Author: Ann Cleesves

The hot weather hit just at the right time; I couldn’t abide doing anything other than sit under the ceiling fan and read my book.

In a later book in this series (this one is #4) I knew that Perez’s fiancé had been murdered and I’ve been on the hunt ever since to find the book where that happened. This is the one.

I saw this story as part of the Shetland series on Netflix; I want to go back to it and see how closely it follows the book. I’m pretty sure there was never any mention of the murder and I don’t recall that there had never been any explanation of the circumstances whereby Cassie came to live with Perez.

I got a notice today from the library that book #5 in the series is waiting for me to pick up. Bring on the hot weather!

Goodreads Rating: * * * *

Author: Sent Jeter Naslund

I bought this book at a Texada Library book sale and it was a real gamble on my part. If you recall I thought that Ahab’s pursuit of Moby Dick was one of the worst books I’d ever read.

I’m so glad I picked this up. Ahab’s wife, Una, lived a very interesting life before she ever met Ahab. She too had a brief encounter with Moby Dick and several other whales while she worked aboard a whaling ship (as usual as that sounds). And it is a nice twist that Una, who is narrating this story, ends up with Ishmael, who was the narrator in Moby Dick.

I’m giving this one four stars but to be honest I don’t know if the high rating is because it was so much better than Moby Dick. I wonder if, on its own, I would have enjoyed it as much.

Goodreads Rating: * * * *

Author: Carol Wyer

This is book one in a new series; I will often get a book that is further into a series (and it doesn’t usually matter) but it was nice to be in on the first one.

It took some time to introduce all the characters and I was confused at first. If you read it pay attention to the names of everyone and their connections. It doesn’t help that one of the characters is posing as another of the characters and a second character has changed her name from the beginning of the story. I thought I knew who the unidentified narrator was but more than half-way through I realized I was wrong. Even after learning who the villain was it didn’t spoil the ending.

I’d be tempted to read another one in the series but the library doesn’t have any of them.

Author: Diane Chamberlain

I’m a fan of Diane Chamberlain and this book didn’t change my opinion.

Tess is training to be a nurse while her fiancé is a doctor working away from home during the polio epidemic. On a trip away with her best friend she takes part in a one-night stand. While Tess is tormented by how to tell her fiancé about her unfaithfulness she realizes that she is pregnant. Determined to keep her child she contacts the father to ask for financial support and he immediately proposes. But the marriage is odd to say the least.

The story was very good but what I found most interesting was that it was set during the polio epidemic in the early forties. Families of the infected were put into quarantine, no visitors were allowed in the hospitals and the methods of treatment were changing all the time. Sound familiar? The scary part is that there was no vaccine until 1955. Yikes – even if they cut that time in half for the Covid virus we are still in for a long haul.

Goodreads Rating: * * * *