Nothing. I’m not really reading anything while I’m at Mom’s. We’re been visiting with family, including Mom’s new great-grandson who is a week old today. We’ve done jigsaw puzzles. But, I am going to mention a book below.
What about you? Are you busy with family or friends? Or, do you have plenty of time to read?
So, saying I’m not reading, you might have another nothing week on my blog. I’m sorry. Right now, I couldn’t be happier visiting with Mom.
My next book on my TBR pile is Hannah Langdon’s Christmas with the Knights. Someone mentioned it here last week, so thank you! I know several of us enjoyed Christmas with the Lords last year. Here’s the summary of Christmas with the Knights.
URGENTLY WANTED: a nanny for Christmas. Seeking an adventurous nanny to work for the aristocratic Lord family at their country estate. Must love naughty dogs, mischievous children and Christmas chaos. Room and board provided.
Penny Windlesham is stunned when her long-term boyfriend suddenly dumps her, leaving her with a broken heart just in time for Christmas. At a loose end, she accepts a job as a short-term nanny to a family she’s never met. Climbing aboard a train bound for the Dorset countryside, a tear rolls down her cheek. Alone, working and amongst strangers… could her Christmas be any less magical? As she crunches up the family’s frost-covered drive, Penny’s spirits lift when she glimpses her home for the next month: an enormous manor house, its windows glowing with firelight and festooned with twinkling holly. And, as she settles into her role caring for the adorable Lord children, she finds herself surrounded by a quirky cast of characters, including loveably frazzled Spanish chef Pilar and the children’s grouchy uncle, Lando Lord.
What about you? What are you reading right now?
I already have my first list of Favorites of 2024 from Rosemary! So, no matter how frustrated you are with me right now, I hope you stick around for the new year.
I just started The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel. Our book club at Changing Hands had a book swap tonight (wrap a book off your shelf that had an impact on you, etc.) and I love the book I got. Station Eleven by the author is one of my favorite books so I’m very pleased with my book gift.
Lesa, I think it’s wonderful that you can be with your Mom for a couple of weeks. Definitely treasure this time, although I know you do.
I remember last January, reading my horoscope for the new year in the newspaper. When I read the words ‘medical trauma’, I quit reading. For the whole year these two horrible words have been in the background of my mind, tormenting my thoughts. With only two weeks left in the year I figured I was safe but … not so. In the wee hours of Monday morning my heart felt weird so I asked my husband to listen to it. Not two seconds later he said ‘Well that doesn’t sound right.’ Anyway, long story a bit shorter – he called for an ambulance, and in short order there were 3 firefighters and 4 paramedics in our living room, I was being given an ECG while sitting in the chair, abnormal heart rhythm bouncing around between 110 and 200 beats per minute, blood pressure 202 over 100 something, I was taken to hospital by ambulance, where they ‘shocked’ my heart back to normal rhythm, and sent home with blood thinners, and told to follow up with my doctor. Scary stuff but I feel fine now. And I will not be reading my horoscope this coming January!
Only one book read this week:
MURDER AT HOLLY HOUSE by Denzil Meyrick
Set in 1952. Inspector Frank Grasby has bungled a case and is sent off in humiliation to investigate a series of thefts from farms in the small village of Elderby in the north of England. These farms belong to Lord Damnish, who wants the perpetrator(s) brought to justice swiftly. No sooner has the Inspector arrived at Holly House to speak with Lord Damnish, than a body is discovered up the chimney. Things don’t get any easier for the Inspector, as it seems everyone is lying and/or keeping secrets; and just when he gets a theory in his head something happens to turn it all upside down again. Ultimately the case proves to be about much more than mere thefts from farms.
The Christmas-themed cover and the blurb both promised a light, holiday-infused, humorous cozy mystery. I was to be disappointed though, because those were the only Christmassy things to be found.
I’m sorry to say I didn’t really like this book. There was humour but I found the overall tone was one of seeming to try too hard to be witty and clever; after a while it started to grate on me. The inspector made questionable decisions, and just stumbled into situations more than actively trying to solve anything. I couldn’t summon much empathy for him or for any of the depth-less characters, so – for me – the book had great potential but didn’t live up to it.
OMG, Lindy, I’m sorry you had to go through that, and reading that horoscope at the beginning of the year must have been scary and bothersome. I hope 2025 is a better year for all of us. Please take care.
Lindy, i am so sorry for what you suffered and hope you continue feeling better!
Medical Trauma are not good words to read in a horoscope, or maybe we should call it a horrorscope.
It’s been a busy week! Son Nick and I went to the Harris Center twice–last Thursday night for Hadestown (loved it) and Monday night for Girl Named Tom’s Christmas show. They’re the brothers-and-sister trio who won The Voice about 3 years ago, and it’s the second time I’ve seen them in person. They are fabulous! All with wonderful voices, and they all play more than one instrument. They recently toured with Pentatonix. Besides a couple of card games, I
had my first hand rehab appointment this morning, with back therapy to start next Monday. Tomorrow I have a dentist appointment and a pedicure, in addition to Toastmasters. Just finished writing my Christmas cards tonight (late this year) so I’ll have to make a trip to the post office tomorrow. as well. And I haven’t wrapped a thing yet. Oh, and my old Bay Area hair stylist volunteered to stop by my house yesterday when she came up from Salinas with her roommate to visit other friends, and she gave me my first (sorely needed) highlights in two years (she lives 3 hours away). It was wonderful to catch up with her, as she is a friend as well, and so nice not to (yet) have to find a colorist I like locally. And I forgot to mention that my backyard fence collapsed in the face of very high winds last Saturday! The neighbor with whom I share the fence and I have to get it fixed and pay for it–no help from the HOA, of course. And I just finished having someone paint my front fence at the HOA’s direction. Yikes!
So it should come as no surprise that I only finished one book (!) this week, but I’m more than halfway through Louise Penny’s The Grey Wolf and enjoying it. More on that next week.
Lesa, I’ve been afraid to pick up the book you mentioned because I so loved Christmas With the Lords but the author’s next novel, not so much. However, the book I did read this week seems to have a very similar plot. I did see Fredrik Backman’s and Nita Prose’s new books on NetGalley today and requested them, so fingers crossed!
I was attracted to CHRISTMAS EVERY DAY by the title, which turned out to be misleading. But having enjoyed another holiday-themed book by author Beth Moran, I plunged right in and, after a slow start, became fully engaged. Jenny’s twin sister, Zara, is everything Jenny is not–sophisticated, Oxford-educated, beautiful, and nasty, although she is currently (reluctantly) providing a home for her sister. But when Zara’s engagement is announced at a corporate Christmas party–to the man Jenny was expecting to propose to her–Jenny has no option but to leave their mutual employer and move to her deceased grandmother’s cottage in Sherwood Forest. It’s not as if it is her decision to make, as her violent reaction to the announcement has left her without a job, a place to live, or her self-respect. The rest of the story begins with Jenny’s horror at discovering her new home, a virtually unlivable cottage, choked with hoarded items at every turn. Fortunately, she makes a new friend who employs her as a nanny for her five children, including 4-year-old triplets who are unruly, hilarious and lovable. She joins a book club where meetings are filled with fraught conversations and the occasional almost-fistfights. And she embarks on a quest, along with her fellow book club members, to change and enrich her life. It doesn’t hurt that her neighbor, prickly but attractive Mack, seems determined to give her help she hasn’t asked for. I warmed to Jenny as she slowly calmed down and accepted her new situation, and I absolutely loved the character of neighbor Mack. One particularly affecting character is the oldest of her friend/employer’s sons, a talented writer and artist at age 11 who needs a lot of help accepting himself and letting friends into his life So although this “holiday” novel contains few references to Christmas–the corporate party, an over-the-top Christmas-in-July wedding, and the final scenes–the book was a good choice for reading less than 2 weeks before Christmas.
Happy Holidays/Merry Christmas to all of you who celebrate.
I LOVED Christmas With the Knights!!!
So. It is now 1:15 a.m. and I have just finished reading Murder Takes a Vacation by Laura Lippman. A very different sort of book from her previous novels. I loved it. It wasn’t love from Page One, but it was definitely love.
I am a huge Laura Lippman fan, love her Tess Monagan novels, and adore France. The cruise Mrs. Blossom is on follows the itinerary of the cruise my husband and I took took last December. I felt like this was my book to love and I was not disappointed.
Description from NetGalley (pub date 6/25)
“Whenever a new Laura Lippman comes out there is reason to celebrate!” –Louise Penny
Highly acclaimed New York Times bestselling author Laura Lippman returns with an irresistible mystery featuring Muriel Blossom, a former private investigator and middle-aged widow whose vacation on a Parisian river cruise turns into a deadly international mystery…that only she can solve.
Mrs. Blossom has a knack for blending into the background, which was an asset during her days assisting private investigator Tess Monaghan. But when she finds a winning lottery ticket in a parking lot, everything changes. She is determined to see the world that she sometimes feels is passing her by.
When Mrs. Blossom booked her cruise through France on the MS Solitaire, she did not expect to meet Allan on her transatlantic flight. He is the first man who’s sparked something inside her since her beloved husband passed.
She also didn’t expect Allan to be found, dead, twenty-four hours later in Paris, a city he wasn’t supposed to be in.
Now Mrs. Blossom doesn’t know who to trust on board the ship, especially when a mystifying man, Danny, keeps popping up around every corner, always present when things go awry. He is convinced that Allan was transporting a stolen piece of art, and Mrs. Blossom knows more than she lets on, regarding both the artifact and Allan’s death.
Mrs. Blossom’s questions only increase as the cruise sails down the Seine. Why does it feel like she is being followed? Who was Allan, and why was he killed? Most alarmingly, why do these mysterious men keep flirting with her?
Margie, i can’t wait to hear what you thought of the new Louise Penny!
Lesa, I am glad you are with your mother and other family at this time of year, and taking it easy (I hope).
Not much new going on here. We are healthy and the weather is mild. I do hope we get some rain in January. We are going out Thursday morning to shop which is why I am putting my comments up early. We are getting groceries in preparation for Glen cooking his Christmas spaghetti, which I love.
During the last week I finished THE UNFORTUNATE ENGLISHMAN by John Lawton, the 2nd book in his Joe Wilderness series. I liked it because it is a spy novel, it has great characters, and the setting is great (London, Russia and Berlin, Germany). It covers mostly the time period in the late 1950s and the early 1960s.
Then I read MOM MEETS HER MAKER by James Yaffe. This is the second book in the Dave & Mom series and it is set at Christmas. Dave is an investigator for the Public Defenders office in a Colorado town and he is good at his job, but often it is really his mom who solves the mystery. Published in 1990. There is a short story book of Dave and Mom’s crime solving which preceded the series; I read it a few years ago.
Glen has just started reading THE EARLY TUDORS AT HOME, 1485-1558 by Elizabeth Burton. The book was published in 1976 and tells about the social life and customs in England during that period. The author wrote a series of books on various periods in England, and Glen has three more of them. They also have lovely illustrations.
He is still reading his short story book, HAUNTERS AT THE HEARTH: Eerie tales for Christmas Nights, but he is close to the end.
I’ve been Christmas shopping. I’m almost done. I think I liked it better before Amazon and on-line shopping, though.
This week I read:
The Magdala League: The Maple Street Mystery by Sarah L. Hicks; An Inspirational kids mystery, which isn’t too bad, but nobody talks like a human being.
Booth: A Novel by David M. Robertson; One of the conspirators tells about how he was lured into Booth’s web of delusions. If the whole conspiracy had succeeded, everything would be different.
Framed by RFK Jr.; A True Crime novel by our soon to be Secretary of HHS. Maybe Skakel is innocent, maybe he isn’t, but he took the fall that Ted Kennedy should have taken.
The Mouse That Roared by Leonard Wibberly; Only in the 1960’s.
Sprinkle With Murder by Jenn McKinlay; First entry in the Cupcake series. Mel and Angie have just opened their bakery, and have a crazed competitor. A bridezilla wants 500 cupcakes, And to own the recipes. She is quickly offed, to everyone’s relief. Not bad, but it takes a while to get all the characters introduced and world built.
Knife Edge by JT Sawyer; This guy’s certainly prolific. This is his fourth book this year, I think, could be his fifth. In this one, his usual spec ops guy goes to a small town so he and his friend can take an Easy Rider type motorcycle trip. When he gets into town, the friend is dead, apparently in a car accident. Of course, it wasn’t really an accident, and our boy starts wasting wimps. Not bad for what it is, but I really don’t think you can take out over a dozen people without some legal repercussions, even if they are gangsters.
Lesa, this is a hobby, not a job. So you can take time off and it’s perfectly okay. (And yes, I need to learn that lesson myself. Maybe I should make that my 2025 resolution to take vacations from my blog as well as my real job.)
Speaking of which, I am still working, so I’m not visiting family yet. I’m heading out on Saturday, and boy, do I still have a lot to do. Although I made a good dent in the presents that needed to be wrapped tonight while watching the season finale of Survivor. (Something of a Christmas tradition, depending on how organized I am. I’ll also watch while watching Christmas specials and movies, which I will probably do tomorrow to try to finish up.)
Reading wise, I’m working on the new holiday novella anthology from Kensington. It’s IRISH SODA BREAD MURDER, with stories by Carlene O’Connor, Peggy Ehrhart, and Liz Ireland. Of course, I’m reading it for Liz Ireland’s Mrs. Claus story, but so far, I’ve just read Carlene O’Connor’s title story. It was good, although I feel like it contradicted last year’s novella from her time wise. It definitely didn’t keep it’s own internal timeline consistent. And I’m being nitpicky here, but that is the kind of thing that bugs me. Nothing connected to the mystery (which took place in 24 hours.)
Wow! I must be tired with how much I’m rambling. Time to go to bed.