Weekly Reading Round-Up
There are times when you just need to go back to an old favorite book, and this was one of them.
This week, I cozied up with Trisha Ashley’s Twelve Days of Christmas, in which a house-sitting chef winds up snowed in at a Lancashire manor house presiding over a large house party. (There is a lot of cooking in this book. A lot.)
Along similar– if somewhat more macabre lines– I also treated myself to The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries, which has everything from Hercule Poirot to Sherlock Holmes spoofs to Mary Roberts Rinehart. I love it immensely, although I do find that reading more than three stories in a row gives me a headache. Possibly whiplash from switching worlds too abruptly? (Does anyone else have that problem with short story collections?)
But thanks to this collection, I’ve found at least one new to me mid-century British female mystery writer I’d never heard of before whose books are now on my TBR list. (Because you can never have enough murder at the vicarage! Also scones.)
What have you been reading this week?
That anthology sounds great! Jodi Taylor has some lovely Christmas short stories
Finished “In the Bleak Midwinter,” first in the Julia Spencer Fleming mystery series, set at Christmas time (though not overtly so). On the fence about continuing the series, the dynamic with the two main characters just didn’t grab me like I’d hoped.
Currently dipping in and out of “Silent Nights,” an anthology of Christmas mystery short stories and having a similar reaction of different world whiplash 🙂
I read my February ARCs: A Stranger in Town by Kelley Armstrong, which is the next in the Rockton mystery series, and Sun-Daughters, Sea-Daughters by Aimee Ogden, a novella inspired by The Little Mermaid.
I’m taking back what I said last week about Gideon the Ninth, it’s become a very weirdly riveting Gothic horror novel IN SPACE! So still reading that.
Re-reading The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison, which is one of my comfort reads, and the latest Ben Aaronvitch comic. Also started Trader’s Leap, the latest in the Liaden universe series by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, one of my favorite space opera series.
Reading the new High Society Lady Detective Christmas book set in 1923 England by Sara Rosett “Murder on a Midnight Clear”.
I JUST got this too to read!