Not a creature was stirring, not even a ... possum.

 Tuesday. Here we are again.

 No plans for the day other than hunkering down. Cold, negative numbers cold, this week.

 

 Steve says he'll have left overs for dinner. I'll prep a salad dressing and otherwise settle down with a cuppa tea and a book.

 

 I think I might start a book this evening that I've had my eye on for about ten years it looks like. People raved about it, I've meant to read it, and now there are eight books in the series. And maybe I'm in the mood for some spy vs spy. Maybe it's the time to read it. We'll see.

 

 SLOW HORSES by Mick Herron. 1st of 8 in series featuring Jackson Lamb, overseeing MI-5 agents banished for spectacular failures to Slough House, in London

 

London, England: Slough House is where washed-up MI5 spies go to while away what’s left of their failed careers. The “slow horses,” as they’re called, have all disgraced themselves in some way to get relegated there. Maybe they botched an Op so badly they can’t be trusted anymore. Maybe they got in the way of an ambitious colleague and had the rug yanked out from under them. Maybe they just got too dependent on the bottle—not unusual in this line of work. One thing they have in common, though, is they want to be back in the action. And most of them would do anything to get there─even if it means having to collaborate with one another. When a young man is abducted and his kidnappers threaten to broadcast his beheading live on the Internet, the slow horses see an opportunity to redeem themselves. But is the victim really who he appears to be?

Published 2010; 336 pages. 

Have a good day

 

Much love,

PK the Bookeemonster

It's Christmas week. Be merry.

 Monday

 

The weekend was fine. The beading Christmas party was .... okay. Only five of us including myself so half didn't show up and we were done by 3pm. 

 They're not meeting up on Wednesday and we're not meeting up on Saturday, being Christmas Eve (of course) and the coffee shop closes at noon.

 

 Otherwise, I read this weekend. I started and finished THE WOMAN IN THE LIBRARY for my readathon pick though Sarah has been sick and not online in the past few days so (kinda) a wasted effort for that but I did wind up getting another book read on the year.

 Currently reading THE INHERITANCE by Charles Finch. 10th of 14 in series featuring Charles Lenox, a gentleman sleuth, in 1860s London.

 

 Charles Lenox has received a cryptic plea for help from an old Harrow schoolmate, Gerald Leigh, but when he looks into the matter he finds that his friend has suddenly disappeared. As boys they had shared a secret: a bequest from a mysterious benefactor had smoothed Leigh’s way into the world after the death of his father. Lenox, already with a passionate interest in detective work, made discovering the benefactor's identity his first case – but was never able to solve it. Now, years later, Leigh has been the recipient of a second, even more generous bequest. Is it from the same anonymous sponsor? Or is the money poisoned by ulterior motives? Leigh’s disappearance suggests the latter, and as Lenox tries, desperately, to save his friend’s life, he’s forced into confrontations with both the most dangerous of east end gangs and the far more genteel denizens of the illustrious Royal Society. When someone close to the bequest dies, Lenox must finally delve deep into the past to uncover at last the identity of the person who is either his friend’s savior – or his lethal enemy.

Published 2016; 305 pages.

I've decided that one of my reading goals in 2023 is to work on the several mystery series that I've left languishing. 

 Tonight, no plans. Home, Ryker, Steve, cleanup, read. That's about it.

 

 Have a good day

 

Much love,

PK the Bookeemonster

Hot diggity, it's Friday

 

 Friday

 

 Change of plan for my readathon book for Sarah's (The Bookish Knitter) three-day readathon with the prompt of being published in 2022.

 

I'm such a mood reader. I wasn't in the mood to read a fantasy it looks like. So after looking at the books I had, I'm going with:

 THE WOMAN IN THE LIBRARY by Sulari Gentill. Standalone.

 The tranquility is shattered by a woman's terrified scream. Security guards take charge immediately, instructing everyone inside to stay put until the threat is identified and contained. While they wait for the all-clear, four strangers, who'd happened to sit at the same table, pass the time in conversation and friendships are struck. Each has his or her own reasons for being in the reading room that morning—it just happens that one is a murderer.

 Published 2022; 292 pages.

 The reading sprint book I'm going with for that group which is a scavenger-hunt with a cover featuring "weather" is A DARK AND STORMY MURDER by Julia Buckley. 1st of 5 in series featuring Lena London, a recent graduate with a giant loan, working for Camilla Graham, a famous writer of Gothic Suspense novels, in Blue Lake, Indiana, in the Writer’s Apprentice mysteries.

 

 Camilla Graham’s bestselling suspense novels inspired Lena London to become a writer, so when she lands a job as Camilla’s new assistant, she can’t believe her luck. Not only will she help her idol craft an enchanting new mystery, she’ll get to live rent-free in Camilla’s gorgeous Victorian home in the quaint town of Blue Lake, Indiana. But Lena’s fortune soon changes for the worse. First, she lands in the center of small town gossip for befriending the local recluse. Then, she stumbles across one thing that a Camilla Graham novel is never without—a dead body, found on her new boss’s lakefront property. Now Lena must take a page out of one of Camilla’s books to hunt down clues in a real crime that seems to be connected to the novelist’s mysterious estate—before the killer writes them both out of the story for good...

Published 2016; 301 pages.  

 So my plan this weekend is to make the Chex Mix or Ranch nuts tonight for the party. Put the patterns for everyone in the plastic protectors tonight. Go to the party tomorrow and not get mad that so few attended.

 

And read.

Have a good weekend

 

Much love,

PK the Bookeemonster

Goals

 Thursday

Steve's gun range thing last night was canceled so that was good. He had some Portuguese Sausage soup from Soup and Such and was very very happy with it. I read.

 

 Nothing on TV tonight. There really isn't TV on any night. Reading-wise, I'm prepping for the weekend. I've got two "challenges" that I'm participating in via YouTube book vloggers. The first is a readathon starting tomorrow, I've mentioned before. I'll be starting:

LEGENDS AND LATTES by Travis Baldree. Debut SFF.

After a lifetime of bounties and bloodshed, Viv is hanging up her sword for the last time. The battle-weary orc aims to start fresh, opening the first ever coffee shop in the city of Thune. But old and new rivals stand in the way of success — not to mention the fact that no one has the faintest idea what coffee actually is. If Viv wants to put the blade behind her and make her plans a reality, she won't be able to go it alone. But the true rewards of the uncharted path are the travelers you meet along the way. And whether drawn together by ancient magic, flaky pastry, or a freshly brewed cup, they may become partners, family, and something deeper than she ever could have dreamed.

Published 2022; 296 pages. This satisfies Sarah's prompt of something you've been meaning read published in 2022. 

And then, she is part of a group of YouTube book vloggers who sometimes have a "book scavenger hunt" during their reading sprints. This weekend, this time around, the book you read needs to have something to do with "weather" on the cover. It can be a romance with snow out the window; it could be a thriller set in a hurricane, it can have a picture of air outside....

 

It doesn't have to be started and finished within a set time period, you just be reading it during their streaming "sprints" which is everyone reading for about 30-45 minutes at a time, while they also read live, and in between we all chat, and then we read again while the timer clicks down the set time again. I've decided to participate, after much perusing of options, to be a little humorous and ironic and start either one of these two books:

 

A cozy mystery. Or:

 A fantasy-ish mystery.

 

 This evening I need to clean out underneath the sink because apparently a friend is going to install the dishwasher tomorrow (like I figured would ultimately happen). Glad to get it done. Glad I won't be there. Hate to have someone in the house seeing how horribly bad it is but I won't really be there to know. Ryker will be okay with him there; Wes has been there before. Otherwise, I'll be reading tonight probably. Prep my meal for tomorrow (probably taco salad again since I have left over vinaigrette). Tomorrow night I'll make the Chex Mix-seasoned or Ranch-seasoned nuts for the Christmas party on Saturday.

Have a good day

 

Much love,

PK the Bookeemonster 

Here we are again

 Wednesday. Receptionist is back so that's good. Otherwise, it's another work day.

 

Last night I had the live stream of the monthly ticket drawing for freebie beads from Randee/Thunderhorses to watch. I didn't win anything.  

 

For fun, part of the goings on is that everyone brings their own cake or whatever to eat. Randee had lemon cake last night. Of course, I don't eat cake but EVERYONE was sharing what they were eating. So to live vicariously through others and to kill time as I was busy not winning anything, I looked on Amazon for a cozy mystery about cake/desserts. So I started to read:

SPRINKLE WITH MURDER by Jenn McKinlay. 1st of 14 in series featuring Melanie Cooper and Angie DeLaura, operators of Fairy Tale Cupcakes, in Old Town Scottsdale, Arizona

Melanie Cooper and Angie DeLaura are finally living out their dream as the proud owners of the Fairy Tale Cupcakes bakery. But their first big client is a nightmare. She's a bridezilla who wants 500 custom cupcakes for her wedding. When Mel stumbles upon the bride-to-be dead-by-cupcake, she becomes the prime suspect. To save themselves and their business, the ladies need to find the real murderer, before the cupcake killer ices someone else.

Published 2010; 240 pages. I'm almost halfway through. They go quickly.

I got one more cake cozy-type mystery because I couldn't decide between the two last night but I'll share that one later.

Steve's got the gun range tonight. I'll take care of Ryker and read. 

 

Have a good day

 Much love,

PK the Bookeemonster

Disgruntled

 Tuesday. Receptionist called in sick.

 You know what's nice about taking off any self-imposed obligations and watching YouTube reading sprints (where all you do is read along with the host)? You read. You make headway in the book.

 

 One of these YouTube book vloggers is having a "create your own readathon" this weekend that I'm going to participate in. Running between Friday and Sunday. Read whatever you want but her prompt was something that was published in 2022 that you've been meaning to get to. I'm going to participate and I immediate thought of this:

 

 After a lifetime of bounties and bloodshed, Viv is hanging up her sword for the last time.The battle-weary orc aims to start fresh, opening the first ever coffee shop in the city of Thune. But old and new rivals stand in the way of success — not to mention the fact that no one has the faintest idea what coffee actually is. If Viv wants to put the blade behind her and make her plans a reality, she won't be able to go it alone. But the true rewards of the uncharted path are the travelers you meet along the way. And whether drawn together by ancient magic, flaky pastry, or a freshly brewed cup, they may become partners, family, and something deeper than she ever could have dreamed.

Published 2022; 296 pages. It's been described as "cozy fantasy". And I've been flirting with reading it for awhile. I think this weekend is the time and it will be, what, about 100 pages a day-ish.

 

 I've got the bead group Christmas party on Saturday afternoon that I have to attend but otherwise, yeah, I could probably get close to finishing it in that time period.

 

 Otherwise, same old stuff today.

 Have a good day

 

Much love,

PK the Bookeemonster

The weekend ENDED

 Monday

 

I had a pretty good weekend. I went to the coffee shop on Saturday; it was just Jody and me but it was nice. And I read a lot. 

 

Currently reading A STROKE OF MALICE by Anna Lee Huber. 8th of 11 in series featuring Lady Darby in 1830s Scotland.

 January 1832. After enjoying a delightful few weeks with her family, expectant mother Kiera and Sebastian Gage have been invited to the Duchess of Bowmontʼs Twelfth Night party in Traquair, Scotland. Though she normally avoids such fashionable, rambunctious events, Kiera is ready to join in the festive merrymaking. But upon their arrival at the opulent estate, it becomes obvious that all is not merry in their hostess’s home. The family appears to be under a great strain, and someone seems determined to cause mayhem among the guests with a series of forged notes. Matters swiftly turn from irksome to downright deadly when the partygoers stumble upon a decomposing body in the castleʼs crypt. The corpse is thought to be the duchessʼs son-in-law who had purportedly traveled to Paris more than a month earlier. It is evident the man met with foul play, and Kiera and Gage soon realize that a ruthless murderer walks among them—and may well be a member of the duchessʼs own family. And when the investigation takes a treacherous turn, Kiera discovers just how deep the killer is willing to dig to keep their secrets from ever seeing the light of day.

Published 2020; 380 pages.

And also reading MR. CHURCHILL'S SECRETARY by Susan Elia MacNeal. 1st of 10 in series featuring Maggie Hope, a typist turned spy for MI-5, in 1940s London

 

London, 1940. Winston Churchill has just been sworn in, war rages across the Channel, and the threat of a Blitz looms larger by the day. But none of this deters Maggie Hope. She graduated at the top of her college class and possesses all the skills of the finest minds in British intelligence, but her gender qualifies her only to be the newest typist at No. 10 Downing Street. Her indefatigable spirit and remarkable gifts for codebreaking, though, rival those of even the highest men in government, and Maggie finds that working for the prime minister affords her a level of clearance she could never have imagined—and opportunities she will not let pass. In troubled, deadly times, with air-raid sirens sending multitudes underground, access to the War Rooms also exposes Maggie to the machinations of a menacing faction determined to do whatever it takes to change the course of history. Ensnared in a web of spies, murder, and intrigue, Maggie must work quickly to balance her duty to King and Country with her chances for survival. And when she unravels a mystery that points toward her own family’s hidden secrets, she’ll discover that her quick wits are all that stand between an assassin’s murderous plan and Churchill himself.

Published 2012: 380 pages.

Last night at last was the season 3 premiere of The Chosen.

 

 I teared up a couple times. It's a beautiful show.

Have a good day

 

 Much love,

PK the Bookeemonster