If You Dream It, You Can Do It!

The last day of the summer library reading challenge is here!  I wanted to read more books during this challenge than I read during the winter challenge and I achieved that goal. Winter reading: 6 books. Summer reading: 12 books.  Maybe this time I'll win a gift card! 

A Dark and Stormy Murder by Julia Buckley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'm so glad I decided to read this book. This is such a well done Cozy Mystery. I love the setting of Blue Lake, the old home that has secrets, and Lena the would-be writer, getting the job of a lifetime!

Julia Buckley does such a nice job of building suspense in this novel -will Camilla be OK, is Lena safe? Is Sam West a good guy? Bob's horrible son made me literally LOL. Such a clever little thing.

I very much enjoyed that the story takes place w/o there having to be murder on top of murder in the small town--which can seem far fetched. I was almost certain a couple of characters had killed Martin, but I was wrong! How fun to be wrong.

5 stars by far! I can't wait to read the next adventure!

If you have been looking for a mystery that takes place in a Hallmark world, this book is for you. It's an excellent introduction into the world of cozy mysteries.  It is also a very good book to read if you are like me and are working on writing your own mystery book.  I would love to craft a book like this one!




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Jamie Quinn Mystery Collection - A Great Escape!

Jamie Quinn Mystery Collection: Box Set Books 1-3 by Barbara Venkataraman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Spend some time with Jamie Quinn, esq., you will thank me! This collection includes the first three of Jamie Quinn's adventures in Hollywoood, FL. The books are novella length and fast-paced. I really enjoyed Jamie Quinn our protagonist, she is great with the one-liners and down to earth. The books are told in a conversational style where you feel like you are sitting in a coffee shop while Jamie regales you with what has been happening in her life. At any moment you hope that Jamie's best friend Grace, a smart stylish lawyer or Duke, a PI with a heart of gold, will walk in and join the coffee talk.

Jamie is smart enough to use her resources and her researching skills as a lawyer to solve crimes without putting herself in physical danger. As you read you will hope for all good things for Jamie, and you will literally laugh out loud at some of her commentary.

The books take place in a real town, Hollywood, Florida. Many of the places she talks about in the book are real places. I had fun looking up the Broward County Parks and seeing where Jamie was going!

If you like cozies, make sure to check this one out, it's great summer or weekend reading!

As soon as I finished the third book in this series, I went right to the Amazon app on my phone to get the next book because I wanted to know what happened next in Jamie's life (of course, you can't purchase Kindle books on the app so that was annoying!)

I received a copy of this from the author to review. It is available as part of a Kindle Unlimited collection or is currently only $1.99.


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On One Hand, I Had To Go To The Hospital

On the other hand, I got to see and speak to people who aren't my immediate family members! I work a mask, they checked my temperature before they would let me go to the medical infusion floor. I wore gloves to sign papers saying  I would pay my bill and used the gloves to press the elevator buttons, then I threw out the gloves in a trash can. I  used hand sanitizer after taking off the gloves. I wore my coat and mask the whole time I was in the hospital and then after I hand sanitized. I took off my mask and coat threw them in the trunk and hand sanitized again. Then I drove home took my shoes off and put all my clothes in the wash and took a shower. 

I did everything I could think of and stayed as far away as possible from everyone. My visit was to get my port flushed.  It was already really overdue for flushing. 

What is a port? A little medical device implanted up by my neck that can be used to take blood or administer IV drugs right to my jugular. They use it to give you chemotherapy drugs so your veins in your arms don't get trashed from all the sticks and medications. I should be getting the port removed, but that is an outpatient procedure and it's not essential right now.  The flush is to help avoid a potential infection so I needed to get that done. 

How was your Monday? My celery plant is coming along! Look at that! 

 Here we have my future bookshelf. I am going to try and talk BMO and Dear Daughter into putting it together for me. Wish me luck.  They are very busy with all the laying around in their rooms sleeping all day because they stay up all night long. It's only 11:27am, way too early to ask them to do it now. LOL (To be fair, they are doing school work right now, I think.)

Last picture for today,  weedy flower on my Sunday run.

Happy Tuesday!