Ann's Blog
Ann McCauley is a Pennsylvania women's literature author, who wrote the books Runaway Grandma and Mother Love, both available for sale at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
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March 2019
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03/30/19
Hello Spring!
Filed under: General
Posted by: Ann @ 5:26 pm
Wow, what a month, just when I thought we were about as busy as we could be, life became even more hectic. But it has been mostly good busy. I can’t help feeling light and free as we’ve watched the snow melt away and the grass, begin to turn green after another long winter.
We’ve had wonderful family visits, mostly short and sweet, but we take what we can get from our grandchildren who  seem to be growing up way too fast. They’re all healthy and involved with their own pursuits to obtain their individual educational and vocational goals. I am so glad we have the great grandchildren, they are all adorable, fun, and did I mention active?!
We binge-watched the first season of Jack Ryan. It wasn’t ‘24‘, but after the first couple episodes we were hooked. We are looking forward to watching the new season.  We are learning to stream our shows, (I know if any young folks are reading this, you are thinking, ‘what’s to learn?’ Trust me, for those of us who grew up without the internet and all this technology, there is!  We also watched Hope and Glory, from Netflicks. It was a good, older movie, nominated for academy awards in 1987. A WW2 movie, told through the eyes of a 9 year old British boy. A really sweet movie, despite the bombings and the devastation of war.
I have read even more than usual this month, but the list is not long: In For a Penny, by Kathryn Wall, Fiction/murder mystery. I read this novel several years ago and had forgotten much of it, I love her writing, plots and characters, always takes place in Beaufort/Hilton Head areas of SC. I have her next one already started for next month. Good books!
The 50 State Border Crisis, How the Mexican Border Fuels the Drug Epidemic Across America, by Howard G Buffett. (Yes, he’s a son of Warren Buffett), Nonfiction. It is an eye-opening, myth-busting new perspective on the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border. Buffett takes readers to the rugged terrain of the Arizona and Texas border country, where the daily heartbreak of the drug smuggling and illegal migrant crossings sets in motion the impact of a complicated situation with no easy answers. I believe all Americans should read this book…including, or maybe most of all our politicians of every rank and party affiliation
 I have spent countless hours reading my husband’s impressive and wonderful memoir this week, The Man From Baghdad. I finally returned it to the editor this week, He selected the photos to be included, and we are on the home stretch now. I hope we can move through the last steps of the process and have it printed before the end of April. 
And earlier in the month I was deeply involved with multi-read throughs of my new novel: Mother Love, Willow Lane, Book Two. My editor did a wonderful job. I must say I’m a fan of the writer of this book, I’m very happy with the results of all my efforts! 
Brief Synopsis: 
By age 52, Barbara Malone had endured bad marriage, raised four children and then lost her husband to a sudden heart attack. She shocks her family, friends and neighbors on Willow Lane with her decision to join the Peace Corps. This sets in motion an intense story of family ties that are threatened by distance, doubt and antagonism. 
It is a parallel story of her family back home in Lewiston. Pa. and her new unpredictable one in Central America. Honduras proves to be a challenging adventure as she balances drug-running rebels, corrupt military officers and the peace-loving villagers caught in the middle. Her life in the mountain village, where phone service is sporadic and electricity a rare luxury, proves to be exciting though exhausting. Barbara grows to love her work with the Hondurans and a dash of romance helps her feel more alive than she has felt in years. But after a short visit stateside, she realizes Willow Lane no longer feels like home and she o wonders where she really belongs.
It is available at the other online sites:
  
https://play.playster.com/books/10009780999341520/mother-love-ann-mccauley

 https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1383955346

 https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/mother-love-ann-mccauley/1102345740?ean=2940155609674

 https://www.amazon.com/Mother-Love-Willow-Lane-Book/dp/1797891359/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Mother+Love%2C+willow+Lane+%2Cbook+two+by+ann+mccauley

 https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/mother-love-8

 It has been a busy time indeed!
Till next time, keep reading my friends…
Later, Ann 
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03/07/19
And the rest of the February blog…
Filed under: General
Posted by: Ann @ 3:07 pm
Frustration! That’s the name of my game these days. A friend recently told me she admired my tenacity, that a normal person would have given up this writing business long ago. Not that there haven’t been days where thoughts of quitting have floated through my mind… But on the other hand, I am committed and truly enjoy the art of creating sentences and  paragraphs that build my stories. It’s the publishing and promoting part that wears me down!
We are still in a deep freeze mode in northwest Pennsylvania. Yesterday a delivery truck was stuck in our driveway, it always drifts badly with the wind, and we had snow flurries all day with lots of cold wind. That’s why I always use winter tires.
Some good books I have read recently are: 
Beach Music by Pat Conroy, Fiction, 1994. Excellent novel. He was a master storyteller. It was our book club’s choice for last month. (Great book discussion!) I read it more than twenty years ago; I got so much more out of it this time than I did my first reading.
My Exaggerated Life, Pat Conroy, by Katherine Clark. Biography, 2018. Mandatory reading for all Pat Conroy fans, his only authorized biography. It reads like a wonderful novel. You won’t be sorry to read this one, and you may be sorry if you don’t!   

The Tilted World by Tom Franklin and Beth Ann Fennelly. Historical Fiction. 2013. The first collaboration from a very talented husband-wife writing team. It is our book club choice for March, also Bradford’s community read for this year. Author Beth will be at our  university in March to read from their novel. It started a bit slow, but soon became a page-turner with unforgettable characters and a chillingly suspenseful plot. Dealt with the greatest national disaster in the history of the USA, the 1927 floods of the Mississippi River. I highly recommend this one!
A Force of Nature by Jane Harper. Fiction. 2017. Another great suspenseful novel from Australia with well developed characters and a that plot keeps the reader guessing until the end. It is another mystery with Federal Agent Aaron Falk investigating the disappearance of a colleague. I also highly recommend this book.

Jordan Point and St John’s Folly by Kathryn R. Wall, the last two novels in the Bay Tanner series. Library Journal stated: “Sue Grafton, Sara Paretsky, and Marcia Muller come to mind as the quintessential writers of the modern female private eye novel. Wall, in her quiet and unassuming way, has produced a body of work of equal quality. Highly recommended.”  Kathryn Wall has stopped writing. I bought the entire set of her novels and proudly displayed them on my book case. I hope to meet her on a future trip to Hilton Head. BUT you don’t have to be familiar with Hilton Head to enjoy her books. She is a masterful story teller.

 Movies we enjoyed: 
Iron Jawed Angels staring Hilary Swank, 2014. My book club watched this movie after discussing Sisters, the Lives of America’s Suffragists by Jean H. Baker, (Nonficiton.), at the January meeting. We were in Hilton Head and I missed the  meeting, but watched the movie twice after we came home. It was an excellent supplement for Sisters.We’ve all heard of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. But there were so many others  who were equally committed to getting the votes for women, such as Lucy Stone, Frances Willard and Alice Paul. This movie followed the life and sacrifice of Alice Paul. Great book and great movie!

Florence Nightingale, starring Jacqueline Smith. A wonderful depiction of the sacrifice and suffering Miss Nightingale suffered in her commitment to bringing nursing care into the realm of respect and good medicine. Another great movie. 
That’s all for now. Till next time, keep reading my friends.
Ann
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