The Nell Sweeney Mystery Series

And we got more snow again last week. Hiss! Hiss I say!

Also, to the "gentleman" that keeps plowing the snow to the back of all our cars:

Anyway, so, I got to work from home quite a bit last week. Which means I had more time to spend with the hubby and to read. So I took advantage and finished reading a series I had started about a month ago. I first blogged about it as a guest on ProlixMe, which is my best friend's blog. Alicia and I have known each other for 15 years, and we have a love affair with romance novels, mysteries and Starbucks. Please do check out her block. She's fabulous.

Last night, I finished the last book in the Nell Sweeney mystery series. There are six books in this series: Still Life With Murder, Murder in a Mill Town, Death on Beacon Hill, Murder on Black Friday, Murder in the North End, and Bucket of Ashes.


They were all fun, fast, and thoroughly enjoyable to read. Nell Sweeney is now one of my favorite book heroines. She's smart, loyal, and just an all-around classy bad ass.The relationship between Nell and Will Hewitt, the male protagonist, evolves in a way that feels realistic, especially considering that Will has his share of problems.

When Nell first meets Will, he's sitting in jail accused of murder. This has come as quite a surprise to the Hewitt family, since everyone thought Will had died at Andersonville. Nell works for the Hewitts as a governess to a little girl they adopted. She has Mrs. Hewitt's complete confidence. So, Mrs. Hewitt asks Nell to help clear Will of the murder charge.

Nell's past and Will's present make their relationship a rather complicated one. Still, you are hoping they can both get their shit together so they can finally get together. There is a bit of will-they-or-won't-they, but it never feels forced or done just for the sake of stringing the reader along.

The mysteries in each book definitely hold the reader's attention. They don't go into too much crap that isn't relevant, and P.B. Ryan moves the stories along at a really good pace. I've come to appreciate stories that don't have a lot of padding in them. I'm not against big books, not at all, but there are too many books on my TBR pile to waste my time with stories that just make me think "This needed a brutal editor."

Out of all the books, my favorite was Murder on Beacon Hill. It's heartbreaking, salacious, and just all around delicious. It was the only book that, when they figure out who did it, kind of gave me the chills. It's not particularly original, per se, but it does something fun with an idea that's been done before.

Let's face it, there is nothing new under the sun and it takes some doing to make a story still feel fresh and exciting no matter what your subject.

I haven't lost hope that P.B. Ryan might decide to write another series. She writes romance novels under the name of Patricia Ryan. I will check those out, but, just in case Ms. Ryan sees this: More mysteries! These were so much fun!

On a Cold, Snowy Weekend

I don't live in Boston, so I feel a little guilty complaining about snow. But I'm going to complain anyway. Why? Because I freaking hate shoveling snow. I hate it, hate it, hate it. I hate cleaning it off my car and I hate how it gets the bottom of my pants wet.

What's good about this kind of weekend though? It's the best time to bake and read.

And isn't that just one of the things to really love about winter?

Can't go outside? What better excuse do you have than to sit and read all day? Or perhaps, what other motivator would you need to try a recipe out of that cookbook you have sitting on your shelf?

I've done both this weekend and, besides the second-degree burns on my fingers, it's been delightful.

The book I've been busting out this winter is America's Test Kitchen Cooking School Cookbook. My husband got it for me with his Barnes and Noble employee discount (I love him so.) and it's one of the best investments we've ever made. I haven't tried as many recipes as I would have liked, but the ones I have tried are absolutely fantastic.

If you follow the instructions, you'll be set. Seriously. I have yet to have a fail for any of the recipes I've tried from this book. My favorite so far has been the chocolate chip cookies. Holy crap, they are just awesome.

My husband's favorite is the lemon pound cake. And you would think pound cake is easy to make, but it really isn't. It's really easy to have it turn out to be a greasy lump of crumbs. This book tells you how to keep that from happening. I also love the fact it's written in a no-nonsense manner. For instance, the book includes tables where they common problems folks might have making a particular dish. In the table for one of the cakes, it has an entry about how to substitute cake flour. Point blank, the book tells you that if you're going to be baking cakes, you need cake flour. It does have a substitute, but just freaking do what they tell you. Buy the goddamn cake flour. You'll love the cake so much, you'll want to make another one. For real, you'll want to make cakes all day long. (By the way, I highly recommend the King Arthur Cake Flour.)

And that's the thing about this book. It's giving me a lot of confidence in the kitchen. I actually enjoy reading the beginning of each chapter because it has such useful information. I can't say enough good things about it.

I could go on and on about America's Test Kitchen--the show on PBS is just awesome--but I won't. Just look up this book, look up their website, and start cooking.

It's Been A While

So its been, oh, I don't know. Over two years? Yeah, I just took a look and it's been well over two years since I've posted anything here.

Have I stopped reading?

No, of course not.

But a lot has happened in the last couple of years. To keep a long story short: I got promoted at my old job in 2012. That's great, yeah? Well, it turned out that what little time I had available outside of the job was taken over by said job. So much so that, honestly, I wouldn't have been surprised if my marriage had totally collapsed. I couldn't even take advantage of my stupid-long commute, since most of the time I was working from the minute I got on the bus. Also, I had started taking classes to become a certified database specialist. Apparently, I didn't have enough going on.

In 2013 I got another job. This new job cut my commute down by two-thirds and I work significantly better hours. However, I now drive to work. I don't have a death wish, so I don't read during my drive. It's taken me about a year to finally accept that audio books should be part of my life. 

My reading world, though now a little harder to schedule time for, has greatly expanded. I read on my e-reader at night so I don't bother my husband with a light on. (I tried book lights. I always ended up shifting and the light would end up right in the hubby's face. Not good.) I listen to audio books on my commute and I still read hard copies.

Yes, a lot has happened in the last two years. I'm learning everyday how to be more brave, how to expand my horizons, how to try things that are outside my comfort zone. And you know what? My life is so much better than it used to be.

One of the things in my life that will never change, though, is my love of books. Books have kept me sane during some pretty difficult times. Books have given me the opportunity to get outside of my own head, to dive into other people's lives and problems and triumphs. 

And this is why I had started blogging in the first place. Because I know I'm not the only one that feels this way about books. I know that there are a lot of us out there in this planet and, for that, I'm glad.

The Return (Victoria Hislop)

I read this last year when my husband and I went to Spain to visit his family. Yes, this story is set in Spain. Cliche, but there you have it.

This novel tells the story of the Ramirez family.The family members are: Concha and Pablo, the parents; Antonio, the eldest and very much a supporter of the Republic; Ignacio, a matador and very much in favor of the fascist; Emilio, a musician and sensitive soul who does not want to dabble in politics at all; and Mercedes, a flamenco dancer that captivates the city of Granada. Before the beginning of the war, Mercedes meets a Gypsy guitarists named Javier. The quickly fall passionately in love.

Their story, set in late 1930s Spain immediately before and during the Civil War, is interwoven with Sonia's story. Her mother was a Spanish refugee that settled in London. Sonia travels with a friend to Granada to take flamenco classes. She meets a cafe owner, Miguel, who tells her the story of what happened to the Ramirez family.

Of course, you know this story is going to be tragic for everyone involved. The Spanish Civil War tore apart the whole country and no family was left untouched. Hislop makes no pretense at impartiality. She's very much on the side of the Republic. Although I also tend to favor the side of the Republicans, the realities of Spanish life are a little oversimplified in this story. I had a hard time believing that Javier and Mercedes could fall in love so quickly. Yes, she's 16, but he isn't, and the intensity of their feelings after knowing each other for such a little amount of time is a little off putting.

And, like most stories that go back and forth in time, the story set in the 30s is much more interesting that the one set in the present. Sonia's story, in all honesty, is a little boring. She's having issues with her husband, who clearly doesn't understand her. It can be interesting, but it just doesn't quite fit right. Hislop tries to make it kind of parallel. It just didn't totally work for me.

One  thing that totally turned me off was the mix up with the last names. Spaniards (and Puerto Ricans, and most people in the Spanish-speaking world) have two last names. The first last name is the father's and the second is the mother's. Hislop kind of mixed them up in some instances. I don't know if I just misunderstood, but I know Hispanic last names.

It's a decent story, but the Spanish Civil War is a notoriously difficult subject to write about. It's a good effort.

Next up: My Afternoons With Margueritte by Marie-Sabine Roger.

The Queen of the South (Arturo Perez-Reverte)

A quick note about why I haven't updated the blog in the so long. The First, WeRead app on Facebook kind of died. So, and I kid you not, I couldn't remember what I had read and in what order. Maybe I'm just not as good as I should be retaining what I've read or maybe I read so much that if I don't write it down quickly I get confused. Anyway, I'm on Goodreads now and that's totally helping. It's a great place to share books and reviews.


With that, I'm moving on to the next book I'm reviewing: The Queen of The South. Another quick note: I read this book after reading Los Huesos de Dios, by Leonardo Gori. As far as I could tell, you can't find this book in English that's why I'm not reviewing it here. But, if you read Spanish or Italian, check it out.


OK, so on to The Queen of the South. I read this in Spanish as well, but it's available in English. This novel came out a few years ago but has had a resurgence in popularity because of the telenovela that came out recently. I didn't watch it, but apparently it was a pretty big hit. This book is about Teresa Mendoza, a young woman from Sinaloa that gets caught up in the underworld of drug trafficking.She ends up living on the Mediterranean coast of Spain, where she meets another young man. He also happens to drive a boat to bring drugs into Europe from Morocco. I don't want to give to much away, but circumstances lead to her being in jail where she meets a woman that will change her luck and her life.

There have been plenty of complaints about how this novel glamorizes narcos. I can totally see why, but I don't think that's really what the story is about. Teresa has very humble beginnings. She grows up in a violent society, where people do things they may not want to do to survive. Teresa, I think, happens to be cold-blooded enough that she refuses to let circumstances dictate whether she lives or dies. Would I want to meet this woman? No damn way. But I think Perez-Reverte manages to make her, if not a sympathetic character, at least someone that the reader can respect.

Next up: The Return, by Victoria Hislop

The Soldier's Wife (Margaret Leroy)

Yes, another novel set in World War II. I'm pretty sure this is my last one for a while, since even I'm starting to get uncomfortable with how much I read about this time period. That said, this novel truly delivered. It's the story of Vivienne, an Englishwoman that lives in Guernsey, one of the islands within the United Kingdom that suffered Nazi occupation. She married a man from Guernsey and moved there with him, and at the beginning of the story he's already off to fight in France.

Her decision to stay on the island, even though everyone that could and wanted to get out did, settles a new course for her life that she couldn't have imagined. She makes clear from the beginning that her marriage hasn't worked for quite a while.This, of course, makes what happens later on less morally questionable.

After the Nazi invasion of the island, some officers move into the house next door to Vivienne's. She eventually begins an affairs with one of the soldiers. I didn't find that Gunther's and Vivienne's self-justifications about what their affair were surprising. Both keep themselves almost purposefully in the dark about what the war means, as well. Vivienne's daughters work as a sort of moral compass, though the neither girl really understands what's going on around them.

Several other story lines take place, none of them particularly original. Still, Leroy manages to bring an intimacy to this war story that makes this book very much worth reading.

Next up: The Queen of the South, by Arturo Perez-Reverte

Secret of the White Rose (Stefanie Pintoff)

The third installment in the Simon Ziele mystery series certainly delivers. Pintoff has created a character that a reader can very much care about. Simon has flaws, but he's so earnest and honest that you can't help liking him.

This time around, Ziele is back in New York, having left the small town where he has worked as one of two cops. His friend, Alistair Sinclair, calls him in to help investigate the murder of a judge that Alistair knew. This judge had been presiding over the trail of an anarchist that had set a bomb in New York that killed several people, including a child.

Of course, this murder is only the beginning of what becomes an increasingly complicated and bloody case. It also becomes quite personal for Ziele in a way he could never have foreseen. It looks like Pintoff may continue to mine Ziele's sad and dramatic past into the series. It could have seemed forced, but so far it hasn't. That may not work from here on in, but I will always give Pintoff the benefit of the doubt.

Ziele's relationship with Alistair becomes more complicated with this book. Alistair's flaws and his own past become a crucial part of this story. Pintoff has never written this relationship in a way that makes them real partners, and she's certainly never had Alistair appear as a sidekick. Indeed, in this book, Isabella has a much bigger role than she had in A Curtain Falls. I'm hoping this continues, not only because it would be great to see her spend more time with Ziele. She's smart, resourceful, and I think Ziele may overestimate how much their different backgrounds affect their relationship.

I'm looking forward to the next installment. So far, Pintoff has avoided going through an obvious route. Indeed, she's exercised a lot of restraint in particular in the relationship between Ziele and Isabella. It's one of the reasons I continue to look forward to her books.

Next up: The Soldier's Wife, by Margaret Leroy.