Sunday Bookends: I think I’ll stop tracking how many books I read and just…gasp! Read!

On November 23, 2025November 23, 2025 By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends, Sunday Salon24 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. Feel free to link your posts about

Before I get too far into this post, I want to mention that today is my husband’s birthday and my brother and sister-in-law’s anniversary.

Happy birthday to The Husband and happy anniversary to Butthead and Kim. Er….Bryan and Kim.

I have to say that I feel a bit bad telling this next story, considering it is my husband’s birthday, but I am going to do so anyhow because he’s a good sport. And please know that this story is shared in good humor, not as an actual complaint – since you can’t hear my tone which would be one tinged with laughter.

Last night he picked me up from my parents where I had been visiting them after he dropped me off. He suggested I sit in the back with our dog who tries to push her way into the middle console and bump against his arm while he’s trying to drive if there isn’t someone in the backseat with her.

I did so and when we got home, after dark mind you, my husband asked the dog if she was going to exit through the front door or would wait for me to move so she could exit through the back door. The dog stayed sitting next to me, so The Husband closed the door and walked into the house.

I thought he was going to go turn the outside light on and come back to help me with my bags, but instead when the dog and I got out of the car I found out we were totally alone in the driveway and backyard.

We’ve been married for 23-years and the man didn’t even open the door for me. Gasp! I was certain he would look out the back door to see if I was coming but after a few minutes, Zooma the Wonder Dog and I were still outside in the cold. I went inside and said, “Hey! Thanks a lot for leaving me!”

I found The Husband staring at The Avengers movie with the kids.

“I could have been eaten by a bear!” I told him.

“You wouldn’t have been eaten by a bear,” he insisted. “We’re located in a fairly safe neighborhood with a fairly well lit driveway. You were fine.”

For the record, we live on the end of a street at the far end of a tiny town, surrounded by the woods, and a couple of months ago Zooma the Wonder Dog had a stand off with a black bear in our backyard – a few hundred feet from where I was standing (alone and in semi-darkness).

“I just read a story about a black bear chasing a boy into a Dollar General in Pennsylvania!” I told him.

“What part of Pennsylvania?” he asked.

“Pittsburgh area but we still have bears around here you know!”

Chivalry is dead, ya’ll. Dead.

Something else that is also dead is my desire to worry about the number of books I am reading each year.

In 2026 I am simply going to read whatever I want and take as long as I want to read the books I choose. It isn’t that I worry about how many books I’ve read in a year too often anyhow, but sometimes I do find myself feeling bad I’m not reading more, usually because I am comparing myself to other bloggers or readers on social media.

It’s really silly to compare ourselves to others, especially at my age, but luckily it is a very brief comparison when I do so.

This year, I chose books I wanted to read, not books others said I should read, and I hope to do the same next year. I still want to list the books I read in my reading journal because I enjoy doing that and looking back at them at the end of the year, partially so I can recommend them (or not) to others, but I think next year I’ll simply list and not number. Or maybe I’ll just stop overthinking it? That might work too. *wink*

Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) and I host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea. This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!). Each link party will be open for a month. You can find that link up for this month here.

We will also be hosting Comfy Cozy Christmas starting the day after Thanksgiving! As Erin said on her blog, “Anything holiday related – any December holiday – at all that strikes your fancy and you write about, please think about sharing on our linky.”

Each week, I host the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot with some great hosts. It goes live Thursday night but you can share any kind of blog posts (family-friendly) there until Tuesday of each week. You can check my recent posts on the sidebar to the right for the most recent link-party.

I finished The Whispering Statue last week. It’s a Nancy Drew mystery and it had a lot of plot issues, but yet, it was also an interesting mystery, or had interesting aspects.

I am still reading Rebecca by Daphne De Maurier — a few chapters a week.

I added The Tale of Hilltop Farm by Susan Wittig Albert to break up the drama of Rebecca.

Here is a quick description of the book from online: “The author of Peter Rabbit and other tales, Beatrix Potter is still, after a century, beloved by children and adults worldwide. In this first Cottage Tale, Albert introduces Beatrix, an animal lover and Good Samaritan with a knack for solving mysteries. With help from her entourage of talking animal friends, Beatrix sets out to win over the human hearts of Sawrey, where she’s just bought an old farm–and plans to stay.”

Up soon I plan to read an Agatha Christie book but I haven’t decided which one yet.

I have been watching mostly old shows again but also movies with the kids who are making their way through the Marvel movies. This would be a first time for Little Miss (11) and many times for The Boy (19).

This past week it was The Avengers and Iron Man 3. I hate Iron Man 3 so I tried to do other things while it was on. It was like watching a train wreck. It is the worst of the series for the Iron Man part. We just skipped the second Thor movie (The Dark World) because it is also horrible.

I also started a Bob Hope movie called I’ll Take Sweden. Frankie Avalon is also in it and it’s ridiculous. I had to go to bed before I could finish it.

And I watched a couple of YouTubers this week, including The Cottage Fairy who has been gone for a long time after having a baby but put up a new video this week.

On the blog I shared:

I’ve been listening to The Jack Benny Show at night before bed.

Now It’s Your Turn

What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this. You can copy my blog graphic to your computer if you want to participate in my link party or you can join the other awesome link ups below.

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

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

Book Review and Nancy Drew November: The mystery of the fire dragon

On November 19, 2025November 18, 2025 By Lisa R. HowelerIn book reviews, nancy drew8 Comments

The first book I read for Nancy Drew November was The Mystery of The Fire Dragon. The cover of this one caught my attention a while ago, so I was excited when I was able to get a copy of it and start it.

This one takes Nancy and her friends (Bess Marvin and George Fayne) first to New York City and then Hong Kong, to investigate the disappearance of a young Chinese-American woman named Chi-Che Soong.

Chi Che’s grandfather, Mr. Soong, doesn’t know his granddaughter is missing. He thinks she’s gone on a trip with friends, so he buries himself in writing a manuscript about – actually I don’t remember what the manuscript about, but I think it was about Chinese artifacts or something.

Chi-Che worked at a bookstore of antique books when she disappeared. Nancy wants to help her aunt Eloise, Mr. Soong’s neighbor, find out what happened.

At the same time, her lawyer father, Carson Drew, is preparing for a trip to Hong Kong and wants to take Nancy along. He sends her to New York to help his sister first though because he won’t be leaving for a week. I often wonder, by the way, where Carson Drew is going to investigate cases because sometimes the books don’t say. I always imagine he’s actually the lawyer for the CIA or something and is on big spy cases. I find it weird he often sends Nancy to solve cases on her own while he goes to investigate something else. She is often sent into very dangerous situations with just herself and her friends and this one is no different.

Anyhow, as soon as Nancy and her friends arrive at Aunt Eloise’s someone sets a large firecracker off in the apartment building hallway. Nancy and her friends try to find who did it but are unable to.

While at her aunt’s, Nancy notices how much her friend George Fayne, looks like the photos of Chi Che. She decides it will be a good idea to have George dress as her and then take her to the college campus and see if anyone thinks she is Chi Che and acts suspicious.

They will eventually meet one of Chi Che’s friends who is confused when she thinks Chi Che is on campus because Chi Che also told her she was traveling. The friend, Lili Allis, will work with Nancy and her friends by taking a job at the bookstore where Chi Che used to work.

Nancy is knocked out at least once in every book and this one is no different when she gets hit in the head with a flowerpot that falls out of a three-story window during this one. Ouch.

A friend, who studied Nancy Drew books in college told me that the Stratemeyer Syndicate only allowed for one knock out per character and only for a certain number of minutes. That absolutely cracked me up. I don’t care what the rule was, Nancy Drew definitely had some major brain damage from all the hits she took to her head over the years.

Eventually, Nancy’s investigation leads her to Hong Kong to search for the missing girl and find out if she found out about a crime that was going on in New York.

Two boons to her having to travel to Hong Kong for this case is that she will travel with her dad and that she will be able to meet up with her boyfriend Ned Nickerson who is studying at a college in Hong Kong. So many coincidences in this one — like Ned going to college there and when Mr. Soong’s brother is actually the ex-police chief in Shanghai so Nancy can meet up with him when she travels to Hong Kong.

I really enjoyed the history in this one. It was released in 1961 and mentions a lot of history about Hong Kong and China which I believe is accurate, though I didn’t look all of it up to double check. What I did look up is when China received control of Hong Kong again after British rule. In this book, the island is still controlled by Great Britain and the people have a great deal of freedom. The control of island went back to China in 1997, though I thought it was much later.

While Hong Kong was able to remain mainly separate from China even after control was handed back, the People’s Republic of China has begun to assert more control in the last five years.

The relationship between Ned and Nancy is cute with Ned always excited when her sleuthing stops and they can spend time together.

Some of the history was dropped while Nancy and Ned were spending time together. At one point they take in a Chinese opera and then visit a houseboat restaurant in a village called Aberdeen, which I thought was odd since it sounded Scottish.

I did look this up online and there is a real Aberdeen on the southwest side of the Island of Hong Kong. It is a fishing village and features a floating village and floating restaurants. It turns out the town is named after the former UK Prime Minister, George Hamilton-Gordon, 4^th Earl of Aberdeen, which explains the name.

There is a scene where Ned and Nancy visit the floating village and unlike other books that don’t focus as much on descriptions, there is a more lengthy description of the village and the lights and how beautiful it all is. This makes me think that whomever the ghost writer for this book was, had visited Hong Kong at some point.

There are some rather “odd” sections in this book, such as when Grandpa Soong asks George and Bess if they believe in transference.

“They both admitted that they did. Then Grandpa Soong said” There are men in this world who are more dangerous than fire dragons. I am sure my Chi Che is being held by one or more of them and really was calling out in her thoughts to me and Miss Drew for help.”

Mmmmmkaaaay.

I also didn’t understand the end of the book and why Chi Che was found where she was (maybe I’ve read too many darker mysteries and figured that in reality the ‘bad guys’ would have just killed her) but it was still an intriguing mystery with a lot of interesting characters.

I seem to like the books where Nancy travels out of the country or away from River Heights more than those that take place in River Heights. I think that is because the books away from River Heights feel more rounded or flushed out due to the addition of historical elements.

Another one of my favorites, before this one, was The Case of The Whistling Bagpipes, which took Nancy to Scotland.

I know a lot of my blog followers have not read Nancy Drew before but if you have read this one, let me know in the comments.

I enjoyed what Avery from True Drew Podcast had to say about this episode too. You can find that here.

Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Children’s Books I Read After I Was An Adult

On November 18, 2025 By Lisa R. HowelerIn books and reading, top-ten-tuesday21 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

Today’s prompt was: Modern Books You Think Will Be Classics In The Future (submitted by Veros @ Dark Shelf of Wonders).

I don’t read a ton of modern books so I couldn’t think of any for that prompt. Instead I decided to share ten children’s books I didn’t read as a child but did read as an adult.

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

I saw a movie adaption of this when I was a child but never read the book. I honestly think I appreciated it more as an adult. I read it myself and the next week read it aloud to my 11-year-old daughter and she enjoyed it too. What a sweet book with so many lessons. I didn’t like the way it ended, but only because I wanted more. I think most people know what this one is about but a quick summary is that it is about a girl who is orphaned, is sent to live with her eccentric and strange uncle at his mansion on the moor of England. While there she uncovers some family secrets and learns how to be kind and to love life.

2. Gone Away Lake by Elizabeth Enright

This was a quirky one but very fun to read with our daughter. This one is about two kids who go to visit their cousin and find an abandoned village that was left when the dam was destroyed and the lake that had been there disappeared. It turns out, though, that the whole village isn’t abandoned. There is a brother and sister living in two of the houses that are still standing.

3. The Middle Moffat by Eleanor Estes

This is a book in the series of books about The Moffat family. This one is about Jane Moffat, who is the middle Moffat. It is such a cute book with each chapter being it’s own story, yet one theme running throughout — the theme of Jane’s relationship with a 100-year-old Civil War vet. It was so sweet. I read this one first and then read it again with our daughter.

4. Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink

Little Miss and I listened to this one on Audible and really enjoyed it. Well, most of it. There are some chapters we skip because the stories are either dark or weird.

The story follows the Woodlawn family in Wisconsin, with the main focus being on 10-year-old Callie. It takes place during the Civil War years.

5. The Good Master by Karen Seredy

Little Miss and I just finished this one.

It takes place in Hungary and follows the adventures of young Kate and her cousin Jancsi. Kate is sent to stay with Jancsi and her aunt and uncle because, quite frankly, she is a brat and her dad wants his brother to teach her to be a nicer little girl.

Kate learns about sheep farming, life in a rural area, and how to be part of a family in this sweet book (though it did also have a disturbing chapter where she is kidnapped by gypsies).

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

I saw the 1985 version of this when I was young, but didn’t read the book until a few years ago. Two years ago I read it, while summarizing some parts, to Little Miss. We loved this book and love Anne. I think most readers of my blog know what Anne is all about, but if you don’t — it’s about an orphan who is mistakenly sent to live with an older couple and grows up to be a charming, whimsical and spunky child.

7. Miracles on Maple Hill by Virginia Sorensen

I loved this one and read it in the spring two years ago. I then read it this past spring to Little Miss. This is the story of a young girl whose father has PTSD from World War II. The family goes to stay at the girl’s great-grandmother’s farm, abandoned since the great-grandparents passed away. They go for the visit to help her father heal but it becomes a place for the whole family to heal.

8. The Green Ember by S.D. Smith

I read this one with my son years ago and enjoyed it and have started it with Little Miss. This book is an adventure book that stars young rabbits with swords who go on a quest that leads them through a journey of good and evil, searching for family, and learning about themselves and what they can do.

9. The Black Stallion by William Farley

I saw the movie adaptation when I was a child but did not read the book until about a year ago. I read it to Little Miss and it was good but there were some sections we skipped because it just dragged and dragged. This book is about a boy who is shipwrecked with a wild, Arabian stallion which he befriends and takes with him when he is rescued. Eventually he begins to work with a trainer to make the horse a race horse.

10. The Cabin Faced West by Jean Fritz

This one is about a young pioneer girl from Pennsylvania whose family moves from the Philadelphia area to a very rural area of the state and learns what it means for a family to become self-sufficient and help to settle a new world.

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

Are there children’s books you didn’t read until you were an adult?

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

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

Sunday Bookends: Loss and comfort reading, watching

On November 16, 2025 By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends, Sunday Salon12 Comments

Last week I mentioned our cat Scout had been injured. She was unable to put weight on her back paw.

We had a vet appointment for her last week but thought she was doing better and canceled it. Sadly, she came back into the house that day and was not doing better so we now have another appointment for next week and are on a cancellation list.

She is allowing us to touch her paw now and is less cranky. She is also learning how to run on three legs, like when she slips out the door and tries to run off down the street. We’ve let her outside a couple of times, either because we thought she was better, or yesterday because I knew she could get away from a predator fast even with her injury. I watched her run on three legs at me across the yard the day before when I called her inside.

The animals have been a comfort to me this week as we mourn the death of a close family friend.

This weekend I focused on comfort shows and books and shut down social media and news sites. It’s been so nice, I’ll probably continue it into the rest of the week.

This week I finished Nancy Drew: The Mystery of The Fire Dragon and started The Mystery of The Whispering Statue for Nancy Drew November.

I also finished At Home in Harmony by Philip Gulley.

I really enjoyed The Mystery of The Fire Dragon, even though the Nancy Drew books are pretty simply. I definitely loved the heartwarming stories in At Home in Harmony and will read more of the books in the series. The chapters are a series of short stories that connect with the same characters.

As I mentioned, I am reading The Mystery of The Whispering Statue but I am also reading Rebecca by Daphne De Mauier.

I plan to read The Triple Hoax, a Nancy Drew Mystery, later this week and follow it with Pure Poison, another Nancy Drew Mystery.

Then I will start My Beloved by Jan Karon.

Little Miss and I are reading a book about two young girls who went through the Civil War — one as a regular citizen in the South and the other as a undercover boy/soldier for the North.

This week I watched Murder, She Wrote, The Dick VanDyke Show, and started a movie called A Weekend At the Waldorf but it got a bit boring so I bailed for now. I also rewatched a couple of All Creatures Great and Small episodes as a comfort watch.

My son has been showing his sister all the Marvel movies so this week we watched Captain America: The First Avenger and The Avengers. Or I should say rewatched since I’ve seen most of these movies more than three times over the years, some of them in the theaters.

This is a comic book house for sure.

This past week on the blog I shared:

|| In Which I Find Comfort in a Book by Linda Stoll ||

|| An Autumn Chat About Prayer by Homespun Devotions ||

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.

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

Sunday Bookends: Our son turns 19, injured cat, new mystery book to read

On November 9, 2025November 9, 2025 By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends, Sunday Salon36 Comments

Our son turned 19 on Friday. We had a chilled day that day and didn’t do a lot at his request but yesterday he and his dad went to a college town a couple of hours away and explored the town, visited a comic shop, had breakfast and lunch, and just generally had a great time.

The Boy picked up this awesome double record of Johnny Cash at a used book/record store.

The Husband found this for me at a store —

I used to drink these all the time in college and was thrilled to have a bit of a blast from the past.

We call him “The Boy” by the way as a sign of affection because he is the only boy grandson out of seven grandchildren on my husband’s side. Someone my husband knows was afraid the term would offend our son (she was very polite in her concern), but we mainly only use it online and sometimes my husband will jokingly say, “Where is the boy?” when he walks in the house. We obviously call him by his given name offline.

I also don’t use his real name on my blog to protect his privacy a little because I used to use it and … it was sort of weird for him, even though I no longer share anything too personal about his life here. He wasn’t angry about me using his real name but I felt like I should protect him and Little Miss as they grow. They are okay with me occasionally posting photos at least.

Today we plan to go to my parents and have lunch with them and make apple pie together for The Boy’s birthday, which is a tradition because he is not a cake fan.

On Friday night, our cat Scout was unable to put weight down on her back paw.

All the vets around her in the Middle of Nowhere Land are closed for the weekend so we’ve tried to make her comfortable until we can get in somewhere. If she were yowling the whole time and it was clearly broken, we’d call the emergency line of the vet we usually go to. For now, she’s just extremely angry we won’t let her outside, so I am guessing she’s going to be okay.

She also bit me this morning while I tried to see if there is something in her paw or if it had been cut. We think, however, that the paw got pinched between the bed and the wall when Scout tried to curl up with Little Miss on Friday morning.

I am not the type of person who can handle a cat being in pain or upset, so this has been emotional for me. Having a new kitten in the house has also thrown things off, and our eldest cat has been angry and hissing and also trying to bite. I’m about to take them all to the no-kill shelter and be done with it, but, of course, I really can’t do that. They are family, and we just need to adjust to living as a family with a new member.

I am reading my first book for my Nancy Drew November, The Mystery of the Fire Dragon. I will have it finished today. Honestly, it’s pretty good other than Nancy getting hit in the head AGAIN and no one taking her to the hospital AGAIN. This time it was a flowerpot that fell from a third story window. In reality she’d be dead.

I am also reading Rebecca by Daphne De Maurier. Earlier this week I mentioned on Instagram that I was reading Rebecca by didn’t say by who and some very young Bookstagrammer said, “Oooh…what’s that?”

I felt very old. Another person thought I was reading Rebecca Yaros and said they loved Fourth Wing. Siiiiigh.

I’m really enjoying Home the Harmony by Phillip Gulley. I was reading it before bed the week before last but laid it aside most of this week to read Nancy Drew and Rebecca. Last night I picked it up again and ended up laughing so hard at one part. The book isn’t really a cohesive story, but a series of short stories about the same characters, with the main character being a Quaker minister. I am fairly certain I read part of this book if not all of it when I was in my 20s, and it seems familiar, but I don’t remember a lot of it so it’s like reading it all over again. I am enjoying it and would recommend it for a light, humorous and touching read.

Coming up, I hope to read another Nancy Drew, but my husband also picked me up a fancy copy of The Secret of Chimneys by Agatha Christie. I’ve never read or heard of this one so I might bump one of my planned autumn reads to read this one instead.

After that, probably more toward December, I want to start My Beloved by Jan Karon. I am so excited for it but my mom loves Jan Karon so I let her read the copy The Husband bought me first. She hasn’t shared what she thinks of it yet, but I hope it is good.

Little Miss and I are reading a Civil War-based book right now for school called Secrets of Civil War Spies by Nancy LeSourd.

This past week I watched a movie called Storm in a Teacup with Rex Harrison and Vivien Leigh. I believe it was released in 1937 and is an English movie. It was a lot of fun and I enjoyed seeing both actors when they were so young.

I watched a couple of later episodes of Murder, She Wrote, my farmer (Just A Few Acres) on YouTube, and more The Hardy Boys Nancy Drew Mysteries from the 1970s. The Hardy Boys Nancy Drew Mysteries are both good and horrible at the same time.

I just wanted to leave a little note to thank any of my blog readers who have taken the time to read my cozy mysteries, the Gladwynn Grant Mysteries. Those stories are fun for me to write, and I appreciate anyone who indulges my little hobby. I would love to say writing books is more than a hobby but for now it’s essentially a time consuming hobby and I’m finally okay with that.

I am working on book four, Gladwynn Grant Goes Back to School, and it is taking me a while but I do have much of it outlined so I am hoping I can get it finished and released by February.

I have links to the books at the bottom of this post.

This 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.

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Bookish Link Up For November

On November 3, 2025November 4, 2025 By Lisa R. HowelerIn A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Link Party9 Comments

Welcome to the A Good Book & A Cup of Tea (A Monthly Bookish Link Party)!! This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!).

Each link party will be open for a month.

My co-host for this event is Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs! You can link up with either of us!

Some guidelines.

1. For Bloggers, you can link unlimited posts related to books and reading. They can be older posts or newer posts. These can be posts about what you’re reading, book reviews, books you’ve added to your shelf, reading habits, what you’ve been reading, about trips to the bookstore, etc. You get the drift.

2. Link to a specific blog post (URL of a specific post, not just your website). Feel free to link up any older posts that may need some love and attention, too.

3. Please visit at least two other bloggers on this list and comment on their posts. Have fun! Interact! Get some book recommendations.

4. Readers can click the blue button below to visit blog posts.

5. If you add a link you are giving me permission to share and link back to your post(s).

Thank you to those who linked up last month. Here are some highlights from that link party:

|| Books I Read in September by Slices of Life ||

|| Six Degrees of Separation: I Want Everything to Dear Mrs Bird by The Intrepid Reader ||

|| More Than One Copy? by Cat’s Wire ||

Sunday Bookends: My ebook is free, K-Pop Demon Hunters Sing Along, and classic Pizza Hut

On November 2, 2025November 4, 2025 By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends, Sunday Salon23 Comments

Last night, The Husband, Little Miss, and I went to a theater near us to watch K-Pop Demon Hunters Sing Along on the big screen.

There weren’t as many people as I thought there would be and Little Miss was a bit embarrassed by her old mom singing and trying to dance. I was trying to fill in for her friend who wasn’t able to attend with us.

Afterward we visited one of the last classic Pizza Huts in the country for some dinner.

Here is a video I saw on YouTube that talks about it.

I ordered a salad since I’m not supposed to be eating gluten but I did taste some of the pizza Little Miss and The Husband ordered. Little Miss ordered her own personal pan pizza with green peppers, roasted red peppers, banana peppers and extra cheese. She was so excited to have her own pizza and said, “I can eat the toppings off if I want to since it is my own pizza!”

The Boy was spending the weekend at a friend’s house. It felt weird to go out to eat without him.

Earlier in the week, the Cat Distribution System found us and dropped off an all-black cat. This is strange since all of our pets (the two cats and a dog) are black and white. We are not sure where this kitten came from but it wants in our house and is very lovable. An abandoned house was pulled down on the street below us and my son says a lot of stray cats lived there. We think they are trying to find somewhere warm to go but what I can’t figure out is why this one cat wants to adopt us. We really don’t need anymore pets and feel the cat is probably full of fleas so we’ve placed it our garage with some food and a bed at nights and plan to give it flea medicine today.

My kids had decided in less than five minutes we were adopting the cat while I was still trying to say it could be a neighbors. The cat hasn’t gone home since Thursday, however, and even The Husband who doesn’t even like the cats we have (because he misses the cats we had for 19 years and refuses to open his heart to other cats. Yes, those cats were that old!) has been cradling this cat and suggesting we can make it work with three cats.

Pray for me. I’m losing the battle to keep our household to two cats and a dog.

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

Also, my book Gladwynn Grant Gets Her Footing is available for free in ebook form on Amazon until tomorrow (Monday) night. It’s a cozy mystery:

I am currently reading Hero Debut By Angela Ruth Strong and Rebecca by Daphne De Maurier.

Hero Debut is a romantic comedy and has most of my attention right now as it is light and easy to read.

I’m also reading At Home In Harmony by Phillip Gulley off and on before bed. Each chapter is like a short story of its own and centers around a Quaker pastor.

For November, I am planning on reading a selection of Nancy Drew books for an event I created for fun — Nancy Drew November.

I’ll be listing which books I am going to read in a post later this week.

I am very anxious to read My Beloved by Jan Karon but I think I’m going to wait to start it until further into November so I can read it slowly for the Christmas season.

Last week I watched a movie called Phffft! with Jack Lemmon and Kim Novak. It was funny and cute.

I also watched a couple of The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Mysteries episodes.

Last night I watched a couple of episodes of Murder, She Wrote from the early 1990s. It was interesting to see Kevin Sorbo and Mickey Rooney in the two episodes I watched. I’m fairly certain the one actor was Patrick Swazy’s brother. His name was Don and he looked exactly like Patrick so I’d say they were brothers. Of course, Mickey was playing a horse trainer. That’s a role he was used to from his movie days, that is for sure.

Last 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.

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

Sunday Bookends: New additions to the TBR

On October 26, 2025 By Lisa R. HowelerIn Sunday Bookends, Sunday Salon22 Comments

This past week I received book-related stickers in the mail and was thrilled because I love stickers and putting them in books. I don’t have a lot of places to stick these stickers but it is still fun to have them. I have a reading journal, so I stuck some there and Little Miss took some for her phone.

Do you keep a reading journal? I was all excited to get one (which is just a journal with blank pages that I fill in) but then I ended up not taking the notes about the books I was reading, or doing much of anything I planned to do with it. I do keep a list of the books I’ve read throughout the year (which is much lower this year than last year) in it. I also keep a list of books recommended to me, books I want to read, my favorite books read, movies I’ve watched, and movies I want to watch.

I have a list going of Nancy Drew books I’ve read so far in it and that list actually isn’t that big. I think next year I will start a list of The Hardy Boys books I’ve read. So far, it’s exactly one.

I also ordered a set of magnetic bookmarks with cats on them last week. That was also exciting for me, but I will lose them quickly because I always seem to. I don’t know how. I lay them down next to me, get up, and they’ve fallen into some sort of portal! For example, I stood up tonight while reading to go pick up my kids after they were trick-or-treating and I dropped the bookmark and it was gone. Just gone. It’s possibly buried in my all-black purse, but even the purse seemed like some sort of portal because when I looked inside, it was gone.

Luckily, I have about 20 other bookmarks I can choose from to replace it. And then lose them as well.

In addition to the stickers and bookmarks, I also received an order of five books from Thriftbooks.

One of them is for Little Miss for school. It’s called Secrets of Civil War Spies by Nancy LeSourd.

The other four were:

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

Bombs on Aunt Dainty by Judith Kerr

The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis

Murder, She Wrote: Aloha Betrayed by Donald Bain

The week before I received three new Nancy Drew books via the True Drew Podcast shop.

Those books were two from the 80s and 90s: The Nancy Drew Files Win, Lose or Die and The Nancy Drew Files Pure Poison. I also ordered an original book, The Mystery of the Fire Dragon.

This week I finished Trick or Treachery by Donald Bain, a Murder, She Wrote book. I finished it in three days after Little Miss told me I couldn’t finish it by the weekend. I showed her. I finished it three days early. She may have had an ulterior motive because with me reading she could get away doing what she wanted during the day. Hmmm…wait a minute!

I also started Home to Harmony by Phillip Gulley and The Nancy Drew Files Win, Place, or Die by Carolyn Keene. The Nancy Drew book is one of the books from the 1990s series. I’m about 50 pages from the end, which isn’t saying much since these books are only 150 pages total. I’ll finish it today. I have to say, I know these books are for kids or preteens, but the plot of this one really isn’t that bad. This is the first one I’ve read as an adult from this particular series. I am certain I read one in high school.

The Husband ordered me a copy of the latest Mitford book by Jan Karon (My Beloved) as a surprise, and it came yesterday. I’d had a bit of a rough few days with a sore tooth and feeling overwhelmed in life, so it was a wonderful surprise that brought me to tears.

I am going to start it sometime in November or maybe even December because it has a Christmas theme. I will not lie, I opened the book after I took a photo of it and inhaled deeply. It was so comforting.

Little Miss and I finished The Good Master this week, and we have been listening to — I kid you not — a Murder, She Wrote book before bed at night.

She said she’s actually enjoying it, so she requests it.

We are also reading the Civil War themed book for school and finishing the second Caddie Woodlawn book, which we forgot to finish when we got distracted by The Good Master.

The Husband is reading….? Oops … forgot to ask but it was Boone’s Lick by Larry McMurty.

The kids and I watched Mrs. Doubtfire last night. It has been years since The Boy has seen it and Little Miss has never seen it.

Earlier in the week I watched Petticoat Junction and yesterday I watched part of The Big Trail with John Wayne from 1930. That movie — wow. That was a crazy journey with very realistic scenes of the wagon trains traveling into the West.

I think I will write a post about it once I finish it. I would love to know more about the making of that movie.

I also watched another two-part Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mystery. Yes, I’ll definitely recap this one because it was a crazy ride with more romance between Nancy and Frank.

Last week on the blog I shared:

This post linked to my blog post about Murder, She Wrote. That was interesting….Being used as a source for an article.

|| Throwback Tuesday: Why I Don’t Ask Comprehension Questions and What I Do Instead by My Slices of Life ||

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.

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

Book recommendation: Murder, She Wrote Gin and Daggers

On October 24, 2025October 22, 2025 By Lisa R. HowelerIn book reviews, books and reading6 Comments

I’ve recently started reading the Murder, She Wrote books, based on the TV show, of course.

There are currently a couple of authors writing the books, but I believe the original person to write them was Donald Bain. I like the books of his in this series that I have read so far which is exactly two. Ha! I am currently reading my third by him.

My husband bought me a copy of the first book in the series — Gin and Daggers — after I read Killer in the Kitchen and it was better than I expected.

This one doesn’t take place in Cabot Cove but takes us straight to England where Jessica has traveled to visit with good friend of hers – a famous mystery writer. Think Agatha Christie level.

The woman — Marjorie Ainsworth — isn’t in great health, though, and some are speculating she could pass away. That’s not all they’re speculating. She’s just released a new book and some staying at the mansion for the celebration don’t believe she even wrote it because of her declining health. Marjorie Ainsworth

It isn’t her declining health that leads to her death, though. It’s murder. Now Jessica must figure out who among the guests at her mansion killed her while avoiding being blamed herself.

One thing I’ve noticed about these Murder, She Wrote books is they take their time getting to the mystery. This gives the reader time to get to know the characters and really feel like they are invested in the story before the crime occurs. A lot of more modern mysteries rush right into the crime without letting the reader create an attachment to the potential victim and the possible suspects. Some readers like this and some find it boring and tedious. Whether I like it or not depends on what mood I am in. For this book, and the other Murder, She Wrote books I have read, I have not minded.

I like how these books make Jessica even more real than the show – in this one she cries over her friend passing away and when she remembers her late husband. She seems more vulnerable in the books than on the show.

The world of Jessica Fletcher is more in depth and real in the books, in other words, unlike the surface level portrayal from the show. Jessica’s close connection to Dr. Seth Hazlitt is also more pronounced in the books. Though a romance isn’t suggested, it is clear that she and Seth are very close.

This is very clear in this book where Jessica is accused of Marjorie’s murder and Seth hears about it back in Cabot Cove and hops a plane with Sheriff Mort Metzger to bring a bit of Cabot Cove to London.

There are a number of suspects in this one and while the story does drag at times and it gets a bit convoluted at the end, it held my interest and was a solid mystery. I wouldn’t say I would read this one again and again but I enjoyed it as fun, and well-written (prose wise) book.

One thing I find interesting about these books is how well Bain writes a female character. He isn’t perfect at it, but he does write Jessica as someone who is strong and bold, but also connected with her feelings more.

The bottom line on books based on shows is that they are never amazing literature but they are a good escape and some (usually clean) fun. What these books with Donald Bain have going for them is an extra cozy feel and solid writing.

Have you read any of the Murder, She Wrote books? If so, which one? If not, would you ever try one?

Boondock Ramblings

Tag: reading

Sunday Bookends: I think I’ll stop tracking how many books I read and just…gasp! Read!

Book Review and Nancy Drew November: The mystery of the fire dragon

Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Children’s Books I Read After I Was An Adult

Sunday Bookends: Loss and comfort reading, watching

Sunday Bookends: Our son turns 19, injured cat, new mystery book to read

Now It’s Your Turn

A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Bookish Link Up For November

Sunday Bookends: My ebook is free, K-Pop Demon Hunters Sing Along, and classic Pizza Hut

Sunday Bookends: New additions to the TBR

Book recommendation: Murder, She Wrote Gin and Daggers

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