tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-346984162024-03-05T22:22:23.092-06:00Painting with WordsThe artist as writer. Or is that the other way around?Pepper Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00088936125225559789noreply@blogger.comBlogger137125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34698416.post-19093617735922488812022-10-20T19:24:00.000-05:002022-10-20T19:24:25.640-05:00Back again<p> Still around. Just been very busy.</p><p>I realized on thinking about it that this was an ideal time to go back through the four novels and do the picky editing stuff that I wished I'd done before they made it into print. Most of it is invisible--changes in spelling, a different word here or there, stuff you'd really have to be looking for to even notice it. Reef Runner wound up not having some things in it that I'd thought were there, so it's had a bit of rewriting. Still working through the edits, so it's still going to be a while before I begin thinking about getting them back into print.</p><p>Fall has arrived, along with the requisite dead leaves and cold weather. Not my favorite time of year.</p><p>My mind is too full of the editing I'm doing to come up with a better post. Maybe next time...</p>Pepper Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00088936125225559789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34698416.post-19388122574260999752022-07-06T14:49:00.000-05:002022-07-06T14:49:07.657-05:00Hello there...<p> Greetings, in case anyone stumbles across this blog. </p><p>Obviously, it's been a while since I posted last. I'll have to review the blog and see what there is that needs updating. One major update is that my publisher, Mundania, went out of business in 2019. They had a really tough time of it once Amazon changed their search parameters to favor their own books, and were unable to stay in business. Fortunately for their authors, they closed down before they could amass a pile of debt and returned our publishing rights to us. I am uncertain at this time exactly what I will do to get my books back into print, but I will be checking out all the options. In the meantime, I am working on book 5 of the Patty O'Donnell series, and have future plans for a stand-alone novel set in part on Maui.</p><p>Equally obviously, I am not an inveterate blogger. I simply cannot focus on writing a novel and finding enough interesting things to write blog posts about at the same time. I may try to post once a week, but that's not a promise. I will try to keep important things up to date on the blog.</p><p>My apologies for the long silence. We've had one medical issue after another come up in the last few years, along with my mother's death from a ruptured ulcer that no one knew about, which happened in 2018.</p><p>Since Mundania went out of business, my books are all out of print, and cannot be ordered because all copies were printed at the time of sale. As stated, I will be looking at options for getting them back into print. (Though I have no idea if anyone will see this, given how long it's been since I posted last....)</p>Pepper Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00088936125225559789noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34698416.post-49906812223316013682018-05-10T15:38:00.001-05:002018-05-10T15:38:22.977-05:00Coming July 3, 2018 From Mundania Press!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBslnE_P8fyHWo4VN-FMYxcyftnWFDo5qt5XqJZMlZUk1dcMqxhYk7PdSYAPg622YmDFRyBIYTvGkk1J8eFpFuOkpUOFjR_rTWnC3RxI8pTREbRW00XZXw7ybgDPQLs61FMA3Q9Q/s1600/dreamshadows.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="459" data-original-width="306" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBslnE_P8fyHWo4VN-FMYxcyftnWFDo5qt5XqJZMlZUk1dcMqxhYk7PdSYAPg622YmDFRyBIYTvGkk1J8eFpFuOkpUOFjR_rTWnC3RxI8pTREbRW00XZXw7ybgDPQLs61FMA3Q9Q/s320/dreamshadows.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
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Pepper Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00088936125225559789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34698416.post-17886474484350067042017-12-05T20:53:00.001-06:002017-12-05T20:58:01.726-06:00You Don't Know What's Going To HappenI've been meaning to post this since last year, but it's taken me a while to get my head around what happened in the photos I'm about to post for you. The date for these was December 16, 2016, I believe. If you click on the photos, you'll get larger images.<br />
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We live only about a mile away from the fire, and the sound was like a jet engine preparing for take-off. After listening for a moment while I sat in my car in our driveway, I'd recognized the sound as a natural gas line leak, and it sounded huge. I followed the sound to find the above scene. If you can see from the picture, there's a Domino's Pizza on the right, and from where I ended up parking, I couldn't tell at first if the Domino's was even still there. It was, but there's a duplex to the right of the fire, past the Domino's, that is on fire. I made my way much closer, ending up close enough that the sound of the fire and the gas rushing out of the line was almost deafening.<br />
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This is not a night shot. The fire was so overwhelmingly bright that the camera adjusted the brightness in self-defense. It wasn't until I had taken a couple of pictures that I realized there was a car in the fire, and that someone had died here. You can see the car just to the right of the narrow black upright, otherwise known as a telephone pole.<br />
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Nobody saw exactly what happened, but the driver apparently went off the road and hit the gas main. I'm assuming they maybe tried to miss the telephone pole and hit the gas main instead, possibly thinking they were hitting the less dangerous of the two. There was an explosion, and in all likelihood, the driver was killed instantly by the concussion. One man who was on the road about a hundred fifty feet away reported that the explosion knocked his truck sideways.<br />
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As far as I know, no one ever identified the driver. The local gas company had no records of where the lines were buried, and spent hours searching for a way to shut the gas off. (The controls were apparently on what the car hit.) After about nine and a half hours in the fire, the driver was so thoroughly cremated that there was no usable DNA to work with. Nobody local ever stepped forward to report their loved one missing. I can't help but wonder if the driver was an out-of-state college student, on their way home for the holidays, whose family has no idea what happened to them.<br />
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Be careful out there. No one ever thinks they could die on a simple drive home. Until it happens.Pepper Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00088936125225559789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34698416.post-51381446984554160562016-03-19T20:30:00.000-05:002016-03-19T20:30:23.524-05:00Erm...Yes, I'm still alive.I've been busy.<br />
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(Shuffles feet, looks down.)<br />
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Seriously, though, I have been working. I've finished the fourth Patty O'Donnell book, which is now in the hands of my publisher, and I've been doing a lot of research for the next one. No idea when book 4 will be published, yet. That one's set in Arizona. Book 5 will be set in Ireland.<br />
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There have been reading breaks in there. The next post should include more about what I've been reading for pleasure.<br />
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'til next time~~~Pepper Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00088936125225559789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34698416.post-62807225018338273402015-05-28T17:17:00.001-05:002015-06-02T14:04:26.153-05:00Patty O'Donnell countryWhen I decide to post, I guess I post a lot.<br />
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Remember, click on a picture if you want to see a bigger image.<br />
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Patty O'Donnell, my series character, grew up on a ranch in the east central part of Arizona. The area is north of the towns of Springerville and Eagar, sister communities that lie at a point where the highway heads up into the White Mountains. Patty's family heads into Springerville when they want something they can't get in North Fork, the fictional town they call home.<br />
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Springerville city limits. We noticed that towns in this part seem to incorporate a lot of area where no one is actually living.<br />
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Springerville is in the Round Valley, a nice green area where Basque shepherds watched their flocks in the second half of the 1800s. If I'm remembering correctly, they get a lot of runoff from the mountains.<br />
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North of the Round Valley is a vast area called the Springerville Volcanic Field.<br />
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This is an area of wide pastures<br />
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and volcanic domes,<br />
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and it's difficult to get a feel for the scale of the place from photographs. Trust me when I say it's awe-inspiring. For a sense of perspective, though, here's this...<br />
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If you click on it and look at a bigger version, you can see how tiny the road gets, and how big the dome ahead is, farther beyond it. We saw some domes with dark scars on them. Apparently some people mine them for cinders.<br />
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There are just over 400 domes in the Springerville Volcanic Field. Yes, someone actually counted them. <br />
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Some pastures have areas that look as if a vast herd of cattle all decided to take a dump in the same place.<br />
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These are, in fact, basalt outcroppings. On some ranches, these are fenced off, and on others they aren't. One wonders what this does to cows' hooves.<br />
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Scientists used to believe that the Springerville Volcanic Field was millions of years old, and that the volcanoes were extinct. More recently, they understand that the field ranges from 300,000 to 800,000 years old, and that there's a reasonable chance that it might erupt again. The youngest parts support grassland and a few shrubs.<br />
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The older parts support grass, more shrubs, and some trees.<br />
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The ranch Patty's family runs is on both types of land.<br />
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This area's elevation is in the 6,000-7,000 foot range, and has a climate that is milder than you might expect for Arizona, with summer highs averaging in the 80s, and lows averaging in the 50s. They can get snow in the winter. It is quite arid during the dry seasons. It had not been long in the monsoon season when we were there, so things hadn't greened up much.<br />
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I'm switching the comments back on, but if all I get is spam, they'll go back on moderation. Just don't have time to clean the comments out on a daily basis.Pepper Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00088936125225559789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34698416.post-19314786243697939552015-05-28T13:21:00.000-05:002015-05-28T21:51:10.629-05:00Fun in Arizona part 2So, on with the vacation...<br />
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In checking through the guidebooks, we noticed that Fort Apache was not far from where we were staying. Naturally, it was a spot my husband was interested in visiting, so off we went.<br />
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There are a number of old buildings from the old fort, along with a Visitor's Center and Museum, and a school for the local tribes.<br />
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This was an original building, the Adjutant's Office, which is now a post office. <br />
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This is the school. There are also boys and girls dorms, the home lived in by an early commanding officer, the remains of the barracks, and a number of other buildings, many of which were later additions. Of course, by this time, the fort no longer has its protective walls. An interesting visit.<br />
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After the 4th, the campground cleared out pretty quickly, and for the rest of our time there, there were probably at most 10 sites that were in use. Of course, part of the time, the lower camping loop was out of use because of a big water leak in the line. Only a few stalwarts in RVs stayed there, due to the fact that they had to haul in water if they wanted it.<br />
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There was a walking trail near the lake that we went on one morning, before it got too hot. Nice views of Lake Lymon.<br />
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We also had some other campers in our site. It was fun watching them at work.<br />
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Sunrise came early, and was beautiful.<br />
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One thing that we noticed a couple of times when we came back from playing tourist elsewhere was that some of our tent stakes were up out of the ground. We weren't sure what was going on with that, if some of the other campers' kids were doing it for fun, or what. We ended up staking those lines down by tying the cords around some big rocks.<br />
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On our last afternoon there, we'd decided to spend time at the campsite to get a little rest before traveling home the next day. It was unusually hot even for there, and we eventually retreated to the tent to try to nap. It was monsoon season, and there were clouds building up around us, promising to bring the temperatures down to a more reasonable level. (Monsoon simply means 'seasonal'. It doesn't specifically denote to torrential rains they get in India and elsewhere.) The rain finally started, a light sprinkle, then a little heavier. And a bit heavier. And then the straight-line winds hit. With us inside the tent. I'm not sure how long they lasted, but I'm really, really glad that we'd staked out the tent on the side the winds were coming from with really big rocks. Otherwise, we and everything in the tent would have gone rolling off down the hill and across the campground, ending up no telling where. The wind was so strong that it was blowing rain up under the tent fly into the tent, and through the gap where the zipper pull met the other zipper pull on the back window. After that, we knew how the tent stakes had gotten pulled up before.<br />
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Our last night there, a bunch of people showed up in the campsite across the one-way road from our site. Some arrived early to set up, others arrived later in the afternoon. The campground rules were that there was supposed to be quiet time past 10 pm and before 7 am. These people chose to ignore that, and were extremely loud until nearly midnight. They also chose to ignore the fact that there were young children in nearby sites and loaded their very loud speech with a lot of curse words. The next morning, when their next nearest neighbors were packing up to leave, which happened somewhere between 5:30 and 6:30, that family and their kids made a lot of noise, slamming and banging things as they packed all their stuff back into their RV. We were already up and packing ourselves, and felt like applauding them.<br />
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On the trip to and from Arizona, we noticed a lot of these.<br />
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You might have to click to get a bigger image on that one. There were miles and miles of these, many thousand individual wind turbines, in Texas, and some in Oklahoma. I've seen one or two locally, but never on this scale. I guess that's what a wind farm is.<br />
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In my next post, I'll tell you something about the area where Patty's family lives.Pepper Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00088936125225559789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34698416.post-87757100211174307402015-05-28T12:25:00.001-05:002015-09-15T19:34:20.726-05:00Fun in ArizonaOr, Adventures in Middle-aged Camping, 2014 edition.<br />
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Click on any picture and you'll get a bigger version. <br />
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This is what many people think of when they hear the name Arizona.<br />
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This is also Arizona.<br />
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And this. <br />
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And this.<br />
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Those lightish trails running down the mountain are ski runs. No snow since it was in July, but in the mountains they do get snow.<br />
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And this is proof that it actually rains in Arizona. <br />
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So, what were we doing in Arizona last summer? Basically, it was a research trip. My main character, Patty, grew up on a ranch in an area near the real-world towns of Springerville/Eagar, and I'd long had in mind how the place should look, but thought it would be nice to go see what it felt like and sounded like, and yes, what it looked like. (I was, in fact, completely wrong about how it looked. Glad we went.)<br />
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We arrived on July 4th at Lymon Lake State Park and quickly set up our tent. We were proud of how easy it had been to set the tent up and stake it down...until the winds came up, yanked up the stakes, and threatened to send our tent tumbling across the crowded campground. After a quick scout around, we determined the best spot to set up was on an awkward slope to one side of the picnic shelter in our site. With the wind blowing, we had to clear the ground of large rocks and stake down the ground cloth for under the tent before we could stake the tent down again. This meant one of us had to fight the wind to keep the tent from blowing away while the other fought the wind to keep the ground cloth from taking flight while it was being staked down. One of the rangers came by and showed us how to tie off to big rocks to anchor the tent, which we hadn't done because we hadn't known it was allowable. This comes up again later. It took us an hour or better, fighting the wind, to get the tent set up where it would be for the next week.<br />
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Pretty much every site in the campground was taken that night, so it was pretty noisy with people getting drunk and celebrating, though we didn't have to contend with noisy fireworks because of a burn ban. It was not the most comfortable night. With the slope of the ground, I had to be careful how I moved on my air mattress because it wanted to tip me off. My husband's mattress was on a slightly more level place, apparently.<br />
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Springerville Visitors Center and Museums. <br />
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Over the next few days, we visited Springerville repeatedly for meals and a brief driving tour. A couple of our favorite places were:<br />
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Booga Red's had the best Mexican food in town, in our opinion. Tried a number of places, but liked that one best.<br />
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Visited Java Blues for a few meals, and for pie breaks. Really liked it.<br />
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Also drove up to the Petrified Forest/Painted Desert national park. If you've never been there, you should go if you're ever in Arizona. Photos don't do the colors justice.<br />
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<br />
Made our way down to Phoenix for a night. If there's a Hard Rock Cafe in driving distance, my husband will want to go there. Also got to have dinner with Cathy of <a href="http://www.kittlingbooks.com/" target="_blank">Kittling: Books</a> and her husband Denis. We had a really wonderful time visiting with them. Denis grew up in England and had a lot of interesting stories to tell, and the two of them together have had a few adventures exploring their adopted home state.<br />
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<br />
Spotted these along the way to Phoenix. Not sure what they are, but they added some nice color to otherwise sunbaked land. <br />
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To be continued in next post... Pepper Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00088936125225559789noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34698416.post-88508313757640248112015-05-03T11:54:00.000-05:002015-05-03T11:55:09.777-05:00Recent Reads ContinuedOn with the job...<br />
<br />
<i>Death at the Door </i>by Carolyn G. Hart<br />
<br />
Part of the Death on Demand series.<br />
<br />
<i>The Prime Minister's Secret Agent</i> by Susan Elia MacNeal<br />
<br />
#4 of the Maggie Hope series set in WWII, I believe.<br />
<br />
<i>Tabula Rasa</i> by Ruth Downie<br />
<br />
Gaius Petreius Ruso series #6. This is such a fun series. Really like her writing voice.<br />
<br />
<b>James R. Benn:</b><br />
<br />
Billy Boyle WWII series:<br />
<br />
<i>A Blind Goddess</i><br />
<i>The Rest Is Silence</i><br />
<br />
<i>Raging Heat</i> by "Richard Castle"<br />
<br />
<b>Ngaio Marsh:</b><br />
<br />
Inspector Roderick Alleyn series:<br />
<br />
<i>Enter a Murderer</i><br />
<i>Death in Ecstasy</i><br />
<i>Vintage Murder</i><br />
<i>Artists in Crime</i><br />
<i>Death in a White Tie</i><br />
<i>Overture to Death</i><br />
<i>Death at the Bar</i><br />
<i>Death and the Dancing Footman</i><br />
<i>Color Scheme</i><br />
<i>Died in the Wool</i><br />
<i>Final Curtain</i><br />
<i>Swing, Brother, Swing</i><br />
<i>Night at the Vulcan</i><br />
<i>Scales of Justice</i><br />
<i>Singing in the Shrouds</i><br />
<br />
<b>Dorothy L. Sayers:</b><br />
<br />
Lord Peter Wimsey series:<br />
<br />
<i>Clouds of Witness</i><br />
<i>Unnatural Death</i><br />
<i>Lord Peter Views the Body</i><br />
<i>The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club</i><br />
<i>Strong Poison</i><br />
<i>The Five Red Herrings</i><br />
<i>Have His Carcase</i><br />
<i>Murder Must Advertise</i><br />
<i>The Nine Tailors</i><br />
<i>Gaudy Night</i><br />
<i>Hangman's Holiday</i><br />
<i>Busman's Honeymoon (to the point where the ghosts show up)</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>The Daughter of Time</i> by Josephine Tey<br />
<br />
<b>Thea Phipps:</b><br />
<br />
<i>Charades With a Lunatic</i><br />
<i>The Doll in the Wall</i><br />
<i>Strange Caper</i><br />
<br />
Bella Wildeve series. Rereads on the first two, third is new. Fun, enjoyable stories.<br />
<br />
<i>Dick Francis's <b>Damage</b></i> by Felix Francis<br />
<br />
Continues to handle the franchise well...<br />
<br />
<i>Dreaming Spies</i> by Laurie R. King<br />
<br />
The most recent Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes book, set primarily in Japan this time.<br />
<br />
<b>P. G. Wodehouse:</b><br />
<br />
<i>My Man Jeeves</i><br />
<i>Thank You, Jeeves</i><br />
<i>Right Ho, Jeeves</i><br />
<i>The Inimitable Jeeves</i><br />
<br />
<b>Jill Paton Walsh:</b><br />
<br />
Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane:<br />
<br />
<i>Thrones, Dominations</i><br />
<i>A Presumption of Death</i><br />
<i>The Attenbury Emeralds</i><br />
<i>The Late Scholar</i><br />
<br />
Walsh picks up where Sayers left off, beginning with her notes for future adventures of the pair. The first two are set 1) shortly after the pair's marriage and honeymoon abroad, and 2) during WWII. The last two are set later in their lives, with Peter being in his sixties and the reluctant Duke of Denver. The last has a very recent copywrite, so there may be more of these coming.<br />
<br />
<i>Wouldn't it be Deadly</i> by D. E. Ireland<br />
<br />
Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins. Yes, that Doolittle and Higgins. Started it a while back, wasn't in the mood, came back and finished it later. Eliza has spunk and street smarts. Higgins is his usual arrogant self, except when he isn't. You find out why he's not married.<br />
<br />
<b>What I still have on my Nook to read:</b><br />
<br />
<i>Brat Farrar</i> by Josephine Tey<br />
<br />
And by Ngaio Marsh:<br />
<br />
<i>False Scent</i><br />
<i>Hand in Glove</i><br />
<i>Dead Water</i><br />
<i>Killer Dolphin</i><br />
<br />
Don't know when I'll get to these, as I'm writing now and don't read a lot while I'm working.<br />
<br />
Next post will probably be about our vacation last year...Pepper Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00088936125225559789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34698416.post-81633139142549907952015-05-02T20:51:00.000-05:002015-05-02T20:51:29.102-05:00A long overdue list of Recent ReadsHad to go back and look at the last time I'd posted one of these to see where I left off. There is a year's worth of them, so these may end up being divided...<br />
<br />
<i>The Whole Enchilada</i> by Diane Mott Davidson<br />
<br />
Difficult after a year, but I seem to remember enjoying this. Goldie was not quite in the TSTL category here, which made it much better.<br />
<br />
<i>The Norfolk Mystery: A County Guides Mystery</i> by Ian Sansom<br />
<br />
First in a series. Enjoyed it. It's been a year, so I suppose I should start looking for the next one.<br />
<br />
<b>Michael Pearce</b>:<br />
<br />
<i>A Dead Man in Malta</i><br />
<i>A Dead Man in Naples</i><br />
<br />
Two more Sandor Seymour books.<br />
<br />
<b>Agatha Christie:</b><br />
<br />
<i>Dead Man's Folly</i><br />
<i>The Big Four</i><br />
<i>Hercule Poirot--The Complete Short Stories (haven't actually finished this)</i><br />
<i>Curtain: Poirot's Last Case</i><br />
<i>Crooked House</i><br />
<i>Death on the Nile</i><br />
<i>A Murder is Announced</i><br />
<i>Murder on the Orient Express</i><br />
<i>Nemesis</i><br />
<i>Peril at End House</i><br />
<i>A Caribbean Mystery</i><br />
<i>At Bertram's Hotel</i><br />
<i>Elephants Can Remember</i><br />
<i>The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side</i><br />
<i>The ABC Murders</i><br />
<i>And Then There Were None</i><br />
<br />
<b>Rhys Bowen:</b><br />
<br />
<i>Masked Ball at Broxley (short story)</i><br />
<i>Naughty in Nice</i><br />
<i>The Twelve Clues of Christmas</i><br />
<i>Queen of Hearts</i><br />
<br />
More Royal Spyness adventures.<br />
<br />
<b>Mary Daheim:</b><br />
<br />
<i>Gone With The Win</i> (from her Bed-and-Breakfast series)<br />
<br />
Okay. Didn't enjoy it as much as her Alpine Advocate series. <br />
<br />
From her Alpine Advocate Series:<br />
<br />
<i>The Alpine Advocate</i><br />
<i>The Alpine Betrayal</i><br />
<i>The Alpine Christmas</i><br />
<i>The Alpine Decoy</i><br />
<i>The Alpine Fury</i><br />
<i>The Alpine Gamble</i><br />
<i>The Alpine Hero</i><br />
<i>The Alpine Icon</i><br />
<i>The Alpine Journey</i><br />
<i>The Alpine Kindred</i><br />
<i>The Alpine Legacy</i><br />
<i>The Alpine Menace</i><br />
<i>The Alpine Nemesis</i><br />
<i>The Alpine Obituary</i><br />
<i>The Alpine Pursuit</i><br />
<i>The Alpine Quilt</i><br />
<i>The Alpine Recluse</i><br />
<i>The Alpine Scandal</i><br />
<i>The Alpine Traitor</i><br />
<i>The Alpine Uproar</i><br />
<i>The Alpine Vengeance</i><br />
<i>The Alpine Winter</i><br />
<i>The Alpine Xanadu</i><br />
<i>The Alpine Yeoman</i><br />
<i>The Alpine Zen</i><br />
<br />
Long haul for Emma Lord and the Sheriff. Finally ended well for them.<i> </i><br />
<br />
<b>Joan Hess</b>:<br />
<br />
Claire Malloy series:<br />
<br />
<i>Murder as a Second Language</i><br />
<i>Pride v. Prejudice</i><br />
<br />
The two latest in this long-running series.<i> </i><br />
<br />
Maggody series:<br />
<br />
<i>Malice in Maggody</i><br />
<br />
<b>Carola Dunn:</b><br />
<br />
Daisy Dalrymple series:<br />
<br />
<i>Death at Wentwater Court</i><br />
<i>The Winter Garden</i><br />
<i>Requiem for a Mezzo</i><br />
<i>Murder on the Flying Scotsman</i><br />
<i>Damsel in Distress</i><br />
<i>Dead in the Water</i><br />
<i>Styx and Stones</i><br />
<i>To Davy Jones Below</i><br />
<i>Rattle His Bones</i><br />
<i>The Case of the Murdered Muckraker</i><br />
<i>Die Laughing</i><br />
<i>A Mourning Wedding</i><br />
<i>Fall of a Philanderer</i><br />
<i>Gunpowder Plot</i><br />
<i>The Bloody Tower</i><br />
<i>Black Ship</i><br />
<i>Sheer Folly</i><br />
<i>Gone West</i><br />
<i>Anthem for Doomed Youth</i><br />
<i>Heirs of the Body</i><br />
<br />
Newest one is out very soon, if not already.<i> </i><br />
<br />
Cornish Mystery series:<br />
<br />
<i>Manna from Hades</i><br />
<i>A Colorful Death </i><br />
<i>Valley of the Shadow</i><br />
<br />
Interesting series with old-lady sleuth, her police officer<i> </i>niece, and a local artist who I hope becomes the niece's love interest. Set in the 60s or 70s, so women police officers were still a new thing.<br />
<br />
<b>Barbara Ross:</b><br />
<br />
<i>Clammed Up</i><br />
<i>Boiled Over</i><br />
<br />
Series set in Maine, if I remember correctly. First two books. I'm planning to get the next one, which is out now.<i> </i><br />
<br />
<b>Charles Todd:</b><br />
<br />
Bess Crawford series:<br />
<br />
<i>The Maharani's Pearls (short story)</i><br />
<i>An Unwilling Accomplice</i><br />
<br />
I really enjoy Bess Crawford. Smart and brave.<i> </i><br />
<br />
Inspector Ian Rutledge series:<br />
<br />
<i>A Fine Summer's Day</i><br />
<br />
This one was set just before WWI, his last case before joining the army and having his life changed forever.<i> </i><br />
<br />
<br />
I will have to finish these in another post. Whew!Pepper Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00088936125225559789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34698416.post-10386334000260128882014-11-27T22:48:00.001-06:002014-11-27T22:48:42.590-06:00Carl Griffis--April 28, 1940-October 31, 2014I put this post off for a while--not an easy one to make. Carl Griffis was my father.<br />
<br />
Back in March, Dad was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. It was at stage 2b, which his doctors viewed as early enough to be treatable, so they went at it with chemo and radiation, and successfully killed the tumor. (Esophageal cancer is caused by acid reflux apparently. Dad wasn't a smoker, so it wasn't that type of cancer.) The tumor had narrowed his esophagus, which made it difficult to swallow, and the treatment made the area in his esophagus extremely irritated, so he was being fed through a tube into his small intestine.<br />
<br />
The next step in treatment was surgery on July 14th to remove the damaged part of the esophagus. What was expected to be the removal of just a portion of the esophagus turned out to be the removal of most of it, as the damage was greater than the doctors had thought. His stomach was stretched to take the place of the missing esophagus. The biggest problem with that was the removal of the valve that keeps stomach contents from going back up.<br />
<br />
The hoped-for nominal two week recovery never materialized. Setback after setback cropped up, and two further surgeries were required, one to insert a tracheostomy tube to protect his lungs when bile reflux from his stomach entered his lungs and gave him a persistant case of pneumonia, and the other to correct a twist in his intestine that was suspected of keeping his stomach from emptying properly. The extended use of the tube feeding left him malnourished, as it was only intended to be a temporary thing. He did not thrive. Three and a half months after his surgery, he passed away.<br />
<br />
I don't celebrate Halloween anyway, but his dying on the 31st would have killed the holiday atmosphere of the day if I did.<br />
<br />
There was a memorial for him November 18th at Engineering Hall on the University of Arkansas campus, where Dad taught for more than 40 years. Quite a number of colleagues and former students showed up, and a bunch got up to talk about him. It's nice to know that he was truly loved by so many people. My sister, who shared caregiving duties with me and alternated days with me taking Mom to the hospital to visit Dad, had put together a slideshow using family photos. The hardest image to look at was the last, which was taken the week before he died. He was smiling and waving at the camera, but we knew what had come before, and what came shortly afterward.<br />
<br />
I'm glad he is no longer in pain.<br />
<br />
He will be missed, by a whole lot of people.Pepper Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00088936125225559789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34698416.post-36044564025655147182014-04-09T09:19:00.001-05:002014-04-09T09:24:11.908-05:00And we have audio!<b><i>Rio Star</i></b> has just been released as an audio book.<br /><br />
In an email conversation I had with the narrator, she mentioned that it must be very strange to hear an alien voice inhabiting the world the writer created. It's been very interesting hearing the voices she's given my characters, and the many different accents she had to use. I never really gave much thought to the number of nationalities that show up in <b><i>Rio Star</i></b>. My only quibble is that I wish someone had asked me about the pronunciation of Patty's husband's name, which is Irish Gaelic and doesn't sound the way it's spelled. (It also explains why I managed to have two characters with the same first name without realizing it, because they are pronounced so differently.)<br /><br />
Otherwise, the narrator, Kathy Bell Denton, did a fantastic job, and it was a real blast hearing my characters speak and Patty's thoughts given voice. As a writer, you never really know how your work is to others until you hear it read out loud, because it strips away what you think is there and shows you what really is there. I quite enjoyed it, but then, I'm biased, lol!<br /><br />
<b><i>Rio Star</i></b> is available as an audiobook from Audible.com, Amazon.com, and iTunes, supposedly.<br /><br />
Speaking of Patty, she's been whispering in my ear lately, so maybe there's still hope for more from her.<br /><br />
Some recent reads:<br /><br />
To finish off the Hornblower run--<br /><br />
<b>C. S. Forester:</b><br /><br />
<i>Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies</i>--This is a series of short stories following Hornblower's adventures commanding the West Indies fleet, trying to control pirates, smuggling, and renegade French soldiers.<br /><br />
<b>Robert Goldsborough:</b><br /><br />
The last two of his Nero Wolfe books:<br /><br />
<i>Silver Spire</i><br />
<i>The Missing Chapter</i><br /><br />
<b>Michael Pearce:</b><br /><br />
<b>The Mamur Zapt series:</b><br /><br />
<i>The Camel of Destruction</i><br />
<i>The Snake-Catcher's Daughter</i><br />
<i>The Mingrelian Conspiracy</i><br />
<i>The Fig Tree Murder</i><br />
<i>The Last Cut</i><br />
<i>Death of an Effendi</i><br />
<i>The Bride Box</i>--This one is new, available only as an ebook from what I could see.<br /><br />
<b>The Sandor Seymour Mysteries:</b>--A second series by Michael Pearce, featuring Scotland Yard detective Sandor Seymour. Set, as with the Mamur Zapt books, in the years just prior to WWI.<br /><br />
<i>A Dead Man in Trieste</i><br />
<i>A Dead Man in Istanbul</i><br />
<i>A Dead Man in Athens</i><br />
<i>A Dead Man in Tangier</i><br />
<i>A Dead Man in Barcelona</i><br /><br />
<b>Agatha Christie:</b><br /><br />
<i>After the Funeral</i>--Poirot<br /><br />
I did finally finish <i>The Jamaican Affair of 1805</i> (see previous post), at a point when I was between batches of books. My opinion is unchanged.<br /><br />
More later~~
Pepper Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00088936125225559789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34698416.post-27063494032749915752014-03-02T11:10:00.000-06:002014-03-02T16:05:11.860-06:00Getting the year off to an ice start...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrB8HPiEM6hbOovdtONgBhpictnsgyjC80SsGIXXnbDPpmpwzFVsBSe7nl5wb6LdJQr8n96YjGSt_gbuQTJEMNNAodUPWfehUX4xhoqV3RQp2BsMRZgnigREjRbca0Qeq0Z-Rerg/s1600/white_car.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrB8HPiEM6hbOovdtONgBhpictnsgyjC80SsGIXXnbDPpmpwzFVsBSe7nl5wb6LdJQr8n96YjGSt_gbuQTJEMNNAodUPWfehUX4xhoqV3RQp2BsMRZgnigREjRbca0Qeq0Z-Rerg/s320/white_car.jpg" /></a></div><br /><br />
How to make a white car blend into its background...<br /><br />
This has been an ice winter. (And no, that's not a typo.)<br /><br />
I imagine a good 2/3s of the US is sick of winter by now. I know we were sick of it all the way back in December. We're getting thunder sleet just now, preceded by freezing rain and to be followed by snow. Predicted low tonight of 4. Ugh. Good reading weather, though.<br /><br />
There is an interesting psychological thing that happens locally when icy stuff is expected. Freezing stuff usually stays on the ground a couple of days once it's fallen--usually the temperature is warm enough to melt it off quickly, though the last snowfall we had was on the ground for a week and a half. Not what you would think of as highly dangerous circumstances. But the few days before the storm often sees people in panic mode, buying enough food to survive a month of isolation in their homes. I'm very glad I don't work at a grocery store.<br /><br />
There appears to be some movement on the audiobook front. (Did I mention that Mundania bought a small recording company and is putting its books out in audiobook format? I can't remember.) We'll see how it goes.<br /><br />
Speaking of books, here's some recent reads:<br /><br />
<b>Robert Goldsborough:</b><br /><br />
More Nero Wolfe~~<br /><br />
<i>Murder in the Ball Park</i><br />
<i>Death on Deadline</i><br />
<i>The Bloodied Ivy</i><br />
<i>Fade to Black</i><br /><br />
<b>C.S. Forester:</b><br /><br />
<i>Mr. Midshipman Hornblower</i><br />
<i>Lieutenant Hornblower</i><br />
<i>Hornblower and the Hotspur</i><br />
<i>Hornblower and the Atropos</i><br />
<i>Hornblower During the Crisis</i><br />
<i>Beat to Quarters</i><br />
<i>Ship of the Line</i><br />
<i>Flying Colors</i><br />
<i>Commodore Hornblower</i><br />
<i>The Hornblower Addendum</i>
--Five Hornblower short stories<br /><br />
<b>Michael Robertson:</b><br /><br />
<i>Moriarty Returns a Letter</i>
--Latest in the <i>Baker Street Letters</i> series, and the first of these I've read.<br /><br />
<b>Michael Pearce:</b><br /><br />
<i>A Cold Touch of Ice</i>
--Part of the Mamur Zapt series. Good stuff.<br /><br />
<b>John Mahon:</b><br /><br />
<i>The Jamaican Affair of 1805</i>
--I have to emphasize that I bought this out of curiousity. CS Forester died partway through writing <i>Hornblower During the Crisis</i>, so the story was unfinished. This book a) was written and published with the approval of CS Forester's sons to finish the story, and b) has a very fan-fictionish feel to it. There are many ways that Hornblower does not act and think like Hornblower in this, at least to my mind. There was an attempt to turn Hornblower's common dandelion-like wife Maria into a rose, and it was almost as if an effort was made to teach Hornblower lessons in humility. I stopped reading this at a certain point, and am uncertain if I will finish it. There is a second story out there that purports to finish <i>Hornblower During the Crisis</i>, but I'm already gun-shy about it and don't know if I'll risk the money on it.<br /><br />
<b>Dean King:</b><br /><br />
<i>A Sea of Words</i>
--This is a lexicon of words and terms used in Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series that may be unfamiliar to modern readers, as they are often sea terms used in the 1800's, along with definitions of sails and rigging and stuff. Very interesting. A slow read, though. Nice in small doses. I have not finished this yet, but am working on it a bit at a time.<br /><br />
<b>Current Read:</b><br /><br />
<i>Lord Hornblower</i><br /><br />
If you haven't read the Hornblower series, you'll notice that the book that Forester didn't finish is in the middle of the series. That's because Forester actually began writing the series with <i>Beat to Quarters</i>, and eventually circled back to write the early career of Hornblower. It makes for a bit of a jolt when you start at the chronological beginning of Hornblower's career as a Midshipman and move forward until you reach <i>Beat to Quarters</i>. It can feel as if two different people were writing the series, since those first-written books are fuller of detail than the latter-written books.<br /><br />
Enough of this for now. I hope winter ends soon, and that you're not under a blanket of snow at this moment. Brrr.Pepper Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00088936125225559789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34698416.post-34437171160511824482014-01-29T15:36:00.001-06:002014-01-29T15:36:54.288-06:00Recent ReadsAnd now, for some long-delayed recent reads:<br /><br />
<b>Agatha Christie:</b><br /><br />
<i>The Murder at the Vicarage</i><br />
<i>Death in the Clouds</i><br />
<i>Dumb Witness</i><br />
<i>The Hollow</i><br /><br />
<b>"Richard Castle":</b><br /><br />
<i>Frozen Heat</i> Once again, based on the series Castle, as written by the show's star. (actually written by Dan Brown. Someone had to do it, lol!)<br /><br />
<b>Laurie R King:</b><br /><br />
Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series. Holmes meets his match, and his wife.<br /><br />
<i>The Beekeeper's Apprentice</i><br />
<i>A Monstrous Regiment of Women</i><br />
<i>O Jerusalem</i><br />
<i>Justice Hall</i><br />
<i>The Game</i><br />
<i>Locked Rooms</i><br />
<i>The Language of Bees</i><br />
<i>The God of the Hive</i><br />
<i>The Pirate King</i><br />
<i>Garment of Shadows</i><br />
<i>Beekeeping for Beginners</i> Short story, tells the meeting of Holmes and Russell from Holmes' point of view.<br /><br />
<b>Charles Todd:</b><br /><br />
<i>A Question of Honor</i> Bess Crawford<br />
<i>Cold Comfort: A Novella</i> Ian Rutledge short story<br /><br />
<b>Ngaio Marsh:</b><br /><br />
<i>The Nursing Home Murders</i><br /><br />
<b>Ruth Downie:</b><br /><br />
<i>Semper Fidelis</i> The fifth Ruso novel, set in Roman Britain at the time of Hadrian's visit.<br /><br />
<b>Robert Goldsborough:</b><br /><br />
Picks up where Rex Stout left off...<br /><br />
<i>Archie Meets Nero Wolf: A prequel to Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe Mysteries</i><br />
<i>Murder in E Minor</i><br />
<i>The Last Coincidence</i><br /><br />
<b>Patrick O'Brian:</b><br /><br />
The Aubrey/Maturin series, set during the Napoleonic Wars:<br /><br />
<i>Master and Commander</i><br />
<i>Post Captain</i><br />
<i>H.M.S. Surprise</i><br />
<i>The Mauritius Command</i><br />
<i>Desolation Island</i><br />
<i>The Fortune of War</i><br />
<i>The Surgeon's Mate</i><br />
<i>The Ionian Mission</i><br />
<i>Treason's Harbor</i><br />
<i>The Far Side of the World</i><br />
<i>The Reverse of the Medal</i><br />
<i>The Letter of Marque</i><br />
<i>The Thirteen-Gun Salute</i><br />
<i>The Nutmeg of Consolation</i><br />
<i>The Truelove</i><br />
<i>The Wine-Dark Sea</i><br />
<i>The Commodore</i><br />
<i>The Yellow Admiral</i><br />
<i>The Hundred Days</i><br />
<i>Blue at the Mizzen</i><br />
<i>21: The Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey</i> Three chapters of what would have been the next novel, had Patrick O'Brian not died when he did.<br /><br />
The movie <i><b>Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World</b></i> is a sort of conglomeration of incidents from the books, and makes up a sort of 22nd adventure, since it really doesn't follow the plot line for any of them.<br /><br />
These were a mix of ebooks and paper.<br /><br />
Winter hasn't been pleasant for any of us this year, it appears. Looking forward to it ending.<br /><br />
More later~~
Pepper Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00088936125225559789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34698416.post-85297574930379013992013-11-10T16:45:00.001-06:002013-11-10T16:45:31.650-06:00Two weeks to the Day of the DoctorAre you a Doctor Who fan? The fiftieth anniversary special, The Day of the Doctor, is coming on November 23. Apparently the BBC is same-time broadcasting to a lot more places than just England for this one, so check to see if you can get it locally. Looks to be quite an adventure!<br /><br />
The BBC has some clips up, viewable <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006q2x0/clips">here</a>.<br /><br />
Excited, and yet sad at the same time. This is Matt Smith's second last episode as the Doctor.<br /><br />
More later. I have some recent reads to add, though not much news at the moment.Pepper Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00088936125225559789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34698416.post-30893740196839722782013-08-10T15:45:00.000-05:002013-08-10T16:04:07.057-05:00Sad newsI've just found out that Barbara Mertz, who is better known to many of us as Elizabeth Peters, died on August 8th at 85, after a long battle with cancer.<br /><br />
<a href="http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/Mystery+writer+Barbara+Mertz+author+more+than+books/8764071/story.html">Link to news article</a><br /><br />
There was mention on her website for a number of months of an Amelia Peabody story that she was writing, but as the mention was taken down, I'm not sure whether to be hopeful that the manuscript was finished. Even if it wasn't, she's left quite a collection of books behind.<br /><br />
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/barbara-mertz-writer-better-known-as-barbara-michaels-and-elizabeth-peters-dies-at-85/2013/08/08/e92bb442-004b-11e3-9a3e-916de805f65d_story.html">Here's another article from the Washington Post</a><br /><br />
<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/08/barbara-mertz-dead-_n_3726611.html">And one more from the Huffington Post</a><br /><br />
<a href="http://www.mpmbooks.com/">Elizabeth Peters' official Website</a>Pepper Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00088936125225559789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34698416.post-68966037956726791742013-07-03T16:36:00.000-05:002013-08-17T20:01:51.834-05:00May I present...Plus, adventures in middle-aged camping.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiHSz9SvmKBDymUTtEM1ATDBh5cJZ1IZ9-l7g1NJWJ_rrL1cBviq-cq0MAi-DOJNaGi-e_nCvFJ6mYGkR2IoIxYFSzyojTS8Fp6BIWt1OZEohyphenhyphenJ6OpCoRm_QBswGTNk682-dDC9Q/s338/wedding+ian+raven.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiHSz9SvmKBDymUTtEM1ATDBh5cJZ1IZ9-l7g1NJWJ_rrL1cBviq-cq0MAi-DOJNaGi-e_nCvFJ6mYGkR2IoIxYFSzyojTS8Fp6BIWt1OZEohyphenhyphenJ6OpCoRm_QBswGTNk682-dDC9Q/s338/wedding+ian+raven.jpg" /></a></div><br /><br />
This is my son, Ian, and his wife, Raven. They were married at the Disney Boardwalk on June 3rd, on a hot, clear Florida day, with the central lake of that particular resort area behind them. Total list of people in attendance was probably less than 20, themselves included, although the Disney staff on hand brought the numbers up. Disney's contract limited the number of people who could be there, and the venue was very small anyway, so it was really just the right number for the site. I thought her dress was quite beautiful, layers and layers of pink ruffles, and I'm sure I'm not the first mom to think her son was particularly handsome on his wedding day. There was a violin player who played selections from various Disney movies as the bride came up the aisle, and afterward during the reception.<br /><br />
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The cake was two-layered and iced in blue, white and cream, with a small copy of a famous Disney castle on top.<br /><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEife_whRAhtbHUa1WpfXDeQZ80U1KUWPZasxZrR1CPFZNugOHSu9R9siiuT28GdLd4iaP95rwaA6MdqzjVI5SjhZIFYHOmhLv4xs9TZTfblTQLm4lB3wmYGuiWjJeKC0QX_GkoZKA/s432/wedding+cake.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEife_whRAhtbHUa1WpfXDeQZ80U1KUWPZasxZrR1CPFZNugOHSu9R9siiuT28GdLd4iaP95rwaA6MdqzjVI5SjhZIFYHOmhLv4xs9TZTfblTQLm4lB3wmYGuiWjJeKC0QX_GkoZKA/s432/wedding+cake.jpg" /></a></div><br /><br />
The next day, my husband and I went on our first vacation alone in over 24 years, heading just under 200 miles north of Orlando to Amelia Island, which is just inside the border of Florida on the Atlantic coast. You can look across the river there and see Georgia. We hadn't been there in maybe 16 years, so it was pleasant to walk on the beach and enjoy the sun and the breeze. I can't exactly say fresh air, though, as there's a paper mill not far from where we were camping. Sorry, no pictures. I hadn't figured out how to use the camera I'd brought. The wedding photos are courtesy my mother-in-law.<br /><br />
We chose to stay at the Amelia River campsite at Fort Clinch State Park. If you're imagining wads of mosquitoes, you're not far off, though there were less than what I'd expected. Still, we had a nice site within the campsite loop, with enough trees around to keep us mostly isolated from the other sites. The tent we brought was not such a good idea, though. It claimed to have been sized for four people, but was claustrophobically tiny. We ended up visiting Wal-mart and buying the next size tent up, which worked much better for us. On the negative side, it rained the first night, and was humid and oppressively hot, my knees were hurting which made crawling in and out of the tent uncomfortable, and I of course had to get up repeatedly to visit the facilities due to all the water I'd drunk during the day. Dratted middle-aged bladder. It wasn't a fun first night.<br /><br />
We did discover something the first night that was new to us, though maybe not new to you. We were settling in for the night, and had not yet turned out the light inside the tent, when we heard the sound of the ice chest being opened right next to the tent door. That was quickly followed by the sound of rattling plastic and some raccoonish squeals and growls as at least two of the critters fought over the spoils--three souvenir cookies from the wedding and a bag of carob covered almonds, all tucked inside a large ziplock baggie.<br /><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQqnGwHktkyVtt0zT14c_NzmW0iF5QcDQHPbFn11suybuVLPh_NqKIchFBMmHJZwhr7eIOC5i3vCBoaue907GGYVS8qMVYDBNAi7uI3jIo9WL6NwRxAH2RUb_th0QB81GDXRl9jA/s300/wedding+favor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQqnGwHktkyVtt0zT14c_NzmW0iF5QcDQHPbFn11suybuVLPh_NqKIchFBMmHJZwhr7eIOC5i3vCBoaue907GGYVS8qMVYDBNAi7uI3jIo9WL6NwRxAH2RUb_th0QB81GDXRl9jA/s300/wedding+favor.jpg" /></a></div><br /><br />
Once the critters had dragged away the goodies, my husband reached out and closed the ice chest, which only had bottled water and bottled tea in it at that point. The raccoons came back and opened the ice chest twice more, I guess checking to see if we'd added anything to the chest since the last time they'd been there.<br /><br />
It hadn't occurred to us that raccoons would get into the ice chest. We put the chest inside the tent the next night, and heard them rattling things in someone else's campsite during the night.<br /><br />
The next day was gorgeous, and we spent time on the beach, then walked around the shopping district of old town Fernandina Beach, mostly hunting for souvenirs. It began raining toward evening, and not wanting to be confined to the tent, we went to see the new Star Trek film at the local cinema. By time time we returned to the tent, it was well past ten o'clock, and we crawled in to find that the tent walls had sagged enough to come into contact with our bedding and had leaked. By the time we'd gotten there, it had stopped raining, so we were able to open the windows and get air in. We'd also bought a small fan, which stirred the air inside the tent enough that we slept fairly well in spite of the damp bedding.<br /><br />
We'd been scheduled to stay a third night, but ended up spending it in a motel, due to tropical storm Andrea (Erm...I think that was the name). The park evacuated all campers for fear that the storm would bring some of the very big and very old trees down on tents and RVs. I don't know about you, but I'm just as happy not to get crushed beneath a falling tree.<br /><br />
I know the above makes it sound like I don't like camping. I do. We have a really nice backpacking tent that we used on a trip through Arizona and Utah one year, that housed myself, my husband, and our son quite well, but that was before I injured my knees enough to make it hard to crawl in and out, and before the idea of sleeping on the ground gave way to the idea of sleeping on air mattresses. I think next time we'll bring a tent that's roomier and big enough to stand in, though. I know my knees will appreciate it.<br /><br />
There are two books to report on this time around...<br /><br />
<b>His Majesty's Hope</b>, by Susan Elia MacNeal. Set during WWII. Maggie Hope has been secretary to Mr. Churchill, was assigned to protect Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret, and had trained to be a spy. Her first mission has her parachuting into Germany, a job which her German contact is convinced she's not ready for. Third in a series. I'll have to look for the first two.<br /><br />
<b>Proof of Guilt</b>, #15 in the Ian Rutledge series. Inspector Rutledge's unfriendly boss has had a heart attack and is out of commission, though no one knows if it's permanently or not. His temporary replacement is a man from Scotland who has no familiarity with London or the way things are done at Scotland Yard. He's determined to see the case he's assigned Rutledge to finished quickly, even if it means sending innocent people to their deaths for crimes they didn't commit. And Rutledge suspects his former boss has left information in his personnel file that has poisoned this new boss' attitude and expectations of him.<br /><br />
There was a third one, the lastest Maisie Dobbs book. I got partway into it, as far as the point where the brother of the dead woman explains that his sister could ease people's pain just by touching them. Erm...no. I'm not into that. This went on the did-not-finish list.<br /><br />
As far as writing goes, Kira is cooperating at this point, and has even begun to tell me what she would and wouldn't do to an extent. Always a good sign. We'll see how it goes.<br /><br />
More later~~~Pepper Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00088936125225559789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34698416.post-35737900366100848112013-04-16T11:11:00.001-05:002013-04-16T16:34:47.778-05:00Changing of the seasons, in more ways than oneIt's been a while since my last post. Sorry for the silence. Life has been a bit busier than usual.
My son's getting married. He's twenty-four, and has been dating a young woman in our congregation for a couple of years. They're about to tie the knot.<br /><br />
No, for security reasons, I'm not saying when, but once he's gone, my husband and I will begin that phase of our lives that happens to most couples when their children have all moved out. (Although, my parents actually got to experience the whole having-the-house-to-yourselves thing several times, since my youngest sister is unmarried, and has at various times ended up using their spare bedroom over the years.)<br /><br />
I'm sure this will really hit us after he's gone, but right now everyone's exhausted trying to save money for the big event. For my son, who's been saving for their honeymoon for some time now, this has been more of a marathon than a sprint, but the finish line is coming up, and we'll all have to trust that we'll have what we need when we get there.<br /><br />
There's another bit of news as well. For a long time, I've been trying to get the fourth Patty O'Donnell story off the ground. It's been like going out to chop down a tree, only to find that you're trying to take down a titanium trunk with a stick. No dents, no nuthin'.<br /><br />
If you hang around writers long enough, you will hear that our characters have lives of their own, that they express opinions about what we write and let us know when we've got them doing something they wouldn't do. Not that we're crazy or anything. It's like we have this constant movie in our heads where our characters try out the scenes before we write them. When you've developed a character thoroughly enough, you know how they would react to things.<br /><br />
It seems that I've been misreading what Patty's been telling me. After <i>Reef Runner</i>, she seemed to go into hiding, and I thought what she was needing was a break to recover from what I'd put her through. I've been searching for just the right story to coax her back out, but nothing has worked. She was, in fact, telling me she wants out. She wants to be left alone to raise her family and live her life without villains lurking around every corner. I've decided to honor that and let her go.<br /><br />
It doesn't mean that I've stopped writing. One leading lady has retired, but during the last few years, another auditioned for the part, although I didn't know that's what she was doing at the time. I do not know yet if she's series material, but we'll see how it goes.<br /><br />
And now, on to the real seasonal changes. This spring has been...odd. It's usually warmed up better than this by now. Instead, we're on an up and down and up and down ride with the temperature, they're still getting some pretty hefty snow storms up north, and we're getting rain. Lots of it. Last time I looked, our level on the drought scale is down to D0, which means things are Abnormally Dry, but that's the bottom rank on the scale. The ground is fairly saturated now, and we've got storms coming in over the next few days that are supposed to dump a couple of inches of rain on us. It's enough to make you wish you had rain boots.<br /><br />
I have nothing to report in the 'books read' category, at least not this time around. Haven't had the time or the inclination lately. That will end, I'm sure, but for now it must be endured.<br /><br />
Until next time~~~Pepper Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00088936125225559789noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34698416.post-60400909665969150602012-11-20T11:43:00.000-06:002012-11-20T11:43:14.149-06:00November again.My character Patty is a bit annoyed with me right now. She's been trapped in the back of a horse trailer for a few weeks now, along with a nervous mare. She made it out of the trailer at one point, only to go back in when I changed my mind about how to start the scene. Ah well, I guess that's how life goes when you're a made-up person.<br /><br />
I wonder if anyone's ever come up with a special theory of relativity with regard to the passage of time, one that says that when you hit around age 50, your sense of the passage of time changes so much that it's like driving off a country lane onto a superhighway. It doesn't seem to me like it should be November already.<br /><br />
We got enough rain a while back to move us down to the 'severe' level of drought, but have since moved back up to 'extreme'. In case you're wondering, the levels are: D0-Abnormally Dry; D1-Moderate; D2-Severe; D3-Extreme; D4-Exceptional. I don't know that we were ever actually in the Exceptional category during the summer, but according to the drought tracking maps, we were very close to it. Burn bans and all, which meant a number of unhappy fireworks sellers since not that many people were buying. No burn ban currently. The weather's mostly been clear, with temps in the fifties and sixties during the days. Very little to complain about, though, compared to what's gone on in the Northeast.<br /><br />
One of the blogs I read regularly is that of Janet Reid, who is a literary agent who works with a lot of mystery fiction. In one recent post, she talked about authors who self-published their work with the thought of using it to get the attention of the big presses. She has <a href="http://www.jetreidliterary.blogspot.com/2012/10/some-hard-numbers.html">Some Hard Numbers</a> to report about what those authors are up against. I'd heard some numbers bandied about with regard to how many copies needed to sell before a big press would take notice of you, but these are magnitudes greater.<br /><br />The longer I'm in this business, the more I realize that you need to write because you enjoy it and because you really don't have any choice (a writer will understand what that means), and not because you think you're going to get rich. The Hollywood stereotype of the rich author lounging by the pool with cocktail in hand, taking a break from the latest round of book signings and literary parties, is just that, a made-up stereotype. For the vast majority of us, it ain't gonna happen.<br /><br />
Now, about what I've been reading lately...<br /><br />
<b>On the NOOK:</b><br /><br />
<b>World's Greatest Sleuth!</b>, by Steve Hockensmith.<br /><br />Holmes on the Range series. Old Red and Big Red are invited to a contest by Big Red's publisher, pitting themselves against the authors of other dime-novel detective stories and a few real detectives for the title World's Greatest Sleuth. Set against the Chicago World's Fair in the Old West days.<br /><br />
<b>Some Agatha Christie:</b><br /><br />
<b>Poirot's Early Cases</b><br />
<b>The Mysterious Affair at Styles</b><br />
<b>The Secret Adversary</b><br />
<b>Three Act Tragedy</b><br /><br />
<b>In Paper:</b><br /><br />
<b>The Complete Kitchen Cabinetmaker</b>, by Robert W. Lang<br /><br />
Oldly enough, an interesting read. I find myself looking at cabinet details with an eye toward how they were made. Though it's always better if there's no one else in the room when you open cabinets to look at how the hinges were installed, lol!<br /><br />
All for now~~Pepper Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00088936125225559789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34698416.post-29201870471117472272012-09-28T22:51:00.000-05:002012-09-29T03:01:08.878-05:00Identity Theft, part twoSigh. Guess someone thought signing me up for memberships on websites without my permission is a good thing.<br /><br />
Imagine my surprise when I checked that given-out-to-friends-only email address this evening to discover that I apparently have a member page on Facebook. The first email came on Wednesday, and there have been 133 of them, some confirming friend requests, and some remarking about photos that have been posted on the account.<br /><br />
Except, I don't have a Facebook account. I never signed up for one because they're too time intensive to take care of.<br /><br />
If you stumble across this thing, I have nothing to do with it. I did notify Facebook that my email was being used fraudulently, so hopefully it'll be shut down very soon.Pepper Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00088936125225559789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34698416.post-6200355838744922402012-09-06T12:42:00.001-05:002012-09-06T12:42:02.414-05:00Green In The Midst Of Drought EditionI'm uncertain yet if I like the new posting interface on Blogger. Seems sometimes like the guys who design this stuff tinker with it just because they can, and not because it really needed it. Take, for instance, the new Windows 8 interface--they've apparently done away with the iconic desktop and replaced it with tiles as if it were a tablet computer. Sorry, guys. I think I'll stick with Windows 7 as long as possible. I like my laptop to have its wallpaper and all, not look like a tablet. And the chances that I'll get a tablet computer are pretty remote. I'm a writer. I need a keyboard to work with, not what passes for one on the already small screen a tablet computer provides.<br /><br />
Summer seems to want to hang around a while longer. Don't guess I mind that, since it means it stays warm rather than getting cold sooner. This whole year has been running about two weeks early, as far as the weather and the seasons go, though. Not sure what that will mean for this winter. We're supposed to be heading into an El Nino winter, but they're not certain when it will start, since it seems we're in a pause between the El Nino/La Nina cycle.<br /><br />
We've been in the upper ranges of the drought scale for a while now, with the dividing line between Extreme and Exceptional falling very close to us on a map of the State. Hurricane Isaac (tropical depression by the time it reached us) helped take the edge off that, though I know we need a lot more rain that what we got to bring things back to where they should be. I know there were a lot of places that got flooding and tornadoes and wind damage, so it was awe-inspiring to watch on radar as the core of the storm passed somewhere within 50-100 miles to the east of us, all nice and polite and dropping a rather gentle rain with a light breeze most of the day. We maybe got 1 or 2 inches, spread out so much that the ground had a chance to soak it up as it fell.<br /><br />
Of course, now the grass is growing like crazy, so there's the trade-off of someone having to mow in the humid heat. The trees, though, are already half bare. They've been dropping leaves for a couple of months, slowly at first, then more heavily as the drought got worse. With all the dry grass and brown leaves on the ground, there were times recently when it could have passed for fall, if not for the fact that the thermometer reading was up around 100F.<br /><br/>
I promised, right before summer hibernation, that I'd post a list of what I'd been reading recently, so I guess I'll see what I can drag up. There may be some duplication from previous entries, since I can't remember precisely what I've already posted...<br /><br />
<b>In paper:</b><br /><br />
<i><b>Deader Homes and Gardens</b></i>, by Joan Hess. New Claire Malloy. Claire, teenage daughter Caron, and new husband Peter Rosen are crammed with their belongings into Claire's small apartment, and it's more than they can take. With Peter off on police business, Claire searches for the perfect house, and finds it...but is it really available? Claire isn't about to let murder stand in the way of getting her dream home if she can help it. Fun read. Given that much of the series is set in a fictional version of the place I grew up, it's easy to picture places I know when reading these.<br /><br />
<b>On the Nook:</b><br /><br />
<i><b>A Man Lay Dead</b></i>, by Ngaio Marsh. First Inspector Alleyn book. Enjoyed it.<br /><br />
<b>Charles Todd:</b> (not in order)<br /><br />
<b>Ian Rutledge series</b>:<br />
<i>A Cold Treachery</i><br />
<i>The Kidnapping</i> (Short Story)<br />
<i>The Confession</i><br />
<i>A Long Shadow</i><br />
<i>A False Mirror</i><br /><br />
<b>Bess Crawford series:</b><br />
<i>An Unmarked Grave</i><br /><br />
<b>James R. Benn:</b> (not in order)<br /><br />
<b>Billy Boyle WWII series:</b><br />
<i>A Mortal Terror</i><br />
<i>Rag and Bone</i><br />
<i>Evil for Evil</i><br />
<i>Blood Alone</i><br />
<i>The First Wave</i><br /><br />
<b>Margaret Frazer:</b> (not in order)<br /><br />
<b>Dame Frevise Medieval series:</b><br /><br />
<i>Winter Heart</i><br />
<i>The Murderer's Tale</i><br />
<i>The Bishop's Tale</i><br />
<i>The Outlaw's Tale</i><br /><br />
<i><b>Elegy for Eddie</b></i>, by Jacqueline Winspear.<br /><br />
<b>Currently reading on Nook:</b><br /><br />
<i><b>Dear Mr. Holmes</b></i>, by Steven Hockensmith. Holmes on the Range series, short story collection. Narrator Otto has a wonderful 'voice'. Lots of fun to read.<br /><br />
A lot of these I read long enough ago that the details aren't clear enough to give a synopsis. I enjoyed them, though.<br /><br />
Also currently working on Patty's latest.<br /><br />
Until next time~~
Pepper Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00088936125225559789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34698416.post-61359437353357798332012-06-14T16:59:00.002-05:002012-06-14T17:02:10.329-05:00Interstellar Illusions<img src='http://imgsrc.hubblesite.org/hu/db/images/hs-2012-29-b-web.jpg' alt='Compass and Scale Image of NGC 3314' /><br /><span style='font-size:10px;color:#686868;font-style: italic;'>Source: <a style='color:#686868;font-style: italic;' href='http://hubblesite.org'>Hubblesite.org</a></span><br /><br />
This is one of my favorite Hubble pictures (there are many). The galaxies shown are not actually colliding. They're actually about ten times the distance apart than the distance between the Milky Way and Andromeda, and it's just chance that they've aligned in such a way that we can see the nearer one highlighted by the background one.
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It's been a while since I posted last. My apologies. I've done some reading to report on, and lots of thinking about the new book, with some stuff seeming to come together in that direction. We'll see how it goes. Next post will hopefully be soon.<br /><br />
Enjoying what seems to be a normal June, though May was significantly drier than usual.Pepper Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00088936125225559789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34698416.post-56909219892883972032012-03-29T11:45:00.000-05:002012-03-29T11:47:20.374-05:00UpdateMy publisher just let all us authors know that they've acquired a company that records audio books, so at some point in the future, my books may be available for listening to. There's no schedule, and the voice talent will apparently get to choose which books they want to record, so when and if this happens, I'll let you know.<br /><br />
Website updates may take a bit... I had intended to add mobile accessibility to the site, and discovered that in order to do that, I have to know either Javascript or PHP, so I have a bit of learning to do before I can do what I was wanting. Still intending a simple update in the meantime, but the big stuff will have to wait.<br /><br />
Have done very little recreational reading lately, so I have no list to give you this time around.<br /><br />
Do you enjoy Doctor Who? Here's the preview for the upcoming season, courtesy of the BBC: <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/dw/news/bulletin_120326_01/First_Preview_of_the_New_Series">Preview
</a><br /><br />
Spring has been unusual this year. We've been having April weather in March. The old saying about March coming in like a lion and going out like a lamb all took place within the first week. Not that I'm complaining. Except for the pollen part. So many people have had pollen allergies come up a month earlier than usual, and it's been confusing for everyone.<br /><br />
Not much else for the present~~Pepper Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00088936125225559789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34698416.post-1459937066261421002012-02-02T18:17:00.001-06:002012-03-30T22:39:15.535-05:00An odd sort of identity theft...Over the past month or more, I've been getting spam from a dating website.<br /><br />
At least, I thought it was spam. It ended up directly in my spam folder, and I deleted it unread, just like I tend to do with all the other spam I get. After a while, though, I noticed the subject lines on the emails were not normal spam subject lines. These looked like the type of emails that social network sites send out to notify you when there's activity on your 'page'. Except, I don't have an account with any dating websites--I've been married for 27 years and love my husband dearly, and have no desire to look for someone else.<br /><br />
Then something else occurred to me--the email address these things were being sent to was a private email that not very many people have. Primarily, people whom I've considered my friends.<br /><br />
It's always a bit icky when you realize someone's appropriated your email. Just ask anyone who's had to explain to their email provider that they've been hacked and their email stolen. This had that extra bit of ickiness, though. Someone I know took my email address, and set up an account with this dating website, in essence stealing my identity and planting it in a public place where I have no control over it. I haven't been to the website. I have no idea what's in the profile on the 'page'.<br /><br />
There are enough clues, between the use of the private email and the profile name, which sometimes pops up in the subject lines of emails sent by the site, that I may have a fair idea who did it, and why. Not cool, guys. And very inappropriate, for reasons that you know as well as I do. Proverbs 27:11. Be wise, and delete the account, please, if you haven't already.<br /><br />
There was a previous version of this post, if you read it and wondered what happened to it. Shortly after it was posted, all email activity from the dating site stopped. It could mean the profile was taken down. If so, thank you. It could mean the email address was changed, in which case the profile may still be active. It's also possible my blog is showing up on the profile page, in which case potential suitors were probably quite turned off. I was way more ticked last night. (If this is showing up on the profile page, please point this post out to the site moderators. Maybe they can do something about getting the 'page' taken down.)<br /><br />
In case you're wondering, a Google search showed the site was one of the bigger free dating sites, and the last email I got from them, which I did open and look at, was a newsletter-type thing letting me know where there was 'singles activity'. Well, I'm sure someone's happy to know there's singles activity out there, but since I'm happily settled, it's not me. The only possible reason I can think of to visit the site would be to check that the profile on it has been deleted.<br /><br />Pepper Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00088936125225559789noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34698416.post-52005513549372031052012-01-13T09:52:00.003-06:002012-01-13T10:17:13.879-06:00Recent reads...I had a list around here somewhere of the books I'd read, but it's managed to get buried, so I'll try to remember what was on it...<br /><br />Cara Black:<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Murder on the Palais Royal</span>-- Aimee Leduc's partner is shot and left for dead, and Aimee's being accused.<br /><br />Charles Todd:<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Wings of Fire</span><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Search the Dark</span><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Watchers of Time</span><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Legacy of the Dead<br />A Fearsome Doubt<br />A Lonely Death</span><br /><br />Inspector Ian Rutledge. Obviously, I'm trying to catch up on the series.<br /><br />On the Nook:<br /><br />Steve Hockensmith:<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Black Dove</span><br /><br />Rex Stout:<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">A Family Affair<br />Gambit<br />Too Many Women<br />Three Men Out</span><br /><br />Currently reading:<br />On paper:<br />Daphne DuMaurier:<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Jamaica Inn<br /></span><br />On Nook:<br />Rex Stout:<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Hand in the Glove<br /></span><br />Up Next:<br /><br />Not sure. I have <span style="font-style:italic;">Death and Judgement</span> by Donna Leon, or another Rex Stout, or half a dozen ebooks by Margret Frazer that I haven't touched yet. Plenty of choices.<br /><br />I'm planning on doing a redesign on my website, once I can figure out some background art. <br /><br />Winter has been unusually mild. I'm not complaining. Still have a couple of months to go, so there's plenty of time yet for nasty weather.<br /><br />Until next time~~~Pepper Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00088936125225559789noreply@blogger.com0