Happy Halloween! (Florence, OR)

Okay, I'm a little early, but I have been getting in the mood for Halloween all summer long between wall hangings, living in fog covered areas, reading, and...

....watching some old favorite movies like Hocus Pocus and Casper.

  

Books to get me in the mood for Halloween

I did a lot of reading this summer.  I discovered quite a few new authors, but I'll just talk about two for this post because they have lots of magic and fantasy to fire up anyone's imagination.

The first book is just the beginning of a great series filled with myths, legends, time travel, fantasy, monsters, gods, and Sci-fi....gosh, I could go on, but I won't...

Michael Scott, The Alchemyst (The Secrets of the Immortal NicolasFlamel)

This should be tagged “teens to adults” instead of “teens to young adults”.  I loved this book so much that I had to read the whole series.  This fast-paced series is about a legendary alchemist Nicolas and his wife Perenelle Flamel who actually lived in Paris in the fourteenth and fifteenth century.  You can visit their house, now a restaurant, at 51 Rue De Montmorecy, Paris today.   

Throughout the series, Michael Scott’s love of history shows through his storytelling.  This story is well written with in-depth characters, magic, action-packed battles, time-traveling, sprinkled with historical facts and mythology.  At the end of each book, Michael talks about how he decided to write this book, the history behind his characters, locations, different myths, and unusual historical discoveries.  So many historical characters!  There’s Joan of Arc, St. Germaine, Billy the Kid, Virginia Dare, and Dr. John Dee - who?  Do a Google, he was well known during his time.  Then there are the mythological characters such as the Egyptian cat goddess - Bastet, The Sphinx, Prometheus, and Isis.

In “The Alchemist”, Nicolas and his wife have learned the secret to long life through the Codex book.  It doesn't keep them young, but it does keep them alive a lot longer than anyone else without the help of The Elders.  800 years later, the Codex has them searching for the perfect “Twins” while living in San Francisco, CA and trying to stay hidden from their enemy Dr. John Dee and The Elders who want to destroy the human race.

I can go on, but I would end up talking about all 6 books. Start with the first one. If you like it, you will want to line up the next five because you will not want to stop reading until you get to the very last one.

The Witch’s Daughter by Paula Brackston

This is the story about a modern witch Bess Hasksmith and her story to stay independent through the centuries from Gideon – the one who made her a witch and feels she owes him for her life and training.   I enjoyed the way we go back and forth in time from 1658 with the plague and witch trials to London’s Whitechapel district in 1888 to WWI to present day as Bess tells her story to a young witch apprentice.

This one does have some unusual scenes that might make some people uncomfortable.  To me, the scenes were a good description of what witch trial accusers would have claimed to have witnessed during that time.  I like Paula's writing style and I plan to read her next book soon.

Another fascinating bridge built by Conde B. McCullough in the 1930s.  This one is close to Heceta Head Lighthouse.  It crosses the river and goes straight into the side of a mountain's tunnel.  I can see this being a wonderful starting point for a time-travel story.  Cross the bridge, through the tunnel to come out...not where, but when.  The fog that day really had my imagination going.

UR Kidding!  National Cat Day

Because I have four cats, I just had to mention that today is National Cat Day.  Like it's not a cat's day every day, right?  Ours are so spoiled that I don't know where I would start telling you how spoiled they are....I do love my cats and could never ever live without them.  They are my best furry friends ever.

So here are a couple of LOL Cats that look very familiar to me.

I Can Has Cheezburger? celebrates National Cat Day!

Gee, this looks familiar....
    so does this.....

yea, except ours comes up to us and demands we get out of his bed first...

Okay, got to go.  The cats are demanding dinner......

Happy Quilting!