My last February post. 

Joy could you send that plow to my house?  I managed to clean off less than a third of our driveway.

I was reading Sacred Evil and Immortal Ever After.  Sacred Evil has grabbed me a bit more so I'm concentrating on it more right now.  It's a kind of mom buys you two sweaters and you wear the blue first so she says I'll take the red back tomorrow.  You say I love the red, she says but you're wearing the blue.  I feel a bit guilty for not reading Immortal Ever After as if the book is saying hey, why aren't your reading me!

Just finished two Dixie Hemingway (Cat Sitter's Pajamas and Cat Sitter Among the Pigeons), and am now reading the first book, The Square Root of Murder, in the Sophie Knowles series.

It's cold here...nights at about 50 (yeah, warm to lots of you, but darned cold for me!), so may get some additional reading in as outside activities are a bit chilly. :-(

Another month just beginning!!!  How quickly they seem to go.

Jodi --- As always, so good to see you back among us.

I am still reading my same two books:  "The Winter Queen" (the Russian one) and the E-book "Without a Trace" the British police one.

I started Music of the Spheres, which seems really engaging.  But I left it to read Diva Runs out of Thyme for the cozy discussion.  I'll finish Diva today and get back to Music this weekend.

Reading Red on Red by Edward Conlon for the challenge.  Hope to finish The House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne.  My big read this month will be The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins.

Do you like House of Seven Gables REK, I disliked that book in high school. We toured the House of Seven Gables in Salem, Ma. In is beautiful nice way to spend the afternoon.

Alice

I just started The Winter Queen by Boris Akunin for the exotic category. It's set in Russia in the 1870's. I'm reading Bill Clinton's bio too.

Geri, I'll get that plow to start out your way.........

I live about 4 miles away from and house in Raymond, Maine that Hawthorne lived in at one time.  They call it "The Hawthorne House" naturally.  Kept up by the historical society and they have different functions there throughout the year.  Pretty cool. 

Still working on the Carola Dunn book. 

Barb --- I am about 3/4 of the way thru "The Winter Queen" and have enjoyed it for the most part.  Not completely sure I would continue with the series though.  Had not even thought of using it for the Challenge, but you are so right it would work just fine in the "exotic" category.

I'm only on about page 50 Becky and I assume the mystery gets deeper because it seems at this point that it could be wrapped up pretty quickly. There must be a wrench thrown in the works somewhere.

Finished Jackrabbit Juction Jitters/Ann Charles last night...the 2nd in the Jackrabbit Junction series.  They are all, so far, e-books.  While nothing spectacular, these are fun cozies.  Tho, I think I like her Deadwood series a bit better.  Also Brown-Eyed Girl/Virginia Swift.  Another older cozy.  MC is a 45-yr-old college professor in Wyoming and an ex-country western singer.  She isn't too ditzy.  There is a bit of romance, but not overwhelming.

About half-way through my monthly dose of Karin Slaughter with Beyond Reach. 

Last night I finished "Without Trace" by Katherine John.  It started out just a tad slowly and one of the two detectives that are the central police characters is quite an objectionable fellow, but I kept after it and WOW by the time I was at the end, I could not stop reading and of course it ends in a spot that you just know you must dash and grab the second book.  Thankfully I have the second book in "paper" form on my shelves.

I'm not making much headway reading.  I started watching Downton Abbey just this third season, so I have been viewing the first and second seasons to see what I missed.  Alot apparently.  :)  But I am now done with that, so I should be able to pick up my books again! 

Joy --- We did not watch the current season ,as we had not watched it previously, so we have been watching the DVDs of all of the previous seasons via Netflix!!!!  Since we did not have any of the background we decided to see the older ones first.  We both really like the series.  So hopefully this current season will be available on DVD before next season begins.

At 4 a.m. David got off towards Vermont this morning.  For those of you who do not know, we own a maple farm (syrup production) in Vermont which our son-in-law runs.  During the production season David goes up and drives a truck hauling sap, etc.  Anyway he will be away "hopefully" for six weeks.  That will mean we had a nice long season.  Anyway, the pooches and I will be on our own for a while which means lots of laziness on the whole. 

Going to finish "The Winter Queen" this morning if I do nothing else.  It has been hanging around too long. 

Finished Sacred Evil yesterday and Immortal Ever After today.  I guess I needed a paranormal fix.  I have the next two books in the Krewe of Hunters books just waiting but don't want to grab them immediately.  Though the MC stay the same the locales and secondary characters are different of course.  We've been in New Orleans, Mississippi and New York so far.

Not sure what I'll grab next, the top book from the pile by the night stand or something off the shelves?

And, despite having nine new books not on my TBR I've got it down to 305! from 260 at the beginning of the year!  Hooray!!! 

Okay Geri going down to 305 from 260 must be "new" math (hee hee)!!!!!

lol Becky - I was thinking the same thing! You think there's a "typo" in there somewhere?

New Math indeed!  360 

The Winter Queen goes fast, for me anyway. As opposed to the Bill Clinton memoir I started not knowing it was over 1000 pages long. Ugh, that's gonna be around awhile.

Becky ~  Where is your maple farm?  My DH and I lived in Newport, VT for 10 years before we came back to Maine 20 years ago.  (Geez that math must be wrong!)    

Joy --- It is actually nearest to the tiny intersection called Maple Corner, but I believe the town of note is Calais.  Mostly it is in the middle of nowhere.  They have to go to Montpelier to buy much of anything.

Joy, you must have married as an infant!

Oh, I'm doing some family history and one member of the family married and had her first child at 15 so perhaps Joy did the same.  In fact my oldest cousin married a girl who was 16 and she became a grandmother at 36!  And everyone said it would never last!  

I read Mind Over Murder by Allison Kingsley and Stonewall Jackson's Elbow by Billheimer.  I was a bit disappointed in both.  Stonewall Jackson's Elbow is an ongoing series and I'm really very comfortable with MC, male in the south, but this was really a very transparent mystery to me.  I knew exactly what had gone on almost as though I had read the book before.  Mind Over Murder is the first in a new to me series.  I have the second and I'm not sure about it.

I'm going to read Sentenced to Death by Lorna Barrett and Skating Around the Law by Joelle Charbanneau.

Cleaning up the TBR, tra-la-la.  No new books since those nine at the beginning of February. 

Geri --- My father was born when my grandmother was 16 and she was a grandmother at 38 with me her first grandchild!!!!!!  I had a great-great-grandfather until I was 6 and a great-grandmother until I was 31----

I am reading a smallish little mystery "Perfect Son".  It is a first book for the author and thus far is quite good.  Set in Washington State.

Today is our (dogs & me) first work day without David.  Yesterday we were as lazy as critters could be, but today we must get on with things.  Already this morning we filled the bird feeders and soon will be packing up 4 books to mail.  After that we might work in the study and pay a few bills, etc.  With no other human around to cook for, etc. one feels a bit liberated.

Becky ~ I don't seem to remember being in Calais, but am familiar with the general area.  Newport is at the very top of the state, in the middle and 5 miles from the Canadian border.  I love Vermont, everything is so green.  My theory is that there are so many cows and farms in VT that all that fertilizer stuff has gotten into the water table.  :)

Thanks all, I knew there must be an explanation somewhere!

Have finally finished Downton Abbey Season 2 and have also finished "The Case of the Murdered Muckraker" by Carola Dunn.  I loved it as I have all of them.  This one takes place in New York City while Alec, MC Daisy's new husband, is in Washington giving some assistance to the FBI.  I was at first a little put off by how Dunn was writing dialogue for the characters, really phonetisizing (is that a word?) some of the words used.  Like "Noo York." Then I remembered she was writing the book initially for the citizens of Great Britain, so she was trying to get the pronounciation across to them.  Funny.

I've now picked up "Found Guilty at Five" by Ann Purser.  I have been swamped with new wish list books for the last couple weeks.  They all seem to be coming up at once.  Ah well, I know I have some great reading to get to.  :)