"Knave of Diamonds" by Laurie R. King

I really enjoy stories about con artists.  Which means it's a little weird to me that I didn't connect more with this book.  It was fun, but I sometimes felt like I was being subtly told how fun it was, not that I actually was finding it fun?  Maybe I just read it at the wrong time -- I got two holds in from the library and had to quickly read this one before it was due again because someone else had placed a hold on it.  I probably would have enjoyed it more in January or something.  I also think that I probably will enjoy in more if/when I reread it at some point, because I will stop worrying about Holmes and Russell's safety every minute of the story.

I did like it!  I just didn't love it.  Which is okay.  I only love about half of the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes books by Laurie R. King.  But I like basically all of them :-)

In this one, Mary Russell's uncle resurfaces after being presumed dead for years.  He's a con artist and thief.  He wants Russell to help him find something.  That he stole years ago, and was subsequently stolen from him.  It's complicated.  And it all turns out just fine, whew.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-16 for some discussions of British societal uproars over the uncovering (years previous) of a "homosexual ring" within the upper echelons of society, and some remarkably (for LRK) veiled implications that a side character may have feelings of some kind for someone of the same sex.  Also, some violence and a smattering of light cusswords.

Top Ten Tuesday: It's About Time

This week's prompt from That Artsy Reader Girl for Top Ten Tuesday is "Books Set in Another Time."  I'm using that to talk about my ten favorite historical fiction books.

I think of historical fiction as fiction set during a time before the author's adult life.  For instance, an author born in 1930 who writes about the 1950s isn't writing historical fiction... but if they write about the 1850s, or even the 1930s, then it's historical fiction.  (For another example, Jane Austen's books are not historical fiction because she wrote about the early 1800s while she was living in the early 1800s.)

So!  Here are my top ten favorite works of historical fiction, along with links to my reviews and a little info into when and where they are set:

1. Shane by Jack Schaefer (1889, Wyoming)

2. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Schaffer and Annie Barrows (post-WWII, Great Britain)

3. The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King (1915, Great Britain)

4. The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins by Dr. Seuss (Medieval England)

5. Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson (1751, Scotland)

6. Speak Easy, Speak Love by McKelle George (1920s, USA)

7. Up from Dust by Heather Kaufman (c. 30 AD, Judea)

8. The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle (Medieval England)

9. King of the Wind by Marguerite Henry (1700s Morocco, France, and England)

10. A Flame in the Dark by Sarah Baughman (1500s, Germany)

Have you read any of these?  Any here that surprise you?

Or, did you do a Top Ten Tuesday post this week?  Please share in the comments!

"The Lantern's Dance" by Laurie R. King

Another winner from Laurie R. King!  The Lantern's Dance is the eighteenth Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes book, and a thoroughly enjoyable entry into the series.

This review contains SPOILERS for the series, not just for this book, so beware!  Jump to the movie-style rating if you want to avoid spoilage.

Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes already on their way to France when Holmes's son, Damian Adler, alerts them to the fact his home has been broken into.  Fearing that some of their enemies may try to hurt them through Damian, his young daughter, and his new fiancée, they rush to the rescue.  While Holmes ensures that Damian and company are hidden away safely, Russell investigates the break-in and ends up delving into long-buried family secrets.

Like Locked Rooms, this is one of the more deeply personal books in the series.  This time, it is Holmes who confronts past trauma and woe, as he grapples with remember his mother's suicide when he was a boy. But this book has a very happy ending indeed -- much happier than I expected for a long time!  I found it very satisfying.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for oblique references to the impropriety of a man and his fiancée sharing a house, then a hotel room, and for the unsettlingly modern reaction of most characters to this behavior.

Top Ten Tuesday: Be Kind, Rewind

This week's Top Ten Tuesday prompt from That Artsy Reader Girl is "Rewind: pick a previous topic that you missed or would like to re-do/update."  My pick is a prompt from July of 2018: Books That Are Linked to Specific Memories/Moments In Your Life. 

I link memories to objects.  This is one reason I own so many physical copies of books -- reading one over again often brings back the memories of the previous time(s) I read that book.  Of course, a lot of books just remind me of sitting on my couch or on the swing in our backyard, as those are where I tend to read the most.  But some books remind me very vividly of the place or time when I read them.  Here are ten fifteen of those that cover the past 20+ years:

Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes -- I remember reading this while curled up on a fancy couch by a fire in the lobby of a Michigan hotel one winter evening.  Christmas was always a very busy and tiring time for my parents because my dad was a pastor and my mom was in charge of the music for the children's Christmas program at church every year.  So we would often do some kind of overnight getaway a day or two after Christmas as a family.  Just check into a hotel within an hour or two's drive, somewhere with an indoor swimming pool and hot tub.  One night of swimming, a hot tub, and getting to watch an old TV show or two on Nick-at-Night (we didn't have cable at home) really refreshed all of us.  One year, the hotel we stayed at had a fireplace with a real fire going in their lobby, and we all hung out there for a bit, reading and enjoying the ambience.

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas -- I remember taking my library copy along to the orthodontist when I was eleven years old, and insisting on taking it into the exam room with me so I could read while waiting for the orthodontist to come in and adjust my teeth.  I had read a radio-play adaptation of just one small part of this book in a literature book for school, and I fell absolutely in love with it.  I convinced my mom to let me check out the real book from the library, and I read the whole thing.  Didn't understand the hashish stuff or some of the other, more adult subtextual matter, but I very much understood the plot, characterizations, and so on.  It's been one of my top favorite books ever since.

The Man in the Box by Marylois Dunn -- I found this book on the shelves in the junior fiction section of our North Carolina library, quite at random, and became somewhat obsessed with it.  In fact, I loved it so much, I wrote a little poem about how wonderful it was and tucked it inside the library copy when I returned it.  I don't know if the librarians didn't notice it, or thought it was sweet and left it in there, but I know that poem stayed inside their copy for years.  I know because I used to check to see if the book was on the shelves whenever I visited the library, and then see if the poem was still inside, and it always was!

The Princess Bride by William Goldman -- Although I'd loved the movie for years by then, I had never read the book until a friend gave it to me for Christmas my first year of college.  I remember reading the book on the plane when I flew home for Christmas break and having such a hard time containing my laughter because I didn't want to annoy my seatmates!

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury -- I first read this book in my family's car on the way back to college to begin my sophomore year.  I quick bought it at a bookstore before we left because I had heard that Mel Gibson was in talks to make a movie version, and I was quite a Gibson girl at that point, so that intrigued me.  I was absolutely enraptured by the book, and it's still really the only dystopian novel I enjoy.

Dracula by Bram Stoker -- I bought a cheap paperback copy of Dracula at a bookstore in Toronto, Canada, while on choir tour in May of 2000.  I'd become obsessed with vampires during my sophomore year of college, thanks to the TV shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spinoff, Angel, and I decided I really ought to read the most-famous vampire book.  I read it while sitting on our tour bus, driving from one concert stop to the next, then the next, and so on.  I actually didn't care for the book much, but I stuck with it because I didn't have many other books packed.

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde -- For four years after we finished college and got married, my husband and I both worked third shift.  I worked at Walmart, stocking shelves all night long.  Because I worked full-time, I got a full hour for my lunch break, and I would spend my lunches in the breakroom nibbling a sandwich and reading.  Reading, reading, reading.  I remember laughing aloud over this book so often there, and how amused my coworkers in the breakroom would be because I found the book so funny.  They used to say I read books the way they watched movies, which amused me because I once had a literature professor tell someone I watched movies the way other people read books.  Those both make sense, though, as I experience stories in both mediums basically the same way.

The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King -- That same college professor recommended this book to me, but I didn't have time to read for fun while in college because I took a lot of reading-heavy courses in literature and history.  So I wrote this down in a little book where I kept my list of things I'd like to read someday.  I found it in our small-town Wisconsin library a few years later and was absolutely delighted with it.  But my main memory of this book is buying a copy in a mall bookstore in Connecticut years later and rereading it in little snatches while my toddler sat on my lap to watch his daily dose of VeggieTales Silly Songs on YouTube.  I can't hear "Monkey" without being immediately reminded of this book.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling -- I pre-ordered my copy of the final Harry Potter book, and the bookseller shipped it a week early by mistake!  Scholastic Books offered me a free Harry Potter t-shirt and a gift card if I would agree not to read it before its release date, and I agreed.  I used that gift card to buy a boxed set of the Chronicles of Narnia, and I honored my agreement not to read it before the day it released.  I was still working third shift in 2007, I was pregnant with my first baby, and I had Tuesday nights off.  So when I woke up around 5pm, I started to read, and I read all night long while my husband was away at work, and I finished the book before we went to sleep around 9am the next morning.  It was glorious to just immerse myself so fully in that world.  And then I didn't have to worry about any of my co-workers sharing spoilers when I went back to work the next night!

Middlemarch by George Eliot -- I took this book along to the hospital when I had to have my gall bladder out.  I remember getting wheeled to and from the imaging center so they could take an MRI to see if I really had to remove it or not, and I was just merrily reading this chunkster paperback while they pushed me up one hall and down the next.  The nurses and techs and other hospital staff had a great time teasing me about how I must think I was going to be there a long, long time if I brought such a massive book with me.  It was a cheery touchstone in what was an otherwise unexpected and stressful event.

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell -- I basically never stay up past my bedtime reading.  I never pulled a single all-nighter in college.  When I am tired, I sleep.  However!  I took my kids to visit my parents a few years ago, and brought this book along.  It was my first time reading it, and one night when I went to bed, I was about two-thirds of the way through the book.  I figured I would read to the end of my current chapter and then go to sleep.  Except, I just couldn't quit reading, and I ended up staying awake until 3 am and finishing the book.  Which I regretted in the morning when my little ones woke me up at 7am, ready for breakfast and playtime.  The book will forever remind me of my parent's guest bedroom in their North Carolina home.

The Annotated Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler -- I bought this at a really amazing Barnes and Noble in Baltimore and happened to take it along when I visited a podiatrist because I had to have a toenail removed.  I was very glad to have this larger-than-usual paperback along to focus on and shield my gaze from what the podiatrist was doing.

Borden Chantry by Louis L'Amour -- I bought a lovely, battered vintage paperback copy of this at a hole-in-the-wall used bookstore up in the Shenandoah Valley while we were on a family vacation last year, and read the whole thing while cozied up in the cabin we had rented.  Which is now my gold standard for where and how to read a western, to be honest.  They hit different when you're in a cabin built in the 1700s and snuggled up under a soft throw while curled up on an antique loveseat.  

The Black Swan by Rafael Sabatini -- I took this book along to the pool while my kids swam there last summer, when I couldn't swim because I had broken my arm and my surgical incision hadn't healed yet.  If I couldn't splash around in the water, at least I could read about adventure on the high seas!

Beauty by Robin McKinley -- I read this book on the flight home after an idyllic visit to my best friend earlier this month.  I finished it just before landing again, and the happiness of the book's ending got all tangled up with my joy over such an incredible visit and my gladness at being home with my husband and kids again.  

Do you also have vivid memories of where you read particular books?  What did you do for Top Ten Tuesday this week?  Please share!

Top Ten Tuesday: And Then a Heroine Comes Along

This week's Top Ten Tuesday prompt from That Artsy Reader Girl is "Favorite Heroines."  I've decided to list mine in alphabetical order by first name because I am late getting this post finished and I don't want to take the time and mental energy to figure out whom I like best.  I'm also going to list a few attributes I associate with each of them, though, so you can get an idea of what they are like!

Anne Elliot in Persuasion by Jane Austen -- shy, quiet, sensible, loyal, kind, tenacious, bookish

Anne Shirley from the Anne of Green Gables books by L. M. Montgomery -- quirky, imaginative, bookish, starry-eyed, stubborn

Constance Kopp from Girl Waits with Gun and the rest of the Kopp Sisters series by Amy Stewart -- sensible, down-to-earth, brave, stalwart, capable, determined

Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter books by J. K. Rowling -- intelligent, loyal, courageous, level-headed, resourceful, curious, bookish

Jane Eyre from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte -- strong-willed, strong-minded, indomitable, resilient, affectionate

Jo March from Little Women, Little Men, and Jo's Boys by Louisa May Alcott -- independent, smart, imaginative, bookish, understanding, stubborn, resourceful, dependable

Mary Russell from The Beekeeper's Apprentice and the rest of the series featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes by Laurie R. King -- willful, intelligent, gutsy, bookish, indomitable, skillful

Thursday Next from The Eyre Affair and the rest of the series by Jasper Fforde -- trustworthy, diligent, determined, curious, strong-willed

Trixie Belden from the Trixie Belden series by Kathryn Kenny -- smart, loyal, curious, pugnacious, determined

Valancy Stirling from The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery -- bright, vibrant, bookish, diligent, kind, forthright

Well, from my listing of random character traits and descriptions, I think we can see the sorts of traits I value in fictional characters!  There are a lot of similarities here, aren't there?

"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 ancient curses.  Which, Russell and Holmes are convinced, all have very human sources and motivations.

Part of what I liked so much about this book was how escapist it was.  Nothing so suspenseful that I got stressed out on behalf of the characters.  The mystery is solid and entertaining, but even in the most exciting parts, I could read serenely on, confident that all would turn out well in the end.  And I really loved that.

Particularly Good Bits:

In some fairy tales, happily ever after is where things end.

In others, happiness is where the problems begin (p. 29).

I looked at my husband.  "Do you plan on indulging your flair for the dramatic throughout our time here?"

"I expect so," he said complacently (p. 45).  (This part made me stop reading and laugh aloud with delight.)

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for allusions to historical instances of people bathing in blood, impaling their enemies, and characters wondering if a sexual assault has taken place.  It hadn't, but it does get discussed.

"For the Sake of the Game" edited by Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger

Hmm.  While this book was a fun, fast read, I didn't enjoy it quite as much as the earlier collections in this series, A Study in Sherlock, In the Company of Sherlock Holmes, and Echoes of Sherlock Holmes.  Like those first three, this is a collection of short stories somehow inspired by the Sherlock Holmes canon, by a very varied group of writers.  Some stories have Holmes and Watson in them, some don't, etc.

I think that a lot of the stories in this collection were less charming and quirky, and more edgy, and that's why I didn't like it as well.  I don't know, it just felt... colder and darker, somehow.  Instead of five favorite stories in it, I only have three:

+ "The Case of the Missing Case" by Alan Gordon, which has a young Sherlock Holmes learning some lessons from a master of disguise and putting his already formidable talents to work.

+ "The Adventure of the Six Sherlocks" by Toni L. P. Kelner, in which a murder at a Sherlock Holmes fan convention gets solved by a reporter and her unexpected sidekick.

+ "Hounded" by Zoe Sharp, which retells The Hound of the Baskervilles in the modern era and inserts an extra character into it, with some surprising results.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13/R -- some stories are decidedly on the R side, with others being much tamer and cleaner.

This is my 4th book read from my TBR shelves for #TheUnreadShelfProject2021.

"Riviera Gold" by Laurie R. King

It seems like, for the last few years, I've been loving every-other-one of Laurie R. King's novels of suspense featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes.  I loved Garment of Shadows, liked Dreaming Spies pretty well, loved The Murder of Mary Russell, and liked Island of the Mad kind of okay.  I'm happy to announce that Riviera Gold continues this pattern -- I loved it!  It's one I will add to my bookshelf at some point, for sure.

This adventure finds Mary Russell cruising up to Monte Carlo with a bunch of friends, but without her husband, who is sleuthing elsewhere.  Although she appears to be in this just for the fun of learning to sail a yacht, she's actually tracking down Mrs. Hudson, who memorably departed Sussex in The Murder of Mary Russell.  

Russell finds Mrs. Hudson all right, and also a whole lot of trouble.  Smugglers, arms dealers, thieves, swindlers, and many actually nice people rub elbows with each other, and with Russell and Holmes.  Actually nice people including people called Scotty and Zelda and Dos.

And, yes, that's F. Scott Fitzgerald, Zelda Fitgerald, and John Dos Passos.  They don't appear in this book as much as Cole and Linda Porter did in Island of the Mad, but since I'm a Fitzgerald fan (this blog is named after a line of his, after all), I definitely enjoyed seeing them crop up.

Anyway, I was worried at first that Sherlock Holmes wasn't going to be in this book much, since he was off on another case, but he joined Russell before long.  My favorite parts of this series are usually when they're working together, and this book proved no exception.  They did pursue different clues and work on separate angles of the case, but were a team nonetheless.  

Adding this to my listing of all King's Russell/Holmes books in order of favoriteness:

1. The Beekeeper's Apprentice (book 1)
2. The Game (book 7)
3. The Murder of Mary Russell (book 14)
4. O Jerusalem (book 5)
5. Garment of Shadows (book 12)
6. Riviera Gold (book 16)
7. Pirate King (book 11)
8. Locked Rooms (book 8)
9. Dreaming Spies (book 13)
10. Justice Hall (book 6)
11. The God of the Hive (book 10)
12. The Language of Bees (book 9)
13. The Moor (book 4)
14. A Monstrous Regiment of Women (book 2)
15. Island of the Mad (book 15)
16. A Letter of Mary (book 3)

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for violence, peril, murder, and a little bad language.

"Mary Russell's War and Other Stories of Suspense" by Laurie R. King

You likely know I'm a fan of Laurie R. King's novels of suspense featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes.  I've read all of them.  And now I've also read this perfectly charming collection of short stories that also feature that delightful detective duo.

I'd read about half of the stories in this collection before, as King has released some of them for free or for very low prices as ebooks over the past few years.  But there were several here that were new to me... and even if there weren't, I would have loved this volume anyway because I would always rather read a physical book than an electronic one.  Blame being an old fogey if you want.  But the titular story, "Mary Russell's War," is a collection of journal entries with lots of photographs included, and I really liked being able to see those on paper, and to study them in some detail, instead of peering at them on my phone's tiny screen.

Anyway.  My two favorites in this collection were "The Marriage of Mary Russell," which I'd read before, and "Stately Holmes," which I had not.  The former isn't a mystery so much as an adventure in which Russell and Holmes' wedding plans go a bit awry... but all's well that ends well.  And the latter sees Russell and Holmes interacting with family members at Christmas time, and solving a small mystery about a visit from St. Nicholas while they're at it.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-10 for a lot of stuff about WWI, some moments of suspense and peril, and other detective-story type things.

This is my 11th book read for #TheUnreadShelfProject2020

The Taylor Swift Book Tag

I am not actually a fan of Taylor Swift.  I'm not exactly anti-Taylor either, I just... enjoy a few of her songs if they pop up on the radio, but have never listened to a full album or really bothered to learn the lyrics to any of her stuff.

Be that as it may, I saw this super-cute tag on Coffee, Classics, and Craziness a while back and felt like answering it myself, so here goes!  Book titles linked to my reviews where applicable.

1. “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”: a book/series you thought you’d love but ended up disliking

I quit reading Kathy Reichs' books because they got too repetitive.  But I own all twelve seasons of Bones, the TV show based on them.  Go figure.  (TBH, it's all David Boreanaz' fault.)

2. “Red”: a book with a red cover

I have a wonderful old copy of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe that is bright red and I love it.

(All book photos in this post are mine from Instagram)

3. “The Best Day”: a book that makes you feel nostalgic

I can't read The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King without remembering both the Wisconsin library where I first found it and also a bunch of Veggie Tales silly songs that my first toddler loved -- I would let him watch ten minutes of silly songs on YouTube every day, and I'd read while he watched.  It was often my only chance to read at that time, and so... I clung to it, rereading favorite books in tiny chunks with Bob and Larry in the background.

4. “Love Story”: a book with forbidden love

Speak Easy, Speak Love has several love stories, and most of them are not forbidden.  But the love between John, who is Italian, and Maggie, who is black, is absolutely not acceptable in the 1920s.  And they're two of my favorite characters, and watching them struggle against their own fears and the prejudices of their society is just... so good.  Love that book.  (How could I not?  It's a Much Ado About Nothing retelling!)

5. “I Knew You Were Trouble”: a bad character you can’t help but love

A lot of people seem very appalled that I love Mr. Rochester from Jane Eyre, but how can I NOT love that damaged, flawed, sad, lonely man?  And he's not totally bad -- he does reform and repent and change and grow.

6. “Innocent”: a book/series someone ruined for you

I'm not sure I've got anything for this.  I don't know that anyone else has ever ruined a book for me.  What kind of a person would do that?

Oh, some person in my life has literally wrecked my physical copies of books, that's true.  But that didn't ruin the story for me, just that particular copy.

7. “Everything Has Changed”: a character who goes through extensive character development

Um, all good characters?  Okay, to pick one I haven't talked about yet, Edmund Dantes in The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.  He goes from a simple, uneducated sailor to a man of great learning and exquisite taste; from being consumed with the desire for revenge to an understanding of how ruinous vengeance can be.

8. “You Belong With Me”: your most-anticipated book release

Of Literature and Lattes, Katherine Reay's upcoming follow-up to The Printed Letter Bookshop.

9. “Forever and Always”: your favorite book couple

Valency Stirling and Barney Snaith from The Blue Castle by Lucy Maud Montgomery.  Both of them are intelligent, quirky, introverted, quiet, secretive, wonderful people, and I love them fiercely.

10. “Come Back . . . Be Here”: the book you would be least likely to lend out

My autographed copy of Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.  Ain't happening.

11. “Teardrops On My Guitar”: a book that made you cry

Many books make me cry.  Most recently, I was finishing reading Caddie Woodlawn aloud to my kids, and I cried over the part where their dog comes back.

12. “Shake It Off”: a book you love that other people hate

Hmm.  Maybe The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald?  I know a lot of people aren't into that one.

13. “Stay Stay Stay”: a book you wished could go on forever

Well, I was so reluctant to leave the world of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society the first time I read it, I just flipped back to the beginning and started it all over again.

14. “All Too Well”: a series you wished could go on forever

The Sherlock Holmes canon.  It could be four times as long and I'd be ecstatic. That's why I read so many pastiches.  I NEED more!

15. “Ronan”: a book with a tragic character death/death of an innocent

Anne's House of Dreams by L. M. Montgomery.  If you've read it, you know what I'm talking about.  if you haven't... I'm not spoiling it for you here.

16. “Out of the Woods”: a book that had you worried about the characters up to the very end

Even though I've read it a dozen or more times, I still worry about Ponyboy and everyone else in The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton the whole book through.

17. “Getaway Car”: a book with a tempestuous romance

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen certainly qualifies for that, I think.  

18. “Clean”: a book that taught you something profound

A Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh taught me many things about woman's innate need to create, the importance of alone time, and so on.

19. “Long Live”: a book that transports you every time

The Hound of the Baskervilles by A. Conan Doyle never fails to whisk me away to windswept moors.

That's all, folks!  If you had fun with this, feel free to snag it for your own use.  Not tagging anyone today.

Top Ten Tuesday: I Love a Mystery

I love mysteries.  I've got more than a hundred posts on this blog tagged "mystery."  It's my favorite book genre, no question about it.  So for today's Top Ten Tuesday prompt ("Books from Your Favorite Genre") from That Artsy Reader Girl, I give you My Ten Favorite Fictional Detectives. 

1.  Sherlock Holmes from the canonical books and stories by A. Conan Doyle, and also in the Mary Russell & Sherlock Holmes series by Laurie R. King.

2.  Philip Marlowe from the books and some of the short stories by Raymond Chandler, who is my favorite author of all time.

3.  Archie Goodwin & Nero Wolfe from the Nero Wolfe books by Rex Stout, which I love so much I've collected all of them.  (I know technically these are two people, but they work as a team.)

4.  Frank & Joe Hardy from the Hardy Boys by F. W. Dixon, which I read over and over and over as a kid.  (Again, totally a team.)

5.  Jack Reacher from all those books by Lee Child, which I guess are classified as thrillers and not mysteries, but he always solves a mystery in them, so that's how I view them.

6.  Trixie Belden from the series by Kathryn Kenny, which I also read over and over and over as a kid.  I loved Trixie's gang of friends, the Bob-Whites, and use to pretend I was one of them!

7.  Drew Farthering from the series by Julianna Deering, which is one of the best Christian mystery series I've ever encountered.

8.  Gwen Marcy from the books by Carrie Stuart Parks, the other best Christian mystery series I've found.

9.  Jane Austen from the series by Stephanie Barron, which I thought was going to be dorky and irksome, but actually turned out to be really fun!  

10.  Irene Kelly from the series by Jan Burke, which I started reading a few years ago and really ought to finish one of these days.

(All photos are mine, from my Instagram account.)

Who are YOUR favorite fictional detectives?  Do we share any favorites?

"Island of the Mad" by Laurie R. King

You know I've been a fan of Laurie R. King's Mary Russell & Sherlock Holmes series for many years now.  I've written a lot of posts about them.  They're my favorite non-canonical Holmes stories, and I love some of them dearly.

Just not this one.

Actually, I liked much of the story.  It was fascinating, mysterious, and held some nice twists.  Russell's university friend Veronica's aunt has been in and out of mental institutions for the last decade or so, and then she suddenly disappears, so Veronica asks Russell to look for her aunt.  Russell and Holmes follow her trail to Venice, which has just come under the rule of Mussolini and the fascists, and all the historical details were awesome.  They end up rubbing elbows with people like Cole Porter, so that was fun.

But running all through the story is a vein of homosexuality, which is not surprising given that King's modern-day mystery series stars a gay policewoman and she's dealt with the topic in other books too.  And Cole Porter actually was gay, so it all tied together.  What bothered me was Russell and Holmes' very modern reactions to finding out various people involved in the case were, as the parlance of the day put it, lavender.  They were practically ho-hum, and while many people in the 21st century would react that way, it felt pretty weird for the time and place the book was set.  Yes, Russell and Holmes have always been unconventional characters, but this began to feel like the foisting of an author's agenda into her characters' behavior and words that I just didn't appreciate or enjoy.  It was like if Holmes and Russell had suddenly started talking about reducing emissions and saving the ozone layer and needing to find sustainable fuel -- it just didn't seem to fit.

So anyway, if you like the series, you'll still have fun hanging out with Holmes and Russell here.  But this won't be a favorite of mine.  A couple years ago, I made a list of how I rank the books in this series, from favorite to least-favorite, and I feel like revising the list to include the newer books, so here's how I rank them now:

1. The Beekeeper's Apprentice (book 1)
2. The Game (book 7)
3. The Murder of Mary Russell (book 14)
4. O Jerusalem (book 5)
5. Garment of Shadows (book 12)
6. Pirate King (book 11)
7. Locked Rooms (book 8)
8. Dreaming Spies (book 13)
9. Justice Hall (book 6)
10. The God of the Hive (book 10)
11. The Language of Bees (book 9)
12. The Moor (book 4)
13. Island of the Mad (book 15)
14. A Monstrous Regiment of Women (book 2)
15. A Letter of Mary (book 3)

Particularly Good Bits:

"I have never found 'luck' a dependable companion," Holmes noted calmly, and tucked into his soup (p. 237).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: a hard PG-13 or soft R for a lot of veiled discussions of sexual proclivities, the behavior of mentally disturbed people, bad language, and some perilous situations.

The Joy of Christmas Book Tag

Saw this on Finding Wonderland and couldn't resist the Christmasyness of it :-)

(from Pinterest)

1: Anticipation: The Christmas excitement is real; what book release(s) are you most anticipating?

Island of the Mad by Laurie R. King
If I Live by Terri Blackstock
Whatever Katherine Reay writes next

2: Christmas Songs & Carols: What book or author can you not help but sing its praises?

Everyone needs to know how much I enjoy Katherine Reay's books!  I keep giving them to people as gifts.

3: Gingerbread Houses: What book or series has wonderful world-building?

I think The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien is pretty much the gold standard when it comes to world-building, don't you?

4: A Christmas Carol: Favorite classic (or one that you want to read)

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte is my favorite classic <3 

(from Pinterest)

5: Christmas Sweets: What book would you love to receive for Christmas?

Okay, there's this collection of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "personal essays" called My Lost City that I would LOVE to read, much less own... but it costs more than $100, so yeah, that's pretty much not going to happen.  But you DID ask.

6: Candles in the Window: What book gives you that warm, fuzzy feeling?

Anne of Green Gables by L M Montgomery definitely does.

(from Pinterest)

7: Christmas Trees & Decorations: What are some of your favorite book covers?

(I'll stop now.  Five was a good number to share, right?)

8: Christmas Joy: What are some of your favorite things about Christmas and/or some of your favorite Christmas memories?

• Christmas songs
• eggnog 
• multicolored lights 
• going on "Christmas walks" with my husband and kids (we walk around the neighborhood looking at all the decorations) 
• fudge
• singing "Silent Night" by candlelight
• allllll the Christmas church services

These are a few of my favorite things!

Not tagging anybody with this cuz I wasn't tagged myself.  If you want to do it too, then do it!

The Disney Princess Book Tag

I'm taking this from Rissi at Finding Wonderland -- she did it a while back, and while she didn't tag me with it personally, she did tag "anyone else who wants to join in," so I'm counting myself among those.  I snurched the pretty graphic from her post too.

1. Snow White - Name your favorite classic

That one's easy!  Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.

2. Cinderella - Name a book that kept you reading well past your bedtime

A couple of years ago, I stayed up until like 2 am to finish reading North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell.  I regret nothing.

3. Aurora - Name your favorite classic romance

Persuasion by Jane Austen!

4. Ariel - Name a book that's about making sacrifices and fighting for your dreams

Song of the Ean by Emily Nordberg, especially regarding Auria.

5. Belle - Name a book with a smart and independent female character

Oh, I'll use Jane Austen again and name Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice :-)

6. Jasmine - Name a book with a character who challenged the social conventions of his or her world

I think Mary Russell in The Beekeeper's Apprentice (and the whole series) by Laurie R. King nicely fits that description.  Whether she's wearing trousers, hanging out with a cantankerous "retired" detective, getting a university degree instead of sitting around spending her fortune, or keeping cheese in her dresser drawer, she's always defying conventions she sees as unimportant.  And that's all just in the first book.

7. Pocahontas - Name a book with an ending that was a roller-coaster of emotions

A Slight Trick of the Mind by Mitch Cullin.  (I much preferred the movie Mr. Holmes.)

8. Mulan - Name a book with a kick-a** female character

I'll go with Girl Waits with Gun by Amy Stewart.  Title kind of says it all, doesn't it?

9. Tiana - Name a book featuring a hardworking, self-made character

True Grit by Charles Portis.  That's Mattie Ross to a 't'.

10. Rapunzel - Name a book that features an artist

Middlemarch by George Eliot has an artist: Will Ladislaw.

11. Merida - Name a book that features a mother-daughter relationship

How about one book with many mother-daughter relationships?  I speak, of course, of The Mother-Daughter Book Club by Heather Vogel Frederick.  I've read 3 books in the series and thoroughly enjoyed all of them.

12. Anna and Elsa - Name a book that features a great relationship between siblings

Lizzy & Jane by Kathrine Reay is such a beautiful look at two sisters struggling to adapt to the absolutely wretched reality that one of them has cancer.

I wasn't tagged with this, but I'm going to tag a few of my bookish friends because I haven't tagged anyone with anything for a long time, and I'm overdue.  Since there were 12 questions, I'm going to run mad and tag twelve people!  So I hereby tag:

The Beckoning Hills
Book Geeks Anonymous
Bookshelves and Daydreams
Coffee, Classics, and Craziness
Greenish Bookshelf
The Language of Writing
Lavender Spring
Leatherbound
Movies Meet Their Match
Of Bookshelves and Daydreams 
She Hearts Fiction
You, Me, and a Cup of Tea

There, now you have something to do over the long Thanksgiving weekend!  

Which reminds me... Happy Thanksgiving!