book reviews

Recapping and reviewing the 1977 Hardy Boys Nancy Drew Mysteries episode The Secret of the Whispering Walls

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 3 Comments

Here we are to another episode from The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries show from 1977. As I’ve mentioned before, in the first season of this series the episodes switched back and forth from Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew episodes and in the next season they started to join together.

This week we have another Nancy Drew episode, The Secret of the Whispering Walls.

I knew part way into this one that it was based on at least one Nancy Drew book — The Secret of Red Gate Farm, but learned on the Nancy Drew Wiki site that it also combined the story of The Hidden Staircase. I didn’t recognize some of the elements from that book until I read that and then I began to see what parts they pulled from it. I did find it interesting that there is a book with this title from the same era as the Nancy Drew books and ironically it is written by Mildred Benson, who wrote about 30 of the original Nancy Drews under the pseudoym Carolyn Keene.

The book was part of the Penny Parker Mysteries series and I thought it was interesting what was written in the description of the book on Amazon.

“Penny Parker starred in a series of 17 books written by Mildred A. Wirt Benson and published from 1939 through 1947. Penny was a high school sleuth who also occasionally moonlighted as a reporter for her father’s newspaper. Benson favored Penny Parker over all the other books she wrote, including Nancy Drew. “I always thought Penny Parker was a better Nancy Drew than Nancy is,” Mrs. Benson said in 1993.”

You know I’m going to have to get a copy of this one so I can compare.

On to the episode:

We open to someone breaking into a house.

Then we have Ned Nickerson, the assistant of Nancy’s father, attorney Carson Drew for the purpose of the show, pull up outside a house. Nancy’s friend George Fayne hops out of the back seat and says “Super evening, Ned! Thanks for the movie!” She gives a little wave and hops toward the house, which I assumed was hers because Nancy stays in the car.

We see George go into the house and we see the hands of the person rifling through drawers and that person stops as George closes the front door. So, it must be George’s house, right?

But, no, Nancy then follows a few minutes later, walking into the same house. She’s walking toward the stairs when she hears something fall in her father’s office.

My question is — why didn’t she come into the house with George?

In other episodes it has appeared that Ned was just a friend, unlike in the books where he is her boyfriend. Could Nancy have been staying behind for a goodnight kiss? Hmmmm….

I’m guessing maybe so because after George goes in the house we see someone opening the office door enough to peer out and watch her go up the stairs. Then we switch back to Nancy smiling at Ned and Ned smiling back. Nancy gets out of the car and then Ned looks pretty proud of himself about something or maybe it’s more delighted, as he leans back and shifts the car into gear.

Maybe this was a deleted scene to keep the show clear of kissing sessions. *wink* Again I say hmmmmmm.

Whatever the reason, let us move on to the plot.

Nancy catches someone in her father’s office, but the man pushes her down and takes off back into the office and smashes a chair through the window to escape. I’m not sure why he didn’t just rush past her and through the front door, but I guess he has a flare for the dramatics.

Nancy and George are, of course, alarmed and when they hear someone else coming back to the office from the outside, they arm themselves. George is wielding an umbrella that she brings down on what she thinks is the head of the intruder returning, but it is actually the head of Mr. Drew.

Oops. *cue goofy music here*

The next morning Carson Drew is looking through the papers in office to see if anything was taken by the burglar. He thinks things are mostly in order, but then, wait a minute —  the papers for the sale of the property and farm owned by Carson’s eccentric aunts are missing. The sale was supposed to be finalized the next day.

This means Carson will need to go to the state capital and obtain new copies of the deeds so he can transfer the property to the aunt’s neighbor. He asks Nancy and George to go to the home of the aunts to explain to them what has happened while he heads to the capital.

He’ll be there in time for the signing of the papers, he assures Nancy.

On the way to the farm, Nancy tells George about the neighbor of the aunts, a grumpy and mean old farmer who used to try to scare Nancy as a child with his tractor. No sooner has she said this than a tractor barrels across the dirt road and forces her car off the road.

It’s the grumpy farmer, Mr. Warner, who tells her to watch where she is going. There is a back and forth about it being the land of Nancy’s great aunts and the farmer saying it will soon be his land and him ignoring Nancy’s requests to pull her car out of the ditch.

Nancy and George have to walk to the farm of the eccentric aunts and when they get there the farmer roars by and says, “I warned those two young women! Just remember, if anything happens to them in this old house, it’s on your conscious, not mine!”

“Oh, it’s just his way of scaring people off with wild stories.”

“Not so wild!” says the one aunt, pointing at the girls menacingly. “I have heard those demons, and I have seen them!”

“Yeah pink elephants, purple spiders, and usually after one of her ‘cough spellings,’” snaps the other aunt.

This comment starts the reoccurring humorous theme of Aunt Lela’s clearly being a functioning alcoholic. She kept taking a “tonic for her heart” but viewers are given the  impression that drink in the little cup is a bit stronger than a “tonic”.

What Aunt Lila means by “demons” are voices inside her walls. This was a plot point in the Hidden Staircase when the aunt of Nancy’s friend Helen Corning (who later disappears completely from the series) says there are ghosts in her house.

Inside the house later, the aunts tell Nancy and George that they are excited to move and are going to Las Vegas. The declaration of their planned destination is declared by the aunt who is a drinker.

They also make this announcement in front of a couple who have recently arrived at the farm to help the two aunts run it.  To say the couple seems a bit off is an understatement. When Nancy asks the man some questions and then says she gets the impression he cares for her aunts very much, he abruptly stops talking and walks away in a very bad acting moment meant to let us know that there are some secrets brewing at this place and he  may know what they are.

Ned and Carson are supposed to be heading out to the farm with paperwork for the aunt’s to sign but they are knocked off the road by a mysterious truck. Carson ends up in the hospital but doesn’t want Nancy to know so she won’t get worried.

It takes a couple of days for Ned to get to Nancy since he’s with Carson and by then Nancy has already discovered that there is a tunnel behind the walls at the aunt’s house that leads to a well on the property of the cranky farmer who wants to buy the land. The well is one of those huge old-fashioned ones that you can crawl out of. One of those you only ever see in the movies or televi— oh, right.

Nancy wants to find out where the voices were coming from since she didn’t find the source when she went through the tunnel. She know she’ll have to go through again to figure it out.

This plot point is different than in The Secret of Red Gate Farm where Nancy discovers a “cult” but that is something you will have to read if you want to know more about that craziness. People in white sheets. Ahem. That’s all I’ll say about that. It is not what you think it is, however.

Warning! I am going to share some spoilers in these next couple of paragraphs. You’ve been warned.

Are your ready?

If you don’t want spoilers you might want to skip this part.

I’m warning you.

Okay. You’ve been warned.

In The Secret of Red Gate Farm the “cult” on the hill is actually a group of people trying to cover up a counterfeit money ring and it is the same in this episode except the strange couple who came to help out the aunts are running the ring and are trying to get them not to sell so they can keep doing it. They have set up their operation in a room under ground at the end of one of the tunnels that leads from the aunt’s house to the neighbor’s well.

The aunts know about the tunnels by the way, but they thought they were all sealed up. They used to be used for smuggling goods in the 1890s the drinker aunt says as she sniffs her “tonic.”

Nancy discovers what the couple is doing through a series of steps, including finding burnt counterfeit money after the couple has burned the trash further up the proptery, a trap door in the barn, and then spying on the couple as they go into the barn. She also decides to take George with her into the tunnels when she hears voices in the walls after the couple has driven a van into the barn.

At the same time Nancy and George head down the cranky neighbor also hears the voices from his well and decides he’s going to find out what is going on. He is certain that Nancy and her dad are trying to find a way to keep him from buying the aunt’s property.

Eventually, the bad guys (the couple) capture the neighbor and tie him up, which Nancy and George see because they are spying from the end of one of the tunnels. They overhear the couple planning to get as much of the fake money out as they can and then blow the tunnel to bury all the evidence. They’re going to bury the neighbor too.

Nancy sneaks in while they are sneaking out and unties the neighbor so they can all get out before the explosion.

Going back a bit here for a funny scene recap — at one point Nancy sends George for help but George gets lost and can’t find the ladder back to the house. She thinks she hears Aunt Lila and the camera cuts to the woman sitting on the couch by the fire drinking her tonic. George yells out to her and the woman thinks that the spirits are yelling at her from the fire. She freaks out and tosses her little cup of booze at the fire around the same time Ned bursts in and hears George yelling, “Call the police!”

Ned doesn’t know where George is but yells back that Mr. Drew already had him call the police. I’m not sure why he had Ned call the police, but help is on the way.

The police end up waiting for the couple in the cranky farmer’s field when they crawl out of the well. Nancy, George, and the neighbor pile out soon after and Nancy tells the police what the couple is doing. They deny any involvement until the dynamite explodes and counterfeit money blows up out of the well and rains down on everyone.

In the end, the neighbor’s wife marches him over to the aunt’s house and he confesses he wanted the property because a big development was going to move in and he wanted all of the proceeds. He tells the aunts that because Nancy and George saved his life he’s not going to buy their property but instead let them sell it the development company and make even more.

The aunts are thrilled because now they will have all the money they need to move to Las Vegas. Aunt Lila is so overcome with excitement that she requests a bit of her tonic. Everyone laughs at the alcoholic old lady as the show draws to a close.

In my opinion, putting aside the weird alcoholic aunt, this episode was well done. There seemed to be a lot more focus on unique camera angles and the acting was better than previous episodes. The  camera angles from above and below and around columns made us wonder if someone was following Nancy or not, keeping us on our toes.

I also felt like Pamela Sue Martin toned it down a ton for this episode. She wasn’t quite as abrupt or bossy as she was in the first two episodes. She seemed to soften her portrayal of Nancy down to where it should be if we are going to compare it to the books.

Nancy was bossy and sometimes a bit rude in the books, but not to the point of Pamela’s portrayal in The Mystery of The Diamond Triangle. For this episode the writers added some moments where she appeared more aloof and clueless, but in a humorous way.

For example, at one point George is afraid to sleep in her room because of all the whispering sounds in the walls and instead curls up in the hallway with a blanket. Instead of telling George to come in with her to be safer, Nancy simply tells George that she’s solved one of the mysteries and then says cheerfully, “Well, goodnight, George,” before leaving her in the hallway alone, huddled under the blanket. It was a funny moment showcasing how fixated Nancy can get on a case.

Next up in our feature of discussing episodes from The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries I will be offering my impressions of the Hardy Boys episode entitled The Flickering Torch Mystery. I actually watched this episode ahead of what was next up, but I’ll go back to The Disappearing Floor for a later post.

You can read some of my other Nancy Drew/Hardy Boy posts here:

The Hardy Boys Nancy Drew Mysteries Recap: The Mystery of the Diamond Triangle (with spoilers)

Discussing The Hardy Boys Nancy Drew Mysteries Show episode, The Mystery of the Haunted House.

The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries Season 1 Episode 2 The Mystery of Pirate’s Cove

Top Ten Tuesday: Literary Friendships

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 11 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

Today’s prompt is: Ten Unpopular Bookish opinions, but I decided to change the topic up and share a list of top ten literary friendships (for me anyhow) instead because I could only think of one or two unpopular bookish opinions I have.

  1. Lt. Tragg and Perry Mason from the Perry Mason Mystery books by Earle Stanley Gardner.

Are these two really friends? No. They are usually on the opposite side of things or competing for information but there is still a kind of friendship between the two. They play off each other, exchange witty banter, and would probably miss each sparring with each other if one of them was gone. Tragg in the books is much younger than the one depicted on the show from the 1960s, by the way.

2. Sherlock Holmes and John Watson from the Sherlock Holmes books and stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Of course these two are close friends -solving crimes together with John Watson having to deal with an erratic, drug-addicted, brilliant Sherlock Holmes. John saves Sherlock from danger and himself more than once.

3. Sam and Frodo from The Fellowship of the Ring trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien

In the movies, it’s Sam that does most of the work for Frodo it seems. I’m only on the second book of the trilogy so I will have to see if the books are the same. Frodo, a hobbit from Hobbiton must carry a magic ring to Mount Doom to throw it in and destroy it to stop evil from taking over Middle Earth. Sam, loyal beyond anything imaginable, sticks close to Frodo’s side, battling Orcs, huge spiders, and many other perils to make sure his friend makes it safely to his destination. I would love to have a friend who is even half as dedicated to me as Sam is to Frodo.

4. Anne Shirley and Diana Barry from Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

These two young ladies become fast friends when Anne Shirley is taking in my Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert. Diana lives not far from the Cuthbert farm and she and Anne quickly become “bossom buddies” or “kindred spirits” after meeting. I love their friendship, which survives many ups and downs and challenges.

5. Nancy Drew, Bess Marvin, and George Fayne from The Nancy Drew Mysteries by Carolyn Keene

Teen amateur sleuth Nancy Drew often solves her mysteries with the help of her friends Bess Marvin and George Fayne. Bess and George are cousins. Bess is a bit plump and afraid of everything and George is brash and, honestly, sometimes rude to her cousin Bess.

The interaction between these three are fun and keep the books interesting as readers watch to see what trouble the girls will get into next and whether or not Bess will faint during the investigation.

6. Hercule Poirot and Captain Arthur Hastings from the Hercule Poirot Mystery series by Agatha Christie

Some might call Captain Hastings, lackey and friend of infamous private detective Hercule Poirot an idiot since he always seems to stumble into trouble or ask really ridiculous questions but he is a support system for the brash and sometimes blunt Poirot. Hastings’ presence helps to soften the interactions Poirot has with interviewees and others as he conducts his various investigations.

7. Piglet and Winnie the Pooh from the Winnie the Pooh series by A.A. Milne

Oh, who can forget these darling friends. Of course we could add in Eyore and Rooh and Tiger too but Piglet and Winnie are the closest of the group and the most darling. When I think of them I think of a cartoon I once saw of them walking away from our view, hand in hand. Piglet says to Winnie, “Winnie?” Winnie responds, “yes, Piglet?” and Piglet simply responds, “Just checking you are still there.” Or something along those lines. It always makes me weepy.

8. Scout, Jem, and Dill from To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

This is my favorite book and has been since I was in sixth grade. The friendship between young Scout Finch, her brother Jim Finch, and their friend Dill during the tumultuous summer when their father represents a black man accused of rape in Alabama in the 1930s, is bittersweet, heartwarming, and impactful. This book and their friendship hit me even harder when I reread it as an adult two years ago with my son for his English course.

9. Huckleberry Finn and Jim from Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Huckleberry is a young boy whose abusive father disappears and reappears over and over again, pulling Huckleberry from the warm and (sort of) comforting home with Widow Douglass and Miss Watson. When Huckleberry decides to run away from the widow and Miss Watson and his father to have an adventure on the Mississippi River, he meets runaway slave Jim. The two continue on their journey together and form a storm, unlikely, friendship that forces Huckleberry to examine his ideas about slavery and black people.

10. Digory Kirke and Polly Plummer from The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis

Digory and Polly meet one afternoon, begin to play by hopping across the rafters in the attics of the connecting row houses and it all takes off from there. Polly is pulled through a portal when she touches a ring that belongs to Digory’s evil uncle and Digory has to follow her. Evil queens, talking animals, and much more will await these children who become fast friends thanks the adventure they are thrown into.

Are you familiar with any of these literary friendships and if so, do you have a favorite?

Sunday Bookends: A trip to a used book sale, the same books, more canal journeys

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 23 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.

I want to start by sharing that today is my sister-in-law Kim’s birthday so happy birthday to her. She had a heck of a 2024 and is an overcomer. Looking forward to her having a much better 2025.

I shared a bit yesterday about our week last week, which was fairly uneventful, other than a trip to a used book sale at a library near us. I picked up 19 Hard Boys Mystery books for 50 cents each. That was a fun find. These books, like Nancy Drew, are a bit dated, of course, and written for younger kids but they still have pretty good mysteries. They are also a fun escape from life.

Little Miss also picked out some cozy mysteries for me to try out. She’s picked out a couple duds over the years but also some very good ones so we will see how this bunch works out.

You can read more about our week last week here.

I wish I had something more exciting to report but I am still reading The Chocolate Chip Cookie Murders by Joanne Fluke, The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis, and The Two Towers by Tolkien.

I did finish Whose Body? By Dorothy Sayers last week.

The Husband is reading Big Trouble by Dave Barry.

I’ve still been watching Great Canal Journeys every night. Not much else. The Husband has been watching Shogun.

I watched an episode of Great Canal Journeys when they visited Scotland and I was absolutely blown away by this huge device that lowered their boat from one level of the canal to the larger canal below and two huge steel statues of horse heads they visited during the episode.

I watched Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris as well last week and will be watching How to Steal A Million today or tomorrow.

I’ll also be watching another Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Mysteries episode this week so I can write about it on the blog.

Last week on the blog I shared:

A book sale, a trip to a garden center, and what’s up with the turkey vultures in our area?

On the Frontier by Transmissions from the Northern Outpost (I’m biased. This is my brother)

Nadine’s Private Island by Cat’s Wire

Photos from this Week

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.

Sunday Bookends: Grandma Ruth, Middle Earth, and Middle Grade March

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 18 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.

I finished Grandma Ruth Doesn’t Go To Funerals by Sharon Mondragon last week and really enjoyed it. I could see this one being a movie. I will write a longer review later but I loved the characters and the story overall.

In case you are curious about it, here is a description:

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

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

 Next up I am continuing The Real James Herriot: A Memoir of My Father by Jim Wight. So far it is very dry and dull so I may toss it aside but I’d love to get to the years where he worked as a vet and some of the behind the scenes stories first. We will see how it goes.

I also started The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien, which will be my slow read for the next couple of months. I am loving it so far, even if we lost one of the team on the first page. *sniff*

I started The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis the other night for my Middle Grade March read. I also hope to read Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery for Middle Grade March. Little Miss and I are reading Miracles on Maple Hill by Virginia Sorenson for school, which is a re-read for me.

Once those are done, I hope to start Whose Body? By Dorothy L. Sayers. I’ve never read anything by her so we will see how I like her.

The Husband is on his 25th book of the year. Sigh. He reads fast but has also had some extra time to read this year so that’s cool for him. Or whatever. *wink*

He is reading Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned by Walter Mosley.

I have been watching more historical farming shows this past week and not a ton else. I actually read more than watched things.

This upcoming week I hope to watch more Murder She Wrote and a couple of old movies.

I started writing book four of the Gladwynn Grant series this past week.

On the blog I shared:

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.

In addition to my blog, I write fiction, and you can learn more about my books here: https://lisahoweler.com/my-books-2/

I also have a Substack where I share about my writing journey or books.

Top Ten Tuesday: 10 books I never reviewed on my blog or social media

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 17 Comments

|| Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. ||

Today’s prompt is: 10 Books I Never Reviewed (Share the titles of books you never reviewed on your blog/tiktok/insta/etc. and if you liked them or not!)

This one was hard for me because I have actually reviewed most of the books I have read in the last two years. I had to search hard for those I had not reviewed in some fashion

  1. Anne’s House of Dreams by LM Montgomery.  – didn’t review and didn’t enjoy as much as other Anne books

2. The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright — Loved this middle grade book but did not get around to reviewing it.

3. The Burning Issue of The Day (A Lady Hardcastle Mystery) by T.E. Kinsey – I liked this one okay but wasn’t really doing a lot of reviews at this time (2023) and didn’t like it as much as other books in the series.

4. The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien – really liked it but for some reason never reviewed in on my blog or social media

5. An Amish Inn Mystery: Murder Well Played by Rachel O’Phillips – I like this book. I have no idea why I never reviewed it.

6. A Highland Christmas (A Hamish Macbeth Mystery) by M.C. Beaton – I don’t remember ever writing a review for this book. I liked it okay. It was very cozy, but I don’t know if I am a huge fan of Beaton’s writing.

7. Sarah, Plain and Tall by Sarah MacLachlan — I very much enjoyed the middle grade book but for some reason never reviewed it.

8. The Darling Buds of May by H.E. Bates — This book was super weird and full of possible references to incestual attraction. That’s all I gotta say about that one.

9. Death Without Company (A Walt Longmire Mystery) by Craig Johnson — I enjoy this series but rarely write book reviews for them. I am not sure why.

10. At Home In Mitford by Jan Karon — Despite being one of my favorite books and book series, I have never shared a review of this book on my blog or social media, that I can remember anyhow.

A bonus: And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. Read it. Liked it. Never reviewed it and I don’t know why.

How about you? What books have you never reviewed? Maybe you are a reader who doesn’t even do reviews and that’s totally fine too. This list shows that I really don’t review every book. I do have fun writing reviews and telling other readers about the books I read though.

Book Review: Christy by Catherine Marshall

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 6 Comments

Christy by Catherine Marshall is a very dense book. It is full of life lessons weaved between poetic prose and hard realities of life in the Smoky Mountains in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Following the story of fictional 19-year-old Christy Huddleston, the book is fiction but based, very loosely, on the real-life experience of Marshall’s mother, Leonora Whitaker Wood.

The CBS series, Christy, starring Kellie Martin, and a couple of made-for-TV movies were based on the book. I watched the show in the 1990s but had never read the book. I didn’t even know the TV-movies existed until I was doing research for this post.

In both the show and the book, Christy travels to a small mission in the mountains of Tennessee from her home in Ashville, North Carolina to teach in a school full of mountain children who have very little material items but a lot of heart and heartache.

The small area where these children and their families are from is called Cutter Gap. The fictional area isn’t really a town since it is only a collection of cabins scattered across the mountains and through the woods, but there is a fiction town called El Pano, located near it. The families in Cutter Gap are poor, uneducated, and fighting for their lives against disease and judgment.

Christy arrives at the mission after listening to the mission founder speak about it and begins her work with Miss Alice Henderson, a Quaker woman, and Pastor David Grantland, a minister who has been assigned to the school.

Once she arrives she meets other colorful members of the community — Dr. Neil McNeil, resident Ruby Mae, and resident Fairlight Spencer (who becomes her best friend), as well as other colorful (shall we say) characters. She also begins to learn more about the history of the area, the hardships they have faced since the 1700s, and the way some of the men feel they have to take a criminal route in life to scrape out a living.

There is a lot of beauty mixed in with some very ugly tales within the 500 pages of Christy. I marked up a lot of the book to remember parts of it later. Even though I found parts of the faith message of the book contradictory and a little confusing at times, there were many parts that were extremely thought-provoking and moving to me.

Most of what I underlined in the book were quotes by Miss Alice, who was my favorite character in the book besides Fairlight Spencer. In the beginning of the book, I found it hard to connect Christy who was very hard-headed and brash at times. She came to the mission with head knowledge of God but not heart knowledge of him.

I couldn’t stand David Grantland through most of the book and wasn’t sure what to make of Neil McNeil.

I wanted to shake Christy a couple of times throughout the book and tell her not to rush into dangerous situations. Toward the end of the book, though, when she truly struggled with the faith that she had only really found since working at the mission, I related to her immensely. So much of what happened to the people she’d come to love in Cutter Gap seemed so cruel to me. Even though the book was fiction, I found myself questioning the goodness of God, thinking about some similar cruel situations of those I’ve known over the years. It’s something I had to sit and wrestle with mental and spiritually in the moments, hours, and days after finishing the book. In many ways I am still struggling with these questions about God and the goodness I sometimes don’t see.

Some of the sections I underlined in the book included:

“Evil is real – and powerful. It has to be fought, not explained away, not fled. And God is against evil all the way. So each of us has to decide where WE stand, how we’re going to live OUR lives. We can try to persuade ourselves that evil doesn’t exist; live for ourselves and wink at evil. We can say that it isn’t so bad after all, maybe even try to call it fun by clothing it in silks and velvets. We can compromise with it, keep quiet about it and say it’s none of our business. Or we can work on God’s side, listen for His orders on strategy against the evil, no matter how horrible it is, and know that He can transform it.”

“What do you do when strength is called for and you have no strength? You evoke a power beyond your own and use stamina you did not know you had. You open your eyes in the morning grateful that you can see the sunlight of yet another day. You draw yourself to the edge of the bed and then put one foot in front of the other and keep going. You weep with those who gently close the eyes of the dead, and somehow, from the salt of your tears, comes endurance for them and for you. You pour out that resurgence to minister to the living.”

“I’d long since learned that no difference in viewpoint should ever be allowed to cause the least break in love. Indeed, it cannot, if it’s real love.
…But relationships can be kept intact without compromising one’s own beliefs. And if we do not keep them intact, but give up and allow the chasm, we’re breaking the second greatest commandment.”

“The secret of her calm seemed to be that she was not trying to prove anything. She was—that was all. And her stance toward life seemed to say: God is—and that is enough.”

This was one of the few books I’ve read that I became completely immersed in when I read it. Everything around me disappeared – the language and descriptions were so vivid. I could see the mountains, picture the cabins and the people, and sometimes even smell, sadly, the smells.

It took me a little over a month to read through the book because it was so dense. I felt like I really got to know the characters that way and this was both a good and a bad thing.

It was a bad thing because, toward the end, some of the events hit me so hard and left me on my couch on a cold Sunday afternoon with a warm fire in our woodstove burning and me crying until my sides hurt.

I like to be immersed in books but at that moment I thought that maybe I wouldn’t like to be so immersed if it was going to be this painful to continue to read on.

I won’t give away too much but there was a death in the book that I could not make sense of in the least. Much of the book seemed to want the reader to see that there was hope still available, even in the midst of darkness, anger, and sadness, but when we had almost reached the end it was like that message was yanked out from under us with such a ferociousness that it made my head spin.

When I was reading the book, I was thinking, “Wow. There are so many deep messages about our relationship with God in this book” but then I was like, “But there were some really theological muddy waters in this book and I’m not sure how I feel about that.”

There was a lot of talk about superstitions and instead of dispelling them by saying God is in control, there were times the characters tried to explain it away by science or simply telling the mountain people that their beliefs were faulty. There is little to no mention of Jesus in this book. Yet this book is marketed as a great Christian book. That confuses me a little. Still, the story, overall, was very compelling, interesting, and realistic (maybe a bit too realistic).

I saw a review of this after I read it that tagged the book as being “heartfelt” and “family-friendly.”

The book was NOT family-friendly. There are discussions of rape, abuse, murder, molestation, and many other disturbing and triggering topics. There are not, however, extremely graphic descriptions of these subjects.

There are times this book seems to push that there is truth in superstition, even though, I’m sure that’s not what the author, a well-known Christian author, meant to do.

In the end, Christy was a painfully beautiful book that wrung me out emotionally. It challenged my thinking, built me up, tore me down again, and left me with a glimmer of hope that Christy and the people of Cutter Gap found some joy and happiness beyond the time frame addressed within the book’s pages.

I would be remiss if I did not mention that the ending of this book is very open-ended and, to me, somewhat abrupt. It does not answer all of the reader’s questions. Or it didn’t answer some of my questions at least. It left me with a bit of mystery and with a strong desire for a sequel.

According to more than one article online, notes for a sequel to the book were discovered in Catherine Marshall’s things after her death by her family. Those notes have never been revealed, however. Part of me would love to know what happened to Christy after the events at the end of the book (which were wrapped up a bit too quickly for me), but part of me agrees with the blogger of Taking Up Room who wrote, “Christy ending on a question mark has never failed to get my brain thinking, even after dozens of times of reading the book. In a way, it means the story never really ends. Adding more might just spoil whatever ending fans have come to in their own minds, and that’s no fun. I say keep the mystery.”

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Sunday Bookends: It’s cold. No. Really cold. Reading the same books but planning for others. Crafternoon Again! And some podcasts I want to listen to.

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 25 Comments

Due to the illness of children or the cold of the northeast I have not left my house in two weeks and though I am a homebody, I must admit it is becoming a little depressing.

And based on the fact I feel like I am starting to get sick and dangerously cold temps are set to hit the area Monday through Wednesday this week, I have a feeling I will be in my house at least another week. At this point I’ve told my parents, who only live seven minutes from us, that I might not see them until after the spring thaw.

Our house is located on a hill, has a steep driveway, and we are down to one car, so that also makes winter travel difficult.

Yesterday I was alone for much of the day because Little Miss was at a friend’s house and The Boy was sick upstairs, while The Husband was at work. This was a strange situation for me because I’m rarely alone. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I eventually decided to work on a blog post (the second part to my Civil War letters posts), start watching Gunga Din, and read a chapter in my Agatha Christie book. I also was very brave and went out into the cold darkness of our backyard to retrieve a couple pieces of wood for our woodstove.

Then it was back inside where I realized I should cook some dinner for me and The Boy.

He’s had a horrible headache and watery eyes and no appetite, but he was finally able to eat a little bit around the time the mom of Little Miss’s friend brought her back home.

Today we are seeing how the weather is since we were supposed to get a snow storm but now it looks like it’s moved further east (I see you Poconos and NJ…good luck!) and I might visit my parents or … again…tell them I’ll see them in the spring thaw.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday are bringing temps where we are expected only to reach about 11 as a high. Lows will be below zero due to windchill and other factors. I asked The Husband to bring some wood from our pile behind the garage into our laundry room so we don’t have to go out into the bitter cold to replenish the supply we have in our living room by the stove.

We do have some heating oil but do our best to use as little of that as we can because of how expensive it has been the last couple of years.

A quick reminder that we are having another Crafternoon Zoom Call next Sunday (the 26th) at 1 p.m. If you are interested in being a part of it, you can email me at lisahoweler@gmail.com or Erin (from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) at crackercrumbs@gmail.com.

If you don’t know what that is – it is where we all get together and chat together while doing crafts or other projects. We’d love to have you join us and stave off the gloom that can come with winter sometimes.

With all this cold and being trapped inside a lot you would think I would have plenty of time for reading and I do, but I also have other projects I am working on, so alas, this will not be an exciting section, because I am still reading the same books.

Christy by Catherine Marshall is a super long book and so I am taking breaks and reading A Body in the Library by Agatha Christie (do I really need to type her last name?) for something “lighter”.

I also hope to get back to Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography by Laurie Woolever this week.

If you are not aware of what Christy is here is a description:

The train taking nineteen-year-old teacher Christy Huddleston from her home in Asheville, North Carolina, might as well be transporting her to another world. The Smoky Mountain community of Cutter Gap feels suspended in time, trapped by poverty, superstitions, and century-old traditions. But as Christy struggles to find acceptance in her new home, some see her — and her one-room school — as a threat to their way of life. Her faith is challenged and her heart is torn between two strong men with conflicting views about how to care for the families of the Cove. Yearning to make a difference, will Christy’s determination and devotion be enough?

After these books I have a couple of books I want to get to including Frankenstein by Mary Shelly (for English with The Boy) and Miss Morgan’s Book Brigade by Janet Skieslen Charles, but I also want to read a Nancy Drew. Oh my gosh! Why does there have to be so many good books out there to read?!

Little Miss and I are reading The Sign of The Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare for school and listening to Peter Pan by J.M. Barie at night.

The Boy will be starting Frankenstein this week.

The Husband is reading The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson.

(For anyone new, The Husband is just a joke nickname for my husband since he jokingly calls our son “The Boy”.)

This week I’ve watched three old movies I had never seen before — The Prisoner of Zenda, which I wrote about on the blog, The Stranger, and Gunga Din.  I’ll be writing blog posts The Stranger and Gunga Din soon.

I also watched the first episode of season five of All Creatures Great and Small and am so excited that it is back for another season. I can’t wait to see Tristan again.

I watched a few episodes of my favorite YouTuber farmer, Just A Few Acres Farm, while I waited for him to release a new episode.

The Advanced Readers Copies of Gladwynn Grant Shakes the Family Tree have been sent out to my advanced readers. I pushed back the release date to give them some time to read the book and me some time to tie up some loose ends.

It is available for pre-order here:

I am working on a monthly writing update and some movie impression posts for my Substack, which people can subscribe to for free or pay about $3 a month to receive exclusive posts I plan to offer in 2025.

This week on Substack I shared:

|| Classic Movie Impressions: The Ghost and Mrs. Muir ||

This week on this blog I shared:

Podcast I listen to daily:

Our Miss Brooks – rebroadcasts of the old radio show. I listen to these as I go to sleep.

Podcasts I am occasionally listening to because I don’t seem to just put them on since I am doing other stuff:

Little House 50 for 50

Pop Culture Preservation Society

True Drew: A Podcast for All Things Nancy Drew

Podcasts I want to listen to this year:

The Matthew West Podcast

The Life Without School

Lisa Harper’s Back Porch Theology

Now It’s Your Turn

What have you been doing, readin’, watchin’, and listenin’ to this past week? Let me know in the comments!

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

Five hodge-podge mini-book reviews

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 9 Comments

I haven’t had much time to sit and write up full book reviews lately so I thought I’d share five mini-book reviews today.

Death Comes to Marlow by Robert Thorogood

Description:

Judith (our favorite skinny-dipping, whiskey-sipping, crossword puzzle author), along with Becks the vicar’s wife, and Susie the dogwalker find themselves in a head-scratching, utterly clever country house, locked-room murder mystery. 

Holiday festivities are now January doldrums when Judith gets a call―Sir Peter Bailey, a prominent Marlovian is inviting notable citizens to his house the day before his wedding to celebrate. 

Judith decides to go―after all, it’s a few houses up the Thames and free champagne, for sure. During the party, a loud crash inside stops the festivities. The groom-to-be has been crushed to death in his study. The door was locked from the inside so the police say suicide, obviously. 

My Review:

This was the second book in the Marlow Murder Club series. I did not enjoy it as much as the first book. This one was all over the place and very repetitive. I rolled my eyes way too often. I still love the characters but why the suspects were suspects was repeated and twisted around so many times it simply became obnoxious. We really needed another story to sort of break up the monotony of them running around in circles in this one. There was one side story related to the vicar’s wife Becks, but it came in way too late in the book and didn’t break up the way he kept saying, “We don’t know who killed him! Here is all our evidence….again.”

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Description:

The Hound of the Baskervilles is the third of the four crime novels by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle featuring the detective Sherlock Holmes. Originally serialised in The Strand Magazine from August 1901 to April 1902, it is set in 1889 largely on Dartmoor in Devon in England’s West Country and tells the story of an attempted murder inspired by the legend of a fearsome, diabolical hound of supernatural origin. Holmes and Watson investigate the case. This was the first appearance of Holmes since his apparent death in “The Final Problem”, and the success of The Hound of the Baskervilles led to the character’s eventual revival.

One of the most famous stories ever written, in 2003, the book was listed as number 128 of 200 on the BBC’s The Big Read poll of the UK’s “best-loved novel”. In 1999, a poll of “Sherlockians” ranked it as the best of the four Holmes novels.

My review:

I really expected to like this a lot more than I did. Conan Doyle is a classic crime writer – the father of the detective/crime novel so it has to be great, right?

Sadly, this book really dragged for me and my son who read it with  me for his British Literature class. Maybe it was because Sherlock wasn’t even in half of it. During that half it was Watson writing letters to Sherlock to tell him what had happened. There were way too many conversations about what might have happened and very little action for me. I also couldn’t stand the “lord of the manor”, Henry Baskerville. I would guess Conan Doyle was making him obnoxious because he was an American and the British like to  make sure Americans know what they think about us. So maybe I wasn’t supposed to like him, which worked well because I didn’t.

I didn’t hate the book, but it was not one I would necessarily rush to read again anytime soon. I’d really like to read the short stories and the other three novels instead and then go back to this one later on to see if I like it any better.

Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes

Description:

Fourteen-year-old Johnny Tremain, an apprentice silversmith with a bright future ahead of him, injures his hand in a tragic accident, forcing him to look for other work. In his new job as a horse-boy, riding for the patriotic newspaper, the Boston Observer, and as a messenger for the Sons of Liberty, he encounters John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and Dr. Joseph Warren. Soon Johnny is involved in the pivotal events shaping the American Revolution from the Boston Tea Party to the first shots fired at Lexington. Powerful illustrations by American artist Michael McCurdy, bring to life Esther Forbes’ quintessential novel of the American Revolution.

My review:

I read this one with Little Miss for English/History. The book is broken into sections with six chapters in each section, so we read a couple of the chapters each day for a few months.

I ended up really like this one even though the older writing style and the subject was a little difficult at times. There were some chapters where I skipped some of the more descriptive paragraphs to get to the point and move forward, but overall, this book was very well done, very educational, and had me crying more than once with the real life lessons within its pages.

Tooth and Claw by Craig Johnson

Description:

Tooth and Claw follows Walt and Henry up to Alaska as they look for work after they both returned from serving in Vietnam. While working for an oil company in the bitter cold of winter, they soon encounter a ferocious polar bear who seems hell-bent on their destruction. But it’s not too long until they realize the danger does not lurk outside in the frozen Alaskan tundra, but with their co-workers who are after priceless treasure and will stop at nothing to get it.

Fans of Longmire will thrill to this pulse-pounding and bone-chilling novel of extreme adventure that adds another indelible chapter to the great story of Walt Longmire.

My review:

I really enjoyed this novella. I’m a fan of the Walt Longmire Mystery books, with the exception of Hell is Empty, which I hated. I haven’t read one of the books since that one, which was early in 2024. I love Johnson’s writing, though, so I knew I couldn’t stay away for long. When I needed a short book to finish out the year, I remembered my husband had just won this one in a Goodreads giveaway. It is a story separate from the other books so I knew there wouldn’t be any spoilers.

I read it around Christmas, which is usually reserved for cozy books, not books where a man-eating, monster Polar Bear is terrorizing scientists in the arctic, but I could not put this book down. It was constant action, and I enjoyed it. I might even read another one of the full-length novels soon.

The Christmas Swap by Melody Carlson

Description:

All Emma Daley wants this holiday season is a white Christmas. But the young teacher and struggling musician sure can’t find that in sunny Arizona. Luckily, there’s someone living in a perfect mountain home in the Colorado Rockies looking to make a vacation trade this year.

West Prescott is an in-demand songwriter and talented musician who put his own singing career on hold to write songs for celebrity acts to perform. When his mother convinces him to do a vacation trade for Christmas, he never imagined one of the houseguests would be so sweet–or so strikingly pretty. Naturally, he decides to stick around, and, to get better acquainted, he poses as the house’s caretaker. But when Emma’s friend Gillian discovers his true identity and sets her sights on him, things get . . . messy.

My review:

 I really liked Carlson’s book, A Quilt for Christmas, and thought this would be similarly heartwarming and well-written. It was not. This book was a very cheesy romance that would not end. I feel so bad saying this but it was such a short book I had no time to connect to the characters and in the end I really didn’t care if I did or didn’t. These ridiculous romances where people meet and three days later are in love and changing their lives around for each other drive me nuts. I had no idea that was what was going to happen in this book. It’s like the two books were written by two different people. Every author has hit or miss books, though, and every reader is different in their likes and dislikes so while this book was not for me it might be the perfect light read for someone else. I won’t give up on trying Carlson’s books, but I will be a bit more careful and read the descriptions better from now on.

Have you read any of these books? What did you think of them if you did?

Sunday Chat: A nice, calm Christmas, getting ready for the first book of 2025, and join us for a cozy crafternoon

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 24 Comments

Welcome to my Sunday Chat where I ramble about what’s been going on in my world, what the rest of the family and I have been reading, watching, listening to, and what I’ve been writing.

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

“Let’s just use paper plates for Christmas dinner,” I told my mom.

We’ve had a lot going on and some members of the family haven’t been feeling well from  couple different health issues.

Plus it was only the six of us so there was no need for anything fancy.

I heard a small “uh-huh..” on the other end of the phone and figured she was agreeing with me. The next day, though, The Husband, kids and I walked into a kitchen that had been set with a Christmas tablecloth and very fancy plates and goblets.

“These were my Mama’s,” Mom said of the plates. “And we thought we better get them out now because we might never have a chance to use them again.”

I figured that might be their dark humor since they are in their 80s and often say odd things like this to us.

Mom said she actually meant because we might not want to take the time to drag them out again. I added that we might not want to take the chance of them getting broken since I am quite a klutz.

The plates, by the way, were made in Baveria and were a gift of some kind to my grandfather when he used to work for Pepsi Co. That was probably 50 years ago.

The crystal glasses were gifts to my parents on their wedding day. They’ve been married 60 years.

There were also a set of glass water glasses that belonged to my paternal grandmother.

Somehow, we made it through dinner without breaking anything. My husband also made it through washing the plates without breaking anything.

After dinner we had a quick gift opening session that was quite quick this year since we were all broke. *snort* It was a nice time, though, and it was preceded by the reading from the Bible of the Christmas story, which we do every year.

Our family had a lot to celebrate this year.

My sister-in-law, who had been in the hospital  for an entire month for heart issues, came home on Christmas Eve. She was/is still dealing with a Norovirus she caught while there and will have  lot of new routines she’ll need to do for her condition, but she is home.

The Husband has been dealing with a health issue which could have been so much worse but has been caught and is being treated now and we are very, very thankful for that.

Money is tight right now, but we were all together and found a lot of time to watch movies and simply have fun.

It was a cold week and that was nice in some ways because it meant we had the white Christmas Little Miss had wanted.

We have electric heat upstairs and downstairs we have heating oil and a wood stove.

Thursday we didn’t light the fire because we simply didn’t get to it, and it was a reminder how well it helps to heat the rest of the house when we have it lit because I had to put four blankets on me to get warm that night. I had also taken a shower right before bed and my hair was wet so that, and the fact I’d forgotten to turn on the electric heat upstairs didn’t help at all.  The fire was definitely lit Friday, but we didn’t have to light it last night because we are having a small warm up this weekend with temps in the 40s and 50s.

This weekend we have been relaxing and enjoying our time together since The Husband is off work until the week after next and The Boy doesn’t have to return to tech school until Thursday.

We hope to see the Christmas lights at a local golf course Monday if it doesn’t get rained out.

I will finish Shepherd’s Abiding by Jan Karon’s today or tomorrow and that will be my final book of the year. My first book of 2025 will be Christy by Catherine Marshall, which I have already started and am really enjoying.

It is a book based very loosely on the life of Marshall’s mother and takes place in the early 1900s.  

This past week I finished Tooth and Claw by Craig Johnson – a novella part of the Walt Longmire series.

I kept trying to read Shepherd’s Abiding to keep with the Christmas spirt, but I kept going back to Tooth and Claw to see if Walt and Henry got away from the psycho polar bear.

Little Miss is very close to the end of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

The Husband is reading World Traveler by Anthony Bourdain which is also on my TBR.

I watched a lot of Christmas movies or Christmas-related shows last week including

The Christmas episode of The Dick VanDyke Show

Christmas in the Smokies

A ton of Mary Berry episodes

The Christmas episode of All Creatures Great and Small

Jingle All the Way

The Last Holiday

Then I also watched the North and South mini-series. Good grief..that was depressing in many ways. Then I watched another depressing film called Me Before You.

The Husband and I also watched Hombre – again depressing, but Paul Newman was in it so that was good.

I watched a lot of Murder She Wrote one day as well.

I will hopefully watch some more uplifting movies and shows this week.

I’m editing Gladwynn Grant Shakes the Family Tree and brainstorming ideas for the fourth Gladwynn Grant book. You can pre-order Gladwynn Shakes the Family Tree (a cozy mystery) here:  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0DR6BG3ZR?

Last week on the blog I shared:

I also wanted to offer a quick thank you to everyone who took part in our Comfy, Cozy Christmas link up. That was so much fun. You can still add posts or just read the ones that are already there at this link: https://lisahoweler.com/comfy-cozy-christmas-2024/

A quick reminder for January plans for this blog and Erin with Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs.


Erin and I are planning some Cozy Crafternoons on Zoom in January and February to try to beat those winter blahs that happen after Christmas. The plans for now are two a month.

We will just all meet up on the date and time, and individually work on whatever we want – embroidery, coloring, knitting, crocheting, jewelry making, etc, while chatting.

Erin says she will be embroidering during the session. I might be writing, drawing, or editing photos.

If you are interested in learning more send an email either to me at lisahoweler@gmail.com or to Erin at crackercrumblife@gmail.com. That way we will have your email for the zoom link! Our first scheduled crafternoon is January 11th at 1 pm EST.

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.