March 28th's Friday Post

Time for another Friday Post.  As usual, I will be linking up to:

Book Beginnings
First Line Friday
Friday 56
Book Blogger Hop

This week, I'm pulling quotes from Ranch Dressing by Diane Vallere.

This is the fifteenth book in her Samantha Kidd series.  Diane is no stranger to my Friday posts or my blog in general.  She's written 42 mysteries, and I have now read them all.  Not as big an accomplishment as having written all of them, but I'm still very satisfied at the moment.

But let's talk about this book.  As you've probably guessed, Samantha is off to a dude ranch (or a guest ranch, if you prefer), which is definitely outside her wheelhouse.  Which gives us this great opening:

“I need to borrow some clothes,” I said. “Jeans,” I added then tacked on “Wranglers,” for further clarification. I finished with “please” to properly convey my desperation.

I was smiling by the time I finished that paragraph.

Normally, for the Friday 56, I'm trying to find something that captures a plot twist or teaser of some kind.  But this time, I've got a nice descriptive passage for you.

Loncar leaned back against the side of the building. He kicked his feet out in front of him and looked at the deep purple-blue night sky dotted with hundreds of stars. I shifted my attention from Loncar to the sky and, for the first time since we’d arrived, stopped to take in the beauty of the surrounding land. The light came from the moon, and it was full enough to make visible the tree line, the fence, and a family of deer that grazed about a hundred feet away. I pointed to the deer, Loncar nodded, and we sat there, allowing our murder-case recap to lapse into silence while we admired the beauty of the great outdoors.
After a minute or so, one of the deer turned and fled. The others followed. I watched their silhouettes disappear into the darkness, and moments later, there was no sign that they’d been there.

As expected, I enjoyed this book.  (I mean, I wouldn't read this many books by an author I didn't enjoy her.)  My full review will be up Thursday next week.

Let's switch over to the Book Blogger Hop.  This week has a hot question:

Do you judge an author's works based on their political stances?

I try not to, unless they infuse the book with their politics to the point that it overwhelms the novel.  However, it's been very hard to keep that true over the last six months or so.  Some of what I've seen authors posting on social media has been pretty nasty.  I can name three authors who said, essentially, "If you didn't vote my way, stop reading my books."  Two of them were authors I have read and reviewed for years.

It's something I've been struggling with a lot more in the past six months than in my entire previous 25 years of reviewing.  Which saddens me since this can be such a great way to form bridges and connections that can lead to understanding, common ground, and solutions.  But it is becoming increasingly hard to view this as an escape and hobby to build community.

And on that somber note, I'm out of here for the day.  Have a great weekend!