Happy April Fool's Day, everyone. Hard to believe it's almost Easter - time seems to be flying by this year!

So...what are you reading?

I've continued with the old Owen Keane series by Terence Faherty, and finished up Live to Regret, The Lost Keats and Die Dreaming. I'll probably keep going and begin Prove the Nameless today. This is an odd series in that it jumps around in time and it seems you're reading them out of order.  

I finished Elizabeth Lynn Casey's DEATH THREADS (ebook) this morning, #3 in the series is on wait list at the library site so I'm not sure how long I'll have to wait.

Now I'm going back to C. S. Harris' WHEN MAIDENS MOURN, which is excellent. Also from the library I have the new Joanne Fluke so the first week of April will be a productive one. My reading, so far this year, has been lacklustre in terms of numbers.

GAil

Finished the always excellent Colin Cotterill's Slash and Burn (Dr. Siri in Laos). 

Also finished Junkyard Dogs and The Dark Horse (Walt Longmire series) by Craig Johnson.  Both were very good, as usual.  My saga with Junkyard Dogs is that it came really smelling of cigarette smoke.  I've been putting it outside in the sun for about a week.  I forgot about it the other day and we had a bit of a rain shower.  Needless to say this paperback had big water damage.  I read it anyway and threw it away.  So sad.

Am now reading  Red Herring Without Mustard (Flavia de Luce series #3) by Alan Bradley.  I am either getting old and crotchety or po'd that I did not win the Mega Millions, but this series seems to go on and on without much change or growth in any of the characters.  I'm still reading so maybe something will happen.

Happy April.

Susan

Today, I spent this quiet rainy day reading Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. I loved it. It was geared towards teens, but still enjoyable for adults. The story had a good bit of mystery and suspense in the beginning. About half way through, revelations make you feel like someone litterally just opened the curtains to see a whole new world. The rest of the book was just as entertaining still with some mystery. I am handing it off to my DD before it has to go back to the library.

Happy April to all my "Mysterious" friends.  I am still plugging along with Charlotte & Thomas Pitt --- I do enjoy these books, but my problem is as usual I just get too sleepy to read very long.

Time to give romance a break and will start Lescroart's The Second Chair today, time to get my Dismas on.

I finished Charles Todd's Wings of Fire and Larry Watson's American Boy. I'm now about half through Brother Odd by Dean Koontz. I'm trying to catch up on the series.

In print, I'm still reading Scarlet by Stephen R. Lawhead (non-mystery) but should finish that tonight. In audio, I downloaded End of the Wasp Season by Denise Mina (Alex Morrow #2) to start tonight also...I had actually gotten the CD version awhile back and had to return it unlistened to because I had a bunch of library books I was waiting for come available all at once. On my kindle, I'm going to start Murder off the Books by Evelyn David (Sullivan Investigations #1) at lunchtime...that's my free 'borrow' from the Kindle library at Amazon from last month.

Cheryl

Susan - I am feeling the same way about the Flavia de Luce series I am also still reading them but none were as good as the first.

I also read a really old book The Hot Rock Donald E Westlake and really liked it, it is going to be hard to find some of the first ones but I'm going to look for them.

I loved How to Make People Like You in 90 seconds NicholasBoothman - I had started it months ago but was bored with the first part but when I picked it up again I could hardly put it down. 

OOPS, my inernet has been messing up and I hit the update button twice because it wasn't doing anything.

Ugh, I gave in to my MIL's constant insistance that I read a Mary Higgins Clark book. She gave me Deck the Halls that MHC wrote with her daughter. I hated it. The writing was horrible, two many characters that they felt needed to be explained in detail for just a 100+page book, and the plot was way too predictable. The story was just entertaining enough (and I was stuck in a waiting room for 2hrs with nothing else to read), that I finished it. BUt I dont think I will be reading any of her other books any time soon.

I still love the Flavia de Luce books - a nice piece of brain candy when I don't feel like concentrating on a more complicated plot!!

Kat --- Some of her very first books (sans daughter) were not bad at all, but as she came to churn them out every 6 months (I joke), they really went downhill.  I have not read her in years for that very reason.

No other reading news from here --- still reading 2 pages and going to sleep at night!!

Kat - I also don't like her books but if someone insists you read another try "My Gal Sunday". It's almost as though it was written by someone else, I loved it and wish there were more like it. It's about an ex-president and his congresswoman wife who solve 4 mysteries. I recently got another copy so I could read it again.

BECKY - lay off those Margaritas! they'll do it to you every time!!  just kidding...... I have many  a night when I can only read a chapter or so and then , I'm out!

Oh Jeanne --- I wish it were margaritas instead of "ADVANCING AGE"!!!!

Finished  The Ranger by Ace Atkins. I really liked this book and then went to pre ordered the second one from Amazon. If you like Michael Connelly or John Sandford  you might give this author a try.

Up next is Plum Island by Nelson DeMille.

Happy reading

Becky - I don't want to hear abut "advancing age" - I am so much more "advanced" than you!

Second Chair has turned out to be pretty riveting. Number one the page count is down and number two the font is larger....I am all for that. Plus the mystery is A rated as always.

Tammy, I enjoyed The Ranger as well, although I've never read his other series. I've heard that he (Atkins) will be finishing up the last Robert Parker "Spencer" book. Michael Brandman finished up the last Parker Jesse Stone book.

I'm still plugging along on the Terence Faherty series and finished Prove the Nameless and am now on The Ordained. One more to go and I'll have finished this series.   I've enjoyed it, but newer books are calling my name!

OK, I already DNF'd Murder off the Books...I must be getting really picky, but it just didn't grab me and was a very confusing start to a book. I was browsing through my library Kindle list and noticed that Blood of the Wicked by Leighton Gage was available, so I snagged that and started it last night. Very good so far! South America is one area I've not explored much; this one is set in Brazil.

I'm also starting The Divine Circle of Ladies Playing With Fire by Dolores Stewart Riccio, #5 Cass Shipton mystery. After my year-long ban on buying books, this was the first one I spent money on--it's a series about a circle of Wiccan women, and has the most accurate depiction of what it means to be Wiccan/Pagan today that I have seen in a book/series...it's not a paranormal embellished with vampires and demons abd faerie crap, but a real life story. LOL

Cheryl

I just finsished  Colin Cotterill's Love Song from a Shallow Grave. I love my Dr Siri's books, although this one had a bit too much politics in it for me. I would like to try Madame Daeng's spicy noodles though. I just ordered his latest book Slash and Burn from amazon. I never see them come up in swaps and FIFO is very slow for his books. Too bad i can't figure out how to put into the reading challenge. Oh what to read next. I think I need a vampire.

Alice

Hi Alice,

I just posted Slash and Burn and Laura T's name came up. If you have a Gold Key membership and the book is on a Friend's WL, it will be offered to them first.  When I posted Slash and Burn, Laura T's name came up as a friend.  Consider requesting to be a friend of some like-minded readers.

Slash and Burn was very good.  I do usually have to wait a long time for most Cotterill books and have often been tempted to buy them.

Susan

Alice, I rarely bother to wishlist Cotterill's books here anymore. I generally am one of the first in line on the wishlist (usually months in advance of publication!) and the only book of his I've gotten from PBS was the first one, years after it came out. Otherwise I would sit for months and months at the front of the line without any luck. Instead, I have decided to just get them from the library and saved myself pulling my hair out waiting. LOL

Susan, the only problem I have with the Gold Key thing is, most of my friends are indeed "like minded readers" and sometimes I will get 2 or 3 friends or more who have a book wishlisted and it lets you choose who gets it...I usually can't decide who is more worthy (*snicker*) so I just post it FIFO. If it's just one friend though then i will post directly to them.

Cheryl

Yup!  I'm getting Susan's coppy of "Slash and Burn"--Thanks Susan!!  I was really surprised and excited to see it being offered to me.  Small confession here...I actually haven't read any of Cotterill's books yet--but have read so many good things about them here that I put them all on my wish list.  Have actually placed some of them on hold, as my library (Sacramento) has them available in e-book format, so hopefully I'll be download them to my Sony Reader when I'm ready for them.  I'll start on the series (which I'm sure I'll love), so I can eventually re-post the copy of "Slash and Burn" that Susan is sending me.

I've finished reading "Murder in Chinatown" by Victoria Thompson.  I did enjoy entry  in the Sarah Brandt series, but it wasn't one of my favorites in the series--definitely worth reading though!

Currently, I'm reading "Sworn to Silence" by Linda Castillo.  I should finish this book tonight.  It's certainly kept my interest and I have to agree with everyone who posted about this series before--there's more than a little gore here.  I'll certainly be continuing with this series as well.