What Are You Reading? Sept 2023

[princess garnet]

Coming up on all things related Pumpkin Spice Latte season! Share your reads this month.

Starting: Reign by Katharine McGee (YA)
New and finale installment in the "American Royals" series

[Madeleine]

I'm currently halfway through the last in the Ruth Galloway series, "The Last Remains", looks like change could be in store for more than one of the main characters.

[princess garnet]

Finished from the library: The Edinburgh Mystery and Other Stories of Scottish Crime edited by Martin Edwards
Mystery short stories set in Scotland by well known and lesser authors of the mystery genre from the Golden Age of Crime. It's part of the Crime Classics collection from the British Library.

Next up: Murder at the Elms by Alyssa Maxwell
New and 11th entry in the "Gilded Newport Mystery" series. It's 1901: Emma and Derrick are back from their honeymoon and a mystery to solve at a coal baron's new house in town.

[Vanessa]

I’m reading The Mysterious Double Death of Honey Black by Lisa Hall, the first in the Hotel Hollywood Mysteries, this one a time travel mystery set in the Beverley Hills Hotel in 2019 and 1949.

[Madeleine]

Just about to start "A Taste for Vengeance" by Martin Walker, one of the Bruno series set in France,it has a gorgeous cover of a table laid for a meal, which I am desperate to be part of! I've heard a lot about this series so am glad to finally start reading it.

[Vanessa]

I’m just about to start Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, a story set in 1950s/60s about a female chemist who becomes the host of a cookery show, a story of a woman in a man’s world, I think!

[princess garnet]

Started: The Earl and the Pharaoh by the Countess of Carnarvon (NF)
The story of the 5th Earl of Carnarvon who worked with Howard Carter discovering Pharaoh Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922. This book was published in December 2022, and the Countess used a different publisher than from her previous books about Highclere Castle.
The Countess wrote about Lord Carnarvon and his time in Egypt in her first book Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey (2011).

Finished: St. Clements Bluff by Christine Trent
The first in her new "Heart of St. Mary's County" series. This is also the author's first contemporary set novel. Raleigh Bishop inherits an old house from her late husband Grant and discovers the house had a role in the area's history during the Civil War period. I enjoyed the local details and historical lore in the story.
*
Some forum members may remember Christine Trent's earliest novels such as The Queen's Dollmaker and By the King's Design. She has re-released these novels as part of "The Royal Trades" series as e-books. She also wrote the "Lady of Ashes Mystery" series and a duet about Florence Nightingale starting out in her nursing career and solving mystery on the side.
I've bought all of Christine Trent's novels over the years and enjoyed them. The one I don't have is The Deadly Hours; Christine Trent contributes a short story about Violet solving a mystery connected to a gold watch in 1870. I borrowed a copy of that anthology from the library.

[Vanessa]

Via Pigeonhole I’m reading The Figurine by Victoria Hislop. It’s set in Greece and Britain during the 1960s, 70s and 80s and it’s about family and the questionable acquisition of ancient artefacts.

[princess garnet]

Started: The White Lady by Jacqueline Winspear
In 1947, Elinor White is a former spy who served in two wars, lives alone in a house in the English countryside. When her new neighbors move into the nearby village, Elinor is pulled back into her previous work. The story alternates between Elinor's wartime work and 1947.
Last month Barnes & Noble had a Book Haul Sale; I picked up special edition of the novel with an afterward by the author. It's a stand alone novel and not part of the popular Maisie Dobbs series.