Review: The Hanging Wood by Martin Edwards

by Carol6 Comments
The Hanging Wood is a good detective story, but wasn't outstanding for me. It's the 5th in the Lake District Mystery series and maybe I missed out by not having read any of the previous. Hannah Scarlett is the head of Cumbria's Cold Case Review Team. The case this time is that of a teenage boy who disappeared 20 years ago. His uncle was suspected of killing the boy and he hung himself, which everyone at the time assumed meant he was guilty. The case was brought up again by the boy's sister, Orla Payne, who makes a drunken call to the Cold Case team and soon after is found dead in a grain silo. Hannah takes up the investigation, revealing secrets about the local rich family. She's aided by Greg, a member of her team, and Daniel Kind a historian who I believe is also one of the recurring characters in the series. The book started slowly for me; it took...
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“A New Dawn”

by Carol9 Comments
"A New Dawn" 373 words "Come," she whispered in my ear. I hadn't heard her approach, the sound of her steps masked by the noise of the marketplace, crowded even in the evening. She breezed past me, her black robes brushing my arm, smooth, silky, cool. She pulled back the flap of a tent at the end of a row. I followed her in, hit by the fragrance of cassia, and something else underlying it, something musky that I couldn't place. The woman turned to me, the candles' light reflecting in her eyes, the flickering flames leaving the corners of the tent in shadow. She picked up a bottle that shimmered with greens and purples and held it toward me. "One hundred sheckles, and you'll forget it all." Expensive, but I was here for that freedom. I had searched out this beautiful, dangerous woman knowing she was the only one who made the potion, or at least the only one who worked for herself...
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Guest Post: Debra Brenegan, author of Shame the Devil

by Carol4 Comments
I'd like to welcome Debra Brenegan, author of Shame the Devil, to my notebook today. Learn about history by reading historical fiction By Debra Brenegan By profession, besides being a writer, I am a teacher. Frankly, one of the reasons I chose to write my historical novel Shame the Devil was because I wanted to teach people about Fanny Fern, a trailblazing nineteenth-century journalist, novelist and feminist who has been largely forgotten.  I did enough research to write a biography about her, but I wanted to convey all of the wondrous information I discovered about Fern to as many people as possible. What better vehicle than a historical novel, right? But, does reading historical fiction really count as learning history? According to a survey by the Center for Survey Research and Analysis at the University of Connecticut, professors believe 81 percent of college seniors are at a D or F grade level when it comes to American history. Teachers lament these statistics and search...
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Thursday’s Tale: “Godfather Death” by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm

by Carol4 Comments
Image source: SurLaLune Fairy Tales Today I'm returning to the Grimms' tales, although "Godfather Death" is a new one to me. The story's about a poor man with a whole batch of kids. When his 13th arrives, he went out to the road to find a godfather for the child. Can you guess who he ends up picking? He turned down God's offer, because God "givest to the rich, and leavest the poor to hunger." He turns down the devil with his usual enticement of  riches and earthly pleasure, because Satan "deceivest men and leadest them astray." Then along comes Death and the father decides that Death will be the perfect godfather for his son, since Death "takest the rich as well as the poor, without distinction." So, with Death as his godfather, the boy grows up. One day, the godfather appears to the young man and gives him his gift. He will make the young man a famous physician. When the young...
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Review: The Butterfly Cabinet by Bernie McGill

by Carol14 Comments
The Butterfly Cabinet is engrossing. I was drawn into these two women's stories of being a woman, a mother, a wife. Inspired by a true story of the death of the daughter of an aristocratic Irish family at the end of the nineteenth century,the story of four year-old Charlotte's death is told by two narrators. The first is Maddie, an old woman living in a nursing home. She is telling the story of the history of the family to Anna, who would have been Charlotte's niece. Maddie doles out the secrets and misdeeds that happened 70 years before, when she was a young teenage servant at the big house. She also gives Anna a diary that belonged to Harriet, Charlotte's mother. Harriet was arrested and tried for killing the girl and spent a year in prison. Entries in her diary from that time alternate with Maddie's chapters. I was riveted by the story from the first chapter. Maddie remembers so clearly what...
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