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If you have a collector's mindset you can picture this. About 10 years ago one of Patricia Cornwell's stories obviously caught my eye on sale. At that time I was unaware mysteries had turned into series. I was a longtime gothic standalone fan. Police fiction is not interesting to me! Because one book was, I collected a bunch. This was destined for a "why did I buy it" outcome. Today I'm glad I gave it a chance!

This is a surprise for anyone who knows me, isn't it? I read reluctantly, for massive lack of adult options, mysteries that are about crimes instead of puzzles that are genuinely mysterious on their own! I care even less for police novels instead of a civilian heroine and lower than that, a male protagonist. But I am a writer, have owned this about 10 years, and at first sight: I love Patricia Cornwell's writing!

I am enjoying this! No wonder it was reprinted for decades since 1959. If it isn't now, I am extra lucky to have it. When we see old collections we wonder: will the tales be too old-fashioned, mentioning animal-killing for instance? I cannot abide that. Will they be too childish? Frances Fraser made these wondrous, for all ages! Likely in Northern Alberta, she was white with Aboriginal neighbours and friends.

The eras from which we find cat poetry, including early men praising their beloved cats as early as the 1700s, surprises and pleases me greatly! It sometimes feels like it is today's animal advocate who struggles to teach that cats are sentient family members meriting protection and respect. What a relief and revelation that the burden is not a solitary, modern one! Many understood cats are precious for centuries.

I cannot praise enough the few who understand: mysteries need no crime! There is no body or other type. A woman is uncovering a true mystery: her own heritage. She delves into a period of her Mother's that is curious. Isn't that much more exciting? It is certainly more likely and less mundane than fiction's crimes, that are supposed to furnish "mysteriousness". That is what the root of the word mystery means!

I have been looking forward to this with excited anticipation. Juliet Blackwell's plots top the diminutive cozy mystery genre by pushing its envelope and being better than most. I was elated that she authored a standard mystery, or mysterious drama as this appears to be thus far! She could shake excessive descriptions about being sweaty, needing coffee, or observing things that are dusty but my interest is alight.

I am still finding Lucy Muir far too spineless but this book has taken interesting turns that are fun surprises to be sure. As for old-fashioned outlooks and reactions to things, I will of course, cut a seventy-one year-old book a break.

I fell asleep with my dear orange kitties around me in bed. Perhaps I will read this bright, flowery, hot afternoon and quiet in my raucous country neighbourhood for a refreshing change, which means a very great deal!

I love it. This was meant to be a character-growing novel with a fantastically, gratifyingly unique partner and secondary character. It must have been especially exhilarating when this was published by an Irishwoman of 1945: observing a single widow with children rising up against bossy in-laws and setting up a house of their own. We are offered a paranormal excursion, not in a dark, spooky way but pleasingly so.

I love it. This was meant to be a character-growing novel with a fantastically, gratifyingly unique partner and secondary character. It must have been especially exhilarating when this was published by an Irishwoman of 1945: observing a single widow with children rising up against bossy in-laws and setting up a house of their own. We are offered a paranormal excursion, not in a dark, spooky way but pleasingly so.

Well, I am zooming through this. Who would have thought, when it got relegated behind laden bookshelves a few years ago, not even among a visible selection. I check for changed interests and new awareness from time to time in our collection. A friend's stepmom sent me a reciprocated literary gift, when my friend returned from overseas last week! Kate Atkinson's newer work. I can't wait to read "Life After Life".

For a book not just in indefinite queue but actually stored behind a stuffed bookshelf, I first say cudos to how easily I found it and remembered that I had something by Kate Atkinson. A friend has given me a tantalizing newer one as a long-distance gift and I thought I'd try this first. My second reaction, after storage according to not thinking the synopsis was exciting, is that I can't believe how great this is!

I love this. I know firsthand, no one fails to take spectacular photographs of Canada's Horseshoe Falls but this is not a book limited to pretty falls pictures. It builds in brief but important flashes of history and introduces sites that are new to me. I stuck near falls activities on my two trips, regrettably missing a butterfly habitat, even though I noticed it. I now long to visit many widely-varied places!

I am enjoying it already. A very nice choice that I bought long ago, being brought to the front of an overflowing shelf because a friend treated me to a later, exciting book by Kate Atkinson. I am working up to it by reading this first. :)

Such powerful, logical, easy tools for dealing with others, yourself, and life every day! Sylvia, do hear me thank you for the care you gave your readers and audiences, now that you are reunited in what you called "Home" and "On The Other Side".

I trusted I would like this book. I love it and resonate with facets of spiritual life Sylvia discusses more profoundly than I knew. At one point, just when you feel concentration has stiffened a little into textbook mode, she closes those areas and jolts me to ultimate enthusiasm with the next. Ghosts! Better still, she illustrates clearly a difference between ghosts, spirits, imprints and experienced them all.

I'm not progressing as far as I want per session but enjoy what I read.

Wonderful, clear explanations for the way we knew things worked and didn't have such insightful ways of talking about them. Invigorating thoughts about things I had not considered. A few don't match my view of our spirits and existentialism but a lot of Sylvia's discussion resonates with me comfortingly, like a confirming bell ringing.

Fantastic, life and afterlife affirming. Not just inspiring but encouraging and reassuring! This is a book that feels as good reading, as it simultaneously feels as though we are being enriched with an education that is unusually important. All the while, Sylvia phrased things in plain, person-to-person, direct, clear conversation. It might not seem eloquent but the effect of this reading experience is beautiful.

Other than being unsure where it was stashed, I wonder why I waited long to read this. I love her recenter book about legends of the world. Perhaps I thought a straight spiritual one might be saccacharine? The uplifting thing is, it covers my spirituality very closely! It is bolstering to see easy, logical defense of churchless faith! I might get a fiction book going, only so this simmers and absorbs enjoyably.

I am willing to see how it shapes up.

Not the stronger, voodoo outing I hoped for. We aren't visiting her friend's shop or her knowledge a bit. In fact her best friend, while I'm sure there is much room for character exploration, so far comes across as shallowly as "the party friend". It is all about the scrapbooking, too much. A dose but even these career themes should take back seats if they're called mystery. There is almost no sleuthing so far.

Never feeling "cozy mystery" was understood correctly, I rebel against a lot of books being mislabelled. It isn't about the setting or whether the protagonist is an amateur sleuth. "Cozy" is simply the Diet 7-Up of a "standard mystery". We forget to call MANY books standard mysteries. Laura Childs however squarely fits the camp. I'm in the mood for simple writing and atmosphere after several angst-filled novels.

We hate Danny right away and Lucas becomes annoying before long. Weak, selfish about the time he demands of others. Who cares if he sounds like he has "a hurt voice" or "a hurt look"!? If you have to work the next day, he is only a real friend if he understands you will *not* drive long-distance to suit him! For such a placating journey, with no time for a visit that was worth the drive; Joanne lost a dream job!

It is nothing new that I hate any overuse of the word "gentle". Lucie Whitehouse creates the irritant by employing it for actions and images that are very bizarre choices, definitely uncalled for! Things that would not be gentle and things that are so inherently so, it is stupid. Next building the irritant of excess: doing it too many times, she creates wind and wants to repeat the damn adverb everywhere she can!

I read enough under-whelmed reviews to have no expectations of liking this hardcover that I obtained on sale a year or so ago. I decided to open the pages to see if I liked Lucie Whitehouse's writing at least, which is telling for me and essential. Each style is our tour guide in all literature. Her description and narration is very good, the complaint seeming to be weak characters, plots. I like the book so far.

I'm leery of giving this a go, not so much because most reviewers gave it low points. One person said there is really no paranormal situation (which I read as: no ghosts)! That would make me feel it was a wasted read, unless it was a pleasure throughout; which readers don't seem to think so. One equally helpful reviewer said it was decent and that others should chill out but that it has no fulfilling ending.

The worst subject, the crime of sexual assault. I am rushing through this novel to get on with the series. Anne Perry shows she is a fantastic writer. She has us immediately empathizing with and understanding people, with lightness and brightness easing the pages as often as possible. Awful criminal mystery subjects but told, so that her novels are much more about befriending Charlotte, Thomas, and Emily.