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For readers who missed part I, this mystery is set in a retirement home, where Mildred and Miriam have just become roommates. Over the next month, Mildred and I formed a strong bond – she had a wicked sense of humor and, after a time, could mimic almost every one of the other inmates. With her knowledge of classical music, I wasn’t surprised to hear her humming some of the pieces Redwine played, including that often repeated symphony. In return, I treated her to some CDs of seventies rock and roll. Occasionally we danced to it, if you want to call moving our arms and hips dancing. But I swear it improved Mildred’s mobility.     Then a most exciting thing happened. Someone died. And not from ‘natural’ causes.     We noticed something amiss when Norma counted heads at breakfast and asked, “Has anyone seen Maestro Redwine?” When no one answered, she yelled for Tony and bustled off down the hall. Silence, followed by a scream. Almost everyone who could walk abandoned their breakfasts and headed for the double doors, but the massive Tony appeared and blocked us in. “Everyone stay put. There’s nothing to worry about.” He left, closing the doors with a solid thump.     Mildred and I returned to our places at the table. “Where’s Massey? I don’t see him here either,” she commented.     I looked around. She was right. He was also missing. Figures Nurse Wretched would only think about the Maesto..     Just then we heard sirens, and we beat the others to the dining room window. Three police cars pulled up, red and blue lights flashing, and we watched as a bevy of uniformed men got out, looking grim. Then we heard clomping down the hall in the direction of…our room. I looked at Mildred, her face reflecting my surprise. “Something’s happened to Redwine or Massey,” she whispered.     Our room sat kitty-corner to theirs, and I just had to get a look. “Come on, let’s find out what’s going on. I can get us into the hallway, but you need to look agonized. Is that in your repertoire?”     She winked. “Gotcha.”     I opened the doors and pushed Mildred into Tony, who stood guard just outside the dining room. “Tony, Mildred needs to use a bathroom. Right now.” My roomie assumed a pitiful look and hugged her stomach.     He frowned at us. “Use the one across the hall.”     “Can’t. She has special equipment in ours, and this is an emergency.”     He paused for a minute, clearly trying to think. “Okay, go, but don’t blame me if Norma jumps on you.”    As I pushed Mildred down the hall, a woman deputy stood in our way and put up her hand.      “Can’t go down there. Sorry.”     Mildred gasped and clasped her stomach, looking miserable.     “Look, my roommate here is in a wheelchair, needs to use a bathroom, and only ours has the equipment she needs. We’re old, for God’s sake.”     “Alright, alright.” She moved aside and we booked it down the hall, glancing into room 208 as we passed.     Mildred gasped. Redwine lay face down on the floor, blood pooled around him, clearly deceased. Someone had stabbed him in the back with a violin bow. Through the crowd around the body I could just make out Massey’s feet on his bed, and we could hear moaning. I pushed Mildred and her wheelchair to our room, opened the door and shoved her inside.     “Did you see that?” she asked as soon as the door was shut. “But how? Can you really punch a violin bow into someone’s back? It’s not sharp enough.”     “I don’t think it’d be that difficult,” I replied. “I saw cut-off strings dangling from the visible end. He…or she…would just have to hone the wood down. And know something of anatomy to do it, right?”     “Definitely, to know just where to make the fatal insertion,” Mildred replied. “But what about motive? Who here would want to do him in?”     “Well, I don’t think it would be Massey. He’d lose his musical director, unless they had a serious argument over a sonata. Did you hear the moaning?”    “Yeah, I think it was Massey. Everyone else was upright. How can we find out if he’s a suspect?”     We looked at each other and said in unison, “Tony!” ******     After lunch that day – yummy creamed chipped beef on toast, which I’d heard several of our military veterans call shit on a shingle – we pretended fatigue and asked Tony to wheel Mildred to our room.     You live in this place long enough, you learn everyone’s weaknesses, and Tony’s was Little Debbie Nutty Buddy bars. A friend of mine had sent me a huge box of Little Debbie products for Christmas. I would have preferred a visit, but you take what you can get. I saw Tony salivating when he first spied the box, so I gave him some. Now I’d use my strategic reserve of Nutty Buddies to get information. I’d deliberately left two packages on my bed before we left for lunch.     “If that’s all…” he said, after wheeling Mildred in. His eyes drifted and then stopped like a laser pointer on what lay on my bed. He looked at me, his brown eyes pleading.     “Yup, they’re for you, Tony, but we need some information in return.”     “Ah, Miriam, my girl, you know that could get me in trouble. You’re always getting me in trouble.” He rolled his Rs, Boston Irish.     Mildred wheeled her chair to face him and I sat down at my desk. “I need you to tell us what went on in Room 208 this morning,” I said.     “But you saw everything when you went by the door, didn’t you?”     “Not everything,” said Mildred. “Tell us, and those Little Debbies are yours.”     Tony perched

For their first wedding anniversary, Maria and Logan invest all their money in the purchase of a grand residence on a secluded lake in Tree Valley, California. The house needs a lot of renovation to become their dream of an inn. Soon after they snuggle into sleep one night, Maria hears the voice of a woman in the hall outside their bedroom. The voice says, “Find me.” Logan is already awake, drawn by the crash of his guitar falling from its stand downstairs. Another married couple, Helen and Charles, live in the residence by the lake in 1924. They enjoy entertaining, and even though prohibition has been in effect for several years, they serve alcohol at their well-known parties. Because of this, they are sought out by a fanatical minister of the town’s Church of Hope, who warns them they are sinning in the eyes of God and will be punished. As Maria continues to hear the woman’s voice and the guitar seems to hit the floor at night on a regular basis, she becomes determined to find out who the woman is. The ghost is not frightening to her and wants her help. Marie discovers that a former owner of the house, a woman named Helen, disappeared many years ago. She’d been presumed murdered, and Charles was accused of her murder and hung for his crime.  She is certain the voice is Helen’s and that she is asking to be found to exonerate Charles. While Maria and Logan search the attic for furniture and other items that can be used to decorate the house, they also look diligently for her remains. At the same time, a man in black breaks into their barn and kills all their chickens, his threats to them increasing over time. The sheriff is inclined to attribute it to hobos in the area. But Maria and Logan know they are faced with real danger and add locks and bars to the house and barn. They also know instinctively that the solution to their problem is finding Helen’s remains. I loved the dual timeline of this book, the animals (two dogs and two cats) Maria and Logan adopt partially for protection ad partially for companionship, and the dogs ability to help Helen by conveying information about her whereabouts to their new owners. How can you resist a cat called Teacup? The tension builds in both timelines with the intrusion of the community’s church and the strangeness of the neighbors.  The author makes the house a character and rounds out the lives of both couples in great and interesting detail, highlighting their loves and plans for the future, which Charles and Helen, unfortunately, don’t have. All of D.L. Finn’s books are written with an underlying love for the characters and a gentleness even in the face of danger. I found lots of twists and unexpected turns that kept me turning the pages.  This is a fun mystery that warms the heart. I highly recommend it for any reader who likes ghosts, a dual timeline line, and a murder mystery.   About the author D.L. Finn is an independent Californian who encourages everyone to embrace their inner child. She was born and raised in the foggy Bay Area, but in 1990 relocated with her husband, kids, dogs, and cats to the Sierra foothills in Nevada City, CA. Being surrounded by towering pines, oaks, and cedars, her creativity was nurtured until it bloomed. Her creations vary from children’s books, young adult fantasy, and adult paranormal romance to an autobiography with poetry. She continues on her adventures with an open invitation for her readers to join her. You can find her On twitter: @dlfinnauthor/X On her website: https://dlfinnauthor.com 0 0

Here is the first past of a mystery I published in an anthology last year. Stay tuned here to read the next installment. &&&&&&&&& I first met Mildred when she moved into my room at the Rest Easy Retirement Home. My former roommate had died in her sleep, as had many others, which is why no one rested easy here and why we called it God’s Waiting Room. Coughs, whoops, shuffling, wails, music and TV chatter filled the place every day – all of which permeated the any discussions by those of us still mentally capable of it.     Two days after my roommate died, Nurse Wretched, an ascetic busybody named Norma, who slinked around in a white uniform and rubber soled, silent shoes, wheeled in my new roomie saying, “Isn’t this nice! Miriam, this is Mildred Wrightnour. Mildred, this is Miriam Gardner. The sun is shining and it’s warm today, so why don’t the two of you sit out in the sun room and get to know each other.” Mildred had to be in her eighties, with a cap of short white hair, a pleasantly round face with a sharp nose, and so thin two of her could have fit in the wheel chair. She wore a cobalt blue blouse that set off her hair. I wondered what she thought of me, a definite mesomorph with a long white braid, wire-rimmed glasses, and wearing sweat pants.    I looked at Mildred with suspicion. This was my third roommate, and I wondered if she were healthy. “Hi Mildred. Where you from?”    “Just outside of Boston. You?”  She smiled.    I like her immediately. Spare with her words. “A Southie,” I replied.    She nodded at my mention of South Boston. Tony, one of two Irish aides who worked out regularly to maintain his admirable muscle development, came in and deposited Mildred’s suitcases on her freshly made bed. Then he and Norma left us alone.     “Can I help you unpack?” I asked. “That dresser over there is yours.” I bit my tongue not to say, “Still warm from the last resident.” I opened the dresser drawers while she unzipped the suitcases. “You need help in and out of your wheelchair?”     “I’m not that decrepit yet. Just can’t walk long distances. Bad hip. I’ll be fine.” She stood easily and began putting away underwear, nightgowns, and sweaters. She placed three pictures on her dresser along with a comb, brush and a bag of bathroom necessities. “Not much to show for a lifetime, is it?” she commented.     “Nope, but it keeps things simple.” I saw her unpack a Swiss Army knife. “What do you plan to use that for?”     “This? It’s really handy – comes with a nail file, scissors, and this…” She pulled out the corkscrew and winked.     “Just the thing. I’ve been wanting to smuggle in some wine.”     Mildred looked puzzled. “How can you do that?”     “Tony. He’s bribable.”     With the unpacking over, Mildred wheeled herself down the hall to the sun room, pulling up next to a padded chair where I plopped myself down.     “I hear there’s a loudspeaker?” she asked.     “Oh, that bloody thing. It gets us up at 7 AM – don’t think about sleeping in – and announces all meals ten minutes before they serve. Also lights out at 10 PM. It’s like a frigging boot camp.”     She waved her hand in front of her face. “Good Lord, I feel like I’m in a hothouse in here. Can we go outside to chat?”     “They keep it warm because they’re certain we all grew up on the equator. And we need permission to go outside. They have to know where you are at all times.”     “Really? How about an escape? Ever made one?”     I liked this Mildred more and more. Finally, someone with a personality on my wave length. “All the time, because I’m one of the few truly mobile inmates. That door over there leads to a patio. Let’s go.” I checked my watch. “Lots of time before lunch to break some rules.”     When we got outside, I took a deep breath. “Thank God. Smells like eau-de-old-people and Lysol in there. I can’t stand it.”     Over the next hour or so, we talked about our past lives – she, an instructor at Boston University and I, a secretary in my husband’s law firm. Both of us widowed more than ten years earlier. She told me they were nearly broke when her husband died. She didn’t say it, but I got the impression he committed suicide. Her children and grandchildren were the light in her life.     “They visit you much?” I asked.     She looked down. “Not much.” Her voice dropped to almost a whisper. “They’re busy with their own lives.” Her face brightened. “One of my granddaughters and I are good buddies, though, and she told me this place is on a bus line, so maybe I’ll see her more often. How about you?’     “No kids. Ben never wanted them, selfish bastard.”     “I take it you had an unhappy marriage?”     “Only when he was around.”     I think she realized from my facial expression I wouldn’t say more on that, because she then asked, “What do you do for fun around here?”     “Eat, read, knit, crochet, play card games, watch TV. An exercise program in the common room every day. And music. It’s so god-damn boring. Did you hear the noise from room 208 this morning when you came in?”     “Romeo and Juliet by Beethoven? That’s not noise – it’s music!”     “Well, look at you, all classical.  Be that as it may, that music used to go on all day and half the night until we gave Nurse Wretched an ultimatum: either shut it down at a reasonable hour or we would riot.”     She chuckled. “You must mean Norma. So who

I am drawn to stories with angels, and this novella by D. L. Finn has to be one of my favorites. It’s a bitterly cold Christmas Eve with the ‘storm of the century’ bearing down on the city. Kenzie’s boss tells everyone to go home, but Kenzie has nothing but an empty apartment to look forward to. She and her boyfriend Heath had planned to get married on Christmas, but he’d dumped her for her best friend, Joy, and now they are getting married on Christmas instead. You feel her despair and loneliness as she walks along in the cold, recalling her life with Heath and details about him that should have set her antennae twitching. And she is in no mood to spend Christmas with Sue and her family, who is a friend to both her and Joy. Halfway across a street, she is nearly run over by a speeding car that looks suspiciously like Heath’s. Kenzie is unaware she’s being followed by someone who prevented her from being hit and another beautiful spirit named Olive, who is present on the street with her former friend, Joy. Joy wants to talk, to tell Kenzie that things aren’t what she thought, but Kenzie dismisses her and walks away. After stopping to have a pizza, she takes the long way home and ends up sitting on a park bench in the cold and thickly falling snow, contemplating just going to sleep and freezing to death. The man with the green eyes who followed her then steps in to change her life. It involves a lost kitten, finding a woman sitting on the same bench where she sat, and the work of the two spirits to repair her life. Will she save the kitten and she renew her friendship with Joy? How will she discover that Heath is a grafter and a murderer? Can he be brought to justice? This is a lovely, sweet tale of angels and their work here on earth and their possible love for each other. The setting in the deep, dense quiet of a thick snowfall is wonderfully atmospheric and lends to the story. And Kenzie and Joy are beautifully and emotionally developed. All of the author’s characters are written with love, which makes her books such a joy to read. A great Christmas story that has a heartwarming ending and I will read it again in December! PS The kitten is named Noelle, so how could I resist? About the author D.L. Finn is an independent Californian who encourages everyone to embrace their inner child. She was born and raised in the foggy Bay Area, but in 1990 relocated with her husband, kids, dogs, and cats to the Sierra foothills in Nevada City, CA. Being surrounded by towering pines, oaks, and cedars, her creativity was nurtured until it bloomed. Her creations vary from children’s books, young adult fantasy, and adult paranormal romance to an autobiography with poetry. She continues on her adventures with an open invitation for her readers to join her. You can find her On twitter: @dlfinnauthor/X On her website: https://dlfinnauthor.com 0 0

I’m soon going to post the review of a novelette by D.L. Finn, which has angels in it! I love angels. Here is a very short story I wrote about my angel not long ago. &&&&&&&&&& The view from the roof’s ridge line is spectacular, he thought. I do love the colors of autumn in this part of the country. He settled back on his cloud cushion with a sigh. “Beautiful, yes?” said his companion, Dara. She ruffled her wings and spread them out to the setting sun. “I never get tired of it.” He’d been enthralled with the seasons for more years than he could count. He also stretched out his wings, and they turned to gold. “How did you get this assignment?” she asked. “HE gave me a vacation after the last one – it had lasted only twenty-nine years, and during the last four, my assignment had cancer. It was hard to watch him losing the fight. I made sure that his family was there to welcome him at the end of his last journey. It was a joyous reunion, but mentally I was drained.” “And this one?” She folded her feathers back into place. “Well, she’s a tough old bird. I expect I’ll be around a while more. I’ve now met the guardians of her children and now her grandchildren. A good lot. You remember I had some heated discussions with her son’s, though – the son was a tough nut, and it was Michael’s first assignment. He seemed ill-equipped to handle the son’s problems. He took my advice, though, and thanks to our combined efforts, the family worked through it. I think the son’s doing fine now. Have you met his daughter’s guardian?” “Not yet. Maybe on their visit this summer.” He settled his wings and leaned back again on his cloud. “It’s been nice having you around, all these years,” he said with a smile and a sideways glance at his companion. “I imagine we’ll be getting reassignments around the same time – how old is he?” “Seventy-nine,” Dara replied, “but still going. Does the Mrs. know you’re here?” “It’s funny,” he chuckled. “I think she’s always known – the church convinces them of our existence when they’re very young, but only lately have I figured in her prayers. It’s so nice to be thanked each night for being here for her. I try to make sure her sleep is restful.” “I hear dishes clattering in the kitchen, and the sun’s left us. Time to go down.”  Her diaphanous form slid slowly through the roof and into the house. Ezrael sighed. Sunsets never lasted, but there would be another one tomorrow. Maybe. He thought he sensed rain. 0 0

This is the second book by Carol Hedges that I have reviewed for Rosie’s website, but I loved the first book so much, I read every single one of them in this series. I always look forward to a new book in this series, and this one lives up to my enjoyment of the others. The author has a phenomenal knowledge of Victorian London – its sounds, smells, street life, and populace – and she brings all this into her vivid descriptions of the city. The story begins with the plight of a young Irish laborer, starving, jobless, and unable to find a place to spend the night because of the prejudice against the Irish. He finally slumps down in an alleyway, his dead body being discovered the next morning. The morgue physician calls in Scotland Yard because the cause of death is similar to the plague, which has brutalized London in the past. Responding to the request are Chief Inspector Lachlan Grieg and now retired detective inspector Stride, who is featured in the earlier books. When the orderly who brought the body to the morgue, dies of similar symptoms, Grieg, stride and Grieg’s assistant detective, Jack Cully, decide the cause of the two deaths must be kept secret, not only from the ravening press but also from the general population to avoid panic. Nevertheless, the news of a possible plague reaches the ears of smarmy Richard Dandy, the editor and writer of a daily rag, from the hospital porter, who found the arrival of Scotland Yard and the guarding of the bodies suspicious and gets paid for his information. When the bones of very old bodies are discovered at a construction site and are dumped by the site owners in the Thames, they end up at the hospital mortuary and the detectives deduce they were removed from a plague pit at the site, where the young Irishman worked. There is always a second line of investigation in Ms. Hedges’ mysteries and this one involves London’s only female detective, Lucy Landseer. She is visited by the elder of two Broxton sisters and asked to locate the daughter of the younger sister, who was born out of wedlock and left as a baby at the Asylum for Female Orphans. The family’s inheritance passes through the female line, and as both sisters are growing old, they need to find the daughter who will inherit. Across town, Jasper Broxton, a greedy and avaricious relative who doesn’t want the daughter found because then he will inherit, makes his income with increasingly disastrous Ponzi schemes. His wife stalks the Broxton sisters and has a spy planted in their house. Broxton’s large and fat daughter Johanna is in the same class with Jack Cully’s daughter Violet and is a merciless bully of Violet and her friends. The author builds these two mysteries like a spider weaving a web. She also does something unusual: she breaks the wall and talks directly to the reader at the beginning of the book (which is when it should be done, if at all), and the rest of the way takes you along on the investigations. In doing so, the reader find themselves personally immersed in a world of shadowy alleyways, filthy streets and squalid houses, and the flickering of gas lights. The characters are so well-drawn, that you can’t help feeling the author’s emotion in creating them. And as I’ve noted before, the author is at once humorous and heart-breaking in her character descriptions, never more so than in the plight of women in that time. I found this book, as all of them in the series, engaging and enticing. I recommend it highly and I think anyone who reads it will read the rest in the series. PS The covers are fantastic! Five stars About the author: Carol Hedges is the successful UK writer of 11 books for teenagers/Young Adults. Her novel Jigsaw was long-listed for the Carnegie Medal. She is currently well into her series of Victorian Crime Fiction novels, set in 1860s London and published under her own imprint: Little G Books. Pride and Pestilence is the eleventh in this series. In the past, she taught at secondary school. Currently retired, she tutors A and GCSE English. She lives in Hertfordshire, England, and is married with a grown-up daughter. You can find her on Twitter (X): @carolJhedges Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/carol.hedges.779 And her blog: http://carolhedges.blogspot.com/ 1 0

I was very surprised and chuffed to see a wonderful review for Death at the Asylum posted by Judith Barrow, a fellow blogger. Judith is an author herself of eight books. The focus of her writing is family dynamics, which she treats with great insight and sensitivity. You can find her at https://judithbarrowblog.com. I hope you will visit her blog and check out her books, which are all great reads. Here is her review: Although this is the fifth book in the series it’s also a stand-alone story and is an excellent cozy mystery. The book begins with a brief summary which sets the scene easily and introduces the reader to the backdrop of the sequence. N.A Granger’s story is interwoven and layered with intriguing subplots that flow seamlessly and keep the reader fascinated. Themes of deception and suspense sit alongside themes of family communication and workday differences, all adding to the depth of the story. The chapters alternate between the points of view of Rhe, nurse who works part-time in the police department, and Sam, her husband who is Chief of Police. Both are well-rounded and believable characters (something I expected as their characteristics and dialogue must have developed and grown over the series). This adds to the consistency of the story and is something I admired in this author’s style of writing.  But these two characters don’t carry the plot on their own and the minor characters in the close knit community of Pequod are also extremely credible.   The descriptions of the setting, the coastal town of Pequod give a brilliant sense of place and leaves the reader in no doubt of the area the characters live and move around in. This is my first visit back to this series for quite a while and I had forgotten how much I remembered of this series. I will certainly revisit and catch up on the exploits of Rhe and Sam.   For any reader who enjoys cosy mysteries as much as I do, I highly recommend Death at the Asylum. Death at the  Asylum: Rhe Brewster Mystery Series, Book 5 (The Rhe Brewster Mysteries 13) is available at: Amazon. co.uk: https://tinyurl.com/5ewpcayx Amazon.com: https://tinyurl.com/3vfdt3r6 Thank you, Judith! 0 0

An ill-advised thermonuclear war has resulted in a direct effect on the sun, destabilizing it irreparably. Recognizing that Earth will eventually end as a home to humanity, a manned mission is sent to find a plant that humans can colonize. Told from the view point of the commander of the mission and captain of the Universal Solar Spaceship Primus, David Davis describes the ship, the first spaceship to be powered by star light, to be sent to Kepler-186f, called Nova. This planet is 10.5 times bigger than Earth but with similar gravity and within its star’s habitable zone. All of this is detailed in his first log entries. There are eleven crew members and AI to run the ship while they are in hypersleep, along with lots and lots of embryos which should grow into super children. The members of the crew are chosen carefully to have no families. Half are veterans of space travel and for half, this is their first mission. They spend a two month isolation period with each other to determine if they are compatible and if they can accept a mission from which they will not return nor hear from Earth again. The author describes each of the crew member’s strengths and how the jobs they were trained for overlap. There is only one about whom the captain admits to having some doubts, Osa Williams, the life specialist who is in charge of the hypersleep pods and the embryos. The mission begins successfully, but only makes it halfway before Osa awakens, hundreds of years from the ship’s destination, due to something that was her fault. She rouses Captain Davis, who soon realizes there is something terribly wrong and that she is being deceptive about where they are on the journey, resulting in an ensuing twisted game of cat and mouse. Davis has to fight not only for his own life, but for those of the crew and the embryos, and indeed for humanity, as Osa descends into madness. I loved the plot line of this novel and also the thoughtful consideration of various topics: Would the crew survive the centuries-long voyage with a ship and equipment never before tested? If they did, what would be the effects on them of the journey? How successful would they be at populating Nova and developing it into an Earth-like planet? However, the set-up to the mission is a series of long and detailed log entries, including minutia about the ship and crew and thoughts of Davis about the future of humanity. This lasts until chapter 9, when the real action begins. From there forward, the point of view is shared between Osa and Davis, and the rest of the story is laced with tension, and tragedy. The ending is practical and interesting, and I leave readers to discover what happens. My feeling about the book are mixed – loved the concept and enjoyed the science (fiction) of the ship and the mission, but it took a long time to get out of Davis’s head and into the action. The author writes well, and the details of the ship and the mission are well-wrought. They eventually pull the reader into the story, build the tension and do justice to the ending. But I am left wondering if so much detail is necessary, especially about the crew, since there are truly only two characters. Nevertheless, the author impressed me with their first full-length outing and look forward to the next book. I think readers into serious sci-fi will like this book. About the author (from Goodreads): Martin H. Altis, nicknamed ‘The Human Resource’ by their friends due to their penchant for pulling random facts out of thin air, they wrote their first short story when they were young, scribbling away with a stubby pencil and a dollar store spiral-bound notebook. Ever since then, they’ve been hooked. M.H. writes to express themself, their thoughts, ideas, and emotions. They also have a deep interest in how fiction connects to reality and how character arcs mirror our own lives. M.H. Altis has written several books, from 250,000-word epics to 50,000-word dashes. With a growing and unreleased catalog, they decided it was finally time to share their creations with the world. With curiosities and creations ranging from medieval times to outer space, alternate universes to the one we inhabit, and everything in between, readers will be sure to find something to enjoy. 0 0

I’ve been missing from my blog for a while due to writing (imagine that!). But Teagan Geneviene gifted me with a review of my book The Last Pilgrim by D. L. Finn today, so I decided to share it. With a promise of more posts to come! Thank you, Teagan, and especially Denise!! “The Last Pilgrim” is an amazingly detailed and well-written story focused on Mary Allerton Cushman’s life. Four-year-old Mary and her family were on the Mayflower, wanting to start a new life with the freedom to practice their religion. They squeezed together below deck with many other families, enduring limited food, water, and no hygiene. The boat faced various obstacles, such as sickness and scurvy, but upon reaching land and finding a suitable place, the survivors had to hastily construct a shelter for the cold winter. They were a hardy group who not only pulled together to accomplish their survival, but I found it captivating how they pieced together a group of people with a dream of a better life into a functioning society. What caught my attention was the strong women with limited voice or rights. They were equal in the colony’s success as the men and, at times, surpassed them. Some medical treatments and punishments given to lawbreakers made me cringe. Mary’s daily life and the surrounding people were as fascinating as the politics and religion. Although a long read, I didn’t even notice because I was so drawn in. I can highly recommend this historical fiction! P.S. I am often asked about the cover. It is an oil painting by an artist Mary Smith from an idea that I had. I have the painting on the wall in my office. “ 0 0

I always look forward to Jan Sikes’ books. She has such a gentle and heart-warming way of telling a story that the reader feels that all’s right with the world when they’re done reading. Layken Marin returns home to his family’s farm in Missouri after serving in the Army during WW II. Both his parents died while he was away but he had promised his father he would make the farm prosperous again. What he finds is a house in disrepair, fields baked by the sun, and a foreclosure notice on the door. Layken appeals to the banker, a thoroughly odious character, who refuses to give him the time needed to rebuild, plant and harvest a crop. Instead, he offers him a two-year extension on the loan if Layken will marry his daughter, Sarah Beth. The banker is a widower and wants to remarry, but his fiancée wants Sarah gone. Faced with two awful choices, Laykin decides to marry Sarah Beth. And Sarah Beth changes his life. Carefully treading around each other, they first discover their mutual tolerance for hard work and then each sees in the other their exceptional qualities. Tolerance begets affection. Together they begin to rebuild the farm, adding other members to their family: Uncle Seymour, a black man who had tended Sarah’s father’s land for years and who was fired after Sarah Beth left; Tad, a young boy living in the woods as a runaway from his father’s abuse; a barn cat and a pregnant stray dog.     Where the neighbors first regard Sarah with distrust, they come to help whenever help is needed and Sarah comes to realize that in the country, your neighbors are your support. And hers and Laykin’s are kind and thoughtful. This is the story of the growing love between the unlikely couple set against a hard scrabble farm with seemingly endless setbacks to a successful harvest. But as always with the author, the story is told in such a warm and gentle way that the reader knows Laykin and Sarah Beth will survive. The farm and its occupants are drawn in a compelling way and the story is a testament to hard work, determination, love, acceptance, and the strength of community. I highly recommend this book. Readers will love the experience of it. Five starts About the author: Jan Sikes has been an avid reader all her life, but oddly enough she had no ambition to be a writer. But she wound up in mid-life with a story that begged to be told. Through fictitious characters, the tale came to life in not one, but four books. Then she released music CDs of original music matching the time period of each book, and finally a book of poetry and art. The story ideas keep coming, and she has no plan to turn off the creative fountain. She loves all things metaphysical and often includes those aspects in my stories. She is a member of the Author’s Marketing Guild, The Writer’s League of Texas, Story Empire, and the Paranormal Writer’s Guild. I am an avid fan of Texas music and grandmother of five. She resides in North Texas. You can reach her at https://jansikes.com/blog https://www.facebook.com/AuthorJanSikesBooks 2 0