"H" Authors -- Home, Hearth, and Heartbeat

Author's note: A couple of years ago, my library system added blog posts to our website. Many of the posts were short collections of book reviews, often following a theme. I tried writing a few of these, but never felt like I could keep up with the thought-provoking themes of my librarian colleagues. It was a good challenge, a growth opportunity, and I was honored to have been selected to write for our site. After a few successes, and several wadded-up-and-thrown-in-the-trashcan failures, I realized that what I needed was my old writing partner to get me going again. Enter Polo! 

All of the books reviewed here are available as downloadable audiobooks.

Polo in "active sleeping" mode, ears cocked to listen to book

The Word is Murder

Anthony Horowitz

Anthony Horowitz, creator and contributor to many BBC television series (including Foyle’s War) and the popular Alex Rider books for young adult readers, also writes fiction for adults. Imagine that! Mr. Horowitz inserts himself into this story, supposedly observing former police detective Daniel Hawthorne as he works to unravel a suspected murder case. Horowitz cannot keep his fingers out of the pie, though, and he becomes enmeshed in the story. The narrator of the audiobook is amazing, bringing a radio drama presentation to his narration, and I’ll be looking for more audiobooks featuring Rory Kinnear.

Polo’s take: “I like accents when they’re easy to understand, like these. Hawthorne has a hard edge. Horowitz is nicer, believable but sometimes a little clumsy. Good woof!”

The New Kids: Big Dreams and Brave Journeys at a High School for Immigrant Teens

Brooke Hauser

Nonfiction stories of immigrant and refugee teens in a New York City high school and at home. Although we live in one of the most diverse communities in the nation, this is no New York City. We could relate to the students’ histories, though, because refugees are refugees, and their varied backstories have common threads of navigating life despite upheaval, relocation, poverty, and strong cultural identity. The staff at the International High School at Prospect Heights is diverse, quirky, and all-in dedicated to the students who come through their doors. For many of the teens, earning a high school diploma seems a dream – yet the staff do all they can to urge the students to aim for college, to be able to help their families in bigger and better ways over the long haul.

Polo’s response: “I wish I could smell the foods these people eat. The students and their families all sound very interesting… but the dad who comes to cook spicy Chinese dinner for his daughter could be my best new friend!”

A Deadly Grind

Victoria Hamilton

First in the series, “Vintage Kitchen Mysteries.” Antique shopping can be fun, except when it turns deadly. Avid collector Jaymie Leighton has her eye on a 1920’s Hoosier-brand kitchen cabinet, but after she brings it home she finds that someone else wanted it, too, and will do anything to get at it. Murder and lurking villains ensue, while Jaymie works on cleaning up her treasure and stumbles on an unexpected piece of history that is much more valuable than her beloved cabinet. The descriptions of the cabinet brought back memories of a metal cabinet that my parents had in their beach cabin. It was a heavy two-piece thing, too tall to be assembled, so the bottom part lived beside our sink while the top part held dishes and canned goods next to the stove. It was useful at the beach because its construction kept the mice out better than any wood cabinets could.

Polo’s feedback: “I like kitchens. There’s lots of make-fooding there, you know. And this story had food. This story also has a dog, but it’s small and not my kind of DOG. I could have helped a lot more. Still, a woof for this one.”

Spy Secrets That Can Save Your Life

Jason Hanson

Scary at first, but practical “keep your head on a swivel” reminders and suggestions. Polo regularly assures me (barking at the top of his lungs at any crunch of gravel on the street) that he is keeping me safe from everything. That’s great, when I’m at home, but I do leave the house to go to work, shop, or dine out. For these situations, I appreciate being prompted to pay attention to my surroundings, to people who might be watching me a little too closely, and to anything that seems a little “off.” If I am confronted by someone with ill intent, the author impressed on me that I do not have to follow normal social custom in response. Move! Step forward or step aside, look them in the eye or look around for help, but do NOT freeze. Good to know.

Polo’s thoughts: “If I had more language, I would tell you these things. If I am with you, watch my body language. But I don’t ride in car, and I don’t go to the library, so listen to this book again to keep it fresh. Although, if you’d take me to restaurants, I could learn to like car rides.”

The Right Hand

Derek Haas

Spy thriller, black ops, car chases and hiding and explosions and murder… with so many twists and turns that you can only guess at the identity of the villain. The fast pace and action of this story count, for me, as aerobic exercise because of the heart-pounding effect. CIA agent Austin Clay is assigned to find and protect a young Hungarian woman who may have stumbled onto a deadly secret. Hit men are out to get her, there’s a mole in the CIA, the main characters are far from home and safety. Yikes! The scenes play like a movie in your mind, enhancing the effect of the drama.

Polo’s feedback: “Scary! Exciting! Kept raising the fur on the back of my neck!”

The Next Time You Make Fish Head Soup...

...count the fish heads before and after serving.

The daughter of some friends is spending a term studying in Ghana, Africa, and writing occasional blog posts about her adventures. Anna has a heart for people, a yearning for justice, and a great sense of adventure. One little story in a longer, serious post tickled my funny bone and showed Anna's terrific ingenuity in exercising gracious discretion during a homestay.

Imagine you're visiting a private home in a far-away country. Although you are a vegetarian, your hosts serve a soup made with... fish heads. What would you do?

You can check out Anna's blog here. Then you'll understand why you might want to count your fish heads.

Casting Blame... or, why our Thanksgiving pies are square

Happy Thanksgiving! As a descendant of one of the first Thanksgiving celebrants, I wish you great remembrances and thoroughly satisfying eatables. Happy Thanksgiving!

We had just the five -- uh, six -- of us for Thanksgiving dinner today. Rufus actually enjoyed his bites of turkey liver. (He is so NOT motivated by food, but there are a few treats that take his mind off those tennis balls.) The rest of us feasted on turkey, stuffing (not dressing this year!), mashed potatoes, sweet carrots, and pretty good gravy.

And then there's dessert.

Pete and I went shopping earlier this week, and I looked with some interest at the frozen pie section. "They wouldn't taste anything like the real thing, Mom." Okay, okay. I know a compliment when it hits me upside the appetite. I bought pie shells, canned pumpkin, and Granny Smith apples.

I was going to bake both pies last night, but it turned out I was really tired. I realized I could just bake the pumpkin one last night so it could cool, and toss an apple pie into the oven when we took the turkey out today. One cold, one hot. Perfect! I mixed the spices for the pumpkin pie, and then went to get the pie pans out.

Uh, oh.

Remember one of the highlights of our summer? New flooring, new paint, new fence? I also bought a new set of drinking glasses to replace the set that was mostly broken and gone. Between the kitchen work and the new glasses, I decided to do some minor rearrangement of the cupboards. Way up on the top shelf above the mugs and glasses, I had several pie pans that only get used once or twice a year. Why keep those so handy when I could use that spot for something we're regularly accessing? So, the pie pans got moved to a better place. Then, other things got moved to make the painting easier. Shift and re-shift.

Last night, I looked in the old place for my nice pie pans. Oops -- silly me, forgetting that I moved them! Um... moved them... uhhhh...

I looked in all the kitchen cupboards. I looked high and low in the pantry. I looked in the garage, where some of my china is still waiting to be returned to the sideboard in the living room. Um...

I looked in the utility room, where the slow cooker is renting shelf space. I looked again in the pantry, climbing onto the bottom shelf so I could look inside a box up high. I looked once more in the garage, in the kitchen cupboards, even in my closet where the jumbo-size china platter is kept.

No. Pie. Pans. Anywhere.

Ugh.

The spices were mixed. The ingredients were gathered. I could bake the pumpkin pie first thing in the morning, since I wasn't planning to eat dinner until late afternoon. No problem. Go to bed, get a good sleep, and surely I'll remember where I put those pie pans. There's a really nice one from my mother-in-law, and one that we received as a wedding gift. I know they're just right here, close by. I'll remember.

[cue rooster crowing]

Morning dawned. The pie pans must have been placed into the sideboard, then boxed up with the china so we could clear furniture out of the living room. The pie pans, therefore, are in that box in the garage.

Nope.

[insert photo of beautiful square pies, when computer and camera are in synch again]

After our wonderful dinner, I helped Rufus get a tennis ball that had gotten behind a piece of furniture in the basement. Right there, in plain sight, was the box with the pie pans right on top. In plain sight. Where I couldn't miss them. My mother-in-law used to enjoy cleaning her house and finding new, better places to put things. And then, when she needed them, she could not recall where they might be found. I have become my mother-in-law, except for the cleaning part.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Why I Was Tired This Weekend

Or should the title be, "Where I Went This Weekend"? Or maybe, "What I Ate This Weekend"?

Our bi-annual church women's retreat was terrific. We had wonderful accommodations in Leavenworth, Washington, great speakers from Arizona, and delicious food from Bavaria. Want to see some photos? First, here I am with three of my four roomies:


There were fun activities, good photo opportunities (scenic ones!), but for now I'm skipping to today's lunch at the Tumwater Inn:


German sausage, bratwurst, und sauerkraut. Ausgeseichnet! And then we had to try some dessert:


Do you recognize my friends from the first photo? Yep, all the same gals. Yep, we were very polite and didn't stab each other trying to get to the cake.

There was a lot more to this weekend, but this is enough to post for now. I think it's time to vegetate.