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The Longest Yard Sale – Sherry Harris

Angela2 Comments

Sarah Winston Garage Sale Cozy series book 2

The Longest Yard Sale book 2

As Sarah finds success setting up, and sometimes running, garage sales for others, she decides to have the Longest Yard Sale in New England. What looks like a successful turnout gets out of control as traffic gets jammed up everywhere, someone is setting fires in different spots all over town, and that dead body found in Sarah’s friend Carol’s Paint and Wine Shop is not the ending to the day that she was hoping for.

Now Sarah has to figure out who the murderer is, what happened to the painting that was stolen from Carol’s shop, and deal with two suitors; her ex-husband and someone from her not-so-distant past. Can she solve the mystery and clear her friends name?

Up next: My review of book 3 in the series, All Murders Final.

You can find this second book here: The Longest Yard Sale – Sherry Harris

The first book is here as well: Tagged For Death – Sherry Harris

Tagged for Death-Sherry Harris

Angela4 Comments

Sarah Winston Garage Sale Cozy series

I managed to read the first four book in this series in about a week, and absolutely loved them!

Tagged for Death cover image

Freshly divorced from her husband, CJ; Sarah now finds herself with plenty of time on her hands since she is no longer an Air Force wife. Her love for garage sales, finding a bargain, and negotiating a deal keep her occupied, and also open the door to a new form of employment; running other’s garage sales.

The cause of their divorce, a now-pregnant 19 year old named Tiffany, has gone missing. Sarah finds a startling discovery of bloody clothes belonging to CJ, (who happens to now be the Ellington Chief of Police), while she is going through some bags of items donated to the thrift shop on the base.

Her initial reaction is to hide them until she can figure out what is going on. Soon enough she has to bring it to CJ’s attention, and now they are both trying to clear his name, and find out what happened to Tiffany. Even though Sarah seems to have a couple people who are not fans of hers, she has her close friends who will stand by her through it all.

Up next: My review of book 2 in the series, The Longest Yard Sale.

You can learn more about Sherry Harris here: Author Sherry Harris

What are you reading right now? I have started on a new cozy series, and will be reviewing that very soon as well!

And The Winners Are…

Angela4 Comments

…Lisa and Janine! I have sent you an email with further instructions so I can get your gifts shipped to you.

I will be having another drawing shortly for ebooks for my international followers, as they were not able to participate in this giveaway…again, very sorry, and I am looking for a way to resolve this issue in the future for printed books!

More to come on the next giveaway, as well as some more book reviews!

Thank you to everyone who participated, as well as Julianna Deering for helping me out with this! This has definitely become my favorite cozy mystery series! I love being able to give these types of gifts to readers 😊

My Soul is a Burden for the Universe – Antheias Ghost

Angela5 Comments

I’m your orbiter
beyond the sky and stars
beyond time itself

I’ve always been here
patiently
waiting for you to come back home

I’ll keep the dust away, because I know it makes you sneeze
I’ll set the table one more time, and make sure your bed stays smelling fresh.
I know how much you love the feeling of a clean bed.

and I’ll play your song one more time
echoing it through all of space itself

my heart

crying out for its lover

a single moment
and everything stands still

the dust settling again
and I’m back to work

bracing my heart, for the impact of your arrival
and making sure, the dust never sits too long.

What I’m Reading…

Angela30 Comments

… I had to order 3 books from a library two hours away, since my library got rid of all of these books😔 How did I miss that sale?

These books are what got me started on my book obsession. And Encyclopedia Brown, of course.

This book is stamped 1974; I was two years old.

There are not too many books I will read over and again; but it has been so long since I read this story that everything is brand new and like I am reading it for the first time.

Please tell me you have read these stories!

Lethal White – Robert Galbraith

Angela4 Comments

Well, I finished this book over a week ago, and have been avoiding writing a review on it ever since. I liked it well enough, but I certainly did not love it like the previous 3 books in the series. I had no sense of enjoyment every time I picked it up to read it. The first thing I always checked was where my bookmark was, and how much farther I had to go. It is hard to read a book that you just aren’t loving.

Lethal White Cover Image

The things I didn’t like were …. The length of the book. I felt like there was way too much detail to every single thing in the book that was not necessary and did not add to the story. Then there were so many characters, I had a hard time keeping up with all of the different story lines and subplots and interactions with everyone. The last few chapters felt like everything was just tossed out there to tie everything together.

I love the characters of Strike and Robin, and they were both going through personal issues that lent a new dynamic to their working and personal relationship. The blackmailing and possible decades old murder of a child are what was driving the story plot, and it was just too much.

I’m not the only one who took issue with this story. I have seen more reviews with the same complaints I have than reviews that were all positive.

Will I read the next story in the series? Absolutely! I also had huge issues with her novel “The Casual Vacancy”, but it did not stop me from picking up the first book in this series, “The Cuckoo’s Calling”. My review on “The Casual Vacancy” had comments from most that felt the same way I did. And one comment from someone who had a real issue with the fact that I did not like the book, and dared to say so on my own blog that I pay money for to keep up every year 😊 Such is life; you can’t please everyone. You can see my rant over that story, nearly 4 years ago, here: The Casual Vacancy book and TV Show

I got 12 books from my local library yesterday, so I am back to enjoyable reading time! How did you feel about this book?

A Rainy Saturday in Michigan

Angela16 Comments

I could have stayed in bed all day, but my 14 year old had marching band practice from 9am to 3pm.

These two boys made it really hard to get up! Benjamin and Franklin own the industry on laziness 😂

I actually took myself to WalMart instead of letting someone shop for me… it went rather well; but the baking after I got home? Not so much…

My daughters friends family is definitely struggling with the father being in the hospital for the last month after a horrible accident. I am bringing them a turkey dinner tomorrow.

Burned my arm checking the first batch of muffins, orange-sized blister now. Couldn’t figure out why the 2nd batch of muffins was taking so long to cook. I accidentally turned off the oven and never realized it.

All this time I could have been reading and writing 😂

And how is your Saturday going? I hope it includes an awesome book and warmth and comfort!

Still Working on the Store :-(

Angela8 Comments

This last shirt, Feed Me, is really getting my goat… I threw one away this weekend; and again, these bottom letters will not stick to the shirt. The whole black flower background and wording is one piece of vinyl; and as you can see, I still have the transfer paper on the bottom…

Either way, I am making pillows of the “I Read Past My Bedtime”.

And tomorrow; I have two different stories to work on.

Happy Friday; I give you well wishes that you are more productive than me…

Friday Fun Facts!

Angela7 Comments

It has been a long time since I have done a Friday Fun Facts post, and it is long overdue. Today’s topic: Bizarre book facts.

  • Best selling book of all time: The Holy Bible
  • Book that is stolen the most: I have seen two different answers on this, with the Bible being one; but the book I saw referenced the most is The Guinness Book of World Records.

  • Guinness world record by tattered cover
    Photo from Guinness World Records
  • Longest book to date: A la recherche du temps perduby Marcel Proust contains an estimated 9,609,000 characters (each letter counts as one character. Spaces are also counted, as one character each). The title translates to “Remembrance of Things Past“.

  • Marcel Proust cover image
    Photo from Pinterest
  • Author with most published books: L. Ron Hubbard, with 1,084 published works.

  • L Ron Hubbard cover image from Goodreads
    photo from Goodreads
  • Most expensive book: Bay Psalm Book; auctioned for 14,165,000.00 at Sotheby’s.

  • Bay Psalm Book image from Reuters
    Image from Reuters; Carlo Allegri
  • Oldest story known: The Epic of Gilgamesh; written on clay tablets between 2700-2500 BC.

  • Epic of Gilgamesh image
    Photo from Ancient History Encyclopedia

 

Do you know of any strange or fun facts about books? I would love to hear them!

References:
1: https://www.statista.com/statistics/248141/most-read-books-in-the-world/
2: http://mb.ntdin.tv/en/article/english/stolen-book-guinness-book-world-records-10-fun-facts-never-imagine
3: Guinness World Records
4: https://malwarwickonbooks.com/who-has-written-the-most-books/5:
5: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/10475282/The-worlds-most-expensive-books.html
6: https://andyrossagency.wordpress.com/2010/08/02/the-first-book-ever-written/