City
of Darkness and Light: A Molly Murphy Mystery by Rhys Bowen
Molly is happily settled in with Daniel at her Patchin
Place home. Baby Liam enjoys life as
only a baby can.
Two letters arrive.
Daniel’s mother is unexpectedly going on a trip across country with a
friend. Molly’s beloved friends and
neighbors Sid and Gus are in Paris hoping to persuade the circle of artists
there to promote Gus and her paintings in the community. Impossibly, they invite her to join them
there.
This isn’t something that could be managed on Daniel’s
police captain salary, but what a lovely dream, eh?
At dinner there is the sound of a window breaking. As Daniel and Molly head towards the front of
the house there is a tremendous explosion and then fire. Molly is knocked out for a few moments then
finds and digs Daniel free.
The steps to the upper level where baby Liam and
nursemaid Aggie are have disappeared into rubble.
Desperately they go into the street calling for the
fire brigade. Daniel climbs to the
second story window of Liam’s room, returning with a small bundle.
The New York Police have decided to crack down on a new
group called the Cosa Nostra. Daniel,
who is leading the effort no longer has a safe place for his family in New
York.
With his mother out west, there is no safe place to
send Molly. Unless they can go to Paris
with Sid and Gus for a visit.
Sid and Gus pay for passage and Molly begins a long
voyage with a baby and a rather ratty fellow passenger in tight ships quarters,
nearly deathly ill herself for the length of the voyage.
Arriving in Paris, Molly and Liam aren’t met by Sid and
Gus. Making their way to the address the
women gave her, Molly finds they have been missing for several days. She talks her way into using their apartment
until they return, but there she is, in a foreign country, with a tiny baby and
no money or friends.
Somehow she will need to talk to the denizens of the
artistic community to see if she can recover her lost friends.
Bulbs
in the Basement Geraniums on the Windowsill: How to Grow and Overwinter 165
tender plants by Alice and Brian McGowan
Every year about this time I bring in my houseplants.
There are always a few tender perennials that look so nice yet that I think I’d
like to bring them in too. And how about
this plant over here…could I overwinter that inside? As I was looking up plants that overwinter
well again last year (a yearly search) I saw a reference to this book, and
found it via Amazon’s used book service.
It has a huge list of plants that will do nicely
inside, or that can take in and keep through the winter, bringing them back
into bloom in early winter.
All the information you need is here, including what a
tender perennial is, and a nice chapter called “Overwintering 101” which talks
about the environments indoors that will suit plants. Find out how to take cuttings, how to
prepapre and entire plant to come indoors and what to do about pests.
Wonderful watercolor drawings show you how to do
everything.
Simply
Beautiful Rubber Stamping 50 Quick and Easy Projects by Kathie Seaverns
I’ve managed to do Christmas Cards each year for the
last couple of years and I have fun and really like them. I haven’t managed to do birthdays though, and
some of it stems from lack of design inspiration.
I think my cards may be a little busy. It takes me several hours to do each
one. Tons of thought. With no artistic sensibilities.
This is where rubber stamping comes in. If you have the stamps you can make
wonderful little scenes or features and just color them in with all the
pleasure of a five year old who didn’t know they had no talent, but how they
did love a crayon and coloring book.
Simply Beautiful Rubber Stamping has fifty projects
with ideas simple and more complex. You
can easily adapt any of the projects to your own needs. I love her color choices and layouts.
