Last week's reading went very differently than planned. I did finish up two of the books I began the week with, but two others suddenly jumped their places in line and I started reading them instead of the two I had planned for the end of the week. Finished up were Harbor Lights by James Lee Burke (loved it), Last Day on Earth by Eric Pulcher (liked it), and one of the queue-jumpers, The Rise by Ian Rankin (OK).
I'll be starting the week with one holdover from last week and a couple of new titles, one of which has just given me one of the biggest surprises I've ever encountered in a novel.
I'm well into this first Inspector Chopra book now, and just as I felt it was starting to bog down a bit, it took a nice little turn that leaves me very curious to see what the ultimate relationship between the retired inspector and his little elephant will be by the end of the novel. Even when the book was dragging for me, I found myself enjoying Vaseem Khan's wit and his sporadic little asides to the reader. It's a clever way to add depth to the characters. Kathleen Eull's Intercessions has pleasantly surprised me by the way it focuses more on the characters than on the crime that changed all of their lives. What happened to Corianne Dempsey as she walked to school with her best friend one morning was truly awful. Her friend died and the man who snatched her was not caught. The novel explores the aftermath of that crime by letting Corianne tell what her life has been like in the following years as she struggles with the emotional scars she suffered on that morning. I'm impressed.
I seem to have settled into a rhythm of just three or four books going at a time for the last two weeks. Right now that feels very comfortable to me, so maybe I'm getting better at restraining my jump-the-gun curiosity about the books all around me still waiting to be read. We'll see how long that lasts. As I look around the desk and library due dates coming up, these are the most likely candidates to be started later in the week:
As I mentioned last week, this is the fifteenth, and final, novel in Stephanie Barron's "Jane Austen Mystery" series. I'm entirely new to the series, but I can imagine that longtime readers of the Jane Austen mysteries are going to be a little heartbroken to experience both the end of the series and the death of Jane in this final story. I'm hoping that Jane and the Final Mystery motivates me to go back and read the other fourteen books in this series. Better late than never. (This cover reminds me a lot of early postage stamps.)
So here we go...have a good reading week, everybody.
So is Lone Women good? Maybe that'll be my Halloween read. I had it on my earlier summer list but didn't get to it yet. I have read Old God's Time ... which I liked all right ... it's a bit of an unreliable narrator kind of tale but it's full of sadness in ways. See what you think. Have a great reading week.
ReplyDeleteLone Woman is intriguing to me because I knew nothing at all about it before spotting a short review in Bookmarks Magazine (which I only glanced at) and deciding to give it a try. The big surprise to me was the sudden switch from one genre to another that I didn't see coming. Now I have to readjust my expectations entirely about the book, and still haven't decided how to rate it, but "Good" is a label I am comfortable with for now.
DeleteOld God's Time is one whose setting particularly appeals to me, so I'm hoping for the best. I do tend to enjoy unreliable narrators, so that will be a plus for me. Happy to hear that.
I'll be interested to hear your thoughts on Lone Women. I read it this summer and was underwhelmed, even though I appreciated Lavelle's attention to the historical setting in it. And I really liked Shutter, both for the setting and her ability to see ghosts. Happy reading this week! :D
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear that about Lone Women. So far so good, with me, but I'm only about 100 pages into it. I remember you talking about Shutter but didn't recall that you had mentioned Lone Women (even though I very well may have commented on what you said back then). Shutter is getting a lot of praise from within the Native American population right now, and that's always a good sign.
DeleteI think my problem with Lone Women is that I was expecting something darker and scarier...and it ended up being more historical fiction than horror. Plus, the pacing of it felt slow to me. But if I hadn't had the wrong expectation of it I think I would have liked it more.
DeleteI think you hit on the reason for the different ways that we are experiencing Lone Women. You knew enough to figure you knew what to expect; I, on the other hand, new zip about the book and was totally surprised by the turn it so suddenly took on me.
DeleteHi Sam, Intercessions sounds good. The story is interesting, it's character driven and your positive review are all the incentive I need. It's available right now on kindle unlimited to be delivered in Nov and so I have put in an order. Lone Women sounds intriguing as well.
ReplyDeleteI'm really liking Intercessions right now despite its tendency every so often to drift into several pages of tightly packed descriptive paragraphs. That style always slows me down and can end up requiring me to reread entire paragraphs to make sure that I haven't missed anything important. But the plot and characters are pretty intriguing ones.
DeleteI hope you enjoy it as much as I am. I've often been tempted by Kindle Unlimited myself, but with so many books always waiting on me to get to them, I've just never pulled that trigger. Sounds like it works well for you.
I like your book choices, as I mentioned last week in my comment, I enjoyed the first book in the Jane Austen series, you might want to try more of the series. I have read most of Ian Rankin's books, not the one you mention. Today I am reading The Jesus Cow and Sean of the South, both wonderful books.
ReplyDeleteI'll have to look into The Jesus Cow for sure. I'm a fan of Michael Perry's writing, both fiction and nonfiction, so I'm really curious about it. Just looked up Sean of the South...an eyeopener. I hadn't heard of Sean, but I really like short story compilations, so that's another to check more closely. Thanks for both mentions.
DeleteI have actually read one on your list! The Khan book. I so loved it, and wrote about it here, https://lettersfromahillfarm.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-unexpected-inheritance-of-inspector.html
ReplyDeleteI've said this to a few people that when I read old reviews I've written, I can hardly recognize myself. My life has changed so much, and there has been so much stuff going on that I cannot imagine sitting down and writing about a book.
I enjoyed your review of the book, Nan, especially your enthusiasm and the fact that you immediately pre-ordered the second book in the series. I really enjoyed it, and I have a review all set for posting on Wednesday morning. It makes me smile to be able to still feel excited about "discovering" a new writer at this stage of my life and instantly taking a liking to him.
DeleteI've never read James Lee Burke. Should I try one? Is there one you would recommend? Thanks!
ReplyDeleteWith the 39 books of Burke's I've read, he has to be right up there in my top-read two or three authors, so I would never not tell someone to try his work for themselves. That said, he can get rather deep and magical sometimes in his plots about good people who put everything on the line to fight the pure evil that Burke believes is lurking everywhere in this world. I'm particularly fond of the Dave Robicheaux series but it's one of those series best read in order because Dave ages pretty much in real time from novel to novel. He started out as a Vietnam veteran with issues, became a New Orleans cop for a while, and than joined the sheriff's department in New Iberia, Louisiana because he had been run off by the NOPD. Burke also does a good series set in Texas about the Hackberry Holland family, but I'm really partial to the Robicheaux books. I have read each of those in chronological order and really feel as if I personally know that character now. We have aged together over time, me hopefully a lot more gracefully than Dave managed it.
DeleteIt's funny, I've tried several times to get into the first Jane Austen book by Stephanie Barron and never managed it. I've had to give up and put it in the charity shop box. Lone Women has been on my radar for a while as I keep seeing positive reviews of it on Youtube. Very curious to know what the shock is...
ReplyDeleteI'm only a couple of chapters into the Austen mystery, and while I'm liking the style and language used, it's still kind of an average mystery story at this point. But it's still way too early for me to decide if the series is going to be for me or not.
DeleteThe shock in Lone Women is one I felt strongly because I knew so little about the book coming in to it. I hesitate to say more because I don't want to spoil it, or oversell it, for/to others. I do think the less you know about the novel as you begin it, the better.
Despite the best laid plans, books often jump their place in line for me, too. And most of the time that's just fine! I'm completely intrigued by your comments on Lone Women, even if it may not be a book for me. I'm also interested in Old God's Time. The Secret Scripture is the only Sebastian Barry novel I've read. Liked it well enough to consider reading more, but it's been over a decade now...
ReplyDeleteSame here, I find that the ones jumping their place are almost always doing it for good reason. Many of them turn out to be some of my favorite books of the year because they appeal to me in so many ways. Old God's Time is probably coming up next. I'm curious about it already.
DeleteI was interested in your reply to Constance (CLM) re the James Lee Burke books. I read the first two in the Dave Robicheaux series, and decided not to go further. Sometimes now I wonder if I should pick it up again, at least give him another try. (But I have so many books already.)
ReplyDeleteI will be looking forward to what you think about the Jane Austen mystery series, since it did not go well for Cath. I thought the first one was fine but never continued further. And I really liked the first book in a series that the same author writes as Francine Matthews (Death in the Off Season, set on Nantucket).
I also want to hear more about Shutter by Ramona Emerson after you have read it. I have not wanted to try it yet because of the supernatural element.
Tracy, I found that Burke didn't really hook me until the third or fourth book in the Robicheaux series. I immediately took to the character but the plotting and set-up seemed a little clumsy to me in the first couple of books. But as I got to know the character, and especially as I watched him endure his painful private life, it all just came together in a good way for me. I even came to love the sidekick character Clete Purcell despite how flawed both he and day are.
DeleteI'm about 65 pages into the Jane Austen mystery and it's finally starting to become comfortable to me. It all seemed very slow at first and that was not a good thing at all because I was already struggling with the language and how so many words have changed meaning just enough to the modern ear to make context a little bit tough. But now that the murder has happened and she's on the scene, the story is quickly gaining momentum.
I may not make it to Shutter this week, but next week for sure.