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What I have been reading
Nov. 13th, 2019 02:13 pmAnd I continue to work through my enormous backlog of books I have read...
Adame Nevill Last Days A maker of documentary movies is contracted to make a movie about a sect that committed mass suicide/murders in the early 1970s. Following their steps from London to a small village in France, to a desert in the USA, he slowly realises that there was much more to this cult, something very, very frightening. When I first read it I somehow missed this was a horror story and thought it would be more of a thriller. I like the trope of old mysteries being unraveled. So the supernatural aspects took me by surprise. I think it’s a good horror novel, and I enjoyed the unraveling of the history of the cult. Its weakest point is the ending, as it’s so often is with horror novels, but now so weak as to take away my enjoyment of the book.
D. M. Pulley The Dead Key A young architect is sent to survey a bank that was closed and locked very suddenly 20 years earlier. She very soon finds things which mystify her, and as she starts to dig in, some really strange things start to happen. In a series of throwbacks, we also get to follow a secretary at the bank the few months before it closes. I didn’t quite like the ending, but up until that, I found the book suspenseful and easy to read.
Shani Struthers Decension and Legion. I find Struther’s Psychic Surveys Books to be a bit like fast food. They are entertaining and easy to read, but I tend to forget what they were about later. Decension is about a haunted mental hospital, and Legion returns to the haunted house from the novella Blakemort.
Lois McMaster Bujold Penric’s Mission, Mira’s Last Dance, The Prisoner of Limnos, Penric’s Demon, Penric and the Shaman and Penric’s Fox. Bujold is one of those authors I constantly re-read, and I’ve read the Penric novellas many times before, which is why I didn't read them in order. The first, Penric’s Demon, is about a young man who accidentally contracts a very powerful demon and thus becomes a sorcerer. Not having been groomed for the position he approaches his demon in an unorthodox way; the first step is to name his demon. The novellas are fun, quite short, and are not written in chronological order.
Lois McMaster Bujold The Curse of Chalion The first book in the Five Gods Universe books, in which the novellas of Penric can be counted, and another one of my constant re-reads. A former soldier, Cazaril finds himself, rather unexpectedly, o be the tutor of the Roya’s (the king’s) young sister. The royal family has for several generations been followed by tragedy, and Cazaril eventually realises it’s because of a curse, and he commits to try to break it before the curse reaches the young princess.
Peter Robinson Before the Poison Robinson is probably best known for his Inspector Banks series, but this mystery book is a stand-alone novel. A man semi-retires to a big house in the countryside, a house he soon realises once was the home to a woman who was hanged for the murder of her husband. He very quickly starts to feel an affinity to this woman and starts to dig into what really happened 50 years earlier. I thought it was a good book, with a good mystery which took a couple of twists and turns I didn’t expect.
Gail Carriger Reticence. This is the fourth, and last, book in the Custard Protocol series. This one introduces a young female doctor to the crew of the Spotted Custard, and then they travel to Japan and get to find a missing secret agent. I always enjoy Carriger's books, and there is plenty of fun here too. But I have a feeling Carriger has grown a bit tired of this story, and the end felt a bit rushed, and a few lingering plotlines not completely wrapped up. But then there have already been a number of one-shot novella’s, so perhaps they will get special treatment eventually.
Adame Nevill Last Days A maker of documentary movies is contracted to make a movie about a sect that committed mass suicide/murders in the early 1970s. Following their steps from London to a small village in France, to a desert in the USA, he slowly realises that there was much more to this cult, something very, very frightening. When I first read it I somehow missed this was a horror story and thought it would be more of a thriller. I like the trope of old mysteries being unraveled. So the supernatural aspects took me by surprise. I think it’s a good horror novel, and I enjoyed the unraveling of the history of the cult. Its weakest point is the ending, as it’s so often is with horror novels, but now so weak as to take away my enjoyment of the book.
D. M. Pulley The Dead Key A young architect is sent to survey a bank that was closed and locked very suddenly 20 years earlier. She very soon finds things which mystify her, and as she starts to dig in, some really strange things start to happen. In a series of throwbacks, we also get to follow a secretary at the bank the few months before it closes. I didn’t quite like the ending, but up until that, I found the book suspenseful and easy to read.
Shani Struthers Decension and Legion. I find Struther’s Psychic Surveys Books to be a bit like fast food. They are entertaining and easy to read, but I tend to forget what they were about later. Decension is about a haunted mental hospital, and Legion returns to the haunted house from the novella Blakemort.
Lois McMaster Bujold Penric’s Mission, Mira’s Last Dance, The Prisoner of Limnos, Penric’s Demon, Penric and the Shaman and Penric’s Fox. Bujold is one of those authors I constantly re-read, and I’ve read the Penric novellas many times before, which is why I didn't read them in order. The first, Penric’s Demon, is about a young man who accidentally contracts a very powerful demon and thus becomes a sorcerer. Not having been groomed for the position he approaches his demon in an unorthodox way; the first step is to name his demon. The novellas are fun, quite short, and are not written in chronological order.
Lois McMaster Bujold The Curse of Chalion The first book in the Five Gods Universe books, in which the novellas of Penric can be counted, and another one of my constant re-reads. A former soldier, Cazaril finds himself, rather unexpectedly, o be the tutor of the Roya’s (the king’s) young sister. The royal family has for several generations been followed by tragedy, and Cazaril eventually realises it’s because of a curse, and he commits to try to break it before the curse reaches the young princess.
Peter Robinson Before the Poison Robinson is probably best known for his Inspector Banks series, but this mystery book is a stand-alone novel. A man semi-retires to a big house in the countryside, a house he soon realises once was the home to a woman who was hanged for the murder of her husband. He very quickly starts to feel an affinity to this woman and starts to dig into what really happened 50 years earlier. I thought it was a good book, with a good mystery which took a couple of twists and turns I didn’t expect.
Gail Carriger Reticence. This is the fourth, and last, book in the Custard Protocol series. This one introduces a young female doctor to the crew of the Spotted Custard, and then they travel to Japan and get to find a missing secret agent. I always enjoy Carriger's books, and there is plenty of fun here too. But I have a feeling Carriger has grown a bit tired of this story, and the end felt a bit rushed, and a few lingering plotlines not completely wrapped up. But then there have already been a number of one-shot novella’s, so perhaps they will get special treatment eventually.
