Thursday, April 2, 2026

New Book Review: Blood Lines

Title: Blood Lines

Author: E.G. Ellory

Date: 2026

Quote: "Jodie Walsh had wondered when the next call would come, used to the ways of Fenburne now--the village with a striking landscape and bloody history."

Fenburne is one of those fictional places that see more murders within a few years than real towns of their size see in centuries. All the while some of the villagers are perfectly safe, because the village has been created as a place for some characters to show their skills at detecting whodunit. Jodie Walsh, her mentor Sam Hyatt, and their colleague Jim Thompson, are quite all right. Their role in the village is to ensure that, though nasty things keep happening, badness is always contained by law and order. Someone always has to bring the murderers to justice.

The murder of Tom Landon and Esme Halland is typical for Fenburne: a nice clean case, no gruesome details, a group of suspects including one who commits a violent assault during the investigation. Those who enjoy solving fictional mysteries should enjoy it. 

 

A Bright Side if You Look for One

Years ago, someone posted a prompt/challenge at a writing site, beginning with a photo of a neglected, abandoned house and asking writers for a short "flash" story using five of a list of words that seemed chosen to suggest a depressing story. A horror story, even, like this rather clever one:


Looking at the picture, though, I think of all the little towns in "flyover country" that have been abandoned because a factory closed. A determined couple could see this as the start of a cheerful story. I, having some good memories of remodelling homes as half of a couple, see this picture as positively erotic.


[Photo is in the public domain, so far as I know.]

Five words from the list: abandon, abundance, axe, disappear, love

"What luck to get these two fixer-uppers together for such a price," Jill said, squeezing Jack's hand. "I love it, I love it, I love it!" 

"Whoever abandoned it wasn't thinking of abundance," Jack agreed. "The smaller house is a wreck inside, but it should be ready for us to move into by the time Junior gets married."

"Eww ick! No kissing!" Junior yipped from the back seat. "Those yellow walls are just begging for an axe. Can I make them disappear? Please?"

Wednesday, April 1, 2026

Status Update

The laptop was attacked this afternoon. I don't know when or whether posts will continue. 

Favorite Book Blogs and Ten Bogus Book Reviews

This week's Long & Short Reviews prompt asks us to list some favo(u)rite book blogs. 

Well, there's always the link-up at the L&SR site...


And these from the blog roll...


(This one's not been active lately. I begin to worry.) https://barbtaub.com/




...and others; five ought to do for a start, especially with the link-up above. (See the comments. Some regular posters at Long & Short Reviews backed away from this prompt because who wants to read us sitting around introducing each other to each other. The idea was to expand the circle but I can see why some people just commented that they didn't want to bother.)

This being April Fool's Day, however, here are ten Bogus Reviews of Books the April Fool Will Never Find in the Store or Library...

1. Pitt, H, M.D. Your Amazing Armpits. Bladensburg, Maryland: Axillary Auxiliary, 2010.

Discusses the importance of sweat as a means of communication and the damage done to entire societies when they have discovered aluminum-based antiperspirant deodorant. Includes an illustrated section on armpit hair braiding traditions.

2. Toze, I.C., Mystery of the Stolen Shoes. Grosset & Dunlap, 1987.

In this lost volume of the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories, Nancy, Bess, and Georgie find all of their shoes stolen and have to run out to the mall barefoot. Of course Nancy finds the criminal, who turns beet-red, then white, in the face when he sees that she's seen him blissfully sniffing a shoe, and then obligingly faints dead away. Meanwhile, our sleuthy team finally learn something about judging people by first impressions as they are suspected of having robbed one of the shops last week, when they were at school and couldn't possibly have done it. (In this volume we see, for the first time, evidence that the three school friends ever actually attend classes.)

3. Looney, U.R., M.S.W. How to Improve Your Mental Health. Tarcher, 2021.

An experienced counsellor discusses proven techniques to reduce depression in the post-COVID world, such as "Stop talking and thinking about your own feelings all the time," "Take a walk outdoors in the sunshine," and "If you drink alcohol, stop." 

4. Moneyhun, I.O. How to Get Rich. Amazon, 2026.

Literally 159 of the 160 pages in this book are irrelevant blather that appears to have been copied from other books, one line from each book. Not only do sentences not follow logically from one another; they shift, within paragraphs, among different languages. There is a clear intention of filling up Amazon's minimum word and page count while not copying enough from any one book to be sued. However, on page 160 the author finally reveals a secret no other author on this topic has yet told you. "I don't know how to get rich! No other writer knows, either! If writers knew how to get rich, we wouldn't be writers!" This is well worth the price of the book ($99.95, paperback).

5. Rimer, A.B. Pi-Ology. Vogsphere Cosmic Press, 2026.

A collection of poems all written in lines of 3, 1, 4, 1, 5, and 9 syllables, in that order, such as:

"Anything
You
Do, and repeat,
Is
Heard as a pattern,
Including poems found in this book."

6. Jennings, P.N.M. Odes to My Darling Doggie's Adorable Internal Parasites. Cambridge: Counterculture Press, 1978.

Reprinted due to demand from the ever-expanding circles of Douglas Adams fans, these poems may or may not have been what Adams mentioned in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy but they certainly are bad. The poetess apparently never suspected that if she had stopped thinking of clever ways to describe animals that are not usually celebrated in verse, and taken her darling doggie to the vet, he might have survived longer.

7. Shoi, D.F. Vegan Chinese Cooking and Why Americans Are Doing It All Wrong. Hong Kong: Global Communications Inc., 2015.

Argues that soy sauce, and each other ingredient in a harmonious Buddhist vegan stir-fry, should be soaked in vinegar in a pyramid-shaped container in the roof of a pagoda for all 99 days of a southern Chinese summer. As a result the stir-fry can easily be consumed by people who have no teeth. The author blames Americans for the failure of his medical practice and his restaurant.

8. Dummkopf, I.B.E. What's Wrong with Women Today and Why Marriages Fall Apart. Salt Lake City: Brigham Young University Press, 2026.

A challenging read due to the author's nonstandard syntax, this book contains an hour-by-hour explanation of what the author blamed his wife for doing during the nine days he was married. The publication of this book was subsidized by the author's grieving parents following his suicide, for which they blame his ex-wife.

9. Ronzoni, G. Noodle: The Pastafarian Revelations of Leroy Studebaker. Tarcher, 2026.

According to his disciples, Leroy Studebaker found himself locked out of his home one night and, having drunk heavily earlier in the evening, sat down on his doorstep and narrated a vision of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Its message began with a list of female bar patrons at whom his staring had been winked, "but when thou eyeballest Rinda Tabermaker, thou eyeballest not well for her ways are the ways of death."

10. Zucker, I.M.A. The Benefits of Windows 365. Concept Publications, 2026,

"Blank books just don't sell like they used to," the publishers observed upon going bankrupt. This last book instantly became a collectors' item.

Link Log for 3.31.26

Politics, Practical 

There are people who, if others don't interfere, will become literal "backyard breeders" keeping thirty good-sized pedigreed dogs in an average-sized yard with, apparently, zero poop-scoopers. Then there are people who live in a house with ample room for six dogs and three cats--I used to post to this web site from one of them--and the house is clean, is in fact maintained like a tourist attraction because the owners sell art and furniture out of it, and the animals are well kept and disciplined and friendly and a joy to visit. 

The Loony Left think the way to protect the dogs from being forced to breed in a lake of filth is to issue diktats about how many animals one family can keep.

The American way, which my mother once successfully used, is for local government to stay out of the matter until a critical number of citizens petition to do something about a specific situation. My parents once rented the house next door to the people with, actually it was twenty-some poodles, and no scoopers. It took them less than a week to collect enough signatures to get that yard cleaned and some of the dogs rehomed.


Trivia 

Who knew the different shapes of teapots had names? 


Women's Issues 

Misogynist mayor feels "divisive" about a memorial to a victim of hatecrimes against women. Women in Providence should demand that the memorial be replaced by a minimum of twenty memorials to other, almost certainly less pretty, female victims of male violence. (And that the gender-confused shut their fool mouths and stay out of it.)

New Book Review: Second Chances and Sweethearts

Title: Second Chances and Sweethearts 

Author: Annelise Swan

Date: 2026

Quote: "For...those who are patiently waiting for the right love."

Claire and her little girl are welcomed back to Willow Creek by her aunt, who keeps the bakery, where Claire is going to work...but her ex-boyfriend, John, works too. John let Claire down at one time. Did he miss a date? Did he fail to claim fatherhood of the child, and marry Claire? (People think little Evie is his child, but we're not told the details of what went before.) Anyway, he disrespected her, he hurt her feelings, and if she ever talks to him as anything but part-owner to employee at the bakery, she firmly states, it'll be on her terms.

This is a sweet romance, so you know how it will end. On her terms. If he didn't really love her, he'd turn against her and find someone else long before the end of the book. Sometimes that's what it takes to find out whether a man is worth keeping.

I think all men who have arrived late or fail to arrive for dates should be locked in her family's basement with a pencil, a ream of paper, and a bucket of water, and required to copy this book out by hand before they're released. There are ways to weed the future deadbeat dads and jobless not-very-good-around-the-house husbands out of our lives before anyone gets stuck with them. This book explains one of the ways.