December AlphaKIT - E and R

Welcome to AlphaKIT for December.

The rules are... none! Use the letters however you like to choose your reads for the month. Well, okay, there is one rule: Have Fun!

December AlphaKIT letters are : E and R.

and

Please remember to update the wiki and enter books alphabetically:
https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/2019_AlphaKIT#December:_-_Letters_E_and_...

See you next year for the 2020 Category Challenge.

Thanks, Jean for another enjoyable year with the AlphaKit. I am looking forward to 2020.

For December, I am planning on reading - The Funeral Boat by Kate Ellis and Christmas At the Gingerbread Cafe by Rebecca Raisin.

My online reading group traditionally reads two mysteries in December. This year's choices are "The Eyes of Aurora" by Albert Bell and Saturnalia by John Maddox Roberts

Hoping to get to The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham.

I think I'm going to try and finish The Danish Girl by David Ebershoff which I started a while ago and also Mandarin Plaid by S.J. Rozan.

My always tentative plan is to read The Editor by Stephen Rowley (Touchstone not working), it will cover both E and R.

plans at the moment are : A Man of Some Repute - Elizabeth Edmonson, and The Raven Boys - Maggie Stiefvater

>7 majkia: That's funny -- I also have A Man of Some Repute on my TBR! Maybe I'll read it, too, so that we can compare notes. :)

I am planning to read Missing May by Cynthia Rylant to add to my Newbery category for 2019. It is a quick read. Also, Ellen Tebbits by Beverly Cleary.

Planning on The Murder on the Enriqueta by Molly Thynne and An Untimely Frost by Penny Richards.

Thinking of re-reading Jane Austen's Emma.

I'll be reading The Tsunami File by Michael E. Rose for a double.

I've been able to start December a few days early and have completed The Editor by Steven Rowley which works for both E and R. Loved it, 4*.

I have started The Marriage of Elinor by Mrs Oliphant.

I have completed my "E" read with The Funeral Boat by Kate Ellis.

I'm starting an "E" book, The Moving Toyshop by Edmund Crispin.

My first read this month was an E book, Everywhere That Mary Went by Lisa Scotoline.

Here are my possibilities for the month.
I'd be thrilled if I got half read considering my social calendar is bulging and I'm hosting 2 parties and Christmas dinner!

Bridal Suite by Rochelle Alers
✔Clarets of Fire by Christine E. Blum
Dark Queen Rising
Death on a Page by Essie Lang
King's Justice by Susan Elia MacNeal
Lady Risks All
Murder Can Mess Up Your Masterpiece by Rose Pressey
Murder in the First Edition
Murder Once Removed
Perilous Undertaking by Deanna Raybourn
✔Pinot Red or Dead?
✔Pride, Prejudice and Poison by Elizabeth Blake
Prologue to Murder by Lauren Elliott
Sauvigone for Good by J. C. Eaton
Street of the Five Moons by Elizabeth Peters

For an R: No Bones About It by Ruth Sawtell Wallis, a 1944 mystery.

I completed Deep River by Shūsaku Endō for E

Read The Life of Charlotte Bronte by Elizabeth Gaskell.

The Right to be Cold / Sheila Watt-Cloutier
3.5 stars

Sheila Watt-Cloutier was born in a Northern Quebec Inuit community and raised by her mother and her grandmother. She was sent away to school in Churchill, and (mostly) enjoyed her time there. She later married, had kids, and went back and forth between her home in Northern Quebec and the southern part of the province.

Eventually, she would become an activist; she is most commonly associated with environmental activism, but really she is an activist for her Inuit culture, for education and health care, and yes, for the environment and climate change, and how it is currently affecting the Inuit culture and lifestyle. They are seeing the effects of climate change now, and they feel that they deserve “the right to be cold” – they need that cold – in order to sustain their traditional culture.

This was good. I expected more of the environmental aspect in the book (and a lot of that did come in the 2nd half), but actually ended up enjoying the biographical part of the book best. Much of the 2nd half of the book included her travels to various conferences and counsels to tell the story of the Inuit to put a “human face” on the environmental crisis in the Arctic. Surprising to me, I just didn’t find that part as interesting. Overall, though, I liked it.

I have completed my "R" read with The Night Ferry by Michael Robotham.

COMPLETED A Dying Fall and The Outcast Dead by Elly Griffiths

Completed both of mine-- Missing May and Ellen Tebbits. These are also part of my Newbery personal challenge for 2019.

I'm in the middle of my "R" book, A Summer to Remember by Mary Balogh.

Another E book finished - Eva's Eye by Karin Fossum.

Finally read an R book - An Untimely Frost by Penny Richards.

January 2020 (!!!) thread is up: https://www.librarything.com/topic/313912

Landline / Rainbow Rowell
3 stars

When Georgie decides she needs to stay home and work over the Christmas holiday (she’s a script writer and she has a deadline to get multiple new scripts done for her dream show in a short time), her husband takes their two daughters to his “home” in Nebraska for the holiday. Georgie has trouble getting ahold of her husband on the phone, but does manage on her mom’s landline. BUT, it appears that the Neal she has gotten ahold of is not her current husband; the Neal on the other end of the landline is the Neal she knew before she married him… she is talking to the Neal from 15 years ago!

Both main characters were very unlikable. Neal did not come off as a nice person, at all, in my opinion, and Georgie was such a whiner and acted like she was still a teenager, all angsty over the holiday separation. I also had a hard time, at times, figuring out if we were in current day or flashing back to when they were both younger or if it was current-day Georgie talking on the landline to younger Neal. I listened to the audio, which was fine and held my attention, but overall I was disappointed. Even still, I’m rating it ok, but I think I liked the premise more than the execution of it.

Black Rose / Nora Roberts
3 stars

Roz is running a gardening business out of her home and has hired Mitch to help investigate who might be the ghost that has been in her historical home all her life. She suspects one of her ancestors, but wants to find out for sure.

This is the second book in a series (trilogy, I think). Unfortunately, it took me about 2/3 of the book to figure out who most the supporting characters were (though two of them would have been the main characters in the first book; I just remembered nothing about it!). Even after figuring out most of the characters, there were still a few that confounded me until the end. Anyway, I’m rating the book ok. The ghost story is the interesting part of the story. The romance – meh. Roz, I think, was 47 years old (my age), but to me, for some reason, I pictured her in her 60s! I’m not sure if I’ll read the last book or not, although I am curious to find out more about the ghost.

COMPLETED Saturnalia by John Maddox Roberts

Wolf by Wolf / Ryan Graudin
3.75 stars

What if the Axis had won World War II? Yael was a little girl and had been one of the medical subjects in one of the concentration camps. What they did was inject her with something to make her appear more Aryan. Turns out she could do more than appear Aryan after a while – she could “skinshift” to look like anyone else. Because of this, she was able to escape, and years later, in 1956 when she is 17-years old, she is part of the resistance and she has a mission – she is impersonating a girl motorcycle racer. Once she wins, she’ll have access to Hitler…

This one took a bit for me to get “into” it, but once it got going, I thought it was good. We go back and forth in time from current day Yael in the resistance to young Yael in the concentration camp and everything leading up to how she got to her current mission. There was a good twist at the end and it is a series (or maybe trilogy?), so I will continue.

Finished Emma by Jane Austen. Works for E. Was a reread.

I read A sleeping life by Ruth Rendell.

COMPLETED The Cotswold Mysteries Collection by Rebecca Tope

Starting Trading in Danger by Elizabeth Moon

I have completed my "R" read with Christmas at the Gingerbread Cafe by Rebecca Raisin.

I finished Rules of Engagement by Elizabeth Moon

DNF the Elizabeth Moon book. Now reading "Eight for Eternity" by M. E. Mayer

I gave up on my "E" book, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Maybe it was too dated for me to appreciate, or perhaps reading about hippies doing drugs wasn't interesting enough to keep my attention...

Emily: Evan's Girls / Elle Klass
3 stars

Emily was adopted when she was young enough that she doesn’t remember her biological family. She is happy and isn’t interested in learning about them. All she knows is that they died in a car crash. As she grows up, though, she overhears discussions that make her wonder, though she never questions it. However, things get dangerous for her as an adult once she is married and has a family of her own.

I really liked the first ¾ of the book, but it took an odd turn and I wasn’t crazy about the ending. This was book 2 in a series; I “won” the book in a giveaway without realizing there was a book 1, so I hadn’t read it. Up until the end, I don’t think I needed to, but the main character (based on the title of book 1) does make an appearance at the end. Since I found the ending, not just odd, but somewhat confusing, I wonder if it would have been better to have read the first one first? Either way, up until the end, I thought I was going to (go back and read book 1), but the odd turn the ending took just didn’t… I just didn’t like it, so I don’t think I’ll plan to read the first one (nor will I plan to read the 3rd). I still gave it an “ok” rating, though, as I did really liked most of the book.

I finished The Raven Boys. Very atmospheric, almost gothic in texture and plot. Not at all what I expected going in, and that's a good thing.

COMPLETED Eight for Eternity by M E Mayer

Another E book
The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot and who ever would have thought that I would not get any R books read. Maybe if I could finish the Richardson volume that I am currently in. Maybe....

Starting The Bone Garden by Kate Ellis

I ended up reading three books for the E:
* The Brownies and Other Tales by Juliana Ewing
* The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths
* Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott

I read one more "R" book this month, Discerning Religious Life by Sr. Clare Matthiass.