Early March Books to Read

by Susan Roberts

February has ended and it sure seemed like a quick month.  March is one of my favorite months as the spring flowers start to bloom in my part of the South.  I have reviews of three books that are publishing in early March.  They are all totally different genres but they are fun books to read that I don't want you to miss.

City Spies by James Ponti ~ a Review

by MK French

Sarah Martinez hacked into the New York City foster care system to expose her foster parents as cheats and lawbreakers, but she was the one that would be punished. Mother, the man collecting troubled tweens and teens with extraordinary skills that can be useful for MI6, recruited her right out of the courtroom. Operating out of Scotland, Mother and his team have to use their unique skills to get Sarah up to speed in joining them on their next mission. The group has to go to Paris for an international youth summit, protecting the summit’s sponsor and try to stop the terrorists attacking similar meetings.

The Moonglow Sisters by Lori Wilde ~ a Review

by Susan Roberts

"Townsfolk called them the Moonglow sisters... They bore the noble heritage of the town's founding family, Chapman by blood, if not by label.  Descending from the town's original forbearers lent them prestige, heft and mythological clout.  And they were orphans, having lost both mother and father, banding together in a tight little unit, watching after and taking up for one another despite the six year age difference between oldest and youngest, they went everywhere together."  (p 8)

3 Books of Historical Fiction

by MK French

Historical fiction covers so much ground. Today, I have reviews of 3 very different stories of historical fiction. The first is an adventure story set during Mayan times and then we move the 1900s with two stories looking at the limited options of women.

Butchering Chickens: A Guide to Humane, Small-Scale Processing by Adam Danforth ~ Review & Recipe

by Donna Huber

"A chicken in every pot" was touted during the late 1920s as the aspiration for Sunday dinners across the United States. American meant production has come a long way since this statement was made. Today, Americans eat a lot of chicken - more than any other species of livestock, and by a long shot. (In fact, it almost averages out to a whole chicken in every Sunday pot across the country!) Because of increased awareness of how meat is produced, astute modern poultry consumers often ask questions like "Where was that chicken raised?" and "What was that chicken fed?" and "How was that chicken killed?" You can easily answer these questions for yourself when you raise your own animals. (p. 9)

Runes for Writers: Boost Your Creativity and Destroy Writer's Block by Marc Graham ~ a Review

by MK French

Many people know that Norse cultures used runes for writing, and they have recently been co-opted by various far-right and Nazi movements. While this book acknowledges that, it also seeks to reclaim the knowledge for others to use. The first section of the book outlines this purpose as well as the meaning of each rune of the Elder Futhark. This is the ancient alphabet that the Norse cultures used; the alphabet is named for the first letters of the writing system, much like "alphabet" is derived from the first two letters of the Phoenician and Roman writing system.

Ghosts of the Missing by Kathleen Donohoe ~ a Review

by Susan Roberts

In the vein of The Lovely Bones and The Little Friend, Ghosts of the Missing follows the mysterious disappearance of a twelve-year-old girl during a town parade and the reverberations of this tragedy throughout the town.