Monday, May 31, 2010
Mailbox Monday
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Whoa, 3D ... like they're coming right at you!
Saturday, May 29, 2010
One atta time! The weekend will still be there ...
3. What is the last book you bought?
4. What are you currently reading?
Nearly finished with DEATH IN THE WEST WIND by Deryn Lake. If I could have stayed up a little past 9 (What, I had been up since 4:45am, I was tired!) I would have concluded it last night.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Smells like a three-day weekend!!
1. One book that changed your life
3. One book you’d want on a desert island
7. One book that you wish had never been written
8. One book you’re currently reading
9. One book you’ve been meaning to read
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Tug sits like this all the time so I had to do this photo
1. How do you organize your books? By genre, by last name, by title, by publication date?
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Reading gives you the inside edge ...
With murders around the country being posted on the Web by killers who leave no online trail, the FBI is reduced to asking civilian hackers for help. None is more qualified than Monkeewrench Sofware: the unconventional unit of cyber investigators led by ponytailed Harley Davidson, whose Minneapolis mansion houses his eccentric but super-efficient team: eyelash-batting belle, Annie; exercise-addicted Roadrunner; and Grace MacBride, the object of MPD detective Leo Magozzi’s affection. With straitlaced FBI Special Agent John Smith as their liaison and, with Magozzi and partner Gino Rolseth working the local scene, the group starts its 24/7 efforts. Are the murders real or simply enactments? Will federal regulations thwart Monkeewrench, or will Smith (who’s facing retirement) bend the rules?
Monday, May 24, 2010
Mailbox Monday
Newlyweds John and Emilia Rawlings are spending their honeymoon touring the mysterious county of Devon. The gruesome discovery of the body of a young girl, badly beaten and bruised draws the Apothecary into the investigation. Recognising the dead girl as the daughter of a Dutch merchant John realizes that he is deeply involved in something rather sinister - especially when the girl's brother, Richard, goes missing at the same time. Although he knows the identity of the dead girl, he is still no further towards finding her killer. Did her possessive father, furious with her for her wayward behavior murder her? Or is the father of her unborn child is to blame? Perhaps her fiance, Tobias Wills, exacted a deadly revenge for the betrayal? John Rawlings is determined to find some answers...even if it means putting himself
in danger.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Aw, a dog after my own heart...
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Fine, you win the staring contest AGAIN!
Friday, May 21, 2010
To quote John Lennon: I'm so-o-o tired...
Thursday, May 20, 2010
A photo for my mom
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Teaser Tuesday - "No really, we're from the census"
Whoever saves a single life saves the entire world . . .
In 1592, as the Catholic Church and the Protestants battle for control of the soul of Europe, Prague is a relatively safe harbor in the religious storm. Ruled by Emperor Rudolph II, the city is a refuge for Jews who live within the gated walls of its ghetto. But their lives are jeopardized when a young Christian girl is found with her throat slashed in a Jewish shop on the eve of Passover. Charged with blood libel, the shopkeeper and his family are arrested. All that stands in the way of a rabid Christian mob is a clever Talmudic scholar, newly arrived from Poland, named Benyamin Ben-Akiva. Pleading the shopkeeper's innocence to the city's sheriff, Benyamin is given three days to bring the true killer to justice. But the search will not be easy. Hampered by rabbinic law, and with no allies or connections, Benyamin has only his wits, knowledge, and faith to guide him on his quest—a trail that weaves from the city's teeming streets to the quiet of a shul, from the forbidden back rooms of a ghetto brothel to the emperor's lavish palace. The Talmud says many things in life depend on mazl, luck. Fortunately, Benyamin is blessed, for an unlikely group of heroes will risk their own lives to help him discover the truth: Anya, a Christian butcher's daughter; the renowned reformist rabbi Judah Loew; a wise herbal healer known as Kassandra the Bohemian; and even the emperor himself. Who would most profit from the girl's murder—and from having the entire ghetto sealed off? Is the killer a Christian indebted to the girl's apothecary father? Or a messianic Jew bent on the destruction of his people to precipitate the Messiah's coming? The desperate search for answers is complicated by the arrival of a new Holy Inquisitor determined to root out witchcraft and heresy, and reclaim the fractious Bohemian territory for Rome. With time running out, Benyamin must dare the impossible—and commit the unthinkable—to save the Jews of Prague . . . and his own life.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Kids are just so smart these days ...
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Happy Birthday, Steve! and that's me in the back saying "just tell me what you want!"
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Saturday night's all right ... for reading
- Instance at the Fingerpost by Iain Pears
- Freedom and Necessity by Stephen Brust & Emma Bull
- The Millenium Trilogy by Steig Larsson (The Girl Who...)
- Dune by Frank Herbert
- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
- Persuasion by Jane Austen
- Foundation by Isaac Asimov
- Passage by Connie Willis
- The Stand by Stephen King
- The Book of Unholy Mischief by Elle Newmark
- Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
- Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
- The Daughter of Time by Ngaio
- Dissolution by CJ Sansom
- A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
Friday, May 14, 2010
Let the weekend begin
1592. England and Spain are at war, yet there is peril at home, too. The death of her trusted spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham has left Queen Elizabeth vulnerable. Conspiracies multiply. The quiet life of John Shakespeare is shattered by a summons from Robert Cecil, the cold but deadly young statesman who dominated the last years of the Queen’s long reign, insisting Shakespeare re-enter government service. His mission: to find vital papers, now in the possession of the Earl of Essex. Essex is the brightest star in the firmament, a man of ambition. He woos the Queen, thirty-three years his senior, as if she were a girl his age. She is flattered by him – despite her loathing for his mother, the beautiful, dangerous Lettice Knollys who presides over her own glittering court – a dazzling array of the mad, bad, dangerous and disaffected. When John Shakespeare infiltrates this dissolute world he discovers not only that the Queen herself is in danger – but that he and his family is also a target. With only his loyal footsoldier Boltfoot Cooper at his side, Shakespeare must face implacable forces who believe themselves above the law: men and women who kill without compunction. And in a world of shifting allegiances, just how far he can trust Robert Cecil, his devious new master?
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Hitting the catnip at week's end
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Teaser Tuesday
When Elizabeth I's most trusted men fear for her safety and think there's a possibly supernatural plot against her, the obvious man to investigate it is Dr John Dee, her astrologer and consultant in the hidden arts. Aided by his former pupil – and Elizabeth's reputed lover – Robert Dudley, he travels to Glastonbury to try and find the bones of King Arthur. Glastonbury, however, has never recovered from the Dissolution of the Monasteries and the execution of its beloved Abbot Richard Whiting, and many residents view the pair with suspicion. The exception to this is Nel Borrow, who treats Dudley when he's ill and becomes the first woman Dee has ever been interested in romantically. Can the three stop the villainous plot?
Monday, May 10, 2010
Some days have more hurdles than others
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Pleasant Valley Sunday
Saturday, May 8, 2010
I KNEW it!
- What series do you read where you have had an issue with one of the books in the line-up.
- Do you cut the author lose after one miss, or do you have a limit of failed books in a series before you toss in the towel.
- What's your suggestion for that book that you struggle with in a series.
- Jerilyn Farmer's Madeline Bean, a caterer in Hollywood, California. It just got too silly.
- Sujata Massey's Rei Shimura, a Japanese-American who would like to become an antiques dealer, in Tokyo, Japan. I think this author strayed from made the books interesting -- the antiques and being in Japan. Suddenly she was like a spy. Oy.
- Carolyn G. Hart's Annie Laurance, a mystery book store owner, and Max Darling, investigator, in Broward’s Rock, South Carolina, in the Death on Demand series. Again, too saccharine. I wish she would write more of her HenryO series.
- Monica Ferris' Betsy Devonshire, a needlework shop owner in Excelsior, Minnesota. Got way too involved in the crafting than the mystery it seems.
- Nancy Atherton's Aunt Dimity series. Frivolous. The first one was terrific.
- Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum, bounty hunter in Trenton, New Jersey. She is writing the same book basically over and over with no changes.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Oh Friday.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
And the cat had better be named Lucy
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
When the wind blows ....
Slyguff walked a step ahead of him, his hand gripped on the hilt of a dagger that was thrust in the belt buckled tight about his narrow, wiry waist.
Only at the last moment, as they came near, did Shakespeare avert his gaze from the woman and see that she was with Charlie McGunn, deep in conversation.
The woman looked up with nonchalant curiosity at Shakespeare’s approach. Her eyes were black, like still, dark water. She raised an eyebrow questioningly. McGunn turned to him, too, and a grin broke across his fleshy, bald face. ‘Ah, Mr Shakespeare, I believe you have seen sense. Welcome to the fold.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I hope you will introduce us, Mr McGunn,’ the woman said.
‘My apologies, Lady Rich. This is Mr Shakespeare. Mr John Shakespeare.’
Shakespeare bowed. ‘My lady.’ Of course, he had seen her portrait. Penelope Rich, sister of the Earl of Essex, was said to be the most beautiful woman at court, if not in the whole of England. It was an assessment which Shakespeare could not dispute.
‘Mr Shakespeare,’ she said, ‘you must be brother to the other Mr Shakespeare, the Earl of Southampton’s poet, for I can see that there is a little family likeness in your eyes and brow, though you are taller.’
‘Indeed, my lady. And I am a little older, too.’
McGunn clasped his arm around Shakespeare’s shoulders. Too tight for friendship. Shakespeare winced at the memory of his vice-like hand taking him by the throat. ‘Mr Shakespeare has agreed to join our great enterprise of all the talents, Lady Rich. He is to seek out and find the mysterious lost colonist, if one such really exists.’
‘Oh, I am sure she exists, Mr McGunn. It is an intriguing tale. Do find her, Mr Shakespeare. I should so like to hear what she has to say for herself, about the perils she has endured in the New World and how she came to make her crossing of the ocean home to England. It will be the talk of the court. And, of course, it is certain to discomfit Ralegh, which will be most amusing.’
‘I will do my utmost.’