Happy New Year! ( a little late) and new Phil Rickman mystery rocks

Happy New Year, everyone!!! 

Yes, I'm late.  We were sick with some stomach virus over New Year's again.  We had a wonderful game of Dr Who monopoly, and brought in the new year quietly at home.  It was the first time we'd been at home for several years, as we usually go to my friends' who hold an annual New Year's get-together for our group.  I'm hoping this won't be the shape of our entire year.....but so far my eldest son had a raging fever for most of this week, and yes, it's Friday, and I'm home with a sore throat and generally achy all over.  So let's hope this is it for January. 

                                              

I've already read a book that I love.  This is a good way to begin the year!!!  The Magus of Hay, by Phil Rickman.  The latest - book 12 - in the Merrily Watkins series.  In this book we end up in that loveliest of book towns, Hay-on-Wye, which everyone knows has the largest number of bookstores in any city in the world. Except in this novel, the number of bookstores has been falling due to the recent recession and the rise of Amazon and online bookstores.  A couple, Robin and Betty Thorogood, who are returning characters from an earlier book in the series, have decided to buy an empty shop that once used to be a bookstore, and turn it back into a bookstore, in Hay.  Only the shop has a very bad history, and Betty, who is a witch, gets a very bad feeling upon entering the store before buying it.  At the same time, a body is found in a pool in a river.  When DI Frannie Bliss, back from his terrible beating in the previous novel, goes to investigate what should be a routine drowning, what is discovered at the dead man's house persuades him that Merrily should be called in to provide him some advise.  Then the young constable who notified Bliss of the body, goes missing.  Who took her?  Why?  Who was helping the old man shortly before his death?  And what is the link to the shop that Betty and Robin have bought and are setting up to open?

I really enjoyed this mystery.  I especially enjoyed the moments of eerie atmosphere,  creepy sense of dabbling in the dark arts, and the return of Betty and Robin and Gwyn Arthur Jones, the detective superintendent from the same book - The Crown of Lights - who is now retired and strangely enough, has opened a bookstore in Hay. 

Lol and Jane and Gomer are off-page for much of this novel. The few times Lol phones Merrily - he is off on a tour, his first one, to promote his new material - I am reminded of how much I like his character, and like him with Merrily.  It was good to see Merrily on her own for once, too, and how difficult she finds it, with Jane gone with Eiron on a dig in Wales.  Huw Owen is back, and he is such a fun character also!  I really like him!

As always, there is a rational explanation for much of what happens, and always the sense that there is an undercurrent of the uncanny, the unseen, and malevolent forces that exist side by side in the world with the rational.  There is the beginnings of a new story thread too, with Merrily and the new reverend who comes in to 'replace' her temporarily as she is supposed to be on vacation, which I expect will be part of the next book or two.  It will be interesting, because Merrily might be forced out of the diocese and her job if she is not careful, and meanwhile something that is not holy and right, is trying to get in through her church and the replacement reverend.......

Excellent series, fabulous and well-drawn characters, and lovely creepy sometimes scary atmosphere of hauntings, eerie happenings, and ghostly manifestations.  Highly recommended.

I hope you have had a healthy start to your 2014, and have been reading some good books too. I have to catch up with all of your new blog posts.  Oh, and do my final books of the year post.  I haven't forgotten.

Next up:  The Abominable by Dan Simmons finally came into the library for me.  Last night, before I began feeling really ill, I managed to get there to pick it up. This weekend, in between napping, I will be reading this much-anticipated adventure to Mount Everest, just before our dreadfully cold weather (and this means -24c at night) returns mid-next week.  Who will be colder, me or the characters in the book? Brr. I hope to be deliciously scared too, as I was when I read The Terror by him, which I loved.

.....And I didn't buy a book!

The unthinkable happened yesterday. I went into my friend's Coles bookstore in Bayshore shopping mall, and my daughter Holly-Anne chose books for herself and Graham for Easter. As we were leaving the store, I suddenly realized that I hadn't looked at any books. I was leaving without a book for myself! Since we were on kind of a tight timeline - dinner out with my friend Patricia at the mall -a girl's evening with Holly-Anne with us - I decided I would wait until I had time to really browse. I love going into a bookstore and spending an hour there just looking over the shelves and seeing what's new, what I want, what looks interesting, possible gifts for others. Nothing quite gives me the same pleasure as a room full of books, all waiting to be lifted, each one, and the cover opened and try the first page and see if I like the writing enough to buy. This is how I often pick out new authors, based on the first page or two or three. I can tell I'm interested in a book if I end up reading 5 or 6 pages without realizing it! This doesn't mean that the book itself will be good, just that the beginning is. And have I ever read any of those? Oh yes!! My shelves and past reading lists are littered with books that I finished, but only think rate a 2 or 3 - so-so books that I read because I began them, not because they swept me away and that I thoroughly enjoyed. For example, from my books read for 2007, A Fistful of Sky - by Nina Kiriki Hoffman, The Songcatcher - by Sharon McCrumb, Killing the Shadows - by Val McDermid - are the books I could not whole-heartedly recommend to anyone, for various reasons, but mainly each are among the weakest books written by each author. Almost everything else I read last year I would be able to recommend happily, even though none swept me away completely.

I have to qualify this by saying that I did love my favourites - Jasper Fforde, which I am so enjoying! - Ian Rankin, Tanya Huff, Janet Evanovich, Peter Robinson, that I gave a copy of Sun Storm by Asa Larsson to my mother, bought Storm Front by Jim Butcher (the Harry Dresden files series, which was also on tv and we were both enjoying) for my eldest son, had lent A Winter Haunting by Dan Simmons to a friend (she loved it also), and my mother and I yearly exchange Ian Rankin, which I got her reading when I lent her Black and Blue several years ago. But the thrill of discovering a new author I love - Fred Vargas might become one, if I can ever get my hands on a copy of Wash This Blood From My Hands to confirm my suspicions that she is a very good mystery writer! - that thrill wasn't outstanding in a book last year. And yet, it was a good year for reading, even though my totals are awful. 37 books! Except for 2005, where I read 23 books only - my lowest total ever, I think - last year was among the lowest total books read in year. There are so many books to read, I know there are countless treasures waiting for me out there. So when I left the bookstore last night, sans books for myself, I promised that I would be back as soon as I could. This is not counting the 11 books I've bought for myself since Jan 1 of this year! It was just surprising that I didn't even get a chance to glance at a book, and it felt strange. So, Gentle Reader, has this ever happened to you? and could you only leave by promising you would be back as soon as you could?

It's March break so I am home with Holly-Anne and Graham, and fights over the computer occur hourly, thus my silence this week. Speaking of which, they are circling again, so I will be back later to talk about THE STORM on Sat-Sunday, and how we are still coping with the snowfall. And for those who are curious - we had the most snow of any city, on Saturday, and are well within reaching the all time snow record now! I tried getting pictures of our street after the storm, but Blogger wouldn't let me on Sunday add them to this site.

If I could Save Five Things......

At the Hallowe'en party at Patricia and Victor's on Oct 27, all the dinner guests were asked a question: what would you save if a fire was approaching your house, and you had two hours to pack your car and could take five things? Spouses and children were automatically understood to be included. I came up with:
1 - my Goddess statue (and other items on my altar)
2 - my cat Bandit
3 - my tarot cards
4 - my photo albums (most are still in a box since coming from England 6 years ago)
5 - fill a box with books

Afterwards, I was very surprised that I didn't say my writing, or my computer, or my jewellry, but on the whole, the items are picked are irreplaceable. And books, well, I've learned that whatever I give away or lend, unless I hated the book, I usually end up wanting it again sometime later. Almost everything else in the house can be replaced, except for my collection of teapots, of which one is very old and already survived coming from England. But again, while I love them, I can live without them. I can't live without the things on my list. So there you have it, Patricia said it was a quick way to get to know someone - now what would you save, Gentle Reader? And does your answer surprise you?
Oh, and I never said how BIG the box was I was going to fill!!!! VERY large!!!
i finished Have Mercy on Us All last week by Fred Vargas, and I very much enjoyed it. I like the characters, I like how the detective is set up - Detective Commissaire Adamsberg is intuitive, which annoys his immediate underling Danglard who is often frustrated by this kind of thinking, but has been with his boss long enough to give him space (if he can), trusting by now his boss's gaps in thinking that produce miracle connections - but Adamsberg can't remember names and faces of his new staff, 25 officers, so he has a memory book! The crimes are chilling, and the mystery is a mystery - not easily solved - all in all, very entertaining and a good read.
I am currently reading James Lee Burke's Cadillac Jukebox, which was one of the three books Burke names as his favourites with Dave Robicheaux. I had read quite a few of the early books in the series, and then stopped reading him in the last decade. I thought I'd try this one, and I'm finding it slow going. I can't figure out why - I like the character, I love the southern setting, I think i find the evil people - and there are truly evil people in this book - too nasty - there are good people to balance them out, but I think I am annoyed that Robicheaux is taking on a case that isn't a case, for a man who may not have done a crime but no one wants solved by him. I will stick with it for another 100 pages or so, as I still hate to give up on a book, so we'll see. I hope it improves as I just picked up one of his latest, Pegases Descending, for Christmas.....
For my American readers, in the book business up here there has been quite a controversy since our dollar is worth more than your dollar (temporary, I'm sure!). We still pay the Canadian price, which is more than the American price, even though we should be paying what you pay! Now I've worked in bookstores in the past, and I know our price difference is not just because of the dollar - in fact, that has little to do with it. It has much more to do with shipping costs, publishing costs, market size, etc. One of my favourite independent bookstores, Collected Works, is offering books at par with US prices. I am proud to say that I continue to pay the Canadian price. The owner still has to make up the difference on his bills, and I'd rather support my independent book seller any day, than get a book cheaper(unless our Canadian dollar stays high and the publisher's prices become equal......hmmm, I can dream!) For all their size, our Chapters and Indigo stores do not carry the amount of midlist and backlist stock that they should. If you want book 2 in a series, or often book 1, you still have to order it! I go in to scout what books are new (because they can carry a bigger quantity of new releases), and then go to Collected Works and order the books if they don't have them in. Normally they do, and for a small store, Collected Works packs more than enough selection and variety that they often carry books Chapters doesn't! I love the idea of having a bookstore be the size of a library - but if Borders (US and UK) and Chapters can't carry a multitude of titles to match their space size, then it's not likely to happen soon. Which is a shame, and I've always thought that Chapters/Indigo (now owned by Heather Reisman so same company really) missed the chance to be one of the most amazing book companies in the world. But, that lets Collected Works exist, and Prime Crime, and Folio's in England, and all the independent bookstores that you and I treasure, Gentle Reader. Anyway, this was meant to be about the dollar difference and how it is affecting books in Ottawa (and most likely the rest of Canada), and supporting my local bookstore! My friend Patricia (same one who gave the very fun Hallowe'en party mentioned above) works at Coles, which is part of the same chain as Chapters- owned by Heather Reisman - and she has been regalling us with horror stories the past month, of customers coming in and throwing books at her and the other staff because they can't get it for the US amount. It's been really awful, and it's not Patricia's or any other bookstores' staff's fault. Chapters and Coles have begun offering bigger discounts - 30% off the top twenty bestseller list, etc - which takes the price below the American price -but that is not on all the books in the store, though. I suppose the key thing is the range of mark-ups in books is very low - the price is on the book when it's sent by the publisher, so it's not like in other retail stores where the price is inflated for a profit (clothing retail stores are among the worst for this) far beyond what it takes to produce the clothing. Head office can set the price to whatever they like. In books, the price is right there; there is some margin for profit or there would be no bookstores! But the profitability has never been great enough to make a fortune at it. Almost everyone who works in books does it out of love. And though I no longer work in books (the aforementioned low wages!), I can certainly support my local bookstore by buying there and paying the Canadian price!
Ok, my LSS is waiting to start watching Frost on TV......someday I have to read the books I have, that the series are based on.......RD Wingfield is the author.....but now it's relaxing time on this Sunday evening. It's Remembrance Day, and as Patricia said to me earlier today, let's pray for peace today, even as we remember and honour the heroes and the wars and the dead. As always, come home, our soldiers, safe and sound.