Secondhand Spirits by Juliet Blackwell.
This is the first book in a new series by Juliet Blackwell (aka Hailey Lind, author of The Art Lover's mystery series).
Lily Ivory has always felt like an outsider because of her "special talents". But she finally gives in to her desire to settle down and belong when she opens a vintage clothing store in San Francisco, thinking that her eccentricities won't seem quite so weird in the Haight-Ashbury area.
Invited to look at a large collection owned by an elderly woman, Lily is thrilled, until she senses deep sorrow emanating from some of the clothes. When she hears the shriek of La Llorona, and a neighbourhood child disappears, she realizes she must do something to return the child to her family, and that will put both her and her friends into extreme danger.
This book is very different from any supernatural mystery that I've read. Blackwell draws on real myths and legends, and her research into the mystical is obviously extensive. Reading this book in bed at night I was a little spooked, not my usual reaction to a paranormal mystery.
Lily is really a sympathetic character: her fears of being different and ostracized are universal. I look forward to learning more about her as the series progresses, though I'll have to wait nearly a year for the next in the series, A Cast-off Coven.
31 August 2009
21 August 2009
Just finished reading...
A Fatal Grace by Louise Penny.
This is the second of Penny's Three Pines mysteries. I've been wanting to read this series for quite a while, and only just got around to it. I'm loving these so much it's really hard not to read the whole series consecutively, but I have other much-requested library books to read and return first.
In this book we meet CC de Poitiers, a self-professed design and lifestyle guru. Having purchased the gloomy Hadley house (site of nightmares for many Three Pines residents), she immediately insinuates herself into the community. Brash, outspoken, and rude, no one is surprised when she is killed at the annual Christmas funspiel. (I think you may have to be Canadian to know what a "funspiel" is.)
Chief Inspector Gamache of the Surete du Quebec, his assistant Jean Guy Beauvoir, and the rest of the team we met in Still Life are assigned to the case.
The detectives, and many of the residents of Three Pines, are starting to feel familiar, and many of their actions are, if not predictable, at least unsurprising. The discovery of the culprit's identity was a surprise to me, even though the killer had been on my list of suspects.
Like Still Life, A Fatal Grace is exceptionally well-written, and I read most of it in one sitting.
I recommend these books highly, and I'm rapidly reading the two library books I must return before I can start The Cruelest Month.
This is the second of Penny's Three Pines mysteries. I've been wanting to read this series for quite a while, and only just got around to it. I'm loving these so much it's really hard not to read the whole series consecutively, but I have other much-requested library books to read and return first.
In this book we meet CC de Poitiers, a self-professed design and lifestyle guru. Having purchased the gloomy Hadley house (site of nightmares for many Three Pines residents), she immediately insinuates herself into the community. Brash, outspoken, and rude, no one is surprised when she is killed at the annual Christmas funspiel. (I think you may have to be Canadian to know what a "funspiel" is.)
Chief Inspector Gamache of the Surete du Quebec, his assistant Jean Guy Beauvoir, and the rest of the team we met in Still Life are assigned to the case.
The detectives, and many of the residents of Three Pines, are starting to feel familiar, and many of their actions are, if not predictable, at least unsurprising. The discovery of the culprit's identity was a surprise to me, even though the killer had been on my list of suspects.
Like Still Life, A Fatal Grace is exceptionally well-written, and I read most of it in one sitting.
I recommend these books highly, and I'm rapidly reading the two library books I must return before I can start The Cruelest Month.
17 August 2009
Just finished reading...
Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler.
In 2007, Rigler published Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict, the story of Courtney Stone, a present-day Los Angeles single woman who one day wakes up transported to Edwardian England, in the body of a young woman named Jane Mansfield.
This book is the story of how Jane fares when she wakes up in Courtney's body in
21st Century Los Angeles. Like Courtney, Jane is very unhappy in her own life, and wishes she could be someone else. She shares this wish with a fortune-teller at a country fair, and wakes up in Courtney's body, having just suffered a concussion after hitting her head in a swimming pool.
She is understandably confused by this new world of cell phones and DVD players, but her friends attribute this to her head injury. As she becomes accustomed to the techonology, she discovers that she really enjoys her new-found independence: the clothing, going out in public without a chaperone, living alone.
But as she begins to appreciate the new life, she learns that her old life may not have been as bad as she believed. Which life will she end up with? Will she even be able to choose?
I actually enjoyed this book a lot more than Confessions, but I'm not sure why. I may have to go back and reread the earlier book to find out.
In 2007, Rigler published Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict, the story of Courtney Stone, a present-day Los Angeles single woman who one day wakes up transported to Edwardian England, in the body of a young woman named Jane Mansfield.
This book is the story of how Jane fares when she wakes up in Courtney's body in
21st Century Los Angeles. Like Courtney, Jane is very unhappy in her own life, and wishes she could be someone else. She shares this wish with a fortune-teller at a country fair, and wakes up in Courtney's body, having just suffered a concussion after hitting her head in a swimming pool.
She is understandably confused by this new world of cell phones and DVD players, but her friends attribute this to her head injury. As she becomes accustomed to the techonology, she discovers that she really enjoys her new-found independence: the clothing, going out in public without a chaperone, living alone.
But as she begins to appreciate the new life, she learns that her old life may not have been as bad as she believed. Which life will she end up with? Will she even be able to choose?
I actually enjoyed this book a lot more than Confessions, but I'm not sure why. I may have to go back and reread the earlier book to find out.
12 August 2009
Today's O.C. Weekly
I'm featured in today's O.C. Weekly blog, Gettin' Made: The Gift of Creativity written by my pal Steph Calvert.
11 August 2009
Just finished reading...
Still Life by Louise Penny.
I bought this book when it was first published, but it kept getting pushed aside by library books and review books, even though I heard wonderful things about it. I finally picked it up, and I'm so glad I did.
The story takes place in Three Pines, a small hamlet outside Montreal. Jane Neal, a retired schoolteacher and artist who has never let anyone look at her paintings, suddenly submits one for a juried exhibition. A few days later, she is found dead in the woods, shot through the heart by an arrow. Since it's hunting season, it is assumed that she was the victim of a hunter who had feared to report a shot gone awry.
Inspector Armand Gamache of the Surete du Quebec, who have been brought in to investigate the death, does not agree, however, and risks his job with this stance.
There are a lot of characters in this book, and we don't get a chance to get to know many of them very well. One we do learn about is Gamache, who comes across as thoughtful and intelligent and very real. I was a little confused by the character of the rookie detective who keeps trying to impress Gamache and never does, but I'm hoping more will be revealed in the books that follow.
I bought this book when it was first published, but it kept getting pushed aside by library books and review books, even though I heard wonderful things about it. I finally picked it up, and I'm so glad I did.
The story takes place in Three Pines, a small hamlet outside Montreal. Jane Neal, a retired schoolteacher and artist who has never let anyone look at her paintings, suddenly submits one for a juried exhibition. A few days later, she is found dead in the woods, shot through the heart by an arrow. Since it's hunting season, it is assumed that she was the victim of a hunter who had feared to report a shot gone awry.
Inspector Armand Gamache of the Surete du Quebec, who have been brought in to investigate the death, does not agree, however, and risks his job with this stance.
There are a lot of characters in this book, and we don't get a chance to get to know many of them very well. One we do learn about is Gamache, who comes across as thoughtful and intelligent and very real. I was a little confused by the character of the rookie detective who keeps trying to impress Gamache and never does, but I'm hoping more will be revealed in the books that follow.
05 August 2009
Take that, BBC!
BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up?
Instructions: Look at the list and put an * (or O or X or whatever you feel like) after those you have read. Tag the person who sent this to you (and anyone else you want to harass).
I'm not going to tag anyone, but if you want to play, go ahead. Please tell me what your total is!
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen *
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien *
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte *
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling - *
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee *
6 The Bible - parts
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte *
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell *
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman *
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens *
Total: 9+
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott *
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy *
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare -
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier *
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien *
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger *
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot *
Total: 6
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell *
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald *
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams *
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh *
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll *
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
Total: 5
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens *
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis *
34 Emma - Jane Austen *
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen *
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis *
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne *
Total: 6
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving *
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins *
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery *
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding *
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
Total: 4
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert *
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons (saw the movie, does that count?)
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen *
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Total: 2
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold *
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas *
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy *
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding *
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
Total: 4
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens *
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker -
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno – Dante -
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome *
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray *
Total: 3
80 Possession - AS Byatt *
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens *
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker *
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro *
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert *
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
Total: 5
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad *
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery *
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams *
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas *
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl *
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Total: 5
GRAND TOTAL: 49
Instructions: Look at the list and put an * (or O or X or whatever you feel like) after those you have read. Tag the person who sent this to you (and anyone else you want to harass).
I'm not going to tag anyone, but if you want to play, go ahead. Please tell me what your total is!
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen *
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien *
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte *
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling - *
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee *
6 The Bible - parts
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte *
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell *
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman *
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens *
Total: 9+
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott *
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy *
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare -
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier *
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien *
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger *
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot *
Total: 6
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell *
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald *
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams *
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh *
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll *
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
Total: 5
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens *
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis *
34 Emma - Jane Austen *
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen *
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis *
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne *
Total: 6
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving *
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins *
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery *
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding *
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
Total: 4
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert *
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons (saw the movie, does that count?)
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen *
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Total: 2
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold *
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas *
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy *
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding *
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
Total: 4
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens *
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker -
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno – Dante -
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome *
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray *
Total: 3
80 Possession - AS Byatt *
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens *
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker *
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro *
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert *
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
Total: 5
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad *
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery *
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams *
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas *
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl *
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Total: 5
GRAND TOTAL: 49
02 August 2009
Just finished reading...
Lethal Legacy by Linda Fairstein.
The most recent Alex Cooper novel was particularly resonant for me: it deals with books and libraries, but we don't discover this until a few chapters into the story.
A refresher: Alex is an ADA attached to the NYPD sex crimes unit. She works primarily with Detective Mike Chapman, who just might harbour an unrequited love for her.
Alex and Mike are summoned to an apartment building on Manhattan's Upper East Side by a resident who fears that his neighbour may have been assaulted. But the young woman, Tina Barr, refuses to co-operate. The next day, a dead body is found in Tina's apartment, and Tina has disappeared. Then the investigators learn that Tina is a freelance rare book conservator who once worked at the New York Public Library.
A jewel-encrusted prayer book is found with the body, who turns out to be the assistant of heiress Minerva Hunt, whose wealthy family have a collection of rare books and maps, some of which have been donated to the Library. It's at this point that the plot becomes a bit serpentine: Alex's crew suddenly need to find an old map which will give them a clue to the identity of the murderer. Their search leads them to interview book experts, old and young, rich and poor, honest and deceitful.
There's a lot of interesting information here about the New York Public Library, about rare books and maps, about their history, conservation and storage. Fairstein's research is, as usual, impeccable.
To a bibliophile like me, this story was fascinating, but I recommend it not only to other bibliophiles, but mystery and thriller lovers as well.
The most recent Alex Cooper novel was particularly resonant for me: it deals with books and libraries, but we don't discover this until a few chapters into the story.
A refresher: Alex is an ADA attached to the NYPD sex crimes unit. She works primarily with Detective Mike Chapman, who just might harbour an unrequited love for her.
Alex and Mike are summoned to an apartment building on Manhattan's Upper East Side by a resident who fears that his neighbour may have been assaulted. But the young woman, Tina Barr, refuses to co-operate. The next day, a dead body is found in Tina's apartment, and Tina has disappeared. Then the investigators learn that Tina is a freelance rare book conservator who once worked at the New York Public Library.
A jewel-encrusted prayer book is found with the body, who turns out to be the assistant of heiress Minerva Hunt, whose wealthy family have a collection of rare books and maps, some of which have been donated to the Library. It's at this point that the plot becomes a bit serpentine: Alex's crew suddenly need to find an old map which will give them a clue to the identity of the murderer. Their search leads them to interview book experts, old and young, rich and poor, honest and deceitful.
There's a lot of interesting information here about the New York Public Library, about rare books and maps, about their history, conservation and storage. Fairstein's research is, as usual, impeccable.
To a bibliophile like me, this story was fascinating, but I recommend it not only to other bibliophiles, but mystery and thriller lovers as well.
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