Carol's Notebook – Page 428

Thursday’s Tale: The Princess and the Pea

May 9, 2013May 8, 2013 by Carol6 Comments

I've talked about "The Princess and the Pea" before, but in the delightful You Read to Me, I'll Read to You by Mary Ann Hoberman, we get a different look at the story. We get to hear a bit from the pea, who states, I stayed up the whole night through, Squished and squashed Because of you. The adorable princess sees the pea's point of view and thinks it would be a grand thing for the pea to be the stone in her wedding ring. You Read to Me, I'll Read to You: Very Short Fairy Tales to Read Together is cute book to read aloud with your beginning reader. Eight standard fairy tales are featured, including Cinderella, The Three Bears, and Little Red Riding Hood, and each tale, or portion of the tale, is set up as a poem to be read by two readers. I picture reading it with a child, but two children might enjoy reading it together too. One person's part is to...

Audiobook Review: I’ve Got Your Number by Sophie Kinsella

May 8, 2013May 7, 2013 by Carol9 Comments

Title: I've Got Your Number Author: Sophie Kinsella Reader: Jayne Entwistle Category: Romance- Contemporary Audio Published: February 14, 2012 by Random House Audio Rating: 2½ out of 5 stars Add: Goodreads Purchase: Amazon | Book Depository | IndieBound Poppy Wyatt has never felt luckier. She is about to marry her ideal man, Magnus Tavish, but in one afternoon her "happily ever after" begins to fall apart. Not only has she lost her engagement ring in a hotel fire drill but in the panic that follows, her phone is stolen. As she paces shakily around the lobby, she spots an abandoned phone in a trash can. Finders keepers! Now she can leave a number for the hotel to contact her when they find her ring. Perfect! Well, perfect except that the phone's owner, businessman Sam Roxton, doesn't agree. He wants his phone back and doesn't appreciate Poppy reading his messages and wading into his personal life. What ensues is a hilarious and unpredictable turn of events as Poppy and Sam...

Review: Ladd Springs by Dianne Venetta

May 7, 2013June 7, 2013 by Carol8 Comments

Title: Ladd Springs Author: Dianne Venetta Category: Romance/Suspense Published: April 9, 2013 by Bloomin Thyme Press Rating: 3½ out of 5 stars Add: Goodreads Purchase: Amazon Delaney Wilkins finds herself at odds with hotel developer Nick Harris over a deathbed promise and a mysterious find in the forest. Both are after title to Ladd Springs, a mecca of natural springs, streams and trails in the eastern Tennessee mountains, a tract of land worth millions. But Ernie Ladd, current owner of the property and uncle to Delaney, is adamantly opposed to them both. Felicity Wilkins, Delaney’s daughter, deserves to inherit her family’s legacy, but neighbor Clem Sweeney is working against her, ingratiating himself with Ernie Ladd. Clem is also harboring a secret that will make him a very wealthy man—unless the others stop him before he can bring it to fruition. Complicating matters is Annie Owens. Ex-girlfriend to Jeremiah Ladd, Ernie’s estranged son living in Atlanta, she declares her daughter Casey is Jeremiah’s, making Casey every bit as entitled to the property...

Guest post by Linda J. White: The Real-life Roots of “Seeds of Evidence”

May 7, 2013May 15, 2013 by Carol1 Comment

Today I'm happy to welcome Linda J. White to tell us a little about what inspired her to write Seeds of Evidence. The Real-life Roots of Seeds of Evidence She was an attractive woman, middle-aged, with brown eyes and brown skin and a quick smile. A visitor from India, she spoke no English, and so I heard her story through a translator. Asha was originally from an impoverished family in Nepal. In her teens she met a woman who told her she could get Asha work as a domestic in Mumbai. It would be a way out of hopeless poverty. She would make enough money to send some back to Nepal to help her family. And so Asha decided to follow this stranger south. In Mumbai, Asha discovered a future far different from the one she expected. She was taken to the red light district. She had been brought there to be a prostitute. Of course she protested. She struggled and fought. But five women...

Thursday’s Tale: The Girl Who Always Cried

May 3, 2013 by Carol5 Comments

When I saw the title of this Native American tale from Canada, "The Girl Who Always Cried," I picture a girl always sorrowful, who couldn't stop her tears. I was wrong. The girl is just self-centered and always crying and complaining because she can't have every single thing she wants. She was adopted, the only child of a couple. Nearby, on the bank of a stream, lived the Owl-Man. He was a strange man who lived in the forest and was always silent when around others. He ate toads, frogs and flies. Because he was so odd, rumors were spread that he was cruel evil. Parents, including the girl's, would threaten their children that if they didn't behave Owl-man would take them away. The girl's parents were so tired of her whining and complaining that the man of the house wished aloud that the Owl-man would come and take her away. But this old man was a magician and the Owl-man did...

Audiobook Review: The Golden Egg by Donna Leon

May 1, 2013May 20, 2013 by Carol3 Comments

Title: The Golden Egg (Commissario Brunetti #22) Author: Donna Leon Reader: David Rintoul Category: Mystery - Police Procedural Audio published: April 30, 2013 by AudioGo Rating: 4 out of 5 stars Add: Goodreads Purchase: Amazon | Book Depository | IndieBound In The Golden Egg, as the first leaves of autumn begin to fall, Vice Questore Patta asks Brunetti to look into a minor violation committed by the mayor’s future daughter-in-law. Brunetti has no interest in helping his boss amass political favors, but he has little choice but to comply. Then Brunetti’s wife, Paola, comes to him with a request of her own. The mentally handicapped man who worked at their dry cleaners has just died of a sleeping pill overdose, and Paola loathes the idea that he lived and died without anyone noticing him, or helping him. To please his wife, Brunetti investigates the death, and is surprised to find nothing on the man: no birth certificate, no passport, no driver’s license, no credit cards. As far as the Italian government is...