Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

Presales are open! The cover is done at last, and just in time! At this point it is open for pre-orders on Amazon and at Smashwords ; I'll be watching for other links as they go live.   In other writer news: progress is happening, slowly, on two mystery shorts I'm hoping to get out on submissions soon. If you have any leads about markets for mystery shorts, please let me know--there seem to be a lot fewer on-line zines in that genre than for SF/Fantasy!

I've read and loved Ellen Jacobson's Mollie McGhie sailing cozies, and as a long-time library person (not to mention that whole Ninja Librarian thing) I'm excited to check out this new series!  SERIES BLURB: If you love all things bookish, check out this fun series set in the fictional town of Why, North Dakota. Thea Olson’s family founded Why’s library in the early 1900s and it’s always held a special place in her heart. Nowadays, she balances running her own consulting firm with volunteering part-time at the library . . . that is, when she’s not investigating murder!     About the book: Libraries are full of books . . . and deadly secrets. When Thea Olson agreed to volunteer at her local library, she anticipated shelving books, not stumbling across a dead body.   Concerned her brother, the acting chief of police, is in over his head, Thea is determined to find out whodunit. She investigates the murder with the assistance of her grandmother and the handsome new libr...

Here's a quick 200-word drabble I scribbled out a few weeks ago. I have a lot of pictures to sort and edit to share my recent PCT adventure with you!   Vengeance is Sweet She shouldn’t have come. Boredom seeped into her bones. She’d heard all the chit-chat, tasted all the canapés before.   The door opened and a man stepped into the room, and thoughts of boredom fled, pursued by disgust. Panic urged flight, anger froze her in place.   He hadn’t aged well. He looked at least a decade older than she was, and it had been a hard decade. Served him right.   He was coming to speak to her. He still had no self-awareness, and a suit that didn’t fit as well as he thought it did.   “Well, Darling, you’re looking good. Mm-hmm.”   Same old would-be playboy, now more hideously inappropriate than ever. She had to get away. She had to say something that would put him in his place forever. Her glance fell from the worn face to trave...

  The Body in the Back Garden (A Crescent Cove Mystery) by Mark Waddell The Body in the Back Garden (A Crescent Cove Mystery) by Mark Waddell About The Body in the Garden The Body in the Back Garden (A Crescent Cove Mystery) Queer Cozy (“Quozy”) Mystery 1st in Series  Setting – The fictional town of Crescent Cove on Vancouver Island, Canada Crooked Lane Books (August 22, 2023) Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 272 pages ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1639104402 ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1639104406 Digital ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0BN582M9W In this queer cozy series debut perfect for fans of Ellen Byron and Ellery Adams, Luke Tremblay is about to discover that Crescent Cove has more than its fair share of secrets…and some might be deadlier than others. Crescent Cove, a small hamlet on Vancouver Island, is the last place out-of-work investigative journalist Luke Tremblay ever wanted to see again. He used to spend summers here, until his family learned that he was gay and rejected him. Now, fol...

The Ninja Librarian has hit the trail. We'll be back on the job next Wednesday. Meanwhile, a couple of old photos from other days on the trail. My husband shot these on a trip near Glacier Peak in 2017. ©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2023  As always, please ask permission to use any photos or text. Link-backs appreciated. Don't miss a post-- Follow us !

  A follow-up to Mountains of the Mind , I grabbed the audio of this book to get more of the author's thoughts. Then I had to get the paperback because there were things I needed to read slowly, and flag, and return to. Title: The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot Author: Robert Macfarlane. Read by Robin Sachs Publication Info: Blackstone Audio, 2012.  Original hardback, Hamish Hamilton, 2012, 433 pages. Source: Library Publisher's Blurb: From the acclaimed author of  The Wild Places  comes an engrossing exploration of walking and thinking. In this exquisitely written book, Robert Macfarlane sets off from his Cambridge, England, home to follow the ancient tracks, holloways, drove roads, and sea paths that crisscross both the British landscape and its waters and territories beyond. The result is an immersive, enthralling exploration of the ghosts and voices that haunt old paths, of the stories our tracks keep and tell, and of pil...

It's been a long time since I had a middle-grade review, but I finally picked up a couple of audio books at the library and jumped back in.   Title: Author: Linda Williams Jackson, narrated by Reginald James Publication Info: Source: Publisher's Blurb: Award-winning author Linda Williams Jackson pulls from her own childhood in the Mississippi Delta to tell the story of Ellis Earl, who dreams of a real house, food enough for the whole family—and to be someone. It’s 1967, and eleven-year-old Ellis Earl Brown has big dreams. He’s going to grow up to be a teacher or a lawyer—or maybe both—and live in a big brick house in town. There’ll always be enough food in the icebox, and his mama won’t have to run herself ragged looking for work as a maid in order to support Ellis Earl and his eight siblings and niece, Vera. So Ellis Earl applies himself at school, soaking up the lessons that Mr. Foster teaches his class—particularly those about famous colored people like Mr. Thur...

The #WritePhoto challenge is a weekly bloghop challenge where KL Caley posts a photo on Thursday and you have until Tuesday to write and post a story. I got started on this one and can't seem to let go! Visit the challenge page to join in or to see what others do with the prompt.  For those who haven't read the others, you can find the story in pieces: Parts I to III , Part IV, Part V , Part VI ,  Part VII , Part VIII,  and Part IX .  Or you can go with the simple summary: James Campbell and his rag-tag defenders of a ruined castle have defeated and driven off the aliens who have conquered most of the Earth. Now they have moved on in search of others equally unwilling to serve the alien masters, which involves getting the whole crew up and over the mountains to the sea, without the use of machines or technology--and making contact with the fellow rebels. Photo by K L Caley Part X: Contact “How many have we lost?”   Mercifully ...

I've been doing a lot of reading about travel, mostly accounts of travel or adventures/exploration. I'm also getting more interested in the philosophy and psychology of an activity that I greatly enjoy and at times feel driven to pursue. Title: The Meaning of Travel: Philosophers Abroad Author: Emily Thomas Publication Info: Oxford University Press, 2020. 261 pages Source: Library Publisher's Blurb: How can we think more deeply about travel? This was the thought that inspired Emily Thomas to journey into the philosophy of travel, to explore the places where philosophy and travel intersect. Part philosophical ramble, part memoir, The Meaning of Travel begins in the Age of Discovery in the sixteenth century, when philosophers first began thinking and writing seriously about travel It then meanders forward to encounter the thoughts of Montaigne on otherness, John Locke on cannibals, and Henry Thoreau on wilderness. On our travels with Emily Thomas, we discover the dar...

A couple of weeks ago I did a little road trip with my 94-year-old mom and my adult daughter, over the North Cascades Highway and down to visit the history museum in Okanogan, near where my grandmother grew up. Along the way we enjoyed some great scenery, and Barry George at the Okanogan County Historical Society museum went way out of his way to find information for us about the family and their property. We picked up Mom Monday morning and headed north on I5. I was too busy talking and missed our exit, so we took an extra "scenic route" before finding our way onto Highway 20 (the North Cascades Highway). The highway opened in 1972, so it was brand-new when I was a kid, and I remember the excitement of it when we drove it on a family trip. The entrance sign for the North Cascades National Park. I love the "glacier" atop the rocks. We made a couple of stops along the way for scenery, including one where my daughter and I blasted through a half-mile scenic trail, hur...