The Books I Read - Just for Fun - In February of 2022

Started 2/23                                                          Finished 3/10​
I started this book again! I bought it back in July of 2012, and I’ve read it at least a half a dozen times since then. Why? It’s everything I love in a book – a fantasy of witches, vampires, and daemons mixed in with Darwin, evolution, and the extinction of species.

All of these mythical creatures are looking for one book, Ashmole 782. They think it has their answers to extinction, but Diana Bishop stumbles across it first. She sends it back to the stacks, and that’s when the sparks fly as the creatures stalk Diana and the book. I’m a third of the way done, and there’s nothing better than reading one of your favorite books, again!

​Amazon’s Description:
Book one of the New York Times-bestselling All Souls trilogy—"a wonderfully imaginative grown-up fantasy with all the magic of Harry Potter and Twilight” (People).  Look for the hit TV series “A Discovery of Witches,” streaming on AMC Plus, Sundance Now and Shudder. Season 2 premieres January 9, 2021! 

Deborah Harkness’s sparkling debut, A Discovery of Witches, has brought her into the spotlight and galvanized fans around the world. In this tale of passion and obsession, Diana Bishop, a young scholar and a descendant of witches, discovers a long-lost and enchanted alchemical manuscript, Ashmole 782, deep in Oxford's Bodleian Library. Its reappearance summons a fantastical underworld, which she navigates with her leading man, vampire geneticist Matthew Clairmont.

Harkness has created a universe to rival those of Anne Rice, Diana Gabaldon, and Elizabeth Kostova, and she adds a scholar's depth to this riveting tale of magic and suspense. The story continues in book two, Shadow of Night, and concludes with The Book of Life.

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Started 2/17                                  Finished 2nd Time on 2/22
Lexie #2 was more fun to read than #1! This time I knew the main characters and the setting. Lexie’s back as a reporter covering a costume jewelry crime wave. But there’s more to this case than junk jewelry . . .

Each piece had a bit of crystal in it that could boost someone’s paranormal ability. Gather a bunch of them together, and you’d be super-powerful. How can Lexie find a handful of crystals in time to stop the criminal and save the day?

You’ll have to read to find out! I did twice! The first time I wanted to solve the case before Lexie . . . I didn’t! The second time, I watched how the clues were woven together. Maybe someday I’ll write a mystery!
                           
 Amazon’s Description:   
 Small-time Crime, Big-time Danger - Of all the crimes to plague the idyllic small town of Stirling Mills, Texas, Lexie Lincoln never expected jewelry theft. But thieves are breaking into local homes, stealing cheap costume jewelry and stirring up paranoia. When a ghost suggests that the jewelry may be more valuable than anyone realizes, Lexie finds herself delving into forgotten chapters of the town’s strange history.

It seems the jewelry might actually be valuable to those with the ability to use its power, and that poses a real danger as the crimes escalate. Lexie needs to track down the thieves before they can use the gems for nefarious purposes—and before the town tears itself apart with fear and suspicion. She can’t exactly tell local cop Wes Mosby that she’s getting hot tips from ghosts, so it’s up to her to crack the case, stop the thieves, and foil their sinister agenda in time to save the town’s spring festival. Another Lucky Lexie mystery by the author of the Enchanted, Inc. series.

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Started 2/13
I have the rest of the series so I’m glad I found this last book. Katharine Parr is the queen I know the least about. I’m halfway through, and I’ve learned so much already, like who Katherine was before Henry VIII.

I knew the bare bones of her story . . . that Katherine was married to old men. That she fell for Thomas Howard but found herself married to Henry the VIII. That she feared for her life. like at least two of Henry’s queens. And that Thomas Howard betrayed her for a chance at Princess Elizabeth.

The best part of this book – covering those bones with Katherine’s real back story. It’s historical fiction so the dialogue’s invented, but the basic history is true. 

​​Amazon’s Description:
Bestselling author and acclaimed historian Alison Weir brings her Tudor Queens series to a close with the remarkable story of Henry VIII's sixth and final wife, who manages to survive him and remarry, only to be thrown into a romantic intrigue that threatens the very throne of England.

Having sent his much-beloved but deceitful young wife Katheryn Howard to her beheading, King Henry fixes his lonely eyes on a more mature woman, thirty-year-old, twice-widowed Katharine Parr. She, however, is in love with Sir Thomas Seymour, brother to the late Queen Jane. Aware of his rival, Henry sends him abroad, leaving Katharine no choice but to become Henry’s sixth queen in 1543. The king is no longer in any condition to father a child, but Katharine is content to mother his three children, Mary, Elizabeth, and the longed-for male heir, Edward.

Four years into the marriage, Henry dies, leaving England’s throne to nine-year-old Edward—a puppet in the hands of ruthlessly ambitious royal courtiers—and Katharine's life takes a more complicated turn. Thrilled at this renewed opportunity to wed her first love, Katharine doesn't realize that Sir Thomas now sees her as a mere stepping stone to the throne, his eye actually set on bedding and wedding fourteen-year-old Elizabeth. The princess is innocently flattered by his attentions, allowing him into her bedroom, to the shock of her household. The result is a tangled tale of love and a struggle for power, bringing to a close the dramatic and violent reign of Henry VIII.

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Started 2/10                                                          Finished 2/13
I picked this book because I love Nora’s voice. I love the way she thinks, and the line she wrote, Everything Is Copy. It’s so true, and I was dying to read Nora’s take on it.

Except . . .  I didn’t look at the cover carefully enough . . . Nora didn’t write this one. Liz Dance did, and she did a good job of writing about Nora, but I missed her.

That said, I learned a lot from Liz’s research (she used footnotes and everything) that Nora might not have been willing to write about. Liz showed how from Nora’s birth, everything that happened to her was copy for her parents. Can you imagine private words you’d written in college, turning up in a movie where all your friends can hear them? OUCH!

From the moment Nora started writing, everything in her life was copy. Liz proves how in book after book, movie after movie, how her life was reflected in her work. Nora’s work was personal. (If you remember the line from YOU’VE GOT MAIL.)

The only thing that was off limits – her children. She kept their private lives private, unlike her parents. Everything IS copy for me too. It could be the start to a story, but I also need to remember that a story may belong to someone else, and to be sensitive to that. Maybe I need to find a different way to tell it, or, leave it for someone else to tell. 
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Amazon’s Description:
Nora Ephron famously claimed that she wrote about every thought that ever crossed her mind, from her divorce from Carl Bernstein (Heartburn) to the size of her breasts ("A Few Words About Breasts"). She also wrote screenplays for three of the most successful contemporary romantic comedies--When Harry Met Sally (1989), Sleepless in Seattle (1993) and You've Got Mail (1998). Often considered mere light-hearted romantic comedies, her screenwriting has not been the subject of serious study. This book offers a sustained critical analysis of her work and life and demonstrates that Ephron is no lightweight. The complexity of her work is explored through the context of her childhood in a deeply dysfunctional family of writers.

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Started 1/31                             Finished 2nd Read on 2/10
This is a fun easy read! I started yesterday, and I’m already halfway done. The first chapter was a little slow, but the second was a doozy! Lexie walked in for her interview and found the newspaper editor dead.

That was just the beginning! Lexie finds suspects everywhere . . . She’s even one. Thank goodness there’s a ghost who’s trying to help her find the real murderer. Sorry, I won’t know who it is . . . until I finish the book.

​Amazon’s Description:     Worst Job Interview Ever!  
Alexa “Lucky Lexie” Lincoln has always had a nose for news and a knack for being first on the scene whenever there’s a big story. Now her luck seems to have run out. First, she loses her reporting job. Then she gets an interview for a job at a small-town paper, only to find the editor dead on the newsroom floor. That makes her a suspect in the eyes of local policeman Wes Mosby.

To make matters worse, someone sabotages her alibi, and a freak ice storm strands her in town. That’s when she learns that this idyllic little town right out of a movie set is full of secrets, including people with uncanny abilities and the ghost who really runs the newspaper.

To clear her name (and get the job), Lexie will have to find the real killer—a killer who seems to think she knows a lot more than she does. If she’s not careful, she could be the next victim.

                                       A magical new mystery series from the author of Enchanted, Inc.

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