Book Review of The Secret Files of Fairday Morrow, Titles to Write By, The Monday Muse, Being Thankful

The Secret Files of Fairday Morrow by Jessica Haight and Stephanie Robinson is now available HERE.

After waiting to read it for a long while, I received an ARC of this book and was not disappointed.

My review:

Fairday Morrow is not happy about moving with her family from the city to the country. Her best friend Lizzy, and fellow mystery solver, is a whole hour away! But the minute Fairday steps into the old spooky Begonia House her parent's have bought to turn into a guest house, she knows there's a mystery to solved. Plus, it doesn't take her any time to make friends with Marcus, a boy at her new school. When Lizzy comes to visit over a week-end, the three kids are confronted with an evil willow tree, a villainous being they assume is ghost, and a house loaded with secrets. Will they be able to solve the mystery before Fairday's parents discover they've made a HUGE mistake buying the house?

There's lots of spooky action in this middle grade. Fairday, Lizzy, and Marcus each have distinct well formed personalities as does Begonia House. Even Fairday's dog, Auntie Em, is a character. I'm looking forward to reading any further adventures the Detective Mystery Squad may have.

***

Next week, Monday the 14th, I will be one of Jessica and Stephanie's stops on their fabulous tour!

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"Titles to Write By" is an occasional blog post in which we play with a single word and turn it into, what else, titles! Afterwards the object is to pick one of them and write a little something.

It was Ray Bradbury, in his book ZEN IN THE ART OF WRITING, who taught me about making lists of words and turning them into titles. If you haven't read it I highly recommend it.

For no particular reason today's word is: (Well, that's not entirely true. With all the anger, fear, and hate being thrown at us by the media these days, a little COMPASSION would be a good thing.)

The Heart of Compassion

Compassion Comes In All Sizes

How Compassion Saved the World

The Doorway into Compassion

The Life of a Compassionate Mind

After Anger, Compassion

***

The Monday Muse: In which we take one of the above titles and play with it.

After Anger, Compassion

Anger clouded his face, a dark bruised cloud in shades of blue-black purple, streaked with red lightening bolts.

"She makes me so mad..." he said.

"Where is the anger?" I asked.

He pounded his chest with a fist, slapped his head. "Here!"

"So how is she making you so angry when the anger is inside you?"

The darkness on his face seemed to fade every so slightly.

 "Isn't it your own mind making you mad? Isn't it the story you keep telling yourself over and over about how she left you that keeps the anger fueled?"

He looked at me, eyes narrowing.

"Think of a time when you were really very happy," I said.

The hard lines around his eyes softened, the hint of a smile peaked out from behind the dark clouds.

"There," I said. "Who is that? Who is making you happy?"

He looked away from me as if embarrassed. "I am."

"And who is making you mad?"

He shrugged wiping away the first tears of pent up pain. "I am."

"Don't you think it's time you gave yourself a little compassion?"

***
Being Thankful

Today I'm thankful for robins.

Robins aren't true migratory birds, they simply go where the food is. Because of the drought, we haven't seen any for the last four or five years.
Thanks to a wet spring and fall they're back.

What a delight it is to hear their chirping in the trees surrounding our home, to see them flying across the sky by the hundreds.

Welcome back robins!

***

What are you thankful for? Have you read The Secret Files of Fairday Morrow? Care to share a title in the comments? Do any of the titles interest your muse? 

Bestest. Ramadan. Ever.

Why did it take me so long to read Medeia's book? 30 lashes with a wet noodle!

About Bestest. Ramadan. Ever.

Okay, so during Ramadan, we're not allowed to eat from sunrise to sunset. For one whole month. My family does this every year, even though I've been to a mosque exactly twice in my life. And it's true, I could stand to lose a few pounds. (Sadly, my mom's hotness skipped a generation.) But is starvation really an acceptable method? I think not.Even worse, my oppressive parents forbid me to date. This is just cruel and wrong. Especially since Peter, a cute and crushable artist, might be my soul mate. Figures my bestest friend Lisa likes him, too. To top it off, there's a new Muslim girl in school who struts around in super-short skirts, commanding every boy's attention--including Peter's. How can I get him to notice me? And will I ever figure out how to be Muslim and American?

***

My review.

I totally enjoyed this book. I liked learning a little about the Muslim faith and the meaning of Ramadan. I can easily believe that the issues Almira has to deal with are real. They are both trivial, humorous and serious. Almira seems like a pretty normal American girl. Her emotions and fantasies are all over the place, but what 15 year old girl isn't a kind of emotional whirlpool? She has so many things to deal with. She's Muslim trying valiantly to fast during the month of Ramada even when well meaning friends try to sabotage her. She wants very much to fit in and I haven't met too many teens who don't. She has a crush on a boy but it's the same boy her best friend likes. Then she has her wisdom teeth removed and braces put on which makes her feel awkward. She's also taking driving lessons from her grandfather who is, himself, a terrible driver. She is trying to live as a modern American girl while having to deal with generational issues within her Muslim family. 

The bottom line is Almira is a good girl who wants to please. She wants to do what's right, both with her friends and with her family. The problem is finding the balance between old and new ways and not having to lie her way through it.

You can find it on Amazon.

***

Anansi is continuing his visit through the rest of this week, with Jess and Stephanie at The Secret Files of Fairday Morrow.

He's getting so comfortable over there, and the girls are feeding him 
so well, he told me (through the web of course) that he's not sure if 
he wants to come home!

Be on the lookout for  an interview and GIVE-AWAY. 

My first! 

Anansi's first!

The Weight of a Feather

Judy Croome is an author from South Africa. When I read her novel, Dancing in the Shadows of Love, I was blown away and did an interview with her which you can read HERE.

Recently I had the opportunity to read her collection of short stories, The Weight of a Feather. Again, I am blown away. 

I absolutely love the depth and breadth of Judy's writing. In this collection of short stories, she takes the reader on a wide variety of journeys. One can feel like a voyeur peeking vicariously into a person’s life, or be swept into a nightmare.

In the dark, beautiful and horrifying story, “The Last Sacrifice,” one is pulled into the distant past, while in “The Wheel Turns” one is taken into a possible future. There is African bush magic in, “The Leopard and the Lizard,” and satirical humor in, “Rainbow Farm.” There are stories of love, loss and redemption, of faith, hope and despair.

Judy is an artist whose canvass is the blank page and whose medium is words. She paints pictures. Some sparse, some detailed. Some modernistic, some classical. But each can be studied, reread, reviewed, many times over. Reading this collection is rather like walking into a museum and being amazed.

The Weight of a Feather, along with her novel Dancing in the Shadows of Love, and a collection of poetry, a Lamp at Midday, is available on Amazon. 

About The Weight of a Feather: 

From the classical form of "The Weight of a Feather", first published by The Huffington Post (2013), to the suggestive allegory of "The Leopard and The Lizard", this collection of short stories by South African author Judy Croome is an ideal mix of the familiar and the startling. These vibrant slices of life testify to the mysterious and luminous resources of the human spirit. Whether feeling the harrowing emotion in "The Last Sacrifice" or the jauntiness of "Jannie Vermaak’s New Bicycle", the reader will delight in a plethora of stories that cross boundaries to both challenge and entertain with their variety.

Visit Judy at her BLOG , on Facebook, or on Twitter

Construct a Couple by Talli Roland

Talli Roland has done it again, got me all caught up in a light-hearted romance, a genre I don't normally read. But I can't help it, I like her stories. I like how they are about everyday people with mostly everyday problems. Well, maybe in Serenity's case not so everyday, she sort of brings things on herself. But she means well and her heart is as big as London, which, from reading Talli's books I'm beginning to feel I know.





Is any relationship strong enough to survive a string of secrets?

With a great job at a reputable magazine and a man who's the perfect match, Serenity Holland thinks she's laid the foundation for an ideal London life. When a routine assignment uncovers a shocking secret threatening her boyfriend's company, Serenity decides to leave nothing to chance, taking matters into her own hands. Soon, though, she realises keeping secrets isn't as easy as she thought . . . and the consequences are far worse than she ever imagined.

Poor Serenity. At times I wanted to bap her on the head and others times I wanted to give her a big hug and tell her everything would be okay, that if she just stopped needing to be so in control....


Construct a Couple is just that, a story about figuring out how to live as a couple, rather than as a single person. What do you keep secret or withhold? Should you keep it secret? And what are the repercussions if you do?


I like Talli's writing style. It's easy to read, easy on the mind. I like the way she brings in just enough description to give you sense of place, of mood.


A few examples:
The lonely ring of a telephone drifts like tumbleweed through the desert of silence.
"I'm ready to get started," I intone, trying to sound more Barbara Walters than Disney.
...my hair is the colour of wet sand...


Have you read any of Talli's other books? This is number four for me. Do you think maybe I'm a fan?