Alien Invasion? NOT.

Smithsonian Magazine calls it "the most famous alien invasion that never happened." They're referring to Orson Welles' "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast, aired October 30, 1938 - seventy-five years ago today. As you may know, Welles' convincing report led some listeners to believe the world had actually been invaded by creatures from outer space. Welles, only 23 at the time, did a masterful job of scaring the peewaddle out of his listeners on the eve of Halloween. 

If you'd like to hear the complete broadcast, click on the newspaper photo below. 

In that era - before the Internet, instant messaging, cell phones, and TV coverage - people relied on radio broadcasts and newspaper stories for information. It's not hard to understand how this broadcast might have freaked out some folks. I have to wonder: could something like this happen today? 

Information on this event as well as short clips and commentary, compiled by Smithsonian Magazine, can be found here: American Experience - War of the Worlds

The Funeral Dress - Teaser Tuesday

Today I'm featuring an excellent book I just finished reading, THE FUNERAL DRESS by Susan Gregg Gilmore. Through realistic dialogue and beautifully-written description, the author paints a vivid picture of the people living in poverty in the remote "hollers" of the Appalachian Mountains. This is a story that will stay with me. 

When the story opens, the main character, Emmalee, has recently given birth to a daughter, but she refuses to reveal the name of the father. Here's a partial description of the shack where she lives, as Emmalee awakens one winter morning.

Teaser Tuesday (at 12% on my Kindle):
She needed to pee but refused to confront the cold that had settled inside the house wrapped in plywood and pieces of tar paper. In the winter, it grew so bitter sometimes, a glass of water left by the bedside froze solid by morning, even when the stove burned hot in the other room. 

Genre: Women's Fiction
Number of Pages: 370
Amazon Link: The Funeral Dress

Here's the synopsis from Goodreads:
Emmalee Bullard and her new baby are on their own. Or so she thinks, until Leona Lane, the older seamstress who sat by her side at the local shirt factory where both women worked as collar makers, insists Emmalee come and live with her.  Just as Emmalee prepares to escape her hardscrabble life in Red Chert holler, Leona dies tragically.  Grief-stricken, Emmalee decides she’ll make Leona’s burying dress, but there are plenty of people who don't think the unmarried Emmalee should design a dress for a Christian woman - or care for a child on her own. But with every stitch, Emmalee struggles to do what is right for her daughter and to honor Leona the best way she can, finding unlikely support among an indomitable group of seamstresses and the town’s funeral director. In a moving tale exploring Southern spirit and camaraderie among working women, a young mother will compel a town to become a community. 

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read

• Open to a random page

• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Here's the link to join in: Teaser Tuesday

Jet Packs?

The headline on the Smithsonian Magazine blog entry promises: 

This Jetpack Could Carry You Twenty Miles 

and Be On the Market By Next Year

Really? Gosh, according to Smithsonian, next Halloween we could actually be buzzing like moths around a Jack O'lantern? That's hard to imagine!

I remember Sean Connery as James Bond, soaring above lesser humans with a jetpack created by "Q" (way back in 1965.) According to IMBd.com that movie racked up 140 million ticket sales, making it the most popular Bond movie ever, and the jetpack and Q's other inventions surely contributed to its success. Those viewers could be potential jetpackers. 

But it seems Q's idea wasn't original. While searching online for a free photo to use in this post, I came across this magazine cover from 1928. Looks like the jetpack idea has been around for a long, long time.

Now the esteemed Smithsonian says jetpacks will actually be available to anyone who has $150,000 to $200,000 to blow. I wonder if that price will include the required hearing protection, helmet, neck restraints, boots, and fireproof suit or will accessories be sold separately? Are batteries included? 

If you have a bunch of spare cash sitting around, will you buy a jetpack? You'll find details HERE if you're interested in this mode of transportation... and if you don't mind wearing a dorky looking helmet!  

Photo Source: Wikipedia

Book Beginnings on Friday and Friday 56 - FASTER THAN THE REST

I do love western romances, and this second book in the MacLarens of Fire Mountain series is no exception. Outlaws, hunky ranchers, family bonds, a lifelong love - author Shirleen Davies combines all those elements to make FASTER THAN THE REST one heck of a good story.

Book Beginnings on Friday (opening lines from the Prologue):
"Stop right there, Wicklin." The man's voice came out of nowhere, hard and unwavering. It was well past midnight in the deserted wharf area of San Francisco, a time when people could disappear without a trace.

Friday 56 (from 56% on my Kindle): 
It has been almost a week - six days and nights - and no sign of him. She thought they'd started something together. They'd spoken of marriage.

Genre: Historical Western Romance
Number of Pages: 212
Amazon Link: Faster Than The Rest
Only $2.99 for your Kindle. Available in paperback too. The third book in the series -- HARDER THAN THE REST -- is due out in November.

Synopsis on Amazon: 
      Headstrong, brash, confident, and complex, the MacLarens of Fire Mountain will captivate you with strong characters set in the wild and rugged western frontier.
      Handsome, ruthless, young U.S. Marshal Jamie MacLaren had lost everything—his parents, his family connections, and his childhood sweetheart—but now he’s back in Fire Mountain and ready for another chance. Just as he successfully reconnects with his family and starts to rebuild his life, he gets the unexpected and unwanted assignment of rescuing the woman who broke his heart.
      Beautiful, wealthy Victoria Wicklin chose money and power over love, but is now fighting for her life—or is she? Who has she become in the seven years since she left Fire Mountain to take up her life in San Francisco? Is she really as innocent as she says?
      Marshal MacLaren struggles to learn the truth and do his job, but the past and present lead him in different directions as his heart and brain wage battle. Is Victoria a victim or a villain? Is life offering him another chance, or just another heartbreak?
      As Jamie and Victoria struggle to uncover past secrets and come to grips with their shared passion, another danger arises. A life-altering danger that is out of their control and threatens to destroy any chance for a shared future.

*********

Anyone can participate in Book Beginnings and Friday 56. 

   Click here to connect to other Book Beginnings posts 

   (sponsored by Rose City Reader.)

   Find other Friday 56 bloggers here 
   (sponsored by Freda's Voice). 

                           

Peace by Piece - Teaser Tuesday

Rather than post two random sentences for Teaser Tuesday, I like to select an excerpt that tells about the book's plot or characters or that showcases the author's writing. With Peace by Piece this was hard to do because there were too many good passages to choose from! Carol Fragale Brill did a marvelous job of getting inside the head of a woman suffering from anorexia/bulimia. She has crafted a touching and meaningful story that gripped me from Page 1.

Here are two sentences from 
3% on my Kindle:
From time to time, Lilly asks me about him: about why I never talk about him, about how she can count on one hand the times she has heard me speak his name in the last five years. Her question always seems to hit me out of nowhere, as if I ran smack into a sliding glass door, and I am numb and achy at the same time.

Genre: Women's Fiction/Romance
Number of Pages: 369
Amazon Link: Peace by Piece

Here's the synopsis from Goodreads:
     Peace by Piece deals with unshakable first love, family, relationships, the difficulties of being a stepparent—all shadowed by the curse of anorexia/bulimia. 
     Six years after fleeing college and Thomas’s betrayal, Maggie has nearly given up on love. 
     Enter Izzie, a motherless eight year old, and every maternal instinct kicks-in. With Donald, Izzie’s dad, Maggie waits for the thrill—for anything magic: a spark, a quickening, a quiver racing up her spine. The magic never comes, but it is precisely the ordinariness of his kisses and subsequent proposal that make her feel safe. She imagines that loving Izzie is enough to finally lock Thomas out of her heart. 

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read

• Open to a random page

• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Here's the link to join in: Teaser Tuesday

Book Beginnings on Friday and Friday 56 - MY LAST ROMANCE

The synopsis of My Last Romance found on Amazon says it all:
Eight stories with a common theme - the wonder of finding love - sweep the reader into sensuous worlds where ordinary people discover, or rediscover, love. Foolish love, forbidden love, married love - even murderous love, each story is a seductive jewel populated with characters that seem like someone we could know - or someone we could be. Each of the stories in this collection is an exquisitely rendered portrait of people from a broad range of ages each proving that passion and love are eternal, regardless of life's far-ranging challenges. 

I've read about half the short stories in the book, and I've enjoyed each one. 

Here's my Book Beginnings on Friday post from "My Last Romance", the opening to the title story of the book:

8:53 am... 93 degrees.

The bank sign over the neon blue seagulls blinks. The day has scarcely started and already it's past ninety. A thin, watery haze rises from the pavement making me feel like I am driving into a dream. Whose idea was it for us to live in this insufferable climate anyway? Why in God's name did we think once we got old we would want to sweat? It boggles my mind.

And here's my Friday 56 from "The Haven" (56% on my Kindle):

We talk about the work I should be doing as I sit across the table from him watching as he pushes the air from the once-risen dough, divides and shapes it into loaves. He places them neatly on a wooden cutting board, patting them into the shape he wants and covering them with a clean towel. I look at the thick veins that stand out on the insides of his flour dusted forearms and squirm inside. My clothes seem too close to my skin. 

*********

Anyone can participate in Book Beginnings and Friday 56. 

   Click here to connect to other Book Beginnings posts 

   (sponsored by Rose City Reader.)

   Find other Friday 56 bloggers here 
   (sponsored by Freda's Voice). 

                           

Teaser Tuesday: Keepsake

I stayed up until 2:00 a.m. Sunday, reading KEEPSAKE. In this engrossing novel, Author Kristina Riggle enters the world of a hoarder, delving into the mindset of a woman who suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder and exploring the effects it has on family. Having cringed at several episodes of the TV series "Buried Alive," I've been curious about what could cause a person to hoard, and this book gave me some insight while weaving a compelling plot. The downside is that I'm starting to worry about my fabric stash! I call myself a quilter, but could I be a fabric hoarder myself?


My Teaser:
Yet here she was, this tiny black woman with a huge messenger bag, holding out a business card with the words Child Protective Services as if my child needed protecting. From me.
(From 1% on my Kindle)

Genre: Contemporary Women's Fiction
Number of Pages: 384
Amazon Link: KEEPSAKE

Goodreads Synopsis:
For her previous novels (Things We Didn't Say, The Life You've Imagined, Real Life & Liars), author Kristina Riggle has garnered fabulous reviews and established herself as a rapidly rising star of contemporary women's fiction. In Keepsake, she explores that most complicated of relationships, as two sisters raised by a hoarder deal with old hurts and resentments, and the very different paths their lives have taken. As always, Riggle approaches important topics poignantly and honestly--including hoarding and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) in her remarkable Keepsake--while writing with real emotional power and compassion about families and their baggage. For readers of Katrina Kittle and Elin Hildenbrand, Kristina Riggle's Keepsake is a treasure.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn't give too much away -- you don't want to ruin the book for others)
• Share the title and author too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR lists if they like your teasers
• Leave a comment on MizB's Teaser Tuesday post (HERE) and include your link so everyone can find your post.

Autumn in Auburn, Washington

I look for beauty everywhere I go, and with summer turning to fall here in the Pacific Northwest, it's just about everywhere.

There's a Walgreens drugstore on the way to my son's house, and this dazzling tree stands in the parking lot. I had to take a picture.

Also on that route, I captured these beauties while waiting for a stoplight to change.

The blaze of color in Columbia Winery's parking lot (Woodinville, WA) delayed our drive back home while I stopped to take the picture below. I posted this one as the new header on my Facebook page.

It won't be long before the trees lose all their leaves and our typical dark and drizzly winter weather descends, but right now, there's beauty just about everywhere I look.

What does autumn look like in your part of the world?

Book Beginnings and Friday 56: Fly or Fall

FLY OR FALL is the third book I've read by author and artist Gilli Allan (the others are TORN and LIFE CLASS). I've enjoyed them all. They take place in England and feature real adult women. A blurb on Amazon says: Gilli Allan writes unconventional romantic fiction for grown-ups.


Here are excerpts from FLY OR FALL:



Book Beginnings on Friday (hosted by Rose City Reader): 
     The cartoon rabbit ran straight off the edge of the cliff. He hung, oblivious to his predicament, feet pedalling the empty air. There was a snigger, halfway between laughter and derision, from the twins.
     Perhaps belief is everything, I thought. If you believe you're still on the same level, that life hasn't changed, you won't see the void which has opened beneath your feet.

Friday 56 (hosted by Freda's Voice):
A rush of red suffused my vision. Legs, suddenly made of water, folded beneath me. I sat down heavily. My world had just fallen apart and Trevor was calmly watching cricket.
(at 56% on my Kindle)

Genre: Contemporary Women's Fiction / Romance
Number of Pages: 413
Amazon Link: FLY OR FALL
   

êêêê

Anyone can participate in Book Beginnings and Friday 56. 

   Click here to connect to other Book Beginnings posts 

   (sponsored by Rose City Reader.)

   Find other Friday 56 bloggers here 
   (sponsored by Freda's Voice). 

                           

After All These Years - Teaser Tuesday

I love to find books on the bargain shelves at Barnes & Noble, especially if I'm familiar with the author's works. So when I saw this book by Susan Isaacs, I grabbed it. Written in 2005, it's still relevant and funny. (I'm about halfway through.)

Here's my Teaser from Page 51. Even though it looks longer, I promise my Teaser is only two sentences:

She'd obviously been cross-pollinating again; the tip of her nose was a powdery yellow. She could spend hours in her greenhouse with a magnifying glass and a cotton swab, performing what I guess was the botanical equivalent of artificial insemination--while a servant kept little Astor amused building mansions with Creative Playthings blocks.

Isn't that a great description of a character's appearance?

Genre: Mystery / Humor / Women's Fiction
Amazon Link: After All These Years
Length: 388 pages

Synopsis from Goodreads:
The day after her lavish wedding anniversary bash, Rosie Meyers gets a big surprise: her nouveau riche husband, Richie, is leaving her for a sultry, sophisticated, size-six MBA. So, when he's found murdered in their exquisitely appointed kitchen, no one is surprised to find Rosie's prints all over the weapon.

The suburban English teacher is the prime suspect -- the police's only suspect. And she knows she'll spend the rest of her life in the prison library unless she can unmask the real killer. Going into Manhattan on the lam, Rosie learns more about Richie than she ever wanted to know. And more about herself than she ever dreamed possible.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read

• Open to a random page

• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Here's the link to join in: Teaser Tuesday

Welcome!

Welcome to my new blog. I'll be posting connections with blog hops and memes, book reviews, and info about my latest book BLUEBONNETS FOR ELLY, scheduled for release as an eBook in January 2014. I'll also post about quilting, sewing, photography, and anything else that captures my imagination.

To subscribe, enter your info in the box on the right. 

Thanks y'all for stopping by!

P.S. Does this blog seem to be a little bit familiar? That's because it replaces my I.O.U. Sex blog!