April Wrap Up
Is it already a third through May? Yes. Yes it is. Better late than never? Anyway, here's everything I read in April.
The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II by Denise Kiernan - One of the interesting things about this book is that there were plenty of men at Oak Ridge, but Kiernan focused on the women. I didn't know this place existed. I knew about White Sands in New Mexico because I have family there. Apparently, there was another place in the Pacific Northwest, too. The plant was only there for a couple of years, but it was a huge part of the plan to win the war. Relatedly, The Oak Ridge Boys band got it's start by playing some of the dances at the plant.
Forgotten In Death by J.D. Robb - This is number 53 in the series. Dallas is working a murder at a construction site where a homeless woman was murdered and left in a dumpster, when she gets called to another body found at another construction site where they have found the body of someone that had been bricked into a wall. 30 years ago. She works both cases at once and the threads in them weave in and out of each other.
Your Magical Life: A Young Witch's Guide to Becoming Happy, Confident, and Powerful by Amanda Lovelace - I read this because someone requested we remove it from the collection. It's not great. It's very supportive and promotes self-confidence, but the magic feels pretty cheap. She frequently said, "If you can't afford a saphire quartz (or whatever) just use a pretty rock." It made it seem like this super-powerful crystal isn't really all that important. Which probably is the case, and the whole thing is just manifestation. A placebo effect from thinking you're doing magic.
Shadows In Death by J.D. Robb - Number 51 in the series. This one takes the focus off Dallas and places it on Roarke. While working a scene in a city park, Roarke sees a face from his past. He instantly knows who killed the woman. It's a paid assassin who grew up with Roarke in Dublin. This kid wanted to be Patrick Roarke's son, and hated Roarke because he was the acknowledged son of the drunken, abusive Patrick. He still hates Roarke, and now he's found a way to goad him.
Naked In Death by J.D. Robb - The first in the series. I mostly ended up reading this on my Kindle. I accidentally got the ebook version while I waited for the audio version. Dallas ends up as the primary on a case where the victim is a high paid licensed companion (prostitute) and also the grand daughter of a Republican Senator. It is very delicate and must be kept under wraps. One of the last people to see her was a very rich man called Roarke. By the end of the book, Dallas is dating Roarke. He helped her solve the case. It wasn't as good as the books at the end of the series, which makes sense. Also, I don't love the narrator. Her accents are not as good.
Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann - This was fun. The sheep are really funny. Who knew sheep had personalities? Maybe only this one shepherd's sheep have personalities, because he read books to them. I am looking forward to seeing the movie!
Golden In Death by J.D. Robb - Number 50 in the series, of course. In this one, people die when they open a delivery containing a cheap plastic gold egg which releases a toxin that kills them in minutes. The thing that connects these people is that their spouses were all employed at a certain private school at a tumultuous time in its history, seven or eight years ago.
Vendetta In Death by J.D. Robb - Number 49. Lady Justice is enacting revenge on nasty men. Men who use their power to exact sex from employees. Men who cheat on their wives. Men who abuse and rape women. Men who drug women. She drugs them, kidnaps them, tortures them, castrates them, lets them die, then drops them off in front of their homes with a poem about their crimes. She got the names of these men from a women's group she was in after her husband cheated and then left her for a younger woman. All the victims were men who hurt women in the group, including her own ex-husband.
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin - This book intimidated me for a very long time because it looks quite long. When you open it, you see that the font is decent sized, the kerning is wide, and the margins are large. All this leads to the pages turning pretty quickly. It still took me a long time to read it, but that was because I had only small gaps for reading. You are following 3 women: Essen is a mother whose husband has murdered their son and run off with their daughter, a young girl with special powers is sold by her parents to a man who takes her to a school for people like her, and Syenite is paired up with the most powerful man in the world both to solve a problem in a coastal city AND to produce a powerful child. The threads of these three women's stories are braided together to an explosive ending.
9 books in May. Yay for audiobooks for boosting my numbers!