Keep Moving: And Other Tips About Old Age

author Dick Van Dyke

published by Weinstein Books

I have just finished reading this book and I feel great! I've got the genes and I'm going to make the most of it. I'm a mere 78 this year, born in 1940. I come away from this book written by a favorite actor, Dick Van Dyke who has reinforced in me the fact that you need to "Keep Moving" whether by memories and thought, dancing and exercising or just exercising your brain. These are brought home to me every day since Mom turned 100 Dec. 23, 2016 and my Dad turns 100 May 27, 2017, living in their own home and yes, they dance. They have a stuffed musical bear that sings; my Dad grabs the bear and Mom and away they go. Oh, his cousin also turned 100 in January, 2017. So yes, I have the genes. But now after reading "Keep Moving" I have the instruction book, so to speak.

While I was at Mom & Dad's last December, in fact right up to and after Mom's 100th birthday, she was reading this book. I was fascinated, because she doesn't read a lot of books. She kept telling me, "I'm really enjoying this book." With that in mind, when I came back home, I bought 2 of them, one for myself and one for my 96 year old neighbor, my lifeline and pal who I have shared so much history with since moving to northern BC and meeting her my first day only to learn that our lives have crossed many times in the past. We don't believe in growing older without a lot of laughter. She loved this book, and passed it on to our friend, and one of which we share our so-called "support group", and she is enjoying it, too. We all have problems of one kind or another, but when we all get together it's a wonder Tim Hortons doesn't throw us out for disturbing the peace, we are laughing that loud. So, Dick Van Dyke, one of my favorite actors and entertainers, you have done what you set out to do. Made a believer of me and my friends.

All that personal stuff aside, (I only included it because it shows just how much we enjoyed the book and follow the theme), this is a remarkable book on living without aging. The rest of the title is "And Other Tips and Truths About Living Well Longer" and certainly fills the bill. Now in his nineties, Dick Van Dyke is enjoying life as much and maybe more. He is still active, sings and dances and refuses to feel "old". I very highly recommend this book to everyone. Not just us "old folks" who are really 'way ahead of our predecessors for many reasons. Laughter, friendship, walking, exercising mind and body (crossword puzzles are great for keeping the mind active), all this and more will keep us young. So many memories in this book from the past and forming today as well. His advice to keep making new memories, don't just sit around, move or go out as much as you are physically able and ignore what you are not physically able, take up new interests you are capable of, music, jokes, laughter, friendship, all will keep you young. This isn't to say that Dick hasn't had his share of sadness having lost two life partners in his lifetime. His memories of these two women are fresh and young, and fortunately he has found his partner, his wife, who though younger is very much in tune with him. He has children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren he is proud of and enjoys. This book also brought back the work he accomplished that I grew up with, the sitcoms, the movies, who could forget "Mary Poppins" nor can I forget "Bye Bye Birdie" one that you don't really hear that much about any more, but I remember it. I didn't realize that he was in the airforce during WWII, at the young age of 18. So many famous entertainers did go to war, and some lost their lives. This is a heart-warming book, nostalgic but not lessening in its message. Be young, age is just a number. I enjoyed every bit of this book as well as his conversations with other favorite performers. I still love the Dick Van Dyke show, as well as the other later ones. A very likeable man who I hope will be with us a long time yet.

Psychic Surveys Book One: The Haunting of Highdown Hall by Shani Struthers

by Shani Struthers
reviewed from e-reader

A story all too often heard, particularly in the times of the event. It's Christmas Eve, 1958; it is also Cynthia Hart's 31st birthday. It was a time of big movies in colour, and wannabees drawn to the studios like flies to honey. Cynthia is already a huge star, but tonight she will die. How? Why? We'll follow along the search for these answers with the Psychic Surveys group.

The Psychic Surveys group are devoted to helping the dead into the light, but this will be no easy feat. Where most calls come from people who have purchased houses that were built on land where "Britain's most notorious mental asylum" once was, and could very easily have activity terrorizing them, the group attends them all and has very informed, dedicated and sensitive members, usually explaining and helping these spirits into the light, then performing a house-wide cleansing.

The group consists of Ruby, Theo, Ness and Corinna, all with different abilities. They will have a difficult task ahead. They have been called in by a very rattled homeowner, reporting what appeared to be a very angry spirit. Theo, first on the scene, has felt the strong presence herself, strongest in the master bedroom and ballroom. It seems that Cynthia has never passed on although she died many years ago. Somewhere in her last decades she has been led to believe her soul has been taken, hence the probable feeling of loss end of life, and whoever told this information will nullify it and punish the sender.  I will take care of the other errors.  Her estate had been willed to her maid Sally, and subsequently Sally's nephew Alan Kierney moved in, he is the one who called the group.

Of ghost stories, this one is a bit unusual to say the least. She is not willing to leave. Her death was recorded as a heart attack. What from that night could have caused such a thing at the top of her career? She appears to be terrified and no one could convince her otherwise. What is holding her back? The secret will have to come out soon so she can escape.  In the meantime, a ghost dog has been found at the last house barking and disturbing the neighbours, add it to the pile of queries. While checking the neighbourhood, she meets a young man who strangely is reading the same book "Drive Like Hell" seems a fitting book for the circumstances.

Questioning what Ruby did, she is always thrown off, fortunately she doesn't fall back on her usual wording, but explains she is a psychic surveyor. Of course Cash is confused, but she manages to explain her part of the rescues. This, of course, brings questions re a ghost hunter, no, she is not a ghost hunter but a psychic surveyor, there's quite a difference. She is intrigued by him, but wary. Dressed casually, she wondered what he did. "I'm a website designer, freelance." Wow! This is something helpful or so she hopes. She is needing a website for her business but knew very little about such things. Of course this requires a lot of time between them to a) learn about website control and b) teach what would be needed in her particular work. Her training coming mostly from her Gran, they must be sure everything is precise. Cynthia is terrified to leave and spends most of her time hiding, believing in a small compartment in her room. Oh, Cash has a lot to learn, and fast! The next day is going to be a wild one. He is willing to learn though, especially learning from Ruby.

Cynthia appears to be severely traumatized. She is in complete terror about what is ahead for her. Nothing seems to calm her. The group tries very hard to reason with her but for some reason she is sure that someone from her past sold her soul to the Devil. What? Much as they try to soothe her and reassure her, it will take at least one more visit from them. This was a great read, I loved it and could not have imagined the ending, with suspense building up to a crescendo, I really didn't see it coming. Great story-telling! I would happily read more of this series.

If the Bed Falls In (Book 1 of the Bedfellows series)

author Paul Casselle
reviewed from e-reader

- A Man in Two Minds: are Either of Them His?
A most unusual book, a deep psychological thriller that kept me glued to it. I actually enjoyed wandering around what seemed like illogical thoughts of the prolific characters in Tom's head. Quite fascinating, in a strange way, almost like a manifestation of split personality except there are too many other characters with him. But what is really odd is that no one else seems to acknowledge that he isn't who he should be, but is exactly who they think he is. Who, then, is a killer? Is anyone?

Most of  the group meeting appears to have some connection to Tom's crew of imaginary and diverse agents; a planned assassination, but who will do it? What role will each play? Who or what is the Spring? Well, that is at least one thing that may be explained. It apparently doesn't matter who does what or thinks what, as backup they have a British Olympic shooter. Now the question bodes, who is the target and why? Does anyone in this group wonder? Why do different members of the plot keep showing up individually in the dark of night?  Everyone wants information on the Bedfellows, not least of them is Will and Cyril.

I really enjoyed this book, fast action, but I have to admit I took notes to keep the characters sorted out simply because I wanted to have the information straight to write this review. It all makes sense in some strange way. The smoothness with which the characters, though often changed, were carrying out the subplots was remarkable. International spies and an assassin but they are all the same yet different. What a wild ride through an addled mind. Is it something affecting the brain? Is it Tom's previous use of cocaine causing a cocaine hallucination? How can that be, it's not just him that changes character but all his friends and cohorts. This book is fun, scary, and a bit off the wall, and that's what makes it so enjoyable. I'd say it was a murder mystery, but the mystery is that the murdered turn up alive...every time! Paul Casselle is a very talented writer, precise and exciting. The title is derived from the old Goodnight, Sleep Tight rhyme with two extra lines I'm not familiar with but it's very fitting, and perhaps a clue.

Fool Me Twice - a Carol Golden Novel #6

Author Alan Cook
reviewed from e-reader

The latest book in the Carol Golden series and once again Alan Cook has put a new spin into the story. Carol, the girl of many names and few memories, is now the wife of Rigo who saved her life in the first book, and the mother of Stevie, an adventurous and bold one-year-old. One might say that he is determined enough to maybe someday follow in his mother's footsteps.

This time around, Carol finds herself completely befuddled in how to deal with the elderly victim of a huge scam who refuses to go to the police. Both are rather adept in figures and puzzles, but Peter Griffenham, a retired professor who taught business courses, seems reluctant to pursue any action on his behalf to reclaim a very large sum of money that he wired to an unknown. Though he worries his son is going to try to get control of his money, he has just parted with $100,000 to an off-shore account. Is this the action of the author of a book, "Holding on to Your Money" he wrote years ago?

It's hard not to like Peter, but equally hard not to give up on him, enough to want to pull your hair out. He's not dense or senile, one supposes he is one of those people who either don't want to admit they made a mistake or one who doesn't want to get anyone in trouble. Whichever, it seems that one embezzler has been beaten to the punch by another. Amy is a delightful surprise in this book; she is smart, beautiful, an actress and a puzzle. The relationship between Peter and Amy is unusual but I feel both benefit from meeting each other, not in the usual beneficial way of friends but friendly with a few surprises. What is keeping Peter from going to the police or a lawyer? Who does he really suspect? For that matter, he seems to have a few surprising secrets himself. With Carol still trying to retrieve her memory each book has me involved in a very different story. Another fascinating book by Alan Cook, as always, I find the gymnastics of logic in the story very entertaining.

The Hummingbird Wizard by Meredith Blevins

reviewed by e-reader
by Meredith Blevins

Wow, this book almost wore me out! Fasten your seatbelts, you're in for a wild ride! The characters are fun to read, always plotting against each other or with each other, characters you won't readily forget. This mixed Gypsy and non-Gypsy family is fascinating to follow. Full-blown life and sudden death; a dose of magic and the paranormal mixed through the plot. Who is the mysterious Hummingbird Wizard? Gypsy lore, bit of culture mixed in. This is a story to keep one glued to the pages. Meredith Blevins has given us a remarkable roller-coaster of love, murder and deceit. It is also a very full story with a lot going on throughout. The matriarch is fully in control, fierce but full of life. A true gypsy fortune-teller and a woman of many surprises, she is a bundle of conflicting emotions and brings the reader into them like a moth to flame. So many twists I got dizzy. The interaction between Madame Mina and Annie Szabo, the mother-in-law and the widowed daughter-in-law, is a tug-of-war of feelings. I don't believe I've ever read a story like it. It grips you and doesn't let you go. First in the Annie Szabo Mystery Series, and I think I'll be back for the second.

War, Spies and Bobby Sox - Stories About World War II at Home

reviewed from e-reader
by Libby Fischer Hellmann

The first part of this book was amazing, and the rest of the book ran true to its beginnings! It is very suspenseful, very well-written, and though fiction, is full of factual occurrences or persons. I don't speak of just the beginning of the book, as it is really three stories of war, so I find it easier to concentrate on each separately. Nevertheless, the whole is still wartime in terms of WWII, and how those at home cope, or often don't. These are the times I grew up in. Those of us old enough to recall what it was like growing up in the troubled times of the 1930s and 1940s, then in the mid '40s through the 1950's the beginning of the nuclear age with all the fears and the famous "duck and cover". The terror inflicted by the armed forces, FBI, CIA, and other organizations that your neighbors may be Communists and should be reported. This chapter in history turned innocent people into spies and this theme runs throughout the stories. But I digress, simply because this book is so close to home, the memories flow.

Libby Fischer Hellman has dug deeply into that dark pit where one enemy infiltration, particularly the Nazis, leaves off and another, Communism arrives. It is also the beginnings of nuclear experiments. And so we begin, following the life of one Jewish girl, Lena, whose family is among those who are seeking asylum in other countries. Sent to live with relatives in America, she never hears from her parents again. Libby starts the story fairly close to the time the United States came into the war, particularly into the 1940s of Rosie the Riveter, European countries gobbled up, women desperate for love and families, but we also find that there are spies. These covert infiltrators seek to enlist people to spy for them, report to them, give them intel, but never let their chosen know who they are really working for. Lena has been working in the Physics Dept. in the university, who better to induct? She has a young child, she is poor, she is alone, working where the early development of splitting atoms is going on. Of course she has been sworn to secrecy in her job, who better to train as a spy? The events in this section of the book are very close to reality. Especially what she is spying on. I found this book to be a very honest fiction if such can be said. Lena is trained under threat, becomes a very good spy but does have some tricks up her sleeve, too, if it weren't for an additional demand for her to spy on the spy, more or less. Who is spying for whom? A shockingly big twist near the end of this part. This first section of the book I will leave here, the reader must enjoy the suspense for themselves. I am moving into the second part.

This is what this book is about, life for those left behind whether Jews seeking asylum, families receiving letters that their loved ones have been killed, teens trying to handle blossoming sexually, living on farms where POWs come to work. The latter certainly applies to Mary-Catherine, who is at the heart of "what happens in rural America". The war has basically ended against the Nazis, though some Nazi POWs don't believe it; but the attack on Pearl Harbor has turned the world against Japan and sped up the race to splitting the atom. The world was ripe for picking. Spies and counter-spies played a huge part at this time. This section features a young farm girl and POWs who come to work under guard on the farm. Mary-Catherine's father is still fighting in the Battle of Midway. As the family, mother, two young children and a beautiful teen-age girl, hear a truck rumble in they come to see what is happening. The mother gives her assent to the guard for the prisoners to work on harvesting the crops. The prisoners are a mixed group, German soldiers, SS, Nazis, even intel; some arrogant, some friendly, some unscrupulous, at least one honest; and any of them can be enemies still, spies, especially one prisoner who is a loyal Nazi. A fight between prisoners of different factions, a lockdown, a murder, an accident; and a disgraced daughter is sent away. Another glimpse of what can and will happen when consorting with the enemy. They've had time to think and plot escape. A short story, but very honest in what could and often did happen post-war. This story was compelling and sad, taking place entirely in Illinois.

Now we come to another side on the home front. The day Miriam Hirsch disappeared. Two boys from different parts of Chicago; Jake Forman in Hyde Park, a German Jew and Barney Teitelman in Lawndale, the Jewish neighborhood on Chicago's West Side whose family was from Russia or Lithuania. The families are opposites in most ways, but the boys remain best friends. It was in Lawndale where they first see Miriam, beautiful, an actress, probably a German Jew. Next they knew, Skull, a low-level gangster, began to be seen with her. The area they were in, where Barney lived, was composed of gangs, though protective. Irish street gangs, Nazi sympathizers, and Skull, casino owner. Jake was devastated to see them together. Then comes an evening when he and Barney overhear Miriam tell Skull that she "...won't do it. Stop asking me." The conversation carries on in much the same tone, Skull wanting some information, pleading with her. Did she agree finally? He is hugging her, but they don't hear an answer. After that night they never saw her with Skull again. Her routines were different. Skull tries to hire the boys to work for him. And here we come full circle again. No trust, become an informant, murder, but the real common denominator is hatred and suspicion. All the parts of the whole. A novel that seems more like the truth. Lives lost, conspiracies grow, threats become reality. This book is truly exceptional, three parts of a whole. One of the best. Libby, you've done it again.

No Darker Place - a Shades of Death novel by Debra Webb

published by MIRABooks
written by Debra Webb

There is no darker place than the mind of a serial killer.

Tension started mounting the minute I started reading this book by Debra Webb. I'm not sure I can take a breather, I know I will become deeply involved in the story. Bobby Gentry, police officer, is the first survivor of kidnapping and torture by the Storyteller, a serial killer who normally sticks to a once-a-year killing. Since he met Bobby, once a year was no longer the case. How could he carry on with the same timing once she had escaped? Even after he killed her husband and her baby died. Bobby's long healing physically and mentally is still taking its toll on her when she is finally allowed back in the force. This is a story of revenge. She believes it is "her" case and wants to solve it herself, taking extreme chances, trying to draw him out of the woodwork so to speak. Her prime objective is to kill him. She knows he will be waiting for her. Now she fears he has taken the nurse who treated her. She knows that he will commit the same horrors on Gwen as he did to her. There is no darker place than the mind of a serial killer.

Who is the stranger who is hunting the killer? He seems to have been stalking him for a very long time, but he is not with the police nor the FBI. Although both groups are aware of him and his search, no one knows who he is. This is a very tense and well-written thriller, The first book by Debra Webb that I have read and it's a killer, metaphorically speaking. As always, there is a back story that is as horrific as the present; and indeed the back story here runs true to form. Now Bobby's biggest nightmare is coming to life. A sudden shock of fear as women begin to arrive at the police station asking for Detective Bobby Gentry and bringing with them photos of their children who have suddenly gone missing. This is one of the Shades of Death novels and it definitely fits this novel. There are many shades of death. There is so much included in this storyline, victims of illness, accident, and yes, definitely murder, but not your normally quick and deadly murder. Enough to make your toes curl and your heart pound. Who can outwit and remove the Storyteller before he can claim Bobby once again?