Finished THE ENCHANTMENT EMPORIUM

 

Imagine a large family of magical persons (witches?).  A young person in this family wants to get out from under the constant advice and directions from her "Aunties" and is given the opportunity by her grandmother.  Will she run into more problems than she can handle by herself?  Loved this book.  I haven't read a book by this author that I don't love.

I then started Killing Custer by Margaret Coel.  This is a Wind River Mystery, #17. with Father John O'Malley and Vicky Holden.  A Custer impersonator rides in a parade in Lander, close to the Wind River Reservation and is killed there.  Everyone assumes an Indian killed him, and even Father John and Vicky start to have doubts....  Again, I enjoy these mysteries.  This one also has an exciting ending.

I have now started Quite a Year For Plums, by Bailey White.  In this a group of really quirky people live with love and respect for each other (much of the time).  They recognize the quirks in each other, but do they recognize them in themselves?  At first I thought I was going to be bored silly, but now I'm intrigued wondering what they will do next.

Finished VAMPIRE ACADEMY

 

I really enjoyed this.  I'm sure it is classified as a YA, but this nearly 80 year old  is hooked.  The 'verse is new and unlike any vampire book I've read.  There is teen-age angst, but there is also triumph and tragedy enough to keep me reading.  After the original book, there were several more stories which can serve as background and further adventures.  Don't skip them...they may have been even better than the book.

I have now just barely started The Enchantment Emporium by Tanya Huff.  She doesn't write one series of books forever.  She has lots of three, four, and five book series....several of which I've read and all of those I have enjoyed.  This is the first of a three book series which I am looking forward to.

Finished AN ECHO IN THE BONE

 

I do enjoy these books.  Difficult to believe since I am reading them so slowly.  I am now pretty much caught up with the tv show, but tv is about to zoom past me.  But there is so much more in the books than is in the tv series.  Exciting stuff, family stuff, terrifying stuff, and gentle caring stuff.  Books are better, as always.

I have now begun and finished a book in a new mystery series (new to me) and I seem to have started with the second book in the series.  I'll catch the first one eventually.  Though it has a lot of 20 something sexual angst, which these days I find kind of boring, I thought the mystery was pretty good.  Set in a New England seaside village known for a history of pirate activity, it is possible I loved it in part because I am familiar with the area.

I have now just barely started Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead.  It looks to be a whole new Vampire 'verse and a whole new series (to me.)  We shall see how I did with this.

Finished I , CLAUDIUS and started the seventh book in THE OUTLANDER series

Long and boring to me because it sounded like someone's family gossip from beginning to end. At the same time, I do think I learned a lot about the first three emperorers after Julius Caesar died.

I have now started An Echo In the Bone, the 7th book in The Outlander Series.  It picks up after Jamie's and Claire's house burns down with an accidental tragedy which is probably incidental to the story but is disturbing to Jaime, Claire and Ian.  Jaime is thinking of going to Scotland to return Ian and get his printing press.  I'm thinking something may interfere with his plans (the American Revolution.)

And Still More Books Since I Got Out of the Hospital

The Route that Takes You Home, by Melanie Lageschult is a new mystery series (Mailbox Mysteries) by the same author whose Seasons series about life on a small farm has me so enrapt in my old age.  This new series features a mail carrier who realizes that a house is empty that probably shouldn't be.  The elderly man is missing.  We meet some of the same characters that populate the Seasons series, and a whole lot of new ones.  I enjoyed revisiting this 'verse.

I then read Night of the White Buffalo, another book in the Wind River Mysteries series by Margaret Coel.  The white buffalo is sacred to the Indians of the reservation and the exploitation of this for money made more than my blood boil.  Father O'Malley and Vicky to the rescue!

The next book I read is Dying Breath, the 21st book in Heather Graham's Krewe of Hunters series.  

A new serial killer has shown up who seems to be copying the murders of a person who is definitely in jail.  Vicky Preston is called in to consult since she was an intended victim of the original murderer.  And also, she as well as the members of the Krewe can see ghosts who can be quite helpful in their own way to solving murders.

I am now reading I, Claudius, a fictional autobiography of Tiberius Claudius, destined to become Emperor of Rome despite himself.  The book starts with biographies of the people who surround him as he is growing up as well as what he knows of his father.  Claudius is derided by his Uncle Augustus (current emperor) and his Aunt Livia who believe that, since he stutters and is sickly that he is also stupid.  There are people who see the truth and befriend him, though.  Much of the first part of the book reads like a gossip column about the ruling class.

I must add that I am reading very slowly because I am also trying to catch up on all the summer cook shows I missed while ill as well as the goings on as we close in on the election.

Finished Quite a Few Books, but Much More Slowly than Usual

 

Wow.  It is taking me awhile to even remember how to use this site?  Brain is still working slowly.  But working...

Traditional sci fi leads us to believe that time travel could be a good thing.  Even a means to do good in the world.  Most books dealing with the subject (that I have read) have found bad things about it or problems, but they haven't put the time traveler in the position of always have problems and bad things happen to him.  In this book, we see what life could be like for a time traveler especially when he has no control of the travel and he comes through naked every time....  Fascinating, though not usually uplifting.

OK.  When I left Florida, I was up to date on this blog but I was also ill with a yeast infection that would not quit.  After the trip, I was worse and started on a journey through emergency rooms (you haven't lived until all people working in an emergency room are crowded around to see your bottom).  None of the emergency rooms had a dermatologist on staff, not did they have the ability to process cultures.  Finally found a dermatologist whose culture told us I had staph.  She prescribed Amoxicillin which worked for three or four days and then just quit.  Like the staph got it's number.  So I suggested Bactrim, which had worked well for me 20 years ago when I had staph following a knee operation.  She had me taking 800 mg. three times a day.  I think it did kill the staph, but it also sent me into kidney failure.  Many thanks to my step daughter for knowing to call 911 immediately and get me to the hospital.  I really don't remember much of the whole thing.  I was pretty out of it.  I remember the ambulance vaguely and I remember getting morphene.

I found out later that while dealing with the kidney failure, I went into A-fib (which sent all hospital personal to my room in the middle of the night), followed by my lungs filling with fluid and giving me breathing problems.)  I don't know what all Flower Mound Presbetyrian did, but I remember only 2 breathing treatments before I needed no more.  They installed a port for dialysis, but just as I was about to go down for the treatment, my blood showed I no longer needed it.  As far as the A-Fib, I was put on three new drugs, two of which I HATE: Elequis and Turosemide.  Leaving the hospital I went to a rehab center, which I guess helped, but both facilities ignored my bottom.  I think the Bactrim did kill the staph (while also nearly killing me), but the yeast remains and now I have another bacteria and my doctor is reluctant to prescribe any oral antibiotic (though the only one I have ever had trouble with is Bactrim.)  So I have a wound nurse coming to my house three times a week and I go to a wound clinic once a week and the dermatologist about every two weeks.  (At my age we call that an active social life.)  I have a collection of ring pillows, salves and ointments that threaten to squeeze us out of the house.  TMI?  Sorry.  Back to books.  

I finished the above book while still in the hospital (June 25 or so) then the next 2 in the rehab center.

The next two books were brought to me while I was a the rehab center by my step-daughter.  I don't think I'd have selected this one having given up on Julia Child's biography which I found boring.  But this might have been perfect for the rehab center since I was unable to sleep well there (except during the day): sufficiently interesting without putting me on the edge of my seat. Set in England during WWII during very strict war rationing, it recounts a local contest between professional chefs to find a cohost for a cooking radio show.  The show host and contestents were interesting and well drawn.  Liked it very much.

My step-daughter also brought me this book while I was in rehab and was closer to something I might well have selected for myself.  Set in New Orleans during the lead up to the Civil War, a group of women, some free, some slave came together to undermine the Confederacy as much as possible.  A very dangerous undertaking.  The main character is a slave, but one left to take care of the New Orleans house for long stretches of time while he was tending to business at his out of town plantations.  The lead-up to this assignment for her was harrowing causing her great shyness at first with the new-found freedom in N.O.  Well drawn characters and naturally fascinating subject matter.

I then returned home on my birthday and returned to War and Peace which I never would have taken to the hospital with me...too heavy.  During this next 50 pages, we see our soldiers return to Moscow after a disastrous several battles with the French.  But the Russians chose to see the defeat as the fault of a few of their Generals, and instead to celebrate the actions of the normal enlisted men...one in particular.  So, resumption of the normal parties, feasts, and balls could go on being given in honor of this one man.

Set on the terriformed and colonized moon, a number of separate villages are growing and, humans being humans, are jealous and resentful of each other with skirmishes occuring often.  Our hero, Charles, lived on an island where, unlike the rest of the moon, learning and reading flourished.  But the island, Alp, has blown up and he and his brother might be the only survivors.  The book chronicles his attempt to find someplace to survive, fit in, and even make peace if possible.  I always enjoy Henry Melton's books which make me think.

At this point, my reading slowed immeasurably due to Olympics (I am a huge fan), the presidential conventions (which I watch one of very faithfully), recovering---still slow and sleeping erratically to this day) and catching up on my tv programs (summer cook shows mostly but also the last few ice skating competitions continuing after we got home from Florida.)

I'll end this post since I have dinner to cook, but there are more books to add...

Finished DEATHSTALKER WAR

 

These books just keep getting better.  This book shows us some success, but, as we know from real world experience, the most difficult is yet to come.  And I am looking forward to it.  The book is "edge of my seat" reading with great characters and very inventive new environments.  But, I am looking forward to a break from all this testosterone.  Loved the book.

I have also completed MANHATTAN MAYHEM.  This is the last book I could find of Mary Higgins Clark.  I think I have read all of them...at least all I can get my hands on.  This is a collection of short stories from various people in Mary's writing group (mystery/thriller) who each contributed a story set in a different part of Manhattan, complete with photos of scenes from each neighborhood.  I had a Mary Higgins Clark pile of books that I read one off it in turn with my other piles,  That pile is just an empty space now, which needs to be filled with more mystery/thrillers.  So I earmarked several stories in this book that I really like.   I will now order the first book in several of those authors series to find me more authors I love.  And this book had lots of great stories in it.  Work to do...

I have now started The Time Traveler's Wife which I found browsing in out daughter's collection in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep.  I had seen the tv series? but it was not complete and, besides, books are nearly always better.  I am thoroughly enjoying it.  It has that predictable/unpredictable  feeling--you know what is coming but you don't know when or what will happen.  And this is over and over.....  I am presently at the point after they have met in Claire's real time but before they get married.