Pat here, with this month’s wild ride through Books That Made Us Happy! If you have time, leave a comment and tell us about any book that you’re enjoying.
I read and loved Killed in Paradise by William deAndrea so much I went back to the store to buy more and learned the author died in 1996, so the number of books to catch up on is limited. Since this book was set on a cruise ship, I didn’t even notice the lack of cell phones and assorted other tech that date a mystery. The protagonist is a media network executive, of all things, and he’s on a cruise with a group of mystery buffs playing at solving a mystery while mystery writers act as the suspects. Matt Cobb is an affable know-it-all who probably always gets the girl. It’s a guy writer after all. The clues are pretty much impossible but the characters are well done, the crime understandable, and a good time was had by all. Just cruise along with the story and all works out deliciously well.
Nicola here. After a rather fallow time for reading, I have now got back into things with several good books this month. The Homemade God by Rachel Joyce is a novel for those who enjoy stories about family relationships, especially the bonds between siblings. Vic Kemp is a famous artist whose children’s lives have always revolved around him and his work. When he unexpectedly announces that he is marrying a much younger woman and moving to Italy to complete his masterpiece, he throws their accepted world into chaos, and the sibling bonds are strained to breaking point.
This is a multi-layered book, part mystery, part family saga. Rachel Joyce is hugely talented at creating atmosphere – the Italian lake house was so deliciously described that I wanted to stay there! The relationships between Vic, his son and his three daughters were complicated and at times angsty. Vic was not a pleasant character but the others, whilst having their failings, were all relatable. The mysterious “stepmother” Bella-Mae is the catalyst that exposes the faultlines in the family but they are very much the architects of their own fate! I found The Homemade God compelling and beautifully written.
As a contrast, I’ve also been reading some of Amanda Quick’s Victorian-set historical mysteries. As with her Jayne Ann Krentz and Jayne Castle books, I love the combination of 
hot romance, history and the paranormal. There may not be any dust bunnies in Victorian London but Fog, the wolfhound-type dog in The Third Circle is equally loyal and clever. When Leona Hewitt breaks into a nobleman’s house intending to retrieve a powerful crystal that has been in her family for years, she does not expect to bump into another thief intent on taking the same artifact, a man who saves her from discovery but then whose life she in turn saves. Thaddeus Ware is a member of the powerful and mysterious Jones family, founders of the Arcane Society. As he and Leona work together – with Fog’s help – to track down the members of a murderous secret cabal, the passion between them grows but so does the danger they are in.
Mary Jo: I’ll join Nicola with recommending one of the Amanda Quick (Jayne Ann Krentz’s historical pseudonym) Victorian romantic suspense novels (though I mourn with Nicola the fact that there are no dust bunnies since the bunnies belong to JAK’s Jayne Castle futuristic world.)
My Amanda Quick pick is for her Otherwise Engaged. The heroine, Amity Doncaster, is a typical independent JAK heroine. An intrepid world traveler, she is also the daughter of a doctor with enough medical skills of her own to save the life of Benedict Stanbridge, an engineer and sometime agent for the Crown who is seriously wounded on the ship they are both traveling on. Unfortunately, gossip reaches London that they were having a shipboard affair instead of her tending his wounds, and scandal ensues.
Even worse, after returning to London she gets into a cab that holds a lunatic murderer of “fallen” women known as the Bridegroom. Amity is up to the challenge of wounding him and escaping, When Benedict reaches London and hears of the scandal, he suggests that they announce that they’re engaged so he can scotch the gossip and protect her. And with that, the hunt and mayhem are on! Great fun, and JAK knows her engineers. <G>
Blonde Identity by Ally Carter is a madcap romcom thriller that starts with a woman dreamily lying in the snow in Paris and 
thinking of just staying there when a Hot Guy comes up and yells that she has to get up and moving because the Russians are coming. And he calls her Alex. Since she has amnesia, she hasn’t a clue who she is. But they do start running and he figures out that she’s isn’t Alex, a fellow spy, but Alex’s amnesiac twin sister. Oops! Much craziness and running around ensue before all is sorted out and ending happily–and the real Alex has appeared. She has her own book called The Blonde Who Came in From the Cold. Also whacky and fast moving. <g>
Andrea: Several my college roommates were raving about The Missing Pages by Alyson Richmond on our last Zoom get-together, saying anyone who loves books will find it a lovely read. So of course I rushed right out and got it. And now I can pass the recommendations on to all of you!
The promo heading sums it up quite nicely: A ghost in a library. A story waiting to be told. The Missing Pages is a rich, lyrical novel that reminds us that books are as eternal as the soul.
It’s a dual timeline story. We meet Harry Widener in 1912. He’s the son of a very wealthy and socially prominent family from Philadelphia, a recent Harvard graduate and a passionate collector of rare books. We learn of his relationship with two 
“mentor” rare book dealers, one in Philadelphia and one in London. He accompanies his parents to London to meet with the London dealer, as he has a wish list of books for his growing collection—and he manages to purchase several bibliographic jewels before meeting his parents for the return voyage home on the Titanic (this is all true!). His mother begs for Harry to get in the lifeboat, but he suddenly says he has to run back to his cabin and fetch a book—and he’s never seen again. (His father also goes down with the ship.) HIs grieving mother then decides to fund a grand new library at Harvard, with Harry’s Collection of rare books maintained in a special section, complete with a recreation of his study from home. (This is also true—the Widener Library is Harvard’s main library to this day and contains Harry’s rare books.)
Now fiction takes over! The present-day story centers around Violet, a sophomore undergrad woman who who returns to school having suffered the traumatic death of her boyfriend in a freak drowning accident during the summer. Her one solace is books . . .and she manages to get a student job as an intern at the Widener library, which helps her cope from feeling alienated from her friends and normal college activities. Then weird things begin to happen . . . and Violet starts to wonder whether she’s losing her mind when she begins to think the ghost of Harry Widener is trying to tell her something . . .
I won’t spoil the details of the story, but it’s delightful! Harry the ghost is a narrator throughout the book, explaining what happened to him during the weeks before the fateful ocean voyage. And as Violet and her late boyfriend’s closest pal begin to unravel the secrets of his last days we get a celebration of the power of books and how they enrich our souls. I found it a fun “imagining” of a real life drama—and the story that might lie hidden between the lines of the facts!
Christina: A while back Anne and I both recommended Bride by Ali Hazelwood, a very 
enjoyable new take on the werewolf/vampire type romances. It featured a vampire heroine, Misery, who falls in love with a werewolf, even though their speciesshould not be compatible. In that story, Misery’s best friend is Serena, who turns out to be a hybrid – half human, half werewolf. I was delighted to find that Ms Hazelwood had written Serena’s story too – Mate. I can’t really say much about the plot as you really need to read BRIDE first in order to truly understand it, but it involves a very sassy heroine, an amazing alpha hero (alpha in every sense of the word), and an awful lot of chemistry and banter between them. I loved the first book and wasn’t disappointed by the second one – they’re both great!
And as I was on a bit of an Ali Hazelwood kick, I also read a recently published novella – Two Can Play. It features her normally trademark STEM type characters, in this case two gaming nerds, or rather a hero and heroine who both work at companies creating games. Their companies are sworn enemies, and both mid-sized, but when a larger corporation wants them to work on a game together (since neither has the resources to do it alone), things have to change. In order to make this work, the two teams go on a retreat to a skiing lodge in the middle of nowhere to try to learn to get along. Let’s just say sparks fly in different ways! I really liked this story – short but perfect.
Anne here, and my recommendations this month include a women’s fiction/romance, medieval mysteries, and a contemporary hockey romance.: I’ve just finished Jane Lovering’s latest book, The Cottage at the Edge of the Woods.
Single mother Libby, in hiding from her abusive ex, is offered a life-changing sum of money to clear any squatters from acreepy old cottage in the woods. Stressed, prize-winning architect Ross, needs it demolished so he can build a fabulous new house for a TV competition, but he isn’t allowed to clear it out himself. But the house is full of birds, and secrets and a mysterious elderly woman who refuses to leave.
Jane Lovering has a knack for creating unforgettable and atypical romantic leads, and these two are no different. The surprise twist at the end, when we discover a shocking secret about the heroine is brilliant — and of course, her books always end happily. Recommended.
On the medieval theme, I’ve just started reading the Dame (Sister) Frevisse Medieval Mysteries, a crime series by Margaret Frazer and enjoying them. The “detective” is a nun but she doesn’t quite have the freedom or the respect that Brother Cadfael has, so it’s interesting, well researched and well written. The first book is 
The Novice’s Tale, and one of the characters in it is Chaucer’s nephew.
Sarina Bowen is coming to Australia, and I will be moderating a panel discussion that she is part of, so I’ve been rereading her books, and enjoying them all over again. I also read her latest book, Thrown For a Loop, where Zoe, a former champion figure skater, is hired as a coach for a men’s hockey team— the New York Legends. But that also means facing up to Chase Merritt, their star player, who once broke her heart. Chase’s game has fallen right off recently, and he’s in danger of losing his million-dollar sponsors. Zoe thinks she knows why he’s not playing to his best. Will these two be able to get over their past heartbreak and learn to work together? And will old emotions reemerge and ripen?
Of course they will, and it’s delicious to watch. Recommended.
Susan here: This month I’ve been driving some long distances, so to wile away the hours, I picked up an audiobook of Thunder on the Right by Mary Stewart, narrated by Ellie Heydon. Readers of our blog may know I’m a huge Mary Stewart fan and consequently a re-reader of her books. But I had only read this one once or twice, and audio offered a fresh version. In the mountainous region of southwest France, English-born Jennifer Silver arrives to visit her cousin, Gillian, who is staying at a remote convent. Surprised and distressed to learn her cousin died in a recent car accident, Jennifer stays at the convent, and soon suspects that the deceased woman was not her cousin at all. Desperate to learn more, she meets locals and discovers 
that Gillian may indeed be alive and in danger. Then she encounters Stephen, her former beau, there as a scholar and tourist, and shares her fears. Plot and clues thicken as Jennifer and Stephen are pulled into a mystery of deception, art theft, and murder—and are drawn to each other again.
A very clever plot, beautifully depicted characters, romantic French setting, and gorgeous, poetic writing filled with human insight, make Thunder on the Right a timeless romantic suspense story. Yet it differs from her other romantic suspense novels, written in first person, where Stewart excels at connecting and compelling the reader. This story is told in third-person with alternating POVs and a touch of head-hopping. Years ago, I found it distancing and hard to get into. Returning to it decades later to hear Ellie Heydon’s outstanding narration (gentle and warm with snippets of perfect French) make it a fresh and lovely listen. I’m glad I went back!
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All right, your turn, what books do you recommend this month?
Nicola here:
