Tag Archives: Book Blogger List

Friday Book Whimsy: A Christmas Resolution

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The books, take place in Victorian England. While apparently including characters that are in the author’s other book series, they are completely stand alone novels. While reference was made to characters that I assume devoted readers would be familiar with, I found it in no way confusing to the book or difficult to follow.

In 2003, author Anne Perry wrote a Christmas novel called A Christmas Journey. Her readers loved the novel, and she has written a Christmas novel a year ever since. Despite the number of Christmas books she has subsequently written, I have read nary a one. Until this year. My sister, who owns and has read every single one of the Perry Christmas books, gave me her latest, A Christmas Resolution, as a gift in the spirit of Christmas. I enjoyed the book so much that I will be reading her earlier books well into 2021.

Though past the normal age of marrying in Victorian England, Celia has found great happiness through marriage to John Hooper, a police officer. She learns that her dear friend Clementine has agreed to marry Seth Marlow, a member of Celia’s church, but a pretty despicable character. His wife committed suicide and his daughter ran away and has become a prostitute in London. Clementine feels sorry for him, but Celia knows he is a very bad man.

Seth comes to Celia and accuses her of sending a letter to him that threatens to tell secrets he doesn’t want told. To save her good name, Celia decides to try and find the real letter writer, as well as the truth about what happened to his wife. Her husband agrees to help.

A Christmas Resolution, while frankly not very Christmasy, was a fun and interesting book to read. I enjoyed the author’s writing, and liked the characters I was supposed to like and disliked those I was supposed to dislike. She presents a strong and realistic picture of Victorian England, and the roles of men and women.

I recommend the book as a merry Christmas read.

Here is a link to the book.

Friday Book Whimsy: Shepherds Abiding

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Shepherds Abiding

My favorite Christmas book – one I read every year – is Shepherds Abiding, a Mitford novel by Jan Karon.

The theme is familiar – what is really important about Christmas? Our favorite priest, Father Tim, brings about Christmas joy to all of those he meets throughout the season in the delightful town of Mitford. As for himself, he – who always considers himself a man of thought and not a man who works with his hands, takes on the challenge of bringing back to life a terribly neglected and badly damaged Nativity set to give to his wife for Christmas. There is a delightful “Gift of the Magi” twist to the story that I won’t give away. Shepherds Abiding gives dedicated readers a deeper look at some of the Mitford family. It also gives the reader a sense of what Christmas is like in a small town.

I read this novel every Christmas as part of my effort to remember what the holiday season is really all about.

Friday Book Whimsy: Troubled Blood

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Cormoran Strike is one of my favorite fictional detectives, because he seems very genuine and realistic. Strike is the protagonist in Richard Galbraith’s gritty London mystery series. Galbraith, of course, is a pen name for renown author J.K. Rowlings of Harry Potter fame. The Strike series, of which Troubled Blood is number five, is a very different sort of book, featuring no wizards or fantasy. Instead, Strike approaches his life with a grim determination, and his life isn’t always easy.

He is the illegitimate son of a famous rock star who paid no attention to Strike until he became a minor celebrity for his detective work. He served in the military in the Middle East, and lost part of a leg in the process. He faces the pain involved in his prothesis every day.

In Troubled Blood, Strike is visiting his dying aunt in Cornwall when he is approached by a young woman who asks him to find her mother. Strike is intrigued when he learns that the mother — Margot Bamborough — has been missing for 40 years, and was thought to have been murdered by a serial killer. It is Strike’s first cold case, and he and his assistant Robin tackle it head on.

It isn’t easy, because the police detective who first had the case had literally lost his mind while trying to find Bamborough. The files make little sense. But using Sherlock Holmsian skills by both Cormoran and Robin, they come closer than anyone ever has.

The author presents Robin as a true partner to Cormoran, matching him in prowness and intuition. There is a lingering love interest in one another that is intriguing rather than distracting. It will be fun to see how Galbraith carries this forward.

I enjoyed this book so very much. It’s lengthy and meaty and fairly disturbing. But it was one of my favorite detective stories this year.

Here is a link to the book.

Friday Book Whimsy: The Thursday Murder Club

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For many years, my mother-in-law lived in a retirement community. She immediately made four friends, who became like family to her. The five of them did everything together. They ate together, they attended classes together, they took the bus to movies and the library, all together. They were buddies.

At one point, I got what I thought was a brilliant idea. I should write a mystery novel featuring characters based on these five women. There would be a murder of someone connected to the community, and someone of whom they were very fond would be accused of the murder. These five women would get together and solve the mystery of the real killer.

Needless to say, I never quite got around to writing that novel, but author British author Richard Osman did. His characters are, of course, somewhat different, but the notion is the same. My bad, because it worked extremely well.

The Thursday Murder Club features four elderly residents — Ibraiham, Ron, Elizabeth, and Joyce. The four become friends when they form a ad hoc organization they call The Thursday Murder Club. They meet weekly to discuss cases that the police have never solved, and are surprisingly adept.

And then, someone connected to their retirement community is murdered. Finally they have a current and active case on which to work. The four are each extremely smart in their own way. One has tech experience. One has police experience. Having met one of the police officers involved in the case when she made a safety presentation to the retirement community, they convince her to share information.

And then another community-connected individual is murdered, and these four are ON IT. In between wine parties and romantic liaisons, these four solve the murder mystery.

The Thursday Murder Club is cleverly written. Best of all, there are very few elderly stereotypes. In fact, there are few stereotypes at all, except perhaps for some of the bad guys. But the detectives are all active and funny and astute, each in their own way. And the lead detective — a middle aged man — is paunchy and balding and wholly unlike most featured detectives, at least in American fiction.

Suffice it to say, this was a wonderful book to read at a time when things are so serious. And DANG, why did I let Osman beat me to the punch (and do a much better job). Thankfully, it looks to be a series.

Here is a link to the book.

Friday Book Whimsy: Blacktop Wasteland

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I waited a long time on the library ebook hold to finally get Blacktop Wasteland, by S.A. Cosby. I’m not even sure why I put it on hold. It must have come up in one of the reading blogs that I get each day. But then I noticed it was one of Goodreads’ finalists for best mystery/thriller book of the year and I became more interested.

Book reviewers call this book a thriller. I wouldn’t, however, want to put off people who aren’t into books that keep you up at night. Unless you want to be kept up at night reading this book. Because Blacktop Wasteland is so much more than an exciting thriller. It is the story of being Black and poor in the southern United States, and how difficult it is to reach the American Dream that we all hope for.

Beauregard Montage is known throughout the southeastern United States as the best getaway driver around. He knows everything about cars, and can drive like an Indie car driver, cleverly escaping cops.

But now he is married and has children and obligations. He wants to play it straight. He owns a car repair shop that is barely scraping by, and he is unable to keep up with his financial needs. His mother is in a nursing home. He has a family to feed. He wants to send his daughter to college and get her away from the abject poverty and racism they face each day in the small Mississippi town in which they live.

He gives in to the temptation offered by someone still in “the life.” He agrees to be the wheelman for one last robbery — that of a jewelry store getting a shipment of priceless diamonds.

Unfortunately, there are things that Beauregard doesn’t know about this store and this diamond shipment. The result is a complicated mess that changes his life altogether and makes him realize just how hard it is to go straight.

Blacktop Wasteland is dark and gritty. But Cosby’s story made me want to pick up the book to read even in the middle of the night. In the midst of what is happening today in the United States, it hits very close to home.

Blacktop Wasteland might end up being my favorite book of 2020.

Here is a link to the book.

Friday Book Whimsy: The Boy From the Woods

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Harlan Coben is one of my favorite authors. I particularly like his Myron Bolitar books, as it intrigued me to have the protagonist be a sports agent. I enjoy mystery books where the main character(s) is/are not typical detectives.

The protagonists in The Boy From the Woods are certainly not typical mystery-solvers. Wilde was found some 30 years ago in the woods, where he had lived for an unknown period of time. He was just a child, and had no memory of his past. Now an adult, he is most comfortable in his home in the woods where he lives by himself. He still has no memory of his past.

Still, he is friendly with the foster family who cared for him, and is friends with criminal attorney/television star Hester Crimstein, who is the mother of his best friend, who died in a car accident. It is Hester who draws Wilde into helping find a missing girl.

Naomi Pine was seriously bullied at school, and so it isn’t a great surprise when she goes missing. At first it is assumed she ran away from home, but soon people learn about her miserable school days and questions begin to arise.

Hester and Wilde work together to find this girl, and another boy who soon goes missing as well. They make a terrific team, and I liked both characters very much.

The novel ends with a lot of unanswered questions, which seems to scream to this reader that a series is in the works. I hope so, because I enjoyed this book, and want the answers to a lot of questions.

Here is a link to the book.

Friday Book Whimsy: IQ

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IQ, a novel by author Joe Ide, is not a new book. In fact, its copyright is 2016, and it’s the first in a series of five books. Still, it was new to me. It was suggested in a column on Crime Reads, a book feed that I get daily. The protagonist intrigued me, and I grabbed the book from the library.

Isaiah Quintabe is a young Black man who has lived in his poor Los Angeles neighborhood his whole life. His neighborhood is poor and crime-filled. However, IQ is doing fine until his brother — who has taken care of him for much of his life — is killed by a hit-and-run driver. Isaiah is not your run-of-the-mill teen as he possesses the IQ of a genious.

Nevertheless, after his brother is killed, IQ quits high school and lives off of low-paying jobs. He is barely making ends meet, and is forced to take in a boarder — another Black man from the ‘hood, who convinces Isaiah that he can make a living by using his intellect to commit the perfect crimes.

Eventually, IQ starts using his Sherlock Holmsian intelligence to give back to the community by solving crimes. He doesn’t make much money; in fact, he is often paid with casseroles or used tires.

Isaiah is hired by a famous rapper whose life is being threatened. This is the case of IQ’s life. Will he be able to determine who is threatening the famous singer?

Isaiah is a flawed character, but one with a good heart. As the book progresses and readers see how he can see and understand things they don’t, he becomes endearing.

I will admit that after somewhat of a dry spell when it came to books, this one grabbed my attention from the first word. I couldn’t put the book down, and read it in a couple of days,

I can’t wait to read the next four novels.

Here is a link to the book.

Friday Book Whimsy: Bright Young Dead

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Bright Young Dead, a novel by Jessica Fellowes, is the second book in the author’s Mitford series. This series features fictitious Louisa Cannon, who works as the nanny for the real-life Mitford family. The Mitfords are a well-known wealthy family of England. The six Mitford daughters, all reaching their formative years in the 1930s, were infamous for their somewhat scandalous behavior, and for epitomizing the early 20th Century.

In this particular novel, Nancy Mitford has a party with about a dozen of her friends, one of whom is pushed off the ledge of the nearby church’s bell tower. Immediately suspected is one of the party attendee’s maids, who accompanied her to the party as a chaperone, and who had an affair with the dead man.

Louisa, along with her friend Guy, a London police officer, set out to find the truth about Adrian Curtis’ murder. Along the way, we meet Alice Diamond and the Forty Thieves, a real-life gang of thieves in the 1930s. The gang was infamous for their thieving ways, but also for consisting of all women.

Given the lively story line, I expected the book to be much more engaging than I found it to be. I love to learn about history through novels, but this story moved very slowly. It was interesting enough to make me finish the book, but up until the final few chapters, it was oh so slow, despite the unique (and true) characters.

I read the first book in the series, The Mitford Murders, and enjoyed that book much more. I will give the next book in the series a try, and see if I just wasn’t in the right mood for this book.

Here is a link to the book.

Friday Book Whimsy: The Great Pretenders

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The Great Pretenders, by Laura Kalpakian, puts us face-to-face with 1950s America.

Roxanne Granville spent her childhood at a movie studio run by her famous grandfather. Her parents were actors who had little to do with Roxanne. Movies are part of her life, but it’s the 1950s, and things are changing drastically. Her grandfather has bought into the Red Scare, and has fired many people for being “red”, even if they were his friends, and even if the accusations aren’t true.

Roxanne’s beloved grandmother has died, and leaves her personal money to Roxanne. This allows Roxanne to open her own agency where she will represent screenwriters, and distance herself from her grandfather. But it isn’t long before these same writers — men and women with whom she grew up loving — to ask her to help get their writing into the right hands by having someone else’s name on the script.

It works. Until things start getting complicated. And one of her biggest complications is falling in love with a Black journalist — a man who has become an activist in the civil rights movement.

I grew up in the 1950s, but have little memory of the so-called Red Scare, or how deeply it impacted Hollywood. I, of course, am familiar with the situation of Black Americans long before the Black Lives Matter movement. Still, it’s hard for me to imagine how seriously separated the races were in the 1950s and 1960s.

I really enjoyed the book. I certainly grimaced at the situations that took place throughout the story. Still, I liked the characters — at least the ones who were the good guys . The glamour and romance of Hollywood was so well written that I could picture the dresses and see the movie stars smoking their cigarettes in restaurants as they awaited their martinis. The mental pictures drawn by the author kept me on the edge of my seat as secrets became exposed and it became more and more clear that Roxanne and Terrance’s love affair was going to be out in the open eventually.

I enjoyed the book very much, and recommend it enthusiastically.

Here is a link to the book.

Friday Book Whimsy: The Women in Black

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After reading a series of books that were somewhat dark, it was a pleasure to stumble upon The Women in Black, a novel by Madeleine St John. This book, like the book I reviewed last week, takes place in the 1950s, but this time the location is one with which I am less familiar — Sydney, Australia.

This quirky, quick-reading novel features four characters, all of whom work at Goode’s Department store in Sydney. The women who work here are recognizable because of the black dresses they are required to wear.

Patty is married to Frank. Her biological clock is ticking, but unfortunately her husband pays little attention to her. As long as she puts his steak in front of him every night, he is content. He eats and then goes to bed.

Fay is single but would love to be married, but she hasn’t yet met the right man. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to her that she will ever find happiness.

Magda works is the fancy dancy dress department of Goode’s. She and her husband moved from Slovenia, and have worked hard at acclimating to the new culture, but maintaining their roots. She wants to own her own dress shop someday.

Along comes young Lisa, who is hired to work during the busy Christmas holidays. Lisa is eager to find her way into the world. She just graduated from high school, and is awaiting her final grades to see if she will get a scholarship to attend the university. Even if she does, her father will fight her all the way. In his opinion, women don’t need college; they need a husband and kids.

These four women come together under funny circumstances and are tied together in unexpected ways. They all find out that nothing in their lives is more important than knowing who they are and what’s is important, and friendship.

The author has a very unique writing style. The characters were all so very likeable. I read the book in a day-and-a-half, and it left me smiling and feeling like we can tackle anything in the world with patience and friendship.

I recommend this book!