What Are We Currently Reading?

[Vanderboom]

Just finished reading Jim Butcher's Battle Ground. Apparently,  it was supposed to be in Peace Talks, but he had to split the story into two books.  The result is . . . good, but not great? I think Butcher was trying to make up for the delay in the series and turned all elements Up To Eleven, so there ARE a lot of cool moments, but when the book is all tension, then the cool moments don't stand out. 

Spoiler

I'm starring to think of Butters as an Author's Pet. Once again, All Would Be Lost until Butters intervenes slightly. I get this is part of the Knight Thing, but he IS really new on the job. 🙄

So of course, I'm looking forward to the next one! 😊

Edited October 1, 2020 by Vanderboom

[BlackberryJam]

On 10/1/2020 at 12:58 AM, Irlandesa said:

 

But boy can a bad narrator kill any interest I have in books.  Part of the problem is that I can't skim forward during the boring parts.  I can speed up the narration but that just sounds odd.

RIGHT. With Mexican Gothic, there was just no tension in the narrator's voice. The entire 

Spoiler

end scene in the mausoleum/basement was dull. Super dull. And long. How is that even possible?

I used to do a comfort listen to the Hamish MacBeth books. They were great until I got to the ones narrated by Graeme Malcolm. Instead of having the main character, when upset, have the emphasis on end of sentences, had no real heavy emphasis, but would have a definitely fall off at the end. So what should have been, "How dare you insult me WEE LITTLE CAT?" became "how dare you insult me (voice getting weaker) wee little cat." It was out of character and ruined the series for me. 

Edited October 2, 2020 by BlackberryJam

[Snow Apple]

I'm reading Hilarie Burton Morgan's memoir called The Rural Diaries. I've only seen her in a few acting gigs and don't know much about her, but it's a nice cozy read so far which is what I need right now.

[Luckylyn]

I’m starting Mexican Gothic today.

[blackwing]

On 9/27/2020 at 5:41 PM, BlackberryJam said:

I love Louise Penny’s writing, but is every police organization everywhere run by corrupt, money-hungry ex-friends of Gamache? If the corruption she writes about were more topical, as in the treatment of PoC by the police, then I might find these stories more interesting. But we get it, all police departments are corrupt and only Gamache notices and can save the day. I also want to get back to Three Pines. I didn’t realize how much I missed Ruth in this book until someone above mentioned it. This really could have been a stand-alone book and not at all part of the series. Except it functioned to get Gamache’s children back to Canada.

I agree that she focuses too much on corrupt cops in recent books  And of course, Gamache is the only one to discover it and Gamache is the only one who can ever do anything about it.

One thing that I am tired of reading about in her books is that YouTube of the raid at the warehouse.  Agents swarming the warehouse.  Gamache giving commands.  Agents yelling.  Agents dying.  Beauvoir gets hit.  Then Gamache gets hit and goes down.  Gamache crawls over to Beauvoir.  Tells him he loves him.  "It was leaked to the public, that hateful video, something that was never intended to be seen."  How many times do they have to talk about this raid?  Why does it keep getting brought up?  What does it add to each story to keep mentioning it in every subsequent book?

I was today years old when I learned that many of Ruth Zardo's poems were actually written by Margaret Atwood and used with permission.  So "who hurt you once, so far beyond repair, that you would meet each overture, with curling lip" is not actually Penny's own work.

[Darian]

I enjoyed Mexican Gothic enough that I got Gods of Jade and Shadow. Friends raved, so hoping it's a good one.  

[dubbel zout]

I'm reading The Widows of Malabar Hill, by Sujata Massey. It's the first in a mystery series set in 1920s Bombay, with a woman lawyer as protagonist. I'm really enjoying it so far—it's a world I know very little about—but it suffers from putting in a bit too much detail and history. That's something a lot of authors who've done a lot of research do: They dig up so much interesting stuff that they can't not cram it in somewhere. I understand the impetus, but it does bog things down a bit, IMO. Of course, YMMV. I know many readers can't get enough details.

[Mindthinkr]

I just finished Murder in the Piazza by Jen Collins Moore. It was a nice mystery romp set in Rome. 

[Irlandesa]

1 hour ago, dubbel zout said:

It's the first in a mystery series set in 1920s Bombay, with a woman lawyer as protagonist. I'm really enjoying it so far—it's a world I know very little about—but it suffers from putting in a bit too much detail and history.

That's a good description of it--very detailed.  It has been a while since I read the book but I actually preferred the backstory to the present day mystery.  I haven't ready any more in the series but I might take a gander as maybe the author will have shaken off a bit of the "need to share everything" aspect.

[dubbel zout]

The second book is The Satapur Moonstone, and her latest in the series, The Bombay Prince, comes out in June 2021.

[Luckylyn]

On 9/30/2020 at 10:37 PM, BlackberryJam said:

So I listened to Mexican Gothic. I do not recommend the audiobook. I could tell that there should be tension, but the narrator read the whole thing like a grocery list. And it’s slow. So slow.

So I agree.  So far the narrator is fine with dialog but is so flat for the narration.  Reading it is more engrossing than listening.

[blackwing]

On 9/28/2020 at 6:49 AM, Haleth said:

I'm reading The Evening and the Morning right now.  About 300 pages in and I am delighted to report that so far no one has been raped.

I'm sure it's coming though.

Actually I take that back.

  Reveal spoiler

The slave Blod was raped repeatedly

. 

I just finished The Evening and the Morning by Ken Follett and am eager to hear other people's opinions about it.  I loved it.  I loved the world he created and as is typical for Follett, his heroes are very much heroic, experience various setbacks along the way, and generally come out on top.  His villains are deliciously evil and you really want to find out if and when they meet their demise.

I remember after I finished reading World Without End, for some reason I felt like e-mailing Follett and asking him some questions and giving him my thoughts.  In particular, I told him that I wish

 

Gwenda had been the one to kill Ralph because of the way he wronged her.

.  He actually wrote back (or he dictated and his assistant wrote back) and told me that he hadn't thought of that but that it would have been more satisfying!

I'm curious if there is supposed to be any connection between the characters in "The Evening and the Morning" and "The Pillars of the Earth".  I distinctly remember that some of the characters in "World Without End" were descendants of the characters in "Pillars".  I can't remember if any of the characters in "A Column of Fire" were also descendants of previous characters.  

Even though it is my favourite book of all time, It has probably been 20 years since I've read "Pillars".  I need to find my copy and read it again.  I think I lent it to my brother at one point.  I'm pretty sure he has never read it and he has moved several times so I hope it hasn't been lost!  If they ever re-issue this series in a leather bound collector's edition, I would instantly buy it.

Definitely want to re-read "Pillars" and see if there were any fun connections he made between the two books.

I doubt it would happen since there are less than 125 years now between "Evening" and "Pillars", but I'd love another prequel set maybe 60 years later so we can see what happens to the direct and not so distant descendants of the "Evening" characters.

Some spoilers ahead:

I'm particularly wondering if Jack Jackson is descended from Edgar and Ragna.  Jack's father was Jacques Cherbourg, and he was known for his distinctive flaming red hair.  Ragna has reddish hair I think, and she is from Cherbourg.  In addition, brown-haired Edgar strips naked to bathe in a river and he is spied upon by a tavern girl who Follett pointedly has observe "your hair's different color down there, it's kind of ginger".  So I assume since we were briefly told that both of them have red hair genes in them, that their union results in their descendants Jacques and Jack down the line.  It seems like this has to be the case.

There don't seem to be any hints that any other Pillars characters are descendants, although I would think there probably are some.  One possibility is that I could easily see is that Wilf's first born nasty son could be the ancestor of the evil William Hamleigh or Bishop Waleran.

The only other connection I really made was that we see how Kingsbridge acquired the skull of St. Adolphus.  It was kind of cool when I remembered it.

I knew from the beginning that Dreng's Ferry was going to get renamed Kingsbridge.  One of the first clues was the map in the front which had it pretty much square in the middle of the map.  Also, why would it keep the name of such an odious man?

At the end of the book, Edgar is clearly constructing the Kingsbridge Cathedral.  But all of "Pillars" was about building it.  Did it take 125 years to build, or did it get destroyed or damaged and a new one is being built in "Pillars"?

Edited October 6, 2020 by blackwing

[Haleth]

On 10/6/2020 at 1:51 AM, blackwing said:

I'm curious if there is supposed to be any connection between the characters in "The Evening and the Morning" and "The Pillars of the Earth".  I distinctly remember that some of the characters in "World Without End" were descendants of the characters in "Pillars".  I can't remember if any of the characters in "A Column of Fire" were also descendants of previous characters.  

Even though it is my favourite book of all time, It has probably been 20 years since I've read "Pillars".  I need to find my copy and read it again.  I think I lent it to my brother at one point.  I'm pretty sure he has never read it and he has moved several times so I hope it hasn't been lost!  If they ever re-issue this series in a leather bound collector's edition, I would instantly buy it.

Definitely want to re-read "Pillars" and see if there were any fun connections he made between the two books.

 

I'm now about 2/3 done so I don't want to read your spoilers.  I don't think there's any question that the characters in TEatM are ancestors of those in PotE and from the beginning I've assumed Dreng's Ferry was the original village that becomes Kingsbridge.  If nothing else, Follet is consistent with his characters-- the plucky young woman, the ingenious builder, the cerebral dreamer, and , of course, the mustache twirling (and hapless) villains.  No doubt Ragna is the (however many times) great grandmother of Alienna of Shiring.  It wouldn't surprise me if Edgar is an ancestor of Jack from Pillars.

Edited October 8, 2020 by Haleth

[Mindthinkr]

I’m about to begin the first in the Cormoran Strike series The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith (aka J.K. Rowling). Has anyone read any of these? (The 5th in the series came out a short while ago). I do like a good crime/detective novel. 

[blackwing]

45 minutes ago, Mindthinkr said:

I’m about to begin the first in the Cormoran Strike series The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith (aka J.K. Rowling). Has anyone read any of these? (The 5th in the series came out a short while ago). I do like a good crime/detective novel. 

I read the first one a few years ago.  I remember liking it but I had too many things on my list to read, so I guess I must not have liked it enough to want to rush out and read the next one.  I've been meaning to pick the series up again.

[Irlandesa]

3 hours ago, Mindthinkr said:

I’m about to begin the first in the Cormoran Strike series The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith (aka J.K. Rowling). Has anyone read any of these? (The 5th in the series came out a short while ago). I do like a good crime/detective novel. 

Yes, I read them and have enjoyed the four I've read.  The main characters are pretty strong.  Some mysteries I've enjoyed more than others.

It's why I shake my first at JK Rowling.

Edited October 6, 2020 by Irlandesa

[BlackberryJam]

Just started Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari. I loved Sapiens. 

I try to mix my fiction with occasional nonfiction.

I’m also about to start the fifth in the Tricia Fields Josie Gray series about a police chief in west Texas. 

[GHScorpiosRule]

I'm not interested in reading anything new or depressing or scary*. I want comfort reading. And as stated above, Nora Roberts' many skills is that she provides not only comfort reading, but scary, mystery, and emotional reads.

So I'm digging out my Silhouette MacKade Brothers because aside from his own story, Shane MacKade has the BEST lines that never fails to make me laugh. Not to mention Rafe in his own story. 

Then I'm gonna go re-re-re-read The MacGregors! I can always count on Daniel to make me laugh. Because I SORELY need that.

*In Deaths and Single Titles can be scary!

Edited October 6, 2020 by GHScorpiosRule

[Minneapple]

Just finished Naomi Novik's new one, A Deadly Education. It's the start of the Scholomance series and it's a really promising first book for the series. Like many books that are first in a series, it's a lot of worldbuilding and the actual plot takes awhile to get going. But the characters are great, the worldbuilding is intricate and it's a fun concept of a dark, scary magic school.

 

[Athena]

6 hours ago, Mindthinkr said:

I’m about to begin the first in the Cormoran Strike series The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith (aka J.K. Rowling). Has anyone read any of these? (The 5th in the series came out a short while ago). I do like a good crime/detective novel. 

I like them with a couple of caveats on some of the relationships, but the setting work is good. If you like London and British mysteries like I do. I've read all of them except the latest one. The novels have gotten too long winded and JKR needs a strong editor (and probably some sense).

[Snow Apple]

I started These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever. Right from the start, I got a Leopold and Loeb vibe from the two main characters. Then I read an article that they are one of the inspiration for the book.

I'm only a few chapters in but it's intriguing so far.

[scarynikki12]

1 hour ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

Then I'm gonna go re-re-re-read The MacGregors! I can always count on Daniel to make me laugh. Because I SORELY need that.

I hate that she never finished this series. We had Amelia, Adria, and Matthew left to go and then the grandchildren would be done. I assume there was a publisher related reason it stopped but need it finished! 

[GHScorpiosRule]

1 minute ago, scarynikki12 said:

I hate that she never finished this series. We had Amelia, Adria, and Matthew left to go and then the grandchildren would be done. I assume there was a publisher related reason it stopped but need it finished! 

You, me and everyone else who loved this series!

She stopped publishing for Silhouette right after The Perfect Neighbor, and since they had the rights to the characters, she couldn't finish them after she left. But yes, selfishly, I wish she had waited until she had! I especially wanted Amelia and Matthew, as we met them.

Anal-retentive me NEEDS wants to know who Amelia takes after! I picture her with Justin's hair and Serena's eyes. Or totally like Justin.

[scarynikki12]

7 minutes ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

Anal-retentive me NEEDS wants to know who Amelia takes after! I picture her with Justin's hair and Serena's eyes. Or totally like Justin.

I think she resembles Justin like Mac and Duncan. Nora made such a point about Gwen’s resemblance to Serena that I read between the lines and assumed Amelia doesn’t. Cybil’s brief mention of Adria described her as gorgeous so I assume she looks just like Gennie.

Maybe Silhouette will need some fast cash and sell her the rights so she can finish. 

[GHScorpiosRule]

6 minutes ago, scarynikki12 said:

Maybe Silhouette will need some fast cash and sell her the rights so she can finish. 

😂

[DearEvette]

Oh man, I had to tap out of one of the worst books.  I got to like 30% and said 'I am out.'

It is called The Protector by Elin Peer (it was a freebie audio-book).   It takes place in 2437 or something where there has been a huge shift in both geography and society.  There are no longer any countries and the world population has been decimated to about 1 billion. Women rule a weird utopian society where men are now considered more subserviant and the gender imbalance is extreme. Except for one special country where a group of super men called the N-men live. 

It is a romance novel but I couldn't even pay attention to the romance because the world building was so terrible.  I spent the entirety of what I was reading saying "but...but...but..." and "that not how that works..." and "why?"

I just couldn't take the simplistic world-build and the info-dumpy prose.

[OtterMommy]

Thanks to book club commitments, I've found myself with too many books going at once.  Every year, I resolve to avoid this and, every year, I find myself in this position at about this time of the year!

Anyway, I did finish The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra by Vaseem Khan yesterday.  It's a delightful little mystery--I would say that it is close to but not quite a cozy mystery.  I'm generally not a fan of cozies, but this one worked for me and I'll definitely be reading on in the series.

Now: What I have going on now:

Mexican Gothic (like everyone else): I've been holding this until it was closer to my book club date (which is later this month).  I just started it yesterday and was immediately sucked in.

I Felt A Funeral, In My Brain by Will Walton.  This is for my postal book club and it is definitely...different.  I'm reading it in small chunks.

Ayesha At Last by Uzma Jalaluddin.  This is a re-read for me and I'm listening to the audiobook before the discussion in another book club (I told you I was in book club overload).  It's a delightful retelling of Pride and Prejudice and I think I'm liking it even more the second time.

I Have Something to Tell You by Chasten Buttigieg.  This one isn't for a book club, but I started it (as an audiobook) before I got hit with the rest of the book club books.  I'm really enjoying it--it is a personal, not political, memoir and Buttigieg has a great, dry sense of humor.  Also, his childhood is the perfect set up for a sit com.

Middlemarch by George Eliot.  I'm reading this through Serial, so I should be done at some point in February.  This is a book that I have always wanted to read but, for some strange reason, was never assigned to read in school.  When my friend reminded me of Serial, I decided to use it to read this.  I'm only 7% in, but I'm already having some very strong reactions to the characters!

How Lovely the Ruins -This is a collection of poems and quotes "for hard times."  As lofty as that sounds, this is my toilet reading.

[blackwing]

1 hour ago, Athena said:

I like them with a couple of caveats on some of the relationships, but the setting work is good. If you like London and British mysteries like I do. I've read all of them except the latest one. The novels have gotten too long winded and JKR needs a strong editor (and probably some sense).

I think that was probably why I didn't feel like rushing into the next one... I remember thinking it was too long and too drawn out.  Sometimes I just want the book to end at around the seemingly magical number of 300 pages and this one kept going on.

[tres bien]

I'm currently reading Love and Other Consolation Prizes by Jamie Ford. It's his third book and it's not keeping my interest. I don't think I'm going to finish it. 

I really liked his first book Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet and his second book Songs of Willow Frost,  while not as good, I thought was a good story. 

Edited October 8, 2020 by tres bien

[BlackberryJam]

5 minutes ago, johnnyy said:

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (Robin Buss translation). It's the greatest revenge novel ever written, in my opinion

Interesting note, back in my college years, I took Prison Literature as a class. Part of the class was supposed to be doing a group read and exchanging letters with prisoners at the Maximum Security several counties over. The prof said he could only get the inmates to read The Count of Monte Cristo. Everything else he’d tried fell flat. Our letter exchange didn’t happen because there were prison riots that semester though. 

[Katy M]

22 hours ago, BlackberryJam said:

Interesting note, back in my college years, I took Prison Literature as a class. Part of the class was supposed to be doing a group read and exchanging letters with prisoners at the Maximum Security several counties over. The prof said he could only get the inmates to read The Count of Monte Cristo. Everything else he’d tried fell flat. Our letter exchange didn’t happen because there were prison riots that semester though. 

Did the book have to be a prison related book, or was the really the only book of any kind he could get them to read?  If I were in prison I'd want to read a book where everybody's outside all the time. Like The Princess Bride.  Or, Lonesome Dove. 

[BlackberryJam]

2 hours ago, Katy M said:

Did the book have to be a prison related book, or was the really the only book of any kind he could get them to read?  If I were in prison I'd want to read a book where everybody's outside all the time. Like The Princess Bride.  Or, Lonesome Dove. 

He'd been teaching the class for years, so I don't know everything he'd tried. However, he did let us read some of the correspondence from prior classes. The Princess Bride was absolutely not what they were looking for. These men were in for rape and murder and were very, very angry. 

[sugarbaker design]

On 10/4/2020 at 3:24 PM, dubbel zout said:

I'm reading The Widows of Malabar Hill, by Sujata Massey. It's the first in a mystery series set in 1920s Bombay, with a woman lawyer as protagonist. I'm really enjoying it so far—it's a world I know very little about—but it suffers from putting in a bit too much detail and history. That's something a lot of authors who've done a lot of research do: They dig up so much interesting stuff that they can't not cram it in somewhere. I understand the impetus, but it does bog things down a bit, IMO. Of course, YMMV. I know many readers can't get enough details.

 

On 10/4/2020 at 4:51 PM, dubbel zout said:

The second book is The Satapur Moonstone, and her latest in the series, The Bombay Prince, comes out in June 2021.

I loved the breadth and heft of The Widows of Malabar Hill, it made it so much more memorable.  The Satapur Moonstone was a satisfactory second, I'm looking forward to reading The Bombay Prince.  I've loved Sujata Massey's work since her Rei Shimura days.

 

On 10/6/2020 at 7:58 AM, Mindthinkr said:

I’m about to begin the first in the Cormoran Strike series The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith (aka J.K. Rowling). Has anyone read any of these? (The 5th in the series came out a short while ago). I do like a good crime/detective novel. 

The first one was good, the second one The Silkworm was quite good.  Career of Evil was so-so.  I picked up the fourth at the library, it was over 700 pages, I thought to myself, girlfriend needs an editor stat and put it back down.  This was before the more recent controversies.

 

On 10/6/2020 at 4:43 PM, OtterMommy said:

Middlemarch by George Eliot.  I'm reading this through Serial, so I should be done at some point in February.

You won't be sorry, it's my all-time favorite novel (Anna Karenina a close second).  I keep a tattered paperback version on my nightstand.  Whenever I'm in a reading rut I pick it up to be reminded what awesome writing is.

[Browncoat]

I just finished the sequel to "One Of Us Is Lying" ("One Of Us Is Next"), and am about to start Carl Hiaasen's newest -- "Squeeze Me".  I picked it up from the library this afternoon.

I really liked "One Of Us Is Next" -- it wasn't as obvious as the first one.  With the first one, I figured it out right from the start, but it was fun finding out how.  With the sequel, it was much harder (I thought) to figure out who was really involved in all the goings on.

I've been a Carl HIaasen fan since I read "Tourist Season" back in the late 80s, so I'm looking forward to diving in.

 

[theatremouse]

On 10/9/2020 at 3:49 PM, Browncoat said:

I really liked "One Of Us Is Next" -- it wasn't as obvious as the first one.  With the first one, I figured it out right from the start, but it was fun finding out how.  With the sequel, it was much harder (I thought) to figure out who was really involved in all the goings on.

That's interesting because I had the opposite experience - with regard to the "figuring it out" bit.

[Spartan Girl]

Finally got The Beauty of Your Face by Sahar Mustafah from my library, and it was well worth the wait.

[GaT]

I'm reading Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith (J. K. Rowling), & I'm about 300 pages into this 944 page book. The story is good, but I've seen reviews that say there is too much astrology (there is), and I think there is too much "Strike doesn't know how to buy a present" and both Strike & Robin not knowing what the other one is thinking. There is a lot of stuff that could have been cut out of this never ending book.

[Luckylyn]

I started The Jackal by JR Ward today.  Overall I enjoy the Black Dagger Brotherhood Universe a lot.   I hope I like this one too.  Some books in the series are more engaging for me than others.
 

Regarding the ending of Mexican Gothic , 

Spoiler

Did anyone else think Francis better get a vasectomy and just let the Doyle bloodline die out?   He could adopt.  

 

[Darian]

I just read 368 page Dear Child by Romy Hausmann in one sitting. Could not put it down. It's dark, and a big swing from the last book I read before it, Musical Chairs by Amy Poeppel, which is a romp. It's hard third book and I always enjoy the wit and humor in her books. Will be starting Grand Union, Zadie's Smith's 2019 collection of short stories.  For some strange reason, I haven't been in the mood for short stories, which I normally love, but I'm looking forward to it. 

[dubbel zout]

I finished The Satapur Moonstone and again, thought there was too much extraneous detail. I don't think the story was quite as well plotted as The Widows of Malabar Hill—most of the major action happened in the last 50 pages or so and felt a bit rushed. And the conceit to get Perveen the case was the same as in the first book—women in purdah. I hope Sujata Massey varies that in later books.

I did like the possible love interest and the potential cultural/societal/class issues that can be raised by him. That's the sort of thing I want to read about.

[OtterMommy]

I finished Mexican Gothic and it was a solid 4 star read for me.  It was a fun and a page turner, but it was also something you can't think too much about.  I can't say that bothered me (I do watch Evil, after all...).  I did have some trouble with the ending.

Spoiler

I felt Francis living and the supposed happily ever after was a cop out that betrayed the story.  I never really bought the Noemi/Francis attraction and I felt like the story would have been more powerful if Francis had died.

I started Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman today.  I haven't read Practical Magic, nor the other prequel, but my guess is that I will end up reading the books in chronological order.  

[Browncoat]

18 hours ago, Darian said:

Musical Chairs by Amy Poeppel,

I liked that one, too.  It was a fun read, though for no apparent reason I kept picturing Bridget's house as a lot smaller than it clearly was.

[Luckylyn]

17 hours ago, OtterMommy said:

I finished Mexican Gothic and it was a solid 4 star read for me.  It was a fun and a page turner, but it was also something you can't think too much about.  I can't say that bothered me (I do watch Evil, after all...).  I did have some trouble with the ending.

  Hide contents

I felt Francis living and the supposed happily ever after was a cop out that betrayed the story.  I never really bought the Noemi/Francis attraction and I felt like the story would have been more powerful if Francis had died.

I started Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman today.  I haven't read Practical Magic, nor the other prequel, but my guess is that I will end up reading the books in chronological order.  

Spoiler

I bought the initial attraction but I didn’t buy a love story.   Francis living does make the ending less powerful than it could have been.  Still it was a compelling read and I would definitely read the author again.

 

[Minneapple]

On 10/13/2020 at 2:12 PM, Spartan Girl said:

Finally got The Beauty of Your Face by Sahar Mustafah from my library, and it was well worth the wait.

I have this on my list. Glad to hear it's worth the wait.

[sugarbaker design]

Because it's nearly Halloween I picked up Sarah Waters' The Little Stranger at the library. I enjoyed Fingersmith and The Paying Guests, Waters wields a mighty pen.

[GaT]

Finally passed the halfway mark in Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith. I'm starting to really dislike these characters. Still have a ton of book to read.

[Mindthinkr]

4 hours ago, GaT said:

Finally passed the halfway mark in Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith. I'm starting to really dislike these characters. Still have a ton of book to read.

That must be the fifth book. I’m getting ready to start Career of Evil by the same author. I’m disappointed to hear that you are starting to dislike these characters. It’s going to make those long books seem even longer. 

[GaT]

6 hours ago, Mindthinkr said:

That must be the fifth book. I’m getting ready to start Career of Evil by the same author. I’m disappointed to hear that you are starting to dislike these characters. It’s going to make those long books seem even longer. 

Yes it does. There are just too many plots & too much internal thinking. The basic mystery is interesting, she could have had a great book if someone had just reigned her in.

[Athena]

1 hour ago, GaT said:

Yes it does. There are just too many plots & too much internal thinking. The basic mystery is interesting, she could have had a great book if someone had just reigned her in.

Thank you for justifying me not picking this up. I'll keep up with the TV series adaptation as it seems to be trying to cut some stuff out of the books.

[GaT]

6 minutes ago, Athena said:

Thank you for justifying me not picking this up. 

Picking it up is hard at 944 pages, I have trouble holding it to read LOL