C. (Comment, never msg). > Recent Status Updates

Please never use Goodreads private / direct messaging on me (nor the recommend button). It is an annoying extra sign-in detour, even if I had fast internet. Almost no message I ever received needed to be private. Most, I wished were sweet public profile comments! Let's chat in book update comment boxes. If you want a private word please ask for my e-mail address. May God bless us all with a happy new year 2021!

I am making progress, treating myself to reading and working on getting Spirit eating.

How Manitoban is this book and subject?

At my blog, I posted Christmas carol mysteries to solve: picture clues of songs! Last year's associated contest is over. But if you, family, and friends would have fun solving them, e-mail your answers or queries! https://cmriedel.wordpress.com/2019/1...

We miss our Mom this year, you can bet. But we wish everyone a blessed, merry Christmas and a healthy, happy new year. Your friend, Carolyn.

I am not a "cozy mystery" fan, however every genre has its talent. Leann Sweeney is among the excellent writers who happen to belong in this genre and barely, in my opinion. Light on violence but not fluffy in terms of writing talent! Animal rescue and other topics are serious enough in tone that I am just short of calling these "standard mystery". Authors and their contents can prove to be "Too good to be cozy"!

It is nice to be in the hands of a skilled authoress! Leeann's writing is descriptive and immediately makes you a friend of the characters, while the action keeps humming and your interest stays peaked. I just finished a second poorly-written book by Sofie Kelly, who criticized "talking with cats" as if they were not real people and said ferals can never be homed. Jillian adores these cats openly and knows rescue.

Beautiful local human stories written in a fine elegant descriptive style, of our familiar Winnipeg city sights and personages.

This omnibus trio compilation comes in handy for the second mystery that I did not have otherwise. It is coming in handy for the third mystery, now that I am ready to read "Monk's Hood". I gave the paperback to a friend as a gift. Thus I heft this softcover trade paperback but heavy tome to bed for nighttime reading.

This series must be read in order and this story swerves so much, it is for us fans. Someone coming into numerous characters and subplots might be frustrated, wondering who the protagonists are. Fans settle in for wherever Martha takes us and enjoy it; when Richard Jury, Alfred Wiggins, and Melrose Plant gradually appear. Most new characters are intriguing and likeable too. Martha sometimes writes them in again.

I am reading this peek panel board book in German: “Jesus Erzählt Uns Eine Geschichte: Das Hochzeitsfest”. I check the translation as I go along, to type for my little nephew. I print them to go inside the multilingual books that I send him and my niece.

A long introduction to a disturbance quartet of killing, including children. There is nothing "cozy" about that. I clarify for anyone that this series fits firmly in "standard mystery" (neither "thriller" nor "cozy"); whatever humour relieves Martha's all too serious topics.

"Missing Joseph" refers to how Joseph never seems to be in portraits with Jesus & Mary. Two 13 year-olds wonder about biological Dads in the story. I marvel that this is a simple mystery, merely wondering why a new Anglican minister died. It so easily pointed to accidental poisoning that only a chance vacation by expert Simon St. James, questioned it. I love that there is no urgency or danger, only pure interest.

I am treating myself to some daytime reading. Why not? I rose early when my Ron went to work. I have some reading challenge must reads to fit in this month, therefore it behoves me well to boogie on some more pure pleasure reading at the close of my birth month. Having received Elizabeth George's writing lessons as a gift from great friends, I am enjoying this mystery that I am at in her series, in the year 1993.

I would like this heroine to clue in faster. Every reader knows there is a such thing as ghosts and that this is what she is going to discover is the source of oddities. In 2014, we can surely drop the trope "we must be out of our minds to consider a spirit". I am sure she will fall in love with the heir but that is fine. I prefer well-written and plotted stories. Twists should never upend quality or atmosphere.

There is a lot of tellig versus showing but letting the protagonist set things up is better than flashbacks of no longer existant personages. The writing, plot, and characters are excellent. I am enjoying Linda Gillard's novel all the way along.

A fun new writer for me to try, which is a present from friends for my birthday.