Finished DRAGONS (THE ENCHANTED WORLD SERIES)

I very much enjoy this beautifully illustrated series.  This one was especially good in that it had a nice section on Asian dragons (a decided hole in my knowledge)  as well as Persian dragons (another hole.)  In the series the illustrations are in the style of the culture of the time period and region discussed, which, in this book especially, added greatly to the atmosphere.

I have now started Gods and Goddesses in the same series.  I know quite a bit about Greek and Roman gods,  a little about Norse mythology, but could use more, very little about Egyptian or Hindu gods.  I wonder how much of these will be covered.

Finished ALL BY MYSELF, ALONE

Well, she fooled me again, though it is rare for me to be ahead of Mary Higgins Clark.  By giving us the duo of Alvira and Willie Meehan and setting the story on a luxury cruise, she makes the story lighter than much of her usual fare, but I still found it most compelling and the climax left nothing to be desired.  Love this author.

I have now started #5 in the Wind River Mystery series by Margaret Coel.  Father Joseph only arrived at St. Francis Mission on the Arapaho reservation in Wyoming two weeks ago.  But the elders in the tribe remember him from the '60s when he had been assigned here as a young priest.  He left to become a professor at various Catholic colleges, but in retirement has been assigned back here.  This evening he was killed while arriving to give last rights to a dying woman.....

Finished DEAD TO ME

The silly complications in this book compliment the action sequences in a tongue-in-cheek adventure which were, to me, a welcome change of pace.  The situations are implausible even if you do believe in ghosts (which I do when I am reading about them) but I rather enjoy silly.  I'd get tired of this series pretty quickly if I read the books back to back, but I never do.  The next book I am reading is Mary Higgins Clark.  I read a fantasy followed by a realistic novel over and over with some non-fiction and biography thrown in probably seemingly hap-hazardly, but I do have carefully stacked piles in many genres.  I will buy more books in this series, but I will read close to 15-20 books before I read the next Simon Canderas (protagonist) adventure.

I have now started All by Myself, Alone. by Mary Higgins Clark.  We are off on another cruise, but this one is an ultra-luxury cruise going around the world, but the first leg is from NY to Southampton.  Characters include a gemologist whose fiance was arrested for mega-fraud just before the wedding, an 85 year old woman who is a connoisseur of jewelry, a jewel thief (whose identity we don't know), an Interpol agent, a man who specializes in returning stolen art to the rightful owners, and, much to my delight, Willie and Alvirah Meehan, my favorite Mary Higgins Clark characters who are celebrating their 45th anniversary.  We are in for a bumpy ride.

Finished DEATH BEFORE WICKET

I think this was the 10th in the Phryne Fisher Mystery series.  Not knowing or understanding a thing about Cricket, there were parts of this that left me pretty lost.  But the mysteries--two sort of but eventually the first became at least three--were involving.  The book as a whole, like the other mysteries in this series that I have read was busy in a leisurely way, delightful, and compact.  One is left surprised that so much is contained in such a short book.

I have now started Dead to Me by Anton Strout, the first of a series of Urban Fantasies about a psychically gifted young man named Simon Canderous.  I had been dreading this book because I bought it on a whim after reading a short story by the author in an anthology called Shadowed Souls.  I had been intrigued at the time, but by now I'd forgotten the story entirely.  Well, I am two chapters in and I am hooked.  Some abilities, it turns out, can be as much curse as gift.

Finished ANGEL TIME

A story of redemption (or at least the beginning of redemption) which bears Anne Rice's mark of lush environments and interesting characters.  There was shades of Violin in the descriptions of music (as well as Cry to Heaven) while the journey into the past with its detailed descriptions reminded me of Servant of the Bones.  This new series should give Anne Rice a great showcase for the latter.  The reader feels like she really is walking down a street in the past with all senses in play.  And the stories (two of them really) are wonderful as well.

And now I have started another Phryne Fisher Mystery.  This promises to be as busy and charming as the rest as Phryne and Dot have traveled to Sidney, met some fun new characters, and have to figure out who robbed the safe at the college as well as to find Dot's sister who seems to have been missing for a week.

Finished A PLACE CALLED FREEDOM

Two people are trapped by their social class in Scotland in the era leading up to the American Revolution:  Mack is a serf trapped to work in a coal mine for his lifetime enslaved to the land and mineowner; Lizzie, born into the owner class, but to a man who mismanaged his estate and then died.  Her mother has no idea how to manage it and is about to lose it.  Lizzie is expected to marry the son of a nearby landowner who she detests.  The story follows the action to London and then to Virginia.

The thing I found really frustrating about The Pillars of the Earth and World Without End exists here also, albeit in shorter form:  a villain so evil as to make me start wondering how to go back in time and assascinate him.  This is a page-turner.

I have now started Angel Time by Anne Rice.  Told in the first person, our narrator confides in us his love of missions and peace, somewhat ironic for a hit man.

Finished ISAAC'S STORM

This may be my favorite of the books Larson has written.  By gathering everything written by or about the main principles in this disaster and putting them together in close to chronological order, he has again written an extremely compelling story.  And it is case in point of the disaster that can be, if not caused by, certainly exacerbated by a combination of arrogance and ignorance.

I have now begun A Place Called Freedom, by Ken Follett.  Mack McAshe, a Scottish serf working in the coal mine belonging to the lord of the land her lives on, longs for freedom.  Which is about as far as I have gotten...😊😂.