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 I loved this book, the first in the Hode’s Hill series by Mae Claire. It had all the things that make for a good mystery – a historical basis, an unknown murderous entity, a psychic, a touch of paranormal, a growing romantic relationship and great story telling. What’s not to like? It was a perfect summer beach read, only I read it on a boat circumnavigating Iceland… The story opens in 1900 with a dead-of-rainy-night visit by society woman Charlette Hode to a renowned spiritualist, Lucinda Glass, on whom she has come to depend.  She’s been warned that the Fiend – a killer with seemingly supernatural abilities to kill and disappear – may be about, but she pays no mind… In the present day, Maya Sinclair, recently recovered from a car accident during which she was dead for two minutes, settles in to an old house in Hode’s Hill, Pennsylvania. She soon discovers the house was once owned by the renowned psychic Lucinda Glass, who was called the Blue Lady because of her blue-hued skin and who was killed by the Fiend. When sightings of a strange creature occur at the time of the annual ‘Fiend Fest’ and Maya begins to experience strange happenings in her house, she can’t help but try to learn more of the history of Hode’s Hill and the Blue Lady. She soon meets the son of the current Hode patriarch, who believes her account of the mysterious events in her house, and she also learns of a secret research facility located outside the town. I won’t say more because I want to leave other readers to the delight and chills of the story. Who was the Fiend? Has it returned to life or is it a more modern version of the legend? Mae Claire has crafted a gem of a creepy thriller about supernatural occurrences and a centuries-old monster. She creates the perfect turn-of- the- century ambience, and I liked the alternating point of view from the 20th century Lucinda Glass and the modern-day Maya. The author clearly researched spiritualists, who were so popular in Lucinda’s time, which lends authenticity top that aspect of the book. The tale, while chilling, is not gorey. There is no lurid blood-letting, and Maya and her friend Ivy are authentic characters. The author lays out the clues to the mystery in an agonizing precision – so I had to read faster – and I loved the way the twists and turns in the story came together at the end. A perfect paranormal cozy! I’m anxious to read the next in the Hode’s Hill series. About the author A member of the Mystery Writers of America and International Thriller Writers, Mae loves creating character driven fiction in settings that weave contemporary elements of mystery and suspense with urban legend and folklore. Married to her high school sweetheart, she lives in Pennsylvania, and is passionate about writing, old photographs, a good Maine lobster tail and cats.  You can find her On twitter: @maeclaire1 On the internet at: https://maeclair.net/ And on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maeclairauthor/ Cusp of Night is available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Cusp-Night-Mae-Clair/dp/1516107306                     0 0

This novel is set in the late eighth century and the queen of the title is Fastrada, the fourth wife of Charles, King of the Franks, also known as Charlemagne. This is a challenging era about which to write, given the constant upheavals and realignments in Europe amongst the various warring factions. King Charles the Great, or Charlemagne, became king of the Franks and made it his mission to unite all Germanic peoples into one kingdom and convert his subjects to Christianity. A skilled military strategist, he spent much of his reign engaged in warfare to accomplish his goals. In 800, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne emperor of the Romans. Charles had many wives and children. The reader is fortunate because the author has named the four wives, a forceful concubine, and the children, along with other major characters, both real and fictitious. Fastrada comes from lands east of the Rhine and is relatively uneducated when she arrives in Charles’ court. This puts her at a distinct disadvantage in serving as an advisor to Charles as well as mother to his children – the older three of which are well-read and educated in Latin, Greek, and other languages. Charles divorced his first wife, Himiltrude, who is now the abbess of a nunnery. Their son Pepin, his oldest, has profound antipathy to Fastrada and a major theme of the story is Pepin’s scheming to rid the court of her presence. His hatred is stoked by the preference of his father for his second son, Karl. Pepin is deformed with a crooked back, thought to be the result of his mother’s sin, and thus can’t be Charles’ heir. He is not allowed to carry a sword or fight and has been told he will take orders and inherit a bishopric, a fate he rails against. Fastrada also has to guard her tongue and her dignity in the presence of Kunigunde, Charles’ favorite concubine, who is heavy with child and living at court. The author does an excellent job in describing life in the eighth century court: food, clothes, social customs, and the profound religiosity of the king and his family. The reader can easily see the surroundings and feel part of this history. The metamorphosis of the naïve Fastrada to an educated woman and a crafty political advisor to her husband makes for a wonderful story. She becomes much more than Charles’ lover, but an intelligent, caring and formidable force. I am impressed that the author, knowing of Fastrada’s long bout with an illness that left her physically weak after the birth of her second child, portrayed her as suffering from anemia. Court life, with its politics, scheming, and back-stabbing are excellently described. There were a few negatives. Missing is some indication of positive things Charles did during his reign and of which Fastrada must have been aware, if not involved in. His impressive construction projects are mentioned, but there is also his wide support of education, scholarship, literature and art and the development of a common currency. The emphasis of the book is on the many battles he waged to unite the country, and although the brutality and bloodiness of warfare at the time are well wrought, I did become confused with the various warring factions. A minor point: there are nagging repetitions of Pepin’s scowling, which seemed to be his only expression, and the references to the rushes on the floor and the herbs scattered with them. All in all, this is a very satisfying historical read, and I plan to read the author’s other books, which should give a strong indication that I liked this one! About the author (from Amazon): If it weren’t for feminism, Kim Rendfeld would be one of those junior high English teachers scaring the bejesus out of her students, correcting grammar to the point of obnoxiousness. Instead, her career has been in journalism, public relations, and fiction. Kim grew up in New Jersey and attended Indiana University, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and English, with a minor in French. She was a journalist for about 17 years at Indiana newspapers, including the Journal and Courier in Lafayette, The Muncie Star, and The News and Sun in Dunkirk, and won several awards from the Hoosier State Press Association. Her career changed in 2007, when she joined the marketing and communications team at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, and she is proud to have been part of projects that have received national recognition. Kim, a member of the Historical Novel Society, lives in Indiana with her husband and their spoiled cats. The couple has a daughter and four grandchildren. You can find the author at kimrendfeld.com On twitter: @kimrendfeld And on Facebook: facebook.com/authorkimrendfeld Her blog is: kimrendfeld.wordpress.com You can find Queen of the Darkest Hours on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07CZ65PB7/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0 0 0

Well, it’s my birthday and I am spending it doing what I like to do: research for The Last Pilgrim.  I don’t feel any older but do hope I can finish this book before I shuffle off… However, there are there are nagging details I can’t pin down. For example: Did the Pilgrims have pipes and smoke tobacco? The Virginia colony was harvesting tobacco by then. Did Pilgrim women cut their hair upon marriage? What were the practices for birthing? I found a book by a 17th century midwife for this one. Aside from the lack of sterile practice, things haven’t seem to change much. Where were the bull and heifers kept? Three heifers and a bull arrived in 1623. When did the colony have its first milk? How was it apportioned? Who cared for the cows? Were they affectionate in public – hugging for example? Did the shake hands? Would they have called their friends by their first names? Luckily, I have found someone at the Pilgrim Museum in Plymouth who said she would find me people to answer these questions, but I can see a visit to Plymouth to rummage around and make contacts is in my future (not that I would object.) Nevertheless, I find myself doing research on the oddest of things: sassafras (much prized by the English), ramp (a type of wild onion they would have eaten), samp (a cornmeal mush), rival colonies to Plymouth (Wessagusset, Cape Ann and Merry Mount), a coiff (the adult woman’s head covering) versus a biggen (a child’s). Add to this the fact I am suffering from labyrinthitis and am dizzy unless I am sitting or standing straight up, and you have the perfect formula for the rending of hair. Life is good…dontcha know? Here’s a golden oldie from Leslie Gore on the subject: 0 0

I do love books about old houses, having grown up in one myself. This book details the history of the different form of a house and its main occupants from the Victorian times of the 1880s, to the time of witches in the 1660s, to medieval times of the 1300s, in that order. Llys y Garn is an estate in Wales with a history that goes back centuries, and the author has woven tales of the estate at these three different time periods. The first story, The Good Servant, is set in the Victorian era, when the house is a rambling Victorian/ neogothic amalgam of many rooms. There is a distinct upstairs/downstairs, where the survival of a servant, with endless days and nights of back-breaking labor and a bleak, loveless future, hinges on the good will of their employer – who can dismiss them for any perceived transgression, even a minor one. The tale follows the career of Nelly Skeel, an ugly woman who works her way up through the hierarchy of life below the stairs. She is not loved or even liked, but when she encounters the orphaned and unwanted nephew of the manor’s owner, she eagerly takes on the task of being his mother, giving him the love no one else will and only hoping for his love in return, while scheming to avoid dismissal. The Witch is the second tale and takes place in the 17th century; it tells of another strong-willed woman, whom her father plans to use as a pawn in marriage to advance himself. Llys y Gar is a Tudor residence with a crumbling great hall. Devereux Powell’s daughter Elizabeth is isolated there with her two brothers to be raised by her grandmother, who is devolving into madness fixed on the dark doings of the Devil. Clever and strong-willed Elizabeth loves Llys y Garn and wants to remain there but is unsure of whether her life is at God’s will or the devil’s. She manipulates her father into accepting her betrothal to a childhood friend, Huw, who is of poor nobility and lives on a nearby farm. She assumes her dowry will be Llys y Garn. But it seems the devil has other plans for her, and tragedies ensue. The third and final story is set in medieval times, which despite the chattel status of women in the previous two tales, is yet more harsh in their treatment. Little is known of what stood on the land of Llys y Garn in the 1300’s, but it was occupied by the family of the loud and brutal Owain ap Elidyr. Angharad’s story opens with a birthing gone horribly wrong, leaving her and her older sister Marged and younger brother Ieuan motherless and subject the whims of the despotic father, an impoverished descendant of a royal line. Angharad’s one joy in life is attending Curig’s fair, where she meets a girl of her own age, Johan, daughter of a cloth trader.  Their meeting becomes an annual thing and Angharad longs to live Johan’s life, traveling to distant lands, eating exotic food and wearing nice clothes. Like Marged, however, she will be used as an asset in marriage as her father plots to expand his land and recover old rights. In overcoming horrible odds, Angharad has the happiest outcome of the three women. The author has written a book with a sweep of time similar to books by James Michener, but much more limited in scope and place. I had expected the three women would be bound by an explained lineage, but instead found the link was their resistance to the roles demanded by society. This, even more than Llys y Garn, binds the narrative. The female characters are well-limned and compelling. Their strength in the face of implacable norms and demeaning roles sticks with the reader. It is unfortunate the men, with one exception, are depicted as priggish, selfish, self-serving, brutal and bullying – this certainly elicits fear and loathing, but I longed for a few sympathetic or kind men. This author is known for her historical research, and it shows. The detail is impeccable and sets three distinctive scenes. The dialogue is crisp and reasonable for each of the time periods. While the brutality and gore of some scenes might drive away a few readers, it is appropriate to the stories and the times. I would definitely pick up another book by Ms. Moore. About the author (from Amazon): Thorne Moore grew up in Luton, near London, but has lived in Pembrokeshire in West Wales for the last 35 years. Her father was a Labor councilor and her mother once got the sack for calling her boss a male chauvenist pig, so she developed strong views about the way the world works. Her headmaster advised her to study law, but that implied a career in law, and the only career she wanted was as a writer. So she studied history instead, and nine years later, after a spell working in a library, she returned to Wales to run a restaurant with her sister. She did finally get her law degree, but these days, she writes. When she’s not writing, she makes miniature furniture, through her craft business, Pear Tree Miniatures. Thorne Moore is a member of the Crime Writers Association and Crime Cymru, and, with fellow author Judith Barrow, organizes the Narbert Book Fair. She writes psychological crime, or domestic noir, with an historical twist, focusing on the cause and consequences of crimes rather than on the details of the crimes themselves along with historical and family dramas. You can find Thorne Moore On twitter: @ThorneMoore At: https://www.thornemoore.co.uk/ On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thorne.moore.7 Or on her blog, Thorny Matters: https://thornemoore.blogspot.com/ Long Shadows: Tale of Llys y Garn is available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Long-Shadows-Tales-Llys-Garn-ebook/dp/B07CQRXKBL 0 0

Almost everyone who visits my blog knows the redoubtable Sally Cronin, author, blogger and one of the most supporting and caring bloggers I know. She just did an interview with me, and I am honored and overwhelmed with what she wrote: https://smorgasbordinvitation.wordpress.com/2018/08/19/smorgasbord-blog-magazine-sunday-interview-getting-to-know-you-with-author-n-a-granger/ Thank you, Sally, and mega hugs from me! 0 0

Ordinarily, I would celebrate a Friday. When I was working, Friday evening was when the whole family could take a sigh of relief: no hassles over homework, no lunches to pack. Pizza for dinner!  Sports to look forward to the next day. Now Fridays are not much different from Saturday and Sunday, although we do tend to go to movies more on weekends. Next up: The Meg. I love sharks and hope to cage swim with some great whites sometime soon. And soon it will be football season again (soccer has already started at UNC), so we will be gorging on UNC sports on the weekends, too. We’re so lucky to live in Chapel Hill, where we have a smorgasbord of top notch athletic competitiion at UNC. So maybe a little less writing on Saturday and Sunday this fall. I’d like to take this opportunity to say THANK YOU all the new followers who have joined me since the beginning of the year. I used to be able to post their blog sites and say a few words about them, but I’ve become overwhelmed since January with people generously and kindly following my blog.  So again, thanks so much for your interest. Your readership is what keeps me writing. And with regard to the blogs I myself follow — I do wish I could follow everyone back, but I get roughly 90 emails a day with posts from the blogs I am currently following, and I can’t even keep up with that! So apologies to all my blogging buddies whose posts I can’t read every day and more apologies to the wonderful bloggers out there whose posts I can’t follow. I know I missing a lot! Lastly, a little advertising: my fourth book in the Rhe Brewster mystery series came out in June and I’d love it if all y’all would consider reading it and writing me a review. I’ve had lots of readers, but the reviews are slow coming in. Heck, I know are all busy!  But I would esteem it a huge favor. Have a great weekend! P.S. Next up: an excerpt from my new novel: The Last Pilgrim. 0 0

Spoiler alert: I have included some of the plot line in this review Finding Max, by Darren Jorgensen, is really the story of Gary, a social worker, who is still struggling, seventeen years later, with the abduction of his five-year-old brother Max from the playground where Gary was supposed to be watching him. It is clear there was nothing eight-year-old Gary could have done to prevent the event, and when the police didn’t believe his story, his alcoholic mother was arrested, tried and found guilty of Max’s murder. Perhaps because of his profound sense of helplessness, Gary now helps other lost people at homeless shelter in New York City. One day he interrupts a co-worker interviewing a homeless man for assistance at the shelter and discovered that ‘David’ is really his brother Max. Reintroducing himself and getting to know his brother and what happened to him requires patience, tact and delicacy because Max is a deeply traumatized young man. At the same time, Gary is balancing a new relationship with a young Asian woman, Jean, whom he met when she served him coffee at a local shop. This is Jean’s story, too, since she has been cast out by her father for her modern ways. Max was abducted by a man who traffics in young boys for pedophiles, and his enforcer, an evil man called Quinn, has been searching for Max ever since he escaped from the basement in which he’s been head for years while being loaned out. Quinn has an unnatural sexual attraction to Max, which he considers love, and which is why Quinn didn’t kill him when Max reached puberty. Max has been hiding among the homeless in NYC to escape Quinn, who is tracking him. During the period when Gary, Jean and Max learn to love and trust each other, they become a functional group dedicated to protecting Max from Quinn, who has managed to find him. They must make a choice: to run from Quinn or stand and face him. My review: This book is not for the faint of heart. It is very gritty, with graphic sex and violence, which normally I abhor, and it deals with pedophilia and homelessness, two topics that most people find very uncomfortable. Nevertheless, it is written with such brutal honesty that it was difficult for me to put the book down. The relationships were extraordinarily real as were the descriptions of pedophilia and the homeless – so much so that I wondered if the author himself was recounting some aspects of his own life. The pursuit of Max by Quinn was a thriller, and I didn’t mind the longer passages of exposition since they enriched the story. Quinn’s reappearance, initially as he probed Max’s new relationship with his brother, and later as he pursues Max, Jean and Gary into the homeless underground of the city was absorbing. The only weakness I found was the nature of Jean’s supposed illness – she is emaciated and gaunt to the point of appearing like a concentration camp survivor – which left me wondering where she found her considerable energy and why she had not sought medical attention. Lack of medical insurance these days is not much of an excuse. I can recommend the book if the readers are prepared for what it contains. It Is powerful and searing and the characters and their situations stayed with me a long time after I finished it. About the author Darren M. Jorgensen has always fed his passions through book clubs and writing groups. After working at the United Nations and attending Brown University, he eventually found his way back to his first love, writing. He wrote Finding Max, in just 12 days. He now lives in his native Alberta with his extraordinary wife, Ginette, and likes to walk with his dogs, Molly and Dobby—both named for Harry Potter characters—through the golden fields behind his home on a farm with too many snakes slithering through the grass. He was twenty-two when he wrote his first book, The Searing, and states that his occupation is writing, all the time. You can find Darren Jorgensen on Twitter: @authordarren At his book site: https://findingmaxtrilogy.com/ And on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/darren.jorgensen.35 0 0

Today it is my honor to have Janice Spina, a prolific and award-winning children’s book writer, for an interview. We are both New Englanders (even though I now live in the South), so imagine I have invited her over for morning coffee and a gab fest. The freshly brewed coffee is in mugs on the table, along with my favorite apple scones. Lovely to have you here, Janice.  **** Tell me something about yourself. I’ve always loved to write more than speak, as long as I can remember. As a child I wrote poetry – loved anything that rhymed, listened and sang along to the radio (rhyming again) and dreamed of being a famous singer or author. I never did realize my dream to become a famous singer but did sing in a Sweet Adeline’s Chorus for a short time – it is an acapella group – singing without music and using your voices as musical instruments. I loved it. When I had to have surgery (cataracts) I dropped out due to problems driving at night. Even after surgery, I still have difficulty and therefore do not venture far at night. I never did realize my other dream to become a famous author but I keep plugging along. After I retired from an administrative secretarial position in a school system in Massachusetts, I got serious about my writing. At the ripe young age of 65 I knew it was now or never to do something. I had all these ideas and poems going around in my head and numerous titles for books written down in notebooks that I had to do something with them. It was inevitable that my poems would soon become stories as I got into my twenties and had two children. I wrote a fairy tale which I read to my son and daughter at bedtime. This same fairy tale is now being illustrated by my husband. It is the only young children’s book that is not in rhyme. I tried to enlist the help of agents and publishers but got many ‘no thank yous’ before I gave up and self-published my first book in 2013, Louey the Lazy Elephant. Louey is still my favorite and close to my heart. He was, after all, my first book! I published one more book that year, Ricky the Rambunctious Raccoon. In the following years I published 4-5 books a year and now have a total of 21 books (11 children’s, 6 MG/PT and 3 novels and one short story collection with two more books coming this year and three next year. All my young children’s books are written in rhyme with life lessons. Even the MG stories have life lessons that encourage older children to be kind to one another and not to accept or tolerate bullying of any kind. The first book in Davey & Derek Series touches on bullying as does my newest MG book, Abby & Holly School Dance.  Why do you like being a children’s author? One of the reasons I write children’s stories is I love children of all ages and want to encourage them to read. This is my main goal as a writer of children’s books. Reading is important to a child’s health and welfare. I have written a couple of posts on the studies of reading on one’s health on my blog. Children are the future of our world. We must take care of them in any way we can. Another reason I write for children is I am a child at heart and can relate to young children everywhere. Children bond with me wherever I am. I reach out to them with a smile and a wave and they smile and wave back. We are on the same wavelength. Ha! I keep doing it because I love to see children enjoying the discovery of their first book or learning how to read it all by themselves. It’s well worth all the effort that goes into writing, illustrating, and creating and publishing a children’s book. I can complete the text part of the story quickly enough in one afternoon or maybe even an hour. As long as I have a title, I work from there. It takes longer to complete a children’s book than my MG or novels because of all the illustrations that have to be created. I give all the kudos to John for his hard work and creativity it takes to complete. We work together as he completes each page and I type in the words or if I am into another project, he will type the text. I always review and edit it all afterward. He knows I’m the boss. LOL! I do give him final say on the illustrations but I always have an opinion. When my husband agreed to be my illustrator, my children’s stories came to life. Without him these stories would still be sitting dormant on my computer. If he ever decides not to illustrate any more I will stop writing for young children but continue to write for middle-grade and 18+. For those books I will not need an illustrator just a cover creator. John could continue to do that with some coaxing. I’ve never written a book for children. What are the differences between creating a children’s book and writing a fiction or non-fiction novel? In order to write for young children you must first feel like a child. Put yourself in their little world and think like they would think, simply and without any complications of worldly things. Did you ever notice how children laugh all the time at everything? They feel joy and are happy and innocent of everything around them. That’s what you must do – smile, laugh and giggle too. That will put you in the mood to be a child again. Think back to the times that you would laugh at an animal or insect just because they looked silly or did something funny. As

Beautiful vistas of mountains and ocean and green fields and lupines More sheep than people Glaciers, icebergs and black diamonds Whales Horses Tectonic plates Volcanoes Geothermal lagoons Herring Rotten eggs and fumaroles Waterfalls! Good company And an adventure with Hubs! 0 0

We were somewhat late getting started back to Reykjavik from the Westman Islands and the Captain really revved the ship. Unfortunately, with the seas high, we were staggering around inside, trying to keep our balance. At dinner, the boat tilted about 25 degrees and everything slid off the table. There were crashes of china and glasses from trays and places where they were stacked, and I swear I heard a collective groan from the kitchen. The ship immediately slowed, and we finished our meal in a relatively stable manner, but that night I had to tuck myself into my bed again so as not to roll out on the floor. ***** I’ve not mentioned Icelandic horses, and they do deserve a mention. The Icelandic horse is a breed developed on Iceland.  Although the horses are small, at times pony-sized, most registries refer to it as a horse. Icelandic horses are long-lived and hardy, with few diseases; Icelandic law prevents horses from being imported into the country and exported animals are not allowed to return. What is unusual is that the Icelandic displays two gaits in addition to the typical walk, trot, and canter/gallop commonly displayed by other breeds. The following information is from Wikipedia. The first additional gait is a four-beat lateral ambling gait known as the tölt. This is known for its explosive acceleration and speed; it is also comfortable and ground-covering. The breed also performs a pace called a skeið, flugskeið or “flying pace”. It is used in pacing races, and is fast and smooth, with some horses able to reach up to 30 miles per hour. Not all Icelandic horses can perform this gait; animals that perform both the tölt and the flying pace in addition to the traditional gaits are considered the best of the breed. The ancestors of Icelandic horses were probably brought to Iceland by Viking-age Scandinavians between 860 and 935 AD, and genetic analyses have revealed links between the Mongolian horse and the Icelandic horse. If you want to see these five paces of the Icelandic horse, check out this You Tube video: ***** We disembarked the next morning, with all of us rocking and rolling on dry land. We went to a hotel for an overnight but took the rest of the day to visit the Blue Lagoon. The Lagoon is a geothermal spa and is considered to be one of the 25 wonders of the world. It is located in a lava field on the Reykanes Peninsula in southwestern Iceland and is supplied by water used in the nearby geothermal power station. The warm waters are rich in minerals like silica and sulfur and bathing in the Blue Lagoon is reputed to help some people suffering from skin diseases such as psoriasis. The water temperature in the bathing and swimming area of the lagoon averages 37–39 °C (99–102 °F). This time I did not bathe but remained outside in a restaurant, so I could watch everyone who did – and take pictures. There is a bar in the lagoon, and anyone paying the entrance fee to the lagoon can get a drink. That’s Hubs, waving from in line to get a drink, and here’s the braver members of the group, getting smashed in the water! That night we had a lovely farewell dinner of lamb – we had three meals of lamb in two days! – and the next day wended our way back home. But the adventure wasn’t over  – held up 90 minutes in Reykjavik, we missed our flight from Boston to RDU and couldn’t find a single hotel room in proximity to the airport at 11PM at night. Our kids found us a room in Waltham, a $60 cab ride away and we finally plopped into bed around 12:30, with tickets for a flight the next morning. I hope you enjoyed the trip with me! 0 0