Friday, January 24, 2020

Dear Abby - Vintage Pictures of Dachshunds in Winter

Dear Friends,

I hope you are having a good week and staying warm. It was very cold for us in the south earlier this week, although we have not seen snow this winter. I am glad about that, as I am not a fan of snow!

I found some vintage pictures of dachshunds in winter that I like and thought you might enjoy them too.

This is a vintage postcard with a dachshund sitting beside a little girl outside in the snow. The little girl is wearing a coat but the doxie looks chilly!


Another vintage postcard -- children are going ice skating and their dachshund is right there with them on a frozen pond!  (Brrr!)


Vintage postcard of a dachshund pulling a sled through the snow with a puppy and two cats.  (This picture must be wrong, because the dachshund surely deserves to be pulled in a sled as well!)


Vintage postcard of dachshunds skiing on a mountain. It looks like they are having fun!  One of them is standing on skis on all four legs instead of standing upright. I think he has the right idea.


1960's or 1970's vintage children's book illustration of a dachshund helping to make a snowman.


Another vintage children's book illustration of a dachshund meeting some deer in the snow.


I hope you enjoyed these pictures!  Have a good day and a nice cozy weekend indoors, and I'll catch up again next week.

Love,

Abby xoxoxo


Book Review - St. Francis Society for Wayward Pets by Annie England Noblin

My Review
When St. Francis Society for Wayward Pets begins, Maeve Stephens has hit rock bottom. She has broken up with her cheating boyfriend, been laid off from her job, and mugged.  Surprise word comes that her birth mother, whom she has never met, passed away.  At the funeral, Maeve finds that her birth mother, Annabelle, left her house, vintage VW, and all her belongings to her.  Maeve stays in the small Washington state town where Annabelle lived to try to sort things out, and slowly her life changes.  She meets new friends, an intriguing man, a group of ladies who knit sweaters for pets, and a cat and dog who claim her.

I wanted to read this novel because I am a great animal lover and the title and adorable cover art intrigued me.  I also previously read and reviewed the author's book Just Fine With Caroline and liked it very much.

I absolutely adored St. Francis Society for Wayward Pets!  I loved the small town setting that readers get to experience along with Maeve.  It is a quirky little place with a lot of interesting characters.

The book is told both from the viewpoint of Maeve and also of her birth mother Annabelle during her teen years in the 1980's.  I was initially mostly interested in Maeve's story, but over time Annabelle's story really captured my interest too.  The author does a good job at delineating these different (and similar!) characters.

Maeve is a character I really liked.  She is at a place in her late 30's where she is reevaluating her life and trying to decide what comes next.  It was heartwarming to see how she grew as a person in this book.  I enjoyed the friendships she made and especially the tenuous bond she struck with Abel, an author living in the little town and dealing with his own sadness.

I loved the pet rescue storyline in this book and enjoyed all the scenes with Sherbet the cat and Happy the dog.  Maeve observes Happy:

"Still, she didn't seem to hold any of that against people the way I probably would have.  There were clearly some things that scared her - like car rides and storms - but after the offending event was over, she was back to her old self, and I thought that humans could probably learn a lot from dogs" (p. 301).

I will admit that I was curious as I went through the book about what the St. Francis Society was.  It was mentioned often but not really explored until Chapter 20.  I won't say more because of spoilers, but it is pivotal to the plot and there are twists and more twists that reminded me a bit of This Is Us.

I wholeheartedly recommend St. Francis Society for Wayward Pets for fans of women's fiction, small town fiction, knitting, pet rescue, and heartwarming storytelling.

Book Synopsis
If you love Susan Mallery and Jill Shalvis, you won’t want to miss this new novel of second chances, dogs, and knitting, from the author of Pupcakes and Sit! Stay! Speak!

Laid off, cheated on, mugged: what else can go wrong in Maeve Stephens’ life? So when she learns her birth mother has left her a house, a vintage VW Beetle, and a marauding cat, in the small town of Timber Creek, Washington, she packs up to discover the truth about her past.
She arrives to the sight of a cheerful bulldog abandoned on her front porch, a reclusive but tempting author living next door, and a set of ready-made friends at the St. Francis Society for Wayward Pets, where women knit colorful sweaters for the dogs and cats in their care. But there’s also an undercurrent of something that doesn’t sit right with Maeve. What’s the secret (besides her!) that her mother had hidden?
If Maeve is going to make Timber Creek her home, she must figure out where she fits in and unravel the truth about her past. But is she ready to be adopted again—this time, by an entire town…?


 

Purchase Links

HarperCollins | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

 

Author Bio
Annie England Noblin lives with her son, husband, and three dogs in the Missouri Ozarks. She graduated with an M.A. in creative writing from Missouri State University and currently teaches English and communications for Arkansas State University in Mountain Home, Arkansas. She spends her free time playing make-believe, feeding stray cats, and working with animal shelters across the country to save homeless dogs.
Find out more about Annie at her website, and follow her on FacebookTwitter, and Instagram.

I received a copy of this book from HarperCollins and TLC Book Tours.