Reading three brand new books...plus a couple of book group meetings...

Hello my book friends!  How are you doing?  I have been fine and am delighted to say that we got almost half an inch of rain late yesterday afternoon and evening!  It was wonderful and I could almost feel the grass and plants 'drinking' in the moisture.  Lovely.  When I got out this morning to take my daily walk, it was 67 degrees and the air was fresh and clean.  I saw a bunch of fellow walkers as everyone wanted to make the most of the cool temperatures.  It's only supposed to get up to 93 degrees later this afternoon and that is about 8-10 degrees less than yesterday before the rain.  Will this be the start of something?  Probably not.  It is July after all and we still have August and probably September for summer-ish weather.  I'll take what we can get though.

First of all, I've attended two book groups lately.  Last week, I enjoyed the 'Historical Fiction' group discussion of Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly.  And this week, the 'Brown Bag' group met and talked about Brit Bennett's book, The Vanishing Half.  Really interesting meetings and discussions.  I had not been able to read either book, but attended anyway and was glad I did.  I hope to get to both at some point.

I have been reading several 'just published' books and I'll talk a little about those next.  First up is Augusta Hawke by G. M. Malliet.  I met this author at one of the mystery conferences that I attended a few years ago and have known several who have read her Max Tudor series.  This book is the first in another series with the second hopefully to come out in 2023.  Augusta Hawke, the protagonist, is a crime writer who lives in the suburbs of Washington D.C.  She writes alone in her home and often peers out her study window thinking about how her story will go.  That's how she notices that her neighbors have gone missing.  When a police detective appears at her door with questions, Augusta decides to 'assist' in hunting for them.  Her current book is not going well and it will give her something to do.  The story was kind of easy for me to figure out, but as the first book in a series, I always give some grace for learning about characters, etc.  I'll be watching for the next book.

The next book I was delighted to pick up was Linda Castillo's new Kate Burkholder mystery, The Hidden One.  This is the 14th in the series, and it's a series that I  love.  I am also listening to an event at the Poisoned Pen Bookstore from yesterday with Linda and Barbara Peters.  I really enjoy these events (released on YouTube or can be live or as podcasts).  The Hidden One takes Kate out of Painter's Mill and I suspect that some will not be as happy with that, but the author herself thinks that it keeps the characters fresh and allows different aspects of their lives to be shown.  Kate is asked by three Amish leaders from a community in Pennsylvania to come to their town and help an old friend of hers.  Jonas Bowman and Kate were close when they were teenagers and Jonas has been arrested and charged with the murder of an Amish bishop.  Kate's regular team and significant other do appear, but not as much.  I liked this book a lot though.  I've enjoyed how the author has told us Kate's backstory bit by bit through the series.

Today, I finished up Carol Goodman's newest book, The Disinvited Guest.  It just came out on Tuesday and I was lucky enough to get an audio of it from the library.  I've read a number of this author's books, all standalones, and liked them.  They are often set in the woods of the Northeast or at schools and usually include things that would be considered in the Gothic realm - creepy, spooky, parts of legends or lore.  The Disinvited Guest does include the pandemic of 2020 (as the author refers to it), but I think it's set in about 2030.  There is another time of sickness, a new virus, and people are having to go back to some of the behaviors and cautions that filled our recent years.  Lucy and her husband, Reed, are going to an island off the coast of Maine, that Reed's family has owned for many years.  Some friends will be sheltering with them.  What Reed hasn't shared so much with Lucy is the history of the island in the 19th century.  It was known as Fever Island and served as a quarantine hospital for people coming to the US and Canada from Ireland.  These people had typhus and many died there.  When Lucy finds a diary written by one of the doctors that treated these patients, she discovers all kinds of secrets and also what people believe about the island.  Ah, yes.  I found this quite spooky and enjoyed it a lot.  I've been kind of picky about the books that I've read that include the pandemic times, but I was OK with how Goodman included it.  

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That's all the news I have for now.  I'll try to get back in the next week or so and let you know what I've been reading or doing.  Take care and have a good weekend!