August Reading

   Hi everyone.  I know that not all of you are fans of book posts, but if you like to read about reading, here's my books from last month. ❤  I read mostly  (but not all) mysteries, and I'm not sure this is my most exciting month of selections. However I enjoyed my choices, and that's one reason why we read, right?  I didn't finish quite as many books as I usually do either, only 7 instead of my usual 8 to 11. I know some of you are going to comment that 7 is still a lot, and I agree, it is.  😉

    The Olive Farm is book one in a series by  actress  Carol Drinkwater. In this book, Carol and her fiance Michel find, buy and work on fixing up a run down home outside of Cannes in southern France.

     I don't know what I actually expected when I started this book, but one thought I had was that I hoped this wasn't going to be a repeat of many of the other buy-a-run-down-house in France (or Italy) and  then repair it stories. Maybe in some ways it was, but this book sucked me in pretty fast. I actually enjoy those type of stories, but they are much better when the author also puts their own spin on them. Like this one did.

     Drinkwater has a bit of comedic style to her writing that made me laugh and smile quite a few times. As an example I'll mention Pamela, Michel's daughters'  German Shepard.  Pamela  was a pretty low-key, very over weight and lazy dog who spent much of her time just lounging. However Pamela rebelled at being put on a diet by the author.  Suddenly she started  going around and getting into all the neighbors' trash. You can imagine the interactions Pamela caused  Carol and Michel to have with  their not yet met neighbors. Plus the descriptions of those neighbors caused me to smile. Never mind the author's relationship with her step daughter's dog. OK, the book makes that story much funnier than I can in a short little book write up so you'll just have to take my word that it (as well as many other parts of this book) was funny. 😏 

    This book is also part travel writing.  The author does a great job of taking you, the reader, along to Nice and some other localities near the house.  And beyond travel writing, this book is about olives.  I learned a lot about those botanicals including the process of harvesting and pressing the olives. The author's plan was to bring back the olive grove and  become a productive farm.  I'm glad Drinkwater didn't focus only on fixing up the home but to immerse the reader into her whole experience.

   There's more books in this series, and I hope to read them also. (Along with everything else I think looks so interesting to read-grin.) 

      

     A Room Full of Bones by Elly Griffiths is book 4 in the Dr. Ruth Galloway series. Ruth is an archaeologist and bone expert in Norfolk, England. As this book begins, Ruth arrives at a museum where a coffin containing the  bones of a medieval bishop is about to be opened. However, when she arrives for this event, she finds the museum's curator dead. 

     From there the story continues onto race horses, the drug trade, bones of Indigenous Australians that were stolen, and a since it's a murder mystery, a few other deaths and near deaths. Ruth's archaeologist friend Max is back in the picture, and Nelson has promised his wife Michelle he wouldn't see Ruth or Kate unless it was for a work related situation. And of course, there's Cathbad the Druid who is making a lot of spiritual connections to those missing Australian bones and people in the Dreaming.

 

     This is a reread for me, as I am working my way back through this series. The good thing about a reread is refreshing my memory about the story, including how I get to follow the characters as they develop in this series. It's amazing how many details I had forgotten. Plus reading a book in a different time and place makes it all different because as you know,  we all change in time too.

    I am enjoying this reread as much as the first time I read through this series, and I do recommend that you read this series in order as the character's stories developed over time. 

   I read my first Robert Harris book back in March or April. That book was Conclave and I really liked it. I decided to try another one of this author's books. This latest one I read is called Precipice, and it is a World War One thriller published in 2024.

  This book alternates between 2 stories that you know right away will intersect. One story is between Venetia Stanley, a 20 something unmarried woman who is having a very proper (but for 1914 a very improper) relationship  with the married and 60 something Prime Minister of Britain. They exchange a lot of letters, and in those letters are  a lot of state secrets regarding not only the war but also about Irish Home Rule. From the introduction to the novel you are informed that  parts of those letters are  quotes from the real letters these 2 people actually exchanged.  These 2 characters, Venetia Stanley and Prime Minister  H.H. Asquith, were actual people who corresponded and found time to spend with each other.

   Although this is a fictional book. the author was intrigued by this real life relationship and decided to write  a novel using them as main characters. He also decided to make the story a fictional thriller by adding the second intertwining story.

   The second story is fictional and is about a policeman named Deemer who becomes part of a government information policing organization when it looks like World War One/ The Great War is about to begin. His job is to gather information on or even arrest people who could be or who are spies living within England.

     Somehow parts of a letter between Venetia and Prime come into other hands and they are then printed in the newspaper. This sets Deemer on the trail of these 2 "lovers". Although I looked this twist up to see if these letters were actually published or are just part of the fictional story, I still don't know if  these letters were actually published in a newspaper at that time. However they were published many years later.

  I loved the history in this story as well as how the author used actual people besides Venetia Stanley and H.H. Asquith (like Winston Churchill and  Lloyd George among others) within the story.  This book didn't move as quickly as Conclave did, but it was a story that was easy to become engrossed in. I enjoyed this book very much, as as far as historical mysteries go, this one is one of the better ones I have recently read.

   I was then back to reading about Dr. Ruth  Galloway.  A Dying Fall is book #5 in that series. This time an archaeologist friend from Ruth's college days has died in a fire, and Ruth is contacted by the friend's boss to come look at some bones that the friend had recently found. Ruth, Kate and Cathbad (who has just been rejected by the love of his life) travel north to the Blackpool area of England.

   There are lots of twists and turns in this story. Everything from Nelson and his wife Michelle being on vacation in the area at the same time, threatening text messages, Neo-Nazis, the bones of King Arthur,  Cathbad's friend Pendragon dying, and Cathbad getting his dog named Thing. Never mind there are lots of suspects once it's found that the college friend who died was actually murdered. 

   Other than Cathbad's friend dying and him acquiring the dog named Thing, I didn't remember much of this book. I have to say I really enjoyed this reread. There's great archaeology, great character tension,  a lot of interesting scenes, and even Tim is introduced. Tim becomes a bigger character in a couple of the future books, but I never in my first read through made the connection between the Tim in the future books and the Tim in this one. 

   

     When I finished listening to Precipice, my next listen was book 7, A Question of Identity,  in the Simon Serrailler mystery series. This one started off quite different from the first 6. It began with a court scene, and quite a long one at that. Then the story picks up not quite where book 6 (The Betrayal of Trust) ends, but with the many parts continuing from that story. It seems to take a while to get back to the story that started in the trial, but it was good to close up  some loose ends from book 6. 

   During the trial you meet a character who plays a large part in the rest of the story. There’s a lot of tension about the latest murders as elderly women are dying quite brutally in their homes. I think any reader will want the police to make some connections that, you as a reader, have already made.  Plus the killer is  under a hidden identity, and I really wanted to scream into the book and tell the police the connection.

  Along with the murder there’s also Simon’s romance, his sister Cat’s kids, his father and his second wife's issues as well as some movie making. I like the characters in this story, and it is always enjoyable to follow them. 

    I liked this book better than I liked last month's book 6. In fact, I very much enjoyed this volume. Overall I recommend this series  whether you read or listen to them (as I did). The reader, Stephan Pacey does an excellent job and really makes the story quite suspenseful also. I do recommend if you read them to start with book 1 as the characters develop and even change over time. 

    Here One Moment was my book club read. It was my first book by Liane Moriarty (who has lots of other books published), and I'd heard some people say they loved it and some people say it started strong and fell flat on its face. So what did I think?

    This book starts off on a plane when an older woman (who you later learned is named Cherry) goes around telling many of the passengers when and how they will die. From there the story goes on to some of those passengers and how they deal with that information. Also as the story continues you learn more about Cherry. Is she really a psychic who can see those things?  The story fills you in as you read.

    I loved this book. It was a quick mover, even though it was (at least on my Kindle) about 500 pages long. In the beginning, when the story was set on the plane, there were almost too many characters and a lot of jumping around. Yet it was still hard to put down and looking back, it really felt like the turmoil an event like that would cause. After everyone deplanes,  the story jumps back and forth between Cherry and just a few of the various people on the plane. It was much easier to follow.

     I really liked most of the characters in this story, especially Cherry. I also liked the general theme of making the most of each day of your life. Plus I liked that this story was set in Australia, even though it could have been set in any place.  If you like a story you can fall into but that has a lot of tension, and if you like a story that makes you (eventually) feel good  about living, then I highly recommend this book.

 

      I've been enjoying my reread of  Dr. Ruth Galloway mysteries so much that I even read a third one this past month.  👍 Whereas I didn't remember much of  the last one story (book 5),  I remembered more of book 6, The Outcast Dead. In this book Ruth finds the skeleton of a female buried in an old Victorian prison site. The woman had taken care of orphaned children and  had a hook arm, so she  acquired the name Mother Hook. Since some children had died in her care, she ended up imprisoned and later hanged for those deaths. Because of all this, Mother Hook also acquired quite the place in local history even having a rhyme said as a warning about women like her. 

      There's also a police case going on. This time it's about a woman, newly separated from her husband, who has had 3 of her children die from crib death. When this third one died, it required Nelson and the King's Lynn police force to make inquiries. 

     If you've read any of these books, you know that there is always a lot going on with the cast of characters. Griffiths does a great job of character development and making these people quite real. In this particular story you also follow Judy and Cathbad (each missing the other), the making of a television show about Mother Hook, an historian from the US who seems to be in a budding relationship with Ruth, Ruth's brother and his kids visiting for a week, plus the story of some kidnapped children. 

        Since I've written quite a bit about this series already in this post, I will finish by saying I enjoyed this book as much as the other 2. 

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        I also started but only am part way through a couple of other books.  

    The Aviator and Showman by Laurie Gwen Shapiro is about Amelia Earhart and her husband George Putnam. I read about half of this book early in the month, and although it's really well written, George Putnam is  kind of a jerk. I needed to take a break from him.  I don't know why Amelia married him, except that he gave her the opportunity to fly. I want to finish this biography and hope to at some point because I'm still curious what she saw in him. (I haven't gotten to the point where they are married yet although Amelia has met him because she has crossed the Atlantic which was  his arrangement.) I thought I'd write about it briefly here because that hopefully will motivate me to get back to it. 😉

    And here's my latest book, Sarum by Edward Rutherford. I started it with a week left in August, and at the end of the month I'd read several hundred pages of this novel.  This book is one of those giant 1,000 page tomes with small print.   I haven't finish it yet, (it seems like I'm not even close to saying that),  so you’ll be reading about this book in another post.

  

  If you made it all the way through this post, thank you. And I'd love to hear about what you've been reading, if you're a reader. 👋 I'm leaving on my adventure today; the hubby, myself and Miss Maddie and Mr. Pete are heading first up to Bar Harbor, Maine and Acadia National Park. From there we're taking the ferry over to Nova Scotia, Canada. I've never been to Nova Scotia, and I'm excited to check it out. Plus it's a bit of a family journey for my husband as his great-grandmother came from there.  Hopefully all will be smooth sailing and driving. I will have a scheduled post for Try It On Tuesday next week, but other than that I'll see you back in blog land sometime after the 23rd.