#FridayReads ~ More Carolyn G. Hart Despite a "Break"

"A group of Christie buffs. . .In honor of Agatha Christie's one hundredth birthday, mystery bookstore owner Annie Laurance Darling plans a week-long celebration of mystery, treasure hunts, title clues, and Christie trivia. Yet even as the champagne is chilling and the happy guests begin arriving on Broward's Rock Island, Annie feels a niggling sense of doom. But the last thing she or her guests expect is that the scheduled fun and mayhem will include a real-life murder. The unexpected arrival of Neil Bledsoe, the most despised book critic in America, was sure to raise a few hackles. An advocate of hard-boiled detection and gory true crime, Bledsoe drops a bombshell on the devoted Christie assemblage: He's penning a scurrilous biography of the grand dame of suspense herself. Before the first title clue is solved, no less than two attempts are made on Bledsoe's life. Now Annie and her unflappable husband, Max Darling, find themselves trying to stop a murder in the making-only the first corpse isn't the one they're expecting. . .and it isn't the last."

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Now, see, I told my ass this: “Don’t you pick up another Death on Demand book and ruin your appetite for them with the fourth book read in a row." My intention was to read within a different series or genre. To get out from underneath Carolyn G. Hart's fantastic cozy series for a hot minute. And, well, knock some of these unread titles off my shelves before this latest package of books arrive tomorrow (YIKES). Yet, the work week was finished. The rain was pouring. The coffee was brewing. Listen, everything in life was in order for some more familiar, cozy mystery reading. Thus, here arrives The Christie Caper by Carolyn G. Hart (Death on Demand #7).

So I'm already fifty pages into the book and loving it. Wholly absorbed in all matters (from personal to mysterious) stacked within this entry. I'm still getting to know the suspicious characters, as Hart does a great job of putting at least five or six of them in a room to see who behaves in whichever way to get readers to "know" them. And the apparent–though not quite yet established as such–victim is particularly spirited and nasty this go’round. But on the other hand, the main protagonist, Annie, remains pleasant and inviting as our central guide to the mystery. The same can be said for the side characters.

Anyway, this book puts an evident and strictly specific emphasis on its references to Agatha Christie and her works. Every other page does some job in ensuring not to lead readers away from that focus and how much these references operate as clues as well. But by book seven, readers will already have established that Agatha Christie is highly revered and favored by Carolyn G. Hart. So it was only a matter of time before she would draw up a mystery and cast centered around an Agatha Christie convention. And the "draw up" is dedicated and fierce in this entry.

I have yet to indulge in much of Christie's work to get Hart's references, but I'm here for Hart all weekend long as is.

Happy #FridayReads

Reading some Death on Demand by Carolyn G. Hart

Carolyn G. Hart's Honeymoon with Murder and A Little Class on Murder are books numbers four and five of her award-winning Death on Demand series. Death on Demand itself is a mystery-themed bookstore on a South Carolina island called Boward's Rock. The store is run by a woman named Annie Laurance, who becomes Annie Darling per her eventual marriage to her beau, Max. Nonetheless, as a mystery bookstore owner, Annie is deeply dedicated to everything surrounding the mystery genre–so she knows her stuff. A cast of supporting characters are there as well with equal appreciation for loving and conversing about mystery books. As readers, we are privy to much of these conversations about various mysteries and the authors who write them. Blended so well into the overall narrative, you, the reader, suddenly find yourself intrigued by anecdotal information on, say, Agatha Christie and/or Ross MacDonald. The list is endless.

Meanwhile, the author is telling and selling you a great murder mystery with all the operating components that make these books cozy. Yet, they are so, so much more. For one, they are apt and sharper than many nowadays cozies I've read that seem to prioritize lunacy and love triangles as the standard. Secondly, while some primary and supporting cast may annoy me sometimes, Hart delivers humor/comedy like the pro she is. I sometimes run across cozies where authors need to learn how nuance lands a comedic moment. Or lack the ability to put some intelligence behind comedy to keep it from selling eye-rolls and cringe page after page. As a matter-of-fact, I think "nuance" is the correct term to describe Hart's ability, because outside notes of humor her characters simply come off the page to me. I respect it; Carolyn G. Hart won multiple awards for a freakin’ reason.

This all aside, I list three things that keep me returning to this series (aside from Hart's ability to plot).

1. I've entirely warmed up to Hart's duo, Annie and Max. I mention this because I typically wouldn't like the way romances are handled in cozy mysteries–especially those that insist on beginning a romance with a love triangle. Nevertheless, earlier in the series I thought Annie was rude; her and I didn't exactly click. In contrast, Max got on my nerves as the designated love interest in many cozy series. The further into the series I read, the further my view of the two changed. 

My So-Far Sailor Moon S.H.Figuarts Collection

 

Eternal Sailor Moon S.H. Figuarts Unboxing #sailormoon #tamashinations

You can purchase an Eternal Sailor Moon S.H. Figuarts yourself on Amazon via my affiliate link HERE.

"Towels Channels Branigan" serving tray is featured on my Society6 store HERE

Should a Jordan Fan Read Fallon?

Lately, all this talk about Robert Jordan has put me in the mood to check out that one copy of his Reagan O’Neal Fallon books my library has to offer. While I’ve always seen/hear about these books, reading Michael Livingston’s Origins of the Wheel of Time laid out the story as to how this trilogy of books came to be. However, the question is how worth it for Wheel readers to take on Jordan’s Historical Fiction offerings?

Quotes from The Grief Recovery Handboook

John W. James and Russel Friedman’s The Grief Recovery Handbook came into my reading life via some conspicuous means a few years ago. There’s a story behind all that–as you’ve probably picked up. However, I hardly care to revisit that time and how this book came into my sphere of thought. Though I am grateful that it has. Even so, I’ve held on to this practical book for the past three years as a precaution; a “just in case” prep tool.

Sadly, that day has arrived and I found myself pulling this off my shelf to finally (and timely) seek answers through it to find some relief from some of the grief I have been going through. Now we all know grief works, progresses and operates on its own time and differently within each individual. But all the same, with that in mind, I wanted to share some of the quotes that really resonated with me in this book that helped me make sense of my own grief these past two months.

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The first one is simply how the authors defined grief as “the conflicting feelings caused by the end of or change in a familiar pattern of behavior.” Of course, your and everyone else's definitions may vary. However, I appreciate simply seeing theirs in plain, practical terms. As this is exactly what I've felt personally. And this "conflicting feelings" brews one of the most bizarre, out-of-body experiences I've ever felt. Empty and confused.

Origins of The Wheel of Time Book Chat

November 15th (which was this past Tuesday) marks a full year since I finished and closed my reading of the final book in The Wheel of Times series, A Memory of Light. Still remember that day. Still remember when I began reading the series in 2019. Still remember many of my high points and low points. And frankly I still miss reading the books, however exhausting the journey had been. So, naturally, seeing a WOT-ish book coming out earlier this month, there was no question I was going to grab it. To my bookstore I went to grab a copy of Origins of The Wheel of Time by Michael Livingston. 

Now the thing is that I don't have a "galaxy brain" when it comes to all the ins and outs and machinations of The Wheel of Time, in both the intricacy of the overall story as well as the fandom. So, no, I'm not gripping the deeper threads of details. I'm not chewing on theories and conspiracies related to WOT's all encompassing being. Heck, I don't even have a connoisseurship when it comes to reading and critiquing fantasy novels in general. But this book was great for me as well, because of my casual interest. I mainly had an interest in Jordan's writing style, choices, and the string of ideas implemented in The Wheel of Time books themselves. I do love taking the opportunity to learn something from an author as is.

Nonetheless, I wanted to share a few of my takeaways from indulging in this book. First, my interest lay primarily in the first half of the book where the author focused on relaying Robert Jordan's (or his actual name James Oliver Rigney, Jr.) beginnings as a child up until adulthood and his ultimate passing before the series was completed. It's always cool to relate how an author's life experiences translates into their fictional world; here, Jordan had a plethora of life experiences he could somehow fashion and relay into The Wheel of Time. Nevertheless, though I've heard the story, I was particularly interested in how The Wheel of Time came about from its original conception, the timeframe in which Jordan mulled over it before writing, the subsequent publications of the books, and his final days in maintaining his work for afterwards. All of these are shared within this book. Shoot, for a moment I felt as if I were reading a memoir. Nevertheless, I appreciated this portion of the book because it made me feel closer to Jordan and The Wheel of Time.

(Side story here. The Wheel of Time was actually introduced to my reading life after Jordan's death in 2007, despite my having started reading the books twelve years later. At the time, I was working at a Borders in Atlanta. After the news of his death, several of the staff members were broken. I specifically remember one assistant manager at her desk bawling her eyes out. I was bemused, but aware at how the expressed gravity of the situation was how The Wheel of Time would never be finished now. Anyway, of course the books were suddenly flying off the shelves, so I grew increasingly curious.