It's been a while since I have had the urge to write an 'in seach of' post, but the mood is hitting me now. When it comes to the way I read these days--I tend to do a couple of things (which may or may not be a good idea, but admittedly cause some problems). I am not a one book at a time reader. I used to be.
I wish I was closer to one book at a time than a grazer. Yes, I am an awful grazer when it comes to reading. I have several (many?) books on the go at once. It is all the fault of the internet. Before I knew there were so many others like me who are passionate readers, and before I knew the grand expanse of what is out there and that I could access so very, very many books, my reading was really much more under control.
I am also very much a mood reader. Today it may be all about crime novels (lately it is mostly about crime and mystery novels), but next week I might be looking for a story about growing up in NYC in the 1950s. I will see something or read a short article or one book will naturally lead to another subject and I am off. It's not so much that I abandon books, but some other story calls to me.
Once again a mood is hitting. I blame it on a movie I was halfway watching while doing something else. It had a setting of a French Alpine resort town. Beautiful and snowy with lights illuminated against a blue black sky. I am not ready for winter to happen here, but I kind of like the idea of reading a story set in some cold place, but maybe with an elegant background.
Once again, I am in search of a story. Cold and snowy. Maybe Alpine region or mountainous. Could be a mystery or maybe just a drama. It is a setting I cannot recall having called out to me before. There are only two books that I can think of. One is M.M. Kaye's Death in Kashmir. Have you ever read any of M.M. Kaye's romantic adventure books--all with titles that start "Death in--"?
"When young Sarah Parrish takes a skiing vacation to Gulmarg, a resort nestled in the mountains above the fabled Vale of Kashmir, she anticipates an entertaining but uneventful stay. But when she discovers that the deaths of two in her party are the result of foul play, she finds herself entrusted with a mission of unforeseen importance. And when she leaves the ski slopes for the Waterwitch, a private houseboat on the placid shores of the Dal Lake near Srinagar, she discovers to her horror that the killer will stop at nothing to prevent Sarah from piecing the puzzle together."
The other is by a Nebraska (my state) author who has been compared to Agatha Christie. Mignon Eberhart's The Mystery of Hunting's End was a claustrophobic whodunnit set in the Nebraska Sandhills during a snowstorm.
"The Sand Hills of Nebraska, where Mignon G. Eberhart lived as a newlywed, inspired the setting of this 1930 chiller. Smack in the middle of the rolling desolation is Hunting's End, a weekend lodge owned by the rich Kingery family. To that place socialite Matil Kingery invites a strange collection of guests-the same people who were at the lodge when her father died of "heart failure" exactly five years ago. She intends to find out which one of them murdered him. Posing as another guest is the dapper young detective Lance O'Leary. At his recommendation Matil has engaged Nurse Sarah Keate to care for Aunt Lucy Kingery at Hunting's End-not a pleasant assignment, as it turns out. Gathered at the lodge, Matil's guests are shut off from the outside by a November snowstorm."
I might have to pull out my copy of the Kaye this weekend.
However, if anyone has a reading suggestion for a story set in a snowy region--any genre, any period I would be most appreciative. I had in mind-mountains, climbing, skiing, but also ski lodges and warm fires. Could be mystery or intrigue or drama or even romance.
I am looking forward to the long weekend, maybe looking over my in progress pile and tidying it up (if I barely started it, maybe I can weed out the books that might be better for a later time). I have some new books to share here and some recent good reads.