Three Times Dead; or, The Secret of the Heath; or The Trail of the Serpent by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1860) 4/5 stars (my review here)
The Story of a Whim by Grace Livingston Hill (1903) 3/5 stars
Hazel sends a Christmas gift to a stranger on a whim. As the stranger's name is "Christie", Hazel assumes she is gifting a college-age girl like herself, when instead, the receiver is a young orange farmer. Hazel's gift leads him to discover a faith that changes his life. This Christian novel written at the turn of the 20th century is a gentle, sweet read that is light on plot but full of charm.
Behind a Mask, Or, a Woman's Power by A.M. Barnard, pseudonym of Louisa May Alcott
(1866) 4/5 stars (my review here)
The Santa Klaus Murder by Mavis Dorial Hay (1936) 4/5 stars
In this Golden Age mystery, the host of a house party is found murdered on Christmas Day. Hay's prose is quite good, and the plot was absorbing. I wasn't fully convinced by the solution, but enjoyed the book as a whole.
Audio Books Completed
This well-written novel picks up at right as the previous volume ends, and takes Mary Russell and Holmes through an adventure that involves extreme danger to them and those they love most. It is another wonderful, often touching, addition to the series, and is suspenseful, exciting, and completely engrossing.
The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz (2017) 3/5 stars (my review here)
Envious Casca by Georgette Heyer (1941) 4/5 stars (my review here)
A Scandalous Deception by Lynn Messina (2018) 4/5 stars
Picking up a few months after the end of a Brazen Curiosity (my review here), this, the second in the Beatrice Hyde-Clare series, follows Bea and the Duke of Kesgrave as they seek the killer of a dandy who fell dead at her feet. This cozy mystery is as charming as the first, with some genuine laugh-out-loud moments, appealing characters, and generally well-written prose. The solution hinges on Bea's knowledge of bizarre facts, which wasn't fully convincing, but overall, it was an enjoyable read.
Did Not Finish:
The Girls in the Garden by Lisa Jewell
This started off quite good, but then spiraled down, down, down. Reading about pre-teen snogging and drug use is off-putting to say the least, and Jewell makes the reader feel like a pervert spying on these children. If it had been handled better (by Nabokov for example) it could have been a compelling novel, but I felt so unclean reading it that I stopped about half way through.
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
I've had this book for some time, and looked forward to reading it when I was in the mood for neo-gothic. Referred to a fine example of that genre, it is instead, an utter disappointment. Unlike a classic gothic tale, this novel is distasteful and sordid, and Setterfield is not talented enough to spin a palatable and readable tale of incest, torture, masochism and insanity. Give this one a miss.
