Book Beginnings and The Friday 56 - February 17, 2017

I'm linking up with Rose City Reader for Book Beginnings and Freda's Voice for Page 56. Check out the links above for the rules and for the posts of the participants each week. Pick the closest book on your book stack and join the fun.

The Beginning:

"I looked at the profusion of mourning jewelry spread across my dressing table and sighed. "

Page 56:

"Whenever I catch my first glimpse of the Parthenon, I know the Greeks were superior to the Romans, but I will never admit this in any other circumstance."

From A Terrible Beauty, A Lady Emily Mystery by Tasha Alexander. I have followed this series from the beginning. According to the blurb, this latest one has a twist I never saw coming. I got it at the library yesterday and it is on top of my TBR pile.

Short and Sweet Book Reviews # 53 - It Must Be Christmas by Jennife Cruise, Donna Alward and Mandy Baxter, The Falls by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, The Adventuress by Tasha Alexander

It Must Be Christmas: Three Holiday Stories by Jennifer Crusie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What it not to like when you get three novellas with a Christmas theme and a romance. All three stories were fun to read but Hot Toy by Jennifer Cruise was the one that made me laugh out loud through out the story. A really fun story with toys and spies at its heart. Christmas at Seashell Cottage by Donna Alward had me wondering if I had read it before. I had not but I had read the novel that came after this story. A nice sweet romance with a baby at the heart of the story. Christmas with the Billionaire Rancher by Mandy Baxter was the story with the most explicit sex as a big part of the story line. Since I usual just skin those part this was a very fast read. All three have been published before so check before you buy to make sure you have not already read them. If not pick up It Must be Christmas for some nice Christmas Romances that are fun. The nice thing about three stories in one book; you can sip them one at a time between all of your holiday plans and get the complete story in a much smaller time frame.


The Falls: A Diving Universe Novel by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

For those of us who are fans of the Diving Universe and have read the series from the start The Falls will probably not be what you expect. No Boss in this one. Instead it takes the readers to a Fleet Base that is still active but about to close. There is a mystery that starts with a pair of shoes left at Flisker Falls on the same day that the final closing date for this Fleet Base was announced. While the mystery is center stage for the story it also gives a lot of backstory and world building for the rest of the series.
There are also some great characters and two events that turn out to be connected.

I enjoyed the story and wondered if it would have any tie in to the previous books in the series since this happened many years in the future, not in the time the rest of the story takes place. Listen and look careful for near the end there is something that ties the book to events in the past. Rush says in her comments she started this story to flesh out the Fleet and how it operated but she realized that she had written an entire novel to get all the information in she wanted so decided to publish it for those of us who love the series. I think it would also work as a stand-alone or an introduction to the series.
There is a new book in the series coming out in 2016.


The Adventuress by Tasha Alexander
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I love Lady Emily books and I call them a slow burn mystery. This one starts when Emily and Colin go to France for the engagement party for Emily's life long friend Jeremy. No one expected Jeremy to ever marry but it seems he has found the perfect woman and plans to make her his wife. Nothing goes as expected. People are dying and Emily wants to know why. There are a lot of red herring along the way. While I though maybe I knew who and why things were happening actions in the story kept me guessing. A nice addition to the series. You can read this as a stand-alone. It is a good introduction to the series but like most series it is much better if you have read the previous books.

View all my reviews

Book Beginnings and The Friday 56 - October 28, 2016

I'm linking up with Rose City Reader for Book Beginnings and Freda's Voice for Page 56. Check out the links above for the rules and for the posts of the participants each week. Pick the closest book on your book stack and join the fun.

The Beginning:

"The English Duke is dead."

Page 56:

"We must speak no more on this subject. Bainbridge is happy and the choice of wife is his alone."

From The Adventuress, A Lady EmilyMystery, by Tasha Alexander. This is one of my favorite historical mystery series. It is set in the early 1900 and features setting around the world. I just started reading today and am having trouble putting it down to write this post.

Death in the Floating City by Tasha Alexander

Historical Mystery

What Goodreads says:

"Years ago, Emily's childhood nemesis, Emma Callum, scandalized polite society when she eloped to Venice with an Italian count. But now her father-in-law lies murdered, and her husband has vanished. There's no one Emma can turn to for help but Emily, who leaves at once with her husband, the dashing Colin Hargreaves, for Venice. There, her investigations take her from opulent palazzi to slums, libraries, and bordellos. Emily soon realizes that to solve the present day crime, she must first unravel a centuries old puzzle. But the past does not give up its secrets easily, especially when these revelations might threaten the interests of some very powerful people."

Death in the Floating City continues to showcase the writing talent of Tasha Alexander.

The Plot:  Look for multiple red herrings as the story progresses.  There are two stories in the book: one in the present and one in the past.  They are related and are the reason for the murder. 

The Characters:  Emily has center stage in this story.  Colin is there but often in an off stage role.  Emma, the old friend who ask for help is not seen very often.  The story is sprinkled with interesting characters from now and from the past.  As usual in the Lady Emily stories characters are introduced and developed in a way that adds to the mystery.  Venice with its history and location is an important character in the book.

The Writing:  Very well written.  The story moves along at a nice pace and the surprises are there to move everything along. 

The Setting:  Venice is a great city for a mystery.  As you follow Emily you get a very good idea of the layout, the history and the character of Venice.  I had a very good feel for the location and how it was important to the story.

The Back Story:  This is book seven in the series.  Only Emily and Colin were characters from the previous books.  That made it easy to get into the story.  This is an easy book to read as a stand-alone as the history in previous books is not a big factor in Death in the Floating City.

I found Death in the Floating City to be a great addition to the Lady Emily series.  If you are already a fan of the series you will enjoy the story and if this is your first book in the series you will want to find the previous six.

Minotaur Books published Death in the Floating City by Tasha Alexander in 2012.

Musing Monday, August 19, 2013.

Musing Mondays (http://shouldbereading.wordpress.com/) asks you to muse about one of the following each week…
• Describe one of your reading habits. • 
Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).
• What book are you currently desperate to get your hands on? Tell us about it! 
 • Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.
 •Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!
 • Instead of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!

I am reading Death in the Floating City by Tasha Alexander.  This is a Lady Emily Mystery.  I love the series and checked the book out at my local library.  I just started and already want to warn Lady Emily to not trust Emma Callum.  I just think that a cat does not change its spots and Emma is still a person you should not trust.  The book is set in one of my bucket list places to visit, Venice and the setting for another of my favorite mystery series, the Commissario Guido Brunetti books.

Tease Tuesday January 10, 2012

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following: 

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers.

My teaser this week is from A Crimson Warning by Tasha Alexander.  This is the next book in the Lady Emily Mystery series.

"Once Colin was Satisfied we'd gathered everything useful we could from theRoyal Academy, he headed for Scotland Yard while I set off on an errand of my own."

"She didn't say anything, but twisted and twisted her black-hemmed handkerchief."

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