Books I've Read This Week

So in my last BIRTW column I was in the middle of reading Jenna Starborn by Sharon Shinn, the story of an artificially created human woman who finds, loses and then finds love again, and inherits a fortune in the process. It was a light fun sci-fi read.

I also read Brilliant by Marne Davis Kellogg about Kick Keswick, jewel thief (see More Good Bad People). I really liked that one and look forward to the others in that series.

The Masque of the Black Tulip is the second in a historical romance series by Lauren Willig about the Scarlet Pimpernel and other English spies during the Napoleonic Wars. I wish I would've known it was the second book because you know how I hate to read things out of turn. I felt the whole time I should know more than I did. The book was a bit bipolar because part of it is told by the historian investigating the spies in the current day and part is the story of the spies themselves back in the eighteenth century. There are definitely ends left untied at the end of Black Tulip that I hope will be resolved in the third book. Of course, I won't be reading that until I read the first book, The Secret History of the Pink Carnation.

I also read (or rather skimmed) The Wise Woman by Philppa Gregory (see A Nightmare of a Book). I would heartily not recommend it unless you're a fan of horror (which I am not).

On Saturday I had checked out a mystery by a new author, Susan Conant. I had high hopes for Scratch the Surface: A Cat Lover's Mystery because I love cats and I love mysteries so what could be better, right? Wrong. I got about 10 pages in and had to put it back in my library bag. It was horrible.

I can't remember if I read it this week or last, but I finally picked up the first book in the Susan Wittig Albert mystery series featuring herb shop owner China Bayles (Susan's Texas hill country blog). Thyme of Death was all I had hoped for in introducing a character I love so much. If you like plants and mysteries or even if you only like mysteries, please check out Susan's series. She and her husband, Bill, also write a very enjoyable mystery series under the name Robin Paige that takes place in England in Victorian, and then Edwardian, times.

Yesterday I bought and read Britain by BritRail, by the people who sell BritRail passes (so in a way it's mostly an ad for train travel). One of my sisters and I are planning to go by train around England and Wales in November (see Jolly Olde England). I'm looking forward to it because I never travel by train. I've pretty much only gone on car trips. This book is set up to have a base city and make day trips out on trains to other places. It's a good idea but I like my circle tour plan a lot too (London, York, Keswick, the wedding, Cardiff, Bath, Salisbury, London).

Right now I'm almost done with Dead Aim by Thomas Perry. It's not about good bad people (see A Friday Evening). It's about bad bad people and a guy who gets caught up in their madness. I'm getting to the part now where Bob is starting to sound like a crazy person to the cops and to anyone who will listen to him cuz no one believes the bad guys are out to get him. I'll let you know how it ends next time in the next installment of Books I've Read This Week.