Reading in Reykjavík

I first read Bet Me in 2005, and it has been on my list of regular rereads ever since. As I have been moving towards multitasking while I "read", I decided to get the audio version, and I have no regrets. This is actually my second listen - I also listened to it back in 2018 when I first got it. This is just to add some notes on the narration, as I have already reviewed this novel. Read my original review to see what I thought of the book. The narrator, Deanna Hurst, does a good job of the reading, and one never confuses the characters, as she gives them different enough voices that once you get used to them, you never have any problems telling them apart, but she also doesn't exaggerate them, which is good, because while this book has some funny moments, it isn't a comedy in itself and I have occasionally listened to audiobooks where the narrator exaggerated thins so much that it sounded like slapstick. Her voice is well-fitted to the often rapid-fire dialogu...

This isn't a review of the book, as much as of the narrator of the audio book version. Artists in Crime is among of the better of Ngaio Marsh's Chief Inspector Alleyn novels, and one of the ones I occasionally reread - not so much for the murder plot, which is gruesome and more than a little melodramatic, albeit clever - but for the romance. It's not a romance novel per se, but the side plot concerns Alleyn's very tentative courtship of his future wife, artist Agatha Troy. They had met in a previous book, where he was interested in and attracted to her while she was in equal parts intrigued by him and annoyed with herself for being so. In this book we get to see how she begins to accept that she has feelings for him, and he to have some hope that she may reciprocate his feelings for her. It is not the same breathtaking romance arc as in contemporary author Dorothy L. Sayer's detective novels, to which some have drawn parallels, but is quite satisfying even so. ...

I embarked on a reread of Nora Roberts' In the Garden trilogy and Bride Quartet in March and have been reading them at the kitchen table while I eat my breakfast and dinner, and over lunch as well on the weekends. I find some of Robert's books to be good comfort reads, and who doesn't need a good comfort read during times like these? While I usually go to for Roberts' standalone romantic thrillers (e.g. Northern Lights ) or the Cheapeake Bay trilogy (minus book 4, which don't much care for), the In the Garden trilogy has moved into my top 5 favorite Noras (counting series as one book). It is one of the better of her paranormal romances (called paraNoras by some of her fans), with solid characters and interesting romances with an intriguing, if paper-thin, ghost story to pepper things up. I especially like that the romances are generational, with couples in their 20s, 30s and 40s - hot heroes and heroines I can identify with - finding each other as they try to d...