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Nightshade by Michael Connelly***** Connelly is introducing a new pariah protagonist, Detective Still Stillwell, which makes me worry that he's running out of ideas for keeping his almost 80-year-old cancer survivor Harry Bosch functioning. This mystery is about a young, caring LA County Sheriff's Detective who was sent to…

An important request: please do not pass on a book because I hated it. I am a crotchety old crank, who gets emotionally involved in my reading and would hate to pull punches in honest reviews. Most people don't share my literary pet peeves, so please read the Goodreads reviews as well from people who liked the book. Most…

Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid—*** I was so disappointed in this book, it sounded so exciting, and the parts about the astronaut training and the camaraderie of the trainees was great. However, the right stuff made up the minority of the book. The wrong stuff, the cheesy romance, domestic disorder, and such puerile soap…

Did it! Deviated from my planned list, but I've never been good at following a plan. A. Douglas Adams--Mostly Harmless*** B. Charles Bukowski--On Cats**** C. J.L. Carr--A Month in the Country***** Caleb Carr--My Beloved Monster***** Loved both, couldn't choose D. Frederick Douglas--Narration on the Life of Frederick…

We Solve Murders by Richard Osman. The Thursday Morning Club author has started a new series involving a retired widowed policeman and his beloved professional bodyguard daughter-in-law. She calls for his help when she finds out she is targeted by a powerful mysterious money launderer for assassination, as well as framing…

Sipsworth by Simon Van Booy: If you are a fan of heartwarming feel-good stories this book is for you. An elderly widow returns from 60 years in Australia to the English village, where she was raised but now knows nobody, just to exist in solitude and wait for death. Then, she accidently brings a mouse into the house, who…

Pleased to meet you! There are nice people here. Please put your feet up, read a good book, have a cuppa, and enjoy.

@Catfish_Fan. Thanks, you have great taste in books, too, obviously. Old Man's War and All Systems Red have changed my standards for what makes up good science fiction. I don't know which I loved the most, but if Martha Wells didn't manage to out-Scalzi Scalzi, she came close!

Getting a late start, but I already have nineteen letters taken care of so seven to go. I put the books I've chosen to fill the gaps in parentheses, in case I lose my list. A. Douglas Adams--Mostly Harmless*** B. Charles Bukowski--On Cats**** C. J.L. Carr--A Month in the Country***** Caleb Carr--My Beloved Monster*****…

Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova--This was a very weird story, some Pet Cemetary, some Frankenstein, that deserves credit for creativity and being the author's debut novel, but it was a poor novel/reader fit. A couple's only son is born with one inadequate lung and cannot survive beyond 11. The mother keeps a bit of…

Moving forward with my annual Halloween Literary Spookfest, I read the two books published by a new young horror writer, Isabel Cañas. The Hacienda, a haunted house ghost story set in 1820s Mexico and Vampires of El Norte, a vampire story set in 1840's Mexico. Both were really good, but I liked the second book a bit…

Maeve Fly by C.J. Leede--Absolutely ugh. It read like a D- movie that would be titled Fifty Shades of an American Girl Psycho. Feel free to miss this one; you won't miss much.

Tarzan Forever: The Life of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Creator of Tarzan by John Taliaferro This wasn't a Tarzan story but a biography of one of my favorite writers, Edgar Rice Burroughs. I always pictured EGR churning out books, raking in the dough, and living in luxury at Tarzana, so it was both surprising and sad to learn…

Moved on to two Manga. The Girl from the Other Side, Vol. 1-12 by Nagabe--The first 11 volumes completed the story, and the 12th was a collection of unused vignettes from the happy times in the early volumes. The story grows more serious, but all the mysteries are eventually explained when we learn about the main…

Regretting You by Colleen Hoover. This was overall a good novel but unevenly paced with some well-done engrossing parts but some dragged-out repetitive boring sections as well. The weakest part of the novel was the main character who constantly wallowed in self-pity. Her name was Morgan, so I dubbed her Morgan Moaner,…

Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor Ugly tale about ugly people. If you skip this one, you aren't missing much. Glad it's finished and tossed in the garbage.

So sorry you are in pain. You never know how important the back is to every movement you make, until it acts up. Been meaning to try Adrian Tchaikovsky but he is one of so many I never get to in my mountainous TBR list. Someday!

I've been working in some graphic novels in my puny attempts to be a more eclectic reader. I read My Favorite Thing Is Monsters by Emil Ferris. It is an engrossing story about a pariah kid, who lives for monster comics, investigating the murder of her upstairs neighbor. Then, after 400+ pages, the story just stops at no…

Getting a jumpstart on my Halloween reading, but sadly my first attempt, Howliday Inn, turned out less spooky and somewhat less fun than its predecessor, Bunnicula. This was certainly an entertaining kid's book but lacked something--it really could have used a celery sucking vegetarian vampire rabbit. The human criminals…

For those having difficulties finding a good X, I can recommend Xinran's Sky Burial. It is a heartbreaker, but if you want a book by an author with the ability to move you to another time and another place, this one's for you. There are a lot of good Q writers, but if you want a fun book, I can recommend Spencer Quinn's…

Starter Villain by John Scalzi is another book that I checked out because of the cover and then proceeded to stay up until 2:00 in the morning to finish it. It was more humorous than I expected, being sardonically narrated by the hapless protagonist. When things are about as low as they can go for poor Charlie, he is…

Read Agatha Christie's The Secret Adversary in which two broke friends desperate for income accept a job that runs them afoul of a Moriarty-like master criminal. This was a very early book and meant to be a fun one with lots of mess-ups, near death escapes, cute repartee, and a little romance.

I like that series but there are a lot of books, I think that I am up to about book 14 or 15 so far. It has been a while since I last read one. It doesn’t help me that all of the older audiobooks are published by Brilliance and only for sale by Amazon through Audible, therefore expensive, and not available at libraries…

Finished Payback in Death by J.D. Robb (Norah Roberts) #57 in the series. This was one of the better plotted books in the series with the crime having scads of potential suspects, none of which are panning out. Right from the beginning Detective Eve is sure she knows whodunnit, but feeling someone is guilty is not the same…

Finished Airs Above the Ground by Mary Stewart. An English woman is married to a dashing man who cancels the trip planned for their First Anniversary because he was called by his company to handle an important matter in Stockholm. Then she sees him, and a beautiful younger woman, in a movie newsreel at the scene of a…

The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman--At last the fourth volume of the Thursday Murder Club has arrived, and they keep getting better and better as the personalities keep developing and showing deeper dimensions. This time they are on the trail of heroin smugglers as the body count keeps climbing. This story had more…

Finished Keturah and Lord Death by Martine Leavitt--the story is like Beauty and the Beast meets Scheherazade. A teen girl gets lost in the forest and Lord Death comes for her, but she keeps bargaining with him by telling him a story but refusing to finish until he lets her go back for a day to tie up loose ends. This was…

My yearly goals involve being an eclectic reader, so every year I try to get in a Sci-fi, a non-fiction, a Pulitzer winner, a western, a horror, a play, a YA, a graphic novel, and a romance.

Miracle Creek by Angie Kim--this is a court procedural and whodunnit about a deadly fire in a barometric chamber that has been sabotaged. It has a very original plot with well-done court scenes involving two very smart opposing attorneys. The talky/thinky chapters in between gradually tell the reader what really happened,…

Read two Debbie Tung graphic novels. The first, Quiet Girl in a Noisy World: An Introvert's Story is autobiographical and kind of sad until the end as she comes to accept that her introversion as how she was born and who she is and not something broken or pathological. This book would probably not appeal to everyone unless…