I just started Edith Maxwell’s second Quaker Midwife book, Called to Justice, on my lunch hour yesterday. That means I’m not very far into it, and I really only know that midwife Rose Carroll will be investigating the murder of a young woman who works at the mill with Rose’s niece.
What are you reading this week? I’ve finished ten mysteries for Library Journal, and you’ll be reading reviews of those June and July releases on my blog, close to publication date. What are you reading? Mysteries, story collections, nonfiction? Or a book in another category? We’d love to know! Please share.
First I raced through Bill Pronzini's excellent THE VIOLATED, mentioned previously. Then I read FORGOTTEN CITY, Carrie Smith's second Claire Codella mystery, and I thought it was better than the first, overall.
I am reading too many other things! Besides the ongoing Saki collection, I'm reading Lydia Davis's collection of mostly very short stories, CAN'T AND WON'T (after a recommendation by John Waters in the NY Times). Also Peter O'Donnell's collection of Modesty Blaise stories, PIECES OF MODESTY.
The Little Red Reviewer mentioned an author I didn't know, Mira Grant (Seanan McGuire), so I downloaded a copy of FEED (Newsflesh Book 1), set 24 years after the Zombie Apocalypse. Don't know if I'll read the whole thing but so far it's good.
I've got another 5 ebooks and 8 "real" books on hold at the library, so what I read may depend on what comes in next. I'm also trying to fit in Michael Chabon's MOONGLOW, which I also started.
See what I mean about too many books?
Ah, it must be Modesty Blaise week, as I just started reading THE DRAGON'S CLAW. I'll be interested to hear what Jeff thinks of MOONGLOW. I read that one a few weeks ago.
I just finished Kale to the Queen; it's the first book in a new mystery series about an American who becomes a personal chef in Kensington Palace. I'm not sure what I'm going to read next. It depends on which books show up at the library today. I have several in transit.
I read Barbara Vine’s THE BIRTHDAY PRESENT. I thought I’d read all the Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine books, but somehow this one slipped through the cracks. It’s set during the early-to-mid 1990s and is about a Conservative MP who arranges a role-play “kidnapping” of his married mistress. Things go disastrously wrong and the self-serving MP spends the next several years desperately trying to avoid the reckoning that is inevitable in the Barbara Vine universe.
Then it was on to Julia Chapman’s DATE WITH DEATH, which I’d read about on your blog. Although its title, cover, and hero/heroine names of Samson and Delilah would indicate that this book is a “cozy”, the story is rather dark and there’s an air of economic malaise hanging over the Yorkshire Dales village where murders (involving people who have joined a local dating service) take place. I think Chapman could have benefitted from another edit to make her book either a full-on cozy or a much darker murder mystery.
Then it was on to David Grann’s KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON (another book I first heard about through your blog), a nonfiction about a series of murders on the Osage Indian Reservation in the 1920s. I was interested in this book because my husband’s family is from Oklahoma, where the reservation is located, and because Maria Tallchief, the first Native-American prima ballerina, was growing up on the Osage Reservation around the time the murders were taking place. I’m not sure if her family was personally affected; I do see that Grann has listed Tallchief’s autobiography in his bibliography but, most disconcertingly, his book does not include an Index. Shouldn’t that be de rigueur for a big non-fiction book? Anyway, a well-written but undoubtedly depressing story.
Now I'm reading Amy Gentry's GOOD AS GONE, a suspense novel about an abducted teenager who returns home after eight years…and then her mother starts seeing holes in her story. So far, it's a fast read–but, as a mother of daughters, it's can be hard to read at times.
I finished The Hideaway by Lauren K. Denton yesterday. It was pleasant. Some of the story took place in New Orleans where I visited last October for my birthday. I enjoy reading about places I've been. I didn't quite make a connection with the characters but this was a nice book to spend a few days with. It is her first novel. I just started The Forbidden Garden by Ellen Herrick last night before bed. It continues the story of the Sparrow Sisters. Unfortunately she keeps referencing the first book and I don't have that detailed recollection of that plot which I am finding frustrating. Hopefully once Sorrel goes to England that will stop.
I am reading 3 library books that have to be returned this weekend:
BETTER LATE THAN NEVER by Jenn McKinlay, AN OBVIOUS FACT by Craig Johnson and GARDEN OF LAMENTATIONS by Deborah Crombie. I also have another 26 library books after that to choose from.
Lesa: I enjoyed reading both CALLED TO JUSTICE and DELIVERING THE TRUTH. I don't read a lot of historical novels but I enjoyed Edith Maxwell's other cozy series and am glad that I read them. I learned a bit about 1880s Massachusetts and the Quaker faith.
Bill, your review of the new collection is what got me to read the Modesty Blaise.
I just finished The will to Kill by Mickey Spillane and Max Allan Collins, and am going to start Hooper's Revolution by Dennie Wendt, apparently an espionage novel set in the world of 1970's American professional soccer.
Stayed up last night to finish DESIGN FOR DYING by Renee Patrick. Very, very good. Love that time period. THE FIFTH PETAL by Brunonia Barry is on top of my library TBR pile. It's next.
Thanks everyone for filling in while I was in our half day of staff institute at work. I have a few comments. Deb, I was so interested in the two books you picked up because of the blog. Let's hope the next book in Julia Chapman's series works out better for the marketing, and possibly, editing process. Killers of the Flower Moon is on my TBR pile.
Jeff, You sound as overwhelmed as I am!
Grace, I had a little more time last night. Like you, I like Edith Maxwell's books.
Thanks everyone!
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I finished Thyme to Live by Melissa F Miller and Little Boy Blue by M J Arlidge.
I am reading The Trial by Larry D Thompson, the kind you do not won't to put down.
Also reading The 7th Canon by Robert Dugoni and The Scarecrow by Michael Connelly.
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I'm listening to the audiobook for Miranda (Dean) James's book OUT OF CIRCULATION in the Diesel and Charlie Harris series. I enjoy his books. They're not thrillers but they do have a steady pace. Everything just fits so nicely tho. Charlie needs a little pizazz in his life. I'm only half way through the series, so we'll see what happens.
I'm looking forward to Juliet Blackwell's new book in her haunted renovation series. It's due out in late June.
Sandie
Still reading The Shoemaker;s Wife by Adriana Trigiani. It is worth the struggle with small print. Also I have started listening to Mornings on Horseback by by David McCullough about Theodore Roosevelt. I love reading about him and inherited a book that is from his library. It is a wonder that he was not killed as a child when he has asthma, strong coffee was reserved for when it the parents were desperate but after they tried other horrible remedies! When he got his eyeglasses, a whole new world opened up to him. He became very interested in birds (like me). Just wish that they gave him a camera instead of a gun because he shot and stuffed hundreds of birds!
I'm reading an ARC of Cherise Wolas' "The Resurrection of Joan Ashby." Just started, so I don't have an opinion yet, but I'll keep you posted.
Thanks everyone. I love reading your lists, and your comments. And, thank you for commenting if you're listening to a book. Maybe I'm just nosy when it comes to books!