More Book Reviews: Some Mysteries and Some Romances

I've been reading and reading, and have not been posting book by book, as I once did. But I'll catch you up with several mysteries here today. Mea Culpa.

Any Friend of Snowdrop is a short story or novella written by Kathie Freeman and offered free at Amazon for kindle users. Her main characters are a grouchy old man named Edgar and his neighbor's intrusive cat, named Snowdrop. Edgar has a favorite porch chair that he sits in each afternoon, next to his deceased wife's favorite chair, now often invaded by the drat cat. This is a tender love story of friendship, loss and love. I give it 5 stars easily.

Her Handyman, by Morgan Mandel, does not fail to delight readers who have read previous books of Mandel's. A handsome man engaged to his lifelong friend works at helping others solve their problems physically, and sometimes he is able to help improve a person's outlook on life as well. After all, having things fixed by an expert 'Jack of All Trades' would improve anyone's outlook. But when Zoe calls for help, Jake responds and encounters someone like no one he has ever encountered before, and suddenly his lifelong expectation of living life contentedly in a stable marriage to Angelina comes into question. And Zoe, someone who has been hurt by loss and perceived deception, has a lonely existence that Jake wants to help her escape. Angelina, surrounded by a loving, ever-present family, begins to suspect that Jake's work as Zoe's handyman may involve more than just hammers and wrenches. Morgan Mandel once again keeps the reader guessing who will bring Jake forward toward his ultimate goal of helping people as a psychologist until the closing chapter. This is a 5 star romance. To see my other reviews of Morgan Mandel's work, click here  and here and here and here!

Dead and Buried by Karen MacInerny is the second in a series of Gray Whale Inn mysteries, and takes  place in one of my favorite states of mystery: Maine. It also features one of my favorite things: recipes from a bed and breakfast menu. And in addition to the setting and the recipes, MacInerny weaves a complex tale among simple, ordinary people living simple, ordinary lives. Although I hadn't yet read the first book in the series, the characters were easy to get to know. The inclusion of a librarian who values the town's history and a minister whose 'sonorous tones' engages his following easily blends these unusual characters easily into the world of a single woman running her inn capably despite nature's unpredictable weather and a challenging, devious guest's careless water damage. The appearance of her handsome, Texan former fiance contrasts with her budding relationship developing with the  local catch, a fisherman.The descriptions of the cranberry bogs, the pine woods, and the bicycle as mode of transportation are all charming and inviting. When people begin dying, and bodies are found and mourned, the reader is invested in knowing who is responsible and what history has to do with the murders. Another 5 star review, and I look forward to reading more in this series!

This Time Forever by Patricia Paris is a mystery that involves a beautiful young woman, a handsome man, a little boy who has lost his mother to an early death, and has found a new home with the mother's friend. That the handsome man is actually the boy's father adds the first twist to the story. That this father has only recently discovered the boy's existence after searching for years, and that the mother's friend who has taken the boy in is actually the beautiful young woman now involved with the boy's father adds a level of deception and vulnerability to all involved. You'll wonder all the way through the story who will find out what first, and how the truth will change all of their lives. Another five stars for this story.

A Hardboiled Murder, an Annie Underhill Mystery. Michelle Ann Hollstein  writes a story of grandmothers, movie stars, grandsons, a marine, a police officer, an adulterer, a murder victim, an inscribed piece of jewelry, a spurned wife, and a tramride up the side of a mountain during fall foliage season. This is a breathtaking ride that involves a dead body falling from the roof of one of the tram cars. It involves a search on foot through the woods on the side of the mountain, with treacherous cliffs unseen in the dark. It's a story of family devotion, family competitiveness between grandmothers, and a story of a marriage between ages. It's a story of a book group, a callous lover, and an anticipated inheritance. It is quite a cast of characters, each carefully described in the foreword of the book and each well developed through the actions of the story. It is a delight to read, and another five star story.

Photography and Poetry Together

small healthy pond (Photo credit: gval.net)

Sometimes the poem is later captured in art.

I have another poem to share with you. I wrote this one after watching the scenery on my drive to work change dramatically over the course of a decade. Along both sides of the very scenic route 133 I could see wetlands with dead trees growing in and around newly formed ponds.

Where once we'd had vernal pools (spring time water accumulations that fostered tadpoles, salamanders and other amphibious life) we had a new growth of trees that, before reaching full maturity, were literally drowned by the rising waters. What had caused the change in seasonal water levels, I thought? I spoke with others, asking whether they'd noticed the changes in our location. Few had.

 I looked in other locations, farther from my commute, further north in Maine, and later further south, in Connecticut, and Delaware. I didn't see the stark failings of young trees. Our losses troubled me. I continued to wonder, and ask. And what I learned brought me to an understanding.  I posed the issue in a poem.

And then one day, I saw a photograph taken by a young friend -- one that captured my poem perfectly. I'll offer it here:

Picture credit:  Owen Ricker, Georgetown, Massachusetts 2012

 A Standing Death of Nature

by Terry Crawford Palardy

Still pools filled with melted snow 

Spring rains raise the water levels

Changing scenes over seasons.

Once a pretty woodland sight

 Flowering trees, peeping frogs 

Wild rose offering scents at night 

Not this decade, now it's changed

 Bordered by ghostly, bare tree trunks 

A standing death of nature 

Why would trees root in water? 

They grew before the water rose 

 Branches were plenty; their leaves, green.

The pool was a puddle, nothing more 

Home to small polliwogs, peepers, frogs 

This space offered dampness to keep nature fed.

What happened, then? Why is it changed? 

Why did the water rise so high? 

They say the beavers built a dam.

The vernal pool became a pond 

A body of water that stays the year long

 A new world with new life and more.

The roots of trees then drowned in time 

There would be no leaves come the spring 

No bark would shield the tree in summer's heat.

Man views the naked sun-bleached trunks

 Reflecting in the pond:
 a standing death of nature,
 

Caused by nature,
 mourned by man.

This poem is found in Poetry to Share vol. 1, which is still offered at Beyond Old Windows webstore for 50% off, with a personalized autograph included. I'll give you another poem and art link, from Poetry to Share Vol. II, later this week!

Both volumes are currently on sale at Beyond Old Windows webstore. Both will be autographed and mailed out quicker than Online Stores can do. Shipping is less expensive as well. Paypal will accept your credit card. If you prefer to mail by check, email me for details at needlesandpens@comcast.net.

Related articles

• Pond Life (thegardensmallholder.wordpress.com)
• Vernal pools alive! (sacbee.com)

Rambling Thoughts and Loose Threads

It's time to catch up with you again. April was an extraordinarily busy month for Rick and me, and I want to share some of the highlights with all of you.

Early in the month, I went up to Maine to be a full time Nana, staying with my two grandchildren while their mum, my daughter, took a well earned vacation.  Rick decided to stay here at home, but did Skype with me every morning and evening, which helped minimize the gap we'd feel apart from each other. Inevitably, he'd call when I was preparing a meal or a snack, breakfast, supper, or brownies. That is fairly unusual for me - cooking is something I stopped doing almost five years ago, when my menu and his became different from each other's. I was still teaching full time then, and bringing home the unending bag full of correcting and grading to do, and so he began cooking two meals each night. He never complained, and found ways to make our meals compatible. Whole grain spaghetti with tomato sauce for me, and regular pasta with meat sauce for him ... but brownies for both of us!

In Maine, having begun to feel more like my real self months earlier, I found myself up early in the morning to wake the kids for school ... making simple items on school days and French toast on a weekend morning. Suppers were easy, as my daughter had prepared and frozen some favorite meals, and all I had to do was heat things in the oven. It was a turning point for me ... a time when I became responsible again for others' foods, laundry, and transportation. And yes, I drove my daughter's cute little five speed manual transmission Chevy - fifteen years since I'd driven a standard! But like riding a bike, we never forget, and I only stalled twice when I forgot to clutch as I stopped at an intersection. Not bad for a Nana out of practice.

Upon returning home, I then had a two hour radio broadcast book discussion arranged by my friends at MSStation.org. But Murphy, who often plagues my daughter in Maine, apparently followed me home and exerted his Law on my evening. Both portable phones downstairs suddenly were inoperative fifteen minutes before the telephone conference was to begin. Not panicking, I calmly went upstairs with my laptop, and plugged it in there, and brought my pot of tea and cup and found a space on my bureau top for them. But the upstairs phone also had a tired battery, and began beeping for help. My husband interceded then, and said that we could go into my son's study and use his phone, which was a land line complete with cord-attached receiver. I resettled into his office chair, laptop now on my knees (thank goodness we'd bought a fan-cooled lap desk that plugs right into the computer's USB port. A very good $15.00 Clearance Deal!)  Rick brought me a single cup of tea, for there was no room for the tea pot and cozy, and with a minute to spare I was ready for the conversation. Phew! (And, if you missed the broadcast but want to listen to the recorded book discussion, look to the right margin of this blog, and find the BlogTalk radio icon. My 'show' is the third one in the list. It really did take the full two hours, so settle yourself in with a cup of tea!)

A few days later we drove down to Washington D.C. We'd planned to make that trip over two days' time, stopping somewhere along the way, but traffic was cooperating and we were looking forward to spending some time in the city, seeing the monuments, before checking into the National Institute of Health for the Parkinson's Risk Study that I participate in every eighteen months. So we made the full drive in one twelve-hour day, and checked into the hotel just before bedtime. Up early the next morning, we shared the continental breakfast in the tiny dining area before walking to the nearest metro station and figuring out the ticket dispensers. In the city, we walked for hours and hours, seeing many of the veterans monuments, and one Smithsonian, and the Roosevelt and Jefferson Memorials as well. We ate lunch and afternoon snacks at outside tables as the weather was perfect ... high sixties with a bit of partly cloudy shade and a light breeze. We took the metro back to Bethesda, and on our walk to the hotel, we came across a French cafe, where we had delicious French food and fresh fruits for supper. We slept in the next morning, worn out from all our walking. Just before noon, we rose, packed up, and headed over to NIH, just a few miles from the hotel. We checked Rick into the family lodge, and me into the neurology inpatient room, and began our week there.

Five days later, many tests later, a few outdoor walks together between tests, and another packing, we set out for home. We left Bethesda after eating lunch one more time in the hospital cafeteria, and again planned to stop along the way rather than driving straight through, But as luck would have it, we were not in sync with any city rush hours, and as we were (were!) making good time, we continued on to the Massachusetts border stopping only for a quick supper. We would be home by eleven, we thought.

The Mass Pike was repaving, and had an odd traffic snarl of scores of eighteen-wheel tractor trailer trucks at the toll gates.  The multi-lane highway comfortably had approached six open toll gates, only to find that immediately after passing through those gates, the highway was reduced to one lane, and no one seemed quite sure of which lane that would be. Arrows to go left, more arrows to go right, and all six lanes merged into one center lane within a quarter mile of those gates. We lost at least an hour there, and weren't home until 1 in the morning. Finding a bathroom between eleven and one was tricky, but we did finally find one near midnight.  Again, Phew!

We slept in the next morning, and awoke to find we were already five days into May. The bills were due May 1st, (while we were still in Bethesda) and the pension for the month necessary to pay those bills had arrived in the bank account while we were away, and so we sat at the table late that morning and wrote checks and sealed envelopes. A few were late but forgiven, except for the car insurance, which immediately earned us a cancellation notice a few days later. I called our agent here in town, and told him the payment and notice crossed in the mail, and that we did the best we could, being away at the first of the month. He checked with the insurance agency, saw that they had received the payment and rescinded the cancellation notice, and we breathed a sigh of relief.

Today I had two doctor appointments locally, and scheduled a third with a new doctor (dermatologist) in Brighton for later this month; then I asked  a fourth doctor's office to schedule my once a year osteoporosis infusion in the next few weeks, as planned. So we are back on the local circuit now, but had a great time in Maryland, and will go again in eighteen months.

Meanwhile, it's almost summer! Wow, what a quick season Spring was!

Before I go, I'd be remiss if I didn't tell you about the Mother's Day special offer for my book, Multiple Sclerosis an Enigma. I have created a new coupon code at Smashwords: for just under $5.00 you can purchase the download in any format: kindle, mobi, nook, sony, and many others. Just enter the discount code LY67U at this site: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/152332 .

And please, if you have already read the book, let me know what you thought of it by writing a review here or at Amazon or Facebook or in email ... I would love to know what you thought! Perhaps you could share this site with your friends so that they can catch this discount before it expires on June 9th?

Happy Mothers' Day, all!