lady narcissa

@kairparavel I stopped after Iced which I hated which depressed me because I loved the first five. And I thought Shadowfever was a fantastic conclusion. A rare instance where I was surprised and satisfied. I wonder if KMM will really be able to stop after this latest one. Btw, did you see ACOSF hit #1 on the NYTimes Adult hardcover list? I still haven't started it yet.

@Xray the Enforcer ROTF! Umm I am sorry? Gosh my memory was that there were some bird things in the Vera books which is one of the reasons I thought you might enjoy them but I guess in my mind they were more passing background than being so prevalent. I hesitate to say anything about the other Vera books or the Shetland books or her new Two Rivers series because I would say there are no birds but I am probably completely wrong! I think Cleves' husband had something to do with birds which is probably why they sneak in there so much. I did want to say I am glad you are enjoying the St. Cyr and Elizabeth Peters books so much. Elizabeth Peters who also published as Barbara Michaels was luckily a prolific writer so luckily there are lots to read. Of course since she published so many over so many years, the quality varies. But even when the stories are overall subpar they usually have fantastic locations and interesting things to learn. Two of her Vicky Bliss books are probably my most favorite of all - Trojan Gold and Night Train to Memphis. They are enhanced by the fact that I have audio versions of both books narrated by Kathleen Turner who is really Vicky Bliss personified. I am just sad that these audio versions no longer seem to be available because they are fantastic. I have taken a break from the Donna Leon series (which I almost finished!) to read several cosy Halloween mysteries. Nothing too great but they are very light and subpar easy and about all my brain can handle at the moment as we are preparing for a trial in a couple of weeks which has me very stressed.

OOooo intrigued by Batman and wacky larger than life characters and adult Hardy Boys. So more Joel Schumacher Batman than Christopher Nolan Batman? I am put off slightly by the high price of the ebooks here, however. I will keep my eye on the first one to see if the price goes down.

Yeah I don't like gory or horror or pretty much anything with serial killers. I know a lot of series mystery authors will at least do one serial killer mystery - especially if they are the sort to work their way through different mystery types. In those instances I might read them. But on a whole I stay away from them. I know I have talked in this thread about my love of the Shardlake books and I don't want to just repeat myself...but its been a few pages since I last said how much I love these so...I absolutely love these! The last one was more than I ever wanted to know about Kett's Rebellion but I happily slogged through it. And yeah they are by no means cosy especially since I am always stressed and worried for Shardlake (and yet highly annoyed at him) but they are "cosy" for me in that they involve some of my most favorite things and what could be more cosy than that? Enjoy! I love the Amelia Peabody series. I perhaps love Elizabeth Peters' Vicky Bliss series a tad more but you are in for an enjoyable journey with Amelia. And there are a lot of books in the series so lots of enjoyable reading ahead. Warning: They do make you want to jump on a plane and take a cruise down the Nile and explore all the fantastic sites she writes about. And Peters does have a couple of books about a librarian that I also enjoyed including one that takes place at a romance novel convention which is highly relatable and enjoyable for anyone who has ever been to a book related convention as we have.

@Xray the Enforcer you might want to give Anne Cleves Vera series a try: https://www.panmacmillan.com/blogs/crime-thriller/ann-cleeves-vera-stanhope-book-series-crime (Note to anyone who enjoys this series - a new one just came out last week!) Also, X-Ray, I do not necessarily recommend this next series to you to read because it really is light and cosy and has crazy family members and not great mysteries but I do want to bring these titles and covers in the series to your attention because I think you might get a hoot out of them. *punintended* https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074BQB7BH?searchxofy=true&ref_=dbs_s_aps_series_rwt I personally have spent the past three months reading Donna Leon's Commissario Brunetti series. I think I have 21 of them now? So only 8 more to go! They have sort of been the perfect thing to just read continually when there hasn't been anything new thats called my name. Its just been nice to have them all lined up and to just go from the next to the next. Not being able to travel anywhere its been great to "travel" to Venice. I keep my map handy as I read and just follow along as Brunetti goes out and about the streets and canals of Venice. I feel like I could just step off the the train in Venice and head off without a map and follow along in his footsteps. I like how the author manages to find new areas and buildings for each book so no matter that you are confined to a fairly small city, there is always something new to see and explore. I have enjoyed some more than others but I have enjoyed the range of crimes and people involved. Perhaps the only downfall of the books is the food...there is some much yummy food and I am always reading these books late at night and they make me so hungry!

Like a million other people this week, I found myself falling down the youtube hole of those twin guys from Gary, Indiana who post videos of themselves listening to older songs (for them) for the first time. They do have some good reactions but I have found I am less interested in their reactions than I am in all the songs they have been listening to. Although I am familiar with all the artists and most of the songs, there are actually a number of songs I've never listened to myself and then there are some I haven't heard in ages. It's been a good reminder how much I used to just sit and listen to music and how I haven't done that in a long time and I admit I spent a good couple of hours watching/listening to the music in the videos and have really enjoyed it. It's also reminded me how much I miss albums and listening to albums as a whole. I tend to listen to everything as a mish mash of singles these days. And as I was watching them listen to Yaz (Yazoo)'s "Don't Go" - and their reaction to Alison Moyet's voice was great! - it just reminded me that "Don't Go" itself is fine but that they were missing out by just listening to it as a single instead of part of the album "Upstairs at Eric's" as a whole. Some songs really are stand alones but others are best appreciated when listened to in the context of the album they were created for.

I noticed that this week "Tales from the Folly: A Rivers of London Short Story Collection" by Ben Aaronovitch was released. It contains the following short stories that were previously published: The Home Crowd AdvantageThe DomesticThe CockpitThe Loneliness of the Long-Distance GrannyKing of The RatsA Rare Book of Cunning DeviceA Dedicated Follower of FashionFavourite UncleVanessa Sommer’s Other Christmas ListThree Rivers, Two Husbands and a BabyMoments One-Three I can't recall having read any of the short stories, I certainly don't own any of them so will probably pick this up. Has anyone read any of them? I assume they would be enjoyable for anyone who loves the series?

Well naturally I am happy. I hope by 2022 the virus is behind us and the borders are open again and that people will want to come to the US. I also hope that the skyrocketing crime we have had in downtown Chicago this summer goes back down to normal levels of crime. Just outside the Hyatt Regency this past month along Wacker Drive we've had armed robberies, carjackings, stabbings, and shootings. Very unusual for this neighborhood.

Well seeing as a couple of you are reading, or at least planning on reading the book...Kim Harrison will be appearing online to discuss her latest novel on July 30th as part of Penguin Worlds Book Club. I have no idea if they will upload the video afterwards, they seem to upload about half of them to youtube afterwards so a 50/50 chance. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/penguin-worlds-book-club-american-demon-by-kim-harrison-tickets-109002210546

Well I am somewhat amazed to see how time has flown by and Worldcon is already possibly coming back to Chicago. It seems like you all were just here for Chicon 7! No surprise, I am hoping for Chicago for 2022 and hope this virus is contained by then and hope to see many of you here!

It was interesting. I don't read Rothfuss's books but I've seen him on a number of panels at Worldcon and other comic cons and I find him enjoyable to listen to. He has a very soothing voice. And it was obvious he is a fan of the Dresden Files books. I'd say just because of the way he talks - slow and methodical - the session was 80% him talking and 20% Butcher. But most of it was about the Dresden Files with some sidebars on the pandemic and other things. Most interesting is I discovered why I can't read the Dresden Files. I tried to read them but I live in Chicago and the Dresden Files Chicago is just not Chicago. And I've learned the reason for this from this chat - because the Dresden Files wasn't written as being in Chicago when Butcher started the series, it took place in Kansas City. But his agent (or maybe editor, I can't remember) told him it couldn't be set in Missouri because the Laurell K. Hamilton books were set in Missouri and there couldn't be two series based there. (Which just seems bizarre.) So he looked at a globe which only had DC, NYC, LA and Chicago labeled on the US, eliminated the other 3 cities, and decided to go with Chicago. For me, the reason I love Urban Fantasy is I love sense of place in stories. Stories that are shaped by their location and couldn't be the stories they are if they were in a different location. The Dresden Files lacked this for me. The location just felt like a much smaller city. Which makes sense when you understand it was Kansas City. I think its too bad he was made to switch locations like that. It would have been interesting to see what he could have done with a location he actually knew as opposed to one he picked out from a globe. You can watch their chat if you are interested:

Another virtual author event...if anyone is fans of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series, he is talking with Pat Rothfuss out it tomorrow (Thursday) night: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/penguin-worlds-book-club-jim-butcher-in-conversation-with-patrick-rothfuss-registration-103472160016

I'm 1-1/2 books into Donna Leon's Commissario Brunetti series and am so far enjoying it. This is good because it seems just about every day amazon has at least one of the ebooks on sale for $1.99 so these will be easy to scoop up and binge. I really like all the descriptions of Venice. I find myself keeping a map at my side as I read so I can follow along as they move through the city. I like the workings in of Italian politics and Brunett's family. And the food and restaurants!

I don't know for sure but I was looking around their website and it looks like there is a good chance they will. If you go to their Shows page you will see that for some past events it says the recordings are available with links to those on youtube.

I just finally got around to reading this. I loved the location of the new series. I actually hiked the coast of North Devon on summer and have been to quite a few of the places mentioned in the book so that really brought it to life for me. I am a bit on the fence about this detective and the supporting characters. I didn't take to him as instantly as I did Vera or Jimmy. But I sometimes think sense of place is more important to me than characters so I will probably continue when she writes more. I've just started the first Donna Leon. I am enjoying Venice in it and seeing it through a local's eyes with all the buildings and politics. I hope I end up enjoying it as it would be nice to have a backlog to go through. I read the first three Louise Penny's but got wind of what was ahead in the series with the detective and his job and I just did not want to read through that so I stopped reading. I did enjoy the food, however! I read the first two Tana French when the ebooks were promoted at $1.99 around the time the tv series came out but then I was off put on the $11.99 ebook pricing for the rest so held off on continuing. Anyone who has similarly been put off by the ebook prices of C.J. Sansom's Matthew Shardlake series - the 5th one Heartstone is currently on sale on amazon.com for $1.99. That is probably my favorite of the series. And a big thanks to those with recommendations in this thread. I have picked up so many books based on recommendations here. I have a huge stack to read my way through from Jane Harper to P.F. Chisholm with many in between.

The most recent one seemed to take place in 2016 with reference to Bowie's death that January. It is probably smart to operate a few years in the past like that. You can be contemporary but have some breathing room for working in the current events as you are writing. For anyone who is a fan of the Mercy Thompson series...this Saturday (May 23rd), Charlaine Harris will interview Patricia Briggs about her new book, Smoke Bitten. Then Dana Cameron and Toni Kelner (Leigh Perry) will join them for a panel discussion on Worldbuilding. The Leading Ladies of Urban Fantasy is part of a series of Saturday afternoon panels by Essence of Wonder. It starts at 3 PM (Eastern Time) and it is free but you have to register. https://essenceofwonder.com/2020/05/04/masters-of-urban-fantasy-charlaine-harris-patricia-briggs-dana-cameron-and-toni-kelner/ The one nice thing about this whole stay at home and all conventions and book tours canceled is a lot of authors and conventions are now going online which makes it so nice and easy to "attend". I've been able to see a lot of authors "on tour" these past two months who I never would have been able to see if they went on their planned in person tours this spring.

I read the first three of these about 10 years ago. I ended up not continuing. My vague recollection is I just had a hard time with the angels in the story. I do enjoy stories with angels but I am picky about how they are portrayed. I do have a super great memory of reading the second one though...it was on a flight between Chicago and Stockholm and I had a priest (one from the Vatican in his full black silk robes and hat ensemble) sitting next to me and I just kept inwardly laughing at reading a book with sex scenes with an archangel in it while sitting next to a priest! Even though it wasn't that sort of archangel. My own experience with having read romance novels in the 1970s/80s/90s was for all those decades you had the alpha hero as the norm and the all encompassing standard in both contemporary and historical romance novels. Then in the 90s people began to question the alpha hero and there was a movement away from them and they became less acceptable, especially in contemporary romances. They continued on a bit longer in historical romances because people would use stereotypes about history and womens' supposed lack of agency in history to justify the role but eventually even in historicals there was a movement away from them. However, some people despite all this just really liked the dynamic of the alpha hero in romance novels. And that is when paranormal romance became popular with vampires and werewolves and angels because here was a scenario where the alpha hero could sneak back in. It was no longer acceptable for a human hero to be an alpha asshole but an inhuman hero...especially one that was hundreds or thousands of years old, well of course there was going to be that dynamic when they encountered a 23 year old mortal female. But even then the alpha hero was hard to sustain indefinitely in the face of criticism against it and as romance shifted away even from that, that is when erotica, or at least much more graphic sex scenes than had been the norm in the past, really took off in romance. Of course, I am generalizing, there was and are always exceptions to this. But that was the general trend I witnessed. As for my own current reading...I guess I have been on somewhat of an UF reading kick. I read and enjoyed the latest Peter Grant, as mentioned above. Then I read two novels by former YA authors that were billed as Adult Fantasy but really made quite a lot of their locations which were integral to the stories so I think they qualify more as UF than just pure Fantasy. Chosen Ones by Veronica Roth which takes place in two alternative Chicago's had an interesting premise - what happens to the chosen ones after the big bad has been defeated and they have to go one leading "normal" lives again? But it ultimately went a different direction and was somewhat dissatisfying. Then Crescent City by Sarah J. Maas takes place in a purely fictional location but the city was pretty well detailed and an integral part of the story. I'd put it more in the Paranormal Romance/Urban Fantasy category. I enjoyed this one a little more but wished it had been better. Then I read the first three Alex Versus books. I like the idea of the premise of the Alex Versus series. I really like the characters a lot. I like Alex - mage with a magic shop in London. I love Elementals and I love that they are in this world. But I could not love this series because of the actual storylines the characters are put through in each book. With each book I just wanted to read about Alex and Luna and then Anne - just in different stories. I really hate to compare books and try to enjoy them for themselves but I just could not stop comparing these to the Peter Grant books as much as I tried not to. And I just kept wishing they were more like the Peter Grant books. I might continue with the series someday but I think I am going to stop for now. And that was way more than I expected to post tonight!

Yes I like that too. I'm willing to pay $7.99 for an ebook that I am interested in reading. Just reluctant to pay it for the first in series when its unknown territory. But I will pay for the others if I enjoy this one.

Based on comments on this board I have been meaning to try the Alex Versus series but stubbornly waited several years until the first book in the series - the ebook kindle version - finally went on sale for $1.99 this week. It's still on sale if anyone else has been waiting to try this series. I've only just started it so no thoughts other than the beginning got me interested enough to continue.

The cover glows in the dark? Oh my! Thanks for sharing that tidbit. I must procure it for sure then once this is all over.

I just started that this week as well. I got a little tripped up with the back and forth of the first few chapters. I didn't notice at first the months kept flipping and it was a bit confusing! But now I've gotten it straightened out. I normally order the English hardcover but didn't do so on time before quarantine set in and decided I needed a treat so purchased the ebook for now. Hope to get the hardcover once this is all over as I love these covers so much and like to have a physical copy for the shelves.

On my cell phone I access this site through the internet browser, I don't use an app. I never have had any problem before until I got my new phone this week. Now every time I come to this site I get pop ups telling me my phone has been hacked or compromised. I don't get this on any other site I look at. It goes away if I go to another site.

Has anyone read the Jack Taylor series by Ken Bruen? I'm going to Galway for the first time next month and understand the series takes place there and thought it might be interesting to read a few. Otherwise if anyone has any recommendations for Galway or Dublin based mysteries, please suggest away!

And another deal! Not sure if anyone is interested in the Kindle deals of the mysteries that have been recommended here but today the first Donna Leon is on sale for $1.99. I'm picking this one up so I can finally start this series! (I think I have a paper copy but the font is so small!) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007SIV41G/ref=s9_acsd_hps_bw_c_x_4_w?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=merchandised-search-2&pf_rd_r=K8MD3BZ9W4SYK0KKVAAN&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=efbd074c-33ab-4b82-9b90-7265f897ce5d&pf_rd_i=11552285011

Speaking of Ann Cleeve's Shetland series, the 7th one, Cold Earth is a Kindle deal today for $2.99. https://www.amazon.com/Cold-Earth-Shetland-Mystery-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B01LXQR9US/ref=sr_1_6?crid=3A5NZPYVAGIN5&keywords=ann+cleeves+shetland+series&qid=1561923196&s=gateway&smid=AYA46IZIY6C51&sprefix=ann+clee%2Caps%2C154&sr=8-6