Death in Paradise

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It’s been so hot here this last week (at least for us) that I’ve mostly vegetated when I’m not busy. Not in the mood to read even old favorites. Definitely not in the mood to write. Not long stuff anyway and especially if I have to think. I thought about doing some behind the scenes stuff on the site but that would mean thinking, too. Not happening right now. Seriously considered not posting but I already skipped posting last week. So, no. What to post about when I have nothing though? Well, the other night I was listlessly browsing around various channels. Absolutely nothing wasRead More →

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Kind of belated but I just realized that Glenna Finley’s birthday was June 12. So I thought I’d send my best wishes out into the ether. And highlight a post on the site that talks about her backlist of books. And of course there is also the All My Favorites > Glenna Finley page. I definitely feel a reread of some her books coming very soon.Read More →

magnifying glass

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So, the other day I was cleaning out some things I’d clipped to Evernote in hopes of one day using them in a post. You know how it is, you save a lot but use very little. Eventually it becomes the electronic equivalent of hoarding and some extreme deep cleaning is necessary. Anyway, I ran across the following link and thought, huh, why haven’t I ever talked about that one? Because I use it all the time. Seriously, I’ve had this one saved for years. I’m not simply talking about bookmarking the link either. I clipped the entire first page and really do refer backRead More →

Bridal Jitters (1999) by Jayne Castle

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Recently, I noticed there is a new Jayne Castle (AKA Jayne Ann Krentz) futuristic Harmony book coming out in November. That got me in the mood to do a reread of that entire series. There are about a dozen so there’s plenty of time to reread them all. And, hopefully, talk about them here in some depth. the world of Harmony So consider this an introduction to the larger series. In Bridal Jitters she first uses the world of Harmony, a lost colony of Earth, as the setting. The time is roughly 200 years after the connection to Earth was lost. In that time, theRead More →

My new vintage TV series obsession

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And the next series of books I’m going to check out after finishing the Charlie Chan series. The Saint (Simon Templar) series by Leslie Charteris They’re probably more adventure than mystery and usually that would not be my cup of tea. But I ran across the old Roger Moore series on Prime the other day. At first I thought, well, I’ll watch the first couple of episodes and see if I like them.  Now, I am absolutely hooked. Not sure if it’s the pre-James Bond Roger Moore, the rather quirky character he plays or both but I love it. Templar kind of reminds me ofRead More →

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Getting the first three was easy because they are on Google Books for just a couple of dollars each.  But when I got to the fourth in the list, things became complicated. Or so I thought. Well, put it this way, the last three aren’t available individually on Google Books or Amazon’s Kindle. So I dug around online and realized there are several “collections” of his books. At least in print. The prices are all over the place, though. I finally hit pay dirt. I discovered The Greatest Mysteries of Earl Derr Biggers: 11 Titles In One Volume on Google Play. For 99 cents. Seriously,Read More →

Kentucky blizzard

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So, yeah, this week I’m doing a quick update post because we’ve been hit by the winter storm here in western Kentucky that’s affecting most of the country. And basically means that everything stops for us. Now what we have on the ground might not look like much to those to the north but for us it’s bad. Cause we don’t do winter storms well at all. It’s not so much a mind-set problem either. It’s more that we don’t get enough of them to put a lot of equipment to deal with them in the budgets that matter. Which means we kind of limpRead More →

Albert Campion “mysteries”

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I finished the first two books in the Albert Campion mystery series by Marjory Allingham and truly enjoyed them. A lot more than I expected. In fact, I think I may have enjoyed them more than the TV series. slight spoilers possibly ahead but probably not Let’s start with who Albert Campion is  I think the best way to describe him is as sort of a take-off of Scarlet Pimpernel. Without the French Revolution interfering. I’ve only read the first two books but in the TV series I’m pretty sure he does wear a disguise or two. So there’s that.  Also, like the Scarlet Pimpernel, heRead More →

binge watching

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And addictive. Long story short, I got a Roku for my bedroom for my birthday in November and since then I’ve fallen in love. It’s like this gigantic search engine for just about anything that’s ever been broadcast. And, yes, it is amazing what you can find if you dig deep enough. Here are three older TV series I found that I had never even heard of before.  Colonel March of Scotland Yard (1954) This is a one season series that is so unexpectedly charming it’s almost unreal. For one thing the star is Boris Karloff. Not playing a monster. The series itself actually hasRead More →

Let's get comfortable!

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It’s something I don’t normally do but I’m currently in the middle of two books. And it wouldn’t be happening at all if one of them wasn’t a non-fiction. Both are odd enough though that I thought I’d talk about how I got myself into this situation.  Mystery Mile by Margery Allingham One of my holiday binges was to re-watch the Campion “mystery” series on Amazon. It’s not something I watch often but I do occasionally enjoy the quirkiness of it. This time I got curious about its origin and discovered it was based on a series of mystery books by Margery Allingham, a contemporaryRead More →

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I was digging around on Amazon a month or so ago and ran across this British series which is described as a serious cold case detective series with a lot of comedy. At first I was not really sold on the idea. Then I looked at some reviews and people were raving about it. Well, at least for the first nine seasons. After that the cast changes completely and it apparently looses some of its humor. Which is probably to be expected in a series so heavily dependent on the personalities of the stars. Fans are simply not always receptive to their favorite actors leavingRead More →

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the eye-catching name I recently ran across a movie on Netflix called Enola Holmes, which was an eye-catching name I admit. Then I noticed it was based on books so I did some research. It’s loosely based on the first book in a series of young adult novels by Nancy Springer. They are about a very much younger sister of Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes. The more I read about them the more I really was intrigued. Not enough to watch the movie… yet… but the interest was definitely there.  I finally got curious enough to get the first book, The Case of the Missing Marquess.Read More →

Scooby Doo

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Finally had time to watch the new Scooby Doo movie called SCOOB! last weekend. I enjoyed it and laughed a lot. It was a nice update of the characters and setting while honoring the past. At times, it almost felt like a Hanna Barbara smorgasbord to be honest. It was actually kind of amazing how many HB characters they managed to fit into the movie, either as full roles, cameos or just Easter egg “blink & you miss them” mentions. And yet that aspect never felt forced to me. It was just fun and a little nostalgic. But not in an intrusive way at all. Okay,Read More →

Rendezvous by Amanda Quick, 1991 - this is the cover on the paperback I have, except it's supposed to have a stepback and doesn't

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originally posted on February 8, 2010 historical romances Once I’d started reading historical romance with Julie Garwood, I did sort of dive into that particular pool headfirst. I remember reading a lot of mostly medievals in those next few years of the early 1990s. All the while still reading some contemporaries. And searching for that elusive perfect fantasy/science fiction romance combination to appear on the horizon. There were occasional fits and starts in that direction with the new Leisure/Love Spell line. Not a lot of enthusiasm on my part for what they were producing, though. But back to reading historical romances. I slowly began toRead More →

Journey to Love

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originally posted on February 6, 2010 bodice rippers? no, thank you One major misconception is that all romance readers took the bodice ripper route during the 1970s. I’m one of the ones who didn’t. I continued to read read books by Hill, Loring and eventually Glenna Finley. At the same time I mostly read mysteries with a light sprinkling of category romances mixed in. In fact, I’m pretty sure the late 70s all the way through the mid 80s was my Agatha Christie phase. I know I collected most of her books in paperback back then. Oh, I may have occasionally picked up that rare single title historical romance during that era. IRead More →