Unhallowed Ground by Heather Graham

I am fast becoming a big Heather Graham fan. In one of her most recent books, Unhallowed Ground, we find another paranormal type romance. But yet it isn't. Eeehhhh. This book takes place in St. Augustine Fla and centers around Sarah, who is a historian working as a docent at a museum while she is busy renovating an old historic house that she has always loved. Now the house has a morbid past, with being a mortuary a time or two with the morticians hiding bodies in the walls to reuse the fancy coffins and having a voodoo witch supposedly living there also. What starts the story out is missing girls, and when they are eventually found, drained of blood. Of course you think vampires but not the case. Where the romance in the story is between Sarah and Caleb, who is a private investigator who is a little psychic. He has come down to Fla to find a missing girl from a year ago and to help search for the recent one. And he keeps finding bodies as he is sort of drawn to them. Like he was to Sarah's house. And on top of that we have a mystery with a relative of Caleb's that is associated with the house. Fab book I didn't want to put down and y'all must read it. http://www.eheathergraham.com/

At Home on Ladybug Farm

A very cute story from Donna Ball following the first book, A Year on Ladybug Farm, which I devoured too. Three women, retired from their busy lives and jobs, are now going into year 2 on the gorgeous sounding, farmstead in Shenandoah Valley, VA. With the help of a orphaned teenage boy and one of the women's daughters, they have many new fun ventures, and adventures, into renovating the farm and making it self sufficient. It is a encouraging story of making dreams come true. I was rolling on the floor, reading the scene of the Easter dinner with the pastor, when the daughter decided to spring her new idea for the farm: 144 baby chicks, with some escaping and visiting the set table. And additionally, when they decide to sand the wood floors. It is definitely a fun read, watching unexplored talents coming through and having opportunities of showing off the ones they have. Reading about the different eras in the history of the house and helping explain the interesting treasures they find in the walls and barn. I think you should read these books and hope another is on its way. http://www.donnaaball.net/

Weekend light reading

I hate to say this but there was another one that I started reading and it wasn't exactly what I thought it was going to be and I couldn't get into it. I feel bad that I decided to not finish it because it was losing me but that is the way I felt about Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson. This one had been a 'if you liked that one, you probably would like this one' type book and I checked it out of the library, so no great loss. Again I got halfway through it and it wasn't keeping me. The story starts with the conception of a baby from the day 1 and goes from there. I think it was difficult because the main character is a fetus. I didn't finish it, so it is a don't bother. But my weekend did get better. I read Magic and the Modern Girl by Mindy Klasky and I am hooked. It is actually, I think, 3rd in a series, and I will have to backtrack the first two, (OCD) to read. The main character is a librarian, yes I gravitate to those books since I work in a library, and she is a newly unveiled witch. Her mom and grandmother have powers, too, but not as much as Jane has. I felt this book was very modern witchy and fun, with the exception of maybe her creation of a anima, kind of like bringing a doll to life thing. It seems when she was doing the spell, her mind was drifting and the purpose of her anima gets blurred and whacked out of proportion. The final showdown with the anima is a little strange but interesting. The love life issues were breath-holding and the storyline was quite good, with some historical info on the DC area thrown in. It is a should read and I will read more. http://www.mindyklasky.com/ The other book was a sure thing. I read the next in the Shenandoah Album books by Emilie Richards. These books to me are a good down home, snug in my bed, warm feeling reads. This one, Lovers Knot, takes the reporter from the last book and delves into her traumatic life. She is carjacked, while at a pharmacy getting medicine, and shot twice. She recovers only to decide that her life will never be the same. Her relationship with her husband is strained so she plans to take a timeout at her husbands' grandmothers house up in Toms River, that had been left to him along with a quilt. The quilt unravels a very interesting mystery surrounding the Shenandoah National Park and the removal of people for the building of the park. Again this is another flip the house book, a happy ending book and a very interesting historical mystery of sorts. I will continue to read the series and recommend as a must read. http://emilierichards.com/ All library books

Flip that house

Have you noticed that the "in" thing, to write your book about, is flipping houses? It just seemed to me that that was in a lot of the books I have been reading. Hummm, a subconscious thing maybe because I would love to flip houses and I gravitate towards those kinds of books. Okay, so I just finishing a really, really good book called Fixer Upper, yupp the title tells you everything, by Mary Kay Andrews. This is a must read. I thoroughly enjoyed this story about Dempsey Killebrew, love the name, and her lot in life. She was a lawyer and a lobbyist in Washington that gets suckered by her boss to be the scapegoat for a scandal involving buying a senator. Anyway, after being disgraced and fired, she escapes to Guthrie, Georgia, to fix up a house that just happened to have been left to her dad from a distant relative. The house, which once sounded fab, is a mess and Dempsey has her hands full doing most the renovation herself with the help of many of the town's helpful good looking men. Yeah, she has them lined up at the door. In amongst this restoration, she is trying to clear herself of the charges with the scandal, helping the FBI nail her boss and the senator. I particularly liked the interaction between Dempsey and the agents. Very funny. She makes many very interesting friends along the way, with most of the town of Guthrie being a distant relative in one way or another. I have read other Mary Kay Andrews books and highly recommend them. www.marykayandrews.com/ Library book