I have been reading...

Yet another catch-up post from me. I've been reading but not enthusiastically for some reason. Possibly not finding books to suit my mood right now. 

I was almost halfway through The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie before I realised I'd read it before. Checking Goodreads, it was 2016, long enough for me to have forgotten whodunit so I carried on. Good book, even on the second reading.

Then I read a YA fantasy, The Left-handed Booksellers of London by Garth Nix, my 12th. book for  Susan's Bookish Books Reading challenge.

Susan Arkshaw has just turned 18. She lives with her airy-fairy mother in Somerset, a mother who will not talk about who Susan's father is. Longing to get away, she gets a place at an art college in London but sets off early with the idea of starting a search for her father. Going to see an uncle she's just in time to see him turned to dust by 'Merlin', a young man who is a member of a secret organisation, The Booksellers of London. They are guardians a of a sort, protecting the world from the dangerous creatures of myth and legend of The Old World. The Booksellers fall into two categories, left-handed or right and thus have different skills and abilities. It soon becomes apparent that there's something different about Susan and someone sees her existence as dangerous. Who, from The Old World, is after her? It's quite clear that her father really must be found. So, this was a fun read. A bit sort of 'Chosen One' in theme, but that's fine as I quite like that. I thought the world building - an alternate 1983 - was very good: Garth Nix is a seasoned author with a lot of experience of that, witness his 'Old Kingdom' series, which is terrific. There're a lot of bookish references in the story, so that's fun. I enjoyed the dash across England to The Lake District too. So, not a bad start to a new series, I think book 2, The Sinister Booksellers of Bath, is already out so I'll read that at some point. 

Lastly, A Murder of Crows by Sarah Yardwood-Lovett. This was free with Prime Reading, along with the next two in the series.

Dr. Nell Ward is an Ecologist. Bats are more or less her life apart from the secrets she doesn't share with her colleagues. She's surveying a tunnel that runs under a house when she hears an odd noise and leaves because it unnerves her. Next thing she knows she's a suspect in a murder case because a woman is found dead not far from where she was... the woman she was supposed to meet at the house a bit later in fact. She didn't know her but the police thinks she did and things begin to spiral out of control very quickly. Because she knows the police are barking up the wrong tree and that there's a murderer on the loose, Nell and her colleague, Adam, begin to investigate. It's not long before Nell begins to suspect she's been set up. So, this was another quite enjoyable crime yarn. The ecological aspect was different but I did feel the author wanted us to know how much she knew about bats. I felt like quite the expert by the time I'd finished the book. I also felt the triangular love interest thing was rather a distraction, two men after one woman is ok for a bit but I got the feeling this was going to drag on into subsequent books and could quickly become old. (I completely agree that I'm ancient and thus not the target audience for this kind of thing.) Anyway, not a bad first book, different enough to keep me reading the Prime Reading instalments but possibly not enough to buy a load.

Having talked briefly last time about my husband's various illnesses, he caught me on the hop last week and found a new one: Cellulitis. We've no clue where it came from but the angry, red inflammation on his leg turned out to be just that and I'm so glad we nipped to the doctor sharpish and caught it early. A lot of people worry about bothering the dr. unnecessarily, including 'me'. My advice is 'don't'. If something's doesn't look right, it probably isn't - get it looked at. Here endeth the first lesson...

Happy reading, August here in the UK continues to feel just like autumn and that's fine by me but I do feel for people around the world who're going through awful things at the moment, the island of Maui for instance. We live in challenging times.