The Coroner’s Lunch by Colin Cotterill

by Carol10 Comments
The Coroner's Lunch by Colin Cotterill This mystery truly transported me to Laos in the late 1970s, an exotic place and time that was completely unfamiliar to me. The Communist Pathet Lao party has just taken over control of the country, and Dr. Siri Paiboun, instead of receiving the retirement he thinks he deserves, is appointed chief, and only, coroner. The morgue is poorly equipped and Siri often finds himself in conflict with his superiors and the system. Siri takes his job seriously, has to do the best he can for the dead who come to him, and not only because their spirits have a tendency to visit him in his dreams. Now, after months of quiet, Siri has three cases to deal with, the death of an important official’s wife, the discovery of bodies that could lead to an international incident between Laos and Vietnam, and uncovering the reason why the commanders of an Army base, located in...
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Game Night Poem

by Carol4 Comments
"Monopoly" by Connie Wanek We used to play, long before we bought real houses. A roll of the dice could send a girl to jail. The money was pink, blue, gold as well as green, and we could own a whole railroad or speculate in hotels where others dreaded staying: the cost was extortionary. At last one person would own everything, every teaspoon in the dining car, every spike driven into the planks by immigrants, every crooked mayor. But then, with only the clothes on our backs, we ran outside, laughing. "Monopoly" by Connie Wanek, from On Speaking Terms. Copper Canyon Press, 2010. I am an Amazon associate....
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The Ugly Duckling

by Carol5 Comments
"The Ugly Duckling" by Hans Christian Andersen "The Ugly Duckling" story is one most of us know. A mother duck is sitting on her nest and all but one egg hatches. The ducklings are adorable, but the mother continues to sit on the last, largest egg, despite being told by another duck to leave it. Of course, the last egg hatches, and the young one is very large and doesn't look like the others, but he can swim and the mother declares "he is not so very ugly after all if you look at him properly." But his mother can't protect him from all the abuse he endures from the other farmyard animals and even the girl who feeds the poultry, so he runs away. One day he sees some beautiful white birds flying over head, but he does not interact with them. He is terrified by a hunter...
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Winners!

by Carol5 Comments
Congrats to the winners of Jordan by Susan Kearney. Karenk Beth Brenda B. Hill chey Jonnie H I'll be e-mailing all of you shortly. I'll just need your addresses to pass on to the publisher. I hope you enjoy the book. Update: One of the winners got her hands on a copy elsewhere, so a new winner was chosen. Congrats! Kate L...
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The River Kings’ Road by Liane Merciel

by Carol3 Comments
The River Kings' Road by Liane Mercel I just received this book in the mail and had to start ti. I love fantasy and this has all the elements I'm looking for. Here's what the dust jacket has to say. A thrilling new voice in fantasy makes an unforgettable debut with this "intriguingly twisted tale of treachery and magic" (New York Times bestselling author L. E. Modesitt, Jr.). Liane Merciel’s The River Kings’ Road takes us to a world of bitter enmity between kingdoms, divided loyalties between comrades, and an insidious magic that destroys everything it touches. . . . The wounded maidservant thrust the knotted blankets at him; instinctively, Brys stepped forward and caught the bundle before it fell. Then he glimpsed what lay inside and nearly dropped it himself. There was a baby in the blankets. A baby with a tear-swollen face red and round as a midsummer plum. A baby he...
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