Pod and Her 4 Little Texas Sisters

 Pod and Her 4 Little Texas Sisters, B.W. Evans, Independently Published, 2022

This book is about Pauline (Pod) Bruce, and Imagean (Gean), her next oldest sister. They were part of a family of five girls, living as sharecroppers in Depression-era Texas. Mom made sure that there was a lot of love in that house, which was actually a two-room shack. 

Unintentionally, Pod gave the family a way to get out of their extreme poverty; she nearly got her foot bitten off by an alligator. Dad printed lots of pictures of Pod and her foot; they sold like the opening day of a new Iphone. That gave Dad the money to open a washateria, then another and another. They were an instant sensation (the precursor to today's laundromat). They moved out of their shack into a real house.

Pod grew up with a huge love of horses. The family acquired a fast quarter horse, which she used to win a pair of big horse races, disguised as a boy. At that time, about the only legal right women had was the right to vote. When her deception was revealed, righteous indignation exploded. 

The Governor of Texas hoped to use Pod to reach women voters. She embarked on a speaking tour all over Texas, talking about women's rights and equal pay. The Governor was totally behind her, but told her to leave birth control out of her speeches. It was very illegal to give women any information about birth control at that time.

Meantime, Gean won a state-wide beauty contest and headed to Hollywood to become an actress. Her career abruptly ended, before it got started, in a really awful way.

This is an excellent biography. It is very easy to read, and is very inspirational for anyone with big dreams, but who comes from unfortunate circumstances.

Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet

 Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet, Claire L Evans, Portfolio/Penguin, 2018

The history of computers has always thought to be full of men doing amazing things. This book shows that plenty of women were involved, from the beginning.

Ada Lovelace and Grace Hopper make appearances in this book, along with the "ENIAC Six." They were six women who did the actual "programming" of ENIAC, housed at the University of Pennsylvania, in the mid-1940s. It involved actually moving, and reconnecting, sections of the room-sized computer for each new computation. During the war, a computer was a woman who sat at a table and computed ballistics trajectories by hand. There was no ENIAC manual to consult, so they got very good at knowing how it worked. They also got none of the public credit. After the war, the women, plus Hopper, moved to the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Company, the world's first big computer company. After a few years of being very busy, financial problems forced the company to sell itself to another company. Remington-Rand made business machines and didn't know what to do with computers (or these free-thinking women). Things did not end well for the women.

In 1980s New York City, Stacy Horn loved connecting to the WELL, the famous West Coast BBS (bulletin board system). But the long-distance phone bills were getting out of hand. So she started ECHO, one of the first social networks, out of her apartment. 

Girls like playing computer games just as much as boys (perhaps with less emphasis on death and explosions). Some game manufacturers noticed, and tried to take advantage of this untapped market.

This is an excellent book. It expertly punches holes in the all-male mythology of Silicon Valley. For anyone interested in how the future is really made, start here. 

Twice Sold Murder

Twice Sold Murder, Margaret Evans, Moonlight Mystery Press, 2014

Laura Kane is returning to her hometown of Raging Ford, Minnesota, after growing up with an aunt in Baltimore. The death of her parents, under mysterious circumstances, made the move to Baltimore necessary.

Laura plans to open a thrift store in town, and live in an apartment upstairs. A person might think that the residents of Raging Ford would descend on Laura en masse, and welcome her back home, but Harry's Rules (Harry is one of the three members of the Town Council) say that everyone has to basically wait their turn. In stocking her store, Laura buys a couple of pieces of furniture that belonged to a family from a nearby town who perished in an accident. The parents, and one identical twin, perished in the accident. Which twin survived, the "good" twin, or the sociopath?

Little by little, things get more and more mysterious for Laura. Jenna, a good friend from high school, is engaged and ecstatic. His name is Jeremy, and the best way to describe him is "creepy." He says that he grew up in Raging Ford, but there are too many holes in his story. Laura investigates the story of the family who perished, and is not very careful about leaving her laptop where customers can see what is on the screen. Not all of the customers are from Raging Ford, maybe one of them is the culprit. The store is broken into, and only those two pieces of furniture are taken. Encouraging Laura to continue her investigation into the deceased family is a mysterious cat who does not eat, and who only Laura can see.

First of a trilogy, this is a really good piece of writing. It's a pretty "quiet" story in that there are no hair-raising crises fro our plucky heroine (until the end). It's very easy to read, and it's the sort of story that can take place in any small town in America. It will certainly keep the reader's interest.

Kingdom Come: The Mayan Answer

Kingdom Come: The Mayan Answer, Margaret Evans, Moonlight Mystery Press, 2012

Last of a trilogy, this book is about a new age on Earth with the coming of the Mayan Sixth World. This time, something is really going to happen.

Several years previously, Amy Magee, archaeologist and expert on Mayan hieroglyphics, discovered some real Mayan pyramids that were buried. . . in central California. It seems that the Spanish wiped out only some of the Mayan race several hundred years ago; they did not wipe out the entire race.

Today, Mayan workmen are busy unearthing the new Mayan city of Ixabal, getting ready for the coronation of the new King. Amy has a major part in the ceremony, as the Bringer of the Sixth World. Everything has been kept very quiet, so that the public does not know what is happening. The exception is a nosy newspaper reporter, who has been asking questions.

A major complication happens when Will, a major figure in what is to come, gets conked on the head during a cavern cave-in, and loses a large chunk of his recent memory. That includes the memory of just what he is supposed to say and do in a couple of weeks. Candis, Will's sister, knows and accepts her part in the coming ceremony (think "human sacrifice"). Leo, her boyfriend, most assuredly does not agree. He comes up with a bold plan for the both of them to flee to someplace where they will never be found. Rumors of a huge treasure attract the attention of several international bad guys. Meantime, Amy races to interpret an ancient Mayan book which may have a very different interpretation of the start of the Sixth World.

As with most trilogies, reading the first two books first is a good idea. It's also a good idea because this book, and the whole trilogy, is that good. It's interesting and plausible and it will certainly keep the reader interested.