Happy Friday, all!

I will be honest: I really didn’t think I was going to like the new Miss Marple, Murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel.  I have bounced hard off previous Golden Age revivals, including Jill Paton Walsh’s Wimseys (and I love Paton Walsh’s Imogen Quy!).  The reboots just always feel… off, somehow.  The voices are flat.  The backdrops are wooden.  But do you know what?  Lucy Foley pulled it off.  Interestingly enough, she did it by not mimicking Christie’s style.  The book is written in first person present tense throughout.  But the voices?  Those are spot on.  Miss Marple sounds like Miss Marple.  You know immediately this is the same woman you encountered in Bertram’s Hotel or at the vicarage.  I find myself genuinely looking forward to the next one, whenever that may be.

Leaving the Swiss alps in the 1950s for present day LA, it was on to Stephanie Garber’s Alchemy of Secrets, in which a grad student studying folklore finds the myths she has studied becoming alarmingly pertinent to her own life– and possibly death, if she can’t figure out how to find a mythical object in time.  But with two handsome men popping up to help her, each one accusing the other of treachery, who can she actually trust?  And will she figure out which means to betray her before it’s too late?

I finally finished up my read through of Patricia Wentworth’s Miss Silver series with the very final book, The Girl in the Cellar, which reminded me of why I never re-read The Girl in the Cellar.  It has all the weaknesses of many of Wentworth’s standalones (improbable coincidences, dangling plot threads, unexpected relatives) without much Miss Silver.  When I do my next re-read, I’m sticking with the solid middle of the series….

Last but not least, it was back to Taviscombe with Mrs. Malory and a Death in the Family.  I will be incredibly sad when I come to the end of this series, so I’ve been trying to ration myself and only read them at intervals instead of gobbling them up all at once.

What have you been reading this week?

In other news, this week is a busy book tour week for me!  Come join me in New Jersey on Wednesday the 21st, South Carolina on Friday the 23rd, and Rhode Island on Sunday the 25th!  Full details below:

Wednesday, October 21, 11am
BCCLS Afternoon Tea with Lauren Willig
The Graycliff
Moonachie, NJ
Ticketed event; reserve your ticket here.

Friday, October 23, 10:45am
Litchfield Books Luncheon
Caffe Piccolo
9428 Ocean Highway
Pawleys Island, SC
$38 ticket includes three course lunch.
Reserve your spot here.

Sunday, October 25, 11:30am
Ocean House Author Series
1 Bluff Avenue
Watch Hill, RI
$45 ticket includes lunch and book.
You can reserve your spot here.