If you’ve noticed my absence at the library and around town, it’s because I became Covid-19’s latest victim from Dickens County.
While convalescing I managed to listen to a couple of books on my Libby app on my phone. I recently added the Paragraph Ranch series by Kay Ellington and Barbara Brannon in audiobook format to the library’s Overdrive. I have been wanting to read both books.
My preferred method of reading is audiobooks. I had to get on the hold list for both books. I got the email that the first book, “The Paragraph Ranch,” was ready for me. I checked out the book on the Libby App and was hooked from the first page.
I’ve been reading audiobooks for years. One of the first things you discover when listening to a book is the narrator. A professional narrator can make or break an audiobook for me. I have started books and never finished because of the narrator. I have bought and checked out audiobooks not because of the author, but because of a particular narrator.
Loretta Rawlins is credited as the narrator for The Paragraph Ranch series. Ms. Rawlins in my opinion did an excellent job narrating. Her Texas accent was credible, and when she changed characters she did so smoothly and effortlessly.
“The Paragraph Ranch” is labeled a romance novel on sites such as Goodreads. It is so much more. It is a novel about finding yourself and understanding others. It is as if these two authors glimpsed into my life and took pieces of it and added them to the characters of their book. I felt as if I knew the characters. I identified with the main character, Dee Bennett-Kaufmann. I felt her frustration and embarrassment when dealing with older family members who are set in their ways and don’t see that they can be insulting to others. I identified with the older family member who feels the frustration of growing older and not being able to be seen as a viable member of society and taken seriously.
I am anxiously waiting for my hold to become available on book two of the series, “A Wedding at Paragraph Ranch.” We also have their short read, “Give a Cup of Water: A Paragraph Ranch Tale” available in audiobook format on the library’s Overdrive.
Recently added to our fiction collection is “Keeper of Lost Things” by Ruth Hogan. It is a charming, clever and quietly moving novel of endless possibilities and joyful discoveries that explores the promises we make and break, losing and finding ourselves, the objects that hold magic and meaning for our lives, and the surprising connections that bind us.
“Cottage at the Beach” by Lee Tobin McClain is also new to our shelves. This first in the Off Season series is subtitled “A Clean & Wholesome Romance.”
Our shelves wouldn’t be complete without a few new large print Western fiction titles. Added just last week were “Villa Lobos” by Michael Zimmer, “Stand Up and Die” by William W. and J.A. Johnstone, “Coyote’s People” by Andrew McBride and “Broken Rider: The Gunfighter Series,” a Ralph Compton novel by John Shirley.
Check it all out at the library.
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