Rainy Days With Amanda

SANTA CLAUS BANK ROBBERY A True-Crime Saga in Texas by TUI SNIDER    Genre: Nonfiction / Texana / Texas History Publisher: Castle Azle Press Date of Publication: December 8, 2019 Number of Pages: 146 pages + black & white photos Scroll down for Giveaway! When Marshall Ratliff dressed like Santa Claus to pull a Christmas-time heist, he thought it would be easy. Unfortunately for him, when the citizens of Cisco heard Santa was robbing a bank, they came running - with loaded guns in hand! But can you blame them? In 1927, the only way to earn the $5000 Dead Bank Robber Reward was to kill a bandit while the crime was in progress. This bungled bank robbery led to a wild shootout and a getaway with two little girls as hostages. And that is only the beginning! Tui Snider’s true-crime tale reads like a comedy of errors as the consequences of the Santa Claus Bank Robber’s actions escalate to include a botched car-jacking, one of

WHY STUFF MATTERS by JEN WALDO   Sub-genre: Literary Fiction / Humor Publisher: Arcadia Books Date of Publication: June 4, 2019 (US) Number of Pages: 212 When Jessica, a grieving widow, inherits an antique mall from her mother she also inherits the stallholders, an elderly, amoral, acquisitive, and paranoid collection.  When one of the vendors, a wily ex-con named Roxy, shoots her ex-husband, she calls on Jessica to help bury the body and soon Jessica is embroiled in cover-ups, lies, and misdirection. Into this mix comes Lizzie, Jessica’s late husband’s twelve-year-old daughter by his first marriage, who’s been dumped on Jessica’s doorstep by the child’s self-absorbed mother and it soon becomes apparent that Lizzie is as obsessed with material possessions as Jessica’s elderly tenants.  Why Stuff Matters is a compelling ode to possession, why people like things and the curious lengths they will go to keep them. Returning to

It feels like a hot minute since I wrote a rainy thought. I've just been busy and nothing significant has crossed my mind, at least none that would be worth writing about. Anyways, I participated in Nanowrimo this year again. For those of you who may not know, Nanowrimo stands for National Writing Month. The goal of Nanowrimo is to complete a standard 50,000 word book in just one month. Just the writing portion, not the whole editing part (that would be madness!). I did this back in 2017 and completed the challenge which led to The Inevitables . I tried it again in 2018, but I quickly fell off and didn't even go past a week. I decided to take it more seriously like I did for this year and this is what happened...Drum roll.... I didn't finish. I don't like admitting it, but I didn't make it to 50,000 words. BUT I still see it as a win. A couple of months ago, I got a huge dose of inspiration and I wanted to share it with the world. I used that inspiration to sta