The Curse of the Pharaohs

285 pages

Product Description

One of the best-loved of mystery writers weaves another tale of intrigue featuring Amelia Peabody and Radcliffe Emerson of "Crocodile on the Sandbank". This time the willful and witty duo must catch a murderer at an excavation of an ancient Egyptian tomb

This is the second book in the Amelia Peabody series.
The first one was better, but this one was enjoyable just the same.

One thing annoyed me.
Emerson and Amelia are now married.
They have a son named Ramses.
Amelia has no maternal inclinations at all.
She has no problem leaving her child for months at a time, even when he was very young.

Also, the baby talk is extremely irritating.

In spite of this, it is still a good story and I look forward to reading more of Amelia and Emerson.

Amazon prices on these books tend to fluctuate.
Most of them are about $8.00, but they mark some of them down to about $2 from time to time. I've gotten 4 of them for that price. I hope they do more soon!

Oh! I almost forgot to say- I finally realized who Amelia reminds me of.
Captain Janeway of Star Trek: Voyager!

2010 total: 23
Currently Reading: The Enchanted April, Pretty Little Liars #2, and Strawberry Shortcake Murder (my current bath-tub book :-))

Pretty Little Liars

304 pages

In the exclusive Philadelphia suburb of Rosewood, Alison is the Queen Bee of her elite seventh grade hive. BFs Aria, Hanna, Spencer, and Emily vie for her attention, even as each of them hides a hideous secret only Alison knows. So when Alison goes missing after a slumber party, never to be seen again, each girl is heartbroken, but also a little relieved. Now it is three years later, and though the four girls have grown apart, they are each still hiding something. Artsy Aria is carrying on an affair with one of her teachers, fashionista Hanna shoplifts to accessorize her trendy outfits, blue-blood Spencer is sleeping with her older sister’s boyfriend, while straight-A Emily is trying to ignore her attraction to a new female classmate. When the girls begin receiving threatening text messages and emails that from someone known only as "A," they must confront the fact that against all odds, it appears Alison is back. Could Alison still be alive? And if so, why is she so determined to uncover all their dirty little secrets?

I liked this book.
I wouldn't want my daughter reading it, though.
These girls are far from good role models!

Yes, I liked the book, but I also felt a little cheated.
I know this is part of a series but I expected more answers by the end of the book.
By the end, we still have no clue who "A" is or what the girls did to Jenna.
We do, however, find out (partly) what happened to Alison.

I won't be reading the rest of the series unless I can find them at the library.

2010 total: 22
Thriller & Suspense Challenge: 12

Murder on a Girls' Night Out

244 pages

Product Description:

A Different Kind of Sister Act

Patricia Anne -- "Mouse" -- is respectful, respectable, and demure, a perfect example of genteel Southern womanhood. Mary Alice -- "Sister" -- is big, brassy, flamboyant, and bold. Together they have a knack for finding themselves in the center of some of Birmingham's most unfortunate unpleasantness.

Country Western is red hot these days, so over impulsive Mary Alice thinks it makes perfect sense to buy the Skoot 'n' Boot bar -- since that's where the many-times-divorced "Sister" and her boyfriend du jour like to hang out anyway. Sensible retired schoolteacher Patricia Anne is inclined to disagree -- especially when they find a strangled and stabbed dead body dangling in the pub's wishing well. The sheriff has some questions for Mouse and her sister Sister, who were the last people, besides the murderer, of course, to see the ill-fated victim alive. And they had better come up with some answers soon -- because a killer with unfinished business has begun sending them some mighty threatening messages...

This was my bath tub book this month.

It was.... just ok. I didn't love it. I didn't hate it.

It was enjoyable, but not memorable.

2010 total: 21
Thriller & Suspense challenge: 11

Shutter Island- Dennis Lehane

400 pages

From Booklist

Lehane is red hot--his Mystic River (2001) is currently being filmed by Clint Eastwood--and he returns with another blistering page-turner. It's 1954, and U.S. Marshals Teddy Daniels and Chuck Aule arrive at a small island in Massachusetts' Outer Harbor. It is home to Ashcliffe Hospital, a federal institution for the criminally insane, and one of the patients has escaped. Although the two men are new partners, they have already developed a wry, jocular relationship while also swapping personal, painful details. Daniels' lost his much-loved wife two years prior in a fire, while Aule requested a transfer out of Seattle after being harassed over his personal relationship with a Japanese American woman. After interviewing the hospital's medical personnel, both men have the feeling they are being stonewalled, especially by the director, who seems to alternate between a cold authoritarianism and a sudden and sweeping compassion. When the island is hit by gale-force winds and Aule disappears, Daniels must go it alone, beset by the fear that he has been fed psychotropic drugs and the belief that the hospital is performing radical brain surgery as part of a secret-ops program. Lehane throws in one mind-bending plot twist after another in a psychological thriller that will leave readers in suspense right up to the end. A master of the adroit psychological detail, Lehane makes the horrors of the mean streets pale in comparison to the workings of the human mind.


Wow! This book was amazing! It is not one that will be quickly forgotten.

There's not much more I can add to the above review without giving away the ending.


2010 total: 20
Thriller & Suspense challenge: 10

Elizabeth and Her German Garden

84 pages

This books goes along with "The Solitary Summer."
In fact, this one was written first.
They are both written in diary format.
While "The Solitary Summer" takes place in one summer, this book contains an entire year.

I loved this book.
I preferred "Solitary Summer," but they are both beautiful.

In the first part of this one, Countess von Arnim talks about her attempts at gardening. Of course, she doesn't do the actual gardening work (that would be scandalous!), rather she gives orders to the gardener. In the second part, she has 2 guests that stay for about 3 months. One of them she likes, the other... not so much.

It is said that Lucy Maud Montgomery read these books, and it is where she got the term "kindred spirits." I don't know how accurate that is, but I read it several places on the internet.

If you liked LMM, you would probably love these.

I am in love with Elizabeth von Arnim! She is definitely a kindred spirit :-)

Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book:

"there were days last winter when I danced for sheer joy out in my frost-bound garden, in spite of my years and children. But I did it behind a bush, having a due regard for the decencies."


(while watching owls in the garden) "They say the same thing over and over again so emphatically that I think it must be something nasty about me; but I shall not let myself be frightened away by the sarcasm of owls."


The people round about are persuaded that I am, to put it as kindly as possible, exceedingly eccentric, for the news has travelled that I spend the day out of doors with a book, and that no mortal eye has ever yet seen me sew or cook. But why cook when you can get some one to cook for you?


(on gardening) It is not graceful, and it makes one hot; but it is a blessed sort of work, and if Eve had had a spade in Paradise and known what to do with it, we should not have had all that sad business of the apple.


What a happy woman I am living in a garden, with books, babies, birds, and flowers, and plenty of leisure to enjoy them!

The garden is the place I go to for refuge and shelter, not the house. In the house are duties and annoyances, servants to exhort and admonish, furniture, and meals; but out there blessings crowd round me at every step—it is there that I am sorry for the unkindness in me, for those selfish thoughts that are so much worse than they feel; it is there that all my sins and silliness are forgiven, there that I feel protected and at home,


I long more and more for a kindred spirit—it seems so greedy to have so much loveliness to oneself—but kindred spirits are so very, very rare; I might almost as well cry for the moon.


A woman's tongue is a deadly weapon and the most difficult thing in the world to keep in order, and things slip off it with a facility nothing short of appalling at the very moment when it ought to be most quiet.


When I got to the library I came to a standstill,—ah, the dear room, what happy times I have spent in it rummaging amongst the books, making plans for my garden, building castles in the air, writing, dreaming, doing nothing!



It cannot be right to be the slave of one's household gods, and I protest that if my furniture ever annoyed me by wanting to be dusted when I wanted to be doing something else, and there was no one to do the dusting for me, I would cast it all into the nearest bonfire and sit and warm my toes at the flames with great contentment.


I don't like Duty—everything in the least disagreeable is always sure to be one's duty.


It is much easier, and often more pleasant, to be a warning than an example


We were meant to be happy, and to accept all the happiness offered with thankfulness—indeed, we are none of us ever thankful enough, and yet we each get so much, so very much, more than we deserve.


don't be afraid of public opinion in the shape of the neighbour in the next house, when all the world is before you new and shining, and everything is possible


Cultured individuals do not, as a rule, neglect to teach their offspring to read, and write, and say their prayers, and are apt to resent the intrusion of an examining inspector into their homes;


listening to the marvellous silence, and letting its blessedness descend into my very soul.


Every paradise has its serpent, however, and this one is so infested by mosquitos


Very well, I suppose I am eccentric, since even my husband says so; but if my eccentricities are of such a practical nature as to result later in the biggest cauliflowers and tenderest lettuce in Prussia, why then he ought to be the first to rise up and call me blessed.


2010 total: 19
currently reading: Murder on a Girl's Night Out (bath-tub book), Shutter Island, & Curse of the Pharoahs

Carmilla- J. Sheridan Le Fanu

132 pages

This is a vampire story that predates
Dracula.
In fact, it is better written than Dracula.

It is the story of Carmilla, a female vampire (though that fact isn't revealed until the end).
Through a strange series of events, she comes to stay in the castle of mere strangers.
There she befriends Laura, the daughter of the family, and very mysterious things begin to occur.

Some of the vampire lore is different than what is commonly "believed" today.

The atmosphere is very rich. It's wonderfully gothic and creepy. I loved the atmosphere and the background more than anything else!

2010 total: 18
Thriller & Suspense challenge: 9
Currently Reading: "Elizabeth and Her German Garden" and "The Curse of the Pharoahs" (Amelia Peabody series-#2)

The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg

128 pages

"A mysterious stranger is treated badly by the town of Hadleyburg-the town that proclaims itself "the most honest and upright town in the region." Through an ingenious sting operation, the stranger sets out to expose Hadleyburg's leading citizens and reveal their greedy, deceitful natures."

I really liked this book!

Mark Twain is fast becoming one of my favorite authors.

I remember my dad introducing me to Tom Sawyer when I was about 12. I enjoyed it, but wasn't particularly blown away by it.

In high school, we had to read Huck Finn.
I hated it.
I think I mostly hated it because I *had* to read it.
I was like that back then.
I automatically didn't like anything I was made to read.
Teenagers- go figure! lol

So that was my experience with Mark Twain.

Enter the Kindle and it's wonderful free-book goodness. :-)

Through Kindle, I have discovered lots of classics that I had never heard of, and re-discovered ones I didn't really give a chance the first time around.

This is the second Twain I've read this year and I plan on reading more.
I may even give Huck Finn another chance. ;-)

My favorite quotes from the book:
"Training in honesty-- honesty shielded from the very cradle, against every possible temptation.... is artificial honest, and weak as water when temptation comes."

"Why, you simple creatures, the weakest of all weak things is a virtue which has not been tested in the fire."


2010 total: 17

Crocodile on the Sandbank

272 pages

Amazon.com Review

Elizabeth Peters's unforgettable heroine Amelia Peabody makes her first appearance in this clever mystery. Amelia receives a rather large inheritance and decides to use it for travel. On her way through Rome to Egypt, she meets Evelyn Barton-Forbes, a young woman abandoned by her lover and left with no means of support. Amelia promptly takes Evelyn under her wing, insisting that the young lady accompany her to Egypt, where Amelia plans to indulge her passion for Egyptology. When Evelyn becomes the target of an aborted kidnapping and the focus of a series of suspicious accidents and mysterious visitations, Amelia becomes convinced of a plot to harm her young friend. Like any self-respecting sleuth, Amelia sets out to discover who is behind it all.

The love of my beloved is on yonder side
A width of water is between us
And a crocodile waiteth on the sandbank.
.~Ancient Egyptian Love Poem


I found it hard to get into this book (maybe because I was reading another book that I really loved at the time) but I'm glad I didn't give up on it.
About halfway into it, I couldn't put it down.

It was a wonderful, delightful read!
The Egyptian theme was perfect to read while lying out by the pool.
The imagery is superb. The characters are excellent.
It made me want to travel the Nile on a dahabeeyah!

This book contains history, mystery, and a bit of romance.
It reminds me of a mixture of Indiana Jones, Agatha Christie, and the Discovery Channel.

Several books in this series are currently priced at about $2 in the Amazon Kindle store.
Don't miss out!


2010 total: 16
Thriller & Suspense challenge: 8
Currently Reading: "Murder on a Girls' Night Out" and "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg"