daydreamer

Saturday, November 7, 2026

Review: Storm Tide

Storm Tide by Paul Doiron
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Have read the whole series and enjoy the if character development as well as the details of the life of Bowditch and his family. The fact that he is still part of the Warden service, indeed, that he has survived so far is pretty amazing. He certainly thinks before he acts much of the time and as a result finds himself in very dangerous situations and in hot water with his superiors over and over again. This time is no different. He is suspended and living in an area of Maine that is more boonies than anyone who has never been there can even imagine. And yet, isolated and supposedly concerned about the impending birth of his first child, he still finds himself unable to ignore the damned radio and not report to a scene of a fire. Naturally, the whole scene screams arson, murder, crime to him and off the story goes. But, despite all his running around on backroads and down to mountain lakes and off to desolate farmhouses, the mystery is solved and he goes home to wife and child back in uniform once more. It is a great romp for us, because both of us know the areas covered and we have lots of conversations about if he could really get from here to there in the times he describes or if we would be able to determine that the smells in the bog contain eau de beaver urine or not. Lots of descriptive language in Doiron's books and we love discussing some of it--above and beyond the plot --so much to take in.

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Sunday, November 1, 2026

Review: The Sisterhood

The Sisterhood by Tasha Alexander
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've read all the books in this series and this is the first I have not given 5 stars. The characters are still interesting and the mystery was engrossing. What was not interesting to me was the interspersal of Britannia and Boudica's friend. I saw no correlation between Roman subversion of native clans and the Society's subversion of woman and their right to vote. Nor did I see any real correlation between the members of the Sistership and the young woman torn between Rome and her native tribe.

Actually, considering the real situation of the suffragette movement in Britain and elsewhere with its demonstrations, imprisonments and forced feeding, the activities of these young socialites seemed rather bland. I have no doubt if such a group existed and planned to " create change from within" so to speak, I'm sure they risked societal suicide but it was a kind of flimsy plot around which to create several murders.

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Tuesday, August 11, 2026

Review: The Leopard

The Leopard by Jo Nesbø
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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Tuesday, June 23, 2026

Review: The Museum of Second Chances

The Museum of Second Chances by Jo Leevers
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Have not read this author before but found this to be a completely enjoyable book. Most people, I suppose, like myself, beachcomb but like things such as seashells, pretty pebbles, sand polished glass shards, interesting pieces of driftwood and consider anything else either uninteresting or irritating, having been deemed the products of mindless littering. Not so Evelyn Silver, a 61 year old spinster living in the seaside town of Portheast in Cornish. She has no family, both parents having died and no other siblings. She moved to London in her 20's to work at the British Museum but some mysterious misfortune destroyed her chances at a promising career so she returned to the seaside home in which she'd grown. A tiny town everyone knew her history--a foundling with a piece of lace pinned to the blanket in which she'd been wrapped, who'd been adopted somewhere up north by the Silvers. She cherished the piece of lace and when Mr Silver gave her place for her to store it and the incredible collection of discarded shoes, pieces of boat boards, balls of twine and pieces of plastic she'd collected from the beach and named it the Portheast Museum of Maritime Curiosities she eagerly took on the role of curator. Each morning she took a tote bag to the beach and brought back more pieces for her collection--broken china, odd shaped pebbles, a dog's leash. Not many people came to peruse these things but she kept busy on the beach and rummaged garage sales and thrift shops for other items that represented daily life and was quite content. Her only discontent focused on her desire to know who a real mother had been and hoped that one day someone would recognize the lace scrap and realize who she was.
Life went on for Evelyn in this way until the town councilors came to call on her and Della, her next door neighbor who ran a bakery in the next boatshed. It seemed that a development company wanted to buy the sheds, raze them and build a hotel. Della and Evelyn were renting from the town and so were told they would need to move out when their leases ended. Della was not going to take that laying down and so managed to persuade Evelyn to appeal to the townsfolk for help. The idea being that the items in the museum were part of the town's history. And with that, Evelyn's life and the dusty old museum found themselves turned upside down and inside out--with secrets and stories unearthed in ways no one could have expected!!

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