Kim Fashions A Career

     Kim Merriman has just completed her second year of college when her father has a sudden stroke. In order to help him take time to recover Kim leaves school temporarily to get a job. Although she dreams of working as a buyer at department store the only offer she receives is as a stockroom girl. She accepts the job planning to quickly work her way up to the position she wants.

    Kim soon makes friends with her fellow coworkers including Francesca, a beautiful girls who dreams of being a model, and Dave, a night school attendee who is full of wisdom and good advice. Kim is fascinated by the department store and begins learning the ins and outs but despite her devotion to her job she can't help but miss college. Especially when she goes on dates with her sorta-boyfriend Gary who is always caught up in college/fraternity events. 

    Kim only plans on missing a semester of school but when her father decides to open an art gallery instead of going back to work Kim signs on to her job full time. Dave encourages Kim to attend night school but Kim insists she wants to go to "real college", especially since Annette, her rival for Gary's heart, has just transferred to Gary's school.

    Kim, eager to get ahead, propositions Melva Dorn, the fashion buyer, for a position as her assistant. Her boldness pays off and she gets a part time position as her assistant. Kim uses this opportunity to show off her fashion skills and learns some hard lessons about speaking up.

    When Christmas time comes around Kim attends a party at Gary's fraternity. When she learns the party-goers intend to steal Christmas displays from the department stores Kim realizes how much she has outgrown her old crowd and Gary. She decides to enroll in night school and give her heart to Dave.

- Kim is so unlikeable! She is spoiled, snobby, and self centered. She also seems impossible to get along with yet she thinks it's everyone else's fault.

- Kim is shocked anytime a coworker uses their employee discount to buy something for a friend and even refers to Cheri as "committing a crime" when she does it.

- It ended very abruptly. Kim decides to go to night school and realizes she likes Dave on the last pages. I thought the story was building up to Kim actually going to night school where she would do actual personal growth so when it ended without that happening it was very disappointing and made the book feel like a build up to nothing.

(I read this book on Archive.org via their lending library which is where the image comes from.)

Veil of Sand

    After her boyfriend leaves her for another woman young redheaded Nola decides to find a job which will take her far away from the city and that happens to be a job as assistant park ranger out in the isolated California desert. The head ranger, Vance Fletcher, is not happy to see that a woman has been hired for the job but as the park is understaffed he gives Nola a chance. However his wife Carobeth is ecstatic to have another women out in the lonely desert. Besides the couple and their three little boys, assistant ranger Miguel is the only other person in the vicinity.

    On her first day of duty Nola is tasked with checking on all the park campsites. While she drives on the long stretches of road she notices smoke from a fire in the distance. Knowing that desert campfires are illegal, and wanting to show Vance she is eager to do a good job, she foolishly takes the park jeep off road into the desert sand. The smoke is farther than she had anticipated and after a substantial distance into the desert the jeep gets stuck. Nola sets out on foot determined to complete her goal but again misjudges the distance.

    Exhausted and thirsty Nola finally comes upon the smoke and sees it's coming from a chimney of an old shack. The inhabitant being a handsome man with a red beard that she had seen walking along the road the day of her arrival. He gets her some water, chides her for her foolishness, and introduces himself as Todd Marshal, a painter. He helps Nola get the jeep unstuck and she leaves with a crush on him.

    Back at the park headquarters Vance has been struggling with two problems: the poaching of the local big horn sheep and a persistent grass fire threatening to destroy the sheep's grazing land. Could the latter be a intentional cover for the former? Nola is worried that Todd Marshall could be involved in the poaching but decides to keep her suspicious to herself until she can get to know him better.

    While working in the park office one day a gorgeous woman named Erin Marshal comes in looking for Todd and Nola's heart breaks to think that Todd is married. However clearly Todd did not tell Erin his location, could that mean they're separated?

    Upon her next visit to the old shack Nola doesn't get around to inquiring about Todd's relationship statues and when he embraces and kisses her Nola is in heaven. That is until she remembers Erin, at which point she shoves Todd back and declares her hate for him as she runs off.

    One day Nola is tasked with collecting the camping fees from the different park campgrounds. As she approaches a luxury RV at one, the door is open and she sees Todd and Erin inside hugging. Instantly in tears she flees with Todd rushing after her.

    She gets on her mule, which Vance gave her in place of the jeep after the incident, and rides off into the desert directionless. Once she calms herself she realizes she has no idea where she is, she has no compass, and almost no water. She wanders with the mule, sharing what little water she has left before resting in the shadow of a bolder. Exhausted she falls asleep and awakes to find her mule has wandered off out of sight. Trying not to panic she begins walking in the hopes that she can make it to Todd's shack. A storm has been hanging in the distance and Nola barely scrambles out of a canyon before being drowned in a flash flood.

    Nola is relieved when she sees someone in the distance and frantically calls to them but as she runs closer she sees a shot big horn sheep at his feet; he's the poacher. Or rather one of them and his partner soon appears from behind a bolder.

    The two men discuss murdering Nola but when a torrent of rain begins to fall they grab her and run for cover in the old shack. The two go inside while leaving Nola on the patio at which time she manages to sneakily toss her red handkerchief on top of the roof, a signal for the search and rescue team who will be looking for her.

    Once the rain lets up the two, whose discussion has turned to whispers, force Nola into the shack when suddenly the sound of a helicopter is heard. The men position themselves under a window with their single gun drawn and don't notice when Nola slips out the other window.

    Todd, who was in the helicopter along with Vance and an officer, grabs Nola and pulls her to safety while the poachers are arrested. Nola confronts Todd about Erin and he informs her Erin is his sister. The two decide to marry. The end.

- Nola has no business being a park ranger. Multiple times she gets emotional and runs off into the desert aimlessly. And despite always barely escaping danger she keeps doing it.

- Nola's ex boyfriend, the one she's leaving the city over, turns out to be the head of the poachers and Erin was the woman he left Nola for. I thought this was rather stupid. The guy was just some dumb up-and-coming real estate agent that Nola did all the work for and now he's suddenly involved in big time poaching so far from home? Nah, I don't buy it.

- It was obvious Erin was Todd's sister, such a cliché but I can't be mad. After all this is a 100-something page book published by Avalon, the company that pumped them out as fast as they could write them. I didn't expect this to be a classic that is studied in high school lit classes century from now. And that's why...

    I don't think it was that bad. Like most Avalon books I was eager to keep reading and find out what happens. I probably won't remember it as anything special but it certainly kept me entertained.

    (I read this book from Archive's lending library which is where the picture for this post comes from, albeit with a little editing.)

Tom the Telephone Boy

    Tom Baldwin is a 15 year old boy living in Boston with his mother and aunt. Due to the death of his father several years ago Tom is the main financial provider for his family. As the book starts out Tom has just gotten a job at a bookstore, his last job being at a firm that recently closed down. However it is only for the Christmas rush and after the holiday Tom will need to find other employment.

    Tom is a dutiful employee and while working he ends up meeting a regular customer named Dr. Spidderkins. The doctor is a nice elderly man that is obsessed with books, buying multiple ones from various bookstores everyday. He can easily afford rare copies since he is very wealthy. After he orders several heavy books Tom is tasked with delivering them to his house that evening where he meets Mrs. Sandow. Mrs. Sandow was married to the doctors brother but after his passing she remarried to Mr. Sandow. Both of them live with the doctor and treat him rather rudely, which Tom is audience to on several more trips to the doctor's house.

    Once Christmas is over Tom finds himself out of a job and struggles terribly to find a new one. His friend, Charley Grove, suggest Tom look for a job as a telephone operator because it pays $10 a week, much higher than most other jobs offer. Charley has Tom come up to his work after hours and teaches him how to run a telephone switchboard so he will have a better opportunity to secure a job in the field. And he does just that when Charley gets word that a law office needs an operator. 

    Tom excels at his job and the head lawyer, Mr. Boise, admires his work ethic. However the junior lawyer, Mr. Cutter, seems to have a grudge against Tom and tries several times to have him fired.

    As Tom settles in to his new job he beings seeing Mr. Sandow in various places including Mr. Cutters office after hours. He also overhears Sandow's conversations with the lawyer which leaves him worried the two are scheme to steal Dr. Spidderkin's fortune.

    Tom is hesitant to tell anyone his suspicions due to lack of evidence but after Mr. Cutter leaks private business affairs to a rival law firm and blaming it on Tom he decides it's time to tell Mr. Boise.

    Mr. Boise has been suspicious of Mr. Cutter already and urges Tom to head to the doctor's house and have him secure his legal papers pertaining to his financial holdings. At the house Mrs. Sandow catches word that Tom has caught on to their sinister plot and once out of sight she and her husband flee. However they are caught once authorities are notified and let go after returning the doctor's property and promising to leave Boston at once.

    When the doctor visits Tom that evening he is surprised to find that Tom's mother and aunt are his childhood neighbors. After reconnecting he asks the women to move into his house as housekeepers and companions and sponsors Tom's scholarship to law school. The book ends giving us a glimpse into Toms future as a law partner at Mr. Boise's firm and married to Minnie, a telephone operator who helped defend Tom from Mr. Cutters earlier accusations.

    I discovered this book years ago when browsing books on eBay. It was published in 1909 so I was sure it would be available for free on Project Gutenberg. Unfortunately it wasn't so after several years I finally went ahead and purchased a copy. Well turns out just a month before my purchase it had been uploaded to Gutenberg, heck! 

    I enjoyed the story. I'm fascinated by early telephone technology and I've watch some documentaries on early operators and even training videos from the 1970's. If ever a switchboard appears on screen during an old movie or TV show my eyes are glued to it, watching how it's being used. So this book was right up my alley. 

    Tom is a very likeable character. I was worried he might have some undesirable views about women just because the Hardy Boys made me a little jaded with that kind of stuff but that wasn't the case at all with this.  

    I also really liked how relaxed the book was. Whenever Tom was falsely accused of something it was almost immediately cleared up. It didn't leave you hanging on for chapters hoping Tom can clear his name. And best of all Tom never gets fired over false accusations which is something I was dreading. 

    Overall it's a very enjoyable book.

Cherry Ames at Spencer

    (While cleaning out some old notebooks I found this review I had written years ago.)

    Cherry is back at her old nurse training school to work in the new children's wing. She has to take care of a little girl named Dot 'Mouse" Jepson. Dot's father, Jep Jepson, was convicted of robbing a pawnshop, sent to prison, and recently broke out. Cherry thinks that not only is he innocent of the robbery but that he's secretly working at the hospital. She sets out to prove both these theories.

- It was nice reading a book taking place at Spencer again. At first old teachers/nurses and incidents are mentioned but Spencer related things quickly stop being mentioned.

- A small side story is that two new doctors are competing for a position. Rumor has it that one of them is dating the chief doctor's granddaughter to get an advantage. After Cherry meets him for the first time and exchanges two sentences of conversation she says "He's just about the nicest doctor I've ever worked with and easily the best looking. I don't care what anyone says, he's not a backslapper." She's judging his content of character by attractiveness.

- The word flibbertigibbet is used twice, such an awkward word.

- On page 121 the chief doctor complains that Cherry and Dr. Lane don't hang out at the hospital after work. Toxic boss alert?

- Page 207 has a strange paragraph: "Cherry touched her lips to Midges wide, shapely mouth, whispering, "Of course not, darling. But don't you think you should great my feminine guest now?" What is going on? Why would she whisper into Midge's mouth and not her ear?

Image credit: eBay

Inherited Deception

    After the sudden death of her beloved uncle and guardian, Jeb, Candace "Candy" Taylor heads to the Canadian wilderness where her uncle's home and logging mill* is located.

    Candy finds herself temporarily stranded at a small airport on the last leg of her trip but the airport employee manages to arrange a flight for her with Dr. Clint Williams, a cranky and bitter man with a unkempt beard and hair who has his own plane he takes to his cabin upriver from the mill. Clint harshly tells Candy her uncle was murdered in a intentional accident shocking Candy who had assumed it was a sudden heart attack that took him.

    Once at her uncles house Candy meets the people that live there:

    Jim, the best friend of Candy's uncle who she quickly begins referring to as Uncle Jim. He is now handling the running of the mill and with no family left Candy looks to him as a father figure.

    Rick, a former juvenile delinquent. Rick was in trouble with the law for killing someone in a street fight when uncle Jeb found him and worked with the courts to get custody of him. Jeb took him under his wing and the two shared a father/son relationship. Jeb believed Rick and Candy would make suitable spouses for each other, even though they had yet to meet, and had spoken this thought to both of them.

    Nora, an extremely beautiful but bitter woman who works there as a nurse. She has taken the job in this isolated area only because she cannot find work elsewhere due to being deregistered after being caught stealing drugs and selling them on the streets. She's not a very good nurse but needed in the last few months since Clint closed down his practice, which was the only hospital in the area.

    Larry, a former junkie that had been in trouble with the law. The same as Rick, Jeb had gotten custody of Larry and employed him as a book keeper hoping to help get him on his feet.

    Sam, a very skilled and talented cook that cannot find employment elsewhere due to his mature age (79). Jeb has hired him to help him with employment and as a treat for the loggers who don't have much to look forward to after work except a delicious meal.

    Joe, a member of the local tribe that Jeb hired to assist Sam in the kitchen. Jeb has also been paying for Joe to attend law school. Joe has recently left school to take care of his ill mother who cannot receive proper care since Clint closed the hospital.

    Clint, although he lives up river, often stays at Jeb's house when it is too late to return home or the weather does not allow it. Clint is a doctor that had a practice in the nearby town but shut it down after his wife's murder. His wife, Jenny, was the daughter of his mentor and very mentally ill. She would routinely make attempts on her life and once on Clint's life. Clint married her after her father's passing to keep her out of a mental institution. One night while Clint was working Jenny was stabbed on the street. She was brought to the hospital and although Clint tried his best to save her she did not survive. With rumors that Clint murdered her he has closed his practice and moved to his weekend cabin in the woods while people claim he is losing his mind. On her first time there Candy is warned to look out for Clint since she bares a striking resemblance to his deceased wife.

    Sitting by the fireplace that evening Nora spooks Candy with a story about the wife of the previous house owner who died after falling down the stairs. Disturbed by the story Candy is comforted by Rick who clearly has a romantic interest in her which Candy reciprocates.

    That night Candy awakes to find her door open, terrifying her that someone was in her room while she was unconscious and vulnerable. When she gets up to close the door she sees the ghostly image of a woman walking down the stairs then hears a scream. Before she can follow the apparition she is strangled from behind and passes out. She awakens to Rick worriedly carrying her to bed and tells him she must have fainted. After all, if there had been a ghostly figure and scream, wouldn't Rick have heard it?

    The next day Jim takes Candy around to see the land she now owns. He takes her up to the hill where Jeb was buried and as they stand there Jim is shot in the leg by an unknown assailant. Candy runs to notify Rick and Nora and then decides she should get Clint too. She boats up river to his cabin but he's not home so she sits down to wait but falls asleep. Clint is angry to find her there but runs to help Jim when she tells him what has happened.

    With some medical treatment Jim is going to be fine but more bad luck strikes that evening when a supply shed explodes. Someone apparently lit dynamite that was stored in it. Candy is discouraged but vows not to give up on her Uncle's mill.

    That night Clint sneaks into Candy's room and tells her Rick murdered Jeb and to be cautious of him. Candy believes more than ever that Clint is losing his mind from the grief of his wife's death.

    The next day Joe takes Candy to visit his mother. He hopes that seeing her will encourage Candy to try and persuade Clint to reopen the hospital. As the two are walking back home in the evening someone begins shooting at them. Joe instructs Candy to get down on the ground while he tries to hunt down the shooter. When he doesn't return after a considerable amount of time Candy gets up and begins running in a panic, unsure of where she is or how to get home. She sits down to cry and falls asleep before Rick finds her. With all the dangerous happening Rick insists they be married right away so he can take care of and protect Candy. She accepts his proposal before they head back to the mill and Candy is delivered more bad news.

    While out, the payroll had been stolen from the office and Sam had been badly beaten. With no money to be payed the loggers all quit. Rick says he can hire new workers the next day when they go into town for a marriage license. Rick also insists it was Joe who committed these crimes and shows some prejudice against natives.

    The next morning Clint flies Candy and Rick to town where they apply for a marriage license and Rick has Candy transfer her holdings to his name so he can pay for new employees. While Rick goes off to hire new loggers Candy meets Clint back at the plane for lunch. She is shocked to see Clint has shaved and cut his hair, revealing that he is actually very handsome. 

    He takes Candy to his house in town, which has laid abandoned since his wife's death and tells her the truth: he's not losing his mind, he's simply pretending to so he can try and hunt down his wife's killer. He believes the killer was a logger as they were in town celebrating payday on that night. So he has pretended to be reclusive as a way to hang around the mill and pretended to be losing his mind in the hopes the killer would be less on guard and more likely to slip up. He tells Candy he believes all the strange incidents are related and that Rick is behind them.

    Rick had been furious at the reading of Jeb's will when he found out Candy would be inheriting the land and not him. At the time he had also made derogatory remarks about Candy which makes his sudden romantic interest in her more suspicious. It doesn't help that he and Nora were dating right up until Candy arrived when they suddenly seemed to cut it off. Candy believes him and the two agree to be on their guard from here on out before Candy kisses Clint.

    When they arrive back at Clint's plane Larry is there and tells them Rick is going to be late and to head home without him. Once in the sky the plane begins to malfunction, clearly having been tampered with, and crashes. Clint is unconscious and bleeding from his head. Candy is conscious but has a serious shoulder injury. Determined to save Clint, Candy wanders, injured, through the forest until she reaches the mill. She runs into the office to find Rick, Nora, and Larry.

    With no prompting Rick begins explaining their plan: Rick had killed Jeb because he believed he was the main beneficiary on his will. After finding out almost everything went to Candy and not him he planned to cause Candy emotional distress so he could manipulate her into signing everything over to him under the promise of marriage. Then he would kill her and own everything. Larry is the one who killed Jenny. Mistakenly believing she had a key to the hospital's drug supply, and needing a fix, he held her up at knife point but didn't expect her to attack him in response. Under attack he stabbed her. Rick witnessed the stabbing and helped Larry create an alibi so he could blackmail him into helping with the murder of the others. Nora is helping because she wants a cut of the money and because she's gaga over Rick.

    Jim then arrives and Candy is heartbroken to learn he too was involved in the murder of her uncle. Rick explains he now plans to lock her up in the house, where he currently has Joe imprisoned, and light it on fire, setting up evidence to incriminate Joe simply because he hates all natives due to the fact that he himself is half native. His father abandoned the family leaving them poor and on the street which caused him to want revenge on all natives and this is further triggered when he gets jealous Jeb is paying for Joe to go to law school (I dunno, his motive is a whole twisted mess of greed, racism, and daddy issues).

    Suddenly Clint shows up with a shotgun and the scene changes to Clint, Candy, and Joe about to leave the mill after the police have hauled off the bad guys. Candy and Clint are to be married, Clint will reopen his hospital meaning Joe can return to school, and Candy will run the mill.

    *I use the word mill but I don't think it's actually a mill. It's just land where the trees are grown and cut. I don't know what else to call it.

- Rick justifies Clint murdering his wife and Candy does not find this disturbing.

- I found it strange and a bit incredulous that Candy fell asleep after both times she was shot at. 

- In my notes I wrote "Did the author not research natives at all? No tribe mentioned just vague stereotypes". Joe is going to law school so he can fight for the rights of his people against "the whites" but like what exactly? Couldn't some issues have been named or at least Joe's tribe?

- I liked that Jenny had attacked Larry when he pulled a knife on her but I wasn't the biggest fan of how Jenny's mental illness was handled. It says she would try to take her own life or threaten suicide but then it also says she would cry to Clint about him working all the time and not spending any time with her. She was also "running away" when she was stabbed on the street so was Clint maybe causing his wife mental distress and she was trying to leave him? At the end of the book Candy does imply she will have to give up the mill to be his wife but Clint tells her hey, maybe it would be fun to have this wife work and not go crazy home alone all day. I didn't like that. 

    Also she's called a "psychopath" when the things mentioned are not signs of psychopathy. More likely signs of a mood disorder like depression or bipolar. And like I said before, people think there is justification for if Clint did kill his wife to be rid of her or be with someone else.

- Interestingly enough the last book I read also had a male villain attempting to commit murder because of his daddy issues. 

    Overall it was good. A quick little thriller and another Avalon book down. 

Keys to Love

    Allison Blue is living in New York working as a commercial artist when she receives a letter from her grandmother, Bunny Blue, in Key West, Florida. Gram is about to sell her historic home, Allamanda House, and is asking Allison to come to Florida and help her pack. Allison is eager to make the trip as both her parents are diplomats and live in other countries and Allison wants to be close to some family. Not only does Allison make the trip but she arranges for her work to transfer her to their Miami office permanently so she can remain close to her grandmother. 

    Once in Key West Allison learns that her grandmother has taken in four boarders; Vondetta, an 18-year-old waitress. Jason, a high school teacher. Ryan, a popular boat captain. and Gilda, an old friend of Grams.

    Not long after arriving Allison finds herself in danger. A threatening message is written on her mirror in soap, all the lightbulbs are unscrewed in her room, and a sketch Ryan made of her is torn and impaled on a thorn bush. Not knowing who is responsible for all these things Allison buys a bolt for her door and is suspicious of everyone. Soon Allison's suspicions of Jason wane as the two begin to go on dates and get romantic but this causes her suspicion of Vondetta to grow as Vondetta had made it clear she had her sights on Jason.

    When Gilda, who is a sponge fisher, invites Allison to join her for a day of sponging Allison agrees before realizing that this could be trap to lure her alone out to sea. However danger befalls not Allison but Gilda instead. While using a fishing spear Gilda slips and punctures an artery in her leg. Allison has to apply a tourniquet and row back to shore while performing first aid on the unconscious Gilda. After receiving medical attention at the hospital Gilda confesses to Allison that it was her that wrote the message on her mirror as well as the other incidents. She did it in the hope that if Allison doesn't help Bunny move then Bunny wont move at all and therefor Gilda wont have to find another place to live. 

    When Allison finds Gram crying in the garden she learns that Gram doesn't want to sell Allamanda House but cannot afford to keep it due to three of the boarders never paying their rent. Gram is a "marshmallow" as they call her. She is too soft and gentle with people to demand the rent that is due her. Allison decides that she will speak up for her grandmother and makes the announcement at the dinner table that everyone will have to pay up or get out. Gilda and Ryan pay their share with no animosity but Vondetta is mad and insists it's not fair. Jason is mad too but for other reasons. Jason is the one boarder who always pays his rent but he had planned to purchase Allamanda House from Bunny and is upset by the change in plans. 

    Gram is part of a group that volunteers at a local museum that is based in an old citadel. She brings her boarders with her to help on her scheduled night, with Gram, Vondetta, and Gilda driving there in one car and Ryan, Jason, and Allison in another. When Allison finishes with her work early she decides to head to the top of the fortress tower and see the view. This requires climbing along a seemingly endless flight of narrow, circling, stone steps. At the top she sees Gram driving away in the darkness and soon Jason and Ryan follow. 

    Panicked at being left behind Allison begins to make her way back down the flight of stairs but the rail-less stairs are a deathtrap in the dark and Allison almost falls off the edge. After becoming frightened by the bugs and bats in the tower she scoots down the stairs on her bottom and remains sitting on the ground floor in the dark building hoping someone notices her disappearance soon. 

    After an unspecified amount of time Allison hears Jason calling for her. Did he come back to retrieve her or for some more sinister purpose? Allison begins to hide from him but when she hears Gram calling for her she knows they came to retrieve her. Jason and Gram say that they both assumed Allison had ridden home with the other and, although this is a plausible answer, she still has a worry that this was a petty prank by Jason to get even with her for Gram not selling Allamanda House.

    With this suspicion still in her mind, and still suffering from uneasy nerves Gilda's pranks had caused, Allison asks her grandmother to accompany her in the garden while she works on a painting of Gram's orange tree in the moonlight. The two are enjoying the evening when the phone suddenly rings and Gram goes inside. Once alone Allison leans over to get a better angle on the tree and feels herself being pushed from behind. Unfortunately Allison is sitting next to an old, uncapped cistern and falls down it. The falls knocks her unconscious momentarily and when she wakes up and realizes where she is she begins to scream and doesn't stop until Gram and Ryan arrive. They lower a chair to her and with the help of Gilda they pull her up. Allison insists she leaned too far and fell over but she can tell Ryan doesn't believe her. Is it because he pushed her?

    Despite her suspicions she accepts a date with Ryan. Since she is still recovering from her scrapes and bruises from the fall the date is a home cooked meal. Allison enjoys herself and Ryan's company but at the end of the night Ryan confesses to Allison that he feels she is in danger and for her not to trust Jason. Allison writes this off as jealousy. As it turns out Vondetta had been Ryan's sweetheart until she dumped him to chase after Jason. Could Ryan be jealous of Allison's feelings for Jason?

    On the last day before Allison leaves for Miami Ryan arranges for her, him, and Gram to attend a play in the evening. However before then Jason offers to take Allison to the docks to paint a shrimp boat, something she stated she wanted to do. Jason works part time on a shrimp boat, it's currently in dry dock and the perfect scene for Allison's painting. 

    When they arrive at the docks Jason takes Allison onto the empty boat and shows her around. He lifts the hatch to the engine room below deck for her to peer in and as she leans over to do so he shoves her through. As Allison struggles to get to her feet after the fall Jason comes down the ladder, pure hatred showing in his face. He bounds and gags Allison while telling her his plan. In a few hours, after the docks have emptied of people, he'll come back with a gun and shoot her. Gram, devastated by her disappearance and then death, will be easy to manipulate into selling Allamanda House. 

    Jason is so desperate to get Allamanda House because for generations it had belonged to his family. His drunken, abusive father had lost it gambling and after passing hands several times Bunny had bought it. Jason wants to get the house and turn it into a showplace so he can show the world that he is better than his father. 

    After he leaves Allison is able to cut the ropes around her wrists with something on the wall but her ankles, which are also tied, cannot reach the same spot and her fingers cannot manage to undo the knots. Suddenly a cat brushes upon her and she ties her distinctive headscarf which she always wears around the cats tail, hoping the cat can get out and draw some attention. As she waits for something to happen Allison falls asleep but is awaken to the hatch opening. To her relief it is not Jason but Ryan. 

    

    Knowing Allison wouldn't stand him or her grandmother up Ryan went out looking for her. He guessed the docks because he knew she wanted to paint a shrimp boat before she left. Once at the docks he saw the cat with her scarf walking across the ships deck. Ryan cuts the ropes on her legs just as Jason returns with a gun and orders them both to come up. As they hesitate a police man arrives and askes to see Jason's work pass to make sure he is not trespassing. Ryan rushes up the latter and tells the police that Jason has a woman captive below. After as brief attempt to run Jason surrenders, Ryan confesses his love for Allison, and the two get engaged. 

- The first thing I noted about this book when I started it was that it was trying very hard to be scarier than it was. When Allison finds the message on her mirror I rolled my eyes and thought "Vondetta is being childish". It seemed like a dumb prank but Allison acts like it's a horses head in her bed or something terrifying. That happens with a lot of Gilda's pranks, they're not that scary.

- The red herrings were too obvious. Vodetta tells Allison to stay away from Jason, then sees Allison leave on a date with Jason. When Allison returns home she finds the note on her mirror telling her to leave. Obviously anyone would assume the message was by Vondetta but for some reason Allison thinks it could have been Gilda which makes it clear it was Gilda.

    I guess I don't have many notes for this book. It was a quick. enjoyable read. I really like these Avalon books from the 1970s because they are short and entertaining. They're perfect for reading a book in one sitting which I prefer to do. 

Stranger in the House

    Kathleen is a 16-year-old girl whose world gets shook when it is learned that her mother will be returning home after 9 years in a mental health facility. Her mother, Helen, suffered from depression which made her unable to handle the responsibilities of adulthood. After she was institutionalized her father's childhood friend, Alma, came to them as a housekeeper and helped raise Kathleen and her brother Gregory, or Whimpy as he is better known as.

    Kathleen does not want her mother to come home because she likes how her life currently is and she does not want to deal with her mother's mental illness which she assumes is still rampant despite Dr. Lundigan's insistence that she is cured.

    After her arrival Kathleen struggles to treat her mother as a normal person and accept Alma's withdrawal from the family.

    Kathy and her best friend, Margie, begin spending a lot of time with two boys named Bruce and Swede. Bruce has been the target of Kathleen's adoration since they were children so it's hard for her to witness him and Margie take up with each other while she gets tossed to shy and awkward Swede.

    After Dr. Lundigan visits the family Kathleen realizes how little she has done to help her mother and fears that she will be taken back to the hospital or removed from their family permanently. She starts to help her mother adjust to family life and build a bond with her.

    After Margie and Bruce have a fight he makes a play for Kathy and she realizes she likes the idea of Bruce much more that the actual him, and that Swede is what she wishes Bruce was.

- Kathleen's mother's illness is attributed to her "inability to accept maturity" which means she refuses to give up things she enjoys that are considered for teenagers only such as playing tennis, playing piano, and wearing teen fashions. By these standards I would be institutionalized too. I'm a firm believer that age is just a number when it comes to fashion, hobbies, etc. and I think it's ridiculous and ageist that people, specifically women, are forced to look and act a certain way based on their age, and then demeaned for being "old".

- Also I found it a little frustrating that playing tennis is considered a sign of mental illness yet things like Helen being post-partum when her condition got much worse is never taken into account. It also glosses over Helen struggling with the death of both her parents and just focuses on "she doesn't want to be an adult, she wants to play tennis".

- It never says if Swede is actually from Sweden. Bruce introduces him as being new in town but from where he doesn't say. Kathy asks him if the nickname Swede bothers him and he says no, the same way a man from Texas doesn't mind being called Tex. I always enjoy books that have students from other countries since I grew up in an area with a lot of immigrants and a lot of my friends in school came from other countries. It makes the stories more realistic to me.

- This was made into a TV movie in 1982 called Memories Never Die. I watched the first 15 minutes on YouTube but wasn't really interested. The movie is a bit different, it is from the viewpoint of the mother who returns to her family after the father becomes ill and has to deal with her family and the housekeeper being hostile towards her. It seems much more dramatic than the book.

    Overall it was a nice book. I don't have too much to comment on as it was very similar to other books from the time that focus on a teenage girl. The mental health angle was interesting but kind of ruined by the focus of enjoying tennis being a symptom of mental illness and things like that.