This year is turning into a banner year for my reading aspirations. With life trying to slowly get back to normal after the pandemic, our family is finding ourselves still home a lot. I find myself with more time for reading as well, after I stopped working due to health concerns earlier in the year.There's a wide variety of genres represented here; Atmospheric, Fantasy/Science Fiction, historical and historical fiction, Mystery and thriller, classic 70's gothic romance, non-fiction and science, timely tales, subjects old and new... there should be a little something for everyone with this batch of book reviews.
Once Upon a River
by Diane Setterfield (4 stars)
I read the author’s first book The Thirteenth Tale, and enjoyed it so I read this one, figuring I would enjoy it too. I did, it was a mysterious and interesting tale, with a bit of bogging down in the middle, and with gothic undertones, this is a genre I generally like to read. It had a very intriguing pretense, a half-drowned man carrying a lifeless child stumbles into the local inn, in the middle of winter, and sets the whole town alight with all kinds of interesting happenings. The inn is right beside the river Thames, and the river is as much a character in the book as the people. The locals get through the long winter nights by having a drink at the inn and telling each other stories, and after the man stumbles in carrying the child that night, there is lots of fodder for all kinds of new stories to tell.
All in all, I did enjoy the book, it had great atmosphere, dreamy, a bit magical, a bit menacing, and the river is like a living thing, with some folklore mixed into the everyday lives of the people and the events of that night setting off a whole series of happenings that the story describes and reveals. There was a satisfactory conclusion, even though it took the author seemingly forever to get there and move the story along. There was a lot of atmosphere building right after the introductory portion of the book and it was at times, excessively wordy and introduced a myriad of characters that could get a bit confusing as at that point in the story they had no relevance to what was going on, the reader is just left with “something is going to happen”, after all the little vignettes. As a reader you are wondering when the story would actually move along, and it had me nodding off as I was reading until the pace picked up a bit. It is by no means a fast-paced book, rather a slow paced one where the atmosphere is as important as the actual story.
If you like this type of story, you will enjoy it and find yourself dreaming along with it or, you will be driven crazy by the slow pace of the story and want to throw the book across the room.
Catfantastic…(Volume 1) Edited by Andre Norton and Martin H. Greenberg (4 Stars)
This is the first book in a 5-book series of Science Fiction/Fantasy stories featuring felines as the hero and or the main character of the story. It is a good variety of stories by various authors of the genres at the time (1989). This volume includes 15 stories featuring cats and it is an anthology that has been around for 20 some odd years, which alludes to the popularity of the subject matter and the talents of the authors whose stories are included in it.
Uppity Women of Ancient Times by Vicki Leon (3 stars)
An interesting take on reading about some famous and not so famous women throughout ancient history who could be classified as a bit unconventional, but I could have done without the author’s snarky editorial commentary along the way.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
(5 stars)
This book was told completely in correspondence and letter writing. It grabbed my attention and kept it all through the book. I also learned about some history about WW II along the way. I did not know that the Germans occupied the Channel Islands during the war before reading this book. The story was witty and enjoyable, and I have a lot of respect for the residents of the islands that endured the hardship of the German occupation. They had to go on with fear in their hearts and empty bellies. Highly recommended.
Douglas Preston and Lee Child- FBI Agent Pendergast
Series: Dance of Death, Book of the Dead, Wheel of Darkness, etc.
(4 stars for each book) Part of an ongoing series by these authors.
Thriller- check
Fast paced- check
Murder mystery- check
Agent Pendergast is in it- double check!
Flaming Tree and Lost Island by Phyllis A. Whitney (3 stars)
70’s old gothic romance- check
Spooky houses- check
Skeletons in the family closet- check
Heroine in peril, generally rescued by brooding handsome man- check
Occasional fainting- check
Lots of ‘mysterious atmosphere’- check
(Not recommended for those who identify as feminists, lol.)
Catwatching by Desmond Morris (4 stars)
If you are a cat or animal lover, you will probably like this book. This was an oldie I had sitting on my shelf for several years and I am glad I finally got around to reading it. Filled with interesting information about cat behavior, explanations for why they do certain things and what different types of behavior represent from the study of animals. The author is a good observer of behavior and explains it in an interesting way to the reader. He’s written other books about dog and primate behavior, and even one about people watching. Older book, but still relevant.
The Orphan Collector by Ellen Marie Wiseman (4 stars)
I picked this up on one of my browsing expeditions at Barnes and Noble after stores were starting to open up again from the current pandemic. It seemed particularly relevant in our Covid recovering world, because it is a historical fiction novel about the Spanish flu epidemic at the beginning of the 1900’s. It follows people living in a poorer section of Philadelphia, which was particularly hard hit during the flu epidemic. It mixes historical details of the time by specifically delving into the life of a German immigrant family whose father, wanting to prove loyalty to his new country, enlists in the Army and is sent off to battle in Europe during WWI. His family, for various reasons, are unable to contact their father, and this leaves the mother and her children struggling along to make ends meet as the epidemic hits, then the mother dies of flu and the children are left to fend for themselves. Many of the residents suffer terrible losses, one woman who lost her infant son to the flu, tries to mitigate the loss by ‘informally adopting’ (i.e., kidnapping), the twin infants from the German immigrant neighbor where the mother has died from the flu, by impersonating a traveling nurse, which was a service that was going on at the time of the epidemic. Things were so chaotic at that time, and people in the neighborhood generally kept to their own kind with communication barriers from the differing immigrant populations, so who would have really known any better? The reader follows along with their struggles and through the aftermath and gets an idea of what it was like during that period of time. It also reminds you to be grateful that Covid was not as bad as it was first predicted to be.
Gulp by Mary Roach (4 stars)
Gulp, Adventures Down the Alimentary canal- I’ve not been disappointed by the science books written by this author, Stiff, Spook, Packing for Mars…Mary Roach is one curious individual, and she shares her curiosity and what she finds out with the reader, basing the information given on facts, studies, and copious footnotes in the book. She is brave enough to ask the questions that nobody else will. She is drawn to subjects that we are all curious about but too polite to ask after because they are not considered polite dinner table conversation. As a person who has spent many years working in a medical laboratory, with specimens such as blood, urine, stool, bits of surgically removed toes, and sputum (worse than stool- yes, really), I am no stranger to these kinds of subjects, so these books fit right into areas that catch my interest. Not for the particularly squeamish, but interesting none the less.
Black Cat Bookshop Mysteries (6 books)- Double Booked for Death, A Novel Way to Die, Words with Fiends, Literally Murder, Plot Boiler, Twice Told Tail, by Ali Brandon. Brandon is the author of a few different cozy series under various pen names. ‘Cozy’ mysteries always seem to feature clever titles, generally a female protagonist who dabbles in amateur detective work, a murder or two without a lot of gore, and naturally, a very smart cat. Of course, you really can’t have a cozy mystery without the requisite cat; but throw in a book shop too and you have the perfect recipe for success with a good chunk of the female reading audience. This series has good plot twists, likeable- if a bit stereotypical, characters, (Oh no! Another red-haired female main character!) and an ornery but clever cat. It is not as sappy as some other cozy mysteries, but it does have its sappy moments. If I read too many of them in a row though they tend to numb my brain. I started reading a variety of cozies as an experiment in sampling different reading genres that I was not familiar with during participation in an internet reading challenge. This is a 6-book series that is set in NYC and its very readable. If you like cozies, you will enjoy these as some of the better ones that I have sampled. If you want a few quick escapist or beach reads, these will nicely fit the bill. (4 stars)
Thin Ice by Paige Shelton (Book 1 Alaska Wilds Series) (4 stars)
Shelton is another author of several cozy mystery series, Country Cooking School, Scottish Book Shop, Dangerous Type, Farmer’s Market series, etc. This is the first volume in a new series by the author, dubbed the Alaska Wild Mysteries. It features a successful female author who was stalked and eventually kidnapped by an obsessed fan, and after she escapes him, she goes away to a remote town in Alaska to heal from her ordeal and where no one will know who she really is. She can hide there from the deranged guy who stole her because he has not been apprehended yet by law enforcement. She can also be safe from any other obsessed fans who might have similar designs. Of course, being a cozy there has to be a murder mystery along the way and some amateur detective work to solve it, but there is no ubiquitous clever cat as a side kick here, just the sweeping landscape of Alaska, some assorted wildlife; bears, moose, and the unique people who live in this rugged environment. A good start but you could tell it was the beginning of a series because the story of the author and the capturing of the kidnapper is not resolved by the end of the book. Breadcrumbs are dropped along the way during the story, but you will have to keep reading the series to find out more.
Alfred Hitchcock Presents: The Master’s Choice (story collection, various authors) (3 1/2 stars, some stories very good, some duds)
This book was found at a thrift store where I like to haunt the used book aisle. As with most story collections, some of them are very good and some mediocre, or worthy of skipping altogether. But I tend to like story collections because I get to sample the work of new authors I have not read yet and usually there are enough good ones in them to make up for the few duds you always get in these story collections. If you want some good, creepy, atmospheric tales without a lot of commitment this is a good choice. If you are sick of being given a lecture by the woke, even in your recreational reading, which is now happening frequently in all genres of newly published novels, this choice published in 1979 should nicely satisfy you. Still available online from used book retailers along with other “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” titles, and several DVDs are also available for the television series of similar name.
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