Rebecca M. Douglass, Author

I 'm posting today with t he fantastic Marvelous Middle Grade Mondays blog hop hosted by Greg Pattridge of Always in the Middle . Check out Greg's blog for a list of additional middle grade reviews.     Title: The Peach Thief Author: Linda Joan Smith Publication Information: Candlewick Press, 2025, 385 pages Source: Library  Publisher's Blurb (Goodreads) :  The night that workhouse orphan Scilla Brown dares to climb the Earl of Havermore’s garden wall, she wants only to steal a peach—the best thing she’s ever tasted in her hard, hungry life. But when she’s caught by the earl’s head gardener and mistaken for a boy, she grabs on to something a temporary job scrubbing flowerpots. If she can just keep up her deception, she’ll have a soft bed and food beyond her wildest dreams . . . maybe even peaches. She soon falls in with Phin, a garden apprentice who sneaks her into the steamy, fruit-filled greenhouses, calls her “Brownie,” and makes her skin prick...

Parts 1 and 2 of this trail narrative are here and here . Today we'll finish the trail, enjoy some time and a couple of good meals in Thorsmork (which is a place, not a town), and get the bus back to Reykjavik. Laugavegur Trail Day 4: Emstrur Hut to Thorsmork   After sleeping early and hard, it was no surprise to be up early. Because the hut was so crowded it seemed best to just get out of the way ASAP, and because once again weather might be better in the morning, I was off about half past 7, in a light rain and stiff breeze (a huge improvement over howling winds). The all-important, if largely useless, forecast board.   With far less wind and barely any rain, I was able to put my camera back on the packstrap, under my poncho, where I could access it and finally start shooting with a real camera again.  Looking back at the hut. I think the giant tents stay there all season for guided hikers; there were other spots for the actual backpackers, poor wet souls. I think...

Really? I'm writing? Well, okay, at this point that's stretching it. But I'm staying home for a while and back at my computer. More specifically, I am plotting and planning and getting ready to start drafting a new novel. I even have a tentative title:  Painted Over . I kind of liked  Portrait of the Artist as a Young Corpse,  but that's a bit long and maybe a bit geeky.  I'm still at the stage where I'm having fun tossing around big ideas and coming up with characters, writing their stories, and wondering what new personal challenges Seffi should face. It's starting to come together in my head, so I can reasonably hope to start the first draft within the next couple of weeks. I'm looking at bringing back some peripheral characters from both  Edited Out  (#3 in series, released Aug. 25) and #4 , Logged Off   (possibly  Logged Off at the Library , but I'm leaning toward the shorter title. Feel free to offer your opinions on all this in th...

I'm posting today with t he fantastic Marvelous Middle Grade Mondays blog hop hosted by Greg Pattridge of Always in the Middle . Check out Greg's blog for a list of additional middle grade reviews.    I got this book out of the library thanks to multiple positive reviews from other posters on the Marvelous Middle Grade Mondays hop. The plot and setting revolving around a fire lookout in the Gila Wilderness were the main attractions. I also liked the cover--very dramatic!    Title: The Burning Season Author: Caroline Starr Rose Publication Info: Audible Audio, 2025. 3 hours. Hardback by Nancy Paulsen Books,  256 pages. Source: Library  Publisher's Blurb (Goodreads): In this coming-of-age survival story in verse, a fire lookout-in-training must find her courage when a wildfire breaks out on her watch. Twelve-year-old Opal is deathly afraid of fire. Still Opal is preparing to become a fourth-generation lookout on Wolf Mountain, deep in the New Mexico...

Last week I started sharing the photos from this amazing trail in the Icelandic Highlands. Here's the next installment, where the weather turned... Icelandic :D Laugavegur Trail Day 2   (Sept. 7): Hrafntinnusker Hut to Alftavatn Hut You remember that lovely view from the hut from the previous evening, right?   Conditions in the morning were... changed. The wind was coming up, the mist turning to rain, and it was clear a) why the tent sites have rock walls around them, and b) that I was really glad I'd chosen to stay in the huts. From the start I was wearing my rain gear, my camera optimistically still on the shoulder strap though under its cover. Spoiler: that didn't last long. Within half an hour, the wind and rain had both picked up, I'd stowed the camera, put on the poncho (with a lot of tucking to keep it from flapping, and the rest of the day took cell phone photos. Despite the conditions (and inability to see the mountains that surround the caldera through which ...