Spotlight: Cracks in the Sidewalk by Bette Lee Crosby

by CarolNo Comments
About Cracks in the Sidewalk: A powerful story that is a heart-wrenching reminder of how fragile relationships can be. Cracks in the Sidewalk is based on a true story. Claire McDermott is a wife, a mother, a grandmother... Her only daughter is gravely ill... Her son-in-law is resentful and angry... Her grandchildren are missing... After years of writing letters, hoping to find the children, hoping to bring them back, Claire receives a reply...a dog-eared gray envelope is stuffed into her mailbox, but will it bring hope or simply put an end to the waiting? Can a single letter change the lives of four people? Claire McDermott and her grandchildren are about to discover letters are a journey of the heart which can ultimately deliver people to their destination. Reviews for Cracks in the Sidewalk: "Elizabeth is a woman whose sole purpose in life is to be a good wife and mother. She has no care in the world but to accomplish these goals and she...
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Fitness Tuesday

by Carol5 Comments
Here's my plan, more or less. Since last check-in, I finished Week 5 and am starting Week 6. Tuesday, David and I lifted weights at home for half an hour, focusing on arms. Wednesday I did the 60 minutes on a recumbent bike, mostly because I can read on my Kindle when I do it. I have to have my priorities, right? Thursday I ran 2 miles on Main St while hoping it wouldn't rain. My average pace was 10:33 min/mile. Saturday I ran the 4.5 miles on Main St in the evening. It was getting a little dark while I was finishing up, but we have decent streetlights. Well, there's one darkish area, but it doesn't last long and it's on a residential road, so not too much traffic. After I got back I tested the SOS function on my watch. If I press the button continuously for I think it's 5 seconds, it sends a text to David with a "Carol needs...
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Review: The Art Whisperer by Charlotte and Aaron Elkins

by Carol6 Comments
Title: The Art Whisperer (Alix London #3) Authors: Charlotte and Aaron Elkins Published: August 19, 2014 by Thomas Mercer Genre: Mystery Rating: 3 out of 5 stars Add: Goodreads Purchase: Amazon | Book Depository | Audible When art conservator Alix London spots a forgery, she knows trouble will follow. So she’s understandably apprehensive when her connoisseur’s eye spots something off about a multimillion-dollar Jackson Pollock painting at Palm Springs’s Brethwaite Museum—her current employer. Alix is already under fire, the object of a vicious online smear campaign. Now the Brethwaite’s despicable senior curator, obsessed with the “maximization of monetized eyeballs,” angrily refuses to decommission the celebrated Pollock piece. But it’s only when a hooded intruder attacks Alix in her hotel room that the real trouble begins. And when FBI Special Agent Ted Ellesworth—with whom Alix had inadvertently, but thoroughly, botched a budding relationship just a year prior—turns up to investigate the Pollock, Alix knows she’s about to have her hands full. In her third mystery, Alix London must see...
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Thursday’s Tale: The Most Sensitive Woman

by Carol7 Comments
"The Most Sensitive Woman" is a tale from Italy retold by Christian Schneller in Märchen und Sagen aus Wälschtirol. I read the version on D. L. Ashliman's site. It's from the South Tyrol region in Northern Italy, an area with close historical and cultural ties to Austria. It's similar to "The Princess and the Pea" - you'll see why. Once upon a time there was a prince. (Isn't there always?) His parents want him to get married, but he states he would only marry the most sensitive woman in the world. His parents say fine, go out and find her. The thing is by sensitive he doesn't mean attuned to others feelings, he apparently means someone who feels pain easily, which really doesn't seem like the best quality to seek in a wife. The first lady he meets has her head wrapped up because her maid had pulled out a single hair when she was brushing her hair that morning. The prince decides she's...
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Audiobook Review: The Devil’s Workshop by Alex Grecian

by Carol8 Comments
Title: The Devil's Workshop (The Murder Squad #3) Author: Alex Grecian Narrator: John Curless Published: May 20, 2014 by Penguin Audio Genre: Mystery Rating: 2 out of 5 stars Add: Goodreads Purchase: Amazon | Book Depository | Audible London, 1890. Four vicious murderers have escaped from prison, part of a plan gone terribly wrong, and now it is up to Walter Day, Nevil Hammersmith, and the rest of Scotland Yard’s Murder Squad to hunt down the convicts before the men can resume their bloody spree. But they might already be too late. The killers have retribution in mind, and one of them is heading straight toward a member of the Murder Squad, and his family. And that isn’t even the worst of it. During the escape, the killers have stumbled upon the location of another notorious murderer, one thought gone for good but now prepared to join forces with them. Jack the Ripper is loose in London once more. I've mentioned before that my ratings are entirely subjective. It's my reaction...
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