A California Online Magazine with Local Focus and Global Appeal
The heat has got us all down and fall can’t come soon enough. It seems publishers are impatient too as these witch mysteries can’t wait for Halloween. Plus, Kings River Life’s own Lorie Lewis Ham has started a new series as well!
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Recently I have taken to republishing the works of Fergus Hume, a gay nineteenth-century writer of mysteries, goth romances, and fantasy novels. Some are easy for me to republish and some take me a lot of work, but those that are the hardest for me are sometimes the most fun as they require a lot more research and double checking the first editions to the scanned copies.
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It’s been a scorching, waterless, and fiery summer here on the West Coast. The rest of the country is dealing with heat, floods, hurricanes, and tornados. Covid is making a deadly comeback. This is when a good book is necessary for sanity. Stay well and hydrated!
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I can’t believe that summer is already half over. It only seems like it just began. At the academic library where I work, we are getting ready for fall classes to begin. This year is especially busy as all of the furniture that has been in storage over the span of the pandemic have to be put back out as social distancing guidelines have expired. It is a thrilling time as we are seeing the library come back to be seen as a place for the students to collaborate and congregate. It’s starting to feel like home again.
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Summer is a time for unapologetic, indulgent reading. From frothy beach reads to page-turning thrillers. But it’s also a time when schools hand students that dreaded list: summer required reading.
Mandatory books I was forced to read sank to the bottom of my TBR pile. The assigned titles, a collection of dusty publications I wouldn’t have picked for myself, never called to me. Not until the waning days of summer vacation when I realized I had to plow through hundreds of pages of un-fun reading before the school year began.
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Here are some reads to take with you. Don’t forget sunscreen!
It’s the 4th of July in Salem, Massachusetts. There’s to be a play about the historical town, and Charlene Morris is there to film, along with her housemate, Jack—a handsome ghost who shares the Victorian bed-and-breakfast with her and her Persian cat. When the star (who might be a witch) is killed by what was supposed to be prop gun, Charlene finds plenty of suspects.
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This Pride season has been very quiet as most cities and towns near me in West Michigan were done virtually or postponed to the fall. However, I did manage to set up a booth at the Lowell Pride. Lowell Pride was the first time Lowell had attempted to put on a pride event in this small conservative town, and despite the three protestors, the event was a huge success. It had estimated 300-500 people would come and were surprised when over 2,000 people came. It was wonderful to see all of the youth, the couples, the seniors, and all of the colors of the rainbow flag!! I must admit that my husband and I had a chart of all the different flags so that we could keep track of them all. It was beautiful, and it made me happy to be out and among my “family!”
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June is finally here and it’s beginning to feel like summer. Antiques and eats are on this month’s menu. Enjoy!
Tracy Gardner debuts a new series, the Avery Ayers Antique mysteries. After her parents’ death, Avery takes over the family business, Antiquities & Artifacts.
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I live in Michigan which just announced that along with the CDC’s mask recommendation that fully vaccinated people no longer have to wear masks indoors. However, the state is less than 50% fully vaccinated, and I worry about a new spike due to non-vaccinated people parading around as if they are vaccinated. This gets me back to pride. In 2020 Pride events were cancelled or moved to virtual spaces.
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Time to “Spring” into new books. This month I have several for you to dine on. Plus, my local library has reopened, so I included two library-themed mysteries. Enjoy the weather and the reads!
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For a part time job, I work at Argos Books in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It is a used book and comic book store. Today I had a customer come up and ask me if we had Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. This is a book we are constantly asked for by young people just discovering literature outside of young adult novels, along with 1984, Animal Farm, A Handmaid’s Tale, Fahrenheit 451, and Slaughterhouse Five. The customer today slaughtered the name Kerouac.
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Spring is finally upon us. With the end of a dark tunnel of anger, isolation, and illness in sight, we all just want to take a deep breath. But, the horrors of the headlines persist. From hate crimes against Asians to heartbreaking testimony in the prosecution of George Floyd’s killer and headlines about ordinary people of color enjoying their lives— before they’re murdered, the daily news is so packed with shocking, racist crimes that it’s delivered with a trigger warning.
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This month I pull a few rabbits out of the hat and offer six cozies with recipes. What’s in your Easter Basket? (some were released in March and some in April)
Hop ‘Til You Drop over to Juliette (Jules) Bridges Fur Bridge Farm rabbit rescue in New Hampshire. She and her telepathic bunny, Bun, have agreed to hide Easter eggs at a town event.
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I work in an academic library, and although I have my master’s in information and library science, I am not a librarian. Rather I answer the phone, and if patrons have a harder question that is outside the knowledge of our student workers (which is rare since they know all), I help find the answer.
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Meet little dolly Molly, she is a kitty who has a quiet elegance, a big heart, and an undemanding personality. She is independent, sits back to observe before exploring. Such a down-to-earth attitude is probably the result of being the single sister with three lively brothers who all have easy, undemanding natures, but love playtime and each other. Like them, this pretty sweetheart does love to leap and swing at toys on a wand, is especially fond of chicken, and can’t resist a tasty kitty treat! She has also gotten along with bigger cats and small dogs. A beautiful, silky black and white ensemble has her always looking dressed for success. What a devoted and adorable addition lovely Molly will be in a home where she will be given time to adjust to a new situation. How about your home sweet home? Molly is very shy and will need a lot of time to adjust to a new home, she is a little hissy with lots of attitude she would be a great friend for a current kitty and not much of a person cat. She loves other cats. Molly is available for adoption at their Blackstone Ave Petco Adoption Center, from Cat House on the Kings.