Tag Archives: Fiction

Beverly Green: Sasquatch Hunter by Andrea C. Neil

This novel is about Beverly Green a native Okie who made her mark in New York City and returns to Oklahoma to kind of slow down a little bit and get back to her roots and chill out a little bit. 

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Chickens play a prominent part of the story. Especially one chicken with an attitude.

So she moves to Guthrie, Oklahoma, the former state capitol (and still brooding about it) about an hour north of Oklahoma City. She opens a small bookstore but this being the gig economy and all she also gets.a newspaper gig as a side hustle  and raises chickens.

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Guthrie is a funky old town and is the perfect setting for this story.

The editor at the local paper where she works has assigned her the job of reporting on a local Sasquatch sighting and she dreads it. She doesn’t believe in Sasquatches see, but she was also tormented in her youth by visions of the beasts.

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This has nothing to do with the story. It is a scene from the pharmacy museum in Guthrie.

She sullenly goes through the motion of pursuing the story, talking to local characters who believe in the creatures. In the meantime she keeps running into a man who she gradually becomes very attracted to. I guess that it what makes this a romantic novel. To me it is a romantic comedy and this part of the novel is hilarious. I haven’t read too much fiction before where a female character goes on in detail about why she is attracted to a guy. 

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The pharmacy park hosts a small scene in the book. This is the family at the park. My Father-in-law, a former pharmacy and now gone, is honored there with a plaque. 

I am more into thrillers, detective stories, and non-fiction but this book drew me in and I kept going. The writing just pulled me through was very sparkly and interesting from start to finish. The story involves a Sasquatch stakeout, chickens, and a kiss (a kiss is just a kiss right? or is it?) . It seems set up for a sequel or maybe a whole series.

I give this four stars out of four, or five out of five or however many stars you like. It’s a good read, and I hope there is another one from Andrea Neil soon.

You can get the book at Amazon or if you live in Tulsa at Magic City Bookstore. Both the physical book and the Kindle version, which I got, is are reasonably priced. You can sample some of her writing at her blog.

The Bishop’s Wife by Mettie Ivie Harrison

You know I use the Goodreads App to note down books that I’m interested in. I might find lead on interesting books in various newspapers and magazines and from people I know. After a while I forget where I got the tip from. And when I’m looking for new books I start at the most recent and go back until I find one that the Tulsa library has that I can download without waiting on it. So I don’t know where I got the idea that I wanted to read “The Bishop’s Wife.”

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LDS Temple in Idaho Falls

Idaho Falls Temple Moroni

The Angel Moroni

I downloaded the book and oh groan it looks like a “Woman’s Book” type murder mystery. The protagonist is Linda Wallheim who is the wife of a bishop. Not a Catholic Bishop of course (now that would be a story!) or an Episcopal or Methodist Bishop but a Mormon Bishop. So, uh, I said I spent much of my formative years in Utah and northern Arizona in heavily Mormon dominated areas and I have relatives who are Mormons. In fact I had a shop teacher in my high school in Arizona who was a Mormon Bishop. We, everybody, not just Mormons, called him Bishop Brown instead of Mr. Brown. So anyway that piqued my interest more than a little bit. So, it was like “What the heck, I’ll keep on reading this.”

So anyway this Bishop’s wife Linda Wallheim is one of those women who make the world go round. Maybe you know them regardless of what religion or belief you are. They are right in the mix of things at church, school, Cub Scouts, and any other activities. I recognize them because my mother was that way, and I’m married to one, and I have a sister who is one also. Like my MIL Nana says, “If you want anything done, you have to get an old broad to do it.” Not that my wife and sister are old broads. So anyway Linda (I feel like I’m old friends with her after reading the book), is here there and everywhere. Basically she is leaning on the church door every time it opens. As you can tell I fell in love the character.

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The LDS Temple in Kansas City, Missouri

Now the thing is, although a Mormon Bishop is a lay position (that means they do it for free) it is an official position of authority in the Mormon church. The Bishop’s wife is not an official position but she is the “Mother of the Ward unofficially. So Linda’s husband asks her to go check on people from time to time. So he asks her to go check on things with a couple families who are also close neighbors. Well she takes that assignment to heart, she checks in on them and then next thing you know she is rifling through garages and finding all sorts of suspicious things and pokes around their back yards. She also surreptitiously goes through their cell phone call histories and goes through their dressers. And then she goes back to her house and bakes cookies and brownies. Her other duty as the Bishop’s wife is that some of the women in the ward will talk to her when they don’t feel comfortable talking to the her husband. I tell you what she gets an ear full from some of these women. They tell her some things that would make Hannibal Lector flinch. It’s like wow!!

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Another angle on Moroni

On the spiritual side of things Linda is of course a devout and faithful Mormon woman but she chafes under the all-male authority structure of the church and really gets steamed when her own husband tries to play the bishop card on her. She pretty much does what she wants and doesn’t tell him anything she doesn’t think he needs to know. She has two grown sons and one still in school and her relationship with them is a little prickly. This all makes Linda real to me.

And oh yes, murder’s are committed and the perps are found and my friend Linda is right in the mix. I am hoping that Mettie Ivie Harrison writes another one of these books. I loved it. This is her first Adult book after several young adult fantasy romances. She is a practicing Mormon and lives in Utah.

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin is one of those books that is hard for me to categorize. A.J. Fikry is a widowed book seller in a small island town and is pretty darn prickly. The book opens with a pretty young publisher rep coming to present her employers line of books for the upcoming season and he pretty much throws her out after demeaning and insulting her. Then I find out that he is only in his 40’s which speaking as a sometimes crusty guy myself, that is way too young to be that crusty.

And then the storied part comes. Somebody steals a prized, very valuable book from him, somebody else leaves a baby in the store that he decides to raise and then the the pretty young bookseller comes back into the story. Given all that, I wouldn’t call this a “heart warming book” it is about a life that is lived with ups and downs and two steps backwards for every step forward. I loved the book and hated when it ended.

It is a rare book that me, my wife, and my MIL all loved. I’d loan you the copy I read but MIL wants it back.

I give it five stars.