Slow week so I had time to catch up with some reading. I love a week like that. It precedes a busy one with a dentist appointment and a musical. Linda and I are going to see “Kimberly Akimbo”. I wasn’t really familiar with the show, although it did win five Tony Awards, including Best Musical. “The show tells the story of a lonely teenage girl, Kimberly Levaco, who suffers from a condition similar to progeria that causes her to age rapidly, thereby giving her the appearance of an elderly woman.” I know it doesn’t sound it, but according to blurbs, it’s a comedy with a positive message. We’ll see.
What about you? What have you been doing this week?
I’m currently over halfway through Carol J. Perry’s The Spirit Moves. The fourth in the series is set in Haven, Florida, a haunted town, but the business owners keep that quiet. Maureen Doherty inherited the Haven House Inn which is haunted. She’s made friends with the ghosts who assist her when she gets involved in investigations. This time, an author despised by members of the local writing group is murdered, and the top police officer relies on Maureen’s assistance. He was killed in the garden behind the local bookstore, and the bookstore owner swears the ghost of her dead husband pointed her toward the body. Maureen really gets caught up in the case because local business is doing bad because of the murder. A second murder doesn’t help.
This is another haunted cozy mystery in a series I enjoy. I like the characters, the setting, and the ghosts.
What about you? What are you reading this week? What have you been up to?
How have I missed knowing about this series?! looking into it right away.
I have been fascinated by 1920s Paris and “The Lost Generation” forever, especially Sara and Gerald Murphy.
i couldn’t wait to jump into The Ashtrays Are Full and the Glasses Are Empty
by Kirsten Mickelwait and was not disappointed.
Description from NetGalley
“Fans of Paula McLain and Marie Benedict will enjoy this insightful novel.”- Kirkus Reviews
“Micklewait provides a jewel box of a book illustrating that none of us invented the fight for a singularly creative life.” – Randy Susan Meyers, internationally bestselling author of The Many Mothers of Ivy Puddingstone
Raised in New York’s Gilded Age, pampered heiress Sara Wiborg dreams of a more creative life than the rigid future prescribed for her. It’s only when she meets Gerald Murphy that she finds a man who shares her creative, aesthetic ideal and, after a friendship of eleven years, they marry despite the strong disapproval of her family.
Against the sizzling Jazz Age backdrop of 1920s Paris and Antibes, Sara’s innate style and gift for friendship attract the bohemian elite of the new century-including Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Picasso, and Dorothy Parker. But by the 1930s, her fortune is lost and tragedy strikes-not once, but twice. Sara’s strength and resilience allow her to find a new equilibrium over time, long after the parties have ended. A heartbreaking story of love and loss, The Ashtrays Are Full and the Glasses Are Empty follows Sara through her very modern life to reveal how tragedy can be healed by faith, unconditional love, and a creative mind.
“Kirsten Mickelwait writes down to the very bone of the Lost Generation’s artists, writers, and families, revealing a past that was not archaic but a glittering guide to today. Weaving stunningly intricate details with a grand sweep, Mickelwait provides a jewel box of a book illustrating that none of us invented the fight for a singularly creative life. . . I loved this book.”-Randy Susan Meyers, internationally bestselling author of The Many Mothers of Ivy Puddingstone
“The Ashtrays Are Full and the Glasses Are Empty transports readers back to the Paris and Côte d’Azur of the 1920s, slipping us into the luxury- and adventure-filled life of Sara and Gerald Murphy. Both quickly become dear to us, but it is Sara-channeling her creativity into making life beautiful for others-who captures our hearts. When personal tragedy and history bring an end to this charmed life, we grieve along with Sara and Gerald as they struggle to find acceptance and peace. This novel will inspire, entertain, and move you in equal measure.”-Anne Matlack Evans, author of The Light Through the Branches
“Every scene in this well-researched novel is thick with authenticity, and Mickelwait’s exquisite attention to detail makes this Jazz Age novel come alive.” -Iris Jamahl Dunkle, author of Riding Like the Wind: The Life of Sanora Babb
The Ashtrays Are Full and the Glasses Are Empty sounds amazing, Kaye! A while ago I read Wild Heart, a book about Natalie Barney and 1920s Paris, which I heartily recommend if you haven’t read it yet.
I’ll take a look – thank you!
The Ashtrays Are Full and the Glasses Are Empty sounds amazing, Kaye! If you haven’t read Wild Heart, a book about Natalie Barney in 1920s Paris by Suzanne Rodríguez, I highly recommend it.
I know that’s your era, Kaye. I never heard of Sara and Gerald Murphy.
We’ll see if you like this series by Carol J. Perry. It might be a little too cozy for you. But, I like the setting and the ghosts, especially the movie starlet who “borrows” clothes and makes them black and white.
A bit about the Murphys: “Calvin Tomkins’s biography of Gerald and Sara Murphy Living Well Is the Best Revenge was published in The New Yorker in 1962, and Amanda Vaill documented their lives in the 1995 book Everybody Was So Young. Both accounts are balanced, unlike some of the portrayals in the memoirs and fictitious works by their friends, including Fitzgerald and Hemingway.”
Thank you, Kaye and Jeff!
Lesa, the Murphys were a rich couple involved with the Fitzgeralds and Hemingway.
They quietly supported several writers and artists with financial assistance.
Gerald Murphy’s jazz-rhythmed painting titled Razor (1924) and the 6-by-6-foot Watch (1925) are part of the Dallas Museum’s permanent collection.
Pablo Picasso, a friend of Sara, painted her in several of his 1923 works.
i’ve always found them interesting.
I had the opposite of your slow week Lesa and a dental checkup today, but I did manage a few books.
I jumped right from Mrs. Pargeter in Simon Brett’s A NICE CLASS OF CORPSE reviewed here May 9th to Mrs. Haggerty in Elle Cosimano’s FINLAY DONOVAN DIGS HER OWN GRAVE, the fifth in her series. I wouldn’t call them cozy, but both books center on the characters, not the crime.
And I finished listening to TIME OF THE CHILD by Niall Williams. The story takes place in 1967 near Christmas in Faha, Ireland. I haven’t read any of this author’s other books, but recently watched an interview from Ann Patchett/Parnassus Books. His characters are unique yet the epitome of the Irish villager. I plan to read some of his other books set in Faha.
We’re supposed to get the edges of the heat wave hitting Southern CA this weekend. Seems it was freezing just a bit ago.
I’ll have to think about it, MM. As much as I love Ireland, I looked up Niall Williams’ first book, Four Letters of Love, and it sounds depressing.
We’re just starting to creep into a little warmer temperatures.
I like mysteries that center on the characters.
Hello all,
Hot day here today – 30C (86F). Way too hot for me. I just wilt at that temperature.
This week’s trauma (bet you all could hardly wait to see what it would be this time) was the lack of wifi for three days. Amazing how inconvenient that was. Couldn’t work on the computer; couldn’t watch TV. Could only do (some) things using data which we started to run out of. Turns out the chip in the modem failed after only three months and a new modem had to be sent from the next province over which took three days. As of late afternoon yesterday, everything’s back to normal again.
Two books this week:
THE LOVE HATERS by Katherine Center
This is the third book by this author that I’ve read. It was pretty good, although my favourite is still The Bodyguard.
Katie is putting her life back together after a breakup with a now-famous singer and from being shamed and ‘attacked’ on social media for how she looks. She is working as a video producer; it’s something she’s good at and she’s enjoying her work, but now the boss is making major cuts in staffing levels and Katie’s job is on the line. She gets a lifeline thrown her way when her co-worker suggests she do a video profile of Tom Hutcheson, a Coast Guard rescue swimmer. The co-worker has a reason for not wanting to do the job himself. Katie jumps at the chance even though one of the requirements is that she be able to swim. Can she swim? Why no, she can’t; but she’ll figure something out. The opportunity to prove her worth is too good to pass up.
The book is billed as a rom-com, and yes, it is that. It’s often funny and there is romance. Underneath it all are themes of body image, feelings of being unworthy, and learning to overcome those. These themes are important but they were very present in the story, and it started to feel a bit preachy at times. Having said that, I enjoyed the book, laughed or smiled often, and wished the characters well. The writing felt very immediate – as though I was experiencing everything with the characters and not just reading about them. And the secondary characters added much to the story – Aunt Rue, the Gals, and George Bailey the Great Dane rescue dog.
A diverting book, despite being woven around an ‘issue’, which is something I’m noticing happening more often lately. I am undecided how I feel about this trend but am leaning toward the view that it takes something away from the stories I choose to read as light escapes.
CLOSE TO HOME by Cara Hunter (book 1 in the DI Fawley series)
I generally choose not to read books about missing children but so many of you have mentioned this series, that I thought I’d give the first book a try. I’ve very glad I did.
Don’t really need to outline the plot since most of you know it, but 8-year-old Daisy goes missing at the same time her parents are hosting a backyard bbq party. No one sees a thing and there’s very little for the police to go on. The more questions they ask, the more it’s apparent that Daisy’s family is extremely dysfunctional; but the police doggedly work their way through the case.
I loved the way this story was written. No chapters – the story is skilfully and tensely advanced via a combination of flashbacks and present day events, giving us snippets of information (doled out sparingly but constantly making me rethink my ideas of ‘who did it’), social media tweets, and transcripts of police interviews with suspects. The writing is top-notch and the story is so readable. I could hardly put it down. I could picture each character so completely it was as though I knew them myself. Some of the characters were completely unlikeable but very believable.
The one thing I didn’t like was the family member/child sexual abuse/paedophile aspect of the story because it was much too close to my own personal experiences, and made for some difficult reading for me. Hopefully subsequent books in the series don’t deal with the same thing.
No wifi is SO annoying Lindy! One of my daughters had this situation for a couple of weeks when I happened to be staying with her. The amount of data I used was appalling, and of course my allowance ran out and I had to up my monthly payment. I’m glad yours has been reconnected now.
No WiFi for three days! O the humanity! Jackie would go nuts without the internet and (especially) TV, but at least we both have a ton of books to read.
Glad you liked the Cara Hunter. Yes, I found that about all of her books; I couldn’t stop turning the pages. I am about to start her new one, which picks up from the first one, years later.
Oh, that is too warm for where you live, Lindy. I like 80s, but then I lived in Florida and Arizona.
No wifi for three days is a problem. I’m glad you’re up and running again. We would have all wondered where you were today.
No, Cara Hunter’s books have different plots, so you’ll be okay.
Lindy, it is amazing how much we depend on wifi nowadays. And three days… I don’t think we have had that problem for more than a day or day and a half. Right now I could substitute gardening (really weeding) or decluttering my closet, but, still, what a pain.
Chiming in from So Cal, where it is been mostly cool. I don’t think it hit 80 today and was 68 when I was about about 6:30. I’m ready for summer! But it’s supposed to be warmer on Friday before cooling off again.
I was enjoying MURDER ITALIAN STYLE by Diane Vallere, so I went ahead and finished it after work today. This is book 16 in her Samantha Kidd series and takes Samantha to Italy, where she is asked to look into a 26 year old murder. Obviously, I enjoyed it since I finished it ahead of schedule.
Next up for me will be BIG FAT F@!K-UP by Lawrence Allan. Yeah, I know. Not exactly a typical Mark book. I’ve met the author a couple of times now, and the book sounds fun. The main character is a former child star turned PI here in LA. Hopefully, it’s as funny as it sounds.
You and Lindy need to trade places for a while, Mark, so you can have 86 and she can have cooler weather.
I hope you enjoy Lawrence Allen’s book. You’re right. The title wouldn’t make me think of a Mark book.
It was 80 degrees here yesterday but today it is going to be in the 60’s! I’m currently reading A Summer Affair. I’m only a chapter in though!
The weather is so up and down this year, Melissa! Enjoy A Summer Affair.
Hi all – I’m writing this on Wednesday night in an attempt not to be last for once…
Our day out to the north Aberdeenshire coast last week was a great success. We started with coffee in Huntly, a farming town half way along our route. We weren’t terribly optimistic abut finding a good café in this very traditional and untouristy place, but we came upon a real gem. It was too early for me to start eating cake, but David said the cheese scones were the best he had ever tasted.
On to the coast, and the historic town of Elgin, which dates back to at least the 12th century. It has a famous cathedral (now in ruins) and a lovely riverside setting. We discovered the Biblical Garden, which is close to the cathedral but was only recently developed. It contains 110 plants mentioned in the Bible, all beautifully landscaped. Although Elgin was very busy on the day we visited (most cafes had no free tables), the garden was very quiet and peaceful, a wonderful place for a quiet walk.
We then followed the coast round to Portsoy (which has an annual boat festival), Findochty and Spey Bay, which is known for dolphin sightings – as usual, we didn’t see any, but we did enjoy the excellent visitor centre and its very good café.
Just as we were leaving to come home I remembered Tarlair Pools. These are man-made seawater pools just outside the fishing village of Macduff.
In the early part of the 20th century there were outdoor swimming pools all along many of Scotland’s coasts, but the advent of foreign holidays meant most of them fell into disuse and disrepair. Tarlair was abandoned – but recently a group of volunteers decided to renovate it. The pools are set in a beautiful cove, and backed by an amazing two storey Art Deco café building. So far only the building has been renovated, but the plan is to get the pools open just as they once were. We arrived far too late to sample the café, but we were able to wander all around the site, including up the steps to the roof terrace. Everything has been returned to its 1930s’ heyday. There was no-one else around, and you really did feel as though you were in an Agatha Christie novel, and that Hercule Poirot was about to pop out from behind a pillar. It was such a fun way to end our day out.
Books – I am ploughing on (early) with my 20 Books of Summer list. So far I have read Jay Rayner’s excellent CHEWING THE FAT, Grayson Perry’s pretty good PLAYING TO THE GALLERY, and Joanna Trollope’s GIRL FROM THE SOUTH.
I found the Trollope novel disappointing; it is about Gillon, a girl from Charleston who moves to London to escape her overbearing family, meets Tilly, who invites her to live in the flat she shares with her boyfriend Henry, goes back to Charleston, invites Henry over to the US, and inevitably ends up falling in love with him. There are quite a few subsidiary characters, including Gillon’s psychiatrist mother, successful businessman father, ‘perfect’ sister, and traditional Southern grandmother. Then we also have Henry’s best friend William, his on-off girlfriend Susie, and goodness knows who else.
I couldn’t find a single character with whom to identify or sympathise. They almost all behaved badly, but even when doing so they were boring and one-dimensional; ther ewas far too much nave-gazing as they all moaned on about their (largely non-existent) problems. It was impossible to feel any chemistry between Tilly and Henry or Henry and Gillon. I’m not entirely sure what the point of this book was. I don’t know why Trollope lost her mojo after her first few novels, but I’ve not found any of the later ones worth reading.
Now I have moved on to OCTAVIA by Jilly Cooper. This was written in 1977; I was still at school; drink driving had only just begun to be regulated; no one had heard of AIDS. The novel is full of wealthy (Old Money, of course), profligate people, who fall into bed with one another at the drop of a hat, drink copious amounts of alcohol, drive fast cars and feel entitled to spend huge amounts on clothes, clubs, restaurants, and anything else that amuses them for 5 minutes. Octavia lives in a penthouse overlooking Green Park, has no need of a job, charges all of her outrageous expenses to her late father’s company, and – being strikingly beautiful – dashes around London seducing other women’s partners. When her old schoolfriend Gussie invites her to spend the weekend on a canal boat – a party at which Gussie’s dishy fiancé will be present – Octavia leaps at the chance to steal Jeremy from her less attractive (but much nicer) friend.
Sounds awful, doesn’t it? But in Jilly Cooper’s hands it somehow works. She’s such a good writer, her characters leap off the page, and although some of them behave dreadfully, there’s always a reason – she manages to dig deeper into these people’s lives, and ultimately reveal the downsides of coming from rich, aristocratic, unstable, damaged families. The canal boat trip marks the beginning of Octavia’s downfall – ultimately she will pay the price for her dissolute lifestyle, but, this being Jilly Cooper, we know she will survive and thrive. Octavia is an easy read and I am loving it.
Last week I also went to an author event at the central library. Leila Aboulelah is an Egyptian born writer who has lived in Aberdeen for over 30 years. She and her husband moved from Sudan to Scotland for his oil-related work, with every intention of returning to Khartoum; then the political situation there became so dangerous that her family told her not to come back.
Aboulelah has written novels, poetry, radio plays and short stories, and has won many awards along the way. Her themes often focus on older women and Islam; her latest book, which I have not read (but have just borrowed from the library) is NEW YEAR. She told us that it’s about a Muslim lady whose husband dies very suddenly. Her three UK-born adult children all make all the right noises about looking after her and having her to live with them, but none of them really wants to commit to this. In the end she goes to live with one of her daughters and her family. Tensions inevitably arise as she tries to impose her traditional values on a generation that has moved away from the strict rules of the past. She can’t understand why her daughter doesn’t appreciate her reorganising the kitchen – ‘but it was all wrong!’; her daughter can’t accept her mother’s insistence that her own children should be attending Islamic classes after school.
Aboulelah was a wonderful speaker, so interesting and so modest. She has a particular love of libraries, as when she first started writing the Aberdeen Central Library offered a quiet space for her to do so. The turn out for this talk was not great – perhaps partly because Aberdeen FC was playing in the Scottish Cup Final that afternoon (which, against all the odds, they won for the first time in 35 years), but also, I think, because people are not prepared to make the effort for anything but the big names. Another of our local writers is the thriller writer Stuart MacBride. I was chatting to my local librarian, who said that if MacBride had been speaking, the event would no doubt have been packed. MacBride is not a good speaker, but thrillers are so much more popular than ‘literary’ fiction. Our library events are free, but even when Jenny Colgan (an excellent speaker by the way) gave a talk, there were empty seats.
Aberdonians are forever complaining about there being ‘nothing to do in Aberdeen’ (which, incidentally, is far from true.) It’s such a shame that they won’t come out and try something new. It’s also not helped by the fact that the libraries have virtually NO budget for publicity – a few Facebook posts, often created by the person chairing an event, are all they can run to.
The next day our football team rode down Union Street in an open top bus. The entire city centre was heaving. It was lovely to see so many people so enthused and happy. Football and thrillers. Hey ho.
It’s Thursday now; the weather has changed and the rain is pouring down. Nancy and I have abandoned our walk plans and will instead go out for a coffee. It was actually quite nice to wake up to the sound of rain after all these months of dryness.
Have a good week everyone.
I read MacBride’s first three books, Rosemary, but they were too dark, even for me, as well as just too long.
I only managed the first one, Jeff. My son said if i found that one too gory (I did) I’d better not read any more as they only got worse.
I did attend a session he did at the Edinburgh Book Festival a few years ago. I found him rather irritating. He didn’t talk about his books much at all, just went off on various rants.
The Biblical Garden sounds fascinating; what an interesting idea for a garden. And I must say I always get a little bit hungry when I read about the various cafes you find!
I’m going to see if ‘New Year’ is available over here, as it sounds like it might be an interesting story.
Rosemary, I love the sound of your trip. And, I’m always jealous of the cafes where you stop on the way.
Unfortunately, the low turnout for library events seems to be worldwide, or at least the U.S., too. As you said, unless it’s a really big name, people don’t turn out. When I was booking authors, I was sometimes so disappointed in the lack of attendance, and the lack of publicity.
I’m afraid neither of your books appealed to me this week, so I’ll wait to see what else is on your list for summer reading.
Good morning. Yes, KIMBERLY AKINBO was a good show. We enjoyed it quite a bit and I think you’ll like it too.
Yesterday was John Fogerty’s 80th birthday and he is on a “Celebration Tour” to commemorate that, starting in New York at the Beacon last night (and tonight – tickets still available). So we trudged through the rain, after having a delicious dinner with my cousin at Reichenbach Hall, a German restaurant down the block from our hotel on 37th Street. The concert was fun – he certainly moves around a lot for an 80 year old – and he did all the Creedence Clearwater Revival hits.
We’ll take the express bus home this morning after breakfast and I will get to the books read later. I didn’t get a lot read as it was a busy week, which was particularly frustrating as I had several books on hand that I was anxious to read. I have two books that I am close to finishing today.
the other event of the week was the Saturday matinee of STEPHEN SONDHEIM’S OLD FRIENDS, a musical tribute of 40 songs, led by Bernadette Peters and Lea Salonga. Most were from COMPANY, FOLLIES, A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC, SWEENEY TODD and INTO THE WOODS.
The weather? Meh. Too many rainy days, though it is finally supposed to turn sunny and much warmer just as June arrives next week.
Thank you, Jeff. Good to know you liked Kimberly Akimbo. And, we bought our tickets for the next season of Broadway in Columbus.
I’m also jealous of you and Jackie, able to get to shows by bus. It takes a lot of planning for us to get to New York.
Jackie says I undersold KIMBERLY AKIMBO, that it was “terrific” and she “loved it.”
Tell Jackie thank you!
Good morning, everyone! After finishing my classes and taking a few days to reboot my brain I finally have some reading to report. First up I read Sunrise on the Reaping, a Hunger Games prequel by Suzanne Collins, which I think Jeff also mentioned here earlier. It adds really interesting depth to Haymitch and to our knowledge about Katniss’ district and the people in her parent’s generation. I love the way she weaves the story into what happens in the main trilogy, introducing us to people (like Beetee) and themes (the mockingjay pin) that will be significant later.
Like many others here (and based on their recommendations) I read I See You’ve Called in Dead. At first I was annoyed by the protagonist and his narrative style and then I suddenly realized a lot of it was a trauma response. The novel as a whole was well done, but I thought the ending was a little too pat. I appreciated the lessons, though, as I’ve been thinking about how to build a good life in a new city after cancer.
I guess my next book is related to that, a little gem called How to Keep House While Drowning, by K.C. Davis. It reframes cleaning the house and having it be ‘perfect’ into taking care of yourself. Since I am still unpacking I appreciate the idea of making the house work for me.
For my weird book club I read Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Polish author Olga Tokarczuk. It’s a curious book about a series of deaths in a remote village on the Czech border. Are animals taking their revenge on those who hunt and mistreat them? Our eccentric protagonist thinks so but the police are not listening.
A lot of my holds came in, so next week I’ll have more mysteries. Have a great week!
Trisha, How to Keep House While Drowning sounds interesting, especially when you said it’s about making the house work for you. I’ve been here about a year and a half, and I don’t think I’ve ever really settled. And, I don’t know why. I don’t know if it’s my health, or the lack of cats, but I hope it feels more like home eventually. I just placed this on hold at the library. Thank you!
That sounds like an interesting play, Lesa! Please let us know what you think of it. Not much fun in Muddville here this week, my husband has contracted COVID. He was traveling last week, so I’m not surprised. But he’s been miserable. And its not much fun having to stay apart. Hoping for better days ahead.
This week I finished “My Fair Lily” by Rosie Goodwin. A solid 4.5 stars. I listened to the audio version and it was well done. Lily was such a likable, compassionate young lady. A bit of a Cinderella story but still enjoyable.
I also read “Murder at Gull’s Nest” by Jess Kidd. This book was recommended here and I really enjoyed it. I will look forward to the next in the series. Set in 1954, Nora Breen, an ex-nun, has left the convent to travel to, and stay at, Gull’s Nest, a boarding house where her friend Frieda had been staying. Also an ex-nun, Frieda had written Nora every week, religiously. When her letters stopped coming, Nora knew something bad had happened to her young friend and needed to go and search for her. The boarding house consists of a band of misfits, and soon multiple deaths occur within its walls. Amazingly enough, each death is ruled accidental or natural causes by the local police. Nora’s investigation broadens as she believes these deaths, and the disappearance of Frieda, are all related. Some extremely lyrical writing, intertwined with rooting for Nora’s investigation as she finds her feet in the outside world, makes this book a solid read.
I will let you know about Kimberly Akimbo, Mary. I’m encouraged by the fact that Jeff liked it.
Oh, I’m sorry your husband has COVID. That sounds miserable for him, and lousy for you that he has to isolate. Take care of yourself, too!
I think you either like Murder at Gull’s Nest, or hate it. One of my sisters read five pages and quit. Not for her.
Are you seeing it in New York? I had the chills last night so I did a COVID test and it appears that I have it as well. Sigh. Hope it’s not horrible.
I’m so sorry, Mary! Now, you have to take care of two people!
No, we’re seeing Kimberly Akimbo as part of the Broadway in Columbus season.
That’s just awful Mary. I hope you and your husband both recover quickly and completely, and that you don’t feel too miserable. I shall be thinking of you both.
Good morning. I would have liked a quiet week. Roger woke up Friday morning with blood coming from his ear. Since he has low platelets his blood doesn’t clot well so we had to go to the ER. After a CAT scan they decided to send him to an ENT that afternoon. It turned out that he must of scratched the inside of his ear while he was sleeping and cut the skin. As of this morning it seems to have finally stopped bleeding.
On the positive side, on Sunday we met his daughter and son-in-law at a Rotary car show at an M&M Mars factory. We enjoyed the show and came home with a ridiculous amount of candy because they kept giving us handfuls of full size bars. Our library has a kiosk in the lobby where you can put snacks and personal care items for people who need them so most of the candy will go there.
I read an ARC of THERE’LL BE SHELL TO PAY by Molly MacRae. It’s the second book in her haunted she’ll shop series. A woman turns up dead and the shop ghost insists the dead woman is Lenrose. But Lenrose is alive and traveling around the island with her husband.
WHERE THERE’SMOKE by Laura Bradford. It’s the first in a new Christian cozy series published by Guidepost Publishing. It looks like each book will use the same characters but be written by a different author. I wouldn’t have picked this up but I like Laura’s books. I felt that she balanced the mystery and religion pretty well but I didn’t enjoy it as much as other books I’ve read by her.
Should be WHERE THERE’S SMOKE
Well, that’s scary, Sandy, to wake up with blood coming from his ear! I’m glad it turned out to be a scratch.
The car show sounds fun, but I’ll admit it was the candy that attracted me.
I still miss Laura Bradford’s Amish series.
Good morning! Lesa, I am interested in seeing Kimberly Akimbo because I’ve heard good things about it, but I missed it in Sacramento. I hope you enjoy it.The Drama Queens will be seeing Little Women: The Musical in June at a small theater in Folsom. I’ve seen the show before, and it was fun but not that impressive. It will be fun going with a group, though.
This morning I’m rehearsing a speech I’ll be giving at Toastmasters at noon today. As usual I wrote too much and had to whittle it down, but it’s still longer than it should be (5-7 minutes). Oh, well, it’s not for a competition, so my fellow members will be tolerant. The speech is about my lifelong obsession with names, beginning with the torture that is going by my middle name and having each school year begin with the teacher calling me Sara. One of my crazier memories is a 4th grade teacher that nicknamed me “Maggots”! What was she thinking? She was my favorite grade school teacher and I didn’t know what the word meant until years later–then I was horrified! I also talk about favorite names such as Atlas Orange (a coworker of my father’s at GE who was famous for his name alone). I mention I was glad he wasn’t named Agent Orange! And a coworker of mine named Calvin College, who named his son Joe College, and who thankfully didn’t name another child Electoral College. As a call to action, I implore members not to consider giving a child a middle name that will be the name they are called all their lives, and to say a proposed name out loud several times and run it by someone whose taste they trust to discover unwanted rhyming, similarities to public figures, initials that spell out something distasteful, etc. A fun speech to put together and deliver–I hope it goes well.
Here’s what I read this week: It’s May, so it must be time for another Christmas-themed book–I try to sprinkle them throughout the year. CHRISTMAS PEOPLE is the first adult novel from YA and children’s fiction author Iva-Marie Palmer, and it was offered to me as a widget by the publisher. Jill Jacobs moved to L.A. several years back to try for a career in screenwriting, but although she has an agent and has won a writing contest, she hasn’t succeeded in selling a screenplay. Moreover, she hasn’t gone home at Christmas to visit her family in Illinois because she’s afraid she might run into former love Grant, now a sous chef at a successful New York City restaurant who typically visits his family at Christmas in the same Illinois suburb.. They broke up on Christmas Eve three years ago, and Jill is certain it was because she is a loser at everything she does, including her unfulfilling part-time jobs, and now she hates everything about Christmas. So it seems fitting that when she does visit her home town, she wakes up one morning to find that she is actually in a better-looking town called Sweetville and is suddenly living in a Hallmark–that is, “Heartfelt”– style TV movie. She decides her only way back to normal is to see the plot of the movie through, including participating in a holiday baking contest with another handsome student from her high school class and in other traditional holiday activities with her family. With two attractive men from her past (Grant is competing in the contest with another woman joining her in her “fictional” adventure, what could possibly go wrong? The magical realism aspect to the story is interesting; it made me wonder how Jill would ever get back to normal. But the similarity to a traditional Hallmark plot left we wanting more. The author is a competent writer who has the potential for more nuanced holiday stories in the future. (September)
Emily Henry’s much-anticipated GREAT BIG BEAUTIFUL LIFE is not what we all expect from this popular author of unique contemporary romances. Henry has instead written a long (400+ pages) novel that explores the life of wealthy Margaret Ives, described as “tragic heiress. former tabloid princess, and daughter of one of the most storied (and scandalous) families of the 20th century.” We learn about Margaret as she challenges two journalists–optimistic, upbeat Alice and reserved Pulitzer-winner Hayden–to spend a month with her (on alternate days) on Little Crescent Island, vying for the privilege of writing her biography. In the process, we also become acquainted with portions of Alice’s and Hayden’s own lives, as they almost reluctantly form a relationship that is constantly thwarted by their competition to win the ultimate prize. Most of the focus is on Margaret, who releases bits of her history to each of the contenders, although both wonder if she is always telling the truth. There are long passages where she reminisces about family secrets and tragedies, her romantic life, and other hot topics. But we suspect there is more going on with Margaret, and we don’t get a payoff until close to the end of the novel. This is a highly ambitious book from Henry, but what was lacking for me was the charm of her previous stories. It emphasizes the bleakness of Margaret’s life over humor and fulfillment.The end of the book is finally gratifying, and I can’t help admire Henry’s impressive storytelling expertise, but I prefer her usual style, with last year’s Funny Story my favorite.
In the second entry in Sarah Stewart Taylor’s Bethany, Vermont Mysteries, HUNTER’S HEART RIDGE, police detective Franklin Warren is called in when a death at an upscale hunting lodge looks like murder. The victim is a former ambassador who has recently been relieved of his position, and the cause of death turns out to be just as much a mystery as the “whodunit.” Of course, there is no dearth of suspects, including a variety of guests at the lodge and some of its employees. Franklin’s neighbor Alice, who still has connections to her CIA past, also wonders whether a colleague who has just return to town has anything to do it. A massive snowstorm complicates everything, especially since it appears that no one can leave the area until the snow stops. At the same time, Alice is trying to help another neighbor, a widow with three boys who is about to have another baby during the storm. Warren is a character from the first in the series, Agony Hill, along with his assistant, Pinky, and Alice was also featured in the first book. While Stewart is undeniably an expert storyteller, and while I was fascinated by the depiction of 1960s rural Vermont and the fear of a Vietnam war, I didn’t find myself any closer to engaging with the main characters. Some of the supporting characters had more depth, and it was a pleasure to see them come to life. But I’m hoping the author will flesh out the protagonists more in future series entries, as she did with her excellent Maggie d’Arcy series. (September)
Thank you, Margie. I just canceled my hold on Great Big Beautiful Life, thanks to your review. Not interested, even if it’s Emily Henry.
I hope Stewart does flesh out her characters. I loved the Maggie d’Arcy books.
Your speech sounds fun. Good luck!
I’ll let you know about Kimberly Akimbo.
Margie, my husband totally agrees with you about not giving your child a middle name that they will be called all their life. He was named in just such a way and it’s so much more complicated than if he could just be called by his first name!
I hope your speech was well received!
No appointments for all of next week, I am so excited about that. Have one today and tomorrow though. I am reading a win from LibraryThing, Promising Young Man by Elias Axel.
I love this book, partly because like the main character, Oscar Danielsson, I have ADHD. He is in high school and put on an assortment of medicines, but the one for ADHD is not right for him, so his solution is terrible. He quits his meds and works for small breakfast place for money which he spends on his addiction for high level THC. It gives him a temporary high and escape from his depression but it ruins his life He messes up at school and in life in general, including thoughts of suicide.
After too much alcohol and THC, he trashes the small breakfast place that he loves, loses his chance to graduate, because he failed to produce an important paper for his favorite class and his failing grades in the others.
His grandmother has a plan, she and the family cook up a fake reason for a road trip to California. Granny is a gem, my age, quirky to the nth degree but wise and determined to complete her bucket list of places to see. I am halfway though this special book and now in Memphis, he has made a friend along the way who also has ADHD and I quote from her because, her view of life is mine:
Like a cloud covering the moon. Soon it will move on. Everything will work itself out. And then another cloud will come along. That is just how life is”.
I like that quote, Carol.
Isn’t it sad that a lack of appointments make for a good week? I definitely agree on that! And, I get excited when I don’t have to go anyplace for a week.
Things are heating u here. Supposed to get our first triple digit heat of the year tomorrow. Can’t say I’m looking forward to it.
I watched Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning. It was a great send off for a franchise of almost 30 years and 10 movies. Tom Cruise is getting too old for this kind of thing. He’s as old as Clint Eastwood when Clint made Unforgiven and In The Line Of Fire. He looks impossibly young and vibrant, but nobody beats the clock, not even Tom Cruise.
It’s a continuation of the last film. There’s a lot of exposition in the first hour, but once the team starts executing the plan, tension really starts to ratchet up. Just seeing Tom Cruise hanging on to a real flying biplane was worth the price of admission. A real proper send off. I wouldn’t be surprised to see another revival in a few years.
This week I read:
Operation Endgame by IB George; It’s WWII Britain, and some semi noble sap is chosen to go back in time and kill Hitler. It’s nothing I haven’t read before, and my head didn’t hurt at the end, as it should with a good time travel novel.
My time travel question is this: If you could go back in time ONCE, would you save Abraham Lincoln or JFK.
(If someone asked me, I’m a natural Smart Alec, so I would probably say McKinley!)
Indiana Jones the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull; Pretty good adaptation of a pretty bad movie. Actually changed how I looked at Shia Lebouef’s performance. Before, I blamed him for the movie’s suckitude, but reading the book, I saw that whenever his character appears, the whole story just devolves into silliness. Why didn’t the script doctors see it?
Love Letter to a Serial Killer by Tasha Coryell; a hollow Millennial woman becomes interested in a serial killer, and falls in love. The author claims it’s a parody, but I wonder. If Millennials are really this shallow and self absorbed, the world will be lucky to exist another 50 years, let alone to the year 2525.
Enchanted Plants by Varla A Ventura; Book of the week for me. The author is a self proclaimed witch, and the book is a sort of encyclopedia of various plants, and gives out various health and magic information, and goes into the role of the plant in various fairy tales. I’ve been interested in fairly tales since I took a college class in the subject. Of course, Cinderella and Snow White are featured prominently, which most people know due to Walt Disney. Meanwhile, Rose Red toils in obscurity. Seems like a new Princess in waiting to me!
Interesting to read your comments about the Mission: Impossible movie, Glen. If you’re going to have temperatures over 100, I’d head to the movies, too.
I think I’d go back and save Lincoln. I think the aftereffects of the war might have changed if he had lived.
Oh, I always liked Rose Red.
On Sunday we went to the Santa Barbara I Madonnari Street Painting Festival, walked around and watched the artists work and took plenty of photos. We returned on Tuesday, the day after the festival was over, so that we could see all the completed paintings. And took many more photos that day. We were surprised that so many people were there that morning, since we were there fairly early. We have been attending for nearly forty years now.
And we have started working on the yard more, mostly weeding and cleaning up. It is amazing how much work it can be, for such a small area.
This week I finished reading STAR OF THE NORTH by D.B. John. This is a thriller that mostly takes place in North Korea. The story revolves around a young Korean American woman whose sister went missing when she was spending her gap year in South Korea. Two other featured characters are a highly placed official in North Korea, and an older peasant woman who is living and barely surviving in a North Korean penal colony. It is amazing book. I learned so much about North Korean from this book.
Now I am reading the fourth Murderbot novella, EXIT STRATEGY by Martha Wells.
Glen is reading IN THE DARK: TALES OF TERROR by E. Nesbit, the author many children’s books from the early 1900s. He has read three stories from that book, then also started reading OFF THE MAP: THE CURIOUS HISTORIES OF PLACE-NAMES by Derek Nelson (which he borrowed from our son). He is enjoying that one and will finish it soon.
That street painting festival sounds like it would be so much fun. And what a good idea to go back the next day to see the finished works! Did you buy anything or is it not that kind of event?
Tracy, The Street Paining Festival sounds wonderful. I can imagine it’s worth going twice so you can see the finished paintings.
I have the first Murderbot book on hold. I’ve never read one.
My niece taught in South Korea for three years.
Lesa, the Murderbot novels are fun, humorous, and sometimes confusing. I have learned not to worry about that, maybe it is just me. I think the first one is the best one.
Teaching in South Korea must have been an interesting experience for your niece. I hope it was a good experience. I don’t know much about either country and I would like to know more.
Oh, Ben Aaronovitch’s are like that, too, Tracy, and I like them. I’ll give this a shot.
Books (at last):
Jackie is reading Nora Roberts’s MIND GAMES, which she very much likes so far, despite the nasty subject. More next time.
Anne Perry, Death By Dickens is an interesting book of short stories “inspired” by Charles Dickens. What I found most interesting was that the book was not, as many anthologies of the kind are, assigned so each author wrote about a different book. I’m guessing each just did his or her own thing, so we have two PICKWICK PAPERS stories (one by Bill Crider), two GREAT EXPECTATIONS, two CHRISTMAS CAROLS, two TALE OF TWO CITIES, and two somewhat similar stories where Dickens himself is a character. To make that even more uncanny, in one Dickens is aided by his friend and protege Wilkie Collins, while in the second, his assistant is Charles Collins, Wilkie’s younger brother and Dickens’s son in law. There is one modern story (the book was published in 2004), with Fagin and OLIVER TWIST at the center of it. Pretty good collection.
Second this week was Rob Osler, The Case Of the Missing Maid, which may or may not be the first in a series. In 1898 Chicago, Miss Harriet Morrow is hired as a trainee private eye by the Prescott Agency, as Mr. Prescott’s next door neighbor is missing the titular maid, Agnes. Harriet is 21, a large young woman and former bookkeeper, raising her younger brother several years after the death of both parents. She is a serious and intelligent young woman, a keen bicyclist, and, as becomes apparent, a woman whose romantic interests are for women rather than men. At times, this subplot became almost overdone, as I felt like Joan Cusack in IN AND OUT, yelling, “Is everybody gay?” Harriet has a week to find Agnes and she negotiates the Polish section of Chicago, and she clearly will not give up, despite several people in her own office trying to stop her. I liked the book, and I thought he did a nice job portraying 1898 Chicago. Yes, she gets herself in a couple of “had I but known” dangerous situations, but you can’t help but root for Harriet to find Agnes safe before the week is up.
Afternoon from a steamy NE Dallas where it is, officially, 87 degrees, with a humidity of too damn much, and a heat index of shut the damn door. Hoping the forecasted severe weather tonight does not do to us what it did to Austin last night.
My current read is the first in a new series, SEX AND DEATH ON THE BEACH. I went and picked it up off of NetGalley after Elain Viets sent me a first chapter excerpt guest post that will run this Saturday. Obviously, the excerpt worked for this reader.
By the way, today on my blog I review A Fondness for Truth: A Polizei Bern Novel by Kim Hays and EJ Copperman has a guest post Friday. In other blog news, the blog will probably cross 5.2 million page views this weekend. I must be doing something right.
Stay safe. And if you are not masking, you might want to start up again. That new variant that has been wreaking havoc in Asia is here and has been confirmed in NYC, LA, and a few other places. The cold and flu remedies were stripped out of my local Kroger today despite signs that stated one to a customer due to exceptionally high demand. The number of people openly coughing was way worse than normal.
Congratulations Kevin on your blog’s continued success. I appreciate all the reading expertise you share.