Happy Friday, all!

I started the week with a recent thriller: Sarah Vaughn’s Based on a True Story, in which an elderly and beloved children’s book author summons her family, friends, and colleagues for a 70th birthday bash at her newly purchased (and, of course, isolated and cliffside) estate in Cornwall, while a BBC documentary crew comes along to film a retrospective of her long and storied career.  But is anything about the author, the party, and the guests what they seem?

After that, it was back to my beloved Mary Stewart with Madam, Will You Talk and Wildfire at Midnight.  Confession: some Mary Stewarts I’ve pretty much memorized, but I tend to avoid Madam, Will You Talk.  It annoyed me the first time I read it and I never forgave it.  On a reread, there are still aspects that annoy me (well, one major aspect– if you know the book, we can discuss!), but there was so much of her signature wit on display that I’ve revised my opinion up.

I rounded out the week with two cozies by a new to me author, Faith Martin, starting with the first in her new Oxford Detective Society series, The Oxford Detective Society, in which a biographer finds herself digging up old and unsuspected crimes when she’s hired to reinvestigate the legacy of a woman history has written off as a posh rock ‘n roll groupie who committed suicide in her own lily pond.  Or did she?

The second book isn’t out yet, so I picked up one of her older books, The Lavender Lady, about a forty year old widow who joins a ghost-hunting team as a favor to a friend.  I never can resist a ghost hunt….  (Also, the cover features a grand stone house.  You cannot expect me to resist a book with a grand stone house on the cover.)

What have you been reading this week?