The Lake House by Kate Morton

 I enjoyed this well constructed mystery.  It's the type of story that grabs you early on and then keeps you reading by carefully revealing clues and details of the characters right into the conclusion.

DC Sadie Sparrow has been ordered on vacation due to a lapse of judgement during a recent case.  Not one to sit and stew, she is out and about in Cornwall when she stumbles upon a cold case, a seventy year cold case.  This peaks her interest and she dives in, finding similarities to her recent investigation.

This brings her in contact with Alice Edevane, sister to a child that was reported missing seventy years earlier.  Alice is touted as a local author and celebrity even though she has never returned to the site of the abduction.

Once started, I didn't want to put this book down, and kept sneaking in a chapter, or two or three, every chance I could.  Author Kate Morton made me feel as though I knew the Edevane family. I felt their anguish as they lived through those horrible events.  Her descriptions of the estate and family home left me feeling that it was a magical or mystical place where almost anything could happen.

I like the character of Sadie and her dogged determination to follow instincts and clues regardless of the formal opposition she might face.  Both she and Alice lead interesting and complicated lives that would undoubtedly improve if they would share the burden of their secrets. Neither is the sort that easily confides in others.

Once the story concluded, I was left with pleasant memories as though I had spent all that times with friends and not imagined characters. 

Cover image courtesy of Atria Books.

SYNC Audio for Teens - Week 13

The next pairing of free audiobooks is now available.  For more information about this wonderful program, read my introductory post.  Remember, these are only available till August 3, 2016

 Juba! by Walter Dean Myers

Pennies for Hitler by Jackie French

Needlework Tuesday - Almost as Good as a Finish

Wow it has been hot out.  The last week, I think that every day was at least 30C and a few were in the 33-34 range.  of course, it was those hottest days that we had booked a campsite.   Yes, we did go and it was hot hot hot.  We figured it would be fine as we were camped along side a lake, we'd be able to swim and soak all day.  Wrong, the lake is closed to swimming due to blue green algae . arg.  There was a small, but clean and cold pool which we did visit and chill in.  It may sound wrong, but i also brought a small fan with us and sat in it's breeze for hours.  Hubby then had it in the tent with him at night.

After arriving home, I was back at the sewing machine.  I was determined to finish all these blocks and get the rows stitched.  It now measures just over 80 x 80 inches.  I used about 3 1/2 metres of white and 1296 - 2 inch coloured squares.  I had pondered adding a couple of inches of border, but when I laid a strip on the bed, it hung over the sides a few inches.  Good enough. Once I get some batting, I'll be ready to quilt.

I have started the colour repeat on my afghan.  I am loving these colours.  All the white stripes are ten rows, the coloured ones vary.  Starting at the bottom, pink 8, beige 4, dark pink 8, light green 6, medium pink 10, and dark green 6. It should probably be long enough by the time I get back to the light pink.

Even with the air conditioning on, I find it warm to be sitting with an afghan on my lap.  Thank goodness for my room fan. I doubt I'll have it finished in time for the baby's birth, but with the temperatures lately, it won't be needed right away.

I hope that if you are experiencing high temperatures in your area, that you are coping and that it's not keeping you from your stitching.  Do you have any special methods you use to deal with the heat?

Needlework Tuesday is a regular weekly post where I share the progress of my various needlework projects over the past week. I enjoy the encouragement that I receive from my readers and in return visit their blogs and cheer them on with theirs. You are welcome to grab the cute little mouse and create your own Needlework Tuesday post. Leave a comment with a link and I'll be sure to visit with you.

I hope that you are having fun and  making progress on whatever project is dear to your heart at this moment.  Mister Linky is waiting below for a link to your current post.

SYNC Audio for Teens - Week 12

The next pairing of free audiobooks is now available.  For more information about this wonderful program, read my introductory post.  Remember, these are only available till July 27, 2016

 Mandela: An Audio History Hosted by Desmond Tutu Commentary by Nelson Mandela

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Something About Sophie by Mary Kay McComas

This was a good story that kept me interested to the last pages.

Sophie Shepard is unexpectedly drawn into a story almost three decades old when a stranger invites her to visit him on his death bed.  She arrives too late.  She's then torn whether to determine what he wanted to tell her, or to let these secrets remain untold.  Matters are complicated when she meets Dr. Drew McCarren, with whom she feels an immediate attraction. 

I enjoyed watching the growth of Sophie's relationships with the various people she met in the small town of Clearfield, Virgina.  They seemed to progress in a realistic manner and intensity.

Each time I thought I had figured out the mystery, author Mary Kay McComas added a further depth to it.  At the onset, I thought it was a simple question of who was Sophie's birth mother.  It became a story of small town dynamics and how the actions of a small number continue to ripple outward.

Cover image courtesy HarperCollins Canada

Needlework Tuesday - A concerted effort at progress

 I want to get this quilt done.  When i was making up the guest bed the other day, I was trying to stretch a twin quilt over the top of a queen size bed,  It doesn't work.  This quilt is going to be a bit bigger so it should cover the mattress top with a bit to spare.  A small border would make it even better.

Not sure what to do for the machine quilting and am checking several sites/books.  I am planning to quilt it as I assemble it strip by strip.  I like this one by Lori at the Inbox Jaunt.  As she says, it would be a good lead in to quilting feathers.

After stalling for a little bit, I am back knitting.  This little blanket is looking for pretty that I am excited working on it.  it's a simple pattern that has been easy to work while I'm watching television.

For those of you who partake in the annual quilt shop hops, it's that time again.  One is a block hop with 14 shops participating.  I have six of the kits (free kit to make an 8 inch block) and am probably going to leave it at that.  The colours are earthy and appeal to me, though I don't really see myself making the full project, some blocks don't speak to me, and several shops are just too far away.   I have a few more patterns for the Row by Row Experience.  I really like the house and door motifs that many of the shops are featuring.  I can imagine myself making a quilt using a lot of these motifs. (wait a minute, I don't need to start any new projects, i have far too many on the go).

I have friends on both sides when it comes to partaking in shop hops.  Some go on everyone they hear about, and others can't see the appeal.  They shop where and when they want.  I am curious whether you participate in shop hops and what your shops do to entice you visit?

Needlework Tuesday is a regular weekly post where I share the progress of my various needlework projects over the past week. I enjoy the encouragement that I receive from my readers and in return visit their blogs and cheer them on with theirs. You are welcome to grab the cute little mouse and create your own Needlework Tuesday post. Leave a comment with a link and I'll be sure to visit with you.

I hope that you are having fun and  making progress on whatever project is dear to your heart at this moment.  Mister Linky is waiting below for a link to your current post.

SYNC Audio for Teens - Week 11

The next pairing of free audiobooks is now available.  For more information about this wonderful program, read my introductory post.  Remember, these are only available till July 20, 2016

 Fat Angie by E. E. Charlton-Trujillo

On the Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta

Needlework Tuesday - Making Amigurumis

Amigurumis and those cute little cuddly things that you can knit or crochet.  They serve no practical purpose. They are just cute and possibly fun to make.  They are also a challenge for me to spell, every single time.  There are patterns for thousands of  Amigurumi on Ravelry.  Daughter wants to make some for a friend. This is a good place to brush up on her crochet skills, which have been rather dormant.  The crocheted sandwich that I showed a few weeks back and the ice cream cones from a few years ago, fall into this category.

This time we are making a herd of cthulhu. Well, I don't know what you call a group of cthulhu, but it will be fun making them.   So far we have completed one body each. I chose the variegated as I thought it might be easier to show daughter the stitches.

Her aunt has given her and assortment of yarns to work with. Should keep her busy for a while.

We are using a pattern from the book Creepy Cute Crochet by Christen Haden , published by Quirk Books. 

Pretty slim stitching to report this week. This past weekend hubby and I were camping, not a place to take the light coloured projects I am working on.  can you imagine me sitting in my lawn chair with a ball of that almost white yarn, working on the afghan, I move and ball rolls onto the dust at my feet.  eeks.

I do have more ambitious plans for this week, but they are just plans and subject to change.  Hope that you all had a wonderful weekend of sun and fun and maybe even a little stitching.   Be sure to leave a comment and better yet a link to your current needlework post.

Needlework Tuesday is a regular weekly post where I share the progress of my various needlework projects over the past week. I enjoy the encouragement that I receive from my readers and in return visit their blogs and cheer them on with theirs. You are welcome to grab the cute little mouse and create your own Needlework Tuesday post. Leave a comment with a link and I'll be sure to visit with you.

I hope that you are having fun and  making progress on whatever project is dear to your heart at this moment.  Mister Linky is waiting below for a link to your current post.

Broken Promises by Linwood Barclay

This is an excellent story with a well crafted plot.  Lots of twists.  With each revelation, a new depth was added which kept me guessing which clues were important and which were red herrings to distract me.

David Harwood is trying to get his life back on track when he and his son moved back to his hometown.  Shortly afterward, everything takes a downward spiral.

He is a wide open character that could go in any direction.  Being a long time reporter, he is a good investigator.  This comes in handy when his aunt asks him to find out how her daughter came to be in  possession of a baby that is clearly not hers.

I could not put this novel down.  The smaller town setting  was very appealing with all the personal connections, some stretching dack decades.  I found it very realistic that many of the characters had things in their backgrounds that they now regretted and would prefer never come to light.  Certainly helps expand the suspect pool.

This was a good who done it, though some of the whys were easier to figure out.

Author Linwood Barclay deftly interwove humour into dramatic scenes.  This kept some dark scenes from being over whelming.

The stories of Promise Falls continues in Final Assignment, a short story, and then in the full novel Far From True and then concludes in The Twenty-Three, due out in November 2016.

This is my first read by master storyteller Linwood Barclay and most certainly won't be my last.

Cover image courtesy Penguin Random House.

Finding Nouf by Zoe Ferraris

How does a woman drown in a desert a long way from home, particularly in a country where women don't leave their homes unescorted.

Nayir ash-Sharqi is asked by his friend Othman to find his sister Nouf who appears to have run away from home.

The story is set in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.  Nayir is a good and devout Muslim.  He is finding it difficult to investigate when he doesn't feel free to nor comfortable to speak with women.  His investigation takes a turn when Katya,  a female lab technician at the morgue, joins the case.

It was interesting how Nayir came to an acceptance of working with Katya.  She seemed so bold and forward when they met that he was clearly uncomfortable in her presence.  Nothing in his upbringing had prepared him to deal with the opposite sex.

The further he investigated, the more he learned about women and their lives.  He was surprised to learn that women could want more than to stay at home and become mothers.

As much a I enjoyed following the course of the investigation, I was far more intrigued by what Nayir learned about himself  His world opened from a closed male one to one that he realized could be enriched by females.  Author Zoe Ferraris also opened a door for me into a world and lifestyle that I knew so little about.

The Nayir Sharqi Series:

Finding Nouf
City of Veils
Kingdom of Strangers

Cover image courtesy Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

The Good Girl by Mary Kubica

You've probably watched a police drama where a person has been abducted and the family is shown making a televised pleas for the person's safe release.  Author Mary Kubica takes us inside the police cordon, inside the abductor's lair and  shows us in detail what happened during the abduction of school teacher Mia Dennett. 

We learn the story from the perspective of several narrators.  While it is usually the police detective who provides the story, here we are invited into Colin Thatcher's confidence where he shares his reasons for his actions.  It's never as clear cut as one might imagine.   It was interesting to learn bits and pieces of each person's history.  Much more effective for Detective Gabe Hoffman to relate a bit of his past and me to draw the conclusion of "aha, that's why he became a cop".

I was moved by the scenes with Gabe and Mrs. Thatcher.  They made me cry more than once.  Why would I cry for the abductor's mother.  Awesome power of the story that Ms. Kubica wove.

I thought I knew who was behind it all, but I didn't get it all right, I had some of the why, but not the who.  This was an excellently twisted tale.  Even the details of Mia and Colin's day to day existence were interesting to read. 

I listened to the  unabridged audio version. 10.6 hours. The four readers did  a great job that really helped set the tone of the book.

This a wonderful debut novel and it shows great promise for future works by Mary Kubica.

Cover image courtesy Blackstone Audio.

SYNC Audio for Teens - Week 10

The next pairing of free audiobooks is now available.  For more information about this wonderful program, read my introductory post.  Remember, these are only available till July 13, 2016

 Symphony for the City of the Dead by M. T. Anderson

The Young World by Chris Weitz

The Sudden Appearance of Hope by Claire North

Hope Arden is forgettable.  Not that there isn't anything remarkable about her, just that no one can remember her, not even her parents.

This is a great premise for a story and an appealing character.  I really enjoyed the descriptions of how Hope had devised coping mechanisms to deal with this malady.  She took full advantage of being able to redo first impressions.  That's almost a super power.

Beyond how Hope coped day to day, the story fell flat.  The slim plot was overwhelmed by the overly frequent descriptive passages.  Author Claire North writes great descriptions from which I could picture myself in a situation/setting, but too many times I couldn't find a link between the story line and accompanying description.  Wasted words.

A literary device used sparingly in a novel can be very effective, however, when used repeatedly it tends to lose it's impact.  The first few times that Ms. North included definition of story terms, it was interesting and helpful.  After employing this technique a dozen or two dozen times, I stopped reading them and skipped down the page to the continue the story.  Same happened with the lists or were they free form poetry.  They made no sense to me and added nothing to my comprehension nor enjoyment of the story. 

Even though I didn't enjoy the writing style of this book, I keep pondering Hope's life.  She is a fascinating character who I'd like to meet again in a short story.

Also by Claire North:

The First Fifteen Lives of  Harry August  - I really enjoyed this book

 Claire North is a pen name for author Catherine Webb.  She also writes as Kate Griffin.

Thanks to Hachette Books for my ebook review copy and for use of the cover image.

Needlework Tuesday - It's that Holiday Kind of Time

I'd like to tell you that I've been away on holiday, but no, I've been relaxing at home.  This past Friday we celebrated Canada Day.  Yesterday, family and friends to the south celebrated the American Fourth of July. Quite the weekend.

Today it's quiet in the house, the others are back to work and I am left to clear up, well, after I knit a few rows, and shop to get more yarn for the afghan, and get my walking in.  Did I mention that last year I bought a Fitbit for myself?  It's a wonderful little gadget for motivating me to keep moving.  The basic goal is to walk 10000 steps in a day. Yes, ten thousand.  Some health agencies have agreed that that is the amount we need for optimal health.  Most days I do get in all my steps, but some days, specially when ill, or when travelling it's difficult.

So how does this affect my needlework.  There are all sorts of professionals who would have you sit at your sewing machine and sew all day long.  When they need to press a seam, they swivel their chair to an ironing surface and press or use a pressing stick.  Bah, bad move.  Stand up, get your blood flowing and walk those few steps to your ironing board.  Better yet, move your ironing board to another room.  Every time you walk, the action of your legs helps pump your blood around your body.  More blood moving equals more blood to your brain, meaning healthier brain cells. The current line of thought is that better oxygenation of the brain will help stave off Alzheimer's.

I know I am worth the effort, so I keep moving and and stitching, even when the moving takes away time from today's stitching, in the long run it could help give me years more stitching time.

 I used to sew garments all the time.  I would tackle any project, only shying away from expensive difficult to handle fabrics.  Then I found home dec projects followed by quilting and didn't make a garment for years.  Lately daughter has wanted to learn to sew clothes.  Sure, why note, it's a great way to have unique clothing that you can custom fit.

There are a few things that give me pause, zippers and buttonholes.  It took me a week of prodding to install the zipper, which actually took less than an hour to complete.  The trick is to hand baste it in and then machine stitch.

Once that was done, I immediately jumped to the button holes. Didn't want to waste the momentum.  I had to read the wholely inadequate instructions that came with my machine and practice, practice, practice.  I had it perfect and made the first one on the dress. I was using the semi-automatic button hole foot, well, it couldn't cope with the slight bulge of fabric at the edge of the dress and sewed the second side of the button hole too short.  I had to take it out.  that left about 3000 needleholes in the dress. ouch.  had to get the new buttonhole in the exact spot.  But first, back to practice.  I put the machine back on manual and practiced, practiced, practiced.  On to the dress, got it perfect this time, did the second button hole. Done.

Then to cut open the button hole.  I use my seam ripper, but first, I put pins just inside the future opening, that way my seam ripper can not cut through the bar tacks at the end oft he button hole (oops, done that before).   Buttons are sewn on and the dress is waiting for daughter to learn how to do the hem on the machine.  Then finally you will get to see a photo of her wearing our creation.

Work progresses on the baby afghan.   I was going to use a baby blue in place of the green but it just didn't look right.  I borrowed the green from another project and am much happier with it.  Now I need one more green and more of the beige.   Son says his friend's baby is due soon though I can only stitch so fast.

The pattern says it needs to be vigorously blocked, but I am finding that it only pulls a little on the increase section, so I won't be worrying about that.

For the quilters in the audience. Today I am going to my first shop for the Row by Row Experience.  The very popular craft and surplus shop Lens Mills, has joined the hop.  All ten locations have a different row.  Unfortunately, the owner, Bruce Menary passed away this weekend.  His children plan to continue running the thriving business.  Bruce and his father Len will be remembered for their support of the annual MCC quilt auction in New Hamburg.  When you enter any of their stores, be sure to look on the walls and to the ceiling to see some of the over 200 quilts they purchased over the years.

Needlework Tuesday is a regular weekly post where I share the progress of my various needlework projects over the past week. I enjoy the encouragement that I receive from my readers and in return visit their blogs and cheer them on with theirs. You are welcome to grab the cute little mouse and create your own Needlework Tuesday post. Leave a comment with a link and I'll be sure to visit with you.

I hope that you are having fun and  making progress on whatever project is dear to your heart at this moment.  Mister Linky is waiting below for a link to your current post.