Weekly Reading Round-Up

Hi, all!

Apologies for being a day late with this week’s reading round up!  It’s been a bit of a discombobulating week (long story involving pub dates for future books moving around, and also trying to figure out what’s going on with my March book tour for Two Wars and a Wedding), so I turned to what seems to have become my recent sort of comfort read: obscure mid-century mysteries.

This time it was Charlotte Armstrong, who won a bunch of Edgar Awards, but whom I’d never heard of.  I started with her three book Dougal MacDuff mystery series (American history professor at NYU pitches in as amateur detective in the 1940s) and found it readable but a bit uneven.  A little like Elizabeth Daly’s Gamadge books (for those who Gamadge), but not as consistent or polished.

The real winner for me was her thriller, Lemon in the Basket, which my go to book recommender assured me was one of the best and reads like Helen MacInnes’s Venetian Affair.  She was right and it does read like The Venetian Affair, with brave amateurs and international crises being averted at the last minute thanks to the pluck of ordinary people making it up as they go along.

What have you been reading this week?

4 Comments

  1. Elizabeth (AKA Miss Eliza) on February 11, 2023 at 7:35 pm

    I’ve been reading Jacey Bedford’s Rowankind series, Regency, Magic, Fae, Pirates! It’s SO much fun!

  2. marlyn Bennett on February 12, 2023 at 5:49 pm

    Is there a way I could ask Lauren will like a question about one of her books that I love called Ashford affair? I tried to write to your email but it did not go through

    • Lauren Willig on February 12, 2023 at 6:27 pm

      I’m so sorry the email didn’t go through! Please ask away….

  3. DJL on February 13, 2023 at 12:03 am

    The Vorkosigan saga keeps delivering; read The Mountains of Mourning and The Vor Game, both featuring a young Miles Vorkosigan (son of the original 2 characters from Shards) and am now half way through Cetaganda. Great character driven space opera!

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