I Am a ROOO

I realize that Series are meant to be read in order...  and honestly, I do my best.  But I find that sometimes I come across a book and I have to read it immediately, whether it is a part of a series or not.  When it ends up being a part of a series, when I can (or when I'm paying attention) I will go back and begin at the beginning.....  However that is not always the case.

More and more I'm finding that when I'm reading a series and I come across one that I don't like, I drop it and move on to the next.  Or if I'm placing a hold on a particular title in a series, and I can't get it in a timely manner, I'll just read whichever one I can get a hold of.

The Library does not always have all the books in a series......so I'll settle for what we do have and hope they make sense.  Besides, what I have found, is that in most series, the author tends to visit past events in the series and explain them up-to-date ad nauseum, so I'm  thinking that I'm not missing much and I skip all the minute details.

So, then, Reading Out of Order, That makes me a "ROOO"!

Balckbird Sisters: Nancy Martin

The newest in the series, which I "Rooed" on....  Was pretty good, but not the best.  In fact in this series of 8 + 1 prequel (which I have yet to get my hands on), there was only One (1) that I Absolutely Hated. "Murder Melts in Your Mouth"...

On the average I gave the series 3.6 stars.... 

The series is about 3 sisters: Nora, Emma, & Libby.  Their parents have left them a dilapidated house and not much else, as they have bunked with the girls' trust funds & some investments of their friends as well.  The sisters have had a number of husbands, mostly schlemiels and all deceased (hence the belief in a Forever a Widow curse).

Currently Emma is the Society Page maven and seriously involved with Michael (Mick) Abruzzo, son of a crime boss. Her older sister, Libby (Libido,) has five children and is with most any man who can satisfy her hormonal cravings. Her younger sister, Emma is fresh out of rehab.

This is a madcap zany series, with one good serious bit: Emma is the heir to her Grandmother's  vintage couture collection and wear it well, she does. 

For more information about the series: 
 http://www.nancymartinmysteries.com/blackbirds.html

Amelia Peabody

 

I honestly tried to like this book, Really I Did..... I was reading it for Shelfari's Historical Mystery group. The series is our October "Buddy Read".  But I found the characters frightfully annoying, erudite, dilettantish, stuffy, boring and considering their "intelligence" amazingly stupid.

So there is Amelia Peabody, her husband Emerson, their son Ramses (oh yeah), their adopted son David, and their adopted daughter Nefret.   At home in jolly old England & in between expeditions, Ramses is set upon by the Prince of the kingdom from whence Nefret was rescued (First clue all is not Kosher). 

The Prince has some story about how his Father is slowly dying as is the heir to the kingdom, a wasting disease. Prince begs Emerson & Peabody in to agreeing to journey back to Hidden Fortress to help old friend King Tarek & son. Oddly, this Prince, has brought no letters of introduction or request for help (Second clue that something is fishy)...... 

Prince is given $$$$$ and disappears, later to return w/out a plausible story and flat broke (Third clue that stinks to high heaven)......

So then it is my opinion that given the combined intelligence of the Emerson/Peabody, someone should have smelled a heap of rubbish, but then there would have been no story.

After skipping too many tedious & overly descriptive paragraphs, I got as far as Chapter Nine, where Emerson, Ramses, Peabody & Nefret are captive of the Prince and then I shut the book & returned it to the Library.

If you like Ancient Egyptian history, archaeology, Egyptian legends and can stand long tedious passages & name dropping, you might like this series. 

Other titles in this series & their synopsis can be found @: 

http://ameliapeabody.com/bookshelf.htm 

Books

Life: Death: Fear: Hatred: Redemption

A Gracious Plenty, Sheri Reynolds

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

I have no idea how to explain this story.... I know it made me feel light even within its tragedy, for the tragedy led to redemption. It was flowing and bending, based in this world and the beyond. It speaks of the lies we tell ourselves so that we might get through to the end of our lives in a semblance of peace. It tells of the hypocrisy of "christianity" and the hatred and fear we have of those things we find ugly and cannot/will not understand.

It is the story of Finch Nobles, cemetery keeper, burned & scarred as a child and her relationships with: Leonard the local police officer (a childhood nemesis); Lois Armour and her dead daughter Lucy; Reba Baker, grocery store owner & local christian zealot/hypocrite; and the Dead buried in the graveyard she care takes.

It's a story of pain & healing and life and death. It's a story of philosophy and understanding of life beyond the physical realm.

***************************************************************QUOTES************************************************************

"There's a job for everybody, on any given day. The Dead are generous with their gifts to the living. Unless. of course they are angry, then they call the bees away so that nothing will bloom. When they are angry the Dead catch the rain in their hands, bury it in their pockets, and laugh when the ground cracks"

"Energy is neither created or destroyed"

"'In the living world, there is so much fear and hatred,' She says. 'When we were a part of that world, we held within us that fear and that hate. When we were in the living world, we could not see what they cannot see: the things they hate and fear are around them all the time in the things that they love.'"

"Sometimes something comes along and tears your roots right out of the ground, and that's when you know you've been planted too long."

"Sometimes you been growing one thing in your garden for too many years, and then everything dies. You got to give the soil time to replenish itself."

*************************************************************************************************************************************

Disclaimer/Spoiler: The one page about the attempted mercy killing of a dying cat was not as bad as I believed it to be. In fact, although I had intended to skip that page (I had been forewarned) I read it through....because I had completely forgotten about that part even being in this book until I had read it. Thankfully it was just a natural part of the story and not added as gratuitous violence.