Cat Sitter

Of course I enjoyed Blaize Clement's Cat Sitter on a Hot Tin Roof, Book 4 of the Dixie Hemingway series! I love this series. Blaize does such a wonderful job of looking into the human heart, especially exploring issues of pain, loss, grief, and most importantly, recovery from devastating loss and trauma. Dixie is one fictional person I'd love to know in reality. Her sensitivity and dedication to the needs of her animal charges makes her, in my opinion, a better sleuth. She instinctively knows when something is not quite right about both her animal clients as well as the humans who pay for her services. It's not one bit surprising to me to learn that Blaize Clement was a family therapist before she became a professional writer. I knew from the very first book in the Dixie Hemingway series that Blaize had to have at least majored in psychology once upon a time, if not had actual experience as a psychotherapist. I bet she was a cracker jack therapist and families were lucky to have found her.

In this novel, Dixie is presented as a bit lonely and in need of a friend, so much so that she jumps at the chance to claim as a friend a woman she literally runs into. Once they get past the unpleasantness of their abrupt encounter, Dixie finds that this newcomer to the Siesta Key seems to be a kindred spirit. After the devastating loss of her husband and child, Dixie has been hibernating, only gradually coming out of her hiding place and rejoining the world via her pet sitting services. We can see her growth and change through each novel in the series. She has been dealing with her feelings for a couple of good looking men in her life, but in this book, the opening pages show us how desperately she simply needs a friend, not a client or acquaintance. Just someone to kick around with, chat over silly things with, compare likes and dislikes, share your family history and stories, hopes and dreams. Despite being back out in the land of the living and dealing with clients each day, solving local murders, interacting with the police, Dixie has been lonely for simple friendship. Now that really touched a rather sensitive nerve in me and at times reading this book was difficult for that reason. But I kept reading because I knew that, as always, I would learn a good bit about myself through Clement's analysis of Dixie by Dixie. And I was right.

When Laura, the new friend, ends up brutally butchered after she and Dixie have a great girls' night in at Laura's home, Dixie naturally wants to investigate. But as she does her investigation, she finds out that much of what Laura told her was not true and then feels let down and foolish.  But as she unravels Laura's mysteries, she also begins to unravel as few of her own inner mysteries and questions about friendship. I love how the two are so gracefully and soundly intertwined. Wish I could write like that.

I suspected the particular family situation revealed at the end of the book, but not everybody would, and knowing whodunit pages before the police arrested the culprit did not spoil the reveal for me at all. The ending was quite satisfying. Particularly her friend Pete's creative use of a saxophone. Loved it!

There is so much to this book to love and much to think about once the covers have been closed.

Starting Over --- Again!

I've got a stack of books by the computer, as well as a stack or two in my bedroom, of books I've read and have been intending to write about. You know the old saying about the road to hell, pavement and good intentions? Well, my road is first class all the way! Well paved indeed. 

It is late tonight and my brain is dead, so I'm going to bed. But here's hoping that when I get up a little later today, I'll stop back by the Book Nook and jot down a few notes about some of the books I've read since the last entry. Some I've loved, some I've liked well enough and one or two I simply couldn't finish for various reasons.

Curiosity Killed the Cat Sitter

Well, curiosity almost killed the cat sitter! I had to order this book if for no other reason than the title intrigued me. As a budding author who can't come up with any decent titles myself, I am always drawn to books with titles that attract my attention, make promises that I sincerely hope the books will deliver on and play with words and phrases. As a language student and teacher with a weird sense of humor, I love playing with words and phrases. Always have from as far back as I can remember. So I appreciate titles that play with words and phrases and I especially appreciate books that live up to the title's promises.

When Dixie shows up at a client's house to care for her spoiled Abyssinian, she discovers a corpse in the kitchen, his face in the cat's water bowl and his head taped down to the floor. She discovers that her now missing client has a shocking past that gave many people good reason to want her dead and now that Dixie is onto their trail, she's in danger herself. When she herself becomes a suspect, she has to find the real killer before the killer finds her.

Curiosity Killed the Cat Sitter delivered quite nicely on its promises for the most part. I had thought, judging by the title, that there would be a bit more humor in the book than there actually was. But still, I was not in the least disappointed and I will definitely be adding more books by Blaize Clement to my TBR pile.  I like her writing style and I really enjoyed getting to know the main character, former Sheriff's deputy Dixie Hemingway who's been through life's emotional wringer and has emerged, scathed but healing and hopeful. And, as in the case of so many other walking wounded, Dixie uses her pain to help others heal, too. I wish I were more like her than I am. Maybe after another book or two, a smidgen of Dixie's strength of spirit will rub off on me!

Death of a Saint Maker by Allana Martin

I have to love an author who is skilled enough to make me actually want to visit once again a part of the US I always thought of as desolate, empty and boring! Allana Martin made the Big Bend region come alive, complete with all the intricacies and cultural differences of life on the Texas/Mexico border.

Texana Jones runs a trading post and her husband has a veterinary business not too far from the Mexican border in the Big Bend area of southwest Texas. When Texana crosses the border to attend the dedication of a statue in a small village church, she and the villagers find that the church is locked. Villagers force the door open only to find the brutally murdered body of the itinerant saint maker, the man who had carved the church's new statue, and a neighbor's pit bull standing over the bloody corpse. The dog escapes before the villagers can grasp what has happened and capture the dog. While the villagers want to believe the dog is the culprit since it would lessen likelihood of police intervention, Texana has her doubts. When someone breaks into her trading post and steals her own statue carved by the saint maker, Texana's suspicion that the roaming artist was involved in something more than carving statues and figurines grows. When she joins her husband at the home of a wealthy Mexican landowner who is rumored to be a gun runner, she discovers that this shady character also happens to own a number of the saint maker's wood carvings. She is convinced there is a connection and is determined to find the truth. Death of a Saint Maker was a very satisfying well told story. I may not make Big Bend my next vacation spot, but I will definitely see it in a much different light.

Artifacts by Mary Anna Evans

This was a very well plotted, well written, enjoyable mystery with strong female characters and colorful settings. Though the plot was quite complicated, Mary Anna Evans handled it so well that I almost never got confused - which isn't always the case when novels change point of view or slip back and forth between the past and the present. Evans handled the historical story of how Faye's mixed race foremothers acquired and managed to keep and pass Joyeuse planation through the generations down to Faye by means of a journal Faye founds hidden away in the plantation's cupola. I had a little trouble believing Faye didn't just sit down and read the journal all at once; I know I would have. But despite that quibble, the bits of history revealed in the journal entries gave some excellent insight into not only Faye's family history, but also the social history of Florida. The stories helped Faye understand herself as she discovered answers to many of the questions she had been asking for as long as she could remember about her foremothers' history. Evans didn't finch in the face of the realities of slavery and racial prejudice from the ante-bellum South to modern times.

Faye Longchamp lives in a run-down mansion named Joyeuse, a plantation belonging to a former slave owner who actually owned Faye's great-great-grandmother Cally. Somehow Cally got ownership of the plantation around the time of the end of the Civil War and it remained in the family ever since. At least until the property taxes got so high Faye worries she will lose Joyeuse. To save her inheritance Faye, an avid former student of archaelogy who had to quit her studies due to a lack of funds, decides she has no choice but to excavate her own property and the nearby national preserve to find items she can sell on the black market. She abhors pothunters and hates having to be one. But she can't accept the loss of Joyeuse. Her whole identity is wrapped up in the dilapidated plantation. What she finds, however, on her latest excavation is not pottery or arrow heads, but the skeleton of a girl who died a mere 40 years before. Faced with the prospect of anyone finding out about her illegal deeds and the sure loss of Joyeuse, Faye investigates on her own. On the heels of the discovery of the skeleton, Faye and her fellow student archaeologists doing a legitimate dig on an island nearby discover the bodies of two of their own. Faye is convinced the students were killed by the same person who killed the woman she found only the day before, even though the murders were separated by several decades.

I did not guess who the villain was until nearly the end of the book. I was so engrossed in the story I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning to finish it.

Two Cozies

The Stolen Blue by Judith Van Gieson was touted by none other than Tony Hillerman as a book not to miss. So, of course, when Hillerman speaks, I listen very carefully. And I was not disappointed. I'm going to have to hunt up some more of Van Giesen's work because I loved this book. Claire reynier introduced me to the job of a rare book expert and if I had my life to do over again (God forbid!), I'm pretty sure that would be an area I'd love. Frustrating work, to be sure. But fascinating.

Claire's former professor and mentor calls her to his spread in The Blue, a virtually unspoiled area of New Mexico. He wants to donate his entire collection of books to University of New Mexico's Center for Southwest Research. Claire has a special fondness for the old curmudgeon, who is not in good health. He had hired her for her first job as librarian after graduate school and after her marriage ended recently, helped ensure she got hired at UNM as the head of library collection, responsible for buying rare books for the CSR. Claire is excited both about seeing her mentor and looking over his extensive collection. The joy ends soon, however. The day after Burke signs his will giving the collection to the Center, he is found dead in the snow outside his home. His daughter Mariah, who has only recently discovered Burke was her father, is not only named the principal heir of the Burke estate, but she also admits to helping the man commit suicide. To make matters more convoluted, when Claire returns to the university after Burke's death, one box of the books she had in her truck is stolen. Claire has to discover why the books were stolen, who took them and what they had to do with Burke's death.

Margaret Coel (another favorite author) said this book was an intricate puzzle that kept her guessing. Me, too. It was very well written. Claire is a character I liked and would like to read more about. So maybe in the next day or two, I'll be searching St. Tammany Parish Library for more books by Judith Van Giesen.

Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind by Ann B. Ross was an absolutely delightful book! Here's yet another favorite to add to my list. I've got to get supper going now, so will postpone writing anything more. I have to have more time to do justice to Miss Julia.

Long time, no write

I've failed. Surprised, aren't you? LOL! I've just kept putting off writing in my blogs for various reasons, some good, some not. I meant well. I always do. But doing well... Well, that's not my best thing. Follow-through has always been one of my many, many shortcomings.

I have been reading a bit, though. Not so much as I would have liked, but reading a bit here and there, nonetheless. I didn't write down every single title I've read since the last blog entry, unfortunately. But since I'm the only one who gives a hoot, it really doesn't matter. Except to me. That failure thing, you know.

What I've Read:
In August and September, I managed to read some of the Star Trek Gateway series novels. These are crossover novels - there's one for each of the Star Trek series, including a novel focusing on the USS Challenger, a ship introduced in a series of novels taking place between the times between the first two Star Trek movies. The unifying theme involves the sudden activation of interstellar gate planted millenia ago by the Iconians, a species we meet in one episode of the original Star Trek show.

• First, the Kirk novel: One Small Step. Typical Kirk hero stuff. A fun read.
• Second, Challenger, Chain Mail. This one was very frustrating to me, because I had not read all the novels in the New Earth/Challenger series and so was unfamiliar with the characters and the situation.
• Third, Picard in Doors into Chaos. Despite the fact that I adore Jean Luc, this one was not nearly so satisfying as the Kirk book. Troi does get command of a ship, however, and that was nice.
• Fourth, Deep Space Nine, Demons of Air and Darkness. Another disappointment. I liked DS9, but I did not care for this novel.
  
  The last three in the series that I hope to read soon:
  
• No Man's Land, featuring Captain Janeway and the Voyager crew. I liked the Voyager series a lot. Hope this novel is not disappointing.
• Cold Wars, the only novel series with characters not be based on an actual Star Trek show. It's part of a series introducing a new ship, The Challenger, and a new cast of characters. I've not read any of these novels yet. I'm sure I'll be lost when I read this one in the Gateway series, but I'll probably read it anyway.
• What Lay Beyond, which is supposed to tie everything up quite neatly. A long damned time in coming, my friends! Not sure I care any more.
  

I liked the original concept - at least as I thought it was going to be before I started reading. But I was very frustrated with some of the individual books for various reasons. And frustrated that I had to wait for the last book in the series to wrap it all up. And I STILL don't own that last book!