April 2016 column

If you read my column last month you might have thought I was losing it. Sorry for my first statement not being very clear. The secretarial position that I did not run for this year was for the Fiber Guild that I have been a part of for the last 5 years. Now I feel better to have that cleared up. And speaking of the Fiber Guild, we are up and running to make our September Fiber Daze event in Mt Vernon be better than ever this year. The guild has grown leaps and bounds this last year and we have so much talent within the guild that it boggles the mind. Our two day event has become the highlight of the year for us. It takes many people to work together to put an event like this on. So I will be reporting much more later on this. I will say that if you want to be a vendor or teach a class the applications are on line now and the deadline is April 15. Website is: fiberfolksofswmo.com then click on Fiber Daze and you can go to the applications.

I am also excited to report that the Neosho Farmers Market is getting geared up to start the first Saturday of May. We hope to have even more vendors than last year and some new surprises for folks. I am looking forward to this weekly event right here in our own back yard, so to speak. The booths will be full of home grown produce or hand made items. Our location will be the same as last year, right across from the library, just a block off the square.

Books, books, books. Have decided to continue to sell my books at half price, since I am only in the shop a couple days a week now. It is working out well to be able to go in when I have time or just need to get a way and weave a couple rugs. Classes are still available to learn to weave.

I have read a mix of books this past month. So here are my picks

Odyssey

by

Jack McDevitt

It has been a long time since I read a science fiction novel. This one caught my eye, yes, I like pretty covers. The setting is in the future around 2235. We have the caustic journalist, McAllister, and Hutch who is head of the Acadamy, a space flight organization. It also centers around a Senator's 15 year old daughter Amy, who wants to be a pilot one day and also one of the Acadamy's top pilots, Valya. They are on a rountine space flight to place monitors in locations in other solar systems to try to gather information on the Moonriders, (UFO's). But it seems that a dangerous hoax is being played out by someone to scare the public into putting more funding into interstellar research. Lives are put at risk, and some lost, but it all works out in the end. Oh, and the Moonriders are real and very dangerous in a way that no one could imagine. I think I might like to read another of McDevitt's books as it is interesting to think of what the far future might hold for us.

Remember When

by

Nora Roberts/ J.D. Robb

Before you groan,”no, Not Nora Roberts”, I will have to say that several people have tried to get me to read this series of books by J.D. Robb, AKA Nora Roberts. Roberts has written so many books over the years that they sort of blur to me. But she turned suspense writer under her psudoneum of Robb. This book is acuually two books in one. The first one telling the story of Laine who is owner of a store called Remember When. She buys and sells unique antiques and gift items, and has made a nice home in a small community in the mountains of the Maryland. When a stranger is hit by a car in front of her shop and dies in her arms, her tidy little world starts to fall down around her. She is really the daughter of a small time con man whom she hasn't seen for many years. The stranger turns out to be a good friend of her father who was like her uncle when she was a child. As he dies he tries to tell her something and she realizes who he is. Along comes Max and when he meets Laine the sparks fly. He is a hired PI, trying to locate millions of dollors worth of stolen diamonds. Things get complicated and heated, but in the end by working together they find most of them and in the process uncover Laine's true identity. A realy good romance story that I did enjoy. Then in the second half of the book we change over to J.D. Robb writing in her futuristic suspence, jumping 50 years into the future and Laine and Max are senior citizens by now. The story is about their grand daughter, Samantha living in New York City and the mystery of the remaining diamonds is back. NYPD Lieutenant Eve Dallas is the head of the investigation of the murder of two women with close ties to Samantha. We find the focus of the book now on Eve and her husband Roarke who happens to be wealthy and manages to help her with her cases. It was interesting to see how Robb describes how the future might look in every day things, like transportation, politics, foods, robots, ect.

Since 1995 when the “In Death” series with Eve Dallas was started, to now there are 53 books in this series. Makes you wonder how someone can keep turning out books at this rate.

From WeaverBirds Rugs, formerly Read Again Books