Spotlight on In It for the Money by David Burnsworth

Read an excerpt: Chapter One Lowcountry, South Carolina, early June, Thursday morning The old rotary phone sitting on the desk refused to ring. No matter how much Blu Carraway wanted it to. He looked out the window of his makeshift office at the surrounding marsh and sighed. Crumpled up in his right hand was the latest tax assessment, in his left was an electronic cigarette. Without thinking, he took a hit off the vaporizer, which replaced Camels as his only vice. Well, that and pirated satellite TV. And still the receiver remained silent. One more good job. It was all he needed. Then Charleston County would be happy for another year, and he’d get to keep his little island home. Just. One. Good. Job. The hula girl on his desk a Desert Storm buddy had given him when he first hung out his PI shingle bobbled at him as if to say, “How long did you think you could keep this up, tough guy?” He swatted her off the...
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The Haunted Season by G. M. Malliet

I skipped #4 in the Max Tudor series, mostly because Father Max was getting married and having a baby and I just didn't want to read about the new family, but I just couldn't pass up the cover for The Haunted Season. Apparently I didn't need to worry about the baby. He is so well-behaved and calm and peaceful that he barely causes a ripple in Max's life. And I guess I shouldn't be surprised, his mother after all is nearly perfect and a healer to boot. Hmm, that sounded meaner than I meant it to. I don't dislike Awena, and in all honestly she's not in much of this book. Lord Baaden-Boomethistle is our deceased, decapitated by a wire strung between two trees while he was out riding his horse. We've got several suspects, mostly members of his family. There are a couple clues, a few secrets, and of course Max manages to put it all together, with some help from...
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State of the ARC – October

State of the ARC is hosted by Avalinah's Books and the goal is to help track your ARC progress! I have a bad habit of requesting/accepting way more books than I should, so I thought this might be fun to try. If you want to join in, head over to Avalinah's Books and link up. I actually meant to have this post up a few days ago, but it didn't pull together as easy as I'd hoped. Today is my baseline, next month I'll note what I added to/knocked off the list. On the older Netgalley titles, I'm only counting the ones I've downloaded in the last year, because let's be honest, is there much chance of me reading ones that I picked up before then? And if I included the older ones, the number of overdue reads would be unmanageable. It would total over 100. October State of the ARC Infogram One of my current reads is an ARC I got months ago. This...
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My Favorite . . Book Mom

My Favorite.. is a weekly meme hosted by Maureen’s Books. In this meme we share every week something we love with each other. Because let’s face it.. The world can be a dark place and it’s time to share something positive. For more info: My Favorite Meme. There are a lot of great book moms. Some are warm, some strong, some misunderstood, some doing their best in a given situation, but I don't have many favorites. In all honesty, I tend to avoid books featuring kids, which means I don't see women characters in their mom roles very often. It's been a while since I've read Room by Emma Donoghue and it was not one of my favorite books, but Ma deserves a place in the best book moms list. She was kidnapped and raped repeatedly, held captive and had a child, but she loves her son, Jack, with all her heart and does everything she can to help him be happy,...
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Reader’s Workouts – 10/3

Wow, my steps have been lousy lately. And I don't think this week is going to be any better. This week's activities: Wednesday- Pilates Thursday - Elliptical Meal ideas for next week: Pork chops with plums Curried Chicken and butternut squash Chicken and mushroom soup Fried rice Sloppy Joe Year Fitness Goals: - Lose weight. Goal - Lose 26 lbs. (Currently at -11.2) - Run 2 5ks, 1 10K and 1 half. Completed - 1 10K; 1 5K - Hit my weekly step goal (56,000 steps) for 48 weeks. Weeks completed: 29 How was your week? Readers’ Workouts is hosted by Joy at Joy’s Book Blog....
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#FrightFall Readathon

The FrightFall Readathon started yesterday and lasts all month this time around. From Seasons of Reading: Just remember...the one main "rule" of FrightFall is that you must read at least ONE scary book (which can be a thriller, mystery, Gothic novel, or similar for those who are faint of heart). Since we are doing a month long, I hope you will indulge the scary a bit more, but that is entirely up to you. It is all about the reading after all. Our social media hashtag is #FrightFall and we have our outstanding Facebook group which has become quite the reading community. I think I'm just going to keep track of the books I've read on this post. I may also post updates on Twitter or Instagram. Books Finished: Oct 6: Death at Breakfast by Beth Gutcheon Oct 8: Slade House by David Mitchell Scared to Death by Matthew Costello and Neil Richards Oct 14: The Case of the Cursed Dodo by Jake G. Panda Oct 21: Bones to Pick by Linda Lovely Oct 23: Meddling...
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