I am a writer of poetry and fiction and an avid reader. Here, I think 'out-loud' about books, movies, stories, writing and other fictions.
I lost the whole site at one point and am rebuilding old posts from my backups.
Finder by Connie Suttle (2018) SubtleDemon Publishing
A little unexplained orphan girl lives in the pantry of a King's kitchen where she helps but does not speak. This is the adventure of a girl with unexplained abilities to find anything and that's just one of the things she can do in a vicious world of political intrigue.
Locked Rooms by Laurie R King (2005) Bantam
Mary Russel and Sherlock Holmes, her husband, visit her family's home in San Francisco so she can settle some of the estate. She has nightmares that include a locked room that she knows is there. She has to confront her past, the earthquake, the accident that killed her parents and brother and the lodge her father and his friend built.
The Inquisitor's Tale by Adam Gidwitz (2016) Dutton
Told in tales like Chaucer, a greyhound saves the life of a little baby, but her owners think she slew the baby and kill her. When they find the snake and the live baby, they bury the dog in the forest and mark the grave. Soon the dog is treated like a local saint. But the church is suspicious of such behavior and send out an inquisitor to stamp out such belief. When the girl is about ten, she visits the grave and the dog is sitting on top waiting for her. In the meantime, in a Jewish village, some teenage boys set the village on fire and one mother kicks a hole in the back of her mud hut and tells her boy to run and meet up with her in Saint Denis. At the same time a very large boy, one whose father was a lord and mother was an African Muslim, is told the monastery can no longer afford to feed him and sends him to Saint Denis. A group of knights come to the little girls village to take her and the dog away for trial in Saint Denis. And the adventure begins - all stories told in an inn.
Freaky Deaky by Elmore Leonard (1988) Arbor House
An officer in Detroit, assigned to the bomb squad, asks for a transfer to satisfy his girlfriend. He ends-up in sex crimes, she kicks him out, which gets him suspended since he doesn't have an address in Detroit. In the meantime, a man and a woman who used to know each other in the old, protest movement days, conspire to con someone they knew who in inherited millions by scaring him with bombs. Bombs kill people and our ex-cop hopes to catch the killers and get his job back.