For the Months of July and August, we’re celebrating summer and beach reading…so we’re offering Moose Tracks On the Road to Heaven on kindle for just 99 cents!
The price has NEVER been this low on this full-length (in print it’s trade-sized and over 320 pages) novel.
Go HERE and click on the cover to read a FREE excerpt.
Snap it up now, while you can. Happy summer – and Happy Reading!
Over the weekend, my backdoor garden has come into bloom.
Except for a bit of weeding (which I, sadly, rarely get to), this garden is self-sustaining, filled with perennials, many of them gifted to me by my dear father before he died. The tea roses are from cuttings he brought from the Homestead (originally brought there from his mother’s tea roses in Massachusetts). My Grandma Reed died the summer before I was born, but I feel like I “know” her a little through the stories my father told me about her quiet, intelligent nature, her inventive and hearty cooking, and her beautiful flower gardens.
The iris are quintessentially my father: he loved this kind of large, colorful – and some scented – iris. These are all gifts from him, with his favorite being what he called the “blue and whites” that are in the foreground. I feature one, even, in my family-life-love-loss-hope-filled novel Moose Tracks on the Road to Heaven.
We spoke many times about the mysteries of life, the Universe, energies, and what the afterlife might hold. I detail some of those conversations and thoughts in the novel as well – but I like to think that the tangible beauty of this garden speaks to that in a different way. It blooms every year, all on its own, bringing joy, a feast for the senses, and happy memories that keep uplifting emotions and treasured people in the forefront of my thoughts.
And it reminds me yet again that love might change form, but it never truly dies.
Although it’s quite chilly here in Upstate, New York, it’s been sunny and a lovely, brisk first day of Spring.
I put out my “spring-themed” flag in the front (I have 8 or so flags, to match the seasons, though I always seem to be adding more…I just put away the green spangled Saint Patrick’s Day flag).
And the first harbingers of Spring, since I can remember, have begun to poke their little blue heads from the soil next to the house. Apparently they’re called Scilla siberica (Siberian squill or wood squill). We always called them the “little blue flowers” when I was growing up. They spread a lovely-hued carpet of blooms next to the old homestead, and the autumn before my father died, he (presciently) dug me a rectangular bit of that turf from home and brought it the 1.5 hours or so to my house, so I could have a patch of them growing every Spring. Just another reason I love him and another reason to always think of him whenever I look at the beauty of those flowers.
Happy Spring to one and all!
I always enjoy my Irish heritage…but what I enjoy almost as much is the way anyone can be “Irish for a day” on Saint Patrick’s Day!
When considering the mix of all the cultures that make up many second or third generation Americans – and especially when focusing on those that compose my biological inheritance – I’ve always viewed the Irish part of me as one of the more happy-go-lucky, warm and welcoming parts. ❤
This video is a happy memory for me from childhood…not just of Bing but also of my sweet, 3/4 Irish mother singing this song in her lilting and pretty voice in the kitchen (often while making her famous Irish soda bread, the recipe of which she’d learned from her own Ireland-born Grandma Katherine O’Halleran who hailed from County Tipperary).
Perhaps it’s also my penchant for lush imagery in poetry or lyrics, particularly nature-based imagery, that makes me love this and so many Celtic songs.
And now, I’ll leave you with a little Irish Blessing. 🙂
Feeling the #indielove! Moose Tracks on the Road to Heaven has been chosen as a Foreword Reviews’ prestigious #INDIEFAB Book of the Year Awards finalist in #General Fiction! In a competition with over 1500 other entrants, it’s pretty great to have made it this far. Stay tuned for the winner announcements at the end of June, at the American Library Association’s Annual Conference, in Orlando, FL.
Click HERE to go to the list of General Fiction Finalists, and HERE if you want to go directly to the finalist page for Moose Tracks on the Road to Heaven.
Woohoo! 🙂
It’s hard to believe that here it is the end of February, and this is my first post of 2016.
There are several reasons for this, which I won’t get into in any detail, but I will share that my life has become more complex and complicated in many ways, due to some family-related issues and a delightful and loveable new little human who has been living with us and made me a (quite youthful!) grandmother.
Needless to say, the slogan on the Yogi tea I’ve been drinking this past hour is one I’m working actively toward achieving each day: “To be calm is the highest achievement of the self”.
Speaking of tea, what do you think of my mug? It’s new (well, as of January) and was a little gift to myself, purchased at a country store but from a source called Healing Touch Pottery. Each mug or pottery item is unique, handmade from quartz clay and containing a gemstone or mineral in the handle, imbued with energy associated with that. Mine is my birthstone, amethyst (yes, I recently had a milestone birthday) 🙂
I love it! Has anyone else here tried their pottery? I’d like to collect a few more pieces. It’s pretty and comforting all at once.
Anyway – I’m glad to be back and will try to post again more frequently. I’m writing sporadically, working at the moment on a prequel novella for The Crimson Lady – but thanks to the aforementioned changes in life, I’ve yet to find my rhythm to set up any regular schedule. It will come in time – when it’s supposed to – I’m confident.
Until my next post, wishing you all a wonderful weekend!
Just in time for Christmas…
I’m delighted to share that Moose Tracks on the Road to Heaven has received a “Reviewer’s Choice” Award from Foreword Reviews, the preeminent Indie Book Review Quarterly.
Considering that the quarterly publishes more than 600 book reviews annually, this nod for Moose Tracks on the Road to Heaven – one of only 15 chosen for the year – is a real honor, and I am thrilled.
Just click on FOREWORD REVIEWS right here and it will take you to the blog posting and the list of books named. Mine is the sixth one down, with the original review by Maya Fleischmann, along with some lovely commentary just before it, explaining why she chose my book as her favorite of 2015. 🙂
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, probably because it’s about being together and sharing food, time, and memories, without any need to focus on material gifts and the like.
I’ve always loved it. I can remember being a little girl and sitting in the living room watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, eating a bowl of grapes (a special treat, along with tangerines, for the holiday).
The big picture window would be all steamed up from Ma’s cooking in the adjoining kitchen, and the delicious smells of the turkey roasting, onions and celery sautéed in butter for use in the stuffing, and sage filling the whole room with a homey, delicious scent.
So…what are some of your favorite Thanksgiving foods, if you celebrate the holiday? I’m always looking to add something to our table, so please share in the comments! 🙂
I loved “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” when I was a child. It was my all-time favorite (it even earned a mention in the “past” scene just after Chapter Four in Moose Tracks on the Road to Heaven).
This past summer I was thrilled to find this mug in the gift shop of a theater where my younger daughter was attending a week-long “Broadway Professionals” program. There was a wide variety of eclectic gifts and items, including several mugs and bobble heads. I also picked up a “Shakespeare Love Quotes” mug to go with my “day job”. 🙂
Okay, so here’s what’s especially awesome about this mug. When you add hot water, Mr. Rogers changes into his yellow sweater!
It’s just like in the TV program, when he’d get inside his house and change his shoes and jacket for sneakers and a sweater.
And there are quite a few of his sayings and quotes all around the mug, too.
It just makes me happy…much in the same way the late Mr. Rogers always did.
He still does, whenever I get to see something where he is featured.
There is this article, “46 Things I Learned by Making Mr. Rogers and Me”. It’s well worth a look (it also contains links to other articles, videos, and photos that are wonderful too). It’s by Benjamin Wagner, a young MTV producer who, with his brother, premiered a documentary called Mr. Rogers and Me in 2011.
And like this video, where he received an award, but still managed to turn the spotlight away from himself to make us think and feel, and potentially leave us better people because of it.
What a wonderful legacy to leave behind.
Any other Mr. Rogers fans out there?
This was done my first year at college, when I came home on break…
Reminiscing Halloweens past, and the decorating we used to do at the Homestead with all homemade materials. All the pictures in this post are from the 80’s (as the clothing and hairstyles will attest, LOL)!
Cutting jack-o-lanterns with Pa and Ma. Ma is having a bit of fun with her pumpkin. 🙂
Admiring the finished products with Pa
And finally, sitting atop the little shelter Pa built for us to stand in while we waited for the school bus at the end of our long driveway…sharing the space with a giant pumpkin Pa grew, and a little orange cat he and Ma took in.
Happy Halloween!
M. Reed McCall, Author 