Weekly Reading Round-Up
Merry, merry, all! It’s been a Goldilocks sort of reading week for me– one book was too arch and one too bland, until I gave up and went back to Lord Peter Wimsey, who is always just right.
All I wanted was a Golden Age Christmas-themed murder mystery I hadn’t read yet. (Is that so much to ask?) You know the sort of thing, Persian carpets and wood paneling and a slightly dubious butler and the master of the house face down in the Christmas pudding.
I tried C.H.B. Kitchin’s Crime at Christmas and couldn’t get into it, then moved to Francis Duncan’s Murder for Christmas, which began in promising fashion, but persisted in trying to tell me what the characters were like instead of accomplishing all that with movement and dialogue.
So I gave up my dreams of Persian carpets and plum pudding and a new-to-me author and went back to the master, Dorothy L. Sayers, and her The Nine Tailors, which, despite not actually being set at Christmas, always feels randomly Christmas-y to me.
So if anyone knows of any good Poirot-esque mysteries I might not have read yet, let me know….
What have you been reading this week?
I highly recommend The Mischief of the Mistletoe…oh wait, I guess you’ve read that one. (Ducks and runs)
I finished Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye, which is like Jane Eyre with more murder and quite good. Then I started Seveneves by Neal Stephenson but found some of the characters irritating, so I went on to In the Labyrinth of Drakes by Marie Brennan.
I read The Passing Bells by Philip Rock. I’ve read many WWI novels and memoirs and this one ranks among the best! I highly recommend it.
Lord Peter is always a good choice 🙂
Finished The Widow by Mary Kingswood, which was quite good Regency mystery/romance, first in a series.
Have you tried any of the Wells and Wong mysteries by Robin Stevens? They’re middle grade, set in the 1930’s, and really fun. There’s a Christmas one! Another great, slightly more mature series with a young detective is the Flavia De Luce books; I Am Half-Sick of Shadows is the 4th, Christmas themed book. Highly recommend!
I just finished One Day in December, by Josie Silver, and The Bookish life of Nina Hill, by Abbi Waxman. I must be in the mood for cozy romantic reads! I’ve moved on to Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams.
“Owl Be Home for Christmas” by Donna Andrews and all the St. Mary’s Chronicles Christmas Short Stories by Jodi Taylor (including a brand new e-book just out on Christmas Day…”Why is Nothing Ever Simple”.
I’ve just discovered Marissa Doyle which reminded me of a YA version of your Pink Carnation books, Lauren, except that it’s mixed with a bit of magic like the book you were reading last week.
I’m reading Courtship and Curses in which a seventeen year old girl who happens to be a witch, though she hasn’t really been able to practice spells since her mum died and her own leg went lame, has to make her debut into London society circa Napoleonic wars time. And someone keeps trying to do spells to try to hurt any of the gentlemen involved with the war office.