October Books

 Hi everyone.  Happy weekend. 

Today I'm here with my monthly book post, actually written so I can remember and track my reading. 😏 Please feel free to read on if you like book posts.

This past month was a good time to shake up my reading a bit. Today's post is a mix of fantasy fiction and mysteries, with a bit of "other" things thrown in. 

My first listen for October was this book, Our Hideous Progeny, by C.E. McGill. This was the perfect read for October, a gothic style fictional tale set in 1850's England and Scotland.

Mary and Henry Sutherland  are a couple who  are Victorian era  paleontologists. Mary is outspoken and very "liberated". Henry can't handle money and although he could be a worse husband, he isn't exactly a stellar one either.  This book creates a great fictional story, and  I enjoyed  how it also included real people  from the time including (but not limited to) Richard Owen, Charles Darwin and Mary Anning who found many fossils in Lyme Regis. 

If Henry's secret is borrowing money from a less than scrupulous "friend",  Mary has a secret that leads to them becoming more than just early paleontologists. Her great-uncle was Dr. Frankenstein, (yes the one from Mary Shelley's fictional novel), and when Mary comes across some letters he wrote to her grandfather, her curious mind takes her and Henry on the path to creating life from non-life.   The one drawback is that  Henry's unscrupulous money-lending friend, the one he has borrowed so much money from, comes to join them in their research. It is his behavior that  creates some excitement for the reader, although I don't know who would be rooting for him. (I certainly didn't.)

I very much enjoyed this novel. It wasn't gory, nor frightening, just a very good example of a fantasy and historical story that works perfectly during the Victorian time period (since that time period  was the start of paleontology and modern evolutionary theory). The author also does a good job of putting you back into that time period too, and she creates a novel that for me was really hard to put down. 

I have never read any of the Vera mysteries, but I have read some of the Jimmy Perez Shetland Islands series by Ann Cleeves so I know she is an excellent writer. This book is the first in her newest mystery series, set on the shore in North Devon near where 2 rivers converge.  Her new detective is Matthew Venn, and in this book, a body is discovered along the shore. After some investigative research, the murdered man ends up being a cook at the same community complex where Venn's husband Jonathan is a manager. 

The dead man, Simon Waldron, had accidentally killed a child in a car accident, and that event, along with his military time, had him drinking too much.  Because of these events, his marriage disintegrated, and he became homeless. Yet he had a friendship with a Down's Syndrome woman and he seemed to have money. Inspector Venn and his sidekicks launch  an investigation to find out what happened to Simon. In the process a couple of other people connected to the Community Complex  go missing and more surprises are discovered about the murdered man. Somehow all these pieces are connected, and the author does a great job of not only stringing you along but also of not letting you in on the connections to who the killer is. 

Who is the murderer? It could be one of the men who run the community complex, or perhaps the curate who occasionally helps out there? It could even be the center's artist, or her roommate who is a counsellor.  Cleeves write a really good story. This mystery is as good as her Shetland series. (Or at least I think so.)

If you read my book posts regularly you might have noticed I like to switch up my reading/listening. With it being October, it seemed like a good month to read another book in the fantasy genre. My next listen was this book, the Golem and the  Jinnie, which combines fantasy with historical fiction in 1899 New York. I've had this book in my Audible account for awhile now too, so it was good to actually listen to it.

Chava is a golem, a magical clay figure of a human that was made to be the wife of a Polish merchant. The merchant is immigrating to America, and he is told  by Chava's creator not to  say the incantation that will  bring her to life until he reaches his destination.  However, the merchant can't wait, so he opens her crate and reads the spell. Chava comes to life, but sadly, the man who had her created to be his wife, dies on this voyage, leaving Chava alone. 

Ahmad is the Jinni, created by a wizard in the Syrian desert decades before.  Ahmad then became trapped in a copper flask. Ahmad is released when the flask's owner  (a woman who runs a coffee shop) brings the flask to a tinsmith in Manhattan to have  it fixed for use in her busy restaurant. 

This book was narrated by George Guidall, who is a fabulous narrator and one of my favorites. Even if it was a terrible book (and this book was not even close to being terrible), I would enjoy just listening to his voice.   The author, Helene Wecker, constructed the story so before I knew it, I had become invested in the characters and  was totally engrossed in what happened to them. Even though the Golem and the Jinni are magical folk, they have enough humanity to make them  relatable.  Even better, the 2 magical folk meet and become friends. They interact with all the other human characters that Wecker created. All of the characters, not just the Golem and the Jinni, add something to this novel.

Then the Golem makes a big change in her life,  and also her creator shows up. It takes a while to get here (this book was an over 19 hours listen). Now all of the backstory and characters  pull together. These events cause this story to take an interesting twist and propel it to an action packed and exciting ending.

I very much enjoyed this book, and my only negative is  because I listened to it. There could be slightly longer gaps between book sections. Sometimes  I found it hard to realize the story had moved to a different spot. 

My next book was #6 in the Maggie Hope mystery series. This time Maggie is back in London, and there is someone killing women in Jack-The-Ripper style murders. Not just style, but copying those murders. However this time it isn't women of the night who are being brutally dismembered. Now most of the women being killed are working for the various war departments.  Maggie, who works in a war department, is asked to work on the case along with New Scotland Yard to find out who is killing these people. 

Maggie is also trying to get benefits for the women who risk their lives going undercover into France and other Nazi occupied countries.   This is something all men who serve already have in place, but women have nothing, even though they take just as high a  risk going in as spies.  In this book the reader also gets to catch up with Elise, Maggie's German half-sister, who was introduced in an earlier volume of this series. And there are a few surprises  in this story too.

This is another good book in this series. These books should be read in order as the story evolves and continues. This book ends  as a cliffhanger and with some unfinished business, so it will soon be onto book #7 for me.

Sy Montgomery is a New Hampshire resident who writes  natural history books. Her books aren't hard to read and are always interesting  because she usually is actively involved in her topic.  I like how she gets up close and personal with the topic she is writing about and how you learn through her doing things.   Her latest book is about turtles.

I knew turtles suffered from being run over by cars (I've helped several to the opposite side of the road just this year), and I knew they have been injured by boats ( which I learned a lot about when I visited  the Turtle Hospital down in the Florida Keys in 2019). I also knew people  have historically eaten them. Yet I didn't know how turtles are hunted for powders which of course don't do anything the sellers promise they will. For example, since  turtles don't really age the same way people do, some people believe that taking ground up turtles will help them age more slowly and live longer.  It seems some people just believe anything  they read or hear (and not just about turtles). 

Turtles are really under siege. Not only do they move slowly, but their whole lives  move at a speed much slower than ours.   This was a fascinating look at turtles, and all I can say is thank goodness there are people out there who care about these creatures before they end up being totally gone from our world. And thank goodness the author wrote this book, which hopefully many people will read to be more aware of these fascinating 4 legged creatures.

I've become a fan of Keigo Higashino mysteries in the last year and a half. This book, Newcomer, has been sitting in my next-to-the-bed book pile for a few months  just waiting for me to read it.  It is book 2 in the Kyoichiro  Kaga detective series.  This author's Detective Galileo series is a more traditionally written  mystery story, but in this series, the Kyoichiro Kaga police mysteries, Higashino takes a more creative approach to how he writes about the murder being solved.

This time a woman is found dead, strangled in her apartment in Tokyo. The author approaches the investigation by writing short sections, each a few chapters long, about various people who live in the area of the murder. These people are directly or indirectly connected to the death. Detective Kyoichiro Kaga is in each section, but he is not the person telling that part of the story. These sections include the clock shop, the pastry shop, the rice cracker shop, among others. And of course, each section focuses around the people involved in those shops.

The murder investigation continues throughout the whole book, and as you read  the book you see not only how this investigator is working, but you get to know more about the murdered woman as well as the suspects. However, the way this book is set up, with so few characters consistent throughout the whole book, you don't know who the killer was until the very end. 

My next read was this fast paced and not particularly long book, Starling House by Alix E. Harrow.  The title describes the fictional Starling House, a dilapidated but formally beautiful home in Eden, Kentucky. The last remaining family resident is Arthur.

Opal is a twenty something woman who lives in a hotel room with her teenage brother. She is trying to give him a better life. She is also obsessed with the story in an old book, Underland, written by E. Starling decades ago. E. Starling was the woman who built this now creepy  house, and Opal's curiosity has her knocking on the front door. That leads to a job in the house, cleaning years of detritus away as well as spending some time with the recluse Arthur. 

Opal is also being "pursued" by a woman who works for a large local coal mine. That company is very interested in Starling House. And of course all the locals are telling Opal to stay away from the house as well as its resident because there are, as Opal disovers, some dark forces associated with the house.  Will she be able to stay away when the house is choosing her as it’s next keeper?

This book is a modern gothic  and different kind of romantic tale, and although I don't usually post quotes, I thought this one by Reese Witherspoon as to why she chose this for her book club is perfect. "This book has everything you could possibly want this fall...a cursed town, a haunted house, a vivid & eerie setting—plus, characters willing to risk everything."—Reese Witherspoon (Reese’s Book Club October ’23 Pick)

If you don't like super spooky or gorey books, but if you do like some fall or Halloween atmosphere, then this might also be a book for you. The story was fast paced and well written with an exciting ending. I enjoyed it.

My last listen for October was this non-fiction book. The title caught my eye, because I didn't at first get what Archeology from Space meant. Of course once I read it had to do with remote sensing, it made sense, and I do  enjoy learning about what comes out of the ground. Since  this is the audible version, I tried listening to the sample before I added it to my account. When that sample mentioned my college undergrad alma mater,  I was now doubly interested. And when I looked up the author on the internet, she impressed me, and I wanted to hear what she had to say.

This book is a nice introduction not only to remote sensing, but also to archeology in general. Parcak is quite an accomplished archeologist and professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.  She is an Egyptologist, and she talks a lot about her digs in that country. She also mentions archeology work in other places of the world. I liked how she describes each of the digs, whether she is involved with them or not, and I also  liked how she gave a lot of background info. 

I enjoy these types of personal and travel books, especially when I can learn new things. However, one thing I didn't really enjoy was when the author fictionalized bits of the book. Not the archeology, but she took us back to ancient Egypt and created a family. I know she did that to illustrate life at that time and in that place. She also took us to 150 years in the future and predicted what she thought archeology would be at that point in the future. I do appreciate her creativity, but I thought that part fell a little flat compared to the rest of the book. 

Overall this was an enjoyable listen, and if a reader can come away more educated, that makes it a worthwhile read.

If you made it this far, you can probably see that I had a great reading month. There's nothing better than a good book, a cup of tea, and maybe even a little snack late in the afternoon. Or a good book at bedtime to help me sleep better.  I had that this month.

And as always, I do like recommendations, even if I don't get to them right away. :)