🟣 :::READING THREAD::: Week of September 22

I read a few since the last time I posted.

The Duchess, by Wendy Holden. This a a fictional retelling of the abdication of 1936, and the subsequent aftermath, in Wallis Simpson's point of view. Wow. This gave a perspective that I hadn't considered before, even if it was fiction. I'd read The Traitor King, by Andrew Lownie, a while back, and his research pointed to the Duke of Windsor, at least, being a knowing traitor during WWII. This kinda opened my eyes a bit over HER side of the story. I liked this, a lot. 5 stars.

The Door Between, by Ellery Queen. Cleverly plotted. 3 and 1/2 stars.

The Lincoln Highway, by Amor Towles. A Gentleman in Moscow, by Towles, is my very favorite book of all time, and I sometimes judge him on that, and I shouldn't. Anyway, beautiful coming of age, sort of. 4 1/2 stars.

The God of the Woods, by Liz Moore. Hmmm, it was ok. However, I LOVED the ending. Propelled a 3 star read to 4, for that awesome end.

Eruption, by Michael Chrichton and James Patterson. This was engaging and quick. Science-y, a bit, but not over run with it. This is about a deadly projected volcano eruption in Hawaii. Chrichton had left this incomplete at the time of his death (I think, 2010). His widow gave James Patterson the notes to complete it. And this actually reads like a Chrichton, crossed with Patterson's short chapters and propulsive movement of plot. 4 stars.

The Dark Wives, by Ann Cleeves, the latest Vera Stanhope police procedural. I love Vera, and this was extremely satisfying. 5 stars.

4.5 Stars for Finlay Donovan Rolls the Dice (the 4th in the Finlay Donovan series) by Elle Cosimano. I was starting to give up on this series, but this book was entertaining and fast paced. Finlay & Vero are "on a girls trip" to Atlantic City (with, of course, Finlay's ex-husband, kids, mom, sister, sister's girlfriend, Finlay's love interest police officer, and his partner) on the hunt for a stolen Astin Martin car, and Vero's childhood friend Javi. They need that car, and they need to repay Vero's debt to a loan shark. The whole thing was really started to get drawn out, but this installment was fun, crazy, and wrapped up... only to leave us on a cliff hanger for Book 5 (although that seems to be a whole other round of shenanigans).

5 Stars for Worst Case Scenario by T.J. Newman. TW for horriffic, real life possibilities that we never really think about, but probably should. I had to finish this book so I could sleep, and then couldn't bc we live 10 miles from a nuclear power plant, and basically have one road in and out of the area. 2 years ago, I had just finished watching Chernobyl on HBO when Ukraine was invaded by Russia, and the Russians captured the exclusion zone (and I guess the plant too) and immediately was on high alert looking for iodine pills. It took me a while to climb down from that ledge. This book brought all those fears back up. As jet takes off from Minnesota, the pilot has a widow maker heartattack, causing the plane to break apart, blocking the one highway in and out of Wateka, take out a bridge, oh and land near a decommissioning nuke plant. The book starts with a desciption of event classifications, with Chernobyl and Fukushima both level 7s... and what Newman proposes in this book could be a level 8 - extinction. Reading her books is like watching a apocalyptic movie (ie, The Day After Tomorrow, Armeggedon, etc) - but this one was over the top super unsettling, but fast paced, entertaining and worth a read.

5 Stars for THE WOMEN, by Kristin Hannah. What can I say that hasn’t already been said about this book? The writing made you feel as if you were right in the middle of the gruesome scenes in the hospital during the war.

My DH had served a year in Vietnam before I met him. He came home safely and had one of the safer jobs while he was there. I never understood why he still had nightmares and flashbacks from his time over there. My feelings were, you came home safely, why are you still dwelling on the past. Needless to say, I owed him a huge apology.
Thankfully, so far to this day he has not suffered any health affects from the Agent Orange, etc.

This was a great eye opening book.

Last week I finished The Nature of Disappearing by Kimi Cunningham Grant. I enjoyed it but it seemed longer than 283 pages. 4/5 stars

Then I started The Friend Zone by Abby Jimenez. I DNF at 47%. While I liked the writing, the storyline was so repetitive and irritated me beyond belief. So I went to Good Reads and read a couple of reviews and that decided it for me after I found out what subsequently happened.

Now I’m reading David Baldacci’s A Calamity of Souls which DH highly recommended.

STILL on my "...in Death" binge (J.D. Robb). lol This week I read Purity in Death, Reunion in Death, Portrait in Death, Imitation in Death, Divided in Death, and Interlude in Death (this one is a novella). I'm still enjoying them a lot. More than I expected. I love seeing how the main characters are developing, their relationships with each other, etc. And the mysteries are fun to figure out because usually we don't know until the very end who did it.

So I managed to fill every single one of my book group's September prompts with an "...in Death" book. Except for the "dragon or other mythical creature" prompt. I was going to let that one go so it could be a complete "...in Death" month, but I can't stand to see just one prompt not done. So I'm reading Iron Flame again. I'm at the beach this week so I've been getting a lot of reading done.

I haven't finished anything. Still listening to Black Bird Oracle by Deborah Harkness. It's a timed loan listen. Once I am done with that, I'll be back to The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune.

With October just around the corner, I feel like I want to read some of my more "spooky" books.

I DNF (at 50%) The Palace of Eros by Caro De Robertis. This was a queer retelling of the Psyche & Eros myth. I realize Greek Mythology sometimes uses both genders to tell a story but it usually helps explain the myth, not the whole point of the story. Just didn’t hold my interest.