Little Black Dress Exchange

As usual, almost half a month until I get to my monthly reading post… Oh well. I read more again, which is nice, but I seem to have developed a habit of picking up books, reading half of it, and then forgetting about them. I always read more than one book at any given time, but this is ridiculous! Anyway, in April I finished these books, all new to me:

Kingdom of the Blind by Louise Penny. This is the 14th book of The Inspector Gamache series, which I have been slowly reading through the past 2 years. I read the first four books years ago one after another, and grew tired of them, so when I went back to them I I decided to pace myself. I re-read the first books and then continued, and have enjoyed them. In case you haven’t read Penny, she is a Canadian author, and most of the books centers around a village, Three Pines, close to the border to the USA. It’s pretty much an ideal place, with a bistro serving yummy food (don’t read if you're hungry), friendship and art. And of course murder. In this book Inspector Gamache finds himself the executor of a very strange will of a woman he never met. There is a very new murder, but also a very old mystery, which was intriguing, but I still had a hard time getting through the book. Partly because the mystery didn’t pick up steam until after ⅔ of the book, but also because of a sub-plot about fentanyl smuggling which has lasted several books, and that I don’t care for at all.

Starling House by Alix E. Harrow. Someone recommended this book to me and it’s been in my to-read pile since forever. When I finally picked it up I finished it in two days, reading until 3 in the night. It has been a long time since I did that. Easily the best book I have read this year. 

Opal is a young woman working a dead end job in a dead end town in Kentucky. Her main focus is to get enough money to get her young brother to a good school and eventually a better life. But she also has a fascination for Starling House, a mysterious manor house built by the equally mysterious Eleanor Starling who in the late 19th century wrote a very strange children’s book, before she disappeared. Needless to say Opal finds herself entangled with Starling House in a very Gothic story. I loved everything about this story, from the plot, the language and the characters. I also found the ending satisfying, which I often think is the weakest spot in Gothic novels.

The Ten thousand Doors of January also by Alix E. Harrow. As I already had this book by Harrow, I went straight to it after Starling House. It’s set in the early 20th century and follows January as she grows up in her wealthy guardian house while her father, who works for him, travels the world to bring back artefacts. Though January is well treated, she chafes agaínst the restraints put on her. She also, once, found a door to another world, though that door is immediately destroyed. One day she finds a book about a girl who also finds doors to other worlds, and as January’s world is turned on its head, she slowly realises she has a very real connection to the book.

I didn’t like The Ten thousand Doors of January quite as much as Starling House, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it. I did, a lot, and I look forward to reading more from this author.

Build A Flower by Lucia Bakrazarand Pappersblommor (Paper flowers) by Sofia Vusir Jansson. Both are non-fiction books about how to make paper flowers from crepe paper. There’s this amazingly talented woman in Sweden that makes paper flowers that are so lifelike, I felt inspired to try to make themselves. So far I have produced a poppy, which I’m pleased with for being the first try ever. Not that I need a new hobby, but at least it’s a fairly inexpensive one, and for a sewist it’s quite the thrill to finish a project in an hour… I plan to do a couple of rehearsal flowers, trying different ones, and eventually create a flower arrangement for a decorative pot we have that is cracked so you can’t have live flowers in it. Both these books were informative and easy to read.