Category Archives: #Book Review

The Blue Ridge Mountains

Posted on by

2

The Blue Ridge Mountains

     Readers frequently ask where my ideas come from and how I come up with the descriptions. Don’t get nervous. I watch strangers and wonder about their lives.

     Here’s an example.  A nurse in my doctor’s office was always nasty. I thought she might be overworked or I had done something wrong. However her coworkers were pleasant. At times overly so. I concluded it was her style. Some people are difficult. That’s a fact!

My short story Acerbic (published in Florida Writer Association Let’s Talk.) captured that experience.

     The story references a character’s pink eyebrows.

      On a previous day, I had inadvertently applied a lip-liner to my brows and never discovered the faux-pa until I returned home. The detail fit the story.

     Recently, I was in another doctor’s waiting room and thumbed through a current issue of Southern Living to discovered an article on must see places. Floyd in the Blue Ridge Mountains got a top billing.

My husband and I had stayed in Floyd and I used that visit describing a group of men having breakfast at the Early Birds Café in my novel Morningside Drive.

Their conversation was unforgettable and still makes me laugh. I hope you’ll enjoy it, because you can’t make this stuff up.  

Chapter 2

Groundhog Day 2014

(page nine)

     Jake, a robust man with a white beard and railroad cap made manly noises. I imagined him scratching his head and passing gas. It was not pretty. Luther wore suspenders. His thin curly hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Several other men’s stomachs lay beneath the tabletop, threatening to tear their pants. They discuss Obama Care and then moved on to love.

     Luther cleared his throat and said, “What negative feelings do you bring to the relationship?”

     A bell chimed when a patron opened the restaurant door preventing me from hearing his response.

       “Are you talking about me throwing the remote at the television or Jane catching it?” Jake chuckled.

      “You could’ve cracked the flat screen,” Lorie commented, refilling glasses with a water pitcher.     “Jane catching it,” Luther scratched his stomach, “that would have pissed me off.”

. . .just saying,

I’ve done a lot of wondering about Luther, Jake, and Jane.

A Lucky Day

Posted on by

4

One morning when my daughter, Janine, was kindergarten age she woke me up saying, “Mom this is your lucky day.”

I had gotten her older brother off to school and gone back to bed. I wanted to pull her into bed with me and cuddle. But, she was dressed in her favorite Health-tex outfit and her purse was across her shoulder.

She explained, “Mom I am taking you to lunch at Shelby’s.

So at 10:30A.M. on a school day we sat on metal stools that spun and ordered lunch.

I had a hot dog and Janine a grilled cheese sandwich.

 When we finished Janine asked, “Mom would you like desert?”

“Oh no, thank you. I much too full.”

She would and called the waitress over.

This sour looking woman held a pencil and order pad in hand, never smiling.

“I’d like a scoop of vanilla ice cream with a cherry on top,” she said with her head held high.

“That’s 5 cents extra,” said the hardened waitress.

Janine counted her money and I debated giving her the extra nickel she lacked. She had the ice cream without the cherry.

Yesterday was another lucky day.

Twenty well-wishers came to discuss and purchase books at the Halifax Plantation Golf Club luncheon. My daughter was unable to attend but nevertheless I’ve been doing a lot of smiling thinking about the two events.

Thank you to those who attended. I value your kindness and support. And yes, I’m working on the second book in this series called, The Middle Seat Passenger.

Morningside Drive is a cozy/mystery novel and can be purchase on all online book stores including Amazon.

. . .just saying, Claudia

P.S. Johanna, thanks for reminding me of past posts.

The Wonder of Kindness

Posted on by

12

$_1

The Wonder of Kindness

I have been mumbling and grumbling about the sorry state of affairs the world is in. You know what I am talking about; Bill Cosby, NFL domestic abuse policy, Ferguson Mo., Republican idiotic-mess, and the final slip into insanity, Isis; who think nothing of cutting off heads.

What is wrong with these people? It is overwhelming and leaves me no energy for a decent rant. I worry too, that I am adapting an older person’s perspective; the world is coming to an end or a Chicken Little belief that the sky is falling.

Then I heard about “Wonder,” a book my ten-year old granddaughter is reading, that is so good she could not put it down, and read while walking home from the school bus stop. So I got the book, thinking we would start a Nana & Alexandria book club. “Wonder,” by R.J. Palacio, is a New York Times Best Seller and there was a wait for the book at my Library.

Book Summary: Ten-year-old Auggie Pullman, who was born with extreme facial abnormalities and was not expected to survive, goes from being home-schooled to entering fifth grade at a private middle school in Manhattan, which entails enduring the taunting and fear of his classmates as he struggles to be seen as just another student.

In this book, the heroes are kindness, courage, friendship, and character; the message about leadership and solving life problems. I could not but it down either.

The book even has a happy ending, when Mr. Tushman, the principal, gives the middle school address and quotes J.M. Barrie from book, “The Little White Bird.”

“Shall we make a new rule of life . . . always try to be a little kinder than necessary?”

Although I always make an effort to not be rude, and treat others the way I want to be treated, have forgotten to be kind and rarely, kinder than necessary.

The icing on the cake is when the Henry Word Beecher Medal is awarded to August Pullman. Mr.Tushman quotes Beecher defining greatness.

“Greatness, lies not in being strong, but in the right using of strength. . . He is the greatest whose strength carries up the most hearts.”

Auggie gets a standing ovation as he accepts the medal. It is a feel good moment for the reader and food for thought, what is kindness?

Kindness is a step beyond polite. Kindness is compassion, consideration, benevolence, goodwill, cordial, gentle, generous, decent, charitableness, sympathy, sweetness, towards others. Kindness is a wonder.

Thank you to author R.J. Palacio for giving us hope.

. . . just saying

R.J. Palacio Web site

Summary & Characters “Wonder” 

D is For Disappear /The Alphabet Series

Posted on by

6

New Thoughts on Words

D is for disappear as in the New York Times Best Seller novel, “Gone Girl” by Gillian Flynn.

Nick and Amy Dunne, two out of work New York City writers, move to Nick’s childhood home in North Carthage, Missouri when they learn Nick’s mother is fatally ill.

Nick is a journalist.

Amy writes surveys or opinion questionnaires.

Example; which of the following will lead to personal happiness.

A.  Caring more about others  than yourself

B.  Discovering a passion

C.  Exercising and eating well daily

D.  All of the above

E.  Other_________________________________

Nick persuades Amy to invest the last of her Trust Fund in a business for him and his twin sister, Margo. They name the bar, “The Bar” and Nick appears a loser when Amy disappears on their wedding anniversary.

The reader knows it is a matter of time for the husband to become the prime suspect.

Gillian Flynn has written a plot driven novel that I read quickly and was reviewed favorably, but I could have put the book down easily.

“As The Washington Post proclaimed, her work ‘draws you in and keeps you reading with the force of a pure but nasty addiction.’ Gone Girl’s toxic mix of sharp-edged wit with deliciously chilling prose creates a nerve-fraying thriller that confounds you at every turn.”

Amy’s disappearance is not as in vanish, perish or cease to exist. Her vanishing act is one of revenge and dysfunction, concocted when she discovers Nick’s infidelity. Victimized and  bamboozled Amy plans to get even and does.

On the other line of a happiness survey she would write all the below;

A.  If you can’t have the one you love make sure no one else can either.

B.  Make everyone who hurts or disappoints you suffer for the rest of their lives.

C.  Inflicting pain on others is key to personal happiness.

Gillian says “she was not a nice little girl,” and “Libraries are filled with stories on generations of brutal men, trapped in a cycle of aggression. I wanted to write about the violence of women”

“The point is, women have spent so many years girl-powering ourselves — to the point of almost parodic encouragement — we’ve left no room to acknowledge our dark side. Dark sides are important. They should be nurtured like nasty black orchids.”

Isn’t disappearing better?

…Just saying