Gail > Recent Status Updates

Holy moly-- less than an hour to get from Manhattan to Connecticut?? Mind. Blown. It takes More than an hour to get just from downtown Houston to my house on Galveston Island, and that's keeping up with all the people speeding on the Gulf Freeway!

I just bought this book, and the type is GREEN and it's in Italic!!! And I Can't Change It!! I have vision issues. The Green font is a problem and so is the italic! I can read it okay for a short scene or two, but the whole damn book is in this stupid, nasty, blasted, benighted (to use one of Burrowes's favorite words) font. I will struggle. I am pissed off. Grrrrr!

Lightning comes first, then thunder. Not the other way around. Light is faster than sound.

I have the print enlarged, so p. 345 of 563. So, Houston has a suburb called Pasadena, just like LA. A person who lives in Houston would differentiate the Pasadenas, because they could be at the one close to Johnson Space Center. A blue collar place, not ritzy.

Hmm. Moonglow Cove is on the Texas coast SW of Houston. (Sounds like the Palacios area) Anyway, Daffodils bloom in early January in Galveston. Regular daffodils won't grow; only the smaller jonquils and narcissus. Just saying.

The dog show in this book seems to have nothing whatsoever to do with real dog shows. The AKC shows do not have an obedience training requirement, and the agility/ obedience contests have nothing to do with dog beauty. I'm not sure my disbelief can stretch this far.

From Leadville, CO, to Killeen, TX, you will be driving more than eight hours just through Texas, unless you're going faster than the speed limit. Like a bat out of hell, in fact. Killeen is at least 10 hours from the border in the Panhandle and more like 12, counting time to stop for gas, potties and meals. I've driven it many times. I know.

Guinea pigs do not have 5 babies at a time. They have, at most, two. Furry and ready to run.

Good story. But... the heroine is apparently an artist in oils. And yet, at her painting class, she sticks her brush in a jar of water. Water is used only for watercolors, which aren’t generally used for portraits. Oil and water don’t mix.

Being a person with (formerly) dark hair and fair (beige) skin (aka a "winter") I can say this dark-haired heroine will indeed look good in jewel tones like red and royal blue and rose pink, but white and very pale colors will also look very good on her, because she has enough color to herself not to wash her out. What looks bad are brown, yellow and orange.

Heroine receives hibiscus flowers, those tropical flowers that stick their tongues out. Most bright tropical flowers do not have much in the way of a scent. This includes hibiscus. They just don't smell. It's hard to research flowers that don't bloom where you live. They're very woody as well.

Finished Part 1. All the footnotes in an ebook are making it kinda rough going. But I'll keep on!

I live next door to LA, but even so, I know a parish is the equivalent to a county, and a mayor has little to nothing to do with parish govt. So it's annoying to see a mayor dealing with parish funds. Doesn't work that way.

Just starting. My mama's name was Celia. I'm already favorably inclined.

I'm sorry Ms. Rochon, August is the hottest month of the year in Texas. It's sweltering, and Austin is no exception. A cold snap in August, which never happens, just means the temps drop into the low 90s. Or the high 80s, if it's really cold. No sweaters until November or so. No way in hell.

So, Josh has gone to sit outside because the drizzle has stopped. And he doesn’t take a towel or something to wipe off the chaise. When he sits, without wiping the drizzle off, he’s going to get a wet butt and back. But no mention.

First story is set in Cedar Park, Texas, where I have family. Issue: Texas cedars make TERRIBLE Christmas trees. They're not actually cedar, but juniper and at least 50% of the population are allergic to them, both to the smell and touch. Some so much that they leave the state during cedar pollen season. Which is in winter. Tree farms in Texas don't grow cedars.

Texas reference: there is nowhere in the US that can possibly have heavier, wetter air than Houston. Except maybe New Orleans, and this story is not set in NOLA.

This author does the most fabulous sound effects! Coffee makers go ffft-fffft-fffft, which is exactly what it sounds like. Noisy windshield wipers go whappety-konk! I love it.

Okay, apparently the author has never been to Galveston, TX. I live in Galveston. Not a BOI (born on the island) but a long time. There are no 16 story buildings on Galveston, except for the insurance building downtown. City rules keep them to 15 stories, max. The Hotel Galvez, on Seawall, is the most haunted hotel in the city and it’s less than 10 stories. It’s white. And not downtown.

So, Texas quibbles again. Hero lives in San Antonio. Heroine lives in East Texas, 3 hours away. Problem is, 3 hours due East in I-10 gets you in to Houston. Not really East Texas. That’s north or east of Houston. Needs to be at least 4 hours away. Also a small town as small as she’s describing would not have a yoga studio, OR a dance studio. She’d need to be at least in a Huntsville sized town... ugh.

Texas complaint. The hero is driving from Houston to Iowa, and the author has him stopping "around midday" to make a phone call. This would still be in Texas, since it's 9/11 and he's driving north after watching the plane crash. And he stares out at the "Texas desert." Obviously Reid has never driven from Houston to anywhere. There is no desert anywhere Near Houston. Swamps & pine trees, yes. No desert.

It's 24 hours of audio! I didn't get through it all in 2 weeks!

Having lived in Texas for almost 50 years now, I like to figure out where fictional towns might be located. This book threw me, because there is an actual Moses Lake just up the road in Texas City, which is right on Galveston Bay. However, from other clues, and having met Wingate, now I'm thinking Moses Lake is where I lived for 20 years. Don't remember any church ladies who would give that kind of advice...

When using a plural possessive, both persons doing the possessing need to be in the possessive form. It is not "John and my house," it is Always "John's and my house." Or "the car was hers and Michael's." Ashley has the very bad practice of writing "Frey and my horse," instead of the correct "Frey's and my horse." And it has become annoying.

Where by the ocean does the temperature drop 20 degrees at night? Water evens out temps. Especially in warm climates like Florida. If the temperature drops as much as 10 degrees overnight, that's a lot. I live 1/2 mile from the Gulf Coast. I know. Average overnight drop is 6 or 7 degrees. Things to know.

Trying to pinpoint where in Texas this is set-- within a region anyway. Had moved it out of West Texas but no more, until it mentioned Refugio (pronounced Re-fyoor-eeo, don't know why) being a couple hours away. That puts it south of Houston, probably on the coastal plain. Maybe in the Victoria or Wharton area. Okay.

Others have probably commented, but a far easier way to make the big bucks in a stock panic than "buy low, sell high" is to sell short. It's how a few guys made mega-bucks on the mortgage securities crash back in '07-'08. I can't decide why Robb didn't use shorting the stocks, because Rourke would certainly know how. Maybe she thought it was too complicated to try to explain in the book? Dunno. But it's weird to me.

Texans call the Interstate a freeway, not an expressway. Also, I-45 runs Only from Dallas to Galveston. It picks up on the southeast side of Dallas.