fiction

Sunday Bookends: birthdays, baking pies, and finishing up the third Gladwynn book

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 8 Comments

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what the rest of the family and I have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.

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



What’s Been Occurring

This past week was an interesting one in some ways and a regular one in others.

On Tuesday I had a not-so-fun experience at the polling place in my little tiny town. Lesson learned to mail-in ballots from now on. It had nothing to do, by the way, with who I voted for. It just had to do with adults who were rude to my child and it really ticked me off. This paragraph is completely unrelated to politics other than I was in a polling place for an election.

Thursday was better, though, because it was our son’s 18th birthday. My neighbor asked how I felt having an 18-year-old.

I sent her this gif:

Then I told her I was also very proud of my son because he’s grown into a wonderful young man.

It’s all gone by so insanely fast, though. There is so much I miss about him being younger but so much that is also great about this age.

We bought him a War Hammer model set and he’s having a blast painting them. It is a new hobby for him. Little Miss and I traveled to my parents on Thursday to help make apple pies for The Boy because he prefers pie over cake.

My mom ended up coming down with a sinus infection that triggered a flare of her fibromyalgia while we were there. It was a little scary as she was in excruciating pain all over and having some trouble walking. That night she spiked a fever.

We still had a nice day and the next day she was much better and the fever was gone. None of us can really understand why whatever she had only lasted a day and went away, but I do know I prayed a lot that day and night for her healing.

The pie, by the way, was “great” according to The Boy who doesn’t easily give compliments out so Little Miss and I, with my parent’s directions, pulled it out after all.

Yesterday The Boy and The Husband had fun during a father-son day in a city about an hour away. They visited a comic book shop where he  picked up some more figures to paint.

They then walked around town, visiting the local university and a used book shop where my husband picked this up for me:

He knows me way too well. That’s an original 1941 Hardy Boys book. I can not wait to read it – as long as the mildew smell doesn’t mess with my sinuses. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t.

I forgot to mention that on Friday we had an art class and then drove the 30-minutes north to pick up our groceries.

Yesterday I spent the day relaxing with an old movie and a new cozy mystery show and also worked on the final chapters of Gladwynn Grant Shakes the Family Tree.

I definitely am not used to Daylight Savings yet I’ve come to realize. I was so tired all day yesterday, for one, and then at one point I yawned and thought how I could go to bed soon. That’s when I looked at my laptop clock and it said 6:42.

“6:42? For real??” I cried. “I thought it was 8!!”

I suppose my body will get used to it – you know, by spring when we spring forward.

What I/we’ve been Reading

I am reading The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Christy by Catherine Marshall, and The Maestro’s Missing Melody by Amy Walsh

The Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood. Yes, I enjoyed it and yes I just started the series and no it does not keep to the book.

The Secret of the Wooden Lady by Carolyn Keene (Nancy Drew)

The Farmer’s Son by John Connell

The Husband is reading The Housemaid by Frieda McFadden

What We watched/are Watching

This week Erin and I watched Bringing Up Baby with Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn for our Comfy, Cozy Cinema.

I watched Harvey with Jimmy Stewart on my own.

I also watched the first two episodes of The Marlow Murder Club on Amazon (that is all that is out so far).



What I’m Writing

I sound like a broken record but I am finishing Gladwynn Grant Shakes the Family Tree.

This past week on the blog I shared:

What I’m Listening To

I am listening to The Shepherd’s Abiding by Jan Karon on Audible.

I am also listening to this song my Downhere:

Photos from Last 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.

Book review/recommendation: Nancy Drew Mystery, The Secret at Red Gate Farm

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 6 Comments

I’ve been reading through the original Nancy Drew books, which, as many of us now know, were written by around 28 ghost writers. These first books I am reading, though, were written by Mildren Benson using outlines given to her by either Edward Stratemeyer or his daughter Harriet Stratemeyer Adams.

The Secret of Red Gate Farm is number six in the original series and was first released in 1931 with some rewrites of it done in 1961 by Adams.

In this book we find Nancy caught up in a mystery that starts on a train while she and her friends George (female George) and Bess are coming home from a shopping trip.

Let’s start with the summary: “Nancy and her friends, Bess and George, meet Joanne Byrd on a train ride home. Joanne lives at Red Gate Farm with her grandmother, but if they do not raise enough money to pay the mortgage, they will soon lose the farm! Nancy, Bess, and George decide to stay at Red Gate for a week as paying customers. Soon, they learn about the strange group of people who rent a cave on the property. They describe themselves as a nature cult called the Black Snake Colony.”


 Nancy Drew books are written simplistically in many ways but the storylines are not light by any means. There are subjects of abuse, criminal underworlds, abandonment, parental loss and many other hard-hitting issues.

This one was no exception. A young woman goes to the city to look for work because her grandmother is going to sell the family farm because they are losing money. While there she meets Nancy and almost gets caught up in a gambling ring of some sort when she interviews for the job and the interviewer is super, super creepy. I’ve watched too many movies and written up too many stories for newspapers so I imagined all the  horrible things that would happen to this girl and Nancy while reading these scenes. It made me a bit lightheaded, but since it is a Nancy Drew book I knew things would turn out okay in the end.

Nancy decides she and her friends will go with the young girl back to her farm and pay to stay at the farm while also encouraging others to do the same. Nancy’s idea is like an early Airbnb. People can rent rooms at the farm and this will help the farm owners pay off their dept.

While there Nancy and her friends notice people in the woods, wearing all white, and dancing in the moonlight. This doesn’t seem like your everyday farming community activity so they ask Joanne’s grandmother what that is all about. The woman says she’s renting her land to a group of people to help avoid selling the farm but she doesn’t really know what they are doing up there. Can we say “RED FLAG”?

In addition to that craziness, there is also a man trying to buy the rest of the farm but the grandmother is trying to push him off until she sees if other options work to raise some money.

Despite the simple and fairly innocent way the Nancy Drew books are written, this one was a little creepy for me because of the cult angle.

Even with the simple writing, the dark subject matter leaked through and left me a little unsettled part of the time. People wearing white robes, dancing weirdly in the moonlight? Shudder!

Then Nancy and her friends decide to infiltrate the group at one point and I swear I was about to faint from the tension.

Nancy Drew books might be written simply but their plots still hold together well in my opinion.

Either Stratemeyer or Mildred had quite an imagination.

Have you read this one in the series yet or before?

Top Ten Tuesday: How My Reading Habits Have Changed Over Time

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 18 Comments

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

Today’s topic is: How My Reading Habits Have Changed Over Time (submitted by Lydia @ https://lydiaschoch.com)

I don’t really know how to do this as a top ten list so I thought I’d just chat about it.

I started reading fiction fairly consistently when I was a kid and then even more when I was a teenager. When I was a “kid” – like under the age of 13 – I read books like the Little House series and the Chronicles of Narnia and sometimes I used a flashlight to finish a chapter because Mom had said I needed to go to bed and shut my light off but I didn’t want to go to bed yet.

I never read books quickly but I consistently had a book with me when I was a teenager. Back then I read mainly historical fiction and some clean/Christian romance. Now I read mainly mysteries – clean and cozy mainly.

In high school I got in trouble at least twice for reading in class. It’s not my fault my Roman-based epic was way more interesting than the football coach rambling about driver safety. Or a book from that same series (The Mark of the Lion series by Francine Rivers) was way more interesting than my history teacher who never really taught but mostly talked about football because he was the other football coach. Huh. Coincidence there? I think not.

I remember my mom came to a parent teacher conference, holding one of those books because we had picked it up at the local Christian bookstore (which only lasted about two years in our tiny community) and the teacher said, “Oh. Is that one of those books you got caught reading in class the other day?”

My mom, with her quick wit, said, “Yes, it probably is but it is based in history at least.”

I don’t think she meant that as a slam against that teacher but he was the one who used to start classes each year by holding up the text book and saying, “You can take this an use it to prop up a window.” Then he’d spend the rest of the year talking about who knows what from the front of the classroom with very little of it being actual history.

The only thing I remember from his class is how he told us all not to mess around with pimples and other spots on our skin because his mom had one she didn’t get checked and it was cancer. I don’t know if she died from it or not but that unlocked a new fear for me.

In college I mainly read textbooks. I didn’t seem to have time for reading fiction. I started working full time my senior year of college and there was no time for reading. I was taking classes twice a week and working like 60 hours a week, sometimes seven days. That’s about the time I killed my thyroid and my mental health but I was young and stupid.

I don’t really remember picking many fiction books back up again until a few years ago when I really got back into reading again. When I had my kids I was working full time at newspapers or writing blog posts or completely immersed in photography and homeschooling while taking care of kids. I didn’t take a lot of time for myself or to escape the stress of life by reading fiction. I wish I had because it would  have helped all the stress back then.

Now I always have a hard copy of a book and my Kindle in my purse or with me wherever I go. I may not always read the book but I have it with me “just in case.” Instead of watching TV or surfing online all the time, I now carve out time for reading, even on the days I think I don’t feel like reading. I’ll find that once I start reading, I get caught up in the story and I start to relax and forget about all the things I was stressed about. I think I recently heard that reading even 15 minutes a day can help a person relax and reset their emotional state. Something like that anyhow. I don’t know – just go with it and pretend I’m smart. *wink*

Now that I am reading more, I have gotten caught up more than once with feeling like I have to read what other people are reading instead of what I want to read. It’s crazy that even at my age I can be influenced by what is popular or talked about a lot or what others say I should or shouldn’t read. Luckily, I have pushed aside a lot of that in the last year and now I really am reading what I want to read.

Sure, I see recommendations and sometimes I take them but I don’t just read a book because a lot of people claim it is good. Yes, I have read books that I’ve seen recommended a few times, but I don’t feel like I have to anymore. I do it because the book actually interests me.

Honestly, I find myself leaning away from books that are heavily recommended more than I lean toward them. I’ve been burned more than once by books that were supposed to be so amazing and then turned out to be complete duds or pushed agendas or morals that didn’t fit with mine.

Becoming an independent author opened my eyes to the publishing world and how reviews can be bought, essentially, or reviewers can be swayed to give a book a good review because they either don’t want to be excluded from other advanced reader groups or because they don’t be the one to step out of line and say, “I didn’t like this book everyone else liked.”

Before this year I was susceptible to getting wrapped up in all those “BookTok” (not on TikTok though. What a nightmare that app is!) “Bookstagram” drama sessions about – well, everything about reading. This year, though, I couldn’t care less what some Bookstagrammer says I should or shouldn’t read or what I shouldn’t or shouldn’t say on social media.

I read books, I share about the ones I like, I move on. Life is way too short to be so dramatic about reading. Good grief. Reading is for leisure and enjoyment. There was a time when only the rich could read books and then it became so everyone could read books as long as they had a good education and were taught to read.

Now we teach children to read at a young age so the world is opened wide to them. They can learn so much from books – fiction and non-fiction. This can be a bad thing, of course, if the subject matter is not age appropriate but in the vast majority of cases being able to read is a wonderful thing.

Because reading is a gift, I don’t believe we should try to finish books that don’t bring us joy. I do not continue reading a book I am not connecting with. A couple of years ago I made way too many commitments to read books and review them without knowing what I was really getting into. This year I have been reading books because I want to.

 I read a couple of books for author friends and ran into trouble because the books were okay but they simply weren’t for me. Then what do I do? I don’t want to keep reading the book simply because the person is a friend if it is taking the joy out of reading for me. That’s why I’m now deciding that if I do read a book by an author friend, I’m not going to tell them I am reading it in case I don’t enjoy it.

Life is too short to read books qw aren’t enjoying. This is something I’ve heard said in reading circles again and again and it is something that we readers need to heed more.

Sometimes I do break my own “rules”, though. I’m reading one right now that isn’t one I’d probably finish if it was just me reading for fun, but I’m reading it to review for a magazine. Just because the book isn’t really for me, doesn’t mean it won’t be for someone else. The fact I am pushing myself through this book, though, has made me decide I probably won’t be doing reviews for magazines anymore unless I have already read the book first and enjoyed it.

My motto the rest of this year and next, therefore, is to read what I want and review it only if I want to.

I hope I can keep up with that because taking the pressure off something that should be done for enjoyment and relaxation is what I really need in my life right now.

How has what and how you read changed over the years?

Sunday Bookends: Adventures with the parents, fall foliage, and reading more mysteries

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 35 Comments

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what the rest of the family and I have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.

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


What’s Been Occurring

Yesterday Dad, Little Miss, and I took my mom leaf peeping before all our leaves are gone. We didn’t have a very pretty year because of the warmer, dry temps we had in August and part of September but we did see some pretty trees on our drive.

We drove on some back roads (a.k.a. dirt roads) near my parents and eventually ended up at a house and former farm where some of my dad’s distant family used to live.

Throughout my whole life anytime we decided to go for a drive around the area or anywhere else, what normally would have been a routine or sightseeing trip became a weird adventure. My parents are 80 now so I thought our days of adventure were over but once again a simple leaf peeping trip became a little weird. First we passed a field of modern art sculptures all lined up in a field – sort of weird.

And when we stopped at the distant relative’s house things also got very weird.

We didn’t know who still lived at the house Dad used to visit as a kid, so Dad climbed out of the car and disappeared over a hill between the house and garage for a bit while he looked for the homeowner. While waiting for him, Little Miss, Mom and I watched another car rip into the long driveway, continue between two trees and stopped near our car. I rolled my window down and apologized for being in the way but the woman frowned and just said, “That’s fine.”

She went into the house without even asking why we were in her drive. I decided it was time to look for Dad in case she was really ticked off at us for being there, so I climbed out after telling my mom that the woman looked very familiar. I thought she looked like the manager of our local Dollar General.

A few minutes later, my dad and another man were walking from the back of the house, up the hill, and the woman, who had left the house to put the dog on a lead, marched toward my dad with her finger pointing at him and said, “You get your car out of my driveway!”

I panicked. Our trip was taking a very dark turn and I wasn’t sure how I was going to get my dad away from the crazy woman. But Dad was smiling and so was the man. I couldn’t see the woman but then she was patting my dad on the shoulder and I realized she was messing with my dad – probably how he picks on her when he stops in at the Dollar General.

In the end, we all had a good conversation and Dad shared some memories of visiting the former farm years before – like when he was 12 or 13.

After that, we took the long way home, and Little Miss and I spent the afternoon having dinner with my parents before heading home.

Today I have to pick up The Boy from a friend’s house and we will stop for lunch at my parents on the way back. Hopefully, we don’t have another weird adventure.  

What I/we’ve been Reading

The Case of the Innocent Husband (A Mac and Sam Mystery Book 1), Murder Handcrafted by Isabella Alan, and The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler.

The Secret of Red Gate Farm by Carolyn Keene (A Nancy Drew Mystery)

The Cat Who Brought Down the House by Lilian Jackson Braun

The Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood

Little Miss is reading the first Harry Potter book at night. I love that she’s reading but she starts too late at night and then I have to tell her that it’s time for bed and she tries to make me feel guilty by saying things like, “But I only have 15 minutes of the chapter left to go!”

Stupid Kindles and their ability to tell you how many minutes of a chapter you have to go.

We are also reading The Four-Story Mistake by Elizabeth Enright on some nights. For school/during the day we are reading Johnny Tremain.

The Husband just finished The Labours of Hercules by Agatha Christies and is getting ready to read book 99. He is going to read The Satanic Verses by Salaman Rushdie for book 100.

What We watched/are Watching


Last week I watched a lot of Lovejoy and Murder She Wrote, Blithe Spirit with Erin for our Comfy, Cozy Cinema, and Reading Rainbow for old time’s sake.

What I’m Writing

I am still writing Gladwynn Grant Shakes The Family Tree and announced on Instagram that I will be pushing off the release date to 2025 so I can take some more time on it. I was pushing myself too hard to get it done before the end of October and now I realize that I am stressing myself out about a book that I am not under a publishing contract for and that I am writing more for fun than anything else.

If anyone would like to read books one or two, though, you can find them here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C1KSQJXP

On the blog last week I didn’t share a ton since I was working on the book, but here is what I did share:

What I’m Listening To

I was listening to Ever After by Karen Barnett but I am not a big fan of the narrator so not sure I’ll finish it.

Photos From Last 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.

Book Review/Recommendation: Trouble Shooter by Louis L’Amour

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 3 Comments

Book Title: Trouble Shooter (A Hopalong Cassidy book)

Author: Louis L’Amour

Genre: Western

Description:

Hopalong Cassidy is one of the most enduring and popular heroes in frontier fiction. His legendary exploits in books, movies, and on television have blazed a mythic and unforgettable trail across the American West. Now, in the last of four Hopalong Cassidy novels written by Louis L’Amour, the immortal saddleman rides again—this time into a lonely valley of danger and death.

Hopalong Cassidy has received an urgent message from the dead. Answering an urgent appeal for help from fellow cowpuncher Pete Melford, he rides in only to discover that his old friends has been murdered and the ranch Pete left to his niece, Cindy Blair, had vanished without a trace. Hopalong may have arrived too late to save Pete, but his sense of loyalty and honor demands that he find that cold-blooded killers and return to Cindy what is rightfully hers.

Colonel Justin Tradwar, criminal kingpin of the town of Kachina, is the owner of the sprawling Box T ranch, and he has built his empire with a shrewd and ruthless determination. In search of Pete’s killers and Cindy’s ranch, Hopalong signs on at the Box T, promising to help get Tradway’s wild cattle out of the rattler-infested brush. But in the land of mesquite and black chaparral, Cassidy confronts a mystery as hellish as it is haunting—a bloody trail that leads to the strange and forbidding Babylon plateau, to $60,000 in stolen gold, and to a showdown with an outlaw who has already cheated death once… and is determined to do it again.

My Thoughts:

Trouble Shooter by Louis L’Amour was not listed under L’Amour’s name when it first came out in 1951. Instead, it was released under the name Clarence E. Mulford, the original creator of Hopalong Cassidy, the main character of the book. When Mulford retired, he asked L’Amour to carry on Hopalong’s tradition in four novels, which included Trouble Shooter, The Rustlers of West Fork, The Trail to Seven Pines, and the Riders of High Rock.

The books were published on L’Amour’s name in the 1990s when they were re-released.

I ended up liking Trouble Shooter a lot more than I thought I would when I first started it. Once I realized that the book was written in the style of another writer and that it was written in the 1950s, I began to adjust to the style of writing and storytelling. I found myself pulled into the story a bit more as it went along, despite the old style of writing, which included what writers call “head hopping.” This is where the thoughts of each character involved in a scene are shared instead of the point of view being from just the one character. This can get a little bit confusing but L’Amour didn’t over do it.

The way the sentences were structured threw me off at times but I thought the prose really was well-written. I wasn’t as interested in the lengthy description of Hopalong Cassidy climbing a mountain or riding long distances in the middle of nowhere and would have loved for the female characters to have been flushed out a bit more, but I still liked the overall story.

I didn’t expect the ending to take such a dark turn since most of the book was mild when it came to the discussions of violence. There was very little to no descriptions of violence at all and any descriptions offered were very surface level. There were no obscenities in the book and no sex at all – not even hinted at.

This was definitely a stripped back Western. There were some descriptions but none of them went on for pages. There were some slow parts for me but I wanted to know the  answer to the mystery introduced in the beginning so I kept reading.

A couple of lines I enjoyed and thought were well-written:

“Hopalong Cassidy had drawn his gun as he always drew, with flashing, incredible speed. Once his hand was empty, then filled, and the gun blasting death.”

“The heat was a living thing, and he touched his lips only a little with the water in his canteen, then pushed on. Dust devils danced across a vast, empty distance marked by nothing but the trail of two riders. And then out of the north came another trail, a trail of several riders that moved in and obliterated the trail they followed.”

“Through the storm clouds the afternoon sun sent streaks of cathedral light across the sky and first spattering of drops fell, dappling the ground and making the dust jump.”

“Even if he isn’t dead, he might have reformed, and if a man has reformed, I’d have to judge him according to what he is now, but I’d advise him to keep his name to himself.”

If you would like to read more about Louis L’Amour, you can do so here:

https://louislamour.com/aboutlouis/biography.htm

Sunday Bookends: Remembering Maggie Smith, reading the same books, and some blog posts I enjoyed recently

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 31 Comments



It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what the rest of the family and I have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.

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



What’s Been Occurring

What a weird coincidence this week that Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) and I watched a movie with Maggie Smith and a day after we posted out those she passed away. We had watched Ladies in Lavender with her and Judi Dench and wrote about it and then that night I was thinking how upset Judi would be when Maggie passed away. I also wondered which “dame” would actually pass away first – I thought it might be Joan Plowright.

The next morning Erin texted me to tell me that Maggie had died and I honestly felt like I had lost a friend. I haven’t even watched her very much in things like Downton Abbey or Harry Potter (though I did watch Harry Potter with the kids just recently). I stopped watching Downton when they killed Matthew off. It ticked me off so bad I refused to watch the show again.

I’ve seen Maggie in a few movies since then, though, and just sort of fell in love with her spunk and attitude, but also a tenderness I saw in her.

I’m slightly ashamed to admit that I cried more over her death than the death of my mother-in-law the week before – partially because I had more sentimental connection with Maggie – whom I’ve never met – that my husband’s mother. That’s a very long, sad story that I won’t go into here.

I was looking for clips of Maggie to share on Instagram since I had a clip of her and Judi and Joan Plowright from Tea With the Dames go viral last year on my Instagram, when I remembered I had seen that she’d been on The Carol Burnett Show one time.

If you want to see that clip, I’ll share it below in my What I’ve Been Watching section.

I’m really hoping to watch an Agatha Christie movie with Maggie that I just learned about Friday as well.

What I/we’ve been Reading

I was working on the third book in my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series last week so I didn’t read as much as I could have.

Therefore I am still reading the same books I was reading – Move Your Blooming Corpse by DE Ireland and Kristen by Dawn Klinge, but have added The Secret at Red Gate Farm, a Nancy Drew to the mix.

I finished nothing! Nothing, people! See above. *wink*




Murder Handcrafted by Isabella Alan (An Amish Quilt Shop Mystery)

The Cat Who Brought Down the House by Lilian Jackson Braun

The Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood

Little Miss and I are reading The Four Story Mistake by Elizabeth Enright via Hoopla.

The Husband is reading Fear and Loathing On the Campaign Trail 1972 by Hunter S. Thompson

The Boy is listening to Beowulf and a book of short stories.

What We watched/are Watching

Last week I rewatched most of Ladies in Lavender to write about it for our Comfy, Cozy Cinema, since I’ve seen it before.

I mentioned above that I enjoyed watching Maggie Smith and Judi Dench in the movie and then the next day Maggie passed away. It was heartbreaking.

Erin and I have a few movies with either Judi or Maggie or both in it on our Comfy, Cozy Cinema this time around and I swear we didn’t do it on purpose. We both chose movies on our own and then whittled the list down, not even thinking about who was starring in them. We both even forgot about Judi and Maggie being in a couple of the movies.

This weekend I’ve been watching some clips of Maggie from various shows or interviews, including this one from The Carol Burnett Show:


I had no idea Maggie sang until I saw this clip with her and Carol on YouTube:

I have also been continuing to watch Lovejoy, an old British show that sometime has a mystery and sometimes just a conman story.  I hated how this series ended so I’ve watched it before but seem to have forgotten some of the episodes so I am rewatching them. This is a show my husband always watched and turned me on to.


What I’m Writing

Gladwynn Shakes The Family Tree, of course.

On the blog I shared:

What I’m Listening To

Ever Faithful by Karen Barnett on Hoopla

Photos from Last Week

Recent Blog Posts I Enjoyed

|| Review: Hillbilly Elegy by Stray Thoughts ||

(I appreciated this non-partisan and just straight review of J.D. Vance’s book. Not a fan of him as a politician but I’m also not a fan of any politician at this time.)

|| Words for Wednesday: Confined by Mama’s Empty Nest ||

(Boy, could I relate to this one.)

|| His Encouragement by Christian Fiction Girl ||

(A great reminder of God’s faithfulness during challenging times. )

|| Book Review: Cassie, Apron Strings Book Eight by Leslie’s LIbrary Escape ||

(This one is a little biased on my part, but this was a really nice review of my book Cassie.)


Now it’s your turn

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

Sunday Bookends: Cooling temps, family reunions, Gladwynn book three excerpt

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 8 Comments



It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what the rest of the family and I have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.

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


What’s Been Occurring

 Temps have definitely dropped into autumn territory in Pennsylvania. As I started writing this post it was 50 degrees but felt much colder to me. I wrapped myself in my grandmother’s blanket and wore a jacket but still couldn’t warm up. We do our best not to turn on our heat until October and don’t usually start our woodstove until the end of October.  

Last night, though, when I couldn’t feel my toes while sleeping, even with two blankets on, I realized we are probably going to have to at least turn on our heat upstairs, which is electric. The heating oil is what really hits us financially and that heats our downstairs.

Today is my parents’ 61st wedding anniversary. We will be attending a family reunion where there isn’t much family left due to everyone getting older and passing away. (What a downer sentence. Sorry.)

I hope to sneak away for most of it to read a book in the car because people will probably start talking politics and I have banned political discussions from my life for the foreseeable future.

What I/we’ve been Reading

I am reading An Assassination on the Agenda by T.E. Kinsey. It is a Lady Hardcastle Mystery.

I love Lady Hardcastle and Flo. They are so fun. I also like that the books are clean and just fun. If you haven’t ready Lady Hardcastle before they are set sometime in the early 1900s (around 1912 for this one) and Lady Hardcastle and her maid Flo are international spies, but seem like your average rich lady and maid to most.

 I have listened to at least one of the books on Audible and the narrator was so good. She makes Lady Hardcastle sound exactly like I imagine her in my head. The books are written in Flo’s point of view.

I plan to finish Trouble Shooter by Louis L’Amour this week.

I just finished Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murders by Jesse Q. Sutanto and loved it. Yes, there was swearing and I don’t read a lot of books with swearing, but it wasn’t full of sex or graphic violence. The main character was so hilarious and easy to fall in love with and be shocked by. If you haven’t heard of this one, I highly recommend it. It is a mystery – somewhat cozy.

Here is a description:

Sixty-year-old self-proclaimed tea expert Vera Wong enjoys nothing more than sipping a good cup of Wulong and doing some healthy ‘detective’ work on the internet (AKA checking up on her son to see if he’s dating anybody yet).

But when Vera wakes up one morning to find a dead man in the middle of her tea shop, it’s going to take more than a strong Longjing to fix things. Knowing she’ll do a better job than the police possibly could – because nobody sniffs out a wrongdoing quite like a suspicious Chinese mother with time on her hands – Vera decides it’s down to her to catch the killer.

A Simple Deduction (An Amish Inn Mystery) by Kristi Holl

The Secret of Red Gate Farm by Carolyn Keene (A Nancy Drew Mystery)

Murder Handcrafted by Isabella Alan (An Amish Quilt Shop Mystery)

The Cat Who Brought Down the House by Lilian Jackson Braun

Little Miss and I are reading The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright before bed. That has taken up some of my evening reading time.

She and I are also reading Johnny Tremaine for history and English since school has started.

The Husband is reading a book by Salman Rushdie.

The Boy will be starting Beowulf this week for school.

What We watched/are Watching

Yesterday I watched a movie called Out of The Blue (1947). It was an absolutely ridiculous and hilarious screwball comedy. It was about people in an apartment building who have some hilarious interactions and one of them involves a murder that isn’t a murder – or is it?

Last night I convinced my teenager to watch The Third Man with me. It is an amazing film from 1949. If you haven’t seen it yet, you should.

Earlier in the week I watched more Lovejoy (a British show).


What I’m Writing

I’m still working on Gladwynn Grant Shakes the Family Tree.

I had fun writing this exchange between Lucinda and Gladwynn:

“So do you think you two young people will tie the knot someday?”

Gladwynn asked the question with a smirk, enjoying how Lucinda almost choked on her smoothie when she heard it.

The woman’s eyes widened. “Excuse me?”

In Gladwynn’s amused opinion, it was high time the tables were turned on the meddling woman.

Gladwynn set her fork down and reached for her juice, doing her best to look innocent. “What? I mean you’ve been seeing a lot of each other. Maybe it’s time to make things official.”

Lucinda’s shocked expression faded. She pressed her lips into a thin line and narrowed her eyes, setting her glass down on the table. “That’s how you want to play this, is it?”

Gladwynn raised an eyebrow in challenge. “Play what, Grandma? I don’t know what you’re getting at.”

Lucinda leaned back in her chair and folded her arms across her chest. “What are you going to wear to church today, my dear? Something nice, I hope. Luke did just get back from Northern Ireland this weekend. I’m sure he’s been very anxious to see you and I know you’d like to look nice for him.”

Gladwynn’s eyes narrowed. “Why would I want to look nice for Luke?”

“I think you know why.”

“Do I? Or do you think I should look nice for Luke?”

“I think you think you should look nice for Luke.”

Gladwynn broke eye contact with Lucinda and began eating her breakfast again. This conversation was going nowhere good, as her grandfather used to jokingly say. “Don’t you need to get those curlers out of your hair?”

“Don’t you need to do your makeup?”

Recent Blog Posts I Enjoyed

I will have some blog posts from other blogs to share next week. I’ve been reading some good ones.

Now it’s your turn

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

Sunday Bookends: The last of the summer swimming, planning for autumn reading, and lists of mysteries to read

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 10 Comments




It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what the rest of the family and I have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.

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

What’s Been Occurring

 Last week was pretty chilly part of the week but things have started to warm up again. Little Miss and I hoped that warm up would include some time in the pool but the nights have been very cool so that has left us with very cool pool water. It’s been so cool our teeth have started chattering as soon as we enter the pool, and our bodies don’t really become acclimated even though we hope they will.

Yesterday we tried again, and I somehow lasted 90 minutes but my body did not feel well afterward. The warmest days this week will be Tuesday and Wednesday so I think we will wait to try again until then and those will probably be the last swims of the season.

This week I will ease into lessons for Little Miss to kick off school, but we won’t start in earnest until after Labor Day. The Boy already started back at tech school. I’ll start his lessons the week of Labor Day as well but he has much less to do this year.

So this week is the last week of freedom, so to speak, for the kids before school really gets underway.

What I/we’ve been Reading

Currently: I am still reading Trouble Shooter by Louis L’Amour because I have been reading a couple of other books in addition to or in between. I am going to focus on the book more this week because there is a mystery woven in and I really want to know what happened.

I am also reading The Gardener’s Plot by Deborah J. Benoit. It is an Advanced Reader’s Copy.

On cozy evenings I am also reading Little Men by Louisa Mae Alcott

I just finished Clueless at the Coffee Station by Bee Littlefield and really enjoyed it. I’ll share a review of it on here tomorrow.

My upcoming list has shifted around some as I plan for reads for Autumn.

Up next, possibly, depending on my mood,

A Simple Deduction by Kristin Holl (An Amish Inn Mystery)

The Secret of Red Gate Farm by Carolyn Keene (A Nancy Drew Mystery)

Murder Handcrafted by Isabella Alan (An Amish Quilt Shop Mystery)

The Cat Who Brought Down the House by Lilian Jackson Braun

Little Miss and I read Homer Price by Robert McCloskey over the last couple of weeks.

What We watched/are Watching

Last week I watched Clambake. I don’t want to talk about it. I’d just like to never remember I watched it.

I also watched a few episodes of the old British show Lovejoy.

I then watched Just A Few Acres on YouTube.


What I’m Writing

I made quite a bit of progress on Gladwynn Grant Shakes the Family Tree this past week. I hope to make even more progress this upcoming week.

On the blog I shared:

What I’m Listening To

I am still listening to The Cross Country Quilters by Jennifer Chiavarini

Recent Blog Posts I Enjoyed

Don’t Wait Until You Feel Like It by Stray Thoughts

Peace Descending by Big Sky Buckeye

Words for Wednesday: Going Through The Motions by Mama’s Empty Nest

Now it’s your turn

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

Top Ten Tuesday: The top ten literary characters I would love to be friends with

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 38 Comments

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

This week’s theme is: Relationship Freebie (Pick a relationship type and choose characters who fit that relationship as it relates to you. So, characters you’d like to date, be friends with, be enemies with, etc. Bookish families you’d like to be a part of, characters you’d want as your siblings, pets you’d like to take for yourself, etc.)

From this prompt, I decided to make a list of ten characters who I would love to be friends with in real life – if they were real. Well, you know what I mean.

  1. Cynthia Kavanagh from The Mitford Series by Jan Karon

Cynthia is the wife of Father Timothy Kavanagh, an Episcopal priest in Mitford, N.C. He meets Cynthia either in the end of the first book or the beginning of the second, A Light in the Window. Their love story is so sweet and pure. It’s a beautiful example of what love late in life can and should be. Father Tim has never been in a relationship and Cynthia was in a cold, loveless marriage before. Their relationship starts slow and awkardly.

Cynthia is an illustrator who also writes childrens books about her cat, Violet, a fluffy, white monster who Father Tim and his dog Barnabas aren’t so sure about. I would love to be friends with Cynthia. We’d sit in her little yellow house and sip tea and talk books and cats and how neither of us are really very good cooks or bakers but like to try anyhow.

2. Elizabeth “Bess” Marvin in the Nancy Drew books.

I absolutely love Bess from the Nancy Drew books. I love how she is described as pleasantly plump and isn’t shy about eating whatever she wants and flirting with boys – not even caring that back when these books were written fat girls were supposed to be not who boys would be interested in and were shamed into eating lettuce and a tomato for dinner.

I could absolutely see myself hanging out with Bess. She’d be more outgoing and crazy and I’d be quiet and laughing at her crazy antics. We’d talk about what foods we like and how no matter what we do we can’t get ourselves super skinny but there are times we still feel healthy and happy.

3. Valancy Stirling in The Blue Castle by LM Montgomery

I would absolutely hang out with Valancy from The Blue Castle. If I met her before she received the bad news about her health, I would have been trying to pull her out of her dumps and encourage her to ignore her family’s rude comments about her.

After she received the bad news I would have joined her for tea at her Blue Castle and I would have walked with her in the forest, picking flowers, listening to the wind rustling the leaves and to her read excerpts from John Foster’s books.

4. Jo March from Little Women by Louisa Mae Alcott

Jo and I would absolutely hang out in real life and talk about the books we are writing and the characters we’ve created and our fear of people reading what we have written. We would talk about how we feel like the stories and characters belong to ourselves and how we are sometimes afraid if others meet our characters they won’t like them and it will take something away from us.

We will totally talk about how we both snap sometimes and say mean things and have to wrestle the mean sides of ourselves the same way Marmee said she had to wrestle her feelings.

And we will absolutely dish about how publishers in her day were completely sexist and that if she were alive now she could write and publish whatever she wants.

5. Aunt Minnehaha Cheever from Gone Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright

Aunt Minnehaha visited Gone Away Lake, really called Tarrigo Lake, with her family, including her brother Pindar, when she was a child. The site was a summer getaway for the wealthy but when a dam was created upstream it caused the lake to dry up and all the wealthy vacationers to leave, many of them leaving their homes behind. When Aunt Minnehaha hits hard times and can’t afford her home in the city she moves back to Tarrigo to live. Eventually, children named Julian and Portia discover the homes and become friends with Minnehaha and her brother, who has also moved there.

Minnehaha has had some sadness in her life but she is absolutely full of optimism and likes to look at tough situations in a new and exciting way. If she and I were friends we would look through all the old dresses she has and all the old china and she’d make me some of her amazing tea and then she’d tell me that what I am facing now is nothing compared to what they had to face when they were young, living among some very rich and arrogant neighbors.

6. Anne Shirley from Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

I’m sure Anne would be on the list of many readers. An imaginative orphan girl who comes to live with an older brother and sister on a farm on Prince Edward Island, Canada would absolutely be a very interesting person to be friends with.

She and I would go walk along the shores of the Lake of Shimmering Waters and pick apples from the apple trees. We would also walk through the falling leaves during autumn to Diana’s house to visit her and have pastries and tea together.

We would absolutely talk about books and, well, I hate to say it but I’d probably tell Anne she is way too focused on what is and isn’t romantic and what romance should look like. If it was older Anne we would talk about raising children and how she keeps the romance alive between her and Gilbert.

7. Angie Braddock from the Amish Quilt Shop Mysteries by Isabella Alan

I’ve only read one book in the Amish Quilt Shop Mysteries but I really liked Angie. She’s bold and not afraid to find out how someone has been killed so she can clear the name of another person. She’s also dating a handsome sheriff (at least in the one book I read) and has a great relationship with her father who is trying to figure out his place in the world now that he is retired.

She sells sowing materials at her shop and I don’t think I’d be able to talk to her too much about fabric but I bet we’d like other similar things and I would love for her to introduce me to her Amish friends.

8. Miss Jane Marple from the Agatha Christie series

I would love to be friends with Jane Marple and ask her questions about various “goings on” in the village she – er- we live in. We’d of course – like with everyone else – sip tea – probably real English tea and have a few coo—biscuits while she tells me about her latest case.

Since I’m her friend, I’d also follow her around while she solves various cases. And maybe get some credit with her. *wink*

9. Sam Gangee from The Fellowship of The Ring

Sam and I are kindred spirits. We both like second breakfasts and are a bit nervous but also pretty loyal to our friends. Since we are friends we would enjoy meals together and we would be friends after the adventure to get rid of the ring so I’d ask why he did everything for Frodo and ask if he’d like to get more credit.

10. Flo and Lady Hardcastle from The Lady Hardcastle Mysteries by T.E. Kinsey

    I know…I popped in two into this one but they come as a pair, I’d say.
    I would love to be friends with Flo and Lady Hardcastle from The Lady Hardcastle Mysteries. Flo is Lady Hardcastle’s maid but really she is her best friend. Both of them have been spies and investigators and solved mysteries during the early 1900s. Flo has no fear when it comes to tracking down criminals and solving mysteries. She fights the bad guys, cleans up, and then heads home with Lady Hardcastle and serves her tea.

    Lady Hardcastle, like Flo, has no fear and is like a dog with a bone when it comes to solving a case. I love how both women break barriers, ignoring all “rules” of society in England in the early 1900s.

    I could see us enjoying tea (I know! I like tea! What can I say?) and talking about cases we’ve solved together and laughing about how we’ve shown the men in our small town that women can do more than cook and clean and keep house.

    How about you? What literary characters would you love to be friends with?