I read Miss Buncle’s Book by D.E. Stevenson in July and finished the second book in the trilogy, Miss Buncle Married, this past week.
The first book details Miss Barbara Buncle’s sticky situation that results after she writes a fiction book based on the people in her little English village and that book becomes a best seller.
Before long people in the village begin to recognize themselves and chaos erupts but luckily Barbara has used a pseudonym, so no one knows she wrote the book.
There is a bit of a spoiler to even give the title of the second book, but, yes, Barbara does marry at the end of the first book – hence the title of Miss Buncle Married.
I found the first book, very charming, engaging, and full of humor which is why I wanted to read the second book and continue Barbara’s adventures.
I read the second book in the trilogy with my friend Cat of Cat’s Wire.
In this second book, Miss Buncle is now Mrs. Abbott and is living in a new town. She and her husband, Arthur, are enjoying themselves until they become so popular in the social scene that they get overwhelmed with never having a night off from a party, a dinner, or a game of cards. This prompts them to look for a new house in a new village, and that gives readers a new cast of characters and a new adventure to enjoy.
Here is a quick description from Goodreads: “In this charming follow-up to Miss Buncle’s Book, readers will follow Barbara Buncle’s journey into married life in a new town filled with fascinating neighbors…who may become the subjects of Barbara’s next novel! Miss Buncle may have settled down, but she’s already discovered that married life has done nothing to prevent her from getting into humorous mix-ups and hilarious hijinx. Readers will continue to fall in love with Barbara as she hilariously navigates an exciting new beginning.”
There are misunderstandings and confusion which create hilarious scenes throughout the book. The addition of Arthur and Barbara’s partying and shiftless nephew, Sam, and lecherous artist neighbor creates even more craziness and upheaval throughout the book.
Barbara has essentially retired from writing in this book after all the drama that evolved from her first two books.
She has decided she will no longer write any books. In this book, however, the writing bug bites her again.
In some ways I felt like we got to know the people of the town and their stories more in the first book, but this book provided us with a more intimate look at Barbara herself and how she thinks and her and Arthur’s relationship.
As in the first book, this book also provided a look into Barbara’s writing process, which is also the writing process of many other authors. As a writer myself, I especially enjoyed reading about how Barbara couldn’t avoid writing about her new neighbors, even though she tried not to. There was just something in her that made her feel like she needed to create a fictionalized version of the town and the people in it. When she started writing she became a feral mad woman who couldn’t leave her room until all her ideas were written down. I can relate to this feeling quite a bit.
What’s funny is how often Barbara and Arthur both claim throughout the book that Barbara doesn’t have an imagination, but she creates entire scenarios that jump off the situations involving the people in the village and that’s still imagination to me.
They both claim she doesn’t have an imagination because she has to base her ideas of the situations she experiences or hears about around her but this is ridiculous, of course, because all Barbara needs is a little idea and she’s off. I think that’s a biggest “joke” of the book.
I like both of these books individually but I love them even more as a whole story, read back-to back. Miss Buncle Married feels more like a continuation of the first book, as it should, rather than a separate book and I am glad to have that because I did want to read more about Miss Buncle.
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Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.
You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing.
My mom turned 82 this past week and that morning I called to wish her a happy birthday. I did that but then my dad got on the phone to ask my something and let me know he and my mom had been up until 2:30 that morning watching Crocodile Dundee and cooking hamburgers.
My parents are not super active anymore since my mom is unable to get around well and mainly sits in her chair and Dad has Parkinson’s so hearing that they were partying all night and eating hamburgers at midnight just cracked me up.
On Mom’s birthday the kids and I went over for dinner, and Little Miss made her a watermelon and berry “cake” because Mom doesn’t eat sweets very much anymore (not diabetic) and never was a big fan of cake.
This week we were told our cat is dying – which seems to be something our vet didn’t make clear at the last visit. When we tried to get her an appointment Friday, they told us she was dying and there was nothing more they could do for her so refused to set one up until she needs to be euthanized. At first, I understood the conversation but as the days went on, I found myself pretty disgusted with the vet not wanting to help our cat as much as they could.
They gave us medicine for her before but this time wouldn’t even check her to see if it had helped at all. My son called to try to persuade them to see her one more time and they refused again. He said they spoke to him like he was 12 instead of almost 20. This sounds petty but if we do get to the point of having to euthanize her, I’ve decided I won’t give them money to do it. We will take her somewhere else, which is hard to do in this area where vets are limited.
(Edit: I contacted the vet the day after I wrote this and they offered to refill the medicine she was on before. To shorten the story, I’ll just say I received an apology for them not offering to refill her medicine before and they also said we could take her to a higher end clinic to have imaging done and determine why she is having liver issues. I don’t think we need to do that because her liver only became an issue after she contracted a virus. We worked things out, in other words. Also, we are not sure the medicine will work. It might be too late, but at least we gave it one last try.)
Before I move on, I do want to mention that my friend Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs lost her mom this past week. If you could remember her and her family in your prayers that would be appreciated.
What I/We’ve Been Reading
Just Finished
I finished Celia’s House by D.E. Stevenson this past week and wasn’t a big fan. It was okay and after talking to a friend about it, I understand the style more but still didn’t enjoy it as much as the Miss Buncle series I am in the middle of now.
In Progress
I am slow reading Stillmeadow Daybrook by Gladys Taber. Since each chapter is a month, I plan to read a chapter a month for the rest of 2026 and into 2027. I’m also reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.
I’m still reading Miss Buncle Married by D.E. Stevenson. I’m liking this one a lot.
I’m also reading a Nancy Drew book — Mystery of the Brassbound Trunk by Carolyn Keene.
Up Soon
Later this week I hope to start By The Pricking of My Thumbs by Agatha Christie for the Christie Reading Challenge.
I’m not really sure what I will read the rest of the month, but would love to squeeze The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in before the end of the summer.
What I/We’ve Been Watching
This past week I watched The Big Sleep, A Scandal in Paris, and Footsteps in the Dark.
I also started watching the episodes of Mary Berry’s show about her 90th birthday, which was last year.
Because I have watched so many Jack Lemmon films lately, and have watched more over the last year than I realized, I will probably be switching things up and doing an Autumn of Jack for Fall and moving Jimmy Stewart movies to winter.
What I’ve Been Writing
I made some progress and a major decision this week for my fourth Gladwynn Grant book. It will help me move forward on the story.
Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs), Cat (Cat’s Wire) and I host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea. This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!). Each link party will be open for a month. You can find that link up for this month here.
Each week, I host the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot with some great hosts. It goes live Thursday night, but you can share any kind of blog posts (family-friendly) there until Tuesday of each week. You can check my recent posts on the sidebar to the right for the most recent link party.
Now It’s Your Turn
What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing?
If you would like to be the first to get news about my books or just have access to special posts for supporters, you can do so here for $2.99 a month https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/
I’m not sure why I got it in my head that I wanted to read John Steinbeck’s nonfiction book Travels with Charley in Search of America this summer since I have only read two only other small works of his and that was many years ago. I guess I thought it would help me get to know the man whose books I wanted to read in the future.
It is true I have not read Steinbeck’s “big works” — East of Eden or Grapes of Wrath but I did read Of Mice and Men and The Pearl in high school…or college. I can’t remember which now. High school was Of Mice and Men and The Pearl was college.
I think.
I don’t know!
I’m old.
Leave me alone!
Anyhow, because I didn’t read a lot of him, in my head I always thought of him as the guy I had to read in high school who had all those run-on sentences. In reality, I realized recently, it was William Faulkner who had all the run-on sentences and I don’t remember minding them when I had to read excerpts of his work.
I did get to know about Steinbeck during this book and learn what an amazing writer he is.
When I finished this book, I was actually a bit sad because I missed curling up in bed at night and reading a chapter or two before I went to sleep, which is something I did for about a month; reading and adding annotation tabs on quotes I wanted to read one again later or share with others.
Steinbeck had a special camper made for him and his dog Charley for a 1960 road trip that he wrote about in the book released in 1962. He named the camper Rocinante after Don Quixote’s horse and traveled from Long Island, N.Y., along the outer border of the United States from Maine to the Pacific Northwest, down to Salina Valley in California (where he grew up), across Texas, through the deep South and back to New York.
There were stops in Chicago, California, and Texas, where he met up with his wife (his final and third) and/or family/friends. He didn’t go into a ton of details about those visits, other than the one in Texas where his use of the word “orgy” had me looking up the various definitions of the word. It was not the definition I thought it was. It just meant a several-day party with friends and booze.
In my opinion, the last few chapters of the book were among the most impactful with him learning first hand about Americans and what makes them tick when he drove to New Orleans and decided to watch the circus that surrounded US marshals walking young black girls into white schools.
Before that much of the book was more like a history and geography lesson with some interesting tidbits thrown in about Steinbeck and the relationship to his dog Charley.
Don’t get me wrong, all of the early stories were good as well. Steinbeck had very serious and deep observations about people, places and other events throughout his journey, but he became the most descriptive when he wrote about the nausea that overcame him while watching racist, demonic women scream at small black children, as the children were walked into schools that the states made them go to during desegregation.
He wanted to see a group of women called “the cheerleaders.” These white women would gather with other whites from town and scream obscenities at the little black children being ushered into the schools the state was requiring them to attend to end the racism of segregation. Most in the town, the state of Lousiana, and the country, seemed to see these women as some kind of heroes.
Steinbeck saw them as something much more evil.
“No newspaper had printed the words these women shouted. It was indicated that they were indelicate, some even said obscene. On television, the soundtrack was made to blur or had crowd noises cut to cover. But now I heard the words, bestial and filthy and degenerate. And along and unprotected life I’ve have seen and heard the vomiting of demonic humans before why then these screams fill me with a shocked and sick sorrow?
The words written down are dirty, carefully and selected filthy. But there was something far worse here than dirt, a kind of frightening witches’ Sabbath. Here was no spontaneous cry of anger, of insane rage. Perhaps that is what made me sick with weary nausea. Here was no principle good or bad, no direction.
These blowzy women, with their little hats and their clippings, hungered for attention. They wanted to be admired. They simpered in happy, almost innocent triumph when they were applauded. Theirs was the demented cruelty of egocentric children, and somehow this made their insensate beastliness much more heart-breaking. These were not mothers, not even women. They were crazy actors playing to a crazy audience.”
Steinbeck said he had a hard time understanding racism because when he grew up he lived in a town where the most talented, prominent, and kindest people was an African-American family that the entire town, white and black, looked up to.
Before this part of the book, Steinbeck wrote a lot about how unfriendly the country had become and that struck me because I thought this disconnect Americans had started developing with their fellow man had started much later, like the late 1990s and early 2000s.
There were so many well written passages and quotable sentences in this book, many focusing on the desire of Steinbeck, and he believed, most members of mankind, especially Americans, to love the idea of traveling, progressing, going somewhere new.
“When I was very young and the urge to be someplace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked. Four hoarse blasts of a ship’s whistle still raise the hair on my neck and set my feet to tapping. The sound of a jet, an engine warming up, even the clopping of shod hooves on pavement brings on the ancient shudder, the dry mouth and vacant eye, the hot palms and the churn of stomach high up under the rib cage. In other words, I don’t improve; in further words, once a bum always a bum. I fear the disease is incurable. I set this matter down not to instruct others but to inform myself.”
I’m glad I read this book before I read Steinbeck’s deeper or more acclaimed works. I was able to learn more about what Steinbeck felt was important in life – what virtues and morals he grew up with (even if he didn’t always practice them) and how they shaped his thinking about how the world should be even when it wasn’t.
“We value virtue but do not discuss it. The honest bookkeeper, the faithful wife, the earnest scholar get little of our attention compared to the embezzler, the tramp, the cheat.”
Let me know if you have read this book or other Steinbeck works and I’ll leave you with a few more quotes from the book that I enjoyed or that made me think because they made me so uncomfortable.
“ I think today if we forbade our illiterate children to touch the wonderful things of our literature, perhaps they might steal them and find secret joy.”
***
“I have said that Texas is a state of mind, but I think it is more than that. It is a mystique closely approximating a religion. And this is true to the extent that people either passionately love Texas or passionately hate it and, as in other religions, few people dare to inspect it for fear of losing their bearings in mystery or paradox. But I think there will be little quarrel with my feeling that Texas is one thing. For all its enormous range of space, climate, and physical appearance, and for all the internal squabbles, contentions, and strivings, Texas has a tight cohesiveness perhaps stronger than any other section of America. Rich, poor, Panhandle, Gulf, city, country, Texas is the obsession, the proper study and the passionate possession of all Texans.”
***
“Everything we use comes in boxes, cartons, bins, the so-called packaging we love so much. The mountains of things we throw away are much greater than the things we use. In this, if in no other way, we can see the wild and reckless exuberance of our production, and waste seems to be the index. Driving along I thought how in France or Italy every item of these thrown-out things would have been saved and used for something. This is not said in criticism of one system or the other but I do wonder whether there will come a time when we can no longer afford our wastefulness—chemical wastes in the rivers, metal wastes everywhere, and atomic wastes buried deep in the earth or sunk in sea. When an Indian village became too deep in its own filth, the inhabitants moved. And we have no place to which to move.”
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing.
My husband has been rehearsing for a couple of months now for a community theater production of Little Shop of Horrors and yesterday the kids and I were able to see the result of his and the cast and crew’s hard work.
He did an amazing job as Mr. Mushnik, the shop owner, if you are familiar with the play/movie.
Everyone else did as well. The singing, acting, the effects, and the Audrey II puppet made by a local college student. Most of the cast were college age, except for my husband.
This was the play version so the ending was quite different than the movie ending (different = sadder), but it was …. Sort of okay.
I got attached to the girl who played Audrey and, let’s just say, I shouldn’t have.
The girl who played Audrey is so talented.
You can see her performance (complete with my horrible videography) here:
And I hope my husband doesn’t mind but here he is performing his song, which he was so nervous about doing.
This is now the fourth or fifth production he’s done with the local theater group and he gets better every time.
What I/We’ve Been Reading
Just Finished
I finished Travels with Charley in Search of America by John Steinbeck earlier in the week and will have a review for it later this week.
I enjoyed it and thought the last two or three chapters when he was down South witnessing the desegregation of schools was the most well written and interesting of the whole book.
In Progress
I am slow reading Stillmeadow Daybrook by Gladys Taber. Since each chapter is a month, I plan to read a chapter a month for the rest of 2026 and into 2027. I’m also reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.
I am reading two D.E. Stevenson books right now — Celia’s House and Miss Buncle Married.
I am doing a buddy read of Miss Buncle Married with Cat from Cat’s Wire.
Miss Buncle Married is the sequel to Miss Buncle’s Book, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
I’m focusing on these two books only for now and expect to have Celia’s House finished halfway through this week.
Up Soon
I’ll be reading By The Pricking of My Thumbs by Agatha Christie after I finish the Stevenson books, for the August pick for the 2026 Christie Reading Challenge.
What The Family is Reading
The Husband is reading Tell Me What You Did by Carter Wilson.
The Boy is listening to The Flight of the Eisenstein by James Swallow.
Little Miss and I … well, still reading Heidi because we’ve been distracted by other summer things. I hope to have it finished this week so we can jump into our reads for school, which I am starting in two weeks.
New arrivals to my bookshelf
Recently, I added Cagney on Cagney by …. yes, James Cagney, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, Miss Buncle Married by D.E. Steveson, Nancy Drew: Mystery of the Moss Covered Mansion,Nancy Drew: The Message in the Hollow Oak, and Murder, She Wrote: The Queens Jewels by Donald Baine (and Jessica Fletcher).
What I/We’ve Been Watching
This past week I watched a few movies including: Without Love (Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy), The Mark of Zorro, It Should Happen to You with Jack Lemmon and Judy Holliday, Love Crazy (Myrna Loy and William Powell), The Fortune Cookie, and Little Shop of Horrors (1986).
What I’ve Been Writing
I worked on Gladwynn Grant Goes Back to School this week and was able to write quite a bit! I’m excited to keep moving forward on it.
Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs), Cat (Cat’s Wire) and I host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea. This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!). Each link party will be open for a month. You can find that link up for this month here.
Each week, I host the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot with some great hosts. It goes live Thursday night, but you can share any kind of blog posts (family-friendly) there until Tuesday of each week. You can check my recent posts on the sidebar to the right for the most recent link party.
Now It’s Your Turn
What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing?
If you would like to be the first to get news about my books or just have access to special posts for supporters, you can do so here for $2.99 a month https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing.
With cooler weather coming in this week, it almost feels like autumn in summer, which stinks for some, but has been so welcome for me. When it is super warm out I like to turn the AC up high for a while and get a blanket and pretend it is autumn already.
The week before last the heat wave, combined with wildfire smoke from Canada, plus some life stress, made me very sick, which is why the cooler temps are such a welcome respite for me.
Luckily it has been still warm enough during the day that we can take our daughter swimming at the YMCA, which is about a half an hour north.
Last Sunday I took her to their outside pool for the first time. I don’t do super well in direct sunlight but they had thin fabric covers over the tables and it was very nice. The Husband has taken her before, but I had never been there. It’s a nice set up and I’m shocked I’ve lived my whole life in the area and never been there. This is one of those old concrete pools and is probably 60 years old.
Little Miss and her friend both took a test to allow them to swim in the deeper part of the pool and were very proud of themselves. I was too.
It wasn’t a super warm day so the pool wasn’t overly crowded either.
The rest of this past week was fairly uneventful.
I started planning for Little Miss’s upcoming school year, visited my parents a couple of times, and picked up groceries from the Aldi pick up on Friday.
Yesterday was a mostly relaxing day with some worrying about aforementioned homeschool year, overthinking the fact that young people today are reading less and therefore not being exposed to the more eloquent and poetic writing of classic literature, watching The Mark of Zorro, reading a bit of my John Steinbeck book, and cooking a self-created combination dish of turkey bacon, brussels sprouts, onions, and sweet peppers.
Rain is being called for almost every day this upcoming week. We do not have any grand plans for the week other than watching Warren (yes, that is The Husband’s real name) in a community play version of Little Shop of Horrors this weekend. After reminding myself of the difference between the play and the 1986 movie, I think I’ll probably leave Little Miss with her friend or my parents.
What I/We’ve Been Reading
Just Finished
Last week I finished Sad Cypress by Agatha Christie for the July book for the Christie Reading Challenge for 2026. It was very good and I’ll share a review of it soon.
I was supposed to read The Rose and the Yew Tree by Mary Westmacott, which was Christie’s pen name, but I just couldn’t get through it. I was terribly dull. I feel like I want to know the ending (as I mentioned last week) so I think I might pick it up again in August and just finish it up.
In Progress
I am slow reading Stillmeadow Daybrook by Gladys Taber. Since each chapter is a month, I plan to read a chapter a month for the rest of 2026 and into 2027. I’m also reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.
Right now I am reading Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck. It is a non-fiction about his traveling across the country in a camper in 1961 with his dog to learn more about the people of the United States. I’m enjoying it and will finish it this week.
I am also reading Celia’s House by D.E. Stevenson before bed. It’s a very relaxed, gentle read so far. It is the story of a woman named Celia who is in her 90s, getting ready to pass, and tells her nephew she wants him to have her house and pass it on to a future daughter of his that she wants him to name Celia.
Up Soon
I will be reading By The Pricking of My Thumbs by Agatha Christie for the August read for the Christie Reading Challenge.
I ordered a copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain because I have been determined to read it again for the first time since I was a kid.
I’ve also ordered a copy of Mrs. Buncle Married by D.E. Stevenson, which his a sequel to Miss Buncle’s Book.
What The Family is Reading
The Boy is listening to False Gods by Graham McNeal.
Little Miss and I are going to finish Heidi this week.
Warren is reading The Committee Chairs by James Mishner.
New arrivals to my bookshelf
no new arrivals
What I/We’ve Been Watching
This past week, I watched the movies The Mark of Zorro (with Tyrone Powers), Without Love (Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy), Witness to Murder (with Barbara Stanwyck and George Sanders), and Singing in the Rain (which I watched with my daughter for the first time. The first for her, not me, of course).
What I’ve Been Writing
This week on the blog I shared very little actually!
Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs), Cat (Cat’s Wire) and I host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea. This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!). Each link party will be open for a month. You can find that link up for this month here.
Each week, I host the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot with some great hosts. It goes live Thursday night, but you can share any kind of blog posts (family-friendly) there until Tuesday of each week. You can check my recent posts on the sidebar to the right for the most recent link party.
Now It’s Your Turn
What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing?
If you would like to be the first to get news about my books or just have access to special posts for supporters, you can do so here for $2.99 a month https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing.
Last week was a miserable week healthwise and in other ways, and I’m glad it is behind me.
What I/We’ve Been Reading
Just Finished
I didn’t finish any books this past week.
In Progress
I am slow reading Stillmeadow Daybrook by Gladys Taber. Since each chapter is a month, I plan to read a chapter a month for the rest of 2026 and into 2027. I’m also reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.
I put The Rose and The Yew Tree by Mary Westmacott (Agatha Christie’s pseudonym for her romantic suspense books) aside for now because, I will be very frank, the book was not very interesting and was pretty depressing. I know the murder mysteries that she usually wrote aren’t always happy, but the people in this book are just not likable and are miserable all of the time.
I do sort of want to know what happens so I will probably pick it back up this week.
I had some stress this week so I didn’t get as much reading as I wanted done but I am still enjoying Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck. This is the only book I’ve read by Steinbeck other than Of Mice and Men. It was a much-needed distraction from all the weather issues, my health issues, and some older parent-related stress.
I started Sad Cypress by Agatha Christie to get my Agatha read in for July for the Christie Reading Challenge and am enjoying it much more than the Westmacott.
Up Soon
I am in the mood for a Nancy Drew book so I will be finding one to read soon. I also have an original Hardy Boys book I want to read.
What The Family is Reading
The Husband is reading Valor by Amanda Yanul.
Little Miss and I did not really read together at all this week. We were just hot, miserable, and had cabin fever/
New arrivals to my bookshelf
No new arrivals this week.
What I/We’ve Been Watching
This past week I watched a few episodes of As Time Goes By, an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show, a few episodes of Murder, She Wrote, and an old movie called The Reluctant Debutante with Rex Harrison, some other lady, and Angela Lansbury (it was weird).
I am listening to TheMaine Mutiny by Donald Baine on Audible when I drive somewhere, which means I haven’t listened to it a ton lately. I am hoping to listen more this week when I do housework.
Some Housekeeping
Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs), Cat (Cat’s Wire) and I host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea. This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!). Each link party will be open for a month. You can find that link up for this month here.
Each week, I host the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot with some great hosts. It goes live Thursday night, but you can share any kind of blog posts (family-friendly) there until Tuesday of each week. You can check my recent posts on the sidebar to the right for the most recent link party.
Now It’s Your Turn
What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing?
If you would like to be the first to get news about my books or just have access to special posts for supporters, you can do so here for $2.99 a month https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing.
Do you ever get over stimulated when you are on social media? It isn’t that something or anything is negative, but it is just … too much?
I was there this past week, and I had to shut it down.
There are some fun posts and some cool things that I was seeing, but it was just too much. It was like mental overload. Some of it was definitely negative. I find that social media is an outlet for people to complain and run others down.
But even when I was on positive accounts or was scrolling through people talking about their favorite books or movies, I just felt like my brain was overloaded. This happens to me from time to time, but seems to be happening more and more lately. What I had to do was mute social media for a few days or at least part of the day and watch some movies, do some junk journaling, anything that didn’t require a lot of noise, a lot of images, and any kind of scrolling, which tends to make me have vertigo anyhow.
Tomorrow is my husband’s and my 24th wedding anniversary. I’m hoping to make it without getting injured again. Right now, I have a bruise on my arm from the cat when she dug her claw into my arm while I was trying to give her her medicine, a scratch on the back of my foot from when I dropped a knife last night, and my chronic neck issues. The Husband isn’t feeling too great either. Maybe we can just sit in the house with ice and heated rice packs on our shoulders, knees, and everything in between and have some dinner and watch a movie. Ha!
What I/We’ve Been Reading
Just Finished
Last week I finished Miss Buncle’s Book by D.E. Stevenson and really enjoyed it. I shared a review of it here.
In Progress
I am slow reading Stillmeadow Daybrook by Gladys Taber. Since each chapter is a month, I plan to read a chapter a month for the rest of 2026 and into 2027. I’m also reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.
I am also currently reading The Rose and the Yew Tree by Mary Westcott (Agatha Christie) for the Christie Reading Challenge and Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck
Up Soon
Books I have lined up for the remainder of the summer include: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Murder, She Wrote: Slaying in Savannah, By the Pricking of My Thumbs, and Mystery Mile.
What The Family is Reading
Little Miss and I have been goofing off and not reading from Heidi but I think we will finish it this week.
The Husband is reading The Land of Lost Things by John Connelly.
New arrivals to my bookshelf
My new arrival this week was Travels with Charley, which I bought new because I had an old copy that smelled funny and the new copy was on sale. It smelled amazing, by the way.
What I/We’ve Been Watching
I watched two episodes of Sons of Liberty from the History Channel that ran in 2015. Interesting but not where you go for historical accuracy.
A hot, young Assassin’s Creed look-alike Samuel Adams about the same as John Hancock instead of ten years his senior like in reality? Hmmm…. Okay…Dr. Joseph Warren having some sexy time with General Gage’s wife? Good Lord. Who wrote this? The staff writers at TMZ??
Yeah … it was a nice reimagining (lie) and sensationalized poppycock as General Gage might have said.
I also watched The Apartment with Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacClain, Mr. Blandings Builds a Dream House, and Andy Hardy Meets A Debutante.
What I’ve Been Writing
This week I worked on Gladwynn Grant Goes Back to School.
Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs), Cat (Cat’s Wire) and I host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea. This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!). Each link party will be open for a month. You can find that link up for this month here.
Each week, I host the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot with some great hosts. It goes live Thursday night, but you can share any kind of blog posts (family-friendly) there until Tuesday of each week. You can check my recent posts on the sidebar to the right for the most recent link party.
Now It’s Your Turn
What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing?
If you would like to be the first to get news about my books or just have access to special posts for supporters, you can do so here for $2.99 a month https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing.
Happy 250th, America! Whoo-hoo! What an exciting weekend for our country. The heat wave we’ve had this past week has not been welcome, keeping me locked inside so I don’t trigger any of my weird health issues, but I’ve made the best of it by reading books, watching movies and shows, and working a bit on book four in the Gladwynn Grant Mysteries.
I did escape yesterday to go to my parents and it was nice to get out of the house. While we were there a huge storm came in, I watched a huge bolt of lightening slam into the hillside across the valley, and the heatwave finally broke.
The weather canceled most of the fireworks in the area but we could hear some going off in the neighborhood.
What I/We’ve Been Reading
Just Finished
I finished The Unsolicited Journals of Emma Lion Vol. 1 by Beth Brower this past week. It was more of a novella. It was okay but I was not bowled over by it.
In Progress
I am slow reading Stillmeadow Daybrook by Gladys Taber. Since each chapter is a month, I plan to read a chapter a month for the rest of 2026 and into 2027. I’m also reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.
I’m still reading Miss Buncle’s Book by D.E. Stevenson and enjoying it. I’ll have it finished today.
Up Soon
I’ll be starting The Rose and The Yew Tree by Mary Westcot (Agatha Christie) for the Christie Reading Challenge this week.
What The Family is Reading
The husband is reading The Land of Lost Things by John Connelly.
Little Miss and I are still reading…. Yes, you guessed it. Heidi. We have no been consistently reading it but will be this week. When we are done with that we will be reading Thimble Summer by Elizabeth Enright.
New arrivals to my bookshelf
No new arrivals this week.
What I/We’ve Been Watching
This past week I watched Enchanted with David Niven, Teresa Wright, Evelyn Keyes, and Farley Granger. It was …. Interesting. Not the best, not the worst. A film with a little lesson on love and life at the end, but a lot of holes and storylines that just…fizzled.
I also watched a short comedy movie from the 1940s called Niagara Falls. It was a ridiculous comedy about a man and a woman who have a bad interaction on the their way to Niagara Falls and everyone assumes they are a married couple just having a spat so they keep trying to get them back together. It was just over the top humor.
Some Housekeeping
Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs), Cat (Cat’s Wire) and I host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea. This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!). Each link party will be open for a month. You can find that link up for this month here.
Each week, I host the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot with some great hosts. It goes live Thursday night, but you can share any kind of blog posts (family-friendly) there until Tuesday of each week. You can check my recent posts on the sidebar to the right for the most recent link party.
Now It’s Your Turn
What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing?
If you would like to be the first to get news about my books or just have access to special posts for supporters, you can do so here for $2.99 a month https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/
It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, whatthe rest of the familyand I have been reading and watching, andwhat I’ve been writing.
I am loving all the celebrations for our country’s 250th anniversary! Last night our local Catholic Church put on an amazing display that our entire town was able to watch because the church is located on a hill.
Little Miss’s little friend was over and played the Star Spangled Banner as the show went on which made it even more patriotic. Zooma the Wonder Dog did freak out some but she was so excited that Little Miss’s friend was over that she was distracted from being afraid from the loud banging.
The shot my husband got as he headed back into our town from the movies with the kids.
I actually forgot about the fireworks display so when it went off I thought it was gunshots which is not unusual in this area since we have so many hunters, but still, we don’t usually hear that many at a time.
I’ll be looking forward to seeing fireworks displays around the country next week too. Our town has flags all over – it’s fun to see.
What I/We’ve Been Reading
Just Finished
This week I finished The Ivory Dagger by Patricia Wentworth. It was my first book by her and I enjoyed it. It reminded me of Agatha Christie with more descriptions. This was a book from the Miss Silver series. I’m going to go back to the beginning of the series and start there.
In Progress
I am slow reading Stillmeadow Daybrook by Gladys Taber. Since each chapter is a month, I plan to read a chapter a month. I’m still reading Miss Buncle’s Book by D.E. Stevenson but I put it aside to finish The Ivory Dagger. I’ll continue it this week because I am enjoying it.
Up Soon
Up soon I will be reading Mystery Mile by Margery Allingham.
What The Family is Reading
Little Miss and I are reading Heidi. My son is listening to a Warhammer book. I forgot to ask The Husband what he is reading.
New arrivals to my bookshelf
Last week I received a delivery of nine middle grade books for Little Miss and I to read together. They included: Thimble Summer by Elizabeth Enright, The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keattey Snyder, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle, Across the Lines by Carolyn Reeder, The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks, Moccasin Trail by Eloise Jarvis McGraw, Code Talker by Joseph Bruchac, Calico Girl by Jerdine Nolen, and Phoebe the Spy by Judith Berry Griffin.
What I/We’ve Been Watching
I was depressed this week to find that Murder, She Wrote was taken of Amazon Prime, where I was able to watch it without commercials. I hate commercials because it seems most of streaming commercials are for pharmaceutical companies and politics. Blah.
I’ve decided I am going to start ordering them on DVD like I am my movies. I’m tired of putting up with tech companies telling me when and how I can watch my shows! And I don’t care if I sound like an old lady. Ha.
I did watch some Murder, She Wrote on the On Demand feature on Amazon. I also watched a movie called Tell It To the Judge with Rosalind Russell and Robert Cummings, a Myrna Loy and William Powell movie called Double Wedding, and several episodes of As Time Goes By.
What I’ve Been Writing
I’m working on Gladwynn Grant Goes Back to School, book four in the Gladwynn Grant series.
I’ve been listening to The Essential Dean Martin Collection and a Murder, She Wrote book.
Photos From Last Week
Some Housekeeping
Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs), Cat (Cat’s Wire) and I host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea. This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!). Each link party will be open for a month. You can find that link up for this month here.
Each week, I host the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot with some great hosts. It goes live Thursday night, but you can share any kind of blog posts (family-friendly) there until Tuesday of each week. You can check my recent posts on the sidebar to the right for the most recent link party.
Now It’s Your Turn
What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing?
If you would like to be the first to get news about my books or just have access to special posts for supporters, you can do so here for $2.99 a month https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/
