I am sure there is a direct correlation between how stressed I am feeling and the books I am reading. If the pile of comfort reads I have been dipping into for the last couple of weeks (since I mentioned my predicament) is anything to go by, I'm still feeling a little overwhelmed by life. It's at moments like this that a really good, engrossing story is just what I need to take my mind off life's challenges.
With such an array of choices . . . where to start?
How about with a reread? I think this must be the third time now that I've read Hotel Paradise by Martha Grimes. Someday I really do need to pick up one of her Richard Jury novels, but for the time being I am more than contented with twelve-year-old Emma Graham. I don't know if Grimes set out to write a series of books featuring Emma (though I am quite pleased she has), but she is now up to number four, I believe. I've read only the first two and am planning on continuing on when I finish Hotel Paradise. It's sort of a mystery but not in a traditional sense. The story is narrated by Emma who spends the summer months at the hotel where her mother is cook. Forty years before a girl about her age drowned in a local lake and Emma becomes obsessed with finding out the truth behind her death.
Jennifer Donnelly's The Winter Rose is totally unputdownable for me. It's the book I seem to be reaching for most often and despite its heftiness (over 700 pages . . . wow, I didn't even realize until I stopped to check), I am flying through the story. In the same vein as Cashelmara, this is a sweeping sort of story. Set in 1900, India Selwyn Jones, a newly minted doctor, is set to change the world--or at the very least Whitechapel. Despite her optimism, however, nothing is as easy as she anticipates, and the dirt and grime and poverty she finds in the streets of Whitechapel almost succeed in ending her career before it even begins. Yes, there's a love interest--two actually, one suitable and the other not. This is a loose sequel to The Tea Rose, which I read years ago. I've got the third book in the set, The Wild Rose, winging its way to me even as I type.
Ooh, a cozy mystery, and one that includes a historic coffee shop in the heart of Greenwich Village as a setting goes far to raise my spirits (and I don't know how it is where you live, but it's been grey, dreary and chilly where I am, so this is especially welcome at the moment). Of late I have been indulging with an occasional (skinny) cinnamon dolce latte, so coffee has been on my mind. Warm drinks on cold days help my mindset. I had come across this series of mysteries by Cleo Coyle before (one of the circulation clerks at my public library recommended them to me ages ago), so I thought it might be fun to finally read one. I'm starting at the beginning with On What Grounds. Have only just begun, but it looks to be a light, not terribly taxing sort of read, and I suspect I'm going to learn a little bit about coffee along the way.
And a gripping book I recently finished. Normally I like to write properly about books I've read, especially those I really enjoy, but I think in the case of Beatrice Hitchman's Petite Mort, I am just going to direct you to Litlove's post instead. It was on her recommendation I picked the book up initially. Actually the book has yet to be published in the US, but purely by chance it is an ebook that I was able to check out from the library where I work. Since I read it on my Nook and didn't take notes (and it has since expired so I no longer have access to it), I'll only say it is indeed a twisty turny sort of story where nothing is as it appears. It concerns a provincial young French girl who dreams of going to Paris to star in the silent films. She goes, but ends up a seamstress instead. She catches the eye of the studio's main producer with whom she gets involved. This is a story that is best enjoyed when allowed to unravel at its own pace, but if you like stories of suspense and a sense of the unexpected do look out for it. It has a wonderful noirish feel to it with a surprise ending!
And one to look forward to. On more than one occasion P.G. Wodehouse has been recommended to me. Just recently his name came up yet again, and since escapist, absorbing literature has such a draw for me right now, why not throw in a little humor, too. I'm not sure if A Damsel in Distress is a Blandings Castle novel, but I like the way the story begins.
"In as much as the scene of this story is that historic pile, Belpher Castle, in the county of Hampshire, it would be an agreeable task to open it with a leisurely description of the place, followed by some notes on the history of the Earls of Marshmoreton, who have owned it since the fifteenth century. Unfortunately, in these days of rush and hurry, a novelist works at a disadvantage. he must leap into the middle of his tale with as little delay as he would employ in boarding a moving tramcar. He must get off the mark with the smooth swiftness of a jack-rabbit surprised while lunching. Otherwise, people throw him aside and ho out to picture palaces."
I am trying hard to not pick it up again until I finish some other 'in progress' book first, but I am tempted to just throw all caution to the wind and go read it now.
So, what do you like to read when life is being challenging?