Packing for a Cruise

Beyond planning my wardrobe for a trip, I can’t think of anything more important than ensuring I have plenty of reading material. It won’t belong before I arrive in Athens, Greece and begin the Greek Odyssey cruise which hugs the coast of Greece and visits Santorini and Crete. Because I don’t take paperbacks on overseas trips, I carefully preload my Kindle, and several factors come into play as I make my selection.

First I check for available ebooks at the library. There are times I’ve been waiting for a hardback by a particular author, as that’s my preferred way to consume books, and I find the ebook is readily available. That’s a no-brainer, and I download it.

I also follow several authors whose books aren’t available in any format at my local library. Many of these are British authors or their series are set in the UK.  So, after downloading what I can from the library, I look on my Amazon wishlist.  I suspect most folks use the wishlist feature for things other than reading material, but mine contains only books.

I take great pleasure in perusing my wishlist and selecting vacation reading. The last time I visited Greece, I read several mysteries by Jeffrey Siger because his novels are set there. On this return trip, I decided to branch out, so without further ado, here’s what I’ll be reading on my October vacation.

SantoriniEmma Jameson’s “Blue Christmas: Lord & Lady Hetheridge Mystery Series #6” was my first selection.  If you’re a regular reader of my columns, you know I’m an Anglophile, so it’s fitting I’d choose a series set in England.While surfing Amazon, I discovered the author has another series, so I also grabbed “Bones in the Blackout,” a cozy mystery set in WWII England.I recently wrote about the Electra McDonnell series by Ashley Weaver and how delighted I was to find she had another series. Click! “Murder at the Brightwell,” the first book in her Amory Ames series landed on my Kindle. Happily, her books are available from the library.Next was “Escaping Dreamland” by Charlie Lovett. I’ve read several books by this author, and I chose “The Bookman’s Tale” as the book club selection in my first cozy mystery—there’s always a book club meeting or literary festival in my books. That book was a mystery about book collecting and with a rare book central to the murder plot in my cozy, it was a perfect fit. Books are also central to the plot in“Escaping Dreamland.”Who knows how I stumbled across “The English Bookshop” but I was intrigued by the title. As soon as I read that the main character inherits a bookshop in England, I had to grab it.

Five books will probably suffice for a ten-day cruise, but there’s also a nine-hour flight on both ends of the trip, so you never know. On my last Viking River Cruise, I finished one book on the flight over. The good news is that I can always use the ship’s wi-fi to download additional books if need be.

Here’s to happy reading whether it be stateside or overseas.