Treasuring Poetry – An introduction to the poetry of Lindsey Martin-Bowen and a review

Posted: March 18, 2026 | Author: robbiesinspiration | Filed under: Book Review, Collection, Interview, Poetry, Review, Treasuring Poetry | Tags: #poetry, #RobbieCheadle, #TreasuringPoetry, Book Review, Interview, Lindsey Martin-Bowen, Treasuring Poetry, Where Water Meets the Rock, Writing to be Read | 21 Comments

A riverbed with stones, water, and grasses. Text: Treasuring Poetry with Robbie Cheadle and KAye Lynne Booth

Today, I am delighted to host talented poet Lindsey Martin-Bowen as my March Treasuring Poetry guest. Lindsey is a fellow contributor to Writing to be Read and you can read her latest post here: https://writingtoberead.com/2026/03/04/lindseys-writing-practice-out-of-this-world-writing-exercise/

Interview with Lindsey Martin-Bowen

My poetry journey: How I became a poet

I must admit as a child, I wrote more stories than poetry. And the poems I wrote then were sentimental and trite. (During grade school (from third or fourth through sixth grade), I compiled annual Christmas books containing “Christmas” stories I wrote—but each year, the manuscript also included a Christmas poem (or one about winter) and a Christmas tale from Readers Digest (which influenced me to compose Christmas books). I also illustrated the books with colored pencils the first year and I gradually moved to water color illustrations (which I sometimes marked with felt-tip pens). My sixth-grade teacher (Mrs. Ferguson) introduced us to Robert Frost and Carl Sandburg, whom I liked, but I liked Emily Dickson the best when I attended elementary school—and I still consider her one of my favorites today. (Unfortunately, at the time, I was too naive to pickup on her style (and skills).

Being the nerd I was in high school, I opted to take a journalism classl. There, for the Christmas issue (of our high-school newspaper), I wrote a humorous Christmas poem from the staff, which I illustrated with an ink sketch of Santa , his gift-filled sleigh (which included B/W head-shot photos of each new-staff member )

and eight reindeer flying through skies above my sketches of Victorian two-stories. (Even then, I preferred old homes to the contemporary ranch styles where most my classmates and I lived.)

Also in high school, I continued writing in my diary, which I used to create short stories (from events in that diary). And I submitted those stories in English classes when a teacher requested them. But my poems were overly sentimental and personal. And basically about teen angst. (For example, one was entitled “Alone.”)

In fact, during my senior year in high school, my English composition teacher enjoyed my short stories and offered encouraging comments. I wouldn’t have shared my poetry, but she’d asked to see it. So I submitted the dreary poems I’d written (mainly centering on unrequited love). She read them and returned them without comment. I mean—absolutely NO comments. No encouragement. So I figured I was no better poet than I’d been a violinist. Sigh.

Thus, my true poetry journey did not take flight until my sophomore year at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, when fellow student Robert (“Bob”) Haynes and I became close friends. Even then, he was an excellent poet—and he boosted me along the journey to poet-hood. He shared not only his poems, but pointed out many contemporary experts who’d been gaining attention in the early 1970s, , such as W.S. Merwin, Galway Kinnell (both born the same year as my father: 1927), Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Alan Ginsburg, popular in the late 1960s.-and who gave a reading at UMKC. Bob also introduced me to surrealists Kenneth Patchen and Kenneth Koch, who inspired my frenzies, (which I didn’t write until fifty years later.) I discovered James Tate, who I’d include as a “surrealist,”too. Shortly thereafter I enrolled in the university’s poetry writing classes taught by professors Dan Jaffe and David Ray, who introduced me to an array of well-known contemporary poets, including Diane Wakoski (whom Dan Jaffe brought to UMKC to give a reading), James Dickey, Etheridge Knight, Denise Levertov, John Berryman, David Ignatow, Randall Jarrell, William Stafford, Robert Lowell, Thomas Merton, Later, I also started reading Adrienne Rich, Denise Low, and Mary Oliver.

And, I did improve—enough that my senior year, Dan Jaffe asked me to read a few of my poems at a poetry reading on the UMKC campus for the public. He also published two of my poems in an anthology he compiled, one that included many professional poets.

Favorite poem by another poet

O my goodness—I’ve read so many poets and poems, this one is a tough question. Along with the previous set of poets I mentioned, I’ve always admired Emily Dickinson’s style and work, along with William Butler Yeats (especially his “The Second Coming.” And T.S. Eliot: His “Wasteland” is remarkable, but far too long to include here. And the sounds in that poem make it come alive so much that it’s best to listen to a recording of it. Even his “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is a bit long to include. Thus, I’ll share Yeates’s “The Second Coming,” which not only inspired one of my poems that I’ll share later, but also remains relevant to our current world situation (a century later).

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi*

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast , its hour come round at last,

Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?

1920-1921

Favorite style of poetry and why

Although I love my surreal frenzies, I also like other forms of poetry, including sonnets, when they come “naturally.” (The two times I’d written sonnets but didn’t realize it until I re-examined them, tweaked them here and there, and voila! I’d written two sonnets without trying—the best for me). Those two appeared n my second published poetry book (the first full collection) Standing on the Edge of the World (Washburn University/Woodley Press 2008).

I’ve also fallen in love with the Japanese tanka form. (Haiku doesn’t allow enough syllables for my poems. 😉 ) Thus, I created a section of tankas in my last collection, CASHING CHECKS with Jim Morrison (redbat books 2023). More about that later.

Moreover, I generally write in “free verse” with sounds and rhythms and internal rhymes (not at the end of a line), that flow so smoothly, the rhyme doesn’t “hiccup” or stop the reader. Why is this usually my favorite form? As I’ve mentioned in a number of my bios, “poetry is my way of singing.” Thus, in most poems I write, I strive to use sound so they have somewhat the same effect that a song does.

Favourite poem of my own

O so many poems—so little time. I cannot name one favorite poem. But three of them come to mind. First, here’s my response to “The Second Coming,” which I wrote in response to the violence occuring in Ferguson, Missouri:

Re-reading “The Second Coming’ by W.B.Yeats

after Ferguson, Missouri\

No one listens anymore. No one works

in tandem. No horses pull this cart.

Now trembling, it falls apart.

The center hub’s blown, exploded.

Rioting in city squares—rioting along beaches.

Is this anarchy—or something more?

The blood of victims rushes onto shores.

Innocents no more, their lungs fill

till they can’t speak—can’t breathe.

Their passions now sneseles, uneasy—

bringing the strange revelation:

the Second coming lies on the horizon.

It’s the day, it’s the day—

O yes, it’s the holy day—

it’s the Day of the Dead.

A wide-winged beast rises above—

eyes black and gleaming, onyx

glistening through bone.

O Momma, Momma,

come back, come back

again. The world’s too cold.

No lion-bodied beast alouches

toward Bethlehem. It’s a creature

with a jackal’s head, a jackal’s soul.

Where Water Meets the Rock, p. 30 (39 WEST PRESS 2017)

Two other poems I must also count as favorites, because they seemed to write themselves.

The words came to me without me planning them. It was if they suddenly appeared in my brain, and I had to scramble to pen them onto paper before they evaporated.

The first, I wrote during the months that revealed my father was not to stay much longer on this earth. (This was when the frenzies started coming to me. Many of the frenzies are absurd—but comical. This one’s more serious. (And I’ve included it in three of my books: It must be a favorite.)

It’s Never Like the Movies—

for my father

this dying, no background chords

rising to a crescendo,

no adagio of strings.

You watch these ants instead,

trickle across peonies

They disappear. And you

can’t keep your grip

on that granite wall of reason

but slip downstream

into some wild current

till you run aground .

There, you search

for the deserted place, a Holy Land,

where Ekijah met God.

Even if you’re hiking

the Appalachian Trail, up

Standing Indian Mountain,

you watch vultures circle

in and out of clouds festering

into some murky, yellow soup.

And when lightning hits,

Father Davis says Hail Marys—

and there, on the horizon,

you see wovoka whirl

in his dance of ghosts.

Standing on the Edge of the World, p. 85 (Washburn U/Woodley Press, 2008)

Inside Virgil’s Garage, p.52 (Chatterhouse Press, 2013)

The Book of Frenzies, p. 76 (Pierian Springs Press, 2022)

And “From the Emerald City to the Mountain of Quaff” is special to me because it came to me in pieces—often as I was awaking from sleep. At the time, it seemed to be one of the most imaginative poems I’ve written. Perhaps that’s why one of my former poetry professors, David Ray selected it to run in an anthology he assembled (Whirleybird Anthology of Kansas

City Poets, 2012).

From the Emerald City

to the Mountain of Quaff

(or This Must Be Kansas)

Go out and get that long face lost, you say,

Bury me in Jerusalem, I reply.

I want to be one of the first to rise,

like yeast on a rock in the desert,

among iron stones, hills filled with brass,

in a land of olive oil and honey—

wrapped in silver and gold,

where water eats fire

and fire drowns water, and the angel

of the presence outlasts them both.

Or, if poetry must be delirious and weird,

or even a prophetic frenzy,

then bury me in absurdia,

where the lemons bloom.

Inside Virgil’s Garage, p. 7 (Chatter House Press 2008)

Kansas City Voices (October 2007)

Whirlybird Anthology of Kansas City Poets, Whirlybird Press (2012).

The BOOK of FRENZIES, p. 66 (Pierian Springs Press 2022)

About CASHING CHECKS with JIM MORRISON

This book has a strange history. Although it resulted in being a sequel to CROSSING KANSAS with JIM MORRISON (Paladin Contemporaries 2016), it wasn’t exactly planned. I wrote the first collection in about six months. It was odd, too, because it took two years for me to write and revise the book’s initial poem entitled “Crossing Kansas with Jim Morrison, which, of course, became the book title. Yet—once that poem came together, I wrote the rest of the book within six months and entered it into the 2015-2016 QuillsEdge Chapbook Contest, Although it didn’t win, it was a finalist. Concurrently, Thorny Locust literary magazine ran three poems from the collection, and Amethyst Arsenic, another lit mag, took one more.

And the Jim Morrison poems kept coming to me. So I added them and others that fit into the collection, to make a complete book, which Paladin Contemporaries published that summer. On Amazon, the book made it to number 23 or so on the top 100 Poetry Books by Women list—and stayed there most of the following year. (Inside Virgil’s Garage was on that same list concurrently, but it didn’t rise as high Crossing Kansas w/JM did.

About two years later after Where Water Meets the Rock was published, I put together CASHING CHECKS, designed around the themesof actual money becoming obsolete. (Checks, along with credit cards, debit cards, and other contemporary methods of payment don’t include actual money, correct? It money going the way of the manual—or even electric typewriter?) That collection, of course, included other sectons centering around the tanka form and the frenzies. (At present three of my collectons include a section of “frenzies,” and of course, The BOOK of FRENZIES contains solely frenzies, some less zany than others).

In short, after accruing more Jim Morrison poems—I mean, Jim just wouldn’t hush, but kept popping words into my brain—I considered merging the new Jim Morrison poems with the CASHING CHECKS book.

When I submitted both versions to redbat books, both the publisher and her editor preferred the collection containing Jim Morrison. So that’s where we went with it.

What’s next?

What’s next? I’m now working on a manuscript, named for a 10-stanza poem (which can be set in five pages or in in ten, whichever works best) that’s appeared in three publications. I’ve been adding to it and hope to complete a full collection within a few months. The DARK HORSE WAITS in BOULDER, my fourth novel (third on Amazon) is scheduled to be released this spring—so that will precede the poetry book release. At present, I have one more poetry collection I’ve started but don’t see it going anywhere for a year or more. That one may be my last poetry collection, too. (Three more novels and one short story collections are ahead of that poetry collection.) And then, what may be my last novel—now in a VERY ROUGH state-of-being—just may allow the likely last poetry collection to supercede it .But who knows? Rock star archetype Jim Morrison may hop into one or the other manuscript and upset the entire scene.

My review of Where Water Meets the Rock

Picture caption: Cover of When Water Meets the Rock by Lindsey Martin-Bowen

I enjoy reading poetry collections that include a common thread that links all the poems together. The common thread for this collection is loss and recuperation. This theme is relatable to everyone as we all suffer loss in various forms throughout our lives and we are forced to recuperate whether we want to or not.

The collection is divided into three sections: Erosion which explores the slow build up to loss; Frenzies which seeks to unravel the immediate chaos and emotion that follows loss; and On the Shore which delves into the slow path to acceptance and continuation.

The poems are unique and make use of various techniques to either exaggerate or bring out the humorous side of deep emotion and complex thought patterns relating to loss.

A poem that resonated strongly with me in Erosion is titled Psyche in the Suburbs. For me, this poem exposed the conflicting emotions of love, resentment, and self sacrifice that arise when caregiving for aging relatives.

This is the final stanza in this poem:
“Now, lavender scents fill the air,
sending me to the Aegean Sea.
When I step onto the asphalt,
I remember the bottled water.
I must go back. Without it,
the world will know her face
grows old. And she’ll blame me.”

Another poem in this section I especially related to is entitled My Bones are Glass. I have often thought this same thing when dealing with the elderly and aging. The poet includes an apology to Mark Strand, one of my favourite poets, so the style also worked very well for me.

Section 2: Frenzies, includes a lot of humour relating to people’s eccentricities and wants in their final moments. The poems also touch on the need for the observers to fulfil every desire and make the passing easier – perhaps to alleviate the guilt of survival. I enjoyed the poems although humour in poetry is not my personal favourite style. This section lifts the tension in death and loss and will appeal to most readers.

Section 3: On the Shore was very compelling for me. It explored inevitable change and endings coupled with new beginnings of a different sort. I reminded me that we move from one phase to another in our lives without even realising it until we look back and the end and beginning stand out in stark reality. The poem I enjoyed the most in this section was Two Mothers with Kids in Winchell’s. Perhaps because my children are now adults and have both finished school so I can understand and appreciate this poem through the lens of a soon to be empty nester.

This is one stanza in the poem that I strongly related to:
“The Winchell’s mothers nod, talk in buzzing hums,
eye their toddlers, who hop, slide on linoleum.
The kids scratch glass, balance on window ledges.
The pregnant one smooths seersucker. “Guys,” she says,
“They don’t like that here. Come, be quiet, Sit down.”
Like seatbelts, her words rein them in. I frown,
wonder how she renders her voice firm but not loud.”

As a mother who always worked, this stanza fills me with thoughts about what might have been had my own path taken me along a different path. What kind of mother would I have been had I not always been struggling to balance work and home demands. A writer who can introduce such reflections has to be great.

I highly recommend this compelling collection.

Where Water Meets the Rock is available from Amazon US here: https://www.amazon.com/Where-Water-Meets-Lindsey-Martin-Bowen/dp/1946358053

Lindsey Martin-Bowens Amazon Author page is here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Lindsey-Martin-Bowen/author/B00JA31KW0

About Lindsey Martin-Bowen

Picture caption: Author image of Lindsey Martin-Bowen

Lindsey Martin-Bowen’s CASHING CHECKS with Jim Morrison has just been released this fall (2023) by redbat books (a La Grande, Oregon publisher) as part of its Pacific Northwest Writers series. She serves as a Literary Consultant for Pierian Springs Press, which published The BOOK of FRENZIES in April 2022 (hardback copy in December 2022–BEFORE she became its Literary Consultant). She has taught Criminal Law and Procedure (online) at Blue Mountain Community College, Pendleton, Oregon since January 2019. Until August 2018, she taught writing, literature, and Criminal Law at MCC-Longview and taught literature and writing at the University of Missouri-Kansas City 18 years.

A Pulitzer-Prize nominee, her fourth full-length poetry collection, WHERE WATER MEETS THE ROCK (39 West Press 2017) contains “Vegetable Linguistics,” which received an Honorable Mention in the Non-rhyming Poetry category of Writers Digest’s 85th Annual Writing Competition (2016). Her third collection, CROSSING KANSAS with Jim Morrison, won the “It Looks Like a Million” Award for the 2017 Kansas Authors Club competition. The book is an expansion of her chapbook named a finalist in the 2015-2016 QuillsEdge Press Chapbook Contest. “Bonsai Tree Gone Awry” from INSIDE VIRGIL’S GARAGE (Chatter House Press 2013) was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. This collection was also runner-up in the 2015 Kansas Authors Club Nelson Poetry Book Award. Woodley Press (Washburn University) published her first full-length collection, STANDING ON THE EDGE OF THE WORLD, which McClatchy newspapers named one of the Ten Top Poetry Books of 2008. Paladin Contemporaries released her novels RAPTURE REDUX (2014), HAMBURGER HAVEN (2009) and CICADA GROVE (1992). Her work has appeared in NEW LETTERS, I-70 REVIEW, THORNY LOCUST, FLINT HILLS REVIEW, PORTER GULCH REVIEW, SILVER BIRCH PRESS, COAL CITY REVIEW, PHANTOM DRIFT, TITTYNOPE ZINE, BARE ROOT REVIEW, , AMETHYST ARSENIC, THE SAME, THE ENIGMATIST, ROCKHURST REVIEW, BLACK BEAR REVIEW, LITTLE BALKINS REVIEW, KANSAS CITY VOICES, LIP SERVICE, 21 anthologies, and others.

With Dennis Etzel, Jr., she edited GIMME YOUR LUNCH MONEY: Heartland Poets Speak out against Bullies (Paladin Contemporaries 2016). She holds an MA in English (creative writing emphasis) and a Juris Doctor degree.

Before focusing upon teaching and writing poetry and fiction, she served as a full-time journalist and magazine editor for THE LOUISVILLE TIMES, the Johnson County SUN, MODERN JEWELER Magazine, and THE NATIONAL PARALEGAL REPORTER. She also worked as a legal editor for the Office of Hearings and Appeals (USDI) in Washington, DC.

She has two brilliant children and contends with super Chihuahuas Chia Maria La Rue and Chico the Man, her canine companions. And often, she spars verbally with poet Carl Rhoden.

About Robbie Cheadle

Picture caption: Robbie Cheadle author picture

South African author and illustrator, Robbie Cheadle, has written and illustrated sixteen children’s books, illustrated a further three children’s books, and written and illustrated three poetry books. Her work has also appeared in poetry and short story anthologies.

Robbie also has two novels and a collection of short stories published under the name of Roberta Eaton Cheadle and has horror, paranormal, and fantasy short stories featured in several anthologies under this name.

You can find Robbie Cheadle’s artwork, fondant and cake artwork, and all her books on her website here: https://www.robbiecheadle.co.za/

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Poetry Treasures: https://books2read.com/PoetryTreasures

Poetry Treasures 2: Relationships: https://books2read.com/PT2-Relationships

Poetry Treasures 3: Passions: https://books2read.com/u/b5qnBR

Poetry Treasures 4:In Touch With Nature: https://books2read.com/PT4-Nature

Poetry Treasures 5: Small Pleasures: https://books2read.com/PT5-SmallPleasures

Book Review: “Bewilderness”

Posted: March 13, 2026 | Author: kayelynnebooth | Filed under: Book Review, Books, Review, Science Fiction | Tags: Bewilderness, Book Review, Jonathan Maberry, Science Fiction, Writing to be Read | 6 Comments

About Bewilderness – To be released August 11, 2026

Dr. Abby Corman has a bold idea: open a stable doorway between our world and an uninhabited parallel Earth. A new world we can use to mine resources to end poverty, grow enough food to end all hunger, and allow for population growth to end overcrowding. What could be a more noble aspiration for a brilliant young scientist?

But the path to hell is paved with good intentions…

The Gateway is in a secure lab in a huge office building in New York. Ultra-modern, totally secure, impenetrable by industrial spies or foreign agents. Once it goes into lockdown for the Gateway test firing, it becomes the world’s largest and most unbreakable vault.

Locked doors, though, can do more than keep bad things out. They can trap bad things in.

The Gateway spins completely out of control, sending infinite Earths onto a collision course with ours. Now, our reality is cracking apart, allowing creatures from Earth’s distant past and monsters from parallel worlds to emerge, turning New York into a hellscape.

Abby Corman did not open the Gateway, but she is the only one who knows how to close it. But an alien Hunter and her pack of deadly hellcats have stepped into our world, and they will stop at nothing to kill Abby. Because in a universe of parallel worlds, one Earth’s savior can be the worst criminal other Earths have ever known.

Purchase Link: https://wordfirepress.com/products/bewilderness?_pos=1&_psq=Bewilderness&_ss=e&_v=1.0

My Review of Bewilderness

I received a digital copy of Bewilderness, by Jonathan Maberry from the publisher, WordFire Press, in exchange for an honest review. All opinions stated here are my own.

I chose to review Bewilderness because Jonathan Maberry is the author, and I know his stories are of a quality to be admired. In this, I was not disappointed. Mayberry has created a first-rate science fiction novel and a situation where literally anything is possible. This story has cinematic potential, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find it in theaters in the future. The book is a solid, well written, well thought out story with fleshed-out characters and almost non-stop action to keep those pages turning.

Abby Corman is a scientist of the highest caliber, assigned to a top-secret government funded project, called Gateway. Only, she’s not just assigned to it, she created it. They are preparing for the test run of the Gateway machine, which cab tap into uninhabited parallel worlds, offering unlimited resources to replenish Earth’s dwindling supplies, and ending world hunger. But when their funding is threatened and her partner panics and fires her, locking her out and bringing in another scientific mind, who may understand the project, but has no regard for safety protocols, and they fire the Gateway, bypassing the test run. Something goes terribly wrong, leaving the Gateway cycling through thousands of strange parallel worlds, and allowing creatures from those worlds to enter this one, turning New York into a pre-historic disaster zone. It’s up to Abby to set things right, making her way through a veritably impenetrable fortress turned upside down, and running from an alien huntress and her pack of hell cats, who is determined to stop her.

Cutting-edge suspense will keep you on the edge of your seat as you follow Abby in her quest to save the world. I give Bewilderness five quills.

About Kaye Lynne Booth

For Kaye Lynne Booth, writing is a passion. Kaye Lynne is an author with published short fiction and poetry, both online and in print, including her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction; and her paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets; Books 1 & 2 of her Women in the West adventure series, Delilah and Sarah, and book 1 in her Time-Travel Adventure series, The Rock Star & The Outlaw, as well as her poetry collection, Small Wonders and The D.I.Y. Author writing resource.

Kaye holds a dual M.F.A. degree in Creative Writing with emphasis in genre fiction and screenwriting, and an M.A. in publishing. Kaye Lynne is the founder of WordCrafter Quality Writing & Author Services and WordCrafter Press, where she edits and publishes two short fiction anthologies and one poetry anthology every year amidst her many writing projects. She also maintains an authors’ blog and website, Writing to be Read, where she publishes content of interest in the literary world.

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Kaye Lynne Booth does honest book reviews on Writing to be Read in exchange for ARC digital copies, (she also accepts print copies). Have a book you’d like reviewed? You can request a review on the Book Review tab above.

Read & Cook – On the Beach by Nevil Shute and chicken shawarma recipe

Posted: March 11, 2026 | Author: robbiesinspiration | Filed under: Book Review, Books, Fiction, Post-Apocalyptic, Recipes, Review, Robbie Reads and Cooks | Tags: #ReadandCook, #recipe, #RobbieCheadle, Book Review, Chicken Shawarmas, Neville Shute, On the Beach, Read and Cook, Robbie Cheadle, Writing to be Read | 54 Comments

Given the current state of affairs in the world, I think now is a good time to share my review of this post and pre-apocalyptic novel.

My review of On the Beach by Nevil Shute

Picture caption: Cover of On the Beach by Nevil Shute

One the Beach is a post-apocalyptic novel set in Australia. The Northern Hemisphere has been completely destroyed by a nuclear war, and the residents of Southern Hemisphere are waiting for the inevitable arrival of deadly radiation. The story is set in Australia during the heat of the summer, and all of the characters are struggling to come to grips with their situations as short-term survivors of the war and the awful knowledge of their impending deaths from radiation as the nuclear fallout travels steadily southwards.

Lieutenant Commander Peter Holmes of the Royal Australian Navy is given a new and welcome assignment during this period of waiting for the inevitable deaths of himself and his family. He is appointed as the liaison officer to the American submarine, the U.S.S. Scorpion, commanded by Dwight Towers from New England in the U.S.A. The Scorpion had been near Australian waters when the global conflict erupted, and Towers and his men are now stranded with no country or homes to return to. There is an immediate contrast between the two men, Holmes and Towers, as Holmes still has his home, his wife and his baby daughter while Towers knows his home and family are gone. Towers, however, has retreated into fantasy of a sort where he still thinks of his wife and children as being alive and well and waiting for his return home even though he knows they are dead. It is incredibly moving and makes Towers’ loss that much more tragic and poignant.

Towers’ submarine has been placed under Australian command and Holmes is tasked with inspecting the Scorpion and briefing Towers about their orders to set out northwards in search of surviving life. This mission gives Holmes a small glimmer of hope that all might not be lost. In an attempt to distract Towers from his unhappy situation, Holmes extends an invitation for Towers to visit his home in Falmouth and enjoy the beach and time with Holmes’ family and friends. Towers accepts and during the visit is introduced to Moira Davidson, a beautiful and engaging young lady who has turned to alcohol and partying for solace.

The story involves three primary threads, namely, the journey of the submarine and its findings, a light romance of a sort between Moira and Towers, and the preparations by the Australian characters for their eventual deaths from radiation.

This story was an exceptionally intense and sad read for me as the characters are all such decent and ordinary people. The beach setting and sunny days at the beginning of the story combined with the forced merrymaking and pleasure taking of Holmes group of acquaintances slowly gives way to the cold and bleakness of winter and the acceptance by the various characters of their deaths. Many choose to end their lives with a pill provided by the Government for this purpose prior to succumbing to the radiation poisoning. There is no happy ending to this story and that is what’s so striking and awful about this story. There is no hope for survival for anyone right from the beginning. This is one of the few books I’ve read in my life that has made me cry.

The standout theme for me of this novel is finding meaning and purpose in the face of certain death. All of the characters in On the Beach exist in a strange period of time between the ending of the Northern Hemisphere through nuclear war and the ending of their own existence when the radioactive fallout reaches them, a period of approximately six months. The novel delves into the reactions of different people to an uncontrollable situation that can only end in death and demonstrates how some people can rise above despair and self-pity and make the most of the time they have left. Some characters turn to perpetual drunkenness or reckless car racing, but many resolve to carry on to the end with dignity and continue to do their duty. For Holmes, his duty includes continuing with his navel duties even though they ultimately become irrelevant. His wife continues to care for their baby daughter and run her home as if nothing could ever harm them.

This book was written at the height of the Cold War when the United States and the Soviet Union were engaged in ideological rivalry and a nuclear arms race. On the Beach reflects the fears of the period about a potential nuclear war and the destructive potential of atomic bombs.

Quotes from On the Beach

“It’s not the end of the world at all,” he said. “It’s only the end of us. The world will go on just the same, only we shan’t be in it. I dare say it will get along all right without us.” Dwight Towers raised his head. “I suppose that’s right. There didn’t seem to be much wrong with Cairns, or Port Moresby either.” He paused, thinking of the flowering trees that he had seen on shore through the periscope, cascaras and flame trees, the palms standing in the sunlight. “Maybe we’ve been too silly to deserve a world like this,” he said. The scientist said, “That’s absolutely and precisely right.” There didn’t seem to be much more to say upon that subject, so they went up on to the bridge for a smoke, in the sunlight and fresh air.”

“Mary looked at her gratefully. “Well, that’s what I think. I mean, I couldn’t bear to—to just stop doing things and do nothing. You might as well die now and get it over.” Moira nodded. “If what they say is right, we’re none of us going to have time to do all that we planned to do. But we can keep on doing it as long as we can.”

“Two days later they reached Port Darwin and lay in the harbour beneath the town. Here they could see nothing but the wharf, the roof of Government House, and a bit of the Darwin Hotel. Fishing boats lay at anchor and they cruised around these, hailing, and examining them through the periscope. They learned nothing, save for the inference that when the end had come the people had died tidily. “It’s what animals do,” John Osborne said. “Creep away into holes to die. They’re probably all in bed.” “That’s enough about that,” the captain said. “It’s true,” the scientist remarked. “Okay, it’s true. Now let’s not talk about it any more.” The report certainly was going to be a difficult one to write.”

Purchase On the Beach from Amazon US here: https://www.amazon.com/Beach-Nevil-Shute/dp/0307473996

Recipe for chicken shawarmas

Picture caption: my final chicken shawarma which was delicious

Marinade

15 ml garlic flakes

15 ml ground coriander

15 ml cardamon

5 ml ground cayenne pepper

20 ml ground paprika

10 ml chicken stock powder

black pepper to taste

10 ml lemon juice

45 ml olive oil

Combine the marinade ingredients in a bowl. Add 8 cubed skinless chicken breasts, cover, and leave to marinade for at least three hours. Overnight is best.

Cook the chicken pieces in a wok or frying pan until they are cooked through.

Yoghurt sauce

250 ml double thick Greek yoghurt

10 ml garlic flakes

5 ml cumin

2,5 ml lemon juice

salt and pepper to taste

Mix the ingredients together in a small bowl.

Slice5 or 6 flatbreads in half. Slice tomato, red onion, cheese, and lettuce.

Assemble your shawarmas by adding a layer of lettuce, tomato, cheese, red onion, and chicken and topping it all with the yoghurt sauce.

Picture caption: these are the sides I prepared including the yoghurt sauce

Picture caption: inside of the chicken shawarma

About Robbie Cheadle

Picture caption: Robbie Cheadle author photograph 2025

South African author, photographer, and artist, Robbie Cheadle, has written and illustrated seventeen children’s books, illustrated a further three children’s books, written and illustrated four poetry books and written and illustrated one celebration of cake and fondant art book with recipes. Her work has also appeared in poetry and short story anthologies.

You can find Robbie Cheadle’s artwork, fondant and cake artwork, and all her books on her website here: https://www.robbiecheadle.co.za/

Find Robbie Cheadle

Blog https://wordpress.com/home/robbiesinspiration.wordpress.com

Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/robbiecheadle.bsky.social

YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVyFo_OJLPqFa9ZhHnCfHUA

Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15584446.Robbie_Cheadle

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This segment of “Read and Cook with Robbie Cheadle” is sponsored by WordCrafter Press and their themed anthologies.

Tales From the Hanging Tree: Imprints of Tragedy: There exists a tree that is timeless, spanning across all dimensions, which absorbs every life as those who are hanged as they die… and it remembers every one. The stories within are a select few of the Tales From the Hanging Tree.

Curses: Chronicles of Darkness:

There are all types of curses.

Cursed places, cursed items, cursed people, cursed families.

Curses that last throughout time. Curses which can’t be broken. Curses which are brought upon ourselves. Curses that will kill you and those that will only make you wish you were dead.

Legends: Monsters That Go Bump in the Night: Coming in 2026

Everyone is a Critic: The Running Man – Then & Now

Posted: March 9, 2026 | Author: kayelynnebooth | Filed under: Everyone is a Critic, Movie Review, Movies, Review, Science Fiction | Tags: Action, Everyone is a Critic, Kaye Lynne Booth, Science Fiction, The Running Man, Writing to be Read | 5 Comments

Today we’re going to take a look at two versions of the same movie: The Running Man, based on the novel by Stephen King, writing as Richard Bachman. It’s been a long time since I read this book, since it was released back in the 1980s, but I can tell you now that the movie which just came out with Glen Powell and Josh Brolin is definitely closer to the original story line of the book. That puts it higher in my opinion than the 1987 movie with Arnold Swarzenhegger and Richard Dawson, although the first movie is a good story in its own right.

In the reality TV show The Running Man, the only objective is to stay alive.

This “slam-bang action suspense” (Gilbert Cruz, Vulture) from Stephen King is now a major motion picture from Paramount.

Ben Richards has no job, no money, and a young daughter who urgently needs medical attention. Desperate, out of options, he signs up for The Running Man, “the biggest show in the country.” It’s an ultraviolent competition where the stakes could not be higher. Ben must stay alive for thirty days while an elite strike force, trained to kill, hunts for him. If he can survive for a month, he wins a billion dollars. No contestant has ever lasted longer than eight days. Can Ben Richards win this ultimate game of life and death?

The Running Man (2025) with Glen Powell and Josh Brolin

Ben Richards is a man with a conscience and a family, and when he speaks out against the networks in this futuristic world where the networks run the show, he falls from the group of haves, into the category of the have nots. Blackballed from working for the networks, with a sick child to care for, he tries out for the reality shows as a way to earn the money for the much-needed medicine to save his daughter’s life, and is cast in a spot on the deadliest game of all: The Running Man. Contestants must survive for thirty days, evading the Network Hunters, with everyone in the city out to collect the bounty. The running man has no friends because to help him is to risk their own livelihood. The Network is everywhere and ratings are everything.

If you read my descriptions of these two films it may sound like the big difference between these two films is the fact that Richards is a willing contestant in one and is forced to play on the other. While this is one big difference, the 1987 film also differs in the game playing field. While the book and the 2025 movie play the game out in the real world and members of society may earn prizes by reporting contestants’ whereabouts, the 1987 film veers from the plotline with a contained playing field and sensational hunter characters to be cheered by members of the audience.

Author of the original story says the differences in the character of Ben Richards, played by the two actors is the biggest difference between the two films, in a U.S. A. Today article, “Stephen King, Edgar Wright explain why ‘Running Man’ is the new ‘Die Hard’ – Exclusive“:

“Arnold didn’t look like somebody who had been missing many meals. He was ripped,” King says. Also, “he doesn’t seem like an Everyman. He seems like Arnold. And Glen seems like a regular guy: You would believe him in this part. He’s handsome, but he’s not a Clark Gable, big movie star kind of guy. He’s a regular guy who’s just better looking than most of us.”

The Running Man (1987) with Arnold Swartzenhagger and Richard Dawson

Ben Richards (Arnold Swarzenhegger) is an ex-military good guy who defied orders and refused to kill innocent, unarmed people. When he is sent to prison for his alleged crimes and makes a spectacular escape, he catches the attention of Network Executive Damien Killian (Richard Dawson), who sees his rating potential. In this futuristic world, where the Networks run the show, (pun intended), you don’t sign up to be a contestant on the reality shows, and after his recapture, Richards is forced to play The Running Man, a reality game show, where the hunters play for keeps, and the networks will do anything for ratings.

I think the 2025 movie actually has more nonstop action than the 2005 film, each has its own merits.

Both versions are good stories. Both are entertaining. And both are full of surprises. As a huge fan of the story’s original author, I lean more toward the version that is closer to the storyline in the book.

About Kaye Lynne Booth

For Kaye Lynne Booth, writing is a passion. Kaye Lynne is an author with published short fiction and poetry, both online and in print, including her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction; and her paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets; Books 1 & 2 of her Women in the West adventure series, Delilah and Sarah, and Book 1 in her Time-Travel Adventure series, The Rock Star & The Outlaw, as well as her poetry collection, Small Wonders.

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This segment of “Everyone is a Critic” is sponsored by the Time Travel Adventure Series and WordCrafter Press.

The Rockstar & The Outlaw and The Rock Star & The Outlaw 2: Double Visions

When a Girl with a Guitar Meets a Man with a Gun, It’s Time to Travel

Back the Kickstarter campaign now to get signed print copies and more: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kayelynnebooth-wcp/the-rock-star-and-the-outlaw-2-double-visions

Treasuring Poetry – Meet poet and author, Laura Lyndhurst, and a review

Posted: February 18, 2026 | Author: robbiesinspiration | Filed under: Book Review, Books, Collection, Interview, Poetry, Review, Treasuring Poetry | Tags: #RobbieCheadle, #TreasuringPoetry, Book Review, Interview, Laura Lyndhurst, Poetry, Robbie Cheadle, Social Climbing and Other Poems, Treasuring Poetry, Writing to be Read | 31 Comments

A riverbed with lillypads, water, and grasses.
Text: Treasuring Poetry 2026 with Robbie Cheadle and Kaye Lynne Booth

Hi everyone, today I’m thrilled to introduce you to Laura Lyndhurst. Laura is an accomplished author and poet and is also a new member of Story Empire blog which is a great resource for writers. You can read Laura’s first Story Empire post here: https://storyempire.com/2026/02/10/sowing-the-seeds-of-a-story/

Welcome Laura!

Tell us a bit about yourself and your poetry journey. How did you come to be a poet?

I never intended to write poetry. At school it was my least-favourite of the three prose-poetry-drama disciplines, and I didn’t like many of the poems that we studied. It was the same at university, when I finally got there in my forties. I was obliged to study Romanticism for my first-year core module, and I hated it. Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelly; I wasn’t keen on them, although I was okay with some of Keats’s work. In the second year I couldn’t help but study more poetry, and I didn’t mind John Donne at all.

As to my own work, it was when I joined a Facebook writing group that it started. The group leader decided to post a picture every day for the month of October, inviting the group members to write a few paragraphs of prose around them. I sat with the first picture, thought, wrote—and what came out was poetry. The leader and members liked it, and thereafter I challenged myself to write poem every day from the picture prompt. At the end of the months I decided to publish them in a book, to claim copyright on them as much as anything. I called it October Poems, after the month in which I wrote them, and three more little collections followed in the next year or two.

What is your favourite poem by another poet and why?

That’s difficult. I like poetry more now than I used to, and there are several poets whose work appeals. I tend to listen to Leonard Cohen’s songs more than I read his poems, but he does have a way with lyrics; I mean, ‘the place is dead as Heaven on a Saturday night’ is so great. Hardy’s ‘The Darkling Thrush’ is up there, along with ‘This Be The Verse’ by Phillip Larkin. ‘Pity me not because the light of day’ by Edna St. Vincent Millay and ‘Rubbish at Adultery’ by Sophie Hannah attract, from the serious and the not-so as well. Choice for today, however, has to be ‘Refugee Blues’ by W.H. Auden. It never gets old, unfortunately, and although it’s written around one specific ethnic refugee group it can be applied to the myriad groups in existence before and since it was written; and now, in the 2020s, it feels massively relevant. You can find it here: https://allpoetry.com/refugee-blues

What is your favourite style of poetry and why?

Another difficult question. I don’t have a favourite style as such. I’ll read many different poems, some I’ll like and some I won’t, but the style of writing doesn’t have much bearing on why I like them or not. I do have an author friend, Thomas Leverett, who writes extensively in haiku form, and I loved his E Pluribus Haiku, which feels like travelling around the USA in haiku form. It’s on the link below, if you’re interested.https://www.amazon.com/Pluribus-Haiku-Anthology-3487-ebook/dp/B08X2YRQB2

Which is your favourite of your own poems?

I love them all, some more than others, it has to be admitted. I’ll choose the last one I wrote, however, because it is the last one and about ‘the end’. It’s from Social Climbing and Other Poems, and inspired by Clive Thompson’s photo of the altar of a Greek Orthodox Church.

Due Process

Your case has been a lengthy one; eighty-four years it’s taken, to

observe your less-than-perfect deeds and gather evidence to

aid the prosecution. But now you’ll have your day in court and

the jury gathered here, the Twelve, will finally decide, for or

against, whether you stay righteous here or whether you go down.

You wish to conduct your own defence? No, really, that won’t do, you’ll

be given representation. One of these saintly suits here gathered,

yes, that’s right, the ones with haloed wigs, will intercede for you.

Sorry for the delay; we understand that it’s a real nerve-wracking time for

you, but we can’t begin until His Honour gets here to take His place there,

in the big chair. The witnesses are here for you, plus jury, twelve good men

and true, not to forget the female sex, the immaculate, to try to push

your sins aside and hide you ‘neath their garments of compassion.

But nothing can occur until the God-Father is here; He’s judge

and jury all in one, Divine Justice in person. So please don’t fret,

or maybe do, for He knows you as well as you, and maybe better.

This whole set-up is just for show, to satisfy the need to see the

wheels of justice set in motion; your sentence fixed already,

your judgement day is here.

And here Our Father approaches now.

The court will rise …

Tell us a bit about your book, Social Climbing and other poems – what is the inspiration for the collection?

At the time I was friends with a photographer, Clive Thompson, and one of his pictures inspired a poem – ‘So This is Christmas’, which I recently published on my blog. Clive then allowed me to put together a book of my poems written to the prompts of some of his pictures.

What’s next for Laura Lyndhurst in the world of writing?

No more poetry, I’m afraid; nothing planned, at any rate, but if something occurs then I’ll be putting it together. At present I’m editing my latest novel, a whodunnit of sorts; a new departure for me, sort-of, because although I like adding a bit of a mystery to some of my stories this will be the first time I’ve brought the police in to investigate. It’s more focussed on before the murder, the personalities involved and their potential motivations. After that I’ll see what else occurs to me.

Many thanks for interviewing me. I’ve enjoyed it very much.

My review of SOCIAL CLIMBING: and Other Poems

Picture caption: The cover of Social Climbing and Other Poems featuring a pair of shiny, red high heeled shoes against a white background inset into a red background

When I saw the cover of this collection, the shiny, red high heeled shoes against a white background, it reminded me of the movie, The Devil Wears Prada featuring Merril Streep and I was completely fascinated. I was not disappointed as this interesting collection of freestyle poems is a head on collision with an array of social situations, many of which are uncomfortable.

“The sit inside and watch the show, these Parisian fans of opera; but we,

lacking the means to buy the tickets for the red-plush, well-upholstered

seats and ornate murals, gilt-decked swirls and whirls of rococo decor,

prefer to take our entertainment in quite another way. Out here in the street”

from Street Theatre

Laura slices to the heart of human emotions and frustrations and these poetic expressions resonated with me. One poem I particularly delighted over is “I don’t know much about art but I know what I like”.

“So I’m breaking out of normalcy,

gone so very Modernisth,

this El Greco’s got his paintbox out

and given life a twist.”

Honestly, this poem made me laugh until I cried. Fantastic!

Each poem is introduced with a beautiful colour photograph by photographer, Clive Thompson.

Do yourself a favour, purchase this collection and allow Laura to put your life in perspective for you.

About Laura Lyndhurst

Picture caption: Author photograph of Laura Lyndhurst

Laura Lyndhurst was born and grew up in North London, England, before marrying and travelling with her husband in the course of his career.

When settled back in the UK she became a mature student and gained Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in English and Literature before training and working as a teacher.

She started writing in the last few years in the peace and quiet of rural Lincolnshire, and published her debut novel, Fairytales Don’t Come True, in May 2020. This book forms the first of a trilogy, Criminal Conversation, of which the second is Degenerate, Regenerate and All That We Are Heir To the third. Innocent, Guilty, the first of another trilogy, continues the story told in these three books and leads on to The Future of Our House, which is followed by Uphill, Downhill, Over, Out as the sixth and final book to end the series. An Honourable Institution was published as a stand-alone novel in January 2025, as was The Guilty Party in September 2025.

Laura also developed a taste for psychological suspense, which led to the writing and publication of You Know What You Did, to which What Else Did You Do? is the sequel.

Laura has also published four small books of poems, October Poems, Thanksgiving Poems and Prose Pieces, Poet-Pourri and Social Climbing and Other Poems.

Find Laura Lyndhurst

Website: https://booksthatmakeyouthink2.co.uk/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/laura.lyndhurst (personal profile)

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lauralyndhurstauthor/ (author profile)

Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/Laura-Lyndhurst/author/B088QFJJ3Q

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/20336562.Laura_Lyndhurst

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lyndhurstlauraauthor/

Pinterest: https://uk.pinterest.com/lyndhurstlaura/

Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@alectrona47

About Robbie Cheadle

You can find Robbie Cheadle’s artwork, fondant and cake artwork, and all her books on her website here: https://www.robbiecheadle.co.za/

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This segment of “Treasuring Poetry” is sponsored by WordCrafter Press and the Poetry Treasures series.

Get Your Copy Today!

Poetry Treasures: https://books2read.com/PoetryTreasures

Poetry Treasures 2: Relationships: https://books2read.com/PT2-Relationships

Poetry Treasures 3: Passions: https://books2read.com/u/b5qnBR

Poetry Treasures 4:In Touch With Nature: https://books2read.com/PT4-Nature

Poetry Treasures 5: Small Pleasures: https://books2read.com/PT5-SmallPleasures

Book Review: “Wild Seduction”

Posted: February 13, 2026 | Author: kayelynnebooth | Filed under: Book Review, Books, Fiction, Review, romance, Western, western romance | Tags: Amber Everly, Book Reveiw, Kaye Lynne Booth, western romance, Wild Seduction, Writing to be Read | Leave a comment

About Wild Seduction

Dr. Rowan Ashford is an elite equine trauma surgeon—precise, ambitious, and on the run from a career-ending crisis. Her task is simple: travel to the snowy isolation of Montana, save a prize stud named Legacy, and earn enough to wipe out a crushing, $500,000 debt. The only thing standing between her and financial freedom is Jake Wild, a formidable, stone-cold rancher whose only priority is the bottom line—the crippling ledger of Wild Acres.

Haunted by his father’s legacy of failure, Jake views Rowan as a temporary, high-cost asset. He’s determined to keep the brilliant, fiery surgeon who saved his horse at arm’s length, fearing that any emotional attachment will lead to the ultimate loss. But when a brutal winter blizzard traps them alone in the isolated ranch house, the fight for survival quickly ignites a desperate, undeniable passion.

Under the pressure of a life-or-death rescue, Jake’s stoic shell shatters, revealing the vulnerable man beneath. Rowan forces him to choose: cling to the past and the fear of commitment, or embrace a future where their passion is matched by a powerful, multi-million dollar partnership. The seduction of Wild Acres is fierce, but the vow they make in the firelight is forever.

Purchase Link: https://www.amazon.com/Wild-Seduction-Amber-Everly-ebook/dp/B0FWV7DNMY

My Review of Wild Seduction

I received a free digital copy of Wild Seduction, by Amber Everly, from the review program on Sandra’s Book Club in exchange for an honest review. All opinions stated here are my own.

I chose this book because I liked the cover. The cover image and the title told me the story would be western romance, which is right up my alley. Although I’m not a big romance reader, in 2018, I was a judge for the Western Writers of America Spur awards and romance was my category, so I can honestly say I’ve read a lot of western romance.

Luke Wild is a traditional rancher, who values the old ways handed down by his father. He bears the weight of his father’s legacy, but feels inadequate to carry it on, especially when the ranch is failing and on the verge of going under. Rowan is the headstrong veterinarian who can save his prize horse and the ranch with all her modern medicine and equipment, if he’ll give her control to do so. Two strong willed characters, they go head-to-head in the struggle to save the horse and accept each other for their strengths.

In Wild Seduction, Everly follows classic romance story structure, for the most part, and romance tropes, making this book 1 in the series. She veers from the standard his view/her view with alternating chapters by adding more than main two P.O.V. characters, Luke and Rowan, including brief chapter viewpoints of brothers Nick and Mike , and that of foreman Pete. We don’t hear a lot from these other characters, and I found it kind of distracting, as I couldn’t see the author’s purpose in including them. If they were being introduced because their stories will be told in subsequent books in the series, they did not feel important enough here, I felt like they were just there to make the reader aware of the characters, but that could have been accomplished through the viewpoint of Luke, and not felt out of place. That being said, I felt the alternating chapters worked well to let the story unfold.

I had some difficulty relating to the characters for a couple of different reasons. One, I am not familiar with the ranching world or the veterinary world, but Everly did a great job of introducing me to these other areas and educating me in an unobtrusive way. But also, these character’s insight is way too clear to be believable. Luke knows he’s his own greatest obstacle because of his feelings of obligation to tradition and his father’s ways. Rowan knows the faults that are holding her back, giving both of them clear choices to make. But I find most people are not that honest with themselves and must struggle to identify and admit what’s blocking them before they can deal with it, and I don’t see that happening with either of these characters. Usually everyone around can see the trouble before the main character does. But these two know who they are and what they want quite clearly, leaving the path to creating a romance with their opposites on a straight path with few surprises.

A classic western romance with a good volley between character point of views. I give Wild Seduction four quills.

About Kaye Lynne Booth

For Kaye Lynne Booth, writing is a passion. Kaye Lynne is an author with published short fiction and poetry, both online and in print, including her short story collection, Last Call and Other Short Fiction; and her paranormal mystery novella, Hidden Secrets; Books 1 & 2 of her Women in the West adventure series, Delilah and Sarah, and Book 1 in her Time-Travel Adventure series, The Rock Star & The Outlaw, as well as her poetry collection, Small Wonders.

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Read & Cook – Rhyming Dreams by Nicole Sara and Multicoloured Jelly Cupcakes

Posted: February 11, 2026 | Author: robbiesinspiration | Filed under: Book Review, Collection, Poetry, Read and Cook, Recipes, Review | Tags: #ReadandCook, #RobbieCheadle, Book Reveiw, Nicole Sara, Poetry, Recipes, Rhyming Dreams, Writing to be Read | 32 Comments

Rhyming Dreams by Nicole Sara

What Amazon says

Rhyming Dreams is an enchanting and engaging collection of poems about the heart’s winding journey through deep wistful longing towards bliss and belonging along the meandering road of love and loss, hope and healing. This book is for anyone who dreams a lot, loves deeply, and has both good and bad days.. like steps on a pathway, be them confident or hesitating, nevertheless tirelessly searching for happiness in the enjoyment of small things around, yet so sweet, that life has to offer.

Each and every poem in this debut collection is deeply rooted in personal moments and experiences but still wonderfully universal, so that you feel taken by the hand and shown the beauty and brightness of it all, thus wholeheartedly invited to gently give yourself grace beyond the sadness of blue gloomy days, the tears or the brokenness.

This collection of beautifully flowing and uplifting verse is a soothing balm for the soul in search of serenity, helping the reader to reach peaceful shores deep within.

for here, on Earth, you and I
bearing within us the sky
we dance away beneath whispering stars
trying to reach beyond rails and bars
(fromKinship)

My review

Picture caption: Cover of Rhyming Dreams by Nicole Sara featuring a female goddess in tones of blue against a turquoise background

The poetry content of Rhyming Dreams is a delightfully ethereal as its striking cover of a female goddess in shades of blue against a turquoise background. The poet introduces this collection with an overview about the large variety of different steps she has taken during her life and how they have led her on different journeys. Some steps are hard to take and some are taken quickly, heedless of potential danger, but all lead to change. The overarching message in this introduction and in this book, is that no matter how tough life gets, our feet always eventually grow wings again and our steps led us upwards, in pursuit of our dreams and better opportunities.

Many of the poems are written in rhyming verse which is a favourite form of mine, and all are exquisitely beautiful. Each poem is matched with one of the poet’s wonderful colour photographs that compliment the words. One of the objectives of this collection is to create and share beauty by engaging all of the senses in a sensuous and vivid way. It creates a path of poems to joy and gratitude.

One of my favourite poems in the collection is called Starry Steps and it provides a small peek into the collection.

Starry Steps
“to step on stairs
of stars

to breathe in their light,
their dream

touching their statin star dust
beyond clouds

and the moon…
smiling
from within their shine

and hiding behind veils of rays
to fall asleep

sun in your heart…”

A poetry collection that uplifts and inspires.

Purchase Rhyming Dreams by Nicole Sara from Amazon US here: https://www.amazon.com/Rhyming-Dreams-Nicole-Sara-ebook/dp/B0DCZXWMBF

Multicoloured Jelly Cupcakes

Ingredients

1 each red, green, orange, blue and pink jelly; 1 lemon jelly; 125 ml evaporated milk; and 250 ml clear apple juice

Method

Make up the red, green, orange, blue and pink jellies according to the instructions on the packet. When set, chop the jellies roughly into squares. Heat the apple juice and dissolve the lemon jelly in the juice and allow to cool. Add the slightly beaten evaporated milk. Place cupcake holders on a baking tray and fill them to three quarters full with different coloured squares of jelly. Cover the jelly pieces with the lemon mixture. Place in the refrigerator to set overnight.

About Robbie Cheadle

You can find Robbie Cheadle’s artwork, fondant and cake artwork, and all her books on her website here: https://www.robbiecheadle.co.za/

Find Robbie Cheadle

Blog https://wordpress.com/home/robbiesinspiration.wordpress.com

Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/robbiecheadle.bsky.social

YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVyFo_OJLPqFa9ZhHnCfHUA

Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15584446.Robbie_Cheadle

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This segment of “Read and Cook with Robbie Cheadle” is sponsored by WordCrafter Press and their themed anthologies.

Curses: Chronicles of Darkness:

There are all types of curses.

Cursed places, cursed items, cursed people, cursed families.

Curses that last throughout time. Curses which can’t be broken. Curses which are brought upon ourselves. Curses that will kill you and those that will only make you wish you were dead.

Legends: Monsters That Go Bump in the Night: Coming in 2026

Everyone is a Critic: My All-Time Favorites – Chick Flicks

Posted: February 9, 2026 | Author: kayelynnebooth | Filed under: Everyone is a Critic, Movie Review, Movies, Review, romance | Tags: Chick Flicks, Everyone is a Critic, Movie Review, Movies, romance, Writing to be Read | 4 Comments

February is a month for lovers, what with St. Valentine’s Day and all, so I though it would be appropriate to begin this series in 2026 with the mushy romance stuff, so here are my all-time favorite chick flicks.

Chick Flicks – I may be an old chick, but I’m still a chick (Yep. I like Patrick Swayze)

There are some movies that I can watch over and over and never get tired of them because they are so fun to watch. I’m sure certain movies are the same for everyone, in this respect. For “Everyone is a Critic” in 2026, I’d like to talk about my all-time favorites, because if you haven’t seen them, they are worth watching, and if you have, maybe this will remind you how fun they are, and you’ll give one or two another go. I’ve categorized them by the values I find in them, or the reason that I watch them. Many of them, I have watched so many times, I can quote them word for word through many parts. (And, yes, I am old, but they really don’t make them like they used to.)

Now, here, I will share them with you in the hopes that you will get the same enjoyment I have from watching them. For those who have seen the movie, the quotes will bring certain scenes alive in their minds. And if you haven’t seen the movie and you watch it, when you see the scene, you’ll understand why I chose the quotes that I did.

Dirty Dancing (1987), with Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey

It was the summer of 1963, and Frances ‘Baby’ Houseman (Jennifer Grey) is spending it with her family at a Catskills resort. Bored and feeling out of place, she inadvertently discovers the underground world of dance through the resort’s entertainers. When one of the girls is unable to finish out their summer itinerary, Baby volunteers to train and take her place, putting her in direct contact and very close proximity of the lead male dance instructor, Johnny Castle (Parick Swayze).

This movie is total fantasy fulfillment for me. What I would have given when I was younger to be Jennifer Grey. This is a movie I never get tired of watching, even to this day.

Favorite Quote: “Nobody puts Baby in the corner.” – Johnny Castle (Swayze)

“Look, spaghetti arms. This is my dance space. This is your dance space. I don’t go into yours; you don’t go into mine. You gotta hold the frame.” – Johnny Castle (Swayze)

“I’m scared of what I saw, I’m scared of what I did, of who I am, and most of all I’m scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I’m with you.” – Baby (Grey)

“We’re supposed to do the show in two days, you won’t show me the lifts, I’m not sure of the turns, I’m doing all this to save your ass, what I really want to do is drop you on it!” -Baby (Grey)

Favorite Scene: The final dance & the lift on the log

Ghost (1990), with Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze

When banker Sam Wheat (Patrick Swayze) is murdered, leaving his girl Molly (Demi Moore) grieving in their new loft apartment. But Sam doesn’t cross over and learns that his best friend, Carl, is behind his murder. Now he must find a way to warn Molly from beyond the grave, as Carl tries to move in on Molly.

This is another movie which I love. Of course, it helps that the male star is Patrick Swayze. I would watch it just for that reason, but it also has a original paranormal story line of a true love cut short, and the character of Oda Mea (Whoopi Goldberg), is so entertaining that both merit kudos in their own rights.

Favorite Scene: The pottery wheel scene, (of course) & the subway scene where he forces the other ghost to teach him to manipulate solid matter in his ephemeral form.

Road House (1989), with Patrick Swayze and Sam Elliot

I watch this movie strictly because of the stars. I like Sam Elliot, but I’ve always had a thing for Patrick Swayze. A young Swayze is just eye candy that I never get tired of seeing, even at my age. He really shows it off in this one, which only adds to the story line of big guy pushing the little guy and the little guy pushing back, with some pretty great fights, mixed with a romance story line and some very hot scenes with Swayze. Winner all around.

Favorite Scene: Any scene with Swayze in it.

Pretty Woman (1990), with Julia Roberts and Richard Gere

What starts as a week-long business arrangement between a billionaire Edward Lewis (Richard Gere) and a high-end hooker, Vivian Ward (Julia Roberts), turns into something more in this ultimate rags to riches romance, changing the way they both view life, and love. It’s funny and entertaining, and good for a laugh every time.

Favorite Scene: The bubble bath scene & the shopping spree

Favorite Quotes: “You and I are such similar creatures, Vivian. We both screw people for money.” – Edward Lewis (Gere)

“Do you have anything in this shop as beautiful as she is?” – Edward Lewis (Gere)

“I can do anything I want to, baby. I ain’t lost.” – Vivian Ward (Roberts)

“In case I forget to tell you later, I had a really good time tonight.” – Vivian Ward (Roberts)

” Did I mention my leg is forty-four inches from hip to toe; so, basically, we are talking about eighty-eight inches of therapy wrapped around you for the bargain price of three thousand dollars.” – Vivian Ward (Roberts)

“Big mistake. Big. Huge. I have to go shopping now.” – Vivian Ward (Roberts)

“Oh, it was so good, I almost peed my pants!” – Vivian Ward (Roberts)

Thelma and Louise (1991), with Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis

Thelma (Susan Sarandon) and Louise (Geena Davis) are friends to the end in this female bromance adventure. What starts out as a weekend road trip quickly turns into an adventure from which there is no turning back after a man tries to rape Thelma, and Louise comes to her aid and shoots him.

This is a story of female empowerment in spite of its tragic ending. An endearing tale of friendship that never gets old.

Favorite Scene: Outside the bar in the parking lot where Thelma is assaulted.

Favorite Quotes: “You shoot off a guy’s head with his pants down, believe me, Texas is not the place you wanna get caught.” – Louise (Sarandon)

“You’ve always been crazy, this is just the first chance you’ve had to express yourself.” – Louise (Sarandon)

“Well, we’re not in the middle of nowhere, but we can see it from here.” – Louise (Sarandon)

“Hey Louise, better slow down, I’ll just die if we get caught over a speeding ticket.” – Thelma (Davis)

“I’m not sorry that son-of-a-bitch is dead. I’m just sorry it was you that did it and not me.” – Thelma (Davis)

“Good mornin’ ladies and gentlemen. This is a robbery. Now, if nobody loses their head, nobody will lose their head. Simon says y’all lie down on the floor, please, right away. Thank you. Ma’am, would you get down? Not you, sir. Let’s see who’ll win a prize for keepin’ their cool. Sir, will you do the honors? Take all the cash out of the drawer, put it in a paper bag.” – Thelma (Davis)

About Author Kaye Lynne Booth

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This segment of “Everyone is a Critic” is sponsored by the Time Travel Adventure Series and WordCrafter Press.

When a Girl with a Guitar Meets a Man with a Gun, It’s Time to Travel

The Rock Star & The Outlaw: https://www.amazon.com/Rock-Star-Outlaw-Time-Travel-Adventure-ebook/dp/B0CJBRRCN1/

The Rock Star & The Outlaw 2: Seeing Doubles: Coming in March 2025

LINDSEY’S WRITING PRACTICE: Book Review

Posted: February 4, 2026 | Author: Lindsey Martin-Bowen | Filed under: Anthology, Book Review, Books, Dark fiction, Fiction, Lindsey's Writing Practice, Review, Short Fiction, Stories | Tags: Book Reveiw, Lindsey Martin-Bowen, Lindsey's Writing Practice, Midnight Garden, Writing to be Read | 3 Comments

Woman with giant pencil standing next to stack of giant papers. Bookshelves in the background. Text: Lindsey's Writing Practice with Lindsey Martin-Bowen

Anthology Review: MIDNIGHT GARDEN: Where Dark Tales Grow

Book Cover: Midnight Garden, Where Dark Tales Grow, edited by Kaye Lynne Booth

Purchase Link: https://books2read.com/MidnightGardenAnthology

Readers who relish dark tales will love this collection of numerous stories that often blend humorous word play to add levity to some very dark situations. For example, this second anthology in the Midnight Anthology Series, MIDNIGHT GARDEN, opens with award-winning author Paul Kane’s “Drip Feed.” The story incorporates light-hearted word-play into a grim setting–the polar opposite of the romantic backdrop in Kane’s “The White Lady,” from the 2023 MIDNIGHT ROOST collection.

In fact, this dark tale unsettled my psyche so much, I almost refused to comment upon it until after I read it a second time. Then, I focused upon its metaphoric interpretation,which is quite valid, especially considering our current world situation. And like many stories in this group, this one reveals some strong feminist themes. Thus, I now urge readers to “hang in there” while they peruse this midnight story.
Likewise, Ell Rodman’s “The Drummer,” set four hundred years ago in “Cull County.”
(yes—look up the noun definition for “cull” to glean this story’s underlying interpretation), projects both in-depth—but frightening images. (Note it ends in a fiery place where the Drummer ”wore fitted black robes, bearing a massive wooden hammer and a dark shield.”) Along with incorporating history into this piece, Rodman’s detailed descriptions of the environment keep readers traveling a mysterious path to the tale’s conclusion.
Also suspenseful but not as grim,, DL Mullan’s “Kurst,” is one of my favorites in this collection. Set in Salt Pines, a village in Arizona, “between dreamy pine peaks and unfathomable horrors,” the story opens when Karen Kurst leaves her editing job to checkout the “Kurst inheritance” on the Toronto National Forest’s eastern edge. After she encounters Sheriff “Bear” Barrett, who offers her background about her inheritance and eading materials, this story takes readers on a wild—frightening—but fulfilling “ride.”
Another favorite, Roberta Eaton Cheadle’s “Amahle’s Demon” reveals how little we often understand about our fellow creatures, which can result in heartbreaking ends. One of six elephants comprising a “sanctuary herd” recently moved to “another kraal near the visitors’ centre, ready for the afternoon tour.” Unfortunately, a much smaller creature—and a human’s ignorance led to an ending that evoked my tears.
Denise Aparo’s “Jack Moon and the Vanishing Book” (also a favorite tale) takes readers on a magical adventure of the mind—or perhaps into a different dimension via a “much sought-after Vanishing Book that steals souls.” While enjoying this other worldly piece, readers may decide whether it’s an earthly adventure or a magical one while enjoying the ride.
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As I mentioned in my review of Midnight Roost, I’m mostly a rom-com fan, and Jon Shannon’s “Stitch” could fall into that category. But with a warning: Yes, it’s a romantic story about the characters Andy, a taxidermist and his wife, Julie, a superb seamstress, and the unusual creations they build together, which many of their colleagues consider bizarre. This tale comes with a warning, too: Its ironic humor is quite dark—and leads to a surprise “tongue-in-cheek” ending.
Julie Jones’s “Black Moon” serves as an allegory much like stories from ancient Greece. In fact, it brings to mind C.S. Lewis’s novel, Till We Have Faces, based upon Greek mythological characters.
In contrast, “Antepenultimate,” Molly Ertel ‘s first person narrative, initially evokes chuckles at the narrator’s obsession with the ticking of an antique “KIT-Cat Klock” that began “talking” to her until the narrator became obsessed with an internal urge that leads her down a terrible—and terrifying path.
Similarly, Kaye Lynne Booth’s first -person narrator in “The Puppet Men,” another of my favorites, awakens in a pitch-black room, where she encounters “A thin sliver of light coming in under the door” that clued [her] “memory” to recount she was sleeping in a dark room in her grandmothers house. There, she also hears “high-pitched , twittering, kind of chirpy” voices coming from her grandmother’s felt puppet collection. As an adult, she remains obsessed with those voices she found so threatening that she puts off back surgery to avoid the anesthetic, which she fears will bring the “evil puppets” back into her life.
In a similar vein, Alex Constance’s “The Peddler,” another “dark” tale, serves as an allegory about the downfalls of greed. And Constance’s description of the peddler, “Ichabod” reminded me of Disney’s Ichabod Crane in Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” especially in Disney’s cartoon version of that tale.

Although Danacka Scrimshaw’s “The Fae Game” at first appears to be a much “lighter: tale than most of those in this collection, the “flip” at its conclusion inspires in the reader feelings that are quite eerie.,

Prolific author Joseph Carrabis penned five stories in this collection, each with merit:

—“Striders,” with a “just desserts” ending, this sci-fi piece gives another nod to feminism
—“Grande Ture,” a short, intense tale that creates a strong statement about AI.
—“The Last Drop,” which illustrates ignorance and bigotry often leads to the opposite of bliss.
—And what I consider Carrabis’s literary masterpiece in this collection,“The Tomb,” a deep tale centering around a blind man who undergoes an operation to retain his sight. Although its plot varies significantly from the Val Kilmer 1999 film, At First Sight. (based upon a true case study by Dr. Oliver Sacks), it shares one of the movie’s sequence of events that creates the stories’ themes about the protagonist: being blind, undergoing an operation that gives him sight, then becoming disoriented when adapting to a visual world—and realizing he had more “sight” in his physical blindness. (Carrabis’s tale contains more “dark” physical drama in its conclusion.)

Aptly scribed with engaging (albeit sometimes weird) characters, all stories in this collection entice readers via their talented, skilled authors. And even if a story is terribly dark, most readers would likely concur it ends with characters reaping well-deserved fates—or “poetic justice,” such as those in Robbie White’s“Fire Sale at the Burdock Family Business” and Zack Ellafy’s “Self-Mutiny,”with its “poetic justice” ending. Indeed, even a narrator reaps his “just dessert in Paul Martz’s “The Blackest Ink.”

And for this well-written collection’s finale, the 2024 Wordcrafter Dark Fiction Contest winner, an engaging but eerie saga,‘The Seagull Man,” by M.J. Mallon unfolds with a detailed description of that bird-like man, who wears grey and white clothes and strolls regularly to the shore with a flock of seagulls circling him along the way. In contrast, “[t]he inhabitants of Cave Birdie knew of the Seagull Man’s reputation, his legend, and avoided contact with him.”

As the tale progresses, the reader learns why his neighbors avoid him—and most likely shares their reaction until the story unfolds in an unanticipated manner—a story that might be defined as a fantastical, especially for this reviewer who’s partial to Rom-Coms, including the eerie ones.

About Lindsey Martin-Bowen

On Halloween 2023, redbat books released Lindsey Martin-Bowen’s 7th poetry collection, CASHING CHECKS with Jim Morrison. Her 4 th collection, Where Water Meets the Rock, was nominated for a Pulitzer; her 3rd, CROSSING KANSAS with Jim Morrison was a finalist in the QuillsEdge Press 2015-2016 Contest. In 2017, it won the Kansas Writers Assn award, “Looks Like a Million.” Writer’s Digest gave her “Vegetable Linguistics” an Honorable Mention in its 85th Annual (2017) Contest. Her Inside Virgil’s Garage (Chatter House Press 2013) was a runner-up in the 2015 Nelson Poetry Book Award. McClatchy Newspapers named her Standing on the Edge of the World (Woodley Press/Washburn University) was one of the Ten Top Poetry Books of 2008. It was nominated for a Pen Award.

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This segment of “Lindsey’s Writing Practice” is sponsored by the Midnight Anthology Series and WordCrafter Press.

Midnight Roost: Weird and Creepy Stories: 20 authors bring your nightmares to life in 23 stories of ghosts, paranormal phenomenon and the horror from the dark crevasses of their minds. Stories of stalkers, both human and supernatural, possession and occult rituals, alien visitations of the strange kind, and ghostly tales that will give you goosebumps. These are the tales that will make you fear the dark. Read them at the Midnight Roost… if you dare. https://www.amazon.com/Midnight-Roost-Kaye-Lynne-Booth-ebook/dp/B0CL6FPLVJ

Midnight Garden: Where Dark Tales Grow: 17 authors bring you 21 magnificent dark tales. Stories of magic, monsters and mayhem. Tales of murder and madness which will make your skin crawl. These are the tales that explore your darkest fears. Read them in the Midnight Garden… if you dare. https://www.amazon.com/Midnight-Garden-Where-Tales-Anthology-ebook/dp/B0DJNDQJD3

Midnight Oil: Stories to Fuel Your Nightmares: 14 authors bring you 16 dark tales that explore your deepest fears. These are the stories which nightmares are made of. Tales of monsters, mayhem, and madness which will make you shiver in the dark. Read them while you burn the Midnight Oil… if you dare. https://books2read.com/Midnight-Oil

Book Review: “Hummingbird Moonrise”

Posted: January 23, 2026 | Author: kayelynnebooth | Filed under: Book Review, Books, Fiction, Mystery, Paranormal, Review | Tags: Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Fiction, Hummingbird Moonlight, Magic, mystery, Sheri L. Dodd, Writing to be Read | Leave a comment

About Hummingbird Moonrise

The past two years have taken their toll on Arista Kelly. Once an eternal optimist, now she has faced the darkness and must recalibrate what true happiness means for her. Meanwhile, Shane, her ex-boyfriend, is pulling all the right moves to help keep her sane from her heightening paranoia. But it doesn’t help that Iris, her Great Aunt Bethie’s friend, has disappeared.

Still, one additional trial remains. While searching for Iris, Bethie and Arista stumble upon a grand revelation in the eccentric woman’s home. With the discovery, they realize their run of chaos and loss of kin may have roots in a curse that dates back to the 1940s—the time when their family patriarch first built Arista’s cottage in the redwoods and crafted his insightful Ouija table.

This pursuit will not follow their accustomed recipe of adrenalized action, but the high stakes remain. Will the mysterious slow burn of unfolding events finally level Arista’s entire world or be fully extinguished, once and for all?

Purchase Link: https://www.amazon.com/Hummingbird-Moonrise-Paranormal-Mystery-Crystals-ebook/dp/B0FB5QV948

My Review of Hummingbird Moonrise

I received a free digital copy of Hummingbird Moonlight, by Sherri L. Dodd from the review program of Sandra’s Book Club in exchange for an honest review. All opinions stated here are my own.

I chose this book because of the title. It’s common knowledge that I love hummingbirds, and I couldn’t resist a story with hummingbirds in the title.

I had trouble keeping the characters straight due to so many of the character names beginning with the same letter or being very similar. We’ve got a Matty, a Manny, a Maddie, a Mike and a Mateo. Also, an Arista, an Auntie, and an Alicia. To make matters worse, Auntie is also the character of Bethie, but I was almost halfway through the book before I figured that out.

This is book 3 in the series, so that may well have had something to do with my confusion. The author does not re-introduce characters in this book for those who haven’t read the first two books. Nor are referrals to events that happened in the first to books recapped so that readers coming in late in the series have no reference. I was way past the middle of the book before I knew why I was seeing the actions of Mike and his sister, Katie and the strange little girl, while I’m sure someone who had read previous books would have understood and been able to easily follow. There are referrals to earlier events, but they are not explained well.

If you don’t mind just going along for the ride and feeling a little clueless, this is a fine story of magic and mayhem. An ancient family curse and a reversal curse have led to doom for two families. Our characters are the last souls surviving in their family lines and their survival lies in the outcome. Arista and Aunt Bethie are the last of the Kelly clan, and Iris may be the last survivor of the clan casting the original curse on their brood. However, Iris may have risen from the dead and also, she may be possessed by Fergus, whom she killed and fed to the pigs. (I guess I’m still a bit confused.)

Curses, spells, potions, gwishins, and spirit possessions. This story has all the elements of a magical mystery adventure, if you can keep everybody straight, but I do not recommend it as a standalone. I give Hummingbird Moonrise three quills.