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I am inordinately pleased with reviews of my third book, Death by Pumpkin, by two bloggers with who are great writers themselves and whose critiques I value.             The first is from Rachel Poli at https://rachelpoli.com/.  She’s a young teacher (early childhood education), a reader, and an animal lover. She posts music, short stories, movie reviews, guest posts, and writing tips — a real Renaissance woman. You can check out her review at https://rachelpoli.com/2016/09/17/death-by-pumpkin-by-n-a-granger/ The second is from Kate Loveton. Kate’s blog,Odyssey of a Novice Writer (which she definitely isn’t!) (https://kateloveton.wordpress.com/author/kateloveton/) has been silent for a while and I discovered she has become overwhelmed with her job and decided to let her blog sit until she retires next year. I am so looking forward to having her back, and judged by the comments when she posted her review, there are many others out there to welcome her back as well. Thus it is an honor that she posted a review for me on her blog: Book Review: ‘Death by Pumpkin’ by N.A. Granger We writers need reviews like a man dying of thirst needs water! So many thanks to Rachel and Kate. And if by any chance there is anyone else out there who has read my book or who would like to, a thousand blessings on your heads if you will post an honest review! 0 0

I think I am catching up – but still a few weeks behind! Here are some blogs for you to peruse: https://skinnyandsingle.ca The title sort of says it all. This blogger confesses she’s been divorced for ten years. She’s happy to check her own oil, refill her own washer fluid, and pump her own gas. She’s learned  to use a drill, take apart a bed, put together a bed, and carry about fifty pounds of groceries up three flights of stairs. There have to be a lot of empathetic souls out there. marmar daguob at https://p2padvertising.wordpress.com P2P Advertising aims to help you build your brand on a personal level and advertise it person to person. Sounds like this could be an excellent site to get your book out there. The Cracked Spine at https://thecrackedspineblog.wordpress.com is a simple blog for Die and Moz, two Irish readers starting out in the world of Literature Blogging and Podcasting. If you are a writer with a new novel you want reviewed, you can contact them to open a discussion. They accept submissions from all genres. They just reviewed Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (which I’ve read and loved). Lewis (Starborn41) at https://twooldguysdistributingco.wordpress.com is an artist who grew up in the Midwest and was drawn from an early age to art. Now 75 years old, he has been practicing for a long time, and art is still his greatest love. He enjoys wood burning (something I actually tried as a kid!), in large part due to the meticulous process for which it calls. This is a lovely blog – go visit! Akhila at https://wordsandnotion.wordpress.com writes a gentle and eclectic blog of ideas, thoughts, and notions.  I’ve enjoyed her posts and she has a LOT of followers! Tina Roth Eisenberg at https://muraadnama.wordpress.com/ was chugging along in her career as a designer when to become the kind of woman she had hoped her children would know, she delved into a career as a serial entrepreneur. Whether it’s through having a confetti drawer, keeping sane hours, or building environments that cultivate enthusiasm, Eisenberg urges us all to judge our success with the happiness and personal growth of those around us. She posts on lifestyle, motivation, awareness and short news stories. Chiemezi Budus at https://marketingwithbudus.wordpress.com is the blog of a young, motivated and activated entrepreneur whose passion is to make the people around him successful. His aim is to  create a simple and fast way for marketers to publish and advertise their goods. Digital attitude at https://daprosite.wordpress.com/ is 26 years old and fed up with the daily grind of punching my time card 6 days a week. And is a full time mother. Her greatest achievement in life is becoming a mother she wants to put her children in the best position possible for their future. She is determined to show her readers that what she is doing works, and it will change your life. Recent posts are on vulnerability, dreaming and facing your fears. Akash Bibdal at https://serenequietness.wordpress.com is a young man with an upbeat blog on inspiration and self-improvement. He hopes readers will implement the practical techniques emphasized in the blog through posts.  His goal is to change life of people for the better. Recent posts include The Art of Making Money and The Power of a Smile. Clara Lee at https://toledobendreport.com/about/  The Toledo Bend Literary Journal publishes the following genres: Fiction Genres: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Realistic Fiction, Historical Fiction, Mystery, Suspense/Romance and Poetry. Nonfiction: All types of Informational Literature on any subject matter, Biography, Autobiography, and Book Reviews. Photography: Poetry on any subject You might want to check them out – they have a contest coming up. Wendy at https://mywonderfulworldofvintage.wordpress.com writes a really interesting blog about vintage clothing. She actually developed a (small) hoarding issue and accumulated way too much. had to sell/donate almost all it because she and my husband quit our jobs and got rid of pretty much everything we owned to go on a long term travel adventure.  Follow her as she travels around the world and finds vintage clothing in every port of call! Lbath1950 at https://nutsrok.wordpress.com is a really funny blogger, whom I visit (or try to) regularly. The stories you read on her blog all have a kernel of truth, mixed in with a healthy serving of imagination, embroidery, and if necessary to make a point, outright confabulation. Her mother illustrates her blog.  The name of her blog? She comes from a rollicking family of nuts. A recent post: How Do You Keep Your Panties Up? DO check her out. 0 0

I want to tell you about a blog called Club 51, run by Chris White. It’s a blog for and about people who were born in 1951. I am an honorary member, since I wasn’t born in 1951. ‘Nuff said about that! See: https://1951club.wordpress.com Recently Chris had a post on the 1951 DeSoto (a old car for those of you too young to know what a DeSoto is!). When I read it, I thought of the little green Nash Rambler station wagon my family had, the first car I can actually remember. I suggested since Nash Ramblers were popular in the 50s, he might want to do a post on them, And he did. Here it is: A post in whch I unexpectedly ramble on … A quote from that post: “The Nash Rambler is a North American automobile that was produced by the Nash Motors division of Nash-Kelvinator Corporation from 1950 to 1954/55. It is widely acknowledged to be the first successful modern American compact car.” After he posted on the Nash cars, I remembered a song by the Playmates about a Nash Rambler, and I’m giving you the link here because it’s pretty darn funny. 0 0

I will freely confess it took me a while to finish this book. Life got in the way and I had to go back and reread a goodly portion of it, because the story jumps around. It begins in medieval Prague, now the capitol of the Czech Republic, and a city I know well having lived there for more than a year. The author asks, “What is life?” and then describes a barber, bored with his profession, who leaves his wife and children to follow the perceived enchanted life of a traveling scholar and alchemist. He carries with him a green stone of moldovite, the only gem not of this earth, but from a meteorite. When he returns to Prague after many fruitless years, he finds his wife dead and his daughters working in a brothel and realizes he had squandered a good life. This is the prospect facing the main character in this book, Sylvia Smetana, a likeable middle-aged teacher at Our Lady of Ransom’s private school for girls, where she teaches religious studies. She was more or less contented with her life until she traveled to Prague with her mother Svetlana, a Czech ex-pat who has lived in England since the 1950s. Svetlana gives her daughter a ring of moldovite, and from that time, Sylvia feels a psychic draw to Prague, to which she escapes as often as possible, and she begins to observe and question the lives of ambition populating the school. The book is part scathingly funny description of the school’s hierarchy and the lengths to which the members of the administration will go to advance. The author has clearly had experience with the machinations of academia, and her sarcastic views tickled my funny bone, since I’m a long time academic.  She takes the concepts of head hunting, steering committees and thinking outside the box to new heights of ridiculousness, and I loved these parts of the book. I also enjoyed the author’s colorful descriptions of Prague and the many sites I know so well. It was a trip down memory lane for me and her affection for the city comes through loud and clear. I, too, would love to return again and again. One problem I had with the book was the changing points of view. The story jumped from Sylvia to her mother to the parent of a prospective student and to another faculty member who is having a nervous breakdown and back again. I found the transitions jarring and occasionally perplexing. There are also digressions to the history of John Dee, English mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, occult philosopher, and advisor to Queen Elizabeth I, and his links to Prague, specifically to Thaddeus Hajek. Hajek was the personal physician of the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II and a Bohemian astronomer. I see these digressions as part of the Sylva’s growing desire to nurture her inner life, and the book concludes with wandering thoughts on love and trust, the finding of self, and the creation of our lives through experience. I give this book four stars, largely based on its characters and humor, which makes it well worth reading. About the author Meira Eliot was born in North Yorkshire in England, but spent most of her in the what is now the Czech Republic and Germany, working as a teacher and translator. She states that around pretentious people her wit becomes hysterically delinquent and she often sounds as if she had just swallowed a dictionary. Ms. Eliot studied at Durham and Oxford and learned how to string sentences together and first began translating other people’s books, which taught her how remarkably rare it is for people to say what they really mean.  Always a bookworm, she gradually realized that writing is her true vocation. Her favorite kind of writing is humorous and involves some kind of mystery or imagination, which The Strangely Surreal Adventures of Sylvia Smetana demonstrates. You can find Meira Eliot on Twitter: @meiraeliot on Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/MeiraEliot/ and at www.meiraeliot.com/ This book is available in paperback on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Strangely-Surreal-Adventures-Sylvia-Smetana/dp/1849148252/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1473869286&sr=1-4&keywords=Meira+Eliot 0 0

The laboratory where we worked in Prague during the 1970s was in the basement of a several hundred years old apartment house. Four or five of us worked in a two hundred square foot room that was pleasantly cool in the summer but frigid in the winter. A scintillation counter and spectrophotometer (something you might find in a high school nowadays) were only available in a lab on the other side of the city, so many days my husband would have to jiggle across the city on a variety of trams with a box of vials for counting.  For part of the year, there was no water and we had to walk up the hill from the lab to get water from an outside spigot. Laboratory supplies such as magic markers and glass coverslips were jealously guarded; they were not available locally and were mostly gifts from visitors or brought back by those scientists who were allowed out of the country. Our mail came to the lab, and once, when we had received no mail for nearly a month, we phoned the Consulate to complain it was being held up.  We were told there was really nothing the Consulate could do without a lot of back channel communication, but we were assured that the phone call itself would probably do the trick. Our mail arrived the next day. Mitigating the difficulties of our day-to-day life (I once had to have a drug for a kidney infection flown over in a consulate pouch), were the warmth and generosity of our Czech friends, who took quiet pride in their history and their ability to survive under harsh circumstances. They shared with us what they had, and like the character in the classic Czech book The Good Soldier Schweik, taught us how to deal with frustration by laughing at circumstances and taking pleasure in the subtle sabotage of the regime under which they lived. We celebrated Trotsky’s birthday with banners and vodka, much to the displeasure of the Communist head of our Institute. One night, traveling home in a taxi  — the driver of which had been told to stay off the streets – we rolled down the window and swore in English at the Russian tanks and flame throwers rolling through Prague during the Warsaw Pact games; the driver rolled down his window and joined in swearing. In the winter, we swapped our coats and hats when we went in and out of the US Consulate, for the benefit of the police photographing us from a booth across the street. My greatest pleasure was losing the plainclothesman who followed me during our first summer there, by dashing in and out of department stores.  He was always waiting on a bench across the street from our apartment when I got home and never failed to give me a smile. *** When I returned in 1992, gradual progress was apparent. There were real supermarkets and an efficient metro, although I had loved riding in the old, open, wooden trams. The old building all over Prague sparkled in the sunshine with new paint and gilt, the squares teemed with people from all over Europe and the United States, and the stores overflowed with consumer goods. Street musicians, curbside flower shops, and souvenir vendors hawked their goods and talents everywhere. The Charles Bridge, a centuries-old bridge spanning the Vltava and lined with statues of saints, with a celebration of outdoor art and music, from jazz to classical. Buildings painted in their original bright colors sported ground floor shops purchased from the state by individuals now in business for themselves. There were new hotels, hotels being renovated, and hotels being built.  Cuisine was now continental, and I found it hard to find a hospoda (tavern or pub) with traditional Czech food. There was even a MacDonald’s, where I took the children of a friend for their very first big Mac. The downside of democracy was also evident. Prices for many items were now too expensive for the ordinary Czech citizen. A big Mac was the price of a full meal with beer in a hospoda. Some very old wine cellars, where we had spent many nights talking science and politics and enjoying the vintage, were now too pricey for all but well-heeled tourists. Even the cost of items such as oranges and bananas, now freely available, made them a special treat instead of every day food. The crime rate was up. On the late nights when I couldn’t get a taxi, I used to walk the streets alone with no concern of my safety. Now there were muggers. There were also beggars, and there was evidence of drug use. These were some aspects of a free society the country would experience in force over the next decade. The biggest change, however, was in the attitude of my Czech friends to what the future would hold. Realize that these were people who had never had checkbooks, credit cards, a mortgage or taxes. Many had never been any further than East Berlin.  Over many nights and glasses of good beer, I discovered they anticipated a challenging future and recognized that there would be dramatic and rapid changes in their way of life with a difficult period of adjustment.  Many commented they were working harder than they had ever worked before, and they were looking to retrain, learn new skills, and find new business opportunities. They did complain about the cost of living – the first time I had heard that – but they were optimistic things would improve. Czech scientists, who had found ways to be creative in years where their technology lagged decades behind the rest of the world, were striking out with new collaborations and establishing connections everywhere. In my filed, universities were developing centers for research, with the government-directed National Academy of Sciences, where more of the former research effort had been concentrated, now playing a much lesser role. My overall impression of this critical

Every time I explore this list, there are more amazing people to discover. I hope y’all will take time for visit a few of these. Awkward at https://forgottenteenblog.wordpress.com is a 15 year old who spends a lot of her time at home. She sounds like she needs some followers so why don’t you visit her page and tell her about yourself! Hover printing at https://hoveprinting.wordpress.com/ is an online magazine of fact and fiction, showcasing original stories, satirical reports and essays on great works of art. I read through some of the posts and could spend a day there. https://237exclusive.wordpress.com is a blog from a fellow in Cameroon. It covers daily events, health tips, etc. from a young African point of view. Amsang at http://thetimelock.photos/bombay-brunch-satyaniketan-new-delhi/ is an avid photographer, traveler and a foodie at heart. I read one of his posts on some Indian food and salivarted! His photography skills are awesome – so you might want to visit. psychology74 – could not find a blog for this person, just a gravatar https://ankitmaharishi.wordpress.com Ankit Maharishi from Jaipur, India, does not want to be called a blogger but an observer of live, less talkative, more expressive with words. This blog is reflective about the human condition. https://francisandanna.com This is a fun blog that won the Sunshine Blogger Award. Francis and Anna are traveling though life’s mysteries, writing about their encounters, talking about God. Francis a sales person, hardworking and aggressive in studying his crafts. Anna is passionate about numbers, highly qualified in audit and finance. She is a creative traveler and an accidental writer. A recent post: 10 Superb Ways to Enjoy Dining Without Limits: The Terrace On the Corniche, St. Regis In Abu Dhabi was mind -blowing. Stacey at https://maceysjourney.wordpress.com has stories that are fun to read and will bring a smile to your face. She posts one every day and hope to make a collection in to a book for sale. Right now she is just seeing where her blog takes her because she’s a writer and is having fun! Amber MV at http://www.theleafypaw.com is a graduate in creative writing and English from Southern New Hampshire University and created this blog to share some of her process in writing practice and development of voice.  The blog is described as a journal on the soul of the world” drawing inspiration from ecology, place-based perspectives, interreligious identity, soul, poetry, culture, urban life, community, anthropology, art, rites of passage, adult life, embodiment, animals and women’s interests. Betty at https://windingwordsblog.wordpress.com/ confesses that books and libraries are some of her favorite thing. She got a library card at 6 and at a young 62 has been reading ever since, books of all kinds. And she reviews them! Bless her soul and go visit her blog! Ramona Crisstea at https://ramonacrisstea.com/2016/08/02/an-unexpected-journey/ is a lovely young woman who blogs about (and models) high fashion, inspiration, life and lifestyle, travel and love. She is also quite a design artist. Worth a visit and more. 0 0

Because of the comments I received on my Czech Christmas post, I decided to re-post the two blogs pieces I wrote in 2016 on what it was like living there in the 1970s. *** I recently discovered in an old folder an article I wrote about my experience with the city of Prague, both before the Velvet Revolution, when I lived and worked there, and after, in the early ‘90s, when I went back for a visit. Perhaps you will find this interesting? I am going to break this article in two, to keep in manageable, and over the next few months will write more about individual adventures in Communist Czechoslovakia. *** In April of 1992, I returned to what was then still Czechoslovakia for the first time in five years and the first time since the Velvet Revolution. For those of you not familiar with this term, the Velvet Revolution was the non-violent transition of power that took place from November 17 to December 29, 1989. Popular demonstrations were held against the one-party government of the Communist Party by students and older dissidents. The end result was the end of 41 years of Stalinist rule in Czechoslovakia, the subsequent dismantling of the Communist economy, and a conversion to a parliamentary republic. Vaclav Havel was the first President. I have a very special place in my heart for this country and its people, since I lived and worked in Prague for over a year in the early ‘70s and had many colorful experiences during that time with the hardline Communist regime that dominated everything.  I also found the Czech people to be warm and open-hearted. As my plane crossed into Czech airspace on that trip in 1992, I remember being anxious to see the changes brought about by democracy. One change was apparent immediately: instead of having to fly through narrow airspace corridors determined by the government, we flew over the city and I had my first view of it from the air. When I reached the car of the friends who met me at the airport, they told me, “Take a deep breath! Can you smell freedom?” To explain how much these words meant, I need to tell you about the culture shock of 1972, when my husband and I first came to Prague from California on an exchange fellowship sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences. The effects of the Soviet invasion of 1968 were just settling in (the borders of the country had actually remained open for a time thereafter but were then defined by barbed wire and guards with guns in sentry boxes). Prague was a gray, dirty and grim city, some of its building still pockmarked with bullet holes from the invasion. We lived with a well-educated, English-speaking Czech couple in their apartment in Holesovice, a quiet, tree-lined section of the city located in a bend of the Vltava river. Our hosts’ son had left the country before the border closed and was now living in Tasmania, and I think they just adopted us, introducing us to Czech customs and the language. We were paid in Czech currency and had decided from the outset to live as Czechs did, eating Czech food, buying in local stores instead of the commissary in the US consulate, and learning the language so we could travel on our own. Even so, we stood out as some of the only Americans in the country. The culture shock gradually wore off as we accommodated to the lack of most things we had taken for granted at home in California. There were not many consumer goods available beyond the basic necessities, and these were sold in individual stores. There were stores for dairy products, others for vegetable (cabbage, potatoes, onions and peppers only), and still others for meat, fish, bottled drinks and canned goods.  In some canned goods stores, you would tell the clerk what you wanted and they would fetch it for you. More often, you stood in line to be waited on, which was the way of life for babičkas, or the grandmothers, who did the shopping for their working sons and daughters. We had to plan our days carefully to allow for enough time to buy food.  In the summer, fresh vegetables and fruit would be trucked in from Italy, Bulgaria and Romania, and sold at open stalls in various city squares. It became Grangers’ rule that if we spotted something unusual (like oranges, squash or lettuce) on our tram rides back and forth to work, we got off the tram at the next stop and went back to buy some. There was no guarantee we’d find it elsewhere or even later in the same place. There were often Czech babičkas in line to buy something unusual, like patty pan squash, who had no idea how to cook it. When I’d learned enough Czech, I would spend time explaining how to do it. And of course, all transactions were in cash. Credit cards had already become a way of life for us, but not for the Czechs. Tram rides were always an adventure. In the old wooden ones, which were being replaced, you could hop off and on like the trolleys in San Francisco. The newer ones had no A/C and the windows were hardly every opened, which in the summer resulted in a hermetically sealed sweat box filled with human body odors. There were usually two places on the tram reserved for the those with disabilities and they were coveted by   babičkas. It was a frequent occurrence to see two of them battling each other with canes to get the one unoccupied seat. Hubs and I often remarked that if the babičkas had confronted the Russians when they invaded in 1968, the Russian troops would have hightailed it back home. Before the revolution bribery was a part of living. We gave money or bottles of good liquor to policemen, guards at the border, doctors, or clerks in

It’s Labor Day weekend so my New Followers Friday got delayed a bit. I am now blocked out for the next three weeks, so if you are a new follower, be patient with me! Wendy Unswroth at https://wendyunsworth.wordpress.com/2016/08/07/saying-hello/  Wendy has written two novels plus chapter books for children, and one of her current WIPs is a psychological thriller. Born in England, she’s lived in Zambia, Kenya and Portugal but currently lives in Cornwall with her family.  I know a number of bloggers who have lived or who are currently living in Africa and Portugal, so you might want to look her up. tusharchaudhari900  is a traveler, trekker, day-dreamer, and book lover. You can find him on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/tushar.chaudhari.900 https://deleciahenrybooks.wordpress.com/  Delecia Henry is a self-published author and a freelance ghostwriter on Fiverr.com. She has been writing professionally since 2014 and has worked on countless writing projects. Delecia resides in Kingston, Jamaica and just started her blog. She is also on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/delecia.henry.1/about https://campcarpediem.wordpress.com Camp Carpe Diem is Ally, a media student at Bournemouth University and a part-time student in drama school in London.  She is a young blogger – I know there are some young bloggers out there – she blogs on all sorts of things: the MTV video awards surviving a minimum wage job, London markets to visit. Vihasi Shah at https://everlastingsmilewisdom.wordpress.com  Ms. Shah is a beautiful young woman, an entrepreneur, a lawyer in program, teacher, volunteer, writer… her blog is filled by various poems, tiny tales, words of wisdom designed to make you smile. Rmskbus at https://theinoculator.wordpress.com/  According to his Meet the Team introduction, Robbie was born an orphan. Found hiding in an alleyway in downtown New York with nothing but a shawl made from newspapers, he was taken in by a traveling troop of Buddhist monks and trained in the art of truth. His blogs are truly eclectic: Drastic changes in the Astrological Calendar, Burqa Ban Wins War on Terror, Equality Finally Achieved. This blog is fun! https://raheemjan760.wordpress.com/about/  Raheemjan is a new blogger who is a student in Elysain higher secondary school, Gilgit.  She has seen many people who do not eat fruits and vegetables and only live to 50-60 because of their lack of awareness. She was inspired to start this blog so she could convey to people the benefits of eating fruits and vegetables, a worthy goal for us to read about. https://canadawanderlust.wordpress.com is a travel blog with absolutely breathtaking pictures of various sites around the world. Could not find a place to leave a message, but I highly recommend you take a look to see these photos! Bubble Soliloquy at https://sukritiz.wordpress.com/2016/08/09/karma/  The author is Sukritiz, who writes lovely short pieces of poetry and prose.  You can find her also on Facebook. Sakshi at https://sakshiswaroop.wordpress.com  Sakshi only wrote her first blog post last month, but they are nice on the eye and eclectic. She’s always wanted to write and she likes surfing the internet and reading articles, then sharing them with her followers – along with some of her own musings. Sara Aurorae at https://summaamare.com s a true philosopher. How many blogs have you seen devoted to philosophical topics? Along with history, politics, and ethics. This is a blog for a deep thinker! The author is drawn to investigating decisions, views and actions.  Her latest post, with references, is Internal Language and Intelligence: Where is Moral consciousness?  I think you will find her blog challenging and a great learning experience. 0 0

Disclaimer: I was given an advanced reader copy by the author as a gift and was not asked for a review. I decided I had to give it a review anyway! The Prologue of Porter Girl describes the medieval founding of Old College, where the murder of a young scholar portends of evil to come. Then to the present, where Porter Girl is the first female Deputy Head Porter of the still existing Old College, a now ancient, academically elite institution. Her adventures begin on day one, as her appointment is greeted with curiosity, approbation and hostility by the various staff and academics inhabiting the rare and eccentric air of the school. As a former police officer, Porter Girl is well equipped to handle anything, but as she soon learns, Porters do not carry bags, they are the keepers of the keys and overseers of the students and all the college activities. She soon comes to realize there is a profound chasm between the staff and the faculty, so deep that she occasionally wonders what she is doing there. However, with her background, cheerful good will and nose for intrigue, she soon bridges that gap. The mystery begins when Porter Girl learns there were bodies buried many years previously under the foundations of the ‘new’ Porter’s Lodge. Old College clearly has had an ancient, notorious past, about which only a privileged few know, and Porter Girl is irresistibly drawn into finding out what that is. She decides to question the very old Professor K, a kindly and gentle soul who confirms what she heard and gives her a clue  to where to go next. Before she can proceed, Professor K dies, apparently in his sleep, followed rather quickly by the immolation of Senior Bursar from the explosive fire from a new electric tea kettle. The characters the author has drawn for her book are marvelous and nuanced: Porter, Head Porter, Senior Bursar, Junior Bursar, The Master, The Dean, The Professor, Head of Housekeeping, and little vignettes of each of them can be found on her blog.  I particularly liked The Professor, an American who is partial to bright blue suits and fedoras; Senior Bursar, described by the author as a tall, powerful man, customarily swathed in tweeds,  with a cut-glass accent and booming voice, and a penchant for biscuits and holding pre-drinks reception drinks reception (figure that one out if you can); and the Dean, a lofty academic with a penchant for wearing clashing colors. I thought of Bridget Jones’ Diary as I began to read this book. Actually I’d been thinking of BJD for some time because I follow Lucy Brazier’s blog, The Secret Diary of Porter Girl, the Everyday Adventures of the Staff and Students of Old College. Her blog is hilarious, and I thought a full length book would be the same. I wasn’t disappointed. The descriptions of antics of the Old College and its Fellows, its time-honored and sometimes senseless traditions, and the adventures of Porter Girl’s daily life – chasing after naked students, watching a ceremony on her knees behind a curtain, finding secret rooms and passages, mindlessly sorting keys, and the drinking of gallons of tea – at times made me laugh out loud. Balancing the humor are the author’s soaring, beautiful and detailed descriptions of Old College and its grounds, with each passing season. Clearly based on a real place, these made me want to visit… with Porter Girl as my guide. I highly recommend Porter Girl: The Keeper of the Keys. The book goes on sale tomorrow, so get in line. One of the best books I’ve read this year! About the author Adapted from Amazon: Adventurer. Puzzle-solver. Expert tea-maker. Lucy Brazier started writing to entertain herself during childhood as the internet did not yet exist. Later on, she had a punt at writing to entertain other people and pulled it off rather well. Then she wrote a book – Secret Diary of Porter Girl: The Everyday Adventures of the Students and Staff of Old College – and now she’s written another. From an interview with the author Dan Alatorre: Her books derive from the fact that on a whim, she applied for the role of Deputy Head Porter at one of the most prestigious Colleges of Cambridge University. She didn’t expect to get the job, but when it was offered, she thought it churlish to refuse and became the  first female Deputy Head Porter in the College’s 600 year history. She believes she was absolutely the worst Deputy Head Porter the College had ever seen, and she hung up her bowler hat after a year. But her experiences inspired her blog and her first book and now further fictional adventures. You can find Lucy Brazier On twitter: @portergirl100 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lucy.suzuki.3?fref=ts Blog: https://portergirl.com/ 0 0

Don Massenzio kindly hosted me for a Q and A on his blog today. You can check out my answers to 20 questions at: 20 Questions with N.A. Granger Thanks so much, Don, for the opportunity. And followers, do check out Don’s blog. He is a prolific author of several murder mysteries himself and in addition to interviews, he posts writing tips and book reviews on his eye-catching blog. You can contact him at www.donmassenzio.com 0 0