Sunday Salon: Armchair Travel

Finished a few books in the past ten days, more than I've been reading lately. Here are my brief reviews and comments.

White Out by Danielle Girard, August 1, 2020, Thomas Mercer
Genre: thriller, suspense
Setting: North Dakota
Source: Kindle Unlimited

Lily Baker wakes up in a car overhanging an overpass, the injured driver unconscious behind the wheel after the accident. She slowly extricates herself while trying to save the driver, whom she doesn't recognize. Lily is suffering from amnesia from the accident, and discovers, step by step, her painful past experiences and who she can and cannot trust. 
An entertaining thriller, very good at the beginning but burdensome and heavy at the ending. Still worth reading.

The Other Side of the Door by Nicci French, William Morrow Paperback,
2021
Genre: suspense, psychological thriller
Setting: London
Source: NetGalley

My Goodreads review:

Love, obsession, murder, friendship. These are themes in Nicci French's psychological novel. Bonnie has promised her friend to perform at her wedding and has gotten together a motley group of friends to form a small band just for the event. The interaction among these people lead to unforeseen consequences that tests love and friendship. A compelling read with suspense and an unexpected ending.

Love, obsession, murder, friendship. These are themes in Nicci French's psychological novel. Bonnie has promised her friend to perform at her wedding and has gotten together a motley group of friends to form a small band just for the event. The interaction among these people lead to unforeseen consequences that tests love and friendship.

A compelling read with suspense and an unexpected ending.

The Nesting by C.J. Cooke, September 29, 2020, Kindle edition
Genre: Scandinavian thriller, suspense, modern Gothic
Setting: Norway
Source: NetGalley

Set in Norway, the novel uses Norwegian legends, beliefs, and folk tales as an integral part of the plot.

 Lexi Ellis, down on her luck and needing a job, pretends to be someone else to get a dream job of nanny to two small girls in the forests of Norway. She becomes involved in the local beliefs of spirits and ghosts and the mystery of the death of her employer's former wife. Good armchair travel and an entertaining plot. 

Tahoe Hit by Todd Borg, Kindle edition
Genre: thriller
Setting: Lake Tahoe, Nevada, California
Source: Kindle Unlimited

The son of a rich financier with a home in Lake Tahoe hires Tahoe private investigator Owen McKenna to investigate and find his son. Time is of the essence, as McKenna and his sidekick, a Great Dane named Spot, try to unravel a Shakespearean plot that involves a family drama resembling the  tragic story of Hamlet. 

 Clever use of setting and literature to craft a mystery thriller well worth reading.

Currently reading:

Hard Rain by Irma Ventner, romantic mystery set in Tanzania, with a journalist and a photographer with a mysterious past. 

What are you reading this week?

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

Sunday Salon: Paris Is Always a Good Idea by Jenn McKinlay

I have never appreciated books so much as this year, a difficult year on so many counts. I've finished re-reading 

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

for our book club next week, and I got so much more from reading the novel the second time around. I'm looking forward to our discussion as there are so many topics to cover from this one book.

Themes include dealing with forced isolation or self-isolation. "Mastering your circumstances" instead of having them master you. I thought that's appropriate for these days, though the book was written several years ago.

===================

A less serious novel caught my attention. Paris is always a good idea, I'd agree! This is one of my current reads. 

 Paris Is Always a Good Idea by Jenn McKinlay

Published July 21, 2020, Berkley

Genre; romance, contemporary fiction

What are you reading this week?

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

Sunday Salon: A Theory of Everything Else: Essays by Laura Pedersen

Re-reading

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

March 26, 2019, Penguin

This, for a book club meeting early August. A reader on FB admitted to reading the novel four times!  I might go for three, but I doubt four times!

Books to be finished

I have too many of these. I must be having attention deficit when it comes to reading, as I'm tempted by new Netgalley and Kindle Unlimited books very quickly. And I'm not always in the mood for a specific genre. How about you?

In the mail 

A Theory of Everything Else: Essays by Laura Pedersen

She Writes Press (September 1, 2020)

In A Theory of Everything Else, Pedersen vividly demonstrates how life can appear to grind us down while it’s actually polishing us up―and why everyone wants to live a long time but no one wants to grow old. (publisher)

What are you reading this week?

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

Sunday Salon: Amor Towles and Dee Ernst

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

March 26, 2019, Penguin
I'm re-reading this for a book club discussion next month. I am getting all the details I missed or forgot, which makes the novel even more interesting. On facebook, a reader confessed to reading A Gentleman in Moscow four times! She said the writing was exquisite. I agree.
Think about practicalities, and master any difficulties so they don't master you. Great advice from a man confined to one location because of politics, and relevant to us in the days of coronavirus. 

Maggie Finds Her Muse by Dee Ernst, April 20, 2021, St. Martin's Griffin  Genre: romance, contemporary fiction Source: Netgalley 

I loved this book, the surprise of where Maggie takes us when she needs to find her muse in order to finish writing the final book in her romantic trilogy. Her ex, Alan, is interested in getting back together, and their daughter Nicole is all for it. But Maggie finds her muse in an unexpected and different way.

I won't tell where all this takes place, but it involves lots of wine, cheese, bread, pastries, and fresh fruit. The setting makes the book even more romantic. 

Rules of Civility

Next on my reading list will be Amor Towles' first novel, Rules of Civility.  If the writing is like his second book, A Gentleman in Moscow, it will be worth reading. 

What are you reading this week?

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

Sunday Salon: Weeks of Very Hot Weather Produce Flowers

Getting ready for more hot weather: It's been high 80s into the 90s the past 10 days or so and seems this will continue another week, with temps going up to 100 degrees midweek. Thank heavens for our central air, which we put in last year. 

The garden is going great, however, due to the rain in spring.  

A galley from Netgalley:

Moonflower Murders by Anthony Horowitz

Nov. 10, 2020 publication by HarperCollins

Description: a brilliantly complex literary thriller, the follow-up to Magpie Murders.
Susan Ryeland is asked to return to England from her home in Crete to solve the murder of a man whose death was solved in a book she edited and published some years ago. 

Book club selection for August:

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

March 26, 2019, Penguin

Description: In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery. 

What are you reading this week?

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

It's Monday: Contemporary Fiction

I have gone back to a monthly subscription for ebooks, Kindle Unlimited, a wide selection of books that suit my reading tastes just fine. I've found books I would not normally have chosen to read, ones outside of my usual genres.

Just finished a contemporary fiction/romance, Sorry I Missed You by Suzy Krause,  recently published. Enjoyed it. 

Sorry I Missed You 

Next, I'll be reading Krause's first book, Valencia and Valentine, published June 2019.

Valencia and Valentine

This one is about a 35-year-old Valencia who's afraid of flying, and Mrs. Valentine, a lonely, elderly woman desperate for company.  I'm interested to see how their stories intersect. 

For more serious subject matter, I'm reading historical fiction, 

The Library of Legends by Janie Chang, set in China 1937

The Night Tiger by Yangtze Choo, set in 1930s Malaysia

What are you reading this week?

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

Sunday Salon: Lantern Men and Three Souls

Weather

The humidity at 4 a.m. this morning was 94 degrees outside. My bad knee complained and woke me up! I haven't been back to sleep, trying this and that to calm my agitated knee and have just applied a rub that heats up the muscles.

Books

I am now reading Elly Griffith's latest in the Ruth Galloway, forensic archaeologist, series set in Norfolk and Cambridge, U.K. It's excellent reading for mystery lovers.

The Lantern Men, June 16, 2020

I'm also reading Three Souls, a novel set in the Shanghai of 1935 during the war with Japan, as told by a woman who has just died and remains a ghost with a mission to be completed before she can enter the afterlife.  

 Three Souls by Janie Chang , August 2013

All my current reads are e-books, since the libraries have not yet fully reopened. I am also now into audiobooks! 

What are you reading this week?

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