Double-Stacked Bookshelves

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill @ Breaking the Spine that allows bloggers to highlight releases they are eagerly awaiting. Here's what I'm looking forward to: Title:  Skin of the Wolf Author:  Sam Cabot Publication Date:  July 31, 2014 Page Count:  384 pages Summary via Goodreads In Sam Cabot’s exhilarating new novel, a vicious murder in Sotheby’s begins a series of inexplicable events surrounding an Iroquois ritual mask—and a secret that could unleash the most terrifying chaos and destruction the world has ever seen. Father Thomas Kelly, art historian Livia Pietro, and scholar Spencer George shared shocking, life-changing events in Blood of the Lamb; in that thriller, Father Kelly learned of the existence of the Noantri—a community of vampires—and that Livia and Spencer were among them. Now, a year later, all three are together again in New York City where Livia is attending a conference on Native American art. But when S...

Having spent time living in Scotland, I've been reading some of the contemporary authors that have been products of that beautiful land.  One of my favorites, who I discovered in a random charity shop in Edinburgh, is Christopher Brookmyre who is a wonderful political/crime/whodunit writer.  Another well-known contemporary Edinburgh writer is Ian Rankin , whose books are along the same lines as Brookmyre's.  His Detective Rebus novels have even garnered a television show .  In addition to these two writers, there is Kate Atkinson .  Now, I have never read anything by Atkinson, though she's prevalent on my To-Read list because her novels always sound so interesting, but I ran across an inexpensive used copy of one of her books recently and thought I'd give it a try. Kate Atkinson's Case Histories was an interesting read.  Not bad...not great...just interesting.  The novel covers a time span of thirty years and three separate cold cases.  Somehow...

Claude Izner's Murder on the Eiffel Tower is TERRIBLE!!!  If you pass one book over during this holiday season, make sure it's this one.  Oh man.  So bad! I borrowed this book from a friend last week and it sounded promising.  She said it was different, had an odd voice to it, and that she was waiting to make up her mind about it.  That should have been a sign.  Alas, I read the whole thing...and feel like I've lost a few braincells while doing so. The novel follows a group of middle to high class individuals through Paris during the 1889 World Exposition Fair (the one where the Eiffel Tower was unveiled).  What follows is a case of whodunnit.  There is a murder...and then another...and another...and another...yet they are all chalked up to the work of killer bees by the police.  What?!  Unless you are a character from NBC's Grimm , this is simply not plausible.  Victor Legris, a bookseller, is present at the first murder and s...

Having just finished Janet Evanovich's Smokin' Seventeen I have to say that I was disappointed.  Yes, it's better than the last book in the Stephanie Plum series, but they've just gone downhill for the past seven or eight books.  I hate to say that because I loved the first few, but after a while you just have to make a decision.  The love triangle is getting old, the skips all sound the same, the characters don't evolve.  It's monotonous! This book finds Stephanie, yet again, attempting to catch skips with her sidekick Lula, going back and forth between cop Morelli and security system designer Ranger, and being hunted down by a couple of people who want her dead.  It's entertaining at times (mainly when Lula is involved) and has some good scenes sprinkled throughout, but overall it's rather hum-drum.  The book does end on a nice cliffhanger that leaves the reader wondering who she is going to take with her on vacation and hints at a final decision ma...

I just finished reading Randy Susan Meyers' The Murderer's Daughters for one of the book clubs I'm involved in.  This was our June pick, though we had to extend it to July due to everyone having such a packed month and being unable to finish it.  I was happy when this book was chosen because it's been on my To Read list for awhile and I just hadn't gotten around to actually reading it. As the title suggests, the story follows the lives of Lulu and Merry, the daughter's of a murderer who just happened to kill their mother and tried to kill Merry and himself while at it, and spans thirty years of their lives.  As would be expected, their lives are anything but normal.  Immediately after the murder, their father is thrown in jail and the girls go to live with their maternal grandmother.  When she dies they are foisted onto their mother's sister and her husband only to be shoveled out to an orphanage quite quickly.  They experience several disturbing situati...