Saturday Reading Wrap-up - 1/11/20

Hello again. Thanks for stopping by.

I picked up three new ebooks this week - a mystery, a crime fiction(?), and an urban fantasy.  Of the books I picked up the first week of the year, I have a suspense left.  No new hardcopies.

Books Read:

4) Curtain by Agatha Christie (1/10/20) - Mystery - 5 stars.
No Review.
Note:  This is the last Hercule Poirot she wrote and it made me sad.

3) Cicada Summer by Jeff Dosser (1/9/20) - Supernatural Suspense*# - 5 stars.  New to me and underappreciated.  Free off the Reading Deals newsletter.
Review: "The beginning was not what I expected. I actually swiped the book closed and was ready to move on. But something lured me back for one more try. I'm so glad I turned the page and kept going. This book was an awesome supernatural suspense with the best parts of both genres. And you need the beginning parts to understand what happens later, so don't skip those. Keep reading. It's worth it. I inhaled the rest of this book. Didn't want to put it down. Read straight through with the television on and not even hearing the TV. Good stuff here, folks."
Warning: The regular price for this book is $6.99.  One-click at your own risk.

2) Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine - December 1979 by Various (1/7/20) - Short Stories Mystery - 4 stars.  Picked this up at an 8/$1 sale at the thrift store.
No Review.

DNFs:

1/8/20 - Paranormal Mystery - free.  I started reading this and ran into the 'talking black cat' thing.  Other than realizing this thing has been done to death (and making plans to change my books so I don't put two more TBC books out there), I realized I didn't actually like the MC or her talking cat.  I think the story was supposed to be quirky and fun, but it felt flat.

1/4/20 - Mystery/Suspense - free.  It was billed as a mystery, but read more as a suspense.  The problem was that the MC was too stupid to live and the author kept introducing things like the readers should already know them, and then explaining them after.  Like "Mary so did not want to run into John." with no explanation and I'm all like "John?  Who the hell is John?" then a couple chapters later she drops a hint that John is her ex.  He never shows up, though.  (Names changes to protect the anonymity, of course.)  And the MC kept doing things out of character for who the author presented her as being.  :shrug:  I gave up at about 30% when it all got to be too much for my disbelief to suspend.

Currently reading... I didn't start anything new after I finished Curtain last night.  I was too bummed.  Today, I'll wade into one of the ebooks I downloaded.


That's it for me this week.  What have you been reading?