I liked Woman with a Secret. I’ve read all of the Zailer/Waterhouse detective series (this book is #9), but other than Little Face (still one of the most terrifying books I’ve ever read), I haven’t loved any of them, and the last couple were pretty terrible. Woman with a Secret felt like a huge improvement. Hannah knows how to write a book that you can’t put down, but she doesn’t always know how to write a mystery that is both realistic and hard to for the reader to solve. Too often I’ve […]
The Damage We’ve Done, and the Worse Things that We’ll Do
I’ve been on a streak lately of reading a lot of books that I really don’t have strong feelings about. They’re not unenjoyable, but they’re not super great, either. O is for Outlaw fits right in. I enjoyed reading it, but I didn’t tear through it and I wasn’t sorry it was over. It’s another in the Alphabet Mysteries series, revolving around private detective Kinsey Millhone. This one is slightly different from the others, in that she’s not investigating a case for work but a mystery in […]
M is for Meh
I decided to read J is for Judgment last week when I was flying home from a business trip. It was late, and I wanted something I wouldn’t have to think about much. I used to be a big fan of this series, and I couldn’t remember whether I’d ever read this one before or not. If you’re not familiar with Sue Grafton’s Alphabet Mysteries, they follow a private investigator, Kinsey Millhone. They’re fairly standard in this genre–Kinsey is single, quirky, brave, and resourceful. She had […]
It’s a Long, Long Way to Tipperary
I’ve honestly never had the slightest interest in World War I, and yet somehow I managed to read two books about it in a row. Maisie Dobbs is a servant who spends her evenings sneaking into her master’s library to read. When she’s discovered, the lady of the house decides that Maisie’s intelligence is worth nurturing, and so she sponsors her education. Everything’s going along swimmingly for Maisie, until World War I starts and she decides to leave university to become a nurse. She goes to […]
These First Few Desperate Hours
It’s 1918, and the mill town of Commonwealth has shut itself off from the world as Spanish flu spreads. Armed men guard the town day and night to keep outsiders who may be contagious away. When two soldiers from a nearby base try to come in, all hell breaks loose. The main character is a teenage boy named Phillip, son of the town founder, and unable to enlist because of a leg injury. Phillip is on guard duty with his friend Graham when the first soldier arrives, […]
The Wide Brown Land
“This is a country that is at once staggeringly empty and yet packed with stuff. Interesting stuff, ancient stuff, stuff not readily explained. Stuff yet to be found.” Every time I read this book it reawakens in me a longing to visit Australia. I want to see literally every place Bill Bryson visits. I can’t get enough information about the animals and plants (whenever I reread it, my Google search history is full of tingle trees, potoroos, cassowaries, and box jellyfish). What is it like to ride […]