Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

It's here! The Princelings of the North Book 8 of the Princelings of the East series by Jemima Pett Genre : older middle grade mystery adventure – age 10 and upwards. ebook: 47,000 words, ebook ASIN B0785RY891 / ISBN 9781370899159 paperback : 237 pages; ISBN 9781389104404 The Princelings of the North is the eighth in The Princelings of the East series. Princelings Dylan and Dougall, who live in the far northwest of an island off the northwest coast of the Realms, rescue an exiled prince, and battle against the odds to restore him to his birthright. Irrepressible Dylan and steady Dougall are inseparable denizens of the tiny castle of Haunn, so far away from the rest of civilisation that it’s almost off the map. And maps are one of the key elements of this intricate adventure. Dylan finds a treasure map inside a bottle washed up on the shore – and he reckons he knows where X is. Instead of treasure, he finds the exiled Prince Kevin of Castle Deeping, antagonist in the Talent...

Title: Biscuits and Slashed Browns: A Country Store Mystery Author: Maddie Day Publisher: Kensington Publishing, 2018. 292 pages Source: electronic ARC via Great Escapes Book Tours Publisher's Blurb:  For country-store owner Robbie Jordan, the National Maple Syrup Festival is a sweet escape from late-winter in South Lick, Indiana--until murder saps the life out of the celebration . . . As Robbie arranges a breakfast-themed cook-off at Pans 'N Pancakes, visitors pour into Brown County for the annual maple extravaganza. Unfortunately, that includes Professor Connolly, a know-it-all academic from Boston who makes enemies everywhere he goes--and this time, bad manners prove deadly. Soon after clashing with several scientists at a maple tree panel, the professor is found dead outside a sugar shack, stabbed to death by a local restaurateur's knife. When an innocent woman gets dragged into the investigation and a biologist mysteriously disappears, Robbie drops her wi...

   What is #Fi50? In the words of founder Bruce Gargoyle, "Fiction in 50: think of it as the anti-NaNoWriMo experience!" Pack a beginning, middle and end of story into 50 words or less (bonus points for hitting exactly 50 words). I post a theme for each month's Fi50 here . The rules for participation are simple : 1. Create a piece of fictional writing in 50 words or less. That’s it!  But for those who wish to challenge themselves further, here’s an additional rule: 2. Post your piece of flash fiction on your blog or (for those poor blog-less souls) add it as a comment on the Ninja Librarian’s post for everyone to enjoy.  And for those thrill-seekers who really like to go the extra mile (ie: perfectionists): 3. Add the nifty little picture above to your post (credit for which goes entirely to ideflex over at acrossthebored.com ) or create your own Fi50 meme pic…. and    4. Link back here so others can jump on the mini-fic bandwagon. I post on the last ...

  Flashback Friday is a monthly meme that takes place on the last Friday of the month . The idea is to give a little more love to a post you’ve published on your blog before.  Maybe you just love it, maybe it’s appropriate for now, or maybe it just didn’t get the attention it deserved when you first published it. Thanks to Michael d’Agostino, who started it all, there is a solution – join Flashback Friday! Just join in whenever you like, repost one of your own blog posts , including any copyright notices on text or media, on the last Friday of the month. Use the Flashback Friday logo above, as designed by Michael d’Agostino. Link it back to host Jemima Pett (there's a linky list!) and add a link to your post in the comments on Jemima's post (or mine, or any other participant's). Since Friday is my flash fiction day, I've been sharing stories from the archives. This one dates back to May of 2015. Garbage Cans I knew we were in trouble when the garbage cans starte...

I have long had a love affair with children's historical fiction. It probably began with The Little House in the Big Woods, which I first read when I was what? maybe 6 or 7 years old? Looking back at it, nothing much happens in the book, but it didn't matter, because everything the Ingalls family did was strange and exciting to me. In the years since, I have read children's books set in periods from ancient Greece to the 1970s (anything since then hardly feels "historical" to me!). The vast majority of these books were interesting, apparently well-researched, and added something to my random pool of knowledge. Of course, you do need to bring some critical judgement to it--the Little House books, for example, are rife with the racial prejudices of the author's time  (something that more contemporary writers do a better job of addressing, since they are usually conscious, at the least, that such prejudices aren't acceptable. When Laura asks awkward question...

Title: The Wright Brothers Author: David McCullough. Read by the author. Publisher: Simon and Schuster Audio, 2015. First published 2015 by Simon and Schuster. Source:   Library digital resources Publisher's Blurb:  Two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize David McCullough tells the dramatic story-behind-the-story about the courageous brothers who taught the world how to fly: Wilbur and Orville Wright. On December 17, 1903 at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Wilbur and Orville Wright’s Wright Flyer became the first powered, heavier-than-air machine to achieve controlled, sustained flight with a pilot aboard. The Age of Flight had begun. How did they do it? And why? David McCullough tells the extraordinary and truly American story of the two brothers who changed the world. Sons of an itinerant preacher and a mother who died young, Wilbur and Orville Wright grew up in a small side street in Dayton, Ohio, in a house that lacked indoor plumbing and electricity but was filled with boo...

Just a reminder to anyone who wants to participate, that next week (week of 1/28) is Fiction in 50 week! This month's theme is "Snowglobe." Use it as a title, or just as a starting point, or ignore it completely, but write your 50-word story and post up your link next Sunday when I post my story!