Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

I'm posting today with t he fantastic Marvelous Middle Grade Mondays blog hop hosted by Greg Pattrige of Always in the Middle . Check out Greg's blog for a list of additional middle grade reviews. I've been discovering some great reads there--like the one I'm reviewing today.   Title: The Long Way Around Author: Anne Nesbet Publication Info: Candlewick Press, 2024. 185 pages (Kindle edition) Source:   Library Publisher's Blurb:* During a hiking trip with their parents in the mountains of California, cousins Owen, Vivian, and Amy are finally allowed to camp for one night at a little lake all on their own. But when a massive earthquake blocks their return path, there’s only one way: the long way around, through a wilderness filled with fierce animals, raging rivers, unstable weather, and high passes. The hardest challenges the cousins face, however, are the troubles they’ve brought with them: bold Vivian’s fear of starting middle school and of changes she c...

There's been a lot going on at my house lately, but I'm chipping away at editing the photos from the October trip to the Grand Canyon. See last weekend's post for photos of the first couple of days. Today we're looking at another night or two, which (true confessions time!) is as far as I've gotten with the photos. The account left off last weekend as we were settling for the night in our camp at Upper Tapeats Creek.  Day 3 Back on the trail at first light, we studied the creek, which we were meant to cross--somewhere--for the better and easier trail, and decided to stick with the west side trail, which does a lot more up and down, not always on the best trails. I'm no fan of wading fast-moving water, even that shallow enough that getting knocked off my feet would mean a dunking, not a threat to life. Getting my pack wet was no part of my plan, however. Petey Possum enjoying the sunrise from a vantage point high above the creek. Too many bits of trail like th...

I can't believe I lost track and didn't add the start of my virtual book-tour to yesterday's writing post! It has been that kind of a week, or couple of weeks, and I'm very distracted with the House Project (getting housing for my daughter and her friends).  So here is the tour, getting its own post. Please give some love to the bloggers, and be sure to check out the lovely review at Sarah Can't Stop Reading Books !   A Coastal Corpse by Rebecca M Douglass A Coastal Corpse (Seffi Wardwell Mysteries) Cozy Mystery 1st in Series Setting – Maine Publisher ‏ : ‎ Independently Published (August 31, 2023) Paperback ‏ : ‎ 298 pages ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 979-8854581851 Digital ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0CGN9Z7ZD Just what the doctor ordered: fresh salt air, a garden to tend… and a fresh corpse behind the dahlias? Retired science teacher Seffi Wardwell has moved to coastal Maine looking for peace, fresh air, and an accepting community. So far, she’s enjoying the sea air...

Well, I've been blasting along on the new novel, but life got in the way, first with Thanksgiving and then with a fast trip to California and back! I did a little work every day, but do tend to drop everything when I have the chance to spend time with my kids, and long driving days don't leave me a lot of time for writing. I'm terribly prone to motion sickness, so couldn't even work while my daughter was driving. I'd hoped by this point to be sliding into the final quarter of the book, but thanks to life, I'm still wallowing in the weeds in the middle. One thing about driving, you do have time to think, and I came up with a couple of obstacles to throw in Seffi's way, but we'll have to see what comes of it all. I'm still trying to get straight in my head just how we'll reach the solution at the end, but I'm making progress again.  Meanwhile, my books are on sale starting tomorrow through the end of the year. First in series are free, most are...

Thanks to Great Escapes Virtual Book Tours for the opportunity to read and review this fun cozy! A  Basket Case (Maddie Sparks Mystery Series) by Lesley A Diehl About A Basket Case       A Basket Case (Maddie Sparks Mystery Series)   Cozy Mystery 2nd in Series   Setting - Upstate New York   Publisher ‏ : ‎ Camel Press (November 12, 2024) Paperback ‏ : ‎ 250 pages   ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1684922208 ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1684922208 Digital ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0D4MWFWSP   Maddie Sparks believes she has found the perfect balance in her life--Zack, the man she loves, a book she loves writing and volunteer work at a local museum with a granddaughter she adores. An old flame from Zack's past arrives and drives a wedge into Maddie and Zack's romance, her writing stalls and someone murders the museum's director just as the museum is about to return a collection of Native American artifacts to the Onondaga and Oneida nations. Standing over the dead body o...

Back in October I went in a matter of days from the onset of winter in the Canadian Rockies to some too-hot weather in my favorite big hole in the ground--the Grand Canyon.  This year's trip was the toughest I've tacked yet, coming down off the North Rim on the Indian Hollow and Bill Hall trails (we got spooked off the Bill Hall trail for the initial drop, and anyway, I really like the Esplanade so didn't mind a longer walk on that platform). I went with my friend Alex again, and we took 5 nights to do the classic Thunder River to Deer Creek loop.  We'll take a look at the first two or three days. Day Zero We needed to cache water for our return trip, a final night on the waterless Esplanade, so we did a pre-hike the day before our permit started to take care of that. Because it was still getting very hot--there was that heat dome thing going on over most of the country, so temps weren't what they should have been in October--we camped near the trail head and made a...