Sunday Summary: 5 October 2014

Another week has come and gone and it's been quiet here on the blog. I'm linking up with The Sunday Post, hosted by Kimba @ The Caffeinated Book Reviewer.

Where I've been reading

This past week, I was in Chicago. Due to the fire in the FAA facility in Aurora, my flight to Chicago on Sunday was cancelled. It looked pretty bleak getting there in time for the meeting I had scheduled for Monday morning, so Hubby offered to drive me there. That gave me a whole day on Sunday to read in the car. And, unfortunately, that's about all the time I found to read until the flight home on Friday. I tried to make up for some of that lost reading time on Saturday while I was doing laundry and packing my suitcase for another out-of-town trip.

What I've been reading

Format: ePub on BeBook reader
Source: Sanger Public Library (Freading)

Monk's Hood is the third book in the medieval monastery mysteries by Ellis Peters. In this episode, we learn more about Brother Cadfael's life before he made his vows. Shortly after Gervase Bonel contracts to gift his manor house and lands to the Abbey in exchange for a life pension for himself and his wife, he is poisoned. Suspicion falls on Cadfael—the poison came from his own laboratory and it turns out that he had been engaged to Bonel's wife as a very young man. I'm enjoying this series and will definitely borrow more of them from the library.

Format: Kindle
Source: Review copy from NetGalley

When I requested a review copy of Murder Tightly Knit, I didn't realize that it's the second book in Vanetta Chapman's Amish Village Mysteries series. Although I have a very strong preference to read books in order, I had already started reading and decided not to set it aside. Turns out that this book works well enough as a stand-alone. There are references to a murder which occurs in the prior book, but the reader is not left confused or wondering about the relationships between the characters. (Which can happen when you jump into the middle of an established series.) I'll be posting a review closer to the publication date in December, but for now, I'll definitely endorse it. You have time to read Murder Simply Brewed and then place your pre-order for Murder Tightly Knit.

Format: Kindle
Source: Kindle Lending Library

I had placed The Pattern Ship onto a wishlist back in February, and decided to choose it as my September selection from the Kindle Lending Library service provided with my Amazon Prime subscription. I'm so very glad that I did. This first book in Tobias Roote's Pattern Universe series is a delightful science fiction book. The Pattern Ship is all about first contact resulting in a tremendous technological leap forward. Subsequent books appear to introduce space flight, colonization, and all-out war in space. This is a new-to-me author, looks to be self-published. There are flaws in the book—particularly a problem with missing and extraneous apostrophes. But they weren't serious enough to detract from my enjoyment of the story. I'm certainly going to be reading more of this series.

This Week on the Blog

The blog was basically gathering dust this week. Just as with time for reading, I couldn't make the time to post anything until after I returned home. I had hoped to complete my review of Yesterday's Kin, but that's been put off until next week.

1. Stacking the Shelves (6)