What Fiction are you reading this week, October 23, 2022?

[hermetic]

Dublin

I'm reading Murder on an Irish Farm by Carlene O'Connor. This is the 8th and most recent in a series of Irish cozies. I had never heard of these and a friend gave me this one last Christmas. It's quite enjoyable so I checked to see if my library had any of the others. And they do. Books, ebooks, and audibles.

So, I am now listening to Murder in an Irish Churchyard by Ms. O'Connor. This one has me . Also happy to see she has a few Christmas cozies. Something to keep in mind for December. Fun reads.

What books are you keeping in mind this week?

[CrispyQ]

1. "These Women" by by Ivy Pochoda

From Good Reads:

In West Adams, a rapidly changing part of South Los Angeles, they’re referred to as “these women.” These women on the corner … These women in the club … These women who won’t stop asking questions … These women who got what they deserved …

Ivy Pochoda creates a kaleidoscope of loss, power, and hope featuring five very different women whose lives are steeped in danger and anguish. They’re connected by one man and his deadly obsession, though not all of them know that yet. There’s Dorian, still adrift after her daughter’s murder remains unsolved; Julianna, a young dancer nicknamed Jujubee, who lives hard and fast, resisting anyone trying to slow her down; Essie, a brilliant vice cop who sees a crime pattern emerging where no one else does; Marella, a daring performance artist whose work has long pushed boundaries but now puts her in peril; and Anneke, a quiet woman who has turned a willfully blind eye to those around her for far too long. The careful existence they have built for themselves starts to crumble when two murders rock their neighborhood.

I read the book in a couple of days. Dark & gritty, but still a good murder mystery. A serial killer murder mystery, no less. All the main characters are women.

I find I can't keep my attention focused when listening to an audio book. My mind wanders & the next thing I know a few minutes have passed & I haven't heard a word.

[hermetic]

3. That happens to me sometimes

with audio books. That's why I really like humorous books, because they do hold my attention better. I really hate to miss out on any laughs these days.

[japple]

16. Thanks for posting about this book. I have read 2 of Ivy Pochoda's previous books and

really like her style of writing. Visitation Street is especially strong. The characters are very well developed and the background geography is vivid. A bit gritty, but totally believable. I look forward to reading These Women."

[CrispyQ]

18. Oh good! I'm on the waiting list for "Visitation Street" at the library. -nt

[Paper Roses]

2. Another Grisham: A Time for Mercy.

Good so far, only 100 pages in but Grisham rarely disappoints.

[hermetic]

5. Jake Brigance returns

Filled with all the courtroom machinations, small-town intrigues, and plot twists that have become the hallmarks of the master of the legal thriller, A Time for Mercy emphatically confirms John Grisham's reputation as America's favorite storyteller. There is a time to kill, a time for justice, and A TIME FOR MERCY.

[Srkdqltr]

4. I'm reading Bad Days in History : a Gleefully Grim Cronical of Misfortune. Mayhem and Misery for

Every Day, by Michael Farquhar.
Just a fun book to read in bits and pieces of history.

Oh also About Time, the latest Jodi Taylor time travel thing.

[hermetic]

7. Sounds marvelous

Trouble is brewing for Team Weird. Commander Hay, battling to keep the Time Police afloat in a sea of storms, will have a very long day.
FOR FANS OF DOCTOR WHO, THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB AND JASPER FFORDE. Well, count me in.

[The King of Prussia]

6. " A Witch Hunt in Whitby" by Helen Cox

Number 5 in her Kitt Hartley Yorkshire mystery series. They're very good. Number 6 is next up. The most recent one, "Murder in a Mill Town" is set just over the hill from here. I'm hoping to get it for Christmas .

Otherwise Russo kitten and I have been watching the Rugby League World Cup on TV. We have got tickets to the final ( but Russo can't come).

And Johnson is coming back. Bizarrely he is the least dreadful option. The country is essentially an open sewer.

[hermetic]

8. No! I hadn't heard that yet.

Crazy times.

Glad you have a rugby fan to hang out with. Leave the telly on for him. Maybe he'll see you there.
=^. , .^=

[hermetic]

19. Looks like Boris changed his mind...

Goodness knows who is up next...

[The King of Prussia]

22. Every one is saying Sunak

He's vile. But if Mordaunt gets 100 nominations she will win, because she is white. Vile also.

[bif]

9. "Crossroads" by Johnathan Franzen

Big ol' book. The first 100 pages were pretty good.

[hermetic]

10. Chicago, 1971

"A tour de force of interwoven perspectives and sustained suspense.
Jonathan Franzen’s novels are celebrated for their unforgettably vivid characters and for their keen-eyed take on contemporary America. Now, in Crossroads, Franzen ventures back into the past and explores the history of two generations. With characteristic humor and complexity, and with even greater warmth, he conjures a world that resonates powerfully with our own."

[SheltieLover]

11. Bookmarked for Murdet by Burns

Fern Michaels' sisterhood up next.

[yellowdogintexas]

12. Are you just starting Sisterhood? nt

[SheltieLover]

13. Oh no!

I've inhaled quite a few of them already.

[yellowdogintexas]

15. inhaled is appropriate! Which one are you reading? nt

[SheltieLover]

20. Just started Safe and Sound.

Have you read it?

Sorry for delay in responding.

Had to make run to grocery store for monthly provisions. Yawn...

[yellowdogintexas]

23. I have read them all. New one coming out in December

I spent most of December and January with the Sisterhood.

[yellowdogintexas]

14. just finished Deadline: (Godmothers Book 4)

by Fern Michaels No sooner have Toots Loudenberry and her three best friends--Sophie, Ida, and Mavis--returned from Sacramento, where Sophie provided some much-needed psychic advice to the First Lady of California, than another situation demands their attention. . .

Laura Leigh, a Hollywood starlet whose main talent seems to be landing in trouble, is missing. Toots' daughter, Abby, has both a personal and professional stake in the story. Not only is she editor-in-chief at gossip magazine The Informer, but entertainment attorney Chris Clay, Abby's would-be beau, was the last person seen with Laura. And now he's missing, too.

With the help of friends in high--and low--places, the Godmothers will navigate Hollywood's glittering inner circles and seedy underbelly to discover the truth. Along the way, they'll uncover unexpected secrets that not even one of Sophie's séances could have predicted. . .

I also read Twits In Love, A Steampunk Distraction

Alcohol is like the cousin that owes you money. It promises everything and delivers nothing.
Cyril Chippington-Smythe, the world's richest man, awakens from a drunken stupor to find that he may have engaged himself to the horrifyingly toothy Alice Witherspoon. His mechanical manservant, Bentley, concocts a plot to free his master from any possible entanglements, but Alice has more than matrimony on her mind and may destroy civilization as we know it.

“The Twits Chronicles are hilarious, blessed with truly exceptional dialogue. Steampunk dystopia meets Oscar Wildean wit in these books and I found myself laughing out loud on numerous occasions-- not something I often do while reading. The society that Tom Alan Robbins has created is something to behold: high-tech and low-tech collide, and society has split asunder between the have-nots and the have-everythings. The high society types are wonderfully clueless and carefree, but underneath the frivolity of their antics lies an emptiness. There are shades of P.G. Wodehouse in these books, and watching the lead "twit" of the series extricate himself from various situations--many of his own making-- is immensely entertaining. Throw in a clockwork butler and a cast of over-the-top characters and you've got a series that brings some much-needed laughter in our own dystopian times." - Nick Sullivan, author of The Deep Series and Zombie Bigfoot.

"If you’re the sort who reads blurbs before reading the book, stop it. Stop it right now. Read TWITS IN LOVE and have a good time. These days we can all use a bit more of a good time." - John Ostrander, American writer of comic books, including Suicide Squad, Grimjack and Star Wars: Legacy.


I just started The Souls of Clayhatchee A Southern Tale

James Kingsman hated the South. Raised by parents who had migrated north from Alabama years before his birth, he had heard their personal stories of racism, injustice, and fear. At best, he carried a certain disdain for those who stayed behind, no matter how much the South had changed. When James reluctantly agrees to his mother’s last wish to be buried in her ancestral home, his notions about southern relatives are turned upside down. As are long-hidden discoveries about his parents. His father did not migrate north, he escaped. His mother kept an even deeper secret, one of rage and beauty.

Some ghosts cannot stay buried.

[SheltieLover]

21. I really enjoyed the Godmothers series

[japple]

17. Thanks for the weekly thread, hermetic. Back in WWII again, with Peter Clenott's

book The Unwanted. Interesting story and not one that I was familiar with.

Here's a blurb from amazon:

Hana Ziegler is a fourteen-year-old child prodigy. But on September 1, 1939, as Hitler invades Poland and World War II begins, she is being taken to the Hollenschloss Institute to be euthanized.

Silke Hartenstein is a sixteen-year-old beauty who has graced the covers of German magazines as the blonde, blue-eyed female Aryan prototype. She is a member of the Bund Deutsch Madel, but she has also laughed in the face of German Propaganda Minister Goebbels.

In May of 1947, murder is committed. The victims are an American who is helping former Nazis escape judgment and a fleeing German SS officer. While other Nazi leaders are being prosecuted, the eyes of the American military judicial system fall on Hana.

For THE UNWANTED, Fatherland, Motherland, Holy Land ultimately mean nothing. For ‘Hana the unwanted’ and ‘Silke the noble’, the only true homeland is family.

[Jilly_in_VA]

24. I was reading

The Afterlife of Alice Watkins, by Matilda Scotney, until that iPad ran out of battery life and I had to go plug it in. So I picked up my other one and opened up a newly acquired one I'd just picked up that sounded interesting called The Daughters of Edward Boit. It looked like an easy read, being YA and rather short, in contrast to the other one, which just goes on and one (more about that in a minute). Imagine my surprise when I noticed the author's name--Sara Jane Loyster. There can't be that many, I thought, and looked her up. Yep, same one. She was a good friend of my youngest brother and spent a LOT of time in our house during her teen years. Wow! now I can say I know two YA authors, the other being Janae Mitchell, who lives in the town in Tennessee where I lived for 35 years, is married to a friend of my late son, and whose daughter is a friend of my grandson's.

OK, next month is NaNoWriMo, I have to finish one of mine.....