Dragon print
Amber made this print in her art class at school. They're out for summer now, so she brought home a couple of the things they had done over the year....
Review: Overture to Death by Ngaio Marsh
Ngaio Marsh is another new discovery for me, thanks again to the Vintage Mystery Challenge. She is one of the four original "Queens of Crime" along with Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham, and Agatha Christie, British authors who dominated the crime fiction genre in the 1920s and 30s.
Overture to Death was first published 1939, and is therefore dated, but in a charming way that doesn't detract from the basic mystery, which is as good a cozy as any I've read lately. It's an English Village mystery, where the inspector from Scotland yard is called in to investigate a murder in a small town. There are a limited number of suspects, and everyone in town has their own secrets and motives.
In this case, Inspector Alleyn, Marsh's series character, is called to Chipping after a spinster is murdered. The lead-up to the murder is very well-done. A charity play is being planned and all the character, eventually suspects, are involved in it....
Her Storm (flash fiction)
Image: Luis Royo
Her Storm
353 words
Frederick could feel his father's glare on his back, his mother's worry. Neither would approve of the woman he was marrying today. Alas, they were dead. He was king now, and he knew that the woman standing beside him would be useful. It was not a beneficial union, according to his advisors. Elane was not a noble, she was not a political asset. Few would even consider her beautiful, her long chestnut hair untamed, her features angular, her body too thin to be considered lovely, but those icy eyes were piercing and her lilting accent mesmerizing.
Frederick was not a fool. He knew Elane did not love him, probably resented him, but after what he had witnessed last week, he had no choice. He had been at the summer manor, walking through the parched fields, when he had seen her on the ridge. She raised her hands to the sky, and clouds began to form, dark grey...
Armchair BEA- Friday
Today's Armchair BEA topic is: Blogging about Blogging
Blogging for me needs to be a pleasure, not a source of stress. I tend to keep my schedule fairly loose, probably too much so. Actually I saw a post earlier today about how she keeps her calendar that I think I might borrow from, a little more organization could certainly help me.
But I do blog for enjoyment. I love reading and like to share my thoughts. I'm just pleased that others take the time to read them and comment. My blog, I will admit, tends to veer off course fairly often into un-book-related territory. I post pictures, talk about things like shoes or my family, write bits of fiction. In a way, I guess, it's a reflection of my life. Books are a part of it, the part I share the most often, but I can't keep out the rest.
Since this is the last day of Armchair BEA, I want to thank...
Friday’s Tale: The Fountain of Youth (Japan)
Image credit: Baxley Stamps
My husband and daughter went to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean last weekend. I passed because, to be honest, the fish people in the last two ust freaked me out, and I had heard there were zombies in this, another creature I'm not very found. Apparently I should have gone, but that's beside the point. From what I understand, part of the movie involves the Fountain of Youth, which is what made me choose this Japanese fairy tale to feature today.
"The Fountain of Youth" opens with a fairy stale standard, an poor, elderly, childless couple. One day the old man goes out into the forest, another staple in fairy tales, but finds a little spring he has never seen before. After drinking from it, he becomes a young man again, strong with a full head of hair. He rushes home. His wife is at first afraid of him, a stranger, but he eventually convinces her...