Dead Body Language by Penny Warner

"Dead Body Language" is the first book in the Connor Westphal Mysteries. I found this book as a result of one of the many book blogs I read, and I wish I remember which one recommended it so I could link back to it! Oh well, it was a good recommendation.

Mystery you say? Yes mystery, I know most of my reviews tend to be about fantasy or sci-fi, but I read other genres as well! I love a good mystery, but I tend not to read them as often because there are way to many poorly written mysteries out there, formulaic and way to easy to solve ahead of time!

This was one of the good ones. It has a twist in that the main character, Connor Westphal, is mostly deaf. This leads to all sorts of interesting complications that most people don't face. I've always been fascinated by the deaf community, so I loved that particular twist!

Connor is not actually a detective, she's a newspaper owner, but her keen investigative mind leads her to conclusions that the local police sometimes miss. In this book she's investigating the death of a woman who had put a mysterious ad in her paper, and then died the next day. Before long we have more dead bodies, missing jewelry, and Connors managed to get her self in a world of trouble! How does it all work out? You'll have to read the book to find out!

A Baby Filled Afternoon!

So yesterday I got to visit my friend John, his wife Becca, and their baby Alexandra. They are family to me, family of the heart. And isn't that the best kind? We took baby Alex to the Water Reclamation Center. Hey, it got us out of the house :P The top pic is a Sturgeon sculpture they have hanging from the ceiling.


Gordon (my brother) loves babies - can you tell? It was so fun to watch him playing around with her!


John and Bec - They were wearing these 3D glasses that went with one of the exhibits. I remember saying, "See Alex? The aliens are kissing!" That kid is going to be so warped with me as an Auntie...

And of course I have to show a picture of me and Alex :) I made this my profile pic on Facebook :) Want to see the rest of my pictures from the afternoon? Go here.

"The Lies of Saints" by Sigmund Brouwer

"The Lies of Saints" is book three in the Nick Barrett Mystery series. I actually own the first two books, and have really enjoyed reading both of them. In fact, I've really enjoyed reading this author since I was much younger. He's actually written quite a few more children's books than he has adult books.

When I spotted this book on the shelves at the library I figured it was probably a "slam dunk." In other words, I figured it was a pretty safe bet that I would love reading it! Well, I did enjoy it, I got caught up in the suspense and found myself very curious about how it was all going to work out. However, I also found myself really disappointed. Yes, it kept me interested, but I think there were a lot of things that he didn't wrap up well or that seemed a little inconsistent to me.

The book follow Nick Barrett as he works to unravel a murder, that leads to more murders, spanning a full century! Set in South, this book is full of tradition, and convoluted clues. One thing I love about it is the characters are well developed and entertaining.

Bottom Line: Interesting - but not as well-written as it could have been.

Dragonworld by Priess and Reaves

Many of the books I review on this blog are books that I've read because I already know the author, or because a friend had recommended it. That's not the only way I find books though! In fact, I found this one in a more random method than normal... I was at the library, chatting with my brother and looking for a book, and the words "Dragonworld" caught my eye. I just had to snatch it up! Anything with dragons after all has to be given a chance.

I'm so glad I picked it up! "Dragonworld" is written by Byron Preiss and J. Michael Reaves and it was illustrated by Joseph Zucker. As the book opens we meet a young boy from the kingdom of Fandora. His people are simple folks, the cities of the nation mostly being self governing, but they are about to face a major challenge! They go to war. The why's I'll let you find out for yourself, but soon the people are heading out to war with the neighboring kingdom of Simbala, a kingdom they know very little about.

As we meet the people of Simbala we find out that they have a beautiful culture, beautiful, but full of political intrigue. The book progresses with many misunderstandings, both accidentally and manipulated, and you will find yourself caught up in the twists and turns! I didn't want to put the book down. It's simply written, but the story was compelling.

Oh yes, and there ARE dragons, and coldrakes, and lots of fantasy to feast your heart on!

I would be remiss if I didn't discuss the illustrations in this book. They are all through out, and it's obvious that the illustrator worked closely with the authors. The story doesn't need them, but it's definitely enhanced by them!

Identity

I love it when a book I read leaves me thinking afterwards. "Spirits in the Wires" by Charles de Lint, that I wrote about recently, stayed in my mind for a long time after I read it. I actually read the book over a week ago, and usually my mind has moved on to new things within a day or two, especially when I'm reading other books, but not this time!

I keep coming back to the concept of IDENTITY. Who we are, how we define ourselves, how others define us, mistaken concepts, my own journey...

One of the main forms of identifying ourselves, or others, is the use of labels. It's only natural afterall, the sense of self is a esoteric concept that can't easily be defined, so we start putting lables on it to make it a more tangible concept that we can grasp. The problem with that is that those labels will change over time, and if we've come to find our personal self-worth in them, that can be a painful experience.

I think of myself at 21, and the labels I had attached to myself back then...the list included:

Daughter
Friend
Room mate
Manager
Boss
Swing Dancer

I look at those labels, and out of all of them, the only ones that still apply are daughter and friend! I'm sure if I thought long enough I could come up with more labels, but my life has changed a lot in the last 5 years. Some of those labels I gave up easily, and some of them were quite painful to let go of.

Most recently I had to give up my identity as a college student. It wasn't something I gave up easily, or without good reason, but it was something that had to be done. It was one of the most painful decisions I've made in a long time!

I realized, after the fact, that a part of my struggle in letting go of college was that I had wrapped up a large part of my identity in that label, in being a college student. I had good reason to, I love to learn, and I had worked very hard to get to where I was! But it was still a mistake.

Since then I've realized I should have based that portion of my identity on my love of learning, not the outcome of it, my status as a college student. I do love to learn! That's something that will never change, wether I'm a student, or a business woman, or a wife, or wherever I go.

How do you define you identity? To you focus it on what you do? Or the reasons behind what you do? Do you focus in on what you value, or you think others value?

My Journey to The Dark Side

Yesterday my dear hubby and I went and picked up my very own CPAP machine. If you haven't been following my journey dealing with sleep apnea go here and here to read my first posts and get more info about apnea and the CPAP machine :)

I've been calling it my "Darth Vader mask" and the jokes have been FLYING about me joining the dark side! In reality, it's super quiet, none of the classic Vader breathing. Having the mask over my face makes me feel like I'm a cyborg or something though.

My dear hubby is being incredibly supportive. He knows how emotionally draining this adjustment is for me, and he kept telling me his sexy-cyborg last night :D Gosh I'm lucky to have a hubby like him!

Even though I was really tired last night (I'd been having asthma problems) it still took me about 2 1/2 hrs to fall asleep last night. Then I woke up a good hour and a half earlier than I usually do. Can you say - tired? I did manage to take a nap this morning, but I was a good girl and used the machine, and so I woke up yawning.

I could easily go to sleep right now, but I don't want to mess up my night sleep schedule and make things even harder tonight, so I'm sticking it out :)

The lady who set us up with the machine said that the average person takes 3 months to adjust to their cpap machine. I can believe it! The closest analogy I can come up with is that it's like wearing a brace, cast, or head gear. You've got a foreign object on your body, so even though you sleep, you may not feel super rested when you get up. I'm sure that it's better for my lungs, so I'm determined to make it work, but the next few weeks/months might be hard. I'll keep you updated!

Landmark Moments :)

I had a lot of fun yesterday! It was an awesome landmark moment for me, but for you to understand what I'm talking about, I'm going to have to back up and explain a little bit.

Last September my asthma grew to be so severe that my husband, my family, and I made a difficult decision, we decided that we weren't ever going to leave me alone. I know that sounds a bit extreme, but at the time I was having at least one life threatening asthma attack a week, if not more. So, to make sure I was safe, I was always with my hubby or one of my other family members!

It was a HARD adjustment to make. Necessary (the doctors thought so too) but hard. I lost my independence. The only time I was "alone" was if my hubby happened to be asleep when I was awake, but even then I wasn't truly alone, obviously. Very restricting.

Well, with lots of doctors visits and time, I've been slowly getting better. Last month we braved leaving me home alone for an hour or two at a time, but just a few random times. Then, last week, when the hubby started back to school, we started letting me stay home alone more often! My family was "on call," so if I started having asthma problems one of them could come over, but I was alone! It was such a freeing experience :)

Then yesterday... *drum roll please* ...

I went out to coffee with a friend, and I left the hubby at home! It's the first time I've gone anywhere by myself since the beginning of September, and let me tell you, that was an adrenaline rush! I drove across town to meet up with one of my friends at Starbucks and we got to chat for about an hour and a half!

It was good to catch up, it's been hard to reconnect with my friends since moving back to my home town because I've just been too sick. I'm finally getting strong enough to do more, and so I'm finally seeing people! Between me being sick - and her busy schedule - I've been trying for a month now to get together with this particular friend.

Not to mention I had the rare treat of a Starbucks coffee!!! With our limited budget I don't do that very often :D

***Click here to go to the listing for the ring pictured above :) ***