I’m afraid to announce that past the mid-point of the year, I’m 40 books behind schedule to achieve my 2019 reading goal of 100 books. Turns out that losing 90 minutes of reading time every day thanks to my transition from taking the train to driving has taken a real toll. Still, I have been doing some reading and what I have done has been excellent.
I have enjoyed all of Deanna Raybourn’s ‘Veronica Speedwell’ books, but each of the first three had an ending I felt left a bit wanting. Fortunately, book #4, A Dangerous Collaboration (in stock in hardcover), finally resolved this issue. Veronica, Stoker, and Stoker’s brother Tiberius all play an equal part in solving an old murder on an island in Cornwall. It is equal parts atmospheric and engaging and the whole series would be an excellent summer read. We’ve also got book #3 in stock in trade paperback with books #1 and 2 available for order. Book #5, A Murderous Relation, will be released in March 2020.
Do you ever find yourself reading a series that you can’t quite remember why you started reading and yet you find yourself continuing to buy it? That’s the case for me with Will Thomas’ ‘Barker & Llewelyn’ series. Reading about two male detectives in Victorian London is really not my wheelhouse, but I enjoy each new book. Book #10, Blood is Blood (available to order in hardcover) features Cyrus Barker mostly sidelined due to an assassination attempt and leaves Thomas Llewelyn to try to solve the crime whilst planning a wedding and “babysitting” Barker’s brother. The trade paperback is coming in October with book #11, Lethal Pursuit, on sale in November. This is a series where you needn’t have read every book to enjoy it and we’ve got some earlier titles in trade paperback if you want to dip your toe in.
I’m late to ‘The Vinyl Detective’ party, so you’ll just have to call me a band wagon jumper of the first degree. I’m not sure why I put off reading these books, but they came to me at a time this summer when I needed a thoroughly fun and easy read. I read all four books in a few weeks and now I’m sad that I have to wait for an as yet unscheduled 5th book. We’ve got all four books in stock, the first two in mass market and the second two in trade paperback. This is another great series for summer reading, the kind of books with which you want to settle in on the porch and not get up for several hours.
Like many of you, a great percentage of my reading used to be in mass market, but as publishing has changed, I can’t remember the last time I read a cozy, particularly a new series. When I was last at home, however, Dana Dratch’s Confessions of a Red Herring caught my eye and I picked it up. It could probably be about 50 pages shorter, but I thought this was a fun start to a series with a quirky cast of characters including our heroine, a journalist turned PR guru and a potential love interest who owns a B&B across the street. Book #2, Seeing Red, is already available and in stock in mass market.
Not surprisingly, my ‘To Read’ pile is nearing on teetering, but I have a 9 day vacation coming up and the hopes I can really blast through it. Featured especially are Anna Lee Huber’s An Artless Demise, Benedict Jacka’s Marked, Julie McElwain’s Caught in Time, Zen Cho’s The True Queen, and The Killing Site by Caro Peacock. All the more pressure to make progress because the two books I am most looking forward to in 2019 are coming out this fall. Sherry Thomas’ The Art of Theft, book #4 in her ‘Lady Sherlock’ series, is coming in October in trade paperback. I have already been told I can’t pick it as my book of the year. And in September, Grave Importance by Vivian Shaw, will be released (also in trade paperback). Dr. Greta Helsing is my favourite book heroine and I can’t wait to read this next book.