Pages & Paws

Writing, Reading, and Rural Life With a Border Collie

Category Archives: Read


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BATTER UP! 10 Summer Hits & Misses

Woof-hoo! It’s summer time, summer time, sum-sum, summer time! Doo-whop, doo-whop.

Kimber here. Mom and I are celebrating August with something a little special. I was lobbying for filet mignon. But nooooo! Mom decided on a quick run-down on recently read titles. To save you some time. So you can avoid the clunkers. And enjoy the goodies.

Public domain

And hey. What’s summer without baseball, right? So I suggested we categorize titles as either Hits and Misses or as Strike Outs and Home Runs. Brilliant huh? (Mom helped a little. But it was mostly me.)

So here are five kinds of each book. Five duds. As in, swing-from-the-heels strike-outs and don’t waste your time. And five awesome-dawsome, tail-wagging, bonafide home runs. (One is somewhere in the middle, depending on which bat you choose.)

So… batter up!

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New Historical Fiction Reveals Lesser-Known Chapter of Southwest History

The Apache Kid: Army Apache Scout

By W. Michael Farmer (Hat Creek, June 2025)

Genre: Historical Fiction

Pages: 312

Via: Book Blog Tour

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

From Army Scout to Outlaw, from Hero to Legend.

This is the story of a gifted man “suspended on a cross between two cultures” who became the best army Apache scout and the most feared outlaw in the southwest borderlands. And then disappeared.

Apache Kid opens in Aravaipa, Arizona in May 1871. Young Ohyessonna (“Hears something in the night”) is living with his family.

He survives the embers of the fires and murders at the Camp Grant Massacre of Apaches. Young Has-kay-bay-nay-ntayl (“brave and tall and will come to a mysterious end”) is known by many names growing up. But growing up in two cultures means choosing between loyalty and betrayal, choosing between his people and their overseers.

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‘Outside the Law’ Hits a Bull’s Eye

Outside the Law

How an Ex-Cop Became America’s Most Prolific Bank Robber Since John Dillinger

By Mark Ogden and Paul Ogden (Amazon, June 2025)

Genre: Non-Fiction

Pages (Print): 245

Via: Author Request

“You do not see me. I am invisible!”

Mom! Mom! barketh I, Kimber the Magnificent. Dancing my patented Kimber Canine Jig. Tail wagging a mile a minute.

Mom: What’s up, Kimster?

Kimber: It’s a mega doughnut alert!

Mom: Doughnut alert? What the heck are you barking about, Kimmi?

Kimber: Oh, c’mon Mom! I’m talking about that new book we just finished. The one about the ex-Marine, ex-cop, ex-attorney who becomes a super-duper bank robber dude. It’s a four-alarm, honest-to-goodness humdinger of a doughnut alert.

Mom rolleth her eyes-eth.

Kimber: No, really. It goes like this:

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‘The Story She Left Behind’ & A Little Bit of Pixie Dust…

The Story She left Behind

By Patti Callahan Henry (Atria Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, 2025)

Genre: Fiction/Historical Fiction

Pages (print): 339

Via: Library

Talith: When the sky breaks open; transformation that changes you into who you are meant to be; into your very essence.

Kimber: I won’t grow up,
(I won’t grow up)
I don’t want to go to school.
(I don’t want to go to school)
Just to learn to be a parrot,
(Just to learn to be a parrot)
And recite a silly rule.
(And recite a silly rule)…

Mom: Kimmi, what in the world are you doing?

Kimber: I’m putting that book we just finished to music. You know. That one you said was – and I quote: “One of the most remarkable historical fiction/fantasy novels I’ve read in years.”

Mom: Oh. You mean Patti Callahan Henry’s The Story She Left Behind?

Kimber: Bingo! Now step away from the pixie dust and tell the peeps about this Totally PAWsome book already.

Mom: Roger that. Here goes:

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DOUBLE the Fun With These 2 Thrillers

Two thriller/suspense novels set in The Great Outdoors. By two different authors. One’s set in the Cowboy State. The other, Big Sky Country. One is by an outdoor/Western author we know well. The author is by someone we’ve heard of before. Both pack a wallop. Here’s why:

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Why This Book Left One of Us Speechless

Strangers in Time

By David Baldacci (Grand Central Publishing, 2025)

Genre: Historical Fiction

Via: Library

Pages (Print): 431

Kimber here. Telling you to hold on to your kibble. Or whatevs. Cuz Her Momness and I? We just finished one of them thar “barn burner” thingies. It’s historical fiction. Set in an oft-overlooked epoch. By an author who’s not exactly known for historical fiction. But this fella? Even though David Baldacci’s an acclaimed, best-selling author of action/thriller tomes, he doggone outdogg-ies his-self with Strangers in Time.

I know. I’m adorable.

I’ll let Mom tell ya more:

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For the 4th: Stand Up & Cheer With This AMAZING True Story of Courage & Hope

Back in the Game:
One Gunman, Countless Heroes, and the Fight For My Life

By Congressman Steve Scalise with Jeffrey E. Stern (Hatchette Book Group, 2018)

Genre: Non-Fiction

Via: Library

Pages (print): 281

That one small entry wound belied a massive, mostly internal hemorrhage that was about to kill me. I’d be dead in a matter of minutes, unless someone with some kind of x-ray vision happened to show up and was somehow able to see all the bleeding that couldn’t be seen. I needed a miracle.

In gripping You Are There fashion, Back in the Game tells what happened when one man opened fire at a baseball practice for Republican members of Congress on the morning of June 14, 2014, wounding five and nearly killing one: Louisiana congressman and House Majority Whip Steve Scalise. And how Scalise fought his way back to the people’s House.

It’s Scalise’s moment by moment account of not only what happened to him, but of those who emerged in the seconds after the shooting began and worked to save his life and the lives of his colleagues and teammates when a lone gunman attempted the greatest political assassination in U.S. history.

The gunman came within a hair’s breadth of succeeding.

Kimber: Let me just say right out of the kennel that Back in the Game is a book about heroes. Like:

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Surprised in Spades by ‘Legends of the North Cascades’

Legends of the North Cascades

By Jonathan Evison (Algonquin Books, 2021)

Genre: Fiction

Pages (print): 338

Via: Library

Ever grab a book that surprised the stuffin’ outta you? You thought it was about one thing. But it turned out to be something else entirely?

That happened to Her Royal Momness and I the other day. Swooping into The Book Place, Mom only had about five minutes to snatch some new-to-her titles off the shelves. So, cuz she loves the Northwest and the Cascades are like, Totally Pawesome, she took a chance on an unfamiliar title and an author we’ve never heard of.

When the cloak of night descended, and they were awash in the light of the stars, spattered cold and white across the bowl of night, the world seemed all at once larger and more mysterious.

Were we ever surprised. Like this:

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Book Review: Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith

Paperback Grace (eventually) - Thoughts On Faith Book

Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith

By Anne Lamott

Riverhead Books, 2007.

We were going to write a review of Anne Lamott’s autobiographical collection of nearly two dozen essays and reflections, Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith.  No, really.  We were.  We have four pages of notes to prove it- double-sided!  Then we thought we’d just to the chase.  So here it is:

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New MG Sci Fi a Kick in the Pants

Rieden Reece and the Dark Shadow

By Matt Guzman (Mindfast Publishing, July 2025)

Genre: Middle Grade/YA Fantasy

Pages (Kindle): 257

Via: Author Request

“We’ve got a million things to do and ten seconds to do them.”

Rieden Reece is busy. He must save his big bro. His Mom. Himself. And rescue humanity from AI “integration” (think The Borg). As in, the fate of the world hangs in the balance. So no pressure, broseph in this delightful and uber absorbing sci fi adventure for middle grade readers and up.

Here’s the 4-1-1:

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