Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Book Reviews

Summer is flying by, it seems.  I have a "to-do" list that I am working on but it is a slow go.  I haven't been reading as much either because most of my reading was done on my commute to my daughter's house and now, since I am at home, other demands have taken over. 

I have, however, read three books that I haven't reviewed yet.  They are all part of my reading queue so no real surprises here but they were enjoyable.


I have to say that I was not thrilled with this Agatha Raisin book.  I don't know why, perhaps the location or perhaps the repetition -- lots of driving all over the place.  However, I didn't dislike it enough to give up on the series and will be continuing with the next in the queue as soon as I finish my current book.


I enjoyed this book by Jennifer Chiaverini -- the next in my line of  the Elm Creek Quilts series.  Perhaps I should have read it closer to Christmas but it was a nice spring/summer read too.  I love the way Chiaverini uses the setting of Elm Creek Manor for all her books whether they are current or historical -- the manor is the main character in the book, actually.  It is interesting to see how she weaves the history of the place in all the books regardless of the time period.


This book was a bit different than her others as it gives a back history of some of the Elm Creek quilters -- new characters to the books and it shows their lives prior to their involvement in the Manor and how they came to the Manor.  It centers around one day -- an interview day for prospective employees and it goes into their tales of how they got to that interview and what happens after.  It is very cleverly written and I enjoyed seeing it unfold.

I would recommend any of these books -- just because I didn't enjoy the Agatha Raisin book doesn't mean you won't.  I am looking forward to the next one after my current read.

My current read is "The Winter People" by Jennifer McMahon.  It is a diversion from my usual style of reading -- it is a ghost story with a mystery involved.  I am enjoying it although I have to say it is disturbing.  I am half done with it and am getting to the point that I can't put it down but I don't know if I will gravitate toward this particular genre again any time soon.  It isn't frightening, just disturbing but I am sure there will be some clever twists as I go along.  I will review when I am done.

So, there you go.  That is where my reading obsession has taken me the last couple of months.  I went to the library for myself for the first time in forever and I have to say I enjoyed it. They were holding my current read for me so I went to pick it up and I, for a moment, felt that same feeling I used to have as a child in the library with a much sought after book.  Different library and I am much older but the thrill was still there.  I am going to have to make a point of going to the library more often but first I am going to have to read down my own library a bit and that is where my next couple of books will be coming from. 

Update

 Ok, so we visited our cardiologist yesterday to get the lay of the land for the Hubs.  Seems there is an issue with one of the grafts from ...