Book Review- And She Was, by Alison Gaylin

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https://www.amazon.com/She-Was-Suspense-Brenna-Spector/dp/0061878200/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1473194449&sr=1-1&keywords=and+she+was

Okay, summer is over, school is back in session, and looking back, I definitely can tell you what my favorite book I've read over the summer of 2016 is.

"And She Was, a Brenna Spector Mystery" by Alison Gaylin is a mystery crime suspense about how Brenna Spector uses her unique gift of recalling her most detailed life memories, to the exact date- to help solve crimes.

It is also a book that takes a look at missing persons, a grim topic in the light of the news of a 27 year old case of an abducted boy from Minnesota being confirmed as murdered- a story I'd followed since I was an 18 year old freshman in college. I wish there had been a happier ending for that. Prayers to his mom and family. :(

There is a connection between the recent disappearance of a suburban wife named Carol Wentz, and a little 6 year old girl named Iris, who went missing several years back. That is what Brenna is fighting to prove to the skeptical authorities. Her only allies are her tech assistant Trent (a fun character! He's kind of like a male, muscle shirt wearing version of Penelope Garcia, lol!) and detective Nick Morasco, who Brenna has a very subtle chemistry with. I do ship them, but I really liked the idea that there were no romances in this book to detract from the suspense and mystery plot. I also like how the author describes the setting, this pristine suburban town founded by a millionaire family, who huddle together with the local police department to protect their dark secrets.


Brenna's backstory is interesting, too. When she was a little girl in the 80's, her big sister Clea was also abducted and remains missing. When I found out there was a sequel, I was so excited. I have all of Gaylin's other books on my 'must read' list.

I was quick to give this book 5 stars on Amazon.

Book Review- 'A Picture Purrfect Christmas (A Klepto-Cat Mystery)'

http://www.amazon.com/Picture-Purrfect-Christmas-Klepto-Mystery-Book-ebook/dp/B016BBY2GY/ref=cm_rdp_product

"A Picture-Purrfect Christmas (A Klepto Cat Mystery Book 13)" by Patricia Fry, is a book in her series that works perfectly fine as a stand-alone novel.

This is a very sweet and heartwarming story! Even though it touches on the dark subject matter of child abduction and abuse, the tone of the book is positive, full of adorable moments with children and animals. Of course, the heroic pet and the title character is the loyal and brilliant cat named Rags, who belongs to the main protagonist, Savannah Ivey.

Savannah and her husband Michael are veterinarians, whose home is filled with love and pets as well their baby daughter Lily. Savannah and her schoolteacher friend Shelly become involved in teaching a photography class to at-risk children. The characterizations of the kids in this group, ages about 10-12- is probably my favorite part of the book, because they seem so REAL. One of the kids in the group is a young girl named Marissa, whose legs were damaged by an early injury and never repaired. Marissa is a half-orphan who is living a nightmare in a squalid and unmonitored foster home. Her older foster sister, Erin, has been the only comfort in her life.

Marissa's life begins to be turned around when she joins the photography class with Shelly and Savannah. Shelly has an acquaintance, a man called Esse, who seems overly eager to come along and teach photography to the children. This is where things get odd and interesting. Rags, Shelly's cat, acts strange around Esse, as he has a 'sixth sense' about people and shows strong preference in which humans he likes and who he doesn't like. Esse is on Rags' 'bad' list, and little Marissa feels uncomfortable about him when he tries to push her wheelchair away from the group to get her alone. Marissa tells Savannah that she feels uncomfortable with the man as well.

Eventually- the concerns Savannah has about Esse, Marissa's foster family, and some shady characters in the community come to pass. Marissa is abducted. Savannah, her husband Michael, and her detective friend Craig join their animal heroes Rags the cat and Peaches the horse on the hunt to find the missing girl. I do think there could have been more background on the 'villain' characters and why they did what they did.

I liked Savannah, but she seemed too judgemental and 'classist' at one point. She judged a whole neighborhood for the way they 'left cars parked on lawns' and 'people lounging on their porches like they have nothing better to do.' It was good to show a little bit of Savannah's flaws though, because she comes off to me as the 'perfect' woman, a career mom with lots of productive hobbies, compassion for kids and animals- but I sensed some snobbiness in her, too.

I enjoyed this story and the sweet moments with all the characters, both human and animal. I hope to read the rest of the series!

I was given a free copy of this Kindle book for an honest review.

Is it spring yet?

I just came in from letting our dog out and feeding our bunnies in their hutch, and it's finally warm and sunny after a week! Such a big change from Tuesday's big snow. I finally want to declare winter over! But you just never know. We were all declaring winter over on Easter weekend two weeks ago, but guess what- there was another blizzard a few days later.

Today, it's beautiful! The green grass is sprouting up, and yesterday as I was walking the dog, I heard so many frogs and wildlife along the marshy area by the road. I need to get out for a longer walk soon.

Lovely spring day, and my Family Tree research!

Oh mid April, you are not here yet, are you? With the sleet, freezing rains, snow and ice on the ground, and a high of 38 degrees? Well okay, spring is here at least calendar wise.

I have been hanging out at home with my son today, he is watching Scooby Doo and before he was playing with his toys on the living room floor. And guess what I found today!

I found the names of some of my ancestors on my maternal grandmother's side, going back to the 1820's! How cool is that?

Here are the names. First of all, there's my mom, Debbie. She is still alive,  so I won't give her last name, she has no computer or Facebook page of her own, still I will protect her privacy. Everyone else listed here on my family tree is deceased:

My maternal grandmother: Lois Rita McBride. (Died in a tragic car accident in 1971, so I never knew her. Her daughters, ages 12 and 15 died along with her. They were my aunts, who I never got to know.)

Maternal great grandparents: Jeanette Lydia (Tong) McBride, Joseph Michael McBride.

 (I was very close to Grandma Jeanette as a kid. I spent many weekends staying with her in her apartment building in Ashland WI. She was a bit eccentric, but she liked to talk and she spoiled me when I was at her house. We used to go out for ice cream a lot, which made me tolerant of her eccentricities.)

Maternal gg grandparents: James Ranselar Tong and Mary Alice (Conlon) Tong,
                                           Bernard McBride and Katherine Skahan McBride.

Maternal ggg grandparents: Ben Conlon, (born in Canada) Job Tong (from Yorkshire, England) and  
                                              Mary (Vickerman) Tong.
                                              Owen McBride (from Ireland) and Rosele (Carragher) McBride,
                                              Michael Skahan (born in 1820!) and Bridget (Gill) Skahan.

And that is what I was able to find on Ancestry.com today! Now that is just the lineage from my great grandma Jeanette, who I was close to growing up in Ashland, WI. She died in 1990, and her sister, my great aunt Fern, who I was also very close to growing up (she and her husband would take me camping in her Coachman camper! Loved her!) died in 2002 at age 90.

This was really interesting! To find an ancestor going back to a birth year of 1820 was fascinating, and it seems like my family on this side is Irish and English, which I knew. The surname "Skahan" is very intriguing, it doesn't seem like an Irish or English surname, it may be Scandinavian. Which would be so neat, since many of my friends and people in my area I grew up in were Scandinavian, and I didn't think I was. (which was perfectly okay because Lutefisk would never be my thing...)

On my father's side, his surname is Hunt, which is such a common name it is impossible to find anything. I googled the name Hunt, his dad's first name, and the city of Batavia, Illinois, but there was nothing I could find, and nothing on Ancestry.com.

Finding the names of some of my ancestors is certainly fun, and surprisingly easy so far. I should look up my husbands farther back, but he has most of his written down already. One of his paternal great grandparents was from Croatia, which was interesting for him to find out!

Barney really had good advice when you think of it.

My 6 year old son was shockingly watching and enjoying Barney episodes this morning. I actually like that he likes this sweet and cuddly stuff still, because he usually watches kick em, punch 'em action shows like Power Rangers. 

And I was watching along, because the songs made me so nostalgic for the years 1999 through 2003 when my teen daughters were little. I realized the dinosaur who is the butt of jokes for his sickening sweetness actually taught some great life lessons.

1. Good manners are important to everyone in the world. (That is so true, many adults are rude and obnoxious jerks.)

2. Everything is more fun and special when you do it with a friend.

3. Please and thank you are the Magic Words!

4. When you're feeling silly and happy and want to laugh, let it show!

5. Give a great big hug and kiss to your family members who you love.

A Mom's life as Dr. Seuss would write it...

Taken from an a post on a forum site. I did not write this, I reblogged it. 


.so with apologies to the Grinch:

There are girls in this house who like clothing a lot…
But their Mom, who gets stuck with the laundry, DOES NOT!
Mom hates doing laundry! And no, she's not teasin’!
And please don't ask why – she has very good reason.

It is not that her head isn’t screwed on quite right.
Yes, it could be, perhaps, that her *** is too tight…
But I think that the most likely reason of all
Is that, nowadays, her heart's not in it at all.

And she has a short fuse, ‘cause she feels overused,
So she stands there on laundry day, feeling the blues.
Staring down at the piles with a sour, Grinchy frown.
At the whites and the darks and the mid-tones and browns.

For she knows even now, everyone in the house
Is busy unhanging and wrinkling their clothes.
"They're trampling their wardrobe!" she snarled with a sneer.
"That I just finished folding! The nerve of you, dears!"
Then she growled, to the iron, with which she was pressing,
"I MUST find a way to teach those girls a lesson!"

For, tomorrow, she knew... they’d awake from their doze,
They’d wake up bright and early. They'd rush for their clothes!
And then! Oh, the noise! Oh, the noise! Noise! Noise! Noise!
That's one thing she hated! The NOISE! NOISE! NOISE! NOISE!

As the girls, young and old, start to search through their closets.
And they search! And they search! And they SEARCH! SEARCH! SEARCH! SEARCH!
It’s their age, I suppose – that’s the thing that must cause it.
But what they reject, on their floor they deposit.
Everything ends up crumpled and soiled and creased -
Which is something their mother can’t stand in the least!

And THEN they do something she likes least of all!
Every girl getting ready, the tall and the small,
Will stand there, start dialing, get their friends’ cell phones ringing.
They'll stand, phone-in-hand. And then they’ll start querying,
This friend, and that friend, about what they are wearing!

And if they do not all co-ordinate just so
Not back in their drawers but to Mom these clothes all go
Once weekly such vast piles of laundry they bring
That their Mother now thought, "I must stop this whole thing!
"Why for many long years I've put up with it now!
”I must STOP all that laundry from coming...But HOW?"

Then she got an idea. An awful idea.
This mom got a wonderful, “awful” idea…
"I know just what to do!" this mom laughed in her throat.
“I'll teach those two what it's like to be in my boat...”

So she unpacked the washer, the dryer, and hamper,
All over the house finding clothes she did scamper!
The t-shirts! The sweaters! The jeans! And the undies!
The jammies! The towels! The socks! And the hoodies!
Then two storeys up! Up the stairs she did hump it!
She climbed to the second floor hallway and dumped it!
"Pooh-pooh to those two!" she was Grinch-ish-ly humming.
"They'll find soon enough that no clean clothes are coming!

"Next time they wake up, I know just what they'll do!
“Their mouths will hang open a minute or two,
“Then both of my girls will start crying BOO-HOO!
“That's a noise," grinned their mom, "That I simply must hear!
When they learn laundry service is stopping this year!"

(To be continued - maybe - when we see how this little experiment turns out… Meanwhile, I'm off to carve the roast beast...)

:)

My nerdy hobby- Historical Research Articles!

I recently wrote this editorial research article based on my study and research on the Lincoln assassination. Don't ask me why. I don't do this for schooling, I do it for fun!