Kaye Lynne Booth's Blog: Writing to be Read, page 60

Celebrate Memorial Day with WordCrafter Press with a FREE Book

Purchase Link: https://books2read.com/u/38RZ2O

This year, for Memorial Day, WordCrafter Press is offering up a free digital copy of my paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets. (This book is not available in digital format on Amazon, but the Books2Read link above will allow you to purchase from most of the other digital book distributors.) It’s my gift to you, just because you are my readers. I do hope you will click on the link and get your free digital copy today.

Thank you for being my readers!

About the Book

By Author Kaye Lynne Booth

Cassie is nervous about her return to her ancestral lands with her boyfriend Tony for more reasons than one. She hasn’t been up in these mountains since the unexplained drowning of her parents. And her parents aren’t the only ones who have died or mysteriously disappeared in the area. Cassie doesn’t really believe the old legends passed down from her Native American ancestors, but she harbors no desire to become the keeper of her tribal legacy or the protector of the gold that goes with it. In fact, she plans to tell her Grandmother to pass the legacy to someone else, perhaps her cousin Miranda, who has been searching for the treasure for years. Cassie wants nothing to do with it now that she carries Tony’s baby in her womb.When Cassie forces herself to go out on the lake that took the lives of her parents and she discovers a cave which holds the treasure of her people, she must admit that the legacy is real, which means the curse that guards the treasure and threatens the males of her tribe must also be real. When Miranda’s boyfriend, Jake disappears on the lake, Cassie must find a way to stop the curse, before Tony becomes the next victim.

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Want exclusive content? Join Kaye Lynne Booth & WordCrafter Press Readers’ Group for WordCrafter Press book & event news, including the awesome releases of author Kaye Lynne Booth. She won’t flood your inbox, she NEVER sells her list, and you might get a freebie occasionally. Get a free digital copy of her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction, just for joining.

Book Review: A Hard Ticket Home

About the Book

Ex-St. Paul cop Rushmore McKenzie has more time, and more money, than he knows what to do with. In fact, when he’s willing to admit it to himself (and he usually isn’t), Mac is downright bored. Until he decides to do a favor for a friend facing a family tragedy: Nine-year-old Stacy Carlson has been diagnosed with leukemia, and the only one with the matching bone marrow that can save her is her older sister, Jamie. Trouble is, Jamie ran away from home years ago.

Mac begins combing the backstreets of the Twin Cities, tracking down Jamie’s last known associates. He starts with the expected pimps and drug dealers, but the path leads surprisingly to some of the Cities’ most respected businessmen, as well as a few characters far more unsavory than the street hustlers he anticipated. As bullets fly and bodies drop, Mac persists, only to find that what he’s looking for, and why, are not exactly what he’d imagined.

David Housewright’s uncanny ability to turn the Twin Cities into an exotic, brooding backdrop for noir fiction, and his winning, witty hero Rushmore McKenzie, serve as a wicked one-two punch in A Hard Ticket Home, a series debut that reinforces Housewright’s well-earned reputation as one of crime fiction’s stars.

Purchase Links:

Amazon/Audible: https://www.amazon.com/A-Hard-Ticket-Home/dp/B082TLLK5Q/

Chirp: https://www.chirpbooks.com/audiobooks/a-hard-ticket-home-by-david-housewright

My Review

I listened to the audio book A Hard Ticket Home, written by David Housewright and narrated by Brent Hinkley. This book is a cross between your typical detective story and a cozy mystery, with distinctive characters. Hinkley sets the perfect tone, giving it kind of a Mickey Spillane feel, which is perfect for the genre and the story.

Rushmore McKenzie isn’t a cop anymore. He’s a billionaire, but even though he doesn’t need the money, he makes a hobby of playing P.I. When he’s called upon to find the long lost sister, Jamie, of none year old Stacy Carlson, in order to find a possible bone marrow doner and save Stacy’s life, he steps into more than he bargained for. Just as he locates Jamie, she is murdered in hideous fashion, and he finds himself on the middle of a murder mystery as he tries desperately to find Jamie’s missing son, who might be the only one left who could save Stacy’s life. But Mac has drawn attention in his investigation, and now someone is trying to kill him, too.

Filled with twists and turns that keep readers guessing, I give A Hard Ticket Home five quills.

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Kaye Lynne Booth does honest book reviews on Writing to be Read in exchange for ARCs. Have a book you’d like reviewed? You can request a review here.

Treasuring Poetry – Meet poet and blogger, Luanne Castle, and a review #poetry #poetrycommunity #bookreview

Today, I am thrilled to introduce poet and blogger, Luanne Castle, as my May Treasuring Poetry Guest. Luanne has written four poetry books and had her work included in some anthologies too. I have read two of her four books and found her poetry to be unique and fascinating.

Welcome Luanne!

Why do you write poetry?

My connection to poetry feels as if it’s deeper than thought and precedes story. Until I was eight years old, I was an only child and spent time entertaining myself. Even before I could read, I listened to records of nursery rhymes and folk songs repeatedly, loving the rhythms and the magical way the words sounded. I started writing poetry when I was a child as it seemed a natural form of expression to me, possibly because of this nursery rhyme background. I still feel this same connection to poetry that I did as a child.

Do you think poetry is still a relevant form of expressing ideas in our modern world? If yes, why? 

Poetry is very relevant because it can perform much of the same communication that prose does, but more besides! The music and delight in words found in poetry are memorable, even mnemonic. Poetry also tends to express on many levels, leaving gaps (ambiguity) where readers and listeners supply responses, emotions, and thoughts, thus making poetry the most active and interactive form. We need this activity as a guard against the increasing passivity of our culture.

Which poem by any other poet that you’ve read, do you relate to the most and why?

This is such a difficult question. In April I posted a favorite poem a day on Instagram, but being a favorite doesn’t mean the same thing as relating. Today’s choice for a poem I can really relate to is by Jane Kenyon. The beauty of the natural world, the shift of mood, and the comfort at the end are all very appealing to me.

Let Evening Come

Let the light of late afternoon

shine through chinks in the barn, moving   

up the bales as the sun moves down.

***

Let the cricket take up chafing   

as a woman takes up her needles   

and her yarn. Let evening come.

***

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned   

in long grass. Let the stars appear

and the moon disclose her silver horn.

***

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.   

Let the wind die down. Let the shed   

go black inside. Let evening come.

***

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop   

in the oats, to air in the lung   

let evening come.

***

Let it come, as it will, and don’t   

be afraid. God does not leave us   

comfortless, so let evening come.

Which of your own poems is your favourite and why?

I have a few favorites from each book, but today’s favorite is this one from Rooted and Winged about my maternal grandfather. He and my grandmother (a big part of my roots) show in several poems throughout the collection. This one is a prose poem and although the majority of poems I write are lyrical, I do enjoy prose poems for the mix of storytelling and poetic language and imagery.

How to Create a Family Myth

My grandfather built a city with his tongue. Houses and little shops, celery fields and sand lots all connected to each other without roads or sidewalks. Once or twice he showed me a map of sewer lines running like Arcadia Creek underneath the cobblestones and packed dirt. We stood outside and found tall buildings in the clouds overhead. His hands gestured how his grandfather placed the bricks and taught his men to shape upwards, each building higher than the one before. Out there on the stoop, he pointed out where his mother, the one he said I looked like, had witnessed a man beating his horse. I saw her calico skirt billow out behind her, her hands wiping across her apron stomach even as she ran. When she reached the man, she snatched the whip from his hand, his surprise at her actions slowing him, rendering him stupid. When she cracked the whip down on his back time did not go on for her as it did for the rest of the world. Not until a week later, when she went to the market, did she realize that the story ran, too. It kept running until it reached all of us, each child and grandchild and great grandchild taking just what is needed from the tale. In my case, I plucked a heart from the clouds and tucked it safely inside a brick house in the city where it keeps the city alive to this day.

Is writing poetry easy for you compared to prose or do you do a lot of editing and revision of your poems?

I do edit and revise my poetry, but I can more quickly get to a finished poem than I used to be able to do. Practice really does improve speed. However, sometimes the fullest meaning doesn’t emerge for weeks after a poem is “finished,” so the best scenario is to put poem aside and look at it again later. As far as prose goes, I find prose fairly easy to write. Where I feel I would be out of my element would be in writing a novel. The plot intricacies and overall structure would drive me mad.

What mode (blog, books, YouTube, podcasts) do you find the most effective for sharing your poems with poetry lovers and readers?

Ah, that is such a good question. I think my blog is very effective for sharing poetry. I love interacting with blog readers and other bloggers about poetry. My books, of course, present a cohesive project to readers. I have a podcast hosted by Rebecca Budd coming up but have not done too much in that area to date. And I haven’t worked with YouTube yet other than some readings I have done have been posted by others. I would love to work more with YouTube and an audio format like Soundcloud in the future.

My review of Rooted and Winged by Luanne Castle

This is the second book of poetry and flash fiction by Luanne Castle I’ve read and I really like her style of writing.

Each piece is a reflection on a specific aspect of life and depicts the author’s thoughts and ideas about that particular aspect. It felt like a poetic journal of experiences and interpretations which I really appreciated. The poems are all freestyle and are written as a stream of consciousness without the restrictions imposed by strict sentence formation and punctuation. It flows well and suits the theme of the poetry.

An example of the thoughts and ideas expressed is this stanza from Gravity:
“Why are we only of the earth, Grandpa?
See your knees sunken in muck,
the sun sketching very plane of you.”

The imagery is rich and descriptive. An example of the language is as follows (extracted from Finding the House on Trimble Street):
“The house, once white and raw, has matured into gold. Ripened maples in October red temptingly frame the remembrance. The garage neatly unfolds from the side, the lawn edged in definition.”

My favourite piece is a slightly longer one entitled Today and Today and Today. It is about caregivers and is very poignant. The writer’s observations are so genuine and relatable.
“… She either ignores you or says mean things or praises you endlessly. Each response makes you sad.”

“He can wear only that one sweater. The others are too thin, too thick, too warm, too prickly, or pull over the head.”

Having recently had the experience of a close family member in intensive care in hospital for a period, completely dependent on the nurses who provide the medication and care, I felt as if this description had been pulled from my heart and mind:

“But you feel she knows you are at her side, joking with the staff, making sure that aides and nurses alike care for her as they would their mothers because her submissive form has been brushed with the glow of your personality.”

An extraordinary book of insightful poetry and prose.

Purchase Rooted and Winged: https://www.amazon.com/Rooted-Winged-Luanne-Castle/dp/1646628632

My review of Our Wolves by Luanne Castle

This book is an original and unique collection of poems that expose the wolves that appear in the lives of females during their formative years and through to maturity. The poet has linked many, but not all, of her poetic thoughts and interpretations of human predators to the wolf in the famous story Little Red Riding Hood or Le Petit Chaperon Rouge in the original French (which I have listed to with an English interpretation in my hand).

An example of this connection to the wolf is this extract from Our Old Wolves:

“But you will know how frightened they are
of the dark, shadowed forest and the abstruse mind.
Of human-like wolves concealed behind spruce and fir,
their shadows stretching out tentacles to grasp them
as they tremble past on their way to the locked river.”

Some of the poems turn the readers traditional idea of the hero and the predator on its head and force consideration of how misleading looks, perceptions of beauty and strength, and inbred prejudices can be. It highlights how frequently girls and young women walk right into trouble because of the messages drummed into them by their mothers and society. Women are not taught to accurately identify predators or ‘the wolf’.

Thanks for meeting me for coffee is a good example of this concept:

“I searched for the beginning
of your story and discovered you
were lost when you believed him.
All gone, One a milk carton missing.”

The poems in the book are mainly written in freestyle poetry and are filled with subtle meanings and innuendoes for the reader to consider. This book must be read with an alert and fresh mind in order to appreciate its full meaning and intrigue.

For me, the summary of the meaning and power of this book is set out in the following words from Your Sonnet:

“My mother taught me to be kind, to be helpful,
not to ignore the slow or less than able, the ones
who are different, the needy so I asked what
he needed from me and he misunderstood.
My story is not so very different from yours
and yours and yours and yours and yours.”

If you like interesting and thought provoking poetry, you will love Our Wolves.

Purchase Our Wolves: https://www.amazon.com/Our-Wolves-Luanne-Castle/dp/B0BTKNP31D

About Luanne Castle

Luanne Castle lives in Arizona, next to a wash that wildlife use as a thoroughfare. She has published two full-length poetry collections, Rooted and Winged (Finishing Line 2022), a Book Excellence Award Winner, and Doll God (Kelsay 2015), which won the New Mexico-Arizona Book Award for Poetry. Her chapbooks are Our Wolves (Alien Buddha 2023) and Kin Types (Finishing Line 2017), a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award. Luanne’s Pushcart and Best of the Net-nominated poetry and prose have appeared in Copper Nickel, American Journal of Poetry, Pleiades, River Teeth, TAB, Verse Daily, Saranac Review, and other journals.

Find Luanne Castle

Blog: https://writersite.org/

Website: https://www.luannecastle.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/writersitetweet

Luanne Castle Amazon Author Page

About Robbie Cheadle

Award-winning, bestselling author, Robbie Cheadle, has published thirteen children’s book and two poetry books. Her work has also appeared in poetry and short story anthologies.

Robbie also has two novels published under the name of Roberta Eaton Cheadle and has horror, paranormal, and fantasy short stories featured in several anthologies under this name.

The ten Sir Chocolate children’s picture books, co-authored by Robbie and Michael Cheadle, are written in sweet, short rhymes which are easy for young children to follow and are illustrated with pictures of delicious cakes and cake decorations. Each book also includes simple recipes or biscuit art directions which children can make under adult supervision.

Robbie’s blog includes recipes, fondant and cake artwork, poetry, and book reviews. https://robbiesinspiration.wordpress.com/

Review in Practice: That Th!nk You Do

If you ever wonder about how to think like an expert, the difference between your inner critic and the actor within, your ability to be heard, the value of being a musician, how to protect yourself from liars or how to overcome fears, you will find answers in this book.

Through each chapter there is a magic wand taking you into an area of life that you may have experienced yourself or it will be something new to consider. There is synthesis between the known and unknown, the seen and unseen, the mental and the physical, the desires of the heart and the aspirations of the spirit; and the overall theme of we are all just trying to make it from one day to the next with joy, peace, and happiness.

Joseph gives his own insights throughout the pages of what he believes are the backbone of our life experiences – both the great and the not so great. He leaves it up to the reader to discern what is true for them. You will find yourself wanting to explore more of each of his analysis of life’s nuggets, many of which we create ourselves through questions, desires for specific outcomes and the need to be heard.

Purchase Link: https://www.amazon.com/That-Th-You-Do-Healthy/dp/0984140379/

It happened that I read this innovative book at just the time in my life when I really needed it. My job of eight years had just come to an abrupt end, and I was trying to figure out how I was going to carry on and where I would go from here. It felt as if my life was over, as if I were balancing precariously on a ledge, on the verge of toppling over, with no where to go but down. Okay. I know that seems a bit melodramatic, but that’s what it felt like.

That Th!nk You Do, by Jacob Carribis takes a look at human thought processes, explanations for why we do what we do, and techniques for dealing with life’s challenges. I have to admit that this book offered several ‘Aha!’ moments for me. Carribis offers unique insight into human behavior, and compassionate advice for handling the curve balls life throws at you. He is not a professional health expert, but an intelligent guy with some good ideas, which may or may not work for you, but probably worth a try.

This book showed me new ways to chase away self-doubt, overcome fear and worry about what the future holds, and set some goals for myself to work towards. Of course, I’ve been working toward taking my writing business full time as means of making my living for many years, but facing the fact that now I was at a point where I needed to make it all work was really scary. If I couldn’t, I didn’t know what I would. If I didn’t find a way to pay my bills and fast, I knew I would topple from that ledge and it would be all down hill from there.

Everybody has those times when they let self-doubt creep in, or allow their own fears to bring about inaction. It happens to all of us. That Th!nk You Do holds some insightful solutions which just might help. If nothin g else, it made me look at the situation a bit differently. Joseph Carribis may not be a professional, but he offers some great insights and suggestions that can benefit us all.

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For Kaye Lynne Booth, writing is a passion. Kaye Lynne is an author with published short fiction and poetry, both online and in print, including her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction; and her paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets. Kaye holds a dual M.F.A. degree in Creative Writing with emphasis in genre fiction and screenwriting, and an M.A. in publishing. Kaye Lynne is the founder of WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services and WordCrafter Press. She also maintains an authors’ blog and website, Writing to be Read, where she publishes content of interest in the literary world.

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Want exclusive content? Join Kaye Lynne Booth & WordCrafter Press Readers’ Group for WordCrafter Press book & event news, including the awesome releases of author Kaye Lynne Booth. She won’t flood your inbox, she NEVER sells her list, and you might get a freebie occasionally. Get a free digital copy of her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction, just for joining.

A Mother’s Day Story

Purchase Link: https://books2read.com/DelilahWIW

The Mother’s Day Sale for Delilah ends tomorrow! So get your copy at a discounted price while you can. Strong female protagonists are great gifts for mothers, daughters, sisters or even as a pamper yourself gift for Mother’s Day.

I wanted to remind you all about the WordCrafter Press Mother’s Day Sale before it ends, of course. But I also wanted to share a story about an attempt to do what’s right gone terribly wrong, in my western flash fiction story, “I Had To Do It”.

“What does that have to with Mother’s Day?” you ask. Well, listen to the story and you’ll see. I’m pretty sure there’s a mom in ther somewhere. Enjoy.

“I Had to Do It”, by Kaye Lynne Booth – A western flash fiction audio story read by the author

Book Review – Rayna: Dragon Slayer

About the Book

She was a warrior forged from flame, a slayer of mighty dragons, until one final quest changed everything

Rayna had been hunting dragons since the day one burned her family to ash. Her skills, enhanced by a massive broadsword, made her a legendary dragonslayer. Marred by a mysterious stigmata labeled “the dragon’s curse” she was both revered and feared as she hunted down the dragons across Atharia.

Rayna thought she’d slain them all. But when the royal house sought the slayer they told her of another. One more dragon plagued the land…the very same beast which burned Rayna’s home years before. Fueled by vengeance Rayna takes up the quest to fulfill her life’s purpose and purge the beasts from the world. But as she gets closer to the kill, Rayna learns a bitter truth that will drastically alter her path and turn the hunter into the hunted.

Painful, pivotal memories surface as Rayna races to find the culprit behind the mayhem, recover a lost child, and get to the real target to set things right.

Rayna the Dragonslayer is the first in an exciting dragon fantasy adventure series A Time of Dragons. It’s a symphony of sword & sorcery, high fantasy, and a heroic quest that is like The Mandalorian merging with Game of Thrones.

Purchase Link: https://www.amazon.com/Rayna-Dragonslayer-Time-Dragons-Book-ebook/dp/B0BRWZY8KY

My Review

A tough female protagonist is what drew me to pick up Rayna, by Cynthia Vespia. (Plus, it has a kick butt cover.) I’ve talked a bit about making strong female protagonists believable and relatable, and Ms. Vespia did not disappoint. Rayna is strong, agile and tough enough to slay dragons, which I hear can be rather tricky. She is portrayed as being physically and mentally strong, yet still emotionally vulnerable, which makes her relatable for just about everyone. Though tough and hard, Rayna also reveals a side that is very human, one perhaps even she didn’t know was there. Rayna is one heroine who I look forward to reading more about.

Dragon slaying in a land of castles and Kings, with lots of sword play and a bit of magic thrown in makes this tale a must for high fantasy lovers. I give Rayna five quills.

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Kaye Lynne Booth does honest book reviews on Writing to be Read in exchange for ARCs. Have a book you’d like reviewed? You can request a review here.

Small Wonders: Release and Pre-Order

Purchase and Pre-Order Link: https://books2read.com/u/b6WZ6EAbout the Book

The world is filled with amazing things, if we will just stop a moment and take notice. In this vast universe, we are but tiny individuals, filled with awe and amazement. From reflections on first love, to reflections on growing old. The poems within these pages express a lifetime of unique reflections on Small Wonders.

Growing Bookworms – The benefits of cooking and baking with children

I wrote this post six years ago when I hadn’t been blogging for very long and didn’t have many followers. During my recent attendance at the South African Festival of Children’s Literature where I was asked to speak about cake and fondant art and its benefits to children, I thought again about all these benefits and decided to share it again for Growing Bookworms.

Most children love to spend time in the kitchen either cooking or baking. It is a fabulous bonding experience with Mom or another caregiver and they always enjoying eating the results of their hard work afterwards.

I love to bake and both my sons have travelled the cooking, baking and eating road with me. Michael, particularly, loves to cook. He prefers to make more practical things than I do such as savoury and/or sweet pancakes, French toast and even stews and curries which he sometimes makes with his Dad. I like to cook but I also enjoy making all sorts of fancy sweet treats and cakes.

I remember baking with my small boys. Gregory used to love to measure and pour the ingredients into the bowl. Funnily enough, Greg also loved to wash up. Sadly, this did not continued into his teenage years. I used to strip him down to his nappy and stand him on a few chairs lined up in front of the sink [so that he could not fall off] and set him free in front of a sink of soapy water. He used to splash around happy with a cloth washing up the bowl and wooden spoon. I kept the washing of any sharp implements and breakables for myself.

Michael, on the other hand, has never been a fan of any kind of cleaning up. He likes to measure, pour and, especially, to mix. He also likes to “lick” out the bowl. I have photographs of Michael covered from head to toe in chocolate cake mix with the bowl upside down on his head. What fabulous fun.

Other than the obvious fun and bonding factors, there are a list of other great benefits to baking with your children. I did some research on this and this is what I found:

Maths skills: Baking helps children to learn maths concepts, in particular, measurement and simple fractions (half a cup, a quarter of a lemon). In addition, multiplication and division are involved if you half or double a recipe. Other kinds of cooking may also involve patterning (for example with salads and kebabs) and simple addition (how many people are you feeding? how many cupcakes do you need for the class?);Art skills: Decorating cupcakes, cutting out biscuits and making animals and people out of fondant (sugar dough). All of these activities encourage creativity and develop design abilities. An element of construction can also be involved if you are making a gingerbread house or a marshmallow tower and children learn how to fit pieces together and get a tower to stand up;

Cupcakes decorated for charity by the children of St Columba’s Presbyterian Church Sunday School – Parkview, South Africa

Comprehension skills: Baking and cooking teaches children how to read and interpret a recipe. They learn to follow a sequence of steps and how to organise the required ingredients. Baking also teaches children techniques and vocabulary such as folding, beating, kneading and blending;Science skills: Contrary to popular belief, baking is a science. Children learn the scientific effects of raising agents such as yeast and baking powder. They learn about the interaction between certain substances such as salt and bicarbonate of soda, cream of tartar and milk, yeast and warm water. If they make a mistake and/or leave out an ingredient, disaster often follows which helps enforce these learning points; Cream of tartar, bicarbonate of soda and milk mixed together bubble and froth Sir Chocolate and Lady Sweet’s rocket ship is powered by the cream of tartar baking mixture

Picture credit: Photographs by Robbie Cheadle. Cream of tartar, Bicarb and milk mixed together create a good raising agent for biscuits. It also froths and bubbles and makes a perfect fuel for a biscuit rocket ship to the moon.

Life skills: Baking and cooking with your children teaches them lifelong skills. In the future, the job of feeding themselves and their future families will become theirs. Baking and cooking skills will stand them in good stead when they leave home; andSelf-esteem: Baking and cooking helps increase children’s self-esteem as they see and taste the results of their efforts. It also teaches children to work together with someone else in a team and that hard work pays dividends in the end.

I am not an occupational therapist but I found the following additional benefits listed on an OT website for children:

Bilateral coordination;Eye-hand coordination;Hand strengthening; andSpatial perception and planning skills.

These four benefits make perfect sense to me in the context of baking and cooking with children.

So, what are you waiting for, get cooking. An easy way to start is with mini pizzas. You can buy the bases ready made from most grocery stores and you can also buy the tomato paste source to spread on the bases. Grate some cheese, cut up some mushrooms, pineapple, ham and anything else that you fancy and let the kids have fun assembling their own pizzas.

About Robbie Cheadle

Award-winning, bestselling author, Robbie Cheadle, has published thirteen children’s book and three poetry books. Her work has also appeared in poetry and short story anthologies.

Robbie also has two novels published under the name of Roberta Eaton Cheadle and has horror, paranormal, and fantasy short stories featured in several anthologies under this name.

The ten Sir Chocolate children’s picture books, co-authored by Robbie and Michael Cheadle, are written in sweet, short rhymes which are easy for young children to follow and are illustrated with pictures of delicious cakes and cake decorations. Each book also includes simple recipes or biscuit art directions which children can make under adult supervision.

Robbie’s blog includes recipes, fondant and cake artwork, poetry, and book reviews. https://robbiesinspiration.wordpress.com/

WordCrafter Mother’s Day Sale: Delilah

Purchase Link: https://books2read.com/DelilahWIW

Moms love strong female protagonists

Delilah is a woman haunted by her past.

Her homecoming from prison quickly turns into a quest for vengeance when she is brutally raped and left for dead, and her fourteen-year-old ward is abducted. Sheer will and determination take this tough and gritty heroine up against wild beasts of the forest, Indians and outlaws to Leadville, Colorado.

Can the colorful inhabitants of the Colorado mining town work their way into Delilah’s heart, offering a chance for a future she thought she’d lost along with her innocence?

If you like strong and capable female protagonists, you’ll love

Learn more about Deliah and the Women in the West Adventure Series here: https://writingtoberead.com/wordcrafter-quality-writing-author-services/wordcrafter-press/women-in-the-west-adventure-series/

Riding Tunnel Drive on Easter Sunday

Old telegraph pole next to the Arkansas River at the end of Tunnel Drive

This year was the first time in seven years that I had Easter Sunday off. It was a beautiful day in southern Colorado, so I decided to do something I hadn’t done in several years. In Canon City, Colorado, they have a river walk that now spans from one end of town to the other. I used to ride this trail all the time when we lived in Canon City, and Mike and Josey were kids, but not for many years. When I was riding it, it was in sections and the route was not a continuous one, but they’ve completed the full length since my last ride in Canon City. On Easter Sunday, I started off at the Department of Recreation on Reynold’s Avenue and road clear through town, which is a fairly flat route and an easy ride all along the Arkansas River, to Tunnel Drive, which has a steep climb at the beginning, and then follows the river through the canyon from above.

Tunnel Drive is a path was the old wagon road which follows the river into the Royal Gorge Canyon along the east side. It runs through a series of three tunnels blasted through the granite of the mountainside, hence the name. When I’d come here with my boys, you could see bats hanging from the tunnel ceilings, and near dusk, you might see them flying. But besides bats, these tunnels and this trail have an interesting history. Originally proposed as an open ditch system to carry water to Penrose until citizens turned against the project after blasting caused damage to nearby houses, and then funding fell through, it eventually carried water through the canyon in an elborate piping system to the Canyon City water department. According to Brooke Johnson of the Canon City Daily Record, “A 30-inch wooden pipeline ran from the center of the Royal Gorge alongside the gorge walls across the river bringing water to an open ditch.” In fact, you can still see the remnants of the old pipeline running along the Gorge in spots, high up on the canyon walls, and there are pieces still remaining at the end of the trial.

A Steep Start

As I mentioned, the start of this trail is pretty steep, and I won’t lie, I walked my bike to the top. Even an electric assist bike needs help for a climb like this one, and this old lady didn’t have it in her. But once up the hill, the ride to the end of the line is fairly smooth through three tunnels and across two bridges to the end of the line, about a three mile ride one way. At the last bridge I was fortunate to see the Easter Sunday train coming down the canyon below, which was kind of cool.

Canon City has it’s own tourist train that runs up the Gorge and back these days, complete with a dining car, an open car and one that is glassed in for those who don’t wish to brave the elements, but still want to enjoy the view. $119.00 per person to take the Easter train. I checked because I was thinking of doing that with my son for Easter Dinner, but a little too pricey for my pocketbook. Instead we ended up going to The China Garden and ate Chinese food for Easter dinner. As usual, Josey wouldn’t let me take his picture, even though we haven’t had a meal on Easter Sunday together for the last seven years, so I settled for photos of the food.

It was a very pleasant day, over all. It was a nice way to spend an Easter Sunday for someone who had maybe forgotten how. The river walk was a pleasant ride, as was the ride over Tunnel Drive. It all brought back fond memories of times past. Maybe I’ll go to the Royal Gorge Bridge for Memorial Day. HAven’t been there in a while either.

References

Royal Gorge Region: Tunnel Drive

Johnson, Brooke. 18 July 2020. “Back in Time: Tunnel Drive Originally Had a Different Purpose”. Canon City Daily Record. Retrieved from https://www.canoncitydailyrecord.com/2020/07/18/back-in-time-tunnel-drive-originally-had-a-different-purpose/

About Kaye Lynne Booth

For Kaye Lynne Booth, writing is a passion. Kaye Lynne is an author with published short fiction and poetry, both online and in print, including her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction; and her paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets. Kaye holds a dual M.F.A. degree in Creative Writing with emphasis in genre fiction and screenwriting, and an M.A. in publishing. Kaye Lynne is the founder of WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services and WordCrafter Press. She also maintains an authors’ blog and website, Writing to be Read, where she publishes content of interest in the literary world.

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