New month, fresh start. 

Going back to my Nixon Reading List and reading The Final Days by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, which is their follow up to All the President's Men. Although I think this was a good reading project for me, the timing may be off considering....the state of the union so to speak.

NEA Big Reads for Wichita is Lab Girl by Hope Jahren; my real life book club is reading it as our leader/host is on the board that votes every year. There is a few events happening both on base library and my local branch that I hope to get to attend.

#IMOMSOHARD - man I love Kristin and Jen since I first saw their videos on FB. They are hilarious and real and I really want to see their show when they come to Tulsa next February....hint, hint Santa! Rather than doing non-stop toxic positivity, these ladies come straight out of the gate about the less than awesome things (deaths in family for example) or gross (adventures in toilet training), and motherhood with humor and grace. They are my inspirational mom friends.

I am still working through Connections in Death and I picked up Vendetta in Death since it was on the library's shelf, just calling my name. Seriously, brand new JD Robb title just sitting on the new release shelf with nary a waiting list - perplexed I was. I hope to be all caught up on the series by the time November comes around. I can't believe #50 will be published in February.

I need a palette cleanser in between the Eve Dallas books, so I picked up at the library Well, That Escalated Quickly by Franchesca Ramsey. I've listened to a number of podcast episodes with her and she seems funny and smart. 

I wanted something a little dark for this time of year and I am determined to get to Victoria Helen Stone's Jane Doe. I wanted something magical realism/cozy mystery, so Copycat Killing. And by the end of the month, the next novella in the Tourist Trap mystery series A Very Mummy Holiday will be on my NOOK and I can join the gang in South Cove for another round.

Finally, I picked up from the library Chris Hayes' A Colony in a Nation from my non-fiction wish-list. For those not in the US, Hayes is a tv host on MSNBC and former editor/writer for The Nation. Honestly, he is a little heavy on his love for a certain senator from a New England state, but he generally does do a good job of reporting and Ta-Nehisi Coates blurbed the book. I trust Coates enough to give the book a try.

I have just two new releases, one that I pre-ordered and one that I will get from the library. The one I pre-ordered is A Very Mummy Holiday (Tourist Trap Mystery #7.25) by Lynn Cahoon. This is going to be the last (for a while) of the holiday novellas, as Cahoon is working on the new full length novel for publication early next year. The other is a stand-by of September, the new In Death book titled Vendetta In Death. I am putting myself on the library's waitlist this weekend and hope to get to it sometime during the bingo but that is highly unlikely.

JD Robb/Nora Roberts 

Lynn Cahoon

Susan Elia MacNeal

Shelly Laurenston

Edgar Allen Poe

Victor LaValle

Without a doubt, my choice will be mystery. I can't handle horror (gore or psychological) because I enjoying sleeping and like to do it often. Usually when asked which squares to omit for my bingo card, all my choices are horror. With that being said, there are particular reasons for each of the subgenres of mystery, and those reasons can be contradictory.

Literary mystery - read solely for the puzzle. Most literary characters are either dull or alpha-holes. And since they are usually stand alones, I don't have to be around the characters in subsequent books. Lowest spot on my subgenre preferences, only one I would recommend - In Her Bones by Kate Moretti.

Police procedurals - although I have shared ups and downs with the quality of each book in recent years, my favorite series is still In Death by JD Robb because I get both a great puzzle and characters I can return to again and again (after all, there are 49 books in the series, not counting the novellas). I have been meaning to try more, but the ones at the library are usually male asshole as the main character variety.

Cozy - this subgenre is my jam. Tourist Trap Mysteries by Lynn Cahoon, the first few Liz Talbot books by Susan Boyer, the PJ Sugar trilogy by Susan May Warren, the Debutante Mysteries by Susan McBride, Magical Cats by Sofie Kelly, and the High Heels series by Gemma Halliday are my favorites. Fast reads and a bit more adventurous, so not as interested in the puzzle as I am in the characters and their hijinks and the world building. A big part that plays into my wanting to read cozy mysteries is that I can get my contemporary romance fix as well, since most contemporary romance genre books leave me cold. Plus no gore even though there is usually dead body somewhere (other crimes are hard to come by). I do admit some books go into the too silly for suspension of disbelief territory.

Historical - this subgenre is my newest path through mystery. I like these books because I (usually) get a strong female character plus rich historical details in addition to the mystery. Not as silly as cozies, not as serious as literary. A nice even balance between characters, world building, and puzzle solving. Again dead bodies everywhere yet no gore. So far I am enjoying the Mirabelle Bevan series (although they are hella expensive, so I have only read the first two) and the Maggie Hope series.

Romantic suspense - this used to be a big subgenre for me, but I feel the quality of the work in general has gone down a lot (too much sex, too little puzzle). I can't really suspend my disbelief of the MCs deciding that when the bad guys are chasing them right now would be a good time for sex. Geez, can't the MCs wait until the police come and arrest bad guys and take your statements, then have sex? Now I just read the yearly romantic suspense from Nora Roberts and call it good. 

Classical mystery/horror - only read during Halloween bingo.

Date Published: April 2, 2019

Format: Ebook

Source: Own Copy

Date Read: April 6, 2019

Blurb:

Picturesque South Cove, California, is the perfect place to celebrate Mother’s Day, but not everyone is feeling motherly...

Jill Gardner, owner of Coffee, Books, and More is almost out of Mother’s Day cards. She has a few more in stock, but she’s set them aside because she needs Greg’s help choosing one for his mother. It’ll be Jill’s first time meeting her boyfriend’s mother, and she’s understandably nervous.

Turns out Jill isn’t the only one having feelings about mothers. Kyle, who works at the antiques store next door, needs to find the perfect card for a mother he hasn’t seen since he was five—when she went away to jail. But her arrival in South Cove isn’t exactly celebratory, her behavior toward her son unexpectedly restrained. Piqued, Jill discovers that a mother can never be replaced...

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Review:

This story features a back story on a recurring character and doesn't involve a murder, making it very intriguing for long time readers of the series. There was a built in tension based on what Jill and Greg found out about Kyle's mother as well as how they were going to tell Kyle about what they knew. I like that Jill's and Greg's investigation included traveling outside Bakersfield and South Cove. The story also really centered around the holiday, including the secondary plotline. A fun trip back to South Cove with emotional ties to bind the small town closer.