Monday, July 30, 2007

Ticket to Tomorrow by Carol Cox

Ticket to Tomorrow by Carol Cox
317 pages
Copyright 2006
Barbour Publishing
Historical Romantic Suspense/Inspirational (Christian)

I won my copy of Ticket to Tomorrow in one of the drawings Katrina at Callapidder Days held during her Spring Reading Thing. I figured the timing was right because I was in need of a little inspiration, this week, and I love traveling in time via historical fiction. As it turned out, I was correct. The book isn't preachy about Christianity, but the occasional scripture read by the heroine tended to be inspiring and hopeful.

Ticket to Tomorrow
is set mostly on the grounds of the Chicago World's Fair in 1893, and tells the story of Annie Trenton. Widowed just over a year before the story takes place, Annie has continued her late husband Will's work with partner Silas Crockett on the Trenton-Crockett horseless carriage. As the book opens, Silas and Annie are in the process of traveling from Indiana to Chicago to display their exciting new invention. Silas is a scatterbrained genius and Annie happily watches out for him, making certain he doesn't leave his possessions behind or lose his way.

*****Warning: The following three paragraphs may contain some spoilers. Skip this section if you plan to read Ticket to Tomorrow, right away*****

During their visit to Chicago, Annie hopes that she will find the opportunity to mend the rift between her late husband and his parents. But, when she attempts to reconcile with Will's family, she's met with hostility and, later, their interest in her husband's invention prompts the wealthy Trenton family to attempt to take over Will's share.

In addition to her trouble with Will's family, Annie finds herself drawn to Silas's nephew, Nick Rutherford, a performer with Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show. Plus, Annie and Silas have stepped into the midst of a political intrigue and Annie's life may be in danger.

That last little bit of plotting didn't come off quite as well as I'd hoped. At the root of the political intrigue is a potential assassination and the danger to Annie and Silas is based entirely on the accidental transfer of property when Silas bumps into a man and their possessions go flying. Somehow, each man ends up with the other's valise. What didn't make sense to me was the description of two men gathering their possessions in an early scene, followed by one man's insistence that his case was firmly latched and the only way Silas or Annie could have ended up with certain critical documents was for them to root through the man's luggage. Both Silas and Annie did so, but I kept mentally returning to the scene, wondering why the author had possessions scatter if a simple transfer of luggage would have solved the purpose without adding confusion.

*****End Spoiler Warning*****

Regardless of that one little plot hitch, Ticket to Tomorrow was a fun read - not brilliantly written and, I thought, a bit transparent and predictable. But, there are times a gentle, romantic book with a touch of mystery and a solid historical setting can be very pleasing. I enjoyed the peek into the World's Fair, the descriptions of the so-called "White City" and it's wide variety of exhibits, as well as description of the scenes portrayed in the Wild West show. And I found it quite easy to picture Annie and the other characters. There was some annoying repetition, but overall the book was a welcome, uplifting diversion, definitely G-rated, and a fun way to visit Chicago in the late 19th century.

3.5/5 - particularly recommended for romance lovers

Strange things are afoot at the Circle K - or, at least, in Bloggerland. The "shrink to fit" feature is suddenly not working on photos added to my sidebar. Anyone else having this trouble? I was all set to change out my photographs, but after adding two book covers (which, then, stretched like Silly Putty) and one photograph (she's really not a chubby girl, that person running away from the camera), I opted to stop and wait until the problem is mended. I wasn't able to find a contact email for Blogger, but I've found that most of these little glitches usually disappear, at some point. Patience is a virtue required of Blogspot users.

I'm working on
a very last-minute bit of writing for Estella's Revenge, so I'll keep this short. Hopefully, my normal, chattery posts will resume soon. I can't thank all of you enough for the notes, thoughts and prayers after the death of our Sunshine, last week.

21 comments:

  1. Anonymous5:15 PM

    I had the same problem with the shrink to fit thingy. If you uncheck it, the pictures will print correctly.

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  2. "I love traveling in time via historical fiction."

    Me too, me too! And I love the bird in your header. I'm a little concerned that the bird not run into the reading cat in the title of MY blog ... lol.

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  3. I'm so glad it's not just me who has had that problem with the sidebar pictures. You are right, it will clear up once the powers that be figure out what they are doing.

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  4. It sounds like a nice quiet cute read.

    All blogs are tweaky. Bloglines just went insane.

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  5. I had problems with pictures stretching out in the sidebar too the other day, but when I posted a book cover today in the currently reading section, it posted fine. I guess it's just one of those annoying glitches going around!

    Love your new banner pic by the way!

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  6. Lynne,

    Oh, that's so weird! So, it's backwards? I'll give that a try, thanks.

    Bonnie,

    Thanks. I had quite a time trying to get that bird to fit. I cropped and cropped and cropped. So, it's really waaaay too close up, but it's just such a pretty bird that I decided to keep him.

    Your header looks terrific to me. :)

    Kookie,

    It's kind of a relief knowing that other bloggers are having the same trouble, isn't it? Yep, they'll figure it out at some point.

    Carrie,

    It's a nice read. I'm afraid you wouldn't like it much because the writing isn't anything to call home about. But, there are times I just want to read something brain-light and uplifting and I thought Ticket to Tomorrow filled the bill very nicely.

    Chris,

    I just tried Lynne's method of not shrinking to fit and it didn't work *but* I think the reason is that my image is too large. Sigh. It'll clear up, eventually, but those glitches are just a tiny bit frustrating.

    And, thank you. That's a Michigan bird. Pretty, isn't it?

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  7. Carrie,

    I totally missed the second half of your note. Yep, they all have their problems; that's why I've stuck with Blogspot.

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  8. Bonnie,

    I can't read, tonight. Just ignore me. My bird will stay waaaay far away from your kitty header. :)

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  9. I've been having trouble with pictures loading for some reason. Maybe blogger is just crazy on the pictures and are working hard to fix it, like you said.

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  10. Love your new header!! That bird is working the attitude!

    I hate blogger. Just saying. :)

    Looooved your interview with Simon by the way. Can't wait until everyone can read it!

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  11. Nik,

    I noticed you still hadn't posted photos and wondered about that. I tried to add one, yesterday, and it wasn't working but I figured it was just a fluke. Hmmm. We'll just cross our fingers that they're working on fixing all the troubles. What else can you do, other than jump ship, right?

    Heather,

    Thanks. LOL Yeah, he looks like he's got an attitude, all right!

    Blogger has been okay for me. The first two I tried were disasters. Of course, I had dial-up, at the time, but I timed it one day and wordpress took 23 minutes to load one photo. That's when I tried blogger. It was still time-consuming, but not to that extreme.

    Oh, good!! I was just checking to see if you or Andi wrote to tell me you got Simon's interview. Super! It was so hard cutting it down to a reasonable size!!!

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  12. Anonymous3:43 PM

    Blogger's problems with loading pictures is why I went to typepad. Drove me crazy, sitting there for 10-15 minutes, only to have the stupid picture not upload.

    Trollope is fitting nicely being my nice read right now. I'm really enjoying his sedate pace and character study.

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  13. I had some photo problems the other day, too, although mine had to do with the actual post. The picture showed up in the post, but if you clicked on it (after I published the entry), the large size photo didn't appear. Just a line of text - the name I'd given it in Paintshop Pro. So I started over and everything worked fine the second time around. Frustrating, to say the least!

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  14. Carrie,

    I actually haven't had much trouble with loading photographs, but I did discover that I had to crop them or it would take forever. Either there's a limit to the amount of pixels it can handle (was, I should say) or it was just too much for my connection.

    Sedate sounds good. :)

    Les,

    I think my last post with photographs had a similar problem - you couldn't enlarge the photos, but I don't think clicking on them led anywhere. I just left it alone. Hopefully, this will all clear up, soon. Usually, waiting works well. :)

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  15. Nancy, I apologize that this comment doesn't have anything to do with the post but I so wanted to let you know that I absolutely ADORE your blog header!!!!!!

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  16. Lotus,

    Gosh, why would I mind where you put a comment like that? LOL Thank you, Lotus. :)

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  17. I've been having the same problem too in the sidebar. You're right though these little glitches usually disappear in time.
    BTW, you can always just resize your photos instead of cropping to make them smaller.

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  18. Nat,

    Resizing is one of those things my husband has been telling me he'll teach me how to do "later" for about 4 years.

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  19. Came over to check this out from Susan's West of Mars blog. Thanks for reviewing!

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  20. Thanks for visiting, Camille!

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  21. Hi, Bookfool,

    Thanks so much for participating in WestofMars' Hidden Treasures
    Contest and helping to get some much needed attention to midlist
    titles.

    I'm pleased to inform you that you won a prize:
    - A copy of the hard-to-find (a true treasure!) book, The Cobra & The Concubine by Bonnie Vanak

    If you send me (morsecode[dot]k[at]gmail) your address, we'll have the prize donors mail them out to you.

    For a list of all prizes won, please see this page:
    http://www.westofmars.com/ht-prizes.html

    Hope you are having a great week,
    Karen (of morsiereads.blogspot.com), West of Mars groupie

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for visiting my blog! I use comment moderation because apparently my blog is a spam magnet. Don't worry. If you're not a robot, your comment will eventually show up and I will respond, with a few exceptions. If a comment smacks of advertising, contains a dubious link or is offensive, it will be deleted. I love to hear from real people! I'm a really chatty gal and I love your comments!