Summer Changes for Favorite Friday Fiction

Hello, friends! Summer is here and has brought an unexpected event in my life which will affect my schedule somewhat for a few months. My husband is scheduled for surgery next week and will be off work for six weeks.

Add that on top of my increased babysitting in the summer and a large garden to pick, can, and freeze.  I’ve decided to scale back my blog work for a couple of months which includes Favorite Friday Fiction.

I still plan to get some reading time in so when Favorite Friday Fiction resumes on September 7th, I’ll have lots of new books to share with y’all. I’ll still post every Monday with Small Acts of Kindness so don’t miss those fun reads.

I hope you enjoy your summer. And I can’t wait to meet you back here in September!

Favorite Friday Fiction: Clutch of Constables by Ngaio Marsh

Clutch of Constables is my classic choice for June. I love books by Ngaio Marsh, especially when Agatha “Troy” Alleyn, Inspector Alleyn’s wife,  plays a starring role in the book. If you love all things mysterious, you’ll enjoy this great read…

Click to tweet: A classic mystery by Ngaio Marsh is this month’s Favorite Friday Fiction classic.  #Fridayreads #amreading

---

Clutch of Constables

A classic Ngaio Marsh novel which features blood-curdling murders in the confines of a riverboat, the Zodiac, cruising through Constable country.’He looks upon the murders that he did in fact perform as tiresome and regrettable necessities,’ reflected Chief Superintendent Roderick Alleyn on the international crook known as `the Jampot’.

But it was Alleyn’s wife Troy who knew `the Jampot’ best: she had shared close quarters with him on the tiny pleasure steamer Zodiac on a cruise along the peaceful rivers of `Constable country’. And it was she who knew something was badly wrong even before Alleyn was called in to solve the two murders on board…

Favorite Friday Fiction: Chapel Springs Revival by Ane Mulligan

Chapel Springs Revival by Ane Mulligan is the first book in a very enjoyable series of humorous novels. I love the way she combines small-town humor with an inspirational story. They balance each other and make it a fun and thought-provoking read. You’ll want to check out this series…

Click to tweet:  You’ll want to read Chapel Springs Revival, an INSPY Awards Nominee, by Ane Mulligan. #FavoriteFridayFiction #Fridayreads

---

Chapel Springs Revival

With a friend like Claire, you need a gurney, a mop, and a guardian angel.

Everybody in the small town of Chapel Springs, Georgia, knows best friends Claire Bennett and Patsy Kowalski. It’s impossible not to, what with Claire’s zany antics and Patsy’s self-appointed mission to keep her friend out of trouble. And trouble abounds. 

During an early morning discussion at Dees ‘n’ Doughs bakery with their ladies group, all Chapel Springs entrepreneurs, attention is drawn to the slackened tourist trade. With their livelihoods threatened, they join forces to address the town’s revitalization in hopes of drawing back the tourists. No one could have guessed the real issue needing restoration is their marriages. 

Claire, a pottery artist, stumbles through life with her foot in her mouth. When she became a Christian, she thought life and her marriage would be included in the new creation part. But her thighs are just as big and her husband, Joel, is as ornery as ever. She’s become nothing more than a sheet-changer, a towel-folder, a pancake-flipper. Her life is humdrum and she’s tired of being taken for granted. 

Patsy has plans for her empty nest, plans that include a cruise ship. However, her husband, Nathan, continues to work long hours, and he’s not talking about slowing down. In fact, he’s not talking much at all. She’s asleep long before he comes home each night. At first she thought it was just because of tax season, but now she’s not so sure. Something other than work seems to keep him late at the office every night. With the lines of communication closed, she’ll have to find another way to reach him. 

With their marriages as much in need of restoration as the town, Claire and Patsy embark on a mission of mishaps and miscommunication, determined to restore warmth to Chapel Springs and their lives. That is if they can convince their husbands and the town council, led by two curmudgeons who would prefer to see Chapel Springs left in the fifties and closed to traffic.

Favorite Friday Fiction: The Five Times I Met Myself by James L. Rubart

The Five Times I Met Myself is another great novel by James L. Rubart. The struggles of the characters mirrored my own and touched me. Like all his books, it is very well-written. Make sure you have a box of tissue nearby!

Click to tweet: The Five Times I Met Myself by James L. Rubart on Favorite Friday Fiction. Awesome book! #Fridayreads #amreading

---

The Five Times I Met Myself

“If you think fiction can’t change your life and challenge you to be a better person, you need to read The Five Times I Met Myself.”

—Andy Andrews, New York Times bestselling author of How Do You Kill 11 Million People, The Noticer & The Traveler’s Gift

What if you met your twenty-three-year-old self in a dream? What would you say?

Brock Matthews’ once promising life is unraveling. His coffee company. His marriage.

So when he discovers his vivid dreams—where he encounters his younger self—might let him change his past mistakes, he jumps at the chance. The results are astonishing, but also disturbing.

Because getting what Brock wants most in the world will force him to give up the one thing he doesn’t know how to let go . . . and his greatest fear is that it’s already too late.

Favorite Friday Fiction: The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett is a wonderful classic book I could read again and again. My favorite section is where Colin has a revelation:

“He had known it before in a way, he had hoped it and felt it and thought about it, but just at that minute something had rushed all through him—a sort of rapturous belief and realization and it had been so strong that he could not help calling out. “I shall live forever and ever and ever!” he cried grandly. “I shall find out thousands and thousands of things. I shall find out about people and creatures and everything that grows—like Dickon—and I shall never stop making Magic. I’m well! I’m well! I feel—I feel as if I want to shout out something—something thankful, joyful!”

Click to tweet: The Secret Garden still continues to capture readers of all ages. #Fridayreads #classic

---

The Secret Garden

The orphaned Mary Lennox is sullen, ill tempered, and unloved when she’s sent to live with her uncle, Archibald Craven. A man consumed by grief over the death of his wife, Archibald has allowed his sprawling estate on the moors to fall into grim disrepair. It’s when Mary begins tending to her late aunt’s mysterious garden—locked up and neglected for years—that she discovers its life-changing secrets and a flowering rejuvenation of the human spirit.

Out of this dark, closed-off world and a child’s innate curiosity about life and death comes one of the most transformative coming-of-age novels ever written.

Favorite Friday Fiction: The Unquiet Bones by Mel Starr

The Unquiet Bones by Mel Starr is a little different from my normal reads. Yes, it is a mystery but one which takes place in Medieval times. Once I wrapped my mind around the time period, I enjoyed the book very much…

Click to tweet: The Unquiet Bones is a Middle Ages mystery to enjoy. #Fridayreads #mystery

---

The Unquiet Bones

Uctred thought he had discovered pig bones. He did not know or care why they were in the cesspit at the base of Bampton Castle wall. Then he found the skull. Uctred is a tenant, bound to the land of Lord Gilbert, third Baron Talbot, lord of Bampton Castle, and had slaughtered many pigs. He knew the difference between human and pig skulls. Lord Gilbert called for me to inspect the bones. All knew whose bones they must be.

They were not. Hugh de Singleton, fourth son of a minor knight in Wyclif’s England, had had some good fortune. Newly trained as a surgeon, he was staring from his Oxford window, hoping for clients, when Lord Gilbert was kicked by his groom’s horse. Hugh’s successful treatment of the suffering Lord led to an invitation to set up his practice in the village of Bampton – and, before long, the request to identify some bones…

Favorite Friday Fiction: The Bargain by Aaron D. Gansky

The Bargain is an intriguing roller coaster of a book. I loved the characters and setting. The way Gansky builds up suspense is masterful. I’ve read most of his books and enjoyed them all. If you like suspense, read this book…

Click to tweet: The Bargain by Aaron D. Gansky runs over with riveting suspense. #suspense #Fridayreads

---

The Bargain

One man stands between a destitute town and total destruction.

Ten articles in eight days is a tall order for any journalist, even for Polk Award winner Connor Reedly. But with a dying wife and an empty bank account, the promised payment of $250,000 is hard to turn down. More so, his enigmatic employer, Mason Becker, has insinuated Connor’s acceptance of the job will result in a supernatural healing of his beloved wife. 

The people of Hailey, California—the subjects of Connor’s charged articles—are a secretive group, not willing to open up to strangers. When shots are fired and Connor is running for his life, he demands Mason answer his questions: Why are the articles so important? Is anyone going to publish them? Where is the money coming from? How can he be so confident that the completion of the articles will heal his wife? 

Nothing in Connor s vast journalistic adventures—not Katrina, not September 11th, not even his first-hand experience in the genocide in Darfur–could prepare him for the answers Mason gives. Now, it seems, the lives of everyone in Hailey—including his wife’s—are in his hands.

Favorite Friday Fiction: Storms in Serenity by Fay Lamb

Storms in Serenity is a complex, engaging story by Fay Lamb. The way she weaves her characters brings them to life and makes you want to know what happens to them. The suspense is terrific and I didn’t want to put it down until I could see how it would end. Another great novel by Fay.

Click to tweet: Favorite Friday Fiction: Storms in Serenity by Fay Lamb. A tempest has been brewing for thirty years, with only one island town in its path. #FridayReads #suspense

---

Storms in Serenity

How can one man save the town he loves when he’s the reason for the destruction?

Serenity Key, Florida, has seen its share of hurricanes, but this time, one foul weather system is about to collide with another storm, and this one has nothing to do with atmospheric pressure. 

David New has guarded his secrets for years, but when two brothers, John and Andy Ryan, arrive in town and he gets news that the daughter he’s never told anyone about has disappeared, possibly the victim of a heinous crime, and the lives of many of the town residents begin to unravel in the gale force consequences of Jake’s past, he has nowhere else to turn.
God is the only one Who can calm the storms, but can David and the good folks of Serenity Key survive until He does?
A tempest has been brewing for thirty years, with only one island town in its path.

Favorite Friday Fiction: Frankenstein

Today’s classic, Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley is a really well-written book and an interesting read. I would recommend reading the book because shows like “The Munsters” and others have changed the essence of this true classic novel…

Click to tweet: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is a true classic novel, the premier monster story of English literature. #amreading #FridayReads

---

Frankenstein: The premier monster story of English literature—a tale of science pursued to horrifying extremes

An origin story nearly as famous as the book itself: One dreary summer on the shores of Lake Geneva, amid discussions of galvanism and the occult and fireside readings from a collection of German ghost stories, Lord Byron proposed a game. Each of his guests—eighteen-year-old Mary Godwin and her future husband, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, among them—would try their hand at writing a tale of the supernatural.

Unable at first to think of a plot, Mary was visited one sleepless night by the terrible vision of a corpse, a “hideous phantasm of a man,” lurching to life with the application of some unknown, powerful force. The man responsible, a “pale student of unhallowed arts,” fled in horror from his creation, leaving it to return to the dead matter from which it had been born. But the monster did not die. It followed the man to his bedside, where it stood watching him with “yellow, watery, but speculative eyes”—eyes of one who thought, and felt.

The novel that Mary Shelley would go on to publish, the legend of Victor Frankenstein and his unholy creation, and their obsessive, murderous pursuit of each other from Switzerland to the North Pole, has been the stuff of nightmares for nearly two centuries. A masterpiece of Romantic literature, it is also one of the most enduring horror stories ever written.

Favorite Friday Fiction: Misstep by Deborah Dee Harper

Misstep by Deborah Dee Harper is a book I really enjoyed, laughing out loud at different parts of the book. Zany, believable characters and never knowing what is coming next made it another great read. Don’t miss this series. Book 2, Faux Pas, is good and I’m ready for Book 3. 🙂

Click to tweet: Misstep by Deborah Dee Harper. A laugh out loud fun read. #humor #FridayReads

---

Misstep (The Road’s End series book 1)

Winnie and Sadie are still fighting, and I’m still living in the strangest town on earth.

It’s December in Road’s End, Virginia, a tiny town long forgotten by anyone but its residents, where Colonel Hugh Foster and his wife, Melanie, have chosen to live—for better or worse. The jury’s still out on that one!

Road’s End is comprised entirely of senior citizens whose kids have grown and left for greener pastures. Hugh, Melanie, and Bristol (one of the few sane people in town) are faced with a crumbling church in desperate need of repair and renovation, a dwindling congregation of opinionated, ornery senior citizens, and a camel—yes, a camel. And if that’s not enough, the trio and the rest of the Road’s End residents, are soon mired in danger and intrigue when a group of gun-toting drug dealers arrive in town, bent on killing the church handyman, and conspiring to ruin the doggonedest record-breaking blizzard the town has ever seen.

Poor drug dealers.