this is one of the best books i have read in a long time. it is very exciting and will keep you reading until the end! i would reccomend it for almost anyone!!

Perfect starting point for those looking for where splatterpunk got its attitude. A dozen stories, polished like diamonds, cutting through the bull like a laser through warm butter. Like Hemingway on crank, Fitzgerald on bad acid, Shirley's heroes learn to kill with all the moronic glee of a gangster trying out his first machine gun

This book has excellent details of how to help somone face the stresses of cancer through a problem-solving approach.

Awesome book! My kind of read! Keep writing this type of book and true "romance" readers will be begging for more!! LOVED IT!

This very funny book appealed to both a 6-year-old and a 9-year-old. It has a mystery and much humor.

I read this book almost 20 years ago and found it to be one of the most enthralling novels I have ever come across. The novel is about a family who own a huge coastal California ranch in the early 1900's called "The Malibu". The main characters are two women who manage to live lives that any woman would envy. They are unique, strong characters whom you care about and hope they prevail against all the obstacles facing them. It was a marvelous read that I just couldn't put down. Fascinating plot, fascinating characters and it makes you wish it would go on forever!

My two sons (ages 4 and 2) love for me to read this book to them because they see themselves in the children. I can relate to the mother - especially as she loses her car keys when it's time to go! What beautiful pictures! We all love this book!

When she was nine years old, the Caughnawagas captured Rebecca turning her into a slave. Three years ago, the Lenapes rescued her and brought her to their Pennsylvania village where Snow Woman adopted Rebecca as her daughter.

Fur trader and Lenape blood brother Daniel Chamberlain arrives at the village. He informs his "brothers" that their goods have not yet arrived and that the French claim their land as theirs. He also cannot resist gazing at Rebecca. Quickly they fall in love, but he has a goal to prove to his family he can make it and she feels loyalty towards her adopted mother and tribe. On top of their personal dilemma, the outbreak of war between the French and English over who owns the North American colonies makes it is unsafe for anyone to travel the countryside.

There is no doubt that readers will think of the Last of the Mohicans with the backdrop and in many ways this well written colonial romance fits as the exciting story line provides insight into the precarious era. What is somewhat different than the Cooper classic is that the audience also receives a powerful look at the impact the French and Indian War has on an Indian tribe. The lead couple is a warm pair deserving of one another. Many readers will have wished they spent more time together but the realism of war impeding their courtship makes for a stronger overall novel and just a fine time for historical and Pre Revolutionary War romance readers.

Harriet Klausner

Imagine the thrill that touches a person at the first Springtime sighting of wild poppies in bloom. If the blossoms are gold, then it's a distinctively California experience, evoking a strong sense of place and of natural wonder. I felt something of the same qualities of delight and surprise when I read Shirley Ewart's Highly Respectable Families: The Cornish of Grass Valley California 1854 - 1954, newly released by Comstock Bonanza Press. In her words the Cornish migration and assimilation into Nevada County, California, assumes the energy of a natural force.

At the center of this ramble through local social history is a tuft of eight family stories - actually a whole meadow - that exemplify the values of the immigrants from the southwestern-most corner of the United Kingdom who came to America to find opportunity for themselves and their children. Here is a vivid and highly readable account of 100 years of nearly constant emigration from Cornwall to California. In telling the stories Shirley enumerates the values that made these families both respected and successful - self-reliance, devotion to family and church, ethnic identity, faith in self-improvement, scorn of liquor, impassive acceptance of hard work and danger, love of music. She explains how these families, who were the arms and hands of industry in the mine, and the voices and faces of faith in the church, earned the respect of the wider community. In a new land they brought an old world culture to full flower.

The vitality of the book comes from the stories themselves, accounts of representative families, such as the Henwoods, the Bennallacks, the Tremenwans and others, all of which turn on intimate moments of decision and self-revelation. The book tells the story of the George family and of Harold J. George, who was offered a cornet if he would learn to play it and who went on to conduct the fabled Grass Valley Cornish Carol Choir for half a century and to bring music to children in the Grass Valley schools. It relates the love story of Jim and Alberta Rowe (grandfather of our Cornish Cousin Winnifred Rowe Cannon) who reportedly never exchanged a cross word in sixty years of marriage, and who were determined that their son would never be "a mucker in a mine." It tells of Mary Anne Mitchell, a young widow and mother scraping by in Cornwall, who had a proposal of marriage from a Cornishmen in America she knew primarily through his letters. She considered the offer and prayed and in the end it was thinking of the future of her two children that turned the balance. In recounting these stories Shirley had the help of Harold T. George, whose name also appears on the book.

Shirley, who spent much of her childhood in St. Ives, Cornwall, and knows first-hand the hardship of immigration and the miseries of homesickness, brought a rare understanding to this work. She was never turned down for an interview, which says as much about her empathy as it does about the generosity of the families she met. She collected these stories over two decades and relates them with sympathy and skill. All of us who are part of the Cornish community owe her a debt of gratitude for preserving and relating these intimate accounts and we are indebted to her publisher for presenting them in such an appealing volume.

Plenty of husbands and wives in the job world today find themselves feeling as if they must choose between their careers and their families. The Gregorys say there is a better way to live and work, one that need not force spouses into such unfair decisions. The Gregorys, entrepreneurs and longtime journalists, present a compelling argument that working at home provides the perfect framework for a couple to design their lives the way they want, share more-and better-time and experiences together, and grow closer to each other and their kids in the process. Thanks to solid research, including interviews with dozens of "Home Team" couples nationwide-and a few internationally-the book contains a wealth of helpful how-to tips for couples who have been running full- or part-time businesses from the home for years, as well as why-to information for spouses in traditional jobs who desire a better life. The authors tackle topics such as: how couples with wildly different persona! lities and workstyles can work in the same home successfully; how to savor the joys of Home Team parenting, yet get your work done; how to rekindle or ignite the flames of romance and sex-before, during and after work; and potential career and life benefits for both women and men. Best of all, it's an entertaining read, which is refreshing from a business book. The Gregorys' writing style sends readers a clear message that both life and work can-and should be-fun. While the Gregorys are strong promoters of the lifestyle, this book is far from Pollyannish. The authors write that it takes an unwavering commitment to both the marriage and businesses for this lifestyle to be a success, and those who will not do so are better off sticking to more traditional ways of making a living. But those with a burn to chase business dreams and share more of life with their families will cheer The Home Team for the information and inspiration it provides that will help them create their own, m! ore rewarding vision of success.