OH JOY, CHRISTMAS MORNING!

 

From Linda Lee Greene, Author & Artist

 

In keeping with best Covid-19 practices in the United States, I was alone on Christmas morning; masked-up and socially distanced, my children arrived later in the day for our hurried gift exchange. As it turned out, though, I was not entirely alone before then—Muse stopped by and presented me with a most amazing gift. She slipped into my brain an idea for a new novel. With this one, I fear I will attempt the impossible, but there I have to go because a writer must follow Muse’ lead. It will require loads and loads of research and reading, and for that reason, I cannot possibly anticipate a publication date for another year or more. Between then and now, I have other finished manuscripts in the hopper that are chomping at the bit to see the light of day, one of them to be published next month. In the meantime, Muse tells me that the title of my new story on which I am currently hard at work is THE BRONTË SISTERS AND YOUNG BOY GREEN, An Alternative History. Below is a little teaser for you:

                                                                                   

 

~Introduction~

 

I was confined to London during my one trip to England two decades ago, a trip I was forced to cut short because of a flare-up of a chronic illness, as well as to attend a funeral back home of a beloved family member. Side trips to Cornwall and northern parts of England were unfulfilled as a consequence. I was left having learned nothing of value in the later tracing of my ancestry. Of particular interest in my origin story is Thornton, West Yorkshire, England, best known as the home of the Brontë sisters. As it happens, it was also the place from which 17 year old, Stephen Green, my paternal grandfather five times removed sailed to the United States in either 1776 or 1777. Whether or not he was a citizen of Thornton is a mystery to us. Thornton might very well have been merely his point of embarkation.

As far as my family and I know, the whole of Stephen’s American history unfolded in the Commonwealth of Virginia, and for that reason it is safe to suppose that his ship landed at one of the Chesapeake Bay ports, and in the thick of America’s struggle for independence. That he was caught up in the turmoil is probable.

            You might have taken note of the variance in the spelling of our surname. For a reason unknown to anyone else, my grandfather and one of his brothers conspired to add the extra e at the end of the name. My siblings and I have ruminated on the motivation for the change, and none of them are laudable. Was it done to outsmart debt- or tax-collectors, or to align somehow with their religious beliefs? As of this date, the justification for the third e remains in the realm of speculation.  

While it is likely that Stephen’s American story was one of danger, intrigue, struggle, and triumphs, all of them advantageous elements around which to build a story, I find it much more intriguing to imagine his early life in England. I credit my interest to my love of all things British. I am an incurable Anglophile. There is no doubt that the British in my DNA fuels the engine that is the essential “I.” If the BBC ever stopped transmitting to the United States, I would have little use of a television set, and the shelves of my home library would be practically bare.

In reality, the lifetimes of Stephen and the Brontë sisters did not coincide. Stephen predated them by more than a half century. However, for the purposes of THE BRONTË SISTERS AND YOUNG BOY GREEN, I portray them as compatriots. My story will no doubt be judged as a sacrilege to Brontë sisters purists. I hope so very much that it passes a test of acceptability to those readers at least in some way good enough to make up for my blasphemy. And by the way, Happy New Year.©

–Linda Lee Greene, Columbus, Ohio, USA, Christmas Day, 2020

 

Books by Linda Lee Greene are available for purchase at Amazon.com.

 

#Covid-19, #Christmas, #LondonEngland, #Cornwall, #ThorntonWestYorkshire, #BrontëSisters, #CharlotteBrontë, #EmilyBrontë, #AnneBrontë, #VictorianEngland, #CommonwealthofVirginia, #ChesapeakeBay, #AmericanRevolution, #TheBrontëSistersandYoungBoyGreen, #StephenGreen, #LindaLeeGreene

REVIEW OF ANNE MONTGOMERY'S 'WILD HORSES ON THE SALT'

 

Today, December 22, 2020, is the second anniversary of the death of my kid sister, Susan. A lover of animals, she always dreamed of owning a horse ranch. She never realized that dream. Oh, how she would have loved to live among the wild horses of America’s southwest. An avid reader, Susan would have enjoyed Anne Montgomery’s, “Wild Horses on the Salt.” I thought about my sister throughout my reading of the novel, and dedicate my review of it to her.

*** 

In Anne Montgomery’s novel, “Wild Horses on the Salt,” Becca’s father knocks her mother around. And true to the bewildering, seemingly hereditary disposition of abuse, grownup Becca’s husband knocks her around. Fearing for her life, Becca runs—she runs from New Jersey to Arizona, to Gaby’s remote and idyllic spread lying along the Salt River in the low desert on the fringe of the Tonto National Forest a half hour northeast of Phoenix.         

A place to hide is Becca’s motivation. She is too beaten down to covet recovery or a better life, no less, happiness. Little does she know that Gaby’s is a place of magic—oh, not of the Cinderella type of magic, but of the healing type found in the spirit of land and sky and flora and fauna and truly righteous people. While the issue of spousal abuse is an undercurrent of Montgomery’s story, ultimately it is so much more—it is a smorgasbord of relationships, of the animal, plant, and insect kind, each one providing a life lesson for Becca and friends, as well as for the reader.   

 A most endearing and surprising liaison plays out between the skunk and Red, the resident orange cat. Buddies since birth, Red is complicit in skunk’s nightly raids on the beehives, an infuriating and objectively incurable situation—incurable until Becca and her mates are gifted with an attitude-altering epiphany. Sharing center stage with Becca in Montgomery’s story are the wild horses that roam free in the area, the spotlight focused on a magnificent stallion. He is the leader of a small band of mares. Gravely injured by a speeding car while crossing a highway, the stallion is rescued, corralled, and rehabilitated by caring people. During his time of captivity, the mares go missing. Crazed by the separation from his mares, the horse breaks free and a priceless treatise on his finding his way back to his home turf and mares warms ones heart, especially since his companion on his journey is a little lost sheep. Montgomery writes: “The horse lay in the shelter of a rocky ledge. The sheep, curled next to him, rested against his back. Though the storm, with its pelting rain and blowing wind, had frightened the little animal initially, the steady breathing of the horse and the warmth of his body had calmed her.

 “Later, the horse and the sheep came upon a herd of cows grazing placidly along a wire-fence, near a large, brown-and-white sign bearing the words Bureau of Land Management which boasted several jagged bullet holes. The cows paid no attention when the horse and the sheep approached to graze beside them. The spot, which bordered a two-lane road, dipped below the edge of the tarmac and was often rich with tender grasses, the result of runoff. Even before the storm, the area had been popular with this herd of milk cows and calves. Now free from the storm’s treacherous winds, animals and insects emerged from their hiding spots. Birds darted among the black-and white cows, snapping up bugs. A bird with snowy feathers, golden eyes, and a matching beak perched between the shoulder blades of an old cow. The bright white cattle egret was rare in the Sonoran Desert. In fact, the bird that had migrated from Africa to South America in the late nineteenth century had not been seen anywhere in North America until the early 1950s. When cattle egrets did appear in the desert, it was sometimes around irrigated fields or places where grasshoppers and crickets might pop into the air to avoid rising water. The bird was also drawn to the cows because the bovines stirred up insects while grazing in dry fields. But the relationship between the bird and the cow was not one-sided. The egret would tend the animal’s hide while it searched for parasites, plucking the itchy creatures from the cow’s skin and gulping them down.”

The world of nature outside the arrogant human eye is judged chaotic, but on closer look and the vision cleared, the veil of prejudice is lifted and we see that the disorder in fact exists within us. What human being wouldn’t find healing in such creature company as illustrated by Montgomery in this novel? I rate this glorious relationship story with 5 stars, and recommend it as a good choice of reading material during this high holiday season, and as a welcome distraction from the trials of Covid-19.© -Linda Lee Greene, Author & Artist

 

Purchase Link for “Wild Horses on the Salt” -  https://www.amazon.com/Wild-Horses-Salt-Anne-Montgomery-ebook/dp/B085ZX1WCZ/

 

#AnneMontgomery, #WildHorsesontheSalt, #SaltRiver, #TontoNationalForest, #PhoenixArizona, #SonoranDesert, #WildHorses, #BureauofLandManagement, #DomesticAbuse, #ChildAbuse, #Covid-19, #LindaLeeGreene

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A HOLIDAY WISH

 

The voices of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sang to my heart tonight,

And pled tears from my eyes.

Stop for a moment and join with me,

Mingle your tears with mine,

Weep the pain of the world dry!

Weep the pain dry!

 

~A wish for a safe and peaceful holiday to you from me and mine~

 

Linda Lee Greene

A SNAPSHOT OF A MARRIAGE

 

From Linda Lee Greene, Author & Artist

 Back in the days before suburban sprawl and nearby shopping malls, and a year out of high school (I attended college over a decade later), I worked in the business office of the Union Department Store (now defunct), one of downtown Columbus, Ohio’s poshest retail establishments, especially in high-end women and men’s clothing. I grossed $50.00 per week. The best part of it was the generous discount on merchandise its employees enjoyed. After taxes and other obligatory deductions much of which included charges for my newly-acquired clothes, I was lucky to walk away with bus fare in my pay envelope at the end of each week. Fortunately, I still camped out free of charge in my girlhood bedroom in my parent’s home. In addition, I danced away my Tuesday through Saturday nights as an instructor at the Arthur Murray Dance Studio, for which I was paid on commission—very little commission, because I was there for the fun of it rather than the serious business of making money.

The most enjoyable aspect of my Arthur Murray experience occurred after hours, when at 10 PM on the dot, the studio turned off the lights and a gaggle of my fellow dance instructors and I hit the downtown night clubs. And there we dominated the dance floors until closing at 2 AM. Live bands were de rigueur in the clubs back then, and in a band in one of our favorite clubs I met a fascinating musician from New York. And thus, with that captivating young man, began the second main chapter of my life, one comprising a dozen years of marriage—a chapter that carried me well beyond the borders of my Ohio home, blessed me with the birth of my son and daughter, and expanded my world and worldview to a great extent. He married a second time. His has been a long and happy marriage to a lovely woman who has been a caring stepmother to my children. I have remained single, a lifestyle that during the ensuing years has shown itself best for me. Nonetheless, that marriage provided me with the credibility to write about conjugal living in a state of matrimony.   

  

***

 

Among the top winners in the cross-genre fiction category of the 2018 American Fiction Awards, my novel titled CRADLE OF THE SERPENT, is an in-depth treatise on the marriage of archaeologists Lily and Jacob Light—the good and the bad. One of the novel’s reviews states: “5 Stars…Gritty, deep, emotionally packed relationship story to sink your teeth into. No fluffy boy meets girl tale, but so much more. Thrilling setting and backstory; suspense galore!”©

Purchase Link to CRADLE OF THE SERPENT: goo.gl/i3UkAV 

 

Image: THE DANCERS by Linda Lee Greene

 

#ColumbusOhio, #UnionDepartmentStore, #ArthurMurrayDanceStudio, #DanceInstructor, #marriage, #LindaLeeGreene, #CradleoftheSerpent, #AmericanFictionAwards

~THE SECRET OF THE GRAND HÔTEL DU LAC~ KATHRYN GAUCI’S LATEST NOVEL

Turn to the first page and your eyes land on the opening line: ‘The silence was eternal.’ Four deceptively subtle words—deceptive for the reason that a breath later, you are impaled on them, hooked on them until the final word of the last page of this novel—this THE SECRET OF THE GRAND HÔTEL DU LAC by Kathryn Gauci, this author who builds so intentionally on the premise of those four words page after page and never loses the thread, not one time, not even a little bit.   

            Gauci’s bailiwick is historical fiction often centered on heroes and heroines of         World War I and World War II, as well as the interwar years, a Tussaud’s gallery of characters, so lifelike, so believable, so fleshed out that even nose to nose with them, you swear they are real. You end up asking yourself what devices this author uses to sculpt such three-dimensional characters out of a two-dimensional medium. The talent hails from a pool of some private source—a codified chamber of raw stuff ripe for shaping not responsive to just anyone. Only a few know the password, and Gauci is an honored, an awarded member of that select group.

            Don’t let me make it sound a simple task, this chiseling, carving, molding, this blood, sweat, and tears of novel making. Pay close attention and you will get a notion of the enormous effort involved in it, the hours of research, the day upon day of pecking on a keyboard, the meals foregone, the companionship postponed until those final two words are spelled out: the THE END! The thing is though, that closing the last page of one of Gauci’s books leaves you wanting another one and another one.

THE SECRET OF THE GRAND HÔTEL DU LAC tells the story of Elizabeth Maxwell, code name Marie-Élise Lacroix, wartime spy for Britain operating in the months of the buildup of the World War II Allied invasion of Normandy. On a perilous mission to find and rescue missing comrades, one of whom is her husband, she is dropped by parachute in the thick of Nazi-Occupied France, a place overrun with Wehrmacht machines of war, patrolling German soldiers, the Gestapo, and the Milice Française, the Vichy regime’s armed and dangerous militia that held allegiance to Nazi Germany and fought against the French Resistance. The setting and backstory of the novel are thrilling and the suspense intense. I rate it a 5-star read and predict it will whet your appetite for Gauci’s entire body of work.

Gauci is a superb “passeur” (guide) through the mysteries of the Grand Hôtel du Lac and in resurrecting its “ghosts.” She tells us in the Postscript of her novel, “Like all stories, they fade over time. For me it was a powerful story and one that I could not let go. One thing is for sure, it was like walking through the countryside accompanied by ghosts, and I hope that in my own small way, I have brought the bravery of those ghosts alive again.” There are hints that she is brewing a new saga in her Melbourne, Australia studio of literary enchantments. Oh, goody, goody!© -From Linda Lee Greene, Author & Artist

 

Purchase link to the novel: https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Grand-H%C3%B4tel-Lac-ebook/dp/B08PFDP89P/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3293AEX85PQYU&dchild=1&keywords=the+secret+of+the+grand+hotel+du+lac&qid=1607850514&sprefix=The+Secret+of+the+Grand%2Caps%2C393&sr=8-1

 

#TheSecretoftheGrandHôteldulac, #GrandHôteldulac, #KathrynGauci, #WorldWarI, #WorldWarII, #France, #Nazi, #Wehrmacht, #Gestapo, #MiliceFrançaise, #VichyRegime, #MelbourneAustralia, #LindaLeeGreene  

COSMO IS ADOPTED BY PEGGY MCALOON, A SHIH TZU STORY

                                           From Linda Lee Greene, Author & Artist

 

A decade or more has passed since I have shared my heart and home with a dog companion. Back then it was Sampson (Sam), a shepherd/husky mix who really belonged to my son Frank. However, Sam lodged with me for most of his long lifetime. Sam was immaculately trained by Frank. Never did Sam lounge on people-furniture, nor did he kiss people-faces. I dream about Sam now and then, and in each dream, as he did in life, Sam awaits me at the top of the short flight of stairs to our split-level home upon my arrivals, his half-moon-curled and bushy tail wagging wildly and a kiss on my hand as the reward for returning to him. Other than problematic, copious, seasonal shedding, Sam was the perfect dog for me. He seemed to understand and respect my need for quiet solitude as an artist and writer, and he barked only when someone unknown to him entered our property, which was seldom. In all the time since Sam, I haven’t yearned for another pet. But I do now, a desire brought on by my long and lonely isolation during the Covid-19 pandemic.

While Sam maxed-out at about 35 pounds at maturity (he was the runt of his litter), I need a much smaller dog now. I am considering a pure- or mixed-breed Shih Tzu most strongly, or something similar. Over the years since Sam, I have developed an allergy to dog hair and dander; therefore, I must have a dog that falls in the hypoallergenic category. I’ve placed my order with the Universe, as well as on social media sites. My author and artist friend Peggy M. McAloon responded to my Facebook post in which I solicit help from my friends in finding a dog. And in my correspondence with Peggy, I learned that she has written a gem of a book for children ages 6 to 9 about her own Shih Tzu, named Cosmo. The title of her book is COSMO IS ADOPTED.

                                                                                       

Peggy tells us: “Here's the story of how the Cosmo book came to be. Cosmo was an extraordinary dog and we loved him with a passion. He died of pancreatic cancer a year ago. 

 

“Let’s Start at the Beginning:

We adopted Cosmo from Shih Tzu Rescue of Central Wisconsin in 2012. I have to admit; I fell in love with his picture on their web site immediately. After calling the rescue, we discovered his availability still open. Rhonda suggested she could bring him by to see us. She planned a camping trip to Chippewa Falls that weekend, and she could work it out. Then she dropped the bomb. Cosmo was blind. Okay, I’m disabled too. Where is it written that I didn’t have the heart to take on such an enormous responsibility? When they arrived that weekend, Cosmo quickly began to pace around the living room to familiarize himself with his new surroundings. My heart nearly exploded when he hustled up the stairs and put his head through the railing spindles at the top. Was he smart enough to know it could be deadly if he wiggled through? We did adopt Cosmo and immediately fixed Plexiglas inside the stair railing so I wouldn’t have to worry about an accident.

“The Challenges:

Without thinking, I began to say the word “careful” when he rammed into a stationary object. It wasn’t long before I discovered that I could yell ‘careful’ as he approached something and he’d immediately change direction. (Nope, I purchased a ‘halo,’ and he hated it! He was a ‘do it without help’ kind of guy.) Cosmo was one smart little dog! A few months after we adopted him, we took him to the University of Minnesota to see if we could do anything to restore his eyesight. (The vets surgically removed his right eye before we adopted him, and he was blind in his left eye.) That little dog was amazing in his ability to get around, manage the deck and steps to go outside by himself and maneuver around solid objects. I believed he could see light and dark, or shadows, at the very least. Wrong! His severed optic nerve showed up clearly in the examination, and there was no chance of us being able to do anything to restore his sight short of stem cell research.

“Then the first storm hit:

I’d never seen anything like it. For whatever reason, Cosmo determined he could go high and avoid the danger. He launched himself like a missile from the floor to the sofa and over to the end table, en route to the recliner and bookcase. Okay, this wasn’t even remotely funny. There was a huge possibility Cosmo could get seriously hurt in his state of panic. We tried everything. Then, we leashed Cosmo to the table leg and sat on the floor with him; we tried a collapsible playpen with a zippered roof and anything else we could think to do. That little dog was Houdini revisited. He managed to get out of everything we attempted. I was inflexible on the position not to put him in a cage. We’d already discovered he’d broken half his teeth when trying to chew his way out of the cage at the dog pound in Milwaukee when his owner died. All those teeth had to be cut out. We tried medicines, a thunder shirt, herb aromas, and more. Nothing worked! I tried holding him close. His back legs were like a kangaroo and left me bruised as he desperately tried to get away. The only solution was to monitor his movements. Mike and I began to take turns when it stormed at night. I usually took the midnight to four, and Mike took the four to eight shift. It’s crazy, I know. But, if you could have met Cosmo and fallen in love as we did, you’d make allowances too. Cosmo Is Adopted, and his problems were mine.

“The Critical Moment:

It was during one of those storms that Cosmo proved his worth. Unfortunately, it was nearly three in the morning when I got up to get a cup of hot tea to keep me awake until four. As I started to walk away from the sofa, a huge clap of thunder and lightning hit. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Cosmo launch from the floor toward the love seat. With one bounce, he headed for a table holding a huge glass vase. I twisted around quickly, grabbed him in mid-air, and went to the floor. You see, it wasn’t just the head injury I suffered from the car wreck. I also have massive damage to my back and neck. The twisting motion did some significant harm, and the instant agony took me to the floor with the dog held close on top of my stomach. He was unhurt!

I couldn’t move! Then, I began to panic as I let the little dog go. Except, he didn’t go! He brushed his nose against my cheek. Suddenly, I realized I was having an asthma attack. I couldn’t breathe, and I couldn’t get up to find my inhaler. Panic set in quickly as I gasped for breath.

“COSMO IS ADOPTED to the Rescue:

Our ‘cowardly lion’ little dog immediately brushed off his terror as the lightning and thunder intensified. He pushed his little stub of a nose under my neck to try to help me lift my head. Over the next few minutes, he made multiple trips to the closed bedroom door, throwing the entire weight of his body against it. The noises he made in the kitchen could wake the dead, but not my husband. I gasped for air. Still, I couldn’t get enough oxygen in my lungs to be able even to yell out. Cosmo kept running back to me, trying desperately to lift my head from the floor. His efforts were well-thought-out and methodical. At some point, I heard the metal can in the kitchen tip and hit the floor. I could hear the top pop off and the dry dog food as it scattered across the wood of the kitchen floor. That was the noise that awakened my husband, who came running. He immediately realized I was struggling to breathe and ran to get my inhaler.

                                                                                 

“My Little Hero:

Life remarkably changed after we adopted Cosmo. Most of it was for the better, but he was a challenge. He was terrified to be left alone, so at the young age of seventy, I hired teenagers to babysit again. So, I simply chuckled and realized this dog came into our lives for a reason. Ninety percent of the time, Cosmo was one of the greatest dogs I’ve ever had. But, he presented more than a few challenges. What I find remarkable is that his journey to becoming a family member involved all the things our children experience. Kids have to face the challenges of learning new information, adapting to new situations, depending on friends to help them, and needing love. I wrote the Elle Burton books to help older kids, but the little ones face challenges too. Two years ago, my son and his wife adopted two beautiful children. Their backstory is heartbreaking, but they know they’re loved. Actually, I wrote this little book just for them for Easter. They loved it, and their mother begged me to publish it for other kids.

“The Story COSMO IS ADOPTED Grows:

So, the original COSMO IS ADOPTED started out as Cosmo’s story only for my grandchildren. As I thought about how to present this as a published book, I immediately turned to Catherine Gruener, an award-winning Psychotherapist and Encouragement Parent Educator. Then, I sent her a copy of the original little book and asked her to prepare a list of discussion questions for this book. She’d done that for my middle-grade Elle Burton book. I was delighted with the two pages of discussion questions she provided, but the book still wasn’t long enough to make a marketable product. My editor suggested I add a segment at the end on the Shih Tzu breed and foster homes. It was a brilliant suggestion, and I ran with it. Then, I added pictures of Cosmo and his new little sister Hailey at the end of the book for the young children to color as their parents go through the discussion questions with them. The book is targeted to children ages 6-9.”

                                                                                   

  

Submitted by Peggy M. McAloon, Author, Watercolor Artist, Speaker

ViewBook.at/ElleBurton Finalist in the Readers' Favorite 2018 International Book Awards

ViewBook.at/ElleMissing

 

The purchase link to COSMO IS ADOPTED:  http://amzn.to/2pkD022.”

 

#ShihTzu, #DogAdoption, #ShihTzuofCentralWisconsin, #CosmoIsAdopted, #PeggyMMcAloon, #LindaLeeGreene 

REVIEW OF ASHES TO ASHES, DIAMONDS TO DUST BY PAMELA ALLEGRETTO

                                              From Linda Lee Greene, Author & Artist

 

My last copy of the “Road Scholar” magazine, published in January, 2020, tells me that for a total of about $3,700.00, I could have booked a trip comprising 9 Days/8 Nights with 9 meals and lodging at the Hotel Bonvecchiati to discover the timeless beauty, architectural grandeur, world-class cuisine and unparalleled cultural legacy of Venice, Italy with local experts leading the way, and plenty of time on my own. I can only imagine the vast number of travelers forced to cancel scheduled trips to Venice as a consequence of the pandemic—but take heart fellow voyagers: there is a happy alternative available to us and we don’t even have to leave the comfort of our BarcaLoungers to take advantage of it. Closed-off borders even so, for the price of $20.95 for a paperback or $2.99 for an eBook, American author and artist Pamela Allegretto has stepped in to satisfy your Venice yearnings with her new novel, a madcap tongue-in-cheek escapade titled “Ashes to Ashes, Diamonds to Dust”. The whimsical book cover is the first clue of the jaunt awaiting us once we crack open the first page—there we meet American Carla Romano, landed in Venice dead-set on road-testing her Gucci stilettos on the city’s defiant byways, apparently, as well as attending an international art exhibit and tossing her deceased friend’s ashes in the Grand Canal.

 

As if colorful Carla herself and her intended itinerary aren’t enough to whet our appetites for the read, a rogue’s gallery of oddballs with their own agendas for Carla and her friend’s ashes soon turn up and mix up the whole, humorously bungling Keystone Cops affair. In an easy, breezy, and street-smart writing style, Pamela Allegretto scores five stars from this author for her light-hearted, cozy mystery. “Ashes and Ashes, Diamonds to Dust” is just the right read in these stay-at-home times, and I guarantee that by adding Pamela Allegretto, her art, her writing, and her generous spirit to your days and nights, yours will be happier life.

 

Pamela Allegretto introduces us to her book as follows: “Venice sets the stage for a diamond caper gone wrong, where everyone is someone else, and no one can be trusted.

During her Venetian trip to participate in an international art exhibition, Carla Romano brings along her deceased friend’s ashes. But is that all she has in her tote bag? The FBI, Venetian police, and a gaggle of misfits believe otherwise. Five-million-dollars in stolen diamonds are expected to be unloaded in Venice, and Carla is the suspected bag lady.

Slipping into designer shoes and donning her sleuth-in-training-cap, Carla sets out in a city of secrets that everyone knows, to solve a diamond caper with more twists and turns than the Venetian labyrinth of narrow streets and canals.”©

 

Purchase link to “Ashes to Ashes, Diamonds to Dust”: https://www.amazon.com/Ashes-Diamonds-Dust-Pamela-Allegretto-ebook/dp/B085GKH97M/      

#Venice, #Italy, #Hotel Bonvecchiati, #RoadScholar, #GrandCanal, #AshestoAshesDiamondstoDust, #PamelaAllegretto

A PLACE AT THE TABLE

 

From Linda Lee Greene, Author & Artist

 

It was a foregone conclusion that eighteen year old Lee Greene of Peebles, Adams County, Ohio would be drafted, but like so many young couples living everywhere under the specter of World War II, his sweetheart Roma Gaffin and he got married anyway. The date was September 29, 1942. By Christmas of that same year they were pregnant for me. A few weeks before my birth, my father was drafted into the US Navy, with the expectation that following his training he would be shipped to somewhere in the Pacific Theater of the war. My mother stayed on at my grandparent’s farm in Peebles, and it was in a bedroom there that I was born, assisted into the world by Old Doc Ellison. My father first laid eyes on me a few weeks later—on the occasion of his return home after receiving an honorable medical discharge from the Navy.

There was little separation in my mind between my parents and my grandparents when I was a kid. Despite the fact that by the time of my toddlerhood, my parents, little brother, and I had settled in Columbus, Ohio, the farm and its inhabitants play central roles in the script of my childhood. We spent every weekend and holiday there, and my brother and I stayed at the farm during every summer until I was an adolescent. One of my most vibrant memories is of Lena, my grandmother, thick around the middle by then, her chestnut hair peppered with white, utilitarian apron tied around her waist, standing before her cook stove. With fresh peaches plucked from trees in the farm’s orchard or stash of canned goods in the cellar, and butter churned from the milk of resident cows, in her wood-filled cook stove, lacking the modern convenience of temperature control, my grandmother whipped up peach cobbler to rival any big city bakery. Breads, muffins, cakes, cookies, pies, cobblers—all the baked goods consumed by her large family were the products of her masterful hands. An abundance of her baked goods was the highlight of her high-holiday dinners. Memories of them helped me through the lonely Thanksgiving of 2020, and will continue to sustain me in the trying weeks of Covid-19 ahead.

I didn’t inherit my grandmother’s prowess in the kitchen but once in a while, I catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror, and I see fleeting fragments of her in me. I did inherit her affinity for storytelling. I hear her colorful depictions of local gossip so clearly in my mind’s ear. She was also a prolific writer of delightful and informative letters, the greater number of them penned during the Great Depression and World II. Many of them are transcribed in, and form the spine of, GUARDIANS AND OTHER ANGELS, my novel of historical fiction, based on the true story of three generations of my family. And of course, my formidable grandmother is a key figure of it. One review of the novel states: “5 stars…Wonderfully Written! This was a thoroughly enjoyable book. I loved the Americana. [It] reached out and touched my heart, mind and soul. [It] provided tremendous insight into what many American families endured during the first half of the 20th century. It captures you and draws you in. This is most certainly a five-star novel.”

 

Purchase link to GUARDIANS AND OTHER ANGELS: http://goo.gl/imUwKO

                                                                               

 

~LENA’S PEACH COBBLER~

Add 5 peeled, cored, and sliced peaches, 1 cup sugar and ¼ tsp salt to a saucepan and stir to combine. Cook on medium heat for just a few minutes—until the sugar is dissolved and juices are drawn from the peaches. Remove from heat and set aside. 

*(If using canned or glass jar peaches in an amount of about 1 quart, skip the above step) 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Slice 6 tbs butter into pieces and add to a 9x13 inch baking dish. Place the pan in the oven while it preheats, to allow the butter to melt. Once melted, remove the pan from the oven.

1.      To make the batter, mix together 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar, 2 tsp baking powder, and ¼ tsp salt. Stir in ¾ cup milk, just until combined. Pour the mixture into the pan, over the melted butter and smooth to an even layer. 

2.      Spoon the peaches and juice (or canned/glass jar peaches, if using) over the batter. Sprinkle ground cinnamon generously over the top.

3.      Bake for about 38-40 minutes. Serve warm topped with a scoop of ice cream, if desired.©

                                                            

#PeeblesOhio, #AdamsCountyOhio, #farm, #WorldWarII, #WWII, #USNavy, #GuardiansAndOtherAngels, #LindaLeeGreene

IF ONLY......

 

 From Linda Lee Greene, Author & Artist

Yesterday, Sunday, November 22, 2020, was a day fit only for hellcats here in Central Ohio. Blustery, wet, gray—the day mirrored my mood from rising to retiring. “If only it had been such a day in Dallas fifty-seven years ago!” the nagging voice whirled like dervishes unchecked in my brain. “If only it had rained and President John F. Kennedy had been in a closed car rather than the open one…his beautiful head would have been shielded from Lee Harvey Oswald’s killer bullet.”

            In my long life I have lived through my wedding day; the birth of my son; the birth of my daughter; my children’s various illnesses; my divorce; the death of both of my parents and of my brother and of my sister; the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr and of Bobby Kennedy; the Vietnam War and violent domestic protests against it; 9/11; more surgeries than I can count on both hands; but no hours loom as starkly in my memory as those that opened at mid-day of Friday, November 22, 1963, the day my fellow Americans and I were struck dumb by the news that John F. Kennedy, our president, had been assassinated.   

            Basking in the unseasonably bright and warm day in Forest Hills, Queens, New York, my co-worker and I strolled leisurely from our lunch at a nearby café to our work in the credit department located on an upper floor of the towering Uni-Card building. We approached the crowd of loitering co-workers on the broad sidewalk fronting the building and then joined in the pitter-patter and joking so typical of New Yorkers at their ease. The lively drumbeat of chatter stopped abruptly when a man rushed out of the broad entrance of the building, his hand clutching a long white ribbon of tickertape that trailed in his wake, and his voice shouting, “THE PRESIDENT WAS SHOT! THE PRESIDENT WAS SHOT!” In the blink of an eye, a second man ran from the building. It was his duty to tell us that the president was dead, that the city was closing down as was the case across the country, and that we were dismissed to get to our homes as quickly and as efficiently as possible. The one detail missing from my memory is the means by which I made it to the one-bedroom apartment in Flushing, Queens, New York, in which my bridegroom and I had taken up residence only three months before. Perched on the floor of our living room, our noses only inches from our small black and white television, my husband and I watched nearly motionless, other than bathroom and kitchen breaks, the unfolding drama of the several days comprising JFK’s assassination: the tragic motorcade, the chaotic manhunt, Oswald’s frenzied apprehension, and then, the man in the scruffy fedora crashing through the mad crowd, raising his gun-yielding arm and shooting Oswald dead…right there on the TV screen…right before our stunned eyes—the blood-smeared pink suit, the vice-president’s swearing in, the flag-draped casket, the funeral procession with the riderless horse, the little son stepping forward and saluting his dead father.

            To my mind, that condensed period was unmatched in modern history, until now…this now when 250,000 Americans, doubtless most of whom have died needlessly of Covid-19 in a period of nine months; when we watched another assassination on our TV screens…right before our stunned eyes; when our streets erupted in protests; when a pitiless, remorseless, brutal, sitting President of the United States is trying his hardest to destroy our democracy. If only noon of January 20, 2021 were tomorrow.©

#11/22/1963, #John F. Kennedy, #JFK, #assassination, #Lee Harvey Oswald, #bloodstainedpinksuit, #Covid-19, #George Floyd, #1/20/2021, #Joe Biden, #POTUS

Books by Linda Lee Greene are available for purchase on Amazon.com.   

IMAGINARY FRIENDS

 

From Linda Lee Greene, Author & Artist

 

As the opening days of December approach, I am helpless against the memory of this same time of year two years ago. My mind is cast back to Palm Harbor on the west coast of Florida where my kid sister Susan was coming to the end of her two-year battle with cancer. My sister Sherri and I were gathering our reserves of spiritual, emotional, and physical strength to fly to Florida from our family’s home base in Columbus, Ohio to spend what we understood would doubtless be Susan’s last days. As it turned out, Sherri and I were able to make our way to Susan and were with her through a good part of December and right up to her final moment three days before Christmas.

            Susan was many things. She was talented, smart, gentle, kind. And she was physically beautiful—a Greta Garbo lookalike as well a double to the famous Swedish-American actress in other ways. Like Garbo, Susan was shy and reclusive, qualities she fought against for the entirety of her life. And in important ways, she was triumphant over them. But even with that, Susan lived with a profound kind of loneliness that no actual friend was ever able to alleviate entirely, perhaps because she needed too much, or not enough. One of the most remarkable things about Susan was that she was a prolific writer of journals. In the days following her passing, the task fell to Sherri and me, along with our sister-in-law Dorothy and our nephew Leland to sort through Susan’s belongings and to determine their dispensation. Of course, we were aware of Susan’s hobby of journaling but were shocked to discover the extent of it. There were chests full of them; book shelves lined with them; journals dating to her teenage years. Susan was three months into her 63^rd year of life when she died.

            While I have turned to journaling during specific periods of extreme trauma and/or stress as a means of releasing the stress and getting a handle on my experiences, I have not found it useful or justifiable as a consistent practice. But yesterday, I saw it from an angle I hadn’t considered, and which makes sense to me for some people. I saw it as a way they can, and perhaps do, communicate with an imaginary friend. It solves for me the mystery of Susan’s attraction to it. I am convinced of it.

            I owe my new awareness to my friend, British author Carol Browne. Currently, I am reading her novel REALITY CHECK. The novel itself appears as a journal written by her protagonist, one Gillian Roth, a middle-aged woman who lives alone and works at a dull job. She has few friends and little excitement in her life. Her journal speaks to an imaginary friend. And not only that, but her house is full of other people whom she sees and with whom she interacts. The problem is that the people don’t actually exist. Or do they? With time, her surreal home life spirals out of control. Determined to find out the truth, Gillian undertakes an investigation into the nature of reality itself. The mystery lies in whether or not she finds an answer to her dilemma, or if it pushes her over the edge before she works out what is really going on.

            I find it a fascinating concept for a novel. It is capturing my attention and taking me away from the realities of Covid-19 for much needed breathers. I highly recommend REALITY CHECK to readers.©

                                                                                 

Purchase Link: https://www.amazon.com/Reality-Check-Carol-Browne-ebook/dp/B07XBND96W  

 

#Greta Garbo, #journaling, #Carol Browne, #REALITY CHECK, #Linda Lee Greene

SELF-SACRIFICE: THE GOLD OF HUMAN QUALITIES

 

 

From Linda Lee Greene, Author & Artist

 

The clocks fell back on November 1^st, bringing down the sun well before 6 PM. Until next spring, the sun will slip out of sight even earlier with each passing day. Still and all, the days are very long—they are very long, because if we are sensible about the current status of the coronavirus pandemic, there is no place to go, and no one to see—isolation and loneliness stretch each day to gargantuan proportions.

            My days are anemic, my tasks pale gestures to a bygone era! I wash the clothes I wear, clothes that nobody but I ever see—I rearrange the toss pillows on my sofa to a prettier composition—but only for me now. Where are my children’s hugs—my girlfriend’s chatter across the square of card table—my sister’s arm around my shoulder? My stomach throws back at me almost anything I eat or drink. Things drive me to tears that didn’t before. My doctor has put me on an anti-anxiety medication. I will see a cardiologist next month to pin down what’s behind this wild pounding of my heart. But despite all this, the sun rises and sets on what I can only gratefully describe as my relative peace and comfort, for the reason that I get to stay home and out of the way of the virus, my money arrives automatically in my checking account by way of Social Security, and other than my local gas and electric providers and a few other creditors, I am financially responsible to no-one but me.

But the brave, self-sacrificing essential workers, the election poll workers, and persons submitted to the Covid-19 vaccine trials—those people don’t have my kind of built-in protections. I’d like to express my admiration and gratitude for them. I’d like to tell their story—their real, unapologetic, untouched-up story, about how it looks and feels and sounds inside their world. But anything that comes to my mind seems so unoriginal to me. I turn for help to my gurus who never fail to uncoil the knots in my writing voice. My search is rewarded by John Steinbeck in his book ONCE THERE WAS A WAR.[1]

In this slim book, first published in 1958, Steinbeck’s dispatches from battle fronts in World War II to the NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE, are collected. He bedded down, ate, drank, talked with and listened to the soldiers and attached personnel. His essays brim with inside looks at the people rather than the fighting. They are human interest stories, essentially. This topic of self-sacrifice moved him, as well, I think, and he witnessed it aplenty over there, back then. The sense I get when reading it again is the universality, the timelessness, of this thing I call “the gold of human qualities.” Steinbeck’s stories could well be set in the now, in Covid-19 days.

In an essay titled NEWS FROM HOME…BOMBER STATION IN ENGLAND, JUNE 28, 1943—Steinbeck writes that after mess, he and the crew of [the American B-17F] MARY RUTH take a bus into town and end up at a noisy and crowded pub. The men are solemn. They are solemn all the time while awaiting orders for a bombing mission [the MARY RUTH along with the famed MEMPHIS BELLE and others, bombed German U-boat pens in Lorient, France]. A waist gunner in response to one of his comrades mentioning that he had seen a newspaper at the Red Cross in London, says, “It seems to me that we are afraid to announce our losses. It seems to me that the War Department is afraid that the country couldn’t take it. I never saw anything the country couldn’t take.”

The airman who saw the paper at the Red Cross, replies, “This paper I saw had some funny stuff in it. It seemed to think that the war was nearly over.”

“I wish the Jerries thought that,” the tail gunner says. “I wish you could get Goering’s yellow noses and them damned flak gunners convinced of that.” [The leading-edge of German planes was painted yellow to distinguish them from rival planes].

“…It seems to me that the folks at home are fighting one war and we’re fighting another one,” the waist gunner puts in. “They’ve got theirs nearly won and we’ve just got started on ours. I wish they’d get in the same war we’re in. I wish they’d print the casualties and tell them what it’s like…”

Another crewman says, “I read a very nice piece in a magazine about us. This piece says we’ve got nerves of steel. We never get scared. All we want in the world is just to fly all the time and get a crack at Jerry. I never heard anything so brave as us. I read it three or four times to try and convince myself that I ain’t scared.”

The conversation rolls on and on, and finally the first speaker says, “”But anyway…I wish they’d tell them at home that the war isn’t over and I wish they wouldn’t think we’re so brave. I don’t want to be so brave…”

Eventually, they head back outside. It is still daylight and before they pile onto the bus, each one raises his face to the sky. “Looks like it might be a clear day,” the radio man says. “That’s good for us and it’s good for them to get at us.”

…“I hope old Red Beard has got a bad cold,” the tail gunner muses. “I didn’t like the look in his eye the last time.” *(Red Beard is an enemy fighter pilot who comes so close that you can almost see his face).*Steinbeck’s note

Given the choice, they would rather romance pretty girls at the pub, or better still, ship out for home to Kenosha or Kalamazoo or South Bend. But they could do no other thing but their allotted duty, because they had obligations to their country, their family, their crew, their conscience. The way I see it, that’s the definition of self-sacrifice. It is the same today with the people who keep us afloat during Covid-19.©

                                                                           

  

Note from Linda Lee Greene…At the time I wrote my novel CRADLE OF THE SERPENT, I didn’t recognize that I was writing about self-sacrifice. I only understand that element of it now. While my novel is an award-winner, judging by a couple of its reviews, it is also controversial. Those reviewers were uncomfortable with its aspect of self-sacrifice. It makes me wonder if self-sacrifice is more palatable to some people when applied to large-scale, humanitarian efforts but less so when confined to individual concerns. WARNING: My novel isn’t about essential workers or World War II. If you are interested in finding out what it is about, my CRADLE OF THE SERPENT is available for purchase at goo.gl/i3UkAV.

 

Image: The Mary Ruth photographed from the Memphis Belle.

 

#EssentialWorkers, #John Steinbeck, #ONCE THERE WAS A WAR, #coronavirus, #pandemic, #Covid-19, #Mary Ruth, #Memphis Belle, #World War II, #CRADLE OF THE SERPENT, #Linda Lee Greene 

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[1] ONCE THERE WAS A WAR, JOHN STEINBECK, PENGUIN BOOKS, 1958, p. 39 - 41