March Reading Wrap Up

 

March passed way too quickly. I read ten books this month with Mark Helprin's In Sunlight and In Shadow the longest at 705 pages and Charles De Lint's The Mystery of Grace the shortest at 269 pages.  I made progress reading my physical shelves with only one being an ebook. 

Our 52 books author of the month was Rebecca Yarros and I dove into what I consider a five star read of the Empryean series.    I really enjoyed the first two book and now have to wait until the beginning of next year for the third book. Which is fine since I get to read it all over again.  Fourth Wing (498 pages) is a fantasy romance with dragons and gut wrenching bad good guys and bad guys. The cadets have to master a parapet to join or fall to their deaths.  Each challenge becomes a matter of life or death, no inbetween.  In Iron Flame, (640 pages) the cadets to go war and have to deal with deception and challenges and the story is full of twists and turns.  

I got an early start on our April 52 books author of the month Bonnie Garmus  in Lessons in Chemistry.  A woman scientist and single mother in the 50's has to battle and deal with male  colleagues who treat her badly and lie and deceive her. The work culture was very misogynistic at that time. In the process she finds love and passion as well as loss.  ****

I finished the fifth book in Ben Aaronvitch's Rivers of London series with Foxglove Summer in which two girls from Heresfordshire go missing and one of them gets replaced with a changelings.  There is also a nasty unicorn involved.  ****

Faith Hunter's 6th book in the Soulwood series, Rift in the Soul came out in which Nell has to deal with more vampires, the vampire tree, gifts from nature, while preparing to marry Occam.  ****

Finally read Curse of Salem (304 pages), the 20th book in Kay Hooper's Bishop/Special paranormal crimes series,  about the five people in the leading families of Salem dying under mysterious circumstances, while lead character tried to figure out if her gift was a talent or a curse.  ****  

Reread Charles De Lint's The Mystery of Grace for one of my M reads in which a dead woman was caught by a witch in limbo and she had to figure out how to get back to the land of the living or move on to Heaven. ****

I looked forward to reading Mark Helprin's In Sunlight and In Shadow since I thoroughly enjoyed The Winter's Tale and Soldier of the Great War, but was disappointed by the story line. A historical romance novel set just after WWII in New York city in which the lead character decides vigilante justice against the mob was the best way go and it ends up all wrong.  **

Helprin's novel set a theme for the next two books which went down the same path. 

Jessica Strawser's The Last Caretaker  started out with good intentions then went down the wrong path in dealing with domestic violence, vigilante justice and solving problems without  the authorities. ** meh

And Leslie Wolfe's The Surgeon when a cardiac patient died under mysterious circumstances and the lead characters were involved in abuse, adultery, blackmail, and decided vigilante justice without the police was the best solution. ** meh

Going into April reading two chunky books David Brin's Earth and Christopher Paolini's Murtagh.