Pages & Paws

Writing, Reading, and Rural Life With a Border Collie

Author Archives: Eowyn


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7 Summer Hits & Misses

Kimber the Magnificent: It’s summertime, summertime, sum-sum-summertime! Finally!!

The weekend forecast is for boatloads of sun and temperatures skimming the upper 80s/low 90s. That’s unusual here in the soggy pacific Northwest. But after months and months of drooling skies and overcast, Mom and I are ready for sunshine and warmer temps! Yea, Lassie!

One of us is so excited about summer that she’s been slacking on posting (Hi, Mom). So we’re gonna take care of that today, catching you up on what we’ve been reading.

We’re gonna include some Seriously Pawsome Reads and some Kitty Litter Box candidates. Seven in all. In no particular order.

Ready? Set? Let’s go!

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Teaser Tuesday: ‘Here, There Be Dragons’

Kimber’s Kommentary:

Hello and welcome to another Teaser Tuesday! As always I hope you’re well this Tuesday and loving on your four-legged friends (even if some of them are felines. Nobody’s perfect again.) We’re enjoying sunshine and some warmer weather. Finally. 


Here are the rules:

1: Grab your current read 2: Open to a random page 3: Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page that are SPOILER FREE.

Today’s Teaser Tuesday features The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica, Here, There Be Dragons. Written and illustrated by James A. Owen.

Ready? Great! Here we go!
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TEASER TUESDAY: Beyond the Stars

Hello and welcome to another Teaser Tuesday! As always, we hope you’re well this Tuesday and loving on your four-legged friends (even if some of them are felines. Nobody’s perfect.)

We’re enjoying sunshine and some warmer weather. Finally. 

Anyway, here’s how Teaser Tuesday works:

1) Grab your current read. 2) Open to a random page or two. 3) Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on those pages that are SPOILER FREE.

Today’s Teaser Tuesday features Beyond the Stars, by Doreen D. Berger.

Ready? Great! Here we go!

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Action Abounds in ‘Revenge on a Cruel World’

Revenge on a Cruel World by [Rick Clements]Revenge on a Cruel World

By Rick Clements

Via: Reedsy Discovery

Genre: Thriller

Summary:

If you thought the Great Depression was bad, think again. How about a computer theft by a mathematical genius that mangles the worldwide banking system, causes a financial tsunami, and threatens to topple governments around the globe?

That’s the main storyline in this fast-moving, action-packed novel.

Note: We received a complimentary digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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‘Stirring Up Love’ Serves Up Heaping Helping of Fun, Romance

Stirring Up Love

By Chandra Blumberg

Montlake Publishing, 2022

Via: Author Request

Release Date: July 26, 2022

Genre: Fiction – Romance/Humor

Pages: 372

Note: We received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Summary:

A sassy, saucy story about a feud-fueled romance where two rivals with a passion for food and community come together in ways they never expected.

Simone Blake and Finn Rimes are as different as it gets. Simone has just returned from a corporate stint in Chicago where everything went sideways. She’s inherited her grandfather’s barbecue restaurant, Honey and Hickory. Determined to make a go of it and prove that she’s a competent professional who knows what’s what, Simone plans to put her restaurant and her hometown on the map.

So does Finn Rimes. Only from a different angle. A chef thinking big, Finn dreams of opening his own culinary school.

Sparks soon fly like fireworks on the Fourth of July when Finn shows up on Sim’s turf – the local farmer’s market – to market his own brand of barbecue sauce and hopefully raise some cash for his would-be culinary school.

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‘Waterbury Winter’ Warms Hearts

Waterbury Winter

By Linda Stewart Henley

She Writes Press, 2022

Genre: Fiction

Note: We received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Summary: Two lost souls reach for love and second chances during a freezing New England Winter.

“The transformative value of art is in making the ordinary extraordinary.”

Basic Plot

It’s Christmas Eve. Barnaby Brown thinks back eighteen years when he lost his teaching job. His twin passions, painting and his wife Anna, also died that year. Now forty-five years old, a widower and an alcoholic, Barnaby’s working a dead-end job at the local hardware store.

Once a promising young artist, Barnaby has been on a downward spiral since loss and alcohol dragged him down. He’s lived a reclusive life after the deaths of his parents and his wife. He now prefers the company of his wise-cracking parrot, Popsicle, to companionship with other humans. Yearning to start over, Barnaby dreams of going to California and resurrecting his dreams of a painting career.

“It’s like painting. You have to reach beyond the vanishing point on the horizon for something important you can’t quite see, but know is there.”

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Gripping Suspense in ‘The Second Wife’

See the source imageThe Second Wife

By: Miranda Rijks

Via: Book Blog Tour

Publisher: Inkubator Books, 2022

Genre: Fiction: Psychological Thriller/Murder Mystery/Suspense

Note: We received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Summary:

When a down-on-her-luck violinist takes a menial job for a famous composer, she gets more than she bargained for in this intense and compelling murder mystery/suspense story.

Mia Benton is a former student at the Royal College of Music in London. Desperate for a job in the aftermath of a dark secret from her recent past, Mia takes a cleaning job at the residence of composer Robin Featherstone. Recently divorced, Robin’s new wife Tamsin is 25 years his junior. Tamsin’s not exactly thrilled with the new hire, to put it mildly.

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Holmes & Watson at Top of Their Game in ‘Murder in Keswick’

Murder in Keswick

A Sherlock Homes Mystery

By William Todd

SpellBound Books, 2022

Genre: Fiction/Mystery/Suspense

Via: Book Blog Tour

Note: We received a complimentary digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

“The game is afoot.” It’s the catch phrase for literature’s most famous detective. And there are plenty of twists, turns and “gaming” going on in William Todd’s delightful page-turner, Murder in Keswick.

Told in the third person by Dr. Watson, the story opens aboard a train bound for Keswick, England in 1898. Disembarking, the duo soon learns that a well-respected resident of the area has turned up dead. And while Watson is looking forward to a relaxing holiday in the bucolic countryside, Holmes quips that nothing is more relaxing than solving a murder, even if he’s informed that “this sort of thing never happens here.”

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‘Here, There Be Dragons’ Ignites Imagination

The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica:

Here, There Be Dragons

Written and illustrated by James A. Owen

Simon & Schuster, 2006

Genre: Fiction: Fantasy/Young Adult

Pages: 324

“There’s a very strange man outside, said Jack…’

One of us is totally kicking herself for not finding this book sooner.

“Good thing one of my brothers sent this to Her Momness for Mother’s Day,” spake I, Kimber the Magnificent. “Otherwise, Mom would still be clueless. Cuz this book is a bibliophile’s treasure trove. It’s just Too. Much Fun! Ya know. Like me. So way to go, bro!”

Here’s more:

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The Best Book We’ve Read All Year?

Wonder Dogs

True Stories of Extraordinary Assistance Dogs

By Maureen Maurer with Jenna Benton

Publisher: Revell, 2021

Genre: Non-Fiction, Inspirational, Dogs

Pages: 229

Via: Author Request

“Mom! Mom!” hollers I, Kimber the Magnificent. “Can I invite some friends over for a sleepover??!! They’re these Seriously PAWsome dogs from Assistance Dogs of Hawaii. They’re my new BFFs! There’s only a couple hundred or so. Can I? Can I? Huh? Huh? Um… Mom…?”

“She’s keeled over. So maybe I better tell you about how I met my new BFFs. Like when Mom and I recently read Wonder Dogs: True Stories of Extraordinary Assistance Dogs.”

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