elderberrywine – Cannonball Read 17

A Wonderful Winter’s Tale

The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo

November 20, 2025 by elderberrywine Leave a Comment

Foxes are foxes, to be sure, but they can also present themselves as humans. They tend to be beautiful or handsome, and humans in their presence can become somewhat confused about what just happened. Some are tricksters by nature, while others are quite serious. And many just enjoy living among humans. Snow is not one of the later. She is out for revenge. She had left her child, curled up in a barrow in the snow while she went hunting, and while she was gone, […]

So Apartheid South Africa Was Way More Complicated than Black vs White

Let the Dead Lie by Malla Nunn

November 17, 2025 by elderberrywine Leave a Comment

So we are back in the newly segregated apartheid version of South Africa, as formed in the 1950s. Detective Emmanuel Cooper has had to revert from his former status as WWII vet and (most importantly) white person, to mixed race instead. But Major van Niekerk (white Afrikaner) has a need for him and his partner and friend, the Zulu Detective Constable Samuel Shabalala, tracker extraordinaire. A poor young white boy, Jolly Marks, had been found in the port town of Durban, South Africa, near the […]

Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair

Sun City by Tove Jansson

November 11, 2025 by elderberrywine Leave a Comment

Veering far afield from her native Finland, Jansson (of Moomin fame) writes of the denizens of St. Petersburg, Florida, and its retirement community. They live in retirement hotels, within walking distance of the piers and parks, not to mention the Bounty. Built as a full-scale replica for the 1962 movie Mutiny on the Bounty, it served as a tourist attraction connected with the St. Petersburg Museum of History from the mid-60s through the mid-80s, and its masts are easily viewed from the porches and verandas […]

Mankiller Coyotes? C’mon now.

The Precipice by Paul Doiron

November 7, 2025 by elderberrywine Leave a Comment

So this latest installment of Mike Bowditch, Maine Game Warden, unexpectedly hit home for me. The featured animal was not the usual moose, wolf, elk, or deer, but rather the coyote. Friends, I live in coyote country (actually, most US residents do). But they have been my neighbors most of my life. I live in Southern California in a suburban area that directly backs into National Forest land. Not to mention that directly behind my back wall is a heavily brushy hill, with a couple […]

The Hardest Loss of All

Messenger of Truth by Jacqueline Winspear

November 5, 2025 by elderberrywine Leave a Comment

In this book, the fourth in the Maisie Dobbs series, Maisie is asked to investigate the death of an old school acquaintance’s twin brother. Nick Basington-Hope was a controversial artist and a veteran of the recent Great War, as is Maisie. He had been keeping his work from the view of others due to its controversial content, but had just arranged for a grand showing. Some of the pieces were quite large, and apparently, as he was installing them on his own on a landing, […]

Damn She Was Good.

Ready for My Close Up: The Making of Sunset Boulevard and the Dark Side of the Hollywood Dream by David M. Lubin

October 20, 2025 by elderberrywine Leave a Comment

Huge fan of old school classical movies here, and fellow aficionados will immediately recognize this film from the first five words of the title alone. Yes, of course, Sunset Boulevard. (Rod Taylor Twilight Zone voice) Picture, if you will, a moldering Hollywood mansion. With a pool. And in that pool, the fully clothed body of a young man serenely floats.) That young man is Joe Gillis, played by William Holden, and that mansion belongs to Norma Desmond, as played by the unforgettable Gloria Swanson. This […]

Zirza on A Gothic Classic for a ReasonIt's one of those wish-you-could-read-it-again-for-the-first-time books. I loved it.
Emmalita on “It came to something when you found yourself hoping that the footsteps you heard were ghosts.”I loved the ending! I don’t think it’s been out long enough to talk about why though.
Dixie on Track Her Down by Melinda LeighI am just starting Track Her Down and I have read them all in order till now and thought I...
Roland of Gilead on How can you give us the gift of a crazy character named Rando Thoughtful and then just as suddenly take that gift away? We need to talk, Uncle Stevie.I came across this randomly years after it was written because I was searching "Random Thoughtful. But I have the...
Emmalita on “Only you, Em, would refer to heartbreak as a distraction. I think I would have a more sympathetic response if I asked to marry a bookcase.”Oh my goodness, Gallifrey was beautiful. I’m sure her mittens were gloriously murdery.

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