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Threads is my introduction to Charlotte Whitney and I have discovered a talented writer. Threads follows the lives of three sisters growing up on a hardscrabble farm during the depression, and the story alternates among their points of view. Nellie is the youngest and in second grade, and she has the most pronounced mid-Michigan farm dialect. Irene is in sixth grade and a definite middle child. She and Nellie attend a one room school. The oldest sister, Flora, is in high school. Nellie is a real tomboy with a vivid imagination. One afternoon, while she explores the meadows and woods surrounding the farm, she spots a tiny black hand poking out of a mound. Nellie is terrified and listening to her parents talking that night – she can hear them if she puts her ear to the heat register in the floor of her bedroom – she learns it was a baby boy. The sheriff had been called but no one had any idea about whose baby it was. Her parents worry they will be blamed. Irene is sassy, intelligent, and has become the pet of the school’s teacher Miss Flatshaw. She thinks Nellie is stupid. Flora is on the cusp of adulthood. She is a caring and perceptive young woman who has considerable responsibility in the work of the farm and realizes that her life will be one of a farmer’s wife, despite her desire for a career. The three girls’ personalities are wonderfully wrought – you can hear their voices in your head. You live with them over the next years, through all the details of running a farm, struggling to put enough food on the table to feed everyone, the penny-pinching and making-do, the sharing of whatever they have with those more in need, and the whims of the weather on which their livelihood depends. The descriptions take the reader into life on a farm, into a loving but stressed family, and through all of life’s transitions: from one grade to another, graduation, first love, surprising traumas. Woven in is the continuing mystery of the dead baby’s origins. I particularly liked the last chapter, which presents us with the girls as adults with lives of their own. I highly recommend this book. It was a joy to read. The author’s knowledge of, and passion for, this era shines through. About the author: Charlotte Whitney grew up in Michigan and spent much of her career at the University of Michigan directing internship and living-learning programs. She started out writing non-fiction while at the University and switched to romance with I Dream in White. A passion for history inspired her to write Threads. She lives in Arizona, where she loves hiking, bicycling, swimming, and practicing yoga. You can find her On her blog: https://charlottewhitney.com/books On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CWhitneyAuthor/ On Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/cwhitney2171/ On Twitter: @CWhitneyAuthor Threads can be found on Amazon: 0 0

In my last blog I showed you a spinners or knitters weasel. It is a mechanical yarn-measuring device consisting of a spoked wheel with bobbins at the end of each spoke, around with the yarn winds. The spokes are attached to a something that looks like a clock with an internal mechanism the makes a ‘pop’ sound when the desired length of yarn has been wound – usually a skein. According to Wikipedia, the weasel’s gear ratio is usually 40 to 1, and the circumference of the reel is usually two yards, thus producing an 80-yard skein when the weasel pops (after 40 revolutions). Some of the early weasels were made without the gear mechanism. They perform the same function, but without the pop to aid the spinner in keeping track of the length of thread or yarn produced. The mechanism making the pop sound on the spinners weasel is the possible source for  the nursery rhyme Pop Goes the Weasel. All I know is that the crank-handled jack-in-the-box my son had as a toy when he was little scared the whey out of him the first time we cranked it up and the clown popped out. I am not a fan of clowns – I am a coulrophobic, but these figures in the Jack-in-the-boxes aren’t really clowns but something called augustes. Clowns have white-face make-up and usually wear pointed hats and ruffled collars. Augustes are the red-nosed guys with oversized trousers and squirty flowers in their buttonholes. So I know why I liked my very first real ‘clown,’ Emmett Kelly, who was an auguste. From Clownpedia/Fandom. Emmet Kelly, an auguste, with a clown on either side Emmett Kelly was a world-famous American circus performer, who created the clown figure ‘Weary Willie’, based on the hobos of the Great Depression in the 1930s. Kelly’s creation of Weary Willie revolutionized professional clowning and made him the country’s most familiar clown. I first saw him in the Ringling Brothers circus. ‘Jack in the box’ got its name from the name given to a swindler who cheated tradesmen by substituting empty boxes for the full ones that were expected. Such a ‘Jack’ is found in James Cranstoun’s reprinting of Satirical Poems of the time of the Reformation. ‘Jack in the box’ was also the name given to a type of firework and this is found in John Babington’s Pyrotechnia, 1635. So old Jack is an auguste, a swindler, or a firecracker! 0 0

I was first introduced to Tony Riches historical novels when I read the books in his Tudor Trilogy, about the founding and growth of the Tudor family. The history is compelling. For Mary – Tudor Princess, and this book, Katherine – Tudor Duchess, the reader experiences the Tudor family from a woman’s point of view. The author hasn’t lost a step in the transition. Katherine Willoughby was born at Parham Hall in Suffolk in 1519, daughter of the 11th Baron of Willoughby and his second wife, Maria de Salina, who had come to England as a lady-in- waiting to Katherine of Aragon. With her father’s death, Katherine inherited the barony. Her wardship fell to King Henry VII, who sold it to Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk, his brother-in-law. Her story begins as she is about to leave to join the Duke’s household. Her mother, who will continue in her service to Queen Katherine, sees her daughter as a good match for Henry Brandon, the Duke’s five-year-old son who is in the line of succession to the throne. Katherine is not so sure. After traveling to the impressive Westhorpe Manor, Katherine becomes a part of the Brandon family, joining Henry and his two sisters, who are close in age to Katherine. She immediately is drawn to the beautiful, clever and elegant Lady Mary, wife of the Duke and sister to the King. (See Mary – Tudor Princess). When Katherine meets the Duke, she is immediately drawn to this rich and powerful man. When Princess Mary dies after a lingering illness, Katherine mourns her deeply and is surprised when the Duke proposes to marry her. She is but fourteen and he is forty-nine. Beating the odds, theirs is a long and successful marriage, weathering the vicissitudes of the King’s many marriages and the reigns of Henry’s children. Katherine’s quick wit, devotion to learning and outspoken advocacy for the English reformation help her navigate the politics of the time. Through Katherine’s eyes, you meet the famous women of Henry’s court: Anne Boleyn, Katherine Seymour, Catherine Parr. You suffer with the deaths of her children and experience terror when Katherine’s faith puts her and her entire family in danger. As impressed as I was by the story of Princess Mary, Katherine’s life left an even more indelible vision of an indomitable woman who not only survived a tumultuous time, but thrived. As always, the author’s attention to detail and depth of knowledge of the intrigue of the English court is superb. I highly recommend yet another well-written and richly ornamented book by Tony Riches. About the author Tony Riches was born in Pembrokeshire, West Wales, and spent part of his childhood in Kenya. He gained a BA degree in Psychology and an MBA from Cardiff University and worked as a Management Consultant, followed by senior roles in the Welsh NHS and Local Government. After writing several successful non-fiction books, Tony decided to turn to novel writing. His real interest is in the history of the fifteenth century, and now his focus is on writing historical fiction about the lives of key figures of the period. His novels Warwick, The Man Behind the Wars of the Roses and The Secret Diary of Eleanor Cobham have both become Amazon best sellers. Today Tony has returned to Pembrokeshire, an area full of inspiration for his writing, where he lives with his wife. In his spare time he enjoys sailing and sea kayaking. Visit Tony online at www.tonyriches.co.uk, Tony Riches Author on Facebook and follow him on Twitter @tonyriches. You can find Katherine – Tudor Duchess at Amazon Books: 0 0

Anxiety is building. My new book, The Last Pilgrim, is scheduled for release on June 1. The final version of the PDF has been uploaded and we are just waiting on the person creating the book jacket to do his thing. The artist who painted the cover for me had it framed, and it’s now on my wall! Here are some of the line drawings, done by moi, for the book. Do you know what they are (except for the house)? Give me some guesses if you don’t know… When the time comes, I’d love some help disseminating the news, if you are so inclined! Nervously yours, The author 0 0

I am always eager to read any of the books in the two Georgian mystery series by William Savage: The Adam Bascom series and the Ashmole Fox series. This new one did not disappoint. Adam Bascom is born the younger of two sons of a country squire, and, unable to inherit, he pursues a career in medicine and sets up practice in the small town of Aylsham, not far from Norwich. In the previous books in the series, he discovers he has a talent for solving mysteries along with practicing medicine. In this outing, Dr. Bascom has made a love match in his marriage to a young and wealthy widow and has inherited, as her husband, a baronetcy, along with a large agricultural estate and a considerable amount of money. Part of the story is his struggle to adapt to his new circumstances. He has no experience managing an estate, must adjust to being local royalty rather than a lower class country doctor, and has had to give up his medical practice to his former partner. These personal problems are never far from the new investigative case in which he becomes embroiled. The son of a local landowner is found dead on the lonely country road leading to his father’s estate. He has been pierced through from back to front by a sharp implement wielded with some force. He was then either pulled or fell from his horse and the killer left him tidily arranged by the side of the road, face up. The father of the victim wants now Sir Adam to find the killer. The victim, one Fredrick Dalston, is an odious and profligate young man who gambles and involves himself with women of all kinds. As the oldest son, he is bleeding his father’s estate dry by requiring money to pay off his gambling and other debts. The father is loving but ineffectual and cannot refuse his son anything. Frederick was on the way home to demand even more money, enough that would bankrupt the estate. Unlike some of the previous Bascom mysteries, this book starts off quickly, following upon Sir Adam’s return from his honeymoon and his recognition that he is bored with his new social condition. With the encouragement of his very intelligent wife, Lady Alice, Sir Adam leaps at the chance to investigate. The heinous nature of Frederick Dalston and the many different dark alleys from which the murderer may have come are perplexing and seemingly disparate.  The author leads the reader on a merry chase down many of these paths and had me convinced, like Sir Adam, that this one…no, the next one…no, another one… was the solution.  I love to try to figure out these who dun its and finally figured out the answer at about the same time Sir Adam did. As with all his books, the author does a spectacular job with the historical background, social issues, and crimes of the time. He has created memorable characters in Lady Alice, Peter Lassimer – Sir Adam’s best friend and an apothecary, Sir Adam’s mother and the various members of Lady Alice’s family. The pace of all of William Savages book is deliberately slow, as befits the time. This is no investigation by Kathy Reichs or Michael Connelly – after all, it is set in a time when life moved at a careful and enjoyable pace without electronics, phones or cars. The reader must sink into it and enjoy the social interactions that lead Bascom in his thinking. In this book, I also found the descriptions of the countryside were a source of great pleasure. I highly recommend this book and encourage readers to dip into the others in this series and the Ashmole Fox series. Every book is a stand-alone, although the characters progress in their lives during each series. Awaiting the next book and hoping that Sir Adam finds a way to worm back into his medical practice – a great source of characters, gossip and medical history. About the author: William Savage grew up in Hereford, on the border with Wales and took his degree at Cambridge. After a working life largely spent teaching and coaching managers and leaders in Britain, Europe and the USA, he retired to Norfolk, where he volunteers at a National Trust property and started to write fiction as a way of keeping his mind active in retirement. He had read and enjoyed hundreds of detective stories and mystery novels and another of his loves was history, so it seemed natural to put the two together and try his hand at producing an historical mystery. To date, he has focused on two series of murder-mystery books, both set in Norfolk between 1760 and around 1800; a period of turmoil in Britain, with constant wars, the revolutions in America and France and finally the titanic, 22-year struggle with France and Napoleon. Norfolk is not only an inherently interesting county, it happens to be where the author lives, which makes the necessary research far easier. The Georgian period seemed natural choice for him as well, since he lives in a small Georgian town, close by several other towns that still bear the imprint of the eighteenth century on many of their streets and grander buildings. It also had the attraction of being a period he had never studied intensively, and so far he has not regretted his choice. You can find The Reluctant Heir on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Reluctant-Heir-Adam-Bascom-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B086K3N3YZ/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=The+Reluctant+Heir&qid=1587222200&s=books&sr=1-2 William Savage’s blog is Pen and Pension:  http://penandpension.com I highly recommend his blog for his fascinating posts on all aspects of life in Georgian England. You can also find him On Twitter: @penandpension And on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100009908836774 0 0

Writers are probably not finding this shut down, sheltering in place, forced to stay home – whatever you want to call it – tremendously difficult. Except for maybe getting exercise. I think I might end up putting on the Covid 15..or 50.         Anyway, I thought about it and then had an idea. Since we can’t market our books except on line, why don’t we help each other by posting a review of a blogging buddy’s book once a week? That might drive sales and spread the word. Whaddaya think?     In the meantime, here’s something to brighten your day. 0 0

 I wrote an A-z series on Renaissance artists a while back, and thought perhaps you could enjoy a little beauty to brighten your days keeping in place and social distancing! So here’s Raphael!  Let me know if you like this, and I can post more art! Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, or Raphael (1483 –1520 was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance.  With Michaelangelo and Leonardo da Vince, he forms the traditional trinity of the greatest artists of that period.  His artistic contribution is the clarity of his painting and the ease of composition, with a visual ideal of humanity.  Vasari, in his Lives of the Painters, called him the ‘Prince of Painters.” Urbino, at the time of Raphael’s birth, was a cultural center for the Arts. Raphael’s father, Giovanni Santi, was a painter for the Duke of Urbino and taught the young Raphael basic painting techniques. Because of this, he was able to experience the intellectual life of the court and the principles of humanistic philosophy. Giovanni died suddenly when Raphael was eleven, and his son took over the task of managing his father’s workshop. He became Urbino’s leading painter at age twelve and quickly surpassed his father. In 1500, the master painter Perugino invited Raphael to become his apprentice in Perugia, where where he was working on frescoes at the Collegio del Cambia. During the next four year, Raphael gained knowledge and hands-on experience, as well as developing his own unique style.  The Three Graces (circa 1503) and The Knight’s Dream (1504) date from this time. By the time he was 21, Raphael had moved to Florence, where he was exposed to, and influenced by, the work of Michelangelo and Da Vinci.  Studying the details of their work, Raphael began to develop an even more intricate and expressive personal style.  From 1504 through 1507, Raphael painted a series of Madonnas, evocative of da Vince, culminating in 1507 with La Belle Jardine. That same year, he created his most ambitious work in Florence, the Entombment, evocative of the ideas of Michaelangelo. Raphael moved to Rome in 1508, and his last twelve years were both hectic and triumphant, working for two Popes and their associates.  He became an enormously productive painter, running a large workshop. The four Raphael Rooms in the papal apartments of the Vatican Palace are famous for their grand fresco sequence, painted by Raphael and his workshop. Note the excellent use of perspective, taught to Raphael by his father, who studied the work of Mantagna.  Raphael painted an additional fresco cycle for the Vatican, but those in the Raphael Rooms are considered the best. This is my favorite: He also produced another successful series of  Madonna paintings,  the famed Madonna of the Chair and one of my favorites, the Madonna with the Goldfinch. By the time Raphael was working on his largest painting on canvas, The Transfiguration, he had begun to work on architecture.  The pope hired Raphael as his chief architect in 1515. With this commission, he designed Rome’s Santa Maria del Popolo Chapel, various other chapels within Saint Peter’s new basilica and also palaces, incorporating ornamental details that would define the architecture of the  late Renaissance and early Baroque periods. Raphael died suddenly on his 37th birthday.  His funeral Mass was held at the Vatican and his body interred at the Pantheon. Despite his early death, Raphael left a large body of work . Michelangelo’s influence overshadowed his until the 18th and 19th centuries, when Raphael’s more serene and harmonious qualities again led him to be regarded as the leading artistic figure of Italian   High Renaissance classicism. 0 0

I purchased the book for review as a member of Rosie Amber’s book review team. This book covers multiple generations of the titled Scawton family of England. The center of the story is the current Lady Scawton, Pamela, who discovers the body of a stranger in the woods near the family home of Ashly House. Pamela represents perhaps the last generation of the English upper class raised to be waited on and respected for their title alone, but she is, in fact, rather down to earth. She endured years of emotional and psychological trauma at the hands of her husband, CJ, and her only son, Charles, now Lord Scawton, is as selfish and overbearing as her husband. In the pocket of the stranger is a letter addressed to Lord Scawton and an odd stone, one which changes color from green to pink, depending on the light. Pamela has no idea why the stranger, who had come to England from New Zealand, wanted to see her husband, what the abbreviated letter means, nor the reason for the stone. Eventually, she, against the strong wishes of her son, she travels to New Zealand to get answers. The stone, an alexandrite, mined in Tsarist Russia, gives its name to the book. The book has numerous flashbacks to scenes involving the family and their servants during the two decades after WWar I, and from Ashly House to New Zealand farmland. Pamela’s trip reveals how the flashbacks to events after WW I are woven into the present. I enjoyed the book, but for me it was a long read, with a great deal of exposition and some confusion with the many characters in the various time lines and places and multiple points of view. A character list at the beginning of the book would have been helpful. The site transitions within chapters also created some difficulties for me as I struggled to identify and remember the characters. That being said, the author does a wonderful job creating the main characters. I felt pity for Pamela having such a difficult married life, knowing she was trapped there, and having a son who treated her disrespectfully. She is such a good character that I wanted to shake her and tell her to stand up for herself. It was gratifying that eventually she did. Her son Charles; the butler Godfrey; Ginny, the daughter of Pamela’s friend Di Williams; and Theodore Cook, the brother of the dead man and a shambling old wreck in and out of his memories, made strong impressions. I also liked the scenes set in New Zealand, where the author resides, especially the sheep shearing and Karekare Beach. Another strong element for me was the description of the different roles of women set against the British class system, class conflicts and changing societal values. This book had much to recommend it, but the numerous characters and their relationships are  difficult to sort out through the various stories winding within the book. About the author Born in England, Dione Jones has been a New Zealand resident for years. Married to Chris and with two adult children, she lives on a small farm in South Auckland. She has had varied pursuits: at one stage she flew and helped sell aeroplanes and at another ran a laboratory in an abattoir. Her interest now encompasses her family and grandchildren, dogs, horses and polo, the business world, the environment we live in, historical changes in society – and of course good books.  Writing is a long held passion and she is now a Master of Creative Writing. You can find Dione Jones On Twitter @DioneJonesAuthor And on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DioneJonesAuthor/ The Alexandrite can be purchased on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Alexandrite-Dione-Jones/dp/B07YQGP79R/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Dione+Jones&qid=1584200601&s=books&sr=1-1 0 0

It’s lovely to meet them, and I hope they’ll stop back for a visit from time to time. Eamon at https://artofneed.com has a book out: Divide the Dawn for those of you enthralled by the living dead! Alison Little at https://alisonlittleblog.wordpress.com writes about women’s issues and showcases her art – painting of sculptural forms which represent areas of urban residence. Very lovely! Michael Frank at https://peachfuzzcritic.com. Michael is a 20-something who blogs about movies. https://modelelenamollymurgu.home is the blog of very beautiful model Elena Molly Murgu, who models for high end magazines such as Vogue. Her blog is about fashion news and trends, designers, models, style and the business of fashion. Any fashionista out there will love her blog. Divya Srivastava at https://exploringmelife.wordpress.com. Her blog is an advice column and she has a ton of followers. Tanner Shurtliff at https://tfam13.com. Tanner is writing a sci fi series on his blog called The Pale Chronicles.  Sci fi fans out there will like this. Lance at https://beyondthecryptsandcastles.wordpress.com is writing a four book series called Beyond the Crypts and Castles, a working title, set on the fictional continents of The New World and The Old World. The books are in the genre of Game of Thrones, and he’s publishing chapters for comments and advice from readers. Sandeep Dhawan at https://insightful.co.in  who blogs about geopolitics. Great topic! Viktor Shklvtch from the Ukraine at https://id9272288zfvdgk.home.blog/ https://pickvitaminhome.wordpress.com/  a blog about the uses and benefits of vitamins Capitan Quiros at https://capitanquiros.com He blogs in Spanish, so I can partially understand. He is a writer, student teacher, and a blogger. Captain Quirós raises a series of reflections and tips for a change of real life and personal transformation. He is currently working on his first book Mom the Book Thief at https://thebookthiefsblog.wordpress.com, age twenty four with a full time job, a boyfriend, two lovely dogs, two sometimes lovely siblings (of the moody teenager variety) and an obsession with books. Her blog center around all things books. KC Avalon at https://kcavalon.com/ author of Three in the Key, a suspense novel with romance! hellyton – no info, just a gravatar 0 0

As a run-up to the publication of The Last Pilgrim, I am re-posting blog pieces I wrote earlier about the Separatists. Remember, they were not called ‘Pilgrims’ until named that by William Bradford toward the middle of the 17th century. When the Separatists finally settled on what is now Plymouth to be their home, their food supplies were spoiled and running low. They had long before run out of fresh water, which they were able to renew from springs they discovered in their explorations of Cape Cod. One of the things this site offered was a brook with good water, which teemed with spawning fish once a year. The was no livestock on the Mayflower. The only animals mentioned in any historical reports are two dogs, an English mastiff and an English spaniel. However, they must have brought some chickens because chickens wandered freely in the early village and were fed worms because grain was in short supply. Here were possibly some goats and pigs. By 1623, a visitor to the colony reported there were six goats, fifty pigs and many chickens. The Fortune was the second ship to reach the Plymouth Colony, but other than the passenger manifest, I’ve been unable to find any mention of animals aboard. The first cows arrived on the ship Anne in 1623, and they were nicknamed the ‘Great Black Cow,’ the ‘Lesser Black Cow,’ and the ‘Great White-Backed Cow.’ By 1627, two of them had had calves.  Onboard the Jacob in 1624 were four black heifers. By May 1627, there were 16 head of cattle and at least 22 goats living in the colony. So the Pilgrims initially had a source of eggs, possibly some pork (after the pigs had offspring) and maybe a bit of goat’s milk; however, they had no butter, milk, cheese or cream. I’ve found no mention of goat cheese. They had no flour, except for what they brought with them, and that would undoubtedly have been moldy after so long in the Mayflower’s lowest deck. After the first year’s corn harvest, they had corn flour for making bread. They did plant barley (for beer) and peas in the spring of 1621, but the plants did poorly, possibly because, unlike the corn, they lacked fertilizer. The Pilgrims were taught how to grow corn by the Wampanoags, specifically Squanto – two fish were planted with a few corn kernels, and squash was planted around the corn stalks and twined around them as the corn grew, providing the corn with shade from the sun. The Indians also taught them how to fish and hunt. Remember that the Pilgrims were not farmers but craftsmen and tradesmen, used to purchasing their food, and they knew little of survival skills. How amazing is it then, that they survived? In his journal for the year 1622, William Bradford, the second governor of the Plymouth colony, recorded the landing of new colonists from England. Bradford confessed that he and his fellow colonists were humiliated because with their limited food resources, that they had little  better to offer the newcomers than lobster.                                                              from www.Plimoth.org One thing I’ve found is that Plymouth Harbor teemed with fish of all sorts, and the nearby streams had eels. In fact, I used to play in one of them (aptly named Eel River) when I was a child. There were abundant wild turkeys, swans, geese and ducks, and deer and rabbits in the forests. Plus there were mussels, clams and lobsters – the latter so common that they could be plucked by the bushel from the nearest tidal pool. In considering what the Pilgrims ate, you must consider what was normal for the time: beer, bread, meat and cheese. English settlers looked on seafood – except for oysters and eels – with scorn.  The Pilgrims wanted meat, not anything from the sea. They weren’t trained as fisherman and had brought the wrong size fish hooks. They had to fashion some when it was clear they would need fish to fertilize their corn and feed their pigs.                                                              Myles standish’s cooking pot With regard to drink, beer was the preferred drink for the whole family, even children. It is possible, from some of what I’ve read, that a few families in Plymouth brewed a small amount of beer from corn in the first years. Most had to drink water, which at that time was considered unhealthy! Eventually the colonists realized their children remained healthy, despite drinking water instead of beer. Cow’s milk was not considered good to drink either, and when it was eventually available it was usually made into butter or cheese, or cooked with grain to make porridges. From all this, it is clear that one of the Plymouth colonists’ main goal was to get food on their tables, in order to survive. Most of the work that they did — hunting, fishing, farming, gardening, cooking, and taking care of their animals — had to do with getting and preserving food, enough for the whole year. The women had brought a few spices with them, and they grew onions, garlic, lettuces, carrots, parsnips, squash and pumpkins during their first year in the New World. But imagine a diet without dairy products, flour, sugar, oil, vinegar, wine and barley for beer. While these staples eventually arrived yearly on ships from England, the Pilgrims’ first two years were hard! And yet, after the first winter, they were a hale and hearty population – perhaps because of a healthy diet? 0 1