book reviews – Rosepoint Publishing

Rosepoint #BookReviews – August Recap Wrap-Up – #rosepointpub

Welcome to September! August alternately had some very hot days tempered with cool but an alarmingly little amount of rain. We normally don’t water in NWI, relying on rain. This year I had to water my tomatoes which ended up looking puny and unhappy anyway. And my fairy garden turned swamp garden became so dry the soil was cracking. Still, you can see it doesn’t look much like a desert garden either! It is, however, a work-in-progress. (Yes, the leaves are already beginning to fall.)

Spending so much time outdoors this time of year, I struggled with getting reviews posted. Perhaps you’ll remember I tried for one from Berkley that was declined and then WON Life and Other Inconveniences by Kristen Higgins from Stephanie at Stephanie’s Novel Fiction. (Or find her at #stephlvsbooks.) Holy smokes that is one riveting read! My associate reviewer, the intrepid CE, read The Plain of Jars by N. Lombardi Jr. which he absolutely loved and gave a glowing five-star review.

In spite of the time spent on my withering gardens, my count of books read in August totaled eleven, which included a biography, thrillers, historical reads, mysteries, and a humorous, LOL-worthy book by Worthen. Review links are listed below the pics.

The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs by Katherine Howe

Grateful American: A Journey from Self to Service by Gary Sinise

The Hallows by Victor Methos
The White Feather Killer by R N Morris
The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware
The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs by Katherine Howe
In the Line of Fire by R J Noonan
Desolate Shores by Daryl Wood Gerber
Bark of Night by David Rosenfelt (an Audiobook)
Grateful American by Gary Sinise
Thicker Than Water by Johnny Worthen
The Firefly Witch by Amanda Hughes
Hot Shot by Fern Michaels

Still lagging on my Goodreads Challenge, hoping to catch that up come fall. However, going some time between giveaways and winning, I actually won a second book in the same month–now waiting to receive from across the pond Portal to Murder by Alison Lingwood from Kerry at Chat About Books. Excited? You betcha! You may remember I posted an article about Goodreads Giveaways simultaneously offered on NetGalley. Never win anything? Have you tried recently? Keep trying–someone wins.

I see many of the same books being reviewed by you and always love to read your comments. Was Rewind your favorite of the month? Did you also read one of the above? What were your thoughts on it? (Hard to beat Gary Sinise’s book.) Have one you’d like to recommend? Is it a thriller?

Thank you so much for taking the time to read and like my posts and leave those comments and welcome to my new followers!

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!

Rosepoint #Reviews – May Recap

June is heating up here in NWI! (OMG, did it turn hot!–from freezing to frying!) It was a semi-productive May month with books taking a back seat to the yard and garden while I could. News reports Chicago land received record-setting rainfall this year. We must have missed all that as I’ve had to water my slow-growing vegetables. The fairy garden, on the other hand, has been overrun with WEEDS far exceeding any bushes I planted, many of which are unidentifiable. Fortunately (knock on wood) no poison ivy (or ticks), so far. I’ve hit it with shovels, saws, and clippers, but the fairies are winning! Stay tuned…

In May I took part in spotlights, book blasts, and book tours during the month resulting in ten book reviews.

Micromium-Clean Energy from Mars by David Gittlin

Confessions of a Red Herring by Dana Dratch

(May) 2 – Micromium-Clean Energy from Mars 4 – Better Off Read 6 – The Mirror Shop 8 – Pick and Chews 13- Go Home, Afton 18-Dying Truth 20-Area 51: Redemption 22- Charlie Mac 27-Ray vs the Meaning of Life 29-Confessions of a Red Herring

My associate, The CE, read several and we accommodated five author requests in addition to Spotlights and #ThrowbackThursdays. Many of the book tours included Giveaways in which I hope you participated! Several of these titles stretched my reading chops and proved absolutely outstanding and will eventually go on a “Favorites” list I’ve yet to begin.

So what book tours can you anticipate coming in the near future? Here’s just a few (in hue compatible colors, of course). Please let me know if you are reading one of these as well!

Upcoming Blog Tours

And just a little ditty I wrote for one of my blogger buddies (who’d also spent a busy month):

Grab a cup, corral the pup, and set the puter churning,

then lift the book, correct the specs, and start the pages turning!

No, No, No, You Can’t Make a Columnar List of Book Reviews–What? But…

It should have been simple–believe me–I tried. But strangely, my simple WordPress freebie won’t accept a columnar list. I’ve been posting reviews on this blog from the time I opened it (well, almost). Let’s just say, there’s a lot of reviews out there. I wanted to list my book reviews with a link to the original review post. Was that so difficult? Apparently so because nothing I tried worked.

Not tables, not columns. Can’t do tabs. An excel file wouldn’t work. Nope. Nadda. Nyet. So I gave up and shot a note off to the “happiness engineers” at WordPress. Used to be I could catch them in a live chat. Not any more. Now it takes up to several days, depending on the day of the week and the question I guess.

The reply I got from Jerry was that it is possible, but not in the visual editor. I’d have to switch to the HTML view. However, he cautioned me, it might look okay on a desktop computer but wonky on a cell phone. Yeah, thinking I read where most posts are read on mobile devices, I elected to forget the columns.

Several more interchanges with Jerry the Happiness Engineer who still exhibited patience, but now has simplified his instructions for me. (Thank you, Jerry, I needed that.)

Next…

Getting bored with the same old theme I’ve now had several years. Changed to new theme, new look (did you notice?), same old problems.

Good ole Jerry suggested using “category,” which may be construed a page(?), and add it as a tab in my menu at the top right of my blog. hmmm….much easier to see.

Thinking I originally wanted to divide the reviews by years, and this is already May of 2017, It’s probably a little late for the old tab–but perhaps a new tab for “Reviews 2017” would work. While it is not a listing per se as it displays the complete review for each–at least they would be on a (albeit LONG) page. These are in last reviewed order; not alphabetical, as are categories. So, it took some doing for this old dog, but I think I have it displayed in my top, primary, menu and that all the links work. I’m sure you’ll tell me if they don’t!

Reviews 2017 are still listed in the categories, as well as the original Review category, but I’ve gone through them in a grand sweep and once again owe you a mia culpa as you’ve gotten some notifications that I changed a post–nope–just the category. Some changes triggered a notification and some didn’t, but unfortunately a half-dozen notifications went out and my profuse apologies for spamming you! (And obviously, I changed many more than that.)

In my free WordPress 2016 theme, I can have lots of categories (top-level or parent), as well as sub-categories (child). My categories are listed under “Ship’s Chart” keeping that whole sailing, boating feel. (Grandpa was a captain on a tall ship.) I don’t use that many categories and thinking there’s a few I could eliminate in a general WP blog clean-up. However, that is a subject for a whole nother blog post.

A category is assigned to default if I haven’t assigned one, but I see if I elect to do a reblog I’m not given the option as it immediately publishes in the “default” category–“Publisher’s Comments.” I’d prefer to be given the option to introduce and comment on the original blogger.

It’s Spring Cleaning time! Have you considered some general clean-up or struggled with some blog changes lately? I’d love to hear about those as well as a consensus of mobile devices. Do you read your blog posts on your device? ©2017 Virginia Williams

Goodreads Choice Awards 2016

The winners of the 2016 Goodreads Choice Awards have been published on the Goodreads website. These are the only major book awards decided by the readers themselves and come through literally millions of votes; 3,562,702 to be exact. Who says people don’t read anymore?

Voting was scheduled in three rounds beginning November 1st and ending November 27th and included 20 categories from Fiction and Mystery/Thriller to Non-Fiction and YA Fantasy. Of all nominees, there were 237,844 votes total. In the Fiction category, the winner with 30,154 votes went to Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriaty. Truly Madly Guilty was also listed on Amazon in the top 20 overall customer favorites, where additional favorites listed were such authors as J. K. Rowling, Nora Roberts, John Grisham, Bill O’Reilly, and Michael Connelly. And in the best mystery and thriller category, Stephen King for End of Watch with 42,382 votes. How is that even fair?

Also found in the top 20 in both the Goodreads Fiction category as well as the same category on Amazon was The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeny with 24,848 votes on Goodreads and The Nix by Nathan Hill with 3,645 votes, also an Amazon editor best pick of the top 20. Additionally, Nathan Hill scored again for Best Debut Goodreads Author. And it doesn’t stop there. Continue reading “Goodreads Choice Awards 2016”

Hail, Caesar” – Supreme Satire

Hail, Caesar! You probably know me better by the book reviews I frequently post. I really love reading and take most requests, happy to return a truthful review. Today, I’ll take a major departure and review a video we watched recently called “Hail, Caesar.” Released February, 2016, you’ll either love it or won’t like it at all. I did–my two guys didn’t. Hubby slept through it; no contest as he can sleep through most anything. Son called it a bore. NOT.

Taking place back in the 50s heyday of Hollywood, Eddie Mannix (played supremely low key by Josh Brolin) is an savvy movie exec trying to handle all the problems of both his actors and film producers at Capitol Pictures. Today he is tackling a disgruntled director, a singing cowboy, Tobey (played adorably by Alden Ehrenreich), an Esther Williams type synchonized swimmer, and a handsome dancer. Mannix sneaks an occasional cigarette though he promised his wife he’d quit, and seeks forgiveness numerous times from a priest who tells him, “You’re really not that bad, my son. You don’t need to confess this often.” Continue reading “Hail, Caesar” – Supreme Satire”