A Reading Vacation

This past week I needed to read, but not too hard so I had a look at some of Joanne Fluke's cozy mysteries.

 I had seen some movies on television, the Murder She Baked Mysteries, and liked them (sometimes you just want to watch something on television that is itself another sort of vacation from the norm... Hallmark is good at those, though I didn't like their whitewashing of Charlaine Harris' Aurora Teagarden Mysteries).

 I thought the books might be interesting too.  "Not really though..."  if you have read some of them you would get my little pun there.  Hannah Swensen, our protagonist, was working on getting a masters degree in English Literature but gave it up to to take care of her family after her father had passed away.  She loves to bake so she opened up a cookie bakery and coffee shop, and solves murders on the side.  She has sisters that she helped to raise, a mother that nags her to get married (because Hannah is close to her thirties) and a cat she rescued who has specific needs.  There is also a love triangle between her, a cop and a dentist.  At the end of most chapters is a recipe for a cookie or dessert that was mentioned in the previous chapter.
So there you have your formula.  Presently I think there are twenty-one books, but I decided to stop at the Peach Cobbler Murder (#7) after Fluke made what I consider a colossal blunder.  Not that I wasn't already bored with the love triangle, the nagging mother, Hannah's endless mental grammatical corrections of the people around her (which just smacks of her personal sense of superiority) and these endless recipes ( it's just really boring for a vegan who has no intentions of making them, and I also think it's a hinky way to fill out an otherwise too-short chapter).  
Back to the colossal blunder (with comments from me in parentheses) :

    "Methinks the lady doth protest too much."   (says Hannah)
    "That's Shakespeare, " Andrea ( little-not-as-smart-as-Hannah-sister) announced, stopping at the curb to wait for a car that was driving by.
    "I know.  It's from MacBeth. "  (says all-knowing almost-a-masters-degree-in-English-literature Hannah!)
    "Do you really think Vanessa Reads Shakespeare?"  Andrea asked, missing the point entirely     (yeah... because big sis is just so much smarter!).
    "Not without moving her lips," Hannah said.

Aargh!  I stopped, did a triple take (yep I went back and re-read it three times to make sure I had read what I thought I had read), and decided to stop reading this particular author.  I want to point out right away that this quote is a blunder because it is from the play Hamlet not Macbeth (and since I have read the play Macbeth twice in the past year and seen two of the movies and got an A+ in grade twelve English for my essay on Hamlet) I think I have a firm grasp of who says what, and where.  I would also like to point out that I don't feel superior to anyone else for knowing that.  This is not the first thing that bugged me of course.  But after reading that, I thought back a little over the other books I had read and there are quite a lot of character flaws in this character.  Of course, I also wondered how many other examples like this I may have missed because I was just skimming these books without really paying too much attention to the content?  Which introduces some other questions of which some are really paranoid so I won't mention them here!  There is a reason why I don't spend a lot of time reading this formulaic type of book.  They get boring fast, and in these days of easy publishing I don't think they are edited as rigorously as they ought to be.

It was a vacation from reading anything too challenging, but it was like one of those holidays you take in Mexico where you eat or drink the wrong piece of food and end up with Montezuma's Revenge!

The Odds of Getting Even

 This is the third book in this series (yep, you heard me right...I'm reading a series before it's finished!).  I first encountered Sheila Turnage last year when I began reading Newbery Award/Honor books.  Turnage had won the honor for Three Times Lucky in 2013.  This is one of those times when an award book has led me on to better things and I have, with the greatest pleasure, consumed these books one after the other with great relish!

It was a page turner.  I liken it to the same feel and style of Fannie Flagg and Charlaine Harris (or maybe a Flagg wrapped Harris burrito).  The story just soothingly flows through (like the river that eleven-year-old protagonist Mo was found nearby when she was a baby) and is full of intrigue and mystery.  I can say that this first book has passed the most important test... DH read it aloud to his class this year and they loved it!  I can say from personal observation, that a kid will never voluntarily pick up a mystery book.  I have tried over the years to get even my strongest readers to have a look at a mystery, but have failed every time.  With the success of the first book, the whole set has been bought for the library (squee!).  

Number two, The Ghosts of Tupelo Landing, does not disappoint.  It is just as full and flowing of charm and intrigue because there are still enough questions left to be answered from the first book.  This is where I am strongly reminded of Charlaine Harris.  This time we have a little of the supernatural along with our mystery, a pleasant combination of genres which Harris has successfully done (many times!).  She (Harris) also has this wonderful ability to write a series that flows and captures interest right until the very end.  I have often felt bored and a little annoyed at writers of series because they either drag the story along or just plan a beginning and an end and fill the middle with enough sticky fluff to carry the story on for another book (kind of like an Oreo cookie).  That is not the case with these books!

The Odds of Getting Even is just lovely.  An excellent stepping stone to where Turnage is going to go next.  This is where I feel Fannie Flagg the most.  Flagg has always had this wonderful ability to write good and lovable characters that you can't help but care deeply for.  Her books have always been able to soothe me in a way I find hard to describe, despite the fact that there are some horrible characters (and there are some really ugly ones in her books).  There is an acceptance of people for who they are, and a kindness which is just a balm for whatever ails you.  Turnage's Tupelo Landing cast of characters is just another bunch of folks that you can instantly like.
I'm really happy with how the story is progressing so far and my interest has not faded in the least.  Bring on number four!

Clouds of Witness

                   
The second book in Dorothy L. Sayers' series Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries, it moved along at a very decent clip, was funny in parts, and re-established bonds from the previous book, as well as adding more for future stories.  I definitely prefer the cosy mystery, and with this series there is the added bonus of cultural references which, for the most part, I actually get.  I have grown fond of our leading man, and find his personality endearing.  I enjoyed this one like I did the last, and look forward to reading the next.

At Last!

                          
After the cliffhanger from the last book Speaking From Among the Bones, I have been eager to find out how it would all end in this final book.  I can't really say of course how it all finished up, but I can say that it wasn't how I had hoped, but that it was a satisfying conclusion anyway.
I just love Flavia.  She is one of my most favorite characters, and I cannot help but be happy for her when things are going well, and sad when they are not.  I will speculate now about the possibility that Alan Bradley might write about her again one day.  Possibly when she has grown a bit?  Something to hope for anyway, because I would love to know what else Flavia's future has in store for her.
I know that  in my future is a Flavia de Luce marathon read, complete with custard tart, gallons of tea and whatever other book related provisions I can come up with. 

Sew Deadly

 From time to time I like to take it easy and just read something comfortable and cosy.  And since I am of the crafty persuasion, this book was begging for me to read it.  I have noticed that there are quite a lot of  cosy mysteries out there now, some with knitting, quilting, embroidery, or crochet themes attached.  It's a neat idea, and appealing to a specific crowd of people.  Even 'neater' about this book was that the protagonist is a librarian, which just racheted up my interest.  Throw in a southern locale, a cute little town, a local sewing group (love crafty groups!), this book seems to have all the right hooks to get someone interested. Oh, and of course some murder!
With this kind of book I don't really have a high expectation of it's literary merits, or even of a challenging mystery to solve.  This is just casual, fun reading to me, a vacation of sorts, but I have to admit that this one was a little frustrating to me, because I had figured out who the murderer was early in  the story and I found it annoying how long the rest of them took to find out (the only thing keeping me going was the fact that there was a free sewing pattern at the end of the book which I felt I had to earn by actually reading the whole thing...so no skipping ahead for me!).
Not that I have written off this series.  I will, the next time I feel like it, go back and revisit The Southern Sewing Circle, because at heart, I am just a crafty, gossipy gal who loves a little murder mystery every now and then.