Weekly Reading Round-Up
I will confess to being entirely boring this week– all I’ve been doing is re-reading books about, or written during, the 1920s in order to stay in the mood for the 1927 Book.
However, there are several upcoming books I’m rather excited about, including:
— Donna Thorland’s The Rebel Pirate
— Kristan Higgins’s Waiting On You
— Simone St. James’s Silence for the Dead
— and the paperback edition of Jen Lancaster’s Here I Go Again
What have you been reading this week?
I’m excited for Silence of the Dead as well!! Actually I think it was here that I discovered Simone St. James. This week I’ve been reading Winter’s Tale.
I would be interested to know what you think of Winter’s Tale, Valerie. I have mixed feelings, but am going to see the movie tomorrow night.
I finished Jen Lancaster’s Twisted Sisters last weekend and started Bob Spitz’s biography of Julia Child, Dearie.
PS as you and I are both much older than our only sisters, I’d be interested in your reaction to Twisted Sisters. My sister and I never had the chance to compete like that…
Jessica, did you like “Twisted Sisters”? I just opened it up laast night. Curious to have another opinion.
Now I’m looking forward to The Rebel Pirate and Silence for the Dead as well! I’m not familiar with either of those authors, but they sound fantastic.
I’ve been reading Summer is for Lovers by Jennifer McQuiston and it’s been great fun so far.
I’m also pretty excited for Silence for the Dead (and also for An Inquiry into Love and Death, which I’ve not yet read but am itching to). I read Cocaine Blues (Kerry Greenwood), which is the first of the Phryne Fisher mysteries. I’ve been loving the TV series and saw that Cocaine Blues was available for free for Kindle. I thought it was just delightful and can’t wait to read more of them.
Oh, I agree about Cocaine Blues, I also like how the books differ from the tv series, so you can enjoy both.
Ladies, if you are ever in the position to visit Melbourne many of the locations in Cocaine Blues are still here. The Windsor Hotel has recently been refurbished, the City Baths are still running and the Queen Mary II docked at Station Pier last week.
I’m reading through an older book I found in a used book store called Madame de Lafayette, by Constance Wright. I am really enjoying the biography, and it is an excellent look into the bravery and strength of a woman devoted to her husband, both by love and by loyalty to his ideals.
I am very much looking forward to Deanna Raybourn’s new offering, City of Jasmine. After reading the teaser of a short story, Whisper of Jasmine, I am all anticipation. 🙂
Haven’t had much time to read this week, but I’m also going nuts waiting for City of Jasmine after reading the novella. Same for Beatriz Williams’ The Secret Life of Violet Grant. She sent out a teaser to her mailing list yesterday and the book sounds fantastic!
I didn’t know about the Beatriz Williams’ book. Thank you so much. Now I can’t wait for May!
Reading a nonfiction book, Empty Mansions, about a fabulously wealthy, deeply recluse heiress from a family no one know remembers, but in her youth, were Rockefeller/Carnegie wealthy famous. So far my favorite passage describes the life span of the heiress, Hugette (who died at like 105 and lived into the Obama administration) and her father, who was born during the Van Buren Administration …
That looked really good…
I have a friend who needs more to read…
Should I recommend it?
I reread Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon
, to get ready for the tv series which starts this summer and looks like is going to be terrific. I found I had forgotten a lot of the book, but did remember the few things I didn’t like about it.
I finished the most recent book by Jane Sanderson in her Netherwood series, sadly disappointed. Didn’t have the depth of the previous two (review here: http://strange-and-random-happenstance.blogspot.com/2014/02/book-review-jane-sandersons-eden-falls.html)
The I fell into and just adore Brideshead Revisited. Now I’m reading the biography on the Mitford Sisters!
I just finished In Falling Snow, an WWI era book and loved it. I have been blessed with a couple of ARCs of fabulous new books coming up and fixing to dive into those.
I just read Splendour Falls by Susanna Kearsley. I really like her stories.
I also can’t wait for Simone St James’ next book. Finished “Second Star to the Right” by Mary Alice Monroe, recommended by someone here. I loved it! It was so magical and captured the feeling of “Peter Pan.” Am in the middle of “A Gift to Remember” by Melissa Hill. It is like a valentine to the upper west side and book lovers everywhere. I can’t put it down! I totally relate to the heroine – a bibliophile who doesn’t feel like she needs human relationships since she has her books. I loved the literary references, the hero was swoon worthy and the heroine, so sweet.
I am near the end of C. S. Harris’s What Darkness Brings for the 2nd time. I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of the new Sebastian St Cyr novel Why Kings Confess and the Teresa Grant’s latest The Berkeley Square Affair in the next month or two; they have to come from the US so they will take a while.
I have been looking forward to City Of Jasmine too. I received a shipping notice yesterday so it should be here early next week. Whisper Of Jasmine was released in Aus in kindle this week so I have downloaded it but haven’t read it yet. That is next in line. Everybody here seems to be praising it highly so I am really looking forward to it.
I was snowed in last weekend and caught up on my reading!
I re read Shana Galen’s Blackthorne’s Bride and beta read another book for a friend. I read Grace Burowes The Soldier (excellent) and Lady Louisa ‘s Christmas Knight.
Next up, An ARC from Brenda Novack.
I read Cannery Row by John Steinbeck, which was good. It was a fun read and I liked it a lot. For some reason it reminded me vaguely (very vaguely) of and made me decide to re read the Blue castle. (Although Cannery lacked the Valancy character.)
An online friend invited me to read and review an ARC of a novel due to be published in May entitled Exodus 2022 by Kenneth Bennet. Not my usual fare, it is a thrilling combo of science fiction, fantasy, romance and, suspense that takes place in and around Puget Sound. I’m only about 30% through it but I’m already mumbling to myself “OmyGod, OmyGod, what next??”