Colorways by Vicki Welsh

November has to be one of the most disappointing reading months ever. I wasted a lot of hours on two books that I eventually DNFed. I only finished 4 books. I think I am taking too many book recommendations from book tubers on YouTube. My reading aesthetic is definitely different from theirs!

Of the four books that I finished, my favorite was Thunderstruck but I found the other three very entertaining. I hope you have some good recommendations for me this month!

DNF

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy – A climate crisis fiction that annoyed me with the level of bad scientific information and the overwrought lead male character.

Don’t Let Him In by Lisa Jewell – I love Lisa Jewell but I couldn’t get through this catfishing tale. It’s a slow build and the catfishing story isn’t appealing to me. I finally asked Grok to give me the summary and decided that the book wasn’t for me. I’ll look forward to the next Jewell.

This is the first book in a series featuring an archaeologist named Ruth Galloway. The series is set near Norfolk, England. The area where she lives in on sacred Iron Age land where children’s bones and other sacrificial artifacts are found. One day she receives a call from Chief Inspector Harry Nelson. He believes that he has found the bons of a child that might be Lucy Downey. Lucy went missing 10 years ago and there hasn’t been one clue to her disappearance. While she is researching this find and dating the bones, another young girl goes missing. The bones turned out to be 2000 years old. So there are two missing girls.

Ruth is introduced to us as a 30-something cat lover who is happy living alone. She is still smarting from an earlier failed relationship and she considers herself too frumpy to be attractive to anyone else. I think the book makes her seem older than she really is but she is quite likable. She’s actually more likable than she thinks.

I enjoyed this book. It’s not quite as action-packed as a Sandford novel but it’s not cozy either. Just a good, enjoyable read. I will read others.

One of my favorite historical fiction writers is Erik Larson. The history part of his novels are meticulously accurate. The fiction part brings the history to life. The books truly read more like novels than history. I’m slowly working my way through all of his books. So far, my favorite is Isaac’s Storm about the Galveston hurricane, the deadliest hurricane in history. I think his most popular is Devil in the White City about a murder at the Chicago World’s Fair and the impact that the fair had on culture and society.

Thunderstruck is about Gugliemo Marconi, the inventor of wireless communication and Hawley Crippen, a purveyor of miracle medicines and an unlikely murderer. The story is set in Edwardian England. Marconi is obsessed with developing his new form of wireless communication and proving it’s worth to the world. His goal is to have wireless communication between North America and Europe and for ships at sea to be able to communicate with each other and with land ports. If he can get it to work, it will change everything.

Dr. Crippen is the nicest of men. He’s soft spoken and kind but almost pulls off the most perfect murder. The two paths cross as Crippen tries to make an escape by sea. It became one of the most famous cases of all time because people around the world were able to hear about it, thanks to the Marconi communication system.

The story is told parallel with alternating chapters following each thread.

This is a romance novel and isn’t really my genre. But two things drew me to this book. First, it’s written by one of my favorite audiobook narrators, Julia Whelan. Second, it’s about an audiobook narrator. I thought that the backstory was interesting enough to take it on.

It’s a cute book and a really easy read. Sewanee Chester is an audiobook narrator because her dream of acting ended with an accident. She’s made a good life as a narrator and it gives her time to help care for her beloved Grandmother, Blah. The Grandmother, by the way, was my favorite character. It’s a pivotal time for Blah as she’s developing dementia and will need more advanced care very soon.

Sewanee is asked to attend an audiobook awards ceremony in Las Vegas and, shock!, she has a surprisingly hot evening with a handsome stranger.

After the trip, she’s asked/required to narrate the last romance novel from the most popular romance writer. She will narrate with the mysterious, hot voiced, Brock McNight. No one knows who Brock is.

You can easily figure out how this one ends but I needed a very light book at this time and I enjoyed the audiobook theme.

This book explores all the bad aspects of Hollywood starting in the 1950’s and the black listing of supposed Communists. Leon Chazan is a screen writer hiding in Carmel-By-Sea and writing under a pseudonym to avoid problems with the committees. One day Isabella Giori moves into the cottage next door. She wants to be a star in a Hitchcock film but she’s been sequestered in Carmel by a Hollywood “fixer”. They develop a friendship that has consequences for decades.

In 1987, Leon’s granddaughter, Gemma Chazan, has arrived to sell her beloved grandfathers’ cottage. While going through it she finds a hidden safe full of documents that reveal information about him that she never knew.

I thought it was a little slow in parts but, all in all, it was an interesting story and hits on just about ever Hollywood evil that we know about.