Donna BallCritiques

The plot and character surprises worked to make this book the best of the 5 -

sure wish there had been a Volume 6!

Two main reasons:

1. the back cover states "And someone is leaving Ladybug Farm forever."

Is this Noah? Lori? Bambi? Very unclear plot resolution without a sequel.

2. Bambi was handled by all of the Ladybug and other residents in the worst possible way.

How could they let him go without following the truck where he was carelessly loaded

to make sure that he definitely went to a Safe Wildlife Park and not to a Hunting Ground...?

It made no sense for Noah to be in charge of this decision while the three women stood helpless wringing their hands...

a definite half star off for THAT.½

Even as a novella, this book was far too predictable and slow moving.

Recipes were a nice addition, but did not make up for a real plot vs reprised stories
which readers may have just skipped to find out if Noah survived.

This Ladybug offers plenty of wedding details and lots of surprise love intrigue.

There is also less gay "perfectly pressed khakis" stereotyping.

Plot letdown was when none of the three women had enough character to act with Noah
to let him know he could lose his mother. Which he did, with guilt and regret...

Improbable, yet still fun to follow plot and character twists and turns lead the way,
along with the beautiful scenery and fun sheep-in-sheep's clothing.

(Even in 2009 edition, a fat NO to mention of trump.)

When the last locked cellar door was opened, I hoped to see that the Blackwell Home had played
a big part in the Underground Railroad.

More Diversity welcome in all the books!

Readers may well hope that Mandy is woven in for a good Noah memory.

What a fun tale - perfect for late night reading!

Worked in with all the hard work, the endless beauties of country living,
and predictable plot twists are memorable main and new characters,
twenty sheep, Rebel dog, loving deer and challenging surprises!

Sure hope that Farley and Noah take over the handling of the sheep - another full-time job for the 3 Friends.

(Heroines eat way too much meat - and the roasted pig scene was awful.
It would also be good to lose ads for products, traps for animals and rodent bait.)

Donna Ball's Ladyburg Farm series is a lovely escape from the world. At Home on Ladybug Farm is the second book and follows the story of three friends--Lindsey, Bridget and Cici--as they move into the next year of life on an old farm in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Cici's daughter Lori joins them and we learn more about Noah, the talented young artist they have incorporated into their household. Bambi the deer is joined by sheep and pigs and, as someone who kept farm animals, I laughed out loud a few times at the shenanigans.

A Year on Ladybug Farm by Donna Ball has been on my Kindle for some time so it definitely counts toward the ROOTs. And the Alpha Kit led me to finding a book with a Y, a somewhat unusual letter it seems.

However I ended up reading it, I thoroughly enjoyed this story of three friends who walk away from their comfortable suburban lives to buy an old farm in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. They commit to a year and face all sorts of obstacles from the house, the farm and their children. But they also discover the simple joys of life in the country along with a community. I am looking forward to exploring the rest of the series.½

Story of a small town in GA that likes to do things its own way, Bunch of quirky, fun people. Enjoyable read.

Meredith Griffin travels to Stonington, Kansas (from Oregon) to look for her brother (Kevin), who is supposed to be living at a compound (the Temple of the Enlightenment). Meredith finds the town and the people strange. She eventually meets handsome Mark Brasfield who says he can accompany her to the Temple. Meredith is very suspicious when she arrives at the Temple and doesn’t really trust the people there. She also finds that she is falling for Mark. Will she ever see her brother again?

This was a very enjoyable and unusual storyline. Sometimes I wanted to get past the romance and get to the action at the Temple and find out what was happening with Kevin. Meredith was a very headstrong and feisty heroine. (No shrinking violet here.) Mark was a decent hero.

A fun old read from 1985.

Being of a "certain age," I really enjoyed this book. It is about 3 fifty-something women and their resilience as they each try to individually live a dream while collectively being a family to each other. The story is realistic with financial concerns and the trials of obligations to children perceived as not met. There are some laugh out loud funny parts nicely mingled with some very poignant and touching scenes. A few hauntings and a recalcitrant teenager, among others make for some good characters and easy to read narratives. The story is about how these women attempt to restore an old, very large, dilapidated farm that is full of surprises and mishaps.

Such hamfisted stereotypes, it made me cringe. I loved the prologue, but it went downhill from there, till I had to quit about halfway through as the characters got more and more offensively stereotyped.

Interesting book. I can't really see how three really good girlfriends could pool their resources and buy an old rundown farm but it made a good story. When they "realize" that they have a flock of sheep, Bridget accepts that and checks on the sheep. I have raised sheep myself and it doesn't say anything about the dirty work of deworming and shearing and feeding hay and lambing. We are just supposed to assume Bridget gets all that done and still has time to fix gourmet meals? That part was unrealistic but the book as a whole is enjoyable.

This was a fun, fast read. The main character, Raine, was likable, and so were the other characters in the book.The dogs figured heavily in the story, which I liked. Too often you read a mystery claiming to be dog related, where the dogs only appear a few times. Dogs were prominent in this book, and they actually helped solve the mystery. This is the first book from this series that I have read. It doesn't seem necessary to read the previous books first in order to enjoy this one. I plan on seeking out the other books and reading them too, because I enjoyed this one so much.

I received this book for free from goodreads first reads.

I just finished reading this book and I am hooked! I loved the picturesque Florida village of Dogleg Island, Donna Ball did such a great job creating this village and describing it in her book, that I would not mind visiting there or even spending the winter! This is the first time that I have read a mystery from Donna Ball, I have read almost all of her Ladybug Farm Series.

The main character Aggie, is a tough lady and her border collie Flash knows what is going on but he cannot speak! Aggie needs to remember what really happened the night that she got shot and is there a link between what is going on now and that night. I am a dog lover myself and I have to admit I always wonder what my furry friend is thinking. Flash is actually a character with dialogue in this book! There are a few side characters that I found endearing, besides the main three, Aggie, Flash and Ryan, I hope that they continue to appear in the next books in this series. I stayed up reading this book because I could not wait to see the outcome, the whodunit. I was surprised and I never guessed, actually I never saw that coming…….

Happy Reading, enjoy this book, I know I did!This review was originally posted on

From Publishers Weekly Following two well-received werewolf novels (The Passion and The Promise), Boyd scores again with this engrossing tale of magic and immortality that calls to mind Anne Rice in her prime. Into the New York office of Dr. Anne Kramer, therapist, walks the charismatic Randolph Sontime, who's just committed a gruesome murder that's led to headlines full of outrage. Not easily rattled, Dr. Kramer finds herself losing her professional cool as the stranger tries to explain his crime. "Imagine if you will the days spinning backward: a millennium ends here, a century turns there, a year ends now, and another, and a thousand others," he says at the start of his hypnotizing story of "Egypt before time." Han, as Sontime was then called, tells in beautiful, luxurious detail of his youth spent in the House of Ra, a mystical temple where Practitioners learned alchemy, magic and ways to shape reality. When Han and two other students at the top of the class, the boy Akan and the girl Nefar, combined their magics one fateful day, the trio unleashed a power that they could neither understand nor control. Thereafter a passion for creating a perfect world ruled their lives, but since their magic was imperfect, their lofty schemes invariably came to ruin. Love, jealousy, insanity and murder all figure in this pitch-perfect narrative, while the House of Ra ranks high on the list of fantasy's most intriguing magic schools. Though some readers may feel the book is too short, the incendiary twist ending holds out the promise of more to come. (Jan. 2)Forecast: Romance readers as well as SF fans should go for this atypical fantasy in which ancient magic is in effect the same as today's technology. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From the Inside Flap In a sweeping epic of dazzling magic, soaring suspense, and dark longing, three immortal souls are united by fate and a fearless ambition that will change the course of history?even as it destroys their own way of life. . . .
On an upper floor of a plush, high-security building on Central Park West, an elegant man sits in the office of Dr. Anne Kramer, confessing to the heinous murder that has horrified the modern world. Randolf Sontime is renowned for his personal charm, and Dr. Kramer is fighting to keep from falling victim to it. For the first time in her life, she truly understands the meaning of the word ?charisma.? Not knowing that her own destiny is irrevocably tied to his, Anne Kramer listens to the story of Sontime?s life.
?It began with the magic, you see. And so, perforce, must I.? As a boy named Han at the House of Ra, an isolated oasis in the Egyptian desert of a far ancient time, Sontime lived in privilege. There the chosen were trained in the science of alchemy?magic, philosophy, miracles. Only two other initiates were as skilled as he: Akan, quiet and studious, a boy whose thirst for knowledge was matched only by his hunger for truth; and Nefar, beautiful and brilliant, a girl as filled with wonder and unfathomable ambition as Han himself. Together they discovered that in union, theirs was a power unmatched in the physical world.
But even in the House of Ra, there were boundaries to be observed, knowledge that only the masters understood and feared. As the threesome?s thirst for answers?and for each other?deepened, they were tempted by the dark arts that they had sworn to avoid. ?Look at three magnificent youths who stand astride your world and scoff at the rules you must obey. . . . Look at us, and call us gods.? Their power was palpable, their desire total?until the fateful moment when their alliance was forever damned, their gifts horribly corrupted.
A seductive work that seethes with mystery and passion, The Alchemist hurtles readers back through time to an era when magic was sacred and the workings of the world lay in the hands of a few gifted, but tortured souls. In a stunning feat of unbridled imagination, Donna Boyd has created her most hypnotic novel to date.

I loved this! I was to visit Bridget, Cici and Lindsey on their farm. Funny and touching story about their adventures fixing up an old farm.

This is my least favorite of the books in this series. I love these ladies but had a hard time with the storyline.

Wonderful, fun story. I love these characters!

I picked up this book at random, I had never heard of the author, nor the series.
I was not disappointed in the least! While I felt that possibly the story started off a bit slow, and in the beginning it was hard to keep all the characters in order, once we got going, it was lovely. Donna Ball captured exactly how I feel three middle aged women would do wen placed in circumstances that they haven't experienced before. They struggle, but ultimately overcome the odds and make it through their first year on the farm. It ws very engaging and let me looking for the next book in the series, which is on it's way to my home as I type.½

4.5 It was refreshing to read a book about three 50-something women and not a romance in sight. I loved reading about their friendship and their adventures buying and renovating Ladybug Farm. It was a fun, feel-good read. It made me want to grab a few friends and move there myself :) Thanks Diana for the recommendation!

A nice holiday story about Christmas at a Bed & Breakfast run by Derrick and Paul who are fabulous at planning a gorgeous and entertaining holiday for their guests but not as good at doing all the work. Fortunately, a guardian angel in the form of a hulking Hells Angel shows up and takes care of the manual labor. As the guests arrive, each has a different story - some happy, some not. Some of the guests are due for a life lesson this holiday, as are Paul and Derrick. A holiday story with just the right combination of descriptive delights, light humor, and a heartwarming message. Or two.

Here's a nice mystery about a dog trainer and her canine crew who can't seem to stay out of trouble.

Charming romance set in 1926 about a girl (Alice Fontaine) who goes to New York in search of stardom and the handsome and wealthy man she meets (Nicholas Crawford) who romances her.

I loved the 20's flavor of the story and all the references to that era...the actor Valentino, the clothes and hairstyles, the Charleston, etc... I liked Alice's friends who also lived with her in Handley's Hotel for young ladies.

Alice was an ambitious and outgoing heroine, determined to make the big time, and eager to meet the right people. Nicholas was a great hero, classy and suave. I enjoyed how he romanced Alice---a horse-drawn carriage ride, a moonlight picnic on a rooftop overlooking Manhattan...

This was a lovely story. The author did a wonderful job of capturing the essence of the Roaring Twenties.

Literally could not put the book down, read it in an afternoon. Great forward movement, realistic portrayals of dogs, troubled teenagers and the legal system.

2 3/4 stars. I liked the story (professional woman is too busy to deal with upkeep of her house and other personal stuff, so hires a house husband - definitely resonated with me - may need to put hiring a "house husband" on MY to do list!! LOL), but it fell a bit flat - I didn't like the main character that much, it felt a bit out-of-date (i'll have to check when it was written) and I didn't really like how the romance played out.