book addiction

Sunday Bookends: Trying to beat the heat, reading a mix of genres, and old mystery shows

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 9 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.

This week I’m joining up with Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer, Deb at Readerbuzz, and Kathyrn at The Book Date.

What’s Been Occurring

As I wrote in my post yesterday, we have been in the middle of the heat wave like a lot of our country. Yesterday we visited my parents and found out Dad had been able to work on the pool and we could go for a swim.

So, Little Miss and I jumped in for a couple of hours, during which time I was reminded how out of shape I am and that my knee I smashed up three weeks ago is not completely healed yet. It is, however, much, much better.

On our way home a storm started to move in and this time, unlike Friday, the storm was an actual storm and dropped some rain on us and dropped the temps down into normal range for summer in Pennsylvania. It looks like we will have nicer temps this week. I never thought I’d be glad to see highs of 81 in the forecast.

High temps make me very sick so I hide inside a lot in the summer. Usually even seeing a high of 80 makes me antsy but the horrible heat showed me that 80 isn’t that bad after all.

What I/we’ve been Reading

Lake Wobegon Days by Garrison Keillor

The Sentence Is Death by Anthony Horowitz

The Real James Herriot: A Memoir of My Father by Jim Wight

Return To Gone Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright (reading with Little Miss)

I set Rilla of Ingleside by L.M. Montgomery aside for now but will get back to it.

 Lord Edgware Dies: A Hercule Poirot Mystery by Agatha Christie

Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne

I listened to the majority of this on Audible and really enjoyed it. I really wanted to know the ending, though, so before bed last night I opened the book on my kindle since I can read faster that the narrator could read. I think I will go back and listen to the ending on Audible simply because I liked the narrator (David Colacci) so much.

The Clue of the Whistling Bagpipes by Carolyn Keene

Ever Faithful by Karen Barnett

Dandelion Cottage by Carol Watson Rankin

The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery



What We watched/are Watching

I’ve been watching the old 1970s Nancy Drew/Hard Boys show on YouTube, but I think it is also streaming on the Roku Channel.

The Husband made me watch a rerun of Jake And The Fat Man. I’m slightly scarred from it, but also the person who uploaded it to YouTube didn’t finish the episode, so I am traumatized and victimized because I don’t know how the episode ended – though they pretty much had their man already.

I made The Husband watch a movie of Diagnosis Murder that we found on YouTube after I saw a clip of the show earlier this week. I never watched it when it was on the air and I think I know why. The show stars Dick VanDyke and his son Barry and it’s okay but there are some seriously ridiculous elements to it. It is more of a cozy mystery show than anything hard hitting so I guess it is okay to have some ridiculousness.

I’m not sure I will watch more episodes.

I also watched a lot of Just A Few Acres Farm this past week and really enjoyed it. It was so wonderfully relaxing.


What I’m Writing

Gladwynn Grant Shakes The Family Tree – the third book in my cozy mystery series, which will release in autumn. If you’re not signed up for my newsletter, you might want to do so because I will be offering sneak peeks and actual chapters of the book later this summer.

I am also getting ready to release a Christian fiction romance in August – Cassie, which is part of the Apron Strings Book series .. written by 11 different authors. You can pre-order here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D1VW9TVK

You can find out where to buy all of my books here: https://lisahoweler.com/my-books-2/

Last week on the blog I shared:

What I’m Listening To

I just finished listening to Around the World in 80 Days on audio, as I mentioned above, and really enjoyed it.

I am also listening to Matthew West because I have been anxious and his music calms me down. In the beginning of June, I drove my son somewhere and said to myself on the way back that I really wanted to listen to Matthew. I said it to myself. I didn’t get the songs ready to play before I pulled out yet.

My mind was just swirling with worries. I had my phone in my hand but hadn’t found the album yet in my music library. Suddenly music started playing and when I looked at my phone it was Matthew West. It was a crazy moment and I think God was like, “you need this, and I can’t wait around for you to do it.”


Now it’s your turn

Now it’s your turn. What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.