Reading report for July 2012

I finished 14 books and 2 novellas in July, all but one of which I started reading within the month, so the page count is impressive, around 5400 pages, not counting those parts of London: The Biography I read earlier. You could say I‘m making up for lost time, having read very little (for me) during the winter.

Of the books I read in July, I have already reviewed London: The Biography . Not unsurprisingly, 3 of the other books and one novella came from the Black Dagger Brotherthood series. The other novella takes place in the same world but is not part of the series. Neither novella will go on the Books Read list until I have finished the books they are to be found in, but the titles are Father Mine and The Story of Son. The former is about the couple from Lover Awakened , the third book in the series, and what happened afterwards. The other is a sweet paranormal love story.

Another series I recently discovered Debbie Macomber‘s Cedar Cove books, of which I read the two first in July. They weren‘t as endearing as her Christmas stories, but gave one a nice and cosy, warm feeling, much like the Cat Who books by Lilian Jackson Braun, only without the murders. Although the main theme in these books is love, they are not traditional one man/one woman romances but rather parts of a larger, multi-book story with multiple characters, with one or two love stories being brought to the I do in each book and new ones continued or started.

A third series I have just started reading is the Inspector Lynley mysteries. I was familiar with Lynley and his sidekick Havers from the TV series so I found it rather funny to read the description of Lynley in the book. I have him firmly fixed in my mind as looking like the delicious Nathaniel Parker, the actor who portrays him in the TV series, who is definitely not blond like the Lynley of the books. I have started reading the second book and so far TV Lynley seems to be winning – I still see Parker in my mind whenever I read the name.

I also discovered the Uncle John‘s Bathroom Readers when I came across one in a second hand shop last month. I will definitely be buying more of them.

As for the rest, I read 2 romance novels and a collection of 5 romance novellas, one Ellis Peters mystery, and reread two books, one by Terry Pratchett and one by Piers Anthony. I discovered Anthony‘s Xanth books long ago and enjoyed them up to around book 20 when I decided I‘d had my fill of them. However, I never got rid of my copies, and recently I decided to reread them to help me to decide whether or not I want to keep them.

The Books:
Peter Ackroyd: London: The Biography. History.
Piers Anthony: A Spell for Chameleon. Fantasy. Reread.
Bathroom Reader's Institute: Uncle John's Bathroom Reader: Wonderful World of Odd. Trivia.
Elizabeth George: A Great Deliverance. Police procedural. Murder mystery.
Robin Kaye: Too Hot to Handle. Contemporary romance.
Debbie Macomber: 16 Lighthouse Road and 204 Rosewood Lane. Women‘s literature.
Cathy Maxwell; Elaine Fox; Jeaniene Frost; Sophia Nash; Tracy Anne Warren: Four Dukes and a Devil. Romance, mixture of historical, contemporary and paranormal.
Ellis Peters: Death and the Joyful Woman. Murder mystery.
Terry Pratchett: Reaper Man. Fantasy. Reread.
Nora Roberts: Sacred Sins. Romantic suspense.
J.R. Ward: Lover Unbound , Lover Enshrined and Lover Avenged. Urban fantasy/Paranormal romance.

Mystery author # 14: Patricia Wentworth

This time around I read three books for the review. Patricia Wentworth wrote about the same number of non-series mysteries/thrillers as she did Miss Silver books, but all I managed to get my hands on are Miss Silver stories, so the author review is based on them alone. (Typically, I came across some at the flea market on the weekend after I wrote the book reviews, but I’ll review them independently when I feel like reading them). Title: Grey Mask Series detective: Miss Maud Silver No. in series: 1 Year of publication: 1928 Type of mystery: General crime Type of investigator: Amateurs and private detective Setting & time: London, England, 1920’s Some themes: Blackmail, kidnapping, theft, murder Story: Charles Moray returns to England four years after his fiancé, Margaret Langton, jilted him, a week before their wedding. He discovers that she is a member of a secret society and that some of its members are planning to cause an heiress, Margot Standing, to lose her inheritanc

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Reading in Reykjavík

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