Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

  Title: Lily (Seed Savers #2) Author: S. Smith Publication Info: Published 2012, 184 pages. Source: Either a purchase or a giveaway Publisher's Blurb: It’s definitely not what she had in mind for summer vacation. When her friends disappear under mysterious circumstances, thirteen-year-old Lily sets out to discover more about the secret organization with which they had become involved. Her investigation unearths a disturbing secret from her own past, unsettling her world even more. In the meantime, Lily makes a new friend and falls for a mysterious young man, even as she remains unsure about whom she should trust. As her world crashes down around her, Lily struggles to decide what to do next. Lily is volume two of the Seed Savers series but can easily be read out of order. It is is a suspenseful and reflective book with themes of self-empowerment, trust, acceptance of diversity, gardening, and politics.   
 My Review:  First: I shared space in the BookElves Ant...

Two weeks ago Chuck Wendig was having a blue fit or something, and issued a flash fiction challenge based on William Butler Yeats' poem, The Second Coming. In particular, around that key line, "Things fall apart; the center does not hold." Work on Death By Adverb is keeping me from putting as much into my flash fiction this month as I might, but I played around with the theme (a week late), and ended up with more of a dystopian vignette than a story, and only about 625 words. But here it is, for what it's worth. It might appear to contain some political commentary. The Center Does Not Hold Things fall apart; the center does not hold. Was it better when everything stayed in its place, and the magnetic pull of the god kept everyone in tight orbit around their station? My grandfather says it was, but I think Grandmother is less certain. Maybe that’s because she says that her place used to be a bit cramped and uncomfortable. I used to think she meant she had to live in...