Halloween Princess - 2015 - Saturday Snapshots

Back in early September I posted a photo of the fabric and trim I planned to use to create a princess costume for my 4-year-old granddaughter. ("Princess Bling" - HERE) It had been a long time since I'd sewn with fancy, slippery fabric, so I wasn't sure how challenging the project would be. I went slowly and did a lot of basting! During the process, an unexpected surprise surfaced. I found an old rhinestone tiara from my elementary school days, stashed inside a falling-apart scrapbook. I cleaned it up and added it as a razzle-dazzle topper. 

My creation is complete, just in time for trick-or-treating, and here's the finished product. It was fun to make, and I'm pleased with the way it turned out. More important, my granddaughter was delighted! After Halloween, I imagine Corrina will use the costume for dress-up. I hope she has a lot of fun with it!

By the way, she'll be wearing sparkly shoes on Halloween 

instead of black socks!

Saturday Snapshots is hosted by West Metro Mommy Reads.

To enjoy a variety of beautiful pictures from around the world, 

click HERE or on the box below.  

To participate in Saturday Snapshots: post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) 

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Shem Creek, A Lowcountry Tale - First Chapter/ First Paragraph and Teaser Tuesday

     I enjoy stories where the characters and their dialogue feel real, and that's the case with Shem Creek. Divorced mother Linda Breeland moves her two teenage daughters from New Jersey to the Low Country of South Carolina where she grew up. Her goal is to simplify her hectic and disappointing life and to provide a better environment for her children. Of course, her girls are not too thrilled about the change, and things are not as simple as Linda expected. 
     I enjoyed the distinct personalities of all the characters in this book: brash and sometimes outspoken Linda; her polite college-bound daughter Lindsay; her troublemaker fifteen-year-old daughter Gracie; and Linda's capable sister, Southern gentlewoman Mimi. The dialogue is crisp, modern, and each person has her own voice. I fell in love with these characters and wanted each of them to achieve their goals, and I had fun along the way. 

First Paragraph:
A Postcard From Linda
     Can I just tell you why I am so deliriously happy to drive all through the night from New Jersey to South Carolina? Here we are, boxed in between this wall of eighteen-wheelers on our left and right, in front and behind, in this little pocket of flying road, racing down I-95 at seventy-six miles an hour. My daughters are asleep beside me and in the backseat. I don't care that it's pouring rain. I don't care that it's dark. On another night, I would be terrified out of my skin by the blasting of horns. But not tonight. Let me tell you something. These trucks are like huge guardian angels rushing us to safety and the rain is washing us clean. Life has been a little rough around the edges and it was time to break out. Yeah. A little rough would be one way of understating it.

Teaser (from Page 153 in my paperback copy):
That was how we were. Our family preferred not to speak of things that were uneasy to hear. We would hem and haw around them like a patch of green stickers in the grass and we were barefoot children, unprepared for pain, unwilling to give pain a chance to teach us something.

Length: 365 Pages
Genre: Women's Fiction / Family Saga
Amazon Link: Shem Creek
Author Website: Dorothea Benton Frank
Shem Creek is Book Four in the Lowcountry Tales series, but it stands alone. It was first published in 2005. I have featured this author on my blog before: The Land of Mango Sunsets

Synopsis from Goodreads:
     Pat Conroy has called her books “hilarious and wise”, noting that they are “funny, sexy and usually damp with sea water.” Anne Rivers Siddons said of Sullivans Island that it “roared with life.” Now Dorothea Benton Frank takes us back to the Lowcountry to introduce a whole new cast of characters whose lives will surely move your heart.Linda Breland has no experience managing a restaurant, but then neither did Brad Jackson, and he owns the place.
     Meet Linda Breland, single parent of two teenage daughters. The oldest, Lindsey, who always held her younger sister in check, is leaving for college. And Gracie, her Tasmanian devil, is giving her nightmares. Linda’s personal life? Well, between the married men, the cold New Jersey winters, her pinched wallet and her ex-husband who marries a beautiful, successful woman ten years younger than she is—let’s just say, Linda has seen enough to fill a thousand pages.
     As the story opens, she is barreling down Interstate 95, bound for Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, the land of her ancestors. Welcomed by the generous heart of her advice dispensing sister, Mimi, Linda and her daughters slowly begin to find their way and discover a sweeter rhythm of life.
     And then there’s Brad Jackson, a former investment banker of Atlanta, Georgia who hires her to run his restaurant on Shem Creek. Like everyone else, Brad’s got a story of his own—namely an almost ex-wife, Loretta who is the kind of gal who gives women a bad name.
     The real protagonist of this story is the Lowcountry itself. The magical waters of Shem Creek, the abundant wildlife and the astounding power of nature give this tiny corner of the planet its infallible reputation as a place for introspection, contemplation and healing.
     As in all her previous work, you’ll find Shem Creek to be compulsively readable, irreverent but warm and blazingly authentic—and you’ll dread reaching the last page. It is her vivid writing, colorful characters and rich narrative that have made Dorothea Benton Frank one of our nation’s greatest storytellers. Shem Creek is a triumphant novel that proves we are all entitled to a second chance. The challenge is to learn how to recognize it when it comes and to know which chance to take.

Teaser Tuesday is hosted by Miz B of A Daily Rhythm. Post two sentences from somewhere in a book you're reading. No spoilers, please!

Link at ADailyRhythm.com

First Chapter/First Paragraph/Tuesday Intros is hosted by Bibliophile By The Sea. To participate, share the first paragraph (or a few) from a book you're reading or thinking about reading soon.

Link at BibliophileByTheSea

The Paragraph Ranch - Book Beginnings on Friday and The Friday 56

     Reading The Paragraph Ranch felt like a trip back home to Texas! I loved all the Texas-isms used by the authors to add color and humor to the story -- fixin' to, which means I'm about to do something; and bob war, which is Texan for barbed wire, just to name two examples.
     I especially enjoyed getting to know Dee, the youngest of three siblings (divorced, with a college-age daughter) who has returned to rural West Texas to take charge of her mother's health care ... temporarily. The challenges she faces will resonate with so many women in the "sandwich" generation. Her mother Alice is a hoot!
     I'm looking forward to reading Book Two in the series: A Wedding at the Paragraph Ranch

Book Beginning (FYI: Alice is the mother)
PROLOGUE
Alice - Thursday, May 1, 2008
In fifty-five years on the home place we ain't never missed putting in a crop, and I don't intend to miss one now. No matter what them three say. Why, we planted cotton the week Wilton got back from Korea. And the year it snowed the first of May. And the time when Dee Anna was six months old and we carried her out here in a apple crate.

Friday 56 (from 56% on my Kindle):
The moon shone directly through the screened window, too bright for sleep. Far off a coyote called, and another answered. Dee stared at the water stain on the ceiling and dreaded how empty the farmhouse would seem with just her and Mama, even with Teresa's occasional presence. She wondered how Mama had borne those months of being all alone out here after Daddy passed away.

Genre: Contemporary Women's Fiction / Humor
Length: 268 Pages
Amazon Link: The Paragraph Ranch
Website: Kay Ellington & Barbara Brannon

Synopsis:
EVERY WRITER KNOWS YOU CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN. But that's just what is required of West Texas expatriate Dee Bennett-Kaufmann when her mother is badly injured in a mysterious car accident. Single-again “Dr. Dee” has never been on the “A-team” in her trendy East Coast MFA program. When a prestigious summer fellowship gives her the chance to finally finish her book, salvage her career, and spend some quality time with her college-age daughter—Dee's certain her luck is about to change. Returning to care for her irascible, widowed mother threatens all of that. With so much at stake, Dee engineers a series of unorthodox strategies and creative tradeoffs to keep her options in play—and despite herself finds friendship, love, and the power of words in the unlikeliest of places.

This is a new release of an edition originally published by Booktrope.

FYI: Although the books I feature on my blog are ones I've bought myself, checked out of the library, or have received from friends, I often contact authors to let them know I'm going to feature their book on the blog. That way, they can respond to comments and post the link on Facebook, etc., if they want. So don't be surprised if you occasionally see an author's name among the comments.

                 

Anyone can participate in Book Beginnings on Friday and The Friday 56.
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Story Starters - October 21

     Just for fun, I'm playing "Story Starters" today. Jenn, host of A Daily Rhythm blog, makes up starting sentences and participants use them to create a paragraph, short story, whatever! Link back to comments on today's A Daily Rhythm post for other creations with the same opening sentences HERE.
     With Halloween in mind, here's my scene. Jenn's "Story Starter" is shown in red.

She never spoke, never made a sound. But the look in her eyes told me exactly what was about to happen.

I stared at the weapon she held, raised my hands above my head and backed away. “No. Please. I promise I’ll never do it again.”

She shook her head. With an evil grin she gripped the trigger and squeezed, sending a spray of water across the pansies I’d crushed with my bike, soaking me from my ponytail to my new patent leather Mary Janes. Shocked and dripping, I pushed a soggy curl from my forehead. Before I could say another word, she aimed the sprayer down to the flower bed at my feet where the spurt of water spewed a shower of dirt onto my lace-trimmed socks. Mama would kill me.

I burst into tears of rage, mounted my bike, and wheeled away. “I’m gonna tell,” I shouted over my shoulder.

Her witchy cackle sounded in the distance.  

But she knew I wouldn’t say a word. After all, Halloween was coming soon and everyone in the neighborhood knew old Mrs. Crenshaw’s power would be especially strong on that night. I didn’t want her to focus her evil magic on me. Besides, if Mama knew I’d smashed Mrs. Crenshaw’s flowers, she’d be angry with me too. I couldn’t take a chance on missing out on trick-or-treating this year because of one silly mistake.

In His Arms (Blemished Brides Book 3) - Teaser Tuesday and First Chapter/First Paragraph

I'm fascinated by stories that involve the Orphan Trains, and that's what attracted me to In His Arms. In case you didn't know, the Children's Aid Society and other organizations transported orphaned children from New York City to rural areas for adoption, beginning around 1854 and continuing until 1929. Though some children were taken into loving homes, many were treated as hired hands or slaves. In His Arms is a novel about a young disabled women from an orphan train who was mistreated by the people who adopted her, eventually escaped, and went on a search for her sister. 
FYI: Although this is Book 3 in the Blemished Bride series, it stands alone.


Genre: Historical Romance
Amazon link: In His Arms
Length: 169 pages
Author Blog: Peggy L. Henderson 

First Paragraph / First Chapter:
Elk Lodge, Montana Territory 1888
     The mule brayed and balked, its incessant calls mixing with the sounds of harnesses jingling and horses trotting down the busy main street of Elk Lodge. Levi Colter tugged on the lead rope and cursed the ornery critter he'd dragged behind him for the last ten miles since coming out of the mountains.

Teaser (from 47% on my Kindle):
Cold fury had raced through him, fueled by what he'd learned about Grace, and what had happened to her. The system that was supposed to provide for children without families, and find a better life for them, had failed her miserably. How many more orphans were out there who might be worse off than before?

Synopsis from Goodreads:
     A woman unable to trust. A man consumed by guilt. Can two lonely souls find a common ground and pave a path to love? 
     Grace Jennings knows how to survive, but she’s learned long ago not to trust anyone, least of all a man. Sent west on an orphan train with her sister, Grace finds herself adopted into an unimaginable situation. She will stop at nothing to find and reunite with her sibling, and keep her safe from the man who is out to exploit homeless young girls. 
     Levi Colter is a loner by choice. Haunted by the guilt of his sister’s death, he escapes into the mountains with his grief. Living an isolated life protects him from the heartache of losing those closest to him. When a stubborn young woman and a couple of runaways seek shelter at his cabin, Levi's solitary existence is turned upside down. 
     Thrown together unexpectedly, Grace and Levi are forced to put old hurts aside and confront their deepest demons. Can two people with troubled pasts let go of their guilt and mistrust, and learn what it means to open their hearts? 

*Content Warning: This book contains mild language, mild violence, and physical intimacy, and is intended for mature readers. 
Heat Level: 2-3 (on a scale of 1-5), PG/PG13

Teaser Tuesday is hosted by Miz B of A Daily Rhythm. Post two sentences from somewhere in a book you're reading. No spoilers, please!

Link at ADailyRhythm.com

First Chapter/First Paragraph/Tuesday Intros is hosted by Bibliophile By The Sea. To participate, share the first paragraph (or a few) from a book you're reading or thinking about reading soon.

Link at BibliophileByTheSea

The Beach Walkers - Book Beginnings on Friday and The Friday 56

Friendship between women, relationships between mothers and daughters, and an ocean setting. Who could ask for more? In The Beach Walkers, author Barbara Bond goes deep into her characters, showing their fears and their strengths. Because the women are older and their children are grown, I could definitely relate to them. I would love to have Frannie as a friend and would treasure a walk along the shores of Amelia Island with the Walkie-Talkies. The Beach Walkers is a five-star story I won't soon forget. 
FYI: The Healing Island, Barbara Bond's second book, is a sequel to this one.


Book Beginning:
The Life of St. Francis
Come not between the dragon and his wrath. (King Lear, Act 1, Scene 1)
     Saturday, Thanksgiving weekend: Frannie stood, her small hands arched like ghost crabs, pressing down on Elspeth's dining room table to keep the trembling at bay. She wasn't afraid; it was barely controlled anger that threatened to surface. She had to keep it in check. Should she just walk away? After all, it had only been days since she'd met Elspeth Cleary.

The Friday 56 (from 56% on my Kindle):
[In this dialogue, the conversation is about Elspeth's daughters.]
     "When did duty become a dirty word?" Frannie paused. "When they were young, and you were attempting the impossible--a single mother, building the firm--weren't there days, maybe weeks, maybe months when you did your duty to them? When they were being willful, bratty, inconsiderate, was it love or devotion that saw you through it?"

Genre: Women's Fiction (not romance)
Length: 220 pages
Amazon Link: The Beach Walkers

Synopsis:
     The Beach Walkers: a story of mothers and daughters, of kinship lost and friendship found on an island in northeast Florida.
     Can walking the beach heal the heart?
     In her grand beachfront home on Amelia Island, Elspeth Cleary is devastated when Jess, a daughter she adores, refuses her inheritance. She sends her back to New York—to the delight of two older daughters summoned to the island on family business. A wealthy, weary, lonely widow, Elspeth hoped to spend months with each of them. She couldn't ask of course; they might say no. What was she thinking in trying to bribe them?
     Frannie had warned her not to expect gratitude for sharing her wealth, or to hope that her daughters would help fill her days. Frannie Dawson is the energetic woman Elspeth met on the beach. Frannie was right. The eldest daughters take their inheritance and flee, leaving her alone, even at Christmas. When grief and a diagnosis of breast cancer bring her to the edge, she tells only Frannie, her new beach friend and a retired teacher of Shakespeare. 
     Can Frannie help this modern Queen Lear? She’s determined to try. She draws Elspeth into a group of beach walkers; an eclectic group that includes women who tell her she's not alone in her woes with adult children. The gentle women of the walking group share their stories and their unique celebrations. They support her through cancer treatment. For the first time in years, she has a sense of belonging. 
     But does mending a heart take more than a walk on a beach?

                 

Anyone can participate in Book Beginnings on Friday and The Friday 56.
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Skinny Dip - Teaser Tuesday and First Paragraph / First Chapter

     I lived in South Florida for many years, and during that time, I discovered Carl Hiaasen through his columns in The Miami Herald. It wasn't long before I became a fan and started collecting his novels. Hiaasen's stories involve bizarre characters, crazy plots, sex, murder, and corruption and have an environmental twist. (Warning: R-rated.) 
     Kirkus Reviews says Skinny Dip is "bitingly satirical, sublimely zany, and deeply satisfying." I agree!

First Paragraph(s): 
     At the stroke of eleven on a cool April night, a woman named Joey Perronne went overboard from a luxury deck of the cruise liner M.V. Sun Duchess. Plunging toward the dark Atlantic, Joey was too dumbfounded to panic.
     I married an asshole, she thought, knifing headfirst into the waves.
     The impact tore off her silk skirt, blouse, panties, wristwatch and sandals, but Joey remained conscious and alert. Of course she did. She had been co-captain of her college swim team, a biographical nugget her husband obviously had forgotten.
     Bobbing in its fizzy wake, Joey watched the gaily lit Sun Duchess continue steaming away at twenty nautical miles per hour. Evidently only one of the other 2,049 passengers was aware of what had happened, and he wasn't telling anybody. 

Teaser from Page 204 (hardback copy):
     "All you wanted," the man said, "was a hot girl on your arm, Chazzie. A girl your buddies would notice and talk about--the female equivalent of a new Rolex. You weren't getting married, you were accessorizing."

Genre: Mystery / Satire
Book Length: 355 Pages (hardback)
Amazon Link: Skinny Dip
Author's Website: Carl Hiaasen

Synopsis (from Amazon):
     Chaz Perrone might be the only marine scientist in the world who doesn’t know which way the Gulf Stream runs. He might also be the only one who went into biology just to make a killing, and now he’s found a way–doctoring water samples so that a ruthless agribusiness tycoon can continue illegally dumping fertilizer into the endangered Everglades. When Chaz suspects that his wife, Joey, has figured out his scam, he pushes her overboard from a cruise liner into the night-dark Atlantic. Unfortunately for Chaz, his wife doesn’t die in the fall.
     Clinging blindly to a bale of Jamaican pot, Joey Perrone is plucked from the ocean by former cop and current loner Mick Stranahan. Instead of rushing to the police and reporting her husband’s crime, Joey decides to stay dead and (with Mick’s help) screw with Chaz until he screws himself.
     As Joey haunts and taunts her homicidal husband, as Chaz’s cold-blooded cohorts in pollution grow uneasy about his ineptitude and increasingly erratic behavior, as Mick Stranahan discovers that six failed marriages and years of island solitude haven’t killed the reckless romantic in him, we’re taken on a hilarious, full-throttle, pure Hiaasen ride through the warped politics and mayhem of the human environment, and the human heart.

Teaser Tuesday is hosted by Miz B of A Daily Rhythm. Post two sentences from somewhere in a book you're reading. No spoilers, please!

Link at ADailyRhythm.com

First Chapter/First Paragraph/Tuesday Intros is hosted by Bibliophile By The Sea. To participate, share the first paragraph (or a few) from a book you're reading or thinking about reading soon.

Link at BibliophileByTheSea

Seeing You Again - Book Beginnings on Friday and The Friday 56

     Is a red sequined dress enough to catch a husband's attention? In this short and sweet romance, Joselyn Vaughn introduces us to a couple whose marriage has lost its sizzle. But an evening with a bunch of zany senior citizens may shake things up.
     I enjoyed this story on many levels. First of all, the hero and heroine seem like real people, and they have real love for one another. They just happen to be in a slump! I also like the inclusion of men and women from the retirement home. They add humor to the story and show that just because you've grown older doesn't mean you don't know how to have fun.

Genre: Sweet Romance
Book Length: 50 Pages
Amazon Link: Seeing You Again
Author's Blog: "Romance With a Case of the Giggles"

Book Beginning:
Chaperoning? His wife didn't know him at all. Sam flicked a speck of dust off the charcoal suit hanging from the bathroom door. He could be settled in his easy chair with a bowl of popcorn and a college football game on the television instead of stuffed into his Sunday suit, making sure his mother didn't take another ride in a police car.

The Friday 56 (from 56% on my Kindle):
One cup of punch laced with tequila, and he was as befuddled as if he had consumed half the bowl. A sequined silhouette appeared in his imagination, and he realized she was more than likely the source of his befuddlement.

Synopsis:
After twenty-five years with Sam, their lives revolving in circles that barely touched let alone overlapped, was it time Margie consigned their marriage to an album of faded photographs? The Christmas ball at her mother-in-law's retirement home would either be the final straw for their failing marriage or the perfect chance to reignite the old flame. Can the happy-go-lucky shenanigans of the retirement community remind Margie and Sam that falling in love has no age limit?

                 

Anyone can participate in Book Beginnings on Friday and The Friday 56.
Click HERE to connect to other Book Beginnings posts (sponsored by Rose City Reads) 
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Weekend Reminders - Saturday Snapshots

Recently, our four-year-old granddaughter stayed with us over the weekend. On Monday morning, I found these reminders of her visit around the house. We're so lucky that our grandchild lives close enough for her to be a part of our lives. 

We already had a lot of books, but a good friend gave me her children's Berenstain
 Bears book collection (and their Mickey Mouse Yahtzee game too!) Now there's
never a shortage of exciting stories to share. You'll notice we also have some classics:
The Little Engine That Could and Where the Wild Things Are, to name a couple.
There are more books downstairs in our library too!

Tea time! Somehow this china tea set survived my childhood (and my two younger brothers).
My granddaughter and I have tea parties regularly, substituting apple juice for tea and serving
graham crackers, apple slices, or dried cranberries as our main course.

These toys, lined up in a row, greeted me when I walked into the bathroom this morning.
They squirt water through their mouths, creating lots of giggles. Usually, grandma ends up getting a shower from these critters.

FYI: The table and chairs and the doll house came from the Goodwill store. After our granddaughter has outgrown them and moved on to other things, we'll donate them back to the organization for other children to enjoy. 

Saturday Snapshots is hosted by West Metro Mommy Reads.

To enjoy a variety of beautiful pictures from around the world, 

click HERE or on the box below.  

To participate in Saturday Snapshots: post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) 

have taken then leave a direct link to your post in the Mister Linky on the host blogsite. 

Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate 

for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. 

Please don’t post random photos that you find online.

Beneath Montana's Sky - The Friday 56 and Book Beginnings on Friday

     Boston debutante meets Montana rancher in this historical romance. But Pamela Burke-Smythe isn't a spoiled city girl. Instead, she's a woman who takes on the challenge of moving to Montana and not only getting the ranch house back in shape and winning the respect of the ranch hands, but also easing the sorrow that plagues her new husband and his nephew.
     Beneath Montana's Sky  is a prequel that takes place in 1882-83 - four years before The Mail-Order Brides of the West series and eleven years before Wild Montana Sky. I haven't read those books yet, but after enjoying Beneath Montana's Sky, I'm sure I'll be reading them soon.



Book Beginnings on Friday:
Sweetwater Springs, Montana Territory
October, 1882
     John Carter stood in the cemetery in front of the three graves holding the caskets of the Sanders' family--his foreman and best friend, Andrew, his wife Dora, and their young daughter Marcy. Beside John, thirteen-year-old Nick Sanders only stared at the ground.
     With his face ghost white, so the freckles on his nose stood out, and his blue-green eyes blank--the boy seemed almost too shocked and grief-stricken to comprehend what had happened two days earlier.

The Friday 56:
     "I'm not a woman who's discontented by nature. I can make the best of things. And we can make improvements, can we not?"

FREE on Amazon
Genre: Historical Romance
Book Length: 125 Pages
Amazon Link: Beneath Montana's Sky
Author Website: Debra Holland

Synopsis (from Goodreads):
     Plain and timid, debutante Pamela Burke-Smythe is a wallflower at the high society Boston balls she attends, overlooked by possible suitors. One-by-one, her friends become engaged, and Pamela resigns herself to life as a spinster. 
     When rancher John Carter becomes guardian to his orphaned godson, Nick, nothing he does seems to help the grieving, angry boy. At his wit’s end, he believes that a wife might help draw Nick out, and lonely himself, John’s been thinking along the matrimonial lines for a while anyway. But small Sweetwater Springs, Montana, has no suitable candidates. He decides to visit his great-aunt Hester in Boston and bring back a wife who is kind and compassionate, can be a mother figure to Nick, and who can adapt to the hard life on the ranch. 
     Hester, who’s also Pamela’s godmother, plays matchmaker for the two. John responds to Pamela’s kind heart and believes he’s found the ideal woman. But Pamela never thought to marry a stranger and leave Boston, and her family and friends are against the idea. She musters all her meager courage to defy her loved ones and seize her only chance at marriage. 
     After a whirlwind courtship, the couple marries and travels west. Pamela discovers a run-down ranch house, a bunch of unruly cowboys, a sullen boy, and a different way of life. Can their new marriage survive the challenge? 
     Set in 1883, Beneath Montana's Sky, is a prequel to New York Times Bestselling author Debra Holland's Mail-Order Brides of the West Series and Montana Sky Series. 

                 

Anyone can participate in Book Beginnings on Friday and The Friday 56.
Click HERE to connect to other Book Beginnings posts (sponsored by Rose City Reads) 
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Twitter: @SandyNachlinger

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