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5 National Parks Nevada Barr's Anna Pigeon Books Got Me Scared Of

My summer of reading Nevada Barr’s Anna Pigeon park ranger mystery series continues.  I’m currently halfway through book #14, Winter Study.  If the title doesn’t give away any hints, the story takes place in Isle Royale during the winter season.  Between October and May the park shuts down to tourist.  This allows fifty-plus years of research to continue, regarding the study of the moose/wolf activity surrounding the island.  And that’s a dollop of information best left to experts and the internet to explain to you.  I could break the research down–coming from what's given to me via the book.  However, it would appear as weak as pre-generic Dollar Store coffee.  So with one operational gear of Winter Study aside, my issue is that the book takes place in fiercely below freezing terrain.  Terrain chillingly described within Barr's juggle of metaphors (lots of movie references in this one) and icy prose.  So far as my reading, Barr's Anna Pigeon has slept in this literary blizzard outside in a tent!  A tent which found her and her team under attack by an unidentified creature.  (Similar to what happened in Blood Lure, if you're familiar with the series.)  However, as of where I stand, the team believes it’s a mutated wolf of some sort.  So I must keep reading to see.  

Anna has also skidded across a froze Siskiwit Lake while setting up wolf traps, apropos the research.  And, as such elementally-heavy mystery books go, she immediately found herself thrown over into the icy waters to nearly drown.  What else crazy happened?  Oh, the team has to collect snow for water; an interesting nugget of information mentioned that quickly boiled snow is actually bad for you.  I never would've known.  Also, Anna and the team spend a day dissecting a wolf and examining moose body parts.  Cool but grizzly by way of Barr's description of rotting flesh and bloody innards.  

There's just a slew of craziness taking place in Winter Study.  But because a murder hasn’t happened yet (except for a couple of moose and a fallen wolf), I got a feeling the story is about to get crazier.  Like, Jason Voorhees level crazy!  Especially as ice and cabin fever sits in.

Yet, this is precisely why I enjoy this series; Anna’s always in some crazy-ass situations.  And it's in these situations where she has to think her way out, before she gets the ax.

So before I run off to fix a cup of coffee and throw myself into Winter Study, I want to share a few of the national parks Anna Pigeon has got my ass scared to go to!  In order from least scary to MOST!  But, being the nature lover that I tend to be, this listed is for fun.  So of course I’m not serious, because all I've wanted to do since reading these books is start a GoFundMe to see if I can tour all Anna's spots.

So the list goes...

GUEST POST: The Unwanted (Black Water Tales Book 2) by Jean Nicole Rivers

JNR Publishing Presents

The Unwanted (Black Water Tales Book 2) 
by Jean Nicole Rivers

Title: The Unwanted (Black Water Tales Book 2)

Author: Jean Nicole Rivers
Publisher: JNR Publishing

Genre: New Adult Horror & Psychological Thriller

Length: 306

Release Date: OUT NOW (Ebook & Paperback)

ISBN: 978-0692549926
Synopsis:  In the remote, eastern European town of Borslav there is St. Sebastian orphanage, a place where people discard their unwanted children. For the American, Blaire Baker, it’s the perfect place to volunteer her services. Paired with a cheerful volunteer nurse, Blaire is enthusiastic about the possibilities, but is quickly discouraged when she encounters the nefarious nature of the staff and the deplorable conditions of the facility and the children.

Upon arrival, one of the children informs Blaire, “There’s something in the basement.” It isn’t long before strange things begin happening, including Blaire’s flashbacks of the accident that killed her parents. The children soon suffer injuries that Blaire, first, fears may be the deeds of the callous workers but she soon thinks the abuse may originate from a source that is less than human, something unwanted. 

The unwanted is coming but in order for Blaire to fight it, she must dig into St. Sebastian and herself in search of truth. Blaire wants nothing more than to help the children, but when she discovers the tragedy that happened in the basement and learns that the same evil forces are still at work, it will be Blaire who needs help…There’s something in the basement.

5 English Degree Goals (Unless You Missed Like I Did)

The title says it all; but just a little backstory to its conception.  I remember talking to an old coworker about blogging–but without sharing my particular interests and activities doing so.  As I’ve stated before, you must be discerning about who you share your ideas with.  Anyway, the conversation was about how it's possible to support yourself blogging, if vigilant.  Or how blogging came make you at least enough to build an extra income outside of working a 9-5. Combining your interest/passions with a solid monetization strategy–BOOM.  Interesting stuff to talk about at the workplace, right?  

Well, most of my expressed ideas fell on moot ears.  Abandoning the conversation, I started thinking about the paths we take in life.  Specifically, the detours we take when stumbling through brush and granite toward our life goals.  Then my English major years in college bubbled up in thought, as well as how I tumbled out of its expectations.  And while my expectations fell apart along the quest, these days I’m kind of already doing what I wanted to do.  Granted it's super-super small scaled, independent, flooded, and removed of any foreseeable safety nets.  But it's all about the tethered-less joy of expressing oneself through words and language (and drawing and talking life).  And, ever so naturally, reading.  Yet, let’s be real, you usually get degrees to get hired off somewhere.  Personal Flaw: I'm known for blowing interviews by being too honest when asked questions anyway.

Anyhow, just as I reflected on those years scratching around campus looking for the meaning of life through words and language, the idea for this post emerged.  Let's talk about five career paths one could get hired on with an English Degree.

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1.       TEACHER.  Ever notice when telling people you're majoring in English the first thing they ask is will you teach?  Of course the question comes after their gaping expression for your choice in majors. Anyway, most of us are all too familiar with this type of scenario.  We know it too, too well.  It’s a conversation we generally try to avoid with those outside of liberal arts.  For me, when asked will I teach, I would sometimes respond with a “kinda-sorta”.  Then I'd attempt to sedge out of the conversation to avoid an approaching sermon.  Sometimes I could see judgment in the eyes, and would rather risk eating a dish of cassava than share dreams of becoming a crime fiction writer.  I was always pretty tactful, but mainly because I grow exhausted explaining myself about anything.  

Nonetheless, the perceived inadequacies some people place on the major is rampant.  We hear it all the time dripping in a conversation, as we sub-speak and hint-dodge around how we’ll "pay the bills reading books."  I guess this is why so many think the default profession for an English major is teaching.  It’s almost as if the teacher path is the most rational way to go, and more or less income stimulating.  This path gets the compassion of receiving a little security and safety, and with less starving artist anecdotes.  Even if teaching appears as the English major’s default, it’s a needed path.  And it has its own challenges and rewards for the passionate leader.  Because that's what it takes–a leader.

While We're on the Subject of L. A. Banks...

I miss this lady.  Still can't believe she's gone.  But I really want to reiterate the magnitude of her work by sharing one of my favorite interviews with her.  Especially as a black female author writing sci-fi and fantasy novels.

L. A. Banks on Amazon!

Dealing with a Book Snob, Per Phaedra Parks

Now I don’t get into bookmanship (just made that up) debates with people often.  Without preamble, I know I have one of those oozing “ain’t no way you can tell me what to do” attitudes.  And it bubbles up especially when someone tries to talk down to me with their angle on the front line.  The memo goes: you can never tell an Aquarius what to do, think, sniff, or taste without opposition.  (Taurus and Scorpios are not to be trifled with as well.)  So that kind of spares me from having to tangle with another’s judgment of my reading choices.  It also serves  to the opposite effect of the wielder.  Nevertheless, with one life in hand, I’m old school and willing to shoot from the hip if admonished about what sits on my nightstand.  

But sometimes the energy between two readers sharing what they’ve read comes vibrating with silent judgments.  Naturally, as a close acquaintance to the often considered “fourth tier” mystery genre, my antennae has caught such in the past.  So I know when a little shade is thrown my way, and will handle it in whatever degree it is given.

But anyway, there’s always been this despairing conversation between literary fiction and commercial fiction.  Literature versus genre fiction.  YA versus adult books.  Read only books written by this group of people; or that.  Hell, physical book versus e-readers is in there as well.  It’s almost par the course for us bookworms.  I blame the once elitist aura books and reading had (and generated) centuries ago.  You know, when only Anglo men could be accounted for constructing what was in and what was not.  But digressing to the present; sometimes, when caught in defending your reading choices, you just got to let a judgmental snob know what time it is.  "Time" as in you don't have it for his or her shit.

And here lies “Dealing with a Book Snob.  Per Phaedra Parks.”

The Snob Who Thinks He Should School You

Now here's one thing I can’t stand.  You ever run into someone so high on their own reading fumes that he or she tries to tell you to ingest their opinion/perception of a particular book over your own? Furthermore, finding him or herself getting enraged because you continue to contest their view upon their pressure to convert?  And even furthermore, begins to take the matters personally by attacking you and your intelligence?

Chile, remind this person God gave you two good eyes, a couple of ears, and enough brain power to think for yourself–just as they supposedly have.  (I say "supposedly" because some folks follow the literary criticisms of critics to shape their thoughts.)

Backroom Susan Too

Snoopy me was listening to a volunteer library worker sighing in the backroom of their used bookstore.  She had the door parted, and I glanced up and saw these two puppies sitting high on a shelf.  As the other two workers–men who held in their sighs with the recently trucked six boxes of donated books–cleared out of the stockroom to stock shelves, I stage whispered to the agitated woman could I step inside.  (Hell, I almost wished she asked me to help so I could peek through what was in the back.)  However, it wasn’t until the fourth, raised hissed that I got her attention.  I asked could I step inside and take a look at what was in back stock, but immediately went to these hardback Susan Wittig Albert books; as a part of Albert’s China Bayle series.

I'd already did my routine search around what was out front and found nothing.  But why, oh why do they always keep the good stuff in the backrooms?

Anyway, Bloodroot is China Bayles #10.  In this entry China goes back to Mississippi to confront, or uproot (heh), pieces of her past.  I’m almost certain her recovering alcoholic mother, Leatha, will be in the mix.

A Dilly of a Death is Bayles #12.  While there’s much more to the synopsis, this has the queen of a pickle festival (remember, these books take place in Texas) disappearing.  Rumor has it she sold her business and dashed.  Other rumors point to her missing boyfriend.

I just want to read the damn book and see.

I got a lot of ground to cover before I get to these entries.  Still I felt for a $1.50 apiece, I could hold them in stock for myself instead.

Problem solved.  And now they have a little more back stock room.  (Lowkey: not really.  That room was a mess!)