I had a bit of a Jennifer Crusie mini-marathon this week (which would have turned into a maxi-marathon if I could have remembered what I did with Welcome to Temptation and Bet Me). Here’s what I’ve been reading this week:

– Laurie King, The Art of Detection.

This is the fifth of King’s Kate Martinelli mysteries, about a San Francisco cop. (I went on a Martinelli marathon and read the first four while I was writing The Passion of the Purple Plumeria last summer.) In this one, a dedicated Sherlock Holmes devotee is mysteriously murdered. If you haven’t read these yet, start with A Grave Talent, and move on from there.

– Jennifer Crusie, Agnes and the Hitman.

No one does madcap comedy or renders the implausible plausible better. In this one, a cranky food columnist is attempting to rehabilitate a Southern plantation, put on a wedding for her best friend’s daughter, save the plantation from her best friend’s crazy mother, dodge various old Mafiosi who seem to want to kill her and each other, and collecting an extended family of hit men and their friends, all of whom need to be periodically fed. It’s impossible to describe and incredibly amusing. Think Murder with Peacocks meets The Godfather, if The Godfather were scripted by Mel Brooks.

– Jennifer Crusie, Faking It.

This is the sequel to Welcome to Temptation, but can be read as a stand alone. More madcap comedy and clever character development, in a slightly less homicidal vein than Agnes and the Hitman, as a con man teams up with an art forger to steal a painting, each fooling the other and everyone around them.

– Lisa Kleypas, Secrets of a Summer Night.

While I’m reading old favorites…. This is the first of Kleypas’s wildly popular, Victorian-set Wallflower series, about four girls who band together to help each other find husbands: in this case, the impoverished Annabelle, who must dodge the prospect of ruin and save her family by making a prosperous match. Until ruthless industrialist Simon Hunt gets in the way. (This one and the third book in the series, The Devil in Winter, are among my favorite historical romances.)

What have you been reading this week?

It’s been a Young Adult week for me, reading-wise. Here’s what I’ve been reading this week:

– Robin McKinley, The Hero and the Crown.

This is the prequel to one of my all time favorite books, The Blue Sword. (Although each can be read as a stand alone.) In the mythical kingdom of Damar, an overlooked– and sometimes openly despised– king’s daughter discovers her own special gifts in time to become the hero that Damar needs.

– Diana Peterfreund, Across a Star-Swept Sea.

Imagine a space-age Scarlet Pimpernel, with a Persis Blake in lieu of Percy Blakeney and a Justen rather than a Marguerite St. Just. With the kingdom of Galatea in the midst of an anti-aristo revolution, aristocrat Persis Blake of the kingdom of Albion poses as a ditz in order to moonlight as the Wild Poppy. Peterfreund does an excellent job transposing The Scarlet Pimpernel to a galaxy far, far away. (There’s even a variant on the famous “They seek him here, they seek him there” moment!) The book comes out in October.

Moving away from YA, I’m just about to start The Art of Detection, the fifth book in Laurie King’s Kate Martinelli series.

What have you been reading this week?