Tag: book review

Sunday Bookends: a birthday, I’m actually reading…non-fiction?? And watching old movies (again)

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends, Sunday Salon8 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.

We’ve been celebrating Little Miss’s birthday for the last couple of days and today is the last activity we are participating in. She had a special breakfast out and a special lunch with her grandparents on her birthday, an outing and dinner at a restaurant Friday and a sleep over with a friend last night. Today she is going to see reptiles with her friend at a reptile zoo because she is a huge fan of reptiles. They have other animals as well, but mostly reptiles.

I wrote more about our week last week in yesterday’s post if you want to catch up there.

Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I are still hosting crafternoons. We will be announcing a date for October later on. If you are wondering what Crafternoons are it is a monthly Zoom meet up where we get together with other bloggers/crafters and do a craft while we chat about life and books and all kinds of other things.

If you are interested in the crafternoon, you can find more information here.

Erin and I are also hosting a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea.  You can find that link up for this month here.

Last week I finished The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis. I did not think I was going to like it at first but it was very good. I don’t know if I ever read this one when I was younger and I didn’t think I was going to like it but I got more into it as it went on. I am looking forward to reading the rest of the series before the end of the year.

I’m still reading Come, Tell Me Where You Live by Agatha Christie Mallowen. This is a non-fiction book/memoir written about Agatha’s travels with her archeologist husband Max Mallowen to Syria from 1935 to 1937. Max was her second husband and she remained married to him until his death.

Her stories about their travels are candid, very funny, and full of her natural wit.

I’ve been reading other books in between this one. It’s taken me a little longer to read it because it isn’t really a novel and because the print is very small and the lines are close together. Somehow that makes it feel more difficult to read and like I’ll never finish it but,  honestly, it does move along quite nicely and is very interesting. I am learning a lot about that part of the world and how archeological digs worked in the old days. I’ll have it finished this week.

For fun I am reading A Fatal Harvest, an Amish Inn Mystery, by Rachael Phillips. Liz Ekhardt runs an Amish Inn in ….um…Iowa I think. She has a group of friends and a “friendship” with the town mayor, Jackson. She also has a pet bulldog named Beans. He came with the inn when she purchased it.

In this installment, Liz and her friend Naomi have discovered the body of one of Liz’s guests under the haybales on the hayride. Liz is always stumbling into a mystery and this time she wants to find out if her guest had a local connection that could have led to his death.

After that I’ll probably dive into Murder, She Wrote: Trick or Treachery.

Little Miss and I will be finishing The Good Master this week.

This past week I watched a crazy old movie called Autumn Harvest. It was a wild ride involving a shell shocked World War I vet who loses his memory, falls in love, and then regains his memory but forget his wife. Oh man, it was crazy, but the ending was nice at least.

I also watched a movie with Cary Grant called. It was about a couple who kept adopting children that no one else wanted. It was really beautiful and had me weepy. I’d never even heard of this one. It was a comedy drama with a very beautiful message about taking in children who don’t seem to be wanted.

This week on the blog I shared:

I am still slowly working on Gladwynn Grant Goes Back to School. It will be out in February. If you would like to read the other three books, though, you can find them on Kindle Unlimited on Amazon and you can find paperbacks on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

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.

This post is linked up with The Sunday Post at  Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer, The Sunday Salon with Deb at Readerbuzz, and Book Date: It’s Monday! What are you reading hosted by Kathyrn at The Book Date. Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Reading Reality.

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.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

Sunday Bookends: Disappointed in humanity but enjoying silly books to forget all that

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends, Sunday Salon21 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 past week was rainy and muggy but our leaves are changing and at least our nights are cooler.

The feel of autumn is in the air for sure on those cooler nights. The apple fritter scented candle my husband picked up this weekend is helping that mood even more.

Yesterday the kids and I took advantage of the “nicer” weather we had after a week of rain  and headed to a playground about twenty minutes from us. It was a gloomy and muggy day, but the kids still had fun playing on the zipline and in the creek. Little Miss made a new friend she might never meet again but they had fun at least.

I capped off my night with a Cary Grant movie, The Talk of the Town. It was a bit of a quirky film that was supposed to be a comedy but bordered on a drama at times.

This week I am going to work on being less overwhelmed with the world. To do that I am going to try to go on a media fast of sorts. Very limited scrolling and almost no news. My nervous system is overstimulated, overworked, over…something.

I have a lot going on with my parents’ health right now and some other things in life so I can’t take on the hurts and pains of the world too.

And I do take them on. When I see people hurting and then see people who do not care about that hurt because they have become desensitized to the pain of others with the 24/7 news cycle I start to realize that people around me are also probably thinking these horrible things that people are writing online too. It feels like people care less these days unless it is some political cause they are behind and while they are promoting that political cause they are tearing down others and yelling that is actually the other people tearing them down.

It’s exhausting and I’ve heard this over and over and over recently —that our brains were not built for all this news and 24/7 stimulation from social media. As a pastor I listen to once said, “We were not meant to be walking around with the entire world accessible via our butt bone.”

Of course he was talking about people who slide their phones in their back pockets and can slide it out at any time and at any time see the horrors of the world unfolding in real time. We can see good things too but we all know that the worst of the worst that is happening is what sells news and makes people stop scrolling.

More of us need to put our phones down and actually interact with people. As an introvert this is hard for me to say. I don’t like people. Ha. I know there are good people out there, though, and we need to find those people and interact with them more and the grumpy mouthy people on the internet less.

It’s a goal anyhow and I want to work more toward it.

Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I are still hosting crafternoons but completely blanked on setting up a date on September. We both started homeschooling and had other events and all of the sudden September was over. It’s crazy  to me how fast it went by!

We will be announcing a date for October later on, probably next week.

If you are wondering what Crafternoons are it is a monthly Zoom meet up where we get together with other bloggers/crafters and do a craft while we chat about life and books and all kinds of other things. We do our best not to focus on religion or politics so we don’t depress ourselves.

If you are interested in the crafternoon, you can find more information here.

Erin and I are also hosting a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea. It is almost over for September but you can still get your bookish links in. They do not have to be recent posts, just related to books in some way. I’ll have a new link party up on Wednesday.

I am finishing up the Nancy Drew book The Clue of the Broken Locket and will probably take a bit of a Nancy break.

These books were written for the youth of the day back in the 1930s and then rewritten a bit in the 1950s, so I get that there is some unrealistic stuff in there, but did they not know about concussions back then? I suppose they didn’t but these characters are always taking headshots waking up, getting a cold cloth on their head and a drink of water and then continuing on their day.  Like in this book, a huge rock was thrown through a front door, supposedly hit the couch, and knocked two people forward where they hit their heads on the hearth and were both knocked unconscious at the same time.

Hmm….oookay….let’s go on and believe that could happen but then let’s also believe that no one thought they should take both of these people to a hospital to have them checked out???

So the Nancy Drew books can be silly at times, but they aren’t written for adults, and the mysteries themselves are actually very interesting and sometimes even give me ideas for my own book. I suppose that is why I keep reading them off and on. All that being said, it is time for a little break and to read something more mature.

That’s why I’m reading The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis. Hahahaha! Really I just have a goal to reread The Chronicles of Narnia so I am reading another children’s book but it’s less annoying than the Nancy Drew books can be.

I am actually reading an adult book by Agatha Christie called Come, Tell Me How You Live but I put it down somewhere in the house and could not find it all week. I found it yesterday finally!

So I shall be reading an adult book this week!

I am also starting one of my fall books, A Fatal Harvest by Rachael O. Phillips, this week since I will finish Nancy Drew today and probably will finish the Narnia book later in the week.

I might start Death of a Gossip by M.C. Beaton this week too, depending on my mood. It’s the first book in the Hamish MacBeth Mystery series. And Emma Lion. I totally forgot I want to start that this week! That might come before Death of a Gossip.

Little Miss and I are going to finish up The Good Master this week. We did not read it last week for some reason.

I’m not sure what The Husband is reading at the moment because I forgot to ask him before he went upstairs for a nap before work and I’m going to publish this before he gets up.

The Boy isn’t reading a book right now but he’s getting ready to read a book based on the Halo games.

This past week I watched less TV than normal but I did watch one of the worst Murder, She Wrote episodes I’ve ever seen. I’ve seen a couple of stinkers and this one was…well, weird and creepy. Jessica essentially had a college guy stalking her. A college guy who looked about 30, I might add. Either way he was obsessed with her and all older women. It was …. Ew.

The Husband and I later watched another one that wasn’t very good either. That’s how it is with series, though, there are good and bad ones. Can’t be helped when a series runs for 12 years!

I stared a movie called The Talk of the Town with Cary Grant last night but didn’t finish it yet. It’s weird. That’s all I can say. It’s also funny. Cary is accused of burning down a building with a person trapped inside but escapes from jail and Jean Arthur decides to let him stay at her rental house even though a law professor is renting out the house at the same time. Cary must prove his innocence to the professor played by Ronald Colman.

It’s a bit crazy, in other words, but I really had an itch to watch an old movie.

I also enjoyed this video about comforting reads from a new-to-me vlogger:

Last week I worked a bit on Gladwynn Grant Goes Back to School.

I also pulled my books out of Kindle Unlimited on Amazon because I feel like Amazon takes advantage and rips of indie authors. My ebooks and paperbacks are still for sale there but they will not be exclusive there anymore. I also introduced new book covers for the Gladwynn books.

On the blog I shared:

|| Embrace Autumn: Tea Breaks and Kitchen Moments by Thrifting Wonderland ||

|| Insomnia: The Nightmarish Gift That Keeps on Giving  by Coffee Addicted Writer ||

|| Things I Know by From This Side of the Pond ||

Please keep praying for Mama’s Empty Nest’s family:

|| Traumatic Thursdays by Mama’s Empty Nest ||

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. Link up below if you want to:

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter
https://fresh.inlinkz.com/js/widget/load.js?id=c0efdbe6b4add43dd7ef

This post is linked up with The Sunday Post at  Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer, The Sunday Salon with Deb at Readerbuzz, and Book Date: It’s Monday! What are you reading hosted by Kathyrn at The Book Date. Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Reading Reality.

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.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Hopeful Reads for Autumn

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn books and reading, top-ten-tuesday24 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

Today’s prompt was: Books on My Fall 2025 to-Read List

I have more than ten books on my autumn hopefuls list, but I chose ten of those to share. I am leaving out those I am reading now or have already read this month:

|| Murder, She Wrote: Trick or Treachery by Jessica Fletcher and Donald Bain ||

|| Nancy Drew: The Clue of the Broken Locket by Carolyn Keene ||

|| A Damsel in Distress by P.G. Wodehouse ||

|| My Beloved (A Mitford Novel) by Jan Karon (it releases Oct. 7 but I probably won’t get it right away so this could become a winter read) ||

|| Rebecca by  Daphne du Maurier ||

|| The Unselected Journals of Emma Lion by Beth Brower ||

|| A Hardy Boys Mystery: The Tower Treasure by Frankin W. Dixon ||

|| The Cat, The Mill, and the Murder by Leann Sweeney ||

|| A Fatal Harvest (An Amish Inn Mystery) by Rachael O. Phillips ||

|| The Cider Shop Rules by Julie Anne Lindsey ||

Have you read any of these books? Or maybe watched the shows based on them? What did you think of them or the characters?

If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.

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.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

Book review: The Antique Hunters Guide To Murder

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn book reviews, books and reading7 Comments

Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs mentioned to me a couple of weeks ago that she thought I had mentioned somewhere that I was going to read The Antique Hunter’s Guide to Murder. I had not but it looked interesting to me so she suggested we do a buddy read. I’ve never done a buddy read so I said I could try it with her.

Having someone to talk to about the book and bounce ideas off of about what was going to happen next was fun.

This book takes place in England and is about Freya Lockwood who used to be an antique hunter. I wasn’t sure what the term “antique hunter” meant until I got into the book. It turns out it isn’t only about finding antiques that are worth something and can be sold in a store. Antique hunting is also about finding stolen antiques and returning them to their rightful owners.

What I knew from the beginning was that a man named Arthur Crockleford had died and it upset her. It is actually suggested in the prologue of the book that Arthur was murdered.

We will spend most of the book trying to figure out not only why but who.

Freya and Arthur haven’t talked in almost 20 years and we will learn more about that as we read too.

Freya’s aunt Carole, who cared for Freya when her parents died, introduced Freya to Arthur and was also good friends with him. After Freya and Arthur’s falling out, Freya married and had a child, who is now grown.

From the book description: Joining forces with her eccentric Aunt Carole, Freya follows clues to an old manor house for an advertised antiques enthusiast’s weekend. But not all is as it seems. It’s clear to Freya that the antiques are all just poor reproductions, and her fellow guests are secretive and menacing. What is going on at this estate and how was Arthur involved? More importantly, can Freya and Carole discover the truth before the killer strikes again?”

Arthur leaves behind a series of journals for Freya that he calls the Antique Hunter’s Guide.

My thoughts:

This book was … okay for me. It wasn’t the worst book I’ve ever read. It wasn’t the best. Overall, though, it was a fun escape – at least until about 60 percent when things got a bit confusing for me and sort of fell apart in my opinion. That totally could have been just a me thing, though. Maybe my brain wasn’t clicking as well with the second half as it did  the first.

The book was clean and free of swearing and graphic descriptions so I would consider it a cozy mystery.

The one big thing this book had going for it was the characters. They were interesting and I got attached to them, though I was attached more to Carole than Freya.

The mystery is decent too, but the characters are interesting and fun to learn about.

Freya’s aunt Carole is a highlight of the book for me. She was eccentric, funny, and always on the brink of either blowing their investigation or getting them deeper in trouble. She was there to add some humor to the book it seems and I liked that.

Freya is getting her life back and finding the woman she used to be in this book, but don’t worry, if you forget that fact, the author will tell you about 50 more times before the book ends. She will also remind you that Freya has a scar on her hand about 50 times. I’m joking a bit, but those two things were repeated a bit too much for my liking. I got the point the first three times we were told Freya wanted her old life back. Though I thought we were told this too much I liked that Freya worked toward finding her former passion for antique hunting.

Here are a couple of quotes I highlighted as I read:

“This plate is different than before, but it’s still precious,” said Arthur. “Most of us have been broken in one way or another. We don’t need to hide the scars, for they make us who we are. This bread was mended with real gold.”

“I saw for the first time that I was me again — that person hadn’t left me; I’d just dived into the safety of my London home and become shrouded with the world of being a wife and mother.”

“Your journals are called the Antique Hunter’s Guide. But my hunting hasn’t been as straightforward — your guide led me on quite an adventure.”

“You can be so dramatic. He offered tea, and murderers don’t offer tea, do they darling?” Carole tutted at me.

“Carole appeared at my side and rubbed my arms like she used to do after we’d come in from a long, cold winter’s walk. “I want to show you what I meant about the vases. Come.” She handed back my phone and led me away from the darkness, just as she had always done.”

Erin mentioned when we were talking that she thought this book was a good introduction to a series and I think she’s right. There was a lot in it and a couple storylines going on, including a possible romance, but in the end they all converged, luckily.

I will warn you that this book switches from a few points of view to introduce us to each suspect or to Aunt Carole. The tense changes when the POV changes so we go from mainly first person for Freya to third person for everyone else. I thought Miller did this well so the changes didn’t bother me like it has in some other books I’ve tried in the past.

There is one more book in the series that is out — The Antique Hunter’s Death on the Red Sea. The third book, The Antique Hunter’s Murder At The Castle is scheduled for release in March of 2026.

The bottom line for me is that this is a fun read, something to pick up when you need an escape from the world. Don’t expect it to blow you away, but do expect to be sufficiently entertained.

You can view Erin’s thoughts here.

If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.

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.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

Sunday Bookends: Bookish link party, birthday outing, plenty of mysteries

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends, Sunday Salon21 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.

Friday was my birthday, so I wrote about visiting a very nice restaurant with my husband in my Saturday Afternoon Chat post yesterday if you want to catch up with all that there. I’ll share some photos below of our experience.

A reminder that I — and now my new co-host Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs — host a monthly bookish link party. It’s called A Good Book and a Cup of Tea but I’ve changed the link name at the top of the page to “Bookish Link Party” so it makes more sense. It’s a link-up for any post related to reading or books and you can post throughout the month.

Another reminder that Erin and I will be hosting a Comfy, Cozy movie-watching marathon again this year, and we already have our list of movies. This week we are watching Benny and Joon with Mary Stuart Masterson, Johnny Depp, Aiden Quinn, and Julianne Moore.

Erin made this cool graphic for it:

Also, Erin and I host a monthly Crafternoon meet up where we get together on Zoom with other bloggers/crafters and do a craft while we chat about life and books and all kinds of other things. We do our best not to focus on religion or politics so we don’t depress ourselves.

If you are interested in the crafternoon, you can find more information here.

I just finished An Antique Hunter’s Guide to Murder by C.L. Miller, which as a buddy read with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs. We are both sharing a review of it tomorrow.

You can read the review tomorrow to know what I thought of it.

Right now, I am still reading Gin and Daggers, a Murder, She Wrote book by Donald Bain. I will most likely have it done tonight or tomorrow.

I am also reading The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis.

My slow read is still Come, Tell Me How You Live by Agatha Christie Mallowen, a non-fiction book by Agatha that is about her and her husband traveling to Syria for an archaeological dig. It’s good so far but a bit wordy and slow in some places so I’m not as interested to read it as I am my murder mysteries.

Up next I will be reading Nancy Drew: The Clue of the Broken Locket.

Tuesday I’ll be sharing my list of hopeful reads for autumn. I know for a fact I won’t get through all of them, but it will be fun trying anyhow.

Little Miss and I are reading The Good Master by Kate Seredy together.

The Husband is reading Gray Day by Walter Mosley.

This past week I watched Murder, She Wrote (of course. I am making my way through the show since I didn’t watch them when I was younger.), Poirot, Just A Few Acres Farm, Dick VanDyke, and Supernatural.

It was my first time watching Supernatural and I liked it, sort of. I’m not big on scary or horror-type stuff and though this is tamer than actual horror films, it still unsettled me. I watched it with my son and told him I might do it again but I’m not sure. I’ll have to watch a lot of All Creatures Great and Small to get it out of my system. Ha!

I actually am working on Gladwynn Grant Goes Back to School, but very slowly. It looks like I won’t have it out until winter.

Last week on the blog I shared:

I’m going to start listening to Come Rain, or Come Shine  by Jan Karon this upcoming week (because I didn’t last week!) as I get ready for Jan’s new book to come out in October!

I’ve also been listening to the True Drew Podcast, which is a podcast about all things Nancy Drew. You can find it on Apple Podcasts.

|| The Well Beaten Path by For His Purpose ||

|| Apple Taste Testing by The Farm Wife Reads ||

|| A Cat Called Room 8 and the Young Ones by Bettie G’s RA Seasons ||

|| Emma’s Story by Words From Anneli ||

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.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter
https://fresh.inlinkz.com/js/widget/load.js?id=c0efdbe6b4add43dd7ef

This post is linked up with The Sunday Post at  Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer, The Sunday Salon with Deb at Readerbuzz, and Book Date: It’s Monday! What are you reading hosted by Kathyrn at The Book Date. Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Reading Reality.

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.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

Book review/recommendation: Dave Barry Isn’t Taking This Sitting Down

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn book reviews, books and reading5 Comments

Title: Dave Barry Isn’t Taking This Sitting Down

Author: Dave Barry

Genre: Comedy/Humor

Description:

Pulitzer Prize-winning humorist Dave Barry is a pretty amiable guy. But lately, he’s been getting a little worked up. What could make a mild-mannered man of words so hot under the collar? Well, a lot of things–like bad public art, Internet millionaires, SUVs, Regis Philbin . . . and even bigger problems, like

• The slower-than-deceased-livestock left-lane drivers who apparently believe that the right lane is sacred and must never come in direct contact with tires
• The parent-misery quotient of last-minute school science fair projects
• Day trading and other careers that never require you to take off your bathrobe
• The plague of the low-flow toilets, which is so bad that even in Miami, where you can buy drugs just by opening your front door and yelling “Hey! I want some crack,” you can’t even sell your first born to get a normal-flushing toilet

Dave Barry is not taking any of this sitting down. He’s going to stand up for the rights of all Americans against ridiculously named specialty “–chino” coffees and the IRS. Just as soon as he gets the darn toilet flushed.

My impressions:

Dave Barry’s columns are hilarious and keep me laughing when I probably would otherwise be crying. I had a weird summer with a lot of up and down emotions so this book, with its bite-sized chapters, (which are made up of column reproductions from his years at the Miami Herald) were just what I needed. I read two or three columns a night and tried not to laugh too loud so I didn’t wake up anyone else in the family.

I love Dave’s sense of humor. The sarcasm and quick whit and play on words. Even the puns. This book was written in 2000 and still holds up with so many topics and thoughts that many of us still (sometimes sadly) can relate to.

What I also liked about this book is that it was clean, with only an occasional off-color comment or joke. There is no swearing other than a hell or damn from time to time.

I have never read Dave’s fiction books so I can’t comment on if those are clean or not. I will let you know if I ever read one. My husband has read them and always seems to laugh through them, so I guess they are funny at least.

Some of Dave’s non-fiction comedy books focus on one specific topic, like computers, ,but the topics in this book include everything from politics to regulations on toilets, always managing to make the topic light and giggle-inducing.

Some quotes I liked from this one:

“Like many members of the uncultured, Cheez-It-consuming public, I am not good at grasping modern art. I’m the type of person who will stand in front of a certified modern masterpiece painting that looks, to the layperson, like a big black square, and quietly think: “Maybe the actual painting is on the other side.”

“The public should enjoy what the experts have decided the public should enjoy. That’s the system we use in this country, and we’re going to stick with it.”

One that hits home for me, a former newspaper reporter whose husband is still in the business: “Here in the newspaper business, we have definitely caught Internet Fever. In the old days we used to — get this! — actually charge money for our newspapers. Ha ha! What an old-fashioned, low 0tech, non-digital concept! Nowadays all of the hip modern newspapers spend millions of dollars operating Web sites where we give away the entire newspaper for fee. Sometimes we run advertisements in the regular newspaper, urging our remaining paying customers to go to our Web sites instead. “Stop giving us money!” is the shrewd marketing thrust of these ads. Why do we do this? Because all of the other newspapers are doing it! If all the other newsapes stuck pencils up their noses, we’d do that, too! This is called “market penetration.””

(Aside: It’s been fun to see newspapers try to shut the barn door after they already opened it on the Web site payments. Most people are fighting it and I can’t blame them. After so many years of getting everything for free, it’s quite a shock to be told you now have to pay for it.)

It was fun here to discover he’d worked at a newspaper I’ve heard of and is in my state: “I myself developed the coffee habit in my early 20s,, when, as a “cub” reporter for the Daily Local News in West Chester, Pennsylvania, I had to stay awake while writing phenomenally boring stories about municipal government. I got my coffee from a vending machine that also sold hot chocolate and chicken-noodle soup; all three liquids squired out of a single tube, and they tasted pretty much the same. But I came to need that coffee, and even today I can do nothing useful before I’ve had several cups. (I can’t do anything useful afterward, either; that’s why I’m a columnist.)”

 The bottom line is that if you need a good laugh, this is a good Dave Barry book to choose. I can’t vouch for all of his books, but this one is a good choice.

Sunday Bookends: Some comfort shows, mystery reading, pretty views

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends, Sunday Salon22 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.

We had some family time this last week with my brother and sister-in-law and my parents to discuss the future, I guess you would say. It wasn’t easy but it was necessary as my parents are both 81 now.

It was nice to have that family time together even though it was short. Luckily, my brother and his wife don’t live too far away, and we hope to visit them when the leaves change color, since they live in one of the prettiest parts of the state.

Nadda.

The Antique Hunter’s Guide to Murder by C.L. Miller, Gin and Daggers (A Murder She Wrote book) by “Jessica Fletcher” and Donald Bain, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis, and Come, Tell Me How You Live by Agatha Christie Mallowan.

The Antique Hunter’s Guide to Murder is very good and fairly fast-moving so far. It’s sort of a cozy mystery at this point. Clean. I’m reading it as part of a buddy read with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs.

Gin and Daggers is very good and well-written. I don’t think I expected it to be, even though another one out of the series I read was good as well. This is the first in the Murder, She Wrote series.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is obviously good.

Come, Tell Me How You Live is my slow read with a chapter or two a week (the chapters are very long).

Nancy Drew: The Clue of the Broken Locket by Carolyn Keene.

Little Miss and I are reading The Good Master by Kate Seredy and are enjoying it. She is reading a chapter a night before bed, and then I read the chapters the next morning.

I am behind. Oops! Ha! She’s enjoying what’s ahead of me now.

The Husband is reading Walkin’ the Dog by Walter Mosley.

I’ve been watching The Dick VanDyke Show, The Monkees (which I could only find a couple of episodes of), Rockford Files, Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, Murder, She Wrote, The Chosen and other nostalgic shows that bring me comfort.

The week before last I watched the first couple episodes of season two of the Marlow Mystery Club.

I read the first two books in the series and the second one pretty much made me decide to take a break from the series. I did not enjoy it very much. I’ll see if the season based on it is even better.

Yesterday I wrote about watching an episode of The Monkees that I found on YouTUbe (couldn’t find it streaming anywhere else) and then last night I watched a concert with them from 2001 and it was actually very good. Great music, funny, and just flat out entertaining. Watching it was the most relaxed since Wednesday afternoon. You can find it HERE.

I’m going to start listening to Come Rain, or Come Shine  by Jan Karon this upcoming week as I get ready for Jan’s new book to come out in October!

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.

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This post is linked up with The Sunday Post at  Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer, The Sunday Salon with Deb at Readerbuzz, and Book Date: It’s Monday! What are you reading hosted by Kathyrn at The Book Date. Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Reading Reality.

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.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

Top Ten (or just ten, not top) Literary Villains

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn books and reading, top-ten-tuesday17 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

Today’s prompt was:  Villains (favorite, best, worst, lovable, creepiest, most evil, etc.)

This week I decided to list villains from books I’ve read and some from books I haven’t yet read (and might never read. Ha!)

  1. Professor Moriarty from Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

I have read one book featuring Professor Moriarty, the nemesis of Sherlock Holmes, but not the short story yet. I have also seen him portrayed in at least two TV adaptations of Sherlock Holmes

2. Captain Hook from Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie

Of course Captain Hook from J.M Barrie’s Peter Pan has to be on this list. I have read some of Peter Pan and watched, of course, the adaptations, specifically the Disney one and Hook. Dustin Hoffman pulled off a brilliant performance as Hook in that one

Editorial use only Mandatory Credit: Photo by Snap/Shutterstock (390884jm) FILM STILLS OF ‘HOOK’ WITH 1991, ACTION, AGAINST-ALL-ODDS (SWASHBUCKLER, FANTASY, DUSTIN HOFFMAN, STEVEN SPIELBERG IN 1991 VARIOUS

3. Sauron from The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

Hello…what is more evil than a wizard who wants to rule the world? A devil who wants to rule it, but you know what I mean.

4. Count Dracula from Dracula by Bram Stoker

We’ve had way too many kids’ movies that have tried to turn Dracula into a funny, relatable good guy. I’ve never read the book, but from what I  understand about it — he was not a good guy. Not at all.

5. Voldemort from The Harry Potter series

Another evil wizard who wants to take over the world, but most of all destroy poor Harry Potter. I have not read the books but I did read part of the first on my own and with my kids and watched the movies with them as well.

6.Hannibal Lecter from The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris

I have never read this book and most likely won’t but I did watch the movie with my husband.

7. Eleanor Shaw from The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon

I have not read the book but I watched the 1962 movie with Angela Lansbury as Eleanor Shaw and … shudder…she was super creepy. I can’t get into too much about why she is so evil so I don’t ruin the book or movie for you. Just know she’s scum.

8. The White Witch (Jadis) from The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

Creepy to a fault, Jadis likes to tempt little boys with Turkish delight to drag all the secrets out so she can find and kill his siblings and keep her chilly hold on all of Narnia. She is, of course, a symbol of Satan, or at least one of his minions. I have read the books she is in (The Magician’s Nephew and The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe) and have seen one movie with her in it.

9. M. Hercule Flambeau from The Father Brown Mysteries by G.K. Chesterton

This conniving burglar is always trying to get by Father Brown who is always hot on his tale. I’ve read one short story with him and have seen him in the modern version of the show. He’s quite handsome in that show too but aren’t all the best villains a bit handsome?

10. Satan from Paradise Lost by John Milton (and …hello….the BIBLE)

I have not read Paradise Lost but I have read the Bible and if you want to get technical about it, Satan is the basis for all the villains we have listed here.

Here is another list of villains I found online: https://lithub.com/40-of-the-best-villains-in-literature/

There are so many more great and interesting villains from literature that I could have named. Who are some of your favorites?

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.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

Book Review: But First, Murder by Bee Littlefield

On By Lisa R. HowelerIn book reviews, books and reading5 Comments

“Whoa slow down the Orient Express, Sherlock. You think you’re going to investigate a possible murder?” It’s one thing for me to bat around that idea in my own private brain or to make a few innocent lists in a new notebook. For my very normal and sensible little sister to make such a suggestion — out loud — is just bizarre.”

But  First, Murder by Bee Littlefield

Book Title: But First, Murder

Author: Bee Littlefield

Genre: Cozy mystery

Description:

After years of slinging lattes, Betti Bryant is taking ownership of her life. She doesn’t need new friends or book club invitations to distract her from finding her way forward. And the unresolved situation with a guy she kissed a few weeks ago might as well stay unresolved.

But there’s one distraction she is not prepared for: finding a murder victim on her way to work one frigid December morning.

Suspicion falls on Betti’s roommate, Callista, who happens to be holding a baseball bat over the victim’s body when the police drive up. Almost totally sure Callista is innocent, Betti buys a new notebook, digs out her scrapbooking supplies, and makes the cutest murder board ever.

Now, on top of holding down a job (or two) and figuring out her entire future, she’s committed to finding the real killer before any more lives are ruined—including her own.

My thoughts:

I was excited to get back into Betti’s world, after reading book one in this series, and see what Betti and her friends have been up to. I won’t share too much of what happened at the end of the last book, Clueless in the Coffee Station, in case you haven’t read it yet, but let’s just say Betti was trying some new things out at the end of the last book. The description above mentions that, of course.

In this book she’s in the middle of those changes (though still working part time at the coffee shop) when she stumbles onto a dead body outside her roommate’s new studio.

Of course, she needs to find out who killed him because she is sure the police will suspect her roommate.

On top of the mystery, in which her sister, Elsea, joins her in investigating this time around, there is a possible romance between her and a co-worker, Nico, and a new partnership with a local reporter.

Betti is a very quirky character and cracks me up. I don’t know if I would make some of the decisions she makes when it comes to not going to the police, but if she rushed right to the police there wouldn’t be a story, right?

Betti is introverted and indecisive like me and I think that is why I am drawn to her. She is also very funny, which I am not, but like to think I am.

I enjoyed the addition of her sister to this book. She was in the last book but wasn’t as heavily involved in the investigation as she was in this one.

Bee has left us with some questions at the end of this book which I hope means more stories with Betti and her family and friends.

I highlight a lot in my Kindle with Bee’s books because I love her use of words.

“The younger man comes into the café, leaving the argument behind with the snow he wipes onto the welcome mat.”

Isn’t that a cool line?

Or how about:

“Then I scream. Not one of those piercing shrieks from horror movies or playgrounds, but a goofy, uncontrolled yelp. The boy of a man, as iced over as the trees, is splayed out near an empty flower box, under the same window through which I glimpsed Callista dancing last night.”

Or:

“I found a dead man on my way to work this morning. I say it in my mind, over and over, but I can’t say it out loud. Not here, not with tea steeping and Christmas lights blinking and Chopin on the radio. When customers ask me how I’m doing I say, “Great, thanks!”

And:

“I’m going to go home and have a hard conversation with my roommate Then I’ll take a hot shower and fill my new notebook with thoughts on everything except the poor man who definitely accidentally froze to death last night.”

And one more:

“Whoa slow down the Orient Express, Sherlock. You think you’re going to investigate a possible murder?” It’s one thing for me to bat around that idea in my own private brain or to make a few innocent lists in a new notebook. For my very normal and sensible little sister to make such a suggestion — out loud — is just bizarre.”

Anyhow, I clearly enjoy Bee’s writing style. It’s first person, present tense, which I usually do not enjoy in books, but when Bee writes it, I enjoy it. I also enjoy Bee’s characters and how well-developed and 3-D they are. They are believable, raw and real. Bee’s books are also a good, light read, with a smidgen of heavy, but not enough to make her books dark mystery or thriller. Her books are definitely cozy mysteries with a good balance of cozy and mystery.

Hopefully, all my rambling will convince you to give the book a try.