Weekly Reading Round-Up

I should listen to my best friend more often. Back in the spring, she recommended Elly Griffiths’s Ruth Galloway mysteries, about an academic in Norfolk who stumbles upon crime– or has crime brought to her, in the form of bones to be dated. This time it was Judith Flanders’s Sam Clair series, about an editor turned accidental sleuth in modern London. I read the first one, A Murder of Magpies, this week and loved the smart, snarky voice (think Vicky Bliss, but British).

Right now, I’m continuing the mystery kick with Laurie King’s The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, the first in her Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series (which I last read when it came out back in nineteen-ninety-mumble), and so enjoying the feel of it, like being inside a Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes episode– but with a clever leading lady.

What have you been reading this week?

p.s. today is the last day to enter to win one of fifty advance copies of The English Wife on Goodreeads, so if you haven’t entered yet, now’s your chance!

22 Comments

  1. Randy Riddle on October 20, 2017 at 2:19 pm

    I’ve been reading Jennifer Robson. Earlier in the week, I read Somewhere in France, and then After The War Is Over. Right now I’m reading Moonlight Over Paris.

  2. patricia McGee on October 20, 2017 at 2:24 pm

    9th Hour and Saints for All Occasions

  3. Freya on October 20, 2017 at 2:30 pm

    Rereading E. F. Benson’s *Paying Guests* and fantasizing about writing a comedy of manners set at an interwar watering place.

    • Lauren on October 20, 2017 at 2:38 pm

      Love love love E. F. Benson! And if you wrote that, I would read it.

      • Freya on October 20, 2017 at 2:41 pm

        Wow!! Thanks, Lauren! 🙂

  4. Diane (bookchickdi) on October 20, 2017 at 2:43 pm

    I’m halfway through Lauren Willig’s The Other Daughter and I’m loving it!

  5. Angela on October 20, 2017 at 2:45 pm

    I started an old mystery called A Carol for the Dead, which I found at the Newberry Library’s summer used book sale, but Louise Penny’s new novel, Glass Houses, came up for me at the library, so I guess I’ll be reading two!

  6. Jean on October 20, 2017 at 3:05 pm

    I have just about finished Death in a Cold Hard Light and have Death on Nantucket ready to follow. I have decided to finish the Merry Folger series without reading anything else in between!

  7. Christina on October 20, 2017 at 4:09 pm

    I read The Rose Garden by Susana Kearsley for book club. I’m not a Kearsley fan and wouldn’t have read it if it wasn’t the book club pick. This one did nothing to change my mind. The writing is lovely but I’m always very bored & am waiting for something to happen. I also found the romantic relationship very unconvincing.

    I’ve started Beauty and the Mustache by Penny Reid. I’m about 1/2 way through and I love it. It’s a good balance of funny and serious for me. I didn’t want to stay up too late reading last night so i picked up a nonfiction book from my library stack. Code Girls by Liza Mundy. It’s off to a promising start.

  8. Flora on October 20, 2017 at 4:09 pm

    Have you tried Sherry Thomas’s Lady Sherlock series? I read “A Study in Scarlet Women” this summer, introduced it to my husband and he somehow jumped the line at the library and got book 2 before me.

  9. Laura on October 20, 2017 at 4:12 pm

    Working through the Star Wars short story collection From A Certain Point of View. Lots of authors (an impressive collection of popular YA and SciFi authors) focusing on background or side characters from the first Star Wars movie (Episode IV “A New Hope”). 40 stories to celebrate the 40th anniversary. I’m probably about 1/2 way through and as with any short story collection there are some misses but so far it has been very entertaining.

    • Tara on October 21, 2017 at 7:15 am

      I’ve been thinking about getting into some of those books. Which ones and/or which authors are your favorites so far?

      • Miss Eliza on October 21, 2017 at 6:35 pm

        For Stars Wars I say Timothy Zhan ALL THE WAY. Though I’m really liking Claudia Gray, more Leia centric.

        • DJL on October 23, 2017 at 12:23 am

          Timothy Zahn IS amazing. Michael A. Stackpole’s I Jedi was awesome, too. And Claudia Gray’s Lost Stars was excellent.

  10. DJL on October 20, 2017 at 4:45 pm

    Read Anna Lee Huber’s Secrets in the Mist which was atmospheric and spooky, about an English girl in 1812 who lives on the moors and runs into one of the “Lantern Men” of myth…
    Also read Silence of the Lambs, an annual Halloween time thrill ride for me (accompanied by my annual Halloween time movie fest of the film version of Silence, and the Disney movie Hocus Pocus).
    From there went on to A Study in Scarlet Women by Sherry Thomas, which I didn’t enjoy as much as I’d hoped (though I’ve found that’s actually pretty common with a series, CS Harris’ St Cyr books were like that for me, I was kinda bleh with the first one, but proceeded to the second in the series and never looked back, the subsequent entries were all so good!) but I did like the writing style sufficiently to go on to the second in series, A Conspiracy in Belgravia, so will start that tonight.

  11. Christy Kirby on October 20, 2017 at 5:18 pm

    Dracula, by Bram Stoker. Never read it before. Had a pretty leather bound copy and wanted to give it a whirl.

  12. Miss Eliza on October 20, 2017 at 6:37 pm

    Finished of book two and three or Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, as well as the little novella Lyra’s Oxford all for the joys of starting his The Book of Dust Book 1: La Belle Sauvage tonight! Literally CAN NOT WAIT! So I’ll be reading that all weekend.

    • Freya on October 21, 2017 at 1:55 am

      I’m SO excited about La Belle Sauvage!! Have a wonderful weekend!

  13. Tara on October 21, 2017 at 7:17 am

    I’m currently reading J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Two Towers. It’s lovely, and since I’ve been re-watching the LOTR trilogy, it’s even lovelier 🙂

  14. Joan on October 21, 2017 at 10:41 am

    I just finished Trick Or Treat by Doris Miles Disney a mystery/thriller from 1954. It was truly creepy even though I kind of knew how it would end.

  15. Lizzie on October 21, 2017 at 12:33 pm

    If you’d like a fabulous crime series, try Stuart Macbride who sets his murders in and around Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire. Some of the colloquialisms may be challenging, but he writes a great plot with fantastic characters . Check our Logan and the very funny Roberta Steel. Not often you laugh out loud in a crime series, but some of his books make you do just that. Course I might be biased as I am from Aberdeen myself. Hope somebody fancies a new author to read., I’d love to hear what you make of him outside the UK, xx

  16. Carey on October 28, 2017 at 6:25 am

    For a funny Halloween treat, try Donna Andrews’ Lord of the Wings. Look for The “coat of arms” costume!

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