Tag: brittany cavallaro

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books and reading

Series I’m Working On

I  have a terrible habit of starting a book series and then never going back to it. Because I do the book challenge each year, I will start a series by reading the first book because it fits into a prompt, but then I get distracted and don’t continue the series. Every few years, I make a point to wrap up any series that I’ve started, whether through the book challenge or not.

This year I’m finally finishing The Lunar Chronicles (Cinder review here) and The Dublin Murder Squad (In the Woods review here and The Likeness review here).  I have really enjoyed both of them, up to the point I’m at. Last year, I started a few more series, but I am making an effort to wrap up everything. Here is what I’m working on:

  • The Jackson Brodie books by Kate Atkinson. I have read the first three and am currently working on the fourth.
  • Children of Virtue and Vengeance by Tomi Adeyemi
  • The Armand Gamache books by Louise Penny. I have read the first two. These are so much fun to read, given that they involve murder. The people of Three Pines are charming, and Gamache is a great investigator.
  • The Harry Hole books by Jo Nesbo. I read The Bat this year.
  • The Jack Caffery series by Mo Hayder. I’ve read the first two (Birdman review) and have really enjoyed them, but they are definitely some of the more graphic police detective books I’ve read.
  • The Penny Green books by Emily Organ. (Limelight review). I discovered her by accident, honestly. I needed a book with a fruit or vegetable in the title and searched my Kindle for various fruits and stumbled upon lime. I have gotten most of her books for free and have read the first two. They are a lot of fun. Penny is a reporter in 1800s England works closely with the police to solve murders. They are really well-written and clever.
  • The Red Queen series by Victoria Aveyard. (Red Queen review). I’m really iffy about this one. There is a giant plot hole in Red Queen and it still irritates me. But I’ve been told that the rest of the books are better, so I’m giving them another chance.
  • The Charlotte Holmes series by Brittany Cavallaro. I listened to A Study in Charlotte a couple summers ago and really enjoyed it. It’s a bit of a modern Sherlock Holmes Dr. Watson series (involving their descendants) and is more complex than I was expecting.
  • The Broken Earth series by NK Jemisin. The Fifth Season review. I really liked this one even though fantasy isn’t my favorite genre.
  • The Inheritance series also by NK Jemisin. I didn’t like this one as much, but I’m going to stick with it.

Between finishing all these series and the PopSugar reading challenge, I’m going to be very busy this year trying to complete them all, but I look forward to it.

Categories
books and reading

A Study in Charlotte

I’ve been listening to this book for a couple of months, so I’m going to do my best to remember it well enough to give it a review, but I will simply say this book was so much fun. The premise is a clever one, imagining that Sherlock Holmes and his assistant/caretaker Watson were real people and have modern-day descendants. The story is told from the perspective of James Watson, a new student at a private school in the Northeast. He runs into Charlotte Holmes and the chemistry begins. They strike up an uneasy friendship but are forced into trusting each other due to some unpleasant events that happen on the campus.

Charlotte is stubborn, an addict, but brilliant. Jamie is just trying to figure out what is happening, how involved Charlotte is, and what has happened in Charlotte’s past with the Moriarty family since Charlotte refuses to talk about it at all.  And as Sherlock has his brother, Mycroft, Charlotte has an older brother, Milo, who is smug and annoying, but a fun character.

Charlotte uses her keen sense of perception to follow the clues and solve the crimes. The author, Brittany Cavallaro, wrote a tight plot that kept me guessing. Of course, there were red herrings, as to be expected in a story as this, but the chemistry between Jamie and Charlotte, not romantic, but more like one between the actual Sherlock and Watson was the best part. I had no idea what to expect with this book but really loved it.