We’re back from our long weekend at Long Point provincial park, on the shores of Lake Erie.

It was the most interesting experience, to say the least.

We arrived in the midst of a rain storm. I took this picture from inside the van, while waiting outside the park office for Ward to get us registered. Yes, I stayed nice and dry.

But that wouldn’t last!

You know the expression, “the rain was coming down in buckets”? That is a very apt description of the weather at the time.

So we pulled onto our site and waited until the buckets were set upright again.

That’s the thing with Ontario rain storms. There’s a lot of water involved, but it hardly ever rains for extremely long periods of time. Unlike Vancouver, where I grew up – there, the rain is more like an everlasting drizzle, rather like living in mist all the time.

When the rain stopped going “whoosh” and “splotch, splotch, splotch”, and became more of a gentle pitter patter, we began setting up our tent.

I actually found this fun. But then again (maybe due to growing up in Vancouver), I like being out in the rain.

We got all wet, but it was quite enjoyable. (At least, I enjoyed it. I’m not so sure my husband did.)

The rain stopped midway through our setting up. All the camping pictures are from my iPhone, so they’re not great quality – you can’t read the sign above, but it’s the one that warns there are no lifeguards so parents are responsible for their children.

The beach was literally less than a minute away.

I loved that! At night, we could hear the pounding of the surf. The only downside was the comfort station being farther away than I’d like. There is, I have decided, an optimal distance to a comfort station while camping – not too close, but most certainly, not too far. We discovered that cutting across the beach made the walk almost (but not quite) close enough.

The skies started clearing (it was only mid-afternoon by then), and we headed out to the beach.

There was a lovely wind blowing (because, you see, there were severe thunderstorm warnings in effect for the evening).

Wind + camping = NO BUGS.

I really enjoyed our first night there.

The most lovely thing happened that evening. Mother Nature put on a gorgeous lightning show. We all stood on the beach and watched as light flashed from far across the horizon over Lake Erie. It was absolutely breathtaking. I managed to video some of the event, but I wasn’t quick enough to catch any stills. Here’s what the skies looked like from the beach:

We stood watching the lightning show until it got very dark and started raining. That night, heavy winds with a smattering of rain fell on the campsite. It was an incredible experience, lying in the slightly-shaking tent, the window flaps down, listening to the wind and the surf.

Day One: Very enjoyable.

Day Two began with more rain; there was another rain storm mid-afternoon, and then it cleared up and became beautifully warm and sunny.

Unfortunately, that meant very little wind.

Very little wind + camping = BUGS.

Biting ones.

I collected an assortment of bites, and as soon as it got dark, I retreated into the tent and read the evening away. It was okay, but not ideal.

Day Two: Not as enjoyable.

The weather forecasters had predicted that the series of thunderstorms would result in the “perfect day” on Day Three. But we woke up to a downpour again. Which was okay with me (because, you know, NO BUGS), but by then, I’d had the perfect amount of camping experience. Enough to last me for the next little while, anyway.

Since we couldn’t cook over the campfire, we headed out to the nearby town and had breakfast. At the place we went to, we were handed a full page menu with the following choices: Breakfast.

So we decided on, um, breakfast. (I’m having a bit of fun here with this, but it was actually a very delicious breakfast, lack of choice aside: eggs, choice of bacon/ham/sausage, toast, hash browns, fairly decent coffee.)

The perfect day showed up by noon but we’d already decided to go, a day earlier than planned (which was, you might recall, already four days earlier than originally planned). So we took down our tent in the hot sun, and got the van all packed up.

Here’s when our camping trip got really good.

First, we stopped at the park office to let them know we were leaving, in case any last minute campers came by and needed a site (after all, it was booked through until Thursday).

They gave us a full refund for our unused days! We certainly hadn’t expected this.

Then, things got even better. On a whim, we called the Kettle Creek Inn, a deluxe inn we stayed at in Port Stanley, Ontario, about ten years ago, and managed to land a luxury suite on a last minute deal.

Perfection. Jacuzzi tub, gourmet dining, lovely soft bed.

We checked in, then walked down to the Main Beach. It was really hot, so when we got there, we slipped off our shoes, and splashed in the water. When it’s that hot, you don’t care that you’re getting your clothes all wet; it’s actually quite wonderful because you stay cool on your walk back!

The next day, after a nice breakfast (lots of choices), we took a ride on the Port Stanley train, which really thrilled our little resident train aficionado. After a very leisurely lunch, it was time to head back home. But by our calculations, leaving right then would have landed us in the midst of Toronto rush hour.

Not a good plan.

So we took a side tour into St. Thomas, to visit the Elgin County Railway Museum. And we got very lucky indeed. It turned out that A Day Out With Thomas took place this past weekend; over 15,000 people attended (most, I gather, being of the knee-high variety).

And guess who was outside the Elgin County Railway Museum, waiting to be stored?

Yep. Thomas the Tank Engine.

To say Dylan was thrilled is to put it mildly. Thomas wore a black face mask (for copyright reasons, apparently!), but that was okay. I doubt very much we would have gotten such great pictures if we’d gone to A Day Out With Thomas, along with the 15,000 other wee ones.

We also got to see a 4-6-4 Hudson steam locomotive, the No. 5700 (it actually started life as the 5703), and it was so impressive. I’m not a train fanatic, but standing there beside this massive piece of machinery was quite an experience. The historic feeling was almost palpable.

And I have a better feel for the allure of Steampunk as a result!

When we left, it was the perfect time, traffic-wise.

All in all, this is my idea of the ideal camping weekend: two nights in a tent on a beach, followed by four star accommodations!

Related posts:

1. Camping (Gulp …)
2. Camping … Or Should I Say, Writing and Reading
3. [TSS] More Beach Reads, Movies and Writing (Not Really)
4. Fabulous Reading Streak – Ending, or Just Beginning?

I’m hurrying to finish up an indexing deadline today, because tomorrow we are off on our camping trip!

I mentioned on Facebook that we are going with every car charger known to man, so hopefully the fact that the site doesn’t have an electrical outlet won’t be particularly bothersome. (I know, I know – electrical devices aren’t exactly roughing it, but I have never been a fan of roughing it).

A Writing Weekend!

My intention is to spend the next four days doing at least some writing. I’m bringing the first draft of my WIP, NANTUCKET, with me, and will be marking it up. I’m also planning to start writing a new WIP of mine, ELLA. (In case you’re wondering, my WIP names tend to be the first name of my MC – yes, very unoriginal, but at least I don’t spend ages agonizing what to call my WIP and can plunge right into the writing!)

The netbook is all charged, plus we bought a car charger in case it dies down, so I won’t have any excuses for not writing. I’m wondering whether the sand and beach environment will have a positive effect on my writing …

Books to Read on the Beach

Of course, a holiday isn’t a holiday without books, right? Since I’ve been pretty busy, I haven’t had much time to pick and choose, and there weren’t any new books that I felt like getting as an ebook (also, Kobo’s iPhone app, which I’ve been using, is kind of tricky – it allows offline reading on the one hand, but on the other hand, it requires Internet access first, before you can start reading (after which, true, you don’t need access), which kind of defeats the whole purpose of “offline reading”, if you ask me. And I’m not sure what kind of reception my phone will have on the shores of Lake Erie.).

So I swooped down to the library (well, not really – it was more like, I quickly scanned the paperbacks while my seven-year-old, Dylan, went through his selection of books, deciding which ones he wanted to take out this week).

Here’s what I’m taking with me:

Some Linwood Barclay books. I’ve been meaning to read Barclay’s novels for a while now. Back when I was still reading newspapers, Barclay’s humor column in the Toronto Star was a favorite of mine. I was pleased to discover a while back that he’s been writing mysteries and thrillers.

Too Close to Home:

In a quiet neighborhood, in the house next door, a family is brutally murdered for no apparent reason. You can’t help thinking, It could have been us. And you start to wonder: What if we’re next?

Promise Falls isn’t the kind of community where families are shot to death in their own homes. But how well did Jim and Ellen Cutter really know their neighbors—or the darker secrets of their small town? They don’t have to look further than their own marriage to know that things aren’t always what they seem. Now the Cutters and their son, Derek, must face the unthinkable: that a murderer isn’t just stalking too close to home…but is inside it already.

Fear the Worst:

Tim Blake is an average guy. He sells cars. He has an ex-wife who’s moved in with another man. It’s not a life without hassles, but nothing will prepare him for when his daughter, Sydney, vanishes into thin air.

At the hotel where she supposedly worked, no one has ever heard of her. Even her closest friends seem to be at a loss. As he retraces Sydney’s steps, Tim discovers that the suburban Connecticut town he always thought of as idyllic is anything but. What he doesn’t know is that his every move is being watched. There are others who want to find Sydney as much as Tim does. And the closer Tim comes to the truth, the closer he comes to every parent’s worst nightmare—and the kind of evil only a parent’s love has a chance in hell of stopping.

Lone Wolf:

Newspaper writer, family man, and reluctant hero Zack Walker has stumbled onto some dicey stories before, but nothing like what he’s about to uncover when a mutilated corpse is found at his father’s lakeside fishing camp. As always, Zack fears the worst. And this time, his paranoid worldview is dead-on.

While the locals attribute the death to a bear attack, Zack suspects something far more ominous—a predator whose weapons include arson, assault, and enough wacko beliefs to fuel a dozen hate groups. Then another body is discovered and a large supply of fertilizer goes missing, evoking memories of the Oklahoma City bombing. But it’s when he learns that his neighbor is a classic Lone Wolf—FBI parlance for a solo fanatic hell-bent on using high body counts to make political statements—that Zack realizes the idyllic town of his childhood is under siege. The fuse is lit to a catastrophe of unimaginable terror. And with time running out, Zack must face off with a madman.

A Stephen Booth Novel. I’ve been meaning to check out British novelist Stephen Booth’s mysteries, so when I saw Black Dog (his debut novel) at the library, I thought it might be a good one to start with.

Red Pyramid, by Rick Riordan. I saw Red Pyramid last month on a trip to Costco. It looked interesting. I haven’t yet read the Lightning Thief series yet (although I do own the entire set X 2 – don’t ask – and they’re all sitting on my TBR shelves). But I decided to put a request in at the library for Red Pyramid; it just came through, so I’m going to take it with me camping!

Since their mother’s death, Carter and Sadie have become near strangers. While Sadie has lived with her grandparents in London, her brother has traveled the world with their father, the brilliant Egyptologist, Dr. Julius Kane.
One night, Dr. Kane brings the siblings together for a “research experiment” at the British Museum, where he hopes to set things right for his family. Instead, he unleashes the Egyptian god Set, who banishes him to oblivion and forces the children to flee for their lives.

Soon, Sadie and Carter discover that the gods of Egypt are waking, and the worst of them–Set–has his sights on the Kanes. To stop him, the siblings embark on a dangerous journey across the globe–a quest that brings them ever closer to the truth about their family, and their links to a secret order that has existed since the time of the pharaohs.

And of course – Agatha Christie! I also picked up a copy of Agatha Christie’s At Bertram’s Hotel, as a “just in case” precautionary move; you know, just in case all the above turn out to be not quite my cup of tea. I’ll have something old and familiar to fall back on, right? And there’s something about cozying up to a Miss Marple mystery that fits with toasting marshmallows over an open fire …

When Miss Marple comes up from the country for a holiday in London, she finds what she’s looking for at Bertram’s Hotel: traditional decor, impeccable service – and an unmistakable atmosphere of danger behind the highly polished veneer.

Yet, not even Miss Marple can foresee the violent chain of events set in motion when an eccentric guest makes his way to the airport on the wrong day …

Let’s Not Forget Audio!

And for the drive there and back, my husband and I decided to purchase a headphone splitter so we can both listen to an audiobook on my iPod. Our choices?

Jonathan Kellerman’s Gone, Compulsion and Rage. These are all re-reads for me, but new for my husband.

A handful of BBC radio productions of Agatha Christie mysteries. These wonderful two-hour audios are really wonderful; last year I splurged and gifted myself this boxed set of Hercule Poirot’s Greatest Cases, so we have a lot of titles to choose from.

I also have a couple of new releases on hand. First up is Janet Evanovitch’s latest Stephanie Plum installment, Sizzling Sixteen. I don’t think I’ll ever read another Plum story in print again, but Lorelei King’s wonderful narrative abilities will keep me listening to each new novel. Evanovitch seems to have stopped with the plotting and/or mystery in her latest books, but she has a talent for a comedic turn of phrase, and with King at the audio helm, I suspect we will enjoy the book just for the dialogue.

And finally, we have the latest Jack Reacher, 61 Hours, by Lee Child. Reacher isn’t really my cup of tea (the only Reacher novel I really enjoyed was the one where it was a team effort – Bad Luck and Trouble – I’m just not really into lone wolf types of novels) but I suspect my husband will enjoy his exploits.

So … I think I’m going to be well-equipped along both the writing and reading front. Just not too sure how I’ll handle the camping end of things!

Related posts:

1. Camping (Gulp …)
2. Writing vs. Working
3. On Writing: Writing Fast, Writing Slower
4. On Writing: Surprises
5. On Writing: Setting Priorities

Last night I finished This Body of Death, by Elizabeth George, and breathed a happy little sigh. I realized I’ve been on a wonderful reading streak, during which I’ve read one enjoyable book after another.

True, This Body of Death wasn’t quite as good as earlier George mysteries, but it was still a lovely read, and very nice to really have Inspector Lynley back, if you know what I mean.

My reading streak began when I picked up The Passage, by Justin Cronin, last month. (This is one of my “best books I’ve read this year”, by the way, and I highly, highly recommend it – you can read my review here.)

What drove me to pick this 784-page book as the first book to read on the iPhone (the first non-reread, that is) is beyond me. All I know is, I downloaded the first two chapters as a free preview and before I knew it, I had bought and was deep into the full ebook itself.

I call this a reading streak, but I did have a few clunkers here and there. But the beauty of my reading method is that I have very low tolerance for a book that doesn’t hold my interest really early on (and by that, I mean by the end of the first chapter), so when I come across a clunker, I end up not having to spend that much of my reading time on it.

In other words: next!

So let’s just say that, for all intents and purposes, I moved, albeit not absolutely smoothly, from The Passage to Stieg Larsson’s The Millennium Trilogy.

As it turned out, The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest was my favorite of the three Larsson books, with its government conspiracy angle.

Which may have been why I enjoyed Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother so much. That link is to Amazon, but if you like reading ebooks, you can download it for free at Doctorow’s site. The free download comes in all flavors – I chose Epub, and read the book on my iPhone (of course).

I moved from Little Brother to Elizabeth George’s This Body of Death, another read on my iPhone.

In case you’re wondering who’s responsible for my decision to read both these last books, the blame falls to Jill of Rhapsody in Books, who posted wonderful reviews of both these books here (Little Brother) and here (This Body of Death); I would have read This Body of Death sooner or later – her review just made it sooner – but I’d forgotten about Little Brother until I read her review.

So now I’m asking myself, is this the end of a lovely reading streak? Or just the beginning? I’m hoping it’s just the beginning, as I’m now gathering together books to take with me camping (yes, that camping trip is coming up soon, very soon), and I think I’m off to a good start already.

In fact, I began reading Marisa de Los Santo’s Belong to Me the other day, and I’ve been loving it so far. (You can blame this one on Jill, too.)

Any recommendations on your end, to help me continue this marvelous reading streak?

Related posts:

1. Camping … Or Should I Say, Writing and Reading
2. The Passage, by Justin Cronin
3. Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy (Or, Breaking One of My Rules of Reading)
4. Camping (Gulp …)
5. BBAW: Me and My Reading Habits – And a Giveaway!

I found this video from Improv Everywhere via Meg Cabot’s Twitter feed.  According to their site, Improv Everywhere “causes scenes of chaos and joy in public places.”  Isn’t that a great mission statement?

I’m still smiling – hope you enjoy it as much as I did. I would have loved to have been on that subway car … !

No related posts.

On Friday night, I broke one of my rules of reading.

I started Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

I didn’t even realize I’d broken one of my rules until I finished the book on Saturday afternoon with a happy sigh, and immediately raced to my bookshelf and pulled out The Girl Who Played with Fire, which I’d won in a giveaway last year.

My rule, you see, is to NEVER start book one of a fully published trilogy if I know that I won’t have a nice chunk of time in which to read all the books. You know, on the off chance that I get lucky, and books one and two are brilliant reads and I find myself like the proverbial kid in the candy store, reaching for more, more, more.

So today I had to do something painful. You see, I finished The Girl Who Played with Fire last night, and so of course I immediately pulled out my iPhone and downloaded The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (there is nothing like instant gratification, especially when you’re two thirds of the way through a trilogy). I read happily until 1:30 in the morning, read a bit more this morning, but then had to reluctantly close the book (or, in this case, turn off my iPhone).

Because I have to finish up a deadline that’s due tomorrow.

Sigh.

It’s my own fault. I broke a cardinal rule of mine. And I’m reminded that I do have good reasons for making these little rules about reading that I generally do follow.

Have you read the Millennium trilogy? Did you get swept away the way I did? Do you have any unspoken but pretty solid rules about reading that you try to follow?

Related posts:

1. Fabulous Reading Streak – Ending, or Just Beginning?
2. BBAW: Me and My Reading Habits – And a Giveaway!

It’s hot here today – 32° C (which an online conversion site tells me is the equivalent of 89.6° F). The humidity level (59%) makes it feel more like 40° (or about 104° F).

When it’s hot and muggy like today, all I feel like doing is … nothing!

Yes, it’s the kind of day where I want to (a) stay inside, where it’s nice and cool and (b) drink a lot of A&W root beer.

Not only that, I feel a lot of lovely, lazing around energy (because lazing around has its own kind of low hum of energy). It’s a really good thing I just finished a deadline and my next one isn’t until next week.

Because I just might close my eyes and nap the afternoon away. It’s that kind of a hot, muggy day, you see.

In an interesting study of opposites, my husband, on the other hand, thrives in this kind of weather. You could say his energy levels are sky rocketing, plain popping off the charts.

Case in point: right now (and yesterday, too, when it was nearly as hot) he’s outside emptying the shed.

He’s hot and sweaty, working hard, moving things around … and loving every moment of it. He’s got music blasting from the iPod dock, loads of bags filled with stuff to be given away, and he’s feeling very, very productive.

It’s just too weird for me. So I’m going to keep on lounging while he enjoys his version of fun.

(He just came in to change his work gloves for a drier pair …)

What about you? How does hot weather affect you? Do you just want to lounge around, like me, or do you feel really energized, like my husband?

Photo credit

No related posts.

Yes, I’m wearing my crown proudly.

I am definitely the Procrastination Queen.

And that pat on the back is very well-deserved, if I do say so myself.

About six months ago, give or take a month or two, I announced here that I was going to be giving MsBookish.com a makeover.

“Yes, yes, yes,” I said gleefully, “a whole new look, major cleanup, and those tags and categories? I’m going to be cleaning them up, too. Sparkling clean. When? Why, soon! Very, very soon, dahlings!”

So it’s now the beginning of July, and I can finally say, I did it!

MsBookish.com now sports an awesome new Wordpress theme, Thesis, suitably dressed up with the most delightful new header designed by my dear friend Chrissie – that link is to her book blog, Book Addict Reviews.

If you were to walk into my house, you’d find yourself surrounded by much the same colors as grace this blog now, so to say it feels like home is not an exaggeration.

And my new tagline is a better reflection of what I’m blogging these days, I think.

After the major overhaul yesterday, I spent a bit of time tweaking things here and there, and then, for most of today, I rolled up my sleeves and bit the bullet: first I waded into my tags and trimmed them back, got rid of singulars where there were also plurals, eliminated caps unless necessary (it appears I have a habit of using singulars and plurals indiscriminantly, and capitalizing everything in sight when it comes to tags), and then I plunged into my posts and pared down my categories.

Nice and trim, don’t you think? An almost (almost!) spare list.

It took a while, but I finally finished, and now I’m sporting those great “it’s all done!” feelings that come when a long-put-off job finally does get done.

It feels good.

And now I can settle back and enjoy this beautiful Canada Day long weekend!

No related posts.

I was hesitant about reading The Passage, by Justin Cronin; I loved the premise of the book (a secret government project to create super warriors ends up unleashing a deadly vampiric virus onto an unsuspecting world – I ask you, how could I resist?), but I was uncertain because of the dystopian nature of the book (those of you who know my reading likes and dislikes fairly well probably aren’t surprised; I have several books on my list I’m hesitant about simply because they’re dystopian).

But one day, I was feeling a little bored, and fooling around with my iPhone (which happens to be one of the best little tools for alleviating boredom that I know of), and I ended up downloading the two free preview chapters of the book from one of my favorite ebook sites.

I started reading, and I was hooked. Stephen King had this to say about The Passage:

“Every so often a novel-reader’s novel comes along: an enthralling, entertaining story wedded to simple, supple prose, both informed by tremendous imagination. Summer is the perfect time for such books, and this year readers can enjoy the gift of Justin Cronin’s The Passage. Read fifteen pages and you will find yourself captivated; read thirty and you will find yourself taken prisoner and reading late into the night. It has the vividness that only epic works of fantasy and imagination can achieve. What else can I say? This: read this book and the ordinary world disappears.”

And let me say, he is so right. I literally read those first fifteen pages and I was captivated. After thirty pages, and I could not put the book (or rather, my iPhone) down.

It’s a hefty tome, weighing in at 784 pages, but I read it all on my iPhone, and when I finished the last paragraph, I did so reluctantly, not wanting to leave the world Cronin had weaved.

In a Q&A at Amazon, Cronin was asked, “You are a PEN/Hemingway Award-winning author of literary fiction. Does The Passage represent a departure for you?” His reply:

I think it’d be a little silly of me not to acknowledge that The Passage is, in a number of ways, overtly different from my other books. But rather than calling it a ‘departure,’ I’d prefer to describe it as a progression or evolution. First of all, the themes that engage me as a person and a writer are all still present. Love, sacrifice, friendship, loyalty, courage. The bonds between people, parents and children especially. The pull of history, and the power of place, of landscape, to shape experience. And I don’t think the writing itself is different at all. How could it be? You write how you write.

And I think this is exactly why the The Passage gripped me so tightly. Yes, it was a fabulous thriller of a book, about a vampire virus running rampant, a world pushed into destruction, and the power of the human race to continue living despite it all. The plot was breathtaking in its breadth and excitement, exactly the kind of thing I like in a book.

But at The Passage’s core are those themes that Cronin talks about – love, sacrifice, friendship, loyalty, courage. And this is what makes the book such a beautiful read.

It says a lot that today, about two weeks after I finished the book, I still remember all the main characters. They remain so very vivid to me. If book two begins with these same characters, I know they will come back to me immediately, as full of life as when I read the final pages; and if book two begins with different characters, I have the utmost faith that I will be drawn into the new story immediately.

And the dystopian aspect? I loved it. The dark, bleak hopelessness that I associate with dystopian fiction isn’t what dominates the book; it’s a dystopian world that, despite everything, is filled with so much human hope and potential.

When I first finished reading this book, and began thinking about writing this post, all I could think of saying was, “Wow. Wow. Wow.” And “OMG, you’ve GOT to read this.” I still want to say these things, and so I’ll end my post this way.

The Passage is an incredible, absolute wow of a read. Read it, and you’ll be captivated. If you’re at all uncertain, do what I did – download the free preview chapters from your favorite ebook site, and take the plunge.

And a PS: despite the vampire virus/destruction of the world theme, there is minimal blood and gore. Cronin’s writing is wonderful, and he’s quite able to provoke an emotional response from the reader without the need to be extreme.

Related posts:

1. Fabulous Reading Streak – Ending, or Just Beginning?
2. Review: The Strain, by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan
3. Reading E-books: Sony Reader or iPhone?

Yes, Alison Dare was at our house, where she handily defeated the evil, many fanged, incredibly ferocious halogen light monster!

When Tundra Books asked if I’d like to take part in The Double Dare Blog Tour, I was definitely intrigued – what they proposed was a “photo post”, with all participating bloggers snapping a picture of Alison Dare having a little adventure.

So of course, before saying “yes”, I asked my daughter Hayley if she’d be interested in helping out. How? By making a short video of Alison Dare having fun at our place, of course!

Luckily, Hayley was just as intrigued as I was. Unfortunately, the date for the blog tour fell right before her exams, so she didn’t have much time to work on the video. There’s no sound, for instance (in case any of you were turning up your volume and wondering if your speakers were malfunctioning). But it’s cute and you get to watch Alison Dare kick butt!

So just who is Alison Dare? She is the star of two graphic novels, Alison Dare, Little Miss Adventures and Alison Dare, The Heart of the Maiden, by J. Torres and J. Bones.

And just what makes Alison Dare so special? Well, for starters, her mother is the famous archaeologist, Dr. Alice Dare. And her father is that dashing masked superhero, The Blue Scarab.

But that’s not all! She’s also the niece of Johnny Dare, the international super spy who also happens to be a master of disguises.

And let’s just say this: Alison Dare most definitely lives up to her DNA! Alison is a plucky, adventurous 12-year-old who finds herself in some really unusual adventures.

Tundra Books is also hosting an Alison Dare photo contest. It’s a great chance to get your hands on the Alison Dare graphic novels – three winners will receive an Alison Dare prize pack. Deadline is June 30, so there’s tons of time to get your creativity going!

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I’ve been following Britain’s Got Talent on YouTube, and just loving it.

I have always enjoyed talent shows, and one of my favorite YouTube videos of all time is the one of Paul Pott’s first audition.

It’s always those first auditions that really inspire me, the ones where people walk onto the stage, and bring with them all of that beautiful, raw potential.

This year’s show is now over. Here were my three favorites:

The Singing Bouncer

Neil Fullard is a doorman, which, I gather, is a bouncer in North American terms. In his first audition, he sings “Come Fly With Me”, first made famous by Frank Sinatra.

I loved it! He is so sweet, like a big teddy bear, and his voice is fabulous.

Neil made it through to the semi-finals, for which he donned a tux and sang another Sinatra favorite, “That’s Life”. Lovely! Unfortunately, he didn’t make it through to the finals, but he was definitely one of my favorites.

The Singing Accountant

Hah! Isn’t it funny how we have a tendency to label people by their professions?

I loved Christopher Stone’s performances – if I had to rank the performers, I’d say he was my favorite. Here, in his first audition, he sings “Maria” from West Side Story. Simon Cowell builds the suspense a little by stopping the performance before it’s over. “You’ve got the voice,” he says. “But the question is, are you a star?”

Well, yes, he is! In the semi-finals, Christopher sings “The Impossible Dream”, and sings it just beautifully. He might have been really nervous for his first audition (and who can blame him?) but you can’t see it in this second performance.

And he is just fabulous in his final performance, singing “Somewhere (There’s a Place for Us)”, again from West Side Story.

Unfortunately, Christopher didn’t win the top three positions in the finals, but hopefully he’s well on his way to a wonderful performing career!

Absolutely Spellbound

Have you seen this video of Spellbound’s audition for Britain’s Got Talent yet? Just amazing. People say the word “gymnastics”, and I think, “floor routine” or “balance beam”. But this was incredible stuff, and choreographed so creatively.

They put on an even more dazzling performance in the finals, winning the show, and deservedly so. Such athletic ability, such creativity – and the teamwork is absolutely breathtaking. They have commitment and dedication written all over them.

Other bits and pieces

I thought the kids on the self-styled boy band Connected were so cute! Here’s their audition, and their performance in the finals. I wouldn’t be surprised if they got signed to a recording contract soon.

And Tobias Mead’s performances were absolutely stunning. My favorites were his audition, and his performance in the semi-finals. My husband actually gave a gasp of amazement watching that second performance; he was very impressed by Tobias’ ability. Me? I liked the way he ended it with that wink! He’s definitely got creativity, imagination and a boatload of talent.

Did you watch Britain’s Got Talent this year? Who were your favorites?

Photo credits: ITV and The Mirror

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