Short Investigations by Clair Poulson

 After Max Fisher and his cousin were brutally beaten by strangers at a fishing hole, Max vows his family will never be victims again.  He and his wife and daughter learn self-defence and become private investigators.  When a local rodeo star is framed for a murder, Max and his daugher, Patches, are on the case to try to find the real murderer and exonorate Rhett. But the killer isn't done reeking havoc.  As the PI's get closer to the killer, bullets fly, punches are thrown, and a romance blossoms.

Clair Poulson is quite a popular Utah author in my library. I had never read one of his books, so as I was browsing I decided to give this one a try.  I can say that I don't think it will hit the NYT best selling list, but it wasn't too bad and I enjoyed reading it.  The story is set in Heber Utah, and the reader had a noticable Utah accent.  There are a lot of Utah "predominant culture" elements, like references to missions and going to church. The characters are a little stiff, and the mystery a little clunky, but it was totally clean, and almost all the violence was off screne. I was pleased that the author didn't go with the most obvious suspect.  I thought the intereactions of the police in the story (except the one bad-guy jerk police) were more true to life than a lot of the more sensationalist authors.  The police were human with understandable weaknesses, but were trying to do a good job.  I could see myself reading more Clair Poulson in the future. (2018, 256 p)

Black Sheep by Georgette Heyer

  Abigail Wendover and her older sister, Selina, are the guardians of their niece, Fanny, who is in her teens and the heir to a considerable fortune. Fanny has become infatuated with a young dandy with a good family name but a much decreased fortune. Abigail believes Mr Caverleigh is nothing more than a fortune hunter and is looking for a way to separate him from her niece.  She finds a reluctant ally in Mr. Caverliegh's uncle, Miles.  He has been living in India for 15 years after being forced by his family to flee England after a scandal with a young woman.  Now he is back and is having none of British ton manners, fashion and fixation on family connections.  Abigail finds him both frustrating and refreshing. As she tries to help Fanny, she finds herself heading for a relation almost as scandalous as the one she is trying to help her niece avoid. 

This was the other Georgette Heyer I read on an aiplane this month.  This one was also a lot of fun.  Many of Heyer's leading men eschew the high fashion and overly particular manners of the ton, but none does as much as Miles Caverleigh.  He really is a refreshing Heyer character, and I found the ending of the book particularly delightful.  One caveat to this book for younger readers is that Miles Caverleigh really does have a checkered past, and Abigail knows it and doesn't seem bothered by it at all.  So if you are someone who wants their main characters to be moral paragons, this isn't probably the best choice.  There is no impropriety that happens during the timeframe of the book, it is all in the distant past of the story, so it didn't really bother me. I enjoyed the book immensely. I will be sad when the day comes that there are no new Georgette Heyer books to read on airplanes. (1966, 255 p)

Bargaining for the Barrister by Anneka R. Walker

 Louisa Cox is a wealthy heiress tired of fortune hunters chasing after her money.  Paul Sheldon is a barrister who hardley had enough money to pay his way to visit his parent's estate during the summer. Paul's mother joins a group of concerned "mama's" in a effort to find matches for all their unmarried single adults.  She recruits Louisa as a possible match for her son.  Paul and his friends discover their mothers' schemes and decide they must try to thwart them at all costs.  Things get complicated when Paul actually starts to like Louisa.  She likes him too, especially because he doesn't know how rich she is and isn't just after her money.  How long will Paul stand on priciple to defy his mother's meddling? 

Here is another new Christian historical romance writer.  This book is lots of fun.  Walker writes some delightful scenes of awkward hilarity.  Paul is a wonderfully complex character, and Louisa turns out to be deeper than she originally seems.  Everything is clean and sweet.   It isn't "great" literature, but I think I will give this book a star rating just so I can remember to try this author again. (2022, 240 p)

Song for a Whale by Lynne Kelly

 Iris has been deaf from birth.  Her maternal grandparents were both deaf but her parents, brother, and everyone else at her school is hearing. Although Iris tries to communicate with others at school, it is difficult to building meaningful relationships when all conversations are through her translator or written on paper.  She is closest to her grandmother with which she can sign fluently, but since her grandfather's death, her grandmother has been in a terrible depression. Iris, ironically, loves restoring old radios, and has a small business working for the owner of the local junk yard repairing radios for him to sell. One day at school she learns about a whale that sings his song at a higher pitch than any other whale.  The other whales don't understand him so he lives a solitary life, swimming around the ocean alone. Iris instantly feels empathy with the whale they call, Blue 55, and tries to think of a way to communicate with him. Her connection with the whale leads her and her grandmother on a while trip of discovery and connection, not only with the whale, but within their own lives. 

I picked this book because of my own experience with hearing loss.  My hearing loss is minor, but if I don't have my hearing aids on, I have a hard time hearing what others are saying and feel very isolated. This story shows how isolating deafness can be. Iris can only communicate fluently with those in the deaf community, so her school life is a trial.  The part of the story I wasn't expecting was the author's perspective that American Sign Language and other elements of deaf culture are so rich that many deaf people don't regret their deafness, but instead feel grateful to be in the deaf community. Iris is a good "strong girl" character, and her grandmother is a good example of taking positive steps to combat the effects of grief.  The story of the whale is based on an actual whale scientists discovered and studied, but the rest of the story is fictional.  My only complaint about the book is that the pacing was a little slow. The author is a professional interpreter for the deaf, and I think she was so invested in her message about the deaf culture that she kept some scenes or parts of scenes that probably should have been edited out. Still, this is a good choice for kids who like to read about other kids dealing with physical challenges like Wonder or Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus. (2019, 320 p)

Positive Intelligence by Shirzad Chamine

 Here is yet another book about how to find happiness and success. In this one Chamine focuses on developing positivity through using mindfulness to defeat emotional "saboteurs."  He describes two mental states, the "sage" state that is peaceful, creative, and energetic, and the "judge" state that is insecure, negative, and limiting. The mental "judge" has nine kinds of "saboteurs" or mindsets that lead to self-defeating behaviors and attitudes: avoider, hyper-achiever, controller, hyper-rational, hyper-vigilant, pleaser, restless, stickler, and victim.  In the book he explains each of these and how they can sabotage relationships, work teams, and happiness. Then he describes how mindfulness can put people into their "sage" mind state that allows them to avoid the saboteurs and instead move forward with creativity, energy, empathy, and joy.  He includes case studies and refers often to scientific research.

This is a book I read as part of a staff development initiative at work.  Like all such self-help books there were a lot of good ideas and I welcomed the opportunity to examine my life and see if any of the ideas would be useful to me personally.  There were some things that bothered me a bit.  He tries to quantify what he calls the PQ (positivity quotient) state by giving people tests that ask how often then feel anxious, or frustrated, etc.  He assigns a score to their answers and then has them retake the test after they have instigated his program of "strengthening PQ muscles".  He claims that once the person hits a score of about 75 (74.4 to be exact :) out of a hundred, their Positivity will swirl upward, but under 75, it tends to swirl downward. It is all very subjective and suspectable to confirmation bias. His attempts to quantify this sounded pretty much like nonsense to me, and it made me laugh when he admitted his main saboteur was "hyper-rational."  No kidding. It also bothered me that the book seemed to be mostly an advertisement to by into his corporate training program. I am being a little harsh.  I thought reading the book was a good experience, and I have tried to be more mindful since reading it and I think that has helped decrease some of the anxiety I have felt recently. (2012, 224 p)

The Happy Camper by Melody Carlson

 In one weekend Dillon Michaels breaks up with her long standing boyfriend and is fired from her job.  She decides to go and live with her grandfather who is lonely and mourning the death of his wife.  When she gets there she finds her hippy mother has already moved into her old room, so she is relegated to sleeping on the couch. Then she discovers that her grandfather has an old hunting  trailer sitting on his property.  She falls in love with it and decides to fix it up to live in temporarily. As she begins the process she gets to know Jordan Atwood who owns the local hardware store.  He is young, handsome and a fellow retro camper aficionado. As the restoration project progresses so does their friendship.  There are complications, including the return of the "X" and a rival girl "friend" they have to deal with before they can reach the status of "happy camper."

I decided to try a new Christian romance writer. The book started off well enough.  The premise is fun and the characters of the whacky mom and the handsome store owner are interesting.  I found, by the end, that I was eager to be done with the book.  The problem was the insecurity of the main characters.  Dillon would have a hugely romantic moment with Jordan one minute, and then an hour later wonder if he was going to propose to another woman.  Jordan would see Dillon with her totally annoying X and think his case was hopeless. I imagine there are plenty of people out there that are that bad at reading relationships, but I discovered that I don't really want to read about them.  (2020, 354p)

The Nonesuch by Georgette Heyer

 Sir Waldo Hawkridge, with an immense fortune and an athlete's physique is one of the most eligible bachelors in England. When he inherits a rundown estate in little West Hiding and comes to oversee its renovation, the whole community is agog. Hope blooms in many a young girl's heart, including the dazzling but amoral Tiffany Wield.  Tiffany's governess, Ancilla Trent, is the only one who can keep Tiffany in any kind of socially appropriate behavior, but it is a challenge even for her.  When she enlists Sir Waldo's help in keeping her little wayward lamb from wandering, he comes to realize that the governess is much more to his liking than the unparalleled beauty.  The trick for him is to help Ancilla realize that no-matter her social standing, he is not above her "touch."

This is the first to two Georgette Heyer books I read on consecutive weekends on airplanes.  Heyer is one of my favorite historical romance writers, but I had listened to all the ones that are available in audio.  I was therefore happy to check out an as-of-yet-unread Heyer text based ebook to read on the airplane to visit my grandkids in Albuquerque. This one did not disappoint.  It has all the elements I have come to enjoy from this author; the snappy patter, the funny scenes, the socially unconventional paring.  I am fascinated by Heyer's extensive and fluid use of time period slang.  She wrote in the 1960s but her books sound as if they were written in the 1800's.  I wonder how she learned the 1800's ton slang.  Actually, I don't even know if she gets it right.  Maybe she is just confident enough that it sounds right to moderns, but an actual 1800's denizen would be utterly aghast or amused to hear how they were portrayed.  Still, it is fun reading and got me through a very long plane ride home. (1962, 354 p)

Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski

 Dr Nagoski is a sex health therapist and educator. In this book she explores the research behind women's sexual wellbeing and enthusiastically promotes the strategies for improving women's sex lives. Dr. Nagoski is a believer that women, in the great majority of cases, have normal sexual function but have been told that they are not normal because of social messages from pornography on the one side, and religion/moral strictures on the other. She also gives information about physiology and psychology of sexual function using both clinical and popular terminology. She talks about sexual stimuli in terms of "accelerators" and "breaks" and asserts that if women can come to understand their personal accelerators and breaks, they can learn to create the context the will allow them to escape inhibition and have full and satisfying sex lives.

The book is written in and upbeat, witty, and affirming tone that makes what could be an awkward subject very palatable. Readers should be aware that Nagoski accepts all non-harming modes of sexual expression as normal and healthy and often sees as old-fashion religious restrictions on sexual expression.  Despite this, I think that almost all women and most men would find the book helps them understand their own sexual functions and attitudes better. I, frankly, wish I had read this book earlier in my life and feel that if I had it would have had a positive affect on my relation with my spouse. I will be recommending it to all my female friends. (2021, 400 p.)