Art's Blood by Vicki Lane

Title: Art's Blood
Author: Vicki Lane
ISBN: 9780440242093
Publisher: Bantam Dell, 2006
Mass Market Paperback, 448 pages
Genre: Amateur Sleuth, #2 Full Circle Farm mystery
Rating: A
Source: Paperback Swap

First Line: I still see the bed-- its wide white expanse floating like a snowy island on the deep pearly carpet-- the creamy tufted silk coverlet neatly folded back-- the soft heaped pillows, their pale lace soaked and stiff with her blood.

The Appalachian Mountains to the west of Asheville, North Carolina, are a mix of old and new: people who have lived there for generations, newcomers who've moved in, artists, New Age devotees,  old farms, and new businesses. Over twenty years ago, Elizabeth Goodweather and her husband bought Full Circle Farm, eventually turning it into an organic herb and flower farm. Elizabeth moves easily between the worlds of Asheville and the old-timers who live back in their hollows. She's been a widow for six years, and only recently has she found her interest piqued in another man.

Although the farm takes most of her time, Elizabeth finds the ladies at the library to be very persuasive. Before she knows what's happening, she's agreed to round up quilts for an exhibit, and she finds the history behind one of them to be fascinating. At the same time, her youngest daughter talks her into attending performance art done by three young neighbors who live across the road from Full Circle Farm. When one of the young artists is murdered, Elizabeth finds herself caught between two mysteries: the true story behind a beautiful quilt-- and of murder.

Once again I've fallen under the spell of the world and of the characters that Vicki Lane has created. Elizabeth's the type of character I could easily call friend, and I like to "watch" her do her chores around the farm. She's level-headed, intelligent, kind, and not prone to being a clothes horse. And any time Elizabeth  wants to visit octogenarian Miss Birdie on her nearby farm, I'd definitely want to tag along. Miss Birdie may be an old mountain woman, but there's a lot about her that reminds me of those sharp-as-a-tack eightysomethings I grew up amongst in small town central Illinois.

Art's Blood fully explores the corrosive theme of jealousy with two major plot lines. One story takes place in the 1930s and focuses on the people involved in the making of a wonderful quilt. Through journal entries written by one of the survivors of those days, we see how the seeds of disaster were planted.

The second plot line involves Kyra, a beautiful young artist living across the road from Full Circle Farm. Traumatized as a child, she is very fragile, very mercurial-- and her family is very protective of her. Elizabeth's nephew, Ben, becomes infatuated with Kyra, as Elizabeth's daughter, Laurel, draws her mother deeper into the art world in Asheville. As the story progresses, the two threads begin to weave together into a tale that is tragic, haunting, deadly.... Nothing good ever comes of jealousy.

If you enjoy reading books that give you a chance to become well acquainted with the setting, the history, and an excellent cast of characters as well as telling tales that persuade you to keep reading into the wee hours of the morning, there's only one thing you can do: pick up a Full Circle Farm mystery by Vicki Lane.

Art's Blood at Amazon.

Art's Blood at The Book Depository.

Art's Blood at Your Favorite Indie Bookseller.

Scene of the Crime with Author Vicki Lane!

I don't know about any of the rest of you, but I love reading books set in the Appalachian Mountains that tell of the country, its history, and its people. From the first chapter of the first book written by this week's featured author, Vicki Lane, I knew I'd found a writer who loves the Appalachians-- and has the added advantage of living there.

Lane's Full Circle Farm series features fifty-something widow Elizabeth Goodweather, who owns and works an herb and flower farm in the mountains west of Asheville, North Carolina. A character in her book Art's Blood describes Elizabeth as "a woman of intelligence and integrity," and she is. She also loves many of the things that I do: the mountains, nature, being outdoors, quilts, art, and reading. Unlike me, she comes in contact with people willing to kill to keep their secrets, and I love to see how this amateur sleuth puts all the pieces together to solve the crimes.

Vicki Lane

Before we get to the fun part, here are a few links where you can learn more about Vicki and her books. (I've long been a follower of her marvelous blog-- as much for her photographs as for all the other interesting things to be found there.)

Vicki Lane's website

Vicki Lane's blog

Vicki Lane on Facebook

More on Vicki Lane's books

Now on to the interview!

Thank you, Cathy, for inviting me to Kittling: Books! My latest book is Under the Skin –book five of the Elizabeth Goodweather Appalachian Mysteries (or Full Circle Farm Mysteries, as Bantam Dell has now decided to call them.)  Under the Skin introduces a new complication to Elizabeth’s life – her high-maintenance sister Gloria, on the run from a mob-connected fourth (or is it fifth?) husband. Like all my books, it’s set in the western North Carolina mountains where I live (and take pictures.) You can read more about it and find an excerpt at my website.

What was the very first book you remember reading and loving? What makes that book so special?

Probably it was one of the Oz books – I loved the concept of moving from ordinary everyday life into a magical world where animals talk and lunchboxes grow on trees with paper napkins for leaves.

Outside of your writing and all associated commitments, what do you like to do in your free time?

Free time – what an interesting concept. I live on a farm and there aren’t many unspoken for moments. But I do make time to read every day and I take pictures and blog every day. I fantasize about getting back to painting and quilting – two pastimes that fell by the wayside when I started writing.

©Vicki Lane

If I were to visit your hometown, where would you recommend that I go? (I like seeing and doing things that aren't in all the guide books.)

©Vicki Lane

I don’t actually think of myself as having a hometown. If anyone asks where I live, I say, “Madison County, twenty minutes from Marshall, an hour from Asheville.” In Marshall, I’d recommend The Depot on Friday night with home-grown music (bluegrass, gospel, old time, and country) and dancing -- all for free. The Depot made national news a while back when they banned a 58 year old woman for dirty dancing.

You have total control over casting a movie based on your life. Which actor would you cast as you?

Meryl Streep

This is hard – how about Meryl Streep? She can play anyone. And she’d probably get my accent right.

Who is your favorite recurring character in crime fiction?

Hillerman’s Leaphorn and Chee. Okay, that’s two. And as long as I’m over quota, let me add Myron Bolitar and Win, Harriet Vane and Lord Peter. And, of course, Miss Marple. 

Name one book that you've read that you wish you had written. What is it about that book that made it come to mind? 

Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere.  The scope of his imagination and beauty of detail is staggering. Like the Oz books, it’s that stepping out of everyday into the whole magical world thing – but this time for grownups.

How did you celebrate when you first heard you were to be published? What did you do the first time you saw one of your books on a shelf in a bookstore?

Champagne, of course. Actually, it was a Spanish cava, not ‘real’ champagne. The advance wasn’t that big. And I took the family out to dinner. When the first book came out, I made a special trip into Asheville to take pictures of it in bookstores.

I don't know if you've seen it, but I love Parnell Hall's video about book signings. What is the most unusual experience you've had at a book signing or author event?

The very strangest was when the local Barnes and Noble asked me to come in and do a signing – you know, sit at a table and hope someone stops to chat. A cousin of mine whom I hadn’t seen in about fifty years happened to be in the Asheville area and heard about this non-event. She got in touch with me and we had lunch just before time for me to go to my table. As we ate, she told me at some length how her family had always hated mine, especially my mother. I could only plead ignorance to all this and was glad when it was time for me to take my place at my little table.

During the seeming endless several hours I sat there, my cousin hovered nearby like a malignant spirit. If someone stopped to talk to me, she moved away but as soon as I was disengaged, she would return, eager to share yet another unpleasant bit of family dirty laundry. There was a certain surreal feeling to the whole experience.

What's the best thing about eBooks? What's the worst?

I love all the classics that are available free and, of course, the instant gratification of being able to access a book so easily. This ease of access is also the downside for those of us on a budget. Not to mention what eBooks are doing to bookstores....

On Sale Now!

Thank you so much for spending this time with us, Vicki. I loved having the chance to get to know you a bit better. May your book sales do nothing but increase!

Stop by tomorrow when I'll have a review of Art's Blood, the second book in Vicki's Full Circle Farm series!

October 2011 New Mystery Releases!

How did it get to be October already??? It won't be long before I'll be getting all my Christmas decorations out and turning our home into a holiday wonderland!

The pool water has already cooled off enough that I can't sit in there for extended periods of time to read, so I've migrated to a comfy chair in the shade close to the pool. My new reading spot is also closer to hummingbird feeders and birdbaths, so I often have my hair ruffled by various-sized wings.

And of course, I'm always on the look-out for new mysteries to read. This post contains my latest round-up of titles that will be released during the month of October. The titles are grouped by release dates, and I've included the information you'll need to find them at all your favorite book spots. Happy reading!

===October 1===

Title: The Unlucky Lottery

Author: Håkan Nesser

Series: #6 Chief Inspector Van Veeteren, set in Sweden

ISBN: 9780230745728

Publisher: Mantle

Hardcover, 256 pages

*UK Release

"Four friends celebrate winning the lottery. Just hours later, one of them – Waldemar Leverkuhn – is found in his home, stabbed to death.

With Chief Inspector Van Veeteren on sabbatical, working in a second hand bookshop, the case is assigned to Inspector Münster. But when another member of the lottery group disappears, as well as Leverkuhn’s neighbour, Münster appeals to Van Veeteren for assistance.

Soon Münster will find himself interviewing the Leverkuhn family, including the eldest – Irene – a resident of a psychiatric clinic. And as he delves deeper into the family’s history, he will discover dark secrets and startling twists, which not only threaten the clarity of the case – but also his life...."

===October 4===

Title: Flipped Out

Author: Jennie Bentley

Series: #5 Do-It-Yourself mystery set in Waterfield, Maine

ISBN: 9780425244074

Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime

Paperback, 304 pages

"Avery and her hunky handyman boyfriend are renovating a house belonging to a local news anchor who's thrilled to be filmed as part of a home renovation show. But cable television fame proves fleeting when the man is murdered and Avery faces the task of nailing the killer. Fast."

Title: Headstone

Author: Ken Bruen
Series: #9 Jack Taylor set in Galway, Ireland.
ISBN: 9780802126009
Publisher: Mysterious Press
Hardcover, 256 pages

"Acclaimed Irish crime writer Ken Bruen has won numerous awards for his hard-charging, dark thrillers, which have been translated into ten languages. In Headstone, an elderly priest is nearly beaten to death and a special-needs boy is brutally attacked. Evil has many guises and Jack Taylor has encountered most of them. But nothing before has ever truly terrified him until he confronts an evil coterie named Headstone, who have committed a series of random, insane, violent crimes in Galway, Ireland.

Most would see a headstone as a marker of the dead, but this organization seems like it will act as a death knell to every aspect of Jack’s life. Jack’s usual allies, Ridge and Stewart, are also in the line of terror. An act of appalling violence alerts them to the sleeping horror, but this realization may be too late, as Headstone barrels along its deadly path right to the center of Jack’s life and the heart of Galway."

Title: The More the Terrier
Author: Linda O. Johnston
Series: #2 Pet Rescue mystery set in the Los Angeles, California area.
ISBN: 9780425243794
Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime
Paperback, 304 pages

"When shelter manager Lauren Vancouver finds out that her old mentor, Mamie Spelling, is an animal hoarder, no one is more shocked, and she jumps in to help re-home the cramped critters. But Mamie's troubles don't end there. She's accused of murder when the CEO of a pet shelter network is found dead. And Lauren's dogged determination to clear her former friend of murder may put a killer on her tail."

Title: The Sandburg Connection
Author: Mark de Castrique
Series: #3 sam Blackman mystery set in Ashville, North Carolina.
ISBN: 9781590589434
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
Paperback, 250 pages

"A simple assignment for private investigator Sam Blackman and his partner Nakayla Robertson: follow Professor Janice Wainwright, who’s suing a surgeon for malpractice, and catch her in activities that undercut her claim.

When Wainwright visits Connemara, Carl Sandburg’s home in Flat Rock, N.C., and climbs the arduous trail to the top of Glassy Mountain, Sam believes he has the evidence needed to expose her—until he finds the woman semi-conscious and bleeding. Her final words: 'It’s the Sandburg verses. The Sandburg verses.'

As the first person to discover the dying woman, Sam becomes the prime suspect. When an autopsy reveals painkillers in her blood and solid proof of the surgeon’s errors, Sam is left with the haunting questions: why did this suffering woman attempt to climb the mountain? Did someone cause her death?

A break-in at the Wainwright farmhouse and the theft of Sandburg volumes convince Sam someone is seeking information worth killing for. But what did Pulitzer-Prize-winner Sandburg have in his literary collection that has inspired multiple murders? And who will be targeted next?"

===October 18===

Title: Seizure

Author: Kathy Reichs

Series: #2 young adult mystery series featuring Tory Brennan on a remote island off the coast of South Carolina.

ISBN: 9781595143945

Publisher: Razorbill

Hardcover, 464 pages

"Ever since Tory Brennan and her friends rescued Cooper, a kidnapped wolf pup with a rare strain of canine parvovirus, they've turned from regular kids into a crime-solving pack! But now the very place that brought them together - the Loggerhead Island Research Institute - is out of funding and will have to shut down. That is, unless the Virals can figure out a way to save it!

So when Tory learns of an old Charleston legend about a famous she-pirate, Anne Bonney, whose fortune was never found, she can't believe her luck - buried treasure is exactly what she needs to save the Institute on Loggerhead! Trouble is, she and her friends aren't the only ones looking for it. And this time, the Virals' special powers may not be enough to dig them out of trouble...."

Title: Under the Skin

Author: Vicki Lane

Series: #5 Elizabeth Goodweather mystery set on an herb and flower farm outside Ashville, North Carolina.

ISBN: 9780345533654

Publisher: Bantam Books

Paperback, 432 pages

"Elizabeth Goodweather and her city-girl sister, Gloria, couldn’t be more different. Elizabeth lives on a farm inthe Great Smoky Mountains. Gloria lives in Florida off an ex-husband’s fortune. Gloria is a beauty; Elizabeth isn’t. Now, to Elizabeth’s intense displeasure, Gloria parks herself at Full Circle Farm, on the run from her latest man, who, she insists, is trying to kill her. Elizabeth thinks this is just another of her sister’s fantasies. Besides, Elizabeth has her wedding to plan—if only she can overcome her fear that the man who already shares her life may not be what he appears to be. At this precarious crossroads, the sisters must turn to each other—or face a lifetime of consequences."

===October 21===

Title: Séance in Sepia

Author: Michelle Black

Standalone

ISBN: 9781432825485

Publisher: Five Star

Hardcover, 324 pages

"When the price of an unusual picture called a spirit photograph, which some Victorian spiritualists claimed was a photograph of the departed taken during a seance, sells at auction for over a thousand dollars, Flynn Keirnan is determined to discover the story behind it. She soon learns the ghostly images of the woman and two men in the picture were the subjects of a sensational murder trial in 1875 Chicago. A young architect was accused of killing his wife and best friend in what the local press dubbed The Free Love Murders. Flynn tracks the story through many sources, including the trial transcript, a journal kept by one of the victims, and notes from a jailhouse interview with the husband conducted by feminist firebrand Victoria Woodhull for her radical newspaper. Woodhull, also known as a spiritualist, was asked by the accused to contact the spirits of his wife and friend to obtain details about the deaths. Was it a double homicide, a double suicide, or a murder-suicide and, if so, who killed whom? Flynn Keirnan discovers the key to solving the Free Love murders lies in learning the provenance of the photograph itself. When she does she finds that, like Victoria, her own outlook on love has changed."

Title: Picture of Lies

Author: C.C. Harrison

Standalone

ISBN: 9781432825065

Publisher: Five Star

Hardcover, 326 pages

"Investigative journalist Keegan Thomas has been living a nightmare of guilt and grief since her little girl, Daisy, was kidnapped practically in front of her eyes. When the police investigation stalled, she turned her grief to anger and buried herself in her work searching for missing children, her own included. The result was an award-winning series of articles on unsolved child abductions. Then came the inevitable burnout.

On what is supposed to be a working vacation, Keegan travels to Monument Valley on the Navajo Indian Reservation seeking the whereabouts of people in an old photograph found in her grandfather s belongings after his death.

But the Indians do not welcome this nosy stranger carrying a picture of their old people, some of them dead. While navigating the mysterious ways of the Navajo, Keegan is told one of the children in the photograph was kidnapped by missionaries and taken to a boarding school.

Keegan s search for the child leads to a web of deception that stretches back two generations, and the truth Keegan learns about her own family is the most shocking betrayal of all."

===October 27===

Title: Slash and Burn

Author: Colin Cotterill

Series: #8 Dr. Siri Paiboun mystery set in 1970s Laos.

ISBN: 9780857381972

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Hardcover, 320 pages

* UK Release

"Things have been pretty hectic for Dr Siri. Now he's off on what he calls a 'therapeutic holiday' in the mountains with his wife and friends. But sadly there's no rest for the wicked - with the help of a little blackmail they are accompanying an American MIA team. Their mission is to discover what happened to a stoned airman downed ten years earlier. Could he have survived? Who is eliminating the last people to have seen him alive? And who, we ask, is lighting the fires that are shrouding the Friendship Hotel in smog? In the remote Plain of Jars, surrounded by a thousand tons of unexploded bombs, Siri and the morgue team have to discover who is the killer in their midst before they too become victims." 

What a great month for crime fiction! It's a perfect blend of old favorites like Ken Bruen, Mark de Castrique and Colin Cotterill-- and a new-to-me local author, C.C. Harrison.

Are you adding any of these books to your own wishlist? Which ones?

Celebrating Mysteries: Out in the Garden

First off, an apology. Some sort of nasty virus crept up on me while I was asleep Tuesday night, and for the next two days I felt as though I had to get better to die. I'm just now beginning to feel human. Needless to say, the computer didn't get turned on, and everything fell by the wayside. Hopefully I can get myself worked back into the swing of things. Enough of me!

This third week of celebrating mysteries out in the great outdoors will bring us into contact with people who make our lives brighter by helping the earth to bloom. Are you ready for some gardening mysteries? I hope so!

First of all, I'd like to tip my hat to two of the master gardeners of mystery: Susan Wittig Albert with the wonderful China Bayles series, and Ellis Peters with her masterful Brother Cadfael. They are so well known that there's really no need to say more!

Julie Wray Herman

Lapsed Texas Master Gardener Julie Wray Herman lives outside of Houston with her husband, two teenagers, and (at last count) two dogs, three cats, three horses, and the creature who lurks in the pond.

She has created the Three Dirty Women Landscaping, Inc. mystery series. How could you not want to sample a book in this series that has a business name like that?

There are three books in the series: Three Dirty Women and the Garden of Death (2000), Three Dirty Women and the Bitter Brew (2001), and Three Dirty Women and the Shady Acres (2003).

Professional landscaping company, Three Dirty Women, unearths more than than they bargain for when Amilou Whittier finds her philandering husband buried under a client's azaleas. Her friend and partner, Korine McFaile, follows a twisting path to discover who really killed Greg Whittier. Was it Susannah Graham, whose past relationship with Greg Whittier may have been heating up again? Or was it Sally Tucker, who ran away with Greg and broke up Amilou's marriage, only to come back to town without him? Things get really complicated when a second victim turns up. When the evidence points squarely at Amilou, Korine finds that supporting a friend can be easier in thought than in deed. 

Kathy Lynn Emerson

Maine writer Kathy Lynn Emerson has written an excellent historical mystery series featuring Lady Susanna Appleton, an herbalist and sleuth in Elizabethan England. I've enjoyed this series for the character of Susanna, the period detail, and the information about plants and herbs.

At this time, there are eleven books in the series. The first three are: Face Down in the Marrow-Bone Pie (1997), Face Down Upon an Herbal (1998), and Face Down Among the Winchester Geese (1999).

Booklist says this about Face Down in the Marrow-Bone Pie:

Emerson introduces an unconventional Elizabethan sleuth in this entertaining first installment of a new mystery series. Ignoring the express wishes of her husband, Lady Susanna Appleton, expert herbalist and astute judge of human nature, travels to Lancashire to investigate the sudden death of John Bexwith, senior steward of Appleton Manor. Although Susanna immediately suspects Bexwith was poisoned, she must unearth several skeletons in the Appleton family closet before uncovering a plausible motive for murder. With verve and elan, Susanna is able to utilize her extensive knowledge of plants and toxins to solve the case and to exact an extraordinary measure of independence from her wary husband.

Vicki Lane

North Carolina writer Vicki Lane and her husband moved to the Appalachian Mountains in 1975 and immersed themselves in farm life. I've been a longtime subscriber to her blog, which is filled with wonderful photos, among other goodies.

Her series features 50-something widow Elizabeth Goodweather, who is the proprietor of an herb and flower farm near Ashville, North Carolina. Her books are filled with marvelous characters.

The series contains five books, the first three of which are: Signs in the Blood (2005), Art's Blood (2006), and Old Wounds (2007).

Publishers Weekly liked the first book, Signs in the Blood, as much as I did:

Fundamentalist Christian snake handlers and liberal back-to-the-landers; a secretive white supremacist militia and undercover police agents; simple rural mountain dwellers and sophisticated urban artists—throw in a counterculture commune of allegedly extraterrestrial origin and that still wouldn't cover all the disparate types who populate the Appalachian community of Ridley Branch, N.C., the setting for this well-crafted, dramatic tale of murder, miracles and midlife romance. Widow Elizabeth Goodweather, the 52-year-old proprietor of an herb and flower farm, becomes dangerously involved in a homegrown investigation when a housebound elderly neighbor refuses to accept the official verdict that her retarded yet woods-savvy son's death was accidental. Evocative detail brings the supporting characters vividly to life, as the plot moves between the mountain man's killing and an unsolved historical mystery that appears to eerily mirror the murderous modern scenario. Also admirable is the sensitivity with which Lane utilizes exotic religions to intensify the book's dark-toned suspense, while resisting oversimplification and insult.

Naomi Hirahara

Naomi Hirahara's father-- like Naomi-- was born in California, but when he was an infant, he was taken to Hiroshima, Japan. He was only miles away from the epicenter of the atomic bomb blast in 1945, but he survived. Naomi's mother was born in Hiroshima and lost her father in the blast. Shortly after the end of the war, Naomi's father returned to California and established himself in the gardening and landscaping trade in Los Angeles.

Naomi's series features Mas Arai,a Japanese-American Hiroshima survivor who's a gardener and sleuth in Los Angeles. I love the character of Mas Arai!

The series to date contains four books: Summer of the Big Bachi (2004), Gasa-Gasa Girl (2005), Snakeskin Shamisen (2006), and Blood Hina (2010).

Once again, Publishers Weekly and I agree about the first book in the series, Summer of the Big Bachi:

In chapter one of Hirahara's seamless and shyly powerful first novel, a Japanese PI unsettles prickly, stubborn Mas Arai, Hiroshima survivor, widower and estranged father, and the other elderly Japanese-American gardeners who hang out at Wishbone Tanaka's Lawnmower Shack in the seedy L.A. suburb of Altadena. The PI's disturbing questions concern a nurseryman called Joji Haneda, reported dead in the atomic blast that leveled Hiroshima in August 1945, but who was actually still alive in California in June 1999. A month later, Haneda is brutally murdered. Mas must revisit his past and open old, still festering wounds in order to solve the crime, while the specter of bachi, akin to instant bad karma, hovers over him like the black clouds of his recurring nightmares. In his cherished 1956 Ford truck, unlikely sleuth Mas pursues a trail that leads him to an all-night noodle shop, an illegal gambling loft and a chow-mien bowling-alley/cafe. After his truck and dignity are stolen, Mas enlists the help of two lovingly rendered, all-too-human friends: Haruo Mukai, whose long white hair hides a false eye and shocking keloid scar, and Tug Yamada, a gentle, honorable giant willing to put his own life on the line for others. Peppered with pungent cultural details, crisp prose and credible, fresh descriptions of the effects of the A-bomb, this perfectly balanced gem deserves a wide readership. 

I don't know about you, but I've got the sudden urge to track down my trowel and pruning shears. At least, I won't be finding any dead bodies amidst my lantana!

What are some of your favorite gardening mysteries?

Join me next weekend when Celebrating Mysteries in the Great Outdoors will conclude with more excellent books to add to your wish list!

The Day of Small Things by Vicki Lane

Title: The Day of Small Things
Author: Vicki Lane
ISBN: 9780385342636
Publisher: Dell, 2010
Mass Market Paperback, 432 pages
Genre: Suspense
Rating: A
Source: The author, in exchange for an honest review.

First Line: On the evening of the third day of labor, the woman's screams filled the little cabin, escaping through the open door to tangle themselves in the dark hemlocks that mourned and drooped above the house.

When life hands them lemons, some people are incapable of making lemonade. Death, war, poverty, sickness, children marrying and moving away... everything seems to be conspiring against Miz Fronie up in Dark Holler. She has become a bitter and twisted human being. When her last child, a little girl, is born, she calls the baby Least and leads everyone in the area to believe that the child isn't right in the head. If no one else wants her, Least will have to stay in Dark Holler with her mother.

Least's first glimpse of salvation is when Grandma Beck comes to live with them. Grandma Beck is crippled with arthritis, but she can help Least make rugs, and she can teach Least all she knows about the stories, the healing and the magic of their ancestors, the Cherokee. Least can see things that no one else can, and Grandma Beck brings her the balm of understanding what's happening to her.

A few years later, Least finds herself making a choice between her heritage and a young man who is a devout Christian. She makes him promises and never looks back-- until she is an old woman and an evil man has put an innocent young boy in mortal danger.

When Vicki Lane asked if I'd like to read a galley of her latest book, at first I was embarrassed. I'd read her first Elizabeth Goodweather mystery, Signs in the Blood, and really enjoyed it; however, like so many other mystery series I've started, I have yet to further my acquaintance with Ms. Goodweather. When Vicki told me that the book was about my favorite character, Miss Birdie, and not another book in the Goodweather series, I jumped at the chance to read The Day of Small Things.

I am so glad I did. Like another talented author who writes about Appalachia with love and lyricism, Lane brings the area and the people to life. I don't think there was a single character who did not engage my emotions in some way. To watch Least grow into Miss Birdie over the span of time was a privilege, and to see two old ladies forget their years and step out to battle for what's right was, quite simply, a joy.

If, like me, you are a fan of Sharyn McCrumb's Ballad novels and you'd like to read more quality fiction set in Appalachia that features wonderful characters-- by all means, read Vicki Lane. You won't regret it!

Buy from Amazon.

Buy from The Book Depository.

Buy from an Indie Bookseller.

September 2010 New Mystery Releases!

It's almost impossible to believe that another month has flown by. If someone asked me where summer went, I certainly wouldn't be able to come up with an answer!

Like every other bookaholic in the world, I have my favorite genres, and I always want to know when new books are being published. Whether they're by new-to-me authors or ones who are tried and true, I'm insatiable when it comes to new books.

The following books are my top ten picks for new mysteries being released in September. (Don't tell anyone, but I squeezed in one historical fiction title...shhhh!) The titles are grouped by release dates, and I've included the information you'll need to find them all at your favorite book spots. Let's see which titles have me drooling this month!

===September 2 Release===

 

Title: The Shadows in the Street
Author: Susan Hill
Series: #5 in the Simon Serrailler series set in Lafferton, England
ISBN: 9781590204085
Publisher: Overlook
Hardcover, 384 pages

===September 7 Release===

Title: Russian Winter
Author: Daphne Kalotay
Historical Fiction
ISBN: 9780061962165
Publisher: Harper
Hardcover, 480 pages
*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books

Title: Dexter Is Delicious
Author:Jeff Lindsay
Series: #5 in the Dexter Morgan series set in Florida
ISBN: 9780385532358
Publisher: Doubleday
Hardcover, 368 pages

Title: Thirteen Hours
Author: Deon Meyer
Series: #2 Benny Griessel mystery set in South Africa
ISBN: 9780802119582
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
Hardcover, 384 pages

Title: The Crocodile's Last Embrace
Author: Suzanne Arruda
Series: #6 in the Jade del Cameron historical series set in Kenya
ISBN: 9780451231178
Publisher: NAL Trade
Paperback, 400 pages

===September 28 Release===

 

Title: Blue Lightning
Author: Ann Cleeves
Series: #4 in the Shetland Island Quartet
ISBN: 9780312384357
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Hardcover, 368 pages

Title: Bury Your Dead
Author: Louise Penny
Series: #6 in the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series set in Ontario, Canada
ISBN: 9780312377045
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Hardcover, 384 pages
*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books

Title: Saving Max
Author: Antoinette Van Heugten
ISBN: 9780778329633
Publisher: Mira Books
Paperback, 384 pages

Title: You Are Next
Author: Katia Lief
ISBN:  9780061809026
Publisher: Avon
Mass Market Paperback, 320 pages

Title: The Day of Small Things
Author: Vicki Lane
ISBN: 9780385342636
Publisher: Dell
Mass Market Paperback, 432 pages
*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books









It looks as though September is another wonderful month for crime fiction-- in particular the 28th with the books by two of my favorites, Ann Cleeves and Louise Penny.

Which ones did you just add to your own wish list?

Signs in the Blood by Vicki Lane

Title: Signs in the Blood
Author: Vicki Lane
ISBN: 0440242088, Bantam Dell, 2005
Genre: Amateur Sleuth, #1 Elizabeth Goodweather mystery
Rating: B+

First Line: When Dessie Miller lay dying at home, her family overflowed the little house in a bittersweet reunion.

This marks the first time that I've read a book because I've been enjoying an author's photographs and posts on her blog. I first became acquainted with Vicki Lane's blog through a photography meme this past winter. I've had an almost daily dose of western North Carolina through her splendid photos and words. It didn't take Curious Cathy long to wonder about the mysteries Lane has written.

Elizabeth Goodweather is a fifty-something widow living on a farm in the mountains outside of Asheville, North Carolina. She's lived there for twenty years, running her herb and flower business, and she has become friends with many of her neighbors, but when Cletus Gentry goes missing, Elizabeth discovers how much she doesn't know about the land and people around her.

Cletus's elderly mother, Miss Birdie, is convinced that her childlike son has been murdered while out hunting for ginseng. She pleads with Elizabeth to help her find out what happened. As Elizabeth retraces Cletus's last wanderings through the mountains, she discovers fundamentalist Christians who use snakes in their services, an ultra conservative militia group calling themselves the Sons of Adam, and a commune that harks back to the 60s. With each discovery, she puts herself in more and more danger.

Lane's depiction of the Appalachian Mountains of western North Carolina and their people is wonderful. The cadence of the characters' speech was music to my ears. Woven throughout is the story of Little Sylvie, a young girl who lived in the area at the turn of the twentieth century. No one seems to know what ultimately happened to Sylvie, which bothers Elizabeth:

My god! I've lived here twenty years and still don't know what's on the other side of the mountain. But Cletus did.... I've got to help Birdie find out what happened. We can't let it be like the Little Sylvie story--just something that happened and it doesn't matter what the truth is. The truth does matter.

I really don't know what I expected when I began reading Signs in the Blood. If Lane's blog were any indication, I thought I'd enjoy the setting of the book. I enjoyed much more than that. Yes, the setting does play a large role in the book. It is a character unto itself. But the two-legged characters shine every bit as brightly: Elizabeth, who's let grief and widowhood blind her to the people around her; Birdie, a strong little mountain woman who's always done her best and puts her faith in Elizabeth to find out what happened to her son...even Little Sylvie, a young girl whose fate no one really seems to care about. They're all woven into a story that can mesmerize--just like those old mountains themselves.

When the time comes, I know I'll pick up the second book in the series, Art's Blood, with anticipation and pleasure.