Favorite Reads of 2019

Happy New Year and wishing you many delightful reads in 2020! I am enjoying seeing other people's "Best of" year-end lists, even when I haven't read any of their books.  There is always room on my TBR pile for books that sound appealing.

Historical Fiction

Dear Mrs. Bird by A.J. Pearce (2018)
This wound up being my favorite book of the year!  A warm and emotional story of a young woman who yearns to be a war correspondent during WWII but finds a job instead working on advice magazine during the day (what the Brits call an Agony Aunt) while doing her bit for the war at night as bombs fall.  You know how much I like books with WWII settings but some have become almost a cliche of tired plots.   This was fresh and appealing, humorous at times, heartbreaking at others, and altogether delightful. Those who remember Dear Lovey Hart will love it.

Through the Evil Days by Julia Spencer-Fleming

Title: Through the Evil Days 
Author:  Julia Spencer-Fleming

Publication: St. Martin’s/Minotaur, hardcover, 2013

Genre: Mystery

Plot: In the tense and emotional eighth book of the series, Chief of Police Russ Van Alstyne and Reverend Clare Fergusson are finally married but their lives remain professionally and personally complicated.  Clare is pregnant (as we learned at the very end of the last book), Russ is unhappy about becoming a parent at what he considered his advanced age, and a fire and related kidnapping threatens to derail their postponed honeymoon.  In the meantime, Hadley Knox, a relatively recent addition to the Millers Kill police force, is somewhat regretting having blown off coworker Kevin Flynn merely because he’s younger and she is getting over a bad divorce (soon she will have real problems!).   When Russ and Clare finally leave town for a week to “enjoy” an isolated cottage convenient to ice fishing (my idea of hell), they find the criminals are hiding out nearby.  Marooned by bad weather, Russ and Clare are caught between old rivalries and new enemies.

My Impressions: Despite the fact that Julia Spencer-Fleming is one of my favorite authors, I somehow had been saving this so long for a special occasion that I hadn’t read even read it! (I suspect my mother borrowed it and did not return it promptly but it is nice that she and my sisters and I all like this author so much.)  I reread One Was a Soldier to get in the mood – that is really exceptionally well done with flashbacks that advance the plot instead of exasperating the reader (a pet peeve) and vivid characters.   While I enjoyed this one, I had a hard time following the plot and need to reread it to fully grasp what was going on.  Russ is a pain for most of the book but I especially like Hadley and Kevin and was hoping things would work out for them: great cliffhanger ending!

One advantage of waiting this long to read Through the Evil Days is that her new book, Hid from Our Eyes, is coming out in April!   I had missed the sad news that Ms. Spencer-Fleming lost her husband in 2017; I am sure that getting back to writing after such a loss is much harder than simply going back to an office, so I am glad she was able to finish a new book and I hope it was a good distraction for her.

This is the tenth of twelve books that are part of my 2019 TBR Challenge, inspired by Adam at Roof Beam Reader, to prioritize some of my unread piles.  Two more to read by the end of the year!

Off the Blog: Merry Impeachmas!

Source: I highly recommend this series but do suggest you begin at the beginning with In the Bleak Midwinter.  My mother and I enjoyed meeting Julia Spencer-Fleming at the Brookline Library several years ago and I thus own an autographed hardcover.  She told us her daughter was studying for an MLIS at Simmons, making a tough commute down from Maine.  My mother, a (retired) librarian, sympathized as she commuted to URI while earning her library degree.  

Virtual Advent Calendar

Thank you to Sprite Writes for including me in the Virtual Advent Tour she has organized for five years. For those who don’t know, Advent is the liturgical season leading up to Christmas which includes the four preceding Sundays. 

Can you guess?  See below.

This post is about a family tradition started by my father, who we lost three years ago.  I think about him whenever I wrap a present because, although he was not good at shopping, when he came up with a gift he enjoyed making tricky tags!  He would add a message to the tag but put dashes instead of some of the letters so the recipient would have to guess what was inside.   The first one I remember was a little datebook when I was in high school or college, with a tag said something like, “For CLM, so she will K _ _ W   WH _  _  E  TO  G _.

They got more complicated over the years and the rest of the family occasionally joins in.  You have to strike the right balance between a little mystery but not so obscure no one can hazard a guess! 

I think Buddy was telling me to look in the box for some awesome gardener's gloves that go practically to my elbows, protecting me from poison ivy!   (Not that they keep the plants alive - now, that would be quite a gift!)

I found this one from several years ago stuck to some wrapping paper.  I am trying to guess what it stands for!  We'll have to see if my brother remembers.

* * *

Answer to Samantha's tag:  Quiet Moment.  Yes, any working mother with three children and a dog finds that quiet moments are in short supply. 

The American Heiress by Daisy Goodwin

Title: The American Heiress

Author:  Daisy Goodwin

Publication: St. Martin’s, paperback, 2010

Genre: Historical Fiction

The American Heiress is the ninth of twelve books that are part of my 2019 TBR Challenge, inspired by Adam at Roof Beam Reader, to prioritize some of my unread piles.  I have another one read but not yet reviewed and two more to read by December 31st.  Can she do it?

Plot: Cora Cash is the beautiful daughter of an affluent and ambitious mother, who wants English nobility for a son-in-law.  Following a glamorous (although marred by a fire) ball in Newport, Cora leaves behind her local admirers and heads to England with her mother and her shrewd black maid, Bertha.  Conveniently, Cora immediately encounters a very eligible bachelor, the Duke of Wareham, who is high on pedigree but low on cash, and unenthusiastically recognizes an opportunity when he sees one.  The reader, if not Cora, anticipates the obstacles in the way of turning a marriage of convenience into a relatively happy union (condescending servants, jilted lovers, shrewish mother-in-law, poor heating) but there is more to Cora than desire for status.   Cora slowly learns how to defend herself and begins to figure out what she needs to do to master her new position, act befitting a duchess, and cope with her moody husband in what turns out to be an entertaining novel. 

Six Degrees of Separation: from Sanditon to Mrs. Tim Christie

Six Degrees of Separation is a monthly link-up hosted by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. Each month a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six other books to form a chain. A book doesn’t need to be connected to all the other books on the list, only to the one next to it in the chain.

Sanditon, the unfinished Jane Austen, was Kate’s starting book. I read this long ago and unfortunately don’t remember it at all.  However, I am looking forward to the new dramatization on Masterpiece Theatre beginning January 12, 2020.

Joan Aiken came to mind because I thought she had completed Sanditon, but "her" Austen is Emma Watson, The Watsons Completed, which is my first book (not to be confused with actress Emma Watson!). 

The Long Call by Ann Cleeves

Title: The Long Call, Two Rivers #1 
Author:  Ann Cleeves

Publication: Minotaur Books, hardcover, October 2019

Genre: Mystery/series

Plot: In the first of a new series, Matthew Venn, a Detective Inspector in North Devon is watching his father’s funeral from a distance when, moments later, he learns a body has been found near the home he shares with his husband, Jonathan.  Matthew became estranged from his family due to his rejection of his parents’ evangelical religion, the Barum Brethren, but he puts his familial angst away to investigate the crime, or so he thinks.  As Matthew and his team examine the death there are so many conflicts of interest that he suspects he should remove himself from the case: the fact that the body was found so close to his home, several connections to the Woodyard, the art/day center that Jonathan manages, and the appearance of members of the Brethren.

My Impressions: The day they found the body on the shore, Matthew Venn was already haunted by thoughts of death and dying.

What a first sentence!  This is a very dark and atmospheric new mystery from popular Ann Cleeves, whose other books I have enjoyed.  Matthew Venn is one of the most serious protagonists I can remember reading about and he struggles with a feeling of unworthiness although he is handsome, accomplished, and has a job at which he is skilled.  The story is set in a town in North Devon, near two rivers, the Taw and the Torridge that run into the Atlantic Ocean.  Matthew and Jonathan live in a house on the estuary they got at a bargain price because it might be obliterated in a flood.   The isolation suits Matthew but Jonathan is gregarious and popular; in fact, Matthew is constantly amazed someone so confident would be attracted to him.  This insecurity threatens to derail Matthew from the hunt for the killer but ultimately he triumphs.

In this book, even more than her others, I am impressed by the detailed depiction of minor characters, particularly Lucy and her father Maurice, and Jen Rafferty, the appealing sergeant who works for Matthew.  I had been angry with Cleeves for a plot development in her Shetland Island series but I suppose I am over it by now.  In fact, she was in Greater Boston recently promoting this book and I was disappointed not to be able to attend.

Off the Blog: Enjoying Thanksgiving leftovers in Rye, NY and working on my Nancy Drew paper.

Source:  Thanks to NetGalley for this read.  Recommended!

Back to Frederica by Georgette Heyer, Chapters 18-21

For those who wondered what had happened to the discussion of Frederica, I thought I should finish posting:

Image borrowed from https://tinyurl.com/yj6en84b

Chapter 18

After seeing Felix successfully wheedle Alverstoke and hearing that Jessamy is exercising his precious horses, Lady Elizabeth is dying of curiosity and rushes to see her elder sister, Lady Jevington, for her opinion of the Merrivilles.   Eliza reveals that Lady Jersey wrote to her, predicting Alverstoke would marry Charis and that Alverstoke painted her in the most glowing terms.  Lady Jevington says Alverstoke was hoaxing her: “But unless I am much mistaken it is the elder and not the younger sister for whom he has conceived a decided tendre.” 

Five Things

I was in Denver this week for work and had a lovely dinner with six other Betsy-Tacy fans.  One told me she had just finished reading Meet the Malones and she wrote about it here.  Don’t you love a convert?

 

Somehow I found myself vacuuming under and behind my bed recently!   Don’t worry, it probably won’t happen again due to the fact I found ONE jade earring bought in Canada at a friend’s wedding.   I am afraid the other one was vacuumed.   Is it worth going through the vacuum bag to check?  Even if I find it, would it be too gross to ever wear again?