Nancy Drew's Parents by Karla Stover

     To me, one of the worst things about becoming an adult was outgrowing Nancy Drew. I went from Dick and Jane to Nancy Drew when I was about seven, and the highlight  of Christmas was getting two more of her books. Our library didn't carry the series so I borrowed wherever I could. One girl in my grade school was a couple years older and I didn't really know her, but, somehow, I learned she had The Mystery of the Tolling Bell and I borrowed the book at least three times.

 

      Nancy has changed over the years, but my Nancy was an attractive, sixteen-ear-old blonde who drove and repaired her own Blue Roadster car, and didn't go to school. She ran the family home because her mother passed away; She was "spunky, plucky, and daring." She could tap dance, and in one book had to tap a message in Morse code, something I always wanted to be able to do--tap dance not learn Morse code. And apparently, money was no object when it came to her adventures.

     Nancy's mother was Margaret Wirt Benson, who wrote under her own name, Carolyn Keene, and several others. Just like Nancy,  Benson loved adventure, and visited Central American jungles, and archeological digs, and canoed down rivers. Benson created Nancy in the series' first book, The Secret of the Old Clock, when she was 25. Twenty-two Nancy Drew mysteries followed.

     Edward Stratemeyer was Nancy's father. While Benson wrote 130 books, Stratemeyer is credited with "producing in excess of 1,300." Note the words, "wrote," and "producing." What Stratemeyer did was write "a three-page plot for each book, describing locale, characters, time frame, and giving a basic story outline. He mailed this to a writer who, for a fee ranging from fifty dollars to two hundred and fifty dollars, would write a book and send it back within a month.

     After Stratemeyer died, Nancy got a new publisher and a new look and a new persona. "Some, mostly fans, vociferously lament the changes, (which included first-person  narrative) seeing Nancy as a silly, air-headed girl whose trivial adventures (discovering who squished the zucchini in Without a Trace (2003)) "hold a shallow mirror to a pre-teen's world," one woman wrote, as Nancy was also featured in The Nancy Drew Files, Nancy Drew Girl Detective, and Nancy Drew on Campus.
 
    Her friends, The Hardy Boys were also having growing pains. The books from their "Weird Period" are "full of inconsistencies, and their adventures involve futuristic gadgetry and exotic locations." The series I grew up with ended in 2005 and was replaced with The Hardy Boys - Undercover Brothers. They often undertake liberal causes.

     An old proverb says, "change is the only constant" which is no doubt  true, but I think I prefer to think of it as inevitable--except from a vending machine, of course.
    
    

Books We Love Prime - New Subscriber Option for Serious Readers

Books We Love is in the process of setting up a subscription option for serious readers.  Tentatively planned to roll out in September Books We Love Prime will allow readers to subscribe for a month or a year - no renewal required - and give them the option of choosing 12 books every month from Books We Love's extensive inventory of over 700 titles. 

For more information and to be one of the first subscribers visit Books We Love Prime, here:  http://bookswelove.net/books-we-love-prime/

Books We Love is a Canadian genre fiction publisher with authors from Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.  Our authors write popular fiction in all genres from Romance in every subgenre, Mystery in every sub-genre, Thrillers and Suspense, Fantasy and Science Fiction, Westerns (traditional and contemporary), Historical Fiction and Young Adult fiction in every genre.

Books We Love authors are seasoned professionals who have been writing and publishing their work for decades and who have weathered the changes from writing hard covers and paperbacks for the mid-lists to early ventures into the eBook marketplace and experimenting with the explosion of Indie publishing. 

Books We love authors have chosen to publish with BWL Publishing Inc. because of the Company's requirement that all authors have both experience in the industry and the necessary skill level to be considered professional writers.  Authors writing under the Books We Love label are master story tellers.  They have proven themselves through decades of studying, practicing and perfecting the craft of writing.  At BWL Publishing you will be choosing books written by experts in their chosen genres who have earned their positions in the literary community.  SOME OF OUR TITLES ARE PICTURED BELOW.  ALL OF THEM ARE HERE:  bookswelove.com



The Natasha Saga - by Heather Greenis

 For More Details on Heather Greenis' books and Purchase Information

Visit Heather's Books We Love Author page

About Heather Greenis
Canadian, born and raised in Ontario, I'm humanitarian, and an environmentalist. Reduce, re-use and then recycle. I'm proud of the fact we have solar panels on our home. We have a 20 pound fluff-ball who runs the house. The humans simply pay the bills and ensure she gets fed twice a day. She is rather insistent upon the treats as well. Our dog isn't spoiled at all.

My husband is an avid reader who gets the first read on my manuscripts. If he likes it, he does some editing and gives me advice and suggestions. I'm always open for those, even when I grumble and argue about it. If he doesn't like my latest attempt, I sulk in the corner like a kid. Not really, just in my mind. But that manuscript gets placed on the back-burner until I decide what to do with it. Delete is aways an option.

The Natasha Saga: a four part family saga 

Empowerment shatters traditions and lives. Greed and pride have devastating consequences. Sacrifices must be made. Written on multiple levels, the saga deals with hope, relationships, and giving, set against a background of conflicting values. 
Through a series of dreams, modern day couple Keeghan and William follow the triumphs and tragedies of multiple generations of the Donovan family. A chance encounter changes Natasha’s life, forever. In her diary, Natasha writes of her dream, and her hope to escape a horrid dictated future.
Will Natasha's legacy survive an uncertain future?

Goodreads Review -Natasha's Dream
We get swept up with this story of Stewart and Natasha and panic to find out what happens next. The ending of the book is a surprise.
I loved this book it was an interesting storyline and I adored the relationship between Stewart and Natasha. I can’t wait to see what happens next.
Reviewed by Jennifer

Goodreads Review - The Natasha Saga
Reading "The Natasha Saga, 4 volume set" is like embarking on a very realistic, romantic journey that you won't ever want to return from!
Sometimes I get the rare chance to read a book series or in this case, a saga that leaves me speechless and deeply moved. This series has touched my heart and soul at the deepest level...I personally would absolutely love to see this story made into a movie and highly recommend it to anyone who loves a timeless tale with unexpected twists and turns that will keep the reader engaged for hours and be unable to put down!

Heather's website 

Travelling in Canada - Part II

Visit Heather's author page

Our holiday continued, travelling though the province of Alberta. 

Day number 5.

I hoped to see the Columbian Icefields; The Athabasca Glacier, but the 2 ½ hour journey would take us through some incredible sights, so no promises. We rose the following morning, packed a picnic lunch and began traveling north, towards Jasper.  The road took us through mountains and past gorgeous glacier fed lakes. My husband and I took turns driving. We couldn't help but pull over at the designated sight seeing locations and just 'take it in'. 














Spectacular scenery wowed us around every turn.  We stopped at the side of a road, ate our lunch and simply enjoyed the lake and mountain.

Arriving at the glacier late afternoon, the ice field is worth the trip.  At an elevation of about 3000 metres, it's spectacular. The area is well fenced off so a tour company takes those interested onto the ice. Unfortunately, it's melting at an accelerated rate. Signs shows how it's receding.

Posted signs remind those that are a little too adventurous that rescue teams will come out if you happen to fall into a deep crevice, but you will probably lose your life to hypothermia 

Dressed in a t-shirt, capris and a cardigan, we hiked up the mountain, along with a lot of other tourists and gazed at the ice and the scenery surrounding it.

Leaving the ice, we headed for the tourist information centre and bought tickets for the Glacier Skywalk. This glass bottom walkway was the brain child of a tour bus driver. Nice! That person deserves a raise and perhaps a promotion for thinking outside the box.


I had reservations heading to this attraction. I have been up the CN Tower, a landmark in Toronto a number of times, but struggle to step onto the glass bottom. My fear of heights kicks into high gear. 

We were offered audio devices to listen to a narrator. Interpretive stations are set up with pictures and descriptions along the short walk to the lookout. I approached the glass, took a look down and thought, I can do this. Catherine was still taking pics when I took my first baby step. No problem, I took another. I took a few more steps, looked back at my friend and said, 'Look at me' and grinned like a fool. 

                                            

We were on the far side of the walk when Catherine dared me to jump on it. The tourists around us thought we'd lost it as a few hung on the railing for dear life, but we jumped and took some foolish pictures. 

We were on the top of the world. Well, really high up in Canada. 

Happy 150th birthday to our glorious nation. 

Last month I mentioned a super high waterfall. I promise, I'll tell you all about that on next month's blog.

Rosa, a Historical Romance by June Gadsby

Visit June Gadsby's Books We Love Author page

for more information and purchase links for her books 

About June Gadsby

 Born in her grandparent’s old miner’s cottage overlooking the River Tyne, June Gadsby’s life has been as interesting as any published saga. Leaving school at fifteen without qualifications of any kind, she pushed herself beyond the expectations of her family. Her teachers realised her talent as an artist, but were surprised when she announced, at the age of eight, that she intended to become an ‘author’. More than once she heard the words of her strict, Victorian grandmother: “you’ll never make it…” Her mother thought that June’s writing was a ‘nice, but unsociable little hobby’. But June refused to lose sight of her ambition. On leaving school she started work as an office junior, taught herself shorthand and typing and became a secretary, eventually attaining one of the highest posts as Administrative Assistant [Executive Medical Secretary] at Newcastle University’s Medical School. It wasn’t until she wrote about her years of rejection for a Writer’s magazine that she was noticed by a literary agent.

ROSA

Evicted from the slums of Gateshead in north-eastern England, Rosa and her family travel to Newcastle where they are reluctantly taken in by her mother’s estranged sister.

Doris Graham is soon to regret this act of kindness as she sees her beautiful home destroyed by the Fenwick family – apart from Rosa, Nancy Fenwick’s illegitimate daughter. Rosa does her best to keep the family under control while dreaming of being a ‘lady’ and living in the big mansion house she can see from her attic bedroom window. Her dreams become more and more obsessive when she meets the son of the new owners of Orchard House and, hardly more than a child, she falls deeply in love with him.

For Richard’s part, his obsession is with the fact that in the mansion is a portrait of a beautiful Italian woman who bears a remarkable resemblance to Rosa. As time passes and Rosa grows into a voluptuous young woman, Richard’s innate snobbishness fades – until he finds her being raped by a lodger of her alcoholic mother.

Rosa’s heart is broken, but she never gives up her dream of owning Orchard House and her life takes many twists and turns before her dream is realized. And then, one day, she finds Richard back in her life, but the tables have turned...

 Amazon UK, reviewer recommendation for Rosa

By Mrs Peta Seel on 24 May 2017

Format: Paperback Verified Purchase

A thoroughly good read with a sound story line that rattles along at a good pace with interesting twists and turns that makes one want to turn the page. A good picture of early 20th century British society tied in neatly with historical events of the era. It is easy to get involved with the characters - both good and bad. Recommended.

June Gadsby's personal website

JUNE [Gadsby]

Artist/Writer

www.june-gadsby.fr

 

Ghosts by June Gadsby

GHOSTS

I don’t normally watch cookery programmes, but switching on the telly the other day I was caught by a Geordie accent talking excitedly about her book which had just been published. She was one of the celebrities on the programme, young, attractive and had appeared on various TV shows, none of which I am a fan of, so I can’t remember her name except that she was called Vicki something or other.

The fact that she was also a writer encouraged me to continue watching, especially as the interviewers on the show were going a little overboard by her success. Well done, I thought. And good luck to her.

Then it came out and I deflated like a punctured balloon. Vicki spoke with some passion about the idea she had had for her second book and – wait for it – she got together with her agent her publisher, her editor and her ghost writer. The book agreed on and written by said ghost writer was then presented to Vicki so she could tweek it a little so that it sounded more like her writing it.

Money was never mentioned, but I guess it will become an immediate best-seller and pay more than enough in royalties to pay the rent and the electricity bills.

I feel I’d like to say a lot more on this subject, but words fail me. And if I did put my private thoughts on paper it could start a war among real writers and those who employ ghosts to do the work for them.

JUNE [Gadsby]

Artist/Writer

www.june-gadsby.fr

Find my books on Amazon.:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/June-Gadsby/e/B0034PKA8K/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1487342031&sr=1-2-ent

Those Lazy, Crazy, Hazy Days of Summer.... by Gail Roughton

Sometimes you can go home again

Summer doesn't always arrive from year to year in the same month in middle Georgia. It's settled in as early as May and frequently it's dug in its claws by June.  This year, it didn't really hit with any great determination until July. Every region has its own definition of summer--we don't think it's hot unless the temperature's either (a) reached the mid-90's in the shade; or (b) the heat index, the "feels like" temperature, is over 100 which, if the heat index is a factor at all, is way beyond humidity, it's "air you can wear". Occasionally it even feels like air you could drink.  And we have had those rare years wherein the actual temperature's already over 100 and the heat index pops it on up to 108+ and rising.

Maybe it's just my age, but this year, summer's made me think of childhood.  I was born in 1954 so for me, clear memories of summer are intertwined with school summer vacations. That was back when school began with the first grade and the age of six, don't you know, nobody'd heard of Pre-K and any Kindergarten was actually pretty much the equivalent of a play group.  I'm not sure the Day Care "business" as such had even been invented, most mothers stayed at home. Never would I say they didn't work (and never would I say today's stay at home parent doesn't work 'cause raisin' kids ain't for sissies), but do you remember the volume of actual manual labor your stay at home mother used to do? You couldn't pay anyone to do that kind of labor. 

There were no clothes driers, so clothes hung on the line and they didn't get there by themselves. Washers with automatic cycles were just coming into vogue and sometimes those wet clothes had come out of the old wringer type tub washers. Refrigerators didn't depend on ice anymore for cooling, though they were still referred to as ice-boxes, but they didn't self-defrost and defrosting the freezer was a once a week event. Ice cubes came out of ice trays, not ice-makers. Ovens didn't self-clean and there weren't very many frozen entrees' around to come out of 'em. Supper was cooked pretty much from scratch, every night.  Including mashed potatoes that came from peeled potatoes, not potato flakes in a box. Wooden floors weren't easy care like today's laminates and such, they had to be waxed, and the standard of care was once a week.  Furniture was dusted every day and polished once a week and I'm not talking about the spray on polish, I'm talking furniture oil that had to be poured and spread on with one cloth and rubbed dry with another.  Red oil for maples and light oak; dark oil for the darker woods. And you'd better believe the kids had those polishing rags in their hands, too. Did I mention that at that time central heat and air was the venue of the extremely wealthy only and that even window unit air conditioners were almost unheard of until at least the late 1960's, so said mothers were doing all this without air conditioners, under ceiling fans with strategically placed box fans adding additional breeze?

We played outside back then, remember?  With other kids. In the heat. I mean, houses weren't air-conditioned anyway, and neither were cars, so it was hardly a big deal. Besides, my home town had exactly one tv channel and daytime tv was soaps and game shows, anyway. Nobody catered to kids with all day programming. Nickelodean and the Cartoon Channel were in the far distant future and Disney was concentrating on Disneyland and movies. Games were board games like checkers and Monopoly, card games like Old Maid, Go Fish and Rummy, or active yard games like tag and hopscotch and hide and seek, certainly not anything you could see on your television screen. The earliest video games were light-years away.

Who'd ever have thought within half a century, sports heroes would actually have to tell kids to "get out and play an hour a day"?  I was pretty much the only child in my own little country neighborhood so I was a bit handicapped on the playmate thing insofar as running in and out of friends houses because my friends lived several country miles away, but since my mother was a force to be reckoned with in both my school's PTA and her Garden Club, and since most of my friends' mothers were too, afternoon visiting between them was standard at least two or three times a week and play dates were frequent, though no one called them play dates then. Our mothers just hollered "Hey, you want to go to Carol's house (or Gail's house or Bonnie's house, whoever) for awhile?" and we bee-lined it to the car. Things were pre-arranged in person during such visits for the next visit because guess what?  Fully half of the folks we knew didn't have phones. We didn't until I was in the fifth grade, I believe it was, and even then, they were party lines with prefixes like Sherwood or Greenview 5-5555.  If you don't know what party lines are--honey, I'm sorry, you've missed a piece of Americana.

We rode bikes, we played soft-ball with makeshift bats and used pine trees and azalea bushes for the bases. Our mothers hollered us over after a couple of hours and fed us hot dogs and chips with marsh-mellows for desert and Kool-Aid to wash it down.  Movies cost thirty-five cents for kids, seventy-five cents for adults, so those play dates frequently involved movies. Macon had an Olympic-sized public swimming pool, admission thirty cents as I recall, and swimming play dates were usually for late afternoon, both to minimize our sun burns and keep our mothers' lounge chairs in the shade.

We didn't have the plethora of products and brands and variations to choose from back then, which cut time off shopping.  Hand lotion was Jergens, cherry and almond blend. Face cream was Noxema. Toothpaste was Crest, Colgate or Pepsodent. Soap was Ivory, Camay, Lux, Palmolive, Dove or Dial. Detergent was Tide or Cheer. Diapers (cloth diapers) and baby clothes were washed in Ivory Snow. Grocery stores and drug stores were open six days a week, usually from some reasonable hour like eight until another reasonable hour like eight, pushed to nine or ten on Fridays and Saturdays depending on the store.  Nothing was open all night (well, I guess in the red light districts probably, but I certainly didn't know anything about those then) and nothing was open on Sundays or holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas except a few convenience stores and gas stations which were two separate business models back then, not a combined mini-mart. And guess what? Nobody died because they couldn't shop on Sunday! Imagine that!

Ah, memories! They shape us, form us, make us who we are. In our retirement years my husband and I have actually resurrected some of those memories and made them our present as well as our past.  This past year, after years of buying toothpaste claiming to perform pretty nearly every service a dentist does, I picked up a tube of Colgate on a whim.  The basic model.  The original.  I loved it.  The flavor threw me back to before school and before bed brushings and guess what? My teeth looked exactly the same and felt much cleaner than the expensive substitute for a dentist brand I'd used for years.  For several dollars cheaper per tube, I might add.  I'd used expensive soaps and body washes for years, but again on a whim, based on nothing but nostalgia (and the fact that it works out to somewhere between thirty and fifty cents a bar depending on the size pack you buy as opposed to the $1.75 per bar price of the brand I'd been using), I picked up a pack of Ivory soap.  Oh, man! I loved it! I loved the smell, I loved the lather, I loved the clean. I loved the memories. I'd never stopped using Jergens lotion, not throughout my entire life, because its Cherry Almond scent is classic and wonderful and to me, the best perfume money can buy. Any lady transported from the early 60's into my bathroom would feel right at home. 

 We almost never turn on the AC because we live in the country with an older, established yard and trees that shade the house.  We have ceiling fans, a big attic fan, and a big screen/glassed back porch. The back door and all the windows are open.  We have a nice shady side yard that catches any breeze stirring where we've placed a picnic table, the site of many board games with our granddaughter. She makes a lot of mud pies on it, too. It's right by the grandkids' swing set, trampoline and small pool, which isn't terribly big but at three feet deep, gets 'em plenty wet. 

We enjoy being outside and go in and out of the house a lot, something that's hard to do if your body's accustomed to a house temperature of below 80, because the shock of walking out into the summer heat will almost make you faint. Come to think of it, that's probably the explanation for why the human race survived before the invention of air-conditioning. It's the constant in and out sudden contrast of cooled air versus natural air that does us in. Without it, sure, it's hot, but it's not knock-me-down-I-can't-breathe hot.

We love the smell and feel of line-dried clothes and never use the drier, which, by the way, is much better on colors and keeps clothes from stretching/shrinking. Nothing smells as good as a line-dried sheet or feels as good as the slightly rough texture of a line-dried towel that releases the smell of sunshine when it gets wet during first use. Sure, hanging clothes out is more work, but I don't mind.  Mostly because I don't do it, my husband's the one who resurrected the clothes line and he's the one who hangs them out. I'll admit I was doubtful about renewing that practice but now I love it so much I'd probably do it myself if he didn't (but don't tell him that). 

Of course, I wouldn't recommend either not using the AC or hanging clothes out to dry anywhere but in the country. A body'd burn alive doing either in any subdivision that had paved roads because concrete and asphalt generate more heat than an oven. But if you don't have your own little bit of heaven in the country, you can come visit in mine. Where everybody knows if your eggs were fried or scrambled before you ever even leave the Scales of Justice Cafe...

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