It’s been a hectic week here with doctor appointments and errands. But, the weather gave us a break in the Columbus area, and I even went for a walk with my sister. But, Wednesday night I’m doing laundry and packing. We’re going up to Mom’s for the weekend, leaving today. But, I will have some time to talk with all of you before we leave this morning! Then, I’ll catch up again in the evening.
As to reading, forget it. I finished a book for Saturday’s blog, but, I haven’t found the book I want to start next. So, I have nothing to talk about.
But, Kevin Tipple will when he shares the penultimate Favorites of 2024 tomorrow. Stop by tomorrow to see Kevin’s list of favorite books.
Safe travels to Mom’s! I know you’ll all have a great visit, as always! ❤
I read a book that I adored. I was living in Atlanta during the time this story takes place. Since one of my best pals was a well to do black man who was politically involved, and who happened o be gay, there’s a lot about this book that resonates with me. i wish my friend Robert were still with us – he would love it too.
I wish I could meet Doris. She was a spitfire at age 16, and I’m betting an even bigger spitfire in her 70s. Smart, funny, curious, irreverent, and very brave.
These Heathens by Mia McKenzie –
Description
In this vibrant, gratifying novel, a pious, small-town teenager travels to Atlanta to get an abortion and finds herself smack in the middle of the civil rights movement and the secret lives of queer Black people.
Where do you get an abortion in 1960 Georgia, especially if your small town’s midwife goes to the same church as your parents? For seventeen-year-old Doris Steele, the answer is Atlanta, where her favorite teacher, Mrs. Lucas, calls upon her brash, wealthy childhood best friend, Sylvia, for help. While waiting to hear from the doctor who has agreed to do the procedure, Doris spends the weekend scandalized by, but drawn to, the people who move in and out of Sylvia’s orbit: celebrities whom Doris has seen in the pages of Jet and Ebony, civil rights leaders such as Coretta Scott King and Diane Nash, women who dance close together, boys who flirt too hard and talk too much, atheists! And even more shocking? Mrs. Lucas seems right at home.
From the guests at a queer kickback to the student activists at a SNCC conference, Doris suddenly finds herself surrounded by so many people who seem to know exactly who or what they want. Doris knows she doesn’t want a baby, but what does she want? Will this trip help her find out?
These Heathens is a funny, poignant story about Black women’s obligations and ambitions, what we owe to ourselves, and the transformative power of leaving your bubble, even for just one chaotic weekend.
This book sounds so interesting Kaye, and it seems worth reading for many reasons, not least of which is Doris.
Unlike Lesa, we had a fairly quiet week for a change. The soccer game David was going to referee on Saturday was cancelled because the field was too soggy to play on because of all the rain we’ve been having, which I thought meant we would then have the whole day together to celebrate our anniversary. Alas, he decided to watch an English Premier League game on TV instead. No problem though because I could just read, so we were both happy anyway.
This Saturday our son, daughter-in-law, and seven-year-old granddaughter Evelyn will come over for a visit. It will be lovely but I’m slightly afraid the lunch I’ll be putting together will not meet Evelyn’s standards since last time I prepared a meal for her she looked at it, then looked at me and asked if I had any garnish! I’m pretty sure I’ve never added any garnish to anything I’ve ever made. So much pressure now!
Two books this week:
THE CORPSE IN THE CLOSET by Lucy Score.
Reviewed here by Mary M a couple of weeks ago, this is the second book in the Riley Thorn series after The Dead Guy Next Door – which was on my favourites list for 2024.
It’s another fun, madcap, romantic mystery with the same great secondary characters from the first book, plus a couple of new ones who add greatly to the fun.
Briefly – Nick and Riley have moved in together. Nick is a private investigator and is hired by a woman to find her missing ex-husband; Nick is also learning to be a better boyfriend. Riley has psychic abilities but hasn’t put in the effort to learn how to use them reliably; she does some admin work for Nick; and is currently assisting Detective Weber who has asked for her psychic help with a case of a dead social media influencer. Naturally the two cases overlap and trouble ensues for our two leads.
Full of funny banter, delightfully chaotic situations, and a handful of hilarious set piece scenes make for a light, entertaining escapist read that was almost as good as the first book.
THE SCOTTISH LADIES’ DETECTIVE AGENCY by Lydia Travers
This is the first in a historical cozy mystery series set in 1911 Scotland.
The premise is fun – Having come into an inheritance, Maud uses the funds to open a female detective agency together with her former lady’s maid Daisy, now her assistant. They eagerly await their first case but it’s not a promising start when the first person to come into the office will not hire them because they are not men. But hurrah! The next person to call on them isn’t fazed by that fact at all. There’s been a series of jewel thefts from country estates. The Duchess of Duddingston is planning a weekend party at her home and is worried that such a theft might happen there so she hires Maud and Daisy to attend undercover to keep watch and try to prevent it. Despite their best efforts some valuable jewelry gets stolen, plus a murder takes place and things get serious very quickly. Not only that, but Maud and Daisy end up with three other cases at the same time – a lost dog, a stolen packet of personal letters, and a missing bride-to-be. Suddenly they have more work than they ever anticipated.
But this is an enterprising duo and they stop at nothing to get to the bottom of all the mysteries. Through the use of clever disguises and turning somewhat dangerous ideas into action, and not being afraid to meet any situation head-on, along with some convenient coincidences and luck, they see their way through to solving their cases.
The book is entertaining enough but I didn’t warm to the two main characters; they seemed a bit characterless, if that makes sense. There wasn’t much that made them interesting enough to root for somehow. Some of the secondary characters were more fleshed out and consequently I was more engaged with them. Still, as it’s the first in a series, this might work itself out in subsequent books, of which there are three.
We enjoyed the Kensington Cozy Con last Saturday. I only bought a few books to get signed but we sat in on a couple of the author panels and they were a lot of fun. Ellery Adams, Gabby Allen, Lynn Cahoon, Darci Hannah, and Leslie Meier were some of the authors who attended. I’m hoping they do it again next year.
I read one of the books I bought at the Con, ONE POISON PIE by Lynn Cahoon. Kitchen witch Mia Malone’s first catering job doesn’t go as planned when her client turns up dead. I’m looking forward to reading the next book in this series.
I also read the latest Hamish Macbeth mystery DEATH OF A SMUGGLER by R.W. Green. I think I’m getting used to the new author’s spin on the series.
We are supposed to be a ton of rain in the next few hours (overnight) and potentially have thunder storms tomorrow. Not quite sure where I will go to read on my lunch hour since I don’t think I want to be in my car on top of a parking garage if they come through (which would be were I normally read during the cooler months.) But if I got to the break room, I won’t get my lunch time nap in. Such first world problems.
Thursday should find me finishing up HOMICIDE IN THE INDIAN HILLS by Erica Ruth Neubauer, the latest in her Jane Wunderly Mysteries. Jane and her new husband are on assignment in India in 1927 when someone’s murder is disguised to look like a tiger attack. No idea where this one is going yet, and I’m enjoying it. It’s release day is teh twenty-fifth.
Good morning, Lesa and all. Hope everything is good where you are. I see the New York weather is warming up, and we’ve had a few 80 degree days here in South Florida, but even when it has been warmer, it’s been windy enough to keep it comfortable. We have our first concert of the year on Friday – we’re driving down to see The Coral Reefer Band, Jimmy Buffett’s backup group, at the Seminole Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood, and will stay over at a Marriott in Fort Lauderdale. Plus, we’re meeting my cousins for lunch. It makes a change, right?
Books, then. Jackie has been on a reading roll lately, enjoying first Ashley Poston and now Emily Henry. She really liked Henry’s BOOK LOVERS, and she is now reading her PEOPLE WE MEET ON VACATION. She also has two more of Henry’s books on hold at the library. They are exactly the kind of escapist entertainment she is looking for now.
I really enjoyed Curtis Sittenfeld’s first book of short stories, You Think It, I’ll Say It(2018), when I read it last year, so I was pleased to see a second collection, Show Don’t Tell, was coming out this year. I liked it even more than the first one. Then I read that the final story in the book, “Lost But Not Forgotten,” was actually an update featuring characters from her first novel, 2005’s Prep, so I put aside what I was reading – actually, I read both books at the same time, along with the short story collection – and decided to read that first.
When Sittenfeld was 13 in the 8th grade in Cincinnati, she applied for and was accepted to the WASPy Groton prep school in Massachusetts, where Franklin Roosevelt, among others, went, a school with an Episcopal background. (Sittenfeld’s parents were Catholic and Jewish. She was accepted as a scholarship student, and later went to Vassar and Stanford. in Prep, which she clearly based in part on her own experiences, the central character is a scholarship student at “Ault” School, Lee Fiora, from South Bend, Indiana. The book takes us through her four years at Ault, her friends (she has a few) and classmates, the boy she has an unending crush on, and just the daily life of the school. It is all pretty engrossing. The one big problem, for me and other reviewers, is Lee herself. She is pretty much impossible to like as a person. She is insecure to an extreme, often timid, always observing others. She rarely says what she wants. It is very tough to warm to her, despite the fact that I can understand her in many ways. The thing you need to remember is that these kids are 14-17 for the most part.
The short story, “Lost But Not Forgotten,” takes place at Lee’s 30th Ault reunion, and to some extent things have changed much for the better for her. She is a very successful 48 year old divorcee with two kids, living in Michigan – she went to college at the U of Michigan – and we do get to see what happened to some of her friends and former classmates. In general, I like her writing.
Back to the mysteries, there was The Wolf Tree by Laura McCluskey, a first novel recommended by Lesa last month. As in several other books and television shows recently, Insp. Georgina “George” Lennox is back on the job after months off for a serious on-the-job injury, when she didn’t wait for backup (as so many don’t, right?) and was attacked and seriously hurt. She and her partner are sent to Eilean Eadar, a tiny island in the Western Isles off Scotland, to investigate the sudden death of 18 year old Alan Ferguson, who jumped or fell (?) from the old lighthouse, where three lighthouse keepers disappeared in 1919, never to be seen again. To call the islanders insular is a major understatement, though a few are friendly, not including the Catholic priest who seems to rule the place. The atmosphere is thick as the weather, and they have five days to try and get the islanders to talk to them, though there seems little or no evidence pointing to anything but suicide. It is very well done indeed, but I have one major problem with it, and that is George, the kind of character I can’t stand, a woman who keeps everything to herself, constantly walks into danger on her own, and even after her previous injury, risks her life again through her reckless behavior. That said, it’s well written, and worth your time if you like this kind of story.
I’m also reading James Sallis’s massive (820 pages) book of short stories, Bright Segments, though I doubt I will read all of it. Some I’ve read before, and the odder fantasy stuff and some of the science fiction doesn’t appeal to me.
Next? The latest Galway book by Ken Bruen.