Mariec's Books for 2009

This year is starting with a bang... it has started 18 hours ago (most of them being used to sleep, eat and clean the house) and I already have 1 book to list for my challenge :o)

So, here is my updated list:

1. Cockatiels at Seven by Donna Andrews

9th in the Meg Lanslow series. In this episode, after leaving her toddler "just for a little while" with Meg, Karen, a Caerphilly College employee and Meg's friend, does not answer her phone and seem to have disappeared. Worried and, let be honest, a little overwhelmed by the kid, Meg decides to investigate.

Once again Meg is surrounded by a wonderful cast of colorful characters: Michael, ever caring and understanding, her father and grand-father who seem to think that a house and a zoo are the same thing, her brother Rob who may be moving in piece by piece, Spike the dog, Rose Noire her cousin, and naturally, making his first apparition (and I hope not his last) Timmy an hyperactive toddler. Donna's books have been a sure bet for me if I want to spend a good time for some time now. This book did not disappoint me and met the challenge of making me laugh during a not-so-good time. I gave it a 4.

Welcome! Nice review.

I do not think I have read any of Donna Andrews' books. I will have to start trying them. Thanks for the review and recommendation!

Today, I spent part of the day reading by the fireplace :o) It was a great last day before going back to work...

2. A Royal Pain by Rhys Bowen

Second in the Lady Georgiona series. Georgie is one of Queen Victoria's great-grand-daughter and 34th in line for the throne. But like a lot of aristocrats, she has the title but no money. So when the Queen asks her to help her to match the Prince of Whales with the young princess of Bavaria who is visiting, Georgie, as everybody, cannot say no. The problem is, the young princess, just out of a convent, is a little out of control, the prince is a lot more interested in Mrs Simpson, and death is once again on Georgie's path.

Georgie is a nice character: while she has been educated to being a lady, she also lives by her family principles, never to run or surrender. What is most interesting in this series is that it is set in the 1930's, mixes historical characters (such as the royal family) and fictional characters and gives a good look at how people from different status traveled around, ate, clothed, in a word, lived. I warmly recommend Rhys Bowen's books to all who love historical mysteries!

Sadly, I guessed one the responsibles pretty early in the book :o( For that reason, I give it 3 1/2 stars.

I read Bowen's Her Royal Spyness when it came out, so I guess I had better try A Royal Pain as well. I like both Bowen's Evan Evans and Molly Murphy's series, and I enjoyed the first book in the Georgie series, too.

This one comes from the "1001 books you must read before you die" list.

3. The Reader by Bernhard Schlink

Michaël is 15 when he meets Hannah who's more than twice is age. For 6 months they become lovers, their relationship being characterized by their ignorance of each other's life and the books they share. Their secret meetings stop abruptly when Hannah disappears. Years later their paths cross again: Michaël now a law student attends a trial in which Hannah is one of five accused. Observing Hannah's tentatives to defend herself, Michaël thinks he has discovered the secret she has hidden all her life. To better understand the love he's never gotten over, Michaël decides to write their story.

This book tells the story of a man marked by his first love. But also shows the destiny of the children of those who participated into the Holocaust, the children of all those who obeied or closed their eyes to the horrors of the camps. Michaël's story talks about emotions with detachment and from the distance time gives, which adds to the feeling of detachment Hannah's secret obliges her to have. I loved that book. I give it 4 1/2 stars.

Note: I read the French translation of this book

Here is the 4th

4. Soutien-gorge rose et veston noir by Rafaele Germain

And the 5th

5. A Misty Mourning by Rett MacPherson

4th in the Torie O'Shea series. A very pregnant Torie is invited to the will reading of a 101 year-old woman who's not even dead... yet! So when the woman dies before the reading, Torie is left with a some important questions: who and why the woman was killed and why did she had left Torie her boardinghouse!

This book is set away from Torie's house and her family. But we still get to see her grand-mother, and hear about her mother and her fiancee, Torie's "favorite" sheriff... I like history and genealogy, so this series has a special appeal for me for being based on family history and genealogical secrets. This installement was not an exception. But I still missed the habitual setting. I gave it 3 1/2 stars

#8: I have not read any of the books in that particular series. I will have to look for them. Thanks for the mention.

I am a little behind :(

6. Le pendule de Foucault by Umberto Eco

7. Murder Is Binding by Lorna Barrette

1st in the Booktown Mystery series.Tricia Miles is brand new in Stoneham, NJ and when Doris Gleason, the owner of the cookbook store, the neighbor of her own mystery bookstore, is killed, Tricia soon becomes the first suspect.

I enjoyed reading this book since I felt I knew a lot more about Tricia, her sister and other characters that will, I am pretty sure, be back in next books. I would really like to visit a place as the one described in this book: a town where many used bookstores offer different genres of books. I look forward to read the next in the series. I gave it a strong 3.5

Hi and welcome to the 2009 75 book challenge. I'm a carry over from the 208 group.

I'm spending time today catching up on the posts and thus discovered yours. I note your comments regarding The Reader by Berhard Schlink. This is a book that keeps popping up in comments recently. I've added it to my list of books to read in 2009.

January is now over, but I succeeded in finishing another book before the end of the month:

8. The Good, the Bad, and the Undead by Kim Harrison

2nd in the Rachel Morgan series. Life is not easy for white witch bounty hunter Morgan, she lives with a vampire, her boyfriend has the bad habit of calling a demon, her clients don't always pay her, and her demon mark reacts really strongly to vampires. And now ley line witches are killed...

I just love that series :o) Action, suspense, humor and a little romance... everything is there! Rachel is a white witch with principles but she has to face reality and most accept to go against her values sometimes to survive and help her friends survive. In this book, she also learns more about her past and her father. I can't wait to read the next installement in that series (but I have to wait until my books are unpacked). I gave it 4.5

>12 Mariecg:: I enjoy them, also. But, what is she going to do when she runs out of Clint Eastwood movie titles?

February is going well :o) 2 books this time...

9. Errors and Omissions - Paul Goldstein

1st in the Michael Seeley series. Seeley is an attorney specialising in intellectual property. His life is not going so well lately: his wife has left him, as are his paying clients, he drinks too much and an angry judge wants to see him disbarred. So maybe getting away for some days to work on an Error and omission report for a movie studio would be a good idea... But things are not so easy when he discovers that the author of a scenario in litige may not be the real author...

As an intellectual property manager, I was really interested to read that book. As Seeley goes to Europe to meet with the real author so he can sign an authorship declaration, he also must face his own reality. I enjoyed this book and am looking forward for the next in the series. I gave it a 4.

10. 100 One-Night Reads: A Book Lover's Guide - David C. Major

Another one :)

11. The Oxford Murders by Guillermo Martinez

A Young Argentinian mathematician is going to Oxford on a grant. Sometime after meeting is new landlady and her grand-daughter he finds her death. A note listing her death as "first in the series" is left for a math professor. Will the mathematicians be able to find the solution and stop a killer.

Even if maths and series are an important part of the story, knowledge of advanced maths is absolutly not necessary to understand the and even solve the mystery. It is a good and fast read (less than 200 pages). I gave it a 4.

#15: Another mystery to add to Continent TBR. Sounds like a good one. Thanks for the recommendation, Mariecg!

12. Murder by Numbers by Kaye Morgan

2nd in the Sudoku Mysteries series. Liza is a publicist and a sudoku passionate, who after getting tired of Hollywood life decided to go back to the small town where she grew up, Maiden's Bay. Jenny is a young actress, represented by Liza, who had a really bad experience in Mayden's Bay, experience a director is set to use to give more dimension to her interpretation in a movie that is filmed in part in Mayden's Bay. Liza will have to use all her talents to help Jenny when one of the movie's major is found dead...

Liza write a column on sudoku in the local newspaper and one of these columns is provided at the beginning of each chapter of the book, which I enjoy. I enjoyed the first book in this series, but this time, the fun was not as present. I thougt some of the characters were weak (I guess playing with somebody's head is not easy to render in a cozy book than the author taught) and I had a hard time with the end of the book (not the solution itself, but rather how the guilty was outed by Liza). I will probably check for the third at the library anyway. I gave it a weak 3.5.

It's going well for me ;o) I have 3 new books to add...

13. A Patent Lie by Paul Goldstein

Second in the Michael Seeley. When his brother visits to hire him, Seeley is not sure it's a good idea to replace, 2 weeks away from trial, an attorney who just died in strange circumstances. Even if at first the case seems pretty much open and shut, things are never as easy as they seem...

Even if this novel was about a subject really interesting to me, patents (hé!), this book did not interest me as much as the first in the series... Maybe it comes in part from the fact that learning more about Seeley's past made him a little less realistic for me :o(

14. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

15. The Dead Cat Bounce by Sarah Graves

2 new books:

16. The Ghost and the Haunted Mansion by Alice Kimberly

17. Ghost at Work by Carolyn G Hart

And here are 3 new books I've read :o)

18. In the Shadow of the Glacier by Vicki Delany

19. Les fabuleuses aventures d'un Indien malchanceux qui devint milliardaire by Vikas Swarup

20. The Xibalba Murders by Lyn Hamilton

Here the new ones :o)

21. The Fire by Katherine Neville

22. If Looks Could Kill by Michael Blair

23. The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling

24. Dead Water Creek by Alex Brett

#21: What did you think of The Fire? I did not care for it nearly as much as I liked The Eight.

I also preffered The Eight... I don't know if it was because at the time it was new while The Fire was less, but I guess it comes a lot from the end (was it really an end?) and the impressions that it was a little too much for nothing... :o( You know like something you enjoy while eating to realize when you're finished that you feel heavy to end up being hungry an hour later :o(

Hi, I would need the help of somebody who has already read this book: could you help me? The question is just this: in the book a special code is described such that ages of people are expressed with numbers like 1914; would you know the rules of this code?