I just finished a wonderful novel by Roseanne Dowell. Geratric Rebels is what some of we older gals have been looking for. Although it's nice to read about young love and sex, putting myself into the heroine's POV is difficult because the mirror reminds me every day that I'm past that time in my life. It's about time someone put a little age and a few wrinkles on the main characters, and Ms. Dowell managed to add all the ingredients to keep me turning pages. I loved it!
Geratric Rebels put life in realistic perspective, showing the reader that a heroine and hero don't have to be young with perky boobs or a muscular six pack to be still excited about life and one another. When Mike Powell and Elsa Logan meet in a nursing home that has become their fate, they join forces to make lemonade out of lemons, and enjoy falling for one another while showing the world they're not ready to retire from life. What can a couple of old fogies do, you ask? You'll just have to read for yourself, and I'm sure you'll be glad you did. Of course if you aren't over forty, you might just find it unbelievable. *smile* Like the old saying goes, there may be snow on the roof but that doesn't mean you can't stoke a fire in the chimney.
You can find this book on Amazon offered by Books We Love, Ltd. Kudos to Roseanne Dowell who manages to make all of her books believable and entertaining.
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Looking for a spooky Halloween Read? Try the Dark series by Gail Roughton
I'm a big fan of horror books and movies so when this series came out I was excited to delve into it. Before I could get book one, I found out it was being released as a set so of course I snagged the special edition and am I ever glad I did.
Already a Gail Roughton fan (The War N' Wit series is awesome romantic suspense) I figured I'd enjoy this series as much. But this one is a whole different ballgame.
Spanning generations, the story begins with our black magic antagonist Cain's modern-day resurrection, then goes back to fill in the details as to how he got the way his is today. Powerful stuff, told with page-turning energy. As with her other books, I found it hard to turn off my Kindle when reading this Roughton horror/thriller.
When I finished the first part I was SO glad I had book two at my fingertips because I just kept right on reading. A truly magical story, perfect to curl up with on a cold autumn evening, this series had just the right blend of spookiness and great storytelling to keep me hanging on every word. And while the author never claimed this was a romance, I found the various love stories within to be equally sweet and heart-wrenching. I rooted for the good guys (simply loved Paul!) and wanted to kick the bad guys in the kneecaps (for starters.) The ending was truly satisfying. It couldn't have wrapped up any other way and been so successful... and frightening!
"The past, like evil, never dies. It just—waits."
*sigh* Loved it!
Highly recommend this Gail Roughton thriller. 5+ Stars and two thumbs up. Nab it now at Smashwords, B&N, ARe or Amazon. You can get both stories in this special edition for only $4.99. You won't regret it!
Labels:
Gail Roughton,
horror,
reviews,
romance,
thriller
Friday, October 19, 2012
Sarah's Heart & Sarah's Passion - Must Reads!
That’s when I read Sarah’s
Passion, the novella following the wonderful Sarah’s Heart. Ginger Simpson gave me a real
surprise when I started reading – finding myself – not in the 1800s as I
expected, but right here in today! What? Oh, I can’t say – I hate it when people
give plots and endings away. I love to be surprised – you must read both
Sarah’s Heart
and then Sarah’s Passion – they are fabulously written . . . and will make you
turn those pages almost faster than you can read! Bravo Ginger Simpson – you’ve
proven yourself to be one of my favorite authors. It’s a five-star, five coffee
cup, five clover leafs, five alleluias if you must! FABULOUS!
Way to go, Ginger! Rita Karnopp
Way to go, Ginger! Rita Karnopp
Labels:
1800s,
romance,
Sarah's Heart,
Sarah's Passion
I would say writing is my passion . . . I see a story in just about every situation. I love Native American history and all the lessons it has to offer.
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Reminiscence--How I Met The Doctor
I was living in England
with my mother, going to school in Penzance
as a day student. We lived in the end unit of a row house—stone houses, streets,
little gardens—just as you might imagine a British working class neighborhood.
We had just moved out of an artsy Mousehole hotel to less expensive Newlyn, to the
last building on the top of the hill above the harbor. Behind us was a field
with dairy cows and a stubby, well-worn stone circle, through which I walked every
morning, taking the back way over the headland into Penzance and my school.
We rented our telly and paid license fees, like everyone
else on the street, and I began watching my first regular doses of English entertainment.
It was black and white in those days, the content different from what I’d
been used to in the States.
I only saw two shows containing the original Doctor. Although I remember enjoying the
story, it was never completely clear to me what the heck was going on. I
remember being thrilled to realize that this show was not only about history—and
with costumes which were actually period correct (astonishing in and of itself, as this was the early sixties)—but also about
the science fiction notion of time travel. The Doctor and his two companions
eventually escaped from trouble inside a little blue box, the kind I’d seen
standing, dusty and unused, on street corners here and there throughout British
cities.
Well, wow! Stories about history and time travel all
in one show! The main character was not
only mysterious, aged and professorial, but a little sinister, too, as if he
was not entirely to be trusted. As someone who liked fantasy and science
fiction but who had always loved reading about famous characters
in history, I couldn’t help but be intrigued.
Unfortunately, no matter how much I waited for it, I never saw any more than those
two shows. Soon Mom and I pulled up stakes again and headed for Barbados . (In those
days, there was no TV in the West Indies.)
It was years later that The Doctor and I reconnected. My
kids and I were sitting on the floor together watching PBS on our
Zenith, also parked on the floor. (In those days furniture was something of a
luxury.) An odd British import began.
Lo and behold--there was my time traveler and his blue box! Of course,
the original doctor had gone. The new one was still domineering and mysterious,
but far less of a stuffy old professor. Instead he now appeared to be in his
forties, with a mod head of curly hair and clothes by way
of Carnaby Street .
He might have just stepped out of The Yellow Submarine.
John Pertwee, mortal enemy & friends
Okay, I thought, I’ll go with the flow. My brief, earlier
acquaintance with that absent-minded elderly Doctor was
still lingering in my cranial filing cabinet. This, I realized, would be a
great show for the kids to watch while I made dinner. (In those days 30 Minute
Meals was not a marketable idea, just the way everybody cooked, especially if Mom
worked the day shift.)
Doctor Who has always had rather tacky visuals. I was told
by someone long ago that the Doctor’s eternal enemy, the Daleks, were actually
tarted up shop vacs, hence their distinctive sloping can shape. (However, do
remember that Twilight Zones weren’t all that much better. And what ‘60’s Trekkie
can forget the embarrassing Gorn?) As a childhood watcher of s/f on TV—Captain
Video, anyone?—I knew my imagination would do most of the work. if the concept
was interesting, my brain would take it from there, just as it did when I read.
Good actors and an involving story could carry off almost anything, because, as
Hamlet says “the play’s the thing.” British actors, trained for the job, are,
at least, skilled craftsmen, and adept at making theatrical magic happen with
even the most minimal sets and effects.
After my boys became fans, almost immediately there came a
change in Doctors, as reported to me by my oldest son. He was about equally disturbed and intrigued that
the hero in a series might abruptly become someone else, all while essentially
playing (more or less) the same character. This new Doctor immediately caught
my eye—perhaps because his clothes were no longer Victorian mod, but thrift store
trippy.
Tom Baker
Years went by. The kids grew up and had kids of their own. I
went gray. One night, worn out by the local news, I looked for something else to watch at
5 o’clock and found BBC America.
Christopher Eccelston & intrepid shopgirl, Rose
This new Doctor was different in a lot of ways, at first
shockingly so. For one thing, he was an imposing guy with a buzz cut who wore
black leather. Yikes! He also had a
strong Northern working- class accent, far removed from the mad intellectual elitists
of the past. I always wondered if this Doctor was working on his bike somewhere
among the myriad rooms of the “bigger on the inside” TARDIS…
Romance for the Doctor and his companion was another innovation that was a GOOD THING, adding some spice to the character’s lonely Flying Dutchman persona. (The “Companions” have been shorted in this reminiscence, but they’ve always been an integral part of the Whovian equation.) Rose Tyler and The Doctor shared the series’ first kiss. It was an electric moment.
All too soon, here came a new Doctor—and, I confess, my
favorite. Bring on Doctor #10, the exciting David Tennant, an admitted
“fan-boy” from childhood. Here we had a bi-polar Doctor, a veritable road
runner on speed, wearing a duster, a shiny suit, and Converse sneakers. This Doctor exhibited a ferocious brand of
fey, peppered with world-weariness and pessimism, all of it wrapped up inside
one skinny 900+ year old Time Lord. Gilbert & Sullivan couldn’t write
better patter than Steven Moffat and Russell Davies, and their Doctor—and the
rest of the fine ensemble--delivered the goods.
Doctor Who is quirky, by turns scary or silly, and sometimes it's dark and intellectual. It’s also shamelessly self-referential, and full of puns plus
literary, scientific and topical allusions which I adore. From Pratchett to Monty
Python to comedies like "Doc Martin" & "Shaun of the Dead," from forms as low as Pantomime and high
as Shakespeare, all that’s delightful, witty and wise--in British entertainment is
woven together in
Doctor Who, Greatest
Show in the Galaxy.
Labels:
Barbados,
BBC America,
Christopher Ecceleston,
David Tennant,
Doc Martin,
Dr. Who,
England,
Fantasy,
John Pertwee,
Juliet Waldron,
Newlyn,
PBS,
Penzance,
romance,
Rose Tyler,
Simon Pegg,
William Harnell
I am in the grandma zone, a long time writer and poet, posting at Crone Henge and BWL these days just because. Wish I could travel, and last year I was lucky enough to get back to the UK, specifically to Avebury to reconnect with the ancient temple. Hiking, camping, lover of solitude, cats, moons and gardens.
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