If you are new to my blog, I just wanted to share with you that I co-host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea (no, you don’t have to drink tea to participate) with Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) and Cat (Cat’s Wire). You can find a link to it at the top of the page. The link party is for all book-related posts from reviews and recommendations to …well, anything related to books at all. Including Top Ten Tuesday, if you want to link your top ten there too!
Today’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt is: Books With Nationalities In The Title (e.g. The French Lieutenant’s Woman, Mexican Gothic, An American Marriage, etc.) (submitted by Cathy @WhatCathyReadNext)
I will not lie — I had to search online for some of these because I couldn’t actually find any on my shelves and couldn’t remember any books I had read with nationalities. I may have just not looked very well.
What I decided to do is share those I have already read or want to read. If the title has “haven’t read yet” next to it, it means I want to read it.
The Maltese Falcon by Dashielle Hammett (haven’t yet read)
2. The Cretan Bull (The Labours of Hercules Vol. 2) by Agatha Christie (haven’t read yet)
3. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West by Dee Brown (haven’t read yet but started it,)
4. The Egypt Game (1967) Zilpha Keatley Snyder (haven’t read it yet, but plan to read it with my daughter for school this year)
5. The Corsican Brothers by Alexandre Dumas (haven’t read yet)
6. The Cat Who Ate Danish Modern by Lilian Jackson Braun (read)
7. Murder in an Irish Village by Carlene O’Connor (read)
8. Vienna Prelude by Bodie Thoene (read a loong time ago)
9. The English Air by D.E. Stevenson (haven’t read yet)
10. Murder in Mesopotamia by Agatha Christie
On Thursdays, I am part of the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot blog link party. You can find the latest one in the sidebar to the right under recent posts.
Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.
You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.
If you would like to be the first to get news about my books or just have access to special posts for supporters, you can do so here for $2.99 a month : https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/
By The Pricking of My Thumbs by Agatha Christie was a nail-biter with some fun humor and banter mixed in between a husband and wife sleuthing team.
This was my first time reading a Tommy and Tuppence book by Christie and wow, what an introduction. I am glad I started with this one, even though the husband and wife team are now older than they were in the first books.
There are five books in the series: The Secret Adversary (1922), Partners in Crime (1929), N or M? (1941), By The Pricking of My Thumbs (1968), and a collection of short stories Postern of Fate (1978).
Before I start talking about the book, I will share a description from the official Agatha Christie site.
Although now considered ‘old’ by fellow society, this novel opens with the couple considering the sad fate of Tommy’s elderly Aunt Ada… now residing in an equipped facility named Sunny Ridge. Neither Beresford is particularly looking forward to the trip, but duty bound, they arrive to find Ada in a disagreeable mood. Banished to the communal lounge, Tuppence meets a troubled Mrs Lancaster with a secret to tell. Just weeks later, Tommy’s aunt has died, and a mysterious pronouncement is still troubling Tuppence…
I truly loved both Tuppence and Tommy and their hilarious butler Arthur. They are such fun characters. I just had to laugh at times because after all their years of espionage, both Tommy and Tuppence seemed very laid back about situations that were clearly going to become dangerous.
Maybe it is because they are upper-class British or just British in genera. I’m kidding, of course. It’s just how their characters are written and I love it.
It’s very clear that Tuppence and Tommy love each other and since I didn’t look up this book before I read it or know the history of the series, I wasn’t really sure what was going to happen to Tuppence at one point.
What I really liked about this book was how we were taken on a journey with just Tuppence for most of the book while she tried to get to the bottom of whether or not any crime had really taken place.
I enjoyed learning about Tuppence and her tenacity because if I had been her, I would have stopped searching for answers long before she did.
I’ve read some reviews that this book was slow or had too many “boring and mundane” conversations, and while I can see that in some places, I also thought it added some charm to the book to have some everyday conversations.
When I read reviews that the plot was complicated I think….well, yeah, it’s a mystery and a Christie so it will be but I can also understand the complaint some. Complication and even some plot holes can be normal in her books, but, to me, the storytelling overall is still brilliant.
Personally, I enjoyed this book, even the parts that were more easy going or dragged just a bit. It was all worth it to read one of the creepier endings I have read in a Christie book.
If I was going to have one criticism, though, it would be the weird thing Agatha did through part of the book when she kept switching between the titles Mrs. Beresford and Tuppence or Mr. Beresford and Tommy. I needed her to pick one title for her main characters and then leave it.
The humor was well placed in this book. When Tommy and Tuppence go to visit Tommy’s aunt, that aunt decides she doesn’t like Tuppence.
“I seem to have a bad effect on her, don’t I?” said Tuppence. “Rather cheering in a way.”
“Why cheering?”
“Well, at my age,” said Tuppence. “and what with my neat and respectable and slightly boring appearance, it’s nice to think that you might be taken for a depraved woman of fatal sexual charm.”
“Idiot,” said Tommy, pinching her arm affectionately. “Who were you hobnobbing with? She looked a very nice fluffy old lady.”
“She was very nice,” said Tuppence. “A dear old think, I think. But unfortunately bats.”
The nursing home staff apologizes to Tuppence for the aunt’s rudeness.
“Well, it’s been very kind of you to come, I’m sure,” said Miss Packard. Turning to Tommy, she said, “And I know Miss Fanshawe has enjoyed your visit very much. I’m sorry she was rude to your wife.”
“I think that gave her a lot of pleasure too,” said Tuppence.
“Yes, you’re quite right. She does like being rude to people. She’s unfortunately rather good at it.”
A couple of other quotes I enjoyed:
“I hate mourning,” she said. “It always smells of moth balls because it’s been laid up somewhere.”
“You don’t need to go on wearing mourning. It’s only to go to the funeral in,” said Tommy.
“Oh no, I know that. In a minute or two I’m going to go up and put on a scarlet jersey just to cheer things up. You can make me another White Lady.”
“Really, Tuppence, I had no idea that funerals would bring out this party feeling.
***
“You don’t stop being in love with anyone because you get old. People like Derek and Deborah think you do. They can’t imagine anyone who isn’t young being in love.”
***
“They were in the time of life when they thought of themselves as old. And they had no idea that they and many others were automatically pronounced deadly dull solely on that account. Only by the young of course, but then, they would have thought indulgently, young people knew nothing about life. Poor dears, they were always worrying about examinations, or their sex life, or buying some extraordinary clothes, or doing extraordinary things to their hair to make them more noticeable. Mr. and Mrs. Beresford from their own point of view were just past the prime of life. They liked themselves and liked each other and day succeeded day in a quiet but enjoyable fashion.”
Have you read this one? What did you think of it?
_____
You can find my book reviews, movie reviews, and ramblings about the books I write on Instagram.
Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.
You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.
If you are new to my blog, I just wanted to share with you that I co-host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea (no, you don’t have to drink tea to participate) with Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) and Cat (Cat’s Wire). You can find a link to it at the top of the page. The link party is for all book-related posts from reviews and recommendations to …well, anything related to books at all. Including Top Ten Tuesday, if you want to link your top ten there too!
Today’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt is:
August 25: Bookish Places I’ve Visited (Share all the cool places you’ve been that are bookish or tied to books! This includes neat libraries, bookstores, places featured in books, places inspired by books, author homes/places they’ve stayed, etc. You can also share your bucket list of the bookish places you’d like to visit someday.) (submitted by Susan @Bloggin’ ’bout Books)
I’m not someone who travels very much so I had to split this list into places I have been and places I want to go to.
First, five bookish related places I have been to (and want to go back to):
One.
When I was in college, I visited my brother in Downingtown, Pa. and he drove me to West Chester to see Baldwin’s Book Barn, which is a five-story barn built in 1822 that was converted into a bookstore in 1946.
According to the store’s website: “Thomas Baldwin, the longtime proprietor of Baldwin’s Book Barn in West Chester, Pennsylvania, was a guardian of literary tradition. Founded by his parents in 1946, the 19th-century barn transformed into a haven for book lovers. After his father’s illness, Thomas took the reins, ensuring the store’s quirky charm and historical significance endured.
Tom’s passion for books and warm personality were integral to the store’s appeal. Known for his encyclopedic knowledge, he often engaged visitors in lengthy conversations by the iconic pot-bellied stove. The barn’s five floors of books, rare artifacts, and cozy nooks made it a beloved landmark for bibliophiles. Though he briefly contemplated selling the business in 2010, Tom remained steadfast in preserving it as a part of Chester County’s history. Under his stewardship, Baldwin’s Book Barn outlasted many chain bookstores, becoming a destination for those seeking literary discovery and a touch of nostalgia.”
I was young then and not as in to reading as much as I am now so I did not explore as much as I would now, if I had the chance to go back and I do hope I can go back someday.
Two.
There is a small, cute bookstore in a little village near us that we have visited a couple of times and I can’t wait to go back there, as well. It is much smaller than barn, of course, but is also just stuffed full of amazing finds. Mainly used books, with some new ones.
I was especially excited to find Nancy Drew and Murder, She Wrote books there.
It is in a little tourist/resort town surrounded by state game land and the building is so cute.
Three.
For 18-years we lived close to Elmira, N.Y. (though we were in PA) and that is where the gazebo where Mark Twain wroteThe Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), Life on the Mississippi (1883), and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889). The gazebo was built in 1874 at Quarry Farm which was the summer home of Twain’s sister-in-law, Susan Crane. The family of Twain’s wife, Olivia Langdon Clemens, was from Elmira.
The photos I took at the gazebo are buried somewhere so I pulled some off the interwebs to share here.
I can be honest that there was just something about walking into that building. A peaceful, yet also creative feeling.
It’s very unassuming and there are probably many people in the town who have no idea what it is. I’m just so glad no one has ever damaged it because that city is known to have some crime issues.
Like I said, it felt peaceful inside there, but maybe it was because no one else was on campus that day. Whatever it was, I just loved sitting inside it and when I closed my eyes I imagined Twain sitting at that desk, plugging away at classic books I’ve read or want to read.
Thinking about it now, it was truly like walking through a portal into the past and being able to sit down and take it all in.
Four.
Mondragon Books in Lewisburg, Pa.
This little store is similar to the store near us – full of all kinds of used books. It has a couple places to sit, a music section, and a small, but full children’s section.
The only issue is that the last time I went, there were more political or activist books than classics and fiction. It wasn’t really what I like to find in a bookstore, which is an escape for me, so I decided I probably won’t visit there again when we go back to Lewisburg in the future. I think the tone of the place has changed since the first time I visited.
Five.
North Hall Library in Mansfield, Pa.
See those open porches on the side? They are actually enclosed in glass and you can sit there to read.
This library is in the middle of Mansfield College, or whatever they have renamed it. It’s where I went to college. The library is beautiful and used to be a girl’s dorm. It was built 150 years ago and built on a hill that overlooks the little town of Mansfield.
In 1996, the year I started attending (stop doing the math, please), they opened the newly renovated library, which is six stories and includes state-of-the art computers and other technology as well as a six-story atrium with amazing acoustics.
For the life of me I could not find any photos of the interior of the building. I know I have some in my old scrapbooks but didn’t want to dig them out. I’ll leave a video link at the bottom of this section that shows the interior.
It may or may not also still have a ghost, which may or may not have been a girl named Sarah who may or may not have flung herself from the top floor of the atrium after her heart was broken. The real story was probably much less dramatic, because other stories say a girl named Sarah did attend the college but passed away at home from an illness, not at the college. No one has ever been able to identify an actual Sarah.
I’m going to be honest and say I didn’t like to spend a lot of time in North Hall, even though it was beautiful. I tried studying there one time and I felt very uneasy because it was so quiet and …. Okay, I wasn’t worried about ghosts but about creepy frat guys being in the top floor where I was studying.
Also, the atrium really made me feel uncomfortable. It did not help my fear of heights at all. It had amazing acoustics though. Listening to the university choirs sing there was really nice.
Now five bookish places I want to visit:
One.
Louise May Alcott’s home, Orchard House in Concord, Mass.
I’d love to visit Orchard House because it would be cool to see where Louisa May grew up and lived and also the house and surrounding area looks beautiful.
This is the oldest independently owned bookstore in Pennsylvania. Founded in 1841 it was originally known as A.D Lundy and Co. and sold a variety of goods. Eventually it became just a bookstore.
At the turn of the 20th Century, the store became The Loan Book Shop, under John Otto, hence the name.
This past year the store expanded for the first time.
Three.
The Book Sale in Ithaca, N.Y.
This is a biannual booksale where the Friends of the Library hold two book sales in a huge warehouse – one in the spring and one in the fall.
Four.
Powell’s City of Books in Portland, Oregon.
I’d probably give out of energy walking around it but I would still love to visit it someday..
Five.
John K. King Books in Detroit, Michigan.
Erin went here before and now I want to go with her and we could finally meet in person.
On Thursdays, I am part of the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot blog link party. You can find the latest one in the sidebar to the right under recent posts.
Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.
You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.
If you would like to be the first to get news about my books or just have access to special posts for supporters, you can do so here for $2.99 a month : https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/
I read Miss Buncle’s Book by D.E. Stevenson in July and finished the second book in the trilogy, Miss Buncle Married, this past week.
The first book details Miss Barbara Buncle’s sticky situation that results after she writes a fiction book based on the people in her little English village and that book becomes a best seller.
Before long people in the village begin to recognize themselves and chaos erupts but luckily Barbara has used a pseudonym, so no one knows she wrote the book.
There is a bit of a spoiler to even give the title of the second book, but, yes, Barbara does marry at the end of the first book – hence the title of Miss Buncle Married.
I found the first book, very charming, engaging, and full of humor which is why I wanted to read the second book and continue Barbara’s adventures.
I read the second book in the trilogy with my friend Cat of Cat’s Wire.
In this second book, Miss Buncle is now Mrs. Abbott and is living in a new town. She and her husband, Arthur, are enjoying themselves until they become so popular in the social scene that they get overwhelmed with never having a night off from a party, a dinner, or a game of cards. This prompts them to look for a new house in a new village, and that gives readers a new cast of characters and a new adventure to enjoy.
Here is a quick description from Goodreads: “In this charming follow-up to Miss Buncle’s Book, readers will follow Barbara Buncle’s journey into married life in a new town filled with fascinating neighbors…who may become the subjects of Barbara’s next novel! Miss Buncle may have settled down, but she’s already discovered that married life has done nothing to prevent her from getting into humorous mix-ups and hilarious hijinx. Readers will continue to fall in love with Barbara as she hilariously navigates an exciting new beginning.”
There are misunderstandings and confusion which create hilarious scenes throughout the book. The addition of Arthur and Barbara’s partying and shiftless nephew, Sam, and lecherous artist neighbor creates even more craziness and upheaval throughout the book.
Barbara has essentially retired from writing in this book after all the drama that evolved from her first two books.
She has decided she will no longer write any books. In this book, however, the writing bug bites her again.
In some ways I felt like we got to know the people of the town and their stories more in the first book, but this book provided us with a more intimate look at Barbara herself and how she thinks and her and Arthur’s relationship.
As in the first book, this book also provided a look into Barbara’s writing process, which is also the writing process of many other authors. As a writer myself, I especially enjoyed reading about how Barbara couldn’t avoid writing about her new neighbors, even though she tried not to. There was just something in her that made her feel like she needed to create a fictionalized version of the town and the people in it. When she started writing she became a feral mad woman who couldn’t leave her room until all her ideas were written down. I can relate to this feeling quite a bit.
What’s funny is how often Barbara and Arthur both claim throughout the book that Barbara doesn’t have an imagination, but she creates entire scenarios that jump off the situations involving the people in the village and that’s still imagination to me.
They both claim she doesn’t have an imagination because she has to base her ideas of the situations she experiences or hears about around her but this is ridiculous, of course, because all Barbara needs is a little idea and she’s off. I think that’s a biggest “joke” of the book.
I like both of these books individually but I love them even more as a whole story, read back-to back. Miss Buncle Married feels more like a continuation of the first book, as it should, rather than a separate book and I am glad to have that because I did want to read more about Miss Buncle.
_____
You can find my book reviews, movie reviews, and ramblings about the books I write on Instagram.
Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.
You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.
When I decided to give a visual and written tour of our bookshelves/cases, I did worry about showing the clutter that accumulates on them, in addition to the books. I could have cleaned off the shelves for you but decided to be real and honest about the state of our bookcases. They are cluttered, heavy, and disorganized, but, hey, they are still full of good books that we have or are going to read, and I think that’s all that matters.
My husband and I do not have as big of a book collection as some book lovers do.
For some, our collection would be small.
For others, it would seem quite large.
It all depends on what each person defines as a lot of books.
Our modest collection of books is something that has been built up over a 24-year marriage and combines the smaller libraries of two people.
I had much less books than my husband when we met and married, and most of my books were from my childhood (think Little House on the Prairie and The Chronicles of Narnia).
Most of his were Stephen King and Donald Westlake or similar.
Right now, we have four and a half bookshelves that actually have books in them. We have two other bookshelves, but they have either DVDs/Blu-Rays or CDs.
Yes, we are a very analog family. We appreciate the convenience of digital and how it saves space, but we still want our physical media. There was a time when we took a break from collecting physical books and my husband filled up his Kindle. The more I realize that we don’t really own those books and Amazon could take them away whenever they want, the more uncomfortable I feel with digital media.
In addition to the bookshelves, we also have some books stacked in our attic. They were moved there after the one bookcase downstairs started to overflow and the shelves started to sag more.
This house is a lot smaller on the inside than it looks from the outside.
On the first floor, when you first walk into what would be called by most people the front door, but which we seldom use because the front steps are old and dangerous, we have a small bookcase in the foyer. This is our newest bookcase. It houses mainly my books, including my tiny Agatha Christie collection and my even smaller collection of Murder, She Wrote books. `
There are also some Erle Stanley Gardner books and some other mysteries that belong to The Husband. A Little House on the Prairie collection he purchased me a few years ago to try to replace my original paperback version from the 1980s is also there. The collection he purchased me features color illustrations and features five of the eight book series. The pages are glossy. It is very nice but I still miss my original 1980s version which disappeared when we moved.
Next to that set is a boxed set of the first six books from The Mitford Series by Jan Karon. The remainder of the books from the 15 book series are on the shelves in our dining room, with the 15th book being banished upstairs where I can’t see it because I loathed that book and how Jan practically ruined the entire series with it.
On the top shelf of this little bookcase, I have my aforementioned Agatha Christie books and my Murder, She Wrote books are a shelf down.
My original plan was to have the very top of the bookcase hold a collection of books on my seasonal hopeful lists and then I would pull books from there to read next and “in season.” This went out the window when I started collecting way too many books and didn’t want to carry them upstairs so I stacked them on top of the books as well.
Now the top of the bookcase is becoming as messy as my other bookcases were or have become. I say “were” because I did straighten a couple of our bookshelves and that made me feel a lot better and less cluttered.
Now I just have to tackle the big one in the dining room.
Speaking of the dining room, let’s move to the bookcases there.
The one bookcase is a large, Wal-Mart purchased bookcase. The other is smaller and was built by my dad when I was maybe 11 or 12, and when he started to notice I was turning out to be a reader like Mom.
My dad builds things to last which is why the shelves on his bookcase are so sturdy and the Wal-Mart shelves are sagging.
That bookcase held my Narnia and Little House books and some Christian Fiction/Romance books and sometimes Mom would come in and instruct me to clean my room. For some reason I considered part of cleaning my room rearranging my bookcase so I would take all of the books off the shelves and as I was attempting to put them back up in the order I wanted them, I started looking at them, sat down in the pile and forgot about cleaning. Mom would find me sitting there reading, drawing, or doing something other than what she asked me to do and eventually she could clean it herself.
Yes, it is true I may have a touch of ADD.
Right now the bookcase Dad made me houses Little Miss’s homeschool books and a bunch of books I bought for her and I to read together for school or for leisure.
I’m hoping to have at least one more year where she lets me read to her and then maybe she will start reading books on her own.
That bookcase also has a mix of my and my husband’s books.
The Walmart bookcase next to it needs reorganizing. It is a mess. The books are sort of just shoved in there, every which way.
We have a mix of my books and my husbands, again, with the bulk of my library-bound Jan Karon books that I’ve picked up from various used book sales over the years in there. My husband has the complete set of Richard Stark (Donald Westlake) books and a collection of various history and/or political books.
I weeded books out of the two bookshelves in the spring and put the books in bags to be taken to free little libraries near us but so far they are still sitting in the floor by the bookcase. I hope to remedy that in the next couple of weeks to make room for another, more narrow bookcase.
Another bookcase along that wall holds our CD collection — everything from blues, country, rock, Christian, classic rock, and everything in between is on those shelves. There are also collections of old radio programs.
We have a record/CD/cassette/radio unit that we purchased from Amazon a few years ago to play all that music but we don’t do it as often as we should.
Moving to the upstairs, we have a bookcase in the middle of our hallway against the wall.
This one is one our neighbor was giving away. It started as a hodge podge of both of our books but now that my Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys collection is growing, it’s slowly becoming the home for that collection. So far they fill the second shelf but I’m hoping to take over the first and third shelfs over the next couple of years.
The other night my son thought he was funny and used post-it notes to label everything upstairs — or a bunch of things.
I think this is what he thinks I am because of my Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys collection… *snort laugh*
I don’t know what my poor husband is going to do with his books. *wink*
Right now he has a lot of them in our room in a new bookcase he found at a thrift store near us and there is plenty of room for more to be added there. I didn’t add a photo of this because I forgot to take one and don’t want to head back upstairs. I can say it has a little of thrillers, Lee Child, James Lee Burke, Michael Connelly, etc. and an old fashioned CD player we bought The Husband as a gift for his birthday last year.
So that was a short tour of our bookcases. I didn’t mention that Little Miss has a small one in her room and that The Boy does as well. I’ll go through their bookcases another time. And I also didn’t get into nitty gritty detail on what is on the shelves our bookcases but maybe one day I’ll take each book out and talk about it. Or maybe not.
I thought I’d share what books I’ve read so far this year.
I haven’t been as concerned with reading a certain quantity of books this year..
I’ve tried some different authors for me and I’m trying to add in some classics, but otherwise I am not being super strict with what I am reading or with keeping track of how many I read.
I do see that I am averaging about four books a month.
January:
My Beloved by Jan Karon
The Secret of Chimneys by Agatha Christie
Miss Read’s Village Diary by Miss Read
Miss Read’s Village School by Miss Read
February:
The Tiger in the Smoke by Margery Allingham
Mrs. McGinty’s Dead by Agatha Christie
Murder, She Wrote: Bullets and Brandy by Donald Bain
March:
Hardy Boys: The Tower Treasure by Franklin W. Dixon
The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery
Whispering Walls by Mildred Wirt
Murder On the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien
Crooked House by Agatha Christie
The Singing Tree by Kate Seredy
April:
Damsel in Distress by P.G. Wodehouse
A Caribbean Mystery by Agatha Christie
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim
Nancy Drew: Nancy’s Mysterious Letter by Carolyn Keene
May:
Murder, She Wrote: Aloha Betrayal by Donald Bain
The Labors of Poirot by Agatha Christie
The Cat Who Brought Down the House by Lilian Jackson Braun
June:
Stolen Past by Tara Randel
Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
The Ivory Dagger by Patricia Wentworth
July:
The Unsolicited Journals of Emma Lion Vol. 1 by Beth Brower
Miss Buncle’s Book by D.E. Stevenson
Sad Cypress by Agatha Christie
Travels with Charley in Search of America by John Steinbeck
I’m looking forward to a lot of good books I have on tap for the next six months of the year.
How about you?
If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin, Cat, and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.
On Thursdays, I am part of the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot blog link party. You can find the latest one in the sidebar to the right under recent posts.
Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.
You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.
If you would like to be the first to get news about my books or just have access to special posts for supporters, you can do so here for $2.99 a month https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/
Sad Cypress was my read for July for the Christie Reading Challenge for 2026 after I ended up not finishing The Rose and the Yew Tree by Mary Westmacott, which was Agatha’s pseudonym.
I’m glad I switched because I got into Sad Cypress much faster than The Rose and the Yew Tree.
I’m more of a mystery fan than a romantic suspense fan, apparently. Plus, The Rose and the Yew Tree was terribly depressing and slow.
I do think I will go back at some point and try to finish it, however, because it did pique my interest. Just not as much as Sad Cypress.
I did not know that Sad Cypress was a Poirot book when I started it. It is, in fact, the 21st Poirot book.
This one involves jealousy, two murders, and is split into three parts, with the first part from the main character, Elinor Carlisle’s, point of view, the second focused on Poirot’s investigation, and the third back to Elinor again. Usually we get the point of view of the investigators, sometimes a mixed view of the investigators and the accused, but not usually a mix like this one.
Here is a quick description from Goodreads:
An elderly stroke victim dies without having arranged a will…
Beautiful young Elinor Carlisle stood serenely in the dock, accused of the murder of Mary Gerrard, her rival in love. The evidence was damning: only Elinor had the motive, the opportunity and the means to administer the fatal poison.
Yet, inside the hostile courtroom, only one man still presumed Elinor was innocent until proven guilty; Hercule Poirot was all that stood between Elinor and the gallows.
I also liked this description/short excerpt from Storygraph:
“Elinor flushed: “Will you ask me – again – did I kill Mary Gerrard”? Poirot rose to his feet. He said quickly, “I shall ask you – nothing. There are things I do not want to know” But even Hercule Poirot sometimes deceived himself. He did want to know – badly.”
Poirot is talked into taking on the case by the doctor, Peter Lord, who took care of Elinor’s aunt, the elderly stroke victim. This is a bit of a spoiler, but Peter has a wee crush on Elinor.
I liked how this one was set up with no Poirot at first. This allowed us to get to know the characters better before the mystery unfolded and he started asking his questions.
No matter what Poirot does in this case, at least to start with, all evidence seems to point to the person already being pinpointed as the guilty person. He wants to help Peter Lord, who has fallen in love with Elinor, but he has to admit that things don’t look good for her.
She herself has given up, sitting in jail, thinking about how the odds are stacked against her, and dreading the court proceedings. There are chapters that include some court drama and it was interesting to see it from the point of view of the accused.
What is great is that Christie showed us Elinor’s point of view but never made it clear, even as we knew her thoughts, whether she was guilty or not, until the end. You’ll have to read this one to find out if she was truly guilty or not.
There were some pretty cool lines in this one, including:
“You must be an incredibly simple man. Don’t you realize how easy it is for me to lie to you?”
Hercule Poirot said placidly:
“It does not matter.”
She was puzzled. “Not matter?”
“No, for lies, Mademoiselle, tell a listener just as much as truth can. Sometimes they tell more.”
***
”Yes, now it is necessary. Because now I know exactly what I’m looking for. One must understand with the cells of one’s brain before one uses one’s eyes.
****
Eleanor Carlisle said with a touch of weariness, “He has a great reputation.”
“Yes, for defending criminals. I have a great reputation for demonstrating innocence.”
****
At 21, Mary Gerrard was a lovely creature with a kind of wild-rose unreality about her; a long, delicate neck, pale, golden hair, lying close to her exquisitely shaped head and soft, natural waves and eyes a deep, vivid blue.
If you are new to my blog, I just wanted to share with you that I co-host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea (no, you don’t have to drink tea to participate) with Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) and Cat (Cat’s Wire). You can find a link to it at the top of the page. The link party is for all book-related posts from reviews and recommendations to …well, anything related to books at all. Including Top Ten Tuesday, if you want to link your top ten there too!
Today’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt is: Books I HAD to Have Immediately but Still Haven’t Read (this is a throwback topic from 2022)
Note: I read a lot of older books, so I don’t necessarily yearn to have new release books. That’s why this list will include older books, which will probably confuse some of you. Yes, I desperately want older books and then don’t read them when I get them, which my son scolds me about.
So here are ten books I wanted and bought (used of course) but still have not read.
A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain
I was very excited for this one and planned to read it this summer. I’m not so sure that is going to happen.
Bombs on Aunt Dainty by Judith Kerr
I read Judith’s first book in this series, When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, and was excited to find this one on Thriftbooks. I also planned to read this one this summer. It’s also not happened yet. Just distracted by mysteries.
The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom
I know this one is going to be hard to read so I want to read it but I’ve put it off a bit.
Agatha Christie: An Autobiographyby Agatha Christie
I’ve been so busy reading her mysteries, I haven’t gotten to this one yet.
Sidney Chambers and The Shadow of Death by James Runcie
This is the first book in the series that the show Grantchester is based on. I was excited to get in great shape at a used book sale but still have not read it.
Roll of Thunder Hear My Cryby Mildred D. Taylor
I read this one in sixth or seventh grade and have wanted to reread it the last few years but just keep getting distracted by lighter reads. I hope to read it this autumn or winter.
Winter Cottage by Carol Ryrie Brink
This one cost a bit because apparently no old copies exist anywhere and the estate re-released it themselves. I broke down and bought it new and am excited to read it but am holding on to it for winter to read with my daughter.
The Black Dudley Murder by Margery Allingham
I actually have this on Kindle but really wanted to hold an actual paperback copy because I just like reading the Golden Age Mystery writers’ books. It feels like the best way to read them. So now I finally have a copy of it and I haven’t read it yet. In my defense, I did just get it a week or so ago.
The Chosen by Chaim Potok
I’ve had this book on my list to read probably since high school but never seem to get around to it because I got distracted by mystery books and gentle fiction. I think this year might be the year for it!
Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery
I keep saying I am going to read this one, but I’ve also heard it is a little depressing so I’ve been avoiding it. I’ll probably read it this fall or winter.
On Thursdays, I am part of the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot blog link party. You can find the latest one in the sidebar to the right under recent posts.
Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.
You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.
If you would like to be the first to get news about my books or just have access to special posts for supporters, you can do so here for $2.99 a month : https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/
If you are new to my blog, I just wanted to share with you that I co-host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea (no, you don’t have to drink tea to participate) with Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) and Cat (Cat’s Wire). You can find a link to it at the top of the page. The link party is for all book-related posts from reviews and recommendations to …well, anything related to books at all. Including Top Ten Tuesday, if you want to link your top ten there too!
Today’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt is: Books I Want to Read by New to Me Authors (Share books from your to-read list that are written by authors you’ve never read before.)
A couple of months ago, I could have written this list with a bit more ease, but I have since read at least one book by many of the “new-to-me” authors on the suggested author’s list I’ve made in my reading journal.
I had to dig a little bit to pull out these ten books by authors I haven’t read, yet, but it was worth it because it reminded me of the books I want to read.
Also, when I write “new-to-me” authors, it doesn’t mean I have never heard of these authors. It simply means I have yet to read a book by them.
Winter Solstice by Rosamund Pilcher
I follow a Booktuber who often talks about Rosamund Pilcher and her books do sound good (maybe a bit depressing) so I am going to eventually get to her books.
Arabella by Georgette Heyer
That’s right. I have never read a Heyer book. Keep in mind that the main genre I read from is mystery.
Touch Not the Cat by Mary Stewart
I started this, I did not like it. I think it was the mood I was in. I’m going to try again.
Give Me One Summer by Emilie Loring
This one just looked good to me.
The Innkeeper of Ivy Hill by Julie Klassen
I’ve been wanting to read her for awhile, but not sure her “regency” genre is really my thing.
A Man Lay Dead by Ngaio Marsh
This is a Golden Age mystery author that I have not yet read anything from, but want to.
Foster by Claire Keegan
This one just popped up on a Booktuber’s video and I though it sounded good. I don’t know anything about it or the author.
Lending A Paw by Laurie Cass
Laurie is a cozy mystery writer and I keep saying I am going to read the book by her that my husband purchased for me a few years ago, but I want to read the first book in the series, this one, first.
The Queen and I by Susan Townsend
This book about an alternative reality where the monarch from England is forced to leave the palace and become like common people.
The Corner Shop by Elizabeth Cadell
I just heard about this one today as I was writing this and trying to jog my memory of authors I want to read and this one popped up. I’ve heard of her before and the books sound good.
Have you read any of these books or authors? What did you think of them?
On Thursdays, I am part of the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot blog link party. You can find the latest one in the sidebar to the right under recent posts.
Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.
You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.
If you would like to be the first to get news about my books or just have access to special posts for supporters, you can do so here for $2.99 a month : https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/
