2025 November Reading Wrap Up

Robin Hobb’s Assassins Apprentice #1 in the Farseer Trilogy (438) was excellent. Hobb’s writing is really good and flows. Her world building, empathy, and emotions are so well done, you’d think you were watching a movie. Looking forward to reading the rest of the trilogy and explore more books in that world.  5 Stars

Andrew and Lee Child's In Too Deep, #29 in the  Jack Reacher series (224) was unfortunately a miss with me.  I’m sad to say Andrews’s writing isn’t up to par with his father, so I won’t be continuing the series from here. I’ll have to go back and read earlier novels in the series because I missed a bunch.  This always happens, same as with Tom Clancy and other writers who let others take over their series. They are subpar and I can tell the difference in the writing styles.  2 Stars

Fredrik Backman’s Britt Marie was Here (324) was a very moving story.  She’d  lived her life for some one else and lost herself in the process.  She’s socially awkward, a bit ocd, and maybe a little autistic (imho). She ends up in a small town, full of misfit, oddballs, juvenile delinquents, and more and finds her backbone as well as a found family. It’s sad and funny and the ending is a bit vague which leaves me wondering.  5 Stars

Hazel Prior’s  How the Penguins Saved Veronica (333) is a really sweet story about a 85 year old, bored and set in her ways, who goes to the Antarctic to save penguins and discovers herself. 4 stars

Julie Caplin’s The Northern Lights Lodge #4 Romantic Escapes (Ebook) (346) is a great escape, a bit of a mystery,  and a wonderful meet cute.  Lucy is hired to temporarily manage a failing lodge in Iceland and discovers someone is trying to sabotage the owners and close the place down.  4 stars  Liked it enough to explore more books in the series.

Julie Caplin’s The Little Cafe in Copenhagen #1 Romantic Escapes (Ebook) (415)  which is a great story in which the lead character, as well as her associates, all learn to find their voices and speak up for what they want and go after it, along with learning about hygge.  4 stars

Nora Roberts’s  The Seven Rings #3 Lost Brides Trilogy (454) was full of lively ghosts who make the story rich with color.  4 stars

Stats:

7 books in which three were new to me authors for a total of 2534 pages. 

2025 September Reading Wrap Up

 

For September, I ready 6 books for a total of 2233 pages in which 2 were new to me authors 

1) Every Summer After by Carly Fortune:  304 pages   3 stars 

"“I fell in love with you when I was thirteen, and I never stopped. You’re it for me.” Sam closes his eyes for three long seconds, and when he opens them, they are glittering pools under a starry sky.”

2) The Book that Wouldn't Burn by Mark Lawrence:  559 pages   3 Stars

“All of us steal our lives. A little here, a little there. Some of it given, most of it taken. We wear ourselves like a coat of many patches, fraying at the edges, in constant repair. While we shore up one belief, we let go another. We are the stories we tell to ourselves. Nothing more.”

3) Neuromancer by William Gibson  304 pages   4 Stars

“His teeth sang in their individual sockets like tuning forks, each one pitch-perfect and clear as ethanol.”

4)  Bel Canto by Ann Patchett  318 pages   4 Stars

“If what a person wants is his life, he tends to be quiet about wanting anything else. Once the life begins to seem secure, one feels the freedom to complain.”

5)  Framed in Death by J.D. Robb  355 pages    5 Stars

“You can respect somebody without loving them, but if you don’t respect somebody you love, it’s never going to hold up.”

6)  Silver and Lead by Seanan McGuire 393  pages   4 stars

“Trauma moves in cycles. We pass it down, one to another, and there’s no time limit on how long that damage can endure.”

Reading Log as of September 24, 2025 - Silver and Lead

 

In Seanan McGuire's Silver and Lead, 19th Installment in the October Daye series, as ridiculous as it may seem, in typical beaten and bloody fashion, at 8 1/2 months pregnant October finds the culprits, has the baby on the warehouse floor with May doing a c section, then continues on until she save the day. 4 stars 

"Something is rotten in Faerie. In the aftermath of Titania's reality-warping enchantment, things are returning to what passes for normal in the Kingdom in the Mists―until it's discovered that the royal vaults have been looted, and several powerful magical artifacts are missing. None are things that can be safely left unsecured, and some have the potential to do almost as much damage as Titania did, and having them in the wrong hands could prove just as disastrous

At least the theft means that Sir October "Toby" Daye, Knight errant and Hero of the Realm, finally has an excuse to get out of the house. Sure, she's eight and a half months pregnant, but that doesn't mean she can’t take care of herself. But with the sea witch offering to stand godmother to Toby's child, maybe there are greater dangers ahead for Toby and her family than it appears....

Old enemies will resurface, new enemies will disguise themselves as friends, and Queen Windermere must try to keep her Hero on the case without getting herself gutted by the increasingly irritated local King of Cats. Sometimes, what's been lost can be the most dangerous threat of all."

Reading Log as of September 18, 2025 - Bel Canto

 

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett is a closed room tale, a microcosm of what happens when a bunch of disparate people are thrown together.  It was interesting and engaging and so sad.   Bonds are formed, lessons are taught,  different languages learned. Some learn to be more self reliant, some grow a spine. But in the end, the guerillas who would never bend, want their demands to be met no matter what. 4 stars

"Somewhere in South America, at the home of the country's vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honor of the powerful businessman Mr. Hosokawa. Roxane Coss, opera's most revered soprano, has mesmerized the international guests with her singing. It is a perfect evening—until a band of gun-wielding terrorists takes the entire party hostage. But what begins as a panicked, life-threatening scenario slowly evolves into something quite different, a moment of great beauty, as terrorists and hostages forge unexpected bonds and people from different continents become compatriots, intimate friends, and lovers."

Reading Log as of September 15, 2025 - Framed in Death

 

Framed in Death is the 61st book in the In Death series by J.D. Robb (aka Nora Roberts) (355) 

Excellent as always with Eve pursuing an artist who kills and dresses up the corpse in authentic clothes to look like masterpiece paintings.  Also Maeve and Peabodies joint house is finally done and reflects their personalities.  Beautifully written and engaging.

"Manhattan is filled with galleries and deep-pocketed collectors who can make an artist's career with a wave of a hand. But one man toils in obscurity, his brilliance unrecognized while lesser talents bask in the glory he believes should be his. Come tomorrow, he vows, the city will be buzzing about his work.

Indeed, before dawn, Lt. Eve Dallas is speeding toward the home of the two gallery owners whose doorway has been turned into a horrifying crime scene overnight. A lifeless young woman has been elaborately costumed and precisely posed to resemble the model of a long-ago Dutch master, and Dallas plunges into her investigation."

Reading Log as of September 13, 2025 - The Book That Wouldn't Burn

 

The Book That Wouldn’t Burn by Mark Lawrence (559) is a convoluted story that turned into a slog towards the third half of the book and the continued spiral turned me off. I didn’t care whether I finished it or not, but did just to find out what happened. Definitely won’t be reading the rest of the trilogy.  An alternative world where life sized bugs were the enemy and life kept recycling.  The centerpiece, a library, which was a maze and a portal to different world. A brother and sister are stuck in the world of books, an assistant and a soldier with a mechanism that took one in the world of the book.  Librarians and apprentices, the keeper of the books and many, many secrets.  Books that would turn one into a ghost, floating through the stories.  At the end I didn't know if any of the characters were real or ghosts. 3 stars

“The boy has lived his whole life trapped within a book-choked chamber older than empires and larger than cities.

The girl has been plucked from the outskirts of civilization to be trained as a librarian, studying the mysteries of the great library at the heart of her kingdom.

They were never supposed to meet. But in the library, they did.

Their stories spiral around each other, across worlds and time. This is a tale of truth and lies and hearts, and the blurring of one into another. A journey on which knowledge erodes certainty and on which, though the pen may be mightier than the sword, blood will be spilled and cities burned.”

Reading Log as of September 6, 2025 - Every Summer After

 

Every Summer After by Carly Fortune, a romance story published in 2022 (304 pages)

You know those stories in which the past haunts you until you fix it, then everything is okay after that. Years go by and old hurts, old wounds are opened, examined, and broken, new wounds are created, until all is forgiven. Yep, this is one of those.  2.5 stars 

"They say you can never go home again, and for Persephone Fraser, ever since she made the biggest mistake of her life a decade ago, that has felt too true. Instead of glittering summers on the lakeshore of her childhood, she spends them in a stylish apartment in the city, going out with friends, and keeping everyone a safe distance from her heart.

Until she receives the call that sends her racing back to Barry’s Bay and into the orbit of Sam Florek—the man she never thought she’d have to live without.

For six summers, through hazy afternoons on the water and warm summer nights working in his family’s restaurant and curling up together with books—medical textbooks for him and work-in-progress horror short stories for her—Percy and Sam had been inseparable. Eventually that friendship turned into something breathtakingly more, before it fell spectacularly apart.

When Percy returns to the lake for Sam’s mother’s funeral, their connection is as undeniable as it had always been. But until Percy can confront the decisions she made and the years she’s spent punishing herself for them, they’ll never know whether their love might be bigger than the biggest mistakes of their past.

Told over the course of six years and one weekend, Every Summer After is a big, sweeping nostalgic look at love and the people and choices that mark us forever."

2025 August Reading Wrap Up

 

All The Beauty in the World by Patrick Bringley (nonfiction) which gave me an appreciation for art and how to look at it. It was a delicious read with made me want to back to New York and explore The Met for several days.  5star read. 

"Millions of people climb the grand marble staircase to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art every year. But only a select few have unrestricted access to every nook and cranny. They’re the guards who roam unobtrusively in dark blue suits, keeping a watchful eye on the two million square foot treasure house. Caught up in his glamorous fledgling career at The New Yorker, Patrick Bringley never thought he’d be one of them. Then his older brother was diagnosed with fatal cancer and he found himself needing to escape the mundane clamor of daily life. So he quit The New Yorker and sought solace in the most beautiful place he knew.

To his surprise and the reader’s delight, this temporary refuge becomes Bringley’s home away from home for a decade. We follow him as he guards delicate treasures from Egypt to Rome, strolls the labyrinths beneath the galleries, wears out nine pairs of company shoes, and marvels at the beautiful works in his care. Bringley enters the museum as a ghost, silent and almost invisible, but soon finds his voice and his tribe: the artworks and their creators and the lively subculture of museum guards—a gorgeous mosaic of artists, musicians, blue-collar stalwarts, immigrants, cutups, and dreamers. As his bonds with his colleagues and the art grow, he comes to understand how fortunate he is to be walled off in this little world, and how much it resembles the best aspects of the larger world to which he gradually, gratefully returns."

Things You Save in a Fire by Katherine Center which was about a female firefighter who goes from having it all to a fire department who doesn't want a woman because they think females are not capable of doing the job. She has to prove herself all the while taking care of her dying mother, and also falls in love with another rookie who is only there to prove to his family he's man enough. Then has to fight to clear her name after being branded a hoe, because she was raped when she was 16. She had to learn to forgive herself, her family, and her bosses.  The characters were really immature for their ages which made the story just okay.  Sadly a 3 star read. It was good but....

“Cassie Hanwell was born for emergencies. As one of the only female firefighters in her Texas firehouse, she’s seen her fair share of them, and she’s excellent at dealing with other people’s tragedies. But when her estranged and ailing mother asks her to uproot her life and move to Boston, it’s an emergency of a kind Cassie never anticipated.

The tough, old-school Boston firehouse is as different from Cassie’s old job as it could possibly be. Hazing, a lack of funding, and poor facilities mean that the firemen aren’t exactly thrilled to have a “lady” on the crew, even one as competent and smart as Cassie. Except for the handsome rookie, who doesn’t seem to mind having Cassie around. But she can’t think about that. Because she doesn’t fall in love. And because of the advice her old captain gave her: don’t date firefighters. Cassie can feel her resolve slipping…but will she jeopardize her place in a career where she’s worked so hard to be taken seriously?”

Orbital by Samantha Harvey, although slim at 207, after the first few chapters, turned into drudgery to read. From Orbit 1 to Orbit 16 in a 24 hour day, it revolves and revolves around the people on the station, the countries passed over again and again. Very repetitious with a few elegant sentences describing nature, the cosmos, the state of the world, and politics.  2 Star Failed to live up to my expectations.

Non fiction story Fighting Monks and Burning Mountains by Paul Barach which was disappointing.  Barach decided to walk the ancient 750 Mile Shikoku pilgrimage trail in Japan without knowing any of the language so could hardly communicate and wasn’t in a good shape as he thought. I kept waiting for it to get better, for him to learn something, but unfortunately he didn't.  Except for the kindness of strangers, I don't think he would have survived.  3 Stars

I'm Afraid You've Got Dragons by Peter S. Beagle which was a delightful story about a man who is a dragon slayer but also loves dragons so saves the little ones and houses them with his family.  There are so many nuances to this story I enjoyed. The Prince, the princess, the dragon slayer all becoming friends, learning life over duty, love over musts.   4 stars 

2025 July Reading Wrap Up

 

I read 7 books this month of which 4 were new to me authors for a total of 2464 pages.  The stories ran the gamut from 3 stars to 5 stars. 

my grandmother asked me to tell you she's sorry by Fredrik Backman -   5 Stars

"Every seven year old deserves a super hero. And whoever disagrees with that need their head examines."  

In Five Years by Rebecca Searle  - 4 Stars

"But all of that is an hour from now. Now, on the other side of midnight, we do not yet know what is coming. So let it be. 

One Last Breath by Laura Griffin - 3 stars 

“She’d been played all along. Once again, the dumb blonde."

The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley - 4 stars

“It’s a beautiful building, but there’s something rotten at its heart. Now he’s discovered it he can smell the stench of it everywhere.”

Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting by Clare Pooley - 5 stars

"We're the whole damn cake." Said Bea.

"The whole damn cake." echoed Iona

The Zero Game by Brad Meltzer - 5 Stars 

"It's the first rule of politics. The only time you get hurt is when you forget it's all a game."

Piranesi by Susanna Clark - 4 Stars 

"In my mind are all the tides, their seasons, their ebbs and their flows. In my mind are all the halls, the endless procession of them, the intricate pathways. When this world becomes too much for me, when I grow tired of the noise and the dirt and the people, I close my eyes and I name a particular vestibule to myself; then I name a hall."

Reading Log as of July 30, 2025 - Piranesi

 

I finished Susanna Clarke's Piranesi which had been sitting on my shelves forever and it took a couple tries to get into it. I loved Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell so was looking forward to reading it. 3.5 stars 

"Piranesi’s house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house.

There is one other person in the house—a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known."

Piranesi lives in a labyrinth of halls, communicating only with 'the other', helping him with research. It's an alternate world devised by a madman and Piranesi doesn't question it until one day the other says something strange that arouses his suspicion. Piranesi begins to read his old journals and learns all about a life he'd forgotten.   ****

Reading Log as of July 27, 2025 - Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting

 

This week I finished Clare Pooley's Iona Iverson’s Rules for Commuting which was a wonderful story about 6 strangers who ride the London trains every day and start talking and form friendships which changes their lives forever as they work through job losses, bullying, and marriage troubles.  5 Stars

"Every day Iona Iverson, a stylish, opinionated, larger-than-life magazine advice columnist, rides the train to work with her dog, Lulu. Every day she sees the same people, whom she knows only by nickname: Impossibly-Pretty-Bookworm and Mr-Too-Good-to-Be-True. Of course, they never speak. Seasoned commuters never do.

Then one morning, the man she calls Smart-But-Sexist-Manspreader chokes on a grape right in front of her. He’d have died were it not for the timely intervention of Sanjay, a nurse, who gives him the Heimlich maneuver.

This single event starts a chain reaction, and an eclectic group of people discovers that talking to strangers can teach you quite a bit about the world around you—and even more about yourself."   

Also Brad Meltzer’s mystery thriller The Zero Game that starts off as a game and becomes deadly serious when one of the players is killed and someone tries to cover it up.  Full of twists, turns, and action that kept me reading long into the night.  5 Stars 

“Matthew Mercer and Harris Sandler are best friends who have plum jobs as senior staffers to well-respected congressmen. But after a decade in Washington, idealism has faded to disillusionment, and they’re bored. Then one of them finds out about the clandestine Zero Game. It starts out as good fun-a simple wager between friends. But when someone close to them ends up dead, Harris and Matthew realize the game is far more sinister than they ever imagined-and that they’re about to be the game’s next victims. On the run, they turn to the only person they can a 16-year-old Senate page who can move around the Capitol undetected. As a ruthless killer creeps closer, this idealistic page not only holds the key to saving their lives, but is also determined to redeem them in the process. Come play The Zero Game-you can bet your life on it.”

Currently reading the nonfiction story of All the Beauty in the World about a guard who works at the Met in New York which is quite interesting and educational to boot.

Also Piranesi and not sure where it’s going and whether I’ll continue. Need to give it a few more pages to make up my mind.

Reading Log as of July 16, 2025 - One Last Breath

 

Laura Griffin's One Last Breath in her Borderline duology was not that great. It has been sitting on my shelves forever and I thought I had read it, but turns out I never did. 

"When pampered former cheerleader Feenie Malone takes a job writing fluff pieces for her South Texas paper, she has no idea she's about to stumble into a juicy news story that could launch her career -- if it doesn't get her killed first.

Almost as soon as she breaks out her press pass, she crosses paths with Marco Juarez, the macho PI obsessed with solving his sister's murder. The information he has might be the perfect lead -- but his dangerously sexy looks could be a deadly distraction.

Juarez has zero patience for reporters, especially mouthy blond ones. But with the evidence pointing to Feenie's ex-husband, Marco thinks she could be useful. Confident he can keep her on a tight leash, he lets her in on his investigation. He quickly discovers he's underestimated his new partner, as well as the danger they both face.

Now he must protect her -- to the very last breath...."

Convoluted, yet not, story about a clueless woman married to a 'mob' type guy, who once they get divorced, finally gets a clue, becomes a reporter and sticks her nose into her ex husband's business. With the help of a former policeman, now private eye survives the results amazingly, and falls in love in the process.  The characters were really stupid.  3 Stars  It was good but....

Reading Log as of July 12, 2025 - The Paris Apartment

 

I was supposed to be reading Ruth Ware's Zero Days, but I got distracted by Lucy Foley’s The Paris Apartment which was clever and interesting.

“Jess needs a fresh start. She’s broke and alone, and she’s just left her job under less than ideal circumstances. Her half-brother Ben didn’t sound thrilled when she asked if she could crash with him for a bit, but he didn’t say no, and surely everything will look better from Paris. Only when she shows up – to find a very nice apartment, could Ben really have afforded this? – he’s not there.

The longer Ben stays missing, the more Jess starts to dig into her brother’s situation, and the more questions she has. Ben’s neighbors are an eclectic bunch, and not particularly friendly. Jess may have come to Paris to escape her past, but it’s starting to look like it’s Ben’s future that’s in question.

The socialite – The nice guy – The alcoholic – The girl on the verge – The concierge

Everyone’s a neighbor. Everyone’s a suspect. And everyone knows something they’re not telling.”

 Ben disappears and Jess is determined to find him. The apartment is really part of the family home of a family in which each member has a separate apartment. They are dysfunctional, they have secrets, they are strange. Jess isn’t exactly a good person either herself. She snoops until she finds out the truth.  Set in Paris, it is the America against every one else. Lots of twists and turns.  4 Stars. 

Reading Log as of July 09, 2025 - In Five Years

 

I’m currently still on Y for the A to Z and Back Again alphabet challenge so reading In Five Years by Rebecca Serle which has captured my attention. Not easy to do these days.

“Where do you see yourself in five years?

When Type-A Manhattan lawyer Dannie Kohan is asked this question at the most important interview of her career, she has a meticulously crafted answer at the ready. Later, after nailing her interview and accepting her boyfriend’s marriage proposal, Dannie goes to sleep knowing she is right on track to achieve her five-year plan.

But when she wakes up, she’s suddenly in a different apartment, with a different ring on her finger, and beside a very different man. The television news is on in the background, and she can just make out the scrolling date. It’s the same night—December 15—but 2025, five years in the future.

After a very intense, shocking hour, Dannie wakes again, at the brink of midnight, back in 2020. She can’t shake what has happened. It certainly felt much more than merely a dream, but she isn’t the kind of person who believes in visions. That nonsense is only charming coming from free-spirited types, like her lifelong best friend, Bella. Determined to ignore the odd experience, she files it away in the back of her mind.

That is, until four-and-a-half years later, when by chance Dannie meets the very same man from her long-ago vision.”

So Dannie skips ahead five years in the future for one hour, meets a man, who she'll meet later, whose in love with her best friend who is dying. What does she do? 4 Stars 

Reading Log as of July 5, 2025 - my grandmother asked me to tell you she's sorry

 

I finished Fredrick Backman’s My Grandma Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry.  Such a sweet, heartwarming, hilarious, intense, imaginative story.  Made me laugh, made me cry, made me wonder, as well as want to shake a couple adults for their attitudes. All the feels. At first, all the bickering between every one turned me off. But once I got past that, the story started to get better.

“Elsa is seven years old and different. Her grandmother is seventy-seven years old and crazy—as in standing-on-the-balcony-firing-paintball-guns-at-strangers crazy. She is also Elsa’s best, and only, friend. At night Elsa takes refuge in her grandmother’s stories, in the Land-of-Almost-Awake and the Kingdom of Miamas, where everybody is different and nobody needs to be normal.

When Elsa’s grandmother dies and leaves behind a series of letters apologizing to people she has wronged, Elsa’s greatest adventure begins. Her grandmother’s instructions lead her to an apartment building full of drunks, monsters, attack dogs, and old crones but also to the truth about fairy tales and kingdoms and a grandmother like no other.”

Now I want to read more of Backman’s books. Not sure which one yet. Maybe Britt-Marie was Here, since the character was in the book I just read.

5 stars

June Reading Wrap Up!

 

For the month of June I ended up reading 10 books in which 3 were new, 1 was a known to me author, and the rest were rereads for a total of 3638 pages. 

Breaking the Dark by Lisa Jewel (360 Pages) is a Jessica Jones Marvel Crime Novel published in 2024 which was a modern day Dorian Grey tale and Jessica is a downtrodden detective with so so powers and never uses them to solve the crime.  2 stars as it failed to live up to expectations

Swan Song by Elin Hilderbrand, the 4th book in the Nantucket trilogy which James picked up for me at Target on a whim.  It's the last book in the series which was full of back tory, an unknown narrator, a new couple trying to bilk every one for money and things, thinking they could get away with it. The ending was very anticlimatic.  2 stars as it failed to live up to expectations.

Unlikely Story by Ali Rosen (306), published this year. Ali's in love with J, her editor, who she's never met. She also has a contentious relationship with her neighbor who turns out to be J. There were so many little hints throughout the story that I pretty much figured it out way before Ali did.  3 Stars

Resorted to reading old friends which are books by Nora Roberts, my go to comfort read and always five stars. 

Three Island Sisters Trilogy with Nell and Zack in Dance Upon the Air, Ripley and Mac in Heaven and Earth, and Mia and Sam in Face the Fire.  Then Born in Trilogy with Born in Fire, Born in Ice, and Born in Shame.  

Reading Log as of June 22, 2025 - Great Big Beautiful Life

 

Welp! I usually enjoy Emily Henry's books but this one. Oh boy! A dysfunctional woman with a dysfunctional family and life and history invite two more dysfunctional writers to interview her about her life, pitting the two against each other. And wouldn't you know it, they fall into a dysfunctional relationship along the way.  There are many secrets and lies. What is the truth. I didn't like any of the characters. There was much to do about nothing. 

To sooth my reading palate, I resorted to rereading my favorite author Nora Roberts with the Three Sisters Trilogy as well as the Born in trilogy.  

Reading Log as of June 15, 2025 - Happy Father's Day

 

Happy Father's Day to my hubby, dad, my brother's in laws and all the dads out there. 

I unfortunately didn't get to any of the Wuxia reads. One author I really have enjoyed and learned much from is Qiu Xiaolong, author of the inspector detective Chen Cao who is a homicide detective in the Shanghai Special Cases Bureau in China. Inspector Chen Cao was introduced with the publication of Death of a Red Heroine in 2000. Set in the mid 1990’s in China, it was a police procedural blending fact and fiction delving into the politics and culture of the country. The character is in his early thirties and also writes poetry and works as a translator. Inspector Chen must navigate his way through government politics while trying to solve murders. The 13th book in the series Love and Murder in the Time of Covid was released in 2023.

His latest stories are a duology series which takes place in seventh century China called the Judge Dee Investigations. The first book Shadow of the Empire is a companion piece from his 12th novel – Inspector Chen and the Private Kitchen Murder – in which the inspector is reading a Judge Dee novel. The second book was released in 2024: The Conspiracies of the Empire. I have both books in ebook format and I’m looking forward to reading both.  

Currently reading Emily Henry’s Great Big Beautiful Life which is okay so far. 

“Alice Scott is an eternal optimist still dreaming of her big writing break. Hayden Anderson is a Pulitzer-prize winning human thundercloud. And they’re both on balmy Little Crescent Island for the same reason: To write the biography of a woman no one has seen in years–or at least to meet with the octogenarian who claims to be the Margaret Ives. Tragic heiress, former tabloid princess, and daughter of one of the most storied (and scandalous) families of the 20th Century…..

But the problem is, Margaret is only giving each of them pieces of her story. Pieces they can’t swap to put together because of an ironclad NDA and an inconvenient yearning pulsing between them every time they’re in the same room.

And it’s becoming abundantly clear that their story—just like the tale Margaret’s spinning—could be a mystery, tragedy, or love ballad…depending on who’s telling it.”

Reading Log as of June 8th - Unlikely Story and Swan Song

I’m currently reading two flufferton books:  Ebook Unlikely Story by Ali Rosen and Swan Song by Elin Hilderbrand which James picked out for me the other day when we were at Target. It’s #4 in the Nantucket series so have no idea who most of the characters are, but oh well!

“Chief of Police Ed Kapenash is about to retire. Blond Sharon is going through a divorce. But when a 22-million-dollar summer home is purchased by the mysterious Richardsons—how did they make their money, exactly?—Ed, Sharon, and everyone in the community are swept up in high drama. The Richardsons throw lavish parties, flirt with multiple locals, flaunt their wealth with not one but two yachts, and raise impossible hopes of everyone they meet. When their house burns to the ground and their most essential employee goes missing, the entire island is up in arms.”

 This week our 52 Books Bingo category is Wuxia which is historical fiction stories in which the characters use traditional Chinese martial art disciplines for either good or bad.

For the wuxia read I have several books in my stacks.  Poppy Wars by R.F. Kuang which is sort of is in that genre. Plus ebooks: A Thousand Li: the First Step by Tao Wong and The Girl with Ghost Eyes: The Daoshi Chronicles by M. H. Boroson which are on one of the lists above.

I finished rereading Anne Bishops Other series 1 through 5 which was a great reset as I was having a hard time getting into any of my new books.

Our Saturday Night movie was Speed with Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock and it was James first time to see the movie. Quite exciting! 

Reading Log as of June 1, 2025 - Breaking the Dark and Hidden Nature

 

Our 52 Books dragon of the month is Saphira from Christopher Paolini‘s Eragon. I happily supported the Saphira Figurine kickstarter campaign last year and look forward to receiving a collectable figurine of Saphira when it’s ready.

I finished Breaking the Dark (jessica Jones crime novel) by Lisa Jewell which was mediocre at best, writing and story wise.  She hardly used her powers and most of her decisions were really dumb. James asked if it kicked a&% and I shared there wasn’t much kick a*& in the story.

Also finished Nora Roberts newest Hidden Nature in which the villains were creepy and the reader knew from the start what they were doing, so the reader got to be involved not only with them, but  how the main character went about figuring out the mystery, in the midst of a lot of remodeling house talk.

On the nightstand is Guys Write for Guys Read: Edited by Jon Scieszka

“What is a typical guy moment, anyhow? Daniel Pinkwater remembers the disappointment of meeting his Lone Star Ranger hero up close and personal. Gordon Korman relishes the goofy ultra violence of the old Looney Tunes cartoons. Stephen King realizes that having your two hundred-pound babysitter fart on your five-year-old head prepares you for any literary criticism. And that’s just a sampling from Guys Write for Guys Read, a fast-paced, high energy collection of short works: stories, essays, columns, cartoons, anecdotes, and artwork by today’s most popular writers and illustrators.”

Right in between books so need to peruses the shelves and decide what I want to read. 

 

Off to Watch Captain America: Brave New World.