Win an Audio Book of "Dewey"

J. Kaye's Book Blog has another nice giveway, this time it's the audio book of Dewey by Vicki Myron and Brett Witter. Dewey is the story of Dewey Readmore Books, the beloved library cat of Spencer, Iowa. The author, Vicki Myron, is also the librarian who found him on a cold January morning when he was abandoned as a kitten in the book drop slot. Through Dewey's antics, you come to know and love many of the colorful and inspiring people of Spencer. I had heard of Dewey before the book was written and I would love to read it. Anything about cats touches my heart. To enter go here and leave a comment. Entra entry information on the site. The winner will NOT be notified by email. The winner will be posted on the blog on May 30, 2009. Don't want to miss notification? Subscribe to the blog.

Win James Patterson Audio Books

You could win the first six audio books of James Patterson's Women's Murder Club Series! J. Kaye's Book Blog is giving readers the chance to win audio books that include 1ST TO DIE, 2ND CHANCE, 3RD DEGREE, THE 4TH OF JULY, THE 5TH HORSEMAN, and THE 6TH TARGET. Enter here. Extra entry information on the site. Winners will NOT be notified by email. The winner will be posted on the blog on May 30, 2009.

Books I've read this week

One of the books I picked up at the sale on Saturday was There Was a Little Girl by Ed McBain, ©1994. The story takes place in Florida and concerns a small circus that wants to buy a piece of land where they can put on shows during the winter. The circus owner hires a lawyer, Matthew Hope, to make an offer for the land and while trying to make the deal, he upsets someone and ends up getting shot. During the rest of the story he's in the hospital in a semi-coma. His good friends, who are two private investigators and a local cop, follow his trail for the week before the shooting trying to figure out what he was doing in the bad part of town where the shooting occurred and who did it. The story unfolds through their dectective work and also flashbacks that Matthew has as he lays in the hospital, and includes circus performers, drugs, lies, sex, blackmail, burglary, and murder. The plot line was pretty good but I don't think the author needed to include quite so much circus information. I also thought the ending left the reader hanging somewhat but then decided that Matthew Hope wasn't really the story. The story was just about finding out who shot him and why.

Another Romano's Macaroni Grill Gift Basket Giveaway

These gift baskets would be really nice to win since they include a colander, serving spoon, cheese grater, box of the Creamy Basil Parmesan Chicken & Pasta, AND coupons to get 3 more free boxes of your choice. To win just stop by Coupon Mommie's blog and tell her how often you eat dinner together as a family or how you let the kids help you cook dinner. Enter here. Contest ends Thursday April 30th at midnight. Additional entry info on the site. Good luck!

Hot and Cold Running. . . . Weather

I take back the comment I made a couple of days ago about summer being here already. Yes, it was 85° Friday which was too warm for this time of year, but this is Iowa and Saturday it was only 45° and raining off and on all day. Right now (at about 2 a.m.) I'm listening to a thunderstorm as I type and we had small hail earlier tonight. Tomorrow's forecast is for about 70° and then the possibility of heavy rain and severe storms. I'm glad I don't have much in the garden yet as it would just get ruined.

We spent Saturday at Boone where our son Jay set up a booth at the flea market again this month. I took books and jigsaw puzzles along with some miscellaneous items to sell. He pays the set up fee and gets half the money from anything I sell so it works for us both. The sale is at the local county fairgrounds but today they were in a different building because the usual one was being used by another group. The building wasn't heated and it didn't take long to get chilly. Not the most comfortable way so spend a day. The other building was having a huge 'garage sale' fundraiser for the local animal shelter. This brought a lot more people to the fairgrounds than usual but most spent their money at the fundraiser instead of the flea market. I even spent my money there getting a great bargain of 8 books for a dollar. I have quite a few ahead now so I'd better spend some time reading and quit buying for a while.

(I hope you have no melcryptovestimentaphiliacs in your area. They compulsively steal ladies underwear!)