Purchased – Page 2 – Carol's Notebook

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

December 15, 2025December 15, 2025 by Carol1 Comment

Needless to say, my family does not sit around the (electric) fire telling ghost stories on Christmas Eve - although I did make my friends play Snapdragons on New Years one year. I do think A Christmas Carol might be the perfect Christmas ghost story and who better to tell it than Tim Curry? We all know the story - Scrooge is visited by three ghosts, if you don't count Marley, on Christmas Eve and turns his life around. It's a spooky and funny and just a good story. I think I reread it most Decembers or watch one of the movie versions....

The King’s Ransom by Janet Evanovich

December 12, 2025December 12, 2025 by Carol1 Comment

The King's Ransom is fun in an over-the-top way. Gabriella Rose is adept at finding things, usually for insurance companies or private individuals who are paying her. This time around her ex-husband, Rafer, and his charming but slightly dumb cousin Harley need her help. Harley was acting as a bank president and part of his job involved insuring priceless artifacts, including the Rosetta Stone and a golden Egyptian coffin, at his Board's suggestion. But when the artifacts are stolen, and it looks like Harvey may take the fall for the thefts, Rafer convinces Gabriella that it's up them to find the artifacts and save Harvey's life. The adventure takes us from New York City to London to Cairo to Florida to Italy. We've got plenty of action, murder, corruption, threats, kidnapping, and a fun conspiracy. We got some sparks between Rafer and Gabriella but they both realize they're better off not married. We also meet a handsome, enigmatic Egyptian man...

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

November 21, 2025November 20, 2025 by Carol2 Comments

I am maybe not the right audience for On the Road. I know if's a classic and definitely a product of its time. I found it a slog to get through. It's a series of road trips take by Sal Paradise (Kerouac) and Dean Moriarty (Neal Cassady) back and forth across the continent. They meet a variety of people, see a variety of towns, make money in a variety of way - and to be honest I couldn't care less. It's racist and sexist and, yes, it's the fifties and would usually overlook those to some extent, but I didn't enjoy the rest of the book enough. It's also pretentious and, at the same time, purposefully naive. I will say Kerouac has a strong voice which the narrator conveyed well in the audio I listened too. Honestly, that's probably the only reason I didn't set the book down. Well, that and I needed a "stream of consciousness" narrative for a...

A Killer Wedding by Joan O’Leary

November 11, 2025November 11, 2025 by Carol1 Comment

One of the many lessons I've learned in over four decades of reading mysteries is avoid destination weddings. This time around the setting is an opulent castle-turned-hotel in Ireland; the murdered woman is the groom's grandmother; and our plucky amateur sleuth is ambitious, newly promoted, senior magazine editor, Christine Russo. I did not like most of this book. While rich families behaving badly is usually a decent start, this one jus didn't work for the most part. We have so many characters and so many flashbacks and so many secrets. Everyone's a potential suspect. And Christine is a mediocre investigator who seems to be in over her head both with the family and her job. Really, the only reason she gets anywhere are the notes she's given by an unknown someone. Now, the twist at maybe 90% made the book worth reading. It doesn't make it a good book, but it does pull everything together well and caught me off...

The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas

November 4, 2025November 4, 2025 by Carol2 Comments

The Hacienda will probably be my last spooky story of the year. Newly-married Beatriz has just moved to her husband, Don Rodolfo's, hacienda, San Isidro, where she will live with her husband and sister-in-law. It's not long until Beatriz realizes something is wrong with the hacienda, aside from neglect. She begins hearing voices, having vivid hallucinations, and constantly feels like she is being watched. Fearing the house is haunted, she turns to a local priest, Padre Andrés, for help. The writing is beautiful and descriptive. The atmosphere is "hauntingly lovely" and oppressive. I listened to the audio and having two narrators worked well with the two viewpoints, Beatriz' and Andrés'. In print, I'm not sure their voices would have been as distinct. Overall, it was an enjoyable read: a bit of supernatural, a unique (for me) setting, a touch of romance. It did touch briefly on some tough topics but ended up skirting around them....

Play Nice by Rachel Harrison

October 29, 2025October 29, 2025 by Carol3 Comments

I don't read a lot of horror, and when I do, I tend to prefer the lighter side, and the horror aspect of Play Nice was fairly light. The family drama and unresolved childhood trauma were the heavier parts here. Clio is an influencer who seems to have the world at her feet. When she and her two sisters inherit their mother's house after her death, Clio insists on taking on the rehab and selling of the property, a house their mother always insisted was demon-possessed, thinking it will make great content. Clio is a difficult person to like. She is deeply affected by her past, no matter how much she believes she's past it. She's self-centered, stubborn, a bit chaotic, probably an alcoholic, but her character makes sense, given the family dynamics and I found myself rooting for her. Yes, I wanted her to make different choices, but that's part of the horror genre, isn't it? The relationships between her and her sisters...