I got a little clip book light to clip to my headboard and it is wonderful! On a perfect night, I turn out all the lights but the little book light, shower with a candle in the bathroom, then lie on top of the covers (in warm weather!) and read. The cozy mystery search has panned out not quite as well as I’d hoped so far, but I am really enjoying Barbara Hambly’s first vampire mystery. It took me a while to get into, but I just sort of kept wanting to read it and now I’m hooked. It doesn’t hurt that my copy is a largeish hardback from our main branch that smells AMAzing.
I read Jen Beagin’s second Mona novel, “Vacuum In the Dark.” It’s just about as compulsively readable as “Pretend I’m Dead,” but even a bit more morally ambiguous. Reviewers consistently call these books hysterically funny, and although I laugh pretty often when reading, I would not call them funny books. There’s too much raw pain and trauma that won’t go away. Mona encounters so many other people who are also hurting, and who might want to hurt her (especially in the second book). I think some of the situations, like Mona’s stint as an artist’s model, might seem funny to some readers, but to me they’re deadly serious. I do really like these books, though, and the end of the second seems to be promising another book. I will definitely be interested.
I’m also re-reading “A Study In Charlotte,” Brittany Cavallaro’s gender-swapped Sherlock Holmes outing, because I want to read the rest of the series but I don’t remember enough of the first book, only that I really liked its Holmes and Watson and their angsty, prep-school noir vibe.
Books I have checked out:
Those Who Hunt the Night, Barbara Hambly
A Study In Charlotte, Brittany Cavallaro
Honor Bound, Rachel Caine and Ann Aguirre (not as into this as I was into the previous book)
The Last Of August, Brittany Cavallaro
Truly Devious, Maureen Johnson
Tears of Pearl, Tasha Alexander (for my cozy mystery project)
A Face Like Glass, Frances Hardinge
Mark Of the Plague, Kevin Sands
The Dam Keeper, Book One, Robert Kondo (picked up from our Juvenile new books shelf)
The Rambling, Jimmy Cajoleas (recommended by a local teacher)
The Unteachables, Gordon Korman (recommended by a local teacher)
Every Book, Every Reader 