Pssst, it's Friday

TGIF

Currently reading THE TRUTH ABOUT THE DEVLINS by Lisa Scottoline. Because I was notified of two library holds after I started the two books I mentioned yesterday so it jumped the queue.

TJ Devlin is the charming disappointment in the prominent Devlin family, all of whom are lawyers at their highly successful firm—except him. After a stint in prison and rehab for alcoholism, TJ can’t get hired anywhere except at the firm, in a make-work job with the title of investigator. But one night, TJ’s world turns upside down after his older brother John confesses that he just murdered one of the clients, an accountant he’d confronted with proof of embezzlement. It seems impossible coming from John, the firstborn son and Most Valuable Devlin. TJ plunges into the investigation, seizing the chance to prove his worth and save his brother. But in no time, TJ and John find themselves entangled in a lethal web of deception and murder. TJ will fight to save his family, but what he learns might break them first.

Published 2024; 384 pages. And I'm really loving it. The first person POV is really propelling this thriller. 

No plans this weekend other than sprints tomorrow afternoon. But really, nothing and I like it that way.

I'm tired so much resting. Laundry still from the Great Flood, crocheting, walking Keo, reading, etc. 

Have a good weekend

Much love,

PK the Bookeemonster

We can do this, Pookie

Thursday

I finished THE WOMEN by Kristin Hannah. I'm giving it 4 stars. It's not more than that because the ending was rushed, I felt, and sort of a deus ex machina type of finale. 

March 1000 Pages Read Challenge

03/25: 108

03/26: 125

03/27: 278

03/28:

03/29:

01/30:

01/31:

TOTAL: 511/1000 

I think I'm going to start THE WELL OF ASCENSION by Brandon Sanderson. 2nd in the Mistborn fantasy series. 

They did the impossible, deposing the godlike being whose brutal rule had lasted a thousand years. Now Vin, the street urchin who has grown into the most powerful Mistborn in the land, and Elend Venture, the idealistic young nobleman who loves her, must build a healthy new society in the ashes of an empire. They have barely begun when three separate armies attack. As the siege tightens, an ancient legend seems to offer a glimmer of hope. But even if it really exists, no one knows where to find the Well of Ascension or what manner of power it bestows. It may just be that killing the Lord Ruler was the easy part. Surviving the aftermath of his fall is going to be the real challenge.

Published 2007; 624 pages

And starting A DEADLY GAME by Carla Simpson. 3rd of 8 in historical mystery series featuring Angus  Brodie and Mikaela Forsythe. 

London, 1890:

It's a New Year, but murder never takes a holiday. The past reaches out to the unlikely investigative team of Angus Brodie and Mikaela Forsythe when a man Mikaela was once engaged to seeks her assistance to find his young runaway son. What starts out as a seemingly simple case of following the clues becomes far more as the search unravels secrets Mikaela’s former fiancé intended to keep hidden. Mikaela is determined to find the answers they need, but Brodie can’t keep his mind off of his own set of questions…questions about this woman who is too darn independent; who aggravates him to no end with her lists, theories, and ideas; who puts her life at risk too often; and who may still have feelings for the man she might have once married…questions that complicate this already complicated partnership of theirs. When the boy's father is found dead, everything they thought they knew about the case is turned on its head and new motives start to take form. It's a race against time when the boy's school jacket is discovered with a note, and Mikaela and Brodie must work side by side with his mother—a woman who makes no attempt to hide her dislike for Mikaela and is determined to protect her late husband's legacy at all cost—sending them into a place where the hunters become the hunted and they must work together once more in order to survive.

Published 2023; 408 pages.

Sprints tonight. Reading and then sleep.

Have a good day

Much love,

PK the Bookeemonster

Eye roll or looking to Universe for answers?

Wednesday

March 1000 Pages Read Challenge

03/25: 108

03/26: 125

03/27:

03/28:

03/29:

01/30:

01/31:

TOTAL: 233/1000 

I'm enjoying THE WOMEN. It is very harsh in terms of surgery stuff during Vietnam, but the character growth of Frankie from a very naive, sheltered 20-year-old who volunteered to go over there not fully knowing what she was in for to a McMurphy from China Beach tv show.  

Steve has the gun range tonight. I'll keep reading. 

Have a good day

Much love,

PK the Bookeemonster

I don't hate everything

 Tuesday

Oy. What a world. Pipe burst in laundry room but we didn't find it until 2-3 hours afterward so lots of water. But it could have been worse if it had happened during a weekday rather than a Sunday. So really not fun.

New Service Manager started yesterday so some of the pressure will be off but he's already having second thoughts and said some things that make not have confidence in him. Millenials suck and want their hand held. 

Last night I started THE WOMEN by Kristin Hannah. Stand alone.

An intimate portrait of coming of age in a dangerous time and an epic tale of a nation divided. Women can be heroes. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances “Frankie” McGrath hears these words, it is a revelation. Raised in the sun-drenched, idyllic world of Southern California and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing. But in 1965, the world is changing, and she suddenly dares to imagine a different future for herself. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path. As green and inexperienced as the men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is over- whelmed by the chaos and destruction of war. Each day is a gamble of life and death, hope and betrayal; friendships run deep and can be shattered in an instant. In war, she meets—and becomes one of—the lucky, the brave, the broken, and the lost. But war is just the beginning for Frankie and her veteran friends. The real battle lies in coming home to a changed and divided America, to angry protesters, and to a country that wants to forget Vietnam.

Published 2024; 480 pages. It is very China Beach TV show but from the character of Cherry's POV than McMurphy.

March 1000 Pages Read Challenge has begun

03/25: 108

03/26:

03/27:

03/28:

03/29:

01/30:

01/31:

TOTAL: 108/1000 

I have sprints tonight. 

Have a good day

Much love,

PK the Bookeemonster

Ahhhhh the weekend

TGIF

Winter has visited again so we'll be hunkering down for the weekend. I have sprints tomorrow afternoon. I'll be reading, crocheting, napping, walking Keo, etc. 

I'm enjoying the spy novel I'm reading. I've got at least two blankets to work on. Maybe I'll get Apple+ for the free week so Steve can start to watch Masters of the Air. So much cleaning but then so much napping as well. 

Have a good weekend

Much love,

PK the Bookeemonster

Must we?

Thursday

Well, once again, I was not able to read AGENT OF CHANGE. I come across aliens and just can't do it. 

And I'm still in a spy vs. spy mood. About to start THE SCARLET PAPERS by Matthew Richardson. Stand alone.

VIENNA, 1946: A brilliant German scientist snatched from the ruins of Nazi Europe.

MOSCOW, 1964: A US diplomat caught in a clandestine love affair as the Cold War rages.

RIGA, 1992: A Russian archivist selling secrets that will change the twentieth century forever.

LONDON, THE PRESENT DAY: A British academic on the run with the chance to solve one of history's greatest mysteries.Their stories, their lives, and the fate of the world are bound by a single manuscript. A document feared and whispered about in capitals across the globe. In its pages, history will be rewritten. It is only ever known as . . .  THE SCARLET PAPERS. The devastating secrets contained within teased by a brief invitation: Tomorrow 11AM. Take a cab and pay in cash. Tell no one.

London, present day

Historian Max Archer is invited to a clandestine meeting with legendary Cold War spymaster, Scarlet King. Her offer to share the explosive secrets born of over half a century at the heart of global espionage would be life-changing. But Max has little reason to trust a woman whose name is a byword for deceit and ruthlessness. Soon he is on the wrong side of the law and on the run. As the net closes tighter around him he must somehow discover the truth. Because it’s not just his life on the line – but also the fate of the Western world . . .

Published 2023; 567 pages. 

White stuff has returned and will sock in until Tuesday, it looks like. 

I've got sprints tonight. Crochet, reading, bed.

Have a good day

Much love,

PK the Bookeemonster

I could say something ... but I won't

Wednesday. Receptionist out. Again. Still. 

Supposedly she'll be in at 1pm. I'm hoping so because I have to take Keo to the vet this afternoon for another ear infection. 

I finished DOUBLE AGENT by Tom Bradby. Giving it 4 stars. It loses a half a star for a rushing ending. 

I haven't read a scifi book in quite a while so that's where I've been looking around for my read options. I think I'll be sticking with a book that I've tried to read for years. Perhaps, now is the time. AGENT OF CHANGE by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller. 1st published in Liaden Universe series. 

Val Con yos’Phelium—interstellar spy, starship pilot, musician, and incidentally, a brother to Clutch Turtles. Running from an assassination he comes upon Miri Robertson, a not-so-retired mercenary soldier born to trouble on a back world and facing disastrously uneven odds in a firefight with her former employer’s enemies. Terran Miri Robertson was a mercenary, but she retired to a cushy job as a private bodyguard. What she didn't know what that her client had powerful enemies. Now he's dead, and they're after her. Forced to intervene, Val Con becomes a target himself, and the pair are hunted, hounded across space, becoming unwilling partners of necessity. Facing terrible danger from within and without, their own skills and training argue that one of them must die if either is to survive. But Val Con has faced tricky situations before, and he's not about to let something like impossible odds get him down. 

Published 1988; 320 pages.

Steve's got the gun range tonight. I don't have sprints but I'll be doing the same stuff that I normally do.  

Have a good day

Much love,

PK the Bookeemonster