Thanks to my friend Vicki (hi, Vicki!), I had a pile of new books to read this week. They were all very different and all excellent.
First up? The Secrets of Wishtide
by Kate Saunders. Those of you who are frequent readers of this site will know that Kate Saunders’s The Marrying Game
and Bachelor Boys
(sort of chick lit– but not really) have been on my keeper shelf since I stumbled on them back in grad school, so I was thrilled to learn that the author is launching a Victorian mystery series about a widow named Laetitia Rodd, who acts as an investigator for her barrister brother, Fred. It’s as if Sherlock Holmes met Miss Marple and they had a mid-Victorian love child. Never mind. Horrible metaphor. But you get the idea. I’m looking forward to the second installment.
From Victorian England, I moved to 1925 Oregon with Cat Winters’s Yesternight
, a haunting book set on the wind-swept Oregon coast in which a school psychologist– a woman struggling to make it in a man’s field– finds herself drawn into the mysterious case of a girl who claims to have lived before. But the psychologist has secrets and traumas in her own past that get tangled with the case of the girl and change all of their lives. Creepy and deeply compelling.
As an antidote to the chill down the spine, I’ve moved on to Jenny Colgan’s The Bookshop on the Corner
, about a librarian who finds herself made redundant (aka is sacked) and decides to take the plunge and open a bookmobile. I’ve just started it, but it seems the perfect sort of read with a cup of tea on a rainy day. Because who hasn’t wanted to move to a remote part of Britain and open a bookshop?
What have you been reading this week?
I just finished Invincible Summer, about four friends and their lives after college.
I read The Man Who Loved Pride and Prejudice by Abigail Reynolds (quick fun read) and Almost a Gentleman by Pam Rosenthal (ditto). Next up, The Bookshop on the Corner (just purchased this earlier this week–great minds think alike!). Mom just finished Johanna Lindsey’s Viking trilogy and enjoyed it.
I really enjoyed Amy Stewart’s Girl Waits With Gun, discovered Carolyn Jewel and really liked two of hers: Scandal, and The Spare.
I really liked Girl Waits with Gun. I’m watching the library for book 2.
I continued Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson series with Silver Borne and River Marked. River Marked is my favorite of the series so far.
Now I’m about 1/2 way through These Old Shades for Old School Romance Book Club. The dialogue is so affected and over the top. Very high camp. I’m enjoying it so far.
Found Beatriz’ latest book, A Certain Age, for $1.99 for Kindle last night and started reading that.
Thanks for the tip about A Certain Age, just snagged it.