Cheryl's comments (member since Apr 02, 2009)

Cheryl's comments from the M/T Reading Friends group.

Hope everyone is ready to have a wonderful Thanksgiving. I'm a guest this year, and my contribution is a pumpkin cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory (complete with pecans and whipped cream.)

Welcome, Joyce.
You have joined a good group of people. Make room for the new pile of books particularly at the end of the month when we do a books read thread.

Leslie,
Hope you are having a wonderful birthday.

Jan,
Have a wonderful birthday!!

This is even more belated, Susie, but I am glad Dan and your son saved the day.
Make all of November a birthday celebration.

Have a great birthday, Dave.

Lorraine,
Hope you have a wonderful birthday!!

Only one really good book this month; the count was down due to Bouchercon. Reading conferences really do take away reading time.

Every Last Drop Charlie Huston. Wanted to catch up with this series before new one came out. I think I am glad that the next one is the end. This one seemed to lack a lot of his originality. 7.5

Sweetheart Chelsea Cain Not as good as the first. There is so much here that I find distasteful and unbelievable. 7

The Devil's Punchbowl Greg Iles. Audio. I probably would not have finished this if I were reading it. It was the book I listened to driving to Indy. Being an animal lover, the dog fighting scenes really disturbed me. 7

Evidence Jonathan Kellerman audio The book I listened to on the way home. Typical Kellerman. The whole family has signed up for LCC in LA. They do not usually come to the conferences so I am looking forward to that. 7.5

Some Buried Caesar Rex Stout Book read for Bcon. Nero Wolf leaves home!! 7.5

Heat Wave Richard Castle Light and fun if you like the TV series. 8

Blood Atonement Dan Waddell Best book of the month. Second in a series by a British author where a main character is a genealogist. It is different enough to be intriguing. 9

Plum Pudding Murder Joanne Fluke. Light reading; thankfully I still like the characters. And she definitely has the best recipes. 8

Frankly My Dear, I'm Dead Livia J. Washburn MC is running a literary tour of Gone With The Wind. The actor portraying Rhett Butler is killed. A nice cozy 8

The Mark by Jason Pinter - This debut novel featuring Henry Parker, a young, newly minted journalist thrust into the center of a murderous, corruption and organized crime melee was good enough to get me to look for more in the series, though I did feel that some of the plot was farfetched and reaching. Nevertheless, the writing was good and the book suspenseful. This book was offered free for the kindle and as such, offered enough of an incentive to get me to purchase future books. Many thanks to the author for this introduction.

I read this quite some time ago and Jason sent me an ARC of The Fury which came out this month. That is a real cliff hanger and is making me wait impatiently for the next in the series that comes out December 1.

Mary's comments about Bcon made an important point about conferences like this. The panels are great, you learn lots of interesting information and come in contact with new authors. I always end up with books I've never even heard of before.
But the most fun is the ability to chat in an informal atmosphere with people you've read and admired. I can get in Lee Child's signing line (at the end) and say I don't have a book for you to sign, but I wanted to say hello. He chatted a few minutes and then asked how my book was doing.
There's always that author like Brett Battles that you see everywhere you go. (Read his books; they're good) And I am the perfect example of a stalker that made good.From stalker to fan to friend in a little over a year isn't bad.

As far as I know the STORM books do not exist.

HEAT WAVE is supposedly the book that Castle is promoting on the TV series. (I wish I knew who wrote it.) His previous books are mentioned, but they won nonexistent awards and supposedly Castle killed off his hero in the last one. That is why he is shadowing Beckett and creating a new character.

Oh yes, I agree. I listen to them on audio also. I think the reader is Tony Roberts. I like the stories but I do get tired of his bedroom antics.

I like Stuart Woods books. They are usually quick reads.

Stone Barrington has a tendency to be oversexed. If it bothers you to have a main character jump into bed with anybody and everybody, I would avoid them.

One of the reasons given for this gimmick was to keep people here through Sunday morning. It was a decent idea, but it needs to be fine tuned.
I was told that they had a larger room scheduled, but another convention was coming in Sunday and took it over.
The bag of books usually contained books that I already had or wasn't interested in. I kind of liked being able to pick out what I wanted.

The Anthony award nominees are selected by the people who are attending
Bouchercon in the current year as well as those who attended the
previous year. The winners were announced yesterday:

Best Novel - The Brass Verdict by Michael Connelly

Best First Novel - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Best Paperback Original - State of the Onion by Julie Hyzy

Best Short Story - "A Sleep Not Unlike Death" by Sean Chercover

Best Critical Nonfiction Work - Anthony Boucher: A Biobibliography by
Jeffrey Mark

Best Children's / Young Adult Novel - The Crossroads by Chris
Grabenstein

Best Cover Art - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Peter Mendelsund by
Stieg Larsson

Special Service Award - Jon and Ruth Jordan

I described this experience as "going four wide" in a NASCAR race. Tom Schreck knew I had all of his books, but I told him I would take one for a friend. He personalized it and didn't take a ticket. Same with Rick Mofina with Six Seconds. When I said I already had it, he told me to give it to some for Christmas. I think some of the authors just wanted to get out of the mob.
My freebies were One Hot Mess Lois Greiman, Hardball Barbara D'Amato, Gold Digger, Vicki Delany, The Killing Way, Tony Hays and The Dead Don't Get Out Much by Mary Jane Maffini.

Bouchercon is winding down. I didn't get to many panels today. Long signing lines for Harlan Coben (who still remembers me) and Sue Grafton ran overtime. The panels were so crowded that there wasn't sitting room if you came in late.
I did go the first one of the morning The Cold Dead Hand of the Past with Sandra Parshall, Thomas H. Cook, Deborah Crombie, Jennifer McMahon and Dan Waddell.
I have mentioned Waddell before. I read his book The Blood Detective that uses a character that is a professional genealogist. It's one of my favorites of the year.
The buzz at the convention was for a book called Double Exposure by Michael Lister. Michael Connelly praised it during his interview.
I will probably post some last minute thoughts tomorrow as I am staying over and leaving Monday morning.

Gail said Again, thank you everyone! Maybe one of these days after Abby gets out of college I can attend BCon. I would so love to do that!

I don't how many years away that is. Bcon 2011 is in St. Louis and although it is not definite, it looks like 2012 might be in Cleveland.

The panels are interesting. There are over 1500 people here, and the rooms are crowded and the signing lines are long. One of the best parts is the ability to sit and talk to different authors and readers.
I always meet a few new people and renew old acquaintances.Tom Schreck signed my book and thanked me for being such a sweetheart;Marcus Sakey tells everyone I'm trouble; I can't even list all the people who know me by name.
I hope Mary comes on and makes a report. I happen to know that Lee Child bought her a latte. She'll have to tell the details.
SF next October - start planning ahead.

Report #2 Friday
First panel: Setting as Character William Kent Kreuger, Deborah Atkinson, Tom Corcoran, Jonathan King and Eric Stone. How and why setting is an important character in mysteries. Kent had each panelist choose an excerpt from the book that demonstrated the effect of setting. Gail - Jonathan King recently self-published a historical mystery called The Styx I haven't seen it in the book room, but I will look again tomorrow.
Second panel: PWA Panel: The PI novel through the years Melodie, I thought of you here because the moderator was Robert Randisi. The four panelists each had a PI novel debut in a different decade. The 70s - John Lutz; the 80s - Max Allan Collins; the 90s - SJ Rozan and 2004 - Michael Koryta. Interesting discussion of the genre, its ups and downs and the approach and how it has changed.
Third panel: The Fabled One Sitting Read Michelle Gagnon, Linwood Barclay, Andrew Gross Erica Spindler, Michael Robotham. What makes a book one that you can't put down?