Rearview Mirror: March 2015

!!!  Okay, so March went really, really fast!  I have no idea why, but I cannot believe it is already April!  I am totally ready for spring, though.  Tom and I have been planning out gardens and ordering plants.  SO MUCH SPRING LOVE!  Spring is the only time of year that I’m totally confident that I can be an awesome gardener.  (This confidence is shown to be false by about the end of June.  :-D)

March was another really busy reading month.  Still trying to stay on top of those reviews!!!

Favorite March Read:

Gaaaahh actually a really hard choice.  I read three five-star books this  month, and several four-stars.  It was actually a really good month!!  But I think I’m going to go with The Blackhouse by Peter May.  This was a brilliant thriller.  I’ve just finished the second in the trilogy (also fantastic) and am super excited about reading the third (except it means I’m done with Fin!).  Fabulous read.

Most Disappointing March Read:

A toss-up between Wild Goose Chase (a just dreadful “cozy” mystery) and Cold Spell, a mediocre fairy tale retelling.  Both were 2/5 and just MEH.

Other March Reviews:

• Pollyanna’s Jewels, Pollyanna’s Debt of Honor,  and Pollyanna’s Western Adventure by Harriet Lummis Smith – 4/5 – continuations of the Glad books, and just as adorable as their predecessors.
• Mr. Darcy’s Promise by Jeanna Ellsworth – 4/5 – an actually decent retelling of Pride & Prejudice that was adorable and nice, even if the cover was completely bizarre.
• Deep Secret and The Merlin Conspiracy by Diana Wynne Jones – 4/5 and 5/5.  The Merlin Conspiracy was a close runner-up for favorite March read.  These two loosely connected stories were absolutely delightful in every way.  They were fantasy (and DWJ) at its best.
• Nemesis and Sleeping Murder by Agatha Christie – 4/5 for both – wrapped up the Miss Marple books.  Nemesis was the last chronologically and Sleeping Murder was the last in published order (even though Sleeping Murder was written first…?!?!)
• Cousin Kate by Georgette Heyer – 4/5 – a fun and happy read with a bit more depth than I usually find in Heyer’s writing.
• Lion Hound by Jim Kjelgaard – 5/5 – another runner-up for the favorite read of the month.  Totally enjoyed rereading this childhood classic.
• Enthusiasm by Polly Shulman – 4/5 – a surprisingly enjoyable little fluff story.

Added to the TBR:

Per usual, SO MUCH TEMPTATION OH MY GOSH.  And do I give in to it every time?  You bet I do!  Plus, I started following several  more book blogs…  even more temptation!!

• Stephanie intrigued me with her review of Illusions of Fate by Kiersten White.  I’m a sucker for YA fantasy, and the cover is fantastic!
• Cleopatra Loves Books was on a total roll with her thriller recommendations…  she added THREE to list!  Human Remains by Elizabeth Haynes, The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson, and Stranger Child by Rachel Abbott.
• Lady Fancifull was responsible for three additions – The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North (sci-fi time-traveling thriller??  Yes!) and Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans (still have a problem with wanting to read every WWII home front story I can find), as well as a Golden-age mystery (always up for those), The Expendable Man by Dorothy Hughes.
• From Reading, Writing, and Riesling I added Captured by Neil Cross (for some reason I really like thrillers where the crime is a bit from the past??) and The Chimes by Anna Smaill, which just sounds fantastically intriguing.
• One of my new book blog follows, Rose Reads Novels, was responsible for adding Close Your Eyes. Hold Hands. by Chris Bohjalian, a sort of post-apocalypse novel which, she assures me, doesn’t have a ridiculous twist.  Love it.  Thanks to RRN, I also added Time and Time Again by Ben Elton – I do love a good time-traveling novel!
• FictionFan rarely lets me off the hook, even though we frequently read wildly different types of books.  This month, she hooked me with Money Tree by Gordon Ferris, which sounds like a great thriller AND she promises a Lone Ranger reference…!!!!  Plus, FF gets special kudos this month for introducing me to the world of Peter May/Fin Macleod!
• Another new book blog for me, Bibliobeth, hooked me with another thriller recommendation – The Murder Bag by Tony Parsons.
• Finally, Sophie got me to add what she promises is a feel-good read, Small Blessings by Martha Woodroof.  Sophie said this book made her feel like she “was floating on a piece of fluffy cloud, just drifting across the sky and looking down yonder on the mountains and the forests and with little birds flying around me.”  How can I not want to read a book that inspires those kinds of feelings?!?

So let’s see, I read/reviewed 13 books and added 14…  that sounds perfectly reasonable, right??  :-D

Here’s to more happy reading in April!!