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Book Review – Murder at Harbor Village

Murder at Harbor Village by G.P. Gardner

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Cozy Murder Mystery

Cleo Mack has just been asked to retire early from her position as a social work professor at a university in Atlanta. She finds herself in Fairhope Alabama, a picture perfect community known for retirees and it is love at first sight. While exploring the town she meets a wonderful older lady Nita, and they become fast friends. Nita lives in Harbor Village, a retirement community and assisted living facility. The very next day Cleo has a chance encounter with Jamie, RN and acting administrator at Harbor Village who is on the hunt for a part time social worker for a Resident Services position at the facility. When Cleo stops by to check the place out she is instantly drawn to it. It seems everything is falling into place, a new part time job that still gave her time to enjoy her retirement, and an apartment to go go with it but is it too good to be true?

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Book 1 – Alabama

College professor/Social worker Cleo Mack is forced to retire early at just 50. She moves to the coastal town of Fairhope Alabama, and finds a part time job with an apartment at Harbor Village, a retirememt community and assisted living facility. When the unpopular director is found murdered, it turns out she was married to Cleo’s ex-husband. Travis asks Cleo to become active director and snoop around as things at the facility have been fishy lately, ending with murder.

50 Books in 50 States

This year I have chosen to read 50 books set in each of the 50 states. Actually, I have also included the District of Columbia too so technically 51.

I am not saying that these books are the best in the state but they are ones that I have. 😊 As always the point is to choose from my To Be Read pile and not buy any new ones.

It took a bit of time to go through my 856 TBR list on Goodreads and see if the setting is listed on each one. Let me tell you California and New York… super popular, loads to choose from! Maine is pretty easy as basically every Stephen King book takes place there. 😄 North Carolina is covered by Nicholas Sparks and John Grisham for Mississippi. North Dakota is a hard one, as is Delaware, not a popular state for novels I guess.

Gonna be another fun year, so excited to get started! If anyone would like to join in, I would love to hear your picks!

2019 Reading Challenge Results – Close but no cigar

My goal for 2019 had been 52 books in 52 weeks but I fell short by 11. I am bummed by the books left unread as I was looking forward to reading each and every one of them. On the other hand, I am not gonna beat myself up about it. I know that I also lived and loved and crafted a little too. There is only so many hours in the day and it is still so important to spend time with your loved ones and occasionally get out of the house. 😉

I am proud of starting this blog and writing my Reviews, or as my husband likes to call them my book reports 😂. I wrote 26 reviews in 2019. 2 of those reviews on Amazon were voted as helpful! 🎉

I still plan to keep a high reading goal (like 50 is still high for me) but I really want to focus on writing more. I only wrote 5 posts last year.😶 I want to do better and I know I can. The ideas are there, I just need to stop and put it out there. No more fear! This is me and if they don’t like it, fuck em!

Hawaii anyone? I vote YES!

In early November we took a week trip to the Big Island of Hawaii. I was not disappointed!

It started off terrible with flight delays due to fog in Seattle. We were an hour and a half behind schedule which was the amount of our next layover. We landed in Seattle just 8 minutes before our next flight to Honolulu was due to take off. The airport was overcrowded so we taxied to the overflow parking and had to take a bus back to airport. So… a bus ride, a tram, and lots of running we made it to our gate in 5 minutes, just 3 minutes to spare! We finally made it to Hilo with some bumps and bruises but can you guess what did not make it? That’s right…our luggage.

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Throwback Thursday – November 2017

As road construction has dominated my summer and smoke season had rolled in from nearby wildfires, I find myself daydreaming back to this magical island.

Just a quick ferry ride from the hustle and bustle of Tahiti, Moorea is beautiful and pure relaxation. The overwater bungalows at the Hilton Moorea Lagoon and Spa are exquisite! The view is just breath taking. While there is lots of activities to do on this island, I prefer to stay in my fabulous bungalow and enjoy the peaceful solitude of just me and my hubby in pure paradise. It doesn’t get any better than that.

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The Scariest Books of All Time

I came across this article on Book Scrolling and had to share it. I love lists and I am always looking out for new ones, “The Best books of all time”, “The Best Mystery novels”, “The Best Horror”, etc. I have seen many lists for the Scariest books or the Best Horror novels but this one took a more analytical approach. It went through the top 15 horror novel lists and ranked the books based on how many different lists they appeared on. The number one scariest book, was on 9 lists!

Of the 227 books on the list (they do have a few listed twice), I have read 10, and only 2 in the top 30! I love a good scary book too but clearly I have not been reading the best. I must get to work on that. I do have 3 on the docket for this year though (Dracula, Frankenstein, and 1984).

I don’t have a favorite horror novel but Stephen King will always be the King of Horror for me. Whenever I see a King book at a thrift store it makes it’s way to my house without any questions asked.

Do you have a favorite horror novel?

My library

Sometimes I walk by my library and I just have to stop and admire it. It’s not Belle’s library but I think I have done a pretty damn good job with it. My husband occasionally sees me and asks what I’m doing and I respond with “I’m just looking at them”. Thankfully he already knows I’m odd, so this statement doesn’t phase him. Every once in awhile the shelves get overcrowded and I have to rearrange. It is almost that time again, as you can see. This is a chore that I do not mind doing. It gives me pleasure to add order to the books and declutter the shelves. “How better to see you, my dear” although “my precious” is a more accurate phrase, if I’m being totally honest. You know when you walk by the baby aisle in the store and you just can’t help it you have to touch the fuzzy blankets; it’s kinda like that. I have to pick a few up, shuffle through the pages, smell them. Very obsessive and Gollumy, I know. Does anyone else feel this way? I hope I’m not the only one.

As I am sure all book lovers have, I have been asked on several occasions “What is your favorite book?” This is an impossible question to answer. I could never narrow it down to just one. So, in no particular order, here is my top 10:

The Wheel of Time series – Robert Jordan
The Dark Tower series – Stephen King
Eve Duncan series – Iris Johansen
This Bright Beauty – Emily Maine Cavanagh
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society – Mary Ann Shaffer
The Marriage Pact – Michelle Richmond
Reconstructing Amelia – Kimberly McCreight
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon – Stephen King
Stephanie Plum series – Janet Evanovich
Sky in the Deep – Adrienne Young

These are books that I regularly recommend and lend to my friends and family. There are several series on the list, you can’t pick just one of them, I love the whole lot together. Go check them out!

Here we go!

I have been thinking and talking about starting a blog for years now. I have finally pulled the trigger and done it! I am so very excited to start this new adventure and share my wonderful experiences to those you want to read about them.

I have always loved reading, and knew that I wanted to write one day. What do they say about starting to write… write what you know. Well, I know books. I have been reviewing books for a couple years now on goodreads.com. At first it started out as just something fun to do that I thought made sense. “Hey, I read a lot of books, maybe I should start to review them”. Just seemed like the logical next step. It has become something that I find as much joy in as the reading itself. I know that I look to ratings and reviews to decide if I should buy a book or not. I would love to believe that my reviews would do that for someone else.

So, here we go! Welcome to the A show!

Check out this years reading challenge and my Ratings and Reviews pages.