A new year and lots of fun reading in January 2023 and I ended up reading 8 books. The highlight of the month was that I found a new Sherlock Holmes series by Vicki Delany to read and the lowlight of the month was reading the revenge book by Prince Harry. The books and the links to buy them are listed below.
Remember life is way too short to read a book that you don’t like, so read what interests you. Happy reading!
Body on Baker Street: A Sherlock Holmes Bookshop Mystery: Book 2 by Vicki Delany – A Sherlock Holmes pastiche author is murdered in Gemma Doyle’s bookstore Sherlock Holmes Bookshop and Emporium and everyone is a suspect in this wonderful follow up book. Loaded with even more Sherlockian Easter eggs.
Elementary, She Read: A Sherlock Holmes Bookshop Mystery: Book 1 by Vicki Delany – Gemma Doyle, no relation to the writer ACD, is the Sherlock of the story and runs a Sherlock Holmes themed bookstore on Cape Cod and murder soon happens. Gemma’s partner in crime is Jayne Wilson – best friend and baker who runs the Mrs. Hudson’s Tea Room next door. Why have I not seen this series before? Its wonderful and Sherlockians will love all the name dropping and Easter eggs.
Star Trek: The Next Generation Cats by Jenny Parks – The cast reimaged as cats! Totally adorable.
The General of Tiananmen Square: An Ava Lee Novel: The Triad Years: Book 15 by Ian Hamilton – Ava Lee and her revolving cast of characters deal with the movie business, as well as some Americans, Thai, and Chinese in this cliffhanger of a book. Yes, it ends on a cliffhanger and I have a theory about the cliffhanger – was it real or a con by someone (and that’s all I will speculate, since I don’t want to give away any spoilers and I could be totally wrong). Sadly only a brief glimpse of Uncle and Xu and no Sonny.
The Wars of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors by Dan Jones – I read this Jones book for my history book club. Its really interesting, but we should have read a different book before this one to fully understand the cast of 101 characters. I am still trying to keep straight the various Henrys, Richards, Williams, Geoffrey’s, plus the Johns and Henrys and Margaret’s.
Spare by Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex. Horrible manners and horribly written. Everyone loves a good royal tell-all, but the writing (and it was ghost written) is just horrible and Harry is just mean, and really do not mistake this book for anything other than a revenge story. His revenge on anyone who has ever wronged him, his mother, and now his wife. For example he names teachers, yes lists their names, and calls them names and says mean things about them. And for some strange reason he can remember conversations he had with his father and brother going back the past 25 years word for word. Did he take notes? Does he have a photographic memory? We also see his ignorance about his family’s history and his unwillingness to see them with adult eyes. The picture he paints of his father Charles is one of a kind, gentle bookish man who is a workaholic, was not prepared to raise children, and will not do anything to help him and of his brother William portrayed as the mean older brother who will also not help him. Yes, that’s a revolving theme “no one will help him.” Harry believes that William is jealous of him and his life. Here is fact – siblings don’t get along in real life, many are not friends, and so why should Harry and William be friends? Harry’s narrative is that he is the victim and everything he has done wrong in his life is the fault of someone else. People with mental health issues often remember events wrong and continually repeat this narrative for years and years. One can only assume since this book sold so well, we will be reading about Harry and his “everyone was mean to him” narrative for years to come.
I, The Constable: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine by Paula M. Block and Terry J. Erdmann – A fun book about Odo’s search for a missing Quark on Ferenginar What could go wrong? Cameos by DS9 fan favorites – Rom, Leta, and Moogie.
Lust’s Latinum Lost (and Found): Star Trek: Deep Space Nine by Paula M. Block and Terry J. Erdmann – A fun story about Quark and his search for a holosuite game with cameos by many DS9 fan favorites.