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Stranded in the Seychelles is a fun, frothy memoir of two young women looking for adventure before they have to make a life decision about settling down. It is written by Bev Spicer, who has written several humorous memoirs of her life, including Bunny on a Bike, telling of the time she was a Playboy croupier in London. Bev and Carol, her bosom buddy, have come to a fork in the road. Carol has just returned from teaching English to monks in Tibet, while Bev has held a series of uninspiring jobs, including typing out legal contracts and folding and labeling bin bags to send off with a quote to possible customers (that one really impressed me!). She finally gets a postgraduate teaching certificate from Cambridge and, at the time of this story, has been teaching English to uninterested secondary school students for a year. When Bev comes across an ad for qualified English teachers for the National Youth Service of the Seychelles, they both bite. I had to look up the Seychelles: the Seychelles Islands are an archipelago in the Indian Ocean off the eat coast of Africa, in the same general region as Zanzibar, Madagascar and Mauritius. The two friends fly out to their new island home, picturing a luxury villa on a beach, tropical fruit and air-conditioned class rooms. They should have been alarmed by the lack of information or even a syllabus for the classes they were to teach. By this time the reader is thinking too good to be true, don’t do it! They step off their plane into the climate of a convection oven, peopled by native and mixed raced individuals who speak mainly Creole, with strange customs and even stranger food. Eventually they are given their own house, with a steady breeze from the ocean and electricity. Also lizards and a wondrous variety of spiders, which spin webs like nets overnight. Their school is on another island, which they reach by landing craft each morning, together with other recruited teachers. The voyage is spent gagging on the acrid black smoke from the engine. Their classrooms are outside under tin roofs, which heat the air beneath to baking levels by the end of each day, and have poisonous centipedes dropping in from time to time. Teachers at the school come from various European countries as well as Sri Lanka and Mauritius, making a colorful, multilingual lot. The students, by contrast, are perpetually sleepy and unengaged in learning, despite Bev and Carol’s best efforts. This memoir is filled with eclectic characters, surprising and humorous adventures, lots of local beer, and experiences on and with an ancient Kawasaki 250 cc motorbike they purchase for getting around. Along the way, the reader is nicely schooled in the sometimes harsh realities of life in a poor, politically unstable country. A concatenation of events lead to Sue and Carol’s long and eventually successful attempt to terminate their contract after the first school term: most significantly to them was the ban on traveling anywhere during their breaks except within the Seychelles and Mauritius. Not to mention the lack of eligible men. This was a fun read, written with a sharp wit and keen sense of humor, with an eye to the ridiculous and candor with the politics. It’s a great memoir. It made me want to be young again, carefree and open to any adventure. Bev Spicer was born in a small market town in the Midlands of England and educated at Queens’ College, Cambridge. She was a lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University before moving to live in France with her husband and two of her children; there she writes full-time. Along the way, she has been a teacher, blackjack dealer for Playboy, examiner, secretary (various sorts – most boringly ‘legal’) and Sunday checkout girl at Tescos. As well as France, she has lived in Bridgnoth, Cambridge, Rethymnon (Crete), and Mahe (Seychelles). The next place she has said she wants to explore is probably Spain. She reports that her husband is very tolerant. She loves people, reading, writing, speaking French, astronomy (quantum theory addict), gardening, traveling, and hates housework, cooking, drizzle and honey. Sounds like my kind of author! You can find Stranded in the Seychelles, along with her ten (!) other books on Amazon: and Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6450490.Bev_Spicer as well as Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BevSpiceAuthor   0 0

On her blog, I Wish I Lived in a Library, Katherine posted her review of Death in a Dacron Sail. I am so pleased she liked it. I’ve always appreciated her reviews and had kept my fingers crossed she would enjoy it.  Check it out at: iwishedilivedinalibrary.blogspot.com or http://iwishilivedinalibrary.blogspot.com/2015/03/death-in-dacron-sail-review.html?showComment=1425491072329#c3996690571933 0 0

Last night we had a party for the launch of my second book, Death in a Dacron Sail. It was huge fun – just socializing with friends and imbibing some good wine and beer. We held it at the Top of the Hill Restaurant, which brews its own beer. The party was in the Tank Room, two flights down from the roof- top restaurant (so sort of the Bottom of the Hill); this space contains the huge vats of the beer they brew, displayed behind glass windows. There was a full bar, and we chose a menu of beer and wine varieties for everyone. A few tables and a display of the books – the rest was schmoozing with good friends. No book transactions, just fun. Well, I did sign one – for a very special guest, Dr. Larry Gilbert, my research mentor and adviser, who at 86 is still my role model. I counted three other published authors among the guests, along with all the members of my Early Birds critique group. Three of us have been together for four years, the rest for at least two. I’ve never been to a launch party before, but I did hire a marketing group – Yardarm Media – to help me, and they suggested the launch party. With their help, I’ve had and will have several interviews and the readings are lining up. Since many publishers expect you to do your own marketing, self-publishing (via Create Space) plus having a marketing group seemed like a logical and less daunting (not to mention less frustrating) way to get my books out there. Has anyone else hired a marketing firm? Had a launch party? What did you do for it? I’d love to know! 0 0

The Watchmen is the second book in the Britannia series by Richard Denham and M.J. Trow. I read and reviewed the first book in the series, The Wall. I liked that book; this one was more entertaining. The Wall began in AD 367 in Roman Britannia, modern day England. The Watchmen is set years later and the four so-called ‘Heroes of the Wall’ are living very different lives from their earlier roles in the Roman Army. Leocadius, once a bragging and womanizing pedes or foot soldier, is now a leader in civilian life, the council of Londinium (London), with a cold wife and a warm mistress, Honoria. The beautiful Honoria runs an upper class brothel and has a child, Scipio, with Leocadius. Vitalis, also once a foot soldier, has become a Christian and now lives in a rough house by the Thames, where he weaves baskets for sale from the river grasses. Justinus, once a 30 year old non-commissioned officer of the cavalry, is now Commander of Hadrian’s Wall, tasked with protecting Britannia from invaders from the wild lands north of the Wall. Paternus, a semisallis (a rank above pedes) had lost his family in the earlier book and had made a political marriage with Brenna, female leader of the Voltadini, to tie her people to Rome. They’d fallen in love and had a child together, but Paternus had died five years before the story begins. Justinus is in love with Brenna and committed to overseeing the development and education of her two boys, one from an earlier marriage and the one fathered by Paternus. Around these characters the book swirls, moving swiftly from one to the other, leaving the reader with multiple cliffhangers. The figure tying the separate story lines together is Magnus Maximus, commander of the Roman Army in Britannia. He declares himself Caesar, a challenger to the throne of Gratian, Emperor of the western Roman Empire. Gratian shares the throne with his brother Valentinian II, Emperor of the eastern half of the Roman Empire. At the beginning of the book, Maximus is demanding and winning allegiance from the various native tribes in Britannia, as their Caesar. Leocadius is mired in the politics of Londinium and saddled with a grasping wife. He plays dice for his life. Vitalis wants a peaceful life but has to rejoin the military to help his sister Conchessa find her husband, who defrauded Valentinian and is missing. Justinus is facing a massive incursion of invaders determined to kill everything and everyone in their way and has to work with Maximus and the tribes allied with him to stop them. Each of their stories winds through the book like ribbons on a maypole, detailed with Celtic legend, Egyptian mysticism and tribal battle-fury. How many of the remaining three Heroes of the Wall will survive? I only have two negative comments: first, the story of Maximus’ campaign against Gratian is given short shrift – in itself, it could have been another volume; second, there were places where the characters use very contemporary expressions, which was a little jarring. I appreciated the glossary at the end of the book for Roman terms with which I wasn’t familiar, and the map showing sites from the narrative. Richard Denham is a self-taught Roman historian with an exhaustive knowledge of this period; M.J.Trow is a military historian. They have combined their talents to bring the Britannia of the fourth century and its citizens to life. I fully admit I am not an historian and perhaps some who are might quibble. But as a general reader, I recommend this book for anyone who enjoys historical fiction and Roman history. Where I felt the first book in the series would appeal mainly to men, this book has a broader appeal. I’m hoping to see a third book soon. 0 0

A review of Death in a Dacron Sail is in. Check out Book Club Mom. Book Club Mom.doc  or https://bvitelli2002.wordpress.com/2015/02/25/rhe-brewster-is-at-it-again/.  Many thanks to Barbara Vitelli for the review. My book release party is Monday evening (I’ll post pictures), and the book is already on Amazon. If you read it, please review it!  The Kindle version will be available by Thursday of next week. Let the games begin! 0 0

I gratefully accept The Versatile Blogger Award, and because of the lengthy award acceptances last night at the Oscars, will keep this short. (Applause, bows) I apologize to CaptainSparklez who nominated me for the award last month. I’m happy I finally have time to recognize this honor and thank him. His website is called, interestingly enough, Troll Base, and you can find it at: https://mlgpronoscopezzz.wordpress.com/ There you will find poetry and opinion and a page for jokes, which needs more entries!! For this award, I am to nominate 15 other bloggers. If any of the nominees already have this award or would like to decline, I am sending you a bouquet of flowers instead, which you can post on your blog if you wish. Sally, of Smorgasbord – Variety is the Spice of Life – gave me this idea.   This is my list: Betty Stephens at Betty A. Stephens, Maine Author http://4writersandreaders.com/ Barbara Vitelli at Book Club Mom https://bvitelli2002.wordpress.com/ Cindy Knoke http://cindyknoke.com/ Charli Mills at Carrot Ranch Communications http://carrotranch.com/ Coleen Chesbro at Silver Threadings   http://silverthreading.com/. Michael Jeck at WriterlyWiterings http://writerlywitterings.com/ Olga at Just Olga https://olganm.wordpress.com/about/ Stepheny Forgue Houghtlin http://stephenyhoughtlin.com/ Viv Drewa at the Owl Lady Blog https://theowlladyblog.wordpress.com/ Paul G. Day at Brave Bear Books http://bravebearbooks.com/ Pete Deakon at Captain’s Log http://petedeakon.com/ Ali at A Woman’s Wisdom https://awomanswisdom.wordpress.com/ Anthony Vicino at One Lazy Robot http://onelazyrobotblog.com/ Fia Esson at Fia Esson, Write https://essenfia.wordpress.com/ Esther at Hortus Closus   https://hortusclosus.wordpress.com/   And now for seven things about myself: I used to be 5’ 10”’ tall. Used to be is the operative verb. My hair color was once a deep red. I shudder. I have huge feet. Which is why I wear sandals a lot. Thank heavens I live in the South. I am allergic to surgical tape from too many surgeries. None of them cosmetic…well… My eyes really are that blue – I don’t wear contacts. My daughter is Korean. We’ve been blessed every day since we got her. My favorite food is pizza, hot or cold. I do have preferences with regard to the source, though. (A deep bow to my readers.)       0 0

As most of my blog readers know, I have the second book in the Rhe Brewster Mystery series coming out soon. March 2, in fact. This time I’m having a book release party to celebrate! Book Club Mom (aka Barbara Vitelli) kindly accepted an advanced reader copy and posted yesterday to advertise my book (heartfelt thanks to her). Go to:Book Club Mom.doc  or What’s up next? A new Rhe Brewster Mystery! More to come, with pictures from the party…   0 0

This piece was published in Deep South Magazine in 2012, but I dug it out of the archives because of the ice storm last night. Southerners flinch at a snow flake, close schools and businesses and run to the grocery store for milk and bread. It’s a fact.   The South seemed like a nice place to put down roots, and those travel magazines can be pretty convincing. My husband and I first thought about moving to North Carolina thirty years ago after looking at pictures of the eye-popping fall colors in the mountains and the crystalline sandy beaches and cerulean blue waters off the Outer Banks, plus we were told that the weather was nice, but mostly we came because we both found jobs here. During my first week in North Carolina, temperatures hovered around 100o, with humidity that made it feel like a blast furnace, and I dreaded going outside. But gradually over the years, and with the help of whole house air-conditioning, I’ve come to welcome the heat and found it’s the perfect topic to open a conversation. “It’s a scorcher outside today.” “Yep, even the flies aren’t buzzin’.” Shortly after learning to begin conversations this way, I became aware there is a distinctive way of speaking in the South. Part of my transition as a North Carolinian was a gradual discovery that the Southern lilt is soothing to my ears, and some of the more unique terms are downright enjoyable. I’ve even found myself using “y’all” from time to time. But in the beginning, some translation was involved. Telephone calls, for example. When I called anyone, the immediate answer was, “Hey. What can I do for you?” What happened to hello? I thought. I discovered that the Civil War was really the Wahr between the States, that when you go to get your North Carolina driver’s license, you have to bring cash money, and that at the supermarket they sell a fish called sal-mon.   When a student once fainted in class, another student came to tell me that her friend had done fell out, and I thought she had fallen down some stairs. At some point, I bought a book called Speaking Southern, thinking to get a leg up on this new language, but the book really didn’t help for ordinary conversation. My first lab technician, a lovely girl named Laura, spoke Southern. One morning she came in with her hair looking like a hornet’s nest. “What happened to you?” I asked. “You look like something the cat dragged in.” “I came in a sod cah,” she replied. “Mmmmm,” I said and went off to think about a translation. It turned out to be “side car”. I once called a physician’s office to make an appointment, before the curse of depersonalized, automated answering services. A receptionist answered my call in a honeyed Southern accent: “Hey, this is Dr. Winslow’s office. What can ah do for you?” To which I politely responded. “Hello, this is Noelle Granger. I’d like to make an appointment.” There was a distinct pause on the other end of the line. Then she said, “Dr. Granjah? Is there an ahr at the end of your name, darlin’?” Before long, I found myself starting almost all of my phone calls with Hey, and it sounds just fine to me. Local sports were also transformative. We were now living in a gigantic hot bed of exciting competition. Betting that Northwestern would be behind by 50 points at half time in a football game with Ohio State was about the most excitement we had had in Chicago. So for the last 30 years, we have been like possums eating honey. But there’s one thing we’ve never gotten used to, and that’s the fact that racing cars is considered a national sport in this part of the country. Whipping your head from side to side as cars scream by at unimaginable speeds has never appealed to me because it does a number on my neck muscles, but a lot of people do seem to enjoy it. I am proud to admit that I have become, and always will be, a Tar Heel. When we ventured out to the seething mayhem and bonfires at the corner of Franklin and South Columbia, on a night when UNC won a national basketball championship, and I got my leather coat painted blue and didn’t mind, I knew I was home. As a former Northerner, I know snow. We had ninety-six inches our first winter in Chicago and had to carve a tunnel to get to our garage. All in all, winters in North Carolina are mild by comparison, and I would never move back north. I figured I had become a North Carolinian when I found myself heading to the supermarket after just the prediction of a snowfall. A few years after we moved in, we experienced our very first bad winter weather and discovered that the electricity is never guaranteed, especially if there is any sort of frozen precipitation. Our serious first ice storm left us without electricity for 10 days. Because we didn’t happen to have a generator, which seems to be a standard piece of equipment in every North Carolina garage, we resorted to stoking wood fires in our two fireplaces 24/7 and with some luck, located a kerosene heater. The kerosene smoked belligerently when we lighted it and layered the ceiling in the family room with a coating of soot. We took it back. As we entered the store, the clerk gave us a strange look. “It’s defective,” he stated wrinkling his nose. Even with a working kerosene heater finally installed, it was still cold in the house, and particularly upstairs in the bedrooms. So naturally, we all slept in one bed. The kids took the middle and snuggled in. Once my husband and I got in on the edges and covered up, our cats, determined not to be left out, inserted their bodies under the

The Last Dragon Slayer by Martyn Stanley is the tale of a quest, book one of the Deathsworn Arc series. I’ll confess I do like fantasy, along the lines of The Game of Thrones (I’ve read every volume), The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. This story has the some of the same basic elements of Lord of the Rings:: a quest, in this case given by the Empress of the land, to slay a Noble Dragon which threatens the northern border of her kingdom, in return for a reward of gold. The band of questers include Saul Karza, a wizard, whose pointed hat doesn’t emerge until facing the dragon; Korhan, son of Brian, a sellsword (sword for hire, if you are not into fantasy); Harald, son of Korvak, another a sellsword; a dwarf, Vortex, who is homeless, having been unable to reenter his home beneath the earth because of magic; Silus Mendelson, an old soldier who was the last man to slay a dragon; a dark elf called Brael the Truthseeker, who was bound by magic not to tell the truth; and the Lady Vashni, a mysterious elf who joins them on their way to the dragon’s lair. The cover of this book is very evocative, and there are lovely illustrations at the end of the book of the  characters, with a brief description of each. I would suggest placing them at the beginning to help the reader identify them. The story begins rather slowly, and I must admit it took me a bit before I got into the read, largely through the descriptions of the country as the band began its journey. There are the usual roadblocks along the way and you eventually get to know the characters, who are well limned. What changed the story for me was the appearance of Vashni, who has the ability to whisper, that is, to change the mind of the person to whom she whispers. Korhan finds himself enthralled with her beauty and her abilities, and agrees to be her Risine (here I use an s for an elvish rune; the author explains how to pronounce it). A Risine is the cross between an abject slave and a student, and Korhan finds himself not only serving her but being made to do demeaning things such as kissing her boot, while she teaches him how to strengthen his mind and improve his swordsmanship. It’s an interesting relationship, especially when she blinds and deafens him for period and then turns him into a vegetarian! Their relationship is strange and wondrous. You do learn more about each character during the course of their journey, and their confrontation with the noble dragon is quite exciting. And there’s a twist at the end: did the Empress want them to slay the dragon just because it threatened the kingdom or is something else at play? Of course there is a sequel. If there was one problem I found with the book, and I know this sounds picky, it was the lack of punctuation. I found myself having to reread sentences because I couldn’t figure out where one ended and the next began, if they did, or where to take a breath. Anytime I have to stop in a read for something like this, it takes me out of time and place. In any event, it became a rollicking tale with enough swordplay and magic to keep younger readers enthralled. I did enjoy it, and I think this book will have wide appeal and develop a good following with the subsequent books. Martyn Stanley lives near the Staffordshire/Cheshire border in England, with, according to his bio, his long suffering wife and two small children. He’s always enjoyed epic fantasy novels, so it seems natural that he would write them. His Deathsworn Arc was written to be more than a hack and slash, swords and sorcery series; it examines, faith, companionship, morality, pragmatism and more. He writes that if the characters of The Deathsworn Arc come across as strange, it’s partly because they’re intended to. I wish him the best with this series. 0 0

  The news about my second book is beginning. Here is the link to my interview with the Chapel Hill Magazine: http://www.chapelhillmagazine.com/blogs/chapel-hill-magazine-blog/q%26a%3A-noelle-granger/   0 0