What Fiction are you reading this week, August 21, 2022?

[hermetic]

Thanks for all your good wishes. I am much better but still so tired all the time. From what I've read I guess it takes about 2 weeks to run its course so I guess I have a few days left to go. I do hope you all are staying well. Even though cases are now mostly "mild", it still sucks big time.

I am reading Stone Cribs by Kris Nelscott, a pen name for Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Rusch has over 400 titles to her many names including stories for Star Trek and Deep Space Nine. Stone Cribs is the 4th in the Smokey Dalton mystery/detective series which takes place back in the '60s and '70's in Memphis and Chicago. Lots of history, most of it unpleasant.

Listening to The Secret, Book & Scone Society by Ellery Adams. "The first in an intriguing new series set within a quirky small-town club where the key to happiness, friendship -- or solving a murder -- can all be found within the pages of the right book..." Good stuff.

What books will you be curling up with this week?

[SheltieLover]

1. So glad you are feeling better!

Just finished Fern Michael's "Sweet Vengeance," a stellar read, although some graphic details I usually avoid.

Now reading her "Follow Your Heart," a seemingly good read as well. Just started it.

I thoroughly enjoyed the Secret, Book, & Scone series.

Enjoy!

Ty for the thread.

[hermetic]

6. Thanks!

Keep up the good reading.

[SheltieLover]

16. Yw. How are kittens?

[hermetic]

18. Cute as ever

Just learning to walk. I should have some sweet photos in another week or so.

[SheltieLover]

23. Awwwww

I'll bet they are adorable! Looking forward to pix!

Are you planning to keep them or are you fostering?

[hermetic]

26. Just fostering

I already have 12 so I think I have reached my limit. Unless I can find a much bigger house....

[SheltieLover]

28. Cat Lady

I only have 1. Would havd more, but my senior rescue girl has been with me for 12 years & she absolutely wants go be the 1 & only. 😏

Enjoy your babies!

[yellowdogintexas]

15. Sisterhood book 5? I do so love the just desserts the Sisterhood dishes out

Yes, they can be quite graphic but you can't deny the inventiveness of these women when they are dispensing justice.

[SheltieLover]

17. Not Sisterhood. I thought it would be in that series by the title, but it isn't.

Great read though.

I agree. I love the justice they deliver.

[SheltieLover]

25. Sweet Revengd is #5.

I've not inhaled it yet, but you know I will.

[Ford_Prefect]

2. Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett.

There are days when I feel as if we're living in one of his Discworld novels where idiomatic logic has taken over from fact and meaning.

[hermetic]

4. Terry was the best

I never get tired of reading his stories. At least they are laughable, unlike the wildly dystopian events unfolding every day IRL.

[yellowdogintexas]

14. we have all of the Discworld books & I have only read about half of them

Mr YellowDog has read them all and a few of them twice.

I also feel like we are living in Discworld, or at least one of its sections.

Maybe I'll read a couple of them before I head back to New Orleans Paranormal

[unc70]

3. Several with really young and really old detectives

I generally alternate books from two or three series at a time and try to read them in order. One series now features an 11 year old; another, two elderly codgers. Flavia de Luce series by Alan Bradly. Bryant & May series by Christopher Fowler. Lots of obscure information in each.

[hermetic]

5. There's some authors

for people to check out. Fowler has written a bunch of books, going back into the 1980s: police, mysteries, thrillers, horror. Thanks.

[Chalco]

7. Everything Donal Ryan has written

I've become obsessed with Donal Ryan. I was in the middle of his
book Strange Flowers and said to myself "I'm glad I'm alive and
can read Donal Ryan." I love the way he writes. Irish writer.

I wish I could find my inner Irish writer. (I'm half Irish.)

[hermetic]

9. Sounds lovely

The WSJ says: “Mr. Ryan writes conspicuously beautiful prose… The fleeting happiness and abiding melancholy of the asymmetry, heightened by the intimately rendered surroundings, brings out Mr. Ryan’s most sensuous and emotive writing.”

[yellowdogintexas]

8. Currently immersed in a New Orleans paranormal mystery series

Currently there are 10 books in the series

Book # 1 Big Easy by Eric Wilder
In the most haunted city on earth, the police can’t afford to disregard the supernatural. When N.O.P.D. Homicide detective Tony Nicosia realizes voodoo is involved in a spate of panhandler murders, he turns to someone he knows who can help him—Wyatt Thomas, the French Quarter’s favorite private investigator. Voodoo mambo Mama Mulate, Wyatt’s partner, is also a Tulane University English professor. Together, they form the most potent paranormal partnership in the Big Easy. If you have problems involving magic, voodoo, ghosts, witches, werewolves, shifters, the occult, or the supernatural, Wyatt and Mama are adept at paranormal investigation and the ones to call.

Big Easy is the fun, sexy, and gripping first novel in the popular ten-book standalone French Quarter Mystery Series with plenty of humor, romance, action, and adventure. Join Wyatt and Mama when they visit smoky Bourbon Street bars, dark French Quarter alleyways, and haunted New Orleans cemeteries. Big Easy is the winner of he 2022 Best Book We've Read All Year award from book site Readfree.ly

I accidentally started this series in the middle, which I normally would not do. However they are stand alone stories. Wilder has created a colorful cast of characters and captured the unique atmosphere of New Orleans.

Last night I started Late Edition book #3 in The Godmothers by Fern Michaels. I love these sassy ladies!
After a week of New Orleans paranormal & murders I needed something light and funny. I'll probably go back to Wyatt Thomas later this week.

[hermetic]

11. Those sound great

I enjoy a bit of the paranormal.

[SheltieLover]

19. Sounds great!

Ty for sharing!

Off to see if library has ebook!

[SheltieLover]

21. Library doesn't have any of Eric Wilder's books.

😏

Ty for sharing though.

[yellowdogintexas]

27. These books are lendable on Kindle.

I can lend you one if you like.

[SheltieLover]

29. I don't have a Kindle but ty for your kind offer.

I have another library I can check. Maybe they will have it.

[yellowdogintexas]

30. The Kindle app is free and you can put it on your computer, tablet or phone

I have it on my laptop.

If you set yourself up to read Kindle books, I can lend to you.
I will need your email which you can message to me

[Ponietz]

10. Some time ago you mentioned The Winter King

Last 2 were Ines of My Soul by Isabel Allende, another good yarn, this one historical fiction about XVIth century Chile.

Also, Peach Blossom paradise by Ge Fei, who heroizes a Ching era girl’s enmeshment in a fledgling revolutionary secret society and her ensuing destruction.

[hermetic]

13. That sounds pretty intense

"A meditation on revolution, idealism, and utopia by one of China's greatest living novelists. Ge Fei's prize-winning novel intertwines myths of earthly perfection with a historical tale of revolution and hypocrisy, in which human agency must either be bartered for, or taken by force."

[Ponietz]

33. Not sure I'd describe it that way

Your excerpt was the reason I read it. The elements are there but it was unconvincing.

[yellowdogintexas]

12. Stone Cribs was really good! Glad you liked it.

I definitely want to go back to this series; Smokey Dalton is such an interesting character! This book hints at a very intriguing backstory.

The story harkens back to pre-Roe America but is about much more than abortion during that time. Chicago in the late 1960s includes the 1968 Democratic convention, the RFK and MLK assassinations, riots, life in the projects, gangs

[SheltieLover]

20. I inhaled Night School after you posted about it last week.

Exceptional read!

Ty for sharing!

[hermetic]

22. Yeah, I really enjoyed that one

Glad you liked it.

[SheltieLover]

24. It's a can't put it down book!

Need more like this.

I thought I'd read all the Reacher books, so it was a very pleasant surprise.

[yellowdogintexas]

31. a couple of books that I read while traveling

The Nazi's Engineer by J Robert Kennedy

ONE OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR'S MOST ENDURING MYSTERIES IS ABOUT TO BE SOLVED.
BUT AT WHAT COST?

Nazi Germany. 1945. When Detective Inspector Wolfgang Vogel is approached by his distraught neighbor, begging him to find her missing husband, he is quickly drawn into a case the Gestapo and SS are determined he never solve, putting his own life, and that of his family, at risk.

And over 70 years later, Archaeology Professor James Acton and his wife discover the horrifying reason behind what turns out to be far more than a simple missing persons case, the revelation thrusting them into the middle of something much bigger than they could have ever imagined.

A discovery worth unfathomable millions.

And like the Nazis, there are those today who will stop at nothing to possess what they have found.

Atlantis Lost (also by Kennedy)

WILL THE MOST IMPORTANT DISCOVERY IN HISTORY BE LOST ONCE AGAIN?

After an earthquake strikes the Azores, a discovery of unimaginable importance is made just off the coast, sending Archaeology Professor James Acton and his wife racing across the Atlantic to confirm the find—the lost city of Atlantis.

But they aren’t the first there, and those who arrived before them will stop at nothing to prevent anyone from discovering their true purpose, and it has nothing to do with the preservation of the past, but everything to do with the destruction of our future.

Payback (also by Kennedy)

THE VICE PRESIDENT'S DAUGHTER IS KIDNAPPED.
DELTA IS UNLEASHED ON THOSE RESPONSIBLE!

Doctor Sarah Henderson, daughter of the Vice President, is kidnapped from an Ebola clinic, triggering an all-out effort to retrieve her by America’s elite Delta Force just hours after a senior government official from Sierra Leone is assassinated in a horrific terrorist attack while visiting the United States.

As Sarah battles impossible odds and struggles to prove her worth to her captors who have promised she will die, she’s forced to make unthinkable decisions to not only try to save her own life, but those dying from one of the most vicious diseases known to mankind, all in the hopes an unleashed Delta Force can save her before her captors enact their horrific plan on an unsuspecting United States.

Payback, the first installment of the new Delta Force Unleashed series based on the internationally bestselling James Acton Thrillers series, propels the Delta Force’s Bravo Team into its most challenging mission yet where they face an enemy with an unknown agenda and an invisible virus that threatens to kill not only them, but the ones they hold dearest.

[bahboo]

32. Q is for Quarry....

my first foray into the Sue Grafton series. Very enjoyable, about half way thru. Love Kinsey. Been reading a William L. Shirer book on the fall of the Third Empire, and break it up by reading fiction at regular intervals. Glad I hopped on this series, and look forward to reading more...

[question everything]

45. Interesting that you started at the end... more or less

I started with A is for Albi and through G is for Gumshoe, I think but then decided it was too violent for my cozy seeking..

Either way, you should enjoy it.

[murielm99]

34. I am reading nonfiction this week,

if I read at all. My kitchen and laundry room were under construction. Stuff is sitting all over the house. I fell and was in the hospital for five days, because I had a brain bleed. While there, they discovered another health problem. I am tired and I still have a black eye.

I was reading a book called Religion and Politics in the United States. I will get back to it, and read some fiction in the near future.

I had to come here anyway, just to see what everyone else was reading. I love you guys.

[hermetic]

35. We love you, too!

Dayum, I hope you are better soon. What an ordeal. Just take it easy and try to do only what you absolutely must. I wish I lived where you do; I'd sure come by and give you a hand.

Hang in there.

[Number9Dream]

36. Finished "The Sanctuary" by Raymond Khoury

Thanks for the thread, hermetic.

This was a good action, page-turner. A fountain of youth formula is pursued by two rival families over three centuries, from Portugal to Italy to Paris to the Middle East.

Started "The Glorious Case" by Jeff Shaara... Excellent so far.

[hermetic]

39. Ah, The American Revolution

".. how thirteen colonies became a nation, taking the conflict from kingdom and courtroom to the bold and bloody battlefields of war. It was never a war in which the outcome was obvious. Despite their spirit and stamina, the colonists were outmanned and outfought by the brazen British army."

Sounds quite epic. Thanks for sharing.

[pscot]

37. I'm reading Baudolino by Umberto Eco

Baudolino is a Lombard peasant boy with the Apostolic Gift for languages. Through an unlikely series of events he becomes the ward of Frederic Barbarossa, who is on his way to Rome to be crowned emperor. I'm only 35 pages in and have no clue where this is going.
I actually bought this used from Amazon for $6 and received a very clean, hard cover edition complete with dust jacket; unwarped and free of wormholes, which have been issues with recent used book purchases. I got a bent copy of Kafka's short stories that I pressed for months and still wont lie flat. Wormholes are disgusting.

Take care Hermetic. give youself time to heal. Cheers.

[hermetic]

38. Thanks, pal

The Baudolino write up says it's supposed to be funny. YMMV, I guess. It also says: "As always with Eco, this abundant novel includes dazzling digressions, outrageous tricks, extraordinary feeling, and vicarious reflections on our postmodern age. This is Eco the storyteller at his brilliant best." So, it'll probably be pretty good.

[japple]

40. Love the OP photo of those fuzzy little kittens. I chose to read a book that was recommended by

a literary magazine, and read a chapter or two but abandoned it in favor of another book about Nancy Wake, an Australian woman who served as a spy for the French resistance in WWII. When I finished that book, I decided to give the other book another try. That book, Betty by Tiffany McDaniel is disturbing in so many ways that I think I might just abandon it for good, esp. after I read the 1 and 2 star reviews on amazon.com. One of the reviewers wrote that one of the characters did something horrible to a mother cat and her kittens. I can take a lot of realism and graphic description, but animal cruelty is just completely unfathomable and beyond my comprehension. So I guess that means I need to move on to another book. I'm thinking about re-reading Anne Tyler's Searching for Caleb which I read (and loved) so many years ago.

Thank you for the weekly thread, hermetic, and I hope your energy returns very soon.

[hermetic]

41. Thanks, pal

I'm with you. If I come across animal cruelty in a book, especially to cats, that book is dead to me. Heck, I have a list of hundreds of books I'd like to read and I'd bet no more than 1 percent have cruelty to animals involved so it's not like
I'm gonna miss out on anything. Writers, be warned! So there!!

[The King of Prussia]

42. "The Dark Vineyard" by Martin Walker

Second of his series of mysteries set in the Dordogne. Earliet in the week I finished "Serpent's Point" the latest instalment in Kate Ellis's excellent "Wesley Peterson" series - set in South Devon.

Next up - not sure yet.

Glad to hear that you are getting on top of Covid.

[Jeebo]

43. "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr

Just started it. Not the genre I usually read; I'm much more of a science fiction guy. However, I have been seeing this one on the shelves at Barnes & Noble for years and years, and that's usually a sure sign that it's really good. And yes, the little I've read so far, I can tell that this man writes beautifully. I'm so looking forward to the next time I get to sit down with it and read some more ...

-- Ron

[bif]

44. Fantastic book!

I loved it.

[question everything]

46. State of Terror by Hillary Clinton and Louise Penny. Finally.

Had it in my bookcase for many months but there were always other books from the library. But finally started and it certainly grabs you from the very first paragraph.

Should not take long to read all 500 pages..

And glad you shook that unfriendly virus

[wnylib]

47. The Judge's List by John Grisham

The latest Grisham story and it does not disappoint in holding my interest.