Middle of the week ...

Wednesday

The package to Canada is almost there according to the tracking information. It's in Canada and I was able to pay the duties/fees to cross the border a couple days ago. I'm thinking it will get there tomorrow and her husband will get it to her by Saturday. 

I'm enjoying listening to 1ST TO DIE in the evening while I crochet. I'm at 32%. Maybe I can find something to listen to during the day at work ... that I can complete in one day to get one more book in for July ... so it would have to be only a few hours long.... looking .... looking...

Aha! I'm going to listen to GARDEN OF THE DAMNED by Blake Banner. 3rd of 30 in Dead Cold procedural series

When the body of a tramp was found in a dumpster on Lafayette and Bryant in the Bronx, with no papers and no ID, the case was filed as unsolved – another victim nobody cared about, shot by some punk nobody cared about. That was twelve years ago. Then Detective Stone notices that the ‘tramp’ had a hundred dollar haircut and manicured nails. That makes him curious. He wants to know, who dresses a murder victim up as a tramp, then leaves them in full view in a dumpster? But the answers he gets are not the ones he expects, and before long their investigation leads Stone and Dehan to St Mary’s Roman Catholic Church, and the darkest recesses of the human soul. It also leads them to some of the most powerful men in New York. Some, like Conor Hagan, head of the Irish Mob, are known criminals. But others are not… Stone’s problem is deciding which of them are just criminals, and which are truly evil. That is, until ghosts start appearing from Dehan’s past. Then things get complicated…

Published 2017; 204 pages.

No sprints tonight. Steve has the gun range. I'm crocheting.

Have a good day

Much love,

PK the Bookeemonster

Strike a pose...

Tuesday

I've started GarbAugust early. I'm listening to 1ST TO DIE by James Patterson. 1st of 25 in the Women's Murder Club series featuring Lindsay Boxer, a homicide inspector, Cindy Thomas, a reporter, Jill Bernhardt, an Assistant District Attorney, and Claire Washburn, a medical examiner — founding members of The Women’s Murder Club, in San Francisco

Each one holds a piece of the puzzle: Lindsay Boxer is a homicide inspector in the San Francisco Police Department, Claire Washburn is a medical examiner, Jill Bernhardt is an assistant D.A., and Cindy Thomas just started working the crime desk of the San Francisco Chronicle. But the usual procedures aren't bringing them any closer to stopping the killings. So these women form a Women's Murder Club to collaborate outside the box and pursue the case by sidestepping their bosses and giving each other a hand. The four women develop intense bonds as they pursue a killer whose crimes have stunned an entire city. Working together, they track down the most terrifying and unexpected killer they have ever encountered--before a shocking conclusion in which everything they knew turns out to be devastatingly wrong.

Published 2001; 424 pages.

I also started THE LADY FROM BURMA by Allison Montclair. 5th of 6 in series featuring Miss Iris Sparks and Mrs. Gwendolyn Bainbridge, proprietors of The Right Sort Marriage Bureau, beginning in 1946 London.

In the immediate post-war days of London, two unlikely partners have undertaken an even more unlikely, if necessary, business venture - The Right Sort Marriage Bureau. The two partners are Miss Iris Sparks, a woman with a dangerous - and never discussed - past in British intelligence and Mrs. Gwendolyn Bainbridge, a war widow with a young son entangled in a complicated aristocratic family. Mostly their clients are people trying to start (or restart) their lives in this much-changed world, but their new client is something different. A happily married woman has come to them to find a new wife for her husband. Dying of cancer, she wants the two to make sure her entomologist, academic husband finds someone new once she passes.Shortly thereafter, she's found dead in Epping Forest, in what appears to be a suicide. But that doesn't make sense to either Sparks or Bainbridge. At the same time, Bainbridge is attempting to regain legal control of her life, opposed by the conservator who has been managing her assets - perhaps not always in her best interest. When that conservator is found dead, Bainbridge herself is one of the prime suspects. Attempting to make sense of two deaths at once, to protect themselves and their clients, the redoubtable owners of the Right Sort Marriage Bureau are once again on the case.

Published 2023; 352 pages.

Sprints tonight. Crocheting and listening to audiobook.

Have a good day

Much love,

PK the Bookeemonster

Monday Blues

 Monday.

I had a productive weekend with crochet. I've technically finished Miranda's blanket. I could do another row of the border since I have one skein left and what am I going to do with it otherwise? We'll see.

I started Jimmy's afghan. It's three tones of green and in an interlocking block pattern so it looks almost like camouflage.

I started it to see if it was going to work out. It will. 

And I started Ezra's poncho. I started it ... then ripped out a few rows because it just wasn't working with the black yarn. 

Black yarn is hard to see even with good light and I was doing a stitch in which I had already found a couple mistakes I'd made because of not seeing it clearly. The new stitch is better and goes faster. Win-win. 

So my plan is to work on the installers' blankets at work and the office people's ones at home. What I REALLY need to do is complete the wedding blanket. 

I finished CITY SPIES FORBIDDEN CITY by James Ponti. 5 stars. I'm not sure what I'm going to read next. Maybe get a start on GarbAugust? 

No sprints tonight. Crocheting and reading.

Have a good day

Much love,

PK the Bookeemonster

Weekend

TGIF

It's almost time for the annual GarbAugust readathon. Last year, I read MAGNOLIA PARKS by Jessa Hastings. There is a certain generation of females on BookTube who are obsessed with this book and its series/world. Obsessed. I tried it so I can form my own opinion.

I meant to read the first Doc Savage pulp book but I never got around to it. Maybe this is the year.

What is GarbAugust? Celebrating and reading those books that YOU deem to be trashy. Perhaps they're so bad they're good. Perhaps they're guilty pleasures. It's entirely subjective. Your judgement.

So I started to compile a list of options that I could get behind. I was thinking pulp mysteries, fun titles, and LitRPG-type SFF. My only caveat is that they're available on Kindle.

For the weekend, I have some library books came up that I need to get going on:

Ohhhhh .... And the James Patterson could be a double whammy: counting as GarbAugust and an August scavenger hunt prompt "Book from a long series". Plus I'm reading the two I'm already in the middle of. 

No plans this weekend other than sprints tomorrow afternoon. Much, much crocheting to be done. Walking Keo, napping, etc. etc.

Have a good weekend

Much love,

PK the Bookeemonster 

Summer sucks

Thursday

Reading THE VIVALDI CIPHER by Gary McAvoy. 1st of 8 in Vatican Secret Archives series. 

During the election of a new Pope in the mid-18th century, famed violinist Antonio Vivaldi learns of a ring of art forgers who are replacing the Vatican’s priceless treasures with expertly-painted fakes. Desperate, the composer hides a message in a special melody, hoping someone, someday, will take down the culprits . . . Nearly three hundred years later, the confession of a dying Mafia Don alerts a Venetian priest to a wealth of forged paintings in the Vatican Museum, and the key to their identities lies hidden in a puzzling piece of music. Father Michael Dominic, prefect of the Secret Archives, investigates, and is mystified when he finds a cipher in an old composition from Vivaldi. Desperate to stop this centuries-long conspiracy, he calls on fellow sleuth Hana Sinclair and Dr. Livia Gallo, a music cryptologist, to help him crack the code and learn the truth. But the Camorra, a centuries-old Italian Mafia clan, won’t stand by while some interfering priest ruins their most lucrative operation. Along with a French commando and two valiant Swiss Guards, Dominic explores the dark canals and grand palazzos of Venice to uncover the evidence he needs to stop the sinister plot. Can he unearth it in time, or will the Church’s most valuable artworks fall prey to this massive conspiracy?

Published 2021; 320 pages. You know I love this kind of story. Looks like these same characters are in a previous trilogy. I'm liking it even though the writing is sometimes overly simplistic. I also have this on audio so I can read it while crocheting in the evening or listen to it at work. This may be my scavenger hunt pick for "book from a long series".  

Sprints tonight. Reading, YouTube, crocheting.

Have a good day

Much love,

PK the Bookeemonster

It's toooooo hoooooooooooooootttttt

Wednesday

Sarah's shawl. Done-zo. On it's way to Canada - plus a couple books and stuff.

I'm looking for a second read and I don't know what I'm in the mood for. I have a library book but I don't know if it's time for it yet. 

Have I mentioned it's hot today?

No sprints tonight. I'm hoping Steve doesn't have the range - it's 106 today.

Have a good day

Much love,

PK the Bookeemonster Im

Wishes

Tuesday. Receptionist called in sick (headache).

I finished the Donna Andrews book. 3 stars. I remember some of it now. Still reading NAVOLA but looking for something to add to it. I haven't decided yet. Current events have been dirverting.

Strange times. I have thoughts about what's going on but I'm keeping them to myself for now.

Sprints tonight. Crocheting.

Have a good day

Much love,

PK the Bookeemonster