Guess who Mary Russell marries? Go on, guess! Nope, she marries Sherlock Holmes! And what a wonderful job this author does telling this tale. She crafts, for us, the background story of Mary, while keeping the personality of Holmes aligned during what would be an unlikely event for him. What a wonderful read!

It is always interesting to journey along with Hercule Poirot and see things the way he does. This is a compilation of short mysteries, each of which is set in a different interesting setting. I did this as an audio book on CDs and while I did enjoy it, I think I would have enjoyed it more had I done it as an actual book and been able to do it at a slower pace.

This was a different and very good book, and I’m not going to do it justice in the description, but here goes. A woman has lost her husband to an accident and now has to sell the house they had bought together but had not yet moved into. Each chapter then becomes a look into her perspective of “If only such and such had not happened”. And even though you know right from the beginning what the ending is, it is still an amazing descriptive journey which was originally written in French.

This is a compilation of short stories set in Africa. They involve, for the most part, issues between man and animal or animal and animal. They are interesting and fun but also have a larger message.

This is a wonderful tale that everyone can relate to; the anxiety and anticipation surrounding a high school reunion, and Smith tells a wonderful tale here. And as the old classmates gather, grudges come to the surface, and secrets behind them are revealed.

A charming book. My best description is that it's a cozy adventure.

This is the second time I read this book, and I enjoyed it just as much the second time, picking up parts of the story more intensely this time. This is a perfect story of 2 generations who are in need of each other and who come together in the best way possible. While each of the 3 central living characters (and I have to include living as one character who feature prominently is deceased) has their challenges, they come together to help one another perfectly, even if for some the motivation may be selfish. This is a story that will touch your heart.

I would say that the central part of this book is solid and enjoyable, but some of the peripheral stuff I could do without, including names of many people who have little or nothing to do with the story. And maybe it is just me, but I found the ridiculousness of the names, virtually all of them, to detract from the serious central plot. There is a god story in here, but you just have to wait for it to rise to the top.

Now that I’m done, I can say it; What the heck was this? A person who was an editor and writer once told me that readers have to be able to like, empathize, or at least understand a character in order to be able to enjoy a book. In this book NONE of the characters are likeable, and what’s more they are all verbally abusive to one another; mother to child, child to father, sister to sister. Set in India, the mother keeps her teenage daughters locked in their rooms for most of their lives, supposedly to keep them safe, but then says things to them like “Your days are numbered” and “I wish you were dead”. And the book starts off with one of the daughters being approached by a man in town, and there is this whole back and forth between the two where he goes after her, then she goes after him, then he drives her home and……nothing. Nothing more is said about the relationship or what happened. I could not wait for this book to be done and then felt like I needed to wash.

This book follows the 2 daughters of the man who was responsible for people seated on the throne of England in the 1400's. It follows the 2 girls through their lives and does a beautiful job of following their changing view of the position of Queen from their childhood until their death. It is a wonderful, albeit at times a grim, look at the life of powerful women during that time period.