Happy Halloween!

I downloaded a few photo apps and had a bit of fun today making books look creepy for Halloween. I did pull out Ghost by Alan Lightman as I wanted to stop what I was doing and read something "ghostly" and this is a light book so I should be finished in no time. Hopefully  completed by the time the candy bowl is empty, the candles are liquefied down to their wicks deep in the carved pumpkins and the last child has left the neighborhood  sidewalks drowning in the glow of an exorbitant mount of sugar.

I actually threw this book down in the wet leaves for this shot.

No lie. 

I have been fussing with photography for a while, a few family members and friends of mine are into the Fat Mum Slim photo a day on Facebook. Mainly, I wanted to make sure my own photos are used on this blog. You know, copyright laws and all that.

So my pics are my own on this blog.

I encourage a click or two over to Facebook to check out FMS, it's creative and fun.

Happy Halloween!

Link to Fat Mum Slim on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/FatMumSlim?fref=ts
FMS Blog:
http://www.fatmumslim.com.au/

Speak Softly, She Can Hear by Pam Lewis

Every so often I pick out a book that I am not so sure about.  The types of books  I may find on BookGorilla or recommended in the upper right hand corner on Goodreads. To be honest, I have no idea where this came from. I wish I had kept a lifetime list of books that just happen,  I can't even give that list a proper title but they usually end up being a fine read. And I always learn later the author has been around with other published books, much to my chagrin. This author has two other books.

Speak Softly, She Can Hear is a thriller by Pam Lewis. Dated back to the sixties when NYC parents were nagging their daughters to do well so they can get  into Vassar. Carole Mason had parents of such nature but due to her weight and making the wrong types of friends (though she was brilliant) placed her in a horror of a situation up in Stowe Vermont. That one night changed her life completely. She was only 16.

Letting her parents down was the second heart plunk right after the "situation" in Stowe, a dark happening where I had a hard time believing something of that sort would even exist back then  (how old fashion of me, well, obtuse really.) Carole spends the next decade escaping and  running from something that would destroy her life if revealed.  Her on-again off-again prep school friend, Naomi, who was in Stowe that night, seems to pop up in her life at the very wrong times along with.Eddie, another player from the night in Stowe, creating his evil Carole must endure as payment. Carole is a bundle of nerves and continues on running after many encounters from the past. 

Including the own tormented voice inside her head.

People on the lam books tend to make me highly intense. I clench my teeth, rub my forehead, shut the book and run off to do something else like read a magazine but I always return.  Even though I may not like the main character at times, I rooted Carole Mason on with vigor.  Carole, at one point meets Rachel who is  pregnant and lost whom Carole becomes  intently kind to and tries with all her heart to help her. I almost feel like I was reading a female version of The Talented Mr. Ripley to a very small degree.

 By the time I reached the climax of the story, I wanted my world to suspend for a time.  I needed to figure this mess along side of Carole because by then I really wanted things to be better.   I was surprised with the ending, and I always give a book a big thumbs up for surprises that elude me as I am usually on the mark figuring things out early on. 

One thing that completely amazed me (at forty-seven I should NOT be amazed at this point) was the lack of technology, it made me think, time and time again, why doesn't she get a damn cell phone?  But, it's the sixties! How dull of me, then again, how exciting to read characters that survive on pure instinct. Bravo!

Borrow it.

Oh Kay, please stop and wait for me!

I was looking for new books to post on my book group and this book by Patricia Cornwell slapped me across the face. "How could you abandon us?"  I will tell you, Ms. Cornwell,  Life happened and I am not happy  missing out on any of your books. Since 1991, when I read Postmortem, I have been in love with your characters truly believing that I was the first one in a hundred mile radius that found this wonderful book first and made sure that radius expanded. I yelled  your name from the rooftops. But as I said, life got in the way, as well as work, a child, family and other books.

I am sorry. Serious.

But now you blasted out book number 22 and I am 7 books behind. Maybe more. I don't even know.  I went to Wikipedia and found that I am not even close to catching up. I left off at the very ninth page of Blow Fly as the page is marked.

I have a love/hate with series books. I do. And I applaud the very people who read them with such absorption, they remind me of the most sturdiest of paper towels. I finally got into a few series here and there, loving some, giving up on most and not even going near Harry Potter (oh my, we shall blog chat about that someday. ) I enjoyed what I have read but I left Kay Scarpetta in the dust for Ender's Game among many others.

Forgive me, Ms. Cornwell.

I would like to get back into Cornwell's books. I really would. In fact, I wish  there were Cliff Notes on this ordeal so I could catch up to the latest book and read it without touching the past. Of course, in this book world or rowdy nerds, I wouldn't dare. 

I always post the latest and greatest books that Patricia Cornwell writes in my book group and will continue to do so.

And hope I can find some time to fit Kay Scarpetta, Marino, Benton and Lucy back into my life.. (Good God are they even alive? Don't answer that. I will find out soon enough.)

Hello Fall, goodbye power reading

Fall is the busiest time, planning out the last quarter of the year with parties, appointments and the holidays. Most of my family happen to have  birthdays in October and November. This leaves reading time to a few stolen moments a day. I said goodbye to the long hours of summer reading...Hello Fall, goodbye power reading.

AND this is when all the Fall books arrive and they are usually the best books of the year.

So many books to read and my TBR list since 1985 or so seems to be taller than my house.

Unfortunately, I cannot finish my friend E's book, which she was so kind enough to let me borrow on my Kindle, I will return to it soon. And I have set the Zoo book down for a while. I need a blizzard to settle down with that book. I scramble my books around a lot and from what I hear of late, this is normal activity of most readers these days. 

So right now I am reading: 

Very interesting mystery chilly-thriller. The setting is Vermont and NYC in the 50's which makes one think, ho hum, what could be so great about that kind of a mystery-thriller back in the day?  But that is what makes this book work. When we think of the 50's  we think wholesome and goodness nary edginess or murder. This book has all that and more! ( I sound like one of those  old Channel 17 commercial)

It's very good and I won't even begin to compare it to Gone Girl  but...(said mumbling) it is a book where most of the characters are unlikeable ...which is to say there are many books where most of the characters are unlikeable but the plot is so compelling..so why do we always compare these books to Gone Girl? Don't answer, I already know the answer, it's a damn good book.) I will review Speak Softly, She Can Hear when I am finished which will be soon if the pumpkins don't get in the way.

Second book I am sort of plucking through: 

I want to review this for so many reasons. So I will leave it for now. So far, it's incredibly good. I see I put an audiobook up, I am sure it's wonderfully read by Susan Sarandon and Julia Ormond, I almost wish I did buy it in Audiobook.

Today I have some time to catch up on my reading while the H winterizes his garden. A perfectly great day to do such a thing with no sun and a mild chill.

Until we meet again.

Photo taken by me