I have a weakness for World War I novels and an even bigger weakness for Kate Mosse, a British author known for her best-selling novels Labyrinth and Sepulchre. So, I’m happy to review her latest novel, The Winter Ghosts.
All posts by J.B. Gleason
Season’s End
Chair in hand, I make my way
Down the road, across the sand.
I sit by the water, my back to the sun,
And watch what’s left of the day drift away.
Great Summer Giveaway
GREAT SUMMER GIVEAWAY
Here’s your chance to win a novel that BlueInk Reviews called, “Literally unputdownable. As good as anything written by literary giants such as Ken Follett, Bernard Cornwell, Philipa Gregory, and Stephen R. Lawhead.”
I’m giving away five – count ’em – five signed copies of Anvil of God, Book One of the Carolingian Chronicles, this summer. Subscribe to the J. Boyce Gleason email newsletter before August 31 for a chance to win! Here’s the link: https://jboycegleason.com/giveaway/ Continue reading
The Origins of Fizzbin
I spent a winter term abroad teaching on one of Dartmouth’s Language Study Abroad programs in France. We got a ten-day break in the middle of the term and almost everyone skipped town to make good use of our Eurail passes. I palled up with Stanley Weil to visit Nice, Monaco, Florence and Munich. To keep our costs down, we took midnight trains between destinations and, splitting a couple of bottles of wine, slept as best we could on the hard third-class seats.
He had a deck of cards and we wore it out, passing the time between destinations. We played Spades, Hearts, Crazy Eights, Gin and anything else we could remember. At some point we had had enough. All the games had been played out. Continue reading
Pete’s Stationary Store
During my formative years, downtown Briarcliff Manor was about a block and a half long. Despite its diminutive size, it had just about everything anyone could want. There was a pharmacy, a dentist, a record store, a diner, a liquor store, Joe Weldon’s deli, a gift shop, and Pete’s.
The official title of Pete’s was “Pete’s Stationary Store.” But, it didn’t really sell stationary; it was more of a newsstand with a soda counter in the back. The cash register was hidden behind stacks of cigarettes featuring every model and make and there was a candy rack conveniently placed within the reach of any four-year old child.