Book Review – Beguiled by Deeanne Gist and J. Mark Bertrand

I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect with this book… it’s written as a collaboration between two authors, I’ve never read anything by either of them, and I tend to think co-authored fiction sometimes ends up feeling too forced, with characters that have no depth.  However, I was pleasantly surprised with this book.
Rylee is a dog-walker for elite homeowners in Charleston.  (I love reading books set in Charleston, and this is what drew me to this book in the first place).  A mystery surrounds the area she works in – a “Robin Hood” type thief is stealing items from the homes of Rylee’s clients.  Eventually she becomes the prime suspect. 
However, there’s more to the robberies than meets the eye, and there’s more to Rylee’s past than she’s aware of.   The robberies and her childhood memories are intriguingly intertwined.
And there’s a little chemistry going on between Rylee and Logan, the lead investigative reporter for the case.  (Really, with names like Rylee and Logan you just know something’s going to happen, right?)  They aren’t sure  they can trust one another, yet they are drawn to each other and eventually work together to find the answers they are looking for.
I have to say, I guessed the antagonist extremely early on in the book, but this didn’t keep me from enjoying the chase and how Rylee and Logan solved the mystery.  The book was well written, and definitely kept me turning the pages with it’s fast-paced action scenes. 
Thank you to Bethany House Publishers for giving me a free copy of this book to review.

The Art Box – April 5, 2010

 
In the Art Box last week:  Easter cardstock shapes, glitter, pom-poms, buttons, markers, paints, glue, glitter pens, foam, watercolor paints, various papers, dot painters, markers.

M saw the glitter right away and was beside himself with joy.  Why does something super-fun have to equal super-messy?   We are still finding glitter everywhere.  I put the Easter shapes on an old pan to lessen the mess (or so I thought), and he started with the glue and glitterized them. :) 
I had included other things that I hoped he would also use to decorate these, but he was only interested in the glitter.  As you can see, one lucky bunny did get a pom-pom tail. :)  I punched holes in these and made a garland for his bedroom door:

I found a pack of small glitter pens in the Target dollar spot a few weeks ago and he loves them.  (I secretly can’t wait till he’s a teenager and I can tell his girlfriends how he loves sparkly, pretty things. Hee hee.)  An added bonus – they are scented!  Mmmm… very yummy!  He made very detailed pictures and every little thing was intentional and had a name.  I’m really finding this drawing phase quite interesting.  There were around 10 papers, all very similar to this one:

And here’s an easel drawing… a spider web!

He loves cutting foam, but he knows tiny pieces of it lying around drive me nuts, so he half-heartedly made these collages:

He found a rock outside one day and had to paint it (it’s on wax paper):

He’s taken to painting pictures from coloring books lately.  I hope this doesn’t mean the end of his free-art paintings that I just adore!  He was very proud of these though:

Halfway through the week I added small trucks and some dinosaurs to his box and he loved using them to make tracks:
Have some children’s artwork you’d like to share?  Link it up below, and make sure to include a link back here in your blog post! 

Have a beautiful day! :)