Rosepoint #BookReviews – August Recap

dog days header

So great to welcome our Navy buddies in August and must admit Northwest Indiana was exceedingly cooperative with beautiful, comfortable temps. As always, Kitra was a dynamo, bundle of energy who helped me get in and FINALLY put together the 50th Anniversary quilt that sister-in-law Ann’et made for us in 2012. Yes! Can you say “winter project?” Ted made his world-class ceviche (yum!) and he and the CE shared their old Navy stories (again) and quite a number of new ones! I posted a pic of the two of them trying to sink a sub at the Science Museum in Chicago. Kitra baked a new favorite–biscotti–and the boys put together a couple flower boxes for the fairy garden!

Catching up has taken the better part of a week; the blog, reading and reviews, social media, my veggie and fairy garden. Oh my goodness! The tomatoes!! Kitra got in and froze a bunch of them for me–they’ll make a great addition to stews and soups. (Never tried freezing them before, so we HOPE they’ll work well!) When the fairy garden doesn’t look quite so desolate, I’ll take another pic to share (discovered another downed snag today).

SO! What I read before they arrived is pretty much it for August, although I was able to get in some great reads.

Midnight Snacks are Murder by Libby Klein

Burning Ridge - a Timber Creek K-9 Mystery by Margaret Mizushima

Aug 3 – Knot My Sister’s Keeper by Mary Marks

Aug 7 – Death Over Easy (A Country Store Mystery #5) by Maddie Day

Aug 12 – Midnight Snacks are Murder by Libby Klein

Aug 14 – Death on the Menu by Lucy Burdette

Aug 21 – Burning Ridge – a #BookReview by Margaret Mizushima

Aug 28 – Samhain Secrets – a #BookReview by Jennifer David Hesse

The Forbidden Door by Dean Koontz Nice Try, Afton All of the above were downloaded from NetGalley and/or were book tours. In the meantime, I #AmReading The Forbidden Door by Dean Koontz (number 4 of 5) and will be posting my review this Sunday, September 2nd. I read and reviewed The Crooked Staircase (#3) here and The Whispering Room (2) here. Following on Tuesday, the 4th, my review of Nice Try, Afton by Brent Jones. That is the third of four in his Afton Morrison series and will release September 17th. Be aware that this gritty series profiles protagonist Afton Morrison in a frank assault of adult situations and language. Author Brent Jones paints an abstract of “moral ambiguity.” Dark and disturbing, crime fiction, vigilante justice–Afton style. I reviewed the second in the series, See You Soon, Afton in July and Go Home, Afton (#1) here.

I have a line up of cozies scheduled for September (book tours), as well as my fav (thrillers), and as always Throwback Thursdays, Cee’s Fun Fotos, or other features as captures my attention.

Hope this summer is going well for all of you: Blue Skies, Easy Breezes, Green Gardens, and nothing but GOOD books coming your way!

A big thank to all my new followers and as always so appreciate you who continue to read and comment! Thank you!

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Substitute – CFFC – Small

Cee's Fun Foto Challenge

(From Cee) Debbie over at Twenty Four blog has decided to post a CFFC (Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge) for this week. Feel free to play along.

Cee-Cee's Fun Foto Challenge All my challenges will return next week. Thanks for all your patience. I’ve needed this break.

Hugs, Cee

Twenty Four

“While Cee’s having a well-earned break I thought I would post some photos which I thought encapsulated the idea of fun – this week we have SMALL.”

teleportingweena

Ghostmmnc also participated in this week’s fun fotos–see her contributions here.

Mine follow next:

bug butterfly

Cee is expecting to resume her weekly challenge on Sunday, August 12th! Check out her site for the current topic and then gather your photos. It’s a challenge, but a fun and rewarding one!

#NGEW2018 Reading Challenge Host Change

Liza - vertigo

Yikes! How many of you knew that Bookish Things gave up their hosting of the NetGalley and Edelweiss Reading Challenge? I went looking for the posts from my most active blogging buddies, as I seem to have a continual problem with WordPress deciding on my notifications, and discovered a post from Novel Deelights about the change-over. I quickly caught up my July reviews, but the word needs to get out regarding the change. Tina at Reading Between the Pages is taking the helm.

If this is a Challenge you’ve been participating in, take notice and hook up with Tina. Then help to get the word out. She’ll appreciate it! The following from Tina:

NetGalley and Edelweiss Reading Challenge August Link-Up #NGEW2018

NetGalley and Edelweiss Reading Challenge 2018 My name is Tina and I welcome you to the new home for the
NetGalley & Edelweiss Reading Challenge!

Emily@Falling for YA created this challenge and passed the torch to Katrina@Bookish Things & More. Katrina has decided to step away from her book blog and pursue her passion for writing. I joined this challenge for the first time this year and have been enjoying it immensely. I was sad to see Katrina leave her love of blogging about books behind, but am quite excited for her to have more time to dedicate to writing. I wish her the best of luck!

Being that this challenge is now being hosted on a new site and the year is more than half over, I think this would be a great time to check in with all of you. I would love to hear from you in the comments below. How is the challenge going for you? What is your goal? How many have you reviewed?

My goal is 25 (Silver) and I have reviewed 18. I have no doubt I will complete my goal, so I’m pretty excited about that!

August Link-Up…

Submitting format: Title of book reviewed (Your Name and Blog).
Inlinkz will remain open until August 31.
Questions: Leave me a comment below, email me – readingbetweenthepagesblog@gmail.com, or use my contact page.
Hashtag: #NGEW2018

For the first time since starting my blog I am asking for your help in getting the word out. I could really use your help with spreading the word about this midyear host change for this challenge. Any sharing you can do on social media would be deeply appreciated!

Thank you for stopping by and I look forward to seeing what fabulous NetGalley and Edelweiss books you read and review the remainder of the year!

Let’s get social…

Goodreads
Twitter
Instagram

Yes, you’ll need the link to your reviews, if you haven’t already started the challenge, but read the rules and regs. Check out my Reading Challenges page or see my original Reading Challenges post here.

#ThrowbackThursday – The Dying Hour by Rick Mofina – a #BookReview

#ThrowbackThursday - The Dying Hour by Rick Mofina

Renee began the #ThrowbackThursday meme on her blog, “It’s Book Talk“ to share some of her old favorites as well as sharing books published over a year ago. Hopefully, you’ll find either a story or author that interests you and you’ll check them out. And, if you’d like to join the fun, you’re welcome to use Renee’s pic from her website. Just provide the link back to her please).

This week I am highlighting Rick Mofina, another terrific, prolific author who wrote The Dying Hour. Today’s review is written by the C.E., my intrepid associate reviewer. I love that he is usually up for a variety of genre and this one took him by surprise. Yeah, knew it would! 😏 (This was his first Mofina.) I’ve read several before and last posted a review of Cold Fear for Throwback Thursday on February 8, 2018. This novel was published by Carrick Publishing on April 8, 2015. Mofina consistently runs approximately 4.5-5 stars for any of his books sold on Amazon.

Book Blurb:

The Dying Hour introduces Jason Wade, a rookie crime reporter with The Seattle Mirror, a loner who grew up in the shadow of a brewery in one of the city’s blue-collar neighborhoods. At The Seattle Mirror, he is competing for the single full-time job being offered through the paper’s intense intern program. But unlike the program’s other young reporters, who attended big name schools and worked at other big metro dailies, Wade put himself through community college, and lacked the same experience.

Wade struggles with his haunting past as he pursues the story of Karen Harding, a college student whose car was found abandoned on a lonely stretch of highway in the Pacific Northwest. How could this beloved young woman with the altruistic nature simply vanish?

Wade battles mounting odds and cut-throat competition to unearth the truth behind Karen Harding’s disturbing case. Her disappearance is a story he cannot give up, never realizing the toll it could exact from him. The Dying Hour is a bone-chilling, mesmerizing page-turner that introduces readers to an all-too-human young hero who journeys into the darkest regions of the human heart to confront a nightmare.

Continue reading “#ThrowbackThursday – The Dying Hour by Rick Mofina – a #BookReview”

See You Soon, Afton – a #BookReview

Title: See You Soon, Afton (Afton Morrison Book 2) by Brent Jones

Genre: Currently #3787 on Amazon Best Sellers Rank in Kindle eBooks, Literature & Fiction, Action & Adventure, Mystery, Thriller & Suspense, Suspense

Publication Date: August 7, 2018

Source: Direct author request

Title and Cover: See You Soon, Afton – Afton Morrison, Book 2 (The Afton Morrison Series) by Brent Jones

Holy smokes! Book 2 literally sets the plot on fire with the dark and desperate attempt by Afton to find and save little Kim. The despot in Afton takes a back seat as she must act on that soft spot for the sweet and innocent volunteer library assistant who looks on her as a mentor. After all, she has yet to prove her psychopathic vigilante assassin status! If Afton ravaged your senses in Book 1 with her first-person account of her twisted, deep vigilante desires and her comprehensive search for the perfect victim to stem the Animus within her, Book 2 slams what you thought you knew about where this was going against a very hot, blackened wall. Continue reading “See You Soon, Afton – a #BookReview”

Cee’s Fun Photo Challenge: Orange, Black, Mural, Vintage, and Blue

Cee's Fun Foto Challenge

Cee at Cee’s Photography runs a weekly Fun Foto Challenge. This week’s challenge is pretty diverse: Truck, Mural, Blue, Vintage, Whale, Animal, Orange, Black, and Water. This challenge is basically self-explanatory. If you have a photo you’d like to submit, click on her website and check it out. It’s a very simple procedure. Have fun. Let’s see how creative you can we can be on this challenge then link your photo(s) to the comment box of her website!

Halloween quilt

Orange (and black) – A Halloween quilt – Yuma AZ

Black – Hummingbird and Roadrunner

Mural – Wall in Chicago after leaving Jesse Brown VA Hospital (taken from the VA shuttle bus).

Mural in Chicago

Vintage auto in a field in Lakeview OR

Vintage auto

Blue (and orange?) – Top of Mt. Fuji at dawn (we climbed all night by a full moon). (Yes, it’s an old picture. And btw, it’s cold up there!)

Top of Mt Fuji Japan

What is the Fascination of the Seventh Son of a Seventh Son? Do Seven Daughters Count?

Yes! The fascination of the seventh son of a seventh son! Is it more than folklore? More than the 1988 Iron Maiden album that stemmed from the folklore? I suspect there may have been more seventh sons born last century than this, but still, it conjures powerful visions of mystical or even biblical significance, doesn’t it? According to Wikipedia, it can go so far as to be broken down by regions:

Ireland – believed to be a healer
France – believed to have curative properties
Latin America – believed to be a werewolf
Italy – believed to be a charmer of snakes
U.S. – believed to garner riches

Well, that last was borne of a book written in the year 1807-08 by Edward Kendall regarding his visit to the Newgate copper mine. Indeed, a radio drama aired in 1980 on the CBS Mystery Theatre called “The Iron Horse” by Sam Dann played off that account of mining discoveries. Jimmy Stewart starred in a 1940 movie called “The Philladelphia Story” that noted the legend and as recently as 2014 the fantasy-adventure film Seventh Son has as the main character a seventh son of a seventh son that featured Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore. (Gees, never heard of it!)

Theatrical poster for Seventh Son from Wikipedia

To be authentically a seventh son of a seventh son, however, there must not be a female sibling separating the numbers. (Therefore, singer Perry Como could not legitimately claim the distinction. Lyle Lewis Aley, radio announcer was an unproven seventh, and Len Dawson, quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs claimed the distinction without acknowledging where his dad stood in the family line. Como, however, could make musical magic with the best of them.)

Still, there are many books written that include the folklore theme as a plot–all fiction in the fantasy or science fiction genres, so who is to say it may or may not magically bestow super-human properties, cause I could find no non-fiction references.

Several popularly noted fiction books with the theme include:

I will Fear No Evil by Robert A Heinlein, 1987
Seventh Son (Tales of the Alvin Maker Book 1) by Orson Scott Card 1993
Septimus Heap (#1) series by Angie Sage 2014

And, of course, the granddaddy, blockbuster of them all–the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowlings, including Deathly Hallows (#7) 2009, which includes the 7th child of the 7th child (Ginny Weasley), a girl! (And the females have magical powers of their own.) These books were written for the 9-12 years age group. That’s fine–it got ALL ages to reading again!

And if you really want to have some goosebumps, try Comic book superhero Johnny Thunder who obtained his magical birthright by virtue of being the seventh son of a seventh son and was also born at 7 am on July 7 (the seventh day of the seventh month), 1917. Unfortunately, it didn’t have quite the fire of the Potter series.

With all the time and research, however, I was not able to find one non-fictional account of a real seventh son biography, memoir, or story. Still, we do love our folklore and stories handed down and wonder how the stories got started. If you’ve come across some true accounts, I’d love to hear them!

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Horizontal Line(s)

Cee’s Photography runs a weekly Fun Foto Challenge. This week’s challenge is Horizontal Line(s). This challenge is basically self-explanatory. Pictures are taken with my little (very old) Galaxy cell phone. Click on her website and check it out. It’s a very simple procedure. Have fun and let’s see how creative you can be on this challenge!

Cee's Fun Foto Challenge

I’ve chosen several widely differing horizontal line concepts, the first being the architectural lines at the Ft. Wayne Library in Indiana where we went to research through their Genealogy Department.

Ft. Wayne IN Library

The horizontal lines on our back deck also includes the lines of the roof and rail.

Back deck

The horizontal lines of the rear window defroster taken on the last total solar eclipse–cloudy day also created a halo.

Solar eclipse viewed from mid-Indiana.

These challenges run from Tuesday through Monday. Next week’s subject is diagonal lines, and I have just the picture for it! Tune in next week and look for Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge to check out more of what this challenge is about!