What Fiction are you reading this week, May 19, 2024?

[hermetic]

Reading Extinction by Douglas Preston. Read 1/3 of the book in one sitting Friday night. Could not put it down. Starts off with an interesting mystery and then it just keeps getting weirder and weirder. Spooky weird. Then, last night I was tending a sick cat so didn't peruse as much but what I did read actually had me exclaiming out loud, OMG! Way to write, Preston!

Just started listening to The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn. A Hitchcockian thriller about an agoraphobic woman who believes she witnessed a crime in a neighboring house. Lots of plot twists. This was made into a movie in 2021. Anybody see it?

What books are holding your attention this week?

[FeelingBlue]

1. Just finished...

Hamnet and now I’m enjoying the audiobook of YA novel Death-Defying Pepper Roux! Lots of fun by a superb writer Geraldine McCaughrean.

[NanaCat]

18. I have Hamnet slated for later in the year

I have Geraldine McCaughrean's The White Darkness in my Kindle library. If a future book challenge calls for something about Antarctica, I'm now ready!

Plus, it was only $1.99. Books like that show up on challenges all the time, so I knew to grab it at that price.

[drthais]

3. Copperhead

Barbera Kingsolver

[japple]

14. Loved Demon Copperhead. It was one of the best books I read in 2023.

n/t

[drthais]

4. Copperhead

Barbera Kingsolver

[MOMFUDSKI]

5. The Women.

Finally got it from the library! Now there are over 500 people on the waiting list. I am enjoying it but thinking it may be another girlie novel.

[NanaCat]

17. Is this the new Kristin Hannah book?

I know TC Boyle wrote a book with the same title, about the women of Frank Lloyd Wright's life.

The wait lists for the Hannah book at my local library are schizophrenic: The audiobook has 1075 people signed up for it, while the ebook has 1114.

However, the physical copies, including the large print edition, have no wait list at all.

[mentalsolstice]

6. This week....

I finished When We Had Wings by Ariel Lawhon, Kristina McMorris, and Susan Meissner. I liked it better than The Women. I’m almost finished with The Beauty Doctor by Elizabeth Hutchison Bernard. It’s an interesting look at plastic surgery in the early 1900s.

I did see Woman in the Window, and enjoyed its poke at the genre.

Happy reading!

[hermetic]

9. Thanks

Looks like the movie wasn't as good as the book. As usual.

[NanaCat]

19. I don't watch many movies

Read The Woman in the Window several years ago when that was the Next Big Thing in mysteries: The Woman in the Window, The Girl on the Train, Gone Girl, Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead--those books.

All of those sort of mash together in my head now. I can remember some things about them...but mostly all I remember is how off-kilter women leads were the Next Big Thing for a while there.

[cbabe]

7. The women:

Reminders of China Beach. A little girlie. A little formulaic. Mostly apprehensive about her return to the world. Facing her decades long fight for recognition as a vet and as a human.

[NanaCat]

8. Writing women week

LM Montgomery – Anne of Green Gables
Another entry of my ‘can’t believe I’ve never got around to it’ books. I suspect most people know what it’s about, so I won’t bore everyone with a summary of what to expect from this beloved classic.

Dame Susan Hill, DBE – The Various Haunts of Men
The first installment of Hill’s popular Simon Seraillier mystery series, about women who go out for a run or walk, and never return. Newbie detective Freya Graffham soon needs the help of her boss, Chief Inspector Seraillier, to solve the case.

[txwhitedove]

10. Hi. Safe and dry here north of Houston, but daughter is putting in 18-hr days due to power outages in

other Houston clinics. Ick. While I read and garden. Promptly put a hold on Extinction cause it's a hot one at the Library. Thanks.

Read Legacy by Uche Blackstock, a memoir and reckoning with racism in medicine. Very good, well written and a good section on Covid time p( in New York. (Sorry, it's not fiction, but I love your thread so much that I tell you about all my reads.)

Wow, read The Dog Thief, by Marta Acosta, first book in Coyote Run K-9 series. Fresh, fun, colorful characters in mystery with a quirky wonderful woman named Maddie, dog rehabilitator and trainer. "How far would you go to save the awesome dog that you love?" Perhaps meant even more to me this week because we could not save our beloved good boy Leo this week when he declined after pneumonia, but great read and can't wait to read next in series.

[hermetic]

12. Aww, thanks

And for reccing a new series I will be looking for n ow.

Glad to hear you're safe after that terrible storm but sad to know so many are still suffering its aftermath.

[japple]

11. Still reading Jayne Anne Phillips' book, Night Watch. I'm just blown away by the writing.

The story and characters are most compelling, but the writing has me hypnotized. It's the kind of book that you think about all during the day and can't wait to get back to at night. I am completely invested in these people and cannot imagine how the author will tie up all the threads in the 1/3 I have yet to read.

So sorry to read that you have a sick kitty and hope he/she is on the mend soon. Thanks for taking time out of your nursing duties to host this weekly discussion.

[hermetic]

13. That sounds so good

Can't wait to read it.

Poor little guy. 14 mos old and suddenly his back legs don't work. He kept falling over. So, by my side all night but he wanted to get up a couple of times for water and cat box so I had to help. He's doing better today but still a bit off so I guess he'll spend tomorrow at the vet's.

[txwhitedove]

15. Hugs to kitty, and well wishes for good vet visit.

[NanaCat]

20. Dang it.

Don't tell me I have to push that one up the TBR list.

Her short stories are quite wonderful. Can't remember the titles of them right now, but she has a couple of volumes.worth checking out.

[yellowdogintexas]

16. The One Hundred Years of Lennie and Margot by Marianne Cronin

I am still working my way through it; my reading time has been cut short this week.
I really like this book though !

An extraordinary friendship. A lifetime of stories.

Seventeen-year-old Lenni Pettersson lives on the Terminal Ward at the Glasgow Princess Royal Hospital. Though the teenager has been told she’s dying, she still has plenty of living to do. Joining the hospital’s arts and crafts class, she meets the magnificent Margot, an 83-year-old, purple-pajama-wearing, fruitcake-eating rebel, who transforms Lenni in ways she never imagined.

As their friendship blooms, a world of stories opens for these unlikely companions who, between them, have been alive for one hundred years. Though their days are dwindling, both are determined to leave their mark on the world. With the help of Lenni’s doting palliative care nurse and Father Arthur, the hospital’s patient chaplain, Lenni and Margot devise a plan to create one hundred paintings showcasing the stories of the century they have lived—stories of love and loss, of courage and kindness, of unexpected tenderness and pure joy.

Though the end is near, life isn’t quite done with these unforgettable women just yet.

[question everything]

21. Two Parts Sugar, One Part Murder - Valerie Burns

A Navy brat, a Stanford graduate is traveling from LA to a small town in Michigan to view an inheritance by a great aunt whom she has never met. The inheritance includes a large house and a bakery.

I found the initial descriptions to be of interest.

We first meet the narrator describing how she is shivering climbing flights of stairs toward the small plane: "I wrapped my pashmina more closely and moved as fast as I could in my new Louboutin heels." Once in the cabin she is looking for the leather seats in First Class and is told by the flight attendant: "There are only twenty-eight seats total, the flight time is thirty minutes, I'm sure you'll be able to endure it that short time frame."

Images of the ladies from Sex and the City? Not necessarily. When she arrives at the office of the attorney, she is presented with a "plastic rectangle which was slid into what looked like a mail slot."

The face of an older Black woman popped into the screen. And the narrator adds: The woman, aunt Octavia, has a skin the same color as mine.

And this is how we find that he is an African American. I read many mystery books and I don't remember any of the characters being described as an African American. There are many about Asian Americans but this was interesting. This is an e-book so no photo of the author but she is quite prolific and, yes, an African American.

The narrator later meets neighbor and friends and employees and one of them "had what my dad referred to as home training, referring to her aunt as Miss Octavia, knowing that older Black women were insulted when they were called by their first names, just as insulting as Black men being called "boy."

There is also a great English Mastiff named Baby, fiercely loyal and adorable.

As the narrator visits the area she constantly takes photos and post them with #hashtags. I have no idea what this means, similar to Facebook? Twitter? but they immediately generating many followers.

So far interesting, Yes, there is a murder but also questions and realization that this idyllic tourist city is hiding many secrets that we are bound to discover.