It's Monday! What Are You Reading? & Mailbox Monday - Nov 10

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is a place to meet up and share what you have been, are, and about to be reading over the week. It's a great post to organize yourself. It's an opportunity to visit, comment, and add to that ever-growing TBR pile! So welcome, everyone. This meme started with J Kaye's Blog and was then taken up by Sheila from Book Journey. Sheila then passed it on to Kathryn at the Book Date.

Oh, my gosh! We are back on Monday again. How are the weeks flying by?

This was an exciting weekend. Three of my four buyers received the good news that their offers were accepted. I am waiting to hear back on the last one. I guess that means December will be another busy one for me. That's okay, sure beats being bored. 

The garden is now ready for winter. The garlic has been planted. I cut the last of the herbs. Cardboard and straw have been placed over the soil. The tulip and crocus bulbs have been planted. I invested in a composter this year, so I should have some compost to work into the soil next year.

Here are photos from last week:

The three cats hanging out in the Lil' Princess's bedroom

Saw a Patchy the Pirate (from SpongeBob SquarePants) portrait in a house this weekend

Christmas mugs at the local grocery store 

I made ham tetrazzini for supper on Sunday

In my reading world, I finished The Curiosities by W.H. Eatons. Check out my review here.  

I finished Ms. Pennypickle's Puzzle Quest by Chris Grabenstein. Loved it! Such a fun read. Look for my review coming soon. 

I continued with The Man Next Door by Sheila Roberts. Need to finish this week. 

Singing the Forge by G. H. Mosson will be done this week. 

I am not sure I will be able to read Old Flames, New Beginnings by Lea Schizas during the holiday season. Too much going on. But I will do my best.

Eager to read Crescent City Christmas Chaos by Ellen Byron for a November review. 

Will be posting a First Chapter Review of A Quarterback for Christmas by Linda West soon.

As I head into the new year, my TBR pile will be my focus. As much as I enjoy VBTs, I need to cut back. (We will pretend I didn't say the same thing last year.) 

Mailbox Monday is a gathering place for readers to share the books they added to their shelves the previous week. This weekly meme is now hosted by Vicki at I'd Rather Be At The Beach. 

The world recently lost historical fiction author C. W. Gortner. I met Chris through Pump Up Your Book and have enjoyed reading his books for years. In his honor, I bought the second book in his Elizabeth I Spymaster Chronicles: The Tudor Conspiracy. 

Upcoming Events

• A Quarterback for Christmas by Linda West - Nov 13 (First Chapter Review)
• Singing the Forge by G. H. Mosson - Nov 25 (Review)
• Crescent City Christmas Chaos by Ellen Byron - Nov 27 (Review)

This week's Christmas... in the news post is up at Christmas Year Round. We covered stories from New York, Maryland, and Florida this week. Check it out here.

My review of The Curiosities was posted at The Children's and Teens' Book Connection this week.

Laura's Little Houses was quiet except for me writing that I am working on Part 6 of the "Times Are Changing" Season 9 rewrite. 

Looking ahead, there will be no day off on the calendar this week. I expect it will slow down a bit the week of Thanksgiving. Hope you have a great day! 

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: A Strange or Useless Talent I Have

 

The Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge is hosted by Long and Short Reviews. They offer this blog hop as a weekly prompt to help you gain new friends and visitors. You don't have to participate every week, but if you decide to post and join the blog hop for a week, Long and Short Reviews asks that you share your link on their weekly post on their website (it will be the top post on the home page each Wednesday morning). The link list remains open for new links for 48 hours. Visit the other bloggers participating to see what they discuss that week. Comments are appreciated.  

Happy Wednesday! This week is just trucking along. We are back with another Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. This week's challenge is to share a strange or useless talent I have. Really not a lot to share, but I have been limber most of my life. Nothing crazy like curling into a pretzel, but I danced for more than a decade and, until the last couple of years, stretched regularly and could do the splits all the way down to the floor.  

I look forward to learning your strange or useless talent.

Top Ten Tuesday: The First 10 Books I Randomly Grabbed from My Shelf & Tell Me Something Tuesday: Where Do You Purchase the Majority of Your Books?

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. 

Happy Tuesday! We are expecting a sunny, windy day today. Almost all the leaves are down. I need to plant my bulbs that arrived this weekend.

This week's Top Ten Tuesday has us randomly selecting 10 books from our bookshelves. Since I maintain my shelves digitally, I put my book spreadsheet and my Kindle freebie book spreadsheet into a list randomizer. Lest you think I don't have enough reading material, that totalled 1014 books. Here are my...

First 10 Books I Randomly Grabbed from My Shelf

1. Before Anne After by James Paddock
2. True Crime in the Civil War by Tobin T. Buhk
3. Spring Valley, The Laura Ingalls Wilder "connection", 1890 by Mary Jo Danthe (Bought in a store during my 2014 Little House on the Prairie Cast Reunion trip)
4. Design on a Crime by Ginny Aiken
5. Christmas of Love by Erin Wright
6. Coincidences by Maria Savva
7. Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass
8. Honeymoons Can Be Murder by Connie Shelton
9. Property by Valerie Martin (Bought at a writer's conference)
10. Samson & the Little Bird by Elise Lowe

I only recalled owning three of these. Some of the freebies have been on that spreadsheet a long time. Have you read any of these?

 

Tell Me Something Tuesday (TMST) is hosted by Jen Twimom at That's What I'm Talking About. TMST is a weekly discussion post where bloggers discuss a wide range of topics from books and blogging to life in general. Participation is optional, and you leave your comments in the weekly post when participating. Check it out if you would like to join.

It's confession time for me. I buy most of my books in three places: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or library book sales/used bookstores. Thiftbooks will likely overtake Amazon at some point, but the scale is definitely tilted toward Amazon right now. 

How about you? Where do you buy most of your books? Try not to shame me too badly. LOL! 

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? and Mailbox Monday - Nov 3

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is a place to meet up and share what you have been, are, and about to be reading over the week. It's a great post to organize yourself. It's an opportunity to visit, comment, and add to that ever-growing TBR pile! So welcome, everyone. This meme started with J Kaye's Blog and was then taken up by Sheila from Book Journey. Sheila then passed it on to Kathryn at the Book Date.

Welcome to November! Does anyone have their tree up yet? I hear that the day after Halloween means it's time to decorate. Luckily, I didn't get many fall decorations up this year, so not much to take down. Very few visitors on Halloween, which was sad. I miss those days when the neighborhood was filled with kids. 

Here are a few photos from last week:

Made this yummy chicken swiss bake

Travis likes to peek out the windows

My fall vest from Wilmington

The husband and his dog

In my reading world, I finished Charlie Can't Sleep by Rachel Joy Welcher. You can read my review here. 

                                        

I read some of The Curiosities by W.H. Eatons, which I need to finish this week. 

I continued with The Man Next Door by Sheila Roberts. My review is coming soon. 

Singing the Forge by G. H. Mosson is partially done. 

I want to read Old Flames, New Beginnings by Lea Schizas during the holiday season. 

Eager to read Crescent City Christmas Chaos by Ellen Byron for a November review. 

Will be posting a First Chapter Review of A Quarterback for Christmas by Linda West in November.

Ms. Pennypickle's Puzzle Quest by Chris Grabenstein will also be archived soon, so I need to read it. 

After all that, I think I will tackle something from my TBR pile. I'm focusing on whittling that down. I can't stand having so many boxes of unread books in the house. 

Mailbox Monday is a gathering place for readers to share the books they added to their shelves the previous week. This weekly meme is now hosted by Vicki at I'd Rather Be At The Beach. 

I grabbed Christmas at Whispering Creek by Barbara M. Britton because it was on sale. With my promotional credits from Amazon, it was a freebie for me. 

Upcoming Events

• A Quarterback for Christmas by Linda West - Nov 13 (First Chapter Review)
• Singing the Forge by G. H. Mosson - Nov 25 (Review)
• Crescent City Christmas Chaos by Ellen Byron - Nov 27 (Review)

This week's Christmas... in the news post is up at Christmas Year Round. This week, we are talking about the florist decorating the White House, Christmas movies on Netflix in November, and magical Christmas markets in Europe. Check it out here. 

My review of Charlie Can't Sleep! was posted at The Children's and Teens' Book Connection this weekend.

Talked a bit about my Laura Ingalls Wilder and Little House on the Prairie book collection at Laura's Little Houses. I will likely feature some of those books next year. I can't believe I am already thinking of my 2026 blogging schedule.  

That is all for me. I might not be around much today, but I will definitely visit you this week. Thanks for reading!

First Chapter Review: The Man Next Door by Sheila Roberts

 

Today, you will find my First Chapter Review of The Man Next Door by Sheila Roberts. Was this supposed to be a First Chapter Review? No, but my work schedule has been a word that starts with B, ends with H, and rhymes with witch. This funny contemporary novel is one that I've been eagerly anticipating for weeks. Look for my full review coming soon.

BLURB: "In this spunky nod to Rear Window, Roberts infuses a charming domestic comedy with a soupçon of suspicion. . . . a heartwarming diversion." –Publishers Weekly 

Love in the Time of Serial Killers meets The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window in this delightful romp about a recently broke divorcee who moves in with her house-bound mother only to spend their days spying on her grumpy, mysterious, and sexy new neighbor.

Zona never thought her life was headed this way, but here she is, newly divorced and moving back in with her mom, Louise. After her gambling addicted ex-husband lost all of their savings, including their daughter's college fund, she doesn't really have a choice. She's cutting every coupon she can, and she's going to help put her daughter through nursing school, even if it kills her.

This wasn't Louise's plan, either, laid up at home with a broken leg after one unfortunate tumble on the senior singles cruise she'd been looking forward to for months. But if she's going to spend all her time at home, at least she's got her daughter there with her. And there's some hot new eye candy next door to distract them both from their troubles. He appears to be single and just around Zona's age. Could his arrival be the universe making amends for everything it's put her through?

Maybe the universe isn't feeling as generous as Louise hoped. There’s something lurking under that man's surface charm, something…dangerous? And who's the woman they can hear him in all-out shouting matches with on the other side of the fence? When the woman seems to disappear without a trace, imaginations run wild. Or at least, Zona hopes it's just her mother's imagination...

COVER: This is not the typical cover I expect on a book by Sheila Roberts, but it is a perfect fit for the plot and reminds us of the movie that inspired the novel. 

FIRST CHAPTER: A disgruntled Zona is eating lunch with her friend and real estate agent, Gracie. Forced to sell her home and now penniless, Zona isn't thrilled about moving in with her mother. But her ex-husband's gambling addiction left her without another option. 

Louise knows her daughter needs time to get back on her feet, and she can't help but wonder if the new neighbor might be a new chance at love for Zona. Meanwhile, Louise is excited about a singles cruise she has been planning for months. 

KEEP READING: It's Sheila Roberts. Of course, I will keep reading. After an intriguing prologue whose theory I totally agree with, the reader moves swiftly to Zona and Gracie at lunch with a smattering of Zona's backstory worked in, followed by the introduction of Louise and her ideas of how the new neighbor might be good for her daughter. In many ways, I feel like I am in familiar territory. The cover and the back cover blurb, however, give me a sign that we are charting new paths. Looking forward to finishing this one.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ MIRA
• Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 14, 2025
• Edition ‏ : ‎ Original
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Print length ‏ : ‎ 368 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0778305724
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0778305729

I received a copy of this book from the author. This First Chapter Review contains my honest opinions, which I have not been compensated for in any way.

Book Spotlight: One Foot in the Ether by Kayleigh Kavanagh

Powerful bloodlines tied by Fate, who can’t be free even in death...

Title: One Foot in the Ether: Whispers of the Pendle Witches

Author: Kayleigh Kavanagh

Publisher: Independent

Pages: 400

Genre: Historical/Paranormal/Fantasy

Format: Kindle

Demdike and Chattox, famed witches of Pendle Forest, might be dead, but they’re not gone. Bound to their bloodline, they’ve spent the past two and a half centuries watching over their descendants, waiting for when they’ll be needed. 

When 14-year-old Yana comes into her psychic abilities and inherits the ‘eyes of the Chattox family’, she can see the long-dead witches, as well as an encroaching evil. But even with this foreknowledge, she’s trapped by marriage interviews and being unable to see her own future, and more importantly, whoever her future husband will be. 

Demdike’s healing gifts are alive and working in Claire, a mid-30s midwife well renowned for her skills and holding her tongue. The Secrets of Pendle are safe with her and her midwives. However, when surgeons looking to make standardisation the norm encroach on her territory, she soon realises how even a respected woman is vulnerable in a patriarchal system. 

The two descendants must come together to protect the ones they love from an ancient evil, all whilst balancing their lives and the cruelties of being a woman in a man’s world. Set in late 1800s NW England, this book has all the elements of the area: strong, hardy people, atmospheric horror, and days as unpredictable as the weather.  

One Foot in the Ether: Whispers of the Pendle Witches is available at Amazon.

Book Excerpt

She hadn’t known what to expect from death. No one did. Still, none of her previous thoughts could have come close. This, and she was definitely having an atypical experience. For most souls, death was a release from the mortal coil. Complete separation from the life they’d once lived. She hadn't been so lucky. 

Some parts of the system had been the same. Her soul had been scooped up. Taken somewhere. She vaguely recalled going over her life and having events explained. Gaining an understanding of the why; to the point she was no longer angry about things which had once made her furious. However, the entire encounter was now a blur. 

The powers that be had done this on purpose, but the awareness lingered instinctively. Either way, she knew she'd died, gone to the other place, and then thrown back. Before they could send her along to wherever she should have gone next. There'd been an issue. A snag. One which stopped her from moving along to the happy, bliss-filled world of the nether realm. Said snag bore one name: Chattox. Even in death, her frenemy was still causing her bloody issues.

“Hey, Demdike, how’s non-life treating you?”

Demdike didn’t answer, suddenly filled with the desire to bludgeon the other woman. However, she knew from experience it would be pointless. They weren’t physical beings any longer—even if they were still tied to the physical world. Unless she was willing to destroy the other's soul, the spirit could reform. A tempting idea some days; this non-life was enough to make even the most patient saint a little homicidal. However, even in her worse moments, she wasn't willing to land the final blow.

“The same way it’s been treating me for the past two and a half hundred years,” she eventually returned. Still not looking at the other, less she finally indulged her violent impulses.

“They’re having a bake sale soon, at the local church. Gods, I miss cake.”

Demdike sighed. The sad part was she couldn’t even get rid of the other. Without Chattox, she would be entirely alone in this exhausting existence.

“Their cake isn’t anything like the one we used to have. They have more access to sugar, for starters.”

Demdike wasn’t even going to comment on the reasons why. King James I's and his ilk had done more than destroy her life. Stretching his greedy grip across the world. From the supposed lands of gold to the continent of darkness, James I's influence had impacted many. She couldn't help but feel for the poor souls stolen from these other countries. Their plights differed from the witch trials, but suffering was a universal language.

She would've liked to aid them, but she couldn't even help herself. There was no one to hear her, anyway. Well, other than Chattox, but as she was in the exact same situation. It was no different than voicing her words to the void. Except the void didn’t reply. 

“Aye, I know, but it doesn’t mean I don’t miss the little pleasures. Few and far between, though they were.”

Demdike hummed. This was a conversation they’d had many times. When their new existence was mostly just the two of them, they often spoke of their past. Their past life, to be specific. A lot of it seemed funny now. Maybe it was their time in the decompression zone post life—or maybe it was simply the effect of being so removed from what they’d once been—but matters of life and death were suddenly much less dramatic and far funnier when you were already dead. Fighting over coin, linens, and food were memories they could now look back on and find humour in. 

Though she also missed cake, death was a lot simpler. Mostly. There was no fighting for survival when you simply just were. No hunger to push you forward or pain to keep you still. As much as she’d once lived with one foot in the ether, having both on death's side was much simpler. If you ignored the limited company. Or how she feared her own mind and sense of self were slowly eroding over time. As though, without a physical body, she was slowly dispersing into nothingness; it was just taking a little longer.

– Excerpted from One Foot in the Ether: Whispers of the Pendle Witches by Kayleigh Kavanagh, Kayleigh Kavanagh, 2025. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author

 

Kayleigh Kavanagh is a disabled writer from the North-West of England. Growing up in the area, she learnt a lot about the Pendle Witches and launched her debut novel around their life story. Her main writing genres are fantasy and romance, but she loves stories in all formats and genres. Kayleigh hopes to one day be able to share the many ideas dancing around in her head with the world.

Her latest book is the historical fantasy, One Foot in the Ether: Whispers of the Pendle Witches. 

You can visit her on Facebook, Instagram, Goodreads and Tiktok. 

 

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