Kind of a wasted day for Jo. We went to the hospital for her weekly chemo and tomorrow was supposed to be the 2nd part but the doc cancelled it until next week. Poor darling. Her port wasn't working either but by the end they managed to get it open again. But another delay for her. She's sleeping right now. These days do exhaust her.
I don't want to talk about the Blue Jays because I have a feeling I will jinx them if I do. But a very quiet woo hoo! We're cheering for you!
And now, on to my mid-month reading update.
Books completed
I've completed 4 books in September, 3 since my last update.
"I was first introduced to Ariana Franklin when I started her Mistress of Art of Death historical mystery series. They were such great stories. I was interested to try one of her standalone books, hence The Siege Winter, originally published in 2014 and completed with the assistance of her daughter, Samantha Norman.
Set in England in 1141 during the wars between Empress Matilda and her cousin Stephen, both wanting the English throne, the story follows a young girl, Emma and a mercenary crossbowman, Gwyl, as they trek across southern England trying find a place of safety. Gwyl had saved Emma, who had been raped by a vicious, insane monk and his gang of mercenary murderers. Emma has basically blacked out what happened to her but she possesses a piece of evidence of the atrocities committed by the monk.
Gwyl disguises Emma as a young boy to keep her safe, renaming her Penda, and he teaches her how to use a bow. They eventually arrive at the castle of Maud, chatelaine of the keep at Kenilworth, and end up becoming part of the force trying to keep the castle from being taken over the troops of Stephen. Empress Matilda has been brought there for safety by her small force, led by Alan of Ghent. They must both protect her and also try to help her escape to the West.
In the mix, is the mad monk who thirsts after more atrocities and wants to find Emma / Penda. So basically there is a whole heck of a lot going on. Like her other books, Ariana Franklin tells a mean story with well-crafted and written characters. She draws you into their lives, their problems, their personalities. She has written an excellent historical adventure that is a page turner. (4.0 stars)"
"Imago by Octavia E. Butler is the 3rd and final book in her fascinating Xenogenesis trilogy. In her imagined future, Earth was basically destroyed by man's warring and violence but saved by an alien race, the Oankali. They rescued a handful of humans, cured the & mated with them, raising off spring as a result. This in the hope of removing their parents' flaws.
At some point, the Oankali will leave Earth and it will become a barren planet. The remaining humans have a choice, leave with the Oankali or emigrate to Mars, where they will be able to propagate that planet. But before that, we have Jodahs, one of the children of a human mother and Oankali parents. Jodahs isn't male or female, it's a hybrid, what's called an ooloi. Once it completes its metamorphosis, it will be able to mutate DNA, cause and cure disease and draw humans to it. The Oankali don't know how to deal with Jodahs. Do they isolate it on Earth? Sent it to the living ship that orbits Earth? Questions, questions, questions.
In the meantime, Jodahs leaves it family and discovers a human grouping of humans who are fertile and can propagate. Unfortunately, they suffer from severe mutations and most of their children die. Along with his strong desire (need) to mate with humans, he also wants to protect this group. Once discovered by the Oankali, they will either be sent to Mars or to their ships.
It's another fascinating story in this trilogy, which my comments can't do justice to the intricacy and richness of the story and characters. Jodahs must adjust to his changes, to his family's wishes, to its desire to mate with and save the humans, to his desire to help his 'sister' Aaor, who is also metamorphosizing and becoming one of the hybrid ooloi. Butler writes beautifully, creates interesting people and situations. I need to explore her work more. (4.0 stars)"
"John Creasey], aka JJ Marric, Gordon Ashe, Anthony Morton, etc. was one of the most prolific writers of all time. Over his life, he specialized in crime thrillers and published in excess of 600 books. I've only begun to explore his work, some series I prefer to others. So far, the Commander Gideon books are my favorite, but I've also enjoyed the Baron, the Toff and a few others. The Department Z series, so far while not a favorite, still is an action packed thriller series. Creasey wrote 28 books in this series and thus far, I've enjoyed the 1st 2.
So far the series reminds me of those movies serials that you used to see at the beginning of a movie, especially if you're as old as I am and spent your Saturdays at the matinees. The serial was a ten or 15 minute show that preceded the main feature and always ended on a cliff hanger which was resolved in the following week.
Department Z is like that. In Redhead, which oddly enough doesn't really feature Dept Z until the end, two young British boxers, best friends, get into a scrape with gangsters while touring the US. A reporter goads them into bad-mouthing local gangsters who are terrorizing the New York area. Barely surviving a gun attack, the local police advise them to leave the US for their own good.
While on their cruise back to England, Storm and Grimm (that's their names, I didn't invent them.) make acquaintance with a brother and sister, Frank & Letty Granville, who are also on their ship and they seem to be being intimidated by an American gangster.... Is he Redhead? (Btw, the US police had indicated that a gangster known only as Redhead has been terrorizing the US) Wenlock keeps showing off how strong he is but is soundly trashed by Storm, arousing his ire...
Upon arrival in England, someone tries to shoot both Storm and Grimm. Is it Wenlock or one of his gang? This starts a chain of events that will lead to a full scale battle at the country estate of the Granvilles, between Storm, Grimm & a group of their friends & Wenlock's gang and also a British gang led by Noeman...
It's a convoluted story with which you definitely have to suspend disbelief, but it's full of neat characters, lots of action and suspense that ramps up throughout... And what about Dept Z, you ask? Ah, well, you'll have to read the story to find out, eh? It's not great literature but if you want good fun, it's worth reading. (2.5 stars)"
Currently Reading
"In this, Ms. Allingham's last novel, the action revolves around Saltey, for centuries a hidey-hole for all manner of villains. Astonishingly, it is the early 1960s, and Saltey, like many English coastal towns, is being over-run by teenage gangs. But that's not why Albert Campion — now, astonishingly, in late middle-age — has persuaded Lugg to take up residence. His interest lies in part with the just-out-of-prison thief who has (in time-honored tradition) gone to ground in Saltey. But his most passionate interest is reserved for the curious, newly revived story of the Saltey Demon."
"When the van door slammed on Offred's future at the end of The Handmaid's Tale, readers had no way of telling what lay ahead for her--freedom, prison or death.
With The Testaments, the wait is over.Margaret Atwood's sequel picks up the story more than fifteen years after Offred stepped into the unknown, with the explosive testaments of three female narrators from Gilead.
In this brilliant sequel to The Handmaid's Tale, acclaimed author Margaret Atwood answers the questions that have tantalized readers for decades."
In public life, Dr. Winthrop Bell of Halifax was a Harvard philosophy professor and wealthy businessman. As MI6 secret agent A12, he evaded gunfire and shook off pursuers to break open the emerging Nazi conspiracy in 1919 Berlin. His reports, the first warning of the Nazi plot for WWII, went directly to the man known as C, the mysterious founder of MI6, and to prime ministers. But a powerful fascist politician quietly worked to suppress his alerts. Nevertheless, his intelligence sabotaged the Nazis in ways only now revealed. Bell became a spy once again in the face of WWII. In 1939, he was the first to crack Hitler’s deadliest secret code: the Holocaust. At that time, the führer was a popular politician who said he wanted peace. Could anyone believe Bell’s shocking warning? Fighting an epic intelligence war from Ukraine, Russia and Poland to France, Germany, Canada and Washington, DC, A12 was the real-life 007, waging a single-handed fight against madmen bent on destroying the world. Without Bell’s astounding courage, the Nazis might just have won the war.
Informed by recently declassified documents, Cracking the Nazi Code is the first book to illuminate the astounding exploits of Winthrop Bell, Agent A12."
With the Prime Video adaptation premiering soon, crime comic grandmasters ED BRUBAKER and SEAN PHILLIPS return to their most acclaimed series with a new standalone graphic novel: THE KNIVES.
A sprawling CRIMINAL epic, THE KNIVES is the most ambitious tale BRUBAKER and PHILLIPS have ever tackled. Three dark journeys wind around each other over a decade, like sharks hunting for a kill.
Cartoonist Jacob Kurtz goes to Hollywood in the era of peak TV to work on an adaptation of his comic strip, only to find himself caught up in the life of his aging aunt and the vultures circling her estate. Angie was raised at the Undertow, but now everything she loves has been taken from her. She's on the streets with vengeance on her mind, her eyes set on the city's kingpin. And finally, Tracy Lawless is home from the special forces, finally a civilian again, but he's in bad shape and this city has always brought out the worst in him.
These three tales collide in THE KNIVES, a breathtaking noir story about greed, ambition, heartbreak, and blood ties. A must-have for all BRUBAKER and PHILLIPS fans!"
When rumours of a game-changing water source surface, Las Vegas dispatches elite water knife Angel Velasquez to Phoenix to investigate. There, he discovers hardened journalist Lucy Monroe, who holds the secret to the water source Angel seeks. But Angel isn't the only one hunting for water, Lucy is no pushover, and the death of a despised water knife is a small price to pay in return for the life-giving flow of a river."
1. Win back the friends who ditched her for being "too dramatic"
2. Stop being so dramatic
But then Lila's estranged Grandpa Clem dies, throwing a wrench in her plans. Now she'll have to spend the summer in Ohio while her parents decide what to do with Grandpa Clem's creepy Victorian Inn. It's supremely unfair. How can she show off the "new and improved" Lila from so far away?
Even worse, strange things keep happening. En route to Ohio, the family gets into a scary car accident. No one's hurt, but the remainder of the trip is... odd. At every rest stop, Lila sees people in weird old-fashioned clothes. People no one else can see or hear...
Lila convinces herself it's just her overactive imagination until the day of the funeral when she spots an old man sitting in her grandfather's favorite chair. She does a double take -- it's him, Grandpa Clem. He tells Lila that he didn't die of a heart attack, he was murdered. Possibly by someone who wants to control the inn. Because it's not a normal bed & breakfast; it's a portal between the land of the living and the realm of the dead. A hotel for ghosts passing onto the afterlife.
With the help of her skeptical brother, Caleb, and their new ghost-obsessed neighbor, Teddy, Lila -- the girl who's vowed to be less dramatic -- must uncover her grandfather's killer AND stop the evil spirits desperate to make their way back into the human world."
Healer Anja regularly drinks poison.
Not to die, but to save—seeking cures for those everyone else has given up on.
But a summons from the King interrupts her quiet, herb-obsessed life. His daughter, Snow, is dying, and he hopes Anja’s unorthodox methods can save her.
Aided by a taciturn guard, a narcissistic cat, and a passion for the scientific method, Anja rushes to treat Snow, but nothing seems to work. That is, until she finds a secret world, hidden inside a magic mirror. This dark realm may hold the key to what is making Snow sick.
Or it might be the thing that kills them all."
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