Review: The Best American Mystery Stories 2011 edited by Harlan Coben and Otto Penzler

by Carol10 Comments
Confession #1 - I love mysteries. Confession #2 - I love mystery short stories. Think about it, some of the best mysteries, Sherlock Holmes for example, are short stories. A short story is more like a heady fling— intense, adventurous, emotionally charged, and, when I was young, embarrassingly quick.  Okay, forget that last one.  The best short stories, like those high-octane lovers, never fully leave you.  They burn, linger, haunt.  Some sneak up on you in a subtle way.  Others are like a punch in the gut--sudden, spontaneous.  They knock the wind out of you. (Harlan Coben in the Introduction) Obviously, picking up The Best American Mystery Stories 2011 was a no-brainer for me. In a short story every word counts and the writers represented in this collection, from Joe R. Lansdale to Lawrence Block to Charles McCarry, are master story-tellers. The pages in this anthology are filled with heroes, villains, every sort of setting, every sort of crime, solutions, surprises, and great...
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Saturday 9: How Long

by Carol4 Comments
I'm doing the Saturday: 9 again this week. Every Saturday, 9 questions are posted. Sometimes the post has a theme, and at other times the questions are totally unrelated. Saturday 9: How Long 1. Have your discovered a betrayal? If so, did you ask, “How long has THIS been going on”? I don't think I've ever been actually betrayed. 2. What is the longest line you've ever stood in? Would you do it again? I'm guessing that the longest lines I've ever stood in were in Disney World when I went with a friend one summer during high school. We had a bast though. We did go back to Disney about six years ago, but we went in December and there were practically no lines. 3. Someone has hung a sign around your neck, and you have to wear it all day long. What does it say? Probably "Amber's Mom." I don't know if it would be a punishment, a bragging point, or just for identification. 4. As...
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Flash Fiction: Better to Wait

by Carol5 Comments
Better to Wait 353 words "She's here." The woman gazed into the polished black disk she cupped in her hands. She slid the stone into a pocket in her gown and stalked into the forest, her crimson cloak trailing behind her. The woods hushed, the creatures scurried to their hiding places, birds kept silent in the trees. The man at her side, heavy sword slung across his back, grumbled under his breath. Even if she was here, as the Queen saw, he knew they wouldn't find her. She was as silent in the woods as she was in the town, but the Queen seemed to think this was the one chance to kill the girl. The girl she had seen in that stone of hers, the girl who would kill her. They continued deeper into the trees. He could feel the eyes watching him, and he pulled his sword from its leather scabbard. He felt safer with it in his hands. The woman...
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Thursday’s Tale: Dorani

by Carol10 Comments
Image source Today's tale comes to us from India. It's a love story, but does involve fairies, actually kind of unusual in fairy tales. Dorani, daughter of a man who sold scents and essences, is the most beautiful young woman in the land. She is also good friends with a fairy and sings along with her for Indra, the king of the fairies. Dorani has lovely long golden hair that smelled faintly of roses, but it's heavy, so one day, Dorani cuts off a tress, wraps it in a leaf and lays it in the river. I understand wanting to cut your hair, but I don't quite get why she had to put it in the river, but of course the prince finds it and falls in love with her based on her hair. That's even beyond love at first sight, but he's sure he will die if he can't marry the girl the hair belongs to. The King find Dorani and sets...
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Review: A Noble Radiance by Donna Leon

by Carol11 Comments
I would love to visit Italy one day, and especially Venice. Leon's books, along with others, have made me fall in love with the city. A Noble Radiance features Commissario Guido Brunetti,  a good honest man searching for the truth while working in a police force and political system that are often corrupt or uninterested. In this installation, a body found in a field turns out to be the kidnapped son of one of Venice's aristocratic families. Brunetti can't accept any too easy answers and keeps digging, unearthing deadly secrets about the family and it's business. Setting and character are Leon's strong points for me. Brunetti keeps me coming back to this series. He's  intelligent, determined, and has a wonderful, strong, loving relationship with his wife and children, who are actually in the books, not just shadows rarely mentioned. And Signorina Elettra, the secretary of the Vice-Questore, is a treat, a woman I would love to know in real life. This is not...
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Review: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

by Carol12 Comments
I wasn't going to read Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs, but a lady I know insisted that I would like it and it turns out she was right, against all odds, I liked it, didn't love it mind you, but did find it enjoyable. Sixteen year-old Jacob travels to Wales to find out the truth behind his grandfather's stories of amazing children and the orphanage where he found shelter during WW 2. Reasons I shouldn't have liked it. First, I don't read much YA, even those that adults will love too. It's not necessarily a conscious choice, just the way my reading tastes have been trending lately. Second, I'm not a big fan of time travel, which it turns out is an integral part of the book, even if it's a loop, a little outside of the usual time travel scenario. Third, I don't do monsters, and they're real in this one. Fourth, the ending wasn't really an ending....
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