Meh

Brought The Pleasures of Men (Kate Williams) to the beach on Friday (birthday beach day!) but never got around to reading it - too busy chatting with T and zoning out in the sun with some Collie Buddz on, lol. And it's a pretty heavy book for a paperback, so I wish I hadn't been lugging it around.

Especially since when I finally started reading it on Saturday it was pretty bad. The plot (serial killer in early Victorian London) was predictable but confusing at the same time, if that makes any sense, and mostly - sweet baby Jesus, the editing was TERRIBLE. Apparently it's a Penguin branch - they should be ASHAMED of themselves. Just awful typos everywhere. I wouldn't turn in a term paper that bad, so for it to be a published book??

I had been saving it for the beach because I thought, as soon as I saw the cover (I had requested it from the library based on some review somewhere) that it was going to be an easy, trashy read, and, well, it was that...

Knocked another one off the pile

The Law of Angels Cassandra Clark

Okay, the cover is God-awful, but I checked the book out from the library, so I didn't see it...and nobody saw me reading it, lol.

The book was fine; I think it's the third in the series (and the third that I've read), and it's getting a little boring. But it passed the time.And now I am only in the middle of four books, yay!!!

More books, Pt. 2

Can NOT say the same (see Kate Morton entry, below) for the latest Tasha Alexander "Lady Emily" mystery, Dangerous to Know.  I think I picked up the first book in the series, And Only to Deceive) used or something, cheap paperback for sure, maybe before a trip?  And I enjoyed it; not the most original or brilliant book, but I liked it, and it was fun, in that "independent before her (Victorian) time" genre.  I know I read the second and third ones, but I don't really remember them; I guess they were fine enough, though, because as I recall (and as I could check in this blog, I think - go, online record keeping!) I was kind of itching to get the fourth in the series, Tears of Pearl, when it came out.  Also don't remember much about what I thought of it, except that I knew the next book would be demoted to a lower-anticipation-level.  And now I'm done.  This most recent book was a fine, if workman-like affair, but I'm over it.  Neither the characters nor the plot really held me at all, and while I wouldn't say I will never read another book starring Lady Emily and Colin,  I have no desire to seek the next one out.


The other book I got at the same time, and another entry in a series I've enjoyed in the past, fared better - A Stranger in Mayfair, by Charles Finch.   I liked the other three books in the series; again, nothing super new here, I am sure there is a massive library of Victorian gentleman / amateur detective books, but there are several nicely delineated characters, in addition to the hero, and I appreciated that they were all developed over the course of the series.  My issue with this book is that it was just so f***ing obvious from very early on who the killer was, so it was a little boring as far as the mystery.  And while there were some momentous (and gratifying) events in the main characters' lives, no significant character development.  But it was a fun read - I started it a little before 5:00 a.m. this moring, before going to bed, and then read it on and off (mostly on) throughout the rest of the day, finishing around 4:00 p.m. (it's a slim volume, obviously).  Good for a not hungover, but sleepy, kinda cold, under the covers sort of day.  And no gratuitous sex, thank God, so I may recommend it to my dad - I gave him the first two books to read when I finished them (I had bought them; this one and the last I got from the library.)
And....that's it.  That's what I've been reading the last week and a half or so.  I think - can't think of anything else I might have missed, anyhow.  I've been super busy with work, both jobs, so I imagine that's all of them.