My March 2024 Reading

This month’s best reads were all historical fiction: The Phoenix Crown, set around the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco; Daughter of Lir by Diana Norman, about an abbess in medieval Ireland; and Wheel of Fortune by C.F. Dunn, in which a 15th century orphan learns she is powerless against men who should be her protectors.

Mystery/Suspense

The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie (1928). When a millionaire’s daughter is murdered on a train heading to the Riviera, her estranged and nearly bankrupt husband is the obvious suspect. Hercule Poirot just happened to be on that train, however, and he is determined to pursue the investigation, even if the French police are satisfied with their arrest. My review for Read Christie 2024.

Racing the Light by Robert Crais (2022). I picked this up by accident at the library, thinking it was the long-awaited third installment about Scott James and his K-9 Maggie, but it was part of Crais’ more popular books about wise-cracking Elvis Cole and virtually silent Joe Pike. I tried this series but it didn’t do it for me. However, I read this anyway because I needed something to read wherever I was waiting that particular day. There must be a lot of demand for Crais because the Newton Library still had this as a 14-Day loan two years after it was published.

The Busy Body by Kemper Donovan (2024). This is a mystery about a nameless ghostwriter, hired to help with the memoir of a Hillary Clinton-like former senator. Having lost the presidential election, Dorothy Gibson has retreated to her home in Maine to lick her wounds. However, when someone with whom she just posed for a photo is murdered, Dorothy and the ghostwriter decide to investigate. This was not as entertaining as I had hoped, although I thought it was a nice touch that the ghostwriter was nameless, just as such writers often are.

The Birthday Girl by Sarah Ward (2023). Still recovering from an on-the-job injury, Malory Dawson has retired from her job as a police detective in London and takes a temporary job at a hotel on an isolated island in Wales. That is when the murders begin . . . . My review for Reading Wales 2024.

Historical Fiction

Wheel of Fortune by C.F. Dunn (2023). This novel set during the Wars of the Roses is so compelling I wanted to order the sequel the minute I finished reading it (presumably the author is still writing it). However, it portrays a violent world where women are not just pawns but victims which is realistic but depressing. Review to come.

Daughter of Lir by Diana Norman (1988). This 12th century historical novel is both engrossing and traumatic, as its protagonist is orphaned, deposited at a French convent at 6, sent to Ireland to run an abbey at 18, and brutally attacked and deposed. Even the best men in this book are smug or foolish and/or adulterers and the bad ones deserve all the revenge Finola can muster. My review for Reading Ireland Month.

The Phoenix Crown by Kate Quinn and Janie Chang (2024). The infamous earthquake and fire that devastated San Francisco in 1906 are the focal point of this fascinating historical by two talented writers. Quinn and Chang tell the stories of four women whose lives are intertwined with the man who owns the Phoenix Crown, beginning in the weeks just before the earthquake and following them afterward beyond California. I enjoyed the setting and storytelling of this book. My review.

Memoir

Crying at H Mart by Michelle Zauner (2021). Zauner grew up in Oregon with a quiet American father and outspoken Korean-born mother, and her relationship with her mother was very difficult. This was a book group choice that inspired me to order Korean food from a nearby restaurant (I was hosting) and the meal was more successful than the book. Aspects were interesting but the overall feeling was that this should have stayed a New Yorker article as it made for a repetitious book, nor did we did care for the author or her parents.

Juvenile

Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz by L. Frank Baum (2008). In the fourth Oz book, Dorothy is caught in an earthquake near San Francisco and disappears into the chasm in the ground. There, she is reunited with the infamous Wizard of Oz and escapes various dangers before finding her way back to Oz. My review for Ozathon24.

The Stone Cage by Nicholas Stuart Gray (1963). A retelling of the Rapunzel fairy tale which I have been trying to find for years.  It's told from the perspective of the witch's cat.  My review.

Enchanted Glass by Diana Wynne Jones (2010). This was the last book she completed before she died: in which an absent minded professor inherits the home of his magician grandfather as well as a runaway orphan. My review for March Magics 2024.

The Lost Year by Katherine Marsh (2023). An outstanding book with a dual time line – a teenage boy frustrated by the Covid-19 pandemic coaxes his great grandmother to reveal long-kept secrets about growing up during terrible famine in 1930s Soviet Ukraine.