Ashleigh's Bookshelf

Sheltering Spirits by Lori Allison With her dog grooming and boarding business finally taking off and her home renovations underway, Mallory finally has everything she has always dreamed of. However, when a freak accident with an old friend unleashes a new talent, Mallory begins to look at life in a new way. And death, especially after finding a dead body on her property. As her business suffers the consequences, she wonders which will come first: the poor house, prison, or the mental ward. This story took a long time to get started. The early chapters have a lot of background information to the point of being extraneous. The information doesn't seem relative to the story and made me wonder what the plot even was. I would have liked to have seen some of the information later, maybe told in dialogue to someone or showing how this information related to the overall story. I almost felt as if Mallory's backstory would have been better served as a preque...

My Little Green Umbrella by Sandy Little When a little girl finds an umbrella, she never expected it to become her new friend. It is difficult to write a review on a story so short without giving away spoilers. However, my daughter and I read this book together and we both loved it. The story is so heartwarming, it literally brought me to tears. More than once. I absolutely adored this book and look forward to reading more by this author. Ultimately, I would rate this story five quills and place it on my top shelf.