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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “Absent in the spring” by Mary Westmacott (Agatha Christie)
Kate’s 2¢: “Absent in the spring” by Mary Westmacott (Agatha Christie)
“Absent in the spring” by Mary Westmacott (Agatha Christie)
I did not appreciate slogging through Joan’s ruminations to come to the conclusion that her life has been so controlling and abysmal, only to find a solution, but didn’t follow through on it when she finally returned home. The epilogue was a real slap in the face and I didn’t appreciate that either.
Socrates believed that living a life where you live under the rules of others, in a continuous routine without examining what you actually want out of it is not worth living.
This illustration of a lifestyle is what Socrates would describe an unexamined life. Hence Socrates’ renowned statement “The unexamined life is not worth living”. Declaring that humans must scrutinize their lives in order to live a fulfilled one isn’t agreeable to any extent.
From: https://www.agathachristie.com/stories/mary-westmacott
Using the pseudonym Mary Westmacott, Agatha Christie was able to explore human psychology in greater depth. Semi-autobiographical in nature, the 6 novels offer a fascinating insight into Christie’s relationships with her family. Her daughter Rosalind Hicks describes the books as “bitter-sweet stories about love”.
The Mary Westmacott Stories
Giant’s Bread
Giant’s Bread
⌸ Novel
First published: 1930
Unfinished Portrait
Unfinished Portrait
⌸ Novel
First published: 1934
Absent In The Spring
Absent In The Spring
⌸ Novel
First published: 1944
The Rose and the Yew Tree
The Rose and the Yew Tree
⌸ Novel
First published: 1948
A Daughter’s A Daughter
A Daughter’s A Daughter
⌸ Novel
First published: 1952
The Burden
The Burden
⌸ Novel
First published: 1956
From NLS/BARD/LOC:
Absent in the spring / DB31775
Westmacott, Mary. Reading time: 5 hours, 5 minutes.
Read by Flo Gibson.
Romantic suspense fiction
Psychological Fiction
An Englishwoman is stranded for a week at a rest house in the desert. A remembered conversation with an old school friend starts her on an exploration of her past, and she experiences a vision of the truth that her “happy family life and successful career” were smug, hollow lies.
Downloaded: August 5, 2023
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Kate’s 2¢: “About Face: by Fern Michaels
“About Face: by Fern Michaels
It was interesting, how the author laid down layer by layer until the whole picture was exposed. Except for the two main characters, Casey and Blake, falling in love and eventually marrying, the ending might surprise you.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
www.fernmichaels.com
Fern Michaels is the pen name of Mary Ruth Kuczkir, who was born in Hastings, Pennsylvania on April 9, 1933.[1]
Michaels married, moved to New Jersey, and had five children. When the youngest entered school in 1973, her husband told her to get a job. Because she had no idea how to get a job, Michaels decided to try to write a book. Her husband was not very supportive of her efforts, and consequently they separated.[1]
Although her first manuscript did not sell, the second did. Since then, Michaels has sold over sixty books, many of them New York Times bestsellers.[citation needed] She has been quoted as saying that she loves breathing life into her characters. She also loves writing books about women who prevail under difficult circumstances, which she feels reflect her struggle for success early in her career.[1] For her efforts, she has been inducted into the New Jersey Literary Hall of Fame.[citation needed]
When she was a girl, Michaels’ grandmother told her “when God is good to you, you have to give back”. With this in mind, she founded the Fern Michaels Foundation, which grants four year scholarships for deserving students. In addition to that, she has also helped establish pre-school and day care programs with affordable rates for single mothers.[1]
Michaels currently lives in Summerville, South Carolina, in a 300-year-old plantation house listed in the Historic Registry. She claims to share the house with a ghost named Mary Margaret (which had also been documented by the previous owners). Mary Margaret is said to leave messages on her computer.[1]
From NLS/BARD/LOC:
About face DB57010
Michaels, Fern. Reading time: 11 hours, 33 minutes.
Read by Sharon Murray.
Suspense Fiction
Psychological Fiction
After ten years in an asylum, twenty-eight-year-old amnesia patient Casey Edwards joins her mother’s new family at a Sweetwater Island estate. As memories trickling back reveal a horrifying past, Casey and a new love search for answers–despite someone who will do anything to hide the truth. Explicit descriptions of sex, violence, and strong language. 2003.
Downloaded: July 6, 2023
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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “Blue Lonesome” by Bill Pronzini
Kate’s 2¢: “Blue Lonesome” by Bill Pronzini
“Blue Lonesome” by Bill Pronzini
I enjoyed observing this mild mannered guy emerge into a man. He interspurses the narrative with jazz songs that he enjoys as he investigates the sucide of the woman who captured his curiosity…and finds her sister.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bill Pronzini (Pen names: William Hart Davis, Jack Foxx, William Jeffrey & Alex Saxon) is an American writer of detective fiction. He is also an active anthologist, having compiled more than 100 collections, most of which focus on mystery, western, and science fiction short stories.[1] Pronzini is known as the creator of the San Francisco-based Nameless Detective, who starred in over 40 books from the early 1970s into the 2000s.
Biography[edit]
William John Pronzini was born in Petaluma, California in 1943. He attended local schools.
He has been married three times. The first marriage was to Laura Patricia Adolphson (1965, divorced 1966); the second was to Brunhilde Schier (July 28, 1972, separated December 1985, divorced a couple of years later).[2]
He married mystery writer Marcia Muller in 1992. They have collaborated on several novels: Double (1984), a Nameless Detective novel, The Lighthouse (1987), Beyond the Grave (1986), several books in the Carpenter and Quincannon mystery series, and numerous anthologies.[2]
Writing career[edit]
He published his first novel, The Stalker, in 1971. However, his best known works are the Nameless Detective series, which he began in 1971.[3] As of 2017, there are 46 books in the series, including a number of short stories. While the stories involve the usual range of crimes typical to mysteries, they depict relatively little violence.[citation needed]
Otto Penzler, of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City, has published a vodcast review of Bill Pronzini’s work and career http://youtube.com/watch?v=tR0OaQDghKo.
Short stories[edit]
Pronzini has written and published more than three hundred short stories. They have been published in a variety of markets, including some of the last issues of both Adventure and Argosy magazines, generally considered the first American pulp magazines. Pronzini’s work has also appeared in Charlie Chan Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Man from U.N.C.L.E. Magazine, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, and Alfred Hitchcock’s Anthology.[3]
His short story collection Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services (1998) is based in the 1890s and centers on Sabina Carpenter, a Pinkerton detective widow who is working in her late husband’s profession.
Awards[edit]
Pronzini has received numerous awards and award nominations for achievement in the mystery genre.
His début novel The Stalker was nominated for the 1972 Edgar Award in the “Best First Mystery Novel” category.[4] Pronzini won the inaugural Shamus Award for “Best Private Eye Novel” in 1982 for his novel Hoodwink.[5] The following year, he was nominated for his second Edgar Award, this time in the “Best Critical or Biographical” listings for Gun in Cheek.[6] The next year, 1984, Pronzini won his first award for a short-story, winning the “Best Private Eye Short Story” Shamus Award for “Cat’s Paw”. His novel Bones was nominated for the “Best Private Eye Novel” Shamus in 1986.[5] In 1987, Pronzini was awarded “The Eye”, the Shamus award for “Lifetime Achievement” in the mystery genre, the highest accolade awarded.[5] The same year, Pronzini received his first Macavity Award for his Critical Work 1001 Midnights, along with Marcia Muller. The next year he won in the same category for Son of Gun in Cheek.[7]
1989 brought a nomination at the 1989 Anthony Awards for “Best Novel”, for Shackles; and another Shamus nomination for short-story “Incident in a Neighborhood Tavern”.[8] That same year, his novel Snowbound was awarded the French Grand Prix de Littérature Policière.[9] Another two short-story nominations at the Shamus Awards followed for “Here Comes Santa Claus” in 1990 and “Home is the Place Where” in 1996. That year his novel Blue Lonesome was nominated for the “Best Novel” 1996 Anthony Award.[5][8] The next year, Sentinels received a “Best Novel” nomination at the 1997 Shamus Awards; the year after A Wasteland of Strangers won Pronzini’s only “Best Novel” Edgar Award. Boobytrap won the Shamus Award in the same category in 1999.[5][10] “The Big Bite” in 2001 and “Devil’s Brew” in 2007 were both Shamus Award “Best Private Eye Short Story” nominees. In 2010 he was nominated for “Best Novel” for his Schemers.[5]
From NLS/BARD/LOC:
Blue lonesome DB43724
Pronzini, Bill. Reading time: 7 hours, 28 minutes.
Read by Christopher Walker.
Mystery and Detective Stories
Psychological Fiction
Every evening Jim Messenger dines alone in the Harmony Cafe, where Janet Mitchell, another lonely soul, catches his fancy. When she commits suicide, Jim sets out to discover her story. His hunt leads him to a bleak Nevada town, where he learns Janet’s terrible secret. Strong language.
Downloaded: July 28, 2023
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Kate’s 2¢: “Blue Monday: by Nicci French
“Blue Monday: by Nicci French
Beth Chalmers’s naturally heavy English accent took a bit for my American ears to get used to, but then the story really took shape. This is, apparently, the first in a series of proposed stories.
I can appreciate Psychotherapist Frieda Klein’s predicament of whether or not she should tell the police of the connections she makes during her private consultations with a client and what she discovers as she plays sleuth to find the two children abducted 22-years apart. There is a great surprise mixed into the ending of this story. It made me laugh and groan out loud when I read it.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(This biography of a living person needs additional citations.)
Nicci French is the pseudonym of English husband-and-wife team Nicci Gerrard (born 10 June 1958) and Sean French (born 28 May 1959), who write psychological thrillers together.
Personal lives[edit]
Nicci Gerrard and Sean French were married in 1990. Since 1999 they have lived in Suffolk in East Anglia, England. Both have studied English literature at Oxford University.[1] The couple have two daughters, Hadley and Molly, and Gerrard has two children from her first marriage, Edgar and Anna.
Biography[edit]
Nicci Gerrard[edit]
Nicola ‘Nicci’ Gerrard was born on 10 June 1958. She grew up in Worcestershire, together with her two sisters and her brother.
She was educated at The Alice Ottley School in Worcester. She then studied English literature at Oxford University and then an MPhil at Sheffield University in 1986.[2] She went on to teach literature in Los Angeles and London. She founded a women’s magazine, Women’s Review, before becoming a freelance journalist. During that time she married and had two children.
Following the failure of this first marriage, she met Sean French whilst working as editor for the New Statesman where French wrote a weekly column, but left when she was offered another job at The Observer.
In November 2014 her father John Gerrard died, his dementia having deteriorated significantly during a five-week stay in hospital for an unrelated problem and with very restricted visiting by his family. As a result of this Gerrard launched John’s Campaign for extended visiting rights for carers of patients with dementia.[3][4]
Since February 2019, Gerrard has supported the ‘Save Our Libraries Essex’ (SOLE) campaign, speaking out against the proposed closures of libraries by Essex County Council.
From NLS/BARD/LOC:
Blue Monday DB84923
French, Nicci. Reading time: 11 hours, 13 minutes.
Read by Beth Chalmers.
Suspense Fiction
Mystery and Detective Stories
Psychological Fiction
The abduction of five-year-old Matthew Farraday provokes a desperate police hunt. Psychotherapist Frieda Klein cannot ignore the fact that one of her patients has been having dreams in which he has a hunger for a red-haired child he describes as the spitting image of Matthew. Violence, strong language, and descriptions of sex. Commercial audiobook. 2011.
Downloaded: July 28, 2023
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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “The Darling Dahlias and the red hot poker” BY Susan Wittig Albert
Kate’s 2¢: “The Darling Dahlias and the red hot poker” BY Susan Wittig Albert
“The Darling Dahlias and the red hot poker” BY Susan Wittig Albert
I enjoyed this gentle tale set in a by-gone era. The lives and loves of a small town that keeps an eye on each other.
I wasn’t able to find much about the author’s life. Maybe you’ll have more success with the following (I don’t do fb.)
From www. Susan Wittig Albert
NYT Bestselling Author
about-susan-albert
Facebook Susan Albert Facebook Susan Albert Facebook China Bayles Pinterest Twitter Instagram goodreads Bookbub.com
from NLS/BARD/LOC:
The Darling Dahlias and the red hot poker DBC26982
Albert, Susan Wittig. Reading time: 8 hours, 38 minutes.
Read by Peggity Price.
Mystery and Detective Stories
Historical Mystery Fiction
“It’s Labor Day weekend, 1935, and members of the Darling Dahlias the garden club in little Darling, Alabama are trying to keep their cool at the end of a sizzling summer. This isn’t easy, though, since there’s a firebug on the loose in Darling. He or she! strikes without apparent rhyme or reason, and things have gotten to the point where nobody feels safe. What’s more, a dangerous hurricane is poised to hurl itself in Darling’s direction, while a hurricane of a different sort is making a whirlwind campaign stop: the much-loved-much-hated senator from Louisiana, Huey P. Long, whom President Roosevelt calls the “most dangerous man in America.” Add Ophelia Snow’s secret heartthrob, Liz Lacy’s Yankee lover, and the Magnolia Ladies’ garden of red hot pokers, fire-red salvia, and hot pink cosmos, and you have a volatile mix that might just burst into flames at any moment” Commercial audiobook. Adult. Some strong language.
Downloaded: July 14, 2023
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Comments Off on Kate’s 2¢: “Blood Test” by Jonathan Kellerman
Kate’s 2¢: “Blood Test” by Jonathan Kellerman
“Blood Test” by Jonathan Kellerman
Roy Avers is one of my favorite readers for NLS. He added a special touch to this story about a little boy with cancer and the family that is torn apart by moral and physical incest and corruption.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jonathan Seth Kellerman (born August 9, 1949) is an American novelist, psychologist, and Edgar- and Anthony Award–winning author best known for his popular mystery novels featuring the character Alex Delaware, a child psychologist who consults for the Los Angeles Police Department.[1]
Born on the Lower East Side of New York City, his family relocated to Los Angeles when Jonathan was nine years old.[2]
Kellerman graduated from the University of Southern California (USC) with a doctor of philosophy degree in psychology in 1974, and began working as a staff psychologist at the USC School of Medicine, where he eventually became a full clinical professor of pediatrics.[2] He opened a private practice in the early 1980s while writing novels in his garage at night.[3]
His first published novel, When the Bough Breaks, appeared in 1985, many years after writing and having works rejected. He then wrote five best-selling novels while still a practicing psychologist. In 1990, he quit his private practice to write full-time. He has written more than 40 crime novels, as well as nonfiction works and children’s books.[3]
From NLS/BARD/LOC:
Blood test DB55486
Kellerman, Jonathan. Reading time: 8 hours, 21 minutes.
Read by Roy Avers.
Mystery and Detective Stories
Psychological Fiction
California psychologist Dr. Alex Delaware handles the case of five-year-old cancer patient Woody Swope, whose parents deny treatment and remove him from the hospital. Dr. Delaware and detective Milo Sturgis trace the family to a holistic cult commune that harbors secrets. Explicit descriptions of sex, violence, and strong language. 1986.
Downloaded: July 28, 2023
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Kate’s 2¢: “Bloodline” by Jess Lourey
“Bloodline” by Jess Lourey
One of an author’s tools in the craft’s box is to use a fake name for a character, then, switch to the real name. It is one way to keep the reader guessing.
I enjoyed this story but did not quite believe what was happening. The “Mothers and Fathers” running of the town was shocking, to say the least.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jessica “Jess” Lourey (born 1970)[1] is an American author of crime, young adult, and magic realism novels, children’s books, and nonfiction books. She’s an Amazon Charts bestselling, Anthony, Minnesota Book Award, and ITW Thriller Award-winning author who’s also been shortlisted for an Edgar, Agatha, and Lefty.
Biography[edit]
Lourey was born in 1970, in Tacoma, Washington and presently lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.[1] She has two children.[1] Her husband, Jay, died of suicide shortly after their wedding, which prompted her creative writing career.[2]
In August 2016, she presented at the TEDxRapidCity event, where she “explores how everyone, not just authors, can use the power of fiction to transform.”[3]
Lourey has received a Master of Arts and Master of Science degree.[1] As of 2021, she taught at St. Cloud Technical and Community College for 11 years in the college’s Liberal Arts division.[4][5] There, she received The Loft’s Excellence in Teaching fellowship. She retired from teaching in August 2021 to pursue writing full-time.[6]
In addition to writing novels, Lourey is a blogger for Psychology Today[7] and hosts writing workshops.
From NLS/BARD/LOC:
Bloodline DB102121
Lourey, Jess. Reading time: 9 hours, 26 minutes.
Read by Lindsey Pierce.
Suspense Fiction
Psychological Fiction
In 1968, Minneapolis reporter Joan Harken–newly pregnant and shaken by a mugging–agrees to move with her boyfriend, Deck Schmidt, to his Minnesota hometown where his dad is mayor. But once in Lilydale, Joan slowly discovers the town’s dark side. Some violence, some strong language, and some explicit descriptions of sex. 2021.
Downloaded: July 28, 2023
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