We Three Queens by Rhys Bowen

Hello everyone.  I hope you are having a great day.

If you are in the United States you are likely preparing for Thanksgiving.  Is it me or are you seeing a lot of people making lasagna?  I used to see it at Christmas, but this year the dish seems to have turned up early.  It makes sense.  People have guests and they want something that can feed a crowd and be made ahead.  Not knowing if my niece and nephew would eat ricotta cheese, I made huge trays of baked ziti for nights before a holiday.  Of course, hubby probably likes the ziti better as I don't mess with the lasagna noodles.  I refuse to use the no-bake kind.  I want to know how much moisture will be in my final dish without having to guesstimate how much the pasta will soak up.  Anyway, it is always traumatic with the cooked noodles, I put them on an oiled cookie sheet to cool down and insure they don't stick together.  Only problem is then they are slippery.  Noodles hanging from any part of my body, including my head is not outside the realm of possibility.  The walls are definitely in danger, if not from them squirming out of my hand but from me chucking pasta at the walls out of frustration. Ah, nothing like the holidays.  You should see me when the cookie scoop gets stuck!  On a brighter, less housewifey note, hubby has been reading up a storm, more than me actually.  Here are his thoughts on a series he is totally into.

I recently read We Three Queens by Rhys Bowen. This 1936 historic fiction tells the story of a couple, Georgie and Darcy, tasked with hiding Wallis Simpson in their home.  Darcy is friends with King Edward and has been asked to house Wallis while Edward figures out what to do about their scandalous love.  The problem is, Georgie and Darcy do not own their home.  The owner of their "estate" decided to participate in the making of a movie about Henry the Eighth and Anne Boleyn and a film crew now rambles about the grounds.  Keeping Wallis hidden is getting to be quite the trick, especially combined with Georgie and Darcy caring for their newborn.  Difficult enough? Nope.  One of the film crew is murdered on the grounds, adding a whodunit to the mix. Chaos ensues.

Once again, Georgie, the star of Bowen's Royal Spyness series, weaves her way through a colorful cast of characters. The pacing was good, along with an atmosphere that allowed you to feel the foggy November chill as you flipped the pages. This installment of the series works well as a stand-alone or an additional volume following Georgie. Highly enjoyable. 

Many thanks to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing for the early peek.

Our Woman in Moscow by Beatriz Williams

Hello everyone.  I hope you are having a great day.

Well, the elections here are over.  While not discussing the outcome, I could not be happier that the process has ended.  Last time we met, I chronicled the depth of my family being literally harassed by both sides of our political system.  On the last day before voting, we received 35 phone calls.  Yes, you read that correctly, THIRTY-FIVE phone calls, and that is just on the land line.  Then there were the cell calls and endless texts. The night into morning of the election...we received a text from a presidential campaign at 3:45 in the morning.  It was telling us to get up that the polls here opened at 6.  Talk about intrusive and presumptuous.  Next, we received texts repeatedly throughout the day, again from a presidential campaign, with our name, address, polling place, and hours.  Wanting to know when we were going to vote.  Would we be walking, driving, or carpooling?  Could we bring a friend? Before you say it, yes, I know this is public record but the fact they a party would look it up and coordinate it with my cell phone is just poking their nose in my business.  Then we received one of those letters in the mail that you likely saw on the news.  It had our name, address (obviously since it was mail), and those of our neighbors, and which elections we voted in and those we didn't and the same voting record for our neighbors.  It then threatened to tell them our record if we didn't vote and tell our friends and family.  Anybody that thought it was not threatening needs to learn to read.  It was like some movie with bumbling people running around, only sped up, with the phone constantly ringing on the land line, cell phone, texts, and mail flying up in the air.  Phew. To all of those in politics, I am an adult.  I am fully capable of making my own decisions.  I really don't need your party shoved down my throat.  Despite whom you preferred in the election, this behavior was coming from both sides.  Something needs to change. To be honest, my only escape has been reading, same with hubby.  He's been reading up a storm, including Beatriz Williams, one of his favorites.  He wants to recommend a book to you that will transport you away from your troubles.

I recently read Our Woman in Moscow by Beatriz Williams.  This is a story about loyalty, to country and to family. Ruth is working in a fashion house in New York.  She receives a postcard from her sister, Iris.  Iris is decidedly cheerful, unusual since the last time they spoke, many years ago, they had a falling out.  Making things more suspicious, Iris and family, including American diplomate husband, are in Russia. Alarm bells start going off for Ruth, as she realizes something is very wrong.  Ruth soon finds herself posing as the wife of Sumner Fox, a counterintelligence officer in an effort to get behind the iron curtain and into Moscow to save her sister.

This book is high on character development and, of course, plot.  Well-paced and as you might suspect given the topic, there is lots of suspense.  Interesting and enjoyable throughout, we are rewarded with a satisfying end.  If you like spy thrillers, definitely worth your time.

Like Mother, Like Mother by Susan Rieger

Hello everyone.  I hope you are well.

Everybody should be able to be proud of their country.  Certainly, we all disagree with things our country does, or its policies.  Rightfully so, those disagreements make us think, ponder, and wonder if there could be a better way.  We grow as a species because of learning from each other, nicely not with violence.  That being said, right now it is agony being in the United States.  Now before you Americans get on your soap box telling me if I don't like it to get out, put on your big girl panties and hold on. I am talking about our upcoming Presidential election.  If you live in Europe, Asia, Canada...anywhere else...kiss your phone and computer for me.  I am being driven MAD, yes mad I tell you, because of political ads. We are the only remaining house with a land line phone, political parties call it repeatedly...the phone is ringing at this very moment.  Not politics this time, someone trying to get my Medicare card information to steal.  You can't get Medicare until you are in your mid 60's of which I am not.  Anyway, now not only are they calling the one land line in existence in the entire United States (the rest probably cancelled due to telemarketing calls)...now they are calling our cell phone!  Not only calls but endless texts. I try my best not to comment on politics, to be honest, it isn't fun like books. I just can't stand it anymore!  I can't read because of all the dag gum calls!!!  Last week, between telemarketing and political calls, we had 24 calls in one day.  TWENTY-FOUR. I swear to you I'm going to vote for Daffy Duck, just end it already.  Stop calling and texting me.  Don't get me started about YouTube ads, all politics and they won't let you skip them.  It is so bad I'm starting to look forward to the Walmart ad with the little claymation animals dancing to Le Freak by Chic (look it up, disco, 70's). Then there is all the stuff in the mail, so much I could wallpaper my bathroom (which might be where it all deserves to be).  Ugh, I need to calm down.  We need to talk about a book.

I recently read Like Mother, Like Mother by Susan Rieger.  This is a story about families.  Specifically, we follow Zelda, Lila and Grace.  Zelda is the grandmother who has an abusive husband. We learn about Zelda's past, including that her husband has had Zelda hauled off to an asylum. He tells their children the difficult news, later following up with the fact that she has died there. We also encounter Zelda's daughter, Lila, grown up and a woman with power.  She runs a major newspaper in Washington. Married to her work, Lila's children and husband suffer. Finally, we follow Lila's daughter Grace.  Grace resents her mother's career and the attention that it stole from her. There is a bit of a mystery that, once answered, really emphasizes the practices and traits that are passed down.  Are those actions repeated from generation to generation or purposefully changed?

I read books of all kinds but primarily thrillers.  Sadly, although my favorite to purchase and read, thriller stories become hard for me to remember.  Ultimately, most years my favorite book is not a thriller but something far more character driven.  Like Mother, Like Mother may be my favorite for the year.  The writing is wonderful, telling the story fully but without dwelling on the unnecessary. The characters, well, I don't think I'll ever forget them.  If you can finish this book without shedding sad and happy tears, then you have far more control than I do.  Enthralling from beginning to end, I loved every second.

Many, MANY, thanks to Random House and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.  You made my reading year!

We've also been getting final expense insurance calls (always fun), home improvement calls (I tell them I want to build a moat and fill it with sharks), and calls wanting to give me a legal referral for the car accident that they KNOW I've had in the last two years (I tell them I ran over a telemarketer).  To those that do the job of a telemarketer, I'm sorry, but the do not call list exists for a reason!  My sanity!

PS.  There are NO telemarketing calls in Like Mother, Like Mother.  Thankfully.

PPS.  I am laughing my butt off.  While waiting for hubby to read this and double check that I only messed up a few words (my usual), I got another telemarketing call. They wanted to know if I ever thought of writing and publishing a book.  They offered to do it through Amazon and could give me a $90,000 advance.  When I told them to send the contract to my attorney, they hung up.  Gosh, I wonder why!  Getting deep around here!

Middle of the Night by Riley Sager

Hello everyone. I hope your day has been fun.

A few years ago, we were driving to Florida. Naturally, I am an impatient traveler. What did you expect?    I think I begin asking the "Are we there yet?" question incessantly after being in the car for thirty minutes.  Don't get me wrong, I love exploring, driving around.  The highway, however, like 95, is a snoozefest once you can get over that whole "taking your life in your hands" part.  If you are not on the east coast, it is high on traffic and low on scenery. Obviously, the solution is to read.  Which I do, often in the car.  That's when it happened.  I made a huge mistake.  I read a few sentences to my husband.  That was all I intended, just the brief part that had some sort of importance to him.  Instead, he uttered that word I may now count as a curse word...."Continue."  He wanted me to read him my book, out loud.  All the way to Florida.  In case you don't know, that is like eleven hours from here. I relented since he was driving and ended up reading Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire. It is a wonderfully imaginative book, but if you read it out loud you will realize how many funky made-up names there are for things.  Names you must say over and over...AND OVER.  I personally blame Gregory Maguire for my inability to ever move to Spain.  I could never learn adequate Spanish as he broke my tongue, and I simply cannot roll a single "R."  So, years have passed, we were doing something around the house last week, and I made the same fatal mistake.  I read the beginning of the latest Riley Sager book out loud.  I was trying to illustrate how captivating he can be. Hubby agreed and uttered that word...."Continue."  Yesterday...well this morning at 1 AM I finished reading him the book.  Yes, 1 AM, he said he couldn't wait until this morning.

I recently read Middle of the Night by Riley Sager.  This is the story of Ethan Marsh, who moves back into his childhood home after his parents retire and move away. Ethan is having a difficult time sleeping.  Not only is he separated from his wife, whom he adores, but this is the thirty-year anniversary of the disappearance of Billy Barringer.  Ethan and Billy were best friends.  When they were ten, they were sleeping in a tent in Ethan's backyard.  Ethan awoke to find the tent slashed open and Billy gone.  As Ethan and the few neighbors that are left on Hemlock Circle try to go on with their lives, it is evident something is amiss.  Ethan needs to discover what happened to his best friend, Billy, and why.  Told in true Riley Sager form, most chapters end on a twist.  They alternate from the present and the day when Billy actually disappeared.  Both race to the end to reveal all, intersecting with several last-minute satisfying twists. My husband and I had so many theories, changing them almost daily.  Hubby did successfully guess a tiny piece of what happened but only after 340 of the 365 pages. Very fun and fast paced, exactly what Riley Sager lovers have come to expect.

To Riley Sager, more please, next time I'll read to myself!

The Helsinki Affair by Anna Pitoniak

Hello everyone. I hope you're having a great day.

We've been meeting this way for over five years now; we're getting close right? I feel like I must confide in you something extremely personal.  My husband and his friend "B" won World War II.  They played army in hubby's backyard.  Two little boys with those green plastic soldiers, the pooled pad attached to their feet, knowing both of them ...covered in dirt, trying to free those occupied by the Nazis.  Today, when they are on the phone, look out.  Talk of the past is flying by at lightning speed.  Everything was at one time a Caroll's Restaurant or some kind of obscure burger barn.  Every stop light on every single street (and they lived in a large beach city) is someone's corner, Edgar's corner, Bobby Sherman's corner, Romper Room's Corner. They know every owner and their house on their side of town, when it was painted, and when the trash cans are rolled to the curb.  If someone from the family worked in the garage on 17th Street...well, that was an extra hour of chat. One of the topics that frequently seems to come up is those darn little green men, soldiers, Martians would be more interesting.  I wonder if that is why hubby loves spy books so much.  He's grabbed a couple of mine.  Here is one he smuggled out of my tbr.

I recently read The Helsinki Affair by Anna Pitoniak. While the title evokes images of a snow ensconced covered landscape, this novel is not set entirely in Finland, however, and begins on a hot day in Rome. There, a nervous Russian Citizen tries to warn those within the U.S. Embassy about a pending event. The man’s information leads diplomat and spy Amanda to uncover a much larger global conspiracy.  She and her coworkers disguise, surveil, and deduce their way to the truth. But a name within a dead politician’s notes may lead Amanda to places she and her family don’t want to go.  

The story moves along, the characters are realistic, and there seems to be hazard at every turn. What more could a spy novel ask for?

Honestly, I try my best NOT to listen to hubby's conversations.  How many decades can one person hear about The Sea Shanty for?

Mrs. Claus and the Nightmare Before New Year's by Liz Ireland

Hello everyone.  I hope you're having a great day.

When we first met, my husband thought I was a little more, hmmm, how do I put it...upscale.  I was wearing a shirt that had a word on it followed by CC.  He thought it meant country club.  How posh!  Big surprise for him when he found out it meant community college, while a nice school, a far cry from posh.  We were engaged for several months before our wedding date.  During that time, we were able to go home to my parents in New York for Christmas.  As always, my parents went all out.  Presents were thigh high under the tree and that didn't count those from Santa.  Naturally, with all those gifts comes lots of gift-wrapping paper.  To think we behaved in a ladylike manner precisely, graciously, reservedly opening our gifts like posh people, was not to be.  That image pretty much dissolved when my dad dragged a full-size metal trash can up the stairs and into the center of the living room.  Yep, one of the smelly cans that sat out for the trash collection.  So much for the "country club set".  Funny thing is, we really did belong to a country club.  I took golf, tennis, and dance lessons there.  Oh well.

I recently read Mrs. Claus and the Nightmare Before New Year's by Liz Ireland. This is the story of April Claus, who is Santa's wife.  Santa is out delivering gifts when three strangers are found outside of Santaland.  They are lost in the frozen wilderness after being stranded during a scientific expedition.  One of the strangers is murdered while staying in Santaland. The reader is along for the ride as Mrs. Claus and cast solve the mystery.  The story is complicated as the Santaland residents don't want their existence to be discovered.  Everyone; elves, reindeer and talking snowmen, must pretend to be part of a normal Canadian town, hiding their true identities.

This book was lots of fun.  Loaded with charming characters and an easy to picture location, it is super creative.  This would make a great holiday read, definitely taking your stress level down while increasing your holiday spirit.  A win all the way around.

Many thanks to NetGalley and, the always kind and generous, Kensington Publishing for the advanced copy.  I'll never look at Santa the same way.

Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty

Hello everyone.  I hope you are having a great day.

When I was in college, I was five hundred miles away from my hometown.  Every time I went home, I had to fly.  Over a few years I was on 54 flights because of all the transfers.  Going through Dulles at Christmas, not that pleasant.  Tiny planes in turbulence will test the sticking power of even the most solid of lunches.  After school, I vowed to never fly again.  A promise I have happily kept.  My grandfather loved to fly, so much so he got his pilot's license.  Of course, my mother worried about her dad.  That amused him, so he used to fly 60 miles away just to get a cup of coffee.  Yeah, those two egged each other on.  My mother would call someone like that an "itch".  She didn't mean it in a derogatory way or what might have you thinking it was missing a letter.  It meant someone that tickles you...that gives you an itch...trying to stir up trouble...something funny.  She, of course, was the biggest "itch" of them all, something she got from her dad.  Phew, sure glad that wasn't passed down and I got the serious gene.  Queue my sisters laughing hysterically, pointing at the screen, screaming "liar!"

I recently read Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty.  This is the story of people who have a shared experience on an airplane. While not the typical turbulence, the occurrence is still memorable and for many passengers, troubling.  A woman, behaving as if in a trance, walks down the aisle telling each passenger how they will die and at what age.  Some, after learning they will live a long life and die of old age, are joyous.  Others, discovering they will die much sooner than expected, and in an undesirable manner, are terrified. This story follows these characters to see what happens after the flight and delves into the life of the woman giving the unusual predictions. 

I have read every book Liane Moriarty has written and have enjoyed them all, this is no different. For me, this ran a bit longer and drier than her norm, but that is likely a necessity of this elaborate story. My favorite Moriarty book is Truly Madly Guilty.  I also have a soft spot for Three Wishes, since my three sisters are triplets. While this latest offering does not unseat my favorites, you really can't go wrong with any of her books, Here One Moment included.  If you are a Moriarty lover, as I am, this will be an enjoyable and fun necessity.  

Many thanks to Crown Publishing and NetGalley for the advanced copy and feeding my Liane Moriarty addiction.