ works but what’s weird is that he knows who the Hardy Boys are and that they are getting to close to finding out who he is, yet still lets Joe and his band play. I guess to keep the cover that he doesn’t know that they are involved in trying to find the tapes before him? I don’t know, but it’s another plot hole for me.

Susie shows up but now the other guy she was going to sell the tapes is there too. How did he find her? I don’t know! How did Frank, Joe and Callie even know to go to that junkyard?! Frank breaks into the DJs office and tells Susie she doesn’t have to do this and that his dad will help her.

“Cops?!” The DJ is freaking out now so Frank grabs Susie’s hand and they start running. That running leads them right to Miles, the other bad guy. How did he find her? Um…I have no idea really. Someone must have tipped him off.

Frank starts grabbing sandbags and throwing them at Miles and before long all craziness breaks loose between the DJ and his men, Miles and his men, and the boys.

Sand is flying everywhere, and Susie is being absolutely useless and just gasping a lot.

Someone in the crowd yells that they are going to call the cops and the cops show up in less than two minutes, which I found to be a very unbelievable response time.

The bad guys are arrested, and Susie is suddenly nice instead of dramatic and rude and thanks Frank for helping her.

So, I thought the DJ owned the bar and that it would be closed after he was arrested, though I’m not sure that he would have spent very much time in jail for bootlegging early copies of songs. During the closing scene, though, everyone, including Fenton, is back at the bar for a wrap up and to see Joe sing yet again. Fenton tells everyone that Susie is going to reunite with her parents, and they are going to improve their relationship.

They all say how wonderful that is and then turn to watch Joe shake it and flip his feathered hair around. Callie invites Fenton to dance and then the dance scene is extended so we can have a mini-Shaun Cassidy concert.

Yay? I guess….

Did you know that Shaun Cassidy is still performing and will start a 50-city tour in the fall?

According to an interview he did with Billboard Magazine in May, he never had time to tour when he was younger because of The Hardy Boys filming schedule and then he went on to have a second career in writing or producing shows such as American Gothic, Cold Case, Cover Me, The Agency, and, most recently, New Amsterdam.

He also hasn’t had a new album since 1980 but says there will be new songs on the tour.

Cassidy, followed in the footsteps of his half-brother David Cassidy, Oscar-winning actress Shirley Jones Tony-winning actor Jack Cassidy. He broke into the pop world in 1976 with the song “That’s Rock ‘n Roll” which you can hear on this episode in all its glory.

He released five studio albums between 1977 and 1980 on Curb/Warner Bros. including the Todd Rundgren-produced Wasp. After Nancy Drew, Cassidy then focused on the stage, appearing in plays on Broadway and London’s West End during the ‘80s and early ’90, before segueing into behind-the-scenes TV work in the mid-‘90s.

“Honestly, the reason I’m really motivated to do this (tour) is I have such a feeling that if you are in a position in any way to be a catalyst for bringing people together in a room or a concert hall or a church or your kitchen table, in any context, gathering people, getting them to put down their phone for a minute and actually look at each other and connect and have a shared experience is just so important at this at this stage in our world, I think,” he told Billboard.

He isn’t banning cellphones from his concerts, but he is asking audience members to put them down so he can see their faces.

Here is a clip from him singing Da Do Ron Ron from this episode:

I found a clip of him in later years singing with his half-brother, and his voice definitely got better and stronger as he aged. The reproduction is awful, but here it is:

And if you would like to know more about how I feel about the song Da Do Ron Ron, you can read this post about the first episode of the series:

Okay, up next in our episode recap will be an episode featuring Nancy Drew called The Mystery of The Fallen Angels.

Additional resources:

Shaun Cassidy Gets Ready for the Longest Tour of His 45-Year Career: ‘I Felt the Need to Connect with People’

https://www.billboard.com/music/pop/shaun-cassidy-road-to-us-tour-1235982175/

Lisa R. Howeler is a blogger, homeschool mom, and writes cozy mysteries.

You can find her Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find her on Instagram and YouTube.

Top Ten Tuesday: 10 Books on My Wishlist

June 10, 2025 / Lisa R. Howeler / 8 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

Today’s prompt is: Bookish Wishes (List the top 10 books you’d love to own and include a link to your wishlist so that people can grant your wishes. Make sure you link your wishlist to your mailing address or include the email address associated with your e-reader in the list description so people know how to get the book to you. After you post, jump around the Linky and grant a wish or two if you’d like. Please don’t feel obligated to send anything to anyone!)

I am sharing part of my wish list, but not linking to one today.

1. Lucy Maud Montgomery: The Gift of Wings

Mary Henley Rubio has spent over two decades researching Montgomery’s life, and has put together a comprehensive and penetrating picture of this Canadian literary icon, all set in rich social context. Extensive interviews with people who knew Montgomery – her son, maids, friends, relatives, all now deceased – are only part of the material gathered in a journey to understand Montgomery that took Rubio to Poland and the highlands of Scotland.

From Montgomery’s apparently idyllic childhood in Prince Edward Island to her passion-filled adolescence and young adulthood, to her legal fights as world-famous author, to her shattering experiences with motherhood and as wife to a deeply troubled man, this fascinating, intimate narrative of her life will engage and delight.

2. Grandma Ruth Doesn’t Go to Funerals by Sharon Mondragon

(I’ve read this, but I want it in paperback! It’s just about my favorite read so far this year.)

In a small town where gossip flows like sweet tea, bedridden Mary Ruth McCready reigns supreme, doling out wisdom and meddling in everyone’s business with a fervor that would make a matchmaker blush. When her best friend, Charlotte Harrington, has her world rocked by a scandalous revelation from her dying husband P. B., Mary Ruth kicks into high gear, commandeering the help of her favorite granddaughter, Sarah Elizabeth, in tracking down the truth. Finding clues in funeral condolence cards and decades-old gossip dredged up at the Blue Moon Beauty Emporium, the two stir up trouble faster than you can say “pecan pie.”

And just when things are starting to look up, in waltzes Camilla “Millie” Holtgrew, a blast from P. B.’s past, with a grown son and an outrageous claim to Charlotte’s inheritance. But as Grandma Ruth always says when things get tough, “God is too big.” With him, nothing is impossible–even bringing long-held secrets to light. Grandma Ruth and Sarah just might have to ruffle a whole mess of feathers to do it.

In a small town where gossip flows like sweet tea, bedridden Mary Ruth McCready reigns supreme, doling out wisdom and meddling in everyone’s business with a fervor that would make a matchmaker blush. When her best friend, Charlotte Harrington, has her world rocked by a scandalous revelation from her dying husband P. B., Mary Ruth kicks into high gear, commandeering the help of her favorite granddaughter, Sarah Elizabeth, in tracking down the truth. Finding clues in funeral condolence cards and decades-old gossip dredged up at the Blue Moon Beauty Emporium, the two stir up trouble faster than you can say “pecan pie.”

And just when things are starting to look up, in waltzes Camilla “Millie” Holtgrew, a blast from P. B.’s past, with a grown son and an outrageous claim to Charlotte’s inheritance. But as Grandma Ruth always says when things get tough, “God is too big.” With him, nothing is impossible–even bringing long-held secrets to light. Grandma Ruth and Sarah just might have to ruffle a whole mess of feathers to do it.

3. Bombs on Aunt Dainty by Judith Kerr

Partly autobiographical, this is the second title in Judith Kerr’s internationally acclaimed trilogy of books following the life of Anna through war-torn Germany, to London during the Blitz and her return to Berlin to discover the past…

4. The Great Good Thing: A Secular Jew Comes to Faith in Christ by Andrew Klavan

No one was more surprised than Andrew Klavan when, at the age of fifty, he found himself about to be baptized. The Great Good Thing tells the soul-searching story of a man born into an age of disbelief who had to abandon everything he thought he knew in order to find his way to the truth.

Best known for his hard-boiled, white-knuckle thrillers and for the movies made from them–among them True Crime and Don’t Say a Word–bestselling author and Edgar Award-winner Klavan was born in a suburban Jewish enclave outside New York City.

He left the faith of his childhood behind to live most of his life as an agnostic until he found himself mulling over the hard questions that so many other believers have asked:

How can I be certain in my faith?
What’s the truth, and how can I know it’s the truth?
How can you think, live, and make choices and judgments day by day if you don’t know for sure?

In The Great Good Thing, Klavan shares that his troubled childhood caused him to live inside the stories in his head and grow up to become an alienated young writer whose disconnection and rage devolved into depression and suicidal breakdown.

In those years, Klavan fought to ignore the insistent call of God, a call glimpsed in a childhood Christmas at the home of a beloved babysitter, in a transcendent moment at his daughter’s birth, and in a snippet of a baseball game broadcast that moved him from the brink of suicide. But more than anything, the call of God existed in stories–the stories Klavan loved to read and the stories he loved to write.

Join Klavan as he discovers the meaning of belief, the importance of asking tough questions, and the power of sharing your story.

5. Baking with Mary Berry: Cakes, Cookies, Pies, and Pastries from the British Queen of Baking

A sweet and savory collection of more than 100 foolproof recipes from the reigning “Queen of Baking” Mary Berry, who has made her way into American homes through ABC’s primetime series, The Great Holiday Baking Show, and the PBS series, The Great British Baking Show.

Baking with Mary Berry draws on Mary’s more than 60 years in the kitchen, with tips and step-by-step instructions for bakers just starting out and full-color photographs of finished dishes throughout. The recipes follow Mary’s prescription for dishes that are no fuss, practical, and foolproof―from breakfast goods to cookies, cakes, pastries, and pies, to special occasion desserts such as cheesecake and soufflés, to British favorites that will inspire.

Whether you’re tempted by Mary’s Heavenly Chocolate Cake and Best-Ever Brownies, intrigued by her Mincemeat and Almond Tart or Magic Lemon Pudding, or inspired by her Rich Fruit Christmas Cake and Ultimate Chocolate Roulade, the straightforward yet special recipes in Baking with Mary Berry will prove, as one reviewer has said of her recipes, “if you can read, you can cook.”

6. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

The epic tale of wrongful imprisonment, adventure and revenge, in its definitive translation

Thrown in prison for a crime he has not committed, Edmond Dantès is confined to the grim fortress of If. There he learns of a great hoard of treasure hidden on the Isle of Monte Cristo and he becomes determined not only to escape, but also to use the treasure to plot the destruction of the three men responsible for his incarceration. Dumas’ epic tale of suffering and retribution, inspired by a real-life case of wrongful imprisonment, was a huge popular success when it was first serialized in the 1840s.

7. The Landscapes of Anne of Green Gables: The Enchanting Island that Inspired L. M. Montgomery

The Landscapes of Anne of Green Gables explores L. M. Montgomery’s deep connection to the landscapes of Prince Edward Island that inspired her to write the beloved Anne of Green Gables series. From the Lake of Shining Waters and the Haunted Wood to Lover’s Lane, you’ll be immersed in the real places immortalized in the novels.

Using Montgomery’s journals, archives, and scrapbooks, Catherine Reid explores the many similarities between Montgomery and her unforgettable heroine, Anne Shirley. The lush package includes Montgomery’s hand-colorized photographs, the illustrations originally used in Anne of Green Gables, and contemporary and historical photography.

8. Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

Mere Christianity explores the core beliefs of Christianity by providing an unequaled opportunity for believers and nonbelievers alike to hear a powerful, rational case for the Christian faith. A brilliant collection, Mere Christianity remains strikingly fresh for the modern reader and at the same time confirms C. S. Lewis’s reputation as one of the leading writer and thinkers of our age.

The book brings together Lewis’ legendary broadcast talks during World War II. Lewis discusses that everyone is curious about: right and wrong, human nature, morality, marriage, sins, forgiveness, faith, hope, generosity, and kindness.

9. Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing by Elmore Leonard

“These are the rules I’ve picked up along the way to help me remain invisible when I’m writing a book, to help me show rather than tell what’s taking place in the story.”—Elmore Leonard

For aspiring writers and lovers of the written word, this concise guide breaks down the writing process with simplicity and clarity. From adjectives and exclamation points to dialect and hoopetedoodle, Elmore Leonard explains what to avoid, what to aspire to, and what to do when it sounds like “writing” (rewrite).

Beautifully designed, filled with free-flowing, elegant illustrations and specially priced, Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing is the perfect writer’s—and reader’s—gift.

10. My Beloved: A Mitford Novel by Jan Karon

(This one isn’t out until October, but, oh my…I’ve been waiting a long time. In the meantime, I am reading through the other 14 books in the series.)

When Father Tim’s wife, Cynthia, asks what he wants for Christmas, he pens the answer in a love letter that bares his most private feelings. Then the letter goes missing and circulates among his astonished neighbors. So much for private.

Can a letter change a life? Ask Helene, the piano teacher who has avoided her feelings for a lifetime. Ask Hope, the village bookseller who desperately needs something that’s impossibly out of reach. Or, if you’d like to know how a brush with death can be the portal to a happy marriage, Cynthia will tell you all about it.

In My Beloved, Harley gets an important letter of his own; a broken heart teaches the Old Mayor, Esther Cunningham, a lesson long in coming; and thanks to Lace and Dooley, readers get what they’ve been waiting for: Sadie.

Poignant, hilarious, and life-affirming, My Beloved sets a generous table for millions of readers who love these characters like family. With Karon’s signature humanity shining through on every page, this is a season of life in Mitford you won’t want to miss.

Lisa R. Howeler is a blogger, homeschool mom, and writes cozy mysteries.