Finished IF YOU ASK ME by Betty White

Pithy and sweet.  It is rather like reading a real life version of #1 Ladies' Detective Agency.  Of course, there are no mysteries to solve, but the outlook on life is similar.  Betty likes everyone and loves all animals.  She shares her outlook on growing old without giving advice.  Though she never really mentions it, I couldn't help being struck by the fact that she is far from lonely even though she has outlived most of her contemporaries, certainly most close friendships from earlier projects in her life.  But, because she always related well to colleagues of all ages, she continues to have close friendships and a full social as well as professional life.



I have now started The Initiation, the first book in The Secret Circle, by L. J. Smith.  I find her books page turners and fun.  It is she who wrote The Vampire Diaries.  This is about a circle of teen witches.  There are forces of good and evil here, and the counterpoint is quite interesting, especially since proponents of both are actually both good and evil within themselves and respect each other even while disagreeing--at least so far.  I am enjoying it.

Finished FEVER by Robin Cook

If not the best of his books that I have read, it comes very close.  High action; high intensity; serious drama.  Could not put it down...literally.  Stayed up way too late a couple of nights.  I highly recommend this book to anyone not prone to nightmares of heart attacks.

I am now reading If You Ask Me, by Betty White.  It is not funny, but recounts very sweetly stories about her most recent work (at age 89) and speaks a bit of her longevity.  It is a welcome break from the high tension of Robin Cook.  This is a relaxing quick reading book.

Finished FINISHED SHADOW OF NIGHT and started two more.

Really loved this one...maybe even more than the first in the series, A Discovery of Witches.  In this they are back in the past of Christopher Marlowe and Shakespeare (which may be why I loved it so much).  Now they have come back to the present, and problems are seriously shaping up for them.  And who knows how long I have to wait for the third book in the series to be written!!!  Let alone, in paperback!!



I then switched to this.  I read the first part of this book a long time ago, The Sword in the Stone, thinking I might want to read it with my students.  I got a classroom set and waited to get a class of good enough readers to handle it, but I never did---or at least I never did after I'd read it and prepared.  I had lots of individual students who could have handled it, but never a classroom set...  So, I have just finished the second book--the Queen of Air and Darkness.  I thought it would be Morgan Le Faye, but here, it was her sister, Morgaise,  daughter of Igraine and the mother of Gawaine, Agravaine, Geharis, and Gareth.  This book centers mostly around her family, with Arthur's battle against Lot (Morgaise' husband) running a counterpoint.  Well written and much more entertaining than Morte d' Artur was.  I will come back to it, but now....



I have started Fever.  I am only to page 7, but it seems like it will be about cancer-causing pollution.  It promises to be good.

Finished VULCAN'S GLORY

Lts. Spock and Montgomery Scott's first mission on the Enterprise with Captain Pike and Number One.  Spock falls in love amid murder and mayhem.  Loved it every step of the way.



Am now about to start Shadow of Night, by Deborah Harkness.  This is the second book of the ALL SOUL'S TRILOGY, the first of which was A Discovery of Witches.

Finished PEOPLE OF THE MIST

True to W. Michael and Kathleen O'Neal Gear's earlier books, this also is set in prehistoric America, this in what we now call the Chesapeake Bay area.  The people we learn about here will eventually produce Powhattan and Pocahontas, but now it is 1300 AD, and we have a murder mystery to be solved by a most unlikely old man.  I have enjoyed it as much as any I've read, especially because I also enjoy murder mysteries...  Hurrah!



I am now about to start Vulcan's Glory, a Star Trek novel by D. C. Fontana.

Finished Mary Jane Clarks, NOWHERE TO RUN

Again a fast-paced thriller/mystery with clues and red herrings.  Now add Anthrax and hostage taking and a little psychosis thrown in, and it was a quick read, at least partially because I couldn't stop reading.  In other words, I loved it.




I have now started People of the Mist by W. Michael and Kathleen O'Neal Gear.  Set in the Chesapeake Bay area in about 1300 A. D., we have a murder mystery (well, the reader has a good idea of who did it, but the people have no idea) that could well start a war which would spell the end of three matriarchal villages.  I am well into it (nearly 200 pages in) and am enjoying it.

Finished A PERFECT BLOOD

I have now finished A Perfect Blood, by Kim Harrison.  The books stay exciting and inventive, and Rachel Morgan remains charming and likable as do the other major characters.  Even enemies hated in the first books, have gradually become more likable and some friends, loved in the first books, have either left, died, or become hated and left.  So, the stories stay fresh, and the overall topic of race hatred (addressed in most urban fantasies I have read) stays relevant.




I am now about to start Nowhere to Run by Mary Jane Clark, a mystery who writes very much in the same style as Mary Higgins Clark...again, impossible to put down books.