kathy, binge-watching is not my thing either. Over here we are 'told' on the TV that we can watch 'all episodes' of something or other, but I prefer to wait and look at one a week for however long it takes.

There were some changes to the screen version of Magpie Murders. The published, Susan, is given a difficult and unnecessary relationship with her father and sister, which I felt was just added as padding and there was more with her love-interest Andreas. Again no-doubt to add a bit of a spark to the script.

I never ceased to be amazed how these fictional detectives manage to solve crimes with the minimum of clues leaving the police, always clodhoppers, scratching their heads!

"Donna, I'll be curious to hear how you like Seance Society......I got a few chapters into it and returned it to the library in disgust. It needed to be labeled " LBGQT whatever " literature."

Yoyobon, as much as I don’t want to offend you or anyone else here, I feel very strongly that I need to respond to your last post.

I would like to respectfully point out that homophobic comments are hurtful and unnecessary.

This is at least the second time you’ve posted something like this, and it troubles me.

We have had gay book group members here at Readers’ Paradise in the past, and there may be some here still. If you don’t want to read about characters who are not cis or straight, that’s perfectly fine. Humanity is vast and varied, and literature reflects this.

But by describing a book with LGBTQ content as “disgusting” you are being, at the very least, rude. I only ask that you please think of others when you post. Thank you for considering this.

I have started Who Cries for the Lost, the latest Sebastian St. Cyr book by C. S. Harris. I just love this series set in the late 1700s in London. This is No, 18, and they can be read out of order but in sequence is better. Husband and wife who actually love each other and pursue different mysterious happenings.

Sheri.....My statement ( aka Freedom of Speech) was also reflected by many reviewers on Amazon who also felt it should have been tagged as many such special interest books are.

Interesting that you feel the need to label ME .

Yoyobon, I am not in any way labeling you, that was not my intent. I am also free to speak if I feel strongly about something and the "disgusted" comment obviously touched a nerve. I've said my piece and I won't bring it up again. Thanks for responding.

I gave up on The London Seance Society. Dull, dull, dull. EIght chapters in, nothing had happened.

Donna

Donna, the message from 'the other side' is obviously having trouble getting through to you!

Maureen Fry and the Angel of the North by Rachel Joyce was a short and rather sad read. It is a follow-on book to the one about Harold Fry and his long-distance walk and the next one detailing Queenie Hennessy the old friend who Fry was travelling to visit.

Maureen is the bitter and friendless wife of Harold and is persuaded to drive North to visit a 'wild' garden that Queenie had started, where people leave mementos of family and loved ones.

The Angel of the North

Donna........I with you on that discard !! Life is too short for boring books !

I've just started Homecoming by Kate Morton. I've enjoyed other books by her, but I'm not very far into this one yet.

Carolyn, a lot of that book is set in the Adelaide Hills, which is near where I live. I read the book and found it a bit over-written, with too much information about the flora and fauna, and local small towns etc. I will be interested to see how it seems to you, since you are looking from a different point of view. I did enjoy the story and the mystery part.

Vee, Have you seen the Angel? We were driving past and you can't miss it!

Very impressive. Industrial brutal rather than a graceful image, I thought.

Annpan, no. I haven't been 'Up North' for years, probably in the early '70's where I was in-land near Haltwhistle and stayed at a b&b run by an old lead-miner's family. He told us as a 14 year old on his first day 'down the mine' there had been a rockfall and as the smallest chap there he was made to dig his way out and run for help,

We also learnt that most of Hadrian's Wall had been re-built by men brought in from the Lake District; considered a very poor show by the locals! Nor had I realised the Wall had been re-built, I foolishly thought it had just survived all those years . . .

The things one learns without a guide book!

Kath, I've complained before about too much scenic writing, especially Stephen Booth in his Peak District series. However, it isn't bothering me as much in this book, although I have noticed, probably because I have not been to Australia and it's more interesting to me. I'm about two-thirds finished with the book and like it a lot.

Vee, we went North quite a few times in late 1998-2002 when my husband worked for a courier service. This paid for our travels as fuel was so expensive and we were able to see a lot of the UK and even Europe this way.

We mostly stopped at motels with our CKC spaniel but sometimes went to a B&B or even a Country House hotel in the off season when the rates were cheap.

I don't enjoy too much description either but as I read actual books, I can skip-read if I like.

I get annoyed if the solution to the murder gets held up in the final chapter by the detective taking a lengthily described scenic trip to catch the perp!

Carolyn, I have not been reading new books recently, just chapters from favourites as I am still having right eye vision problems and take a while to finish a library book.

However I found some Kate Morton books, whom you mentioned, in our Village library. We have no time limit for borrowing and the library is only a couple of minutes walk away, so handy in our presently rainy Winter weather. Not my usual cosy genre but I shall give her a go!

I've started The Moving Toyshop by Edmund Chrispin in 1946. It's set in Oxford and written in a lighthearted manner although a murder has occurred.

Carolyn, I read The Moving Toyshop many years ago and, as is usual for me I couldn't follow the plot and was worried for the 'detectives' as we followed them over a day in Oxford and never once did they stop for a snack let alone a proper meal. Perhaps back in the day it was not considered polite to mention food and its consumption!

Vee...or take a toilet break!

However if I correctly remember that story, our hero vomited outside at one point and that mess proved he had seen the Toyshop.

I finally finished The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese. It's a really long and really complicated and dramatic story of three generations of an Indian family. The geographic focus is mostly the southwest coast of the tip of India, but with a few trips to Madras (now named Chennai) on the east coast. You learn much about Indian culture and food and history, while following the unfortunate events that befall this family. I really wanted to read it because I loved Verghese's previous novel, Cutting for Stone. But in my opinion, this one did not measure up to the quality of the previous book. I think it's because it reads more like a fable than real life. But it does have a fairly spectacular, though complicated ending.

Thanks to those of you who recommended the books by Elly Griffiths as I have just returned to the library The Crossing Places the first one in the series. Thoroughly enjoyed it and the subject it dealt with. Not giving away anything when I say the plot hangs around an ancient sea-henge. Think Stonehenge but on the Norfolk coast where salt mashes meet the sea. A very atmospheric setting plus a number of New-Age/mad archeologists hindering the search for a missing child.

I'm glad to say I've finished The Moving Toyshop. I didn't like it very much--too light-hearted and unbelievable. You don't even care about the poor woman who got killed, plus the guy who never got to eat.

Now started on Wolf on a String by John Banville/Benjamin Black. I've read his Quirke books written as Benjamin Black and a few of his others. This one Amazon calls a fun historical novel set in 1599 in Prague. It's not fun yet.

I recently finished Two Kinds of Truth by Michael Connelly. I'm reading all the Harry Bosch books in order, and my library app said I checked this one out in 2018. I did remember parts of it. This one involved an attempted conspiracy to free a murderer on death row and sue the city of LA for millions.

I'm also reading all the Lucas Davenport novels by John Sandford in order. I just started Secret Prey and it sure sounds familiar. Either I've read it before or read another novel with a very similar plot. It starts with a bank president being murdered in a deer blind on opening day of hunting season.

Donna

Donna, you sound like me, only I go to post a book on Goodreads and find it already posted. I think there are too many words lodged in my brain, and it won't hold any more.

I've put Wolf on a String aside and will read the others I have on loan first. It isn't very good so far. Think I'll start The Girl They All Forgot by Martin Edwards tonight.

I've been rehemming a new dress that has insets in the skirt. They are flared, so the pinning up has not been fun. I'd a lot rather read.

Carolyn, I've done many a flared hem! They are a challenge. :)

Wow! I am interested in reading the Elly Griffiths series with the forensic anthropologist/archaeologist and the Kate Morton books. Thanks to all for mentioning them.

I am a bit burnt-out on Golden Age mysteries and British Library Crime Classics at the moment. Carolyn, I wonder why I've never run across your library at GoodReads -- unless your library is private. Mine is not and I've been there since December 2008. I wonder if you have ever seen mine..

Frieda, how do you find people on GoodReads if you don't know their entire name (like you?)

I don't have a great number of friends there, but most of them are via Facebook.

Reading A World Of Curiosities , the 18th ( and hopefully last ) of 18 in the Gamache series by Louise Penny.

Frieda, I don't know much about Goodreads, only that I have been listing the books I read on it since the pandemic when I learned to download from the library. (Otherwise, I would be homeless and hungry by now. How could they close the library?) Other people on RP are knowledgeable, though, and have helped me with some problems. I have not closed anything purposely. I'm about to stop the Golden Agers, too.

I have really enjoyed Elly Griffiths and Kate Morton. Right now I'm reading Coffin Road, an older book by Peter May.

I use Goodreads quite a lot to see what other people thought of the book I have just finished. If I didn't like it, I go to the low star reviews!

Kath, I have had some luck finding people on Goodreads with searches in the Community section under People with nothing but a User Name. However, I usually just stumble across libraries I recognize. I did find Carolyn because of her full name, but I saw all the mysteries so I think I would have suspected it had to be Carolyn's library.!

Annpan, I find the low-rated reviews helpful, too. I don't review many books, mainly because I insulted one of the Goodreads authors by not liking his book very much and I said so. He accused me of not reading his book with the attention it deserves. He may have been right. I don't remember, but I have no intention of reading it again.

By the way, my user name is Vena. The picture shows my cat, Bucky Boy. Some of you may recognize my library since it reflects a lot of my reading preferences. I don't have very many friends there. I am wary of any reader who has more friends than the number of books they've read. Authors are the worst , it seems to me!

I have been reading a lot. After finishing The Body by the Sea by Jean-Luc Bannalec in his Brittany series of mysteries, I learned that it was connected to another mystery, The Yellow Dog by Georges Simenon. So I got that from the library. Written in 1931, it was set in the same town in Brittany as The Body by the Sea and the two stories are interrelated in a very clever way. I enjoyed both but recommend reading The Body by the Sea first. And funnily enough, I thought I'd have forever to read The Yellow Dog but it seems several were waiting for it and I had to read fast. I bet the people requesting The Yellow Dog also read The Body by the Sea and were also curious to find out the connection. I don't remember an author doing this before and think it was well done.

My book club's choice was April 1865, The Month that Saved America, a hyperbolic title. Interesting but dubious historically in a number of places and little original research. Set during the Civil War here.

Lastly, reading of the recent death of Robert Hanssen, the worst spy in American history, damaging not only to this country but to all the Free World, I looked for a reliable book about the case. There are a lot of unreliable books out there. I was told by those who know that 'Spy' by David Wise was the one to read. It was very, very good and incredibly depressing. If matters could possibly be worse, what he did to his wife was appalling and another kind of treason. I came away from the book understanding what happened and when but the psychology of this man is so bizarre it remains a total mystery to me.

I only very occasionally look-in at Goodreads, I'm not a 'member', or whatever the expression is. I might just check on a review of a particular book .. . and always go for the fewer stars first! Sometimes I feel the reviews are longer than the actual books and really can't see why people feel the need to re-hash the whole plot.

I don't need a rehash either and sometimes the reader gets it wrong anyway! However I do find a modern take at an old book is interesting as perceptions have changed.

It bothers me, though, when "woke" people complain about words or mindsets that may no longer be acceptable but which were at the time a book was written. Who knows what our mindsets will look like fifty years or more from now?

I gave up on Wolf on a String and read Skull Duggery by Aaron Elkins, one of his Gideon Oliver Skeleton Doctor series. Now on to A Dark and Stormy Tea, one of Laura Childs' Charleston teashop books that I had missed. I used to depend on Stop, You're Killing Me for the latest titles, but they seem to have become capricious in their reporting.

Carolyn, I agree. I find it best to go to the author's website for latest publications.

I do miss having Book Depository!

Carolyn, over here we are beset with the worries of the woke population. Books by Agatha Christie, P G Wodehouse, J K Rowling (for her views on whether women are women etc) Roald Dahl even Shakespeare and very many more have either been taken off the shelves, re-printed with changed text or given a health warning to those of a delicate nature.

I'm glad to see this discussion. I had thought about starting a separate thread about this so I think I will and hope people will express their opinions.

DH's cousin has just visited from Washington DC and left what she described as an 'airport' read What We Keep by Elizabeth Berg. I wasn't expecting much from it but it turned out to be quite a good read and well written. A woman on a long plane trip looks back on the lives of herself and her sister growing up in Small Town USA.

I read Books Can Be Deceiving by Jean McKinley. It's the first of a series and not particularly well written, but it was fun to read. The main character is head of a small New England town library that is described as a place where readers such as I would like to live; i.e., is has comfy leather chairs for reading, separate rooms for book club meetings, a coffee/snack room, just about anything you might desire.

I’m working on The Founding by Cynthia Harrod Eages, the first of the Morland Dynasty series. While I have been enjoying it, I’m ready to be done. It’s pretty long! And with multiple generations of Eleanors, Cecilys, Edwards, Edmunds and Richards, it can be confusing. And the royals are even more confusing. Someone is Lord Richard in one paragraph and Duke of Suffolk in another.

Donna

They are all long, Donna, but as I said I really liked them. I think you will get the family characters straight if you hang in there. And as the wars become more recent, you will know the names!

I've started another Jane Casey, The Reckoning.

I picked up a book on display at the library with other summer-related titles. It is Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O'Farrell. Only after I'd had it at home for a couple of days did I realize it is by the author of two recent highly praised novels: Hamnet and The Marriage Portrait. I've read neither of those, but am liking this one so far.

Vee - Am I correct in remembering that you read The Marriage Portait and liked it?

Thanks, Carolyn. I am enjoying it, and long stories don’t intimidate me. I’ve read all the Outlander books by Diana Gabaldon. 😊 They have the added challenge of knowing which time period you are in!

Donna

Yes, Kathy, I did enjoy the Marriage Portrait with all the scary goings-on in Renaissance Italy and found the tension grew as the story progressed. Also Heatwave quite different but a good 'fun' read. I found Hamnet OK but am not really into this 'second-sight' 'herb-gathering' stuff. And as my family come from Stratford we all have our own ideas about Shakespeare . . . as children we would all claim he was our distant relation . . .not that this was true!

I just finished Do Let's Have Another Drink: The Singular Wit and Double Measures of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother by Gareth Russell, and found it very disappointing. It's a kind of biography where the author has told anecdotes from each decade of HM's life, and several of them are quite interesting. But there is a lot of boring fluff, repetition and not much wit, I'm afraid. I think it could have been much better (the idea is quite good) in another author's hands.

Reading the latest Gamache 'nail-biter' A World Of Curiosities.

To give my nails a rest, I am also re-reading The Mighty Queens of Freeville by Amy Dickinson ( my favorite syndicated advice columnist ). It is a memoir of her life in Freeville NY where she grew up ...which is a stone's throw from here. She is a smart and clever writer and the book is simply a delight .

Yoyobon, I looked, but my library doesn't have The Mighty Queens. Too bad.

Carolyn,

You can find a used copy on Amazon, there are over 100 !

Ebay also has copies as low as $3.66 with free shipping.

A quick read was Another View by Rosamunde Pilcher. Written back in 1968 it certainly hasn't weathered well. Perhaps it came after her Mills and Book 'romances' period and her longer better books.

Mostly set on the Cornish coast with her usual cast of characters. A teenage girl and her selfish artist father plus an array of older men and sophisticated women. The plot and characters lacked depth . . . but she writes good descriptions of scenery.