At the moment I'm more than halfway through Career of Evil.  Pub food and fast food is mentioned but no recipes! 

If you like the Cormoran Strike series, this is really good, really long at almost 500 pages!

Marla - thanks for your comments on The Night Sister. Since our reading tastes are quite similar, that would probably be a little too paranormal for me as well!

Right now I'm reading a historical mystery titled Anatomy of Death by Felicity Young. I know Alice read this too and liked it. So far, I'm finding it really good.

Still not reading anything with food in it.  I'm gonna starve by Thanksgiving!  I loaded a few new apps on my phone.  One very imortant one, Kindle!

I'll finish Career of Evil today.

I take it back I did start The Witness / Sandra Brown.  It's been on my TBR forever.  I just kept passing over it.  I thought it was going to be a romance, not!  A bit of a thriller and a little touch of gruesome.  The MC does cook breakfast and has a little recipe hint for waffles which could be used for pancakes even french toast.  I can't believe how I'm zipping through the book.

Hey Geri --- Did you read Cormoran in print or Kindle??  I am wondering if it is one you can borrow and return within so many days???

Jeanne --- I have read the Felicity Young book.  In fact, I think I have read perhaps two in the series.  They were enjoyable to me.

Becky, I got it on Kindle and yes, I'll be returning it for a refund today.  Three days of steady can't step away from it.  It's seven days to read it for a refund.  I found out if you buy a book you can see if it's a refundable book by going to Manage Your Content.  If it doesn't say that right away you can return it immediately for a refund.

I just finished a (gasp!) Historical Fiction by Deanna Raybourn entitled A Curious Beginning.  I am NOT a history buff (nearly flunked history in college), but this book had me within the first 30 pages and I ended up reading it in two days.  For me that is a feat as I am a slow reader with a touch of dyslexia.  The story is set in London in June 1887 just before Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee and features Veronica Speedwell, an outspoken,  well ahead of her time young woman naturalist who has traveled the world.  I absolutely loved the book and sincerely hope it is not a stand alone and there will be more.

I am reading "Arsenic and Old Books" by Miranda James, a "cat in the stacks" mystery.  Back visiting the MC (Maine Coon) cat with his sidekick, Charlie Harris.  :)   I've had a couple Maine Coon cats and they act just like Diesel is a great example.  Civil War history and rumors about a couple prominent families leading to a present day murder is the theme. Very good, started it Friday and am almost done. 

Una - having read several Deanna Raybourn books, I doubt this will be a stand alone. Glad you enjoyed it!

Geri --- Okay, perhaps I will try that.  I might finish it in 7 days!!!  It took me over a month to finish "Poldark" but there were some interferences --- packing/moving, etc.

Una --- I believe Raybourn is the one who writes a series with flowers in the name --- "The Pink Carnation" for one.  I know that one because I read it!!!  It did not strike me enough to read the next, but would not be opposed to reading your recommendation to check it out.

Una, I hate to disagree with Becky but Deanna Raybourn wrote the Lady Julia Grey series and it was VERY good! Here is one of the titles: The Dark Enquiry (A Lady Julia Grey Mystery).

Pink Carnation series was written by Laura Willig.

Finished Career of Evil.  My goodness the suspects really did have a career of evil.  I was a tad disappointed with the very end, just me I think.  Though, like Marla said there will be more.

Bed book is The Witness.  Phew!  A minor thriller that jumps between the past and present day.  Sometime it takes me a few words to realize it's jumped between past and present but not annoying.  It's only covering roughly three or four years. 

I read A Curious Beginning about a week ago and enjoyed it very much. Just finished another historical mystery Mist of Midnight (Daughters of Hampshire #1) by Sandra Byrd. That one was a Christian mystery and reminded me of the old Gothic mysteries of my youth. Young woman who lived in India with her missionary parents returns home to England after her parents are killed in an uprising only to find that someone impersonated her, died and is buried in the family cemetery, and a distant, brooding cousin is now the heir to her family estate. They all look upon her as the imposter.

For  my food book, I'm reading Murder with Fried Chicken and Waffles by A.L. Herbert. The MC runs a soul food restaurant and finds one of her investors murdered in her kitchen. I'm about halfway through and like it so far. The MC has a lazy cousin who "works" at the restaurant and causes all kinds of trouble and is a bit of a hoot. This is a regular library book (cause I don't have enough books to read at home, lol)

And just finished on my Kindle from the library Death at the Abbey by Christine Trent. I really liked this latest in the series. Violet is called to the Welbeck estate by the Fifth Duke of Portland to arrange a funeral and finds out it's for a raven. The Duke is eccentic and things get even more bizarre as several murders occur.

I'm reading Murder at St Polycarp by Marianna Heusler

I purchased Murder with Fried Chicken and Waffles the other day. Will try that next and will find some other books with food and recipes in them.

Mary, I do the same thing. Have many books in my TBR pile and I always seem to check out books at the library. In fact, when I met Jeanne at the library, we got some books at the small FOL sale area at the local library. I can just imagine what it would be like if I went to one of the large FOL sales.

BTW: Has anyone ever tried the recipes from the mystery books? I've tried a few of Joanne Fluke's, Lorna Barrett's and some of Jessica Beck's recipes.

The last time I tried  recipe from  book was The Twenty-Five Ingredient Chili something or other and I can't remember the author.  Spent one Sunday afternoon making it and when I was done it wasn't any better than the chili I make with a third of the ingredients!! 

I'm a little over half-way thru The Searchers/Simon Toyne.  You're right, Jeanne...it is very different!  Can't even begin to guess how this is all going to turn out.

I agree, Geri...didn't like the ending of Career of Evil.  Want to tell Robin to "wake up"!  Want to read the next one to see how this all turns out.

This weekend I started reading Death by Coffee (Bookstore Cafe, Bk 1) :: Alex Erickson but decided to quit it around 40 pages or so in.  The MC was just getting too irritating for me and I have too many other books on hand that I want to read.  The final straw for me was when she went chasing down a person she just met (MIL of the dead guy) to ask her what her thoughts were about the death of her son-in-law.

So instead I started reading Tempest in a Teapot (Teapot Collector, Bk 1) :: Amanda Cooper.  So far so good on this one. Both this one and Death by Coffee are being mailed to the same person for a swap game.

Last week I finished Just Killing Time (Clock Shop, Bk 1) :: Julianne Holmes and enjoyed it. Thought it was a good start for the series. The clock info wasn't too over the top but will still probably learn more than I ever wanted to know.

Glad to hear that A Curious Beginning by Deanna Raybourn is good as I have it on hand too.

Jeanne --- You are absolutely correct, the flower books are by Lauren Willig --- my poor brain --- should have simply looked it up!!! 

I am reading something on Kindle, it the first book in a series where Josephine Tey is the main character.  It is "An Expert in Murder" by Nicola Upson.  So far, so good but I am in the very early going.  Over the years I have read some of her books, but had no idea she was also a playwright, at least that is what this book is telling me.

Marla, I wanted to smack Robin upside the head!  And The 27 Ingredient Chili Con Carne was written by Nancy Pickard based on Virginia Rich's notes for the series.  When she passed away Virginia's husband asked Nancy Pickard to finish the series (three books) from the box of notes.  I knew exactly what book you meant, loved the series.  I've never cooked anything from the recipes in the books.  Drooled over them but not cooked them. 

Today I read Last Reminder / Stuart Pawson.  Oh me, I laughed, I cried and was sorry it came to an end - good ending.

Now on to Bait / J Knt Messum.  This is not for the faint of heart.  Humans are Bait for sharks off the Florida coast.  'Nuf said!  Gave me nightmares.

Just finished Gray Mountain by John Grisham. Quite a few meals described, but not  in a whole lot of detail. Best ones were steak, baked potato and corn on the cob, although I don't know where the corn came from in late winter/early spring! As usual, Grisham tells a good tale. Samantha, young NYC lawyer, gets "furloughed" early in the 2008 mortgage debacle. All she's done in her career is clerk for a DC judge and review financial documents for huge real estate deals. Then she takes a non-paying "internship" at a legal aid clinic in Appalachia and finds herself representing clients dealing with domestic abuse, wills, etc. Oh, and cases involving coal companies that are refusing to pay benefits to miners with black lung. Lots along the way about the "rape" strip mining in Appalachia. Never read a Grisham book that I wouldn't recommend, and this one isn't going to be the first.

About 2/3 done with Sue Grafton's "X"...it seems to be one of her slower moving books in the series, way too much description of incidental people and surroundings...very little action as of yet. I have to assume and hope it picks up towards the end! Not that I am an action junkie, but this whole mystery seems sort of lame at this point.

Just downloaded Paw and Order by Spencer Quinn from the library to listen to, always enjoy Chet & Bernie...something light and easy for while I'm packing. Two weeks to go til M-day now, so much to do, but always a little time for reading! :)

Cheryl

Maybe Sue Grafton just wanted to do a X book and it is just an X.  I can come up with X is for xylophone among other X words.

Everyone is moving! 

I finished "Malice at the Palace" by Rhys Bowen.  I just love her writing style.  This book was one of the best in the Lady Georgiana series.  Georgie is "asked" by the Queen to care for Princess Marina who has moved to England from some European country, can't remember the name right now, and show her around London and teach her British ways.  She is to marry the second son, Prince George.  This series always has great humor in them between Georgie and her impossible lady's maid, Queenie.  This is added to by a companion who comes with Princess Marina and knows even less about the English ways than she does.  She takes quite literally all the British "slang" and is just a riot.  Great cozy historical taking place in the 1930's.  The English have a recipe for 'bangers', sausages rolled in a dough like coating, often served with mashed potatoes, 'bangers and mash.'  Anyway she is appalled that the English have 'exploding sausages' they eat.

I'm just about to start "Bushel of Murder" by Paige Shelton.  This one is a foodie.  The only recipes I've made from any foodie books was a couple from the Hannah Swenson series by Joanne Fluke.  One was a ground turkey recipe that I think had ground turkey in the bottom of a baking pan covered with canned turkey gravy, topped with potatoe puffs and shredded cheese.  It was really good.  The other was some kind of cookie, I think.  No, it was a muffin, raspberry cream muffins.  They were way too good to make very often.  :)

Some of my best cookie recipes have come from the Hannah Swenson series by Joanne Fluke, and I take my cookie baking seriously.  At holiday time it's normal for me to bake around 50 - 75 dozen or more cookies.  Those and around three dozen loaves of quick breads make wonderful gifts to friends when you want them to know you're thinking of them but don't want them to think they need to recipricate.  

I'm finally reading a book that has one recipe in it.  A ccokie called Joe Frogger cookies,  They're a molasses cookie which I love and have never made.  Look Both Ways / Carol J Perry #3 of the series.  I'm all caught up in it.  Una, you'll love it, has a big orange yellow cat that was a witches familiar.

Taking a little break from Brit police procedures and finishing off a spooky one, Smoke in Mirrors on Kindle.  I also have Sing for Us, takes place during the Civil War on Kindle, Yappy Hour, a cozy on my phone!

I never expected to be reading so many Kinle books.  Una, I didn't make the challenge you offered last month but maybe this month.  I did read 20 Kindle books and 20 books though.

Una ~ don't forget about all of us when you're making them cookies!    :)

You're right, Geri.  I remembered that the "chili book" was written by someone other than the original author of the series and the name Nancy kept popping in my mind, but just couldn't put it altogether!  I read recently that it is not that we become forgetful as we get older.  Rather, it is just that over a lifetime the brain become so clogged with everything we've experienced over the years and some things get lost.  And, when we are trying to think of a name, a word or whatever, it is so buried that it takes our brain awhile to locate the information...like when you are trying to remember something and 3 hrs later, it pops in your head!  Too bad we can't "defragment" our brain the way you can a computer! 

Finished The Searchers/Simon Toyne.  It is amazing to me how one person's brain can come up with plots like this.  It takes place in a small town in NM.  The town itself is a bit strange and then the MC appears and it gets even stranger!!  You don't find out until the very end what is going on with the MC, which sets up the plot for the next book.

Also read Gone/Randy Wayne White.  Was aware of his Doc Ford books which never looked that interesting to me, but this was the start of a new series with Hannah Smith, a fishing guide and PI.  It was an entertaining  book...nothing really outstanding.  For whatever reason, I always get irritated when the last 25-30% of a book involves the MC in a life threatening situation.   When you know that there are more in the series featuring the MC, it is obvious that he/she is going to survive, so what's the point?  Very narrow-minded of me, I know!!!!!

Cheryl...You will be happy to know that I have put the Keurig coffeemaker out to pasture and went out today and bought a plain ole' Mr. Coffee type coffeemaker!  The Keurig just became too high maintenance.  For the last 18 mos or so, I had to descale it once a month and do it twice sometimes before it would make a full cup and then run 4-5-6 containers of water through it to get the vinegar taste out.  I have spent a great deal of time on the phone with Keurig and, while they have very nice, friendly reps, they couldn't offer any solutions.  Decided I want to simplify my life...have enough irritating things in, don't need a coffeemaker that requires that much attention!