🟣 :::READING THREAD::: Week of April 28

I read The Last Word by Elly Griffiths. I really enjoy the author's writing and was sad when her Ruth Galloway series ended recently. This book is related to The Postscript Murders and The Stranger Diaries, and one of my favorite mystery characters, Harbinder Kaur, is in the book. It focuses mostly, however, on a private investigation team involving a young Ukranian immigrant (and her coffee shop owning boyfriend) and an elderly gay man; they get suspicious when a number of literary elders turn up dead in succession over a few years. I was entertained by the characters; the mystery wasn't that exciting, but, and I mean this in a good way, I always feel like the mystery itself is beside the point in her books.

I also read Cody Rigsby's memoir. I love him as a Peloton instructor, and his memoir is totally fine, but it does read more like patter from the bike than anything deeper.

I managed to finish a few this week because the FB book group I'm in makes new teams each month. So I was trying to earn points for my team before 3:00 today which is when counting ends for the month. lol

I read:

The Baker's Secret by Stephen Kiernan. Meh, as my kids would say. Maybe 3 stars. It takes place in a small French village near where D-Day occurred. Starts before that and takes us up to the liberation. It was okay. 

What the River Knows by Isabel Ibañez. This one was okay. I enjoyed the Egypt aspect of it, but I was annoyed with several of the characters for most of the book. lol. And then it just ended, to be continued. ugh. And the second book isn't even published yet. I suppose I'll read it when it comes out.

One by One by Freida McFadden. For some reason her books are not available in Kindle format at my library or in any others where I have cards. And no large print either. And I can't read the font in a regular book without getting a headache. So I was forced to get the audiobook of this one, and mostly I don't like audiobooks. I played it on 2x speed and it was a quick listen. It also was just "meh". lol. I really want to read "The Housemaid" so I guess I'll be getting that one on audio also. I asked my library to purchase the ebooks of some of her books and they told me that "those ebooks are not available from our vendor" or something like that. Not sure what that means exactly, since her books do exist for Kindle. I plan to ask in person next time I'm at our library.

So my week wasn't an overwhelming reading week, but it got me points for my team. And I'm now #142 on the waiting list for "Iron Flame" and my library has 75 Kindle copies so my turn will be coming soon! 

I read Practical Optimism by Dr. Sue Varna. I thought it was great. It would have been a 5 star read if it would have had more citations. With that said, everything was very consistent with everything I've learned over the years in therapy. But it was nice to have it all distilled down into one handy book. Definitely recommend for someone who feels like they want to make some positive changes but don't have the time/funds/etc to pursue the personal therapy route. Chock full of good suggestions, well reasoned, well thought out.

Better reading week for me than the prior week (thanks to gottapeanow) so I’m not complaining



THE GATHERING (‘24 - 2 STARS) BY C.J. TUDOR
DESCRIPTION : In a small Alaska town, a boy is found with his throat ripped out and all the blood drained from his body. The inhabitants of Deadhart haven’t seen a killing like this in twenty-five years. But they know who’s responsible: a member of the Colony, an ostracized community of vampyrs living in an old mine settlement deep in the woods. Detective Barbara Atkins, a specialist in vampyr killings, is called in to officially determine if this is a Colony killing—and authorize a cull.

REVIEW :

The first 5 books by this author for me were The Drift (‘23 - 4 Stars), The Hiding Place (‘22 - 4 Stars), The Burning Girls (‘21 - 3 STAR STORY / 4 STAR CREEPINESS), The Chalk Man ('18 - Read '20 - 4 Stars) and The Other People ('20 - 5 Stars).

I have loved this author’s previous books and really wanted to love this one too even though it was about vampires which aren’t my thing. I tried to keep reading and giving it more and more time. It was very slow and lots of characters who were not developed so it made it hard to connect them. The characters did not stick with me at all. Everytime I picked-up the book, I had to struggle to remember how the characters connected. I thought the book was never going to end.



THE WOMAN ON THE LEDGE (‘24 - 5 STARS) BY RUTH MANCINI
DESCRIPTION : A woman falls to her death from a London bank’s twenty-fifth-floor roof terrace. You're arrested for her murder. You tell the police that you had only met the victim the previous night at your office party. She was threatening to jump down from the roof, but you had talked her down. You've got nothing to do with this tragedy. You're clearly being framed. So why do the police keep picking holes in your story? Even your lawyer doesn't seem to believe you.

REVIEW :

First book by this author for me. This is her U.S. debut novel but she does have 4 other books out there; One Dark Two Light (‘20), In the Blood (‘18), His Perfect Lies (‘18) and The Lies You Tell (‘18 - 257 Pgs).

Recommended by gottapeanow - execution a bit flat but still 4 stars; very twisty. The author, Lisa Jewell also recommended this book and since I enjoy her books, I was hoping I’d enjoy this new author for me.

Loved the description so I jumped right on it. Enjoyed the writing right away and intrigued with what was happening and where this storyline could be heading. Kept me guessing til about 50% when I finally got a clue where it was heading - let’s see if I’m correct. Twisty, twisty, twisty. Totally enjoyed from beginning to end. This book is a real psychological thriller ! It’s best to go into this book without reading any in-depth descriptions of the plot; the little you know the better ! The originality of this plot made me give it 5 Stars.



Have a great reading week !

I finished Queen of Shadows, Sarah J Maas. Throne of Glass series. I'm saving the next up in the series for a long haul road trip on Friday.

I started Night Will Find You by Julie Heaberlin. It's for a book club I'm in and they had for April. They had their review meeting last night and I missed it for vacay reasons. But I didn't want to not read it, so I am listening to it as my office book this week.

4 stars on GR.
A scientist with a special gift riles a wasp's nest of conspiracy theories while investigating a cold case in this riveting novel from the acclaimed and bestselling author of Black-Eyed Susans and We Are All the Same in the Dark.

When she was ten, Vivvy Bouchet saved a boy’s life by making an impossible prediction. Ever since, she has been in a life-long battle between the urgent voices in her head and the science she loves. Now a brilliant young astrophysicist, she wants nothing more than to be left alone with the stars in the Big Bend country of Texas.

But the boy she saved, now a Fort Worth cop, has always believed she is psychic—even though she won’t say that word out loud. He is begging her to help solve the high-profile cold case of a little girl who disappeared in broad daylight from the kitchen of her old Victorian house. A body was never found, and her mother sits in prison still loudly proclaiming her innocence. Vivvy reluctantly agrees to try.

When a popular Texas conspiracy theorist podcaster named Bubba Guns finds out about her involvement, he spews conspiracy theories about the case and muddled truths about Vivvy’s murky past. As his listeners spin dangerously out of control, and with her career and the people she loves on the line, Vivvy decides to fight back.

This sharply observed psychological thriller from the acclaimed, bestselling author Julia Heaberlin explores the insidious nature of conspiracy theories and our urge to believe them—especially when it comes to sensationalized cases.

I read Only if You're Lucky        Lucy Sharpe is larger than life. Magnetic, addictive. Bold and dangerous. Especially for Margot, who meets Lucy at the end of their freshman year at a liberal arts college in South Carolina. Margot is the shy one, the careful one, always the sidekick and never the center of attention. But when Lucy singles her out at the end of the year, a year Margot spent studying and playing it safe, and asks her to room together, something in Margot can't say no—something daring, or starved, or maybe even envious.

And so Margot finds herself living in an off-campus house with three other girls, Lucy, the ringleader; Sloane, the sarcastic one; and Nicole, the nice one, the three of them opposites but also deeply intertwined. It's a year that finds Margot finally coming out of the shell she's been in since the end of high school, when her best friend Eliza died three weeks after graduation. Margot and Lucy have become the closest of friends, but by the middle of their sophomore year, one of the fraternity boys from the house next door has been brutally murdered... and Lucy Sharpe is missing without a trace.

I really did not care for it. Seemed very long, too many characters to keep up with.

This is one of the few books I couldn't finish.  It just drug on and on.  I ended up skipping to the end to see what happened.

Exactly! But I might try her other books.