Finished BEFORE WE WERE YOURS

 

This is centered around two people...a 12 year old first born of five living with her parents on a shantyboat in 1939 and their subsequent treatment by a children's home.  The other is a young lawyer about to run for the Senate and get married who begins to learn she may be related to the first...somehow.  I am left, as I often am by books and life, stymied by the atrocities we humans can commit for money and/or power.

I am now going back to War and Peace.

  

I find it surprising that I am not reading more quickly now that we are total shut-ins.  TR's daughter learned from her doctor that it was nearly impossible right now to go anywhere and not get Covid.  So, we are staying home and she is getting our groceries and anything else we need.  When we go swimming every day, we sit and read for an hour or so afterward.  But now I am pretty much watching television all the time and only reading at night after TR goes to bed.  So, I am reading more slowly.  But it is Christmas and I have about a million Christmas movies taped (mostly Halmark.)

Finished BLOOD LINE

 

I swear these books are just getting better.  This author takes facts from all kinds of sciences and from history to weave together imaginative and exciting "saving the world" dramas in every book.  To me, this is science fiction at it's best and indeed most thrilling.  These books take several days for me to read and I believe it to be a miracle that I can sleep at night while reading them.

Then at the end of the book was a neat short story, a caper in which Tucker and his dog Kane (major characters introduced in this book) helped a young woman in Budapest.  Though it didn't have a prayer of engendering the tension of Rollins novels, I did very much enjoy relationship between dog and man working together.

I have now started Before We Were Yours, by Lisa Wingate.  It seems to be about abuses at orphanages and nursing homes as well as trafficking children.  We shall see, 

Finished KILLING RAVEN

 

I thought this might be the best of the series so far.  The tension was higher and the mystery seemed even more puzzling to me.  I love these books.

I have now started Blood Line, the eighth book in the Sigma Force series by James Rollins.  I love these books: they are science fiction action novels that also explore technology, go to exotic places, and are tense all the way through.  This one is especially tense to me because it deals with different kinds of exploitation of women for money than even Robin Cook has conceived of as yet.  I very much care about the women whose lives are in danger...

Finished EVERY BREATH YOU TAKE

 

Once again, a good mystery, danger, and great characters.  

I have now started Killing Raven, another Wind River Reservation mystery by Margaret Coel.  A young girl has seen a hand sticking up out of the ground, reports it to the police and immediately they call Father O'Malley to give last rites.  The murder victim is white.  Meanwhile, Vicky is enlisted by a fellow lawyer to help out with legal contracts, etc. at the new reservation Casino, which is drawing protests (possibly violent ones) from a group believing the Casino is exploiting Indians.

Finished THE FAERIE WAR

 

Though there seems to be three more books in this series, this book brings to a close the events of the first two books.  I'm glad I stuck with them.  In spite of the angst that just irritated me, the action was great, the characters were interesting, and the climax, satisfying.  I think I will stop here though.  I'm glad I read these three, but this is a good place to stop.

I am now about to start what Goodreads calls Under Suspicion #5, by Mary Higgins Clark and Alafair Burke.  I have read three books in this series, but I've read them all out of order and I guess it doesn't matter.

Finished DEATH BY WATER

 

Phryne has been hired by a cruise line to discover which of several possible habitual passengers is stealing expensive jewelry from other passengers.  Reimbursing the passengers for the jewelry that was stolen is mounting up.  I loved that the cruise was going to New Zealand and that the passengers were all wonderful and interesting characters.  Their interactions were fascinating.  I was surprised that the murder happened late in the novel but, in some ways that was good because we knew the suspects by that time.  Enjoyable as usual.

I have now started The Faerie War by Rachel Morgan.  I still stay somewhat ambivalent about this YA series.  It is inventive and certainly has a good plot, but the teenage angst is sometimes really too much for this old woman.  "There are IMPORTANT things to think about, girl.  Stop thinking about boys!"  😈

Finished DEAD ICE

 

Still trying to figure the significance of the title.  Zombies are cold?  All dead things are cold?  The action story about more human-like zombies turned out to be not bad (no stupid things here--not even zombies).  And, as often happens these days with the Anita Blake books, more pages were devoted to the relationships in her life than to the action plot, but this I think, is what I like about these books.  I love watching characters try to develop smooth living patterns, but, of course, if they do there will be no book....  So it looks like these books will continue.

Then I got a bonus.  An after story which showed one of the results in more detail.  After being wounded just out of the blue for no discernable reason, how can you heal?  Lovely story.

I am now about to start Death by Water, a Phryne Fisher Mystery by Kerry Greenwood.  Actually this is the 15th of the books in this series.  It looks like Miss Phryne is going on a cruise.  What a good idea, I can use a cruise in the middle of this pandemic and at the hopefully winding down of the election...