Kate’s 2¢: “Animal appetite: a dog lover’s mystery” by Susan Conant

“Animal appetite: a dog lover’s mystery” by Susan Conant

NOTE: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as, describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ shares her thoughts about what she’s read. In her opinion…

   Lois Fontana did a good job of narrating this story. It jumps around a bit, but the author ties it all together in the end. The main character can’t help fit in dog training stips as she tries to write a ‘non-dog’ story on a dare.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Susan Conant is an American mystery writer best known for her Dog Lover’s Mysteries series, featuring magazine writer Holly Winter. Conant graduated from Radcliffe College with a degree in social relations, and a doctorate from Harvard University in human development. She is active in Alaskan Malamute Rescue and is a three-time recipient of the Dog Writers Association of America’s Maxwell Award for Fiction Writing.[1] She is also the author of the Cat Lover’s Mysteries series and co-author with daughter Jessica Conant-Park of the Gourmet Girl Mysteries series.

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

Animal appetite: a dog lover’s mystery DBC04415

Conant, Susan. Reading time: 7 hours, 20 minutes.

Read by Lois Fontana.

Mystery and Detective Stories

Animals and Wildlife

Publisher Jack Andrews succumbs to a cup of poison, leaving behind a strident widow, bodybuilding daughter, and son obsessed with rats. Columnist Holly Winter thinks it was murder. Andrews would not have abandoned his beloved golden retriever. A merry mystery in Maine.

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Kate’s 2¢: “Midnight Flight” by Virginia C. Andrews

“Midnight Flight” by Virginia C. Andrews

NOTE: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as, describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ shares her thoughts about what she’s read. In her opinion…

   Michele Schaeffer did a good job of narrating the sad and disturbing stories of these three teenage girls. My heart went out to these girls as they struggled with the social experiment the founder of the ‘last chance farm’ forced them to endure. Thank goodness for the Native American who taught them how to survive.

   A few take-aways:

“In our secret hearts of hearts, we were longing for someone who would care about us; to keep such cruel things from happening to us.”

”To change, you must come to hate who you are now and bury that person.”

“Choice was a privilege. Here we did what we were told.”

Promises are like soap bubbles. They look really beautiful, but when you touch them, they pop.”

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

vcandrewsbooks.com

Cleo Virginia Andrews (June 6, 1923 – December 19, 1986), better known as V. C. Andrews or Virginia C. Andrews, was an American novelist. She was best known for her 1979 novel Flowers in the Attic, which inspired two movie adaptations and four sequels. While her novels are not classified by her publisher as Young Adult, their young protagonists have made them popular among teenagers for decades. After her death in 1986, a ghostwriter who was initially hired to complete two unfinished works has continued to publish books under her name.

Profile[edit]

Andrews’s novels combine Gothic horror and family saga, revolving around family secrets and incestual, forbidden love (frequently involving themes of horrific events, and sometimes including a rags-to-riches story). Her best-known novel is the bestseller Flowers in the Attic (1979), a tale of four children smuggled into the attic of their wealthy estranged pious grandmother, and held prisoner there by their mother.

Her novels were successful enough that following Andrews’s death, her estate hired a ghost writer, Andrew Neiderman, to continue to write novels to be published under her name.[1] In assessing a deficiency in her estate tax returns, the Internal Revenue Service argued (successfully) that Virginia Andrews’s name was a valuable commercial asset, the value of which should be included in her gross estate.[2]

Her novels have been translated into Czech, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Dutch, Japanese, Korean, Turkish, Greek, Finnish, Hungarian, Swedish, Polish, Portuguese, Lithuanian, Chinese, Russian and Hebrew.

Life[edit]

Andrews was born in Portsmouth, Virginia, the youngest child and only daughter of Lillian Lilnora (Parker), a telephone operator, and William Henry Andrews, a tool-and-die maker.[3] She had two older brothers, William Jr. and Eugene. Andrews grew up attending Southern Baptist and Methodist churches.[4] As a teenager, Andrews suffered a fall from a school stairwell, resulting in severe back injuries. The subsequent surgery to correct these injuries resulted in Andrews’ suffering from crippling arthritis that required her to use crutches and a wheelchair for much of her life.[1] However, having always shown promise as an artist, she was able to complete a four-year correspondence course from her home and soon became a successful commercial artist, illustrator, and portrait painter, using her art commissions to support the family after her father’s death in 1957.[5]

Later in life, Andrews turned to writing. Her first novel, written in 1972 and titled Gods of Green Mountain, was a science fiction effort that remained unpublished during her lifetime but was eventually released as an e-book in 2004.[6]

In 1975, Andrews completed a manuscript for a novel she called Flowers in the Attic. “I wrote it in two weeks,” Andrews said.[7] The novel was returned with the suggestion that she “spice up” and expand the story. In later interviews, Andrews claims to have made the necessary revisions in a single night. The novel, published in 1979, was an instant popular success, reaching the top of the bestseller lists in only two weeks. Every year thereafter until her death, Andrews published a new novel, each publication earning Andrews larger advances and a growing popular readership.

“I think I tell a whopping good story. And I don’t drift away from it a great deal into descriptive material,” she stated in Faces of Fear in 1985. “When I read, if a book doesn’t hold my interest in what’s going to happen next, I put it down and don’t finish it. So I’m not going to let anybody put one of my books down and not finish it. My stuff is a very fast read.” In an interview for Twilight Magazine in 1983, Andrews was questioned about the critics’ response to her work. She answered, “I don’t care what the critics say. I used to, until I found out that most critics are would-be writers who are just jealous because I’m getting published and they aren’t. I also don’t think that anybody cares about what they say. Nor should they care.”[7]

Andrews died of breast cancer on December 19, 1986, in Virginia Beach, Virginia.[8] After her death, her family hired a ghostwriter, Andrew Neiderman, to finish the manuscripts she had started. He would complete the next two novels, Garden of Shadows and Fallen Hearts, and they were published soon after. These two novels are considered the last to bear the “V. C. Andrews” name and to be almost completely written by Andrews herself.

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

Midnight flight DB59263

Andrews, V. C, (Virginia C.). Reading time: 9 hours, 41 minutes.

Read by Michele Schaeffer.

Psychological Fiction

Three young women from different worlds–Phoebe, Teal, and Robin–are newcomers to Dr. Foreman’s desert ranch “school” for troubled teens. Trapped in forced labor, the girls are tempted to betray one another. The only way out, however, is to stick together. Sequel to Broken Wings (DB 59081). 2003.

Downloaded: March 22, 2025

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Kate’s 2¢: “The Famous DAR Murder Mystery” by Graham Landrum

“The Famous DAR Murder Mystery” by Graham Landrum

NOTE: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as, describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ shares her thoughts about what she’s read. In her opinion…

   I’ve been a loyal DAR member for decades and I thoroughly enjoyed this 1992 good-humored spoof of the Daughters of the American Revolution. I think Landrum nailed us to a tee; from the meeting protocols, reading the minutes, and the conversations that go on that aren’t noted in the official minutes.

   When I was the person in charge of writing the press releases, our chapter won the “inches war” many times. Then, the powers at the time decided to change the requirements to the number of articles, rather than the number of newspaper inches.

   There are several other cozy mystery books featuring community organizations that I’m looking forward to reading. I hope they, also, have a few recipes in them as the DAR book does.

   Margaret Strom did a good job of narrating this story for NLS.

   A take-away:

“…Our Patriot Heros did something about the things that were wrong at that time.”

From the WEB:

Graham Gordon Landrum, retired college professor of English and distinguished author of mystery novels, died July 31, 1995, in Bristol, Tenn. Graham was born in Dallas, Tex., …

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

The famous DAR murder mystery DB42097

Landrum, Graham Reading time: 6 hours, 18 minutes.

Margaret Strom National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, Library of Congress.

Mystery and Detective Stories

Members of a Virginia chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution are tracking down a century-old gravesite when they find a body. The police write the man off as a transient, but the ladies know differently. He has manicured hands and a glorious tan. Each of the “daughters” explain their part in determining who the dead man was, who killed him, and why.

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Kate’s 2¢: “To Die For” by David Baldacci

“To Die For” by David Baldacci

NOTE: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as, describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ shares her thoughts about what she’s read. In her opinion…

The multiple readers of this book made sure you knew who was speaking. Ony thing missing were sound effects to make it a radio show.

A few take-aways:

• If we resign and leave the field to them…then  only the power hunger a-holes without a hint of morale conscious will be left in charge to trample all over  the Constitution and the rights of every American.
• –If enough people believe over thowing the government can’t happen, then they’ve assured it will happen.
• –It’s high time we all started ooperating, if we want to have a country to serve.
• –They want allthe wealth and power, along with the population of that looks the same, etc.
• –He’d taken an oath to sacrifice his life for his country, so that his fellow citizens could live free.

 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

David Baldacci (born August 5, 1960) is an American novelist. An attorney by education, Baldacci writes mainly suspense novels and legal thrillers.[1] His novels are published in over 45 languages and published in over 80 countries.[2] Baldacci Has sold over 150 million copies worldwide.

Early life and education[edit]

David Baldacci was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia. He is of Italian descent. He graduated from Henrico High School and earned a B.A. in political science from Virginia Commonwealth University and a Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia School of Law, after which he practiced law for nine years in Washington, D.C.

Career[edit]

File:City_of_Richmond_Business…

Richmond, Virginia, hometown of Baldacci

Baldacci began writing stories as a child, when his mother gave him a notebook in which to record them.[3] He wrote for more than two decades, penning short stories and later screenplays without much success.[4]

While practicing law, he turned to novel writing, taking three years to write Absolute Power.[5] Published in 1996, it was an international best-seller. To date, Baldacci has published 50 novels for adults as well as seven novels for younger readers.

Personal life and philanthropy[edit]

Baldacci lives in Fairfax County, Virginia, with his family. He has a daughter and a son.[6]

Baldacci and his wife, Michelle, founded the Wish You Well Foundation,[7] which works to combat illiteracy in the United States by funding adult literacy programs.[8] Baldacci became involved with the National Multiple Sclerosis Society after his sister, author Sharon Baldacci, was diagnosed with MS.[9] In 2008 the Foundation partnered with Feeding America to launch Feeding Body & Mind.

Baldacci has served for more than a decade on the board of trustees of the Mark Twain House & Museum in Hartford, Connecticut. In 2019, he donated $1 million to the home.[10]

Works[edit]

Baldacci’s first novel, Absolute Power, tells the story of a fictional American president and his Secret Service agents who are willing to commit murder in order to cover up the accidental death of a woman with whom the President was having an affair. It was adapted as a film, Absolute Power (1997), starring Clint Eastwood and Gene Hackman.

Baldacci wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation of his novel Wish You Well; the movie was shot on location in southwest Virginia with Academy Award winner Ellen Burstyn, Josh Lucas, and Mackenzie Foy in the lead roles.

Baldacci was a consulting producer on King & Maxwell, a TNT television series based on his characters Sean King and Michelle Maxwell. Jon Tenney and Rebecca Romijn starred.

The Christmas Train, Baldacci’s eighth novel, was adapted in 2017 by Hallmark Channel as a Hallmark Hall of Fame feature presentation. The TV movie starred Dermot Mulroney, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, Danny Glover and Joan Cusack and was directed by Ron Oliver.

Baldacci’s novel One Summer was adapted in 2021 for Hallmark Movies & Mysteries and starred Sam Page, Sarah Drew and Amanda Schull.

Baldacci’s novels have been published in over 45 languages and in more than 80 countries, with over 130 million worldwide sales as of 2018.[11]

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

To die for DB125480

Baldacci, David. Reading time: 12 hours, 1 minute.

Read by Zach Villa; Christine Lakin; Kiff VandenHeuvel; Rena-Marie Villano; Erin Bennett; Mela Lee; Will Collyer; Cassandra Morris.

Suspense Fiction

Mystery and Detective Stories

“Travis Devine has become a pro at accomplishing any mission he’sgiven. But this time it’s not his skills that send him to Seattle to aid the FBI in escorting orphaned, twelve-year-old Betsy Odom to ameeting with her uncle, who’s under federal investigation. Instead,he’s hoping to lay low and keep off the radar of an enemy-the girl on the train. But as Devine gets to know Betsy, questions begin to arise around the death of her parents. Devine digs for answers, and what he finds points to a conspiracy bigger than he could’ve ever imagined. It might finally be time for Devine and the girl on the trainto come face-to-face. Devine is going to find out the difference between his friends and his enemies-and in some cases, they might wellbe both.”–Provided by publisher. Unrated. Commercial audiobook.

Downloaded: March 27, 2025

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Kate’s 2¢: “The Way The Crow Flies: A Novel” by Ann Marie MacDonald  

“The Way The Crow Flies: A Novel” by Ann Marie MacDonald  

NOTE: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as, describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ shares her thoughts about what she’s read. In her opinion…

   Kimberly Schraf did a good job of reading this rather disturbing story. The Fourth Grade  teacher, a Pedi file never did get exposed.The children he influenced  suffered the results.

   I suspect  the military motto “Threw adversity To The Stars” intended for the program, was never meant for the adversity to show up in the base’s micro-culture of society.

   The author’s use of the crows intermittently throughout the story was interesting.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

MacDonald is the daughter of a member of Canada’s military; she was born at an air force base near Baden-Baden, West Germany. She is of partial Lebanese descent through her mother.[1]

MacDonald won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for her first novel, Fall on Your Knees (1996),[2] which was selected for Oprah Winfrey’s Book Club in January 2002.[3]

MacDonald received the Governor General’s Award for Drama,[4] the Floyd S. Chalmers Canadian Play Award,[5] and the Canadian Authors Association Drama Award[6] for her play, Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet).

MacDonald hosted the CBC documentary series Life and Times for seven seasons. MacDonald also hosted CBC’s flagship documentary program, Doc Zone for eight seasons.

She appeared in the films I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing and Better Than Chocolate, among others.

MacDonald’s 2003 novel, The Way the Crow Flies, was partly inspired by the Steven Truscott case. Her third novel Adult Onset was released in 2014 and has been translated into five languages. Her fourth novel Fayne was published in 2022.[7]

She was the inaugural Mordecai Richler Reading Room Writer in Residence at Concordia University,[8] and she coaches students in the Acting and Playwriting Programs at the National Theatre School of Canada.

In 2008, MacDonald was awarded an honorary doctorate of humanities by the University of Windsor.[9]

In May 2015, MacDonald was the “big-name author” and “public face”[10] of the inaugural Canadian Authors for Indies Day, organized to bring attention to independent bookstores across the country. Nearly 100 stores and 270 authors participated in the nationwide event.[10]

In December 2018, MacDonald was named as an Officer of the Order of Canada, in recognition of “her multi-faceted contributions to the arts in Canada and for her advocacy of LGBTQ+ and women’s rights”.[11]

In 2019, MacDonald was diagnosed with seronegative rheumatoid arthritis, which affected every aspect of her life, including work. She finished her novel Fayne while strapped to a chair in order to be able to type. Her illness caused the novel’s completion to be delayed by a year. As of 2023, she is symptom-free.[12][13]

MacDonald is married to the Canadian playwright and theatre director Alisa Palmer.[14][15]

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

The way the crow flies: a novel DB57171

MacDonald, Ann-Marie. Reading time: 35 hours, 11 minutes.

Read by Kimberly Schraf.

Mystery and Detective Stories

Family

Psychological Fiction

Ontario, Canada; 1962. A girl is strangled on a military base where eight-year-old Madeleine McCarthy and classmates are being molested by their teacher. Meanwhile, Madeleine’s father is safeguarding an ex-Nazi scientist. Their secrets involving the murder day lead to more tragedy. Some descriptions of sex, some violence, and some strong language. 2003.

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Kate’s 2¢: “Bellview: A Novel” by Robin Cook

“Bellview: A Novel” by Robin Cook

NOTE: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as, describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ shares her thoughts about what she’s read. In her opinion…

   John Pirhalla  did a good job of narrating this book for the NLS. This isn’t the first book I’ve read by Robin Cook. The only comment I have is to not read his novels if you’re about to have a hospital stay.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Robert Brian “Robin” Cook (born May 4, 1940)[2] is an American physician and novelist who writes largely about medicine and topics affecting public health.

He is known best for combining medical writing with the thriller genre. Many of his books have been bestsellers on The New York Times Best Seller List. Several of his books have also been featured by Reader’s Digest. His books have sold nearly 400 million copies worldwide.[3]

Early life and career[edit]

Cook was born in Brooklyn, New York, and grew up in Woodside, Queens. He relocated to Leonia, New Jersey when he was eight years old, where he could first have the “luxury” of having his own room.[4] He graduated from Leonia High School in 1958.[5]

Subsequently, Cook graduated from Wesleyan University and Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and finished his postgraduate medical training at Harvard.[1]

Cook managed the Cousteau Society’s blood-gas laboratory in the south of France. He later became an aquanaut (a submarine doctor) with the U.S. Navy’s SEALAB program when he was drafted in 1969.[6] Cook served in the Navy from 1969 to 1971, attaining the rank of lieutenant commander. He wrote his first novel, Year of the Intern, while serving aboard the Polaris-type submarine USS Kamehameha.[2]

Novelist[edit]

The Year of the Intern, was a failure, but Cook began to study bestsellers.[4] He said, “I studied how the reader was manipulated by the writer. I came up with a list of techniques that I wrote down on index cards. And I used every one of them in Coma.”[4] He conceived the idea for Coma, about creating illegally a supply of transplant organs, in 1975.[4] In March 1977, that novel’s paperback rights sold for $800,000.[4] It was followed by the Egyptology thriller Sphinx in 1979 and another medical thriller, Brain, in 1981.[4] Cook then decided he preferred writing rather than a medical career.[4]

Cook’s novels combine medical fact with fantasy. His medical thrillers are designed, in part, to keep the public aware of both the technological possibilities of modern medicine and the socio-ethical problems associated with it.[2]: 73  Cook says he chose to write thrillers because they give him “an opportunity to get the public interested in things about medicine that they didn’t seem to know about. I believe my books are actually teaching people.”[7]

The author admits he never thought that he would have such compelling material to work with when he began writing fiction in 1970. “If I tried to be the writer I am today a number of years ago, I wouldn’t have very much to write about. But today, with the pace of change in biomedical research, there are any number of different issues, and new ones to come,” he says.[8]

Cook’s novels have anticipated national controversy. In an interview with Stephen McDonald about the novel Shock, Cook admitted the book’s timing was fortuitous:

I suppose that you could say that it’s the most like Coma in fact that it deals with an issue that everybody seems to be concerned about. I wrote this book to address the stem cell issue, which the public really doesn’t know anything about. Besides entertaining readers, my main goal is to get people interested in some of these issues, because it’s the public that ultimately should be able to decide which way we ought to go in something as ethically questioning as stem cell research.[8]

To date, Cook has fictionalized issues such as organ donation, fertility treatment, genetic engineering, in vitro fertilization, research funding, managed care, medical malpractice, medical tourism, drug research, and organ transplantation.[7]

“I joke that if my books stop selling, I can always fall back on brain surgery,” he says. “But I am still very interested in it. If I had to do it over again, I would still study medicine. I think of myself more as a doctor who writes, rather than a writer who happens to be a doctor.” He explained the popularity of his works thus: “The main reason is, we all realize we are at risk. We’re all going to be patients sometime,” he says. “You can write about great white sharks or haunted houses, and you can say I’m not going into the ocean or I’m not going in haunted houses, but you can’t say you’re not going to go into a hospital.”[8]

Many of his novels concern hospitals (both fictional and non-fictional) in Boston, which may have to do with the fact that he had his post-graduate training at Harvard and lives in Boston, and/ or in New York.

Personal life[edit]

He is on leave from the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary.[9]

Cook is a private member of the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Board of Trustees. The Board of Trustees, directed by chairman Joseph B. Gildenhorn, are appointed to six-year terms by the President of the United States.[10]

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

Bellevue: a novel DB126298

Cook, Robin. Reading time: 11 hours, 23 minutes.

Read by John Pirhalla.

Suspense Fiction

Family

Medical Fiction

“Twenty-three-year-old Michael ‘Mitt’ Fuller starts his surgical residency with great anticipation at the nearly three-hundred-year-old, iconic Bellevue Hospital. The pressure is on for this newly minted doctor, but quickly one patient after another assigned to his care begin to die from mysterious causes. As bodies mount and Mitt’s stress level rises, he finds himself drawn to the abandoned Bellevue Psychopathic Hospital building, which still stands a few doors north of the modern Bellevue Hospital high-rise. Forcing entry into this storied but foreboding structure, Mitt discovers he’s more closely tied to the sins of the past than he ever thought possible.”– From publisher. Unrated. Commercial audiobook.

Downloaded: March 27, 2025

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Kate’s 2¢: “Now or never: thirty-one on the run” by Janet Evanovich

“Now or never: thirty-one on the run” by Janet Evanovich

NOTE: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as, describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ shares her thoughts about what she’s read. In her opinion…

Lorelei King did a fabulous job of narrating this story for us. I love the free spirit of Lola!  

www.evanovich.com

Janet Evanovich (née Schneider; April 22, 1943) is an American writer. She began her career writing short contemporary romance novels under the pen name Steffie Hall, but gained fame authoring a series of contemporary mysteries featuring Stephanie Plum, a former lingerie buyer from Trenton, New Jersey, who becomes a bounty hunter to make ends meet after losing her job. The novels in this series have been on The New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal and Amazon bestseller lists. Evanovich has had her last seventeen Plums debut at #1 on the NY Times Best Sellers list and eleven of them have hit #1 on USA Today Best-Selling Books list. She has over two hundred million books in print worldwide, and her books have been translated into over 40 languages.

Early years[edit]

Evanovich is a second-generation American born in South River, New Jersey, to a machinist and a housewife.[1] After attending South River High School,[2] she became the first in her family to attend college when she enrolled at Douglass Residential College, part of Rutgers University, to study art.[3][4]

When Evanovich had children, she chose to become a housewife like her mother. In her thirties, she began writing novels.[1] To learn the art of writing dialog, Evanovich took lessons in improv acting.[4] For ten years, she attempted to write the Great American Novel, finishing three manuscripts that she was unable to sell. After someone suggested she try writing romance novels, Evanovich read several romances and discovered that she enjoyed the genre. She wrote two romances and submitted them for publishing.[5] Still unable to find a publisher, Evanovich stopped writing and signed with a temporary employment agency. Several months after beginning work for them, she received an offer to buy her second romance manuscript for $2,000, which she considered an “astounding sum”.[4]

Romance novels[edit]

That novel, Hero at Large, was published in 1987 in the Second Chance Love category line under the pseudonym Steffie Hall.[1] The following year she began writing for Bantam Loveswept under her own name.[5] For the next five years she continued to write category romances for Loveswept.[4] Her work within the romance novel genre helped her learn to create likable characters and attractive leading men.[6] In this time, Evanovich also became known for the humor that filled her novels. She believes that “it’s very important to take a comic approach. If we can laugh at something, we can face it.”[7]

After finishing her twelfth romance, however, Evanovich realized that she was more interested in writing the action sequences in her novels than the sex scenes. Her editors were not interested in her change of heart, so Evanovich took the next eighteen months to formulate a plan for what she actually wanted to write.[1]

Stephanie Plum Series[edit]

She quickly decided that she wanted to write romantic adventure novels.[8] She wanted to include humor, romance and adventure in her work and this fit into her style of mystery novel.[9] Unlike the style of romance novels, her books would be told in first person narrative.[4] Her new type of writing should contain heroes and heroines, as well as “a sense of family and community”.[1] In that vein, she intended her new style of writing to be based on the TV sitcom model. Like Seinfeld, her new books would have a central character that the rest of the cast of characters revolve around.[8]

Inspired by the Robert De Niro movie Midnight Run, Evanovich decided that her heroine would be a bounty hunter.[1] This occupation provided more freedom for Evanovich as a writer, as bounty hunters do not have a set work schedule and are not forced to wear a uniform. The profession is also “romanticised to some extent”.[7] To become acquainted with the demands of the career, Evanovich spent a great deal of time shadowing bond enforcement agents. She also researched more about the city of Trenton, where she wanted her books to be set.[1]

In 1994, her initial romantic adventure, One for the Money, was published to good reviews.[1] This was the first of a light-hearted series of mysteries starring barely competent bounty hunter Stephanie Plum. One for the Money was named a New York Times notable book, a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 1994 and a USA Today Best Bet.[10]

Evanovich has continued to write romantic adventures starring Plum. The sixth book in the series, Hot Six, was the first of her novels to reach number one on the New York Times Best Seller List.[3] Her subsequent Plum novels have each debuted at number one.[11] All About Romance has described her as the “rare breed of romance author who has left the genre and yet not alienated her many romance fans”.[5]

FROM nls/bard/loc:

Now or never: thirty-one on the run DB126056

Evanovich, Janet. Reading time: 7 hours, 42 minutes.

Read by Lorelei King.

Suspense Fiction

Humor

Mystery and Detective Stories

Bestsellers

“She said yes to Morelli. She said yes to Ranger. Now Stephanie Plum has two fiancés and no idea what to do about it. But the way things are going, she might not live long enough to marry anyone. While Stephanie stalls for time, she buries herself in her work as a bounty hunter, tracking down an unusually varied assortment of fugitives from justice. There’s Eugene Fleck, a seemingly sweet online influencer who might also be YouTube star Robin Hoodie, masked hero to the homeless, who hijacks delivery trucks and distributes their contents to the needy. She’s also on the trail of Bruno Jug, a wealthy and connected man in the wholesale produce business who is rumored to traffic young girls alongside lettuce and tomatoes. Most terrifying of all is Zoran–a laundromat manager by day and self-proclaimed vampire by night with a taste for the blood of pretty girls. When he shows up on Stephanie’s doorstep, it’s not for the meatloaf dinner. With timely assists from her stalwart supporters Lula, Connie, and Grandma Mazur, Stephanie uses every trick in the book to reel in these men. But only she can decide what to do about the two men she actually loves. She can’t hold Ranger and Morelli at bay for long, and she’s keeping a secret from them that is the biggest bombshell of all. Now or never, she’s got to make the decision of a lifetime.”– Provided by publisher. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. Bestseller.

Downloaded: March 27, 2025

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Kate’s 2¢: “The master of Ballantrae: a winter’s tale” by Robert Louis Stevenson

“The master of Ballantrae: a winter’s tale” by Robert Louis Stevenson

NOTE: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as, describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ shares her thoughts about what she’s read. In her opinion…

   Tom Martin did a good job of narrating This interesting tale of betrayal, intrigue, and a love triangle.

A few Takeaways:

–…forever falling in with extraordinary incidences and I was myself on the brink of one so astonishing, that I protest I cannot explain it.

–…JD, heir to a Scottish title, a Master of the Arts and Graces, Admired in Europe, Asia, America, in war and peace in the tents of savage hunters, to the citidles of Kings after so much acquired accomplished and endured lies here forgotten.

–HD, his brother, after a life of unmerited distress, bravely supported, died almost in the same hour and sleeps in the same grave and and sleeps in the same grave as his fraternal enemy. The piety of his wife and one old servantraised this stone to both.

Wikipedia

 Robert Louis Stevenson (born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson; 13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. He is best known for works such as Treasure Island, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Kidnapped and A Child’s Garden of Verses.

Born and educated in Edinburgh, Stevenson suffered from serious bronchial trouble for much of his life but continued to write prolifically and travel widely in defiance of his poor health. As a young man, he mixed in London literary circles, receiving encouragement from Sidney Colvin, Andrew Lang, Edmund Gosse,[1] Leslie Stephen and W. E. Henley, the last of whom may have provided the model for Long John Silver in Treasure Island. In 1890, he settled in Samoa where, alarmed at increasing European and American influence in the South Sea islands, his writing turned from romance and adventure fiction toward a darker realism. He died of a stroke in his island home in 1894 at age 44.[2]

A celebrity in his lifetime, Stevenson’s critical reputation has fluctuated since his death, though today his works are held in general acclaim. In 2018, he was ranked just behind Charles Dickens as the 26th-most-translated author in the world.[3]

Family and education[edit]

Childhood and youth[edit]

Stevenson’s childhood home in Heriot Row

Stevenson was born at 8 Howard Place, Edinburgh, Scotland, on 13 November 1850 to Thomas Stevenson (1818–1887), a leading lighthouse engineer, and his wife, Margaret Isabella (born Balfour, 1829–1897). He was christened Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson. At about age 18, he changed the spelling of “Lewis” to “Louis”, and he dropped “Balfour” in 1873.[4][5]

Lighthouse design was the family’s profession; Thomas’s father (Robert’s grandfather) was the civil engineer Robert Stevenson, and Thomas’s brothers (Robert’s uncles) Alan and David were in the same field.[6] Thomas’s maternal grandfather Thomas Smith had been in the same profession. However, Robert’s mother’s family were gentry, tracing their lineage back to Alexander Balfour, who had held the lands of Inchrye in Fife in the fifteenth century.[7] His mother’s father, Lewis Balfour (1777–1860), was a minister of the Church of Scotland at nearby Colinton,[8] and her siblings included physician George William Balfour and marine engineer James Balfour. Stevenson spent the greater part of his boyhood holidays in his maternal grandfather’s house. “Now I often wonder what I inherited from this old minister,” Stevenson wrote. “I must suppose, indeed, that he was fond of preaching sermons, and so am I, though I never heard it maintained that either of us loved to hear them.”[9]

Lewis Balfour and his daughter both had weak chests, so they often needed to stay in warmer climates for their health. Stevenson inherited a tendency to coughs and fevers, exacerbated when the family moved to a damp, chilly house at 1 Inverleith Terrace in 1851.[10] The family moved again to the sunnier 17 Heriot Row when Stevenson was six years old, but the tendency to extreme sickness in winter remained with him until he was 11. Illness was a recurrent feature of his adult life and left him extraordinarily thin.[11] Contemporaneous views were that he had tuberculosis, but more recent views are that it was bronchiectasis[12] or sarcoidosis.[13] The family also summered in the spa town of Bridge of Allan, in North Berwick, and in Peebles for the sake of Stevenson’s and his mother’s health; “Stevenson’s cave” in Bridge of Allan was reportedly the inspiration for the character Ben Gunn’s cave dwelling in Stevenson’s 1883 novel Treasure Island.[14]

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

The master of Ballantrae: a winter’s tale. DB10700

Stevenson, Robert Louis. Reading time: 7 hours, 55 minutes.

Read by Tom Martin.

Classics

Adventure

Story of a tragic bitter feud between two Scottish brothers. The elder brother, believed to have died in battle, returns home to persecute his younger brother, who has succeeded him to his title and estate and married his betrothed.

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Kate’s 2¢: “Marcus of Umbria: what an Italian dog taught an American girl about love” by Justine Van der Leun 

“Marcus of Umbria: what an Italian dog taught an American girl about love” by Justine Van der Leun 

NOTE: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as, describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ shares her thoughts about what she’s read. In her opinion…

   Marylyn Burridge did a nice job of reading this story about a woman in a foreign land. I think it was obvious from the get-go, that she was shacking up with the wrong guy for all the wrong reasons.

A few takeaways:

–I felt a dawning kinship with all the non-English speaking immigrants with whom I had conversed back in America.

–…subvert their personalities due to the limitations of language.

–smiling is a submissive gesture, because a lack of language strips you of your identity and makes you feel weak.

–The love for which I wandered the earth was found between a dog and me.

–We know the truth, not by the reason, but by the heart.

From BING:

Justine van der Leun is an independent journalist, an author, and a fellow at Type Media Center. Her features have been published in the Appeal, the New York Review of Books, Harper’s, the …

justinevdl.com

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

Marcus of Umbria: what an Italian dog taught an American girl about love DBC27817

Van der Leun, Justine. Reading time: 7 hours, 32 minutes.

Read by Marylyn Burridge.

Biography

Animals and Wildlife

Adult.

Downloaded: February 23, 2025

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Kate’s 2¢: “The Old Man and The Sea” by Ernest Hemingway

“The Old Man and The Sea” by Ernest Hemingway

NOTE: There is a plethora of in-depth biographies of authors and reviews of their books, that state the title, author, published date, and genre; as well as, describing what the book is about, setting, and character(s), so, Kate’s 2¢ shares her thoughts about what she’s read. In her opinion…

   Ray Hagen did a good job of narrating this classic sea story. I ended up admiring both the Marlin and the old man for their perseverance. I also found it admirable that the young boy cared for and tended to the old man’s needs.

From Copilot”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, journalist, and sportsman. His economical and understated style significantly influenced later 20th-century writers. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954.View source at britannica.com

From NLS/BARD/LOC:

The old man and the sea DB10319

Hemingway, Ernest. Reading time: 2 hours, 13 minutes.

Read by Ray Hagen.

Classics

Adventure

Classic tale of the old Cuban fisherman Santiago and his days-long struggle with a magnificent marlin on open water in a frail skiff. Pulitzer Prize. 1952.

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