A few thoughts
So, for the last few days, while the rain was falling I am a little ashamed to admit that rather than curling up with my favorite books and the new ones, too, I have been binge watching TV shows through Amazon Prime and Netflix.
And it started me thinking a little bit about how much things have changed even as they have stayed the same. We hardly ever think about the constant access we have to one another these days or how much information is shared constantly between us.
Another concept occurred to me as well. I have a little bit of an obsession that I’ve had since my early teens. That obsession is a comic book series called elfquest and the way that I got involved with that comic book series was kind of a fluke. I was on a road trip with my best friend’s family to Hilton Head and once we got there I took my book that I was reading in the car and had brought with me to read it the beach and read it at the beach while we were sunbathing. This had an unintended consequence, since I was reading I was laying on my stomach all day while we were at the beach and by the time that we left my back had passed the color red and it’s sunburn on the way to the color purple. I took an ice bath once we got back to where we were staying but that wasn’t enough for this particular burn and aloe and laying on my stomach was not cutting it either So eventually the decision was made that I was going to return home and so I had to ride from where we were staying to the airport I had finished my book that I had brought with me for the trip and it was a pretty long drive to the airport so I looked everywhere in the car and found the first graphic novel for elfquest that my best friend’s little brother had brought along to read on the trip. I didn’t really like comic books and I couldn’t imagine that anything could possibly dull the amount of pain that I was in but it was a long ride and I decided to give this graphic novel a chance. I got to page 87 in the book and as soon as my parents picked me up at the airport I demanded that we stopped at a bookstore and pick up the book so that I could finish it. As I convalesced from my own stupidity in getting burned so badly I entered the world of Two Moons and voraciously ate all eight of the graphic novels that has been released at that point. this started my love of elfQuest and through the years I’ve enjoyed every single comic book manga book poster figurine t-shirt and anything else that you can think of that is involved with elfquest. Were that trip to happen today I do not know that I would have ever discovered elfquest because I would have been able to download a different book to entertain me on that drive to the airport and I would have missed out on one of the few things that have been consistent in my life my love of Elf Quest
But I started thinking about TV shows. These days there are a few different ways we get our TV. There are the network (public, cable, and premium) shoes that we still watch as they are released weekly. There are the entertainment providers like Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu that release an entire season at once. Add in that the way we have watched TV has drastically changed and the younger me would have been shocked at all if it.
When I was a kid, we had family dinners that had to be over in time for my dad to watch a business show. And then depending on the night, we would either all go our seperately ways, sometimes watching TV sometimes not and then we would come together to watch certain shows as a family. Sometimes we watched Dallas although that was not one of my families staples. We watched Dynasty and LA Law religiously. It did not matter what else was happening in the world outside our living room. This was family time and we would discuss these shows in between episodes too. They were a part of our lives, one without a pause or rewind function and if you missed an episode you missed it.
Today you can watch any episodes of any show on any device. If there is a show we all watch, like Game of Thrones, we discuss it on social media almost immediately… Some of us talk during the episode.
Even if there is a show we all watch, the experience is of our choosing. We choose whether to watch it live on the tv or later on a dvr–we choose whether to binge watch over a weekend or closer to each series shows broadcast. We choose who to watch with or even how we will watch together.
I remember when the Disney Channel was first to be added into the world and Nickelodeon and HBO. I remember when it was questioned what these Channels could possibly offer that wasn’t already out there. Now the most basic of television packages comes with more channels than we know what to do with.
The question is are we better off? And my answers are as esoteric as they are necessary. I love being able to communicate with my family and friends 24/7 and yet we are far less connected to each other. We don’t have much anticipation or time for speculation these days until we get to the end of the season and our waits for answers are much longer.
As I watch my kids with their headphones and tablets. I think of how much things have changed and I wonder if our interconnectedness is a gift or a burden…
And then I turn on the read to me function in Google play books, put my headphones on and travel to whichever world I have chosen.
But in the back of my hand I wonder how many of those unexpected Treasures my children have missed simply because they have a hub of entertainment in their hands and thus no reason to read a friend’s little brothers comic book. And then I wonder how many I’ve missed in The Last 5 Years since I too carry my library of thousands of books around with me.
My response to a cousin who had a baby last night
Welcome to the wild, wondrous,wearying, delightful whimsical, terrifying, miraculous, frustrating, infuriating, blessed time of your life called parenting. Every day something will surprise you. You will be faced with challenges unimaginable, asked questions that you cannot answer and filled with joy and love. Each day you will think your heart has filled to bursting, and every day you will love him just a little bit more. There will be times that break your heart because you cannot take his hurts from him. There will be lessons he must learn for himself and that will kill you inside. He will now be the very first thing you think of upon opening your eyes and the last you think of as you go to sleep. His happiness, his struggles, his needs, his battles will be your first priority. Even before your own,his needs will now be paramount over anything else in your life. There will be days that will seem unending as well as days that go by way too fast. Sometimes it will feel as though you can do nothing right and other days you will feel like a superhero from just one smile. You may think you are prepared and with all your experience with your younger siblings you are a step ahead. You have joined a club that can be incredibly easy to enter (as evidenced by MTV’s teen mom) but incredibly difficult to excel at. There will be days where you feel as if you are failing as a parent and days when you feel great joy as your child achieves even the smallest thing. This wisdom has been hard won and yet it is freely given.
[Top]Happy Book Birthday to Kelley Armstrong
So, I did my happy dance about two hours ago, when my copy of Rituals hit my google play library. I’ve been posting a lot recently about the giveaways leading up to this, the final installment in Cainsville. For those of you wondering what on g-ds green earth is she talking about, I will try to explain.
Kelley Armstrong gained fame and notoriety with her women of the otherworld series. It started with Bitten, the story of Elena Micheals the only female werewolf. The series was exceptionally different as each book followed different strong woman of the otherworld. The otherworld was the paranormal world that coexisted with our world, but in secret and containing all the supernatural creatures. Many of us were greatly saddened by the end of the series and we have enjoyed each and every one of the short stories that continued to follow the stories of all our favorite characters, bringing our friends stories back into our lives.
These stories success opened the door for her Nadia Stafford series, about an assassin who is partially retired but somehow keeps getting sucked back into all kinds of shenanigans. Kelley Armstrong had written some other stand alones as well as some young adult series.
After the main storyline of women of otherworld concluded, except for the small vignettes the short stories allowed for quick peeks at how our characters were faring, Kelley Armstrong started two new series for fans to get excited about. The Casey Duncan series follows the main character, a trained police officer as she struggles to help her best friend with an abusive ex husband who seems to always find them which means they are constantly on the run. This continues until they hear of a rumor, a town whispered about where you really can disappear because there is no technology and the town exists on no map. It means that everyone must do whatever jobs they can and they live an almost communal type life. But rather than being created around an ideal of free love it is the idea that everyone, sometimes, needs a do-over and a way to disappear. But now there are murders occurring where people go to disappear after extensive background checks and thus begins the Casey Duncan series.
The other story, Cainsville, that Kelley Armstrong started seemed to be a more traditional fiction book. It centered around the world of Olivia Taylor-Jones, a vapid socialite who discovers that her true parents were serial killers. But as the story progressed it became more and more paranormal, calling on ancient Celtic lore. This is the final book in the series and I cannot wait to dive in…
Fiction
Random House Canada
August 15, 2017
496
The fifth book and the exciting conclusion to bestselling author Kelley Armstrong's "impossible-to-put-down" Cainsville series, in which she mixes hard-hitting crime writing with phenomenal world-building to create a brand of fiction all her own. When Olivia Taylor-Jones found out she was not actually the adopted child of a privileged Chicago family but of a notorious pair of convicted serial killers, her life exploded. Running from the fall-out, she found a refuge in the secluded but oddly welcoming town of Cainsville, Illinois, but she couldn't resist trying to dig out the truth about her birth parents' crimes. She began working with Gabriel Walsh, a fiendishly successful criminal lawyer who also had links to the town; their investigation soon revealed Celtic mysteries at work in Cainsville, and also entangled Olivia in a tense love triangle with the calculating Gabriel and her charming biker boyfriend, Ricky. Worse, troubling visions revealed to Olivia that the three of them were reenacting an ancient drama pitting the elders of Cainsville against the mysterious Huntsmen with Olivia as the prize. In the series' fifth and final novel, not only does Gabriel's drug addict mother, who he thought was dead, make a surprise reappearance, but Kelley Armstrong delivers a final scary and surprising knock-out twist. It turns out a third supernatural force has been at work all along, a dark and malevolent entity that has had its eye on Olivia since she was a baby and wants to win at any cost.
Laurell K Hamilton Blog Post Repost and a Few Thoughts of my Own
My husband’s family is an armed forces family. His father was a marine and his mother in the army. They met in the Armed Services band and as the lore goes, that was that. My husband was in Air Force ROTC and got a scholarship to college and wanted to be a pilot. He got derailed by Calculus Four, but that is another story entirely… His little brother and sister were also in ROTC in high school, but chose different paths for their lives.
The first time I ever traveled with my children through an airport, I taught them that the men and women in armed services uniforms were special and that they fought for our country and deserved our gratitude–then I cringed as my two year old ran up to the marine, pulled on his dress uniform with sticky hands and then said “Thank You for saving my mommy” to say he was surprised was an understatement. After many apologies and smiles, we parted ways and I taught both my daughters that the correct phrase was “thank you for your service.” And to this day I feel a sense of pride each time they politely thank the men and women in the armed services. ( and now cringe as they are pretty close in age to the youngest recruits at 14 and 15, and they get a little more attention than I’m necessarily comfortable with)
That being said, I am a fan of many writers who write detective stories and police procedurals. And every time I hear about a police officer losing his or her life I cringe. I have a few friends who ended up as police officers and I always call them when I have any issue that regards the police so I know how to best proceed.
Police officers and fire fighters come into our lives at the worst moments- either we are victims of crime or in the process of committing one. But regardless, they run towards danger and do it every day all day. So why didn’t I teach my daughters to thank them for their service? Why did I teach my daughters that if they are ever pulled over to go to a public well lighted place before stopping? Honestly, most police officers are a suspicious bunch and if you approach them out of the blue, even to thank them for their service to thee community, I’ve found them to be a little wary about it. I try to always nod at them and say thank you when I see them out and about and will redouble my efforts going forward.
So, I’m not sure exactly what my point was when I started other than that police officers and fire fighters don’t get nearly enough appreciation from the communities they serve. Instead we point at the few bad apples and teach our children to be careful and that a uniform doesn’t necessarily mean a hero.
That being said, please give what you can to this fallen officers family and if you happen to see a police officer or fire fighter in the next few days thank them for their service. And send positive thoughts and prayers to ALL the heroes in our communities.
I look forward to discussing all of this with fellow fans at my site bestbooklover.net and at the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/BestBooklovernet-336745780072074/
If you want to help support this website, donations are accepted at paypal.me/Bestbooklover/
[Top]Rachel Caine’s Stillhouse Lake
This book is a departure for Rachel Caine, but it was still a great read. It starts with a “typical” housewife who is happy in her life until, in a Blackbeard’s wife situation, it is discovered that her husband has been kidnapping, torturing and killing women in the families garage. After being tried as an accomplice, she takes her kids and runs, buying fake identities and running anytime it appears that she may be found out.
She’s found a place that she likes, though, and decides to fight to keep her life there despite the fact that murders similar to the ones her husband committed start occurring. And in the process she finds an ally whom she ends up falling in love with. And it may be just in time, too, as her husband escapes just at the books end. Can’t wait to read book two!
I look forward to discussing all of this with fellow fans at my site bestbooklover.net and at the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/BestBooklovernet-336745780072074/
If you want to help support this website, donations are accepted at paypal.me/Bestbooklover/
Fiction
Thomas & Mercer
2017-07
300
An Amazon Charts most-read book. Gina Royal is the definition of average--a shy Midwestern housewife with a happy marriage and two adorable children. But when a car accident reveals her husband's secret life as a serial killer, she must remake herself as Gwen Proctor--the ultimate warrior mom. With her ex now in prison, Gwen has finally found refuge in a new home on remote Stillhouse Lake. Though still the target of stalkers and Internet trolls who think she had something to do with her husband's crimes, Gwen dares to think her kids can finally grow up in peace. But just when she's starting to feel at ease in her new identity, a body turns up in the lake--and threatening letters start arriving from an all-too-familiar address. Gwen Proctor must keep friends close and enemies at bay to avoid being exposed--or watch her kids fall victim to a killer who takes pleasure in tormenting her. One thing is certain: she's learned how to fight evil. And she'll never stop.
Review of Come Sundown by Nora Roberts
I have long been a Nora Roberts fan and am constantly amazed by the number of novels she writes and they are usually always a good read. Sometimes they do end up recycling old themes and some books do have remarkable similarities. This doesn’t bother me though because each story has its own unique attributes and qualities. That being said, this book was a huge disappointment to me.
I went into the book expecting a story about a family and a central love affair. This book was not about the strength of a family or multi generational love stories. If anything, it was the story of the kidnapping, torture, rape and indoctrination of one female who was the black sheep of her family and on her way home when her life skipped the track.
Nora Roberts has had some dark books that were still exceptional, but this was not one of them. I kept expecting it to improve and for it to all come together but it never did. This is one of the worst Nora Roberts books I have ever read. Do not buy or read this book. It is brutal with rape, beatings and indoctrination into a loosely bible based theology.
I look forward to discussing all of this with fellow fans at my site bestbooklover.net and at the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/BestBooklovernet-336745780072074/
If you want to help support this website, donations are accepted at paypal.me/Bestbooklover/
Fiction
May 30, 2017
480
A novel of suspense, family ties, and twisted passions from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Obsession... The Bodine ranch and resort in western Montana is a family business, an idyllic spot for vacationers. A little over thirty thousand acres and home to four generations, it’s kept running by Bodine Longbow with the help of a large staff, including new hire Callen Skinner. There was another member of the family once: Bodine’s aunt, Alice, who ran off before Bodine was born. She never returned, and the Longbows don’t talk about her much. The younger ones, who never met her, quietly presume she’s dead. But she isn’t. She is not far away, part of a new family, one she never chose—and her mind has been shattered... When a bartender leaves the resort late one night, and Bo and Cal discover her battered body in the snow, it’s the first sign that danger lurks in the mountains that surround them. The police suspect Cal, but Bo finds herself trusting him—and turning to him as another woman is murdered and the Longbows are stunned by Alice’s sudden reappearance. The twisted story she has to tell about the past—and the threat that follows in her wake—will test the bonds of this strong family, and thrust Bodine into a darkness she could never have imagined.
My Response to Laurell K Hamilton’s Latest Post
Sometimes the hardest thing in the world is to just be. Being quiet can be harder than pushing yourself from one thing to the next. When we are always in motion, there is no time for doubt or reflection or growth and peace. I struggle to be good to myself because I am always harder on myself then I am on others. So, my advice to you is to be kind to yourself, cut yourself a little slack and take it one moment at a time. Remind yourself that everything is temporary and this to will pass. Find joy in the little things,. Especially your animals and the people in your life. You have so many blessings including your talent. Remember that you are incredibly loved by many people, even those who aren’t in your day to day life.
I look forward to discussing all of this with fellow fans at my site bestbooklover.net and at the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/BestBooklovernet-336745780072074/
If you want to help support this website, donations are accepted at paypal.me/Bestbooklover/
[Top]Another Quote from my latest reread…
“Fairy tales are true in one respect. Before you get to the story’s end, bad things and hard choices are lived through. In a way I’d come to my happily ever after ending, but unlike fairy tales, in real life there’s no ending, happy or otherwise. Your story, like your life, goes on. One minute you think you have your life relatively under control, and then the next minute you realize that all that control was just an illusion. ” Laurell K Hamilton, Divine Misdemeanors
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