Weekly Reading Round-Up

Hello from the road!  One of the best things about book tour is all those hours on airplanes– perfect reading time!

This week, I dove into Diane Biller’s Harnessed Lightning, in which a disgraced Gilded Age divorcee returns to New York, buys a haunted house upstate, and winds up enlisting the aid of a scatterbrained (but very good-looking) inventor to get to the bottom of the mystery.  Think Joanna Shupe meets Simone St. James meets Julia Quinn (with comic side characters).  Harnessed Lightning comes out in 2019.

Switching moods, next up was Lyndsay Faye’s 1920s-set The Paragon Hotel, in which a young woman mixed up with the mafia flees New York with a gunshot wound and winds up in Portland, where she’s taken in (somewhat reluctantly) at Portland’s only African-American hotel, as race relations teeter from bad to worse and a young boy from the hotel goes missing.  If you liked Boardwalk Empire, you’ll love this dip into Prohibition-era life.  The Paragon Hotel also comes out in 2019.

Moving from the not-yet-out to the out-for-a-very-long-time, a friend has been telling me for ages that I have to read Mary Roberts Rinehart, the American Agatha Christie, so I’ve just started The Circular Stair— and I have two more ARCs in my bag for my next long flight!

What have you been reading this week?

16 Comments

  1. MaryL on September 7, 2018 at 8:00 am

    I love Mary Roberts Rinehart! One of my favorite bits (can’t remember name of book alas) involves a landlady in Alleghany, PA (now part of Pittsburgh) matter of factly stating “I always have a boat in the Spring tied up to the 3rd floor landing” as the Alleghany River flooded badly every year. The book was written contemporaneously, and it was just a fact of life, people were expected to cope. Coming from Pittsburgh, I am appalled and impressed at turn of the last century life.

  2. Donna Collett on September 7, 2018 at 9:58 am

    Relishing “The Masterpiece” by Fiona Davis- always have been fascinated with Grand Central Terminal. A wonderful, insightful read.

  3. Joyce Flesch on September 7, 2018 at 10:01 am

    I just read Woman of God, now reading Lilac Girls. Both excellent.

  4. Margaret Baldridge on September 7, 2018 at 10:09 am

    I just finished The Mountain Between Us by Charles Martin. Talk about a love story in unusual circumstances. I first came to know this author when I read and sobbed through When Crickets Cry.

  5. Megan Larsen on September 7, 2018 at 11:36 am

    “Summer Wives” by Beatriz Williams, the new Tessa Dare, and a biography “Queen Victoria’s Mysterious Daughter” (Princess Louise who was a sculptor). Next up – Lucy Worsley’s “Queen Victoria”.

    • Tara on September 8, 2018 at 6:41 am

      If love Queen Victoria like I do : ), you should try We Two by Gillian Gill. It follows the romance between Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. It’s incredible and full of details, and the book itself contains wonderful pictures.

  6. Céline on September 7, 2018 at 2:11 pm

    The Glass Ocean!!!
    Or at least, I tried. I wound up with water leaking inside the walls of my brand new condo and all the trouble that comes with it (the anxiety too), so my week didn’t go as planned (I had even taken days off to read… whichI spent on the phone or with technicians…)
    So I’m just a few chapters into The Glass Ocean, but no surprise there, I am loving it, like totally. I knew I would!! ♥♥♥♥
    Lauren, I think I have recognized which character you wrote!!!

    • Lauren Willig on September 7, 2018 at 2:59 pm

      Oh no!! I hope the flood is all fixed. And I’m glad “Glass Ocean” is there to provide a distraction!

      • Céline on September 7, 2018 at 3:10 pm

        Sadly, not yet…. 🙁 It’ll take a few days, a few weeks at the most, for the work to be all done (walls to be dried and repairs to be done). We still need to identify the exact source of the problem, and destroy the newly painted wall of my brand new upstairs neighbor for that (at least, she is so nice, she didn’t hate us for bearing the bad news), because the water comes from her level (whether it’s our A/C copper pipes that have a defective insulation or her A/C drain that is clogged). It’s terrifying!!!
        Good thing I have The Glass Ocean and my knitting to get me through it!!
        I’ve tried to write my new novel, to force my brain to focus on something else, but it is blocked on images of mold eating my condo away… I’m totally unable to write! It’s a nightmare come true. Become a house owner, they said… ^^

        • Elizabeth (Miss Eliza) on September 7, 2018 at 6:48 pm

          Oh no! Take care Celine!

        • Lynne on September 8, 2018 at 12:22 am

          Celine, I know the stress of broken pipes and water damage. You have my sympathy and a prayer for all the hassles. So glad that your neighbor is being kind about it!

          • Céline on September 11, 2018 at 2:23 pm

            Thank you guys!!!! Fingers crossed that all will be solved quickly!!!



  7. Alice on September 7, 2018 at 3:36 pm

    The newest Amory Ames, An Act of Villainy. I love this series! Also finished Behind Closed Doors which was an excellent thriller. The villain was so irredeemable, I loved it!

  8. Elizabeth (Miss Eliza) on September 7, 2018 at 6:46 pm

    I’ve been reading The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin for book club. It’s about four siblings knowing the day they’re going to die and how that effects their lives. So far it’s too rushed and too Forest Gump, in that, somehow they’re there for EVERY important historical event but don’t bother to develop the characters too much. Sigh. I’ll finish it because that’s what I do, but I can’t wait to get back to my Harry Potter re-read, on book six. Also can’t wait to get my copy of Glass Ocean, but that won’t be until after your event at Murder by the Book!

  9. DJL on September 8, 2018 at 12:30 am

    How to Find Love in a Bookshop, by Veronica Henry, helped pass the time this week (though there was less bookshop than I expected?).
    Now enjoying Read My Heart, by Jane Dunn; a dual bio of 17th century British couple Dorothy Osborne & William Temple, which is great fun.

    • Tara on September 8, 2018 at 6:47 am

      I’m definitely going to try Read My Heart. I knew the author’s name sounded familiar; I read her book Elizabeth and Mary: Cousins, Rivals, Queens, and it was awesome! Can’t wait!

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