Deborah Harkness - Author Supreme

I have read the first two installments of the All Souls Trilogy and am eagerly awaiting the as-yet-unnamed third installment.  As Ms Harkness states on her website..."I’m not finished. Creativity is not a linear process. It requires inspiration. It doesn’t adhere to schedules..."

Hey there, Deborah...I can wait because genius takes time.  I don't want a cookie cutter book-per-year trilogy like a lot of authors produce.  The first two installments are so good that I know you won't disappoint me with this 3rd book...so...I can wait.

I have found the first two books, A Discovery of Witches and Shadow of Night, to be excellent in taking me out of reality and into the world that the author created. I rate the books that I read on a scale of 1 to 5 stars based solely on the author's ability to transport me and ensnare me in another world of existence.  The great Stephen King, along with other authors of his type, basically captured my imagination one book at a time (usually from 700 to over 1000 pages in length).  Deborah Harkness, as does other great contemporary authors, has her saga flow from one book to the next.  Both authors, of different genres, are favorites of mine for those reasons.

I love getting background information on authors that I find interesting and Deborah Harkness is definitely interesting.  Writing in the Historical Romance genre, Ms Harkness certainly is at home.  She holds several degrees in history, including a Ph.D. She teaches European history and the history of science at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. She previously wrote 2 non-fiction history books but the All Souls Trilogy is her first foray into fiction.  Although I am not a fan of "period" novels, this particular trilogy is done expertly.  Deborah writes what she knows.

Now about the trilogy...

In a nutshell...The All Souls Trilogy follows the story of Diana Bishop, a historian and reluctant witch, as she solves the mystery of Ashmole 782, falls in love with a mysterious vampire named Matthew Clairmont, and learns how powerful it can be to accept who you are.

Since I don't do spoilers, that should be enough to whet your appetite.  If you obtain these two books, you won't be disappointed.

Gillian Flynn's books

The advent of the Amazon Kindle has created an entire new world of eBook readers and self-published authors. Some of them write beautifully, while some of them should probably go back to their day jobs. The best of these new authors that come from this are sometimes good enough for established authors (King, Koontz, Grisham, Brown, etc.) to write good reviews for their work. I have read quite a few of these eBooks on my Kindle since their first offerings are usually free, or at most $1.99 (with escalating prices as popularity rises). The author that I want to mention today is Gillian Flynn. She has written 3 books...the first two of which I have read. The 3rd book, Gone Girl, is on the NY Times best-selling eBook list for the last few months and was only topped by the "50 Shades" books. It has now dropped to #5 behind Deborah Harkness' sequel to her first book. Seeing Flynn's book there for so long is what made me seek out her first two books. The first book, Sharp Objects, is pretty good (Serial Killer, family secrets, returning to hometown...). I give it 3 1/2 stars. The second book, Dark Places, is very good (mystery, family drama & violence, sibling drama...).  I give it 4 stars. The third book, Gone Girl, is definitely her best one (husband, wife, 5th Wedding Anniversary, wife is missing, He said/She said, police involvement...).  If I say more, I will give away too much. I have never read a book with as many twists and turns. Up to the last page, I had no idea what could possibly happen next.  Gone Girl gets 5 stars from me. Ms Flynn is one of my new favorite authors. In my humble opinion, she and these new e-book authors are taking over from the old heads like King, Koontz, Grisham, Collins, et al Next up: Ms. Deborah Harkness!

Wachoogonnado?

Wachoogonnado when summer temperatures hit you in the face?
Wachoogonnado when you have a 108 degree temperature reading outside?
Wachoogonnado about meals and cooking in this heat?

Well, I decided to prepare something tasty. In my part of Texas, with the 4th day of triple-digit temperatures arriving, I am conserving energy and minimizing my daytime outdoor activities. 

During the summer, I cannot stand the idea of eating or drinking anything hot.  I subsist on cheese, turkey pastrami and 90-calorie wheat wrappers, cold water, unsweetened iced tea, ice-cold Diet Dr. Pepper during the day and will only eat a cooked meal for dinner around 8:30pm.

Last night I prepared a pasta salad (pasta, onions, garlic, grape tomatoes, shoe-string carrots, mushroom slices, & baby spinach leaves...topped with bacon bits, shredded cheddar and garlic croutons). and ate it with 2 Tbsp of Kraft Diet Italian Salad Dressing.  It was so good that I didn't miss having meat on my plate.  I still crave fried chicken and cheeseburgers, but I just don't partake very often.

Because of my gastric problems (100% colectomy with J-pouch in 2005) I cannot stand anything that produces gas.  I absolutely love onions, cabbage, beans, lettuce and a few other foods but my digestive tract does not.  To bypass problems, I used spinach leaves instead of lettuce and cooked my onions and garlic with the pasta.  I "popped" the Diet Dr. Pepper can 4 hours before drinking in order to release the carbonation/gas. This all made for a rather "bland" pasta salad, but that is the way my digestive tract wants it.  I have learned over the last 7 years to always strive to keep my digestive tract happy.  Not doing so usually results in stomach cramps and/or other digestive discomforts for days.

What will I cook tonight?  Probably nothing.  More than likely, I will eat more of this delicious pasta salad. It will be thoroughly chilled and the flavors, seasonings, ingredients, etc. will be blended more, making the salad more flavorful.

Bon appetit!

Weight Loss

I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.

There, I said it.  It is what my mother would have reminded me of, had she been around today.  After FWISD sent me to Phillips Academy in Andover (suburban Boston) Massachusetts one summer for a 6-week math teacher's conference, she became a fan and would tell me that I could do anything.  So I'm saying it to myself.  It's time to start believing those words and stepping out on faith.

I have struggled with poundage issues since my early 40's (when the size 8's and 9's moved into double digit clothing sizes).  My troubles comes from the fact that I could (and did) eat anything in huge quantities and not gain a pound.  The 30's saw my body move from the cute size 3's and 5's of my 20's into 6's, 7's, 8's and the dreaded 9's (borderline from fine to plump).  Now I'm dieting to get my body into 16's.  I could do it with no problem if my abdomen would fall in line with the rest of me.

I have started a regimen of treadmill walking during the week but nothing is moving so far.  As I gradually increase my speed and time on the machine, the pounds will come off.  This I know because it happened before. Monday, I will begin 20-minute sessions (increased 5 minutes from this week's 15) that will increase by 5 minutes each Monday.  As a senior with severe back problems (a few lower spinal discs have little to no fluid in them), this is a great feat.  The walking isn't so bad because I can lean forward as I go.  This relieves the pressure on my lower back.  However, the pain involved in just standing still is a horrible punishment that I would have no one experience if it were possible to avoid it.

So much for the negatives...

Why am I going after it again, after 7 months of inactivity?  Well, I have a 3 year old grandson who is by no means sedentary.  Little Master Elliott Randolph Williams III loves to visit Nana and he wants to visit often.  Knowing that I can refuse him nothing, I indulge him in all things with no guilt whatsoever.  But he wants to PLAY and he wants Nana to play with him. This isn't sitting down and playing with toys...oh no.  We have to play Hide and seek, Tag, Simon Says, Ring around the Roses and things of that nature.

So Nana will build up her endurance in order to comply.   Oh, my...I just referred to myself in 3rd person.  What is that an indication of?  I really don't care.  Little Elly wants Nana to play, so Nana will figure out a way to endure.

The other part of my weight loss plan deals with food.  I'm not going by a formal diet.  I have Nutrisystem food in the house and I eat it when I feel like it.  When I don't, I try to eat fat-free foods (chicken, turkey and fish cooked healthily).  Most of the Nutrisystem foods are tomato-based.  This wreaks havoc on my tender digestive tract (of which I only have half) so I cannot do it all day everyday.

I am in the process of converting a few of my favorite recipes to lower fat versions.  I will be discussing those in the coming blogs that I publish.

The First Blog or "How I came late to the blog party."

     Well, it seems that most everyone blogs.  The wide majority of them have followers for which they have solicited or advertised in some manner.  I have no followers at the moment.  This blog will contain my thoughts on certain things and will one day be open for followers.  At this time, I just want to get used to writing and exploring seeing my thoughts and opinions online in black and white.

     I will talk about my son, grandson, parenting/grandparenting, television that is noteworthy, movies that I have seen or want to see, books/authors, my electronic toys (cell, tablet, laptop, desktop & classic g4 iMac, etc.), country living...just about anything going on in my life. This morning, I will just work on getting this new cyberspace home of mine looking the way I want.

     I hope that you, my future readers, will wish me luck and excuse errors I may make in grammar and/or sentence structure.