Hi All, I was surfing around Garden Web and saw Vicky's 'very old' post about gardening fiction novels. I am publishing a novel that will hopefully be available in November 2008 that has many gardening aspects to it. I volunteer as a master gardener in my community and gardening inevitably finds its way into my stories. My book is called My Way Home and is the story of Cammy, a woman who finds herself at the age of 48 having to make a new life for herself, and it is on St. Gabriel Island that she begins to see what that new life could be. For over twenty years, Cammy had dreamt of someday visiting the Island. Charming old buildings line its main street, grand homes, cottages, gardens, and woods cover the rest. And the best part, no cars, just horses, bikes, and snowmobiles in the winter. It is on St. Gabriel that Cammy meets Sara a thirty something free-spirit and a cast of locals that befriend and challenge her. And when she finds an old abandoned lodge she must decide if she will risk everything to embark on a cross country move to live on the island and restore a lodge, gardens, and orchards. My Way Home is a story of forgiveness and love that is filled with heartbreak, humor, and a little bit of mystery. I am an idependently published author and will be relying on creative avenues to get the word out about my book. If anyone would like me to let them know when my book is available for purchase, please e-mail me and Ill add you to my list. Thanks and Happy Gardening and Reading, Cynthia lee Cartier

I pick them out too. My bins are outside and I noticed a huge increase in slugs when we had those really warm spring days. I was pulling them out of the bins and stepping on them left and right until my conscious started to bother me. Now I don't want to sound like a tree-hugging fanatic, but I figure most things in nature have a positive purpose EVEN when I might find it difficult to figure out what that POSITIVE purpose might be - so I stopped squashing the slugs and began tossing them into a small wooded area that borders my property. (Wish I knew someone with chickens :-) If I could find a way to keep the slugs on the poison ivy that doesn't want to die no matter how many times it's dug up and cut down, I'd be happy. If you didn't find the slugs in your worm bedding, I'm wondering how they got inside your house??? I don't think slugs would want to come inside and would find it difficult to do so even if they had joined together and made a plan to invade. I'm thinking you must have brought them inside on some plant material. Perhaps the two you found were an isolated incident? FYI: I've found that if I store my leaves up off the ground there are fewer slugs to deal with. Once I picked out all the baby and adult slugs in early spring, I haven't had any to deal with since. (I am curious about the coffee grounds as a slug repellant. Hopefully someone will explain this.)

Chris, I'm not surprised your library doesn't have any Giles books. It has been several years since she died, and I'm not sure how widely read she was anyway. She was certainly popular here, though, and her books are still in our libraries and some of them in state park gift shops, etc. I'm sure you can find them on line. Some of her books are better than others, of course. I read a literary criticism of her work once that quoted her as saying she always wanted to write like Willa Cather, and the reviewer said she had succeeded--beautiful writing but she forgot to tell a story. (Sorry, Cather fans.) Mrs. Giles was also quoted as saying she should have been qualified to write because she had read a book a day for years. Sounds like some of us could qualify on those terms, doesn't it? Another of her KY series dealing with different characters is set in the mountains: The Enduring Hills, Miss Willie, and Tara's Healing.

dedtired, many place-names in Scotland begin with Auchter . . .something or other. I wouldn't have said it was 'common' perhaps a glance through a phone-book might prove me wrong! I think the original of Monarch of the Glen was by Scottish writer Compton Mackenzie. His Whisky Galore (book and later film) is a classic, based on a true story when during WWII a ship carrying thousands of barrels of whisky was wrecked of the Isle of Eriskay and the devious means by which the islanders hid the loot from the Customs men! nb the correct spelling of whisky; the true Scottish way. ;-)