There has been much reading going on around here. I read one book the same day I got the news about grandma and essentially read two on the trip and one since I returned home. There were also a few in there before the news came in too. Right now, my bed and a book are still feeling like my best company.
Last weekend (as in roughly 10 days ago) I finished up the third Diane Mott Davidson novel, The Cereal Murders. In case you’re new around here, this is one of my more recent fluff series I have started to read. I love reading books set in areas that I know quite well and I’m a sucker for mysteries and then add in good food and I’m suck in. Davidson’s culinary murder mystery series features a former easterner who now lives just west of Denver, Colorado, is semi-recently divorced from an abusive doctor of the small town. She has a pre-teen son who has his problems and often has other characters living in her home at any given time. Goldy became a caterer following her divorce and now cooks for most of the events in her small town. Each book features 7-12 recipes interspersed in the pages.
The Cereal Murders was a typical DMD book. It keeps you turning the pages but doesn’t necessarily keep you up at night until you finish reading it. This was the first of the series where there were some recipes I wanted to make. Unfortunately, I forgot to copy them down before I returned it to the library, LOL! One drawback to this series is that if you check the books out from the library they are spilled and splattered and the bindings broken. But it does give you a clue as to which recipes must me good, LOL! There was a slight cliff-hanger at the end of this one that was kind of nice too. At least good for me since I’m no where near caught up with the author yet.
Orchid Beach by Stuart Woods was up next and read in less than two days. This book had been recommended to me by my mom. She was just ecstatic to hear about Iron Orchid and that it had been recorded for NLS so I knew this series must be great. Mom and I generally agree pretty well on books, especially mysteries and romances. This is the first of four books so far featuring an ex-MP, Holly Barker, now serving as chief of a small PD in Florida. This book is the story of how Barker ends up in Florida and fights for her rightful position in the PD. It is full of mystery and suspense and was a real page turner for me. In fact, I can’t wait to read the next one in the series, but I’m pacing myself. Or trying anyway, the book is sitting in my stack of library books to read :-)
Saturday and through the night I read the next William Kent Krueger novel, Blood Hollow. I still think that WKK is improving with each novel. I found this to be a real page turner. So much so that when I got the call from my mom about grandma at about 1am I finished the 70 pages I had left. I need to start slowing my pace on this series though as there are only a few more books left in the series. Another is being released next week I believe, but there will likely be a long line of holds to get to read it too quickly after its release. As much as I enjoy these books I don’t see much reason to own mysteries because they just aren’t the same on the second reading and I don’t think DH has much of any interest in reading these.
I dislike traveling with library books. Call me paranoid. I’ve never lost a book while traveling but I’m always afraid I’ll loose a library book. So, last Sunday just before I left for Minnesota DH and I headed to B&N and I bought Summer’s Child by Luanne Rice to take with me. If you are unfamiliar with Rice, her stories are what Lifetime movies are made of. Heartwrenching, tear jerking, spirit lifting stories of often single mother’s and thier troubled children. I was turned onto Rice by my sister who has always been a lover of tragedies. In fact, several of her books have been made into made-for-TV movies. If you like Debbie Macomber I suspect you would also enjoy Luanne Rice. There is always some monumental obstacle that is also tempered by some tame romance.
Summer’s Child was no different. Though I did find myself wanting to hit the mom upside the head and force her to open her eyes to the man who has been helping her and her daughter for the past NINE years. Rice doesn’t often have a “series” though characters often appear in multiple novels as support characters. However, this one does have a follow-up that I’m looking forward to - Summer of Roses. When I had finished the first one I raided my sister’s bookshelf and brought back another Rice novel, this one Summer Light. I need to bring it back with me in September because she wasn’t sure if it was her’s or Anna’s book, but I finished it this Saturday. It was more or less the same sort of story, though this time a single mother and her gifted daughter melt the heart of a hardened professional hockey player.
Yesterday I finished the fourth Diane Mott Davidson culinary mystery book featuring Goldy, The Last Suppers. It opened with a twist that I should have been expecting, but wasn’t quite ready to admit would happen after the previous book. I chose this one on Sunday because I had a hold on A Good Yarn by Debbie Macomber that had come in while I was gone and knew there would be other holds on the book so I wanted to read it as soon as I picked it up from the library and I new these DMD books are real quick fluff reads for me. This one though had me reluctantly putting it down once I hit that half way point and that is the first that has really happened for me with her books. It has me a bit more excited to read the next one in hopes that it improves as well. Once again there are a few recipes in here I’m intriqued with. But I hope to remember to copy down the recipes first :-)
So, up next is of course the book that has holds on it - A Good Yarn. This is the knitting-centric story of female friendships and is a follow-up to A Shop on Blossom Street. Then it’ll be a tough call between an early Tami Hoag and the next in the Stuart Woods Holly Barker series…
While I was gone a lovely package from 
