40 Followers
81 Following
jackiebcentraltexas

Housewife Blues and Chihuahua Stories

Lifelong Texan, love reading from many genres thanks to early childhood readalongs with my Dad, love cooking for my family, working in my yard, playing with my cats and since being diagnosed in late 2012 with RRMS finding ways to keep body and mind active is even more important.
The Other Side - J.D. Robb, Patricia Gaffney, Mary Kay McComas, Mary Blayney, Ruth Ryan Langan Book SynopsisFive New York Times bestselling authors cross over to a realm where suspense, desire, and love have no bounds. J.D. Robb: Lieutenant Eve Dallas has always sought justice for the dead, but now, a victim will seek her own vengeance-through Eve. Mary Blayney: An earl and his countess struggle to understand one another, until they spend a day in each other's shoes-and bodies. Patricia Gaffney: To prove her ancestral home is haunted, a woman hires a spirit investigator, but they end up debunking the mystery of love. Ruth Ryan Langan: A couple who dies in a car accident struggler to stay in their daughter's life to save her from the wrong man. Mary Kay McComas: A practical woman is faced with the most impractical ghosts, who can't rest in peace until they find what they have lost.My ThoughtsSometimes love and loss, death and life go hand in hand and you just need to understand that one does not overshadow the other. In the five tales that are told in this anthology each author takes a different approach to the subject with the end result being the same, one should never lose hope and real love can work miracles.#1 Possession In Death by JD RobbBeing thrust back into the world of Eve Dallas is always like being given a chance to watch the greatest magician while he is performing his tricks. A little light, a little shadow and the magic created just blows you away. In this tale of death and justice served Eve has moments of true vulnerability along with her trademark genius of cutting through the layers of what, when, why, where and how to solve the case. Nothing beats watching she and Roarke in action as once again Eve manages to oust the criminal in the end!#2 The Other Side of The Coin by Mary BlayneyIn a classic tale of switching places with each other this tale of husband and wife duo, Harry and Bettina is told with both humor and insight that will keep you entertained from the beginning to the end. Set in a time when women and men still slept apart even after enjoying an intimate interlude.This is a tale where a man and his wife are forced into realizing that while they love each other they do not truly understand each other. The discovery of just how much they mean to each other as more than two people who have shared their bodies with each other and had a child together from that union is funny, sad, joyous and in the end very satisfying reading. #3 The Dancing Ghost by Patricia GaffneyThere is a fine line between reality and the supernatural, in this little tale the line blurs when Angie Darlington employs Henry Cleland to prove her family home is haunted so she has a chance to keep it from getting sold out from under her by her greedy cousin Lucien. Funny thing about this story is while neither Angie or Henry believe in ghosts the ghosts believe in them! #4 Almost Heaven by Ruth Ryan LanganFamily and the ties that bind them together are stronger than death. This is proven by the sheer determination that Christina and Tyler Crenshaw's parents Ted and Vanessa employ so that their children do not end up dying at the hands of the very man who had them murdered. The Crenshaw's wealth and their daughter's beauty have together brought into their happy circle a man whose only desire is to get his hands on their fortune, be it by fair means or foul. In this story we get a chance to see what could happen to our loved ones if only we had the chance to come back from the grave long enough to help them one last time!#5 Never Too Late by Mary Kay McComasLost dreams, lost love and lost hope all play a part in making this a very emotionally uplifting and yet tragically sad at time story. MJ is a modern woman whose life is all about her work with very little time for anything else. She inherits the family home and in true practical fashion decides to take it apart and salvage useable pieces of it's construction to be sold for a profit and the vacant lot turned into a business. The house has other ideas it seems and she is forced to deal with what is going on in person, only to find out that her two aunts and her mother's ghosts have taken over the house and will not allow it to be deconstructed until they are able to find what they lost in it and move on to their final resting place. This is one of those stories that you read with a grain of salt and a whole lot of soul searching. It has a good moral lesson and it also has one of the better endings in the whole anthology. A nice way to spend an hour or so as it is also the shortest tale of the five.