Books Read in November 2011

Damsgaard, Shirley
- The Trouble with Witches 
- Witch Hunt 
- The Witch is Dead
- The Witch’s Grave
- The Seventh Witch 
A woman and her grandmother, who live in Iowa and happen to be witches, solve murders using Appalachian folk magic.


Evanovich, Janet
- Explosive Eighteen 
A klutzy bounty hunter bumbles her way to solving murders with a crazy sidekick, an incredibly hot and mysterious hunk, and a gorgeous cop boyfriend.  Totally hilarious.


Galenorn, Yasmine
- Courting Darkness 
- Hexed
These aren't cozies, they're urban or paranormal fantasies written by one of my favorite authors.  A family of 3 half-human, half-fae sisters, one of whom is a witch, one a vampire, and one a were-cat, work with a variety of co-horts to fight against evil.


Royal, Brandon
- The Little Red Writing Book (non-fiction)


Staub, Wendy Corsi
- Awakening 
- Believing 
- Connecting
- Discovering
Based in Lily Dale, New York, a spiritualist town, a young girl and her grandmother use their psychic skills in solving murders. 

Books Read in October 2011

Alt, Madelyn

- Home for a Spell 

Blackwell, Juliet

- If Walls Could Talk 

Blair, Annette

- Larceny and Lace

- Death by Diamonds 

- Skirting the Grave 

Childs, Laura

- The Teaberry Strangler 

- Scones & Bones 

Christie, Agatha

- Poirot Investigates 

- The Murder of Roger Ackroyd 

Dams, Jeanne M.

- A Dark & Stormy Night 

Davidson, Diane Mott

- Crunch Time

de Lint, Charles

- Moonheart 

Evanovich, Janet

- Smokin’ Seventeen 

Fluke, Joanne

- Cream Puff Murder 

- Plum Pudding Murder 

- Apple Turnover Murder 

- Devil’s Food Cake Murder

Grafton, Sue

- T is for Trespass 

Hunter, Maddy

- Hula Done It

- G’day to Die

- Norway to Hide 

Lewis, Matthew Gregory

- The Monk 

Micheals, Fern; Barton, Beverly; Fluke Joanne; Jump, Shirley

- Sugar and Spice 

Myers, Tim

- Innkeeping with Murder 

Starbird, Margaret

- The Woman with the Alabaster Jar

Holy cow!

I'm actually going to do NaNoWriMo this year!!!!!!!!!!!!

Books Read in September 2011

Allen, Sarah Addison

- Garden Spells 

Fiction.  Story of two sisters who followed very different paths in life, only to have them reunite as they grow as adults and as sisters.  Two sisters, a girl, and a temperamental apple tree.  Very magical.

Christie, Agatha

- The Mysterious Affair at Styles 

- Murder on the Links 

- Poirot Investigates 

Fiction.  The first three Hercule Poirot mysteries.

Davidson, Diane Mott

- Double Shot 

- Dark Tort 

- Sweet Revenge

- Fatally Flaky 

Fiction.   Books 12-15 of the Goldy Culinary mystery series.

Greenway, Alice

- White Ghost Girls 

Fiction.  Story of two  American sisters who grow up in Hong Kong during the Vietnam War.  Surprise ending.

MacInerney, Karen

- Murder on the Rocks 

Fiction. First book in the Gray Whale Inn mysteries set in Maine.  Natalie Barnes starts life over as an innkeeper and finds her livelihood in danger from a greedy land developer.

O’Brien, Edna

- A Pagan Place 

Fiction. Story of a young Irish girl's life in the early 1900's Ireland.

Radclyffe

- When Dreams Tremble 

Fiction. Lesbian love story of young love, loss, growth, and renewal.

Stamps, Laura 

- The Witches of Dixie 

Fiction. Book 1 in the Witchery trilogy.  Paranormal tale of four southern bell witches.

Swendson, Shanna

-  Enchanted, Inc.

Fiction. Book 1 in the Katie Chandler paranormal comedy treat.  Very light and magical.

Wesselman, Hank

- Spiritwalker: Messages from the Future

Non-fiction. Anthropologist Hank Wesselman's account of a series of visions he has while living on the Kona coast.  Written like a fictional story, I had to keep reminding myself that these were his true visions.

Books Read in August 2011

Cornwell, Patricia

- Postmortem 

- All That Remains 

Fiction, books one and three in the Kay Scarpetta medical examiner mystery series.

Davidson, Diane Mott

- Killer Pancake 

- The Main Corpse 

- The Grilling Season 

- Prime Cut 

- Tough Cookie 

- Sticks & Scones 

- Chopping Spree

Fiction, books five through eleven in the Goldy Culinary mystery series based in Colorado.

Evanovich, Janet

- Wicked Appetite 

Fiction, first in the new funny and hunky Diesel mystery series.

Koontz, Dean

- The Face 

Fiction, creepy tale surrounding the son of a world famous actor, whose only protectors are the head of security on his father's staff, and the newly dead friend of the security chief.

Leigh, Lora

- Dangerous Games 

Fiction, steamy tale about a Navy SEAL's relationship with a DEA agent he's known all his life, and their assignment to end a reign of terror by a Colombian drug cartel.

Malone, Nancy M.

- Walking a Literary Labyrinth: A Spirituality of Reading 

Non-fiction, the relationship between a recovering alcoholic Ursuline nun and her love of books and reading.

Patterson, James

- Violets are Blue 

- 2nd Chance 

- 3rd Degree 

- 4th of July 

- Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas 

- Cat & Mouse 

Fiction, books four and seven of the Alex Cross series, books two through four of the Women's Murder Club series, and a wonderfully romantic novel of love, loss and second chances.

Shayne, Maggie

- Infinity 

- Destiny

Fiction, books two and three of the Immortal Witch series of three related couples of High Witches battling Dark Witches.

Townsend, Kari Lee

- Tempest in the Tea Leaves
Fiction, cozy about an immature tea leaf reader who moves to a small town and begins to solve mysteries.

Notes on Walking a Literary Labyrinth: A Spirituality of Reading

By Nancy M. Malone.


"While the line of print in a novel, for instance, proceeds mostly in unbroken fashion from one margin of the page to the other, and plot and character development drive us forward until we reach a sense of wholeness at its end, to read a poem well we must go slowly, attend more carefully to all its elements.  Line breaks and their meaning arrest us.  Our innate sense of rhythm and, in some poems, our appetite for rhyme, though less robust in us than in readers of the past, are fully satisfied.  Above all, we must savor the words themselves for their full import, their sound and resonances, their relationship to other words in the line, the poem."


"...reading is a keenly personal act...reads a book against the template of his own personality, experience, tastes, and dispositions at the moment, so that in a very real way each reader is the co-creator of the work being read; it is not a one-sided affair."

"Accept" rather than "tolerate", Quotations

I don't like the word "tolerate".  It sounds like you're saying that there's something wrong with someone, but you're okay with them in spite of their faults.


I much prefer the word "acceptance".  You accept that there are differences between people, but you don't think of them as faults.


Here are some of my favorite quotes:


"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live." ~ Albus Dumbledore


"We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals." ~ Immanuel Kant


"Be open to the possibilities!"


"Real men aren't bullies."


"People may forget what you said, forget what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel."


"Not all the law, Inspector, is written in books."


"How you treat me is your karma, how I react is mine."


"If you spend too much time thinking about the future, you aren't living your life."


"Be the change you want to see in the world."


"The path to fearless living goes straight through the roadblocks, not around them."


"An ending doesn't have to be said.  It's the only way to begin something new."


“Tears are words the heart can't express” ~ Unknown


"For Creativity to thrive, it needs a place to call home."


"A true outlaw finds the balance between the passion in his heart and the reason in his mind. The outcome is the balance of might and right." ~ John Teller


"The message is that there are known "knowns."  There are things we know that we know.  There are known unknowns.  That is to say there are things that we now know we don't know.  But there are also unknown unknowns.  There are things we do not know we don't know."
~ Donald Rumsfeld.