July 2025 Reading

The Kitchen Front and The Demon of Unrest turned out to be my favorite books this month and, as always, I enjoyed a Vera Stanhope mystery by Ann Cleeves. This detective has really grown on me. I listened to four audiobooks in July and am now in the middle of a very long one – 23 hours – which Hoopla will reclaim before I am done (luckily, I have an actual book as well).

Strangers in Time by David Baldacci - a WWII Novel

With a title like this, I was expecting time travel but, in fact, this is a historical novel set during WWII that brings together three individuals into a found family. It is London 1944, and Molly, 15, has lived in the country as an evacuee for five years and is finally returning home. She is worried that she hasn’t heard directly from her mother for years and, with no warning, her father has stopped paying a stipend to the family that housed her. When Molly reaches her house, appalled by the devastation she finds in London, only the housekeeper is there to greet her.

June 2025 Reading

June was a varied month of reading and I particularly enjoyed The Eights, with its depiction of the early years of women at Oxford, and Death at the White Hart, a mystery by the creator of Broadchurch. I also continued with Val McDermid’s Karen Pirie series and Martin Edwards’ Lake District mysteries.  There were also some disappointments like the much-hyped All the Other Mothers Hate Me by Sarah Harman - it's hard to appreciate a protagonist who leaves her young child alone to go sleuthing and blacks out from partying!

My Top Ten Most Anticipated Books Releasing in the Second Half of 2025

I am plenty busy with my 20 Books of Summer, my book group, and piles of library books everywhere but that hasn’t stopped me from thinking about the books being published in the second half of 2025 for That Artsy Reader Girl’s weekly Top Ten Tuesday:

WWW Wednesday – June 18

WWW Wednesday is hosted by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading Two New Books

I am listening to Famous Last Words by Gillian McAllister (2025), which starts with a bang. It’s Camilla’s first day back at work after her maternity leave (do women usually get nine months in Britain or is her employer very generous?) but, before she’s even had time for coffee,

Spell the Month in Books – December 2024

Can you spell the month in books?  All from books I read this year:

Daughter of Lir by Diana Norman (1988). This was an outstanding historical novel set in 12th century Ireland that is funny in some parts and harrowing in others. Irish-born Finola (you know I like orphans) is abandoned and then brought up at a famous French convent and renamed Sister Boniface.

Fontevraud Abbey, France

WWW Wednesday – January 10

WWW Wednesday is hosted by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

Six Degrees of Separation – from Time Shelter to Memory Man

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place, add six books, and see where we end up. This month’s starting point is Time Shelter by Bulgarian writer Georgi Gospodinov and translated by Angela Rodel. According to the Guardian, “A mysterious therapist, Gaustine, founds a clinic that treats patients with Alzheimer's by recreating the pasts in which they felt most secure.”

My January 2023 Reads

Not as much variety in my reading last month as usual.  My favorite book was The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman, second in a mystery series set in an upscale retirement community in Britain.

YA Historical Fiction

Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys (2016). Three young people, thrown together by fate in East Prussia at the end of WWII, are among the thousands of refugees are on a desperate trek to reach the Wilhelm Gustloff, a ship that is evacuating civilians from the Russian army.

WWW Wednesday – September 7, 2022

WWW Wednesday is hosted by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Current reading

I am usually in the middle of several books. In the car, I am listening to The Fall by John Lescroart (2015), a legal thriller featuring attorney Dismas Hardy and his daughter, Rebecca. She is now grown up and an associate in Hardy’s law firm, defending a client accused of murder. I had forgotten how much I enjoy Lescroart’s characters and how they have developed over the years.

My March 2022 Reads

Children’s Books

Which Way is Home by Maria Kiely (2020) - A debut novel about a family escaping Czechoslovakia after the 1948 Communist takeover, based on the experience of the author's mother who was the co-master of Adams House at Harvard when I was in college.

WWW Wednesday – March 23, 2022

WWW Wednesday is hosted by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?

After seeing a New York Times review, my sister Andrea recommended The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections by Eva Jurczyk, a mystery set in the rare books department of a large university.

WWW Wednesday – February 23, 2022

WWW Wednesday is hosted by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?

I just started Mercy by David Baldacci (2021) about FBI agent, Atlee Pine, who has been searching through three previous books for her twin sister, Mercy, abducted at the age of six and never seen again.

The Fallen by David Baldacci (Book Review)

Title: The Fallen: Memory Man #4
Author: David Baldacci
Publication: Hachette Books, hardcover, April 2018
Genre: Suspense

Plot: FBI detective, Amos Decker, has survived many challenges – from the football injury that derailed his NFL career, leaving him with the perfect recall that has helped his investigative skills, to the terrible night he came home and found his wife and daughter had been murdered. He uses work to forget his past so is not able to relax when his FBI partner Alex Jamison drags him along on a vacation to visit her sister’s family on the Pennsylvania-Ohio border. Like any self-respecting hero of a thriller, he senses something wrong in the house next door and breaks down the door, discovering two dead bodies. This is the first but not the last mystery that Amos and Alex find in Baronville, PA, and because Amos is driven to solve murders and he and Alex excel at fitting pieces of crime together like a puzzle, they go full speed ahead even when they learn Alex’s brother-in-law is somehow part of the former mill town’s deadly secrets.  This is another bestseller from a talented and prolific novelist.

Audience: Fans of thrillers, those who like angst-driven protagonists

My Impressions: Why do I enjoy David Baldacci’s books so much? He combines suspense, intricate plots that alternate between plausible and incredible, fast-paced action, quirky characters, and unexpected humor. Here, Alex is both fond of and exasperated by her partner, whose analytical skills are boundless but who doesn’t always remember to keep her in the loop, often plunging into danger alone:

Before they could answer [Baron] simply walked from the room.
Jamison looked over at Decker. “Wow, just walking out like that. Who does that remind you of?”
He looked at her. “Who?”
Her only response was an exaggerated eye roll.

Amos has lost his ability to feel emotions other than revenge so he never gets Alex’s humor but in this book he connects with Alex’s niece, who reminds him of his deceased daughter, and there are some touching scenes with her. I think human contact is helping Amos begin to recover from his tragedy.

I was hoping to get my oldest nephew hooked on Baldacci this summer and got The Camel Club for him from the library but I am not sure he has tried it yet. For new Baldacci fans, I recommend starting with that one or Split Second: The Camel Club begins a series about a motley collection of friends who are determined to investigate a CIA conspiracy while Split Second focuses on two discredited Secret Service agents who turn into a powerful force when they begin working together.

Source: I got this book from the Boston Public Library. The BPL does not usually receive new books quickly so I have been waiting quite a while to get to the top of the reserve list. In addition, Baldacci is very popular. Some libraries (but not this one) pencil in the date the book arrives so occasionally I can tell I am the first or close to the first to receive the book, which is always fun.