Happy May Day or Beltane! What has this first of the month found you reading?

Print: The Kill Call by Stephen Booth (#9 Ben Cooper/Diane Fry mystery)

Kindle: The Janus Stone by Elly Griffiths (#2 Ruth Galloway mystery)

Audio: The Vow of Silence by Susan Hill (#4 Simon Serrailler mystery)

Here's hoping everyone has a great reading month!

Cheryl

I am reading F. Paul Wilson's Reprisal.

Happy May to you too Cheryl and everyone else too!!!  Did anyone ever make May baskets with flowers for their mother???  We also danced around the May Pole holding colorful streamers winding them into a braid --- of course this was in elementary school --- so the braid was probably quite flawed!!!  I just remember it being a fun thing.  The girls did the dancing and we wore a dress the color of our streamer if possible.  Such a different time wasn't it???  Wearing dresses --- of course, I am so old, that was the only option back then.  No trousers and certainly no shorts and boys had to have a collar on their shirts.  Oh my!!!  It was a kinder more respectful time back then.

Still working on my same two books:  "A Test of Wills" by Charles Todd and "Pirate Latitudes" by Michael Crichton.

I am reading Caro Peacock's first book, A Foreign Affair. Set in 1837 England. Good so far. I like a spirited main character Liberty Lane.

Alice

Becky we had a strict dress code in high school.  If the boys had belt loops on their trousers they were required to have a belt.  When they had the top button of their shirt open they better be wearing a T under it!  The girls wore dresses or skirts, no pants or shorts of any kind.  Also socks, not leggings or hose of any other kind.  The boys also had to have "boy" haircuts.  If their hair was a bit long they saw the vice principal who got out his scissors!

I'm reading:

House:  An Affinity for Murder by Anne White
Car:  Dutch Me Deadly by Maddie Hunter
Kindle:  Murder Passes the Buck by Deb Baker

Cheryl didn't care for Murder Passes the Buck but I've had a couple of laugh out loud moments with it.  But, there are indeed some mighty improbable things going on with it as Cheryl said.

I do have a couple others floating nearby but they're not mysteries.

Becky...You are the first person in years I have run into who remembers May Baskets!!!!  You could buy them in a "punch-out" book and then put them together.  We filled them with flowers from the garden, took them to friends and neighbors, hung them on the door knob and then ran like crazy...it was supposed to be a big secret!!!!  At least, that was the tradition in Kansas!!!

And, yes, I, too, remember "dress codes"...slacks or shorts were only acceptable if you were going on a picnic or something of that sort.  Otherwise, girls had to be in skirts at all times!!!  I remember one summer in high school, I decided to take typing in summer school...it was in Kansas, it was HOT, no air conditioning in the school, had to be in dresses or skirts...I think I lasted three weeks!  (And, manual typewriters as well!!)  Lasted long enough to learn the touch system and that was it!!!

Oh, yes, books!!!  Finished Susan Slater's "Thunderbird"...have had that series of 3 forever...decided to either read them or get rid of  them!  Not bad books...they  entertained me for a few hours (all I really ask of a book!), but probably wouldn't go any further if the series had continued.  Not  sure what my "book du jour" will be tonight...have a bunch I ordered...several "new to me authors"...always fun to try those!

I had the Spice Box and Death Du Jour by Lou Jane Temple.  Both are historical mysteries that somehow didn't appeal to me.  Maybe cause she really got into food instead of story.  Oh well, off my real book shelves and on my bookshelf.  Cleaning up things.  Our church is going to have a rummage sale and I'll be cleaning up my PBS shelf soon.

But everything I said I was reading has just flown out the door!  Not reading that stuff!

Just received Deadlocked the latest Sookie book.  How can I start reading right now?

Now reading:  Cat Sitter Among the Pigeons (Dixie Hemingway series) by Blaize Clement. I like this series a lot.  She is an ex cop, so I count it as a semi-cozy.  Did someone say this author died?

Just finished:  Live Wire (Myron Bolitar series) by Harlan Coben.  I also like this character and this series.  I liked that his mother tapes shows on the "DMV" so she can skip the commercials.  Me too.

Happy May.  Time is sure flying.

Susan

Waiting for Cinco de Mayo - yum.

I started Lorna Barrett's MURDER IS BINDING this morning, first in the series. Starting out good.

GAil

Marla --- Along with making a basket for our mothers, we also made others and did exactly as you did --- hang and run!!!  This was in Tulsa, Oklahoma. 

Geri --- Your dress code sounds very much like the one I grew up with.  Children today (my grands specifically) think it was Hitlerian, but when I see how some children dress for school, were it my decision, they would have something very similar to what I had.  I do think I would allow girls to wear pants though.  Oh, speaking of pants, did you wear pants under your skirts on very cold days and then take them off when you got to school???

Becky and Geri- I went to a Catholic school and the girls wore white blouses and navy blue pleated skirts. When it got cold, we cheated and wore nylons under our bobby socks and shoes. The boys had to wear nice slacks and shirts- with ties. This was in high school. I have to laugh when I think back because our "bad boys" were the ones who went to the cemetery with a 6 pack of beer - all 4 of them! Oh, those were the days..... When I went to the 30th HS reunion, I slipped into the girl's room and wouldn't you know it? The same girls were smoking in the bathroom - only this time it wasn't so the nuns wouldn't find them... but their husbands!!! Some things never change! BTW - the only thing the girls could change about their uniforms was their shoes. That is probably why I have a shoe addiction to this day.

.  Oh yes - books! I'm just now starting Cell 8 by Roslund/Hellstrom.

Working on One Coffee With by Margaret Maron. I'm liking it very much.

From the April thread Lynn J. said "Ellie - I read The Stormchasers last year and have some definite opinions about it.  I'll be very interested to compare notes!"

I just finished The Stormchasers and I can't say I loved it. I never got attached to any of the characters and the dialogue didn't really ring true to me. The bi-polar twin brother was a total ass and did not merit the sister's concern and devotion. And the ending was pretty anti-climactic. It wasn't totally disappointing but it definitely won't be one of the year's memorable reads.

Becky and Geri...Boy, are you dredging up memories...yes, pants under the skirts when it was really cold!!!!  Speaking of changing dress style...has anyone noticed how people dress for funerals?  OK...so maybe I ditched the hat and glove bit, but seeing people at a funeral in old jeans and ski parkas just appalled me!!!  Guess I think that dressing nicely is a form of respect...but that is probably just my age!!!

Finished "Callie and the Dealer and a Dog Named Jake" / Wendy Howell Mills.  A new-to-me author and a pretty good cozy.  Bought it purely for the title!  Going to see if she wrote a 2nd one!

I don't "do" funerals, so am not aware of what folks are wearing these days. I'm very glad that both of my parents specified that they wanted no funeral service...we had a family party at the old farm and scattered their ashes together. I will be the same way. I would prefer people have a party wearing old jeans and parkas than get all dolled up if I "have to" have a service at all. I just want to be freeze dried and scattered under an oak tree. :)

I hate dresses, shoes, dressing up...have been that way since I was a kid. My first grade picture is really funny...I have my hair curled with the tell-tale bobby-pin curls and a huge scowl on my face because my mother made me wear a dress. LOL Fortunately we had no "regular" dress code, so most of the time I could wear corduroys or pants...my mother was always trying to make a real girl of me though....it didn't work. :)

Cheryl

Marla --- Okay --- I am old too if thinking ratty jeans are inappropriate for a funeral.  To me it is all about respect, not only for the dead, but for the family.  It even bothers me that folks dress that way for church.  I continually get the reply "just be thankful they are here", but that still does not make me like it.

Ellie --- I have been wondering how your grandson is doing.  He was quite under the weather for a time and I am hoping that all is well with him now.

How about flip flops in the White House?

Susan

Becky, that's so sweet that you remember my little 4 year old grandson. He was very sick at the end of January with RSV/pneumonia complicated by severe asthma. I'm beyond happy that since being placed on Advair he has been doing wonderful. It has just been a miracle drug for him. Even now when his allergies are raging in the early warm temps of Texas, he has not had any problems breathing. He's even playing t-ball. Thanks so much for asking about him!!

Ellie --- I am so happy to hear that news.  I remembered that it was very serious at the time and that you were very worried.

Ellie glad to hear your grandson is doing well. Anna, I hope you get to feeling better soon. Take care of yourself. I got bit by a spider in my bed one night and they had to cut a piece out of my big toe a week later, so spider bites are nothing to take lightly.

Currently reading F. Paul Wilson's The Dark at the End....so close to be finished with Repairman Jack as a series....*sob*.

Anna --- You be careful and keep that leg elevated.  Sounds spiderish to me.  I have had two spider bites that became inflamed enough to warrant antibiotics.  Thankfully I did not have to have an excision, but they are truly nothing to mess with as Keri said. 

Oh my, Ellie good news about your grandson, but Anna nasty!  I'm glad you're listening to the doc and sitting!  A friend got bit last week by a black ant in Georgia and ended up in the emergency room!!  I've been working outside with my handy dandy Deep Woods Off.  I actually see ants and spiders running from me.  Once I saw a mosquito headng for me actually do a U turn when it got close enough for the smell to hit. 

Managing to get in a bit of Sookie but working outside during the does allow for staying up to read no matter how much I want to!

Geri --- I know exactly what you mean about outdoor work wreaking havoc on one's nighttime reading.  When I spend a few hours digging, toting, etc. I am just beat when I hit bed and cannot manage to read more than a very few pages.

As to reading, I continue to work on my same two books:  "A Test of Wills" by Charles Todd and "Pirate Latitudes" by Michael Crichton.  I am getting farther along with "A Test of Wills" and am really enjoying it.  I am better than half way thru and it is a real "mystery" still.  It is the first book in a series about a Scotland Yard Detective, Ian Rutledge, who was in the British Army during WWI and he suffers from "shell shock".  It is very good and I would imagine that I will definitely keep on with the series.  I am probably preaching to the choir though, many of you have probably already discovered it.

Becky,"A Test of Wills" by Charles Todd  I I I

I really enjoy this series.      I have read the 2nd one, also, WINGS OF FIRE . Last week, I finished on audio, A DUTY TO THE DEAD. This is a Bess Crawford, a British army nurse in WWI, by Charles Todd.   

Now, I am finishing a Louise Penny book on audio, THE CRUELEST MONTH. This afternoon, I will begin another Louise Penny on audio, A FATAL GRACE  . After looking at the covers, I realized I read them out of order. Maybe it will not matter at this point.

In print, I am reading another Henning Mankell, ONE STEP BEHIND. Great Scandinavian mystery.

Mary