A good week here. Dinner, as usual, at my brother-in-law’s. He’s an excellent cook, and there are always leftovers to take home! My sister was at her son’s in Massachusetts, babysitting for her granddaughter, but Kevin still had five of us for dinner. Then, yesterday, she came over so we could watch “The Pirates of Penzance”. We’re heading to New York City on Friday, so we wanted to see the original before we see “Pirates: A Pirates of Penzance Musical”. It stars David Hyde Pierce and Ramin Karimloo, and the setting has been changed to New Orleans. I adore Ramin Karimloo, and he is the Pirate King. While we’re in New York, we’re also going to see “Gypsy” with Audra McDonald and “Good Night and Good Luck” with George Clooney. Should be a fun weekend, and we’ll be back Sunday in time for dinner. Or, we will if everything goes well on the return flight.
I’m currently reading Creeping Venom, a mystery published in 1946 by Sheila Pim Aubrey Hamilton sent it to me, thinking I’d enjoy this humorous mystery called “An Irish Village Mystery”. I’ve only read thirty pages so far, but she’s right. The goat is the book in comic relief. When the wealthiest woman in the village dies after eating poisoned escargot, the police suspect her heir because the strict Protestant woman threatened to cut her cousin out of the will if he married a local Catholic woman. So far, I’m enjoying this humorous mystery with interesting characters.
What about you? What are you doing this week? What are you reading?
We had some rain over the weekend. Getting a bit late for that sort of thing, but we’ll take it.
This week I read:
Cat Got Your Killer by Sofie Ryan; The best of these books tend to have a sort of dream like beginning, and this is no different. The end is dream like too, although I personally might have used a different ending. Still, I’d put it in the top third of this series.
Couplehood by Paul Reiser. This book was all over the place in the 1990’s. Some of the humor is dated now, but still pretty funny in parts. Whatever happened to that guy?
The Midnight Caller by Scott Blade; Spec ops guy Jack Widow is seeing New York City for his birthday, when a lady calls his room begging for help. Widow finds himself in almost too much trouble to handle. I kept wondering why he didn’t just call the police.
Lesa, your plans for your weekend in New York City sound wonderful! I can’t wait to hear how you like the shows.
Here in Canada this week we survived the election for new prime minister. Certainly with less drama than other countries lately. The only weird thing I personally witnessed was the smirk given me by the woman in line behind me when her ‘processing’ person was quicker than mine and she ended up ahead of me at the voting booth. I thought it was immature behaviour considering she was an adult. Oh well. I guess she enjoyed the ‘win’.
Two books this week:
THE SIRENS by Emilia Hart
Historical fantasy, the story follows four main characters and is told from three different timelines:
– in 1800 we follow twin sisters Mary and Eliza; imprisoned for killing a man even though it was in self-defence, they are on board a convict ship sailing from Ireland to New South Wales in Australia.
– in 1999 there is Jess, a high school student with artistic talent who struggles with feeling different because of an ‘allergy to water’ and how it affects the appearance of her skin, and whose art teacher nevertheless makes her feel special
– in 2019 Lucy is horrified to have woken in the night after a dream, with her hands around the throat of a former lover; she runs away to her older sister’s home for help
Despite the various periods in time, the troubles these four women are experiencing all seem to be connected to the small town of Comber Bay in Australia – the site of a shipwreck, as well as where eight men have disappeared from over the past few decades.
The story is about recurring dreams, sleepwalking, mermaids, the strength of women healing from personal traumas, and of sisterhood throughout generations. In the acknowledgments the author says ‘fundamentally, this novel is about the ability of water -and sisterhood – to heal and transform.’.
The writing is wonderful and is why I wanted to keep reading, but the characters themselves felt a little flat. So much happens to them and yet only one or two stood out enough for me to feel a connection. But still, the story itself was compelling despite that and I found myself reading quickly to find out what ultimately happened to these women, and I was thoroughly immersed in the various timeline stories.
I absolutely loved the author’s first book, Weyward. It was a favourite of mine. While I did enjoy The Sirens, for me it wasn’t quite as good as Weyward.
ONE DEATH AT A TIME by Abbi Waxman
I’ve read almost all the author’s previous novels, and especially loved ‘The Bookish Life of Nina Hill’. Despite a couple of quibbles, ‘One Death at a Time’ is my second favourite book by this author. It’s the first mystery she’s written and I enjoyed it. The first chapter had me laughing out loud, and set the tone for the rest of the story.
They don’t know each other yet, but we are introduced to the two main characters as they attend what turns into a hilariously dramatic AA meeting. Julia is older, a famous former movie actress and now a lawyer. She obtained her law degree in prison while serving a 15-year sentence for a murder she’s always maintained she did not commit. Mason is a 20-something, three years sober woman who is still trying to put her life back together. She volunteers to be Julia’s sobriety sponsor. Together they make a delightfully unusual and fun duo as they, along with some amusing side characters, work to clear Julia’s name since she’s just been accused of another murder and the police aren’t working very hard to find any other suspects.
My quibbles are that there are a few too many characters and I found myself trying to remember who was who again, and it sometimes seemed they were taking up space in the story but not doing anything to help it along.
But there were lots of fast and entertainingly madcap scenes, and fun wisecracking dialogue. At the same time there was a bit of seriousness with the issue of addiction being part of the story. And a bit of found-family as well, which was nice and a bit unusual in a mystery I think. Anyway, it was quite a fun book to read, and did an excellent job of distracting me from the real world for a while. I liked it.
Sounds like a great weekend. Hope you enjoy it.
I’m about a third of the way into Bait and Swiss by Korina Moss, the sixth in her Cheese Shop series. I’m really enjoying it so far. Definitely intrigued.