Total Books: 6 Total Pages: 1693 Longest: 378 Shortest: 193
Genres: 5 (Biography – 1, Historical Fiction – 1, Mystery – 2, Travel – 1, Thriller – 1)
Last month I read Cynthia Ellingsen’s The Lost Letters of Aisling and really enjoyed it, so I downloaded another by her to start off April.
A Play for Revenge is listed as a “Starlight Cove Novel” (meaning there are more….) and you may have guessed Starlight Cove is a small town. I’m telling you, from my reading this past year or so, small towns are dangerous! And here is another one apparently.
Recently divorced Lily returns to her hometown and becomes embroiled in a mystery from years before that someone is trying to keep that way. A little romance with an A-List actor during the summer season adds a different level to the danger. This was a fun, entertaining read, with plenty of suspense and twists. Guess that means I’ll be reading some more Starlight Cove novels in the future!
The 21st book in LJ Ross’s DCI Ryan book series, Death Rocks, was up next. These are set in Northumberland, England, and although the plots there are quite a bit darker than Starlight Cove’s “cozy mystery” genre, I really enjoy how Ross has developed the characters over the years. I also find myself going down the rabbit hole exploring Northumberland locations she describes on Google Maps and various websites. I really need to visit the area.
Following that I went back to Rhys Bowen, an author I found 4-5 years ago, with The Paris Assignment. Many of her historical fiction novels are set in Europe in WWII. The heroine of the novel undergoes many trials and tribulations and triumphs as an English woman married to a Frenchman when France is invaded. He joins the French Resistance and sends her and their young son to England to her parents for safety. Of course, England, especially London, wasn’t safe for very long.
Whenever I read a history or novel of these times, I always wonder what I would have done in those conditions and situations. I hope I would have the perseverance of the fictional Madeleine and the real-life heroines and heroes of that time.
The next book was by a new author for me, Rachel Hawkins. Her novel The Heiress wasn’t at all what I expected. My sister recommended it, so I was expecting something along the lines of a Daisy Goodwin novel. Instead, I noticed on Amazon after the fact, that Hawkins is described as “the reigning queen of the Gothic thriller”. The leading quote on Amazon is “There’s nothing as good as the rich gone bad!”. It is set in the current day, but with flashbacks, and I loved it, but was totally surprised that my sister liked it, too, as she doesn’t typically read books described as thrillers!
A Light Through the Cracks by Beth Rodden was my monthly biography/history selection. It is her memoir of overcoming the trauma of being kidnapped for several days while on a climbing expedition in Kyrgyzstan at age 20, escaping, and returning to conquer new fears. I have no experience with rock climbers (other than watching some from a distance on El Capitan in Yosemite) and found myself looking up terminology and learning more about this crazy (to me) sport as I read her book.
Her memoir is a reminder that we don’t always know what demons of the past someone is dealing with and the responses of those having the same experience can be and often are different. Although Yosemite is one of my favorite places in the world, I have no desire to try to climb El Cap and never did!
I closed out the month reviewing Explore ToWin’s Portugal Travel Guide: Explore the Country & Speak Portuguese Like a Local! (2024 – 2025) as we prepared to leave on our Portugal trip. I think I’ll stick to bom dia (good morning/day) and obrigado (thank you) as the extent of my Portuguese speaking.
Notes By Nancy 
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