Rain here, but I’m not complaining. Although it’s going to drop into the thirties this weekend, there’s no snow and ice. I hate both of them.
I’m reading a book that I didn’t think I read last year when it came out, but it feels familiar. Without going back and looking at the blog, I’m sure I read Mary Kay Andrews’ The Santa Suit, but I’m going to finish and write a fresh review. After her divorce, Ivy, a young woman from Atlanta, moves to a small North Carolina mountain town. She bought a farmhouse after only seeing it online, and discovers there’s much more work involved than she expected. She also discovers a Santa suit in the closet with a note in it from a young girl. I’m going to save the note, and subsequent events for the review. But, it’s just the kind of story to put me in the mood for the holidays. And, of course, I’ll reread Craig Johnson’s Spirit of Steamboat, my favorite book to read every Christmas season.
What about you? What are you reading this week? Is there something you reread every year that either gets you in the mood for the holidays, or helps you through a difficult time of year?
We’re not going to get any more rain for a week. I’m torn on whether to hope for a wet or dry Christmas.
This week I read:
Cold Hard Cash by William W. Johnstone; A shotgun guard meets up with an old man and his comely daughter who are taking the body of their bank robber relative to be buried. The guy was wanted dead or alive, and now every bounty hunter in the territory is trying to get that coffin away from them. Good thing Johnny has a lot of shells.
Ronin by Mordecai Flint; I thought it would be a martial arts thriller, but it’s just a Men’s Adventure story. The usual adventurer is a bodyguard to a former model being stalked by a Ukrainian mobster. A couple of years ago, there were lots of these guys in fiction, but somehow they all disappeared after Putin’s invasion.
The Big Bundle by Max Allan Collins; In 1950’s St. Louis, Heller is called in on a kidnapping. Things go south. Even though the perps are found, the victim is dead, and half the ransom money disappears on the way to the police station.
Then a few years later, he’s hired by both Jimmy Hoffa and RFK to see whether any of that money found its way into the Teamster pension fund. This series should be much better known.
I only read one or two of the Max Heller novels, Glen. I liked the one about the Lindbergh kidnapping. Collins always makes you think.
I don’t do a lot of re-reading, Lesa, but I look back fondly at my reading of The Santa Suit last year. If I did re-read a Christmas book, it would probably be A Magical New Year Christmas, which Kaye Barley recommended last year–truly magical! My reading was back on track this week, with some books I absolutely loved and at least one I did not.
One of the books I loved was EMILY WILDE’S ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF FAERIES by Heather Fawcett. At 30 years old in 1909, Emily has a doctorate in dryadology (is that a real thing?) from Cambridge University. She has devoted her academic career to writing the titular folklore encyclopedia covering all species of fairies, but she needs to do field work covering the species that is missing, the Hidden Ones of Ljosland in Northern Scandinavia. However, her ability to build relationships with the mortal inhabitants of the small town where she will spend six months in a rustic cabin is almost nonexistent, as she has always found personal communications and social interaction difficult. Emily is startled by the unexpected arrival of her Cambridge colleague and rival, the dashing Wendell Bambleby, as she worries his reputation for delegation and even falsification of research results might endanger her attempt to publish her book alone and obtain tenure in the process. She also suspects that Wendell is not entirely who he claims to be. Written in a journal format, the first half of the book seems a bit slow, although I later realized that it was necessary to set the tone and lay the foundation for what followed. There are a few footnotes, but the ebook happily provided a link to skip those (and I did). And what a second half it is! Getting more involved with the townspeople than she had intended, Emily finds herself committed to using her vast knowledge of fairy folklore to find and rescue a young boy who was replaced by a troublesome changeling five years earlier, as well as two young women who strayed into Folk territory. I was simultaneously thrilled and amused by the author’s imagination in describing the nonstop action of the book’s second half, not to mention the ever-changing fairy landscape, the lore and powers of the Folk, and the resources Emily was able to call upon in treacherous situations. Emily undergoes some character development, Wendell is a surprising and entertaining presence, and I found the supporting characters (including the huge dog, Shadow) well drawn. This book was an unexpected delight, and I was very happy to learn that there are more Emily and Wendell adventures to come. Highly recommended, even for those who don’t read a lot of fantasy. (January)
IT HAPPENED ONE CHRISTMAS EVE by Jenn McKinlay is a Christmas novella that struck the right tone as a quick holiday read. In the third Museum of Literature Romance, 40-year-old Claire is resisting an “arranged marriage” engineered by her domineering mother. Told to expect a proposal on the night before Christmas Eve at a large social event, Claire manages to get away in a horse-drawn carriage intended to deliver her engagement ring and encounters the driver, dressed as Santa Claus. Sam is a reporter doing research on Claire’s high-profile family, and he agrees to help Claire reach her cottage in Maine in return for an exclusive interview. This is a rom-com, so of course we know what will ultimately happen, but it’s a lot of fun getting there. Claire and Sam are both interesting characters with imperfect lives and strong wills, and their are bumps along the way, but I found this adventure and its ultimate resolution satisfying and quite entertaining. For more details, please see Lesa’s excellent review.
THE BRIGHTER THE LIGHT by Mary Ellen Taylor is a story that plays out in two timelines. The first is 2022, when chef Ivy returns to the Outer Banks of North Carolina after 12 years in New York to sell her late grandmother Ruth’s cottage. In the process, she must face her ex-boyfriend and her former best friend, who had hooked up after Ivy left home with little advance notice. The second timeline is 1950, when Ruth was 12 years old and spent a memorable summer helping out at her family’s resort. Much of the story is devoted to family connections and misadventures. There is a possible romantic connection which is downplayed to the point of being almost absent. I read this for a book club, and unfortunately, I found it confusing, extremely slow, and ultimately unsatisfying. The characters had little depth, and I didn’t feel engaged with any of them. While the author’s writing style was fine, the story left me feeling empty and unfulfilled. Just not the right book for me. Some of my fellow book club members liked it more than I did, but I didn’t hear any rave reviews.
If you’re in the mood for an immersive mystery that will keep you reading even when you know you should really be doing something else, you can’t go wrong with Brian Freeman’s Jonathan Stride series. In THE ZERO NIGHT, number 11 in the series, detective Jonathan has been on medical leave for more than a year after being shot in the chest in the line of duty and undergoing months of rehab and depression. His wife, Serena, also a detective, finds herself suddenly hovering on the brink of breaking her long sobriety record when she learns her mother, about whom she has very ambivalent feelings, has died. Both look to their job to bring fulfillment in the face of serious distractions. The main case concerns the kidnapping of an attorney’s wife and, of course, the attorney looks like the prime suspect. Freeman’s masterly plotting and deeply nuanced characters make his clever police procedurals must-reads. I gasped out loud on learning one of the plot twists. I was also emotionally affected by the subplot of Elton, a dog Serena “rescues” for reasons that are revealed about both her past and her current needs. Adopted daughter Cat, now a college student, also figures prominently as a supporting character. Highly recommended–this book will be on my list of 2022 favorites.
A VERY MERRY BROMANCE by Lyssa Kay Adams ranks among my favorites in her Bromance Book Club series, although I found immigration attorney Gretchen to be a thoroughly frustrating character–before I came to understand her, that is. Gretchen turned her back on her family’s high-end distillery business to commit herself to the plight of her poor clients. Her family has never forgiven her, and the way they have treated her has made her dislike Christmas intensely. She also tends to run from highly charged situations, such as the pleasurable night she spent with sunny country music singer Colton after a friend’s wedding a year ago. Colton hasn’t been able to forget her, and his fellow Book Club members urge him to pursue her anew, even as he struggles to keep his recording contract alive in the face of disappointing sales. Colton, whose extended family loves Christmas as much as Gretchen loathes it, launches a campaign to loosen her up, but just when he thinks he is succeeding, Gretchen finds more than one opportunity to again run away. I love the character of Colton, although I think there could have been more in the story about his determination to hang on to his career. There also isn’t a lot this time about his buddies in the Book Club, but it is enough to show their loyalty and their refusal to let him give up. Most of all, I appreciated the fact that this is truly a Christmas book, not just Christmas-adjacent. I’m hoping there is a sixth in this enjoyable series.
I just finished another book a few minutes ago, but I’m not up to reviewing it yet, so more about that next week!
After your review, Margie, I’m torn about the Emily Wilde. I don’t have a lot of patience with slow-moving books. We’ll see.
I just find Jenn’s books fun.
Lesa, it’s worth it, I promise.
I’m going through my stack of Christmas memories books as well, picking up and then setting aside for now A Fall of Angels, Winter Witness, Winter Counts (though the writing is excellent, but plot a bit expected and very dark for the holiday season). I think I’ll stick with the Big Book of Christmas Mysteries put out a few years ago by Otto Penzler.
Ohh And I recommend A Christmas Party by Georgette Heyer, the murder scenario is perfect (and also literary) and the love story climax and the end is *chef’s kiss.*
Thanks for this reminder! I see this book in my Kindle collection but am not remembering the details. So it will either be new or a fun holiday re-read!
That’s the one I’ll look for, Becky, the Georgette Heyer. I never read that one, and I always enjoyed her books.
Good morning. We’re supposed to get rain later today through tomorrow afternoon. Hopefully everything dries before the temperature drops to freezing tomorrow night.
I read an ARC of Honeymoons Can Be Hazardous by Amanda Flower, the latest in the Amish matchmaker series she spun off from her candy shop series. It’s a bit on the dark side for a cozy but I liked it and she brings in some of the characters from her candy shop series including Jethro the pig for some lighter moments.
Steeped in Secrets by Lauren Elliot. Shay has no idea why she inherits Briget Early’s tea shop and cottage. Or why there’s a dead man on the greenhouse roof. It wasn’t a bad story but I never connected with the characters and the answers to the mysteries were easy to figure out.
An ARC of Vinyl Resting Place by Olivia Blacke. I really enjoyed this one. The author jumps right into the action and fills in the background information as she goes. Plus I enjoyed the record shop setting. It brought back memories.
Whole Latte Murder by Lena Gregory. A cozy mystery that I won’t even remember reading in a couple of weeks.
Sandy, That made me laugh when you said “A cozy mystery that I won’t even remember reading.”
Here’s why there’s a book for everyone, and not everyone likes the same book. I really enjoyed Steeped in Secrets, and I quit reading Amanda Flower’s series because I thought the pig part was stupid. Readers enjoy different things, and I think it’s great.
We are sharing your weather, Lesa. Not looking forward to next week’s temperatures with the gold front.
This week I read Once Upon a December by Amy E. Reichert. It is essentially Brigadoon except in this book it took place at The Julemarked that popped up in Milwaukee. Astra Noel has to decide whether she will give everything up to be with kringle maker Jack Klausen. It wasn’t special but I enjoyed it.
I did, however, love Murder on the Poet’s Walk by Ellery Adams. A poetry competition is being held at Storyton where the winner becomes the writer for a new greeting card company. Two contestants are found dead dressed as famous people from poems. I think this series is just wonderful and this was one of the best books in the series.
Happy reading!
Yes, Sharon. We’re getting that cold front for Christmas. Joy! (Not.) Everyone loves that series by Ellery Adams. Sometime, I need to get back to it.
Hi Lesa — here it’s very cold and windy, but our little circle of Northern Colorado didn’t get any of the snow surrounding areas did. We need the moisture, so the dryness was not a good thing. I won a copy of Gwendy’s Final Task on Goodreads and only then discovered it’s the third book in a novella trilogy. I was able to get the first book, Gwendy,s Button Box from the library and was hooked right away. This is a Stephen King collaboration with Richard Chizmar. As a novella, it’s relatively short, so I’ll finish the book today. It’s a fast read.
I never really heard anyone comment about the Gwendy books, Patricia, so it’s good to know you enjoyed the first novella.
I’m sorry your didn’t get the snow, although you can keep it in Colorado. Not interested here.
It has been a good book week for me. I got Richard Osman’s “The Bullet That Missed” from the library and promptly devoured it. I love how well the characters are drawn and how the series shows the rich lives of older adults. A book I borrowed from Princeton’s library but didn’t finish before my access was cut off just went on sale on Kindle, so now I’ll get to finish “Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation.” I am still plugging away at the lengthy Jim Thorpe biography also.
Trisha, I’m so glad you enjoyed the latest Thursday Murder Club mystery. I enjoy his characters, too.
I am reading Defend Us In Battle, by George Monsoor, and I don’t know how it got published. It is written by the father of a man who threw himself on a live grenade to save others. I plan to skim the rest of the book. I have the deep feeling that his son was suicidal and his father never caught it. The book is plodding and I really wish that they recognized that the son needed help.
Also reading White Colander Crime by Victoria Hamilton and I love it. Lots of interesting details and her love interest is wonderful.
Oh, I like that series by Victoria Hamilton, Carolee. I’m sorry about the other book.
The Santa Suit does seem popular this year even though it was published last year. Maybe just what people need this holiday season. It’s twelve degrees here in northern Nevada this morning. Good weather to be inside reading.
A couple books from my reading week:
A NECESSARY END the third book in Peter Robinson’s Inspector Banks series. He averages a new book a year, this one from 2015, so I have quite a few more to look forward to. Enjoying the characters.
THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS 2019 by Lisa Jewell
Soon after her twenty-fifth birthday, Libby Jones returns home from work to find the letter she’s been waiting for her entire life.
I somehow read the 2022 follow-up novel first (The Family Remains). This one explains a lot about the characters, but it sure was fun trying to figure it out by reading the follow-up first.
Well-developed characters, shifting points of view, a disturbing narrative; a tale full of surprises. And I learned that “hoarding” is temporary fencing!
Happy Holidays to Everyone
Happy Holidays, MM! The Santa Suit was just what I needed. I have a couple other Christmas books at home, but none of them are calling to me.
I really need to start the Inspector Banks series. I have the first one on my dining room table.
Good morning everyone, from a frozen and freezing cold Edinburgh. No snow here, just whiteness and ice, which I like about as much as you do, Lesa.
Nancy tells me that there is masses of snow in Aberdeenshire, and I’ve seen photos of roads in my area – not good! I’m just hoping it’s all been cleared by Saturday as we are still hoping to be up there for the Proclaimers concert that evening.
So as you see I am still stuck in Edinburgh, visiting the sick and ailing. It’s becoming a full time job, and not one I signed up for! I don’t drive in the city, and to be honest the traffic is so congested just now that it wouldn’t save much time if I did. Buses do at least have bus lanes – but more often than not somebody has decided to park in them, and of course they have to stop every few minutes – so not exactly quick! But at least I can read on the bus – or at least I can in theory. One bus I was on recently (that took an hour to get from the other side of the city to the centre – I gave up and walked down to Leith after that) was so rickety and bumpy that I couldn’t even keep the book still.
Yesterday I was out to North Berwick to find various things my mother wanted from her sheltered housing out there. it takes a long time on the bus, but in this case the bus – unlike the town ones – was not crowded, and it was a beautiful day to enjoy the East Lothian scenery, which is very different from Aberdeenshire. East Lothian is far more ‘manicured’, and although it is still agricultural, the farms are a lot smarter than those up north. No rusty old cars and bits of tractors in these yards! I have to say that after a while I find it too perfect – it’s also a prime retirement area for wealthy Edinburgh residents, so there are a lot of very lovely houses too. It’s nice to look at anyway.
The housekeeper at my mother’s house kindly gave me a cup of coffee, and it was really nice to chat with her for a while. She is a great woman who retired once but came back, and loves the job (thank goodness). She told me about an outing she had had with her grandsons – she went on the Waltzer at Princes St Gardens (which are all set up with the Christmas markets and a funfair just now) and loved it, even though her grandsons told her she might be ‘too old for this kind of thing.’ (!)
Tonight I am hoping for a little respite, as I am attending a book launch at the Fine Art Society of Edinburgh (which is really just a very expensive art gallery in Dundas St, the area in which most of the old commercial galleries are located. Of course the more modern ones would not think of opening there – apart from the ridiculous rents, it’s not at all ‘edgy’ – they like to be down here in Leith, or in other ‘alternative’ areas.)
The book is a new biography of the artist James McBey. He was in fact born in Aberdeenshire, so Aberdeen Art Gallery has a permanent display of his work and a library devoted to him, but the FAS currently has an exhibition too. McBey lived the latter part of his life in Morocco with his beautiful American wife Marguerite, and some of his best known etchings and drawings come from that time, but during the first world war he was the artist for the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, travelled through Palestine with the Allies.
During the second world war McBey lived in the US and became an American citizen. The Boston Public Library has a collection of his etchings.
And Lesa, McBey was largely self-taught, and borrowed Maxime Lalanne’s treatise on etching from the Aberdeen Public Library after reading an article on etching in an art magazine (he was at the time a bank clerk.) He then went to evening classes and taught himself how to create etchings on zinc plates. Where would he have been without the LIBRARY?!!
My reading has been minimal this week again. I’m still very much enjoying Alan Rickman’s diaries though – he is so caustic about people he doesn’t like (ie most people!) but he is also self-deprecating, and his observations about people, places and events are pithy and illuminating.
As I’ve read so little, I will tell you about one of my daughter’s recommendations. She borrowed THE SUMMER JOB by Lizzy Dent from the library, and says it was great, just what she needed – she described it as ‘a slightly grittier Jenny Colgan.’ I’ve found it in the Aberdeen library catalogue, so i will borrow it myself. Anna was disappointed to find that the author doesn’t appear to have written anything else (she likes a series.) I suggested she contact her on social media, tell her how much she liked it, and ask if she would kindly write some more.
And Jeff, I looked up WHITSTABLE PEARL, then remembered that I’d done so before, and it is only showing on Acorn TV here. That is a subscription channel that we don’t pay for, so I will have to wait and see if another one picks it up. So I’m still watching BODIES and BENIDORM. Bodies does really get very blood-and-gutsy; the episode I saw last night did make me quite glad I will never have to go through childbirth again! Good acting though.
It’s afternoon here now, so I’ll need to stop and get myself up the road to the gallery.
I hope everyone has a good, snow-free, week.
Rosemary
Oh, Rosemary. I love that bit about James McBey and the library. Thank you! Enjoy the book launch!
I hope your weather gets better. I also hope your family members get better so you are able to head home again. Sending you lots of wishes for patience, and lots of hugs. I know I’d need the patience. I’m not a good nurse, and I tend to lose patience.
I have no patience Lesa! I’m glad it’s not just me. I am very bad at having my life disrupted, even though i know no one does that intentionally. Nevertheless, I am trying to be nice…:)
We have just the opposite problem, Rosemary. We have WHITSTABLE PEARL (on Acorn) but not BODIES. We just finished the second series last night and will look forward to the next series, presumably next year. But we were surprised when the new series of MIDSOMER MURDERS popped up this week. We’ll watch the first one on Saturday “Brit Night” here.
We’re also watching POIROT and re-watching CRACKER, WAITING FOR GOD and FAWLTY TOWERS.
I’ve never seen Cracker or Waiting for God, Jeff. Bodies is very good (typical Mercurio product) but you have to be able to cope with all the realities of obstetrics – the camera is everywhere! I’ve had three children, including one placental abruption (this featured in last night’s episode), and I still have to look away occasionally. There’d be absolutely NO chance of my husband watching it – he can’t even watch Casualty.
We’re not planning to get any more subscription channels, as we can hardly keep up with the ones we do have, but it is frustrating when a thing you want to see is on something you don’t have. My son has Disney Channel and they seem to like a lot of its output.
Rosemary, Lizzy Dent has also written The Setup and The Sweetest Revenge. Hopefully your daughter can find those in your area (Amazon has them).
Oh thank you so much Margie, I will pass that on right now.
A favorite Christmas book – Winter Solstice by Rosamunde Pilcher.
I don’t even remember if I read Winter Solstice or not, Kaye! Maybe that means I didn’t.
I re-read Winter Solstice every year at this time. I don’t always start at the beginning though. I start with Carrie and Lucy flying to Scotland. It is one of my all time favorite books.
OK, I’m here. We went out for brunch instead of lunch today as the rain is coming early afternoon and is supposed to continue most of the day Friday. The one good thing is, so far our weather has all been wet rather than white. Three more weeks until we leave for Florida, and fingers are crossed that it stays that way.
Jakcie loved the J. D. Robb DESPERATION IN DEATH. She said it was definitely better than the last one. I think that is about 55 books, plus various shorter stories.
I’ve past the 800 mark in short stories read this year (though last year’s record of 920 is well out of reach), and I’ve read 55 collections and anthologies (last year: 68).
The latest are Dan Chaon, STAY AWAKE and Amy Hempel, REASONS TO LIVE. Also, Crippen & Landru sends out a special Christmas story every year to its subscribers, which is fun. This year it was Josh Pachter’s Murder on the North Pole Express. This is a real train in Texas (as I’m sure Texas readers like Kevin already know) that runs from Grapevine to Fort Worth. It sounds like fun, like the Grand Canyon Railway we took from Williams. Arizona to the Grand Canyon. But of course this (fictional) year there is a murder on board.
Currently reading the second Amy Hempel collection and Jess Walter’s collection THE ANGEL OF ROME. ALso reading another first Australian mystery set in the outback of New South Wales, WAKE by Sheeley Burr. Nineteen years earlier, Evie McCreery, aged 9, vanished from her bed in the middle of the night, leaving behind her twin sister Mina. She hasn’t been seen since. Now Lane Holland, a young PI with secrets of his own, is on the case, as he has had some success finding other missing children in the past. “WAKE” is an acronym for a popular online theory -Wednesday Addams Killed Evie,” the “Wednesday” in question being Mina, who looked like the character as portrayed by Christina Ricci. It’s well writtena nd holding my attention.
Some of those Australian authors really bring the setting and locales to life. I’ve enjoyed the books I’ve read by Australian authors.
Jackie & I agree. I liked Desperation in Death. I know Kaye prefers the forthcoming one, but I really liked that one.
Murder on the North Pole Express sounds good.
Well Jeff, there’s a cold front coming through Florida today. It’s gray and wet and the temperature is dropping into the 40s by the weekend. Brrrr.
I’m still listening to the last in the White House Chef series. I got half way thru and paused, not wanting it to end, esp since I know what that ending is. But I’ll finish it and move on to a new book by PJ Tracy – THE DEVIL YOU KNOW due out in January. I haven’t read anything by this author but I have always heard good things so thought I’d give it a try.
Well, let’s talk about that new P.J. Tracy when you finish it, Sandie.
Your weather sounds as blah as ours.
It rained all day Saturday and that was very nice. It has been very cold here lately, at least for Santa Barbara, and the nights are very cold. I am not enjoying the cold.
I do not have any book or story that I reread regularly for Christmas, but this year I did reread NOT A CREATURE WAS STIRRING by Jane Haddam.
I just finished my third Christmas mystery for this month, MURDER AFTER CHRISTMAS by Rupert Latimer, from the British Library Crime Classics series. It was a bit too long, and too humorous in a screwball comedy way, for me. But overall I still enjoyed it.
I have also been reading Christmas short stories and plan to continue that through the rest of December.
The next book I will be reading is O CALEDONIA by Elspeth Barker. It was first published in 1991 and was the only novel by the author. I don’t know much about the book except that it is set in the Scottish Highlands.
Tracy, I’m not a fan of screwball comedy humor. It’s just not for me. I prefer wit and verbal humor over outrageous and physical. I’m glad you enjoyed Murder After Christmas, though.
Tracy – O Caledonia is one of my favourite books! It’s quite different and eccentric, and may seem a little confusing at first (well it did to me) but stick with it (it’s not long). Elspeth Barker died fairly recently. And you’re right, she never wrote another book, which is a great shame.
I think it’s actually set in northern Aberdeenshire or possibly Moray, which are not really what we think of as the Highlands – those are more over to the West/North West and include most of the islands. Rural Aberdeenshire has a character all of its own. The dialect would be Doric rather than Gaelic – but so far as I can recall, that’s not really important in this book. (whereas in Nan Shepherd’s books, for example, it’s fundamental.)
I look forward to hearing what you think.
Thanks for all that information on O Caledonia, Rosemary. I think it was shortly after she died that I saw a blog post about the book. And especially thanks on straightening out the setting in Scotland. I will be starting it tonight, soon I hope.
I think I may have written a blog post about it at some point too – but I won’t share that till you’ve read it, so you can form your own opinion!
Great suggestion to te read Spirit of Steamboat! Work is busy and am finding it hard to get into any books of late! The Andrew’s one looks seasonally fun too!
Just thinking about Christmas books, I’d like to mention Kay Thompson’s Eloise at Christmas Time, which Anna and I still love, and also Fannie Flagg’s A Redbird Christmas.
I love this one too, Rosemary. Maybe I will pull out our copy and read it this year.
Good evening everyone from NE Dallas where we are drying out after a brutal Tuesday. Couple of inches of rain here in NE Dallas, high winds, and some small hail. We missed the baseball sized hail and more. At least 15 tornadoes across North Texas hit Tuesday morning despite the local weather readers telling us beforehand chances of a tornado were barely above zero. There are five more locations the weather service will be back out tomorrow investigating. tow different rotation areas on doppler radar missed us, with one sliding by to our south, and then twenty minutes later one going by to our north.
When I was a kid, twister season was sometime in early April to late October. Now it is year around and some years, December is worse than May. Looks like this year that is happening again.
Late next week, about this time, we are now forecasted to be low 20s to mid 30s for a high and there are dark mutterings about possible snow and ice. Blah.
As to reading, current read is Robert B. Parker’s FALLOUT by Mike Lupica. This is an okay Jesse Stone novel. Spent much of yesterday at the Subaru dealership as routine maintenance went sideways with one snafu after another. So, I sat there and read like crazy despite unmasked coughers, a screaming kid, and barking poodles courtesy of a woman who brought her two dogs to hang out. Scott and I were the only ones masked. We were also pretty much the only folks who did not put our cellphones on speaker to make calls nor did we put them on speakers to watch videos.
People are weird and should be tased to fix their manners.
KRT in Big D
Kevin, I agree that people are weird. I’m at work just this morning, and then off for the weekend (not for the holiday). But, we just had a former staff member stop in, wearing her mask. She’s living in Durham, NC, and says half of Durham is still wearing masks. So, they’re doing better than the Dallas area.
I agree with you about the possible snow and ice. Blah. A friend said we’re expected temperatures in the negatives next week, and up to 3 inches of snow on Christmas. Blah, humbug.
Kevin, I agree with everything you say about masks, loud phones, etc!
I still wear a mask in crowded shops and on public transport. The buses in particular are packed in Edinburgh just now, and I’d rather at least try to avoid all the bugs.
And as for putting your phone on loudspeaker, why do people think that is acceptable outside their own homes (or in the middle of fields with no one else around I suppose)?
I am rapidly turning into a grumpy old bag lady…
Lesa, here I am a day late and a dollar short, but I still wanted to comment. The Santa Suit sounds perfect to read on Christmas night after all the festivities are over, and I have Jenn McKinlay’s It Happened One Christmas Eve on my Kindle. I’d really like to do a little Christmas read on Christmas. We’ll be going to my daughter’s if her kitchen cabinets and counter are installed next week as scheduled, and we’ll eat and see the kids open presents. You’ve gotten me so excited, Lesa, saying there is snow predicted for Christmas. As we are working at odds on the snow appearance, me for and you against, I think you’ve had the edge. Maybe now I’ll get my way. Hahaha!
My reading has been so interrupted by December stuff, but good stuff. We’ve gone to granddaughter Isabella’s piano concert and her school chorus concert. I’ve been trying to get gifts in I need and gifts mailed I need to. Philip has been working at Toys for Tots the past two weeks, and we took a ten-year-old boy’s list and went shopping for him. I was much needed for that, as it involved clothes buying, and Philip hasn’t a clue about kids’ clothes. Today, I’m getting back to some book time, needing to finish a review and reading Susan Elia MacNeal’s Mother Daughter Traitor Spy. It’s about a mother and daughter who become spies against the Nazi Americans in Los Angles in 1940. I became aware of how bad the problem of Nazi Americans were during WWII, especially before the U.S. joined the war and especially in Los Angles, in Susan’s last Maggie Hope book, The Hollywood Spy. It’s a fascinating and scary period of history in our country. I plan on reading Murder in All Fury by Anne Cleeland next. It’s the latest Acton and Doyle mystery, number 16. Lord Acton is a DCI in the London Metropolitan Police, and his young Irish wife, DS Kathleen Doyle, and he are about as mismatched as can be. Well, mismatched until you get to know them, and then you see how perfect they are for one another. It’s a series and an author I’ve been with for a long while, and I’ve read some comments from people that this one might be the best one of the series. Looking forward to that.
With two birthdays following Christmas, my daughter on the day after, and my husband’s four days later, I’m not optimistic about getting much more reading done. I will have my final favorites list out the end of the month.
It’s not really a good time for reading for many people, Kathy, unless to relax at the end of the night. At least I do have reading time!
You’re welcome to snow on Christmas this year because I’m not going anyplace. One reason I hate snow is that I have to drive to work in whatever weather we’re having. But, I’ll be off until the 27th. So, enjoy your snow until then!