Rachel Kovaciny's Blog, page 39

"Castle Shade" by Laurie R. King

Well, what do you know?  I greatly liked two of Laurie R. King's Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes books in a row!  I very much enjoyed Riviera Gold  last year, and I also had a jolly time reading Castle Shade!  That makes me quite happy :-)
Castle Shade picks right up where Riviera Gold left off, with Russell and Holmes on a train heading to Transylvania.  Someone is creating creepy and weird problems for Queen Marie of Roumania, the kinds of problems that make you think of vampires and witches and an...

"The Goblin and the Dancer" by Allison Tebo

This was such a heart-warming, inventive take on The Steadfast Tin Soldier.  I wasn't at all sure what to think about a fairy tale retelling that focused on giving a villain or antagonist a happy ending, but Allison Tebo made it work so naturally and beautifully!  
The Goblin and the Dancer tells the story of a goblin named Grik who works as a janitor at a fancy theater run by elves.  The elves and the goblins don't have much respect for each other, although they do work together at times.  But G...

The Give Thanks for Books Tag

Are you thankful for books?  I'm so thankful for them in so many ways -- for what they teach me, how they transport me, and how happy they can make me.  So I've created this blog tag to share some of the books I'm thankful for.  I'll tag a few friends at the end, and if you like it and want to do it too, go right ahead!

The Rules:1. Thank the person who tagged you.  (Thank you, me!)2. Fill out the tag.3. Share the tag graphic in your post.4. Tag four friends.5. Provide a clean copy of the tag for...

"Bat Masterson: The Man and the Legend" by Robert K. DeArment

My best friend gave me this book because she loved it and wanted me to read it too.  And, happily, I loved it too!  I read it as research for my November column in the Prairie Times, which focuses on Bat Masterson (you can read my article here on page 6).  I enjoyed this biography so much that now I want to read DeArment's follow-up book, Gunfighter in Gotham, which delves into Masterson's decades in NYC with more depth than is provided here.
This book focuses mostly on Masterson's exploits in th...

"Hallowe'en Party" by Agatha Christie

I have discovered that I like Agatha Christie's books about Hercule Poirot, just not so much her Miss Marple books.  This is a Poirot book, so I gave it a go after seeing it around on Bookstagram early in October.  My library had it, so that was a win!
I enjoyed this book pretty well, though it could have been considerably shorter if we hadn't had to read the same information repeatedly.  Whole conversations and experiences were repeated in full instead of summarized, which I found tedious.  Also...

"Trouble is What I Do" by Walter Mosley

I read Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley a while back, and it left a bad taste in my mouth because it involved child exploitation and trafficking, and that issue both revolts and terrifies me.  Even though Mosley's writing was cool and his main character was trying to stop that exploitation and trafficking, I just had a hard time with that book.  Looking back, I'm surprised I didn't just DNF it, which is what usually ends up happening when that subject crops up in a book.  Maybe I didn't be...

"The Thin Man" by Dashiell Hammett

When I said I was going on a Dashiell Hammett kick, I meant it.  My goodness, I am enjoying his books!  
I feel like, when I read this for the first time, fifteenish years ago, I just didn't get its humor.  In fact, I recall being rather disappointed by it, for whatever reason.  Not sure if I'd seen the Myrna Loy/William Powell movie version already and thought this didn't measure up, or what.
Well, I found it really funny this time around.  As in, it made me laugh aloud, in public, repeatedly.  T...

"A Spy on the Home Front" by Alison Hart

My kids love the American Girl books, just like I did as a kid.  I've bought them a lot of the tie-in mysteries over the years, mostly at the second-hand bookstore, but I've never read any of them myself, until now.
A Spy on the Home Front is a fast read with a pretty serious topic: anti-American spying during WWII.  Molly McIntire spends every summer with her grandparents, and she's good friends with Anna Schulz, a girl her age who lives on a nearby farm.  Anna's parents immigrated to America be...

"The Glass Key" by Dashiell Hammett

The first time I read this book, fifteenish years ago, I had no real idea who Alan Ladd was.  I definitely had not seen the 1942 version of The Glass Key that starred him opposite Veronica Lake and Brian Donlevy.  Not even once.  Cut to 2021, when I've seen it probably five or six times, and that makes this reading experience totally different from that first one.
One of the best parts of this reread was how it cleared up a few things about Ladd's performance in the movie version for me!  I've al...

"Sugar Birds" by Cheryl Grey Bostrom

This was not always an easy book to read, but it was a fulfilling one.  There was a point when things took a dark turn where I probably would have just stopped reading if I wasn't reading it for my church's book club -- but I'm glad I stuck with it, because the ending was so beautiful and healing.

Ten-year-old Aggie causes a horrific accidental fire that she believes kills both of her parents.  Terrified she'll be sent to prison, she runs off into the woods alone.  Using all the woodlore and surv...