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The Friday 56 for 5/21/21: Morte Point by Rob Parker

The Friday 56This is a weekly bloghop hosted by Freda’s Voice

RULES:
The Friday 56 Grab a book, any book.
The Friday 56 Turn to Page 56 or 56% on your ereader. If you have to improvise, that is okay.
The Friday 56 Find a snippet, short and sweet.
The Friday 56 Post it

from Page 56 of:
Morte Point

Morte Point by Rob Parker

I take my shoes from the pack, and put them on, ready for a light jog. I want to hit civilisation before the world wakes up, and get a march on a quicker route out.

A farmer’s wooden access gate appears on my right, which seems the perfect way for a more direct route to Mortehoe, so I hop the wooden fence into a field of cows. The song birds are in voice, welcoming me with a staccato trill. In the distance, perhaps half a kilometre away, I can see the rooftops. I run as the crow flies precisely in that direction, keeping an eye on the floor for cow muck, nimbly hopping it as I see it. It reminds me of precise foot placement in areas strewn with land-mines, this time only with smelly shoes at stake.

I rely on the timing of my activity to be the best camouflage, but fat lot of use that was back at the beach mansion. Maybe the village is a hub of activity in the early hours, especially when wound up by the search for an intruder out on the Point.

My answer is immediate and as obvious as I could ask for.

A helicopter throbs over a distant hill, the surge of its rotors suddenly louder as it enters the valley, and I see it appear over the village. I sprint for the hedgerow which frames the field, before any airborne eyes can see me.

WWW Wednesday, May 19, 2021

It may seem like I’m not making a lot of progress lately on various books–and that’s only because I’m not. Work’s been crazy and I’m having a hard time finding the time to read–and when I do, there’s not a lot of energy to do it, I’m having a hard time focusing enough to keep going with audiobooks, too. Also, I’ve been beta reading an upcoming novel–I’ll talk more about that soon, but that’s been taking time away from the regular reading (which is not a complaint–great read, I can’t wait to tell you to go buy the book in a couple of months).

Anyway, that’s just to explain why there hasn’t been a lot of turnover in the last few of these posts, but maybe this WWW Wednesday will be the beginning of a return to normal.

This meme was formerly hosted by MizB at A Daily Rhythm and revived on Taking on a World of Words—and shown to me by Aurore-Anne-Chehoke at Diary-of-a-black-city-girl.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Easy enough, right?

What are you currently reading?

I’m reading The Jigsaw Man by Nadine Matheson and am revisiting (for the first time since the late 80s) All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot, Christopher Timothy (Narrator) on audiobook.

The Jigsaw ManBlank SpaceAll Creatures Great and Small

What did you recently finish reading?

I just finished Scott Ryan’s fantastic Moonlighting: An Oral History and the twisted fun that is A Man With One of Those Faces by Caimh McDonnell, Morgan C. Jones (Narrator) on audio.

MoonlightingBlank SpaceA Man With One of Those Faces

What do you think you’ll read next?

My next book should be the second Ben Bracken novel, Morte Point by Rob Parker and my next audiobook should be The Data Detective: Ten Easy Rules to Make Sense of Statistics by Tim Harford (who also narrates it). I’m sure that past-me had a good reason for it when he placed the reserve, I just wish I remembered it*.

Morte PointBlank SpaceThe Data Detective

* I’m sure it’s a fine book, but really past me–statistics???

Hit me with your Three W’s in the comments! I’m curious!

The Friday 56 for 5/14/21: The Jigsaw Man by Nadine Matheson

The Friday 56This is a weekly bloghop hosted by Freda’s Voice

RULES:
The Friday 56 Grab a book, any book.
The Friday 56 Turn to Page 56 or 56% on your ereader. If you have to improvise, that is okay.
The Friday 56 Find a snippet, short and sweet.
The Friday 56 Post it

from Page 56 of:
The Jigsaw Man

The Jigsaw Man by Nadine Matheson

The caramel-colored leg was slim and streaked with dried blood. Three toenails, polished bright blue, had pushed through the black netting of a pair of tights, which had gathered at the foot.

“Shit,” said Ramouter.

“She thought it was the leg of a mannequin at first until she noticed the dried blood and Vacarescu started screaming like a man possessed.”

Three feet from the leg, an arm and a head had been dumped against a tree stump. The head was covered with long black and purple braids. There was a bald spot, the size of a two-pound coin, on the right side. Her forehead was crisscrossed with grazes and bruising pocked her right cheekbone. Traces of red lipstick cracked across her lips. Two blackened holes where her eyes used to be. Ramouter put a hand to his mouth and looked away as a woodlouse crawled into the left eye socket.

“Where’s Linh?” Henley asked Stanford. “And why aren’t you at court?”

“Sick juror, and Linh is on her way.” Stanford turned his back on the body. Henley knew how he was feeling. They thought they had seen it all, until life presented them with a fresh kind of hell.

In Medias Res: A Man With One of Those Faces by Caimh McDonnell, Morgan C. Jones (Narrator)

As the title implies, I’m in the middle of this book, so this is not a review, just some thoughts mid-way through.


A Man With One of Those Faces
A Man With One of Those Faces

by Caimh McDonnell, Morgan C. Jones (Narrator)

Book Blurb:

The first time somebody tried to kill him was an accident.

The second time was deliberate.

Now Paul Mulchrone finds himself on the run with nobody to turn to except a nurse who has read one-too-many crime novels and a renegade copper with a penchant for violence. Together they must solve one of the most notorious crimes in Irish history…

…or else they’ll be history.

I’m at the 48% mark—and this is just ridiculously fun. A great mix of dark humor, some silly humor, gritty crime drama, some fascinating characters, and three very different kinds of police detectives.

For me, this experience has been like the first time I read one of Jay Stringer’s Sam Ireland books—Ways to Die in Glasgow

I get the impression that Detective Bunny McGarry is who I’m supposed to be the most focused on, but he rankles me. Poor, incredibly ordinary-looking, Paul Mulchrone and the nurse, Brigit Conroy, who got him into this mess are who I’m the most invested in. But the DI Jimmy Stewart is the star of this book—I could listen/read to a five-book series about him starting tomorrow.

I can’t think of a way to sum up the plot or even speculate about what’s going to happen next—like I normally do in these posts. I just can tell that whatever happens next that I’m going to have a blast listening to it, and I’m prepared for just about anything to happen.

WWW Wednesday, May 12, 2021

I feel like I’ve been stumbling, barely conscious through this week so far—is it just me? Let’s hope this WWW Wednesday perks me up.

This meme was formerly hosted by MizB at A Daily Rhythm and revived on Taking on a World of Words—and shown to me by Aurore-Anne-Chehoke at Diary-of-a-black-city-girl.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Easy enough, right?

What are you currently reading?

I’m reading the ARC for Moonlighting: An Oral History by Scott Ryan (and all I want to do is take a vacation from life and watch my DVDs now) and am listening to A Man With One of Those Faces by Caimh McDonnell, Morgan C. Jones (Narrator) on audiobook, one of those books I inexplicably kept putting off starting.

MoonlightingBlank SpaceA Man With One of Those Faces

What did you recently finish reading?

I just finished Rob Parker’s A Wanted Man and Time and Tide by Peter Grainger, Gildart Jackson (Narrator) on audio—the theme of which left me in a funk (great book, though).

A Wanted ManBlank SpaceTime and Tide

What do you think you’ll read next?

My next book should be The Jigsaw Man by Nadine Matheson (which does not promise to be a feel-good read) and I have no idea what my next audiobook will be, DNF’ing something yesterday has thrown off my schedule.

The Jigsaw ManBlank SpaceQuestion Mark

Hit me with your Three W’s in the comments! (no, really, do it!)

The Friday 56 for 5/7/21: A Wanted Man by Rob Parker

The Friday 56This is a weekly bloghop hosted by Freda’s Voice

RULES:
The Friday 56 Grab a book, any book.
The Friday 56 Turn to Page 56 or 56% on your ereader. If you have to improvise, that is okay.
The Friday 56 Find a snippet, short and sweet.
The Friday 56 Post it

from 56% of:
A Wanted Man

A Wanted Man by Rob Parker

We go through all the names quickly, and Jack identifies each one as one of his father’s friends or family members. He can’t identify a couple of them, but the picture is already clear. The first phone is for personal use only – a useful tool for organising the dualities of the life he had chosen.

That poses the inevitable question of the twenty-six names on phone two. Call signs or numeric pseudonyms for twenty-six people who clearly got the special treatment. How best to find out who they are, though? And of course, what was that third phone used for, if not for business or personal? That makes me question if there’s a fourth, that perhaps he had one with him when he was taken. I could ask Jack, but all three phones are identical. ‘IPhone 4S’ in black, ‘32GB’ it says on the back of each. There’s no telling them apart. Even the home screen wallpapers are the same.

WWW Wednesday, May 5, 2021

It’s the first Wednesday of May, ergo the first WWW Wednesday of May.

This meme was formerly hosted by MizB at A Daily Rhythm and revived on Taking on a World of Words—and shown to me by Aurore-Anne-Chehoke at Diary-of-a-black-city-girl.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Easy enough, right?

What are you currently reading?

I’m reading the espionage thriller Red Widow by Alma Katsu and am listening to the third Jane Yellowrock novel, Mercy Blade by Faith Hunter, Khristine Hvam (Narrator) on audiobook.

Red WidowBlank SpaceMercy Blade

What did you recently finish reading?

I just finished Jonathan Nevair’s Goodbye to the Sun and The Miracle Pill by Peter Walker (who also did the narration) on audio.

Goodbye to the SunBlank SpaceThe Miracle Pill

What do you think you’ll read next?

My next book should be A Wanted Man by Rob Parker and my next audiobook will probably be The Writer’s Library: The Authors You Love on the Books That Changed Their Lives by Nancy Pearl & Jeff Schwager, narrated by the authors and sixteen other people.

A Wanted ManBlank SpaceThe Writer's Library

Hit me with your Three W’s in the comments! (no, really, do it!)

April 2021 in Retrospect: What I Read/Listened to/Wrote About

April 2021 is in the books (no pun intended): 24 books read, 8046 pages finished (1273 of those belonged to project reads that have taken months to get through, so there’s a grain of salt or two involved in that number) with 3.9 Stars on average. I wrote almost as much as I wanted to, especially these last couple of weeks. All in all, I’m calling April a win.

So, here’s what happened here in April.
Books Read

The Particulars of Peter No Country for Old Gnomes The Great Sex Rescue: The Lies You've Been Taught and How to Recover What God Intended
3 Stars 4 1/2 Stars 3 Stars
Progigal Storm Cross Her HEart Slow Horses
3 Stars 3.5 Stars 3 Stars
The Art of Violence Next to Last Stand The Lore of Prometheus
4 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars
Because You're Mine Blood and Treasure Strange Planet
3.5 Stars 3.5 Stars 4 Stars
Heroes Mortals and Monsters, Quests and Adventures Payback Tom Jones Original Cover
3 Stars 3.5 Stars 5 Stars
Grace and Glory (BoT Edition) The Word Became Fresh Skinwalker
5 Stars 3 Stars 4 Stars
A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe Sworn to Silence Surviving Religion 101
3 Stars 3 Stars 4 Stars
A Killing Frost Dead Secret Blood Cross
4 1/2 Stars Still deciding 4 Stars

Still Reading

The Wonderful Works of God Things Unseen Goodbye to the Sun
Taken

Ratings

5 Stars 2 2 1/2 Stars 0
4 1/2 Stars 3 2 Stars 0
4 Stars 5 1 1/2 Stars 0
3.5 Stars 5 1 Star 0
3 Stars 9
Average = 3.9

TBR Pile
Mt TBR April 21
Despite what progress I make on reading these this year, I seem to offset that with my purchases.

Breakdowns
“Traditionally” Published: 20
Self-/Independent Published: 4

Genre This Month Year to Date
Children’s 0 (0%) 1 (1%)
Fantasy 1 (4%) 9 (10%)
General Fiction/ Literature 1 (4%) 2 (2%)
Horror 0 (0%) 0 (0%)
Humor 1 (4%) 2 (2%)
Mystery/ Suspense/ Thriller 8 (33%) 33 (37%)
Non-Fiction 2 (8%) 5 (6%)
Science Fiction 2 (8%) 12 (13%)
Steampunk 0 (0%) 0 (0%)
Theology/ Christian Living 4 (17%) 10 (11%)
Urban Fantasy 4 (17%) 15 (17%)
Western 0 (0%) 0 (0%)

Review-ish Things Posted

Other Things I Wroteotherwriting
Other than the Saturday Miscellanies (3rd, 10th, 17th, and 24th), I also wrote:

How was your month?

WWW Wednesday, April 28, 2021

We’re in the home stretch of April, which is hard to wrap my brain around, here on the last Wednesday of the month, so we might as well check in with a WWW Wednesday.

This meme was formerly hosted by MizB at A Daily Rhythm and revived on Taking on a World of Words—and shown to me by Aurore-Anne-Chehoke at Diary-of-a-black-city-girl.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Easy enough, right?

What are you currently reading?

I’m reading the SF thriller, Goodbye to the Sun by Jonathan Nevair and am listening to Blood Cross by Faith Hunter, Khristine Hvam (Narrator) on audiobook, as I get going on my revisiting of this series.

Goodbye to the SunBlank SpaceBlood Cross

What did you recently finish reading?

I just finished Noelle Holten’s Dead Secret—a gripping read—and A Killing Frost by Seanan McGuire, Mary Robinette Kowal (Narrator) on audio—completing (for now) the series.

Dead SecretBlank SpaceA Killing Frost

What do you think you’ll read next?

My next book should be Red Widow by Alma Katsu and my next audiobook should be Taken by Benedict Jacka, Gildart Jackson (Narrator).

Red WidowBlank SpaceTaken

Hit me with your Three W’s in the comments! (no, really, do it!)

The Friday 56 for 4/21/21: Dead Secret by Noelle Holten

The Friday 56This is a weekly bloghop hosted by Freda’s Voice

RULES:
The Friday 56 Grab a book, any book.
The Friday 56 Turn to Page 56 or 56% on your ereader. If you have to improvise, that is okay.
The Friday 56 Find a snippet, short and sweet.
The Friday 56 Post it

from Page 56 of:
Dead Secret

Dead Secret by Noelle Holten

(a little long, but couldn’t see a way to shorten it)

When the steam came out of the spout, Ronnie picked up the kettle and then poured the boiling water on her arm.

What the hell?

Ronnie didn’t even flinch. It was like she didn’t feel any pain. She placed the kettle back, used a tea towel to dry her arm, and covered it up with the sleeve of the cardigan. Vicki turned and looked at Lucy. They waited until they saw Ronnie leave the kitchen, and Lucy stood and headed to the kitchen.

Maybe I was wrong.

At the counter she touched the kettle.

Ouch!

She sucked her index finger and turned on the cold tap, holding the sore digit beneath the running water. Lucy looked up at the camera and raised a brow. She knew Vicki would be watching.

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