I'd Appreciate Your Vote

Hello, Readers:

Just a note to ask for your vote at  www.theauthorshow.com  Authors with the most votes will be included in Fifty Authors You Should Be Reading, so please stop by their website, look at the right side of the page where it tells about the contest, click there and follow the voting instructions.  Thanks sooo  much.

Books of August

The Mistress's Revenge follows a spurned lover's emotional collapse  as she tries to win her ex-lover back.  I enjoyed it until it got repetitive.  The ending wasn't particularly satisfying, but overall, a fun read.

I've always been a big Nora Robers fan.  This is typical but not one of her best.  The ending seemed to come out of nowhere, but if you like Nora  read it anyway.

A book club choice.  It's gotten rave reviews, but frankly I thought it was incoherent, and I had trouble suspending my disbelief as the story progressed.  In its favor, there are some funny parts, but I give it a C+.

A Trip to Yesterday and Tomorrow

This weekend my son and his family and I celebrated my daughter's birthday.  She moved last year to work as attending veterinarian at Scott and White Hospital in Temple, Texas, but she lives in Round Rock.  She comes to Houston often and I don't drive on the highway (That's how I became a romance writer, but that's another post).  Anyway, I had not visited her and this was the perfect time.

In my day Round Rock was a blip in the highway between Austin and Waco,(See picture below of its historic district).  But today Round Rock is a bustling suburb of Austin with restaurants, a minor league baseball team, a premium outlet mall, chain stores and sprawling housing developments.  It's hard to tell where Austin ends and Round Rock begins.

Lori's house is lovely.  It's bright and airy and has a nice backyard and a huge kitchen  (unnecessary for her because she doesn't cook).  We took Lori to dinner at an upscale restaurant.  The waiter brought two little plates with two little crackers each and a cheese spread.  Hmm, four crackers for five people--4/5 cracker for each.  The crackers were delicious, we told him, and he said the restaurant made them themselves.  We asked for more.  Again we got four crackers.  Was this a rule?  Could the waiter not count?  Well, all in all we had 1 and  3/5 apiece.  Surprisingly, the desserts were huge.  Maybe that's a Round Rock tradition.

The next morning Lori and I explored old downtown, all two blocks of it, then we all went to the Saltllick for barbecue.  I'm not a big fan of barbecue but this was prety good.


We bid Lori goodbye and drove into Austin so daughter-in-law Monica and granddaughter Gabby could shop at Tyler's on the drag.  The stores that I grew up with here are gone except for the University Co-op, which is as much a University of Texas institution as Longhorn football, but the drag itself is still the same--students and tourists and a few people who looked like they were homeless but were probably students sitting on the sidewalk taking a break.

 Tyler's is on the same block as the Co-op and features lots of t-shirts and shoes.  I bought 2 t-shirts I didn't need but will use for sleepwear.  Both are burnt orange (In my day UT colors were white and plain ol' orange).  One shirt says Keep Austin Weird and the other says Texas Football.  How could I resist?

We drove home on Highway 290 and to cap off the trip we stopped at Buc'ees, which is new for me.  I had never had the pleasure of visiting a Buc-eer's nor had I even seen one.  I need to get out of town more often.  Anyway, I said we had to stop, so we pullked into their crowded parking lot and stopped at the door to view an enormous Buc--ee, who seems to be a beaver.  I think Buc-ee's only has stores in Texas so I have to wonder why they have a beaver on their logo.  I never knew there were beavers in Texas.

The store if filled with Texas stuff-handicrafts and t-shirts and sportswear and lots of food, which we didn't buy since we'd had so much barbecue for lunch.  It was definitely the high point of the trip and might be worth a return stop another time.

All in all, a fun weekend.  Happy Labor Day, everyone.

It's (Un)officially Fall

Even though we are roasting here, it's sorta kinda fall.  Houston schools start tomorrow.  It's my granddaughter's first day of high school.  She admits to being a little nervous but not much.  On her first day of kindergarten (which seems like yesterday) her picture was in the Houston Chronicle, holding onto her daddy and crying.  But now she's a young lady, who walks better in high heels than I ever did, and certainly better than I do now. She'll be fine.

And another sign of fall:  It's football season.  Will the University of Texas Longhorns regain their rightful place among elite college football teams?  Will the Houston Texans get to the Super Bowl...or at least past the second round of the playoffs?  We'll see.

Halloween items line store shelves and I actually saw some Christmas items a month ago.

I''m looking forward to a chill in the air and eventually some colored leaves.  Fall is my favorite season.

Interview with Leila Summers, Author of It Rains in February

Q: Can you share a little about your story with us?
A: On the 1st February 2006, my husband, Stuart, arrived home from work and unexpectedly confessed his love for another woman - a married woman whose children were friends with my children. I thought there must be some mistake, a misunderstanding, or perhaps, he was having a midlife crisis. But Stuart spiralled down into depression, becoming obsessed, and my perfect life began to unravel along with his sanity. I spent the following year torn between my own heartache and trying to save him. Every day I treaded lightly, juggling work, children, tears, and threats of suicide. On 24th February 2007, I got the dreaded call. Stuart was dead. His father said, "It's over." But it wasn't over, for me, or for any of us. I was a widow at the age of thirty-seven, with two young daughters, aged six and four.

 

Q: What inspired you to write down your story?
A: During the traumatic year leading up to Stuart’s death, I kept a journal, a space to simply pour out my pain. After he was gone, I typed up the scribbled tear-stained pages to keep as a record for my daughters so that they would one day know the story. More words poured out as the story expanded until I realized that I had the skeleton of a book. I included all of Stuart's letters and emails leading up to his death. Four years went by as I worked for hours at night, the story growing and evolving as I filled in all the spaces. Writing became an important part of my healing process. There were many times that I wanted to forget the idea of publishing, but something kept spurring me on. It was as if the telling of my story was as important as putting it out there for the entire world to read. Only after my book was published, and I was forced to officially call myself a writer, did I discover that another part of the process was to find myself.

 

Q: Is there a message in your book that you hope to share with readers?
A: To be honest, I tried to keep away from including a ‘message’ in my book, and simply shared my story. I believe that stories have the power to heal, not only ourselves, but others who come across them. Not all stories have happy endings. But the depth that comes from within them, the powerful feeling they leave us with, reminds us that we are all connected. Each of us has our own story, our own heartache and our moments of joy. Mine is a story of love and loss, but also hope. Hope because no matter what any of us have been through, we know that someone else has been through hard times too, and has survived. I have survived.

 

Q: What has been the response to your book? 

A: I have been surprised by the many positive responses to my book. As I mentioned, it wasn't intended as a book with a message. But books have a way of finding readers who relate to certain aspects of a story. As expected, there have been angry readers too; people who do not understand how I could put up with as much as I did. I can appreciate how they feel. I didn’t plan my story, it simply unfolded before my eyes, and I dealt with it in survival mode on a day to day basis. If I hadn't lived it, I might feel the same way. Whatever emotion the book brings up, I am satisfied that, at the very least, I have done what every writer aspires to, and that is to evoke strong emotions within a reader. In retrospect, I have no regrets.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

A: After I published my memoir at the end of 2011, I moved to a tiny country village in South Africa where I now live happily with my two daughters and our six pets. I have just started writing my second memoir, a story of life after grief.

 

Q: Where can readers buy your book?

A: It Rains In February: A Wife's Memoir of Love and Loss is free to download on Amazon Kindle today! Visit http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0062EIRAI to get your copy.

 

Q: How can readers connect with you?

Blog http://leilasummers.co.za/blog/

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/leila0summers

Twitter https://twitter.com/leilasummers

Goodreads http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5134521.Leila_Summers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quotes for the Week: Summer

I walk without flinching through the burning cathedral of the summer.  My bank of wild grass is majestic and full of music.  It is a fire that solitude presses against my lips.  ~Violette Leduc, Mad in Pursuit


Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it.  ~Russel Baker


A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawn mower is broken.  ~James Dent

Our Vet by Toby and Tiki

Toby

Tiki

Today our vet, Dr. Eckerman, had  a big party to celebrate his 40th anniversary in practice.  We weren't invited of course--only humans.  Our mom went and said it was lovely.

 

Dr. E. has been taking care of us since we were small kittens.  To tell the truth, we don't like him very much.  He pokes and prods us--very demeaning for a cat.  The vet is about the only place we go, so as soon as our mom puts the cat carrier in the car, Toby knows what's in store and he throws up.

As soon as Dr. E. touches him, Toby growls. 

 

But he has taken good care of us, saved us from fleas and heartworms and infections and such.  So we sent him a copy of our favorite book, Poetry for Cats.

 

And here's one of our favorite poems, written by John Donne's cat.  We think it's especially appropriate:

 

Vet, Be Not Proud

 

Vet, be not proud though thou canst make cats die.

Thou livest but one life while we have nine,

And if our lives were half as bleak as thine,

We would not seek from thy cold grasp to fly.

We do not slave our daily bread to buy;

Our eyes are blind to gold and silver's shine;

We owe no debt, we pay no tax or fine;

We tremble not when creditors draw nigh.

The sickest animal that thou dost treat

Is weller than a man; in peace we dwell

And know not guilt or sin and fear not hell.

Poor vet, we live in heaven at thy feet.

But do not think that any cat will weep

When Thee a Higher Vet doth put to sleep.

 

Oh, dear, we don't really mean that.  And by the way, if you'd like to read some more poems by famous cats, look up Poetry for Cats by Henry Beard.