First glass of wine after Dry January, enjoying this wonderful 1990s movie version of Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband. So many good lines but the above is one of my favorites.

Chapter 16. So Lydgate, new doctor in town, is kindly invited to a dinner party by the Vincys, and he decides to insult another guest, Chichely, by stating that lawyer coroners are incompetent at their jobs, then doubles down and insults post-morten medical examiners, too? Does anyone else think that is a little rude and not the best way to ingratiate yourself in a new town, LOL?

Listened on audio on a road trip, and it kept me alert! Police officer Nap Dumas never got over the mysterious death of his twin brother and the disappearance of his high school girlfriend. He begins investigating 15 years later when a crime scene with his old girlfriend's prints pops up. It's a good mystery, although I wasn't crazy about how they had the voice actor do intense scenes.

I read this in two days while recovering from a cold on the couch. It is a cute rom-com with lots of laughs about a private security agent who heads up a job protecting a movie star while he is in town. Highly recommend for a quick read.

Just started this book, but it is already making me laugh out loud. Forget "It's not you, it's me." This girl's boyfriend just straight up tells her the problem is her: she is a workaholic, not fun, and a bad kisser. ?

I read this entire book and still have no idea why it is called Her Deadly Secrets. It's a pretty good murder mystery, and the main characters, a PI and the private security guy who is hired to protect her after her colleague is murdered while they are working on a case, are likeable.

Best book I have read all year. Haunting mystery about detectives investigating the murder of a young girl, which may or may not be related to the disappearance of two children in the same area 20 years ago. This novel is elevated from genre fiction by fresh, arresting imagery and descriptions and depth of the characters. It follows the development, and later gut wrenching dissolution, of the friendship between detectives Rob and Cassie. ⬇️

#jolabokaflodswap @MaleficentBookDragon @julieclair
Wow! I am so excited to read this scary sounding book and binge on chocolate! Might have to share with my coworkers. Thank you, Julie! The wrapping paper was beautiful, too.

This author has such a way with words. I love the description of a little kid who has an adult face as "bansai adult" with a voice like a heavy smoker. So funny! Loving the descriptive language in this book.

Kalter Kartoffelsalat! Very simple recipe where you soak the already cooked potatoes and raw onions in boiling water from cooking the potatoes for a couple of hours to make it creamy. Tagged book is not this cookbook as it isn't in the database. #foodandlit #germany

I can't remember if we are supposed to post when we receive our package, but I got mine on the 13th and can't wait to open it!!! #jolabokaflodswap @MaleficentBookDragon @julieclair

Compelling, dark German thriller with no comic relief. This is the kind of story that makes me take a long look at my life and seriously assess how many weapons I can carry on my person without being crazy. ? Because you might just get kidnapped by a psychopath and drug off to be his bunker wife to replace the last kidnapped wife. The story is told in first person by the "wife" who escaped, the father of the first ⬇️

I bought this because it's a spinoff of the Blood and Ash series, which I mostly like, but it is not nearly as good. The plot barely crawls forward in this long novel mostly made up of Sera agonizing over loves me, loves me not. Dialogue is often juvenile, the editing is poor, the magic BS is unbelievable, and everything is driven by prophesies, which I tend to think is lazy writing. Blood and Ash has some of these same problems but much less so.

Interesting as it's set shortly after the Berlin wall came down and feaures a Stasi officer grappling with being newly unemployed and looked down upon, but it's just too slow moving and boring. Above is the Trabi Museum in Berlin, where you can see and even test drive the unreliable Trabant, which was about the only car available in East Germany. They broke down all the time but people grew very attached to them!

Great origin story for a detective series, and I plan to read more. Aloysius Archer has just gotten out of prison because he is an idiot who loses his sense when a pretty woman is nice to him. He then quickly stumbles upon some shady dealings and murders in the small town he has been placed in to serve parole and helps solve the crimes. But because he is still an idiot, he ends up a suspect.

Two strange women running from something exchange tickets and identities in an airport. It is suspenseful. But Clark tries so hard to convince us to empathize with Eva by trying to convince us she felt she had no other choice than to choose an unethical life of crime (sounds dramatic but trying not to spoil it) that it is off-putting. It is total BS that she had no other options, and she would have been more sympathetic if she had just been ⬇️

#jolabokaflodswap @MaleficentBookDragon
Sent out a package of local chocolates and a book today! #jolabokaflod

Zara is that obnoxious acquaintance who brags so loudly in mixed company about her sexual exploits that you suspect she actually never gets laid, but she grows on you. There are some very funny parts about absurd levels of competitive matchmaking by families as Zara tried to avoid any commitment at all, but the overall cheesiness of this rom-com made it a so-so for me. There is even a desperate airport love scene 🤢. #foodandlit #india

All the teenage butthurt drama you can handle, set in someone's idea of university life that includes zero security presence so people can just fistfight in the cafeteria and harass their ex's on the sidewalk freely. The stakes are will Abby choose the nice rich guy or the bad boy (we know he is bad because he has tattoos 🤣)? Who cares? Still gets a so-so as Abby is well written even though the others are pure stock characters.

Has anyone read this book and can advise if I should bail? The writing isn't bad but the university world McGuire creates reads like what a virginal HS senior might fantasize that college is like. For some reason, I thought this was a thriller. Does it get better? College courses are not called merely "history," McGuire, and freshman in college do not go to bars unless they have very good fake IDs. It's weird.

A day late for #india #foodandlit but wanted to share this horrifying, cringey moment when MC Zara's dad presents some random young man for inspection at a wedding celebration. I realize you get used to the culture you are brought up in, but if I had experienced 1/100th of the pressure to marry from my family as the people in this book, I would have moved across the country upon turning 18 and never come back. So much meddling!

I tried to find things to like about this book because the premise is interesting: a rich family is thrown into chaos when their Ivy League college student son is accused of rape. But the story is slow moving and even the trial is not very suspenseful. Most of what we know about the characters comes from uninteresting memories of the unreliable narrator. The book is as much about the narrator's illicit affair with a married man that started ⏬

REVIEWING OUTER PERIMETER NOT FIRST EVIDENCE. There are scary aliens in this book, but mostly it reads like a very long and boring X-Files movie. But that is not why I bailed. This author sets the story in SW OR but apparently thinks the weather there is like NE WA. Nope, you do not get subzero temps there unless maybe you are standing on top of a mountain. Worse, he writes about a character with a cat and has clearly never owned a cat. It's as ⏬

I am three chapters in. Has anyone read this? Are we SUPPOSED to hate the narrator? She is a rich phD student who drives like a maniac in her ridiculously expensive car because she can afford the tickets--but, she also shows skin and flirts, almost to the point of offering sex, to get out of tickets. This after looking down on another girl who "plays down her attractiveness . . . as if there's virtue in looking dowdy." Yuck.

This book is labelled a thriller. A CIA agent becomes obsessed with meeting a celebrity widow because he wants to "protect" her and lies about who he is and what his intentions are to get to know her. Stalker thriller, right? Wrong. When she discovers his deceit, she finds it charming and falls madly in love with this man she feels so safe with. ? Also, the prose flows like a grocery list. Perhaps her other books are better, but I won't find out.

To be clear, I am a nerd. But my nerdism does not encompass enthusiasm for cartography. I just cannot care about the drama of Nell, passionate but disgraced (a map scandal!) historic map expert, not even when a murder mystery possibly involving an old highway map is involved. If I am going to follow the adventures of New Yorkers with nerdy jobs, I far prefer Notary Publix! https://youtu.be/LncpjIzsnww

Very well-written crime thriller. I can't wait to read more from Coben, who is more skillful than most in this genre. The main character is a privileged, entitled, old-money a$$hole but somehow likeable as he has no illusions about deserving his status. The idea of super-rich equals celebrity is sometimes over the top ("you probably read about that" "yes THAT so-and-so" and such), but overall very good with lots of funny.

I just started this book and don't know this character's name or gender. They might be a criminal based on the genre. But I like them already! I live near a major March Madness school and just don't get it. It isn't like the players are even local people, but the city goes nuts! Most aren't even alumni!

Bert receives a strange letter in Italian telling her she is the sole living heir to a family estate in Italy. She then learns that her grandfather's family was reviled and feared by the townsfolk near their castle. Then a pushy lawyer accosts her and in moments convinces this grown woman and her husband to get on a private jet immediately to Italy. They don't have passports, and he magically produces some. Who would trust that? Unbelievable.

This is the love story between Dani O'Malley and Ryodan, added on to what was the end of the Mac Lane series for what reason I don't know. Problems: Dani became intellectually mature before being emotionally mature, which makes for some seriously cringey (although I admit sadly relatable) scenes. Also, f&#k Ryodan, the powerful, manipulative, ruthless, absurdly rich guy that Dani inexplicably puts up with. More romance than fantasy, sadly.

In McTeague, Norris shows us exactly how base human nature can be when people are put under pressure. In Blix, he shows how good life can be when humans live in the moment and let go of trying to be the coolest person in their set. Travis (Blix), at 19, calmly decides she is through with the petty, artificial group she runs with and from now on will do what she likes, experience what she likes, within the bounds of being a good person. She dumps⏬

Ladies, what would you do to a bossy, secretive, manipulative man who told you to "clarify your emotions" and tried to "correct" your sense of who you were angry with?! I still like the book and the series, but seriously, Moning! Enough with strong women characters letting men get away with this BS.

Enjoying a lazy Friday off while the rain patters outside. I have found a new excuse to eat my mug cake more often--I decided to package it as a dry mix for holiday gifts and of course that necessitates experimenting with variations! I like this book but it has problems. There is a definite patriarchal, old powerful man knows best for the females in his life theme that really raises my hackles. This author tends to lapse into that.

So far, this seems like a very pleasant story about two young people learning who they are and how much better life is when you put aside pretenses and societal expectations and just be yourself. However, because it is Frank Norris, also author of the brilliant but extremely brutal Naturalist novel McTeague, I can't just enjoy the nice stuff because I am waiting for acts of depravity to mess it all up. 🤣 It is a weird dread.

Norris had such a great ability to introduce characters briefly but with powerful descriptions. This quote made me choke on my coffee. ? I also love this sentence: "Asked as to his birthplace--for no Californian assumes that his neighbor is born in the State--Condy was wont to reply that he was "brawn 'n' rais" in Chicago; "but," he always added, "I couldn't help that, you know.""

Wow, Salman Rushdie, parricidal thoughts from a young child just eight pages in! Love it!

Really good! Very suspenseful and surprisingly poignant. My version also had a wonderful forward by the author talking about how he got started writing the series, including the inspiration for the name Jack Reacher, which was funny and interesting.

I made it over halfway through and might finish this sometime. It is scary and generally well written. The problem is that there are a lot of near escapes where the victim (boy kidnapped by monster) almost gets away but doesn't quite, or where the protagonist (boy's mom, Vic) almost has a win, and that constant suspense and failure is a bit fatiguing on the reader. I put it down when Vic is lured in by one of the bad guys at a time when she ⏬

Sneaking in some quiet reading time on the rooftop garden patio on my hotel. Such a lovely place to read such a violent book. Liking this better than the TV show so far, not that the show isn't good, but the book gives a lot more insight that can't be shown on TV.

Maybe this book gets better, but I can't get into it. Some of the literary references come off as pretentious, especially since at least one early on (comparing Mariana and her dad to Petruchio and Kate) doesn't even make sense. Also, I am pretty sure the murderer has multiple personality disorder. Really, that old trope that is either extremely rare or non-existent in reality? Bailing now.

My German isn't near good enough to read the Deutsche version. I just like the cover better. Good, quick fantasy read about the distant cousin of the queen who survives a massacre by her cousin of all the other members of their family. She goes into hiding and joins a gladiator troupe but wonders if she should be doing something to help her country, which has been taken over by a murderer hellbent on war.

This was a good installment in Child's Jack Reacher series. It involves a Montana militia terrorist group and is probably more realistic than I am comfortable with. Badass female protagonist in this one, too, and some of it is from her viewpoint.

I laughed so hard at this spot-on description of a cheap government building "boardroom." Reminded me of a public university leased building I worked in that seriously still had knobs in the offices labeled "Muzak." Why remodel if the building isn't actually falling down? ?

This is the last book in the Mackayla Lane series, and it is the best. Our flawed, hopelessly self-absorbed, often slow-on-the-uptake, but very realistic heroine finally gains some emotional maturity and gets herself together to do her part to save the world. Other beloved characters exhibit some real growth here as well, especially Dani and Ryodan. I loved this apocalyptic fantasy series overall and will be reading it again.

Texts between Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester. If you haven't read this, do check it out. It is one of the funniest literary jokes I have ever seen. https://www.thehairpin.com/2012/07/texts-from-jane-eyre/ #pemberlittens

I know I am way behind #pemberlittens, sorry! Rochester is dark and sexy and all, but can we also agree he is a serious a$$hole? For months, he tried to inspire jealousy and affection in Jane by forcing her to witness him flirting with Blanche, then toys with her by telling her she has to leave her position as he is getting married. He only has the courage to declare his own feelings when he has cruelly bullied her into revealing her own. Jerk!

I enjoyed Bringing Down the Duke but was disappointed in this novel in the same series. It aims to be a feminist love story, but it is more a silly romance. The book starts with a preposterous scene orchestrated by a stranger with a bad rep, Mr. Blackstone, to put Harriet, an heiress, into a compromising position that will force her father to marry her to him. It isn't all that compromising, but Harriet just goes along with the plan. ⏬

So I am here in Bath and thinking the English are very serious about their shrubbery. These shrub balls at my lodging just make me think of Sir Elliot. I am not sure I like the idea of my shubberies being approachable! Also, to me, these look like Critters or the pods full of babies in Aliens. #pemberlittens

Did I pick up some random book that is part of a series I have never heard of just because it is fantasy genre and the protagonist's name is Stephanie? Yes, yes I did. 🤣 The author, with a real hazy, vague understanding of how gene splicing works, creates a world full of genetically modified people. This appears to be about two painfully awkward, genetically enhanced weirdos finding love. Unfortunately, the writing of the action is a bit too ⏬

Turns out if you select a book based purely on "Ooh, Persephone and Psyche, I like those stories!" you might end up with a surprise. For a steamy love story, it's great. For a fleshed out fantasy based on elements of mythology, not so much, which is too bad because the premise is interesting: What if Olympus was a protected city ruled not by gods but rich a$$hole humans? After this intriguing intro, our heroes meet and bond over a shared love of ⏬