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Melissahttp://www.missmeliss.comWriter, voice actor, dog-lover, and bathtub mermaid, Melissa is the Associate Editor-in-Chief at All Things Girl. To learn more about her, visit her website, or follow her on Twitter (@Melysse) or Facebook. You can also listen to her podcast, "Bathtub Mermaid: Tales from the Tub" at Bathtub Mermaid or on iTunes.

Escape into a Good Book

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It’s been so cold lately – and by cold I mean “there’s a sheet of ICE across my swimming pool” – that those advertisements for weekend getaways to cancun mexico are looking awfully tempting. Of course, I still feel kind of, well, craptastic, and I can’t afford a trip right now, anyway, so instead I’ve been reading a lot.

Currently, I’m reading:
Decaffeinated Corpse, by Cleo Coyle
and
Whom God Would Destroy, by Commander Pants

I tend to have more than one book going at once, and I promised the Commander I’d read this book in October or November, then lost it in the house, then had food poisoning, and now I think I’m getting the flu, so I’m not reading as quickly as I usually do, and I don’t have a lot of stamina, either. When I AM reading, lately, things that are familiar and formulaic are the easiest. Hence my current addiction to cozy mysteries.

I always have one book in progress that I keep near the tub, strictly for bathtub reading. My bubble book, at the moment, is The Summer Kitchen, by Karen Weinreb, which I bought MONTHS ago – MANY months ago, and just wasn’t in the mood for once I got it home. (Does that happen to anyone else?)

On Deck, I have:
The Ghost and Femme Fatale
and
The Ghost and the Haunted Mansion

which are the last two novels (so far) in Alice Kimberly’s Haunted Bookshop series.

And on that note, I’m going to curl up with a good book, and read until I’m ready to sleep.

Happy Reading!

Thursday 13: Winter Tales

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I haven’t done a Thursday 13 in a while, on any of my blogs, and thought I’d challenge myself, as a hard freeze descends across north Texas, by pulling away from my fantasies of beach vacations in Outer Banks rentals, and instead compile a list of thirteen Winter Tales.

  1. Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott: a perennial favorite of mine, chock full of cozy fall and winter scenes. And then there’s the moment when Amy falls through the ice.
  2. If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler, by Italo Calvino: one of the oddest books I’ve ever read, it’s lingered with me since I was 19. Not for light reading.
  3. My Antonia, by Willa Cather: some people think this is boring, but I love those stories of the prairie…I just don’t want to live there.
  4. Holiday Grind, by Cleo Coyle: the ultimate holiday mystery, with recipes, too.,/li>
  5. Time and Again, by Jack Finney: classic fantasy; pay special attention to scenes like when the young couples are skating in Central Park.
  6. Snow Falling on Cedars, David Guterson: haunting, and you can re-watch the movie when you’ve finished the book.
  7. Smilla’s Sense of Snow, by Peter Hoeg: a tale of suspense and snow. Gripping!
  8. The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin: takes place on a planet called Winter. Must I say more?
  9. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis: always winter, never Christmas, but a classic even so.
  10. The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and To Build a Fire, by Jack London: novellas, really, hence the lumping them together. Light a fire and find a thick blanket before you read these stories.
  11. Icehenge, by Kim Stanley Robinson: what if Mars was under totalitarian law, and there was a Stonehenge like creation made of ice on Pluto? What if?
  12. Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name, by Vendela Vida: love, loss, and a night at the ice hotel.
  13. The Long Winter, by Laura Ingalls Wilder: having lived through a few South Dakota winters, I have a new understanding of what Laura and her family went through.


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Review: The Ghost and the Dead Deb by Alice Kimberly

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The Ghost and the Dead Deb
The Ghost and the Dead Deb
Author: Alice Kimberly
Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: Berkley (September 6, 2005)
Language: English

Penelope “Pen” McClure, co-owner of the fictional “Buy the Book” in Quindicott, RI, should really consider investing in some sort of business insurance, because in this second installment of the Haunted Bookshop series, another visiting author is murdered.

Alice Kimberly once again weaves a charming romance/mystery pairing Pen with Jack Shepherd, the ghost of a noir private investigator, who himself was gunned down in the store decades before. In this book, we learn a bit more about Pen, and, in the related case from Jack’s memory, we also learn a bit more about Jack.

Young deb-turned-author Angel Stark could easily be ripped by any number of today’s tabloids, but the recurring characters are also as vivid as they were in the first novel – especially the group of business owners affectionately referred to as the Quibblers (which name, I confess, reminds me of another fictional mystery series, Lilian Jackson Braun’s The Cat Who…).

What really makes this book sing, however, is the developing relationship between Pen and Jack – they’re clearly friends now – which is heightened when Pen finds a way to take Jack with her (so to speak) when she leaves the store.

Goes well with hot tea and a warm quilt.

2009 in Review

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It’s a new year here at Bibliotica, which means it’s time to take a look at my stats for the old one. If I have any kind of bookish resolution it’s to be better about logging and reviewing everything I read, for my own sake, if nothing else. I like to see how my tastes have changed and evolved over time.

How did I do?

In the year 2009, not including books I forgot to catalogue, I read 85 books, for an average of 1.635 books per week. My best months were January and May, with 12 books each, and my worst was November, when I logged only three.

(As an aside, I must say that if there were any kind of mechanical breakdown insurance for the brain, books would be it. When I was trying to cope with a miscarriage in May, books were my escape, and the savers of my sanity.)

I don’t generally pick favorites – my favorites change too often to keep up! – but Laurie R. King and Cleo Coyle (in her various guises) made up a significant portion of my reading list, and Diane Johnson’s Lulu in Marrakech is the one that most disappointed me.

I’m sort of in book limbo right now. I have stacks of stuff to read, but none of it is really demanding my attention. I have, however logged my first book of the new year already: Alice Kimberly’s The Ghost and the Dead Man’s Library.

Teaser Tuesdays: The Ghost and the Dead Man’s Library by Alice Kimberly

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On Teaser Tuesdays readers are asked to:

  • Grab your current read.
  • Let the book fall open to a random page.
  • Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between 7 and 12 lines.
  • You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given.

I’m not sure if having a live-in ghost is something that will remove the necessity of having good, cheap life insurance, but I do know that I’m really enjoying Alice Kimberly’s Haunted Bookshop series. It’s the relationship between Pen and Jack that has me inhaling these books, and also the fact that light reading is nice during the holidays.

In any case, here’s my teaser, from page 192 of book three, The Ghost and the Dead Man’s Library.

Picking a lock is an art. You can’t master it in a few minutes.

“So how do I get in?”

Break the window and turn the knob from the other side.

“Okay.” I raised the Maglite to smash the glass.

Not like that! Jack cried. With finesse. And real quiet like.

“How do you break a window quietly?”

I should note that in the above passage, lines in italics are the words of Jack, the ghost.

Review: The Ghost and Mrs. McClure by Alice Kimberly

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The Ghost and Mrs. McClure
The Ghost and Mrs. McClure
by Alice Kimberly
Get it from Amazon >>

The Ghost and Mrs. McClureThe Ghost at Mrs. Muir and part homage to noir crime fiction, this book is a light mystery – nothing is terribly unpredictable, but the relationship between Jack and Pen makes it an interesting read, and keeps you coming back for more. Some of the best humor of the book comes from Jack’s reactions to modern technology – chat rooms on the internet are as cool to him as websites touting low cost health insurance would be to those looking for new policies.

I suspect future novels will see the Pen/Jack relationship deepening – as far as it’s possible when one half of the relationship is incorporeal, but that the basic premise will be maintained: He’s the ghost of a hard-boiled detective, she’s a widowed bookseller. Together, they fight crime.

Lost: One Book

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I lost a book somewhere in my house.

Worse, I lost a book I promised to review, while I was in the middle of reading it. The book in question is Whom God Would Destroy, by Commander Pants, which I posted a teaser from sometime in the last month or so. It was really enjoying it, because it was making me think AND making me laugh – a combination which I generally cannot resist.

I have this horrible feeling it got slipped into a stack of shipping boxes (incoming, not outgoing) and is upstairs in the library, buried in a pile, but I looked, and don’t remember seeing it.

Speaking of boxes, however, I have found something to read in the meanwhile: The Ghost and Mrs. McClure, by Alice Kimberly. This is the first in Kimberly’s “Haunted Bookshop” series, and I know it will be good because I know that Alice Kimberly is also Cleo Coyle, who writes the Coffeehouse Mysteries I love so much.

I’m enjoying this book a lot, but I’d rather find the other, and finish it, before moving on entirely.

Booking Through Thursday: Mark!

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btt2

On Thursday, October 29th, Booking through Thursday asked:

What items have you ever used as a bookmark? What is the most unusual item you’ve ever used or seen used?

True confession: Whether it’s a serious novel or a catalog offering a great selection of unique gifts for her, I tend to dog-ear, or use the flaps of a dust cover, rather than an actual bookmark, at least with my own books. I’ve even been known to – horror of horrors – leave an open book face down.

With books that belong to other people, however, I’m much more respectful, and always use bookmarks. What kind? Typical choices are:

  1. Business cards, usually other people’s, sometimes my own.
  2. A clean square of toilet paper (I read in the bathroom a lot.)
  3. The receipt telling me when a book is due back to the library.
  4. A used boarding pass from an airplane flight.
  5. Receipts from recent purchases.
  6. Emery boards.
  7. A dollar bill.
  8. Movie or theatre ticket stubs.
  9. Postcards.
  10. Hang-tags from new clothing.

Sadly, I’ve never noticed any particularly unusual or interesting bookmarks.

Teaser Tuesdays: Christmas Stories compiled by Everyman’s Pocket Classics

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On Teaser Tuesdays readers are asked to:

  • Grab your current read.
  • Let the book fall open to a random page.
  • Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between 7 and 12 lines.
  • You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given.

Several years ago, my aunt Patti began the tradition of sending me a different collection of Christmas stories every year. Last year’s collection, entitled simply Christmas Stories was one of the more literary of the collection – others tend toward lighter fiction, and even humor on occasion, but I like all styles of writing, so I enjoyed it even so.

As it’s December, and I’m a sucker for a good holiday tale – they make a nice change from worrying over wireless security systems and other such technological concerns – I’m using it this week.

So, from the short story “The Burglar’s Christmas,” by Willa Cather, which is included in the Everyman’s Pocket Classics edition of Christmas Stories, I offer the following:

‘O, my poor boy, much or little, what does it matter? Have you wandered so far and paid such a bitter price for knowledge and not yet learned that love has nothing to do with pardon or forgiveness, that it only loves, and loves – and loves? They have not taught you well, the women of your world.’ She leaned over and kissed him, as no woman had kissed him since he left her.

Reviewed Elsewhere: Holiday Grind, by Cleo Coyle

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Holiday Blend

From the moment I first picked up a Cleo Coyle novel, I knew I’d found a kindred spirit – two really – one in Ms. Coyle herself, and the other in her lead character Clare Cosi, who cooks with an Italian flair and has espresso running in her veins.

Recently, I read Ms. Coyle’s latest coffeehouse novel, Holiday Grind which features cafe owner and amateur detective tracking down the person responsible for killing her customer (and friend), Alf, who spends his winter days as a street corner Santa Claus.

If you’ve never read a coffeehouse mystery, you should know that all the books are the type of cozy mysteries that go best with froufrou espresso drinks, chocolate dipped biscotti, and the crackling sound from Amish fireplaces.

Look for my review of Holiday Grind later this month in All Things Girl.