It's Monday, What Are You Reading?

A book meme by Shelia at One Persons Journey Through a World of Books

I have been a reading drought lately but have got some books reads in the last couple of weeks.
The Dead Travel Fast was fantastic as was Arcadia Falls. Then in a fit of desperation after no reading this week, I bought and read Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella, author of the Shopaholic series. I also read a little bit of Latte Trouble by Cleo Coyle But I haven't been able to get into anything deep.

This week: I just don't know yet. I have tons of books out from the library but none are what I want. Not to mention all of my own unread books.  Hopefully something will catch my eye soon!

Happy Reading!

THE DEAD TRAVEL FAST by Deanna Raybourn

Theodora Lestrange is living with her sister and brother-in-law in Scotland unsure of what is next in her life. She is trying to make a living as a writer, not easy in Victorian times. Her sister wants her to find someone to marry and her publisher has proposed marriage to her. But while Theodora is fond of  him, she wants true love. So when a former school friend, Cosmina invites her to stay with her for several months in a castle in Transylvania, Theodora jumps at the chance. She thinks the atmosphere will be perfect for the novel she wants to write. She is immediately attracted to the strange Count Andrei Dragulescu, Cosmina's cousin. But Theodora finds that the stories Cosmina used to tell her in school are not just considered folklore by the townspeople and that they believe in werewolves and vampires. After a maid in the castle is found dead with fang marks in her neck, Theodora is unsure what to believe.

my review: I enjoyed the author's Lady Julia series and was unsure what to expect of this novel. But I really liked the Gothic atmosphere and the creepy characters. Theodora is young but knows what she wants. I liked her a lot. I also thought Andrei sounded sexy even while I wondered if he was a vampire.

I know some have been disappointed in this novel as compared to her series but I think I liked this one better. It was deliciously creepy and as it is a stand alone novel it didn't get bogged down with setting things up for future books. Of course I liked Theodora and Andrei so much that I would like it to be a series but then their relationship would have dragged on like Lady Julia and Nicholas Brisbane.

This is not a paranormal book but a dark, thriller in an excellent setting. It seemed like the author really did her research and created a fantastic mystery. I would have loved to stay in a castle in Transylvania though I would have been scared silly. I thought that the ending had some nice twists and I was unsure what to expect for much of this novel. It was worth the read alone for the atmosphere but Raybourn served up much more. I was sorry to have it end. This is a definite re-read for me!

my rating- 4.5/5

ARCADIA FALLS by Carol Goodman

Meg Rosenthal is recently widowed with a sixteen year old daughter. No longer able to afford her home in Great Neck, she accepts a teaching position at Arcadia, a private school in upstate New York. Arcadia used to be an artists' retreat started by Vera Beecher and Lily Eberhardt, now both deceased. Meg is doing her PhD thesis on the fairly tales written by these women, so it seems like a perfect situation for her. But one of the students dies the first night there and Meg worries about the influence on her daughter, Sally, who has not recovered from the death of her father. She also uncovers a journal belonging to Lily and discovers some secrets that others might not want known.

my review: I have been a huge fan of Carol Goodman since I read her first novel, The Lake of Dead Languages, followed by The Seduction Of Water, The Drowning Tree, and Ghost Orchid. But then I was not impressed with The Sonnet Lover or The Night Villa. But I am happy to say that she has impressed me again with her latest.

She really is an amazing writer and infuses her mysteries with literature and art. The way she describes the fairy tales and art in this story makes me wish they were real, something I feel every time I read her books.

"It's the crystal path that the lost girl takes after she meets the white witch," Sally says, her voice clear as crystal itself. They're the first words untinged by bitterness or regret I've heard her say in months. " See the trees look like girls in torn dresses because of the way the bark's peeling...

She creates a Gothic type atmosphere with pagan rituals and isolated locations. She also creates a interesting back story that is revealed in bits and pieces and kept me captivated. I read the book in one day and felt very satisfied after finishing. There were a few plot twists, some I suspected, some I did not.

I really can not stress enough I how believe Goodman to be a very underrated writer and I can not recommend her work enough!

my rating 4.5/5

this book counts toward the What's in a Name Challenge 3

NORTH AND SOUTH by Elizabeth Gaskell

Margaret Hale has been educated in London but when her cousin Edith marries, she moves back to Helstone in Southern England, where her father is a vicar. When Mr Hale becomes a Dissenter of Church of England, he gives up his parsonage and moves his family north to the industrial town of Milton where he is to work as a tutor.
John Thornton is the owner of one of the local cotton mills and is proud of Milton and its reputation for fine manufacturing and increased industrialization.
Thornton and Margaret clash over their opposing views on the way of life in the slower, wealthier south and the faster, industrialized north. Margaret finds herself sympathetic to the plight of the workers and the poor in Milton. She befriends Bessy Higgins and her father Nicholas, who is a factory worker and union leader. Margaret is frequently in Thornton's company as he and her father become good friends. Thornton falls in love with Margaret but she rejects him as she does not think him a gentleman and that he is only interested in making money at his worker's expense. But Margaret gets an education in Northern ways and starts to appreciate Thornton for the man that he is.

my review:  I read North and South after watching the BBC production, after reading about it on Tasha's blog: Truth, Beauty, Freedom, and Books.  Richard Armitage plays John Thornton and he is so sexxxyy!
So I read the book.

There has been some comparison to Pride and Prejudice but other than the relationship, it is not so similar. Gaskell focuses on more of the social aspects with the increased industrialization of Northern England. Margaret is the outsider and Thornton is the insider. Margaret is smart, strong, and independent. She is the one that has to break the news to her invalid mother that Mr. Hale has broken with the church and is moving them up North. She helps her father and many of the poor in Milton. In this way she does remind me of Elizabeth Bennett. Thornton is somewhat like Darcy in that he is headstrong and devoted to his family, but Thornton is not sulky and quiet. He is opinionated but fair.

Gaskell also writes from Thornton's perspective as well as Margaret's. So we know what he is thinking and therefore THERE IS NO NEED FOR SOMEONE TO WRITE A BOOK CALLED THORNTON'S DIARY.  Just saying.

A blogger compared this book as a mix of Austen and Dickens and I agree with that. It really is an excellent novel that is much more than a love story and really delves into the social aspects of workers versus masters and unions and strikes. Watching the BBC production did not ruin the book for me and it helped to imagine Richard Armitage as Thornton. Yummy! This book is much better than my review and I highly recommend it. I also recommend watching the movie!

my rating 5/5

Cozy Mystery Saturday: Died in the Wool by Mary Kruger

One of my favorite cozy mystery themes is knitting mysteries. And Died in the Wool is one of my favorite cozies of all.
Ariadne Evans is the owner of Ariadne's Web, a successful knitting shop. Cranky Edith Perry is a difficult customer and not beloved in their Massachusetts town. But then she is found dead; strangled in some homespun wool. Edith was about to buy the building that housed Ariadne's Web and raise the rent on Ariadne's shop and that makes Ari a prime suspect, at least according detective Joshua Pierce.

my review: Though this follows the usual cozy mystery formula, it does so with a nice amount of humor and plenty of interesting characters:  her Aunt Laura, ex-husband Ted, their seven year old daughter, Megan, her friend Diane and her husband Joe, part-time employees Kaitlin and Summer, Edith's son, and the usual small-towners  to keep you guessing to the end as to the real killer. The story is from the point of view of Ari and Joshua, which makes it different from the usual cozy. While formulaic, it stands above others that I have read as it is better written and engaging. This comes with a few basic knitting patterns but nothing really interesting. But it makes me want to knit!
I definitely recommend this for cozy fans. I also recommend her next book, Knit Fast, Die Young

my rating 4/5
If you have a cozy mystery review, link here. If problems with Mr Linky post link in comment section!

WAITING FOR COLUMBUS by Thomas Trofimuk

A man is found washed up on the Spanish shore of the Strait of Gibraltar. He insists that he is the legendary Christopher Columbus and is taken to an insane asylum in Seville. Consuela is a nurse at the asylum and the man who calls himself Columbus tells her his memories/stories. But his stories seem to be mixed in with modern life.
Emilie works for Interpol and begins tracking a missing man that has been declared suspicious. As he tracks his mystery man, Columbus enthralls Nurse Consuela with his stories and she begins to fall in love with him.

my review: I loved this book, it was so well-written and beautiful. I would read just a couple of chapters a day as I really wanted to savor this amazing work.
As Columbus tells his tales, one can feel how haunted this man is and as he nears the end of his stories, his fear of what he will discover about himself, if he lets go of his conviction that he is Columbus. The author moves back and forth from the the fifteenth century Spain to the present and while some may not like that kind of writing, I felt that it was perfect for the story.

It is hard for me to review this book and do it justice. But once I finished it, I understood why Rebecca from The Book Lady's Blog could not stop raving about this book on twitter.

Let's just say it is amazing, touching, thought-provoking, amusing, compelling, and brilliant and leave it at that!

my rating 5/5

THE WITCH DOCTOR'S WIFE by Tamar Myers

Amanda Brown leave her South Carolina home to travel to the Belgian Congo in 1958. When she arrives, she discovers that the couple she is taking over from will not be back for a couple of weeks and Amanda must manage on her own, with one servant, Protruding Navel to assist her. Though Amanda has learned one of the local dialects, there is much about this culture that she does not understand. Meanwhile the baby boy of the local witch doctor, Their Death, finds a large diamond while his mother, Second Wife, works in the fields. Once Their Death discovers that a diamond has been found, he makes plans to try to sell it without the local diamond consortium finding out. His first wife, Cripple has decided she wants to work for the new young missionary woman. Cripple discovers what her husband is planning to do and sets in motion a chain of events that effect everyone.

my review: This is the first book I have read by this author, though she has written several cozy mysteries. But this book is based on her childhood experience of living in the Congo with her missionary parents.

The author does a great job of showing the differences in culture between the Europeans and the Africans as well as the differences and problems between the tribes that reside around the little village of Belle Vue. She has created some interesting characters but does not delve into them as deeply as I would have liked. A few characters are set up with situations but then quickly disappear.
The main character is really Cripple and she is also the most interesting, as she finagles a job with Amanda and outsmarts her husband in order to protect the whole family.

I think this was supposed to be more literary and make more of a social commentary but the author did not dig deep enough and it read more like the cozy mysteries that she is known for. It had a lot of potential but was underdeveloped.

my rating- 2.5/5

THE LITTLE STRANGER by Sarah Waters

The Little Stranger takes place in post WWII England. Dr. Faraday, the narrator, is called the Hundreds Hall, a once wealthy estate, to treat a maid, Betty. Faraday remembers it from his youth, when his mother was a servant there. The Ayreses still live there, albeit in much reduced circumstances: Mrs Ayres, spinster daughter Caroline and, Roderick, the wounded in battle older brother, who is trying to keep the estate afloat. Faraday becomes a confidant to the family, ingratiating himself though he is not of their class. Strange things begin to happen, but Faraday sees it as mental illness in the family,not a haunting of the house, yet becomes obsessed with the decrepit house himself.

my review: I had high expectations of this book being a Gothic, psychological thriller. However, the book just did not give me that. I understand where the author was going, but it took way too many pages to even start to get there. The atmosphere was appropriate as were the characters. The novel was well-written if it had been a story about the downfall of the landed gentry in a changing society.  But it just did not strike my thriller bone (that sounds dirty). Though Dr. Faraday was creepy enough, something was missing. The problem may have been the choice of narrator. I think it might have been better from Caroline's point of view. When it was over, I just felt disappointed. There was potential but in it's 480 pages, it just never made it. Good writing, bad plot.

A better read in the genre would be The House Next Door by Anne River Siddon, a five star book in my opinion.
my rating 3/5





This book counts towards the chunkster reading challenge and library challenge

Cozy Mystery Saturday: Cooking Up Murder by Miranda Bliss

Annie Capshaw is recovering from her very recent divorce. Her best friend Eve DeCateur is determined to cheer Annie up and get her out of her apartment. Eve signs them up for a series of cooking classes but on their first night they find a man dying in an alley after just witnessing him arguing with Beyla, another student in the cooking class. Eve is convinced it was murder and she and Annie begin their own, dangerous investigation.

 my review: This was a fun, light-hearted mystery. Not only is Annie a terrible cook, but she and Eve are a bit bumbling at murder investigations. But they are an amusing team as they try to follow suspects and talk too much about their suspicions to the wrong people.

Jim is their Scottish cooking instructor and Annie finds him much more inviting than the food she is trying to cook.

I liked that this was a buddy mystery, as Annie or Eve on their own would not have been nearly as much fun. It is comically painful at times to wait for them to catch up with what the reader already knows, but the author did put a couple of twists in for the ending. And there are recipes at the end! I will definitely check out Annie and Eve as they solve their next murder.

my rating 3.5/5

If you have a cozy mystery review, link here
Sorry, problems with Mr Linky, post link in comment section

The Broken Teaglass by Emily Arsenault

Billy Webb is a twenty-four year old who gets his first post-college adult job working as a lexicographer for the Samuelson Company, an old, well-respected dictionary company in Claxton, Massachusetts. While looking through the citation files (used to show how words are used in context in publications), he finds an odd citation that he shows to a co-worker, Mona. The citation refers to a book, The Broken Teaglass, but Mona can not find verification that this was an actual book. As they search for more 'cits', they discover parts of what seem to be a true story written by someone who must have once worked at Samuelson. They begin a careful search of all the cits to put together this story and find a real-life mystery.


my review: I was very intrigued by the premise and for anyone who loves words, etymology of words, this has great appeal. It was a bit slow to start, then would get interesting. but then slow again. Twice I decided to abandon the book but then it would pick up again and I realized that I had to finish it. The mystery was fascinating and tragic. Billy and Mona are both low-key characters, but we do get to know Billy and this is a story of his journey as well as the author of the mysterious cits. I liked Billy but found Mona irritating at first, then she grew on me. There was some comic relief; people write and call the dictionary company to recommend words to be added, to argue definitions, and to win at Scrabble.
The most colorful character was Mr. Phillips, a Samuelson retiree who still comes in once a month to chat and bring donuts. He becomes an important source of information for Billy and Mona.

This book had a lot of potential that came in the last half of the book and the ending made up for the short-comings in the first half. The story is not mean to be a fast-past mystery but more of a poignant, moving story of secrets and pain. This is not a must-read, but more of a pick-up-from-the-library-and-give-it-a-try-read. I am glad I stuck with it.

my rating 4/5

This counts towards the Library Reading Challenge

The Book List !

Hosted By Rebecca of Lost In Books

3 Best/ Worst Sidekicks to a Hero in Books

1- Best- Lisbeth Salander though she was less a sidekick than main character in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo but she was so awesome!
2- Best- all the Islanders in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
3- Best- Rae Spellman in The Izzy Spellman series books by Lisa Lutz
4- Worst- Death in The Book Thief by Markus Zusak-

It's Monday, What Are You Reading and February Reading Wrap-Up

A book meme by Shelia at One Persons Journey Through a World of Books

Last Week:
started and finished: Cooking Up Murder by Miranda Bliss, The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters, Last Snow by Eric Van Lustbader, Cat Among the Pigeons by Agatha Christie
finished: The Broken Teaglass by Emily Arsenault,

This Week:
finish- Latte Trouble by Cleo Coyle, Shadowed Summer by Saundra Mitchell, and The Witch Doctor's Wife by Tamar Myers


Books Read in February:
 Bookmarked for Death by Lorna Barrett
 Homicide in Hardcover by Kate Carlisle
Through the Grinder by Cleo Coyle
 An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England by Brock Clarke
 The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris
 Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova
 Last Night in Twisted River by John Irving
 A Fatal Waltz by Tasha Alexander
 The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street by Helene Hanff
 Brooklyn by Colm Toibin
 Gourmet Rhapsody by Muriel Barbery
 Last Snow by Eric Van Lustbader
Cat Among the Pigeons by Agatha Christie
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
The Broken Teaglass by Emily Arsenault

Challenge Update:
Women Unbound 0/2
Sookie Stackhouse Challenge 7/9
Heidenkind's Art History Challenge 2/6
100+ Reading Challenge 29/100
Chunkster Reading Challenge 4/3- completed
YA Reading Challenge 1/12
Support Your Local Library 12/25
Take A Chance Challenge 3/4
Typically British Reading Challenge 7/6- completed
Flashback Reading Challenge 1/6
What's in a Name? 3   5/6

The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street by Helene Hanff

84, Charing Cross Road is an epistolary true story of a correspondence between the author living in New York and Frank Doel, the manager of Marks and Co. a bookstore in England. They correspond for twenty years as Helene buys books from the store and sends them food as they are under British rations. The story in that book ends at the death of Frank in 1969.

After Hanff's book is published, she finally gets a chance to go to England, something she has longed to do her entire life and The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street is her journal of that trip.

 

my review: This was a short but delightful read, much like it's predecessor. Hanff holds nothing back and tries to experience England to it's fullest in the short-time she will be there. She finally meets Frank's family face to face and many of her fans and pen pals. This book also reads like a guide for a true anglophile on a trip to Britain and is a nice follow-up for those that read 84, Charing Cross Road.
Both stories are charming and delightful, cleansing your reading palate between larger, more complex reads.

my rating 4/5