Sunday Salon: Memoirs and Cozies

First in a new mystery series:

Poppy Redfern and the Midnight Murders by

Tessa Arlen, November 5, 2019, Berkley.

Genre: WWII historical mystery series, with Air Raid Warden and sleuth Poppy Redfern.

Location: Remote English village, 1942

Four cozy mysteries:

Mumbo Gumbo Murder: A New Orleans Scrapbooking Mystery

by Laura Childs, October 1, 2019, Berkley Books

Carmela and Ava solve a murder during Jazz Fest in New Orleans

The Chocolate Shark Shenanigans by JoAnna Carl,

November 5, 2019, Berkley Books. 

House flipping turns deadly in this Chocoholic Mystery.

City of Scoundrels by Victoria Thompson

November 5, 2019, Berkley

Historical mystery set during the Great War.

A psychological thriller:

The Nanny by Gilly Macmillan, September 10, 2019, William Morrow

A seven-year-old grows up wondering why her nanny left without a trace, and why. 

Current library books:

The Ungrateful Refugee

This Is How I Save My Life by Amy B. Scher, April 10, 2018, Gallery Books

Genre: memoir of a woman who travels from California to India in search of a life saving medical procedure to cure her Lyme disease.

What have you been reading this month?

Memes: 

The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Mailbox Monday and the Sunday Salon

Sunday Salon: The End of Summer

Still reading:

My Coney Island Baby by Jonathan Cape, published January 17th, 2019 

The Translation of Love by Lynne Kutsukake, a Canadian author, April 2016, Doubleday

There are no new books on my desk but quite a few ebooks on my Kindle, thanks to Kindle Unlimited and First Reads. 

Other stuff:

It's very cool tonight but warm tomorrow. We have had a roller coaster of temperatures this summer and fall and never know what to expect from week to week. I have hibiscus blooming in the yard for the second time this year, while all the other flowers have died off, including the sedum above. 

I have been enjoying ice cream mochi from Whole Foods. Sweet rice dough made into balls filled with ice cream. I love the vanilla and the green tea ice cream fillings.

Memes: 

The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, and the Sunday Salon

It's Monday: Books of Love and Loss

Books I'm reading this week:

My Coney Island Baby, Published January 17th 2019 by Jonathan Cape

I am finally getting into this novel about two married lovers who, for years, have been meeting once a month at Coney Island for an overnight assignation. Real life back home happens and they are dealing in the first chapters with the serious illness of the man's wife at home. The book is basically character-driven, though I am interested in the outcome of this unusual love situation.

The Translation of Love by Lynne Kutsukake, a Canadian author, April, 2016, Doubleday

Here is story of family love, and love and loss of home and country.  Fumi is searching for her older sister in post-war Japan, during the MacArthur era and the American occupation in Japan, and her unlikely helper is a displaced Japanese-Canadian who is in Japan with her father, a Canadian sent back to Japan after the war, rather than be sent to unknown parts of Canada away from the west coast that had been their home.  

I am eager to see how this story unfolds.

Memes: The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, and the Sunday Salon, Mailbox Monday

Sunday Salon: Poems and Two Cozies

New books on the shelves:

Almost Home: Poems by Madison Kuhn

October 1, 2019; Gallery Books

Illustrations and poems of "home"

A Killer Carol by Laura Bradford, September 24, 2019; Berkley

Gift shop owner Claire tries to solve the murder of an elderly Amish couple in Pennsylvania.

 A Night's Tail by Sofie Kelly, September 3, 2019; Berkley

Librarian Kathleen and her two cats try to catch the killer of a visiting businessman in town.

Currently reading:

I was reading too many books to finish even one last week. Going from book to book, print to ebook and back, means that a book doesn't get read all the way through. Not a good habit, I am finding out.

I finished The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion for our book club early next month, but that's about it. 

How about you? Do you find yourself doing this too?

Memes: 

The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, and the Sunday Salon,  Mailbox Monday.

The Bodies in the Library by Marty Wingate: Book Beginning

The Bodies in the Library by Marty Wingate, October 2019, Berkley/Penguin Random House

Book beginning:

"I'll be leaving now, Ms. Burke."

I leapt up from the desk at this announcement -  knocking the phone on the floor in the process - and hurried out of my office.

"Yes, Mrs. Woolgar," I said, tugging on my jacket. "Have a lovely evening."

Page 56:

"Yes, that's right. I saw her late one afternoon -- running."

Memes: The Friday 56. Grab a book, turn to page 56 or 56% of your eReader. Find any sentence that grabs you. Post it, and add your URL post in Linky at Freda's Voice. Also visit Book Beginning at Rose City Reader

Sunday Salon: Autumn Line-Up of Books

Word to the Wise (Library Lover's Mystery, #10)

Word to the Wise (Library Lover's Mystery, #10) by Jenn McKinlay, September 3, 2019, Berkley

In this Library Lover's Mystery, librarian Lindsey must clear her fiancee Sully from suspicions of murdering an unwelcome suitor.

Mrs. Jeffries and the Alms of the Angel (Mrs. Jeffries #38)

Mrs. Jeffries and the Alms of the Angel (Mrs. Jeffries #38), September 24, 2019, Berkley

In this Victorian mystery series, Mrs. Jeffries investigates the death of a wealthy widow. 

Elevator Pitch

Elevator Pitch by Linwood Barclay,  September 17, 2019, Willliam Morrow

In this suspenseful thriller, two detectives and a reporter must discover why elevators across New York City are plunging with their victims to the bottom of the shafts, terrorizing the city. 

Those are the new books on my shelves. How about yours?

In the middle of reading:

Gun Island  by Amitev Ghosh
The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion, our book club selection
Singapore Sapphire by A.M. Stuart is the first Harriet Gordon Mystery

I bought the ebooks:

On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo

Memes: 

The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also,  It's Monday: What Are You Reading, and the Sunday Salon,  Mailbox Monday.

Review: The Dragonfly Sea by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor

The Dragonfly Sea

The Dragonfly Sea by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, March 12, 2019, Knopf Publishing Group

Book beginning:

To cross the vast ocean to their south, water-chasing dragonflies with forbears in Northern India had hitched a ride on a sedate "inbetween seasons" morning wind, one of the season's introits, the matlai. One day in 1992, four generations later, under dark-purplish-blue clouds, these fleeting beings settled on the mangrove-fringed southwest cove of a little girl's island.... 

And so we are introduced to that little girl, Ayaana, whose life on the Kenyan island of Pate is described in the first sections of the novel. It's a life full of her love for the sea, her rescued little white kitten, and the man she adopts as her father who teaches her at home because of bullying and bias in her island school,

The next sections of the book sees an older Ayaana in China, which has claimed her as a Descendant, one with Chinese ancestry, and sent her to study in a college, a way to help cement her and Kenya's ties to China.

Aayana struggles with all the changes in her life, the new faces, languages, places, while searching to find out who she really is, who she truly loves, and where she truly belongs.

Written in a poetic style, with multiple plays on language and imagery and symbols, The Dragonfly Sea is a literary novel about a girl's universal search for meaning and belonging in a complex and diverse world. I gave it an enthusiastic five stars.

Location: 56 %

Ayaana walked as one condemned. She ached for a return to life aboard the ship.
Ni shi shei? the sea still called out to her. Who are you? She ignored it. 

Memes: The Friday 56. Grab a book, turn to page 56 or 56% of your eReader. Find any sentence that grabs you. Post it, and add your URL post in Linky at Freda's Voice. Also visit Book Beginning at Rose City Reader