Our friends' daughters were passing this around at a birthday dinner at a Korean steakhouse. I bit more than the delicious dinner.
The protagonists are Sloane Sutherland and Rowan Kane. Both are serial killers who only kill serial killers. Rowan's known as the Boston Butcher, Sloane as the Orb Weaver (because after she kills she creates a "map" of the serial killer's victim's locations with thread and the victim's flesh and eyeballs). They meet when Rowan rescues her from a cage in which she's trapped with her latest victim. There's no denying the sexual attraction, or the competition between the two, so once a year they meet up to see who can take down a serial killer first, a game arranged by Rowan's older brother, who's a hit man. (In the real world, Sloane is a data scientist and Rowan is a chef.)
You're right if you think this is a dark romance. Very, very dark. Both have their demons—in Sloane and her best friend Lark's case, it was a school at which they were abused—and their sex and their romance and the text is all very rough. Not for kids or people who get nightmares easily.
I've read the book, but the graphic novel looked so beautiful...there are wonderful watercolor-looking drawings of the English countryside and the little farms and nature scenes. The rabbits are slightly anthropomorphized (the big eyes, especially the blue eyes on Fiver and Pipkin), but they don't look cartoonish, and the other animals are beautifully drawn.
Two seminal texts on (mostly) fanfiction came out in 1992; I snapped both of them up at Magicon (the 59th World Science Fiction Convention in Orlando, FL) and re-read them every so often, because it was so novel to see serious writing, indeed serious educational writing, about a subject much-maligned: fanfiction ("All written," detractors jibe, "by hormonal teenagers who want to have sex with Spock").
Bacon-Smith, an ethnographer (studying of cultural norms in individual groups), became interested in the mostly female fans of Star Trek, Blake's 7, other science fiction shows, and also non-science fiction series (mainly Starsky and Hutch and The Professionals) who, for entertainment purposes only, wrote further tales involving the characters from their favorites in various themes: hurt/comfort tales, continuing adventures, psychological thrillers, and sexual encounters both hetero- and homosexual. As she became friends with the participants, she found that they bonded through these stories, worked out emotional disruptions in their lives, and took a far more realistic look into the emotional lives of the characters and the original characters created to interact with them than the source material, since the source material had to "play it safe" within boundaries set by the producers.
As indicated by the title, the text concentrates on women in (mostly SF) fandom, a place where many times they have been unwelcome, and how they made a society for themselves. While the shows and also the media (fanzines and story sharing) have aged, the themes have not (women worrying about sexual harassment, for example). Pair with Textual Poachers for a wide view of fandom.
This was the other academic study of fandom and, by extension, fanfiction that came out in 1992. Jenkins' text takes off from William Shatner's infamous "Get a Life" Saturday Night Live skit, in which incensed fans responded that they did have a life; that interest in science fiction/detective series/British programming was just as legitimate as sports fandom or any other intense interest. It also takes the time to define "fan" and "fandom," and note how fans have been portrayed as distorted crazies.
The following chapters address much more than fanfiction: one discusses how the fans of the fantasy drama Beauty and the Beast felt betrayed by the network's choice to turn the romantic/action storyline to just action. Another discusses fanfiction, while a third addresses slash fanfiction, and there is also a chapter about music videos and another about filksongs, something rare in the online fandom today. Although the author in this case is male, there is still much discussion about women being the primary "makers" in fandom and how they react to female characters being marginalized in programming at that time.
Fan art is scattered throughout the book.
Again, much academic vocabulary, but the fan studies are fascinating.
Rue Siebert grew up in an uncertain world: her mother was chronically underemployed and she and her brother often had to shift for themselves. Now she has a stable job in the food science industry under an clever woman who has fought her way up in the business world, and she feels safe for the first time in her life.
Then she finds out her boss started Kline, the business, with a big loan, and the Harkness Group has taken over that loan. Is the Harkness Group also going to buy out Kline? For Rue, this fact is almost as bad as when representatives of Harkness come to talk to Kline's scientists, it turns out she knows one of them: it's Eli Killgore, the man she unsuccessfully hooked up with on a dating app, only to have her brother horn in on their meetup.
As it works out, Rue and Eli are much more than rivals; they're rivals with an undeniable attraction for each other which they give into—surely two adults who are not in love can have kick-ass sex and not get emotionally involved? Outside of the hot sex, there's a duplicitous co-worker lurking at Kline and an injustice trying to be resolved. Much more sex that Hazelwood's usual mix and a sniffly HEA but still not quite up to Love Hypothesis.
King had, for some time, toyed with an idea to walk from Washington, DC, where he lived, to New York City, but after a cancer scare and treatments, decided to make the dream real. So in the spring of 2021, with a backpack and arrangements to stay at small bed and breakfasts or alternative lodging (and not averse to sleeping wild), King did just that, traveling the back roads from his home "nine blocks east of the U.S. Capitol" to the Ramble in Central Park. What follows are his adventures along the road, including incredulous people who can't believe he's walking the whole way (he does, except for a couple of minimal car rides), encounters with curious people along the way, including Amish and Mennonite communities, stops at tiny museums (like one which holds only tools that early Americans would have used) and historical spots, meeting people of all philosophies from MAGA stalwarts to offbeat rebels, enjoying spring blossoming over the countryside (he walks north just in time to follow the flowers blooming), crossing through historic sites (like the crossing of the Delaware and also Valley Forge), and other diverse adventures.
One interesting part is his endeavor to use only old roads and ways to travel, so he doesn't wish to cross modern bridges. This leads him to being lent a kayak to cross a river gap only otherwise accessible through a major highway. He also accepts a ferry ride from the New Jersey shore to Staten Island.
I enjoyed hell out of this, although I could never emulate him!
FBI Special Agent Kimberley Reynolds, who was introduced in
Aaronovitch's "Rivers of London" in Whispers Under Ground, is the
focus of this short novella with a seasonal theme (after The October Man
and What Abigail Did That Summer). A retired FBI agent calls in an
alarm about a mysterious event in Eloise, Wisconsin, that no one
understands until Reynolds finds out about it. She travels to Eloise to
find that portions of the town have been destroyed by an "ice tornado,"
the FBI agent is missing, and some ominous creatures are wandering the
shore of the nearby lake.
This starts out slowly, with Reynolds narrating her involvement due to
her knowledge of esoteric activity that she learned from Peter Grant
during his involvement in the previous case and talking about her past.
However, the pace picks up very quickly as odd "monsters" creep out of a
blizzard and wreak havoc in the town. The end is a tense chase straight
out of a horror film as a long-buried curse has been unearthed
involving Native American spirits.
I enjoyed this although it was a different narrative from the
British-set books. Some British-isms do creep in, but I don't find them
all that distracting. Reynolds herself is an interesting character
because she was brought up as a strict Christian, but is now dealing
with otherworldly events with no relation to the beliefs her mother
tried to instill in her. I also liked the slow-attraction romance that
is very peripherally part of the story (the ending is particularly
sweet).
The tenth book in the Longmire series. Longmire's daughter Cady, now married to the brother of Walt's undersheriff Victoria Moretti, is expecting her first child and expecting Walt to be there at the birth. And he expected to be there, until his friend and former boss Lucian Connally asks if he will help out in the case of a fellow law-enforcement officer in the next county who apparently committed suicide. He figures it will only take a day or two.
If you believe that, you haven't read a Longmire book. Vic Moretti and Walt's best friend Henry Standing Bear end up helping in the investigation, which comes to involve a missing woman from a strip club, sending Walt from a casino to a lodge on the trail of what made Gerald Holman kill himself.
Slow build with a frantically tense ending involving a railroad spur line that will leave you gasping.
Does Longmire make the birth? It's Walt—you figure it out.
From the book sale. Really nothing I didn't know. I got some tips from it, though. Worth the $1.50 I paid for it.
30 June 2024
Books Completed Since June 1
31 July 2023
Books Completed Since July 1
Finally found, having not seen it in any bookstore, used! A much better collection than the next book, Shenanigans. There are several excellent stories that take place in Karse, where anyone with "magical" powers are burned at the stake. There are installments in the running sagas of Lady Cera of Sandbriar, Sparrow and Cloudbrother, the Haven City Watch (this one "The Beating of the Bounds" is particularly good), and Nwah the kyree. Several of the stories involve healers or bards along with the famed Heralds, and a baker is the protagonist of one dangerous tale. All in all a satisfactory read for Valdemar fans.
It happens every day on the news: "Florida man" (or "Florida woman") does something bad, weird, way out, or hateful. Pittman, a Florida resident himself, pulls no punches talking about the crazy state of Florida politics, tourism, everyday living, land-rush past, Disneyfication, and anything else odd that happens in the "Sunshine State." (Me, I think they're all crazy with the heat and from the insect population.) Very funny book, but I'd find a used copy. Really, Florida isn't worth that much.
Emmeline Hervey doesn't want to leave the home she was brought up in, Winnover, but her grandfather, the stuffy Duke of Welshire, requires the home to go to someone who's married and will have a family. She's known William Pershing since childhood, and knows he's tired of being "matchmade" with suitable women. So, to keep the family home, she offers Will a proposition: they will be married, and she will live her life and he will live his, and she will support his future endeavors in politics. And for eight years they live a satisfactory life, until her grandfather bids them come to his birthday celebration and bring their two children, two children Emmeline made up to make him happy. So they decided to "borrow" two children from the orphanage for a while, and teach them to act like own—except the eldest, George, is determined he and his five-year-sister won't go back. And then their older brother James shows up, determined to make money from the sham whatever way he can. A fun little book, although I wasn't fond of the initial lie that started the plot.
I really enjoyed Wintering, so I was eager to read this one, too. What a surprise to find it was a journey not only of her walk of the South West Coast Path, but one of personal discovery. She had always felt she didn't fit properly into the world, and then she heard a broadcast on the radio, in which a woman being interviewed talks about being on the autistic spectrum. May realizes that the woman's revelations mirror her own, and she spends some of the book trying to understand herself as well as getting a diagnosis. I was very surprised to recognize I had some of the same traits, in a more muted form. I also love the fact that May's husband, "H" as she calls him, has such patience with the challenges she has. I love the way he respects her feelings and tries to see things as she does, and understands that she loves him and their son, but has a hard time with dealing with elements of the modern world. The hiking bits are also lovely.
Her best friend Megan convinces Lana Lee, now the manager of the family business Ho-Lee Noodle House, to host a speed-dating event at the restaurant. It works out well, too, except that their friend, Rina Su, who runs the Asia Plaza cosmetics shop, hooks up with a guy called Gavin Oliver. And very soon Oliver is murdered, and Rina is the chief suspect. It's the usual: Lana's police officer boyfriend tells Lana to keep her nose out of it, while Lana, Megan, and Kimmy Tran investigate behind the scenes. I think the killer eventually gives themself away in this outing, because it literally can't be anyone else.
Early warning: only about half of this book is actually devoted to the fire and the aftermath. About half is a history of the early space program up to the fire. However, the half of the book about the fire is very interesting and ties in with the From the Earth to the Moon episode "Apollo 1." We have a lot of books about the Apollo missions and many of the astronaut biographies, but there were still things in this book that I didn't know about the fire, including the controversy about the Block I capsule, the animosity between Joe Shea and Harrison Storms, and the results of the fire investigation and the hearings, especially the Phillips report.
The sequel to the fanciful The Glass Sentence, in which "The Great Disruption" divided Earth into different time eras: the U.S. is "New Occident" which never went beyond 15 states; the British Isles are trapped in the medieval era, Canada is trapped in prehistory, and the Papal States rule under an Inquisition-like government. Sophia Tims, who in the previous book rescued the orphaned Theodore Thackeray, asks him to accompany her on the search to Ausentinia, where she believes her parents are located. But she ends up sailing to Europe alone on a strange odyssey while Theo becomes involved in the murder of a government official; the accused killer? Sophia's uncle Shadrack the mapmaker. Just as wonderful and fanciful as the first book. The conclusion is The Crimson Skew.
Just what it claims to be: a true-crime book by a forensic pathologist illustrating how different crime evidence points out what happened to the victim. For instance, criminals many times burn bodies thinking they can destroy the evidence, but even the smallest clue left on a bone can tell the tale. Each chapter is about evidence found on a certain part of the body, or based upon a certain kind of wound. It's lengthy and kind of dry, but at the same time interesting.
This is a collection of Sherlock Holmes-related stories that almost never puts a foot wrong. I was delighted, even if I felt as if the Ellison and Wilson entries were a bit disappointing considering what came before them. My absolute favorites in this volume: "The Adventure of the Laughing Fisherman" in which an at-sea young man takes his therapist's suggestion and gets into detection (maybe others figured out the twist in this one, but I didn't and was delighted), the stirring "Dunkirk" in which an elderly gentleman named Sigerson "does his bit," and "The Thinking Machine," in which the protagonist reminded me so much of Robert Goren on Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Also of note: a coda to the story of Silver Blaze, told by the horse himself, and an amusing tale recounting The Hound of the Baskervilles in the style of Facebook. The other stories are good, too. But those three!
31 May 2023
Books Completed Since May 1
Where else but here in the U.S. could a woman who wrote a book with deeply Christian themes be accused of being non-Christian because she talked about "witches" and "unicorns" since they are obvious symbols of the devil!
But that's Madeleine L'Engle.
Title is as it says: Arthur's examination of the ways L'Engle's faith shone in her storytelling, even if certain "Christians" said it wasn't "real" Christianity because she didn't adhere to their particular brand of Christianity. In fact, L'Engle and C.S. Lewis were both listed as authors who wrote pornographic children's literature. Seriously?
Arthur isn't blind to L'Engle's faults, especially her disconnection between her family's memories of the past and her family as portrayed in her nonfiction, and that she couldn't really come to terms with her son's death from alcoholism. Enjoyable summary of L'Engle's portrayal of Christianity in her books and in her life.
While the Castle series, which I loved except for the loathsome final season, was on, a series of tie-in novels were published supposedly written by "Richard Castle" (the actual author was mystery writer Tom Straw), both his superspy "Derek Storm" books and his later series "Nikki Heat."
Basically the Nikki Heat books are Castle stories under a different name and a couple of tweaks. Kate Beckett becomes sexy Nikki Heat, Castle morphs into a magazine journalist Jameson Rook (Castle/Rook, get it?), Captain Montgomery becomes Captain Montrose, Ryan and Esposito are Raley and Ochoa, Laney Parish turns into Lauren Parry. Rook even has an actress mom; the only character missing is Alexis. The story begins when Heat, smarting over the article Rook wrote in the first book Heat Wave, is called to the murder of Cassidy Towne, a well-hated gossip columnist from the New York Ledger (the Ledger is also the newspaper that turns up in Law & Order: Criminal Intent). At Towne's apartment? Jameson Rook, who was doing a story on her.
Of course a gossip columnist has a lot of enemies, so Heat has her job cut out for her: the suspects include a singer and a baseball player. She doesn't remain unscathed, either; she's assaulted and almost killed. Rook is driving her crazy for half the story, but their attraction remains unmatched. And what's going on with another murder victim who was found with a coyote standing nearby?
Fun fluff, and good for Castle fans who were sorry the series ended on such a rotten note.
I was ten and a half years old when the film Born Free came out. I was a passionate animal lover (heck, at that time I liked animals more than people) and saw every film that came out involving a dog, cat, horse, etc. The story, about a lion cub raised by a game warden and his artist wife in the African bush in the 1950s and then their efforts to teach her to hunt so that they could release her to the wild instead of confining her to a zoo, enthralled me. Of course, I wanted the book. It wasn't a children's book, and I didn't care. Mom bought me the Bantam paperback with the Virginia McKenna cover and I read that book so many times it literally fell apart, and I ended up buying another copy as an adult.
The copy I recently re-read is the 40th anniversary edition and I jumped into it gleefully. There are a couple of cringey lines now (Adamson observing the lion cubs didn't like Africans but liked white people, except for the Adamsons' assistant Nuru and other employees), but otherwise it was still fascinating. I never realized as a child how much of the text was devoted not to Elsa, but to George's job of helping the local people rid themselves of predatory lions, about the natural features of Africa, and about the political situations that sometimes made the bush an unfriendly place for both whites and Africans.
Liberally illustrated by photos of the real Elsa and the Adamsons. There was a sequel, Living Free, about Elsa's cubs, and a third book about releasing the lions from the Born Free film to the wild as Elsa had been.
Back in rom-com territory: Jamie Westenberg and Bea Wilmot don't exactly hit it off the first time they meet, but their friends conspire to match them up with each other. So they decide to get revenge by pretending to fall in love long enough to then dash everyone's hopes with a spectacular breakup. But in pretending to be lovers, guess what, Bea and Jamie start to learn about each other and, whaddya think: maybe they could be friends? Maybe they even could be...more.
This is the first of a trio of stories about the Wilmot sisters: Bea and her twin sister Juliet, and their older sister Kate, all based on Shakespeare plays (this one is "Much Ado About Nothing," Kate's story is next, based on "Taming of the Shrew," and I think you can guess who Bea's twin's story is based on). I liked Bea; she states she's neurodivergent and autistic, but she reminds me a lot of myself, so maybe I'm those things? I just thought I was shy.
The series is amiable enough. I'll probably check out Kate's book when it comes out.
This is another enjoyable read in Gretchen Rubin's pop psychology universe. When, after an eye exam, she discovers that no one has ever told her she has a higher-than-usual danger of losing her sight due to a retinal problem, she realizes she's been going through her life not noticing the world around her. Indeed, it's a common problem today with the rise of social media; people pay attention to their gadgets and not what's unfolding around them.
These are basically experiences based around the five basic senses (there are others, Rubin explains, but these are what people think of as the primary ones): finding the newness in what one sees everyday (like what kind of clothes your husband prefers), finding what grabs you at a museum or on the street, discovering music as not just something to dance to but which revives memories or sets a mood, doing a scent tour and realizing there are scent memories, trying new tastes but rediscovering special tastes of the past, eating a meal in without seeing the food, the power of our sense of touch: not just comforting but sometimes rousing bad memories.
The end of the book has suggestions for different exercises to help you rediscover your five senses. As someone with her nose always stuck in a book or writing, I liked this in telling me to pull back and observe the world around me.
Once again, I got much more reading the non-ebook version. Olive Bright, daughter of the local vet and, like her father, a
pigeoneer (one who breeds and trains racing pigeons), continues to help
the British war effort by volunteering the Bright birds for messenger
service. As a FANY (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry) volunteer, she
also works at Bricktonbury Manor, headquarters of Baker Street, a
top-secret World War II spy organization, under the aegis of Jameson
Aldridge (her feigned love interest), but hopes to become an SOE agent
who would be dropped into Nazi-occupied France.
Alas, Baker
Street has a new commander, who thinks women have no place on the front
lines; he not only tells Olive her pigeons may not be needed any longer,
but assigns her to escort an annoying Royal Navy officer who's eager to
interrogate a new resident of the village of Pipley, a Mrs. Dunbar who
claims to be a spirit medium. In her first appearance in the village,
Mrs. Dunbar said she was in contact with the dead souls of a British
battleship on which several residents of the village served. Now
everyone's uneasy, including the Naval representative, one Ian Fleming,
who tells Olive that the ship is fine, but Mrs. Dunbar knows too many
unique details for a civilian. But when Olive takes Fleming to a seance
where Mrs. Dunbar dies, the question is whodunnit and why.
I love
these books and the characters, but this latest one fell slightly short
of the mark for me at the beginning. I think it's because I've read one
too many mystery books centered around spirit mediums who are murdered.
Plus Jamie is missing for the first half of the book, so a lot of the
sparring between Olive and Jamie that brightened the previous two books
is missing here. The solution to the mystery is rather pedestrian, too.
Positives: we get a look behind the scenes at a wartime Christmas, and
when Jamie does return he has a great surprise for Olive (including a hint of what his real name is!), and the
training that Olive is observing is based on a real-life spy mission
during the war.
I have just finished what turned out to be Perry's final book, which I hoped I could give a rousing review to, but, sadly, until the last third or quarter of the book, it frankly had me struggling through.
Gideon Hunter is newly arrived as a barrister at Daniel Pitt's law firm fford Croft and Gibson, just in time to prosecute a smug, ruthless man named Malcolm Vayne who is accused of fraud. (Basically, he has arranged an investment company that we would today call a "Ponzi scheme.") Worst of all, some of his investors are members of Parliament or other government officials, which gives Vayne much power over them. Since Vayne is now so powerful, it is dangerous to cross him, and he is so protected by certain investors that if the firm's prosecution case is not strong enough, it could destroy the firm.
The first 2/3 of the book is very slow, and the conversation is much about financial matters along with Perry's characters' usual soul-searching, except for a section where an elderly woman is threatened. The pace finally picks up near the end of the book, when the evidence against Vayne suddenly turns around and the case—and lives—are threatened. The last few chapters are very suspenseful and would make a good period thriller, but I'm afraid that the lead up is very plodding and you have to like the characters to keep going. Perry tried to give the new man, Hunter, and his wife Rose, some interesting personality, but they were very flat to me.
Apparently I finished this ages ago and forgot to review it.
I first met Phryne Fisher through the novels, later watching the television series. The latter is fun, but, of course for money reasons several characters have been cut from the stories, and Inspector Jack Robinson has become a love interest (in the books he's married with children). This is a collection of Phryne Fisher short stories, based on the novels. Some are long and convoluted, some are short—one's even solved by the time Robinson and Phryne are done talking about the evidence—but as far as I'm concerned they're all enjoyable to read, just from the POV of Phryne's 1920s setting and the attitudes of the characters. Wish there were more stories that involved Dot, as she is my favorite character in the series.
Well worth it for Fisher fans.
This is another interesting book I picked up for almost a song at Books-a-Million. West, a stamp collector, does exactly what he says, tells a history of the United States using 36 stamps curated mostly from the Smithsonian Postal museum, starting with the little revenue stamp that started the problems: a stamp from the Stamp Act. The stamps range from portraits of Presidents (Washington, Jackson, etc.), other important figures in U.S. history (Benjamin Franklin, Jefferson Davis, etc.), and finally, from the 1860s onward, other items significant in the country's history, the first being "the iron horse." It addresses some interesting bits of history you don't usually read about in other history volumes, like the Pan-American Exposition in 1901, the Golden Gate Bridge and Charles Lindbergh's flight, the Cold War, "Earthrise," and others.
Nifty little history volume from a different POV.
Always lovely to find Eric Sloane books at the library sale as they are now out of print and fiendishly expensive. In 1805 (yes, 1805) a 15-year-old named Noah Blake was given a journal for his birthday. He kept very brief entries for a year, using homemade ink, and Sloane uses Blake's entries to chronicle the work on an expanding farm of the early nineteenth century. Together Noah and his father, along with help from a neighbor, build a working mill, build a bridge over the nearby creek, and expand the cultivated fields of the farm, all without benefit of power tools, cranes, etc. Sloane's beautiful pen-and-ink illustrations of Early American tools and structures clearly illustrate the ingenious and clever ways 1805 citizens improved their life. But Noah's life isn't all work: he talks about neighborhood frolics, and meeting a special girl named Sarah who is working for their neighbors the Adamses for a year.
If you're interested in historic lifestyles, this book and other of Sloane's volumes are for you!
I grabbed this from the bargain book stack of Books-a-Million because I've loved Stephanie Graves' Olive Bright books and this has two chapters on pigeons used in war (the U.S. and the U.K.), plus some familiar characters from my childhood. There was this book by Patrick Lawson called More Than Courage, a Whitman book about horses and dogs, alternating chapters, one chapter about dogs and horses in war. It was there I met the acquaintance of Chips (who later had a vastly inferior movie made about him) the German Shepherd/collie/husky who won a Silver Star (only to have it taken away by commanders who said "that's only for humans) and also a Doberman named Andy.
They appear in this book along with other war dogs/rescue dogs/messenger dogs from World War II (including Smoky the Yorkshire terrier who has had two books written about her), Korea, and Vietnam, a short chapter on a ship's cat named Simon, another short chapter on horses, and the pigeon chapters. All the animals in this book received Britain's prestigious "Dickin" medal for heroic animals.
This is an easy read and you learn some great history about animals along the way.
This is the third in a series of rom-coms taking place among the cast members of a television series called Gods of the Gates (think a cheap version of Game of Thrones). Peter Reedton is a character actor ready for his first big role, but it turns out his co-star will be Maria Ivarsson, the woman he wholeheartedly made love to right before the audition—who then walked out on him without a word. Still, he won't wreck his chance at the role. For the next six years, Peter and Maria work side-by-side, getting to know each other as friends. But both still have hangups...and both live in different places. Is their smothered attraction enough to carry them to the next level?
Of course. This is a rom-com, people. In general, I enjoyed this, although it featured yet another clueless dad (only this one wasn't evil like the dad in Hating Game; he actually turns out to be a bit pathetic). Peter and Maria both have secrets in their past that interfere with their getting closer. Enjoyable stuff: their teasing, Peter in Stockholm with Maria's family, Maria's body pride in which she refuses to lose weight or shave/wax for her role (both our protagonists are plus-sized, as the newest description goes).
I liked Spoiler Alert because it was neat to see protagonists who wrote fanfic, skipped the second because I didn't like Alex in the first book, but this one may be my favorite of the three.
31 January 2022
Books Completed Since January 1
This is the sixth in Griffo's Ferrara Family Mystery stories, wherein Alberta Ferrara Scaglione, her sister Helen (a former nun), her ex-sister-in-law Joyce (who's African-American and divorced from Berta's brother Rocco), and her granddaughter Gina, known to everyone as "Jinx," a journalist for the local New Jersey paper, have had their hands full solving mysteries around the little town of Tranquility, New Jersey, ever since Alberta inherited a lake house from her aunt. But now Alberta and Co. not only have a new mystery, but there's a chance that she might finally be reunited with her estranged daughter Lisa Marie. She and her daughter have always locked horns, especially when Lisa Marie decided to marry Tommy Maldonado instead of attending college. But now Jinx's rather wild brother Sergio has vanished after becoming enfatuated with a woman named Natalie, and Lisa Marie needs her mother's help.
And she needs it even more when Sergio is accused of Natalie's murder.
Christmas hijinks with the Ferraras along with Helen's old nemesis Father Sal, Alberta's new beau Sloan, and Jinx's boyfriend Freddy, plus the mystery of Natalie's death, and a little help from Tranquility's police chief Vinny D'Angelo, all wrapped up in the usual Italian sayings and descriptions of food, food, food (how do the Ferrara folks stay so skinny eating all this food?). We finally get to meet Lisa Marie (who's always sounded like a bit of a pill) and Tommy, and discover they're not so bad after all.
(My mystery after reading this: is Griffo a closet Law & Order: Criminal Intent fan? Because his description of Vinny sounds like a young Vincent D'Onofrio down to his being six foot four and having size thirteen shoes, and the character even has a sister Frances, which was the name of D'Onofrio's character's mothers name on CI. Awfully coincidental!)
As a child I had The Jungle Book in a Grosset & Dunlap edition, and then borrowed (alas, never returned) a book called All the Mowgli Stories from a friend and in this way learned there had been a second Jungle Book. Some time last year or the year before found a beautifully illustrated edition of both books—but it was missing one story. This Penguin Classics edition I picked up at, of all places, 5 Below, remedies that by including "In the Rukh," which was actually the first Mowgli story, about him as an adult.
It's also an annotated edition, and, if you know me, know I adore annotated books! In addition, it includes a general preface that is an overview of Kipling which includes the truths about his imperialism, and an introduction and a note on the texts used (British and American texts differed slightly) by postcolonial professor Kaori Nagai, who places the tales in perspective from both a British and an Indian point of view.
And then, of course, the tales of Mowgli as well as the other beloved stories like "Rikki Tikki Tavi" and "The White Seal," plus the few from The Second Jungle Book, which, in my opinion, are not as good except for "Quiquern," a tale of the Inuit. I couldn't resist starting to reread the moment I brought it home, and it's always a lovely journey going back to Mowgli's jungle. And all the nice references to "St. Nicholas" help, too!
It was one of those years when everything went wrong. May's husband became seriously ill, then her son began having problems in school. Even worse, she began having severe stomach pains and was forced to leave her stressful job. This is the story of how she chose to "winter" after enduring these multiple crises, and how that choice put her life back into perspective.
This is a beautifully-written volume about living a low-key life, immersing your life in nature and in homely (as the British say) activities that restored her, and her family to equilibrium. She does this by celebrating the seasons rather than dreading them, learning the lore of the "wintering" preparations people once followed in simpler times. She indulged in cold water bathing, visited the Arctic, went to Stonehenge for the winter solstice, celebrates Christmas and Hallowe'en. I was mesmerized by her "rest" that encompassed new experiences. A perfect bedtime book.
In 1916, nurse Bess Crawford saved fellow
nurse Eileen Flynn's life when the ship they were on, transporting
injured soldiers from the front lines of the Great War, was torpedoed.
Now it's 1919, the war is over, and Eileen has asked Bess to be her maid
of honor in her wedding to Michael Sullivan. But there are still
terrible frictions between England and Ireland, and Bess' parents and
her father's assistant Simon Brandon, are fearful of her traveling
across Ireland by train. Instead, to assuage them all, Bess arranges to
be flown to Eileen's home by Captain Arthur Jackson, an American still
stationed in England. When Bess arrives at Eileen's house, she discovers
Michael is missing, most probably kidnapped by Irish nationalists,
possibly because, like Eileen, he "took the king's shilling" and worked
on the side of the enemy. Are Bess and Michael's best man, another
Englishman, Major Ellis Dawson, also in danger?
It's been awhile since I've seen a Molly Murphy mystery, so I was delighted when this showed up on NetGalley. It's winter in New York and Molly is busy tending to her lively two-year-old son Liam, her adopted daughter Bridie, and her husband Daniel Sullivan, a police captain, while enjoying her relationship with her unconventional neighbors "Sid" and "Gus." Since winter began, however, Molly's grumpy mother-in-law has been staying with them, which has tempered Molly's happiness somewhat.
One winter's day Molly and Bridie accompany Sid and Gus in taking warm clothing to Ellis Island to give out to new immigrants along with other society ladies, including Cordelia Ransome, a snooty girl who's just become engaged to a viscount. When Molly and Bridie arrive home, they discover there was a murder on the island while they were there, an English detective, and an immigrant Irish girl just like Molly had been not many years earlier is accused of the crime. Molly tracks down the girl and after meeting her, is convinced of her innocence and is determined to clear her.
While this is a rather complex mystery with twists and turns I did get it into my head who the murderer was about halfway through and turned out to be correct. It did, however, mix the mystery well with Molly coping with her mother-in-law, with Bridie who's going through "growing pains" and (while being schooled by Sid and Gus) being spoiled by her best friends, and even dealing with her memories of Ireland. While the action gets a bit melodramatic during the conclusion, it's great to see Molly, Daniel, and all the "old gang" (including Ryan O'Hare and Mrs. van Woekem) once again.
First in a series of original novels based on the television series.
The Las Vegas criminalists are investigating two crimes: a murder that occurred fifteen years earlier that has just been discovered on a construction site; the mummified body had been buried under a trailer. The second case is a lawyer who was murdered in a casino; his death looking very much like a mob hit by an assassin who has a very distinctive "signature" to his jobs. But once back in the labs, it's discovered that both the old murder and the new one bear the same "signature."
Collins does a great job of making his novel sound like a movie-length version of a CSI episode. He has the characters, from enigmatic Gil Grissom and seasoned investigator Catherine Willows down to flaky tech Greg Sanders, down well and has the format of the series down pat. If you could never get enough of the television series, the books are a good addition to your collection.
28 February 2021
Books Completed Since February 1
Paper Son, S.J. Rozan The Happy Hollisters and the Cuckoo Clock Mystery, Jerry West Death With a Double Edge, Anne Perry Re-read: Murder Must Advertise, Dorothy L. Sayers Spying on the South, Tony Horwitz Anything for a Laugh, Bennett Cerf The Mitford Murders, Jessica Fellowes Re-read: Stillmeadow and Sugarbridge, Gladys Taber and Barbara Webster Re-read: The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin Creating Sherlock Holmes, Charlotte Montague The Four Tendencies, Gretchen Rubin Mrs. Mohr Goes Missing, Maryla Szymiczkowa Egg Drop Dead, Vivien Chien My Friends, The Huskies, Robert Dovers Re-read: Stillmeadow Daybook, Gladys Taber