The World's Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant, book #39

 

So, funny story about this book.  It caught my eye this summer and I added it to my list of possible books for our FHS Book Club, since it is not a "Christian" book.  Amazingly, everyone chose it to read for our second book!  I was thrilled, until .... I realized it is a new book so it was very pricey.  But no one seemed to mind so on I went.  

Then I started reading it and really, really loved it!  It was the type of book I thoroughly enjoyed, written in a funny, lighthearted style.  But the -- Yikes!  I realized all the other books we have read for that Book Club are NOT written in funny, lighthearted style!  And then I got afraid no one would like it and they would say mean stuff about it!  So, fingers crossed, maybe some people liked it! :)

Olivia Blunt is thrilled to be hired as assistant to the nationally renowned investigator Aubrey Merritt. She longs to become a valued contributor to the great detective’s work, but Merritt is a difficult, exacting boss, and the learning curve is steeper than she expected. After weeks of boring computer work, Olivia is finally invited to join Merritt on an important case. On the night of her sixty-fifth birthday party, Victoria Summersworth somehow fell over her balcony railing to her death on the rocky shore of Vermont’s Lake Champlain. She was a happy woman—rich, beloved, in love, and matriarch of the preeminent Summersworth family. The police ruled her death a suicide, but Victoria’s daughter Haley thinks it was murder. Merritt and Olivia soon discover that the Summersworth family is complicated web of lies, ambitions, and resentments. As the list of suspects grows, Olivia makes one apparent mistake after another. When she blunders into a truly dangerous situation, she realizes Merritt might be right: she might be in over her head with this whole detective thing…or she might be unravelling a mystery even bigger than the one they started with.  (picture and description at Amazon)

So now, finally, I get to start reading Christmas books!

O:)

Melissa

I'll Be Home for Christmas, book #38

 

So, finally a Christmas book ...

Back story ~ If you remember I like to read Christmas books in November and December, because there are so many good ones I want to read!  However, November started with me reading our Book Club book and then I learned that our Faculty Book Club would meet after Thanksgiving, and that book is not a Christmas book either!  So, I decided to sneak in a Christmas book in between the two.

I started reading one book I had gotten from the stash at my MILs house, however it was not only NOT a Christian book, I didn't get too far into it to realize this was NOT the type of book I wanted to read!  So for the first time in recorded history, I actually stopped reading the book and picked up another one.  

Ugh but this book was just a drag to read.  It is set in the mid-1940s during WWII and I don't know if it was the style or the long drawn out plot or what, but I feel like if this had been a shorter book there is a chance I would have liked it more.  Blech!  

With Bing Crosby's "I'll Be Home for Christmas" playing in the background, Maggie Culpepper and William Byrd proclaim their undying love to one another. But with the U.S. at war and Maggie's personal home front under attack, the Southern belle impetuously joins the WAVES (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service).  When Christmas draws near and Maggie finds herself miles and miles away from her Georgia hometown...and her beloved William...will she realize that, no matter where she spends Christmas, home is where her heart is? (picture and description at Amazon)

I have started the one for our other Book Club to finish it and then jump all in to Christmas books!

Have you read any good Christmas books lately?

Melissa

Candle in the Darkness, book #37

 

This book threw me for a doozy.  I've read SO MANY books on the Civil War ~ men/boys gone off to fight, women/slaves/children left at home, etc etc and they never really bothered me.  (Well, except for this one)  But for some reason this one really bothered me.  Poor Caroline was really caught in the middle of her passion and true love.  I wonder how many other women were in her shoes back then?

The daughter of a wealthy slave-holding family from Richmond, Virginia, Caroline Fletcher is raised to believe slavery is God-ordained and acceptable. But on awakening to its cruelty and injustice, her eyes are opened to the men and women who have cared tirelessly for her. At the same time, her father and her fiance, Charles St. John, are fighting for the Confederacy and their beloved way of life and traditions.  Where does Caroline's loyalty lie? Emboldened by her passion to make a difference and her growing faith, will she risk everything she holds dear? (picture and description at Amazon)

I am supposed to be jumping into my next book for the FHS Book Club, but I think I need to sneak a Christmas book in first :)  

Keep Reading

Melissa

Match Me if You Can, book #36

 

Usually I love all of my hometown girl Krista Phillips' books I have read, but this one did not live up to what I had hoped.  It *is* a novella, so I guess she had to pack a lot into less than 150 pages, but I think I might have liked it more if there was more room to flesh it out a little. Also, the premise of this series is absolutely ridiculous.

However, for the record, I was looking for a quick read to hold me over to November when I like to start reading Christmas books.  However also, I just learned that I guess the other people in the two book clubs I'm don't enjoy reading Christmas books in December, as they picked reguloar books.  So I'm just going to read them fast so I can get onto what I really want to read 😊

There is no way this matchmaking thing is going to work...Ava Raleigh is going to strangle her best friend. Conned into going on a trip to the Bahamas for "Matchmaking" Week, Ava determines to do everything she can to not be matched. Former NFL football player Sean Jackson is only on this trip because he loves his mother-nothing more. Sure, he feels guilty that some woman is paired with him and will be disappointed that he isn't interested-but that's bound to happen to most of the couples anyway, right? Will this unwilling match end up finding love after all, or will the past come back to haunt them both? (picture and description from Amazon)

It's almost Fa-La-La season!

Melissa