This psychic thriller is written by Kay Hooper and is the first book in a series. Each book contains a different story about a different character. In this particular book, we have Cassie who can hear people’s thoughts and connect to minds even from miles away. The prologue drew me in so fast. I thought it introduced what type of person Cassie was pretty quickly and I liked the fast pace.

After almost losing her own identity in a previous case, Cassie moves to a small town where her aunt used to live. We are introduced to some interesting characters and I actually quite enjoyed these characters and the different aspects of their point of views while trying to catch a serial killer who seems to have two different motives.

The deeper I got into the book and the more information the reader and the characters learn, the more stumped all of us were at finding the culprit. I do enjoy a good surprise reveal. This is one of those stories where they give you the information you need to solve it but you aren’t introduced to the killer organically so it is more of a follow-along than a “see if you can solve it” kind of book.

One confusing aspect of the book was the random character, Bishop. He comes in halfway through the book and you don’t know if he is a romantic interest or perhaps related to Cassie in some way. Turns out that the series is about him and he is the common cord connecting all the seemingly random stories in this series.

Despite that random tidbit, the ending was cheesy and there were some amateur moments throughout the book but I did find myself enjoying it and getting invested in these characters only to learn that the next book was about a new set of characters.

I will be reading the rest of the series, mainly to find out who the hell is Bishop.

Written by Clive Cussler, Pacific Vortex, is about Dirk Pitt who is, to put it mildly, really good with water. He has a bunch of Navy handles that I cannot think of at the moment and is in charge of a specific group that investigates strange happenings in oceans. Dirk Pitt seems to be someone who keeps things close to his chest. At times he seems shy but is not intimidated by authority. He is a man of few words and seems to admire hygiene as he takes three showers within the first forty-five pages.

Dirk gets called in to help, or more like stumbles onto the problem, when the latest in several ships disappear after several alarming distress calls. This part of the book was absolutely thrilling to me because despite being terrified of deep ocean waters, I am thoroughly intrigued by the mysteries of the ocean. This book took on an eerie mood and leads you to think it might just be magical or otherworldly.

While I was pulled in by the mystery of what happened to the ships, the rest of the book was pretty tame and the bad guy was known about halfway through the book so there weren’t any really big surprises. I was just along for the ride and seemed, to me, to be a pretty easy and smooth read.

I will complain about Dirk’s love life though. One of two people in his life is a woman he occasionally sleeps with who has so many others that she isn’t a real contender. Then enters Summer. She is of questionable character and I feel she remains that way even to the end. I do not like her. After only seeing Dirk face-to-face a handful of times, she declares her undying love for him. What utter bull.

I will be reading the rest of the series in the hopes that more mysteries of the deep are the topic of discussion.

Settled in the growing heart of Lancaster, Ohio, there is a cute little restaurant known as Ale House. I went with some girlfriends for some much needed face time. The décor of the restaurant is similar to a fancy bistro but put some wear into the fancy. It was chic and a total vibe.

The service was great and the atmosphere added to the already great time. As a Celiac, I was happy with the options they provided. The restaurant offers a lot in the way of food. One had some fish, another had a giant salad, my mother had a burger, and I also had a glorious burger by the name of Ultimate Bleu Burger.

My burger had grilled onion, cranberry aioli, smoky bacon, rich bleu cheese sauce, tomato, and fresh greens. It was delicious. They took comfort food and gave it an interesting twist which, when done right, is divine. I highly recommend checking the place out if ever in town.

You may not know this about me but I’m a huge manga fan and reader. I’ll pretty much read anything I can get my hands on and it doesn’t matter the genre. One of the great things about manga is that things that might be considered weird in typical books, are common in manga. They can still be weird at first but every manga has something really extra about it so you either get used to it or don’t read them. One of those weird manga’s is Assassination Classroom.

Assassination Classroom is about Class E which is considered the lowest of the classes and the rest of the student body makes it their job to make Class E miserable. Add an octopus-looking science experiment whose goal is to raise the scores of Class E while also teaching his students how to kill him by the end of the school year.

Weird, right? I got sucked in around book four or five and was so invested in the series that the last book actually made me cry. You get to see these students bond with one another and maybe even the teacher. You learn some interesting secrets and watch as the students are thrown some intriguing school assignments.

Their ultimate goal is to kill their instructor so they can earn a whole lot of money. There are some questionable moments and the instructor has some unsavory characteristics but in general wants his students to succeed.

I will look on this series fondly and would probably give all twenty-one volumes a collective four out of five star rating.

Check it out!

1. Rules of Prey (John Sandford)
2. Shadow Prey (John Sandford)

I figured it out at the end of the first book, Lucas is the Fred Dellray of this series. And here I am comparing them yet again. Oops.

This book was written in 1990. Like other books during its debut, they are more candid and less sensitive about race. I do not particularly enjoy reading racial slurs but sadly that is everyday life in this era and unfortunately still is to this day.

What I do like is the inclusion of Native Americans. Sadly, they are the criminals resorting to drastic measures. In their defense, those killed weren’t the best of people and were actually identical to scum. It made it hard not to justify the deaths in this book.

Thinking about these so called criminals makes me compare them to those who are trying to catch them. These policemen, Lucas most certainly included, are so damn flawed that it makes you think, what’s the one thing that would push them over the edge? We all walk a tight rope and some of us stumble, some fall right off, but only a very few can make it across without fail.

Elle Kruger is one of those people. She is the real VIP and I will continue to have a crush on this woman. Opposite of Elle is Lucas. I find myself disappointed in him, his failure to keep it in his pants, and his choice of women.

Now, to talk about the meat of the book, the murders. There seems to be only one reason for these crimes and it is to show the injustice done to the Native American people and those who have wronged them. They had to dangle the small dead fish to catch the bigger fish. It was an easy read but neither was it particularly thrilling nor complicated to figure out.

And Lucas totally did Jennifer and his daughter dirty…I’ll leave it at that.

I went to the Coffee Fest in Columbus, Ohio. I drank coffee.

The End.

Just kidding. I mean, I did drink coffee. Lots of coffee. They were only little sample pours but it was still A LOT of coffee that my stomach started protesting. I feel like I’m probably not the best person to judge the coffee but I’ll tell you my thoughts anyway.

There were some wild coffee flavors and I love trying wild flavors. The problem for me is that I normally drink my coffee with lots of cream and lots of sugar. So everything tasted watered down and weak to me. I’m glad I went, I had a good time, and I recommend trying it out for yourself, as it was only twenty dollars, but I don’t know if this is something I would do every year.

It couldn’t have been a better day for it as it was fall weather and the sun was shining. There were also food trucks and stations that offered goods and even goat yoga. Dueling axes was there for those to try their hand at throwing axes as well as live music.

It was a really cool experience and I highly recommend you check it out.

I went into this book thinking it was going to be like the Lincoln Rhyme books by Jeffrey Deaver. They both have their complicated main characters but I just can’t help but like Lincoln more.

However, Lucas is absolutely enthralling. He is so interesting as a person with hobbies like shooting, making games, and horse race betting. His womanizing ways actually kind of disgust me and takes a smidgeon of appeal from him. The man will be in bed with one woman while on the phone with another. Sadly, I am still obsessed with him.

While he is clearly intelligent, I feel that this case didn’t really show that. Again, I could be comparing him to Lincoln and the fact that I would have been wowed by his mind only fifty pages into the book. The difference is, Lucas is a people person. He gets his information through his network of contacts and isn’t much of a forensics cop.

I will make many allowances for this book because it is the first and I know that means more scene building and character introductions. The case Lucas is trying to solve isn’t too complicated nor does it have any real big surprises but it was an easy read. John Sandford is pretty good at creating a fictional world and adding little details that are important later on.

I will say that I hope Lucas is a bit more monogamous, not with Jennifer, and if he ever gets married he better not cheat on her or he is dead to me.

And can I just add that when tailing a murder suspect, CHECK THE CAR FOR BROKEN LIGHTS. This is in their job description and they completely messed it up.

That is all.

In my eagerness to travel more and see more of what the United States has to offer, I went on a lighthouse tour. It was my grandmother’s idea but it sounded like such an interesting one that I agreed with the plans.

We drove to Lake Erie and saw some amazing houses and almost missed the first lighthouse. It is a small replica of the original that used to sit on the water. We heard the history and were even told a ghost story which I thought was awesome. I don’t think I have ever heard a ghost story from the lips of the person who saw the ghost.

After hearing that all the lighthouses looked the same, we weren’t quite sure if we should continue on our journey. We drove a little ways to the next one and thankfully it was bigger than the first but also closed for some reason.

We checked into our hotel and left my dog Charlie to go to Put-In-Bay. I had been there before but this time was more leisurely than the last. After the thirty minute trip across water, we rented a golf cart and I got to drive it as I knew where everything was on the island. We went to lunch and enjoyed a drive, looking at the beautiful houses and enjoying the sunshine.

As we got ready to make the return trip, the OSU game started and everyone stopped to listen to the singing of the National Anthem. It was strangely comforting that even a couple hours away, people were bringing home to us. We returned to the hotel and fell asleep, exhausted from a day out in the sun.

We only got to see two lighthouses but I still enjoyed myself and I would have to say that my favorite part was looking at all the beautiful houses and spending quality time with my grandmother.

My grandmother is a HUGE Luke Bryan fan. He is her main man and the singer she always listens to and has every one of his CD’s. That being said, she will go wherever she has to in order to see him in concert.

This year he was doing a concert in Ohio for the Farmland Tour. My grandmother is eighty-three and therefore can’t really go alone so I went with her. She is handicapped and allowed to bring me along in the ADA line because I help her and I’m her family. Let me tell you, I am so glad she did not buy VIP tickets because they wouldn’t have been worth it.

Our line was let through the gates even before the VIP line and we had our own section with a special handicap porta-potty. We got to bring chairs and sit down and we were pretty close to the stage. The VIP’s had to stand because they were so close to the stage. After the workers let all the VIP ticket holders through, they started letting general admission fill up the spaces that the VIP’s couldn’t.

We had a great night, I had a couple drinks and so did most of the singers, even Luke Bryan who at one point came out with a shot of tequila and then later, a whole ass margarita. One of the acts, Riley Green was so freaking fine and he had a great voice as well.

Throughout the evening, people who weren’t handicap or family, were using the bathroom and someone complained so security started monitoring it but unfortunately, someone went number three (to spare you the details) and completely missed the giant hole that is the toilet. The rest of the night people were forced to either maneuver their legs or walk all the way to the front.

The concert went from five o’clock to around ten o’clock and it was a hassle getting out of there. We had to be one of the very last people making our way to the car because my grandmother can’t walk very fast and had to take breaks. We did get offered a beer by a friendly gentleman who made Grandma blush when he called her my sister.

I ended up falling asleep and we didn’t get out of the field until twelve fifty-seven. We got a little lost on the way home but we didn’t have anywhere to be. We had a great time and I loved the atmosphere but I will not be doing it again. Grandma will have to pick one of my siblings next time.

I had to go to Speedway to get gas and while I was there I peeked down the candy aisle and found some goodies.

Ruffles Ridge Twists Double Cheddar- These are Fritos BBQ twists meet Cheetos Puffs and they are pretty good, almost like a Cheez-It in taste.

Cherry Sour Patch Kids

Fantasy HI-CHEW (Rainbow Sherbet, Blue Hawaii, Blue Raspberry)- These are absolutely delicious and I’m going to have to buy more.

VOODOO Mountain Dew

Warheads Galactic Mix (Cosmic Punch, Rocket Raspberry)

Doritos Tangy Tamarind

Keep a look out and see if you like these treats!