Such a book for me is Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins, due to be released August 24th.  The final book of the Hunger Games trilogy, it has to be the book I’ve most looked forward to in a long, long time.  Unfortunately, I also dread it because it means the trilogy will be finished and there won’t be any more books to wait for.  I’m a huge fan of young adult fiction but this trilogy stands above most of the pack, even (dare I say it?) above Harry Potter.  Don’t get me wrong, I loved Harry and his adventures, but I never had the gnawing hunger (no pun intended) for his books that I have for the Hunger Games.

The first book, The Hunger Games, blew me away, because the basic story is so creative, the excitement and suspense levels never let up, and it’s especially nice to have a compelling science fiction offering for the young adult (and discerning adult) reader as an alternative to fantasy and mystery.  Katniss is a teen I would love to know in real life.  Her story is intense and I could not stand the idea that I wouldn’t see her again so I was delighted when Catching Fire, the second book, came out.  Lo and behold, it was every bit as good as the first and, once again, Ms. Collins left us with a cliffhanger.

Having survived the arena twice, how will Katniss and the people of her district fare against the wrath of the Capitol whose leaders blame Katniss for much of the rebellious unrest?  Which young man will finally win her heart and a place beside her?

August 24th can’t come soon enough for me.  I just wish everybody would listen when I say, “You MUST read these books!”

It’s time for me and Janis to say goodbye to Annie.   In the last several days, we’ve driven 14 hours to get here, a couple of hours longer than it should have been because of a flat tire.  I’ve replaced two tires , of the four that need it.  The three of us have unloaded stuff, unpacked boxes, put stuff away, broken boxes down for recycling or for storage, muscled a microwave into submission, hung curtains and pictures, put a desk together, gone to Home Depot for sonic repellents for the expected bugs (this is Florida, after all) and the mouse Annie suspects she’s sharing living quarters with.

We’ve watched one cat, Sassy, discover the joys of the screen porch and the other, Trixie, decide the porch means nothing better than DOOM and DESPAIR.  Trixie has been so upset about Sassy going on the porch that she started picking fights with her, growling and hissing, the whole nine yards.  That, in turn, made Sassy decide, “Well, OK then, the porch is mine and you will not set one paw within 5 feet of it”.  This eventually degenerated into a screeching, yowling hissy fit on both sides, put to rest only when Annie got out the dreaded water sprayer.

We’ve eaten at some really good restaurants and played in the hotel pool.  Some of us went on the beach—moi going only so far as the hotel deck while Annie and Janis  exhausted themselves on the insanely wide stretch of sand to get to the water for a toe dip.  We’ve all gotten a bit of sunburn but not too much.

We’ve done the touristy thing, riding on the Ripley’s Train around the historic area and taking the Scenic Cruise, spotting a trio of dolphins and a bunch of herons but no manatees, I’m sorry to say. We did see pink flamingos, though!

But now it’s time for us to go and for Annie to start her new life.  Her temporary part time job (with a political campaign) starts Monday and she plans to go to a Meetup group event later in the week.  She also has to do tedious things like DMV stuff and getting cellphone and internet service so she’ll be busy right at first.

I, on the other hand, will be feeling very sorry for myself.  It’s comforting having Laura and Drew living just three hours away but it’s not quite the same as being able to pick up a phone and say, “Let’s go to a movie” or to dinner or the Farmer’s Market or to Williamsburg for a shopping spree at the Yankee Candle flagship store.  I’ll adjust, though, and I know Annie will do just fine in St. Augustine for as long as she wants to stay.

Wrong.

Along about milepost 143 in North Carolina, a very nice Good Samaritan started waving at Janis in the shotgun seat and shouted that we had a tire going flat.  Not too long before, I had remarked on how the car was driving weirdly, like there was a heavy wind, which there wasn’t.  We didn’t think much of it because the roads in Richmond are still so torn up from the unusually hard winter that we all need front end alignments (but I, for one, don’t want to spend the money when the roads are still so bad).  Anyway, thanks to this lady, we didn’t have a blowout and there was a rest area just a little ways down the road.

And, yes, the tire was looking rather mushy, so I called AAA and. lo and behold, the fixit guy was there maybe twenty minutes after I called and he put on my spare, discovering as he did so that apparently someone had stolen my tools at some point, not a hard thing to do because I haven’t had to use them in years and they’re kept behind a panel where I wouldn’t normally see them.  He said the spare should get us to Florida but he didn’t have a lot of air in his little machine so we should stop to get some.  Several gas stations later, we were good to go but we checked the air every 50 miles for a bit.  And, we finally got to the hotel around 11:30, spending the next half hour lugging the absolute necessities to our room (inconvenient parking, recalcitrant key cards, a gazillion percent humidity, etc.)

Tuesday morning, I found a Goodyear store and spent an hour and a half there.  Unfortunately, all four tires have to be replaced due to age and the resultant dry rot—they are, after all, nine years old and tires aren’t meant to last that long, according to the tire guy (gee, do ya think?).  Not being able to face all my vacation money swirling around the drain, I bought two new ones and I’ll get the other two when I get back home.

Now, here’s the good news for us book people: while I was waiting, there were six other people coming and going and five of the seven of us had books, the real kind printed on paper.  This is Florida, so three of those readers were seniors but one wasn’t.   I couldn’t help smiling at this small sign that p-books haven’t died yet.

St. Augustine proper is a beautiful and fascinating place and history is at its core, making it a wonderful town to visit if you’re into history, which I am.  Anastasia Island, just across the bay, is a delight for the senses and you don’t have to be a beach type to appreciate the experience.

These beaches are, in some areas, unbelievably wide and the sand is that sort of powdery stuff, really soft on the feet (which does not mean it doesn’t get hot as blazes).  At certain times of day and season, you can drive your car on the upper side of the beaches.  I was a passenger on such a ride on Virginia Beach when I was a teenager and have to say I don’t get the thrill but to each his own. Horseback, now, that would be totally cool.

The St. Augustine Lighthouse is on our list of sites we simply must go to.  We’ve driven near it several times but never had the time but the house/museum and grounds are lovely.  Janis, in particular, has a special fondness for lighthouses and Annie and I do, too.  It’ll be interesting to see how this one compares to the ones on the Outer Banks in North Carolina especially Hatteras, which we had the pleasure of watching as it was moved a ways inland several years ago.

One of these days, we’ll get to the St. Augustine Alligator Farm to see this guy and all his buddies of the reptilian persuasion, not to  mention all sorts of birds, fishy things and furry folks.  They even have Zoo Camp at this place but we’re a tad old for that, I’m sorry to say.  Founded in 1893 (!), this zoo has provided scientists with the ability to study creatures that have lived there for decades.  Pretty amazing.

That visit might have to wait, though, for another time.  We expect to spend Tuesday and maybe part of Wednesday getting Annie moved in and that will leave just Thursday and Friday for the touristy thing.  We already have tickets for the Red Train (again–love it) around the historic district and the Scenic Cruise and, naturally, we have to check out some more restaurants and go back to some gems we already found.  The beach is also a must-do so time just might be a problem on this trip.  I just hope that, on this trip or another, we’ll get to see this little fellow, theAnastasia Island Beach Mouse, who lives in the dunes and is endangered.  Is he not just about the cutest mouse you’ve ever seen?

Lynn Barker Steinmayer—Claire de Lune by Christine Johnson (Young Adult, May 2010)—Claire is having the perfect sixteenth birthday. Her pool party is a big success, and gorgeous Matthew keeps chatting and flirting with her as if she’s the only girl there. But that night, she discovers something that takes away all sense of normalcy: she’s a werewolf.  As Claire is initiated into the pack of female werewolves, she must deal not only with her changing identity, but also with a rogue werewolf who is putting everyone she knows in danger. Claire’s new life threatens her blossoming romance with Matthew, whose father is leading the werewolf hunt. Now burdened with a dark secret and pushing the boundaries of forbidden love, Claire is struggling to feel comfortable in either skin. With her lupine loyalty at odds with her human heart, she will make a choice that will change her forever.

Linda Gerber—The Samaritan’s Secret by Matt Beynon Rees (February 2010)—A member of the tiny but ancient Samaritan community has been murdered. The dead man had controlled millions of dollars of government money. If the World Bank cannot locate it, all aid money to the Palestinians will be cut off. Omar Yussef must solve the murder and find the money, or all Palestinians will suffer.

Jody—The Prince of Mist by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (Young Adult, May 2010)—It’s war time, and the Carver family decides to leave the capital where they live and move to a small coastal village where they’ve recently bought a home. But from the minute they cross the threshold, strange things begin to happen. In that mysterious house still lurks the spirit of Jacob, the previous owners’ son, who died by drowning.  With the help of their new friend Roland, Max and Alicia Carver begin to explore the strange circumstances of that death and discover the existence of a mysterious being called the Prince of Mist–a diabolical character who has returned from the shadows to collect on a debt from the past. Soon the three friends find themselves caught up in an adventure of sunken ships and an enchanted stone garden–an adventure that will change their lives forever.

R_becca—The Osiris Ritual by George Mann (August 2010)—A steampunk mystery adventure featuring immortality, artifacts, and intrepid sleuths Sir Maurice Newbury and Miss Veronica Hobbes.   Sir Maurice Newbury, Gentleman Investigator for the Crown, imagines life will be a little quieter after his dual successes solving The Affinity Bridge affair. But he hasn’t banked on his villainous predecessor, Knox, who is hell-bent on achieving immortality, not to mention a secret agent who isn’t quite what he seems…. So continues an adventure quite unlike any other, a thrilling steampunk mystery and the second in the series of Newbury & Hobbes investigations.

Marlyn—The Curse Workers: White Cat by Holly Black (Young Adult, May 2010)—Cassel comes from a family of curse workers — people who have the power to change your emotions, your memories, your luck, by the slightest touch of their hands. And since curse work is illegal, they’re all mobsters, or con artists. Except for Cassel. He hasn’t got the magic touch, so he’s an outsider, the straight kid in a crooked family. You just have to ignore one small detail — he killed his best friend, Lila, three years ago.  Ever since, Cassel has carefully built up a facade of normalcy, blending into the crowd. But his facade starts crumbling when he starts sleepwalking, propelled into the night by terrifying dreams about a white  cat that wants to tell him something. He’s noticing other disturbing things, too, including the strange behavior of his two brothers. They are keeping secrets from him, caught up in a mysterious plot. As Cassel begins to suspect he’s part of a huge con game, he also wonders what really happened to Lila. Could she still be alive? To find that out, Cassel will have to out-con the conmen.  Holly Black has created a gripping tale of mobsters and dark magic where a single   touch can bring love — or death — and your dreams might be more real than your memories.

Karen Dyer—The Ragtime Fool by Larry Karp (April 2010)— It’s 1951, and ragtime is making a comeback. In Sedalia, Missouri, plans are well along for a ceremony to honor Scott Joplin. Brun Campbell, the old Ragtime Kid, is working to establish Joplin’s legacy. Brun learns of a journal Joplin kept and wants to show it to Sedalia’s movers and shakers, hoping to persuade them to set up a ragtime museum. Unfortunately for Brun, author/historian Rudi Blesh is determined to publish the journal. Also, Joplin’s old friend wants to suppress the material. Even worse, two Sedalia Klansmen are hot after the journal, and don’t care if they have to kill someone to get it. What’s one murder, compared to the Klansmen’s grand plan to blow up the high school auditorium with its integrated audience during the ceremony? In the middle of this imbroglio is Alan Chandler, a 17-year-old pianist in love with ragtime. If Alan can stay alive, he may be able to prevent catastrophe and learn what it really means to be Black in mid-Twentieth Century America.

Carol M—The Taken by Inger Ash Wolfe (July 2010)—Detective Inspector Hazel Micallef is having a bad year. After major back surgery, she has no real option but to move into her ex-husband’s basement and suffer the humiliation of his new wife bringing her meals down on a tray. As if that weren’t enough, Hazel’s octogenarian mother secretly flushes Hazel’s stash of painkillers down the toilet. It’s almost a relief when Hazel gets a call about a body fished up by tourists in one of the lakes near Port Dundas. But what raises the hair on the back of Micallef ’s neck is that the local paper has just published the first installment of a serialized story featuring such a scenario. Even before they head out to the lake with divers to recover the body, she and DC James Wingate, leading the police detachment in Micallef ’s absence, know they are being played. But it’s not clear who is pulling their strings and why, nor is what they find at the lake at all what they expected. It’s Micallef herself who is snared, caught up in a cryptic game devised by someone who knows how to taunt her into opening a cold case, someone who knows that nothing will stop her investigation.

Caroline Clemmons—The Joy of Spooking Book Two: Unearthly Asylum by P. J. Bracegirdle (Kids, August 2010)—Meet Joy Wells, an eleven-year-old literary horror fan and proud resident of Spooking, the eerie old town overlooking the plastic suburban paradise of Darlington where she and brother Byron are forced to go to school.  Discover the sinister history hidden behind the spiked-lined walls of the mental asylum and descend into the dark underworld below Spooking’s streets.

Kathleen Ernst—On Deadly Ground by Michael Norman (March 2010)—Kanab, Utah is bitterly divided by the politics of land management. When environmentalist David Greenbriar is found dead, County Sheriff, Charley Sutter, seeks help from newly appointed Law Enforcement Ranger, J. D. Books. Books discovers that the victim’s widow has been having an affair with Lance Clayburn. Physical evidence links Clayburn to the killing. Books connects Greenbriar’s murder to a corrupt Kane County Sheriff’s deputy and a Las Vegas business conglomerate with ties to organized crime. Enter Peter Deluca, a very dangerous mob contract killer, who will eliminate anyone who can link him or his employer to Greenbriar’s murder.

Brenda—The Missing Book 3: Sabotaged by Margaret Peterson Haddix (Kids, August 2010)—After helping Chip and Alex survive 15th-century London, time travelers Jonah and Katherine are summoned to help another missing child: Virginia Dare of the Lost Colony of Roanoke.

Kari Wainwright—Deep Creek by Dana Hand (February 2010)—Idaho Territory, June 1887. A small-town judge takes his young daughter fishing, and she catches a man. Another body surfaces, then another. The final toll: over 30 Chinese gold miners brutally murdered. Their San Francisco employer hires Idaho lawman Joe Vincent to solve the case.  Soon he journeys up the wild Snake River with Lee Loi, an ambitious young company investigator, and Grace Sundown, a mountain guide with too many secrets. As they track the killers across the Pacific Northwest, through haunted canyons and city streets, each must put aside lies and old grievances to survive a quest that will change them forever.  Deep Creek is a historical thriller inspired by actual events and people: the 1887 massacre of Chinese miners in remote and beautiful Hells Canyon, the middle-aged judge who went after their slayers, and the sham race-murder trial that followed. This American tragedy was long suppressed and the victims nearly forgotten; Deep Creek teams history and imagination to illuminate how and why, in a seamless, fast-moving tale of courage and redemption, loss and love.

Mary Jane Frederickson—The Significant Seven by John McEvoy (April 2010)—Seven lifelong friends and racing fans from their student days at the University of Wisconsin strike it lucky at Saratoga Race Track when they combine to win a plus million dollar Pick Six. They subsequently use some of those profits to buy race horses, one of which, The Badger Express, turns out to be a sensational runner, stallion, and money maker. Seven years later, the men become targets of a professional assassin, an ex-Navy SEAL and Iraq private security guard named Orth. They begin dying, one by one. Jack Doyle returns to the race track, volunteering to aid FBI agents in a search for criminals fixing races. Doyle then becomes involved in protecting Rene Rison, the favored daughter of the Significant Seven’s leader Arnie Rison. Jack Doyle, as always irreverent, observant, opinionated, sometimes mistaken but always persistent, eventually manages to find answers to the questions of who is fixing the races and who is having members of the Significant Seven killed off.

Penny Tutte—Forbidden Sea by Sheila A. Nielson (Young Adult, July 2010)—When Adrianne comes face-to-face with the mermaid of Windwaithe Island, of whom she has heard terrible stories all her life, she is convinced the mermaid means to take her younger sister. Adrianne, fierce-willed and courageous, is determined to protect her sister from the mermaid, and her family from starvation. However, the mermaid continues to haunt Adrianne in her dreams and with her song.  Yet, when the islanders find out about Adrianne’s encounters with the mermaid she is scorned, for this small and superstitious community believes the mermaid will bring devastation to the island if Adrianne does not give herself to the sea.  A powerful and lyrical story of one girl who must choose between having everything and having those she loves.

Charlie—Play Dead by Ryan Brown (May 2010)—For the first time in Killington High School history, the Jackrabbits football team is one win away from the district championship where it will face its most vicious rival, the Elmwood Heights Badgers. On the way to the game, the Jackrabbits’s bus plunges into a river, killing every player except for bad-boy quarterback Cole Logan who is certain the crash was no accident–given that Cole himself was severely injured in a brutal attack by three ski-masked men earlier that day. Bent on payback, Cole turns to a mysterious fan skilled in black magic to resurrect his teammates. But unless the undead Jackrabbits defeat their murderous rival on the field, the team is destined for hell. In a desperate race against time, with only his coach’s clever daughter, Savannah Hickman, to assist him, Cole must lead his zombie team to victory. . . in a final showdown where the stakes aren’t just life or death–but damnation or salvation.

Jennifer Bishop—The Wild Zone by Joy Fielding (February 2010)—Two brothers — Will and Jeff — and their friend Tom are out one night at their favorite South Beach bar, the Wild Zone, and decide to make a bet on who can be the fi rst to seduce a mysterious-looking young woman drinking by herself. Pretty, dark-haired, blue-eyed Suzy has an innocent, almost ordinary girl-next-door way about her. “Just waiting for Prince Charming to hit on her,” Jeff says.  Little do they know the secrets she hides from the outside world, particularly those having to do with the daily horror she experiences under the watchful eye of her abusive husband. Little do they know she has an agenda of her own. Little do they know their harmless bet is about to take on a life of its own, a life full of deadly consequences for all concerned.

I hope you’ll all enjoy these and, if
you can, send me a review, even just
a short paragraph, to let us know
what you think, good, bad or indifferent.   Thanks so much for entering the contest!

Now, the reason I’m agitated about this has nothing to do with not being able to listen to my music.  It’s BOOKS I can’t get to and, as any true bibliophile will tell you, the fact that I have other sources of reading material does not make me feel better. I can’t get to the book I just bought and that is the ONE book I must have.  Now.  How dare these machines keep me from that treasure??

I have turned into an audio book addict.  I still read print books and will continue to do so as long as I can see well enough with a magnifying glass and any other visual aids that might become necessary but audio books have become my reading method of choice.  Granted, I’ve come across some that are not especially well done, maybe even downright poor (sometimes because the book itself is just not all that good, sometimes because of the narrator) but, on the whole, I find them to be really entertaining.  In many cases, they’ve brought the book to life for me in ways I wouldn’t have expected.  A particularly good example is Terry Pratchett’s series featuring Tiffany Aching—Stephen Briggs is simply fabulous as the reader and I’ll beg, buy or borrow anything he does.  I also have been entranced by Jayne Entwistle’s reading of Alan Bradley’s books and her dead-on voice of Flavia.

If only somebody would come up with audio ARCs, I’d think I’d died and gone to heaven.

So, Monday I have to head off to the Apple store to see if they can figure out what’s wrong and, if not, then I’ll try my favorite computer store geek.  In the meantime, all I can say is thank the gods I have some unread books still on the iPod and a sizeable TBH (To Be Heard) stack of books on CDs.

It’s time to give away some more ARCs.  Every time you enter a comment on any post between now and midnight next Thursday, July 15th, you’ll be entered in the drawing to win one of these.  You can express a preference for or against a title but there are no guarantees

Claire de Lune by Christine Johnson (Young Adult, May 2010)—Claire is having the perfect sixteenth birthday. Her pool party is a big success, and gorgeous Matthew keeps chatting and flirting with her as if she’s the only girl there. But that night, she discovers something that takes away all sense of normalcy: she’s a werewolf.  As Claire is initiated into the pack of female werewolves, she must deal not only with her changing identity, but also with a rogue werewolf who is putting everyone she knows in danger. Claire’s new life threatens her blossoming romance with Matthew, whose father is leading the werewolf hunt. Now burdened with a dark secret and pushing the boundaries of forbidden love, Claire is struggling to feel comfortable in either skin. With her lupine loyalty at odds with her human heart, she will make a choice that will change her forever.

The Samaritan’s Secret by Matt Beynon Rees (February 2010)—A member of the tiny but ancient Samaritan community has been murdered. The dead man had controlled millions of dollars of government money. If the World Bank cannot locate it, all aid money to the Palestinians will be cut off. Omar Yussef must solve the murder and find the money, or all Palestinians will suffer.

The Prince of Mist by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (Young Adult, May 2010)—It’s war time, and the Carver family decides to leave the capital where they live and move to a small coastal village where they’ve recently bought a home. But from the minute they cross the threshold, strange things begin to happen. In that mysterious house still lurks the spirit of Jacob, the previous owners’ son, who died by drowning.  With the help of their new friend Roland, Max and Alicia Carver begin to explore the strange circumstances of that death and discover the existence of a mysterious being called the Prince of Mist–a diabolical character who has returned from the shadows to collect on a debt from the past. Soon the three friends find themselves caught up in an adventure of sunken ships and an enchanted stone garden–an adventure that will change their lives forever.

The Osiris Ritual by George Mann (August 2010)—A steampunk mystery adventure featuring immortality, artifacts, and intrepid sleuths Sir Maurice Newbury and Miss Veronica Hobbes.   Sir Maurice Newbury, Gentleman Investigator for the Crown, imagines life will be a little quieter after his dual successes solving The Affinity Bridge affair. But he hasn’t banked on his villainous predecessor, Knox, who is hell-bent on achieving immortality, not to mention a secret agent who isn’t quite what he seems…. So continues an adventure quite unlike any other, a thrilling steampunk mystery and the second in the series of Newbury & Hobbes investigations.

The Curse Workers: White Cat by Holly Black (Young Adult, May 2010)—Cassel comes from a family of curse workers — people who have the power to change your emotions, your memories, your luck, by the slightest touch of their hands. And since curse work is illegal, they’re all mobsters, or con artists. Except for Cassel. He hasn’t got the magic touch, so he’s an outsider, the straight kid in a crooked family. You just have to ignore one small detail — he killed his best friend, Lila, three years ago.  Ever since, Cassel has carefully built up a facade of normalcy, blending into the crowd. But his facade starts crumbling when he starts sleepwalking, propelled into the night by terrifying dreams about a white  cat that wants to tell him something. He’s noticing other disturbing things, too, including the strange behavior of his two brothers. They are keeping secrets from him, caught up in a mysterious plot. As Cassel begins to suspect he’s part of a huge con game, he also wonders what really happened to Lila. Could she still be alive? To find that out, Cassel will have to out-con the conmen.  Holly Black has created a gripping tale of mobsters and dark magic where a single   touch can bring love — or death — and your dreams might be more real than your memories.

The Ragtime Fool by Larry Karp (April 2010)— It’s 1951, and ragtime is making a comeback. In Sedalia, Missouri, plans are well along for a ceremony to honor Scott Joplin. Brun Campbell, the old Ragtime Kid, is working to establish Joplin’s legacy. Brun learns of a journal Joplin kept and wants to show it to Sedalia’s movers and shakers, hoping to persuade them to set up a ragtime museum. Unfortunately for Brun, author/historian Rudi Blesh is determined to publish the journal. Also, Joplin’s old friend wants to suppress the material. Even worse, two Sedalia Klansmen are hot after the journal, and don’t care if they have to kill someone to get it. What’s one murder, compared to the Klansmen’s grand plan to blow up the high school auditorium with its integrated audience during the ceremony? In the middle of this imbroglio is Alan Chandler, a 17-year-old pianist in love with ragtime. If Alan can stay alive, he may be able to prevent catastrophe and learn what it really means to be Black in mid-Twentieth Century America.

The Taken by Inger Ash Wolfe (July 2010)—Detective Inspector Hazel Micallef is having a bad year. After major back surgery, she has no real option but to move into her ex-husband’s basement and suffer the humiliation of his new wife bringing her meals down on a tray. As if that weren’t enough, Hazel’s octogenarian mother secretly flushes Hazel’s stash of painkillers down the toilet. It’s almost a relief when Hazel gets a call about a body fished up by tourists in one of the lakes near Port Dundas. But what raises the hair on the back of Micallef ’s neck is that the local paper has just published the first installment of a serialized story featuring such a scenario. Even before they head out to the lake with divers to recover the body, she and DC James Wingate, leading the police detachment in Micallef ’s absence, know they are being played. But it’s not clear who is pulling their strings and why, nor is what they find at the lake at all what they expected. It’s Micallef herself who is snared, caught up in a cryptic game devised by someone who knows how to taunt her into opening a cold case, someone who knows that nothing will stop her investigation.

The Joy of Spooking Book Two: Unearthly Asylum by P. J. Bracegirdle (Kids, August 2010)—Meet Joy Wells, an eleven-year-old literary horror fan and proud resident of Spooking, the eerie old town overlooking the plastic suburban paradise of Darlington where she and brother Byron are forced to go to school.  Discover the sinister history hidden behind the spiked-lined walls of the mental asylum and descend into the dark underworld below Spooking’s streets.

On Deadly Ground by Michael Norman (March 2010)—Kanab, Utah is bitterly divided by the politics of land management. When environmentalist David Greenbriar is found dead, County Sheriff, Charley Sutter, seeks help from newly appointed Law Enforcement Ranger, J. D. Books. Books discovers that the victim’s widow has been having an affair with Lance Clayburn. Physical evidence links Clayburn to the killing. Books connects Greenbriar’s murder to a corrupt Kane County Sheriff’s deputy and a Las Vegas business conglomerate with ties to organized crime. Enter Peter Deluca, a very dangerous mob contract killer, who will eliminate anyone who can link him or his employer to Greenbriar’s murder.

The Missing Book 3: Sabotaged by Margaret Peterson Haddix (Kids, August 2010)—After helping Chip and Alex survive 15th-century London, time travelers Jonah and Katherine are summoned to help another missing child: Virginia Dare of the Lost Colony of Roanoke.

Deep Creek by Dana Hand (February 2010)—Idaho Territory, June 1887. A small-town judge takes his young daughter fishing, and she catches a man. Another body surfaces, then another. The final toll: over 30 Chinese gold miners brutally murdered. Their San Francisco employer hires Idaho lawman Joe Vincent to solve the case.  Soon he journeys up the wild Snake River with Lee Loi, an ambitious young company investigator, and Grace Sundown, a mountain guide with too many secrets. As they track the killers across the Pacific Northwest, through haunted canyons and city streets, each must put aside lies and old grievances to survive a quest that will change them forever.  Deep Creek is a historical thriller inspired by actual events and people: the 1887 massacre of Chinese miners in remote and beautiful Hells Canyon, the middle-aged judge who went after their slayers, and the sham race-murder trial that followed. This American tragedy was long suppressed and the victims nearly forgotten; Deep Creek teams history and imagination to illuminate how and why, in a seamless, fast-moving tale of courage and redemption, loss and love.

The Significant Seven by John McEvoy (April 2010)—Seven lifelong friends and racing fans from their student days at the University of Wisconsin strike it lucky at Saratoga Race Track when they combine to win a plus million dollar Pick Six. They subsequently use some of those profits to buy race horses, one of which, The Badger Express, turns out to be a sensational runner, stallion, and money maker. Seven years later, the men become targets of a professional assassin, an ex-Navy SEAL and Iraq private security guard named Orth. They begin dying, one by one. Jack Doyle returns to the race track, volunteering to aid FBI agents in a search for criminals fixing races. Doyle then becomes involved in protecting Rene Rison, the favored daughter of the Significant Seven’s leader Arnie Rison. Jack Doyle, as always irreverent, observant, opinionated, sometimes mistaken but always persistent, eventually manages to find answers to the questions of who is fixing the races and who is having members of the Significant Seven killed off.

Forbidden Sea by Sheila A. Nielson (Young Adult, July 2010)—When Adrianne comes face-to-face with the mermaid of Windwaithe Island, of whom she has heard terrible stories all her life, she is convinced the mermaid means to take her younger sister. Adrianne, fierce-willed and courageous, is determined to protect her sister from the mermaid, and her family from starvation. However, the mermaid continues to haunt Adrianne in her dreams and with her song.  Yet, when the islanders find out about Adrianne’s encounters with the mermaid she is scorned, for this small and superstitious community believes the mermaid will bring devastation to the island if Adrianne does not give herself to the sea.  A powerful and lyrical story of one girl who must choose between having everything and having those she loves.

Play Dead by Ryan Brown (May 2010)—For the first time in Killington High School history, the Jackrabbits football team is one win away from the district championship where it will face its most vicious rival, the Elmwood Heights Badgers. On the way to the game, the Jackrabbits’s bus plunges into a river, killing every player except for bad-boy quarterback Cole Logan who is certain the crash was no accident–given that Cole himself was severely injured in a brutal attack by three ski-masked men earlier that day. Bent on payback, Cole turns to a mysterious fan skilled in black magic to resurrect his teammates. But unless the undead Jackrabbits defeat their murderous rival on the field, the team is destined for hell. In a desperate race against time, with only his coach’s clever daughter, Savannah Hickman, to assist him, Cole must lead his zombie team to victory. . . in a final showdown where the stakes aren’t just life or death–but damnation or salvation.

The Wild Zone by Joy Fielding (February 2010)—Two brothers — Will and Jeff — and their friend Tom are out one night at their favorite South Beach bar, the Wild Zone, and decide to make a bet on who can be the fi rst to seduce a mysterious-looking young woman drinking by herself. Pretty, dark-haired, blue-eyed Suzy has an innocent, almost ordinary girl-next-door way about her. “Just waiting for Prince Charming to hit on her,” Jeff says.  Little do they know the secrets she hides from the outside world, particularly those having to do with the daily horror she experiences under the watchful eye of her abusive husband. Little do they know she has an agenda of her own. Little do they know their harmless bet is about to take on a life of its own, a life full of deadly consequences for all concerned.

Don’t forget—every time you leave a comment on any post between now and midnight next Thursday, you’ll be entered in the drawing to win.  If you win, I’d love it if you’d send me a review, even just a short paragraph, to let us know what you think.

Have a safe and happy holiday!

Today is the first day of Independents Week, celebrated each year to promote the importance of supporting locally owned business of all types, whether it be a restaurant, a boutique, a beauty salon, an auto repair shop or a bookstore.  Any given indie may be quite large, offering employment to many in the community, or so small that the owner is chief cook and bottlewasher.  In either case, they have one particular financial aspect in common and that’s the return of money to the immediate area through payroll, local taxes and day to day expenditures .

For every $100 spent in an independent, locally owned business, $68 remains in the community.  For every $100 spent in the local branch of a national or regional chain, $43 remains in the community.  For every $100 spent online,  $0 remains in the community.

To put this in more accessible terms, I’ll use our now-defunct storefront as an example.  Annie and I had two employees so we paid wages which were, in turn, spent primarily in the Richmond area.  We paid a number of local people for services—our CPA, an attorney, a janitorial firm, occasionally a window washer.  We paid rent and purchased advertising in local newspapers and radio & TV stations.  When we had special events, we purchased food and beverages, plus all the paper goods, from indie grocers.  We bought some of our office supplies from local stores.  We purchased books from local authors and publishers.  Our coffee and tea supplies and equipment came from a local distributor and our furniture, other than the shelving, came from local stores.  And, unlike most online businesses, we paid local taxes.

I could go on but you get the picture.  This slow (moribund) economy is destroying much of our independent business and national chains bulldozing their way into our neighborhoods hasten the process.   If we want to have choices in where we shop and want to retain the character of our towns, we all need to support independent business as much as possible.  My favorite rule of thumb is the 3/50 Project—click on the image below to find a simple way you can do your part.

One useful thing about the stats, in the sense of being enlightening as well as frequently amusing, is the referral list.  This is where you can see the search terms people have used to arrive at the blog.  Some of them are perfectly understandable, like an author’s name or book title .  You can guess that the author has googled his name to see if there have been any mentions anywhere or perhaps he has an automatic search like Google Alerts.   Another possibility is that a reader is looking for information regarding an author or a review for a particular title.

Then there are the others.  Some are funny, some are puzzling, still more are downright strange.  Some of my favorite recent headscratchers:

samples of business introduction letters

under books

“girls boarding school”corsets

three types of animal bonding “Animal bonding” -Human -elves

women books club blogs

blasphemous idols

squirrel mystery

trash book club

public authors

So, I’ll keep looking at my stats—they might give me heartburn but they’re also good for a “what the heck?”.

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