Halloween Bingo Update, September 9

Since my last update, I finished Carpe Jugulum, which takes care of my Splatter square, Like a Charm, for my Center / Raven square, and On the Edge for my Relics and Curiosities square. Without intending to, I’ve read for my middle row, across. Yay!

I’ve started Donna Andrews’ Murder Most Fowl today. My intention was to use it for Gallows Humor, but it’s just possible that it might fit Dark, Dark Woods; I’ve only read one chapter so far, but they’re in the woods where a camp of MacBeth re-enactors. I’ve also got Kevin Hearne’s new one Paper & Blood that takes place in the Dandenong Ranges here outside Melbourne (AU), I’ve been there many times and it definitely fits Dark, Dark Wood, but how much of the story takes place there remains to be seen.

Squares on my card that have been called: Tropical Terror and Mad Scientists and Evil Geniuses

Accumulative reading table with links to reviews below the card.

The spreadsheet:

	Bingo Square	Date Called	Book Title	Date Read
Row #1
X	Mad Scientists and Evil Geniuses	Sep. 7	Naked Brunch	Aug. 30
	Stone Cold Horror/Creepy Carnival		Wild Ride	Sep. 1
	Vintage Mystery
	Dem Bones
	Read by Candlelight/Flashlight
Row #2
	Murder Most Foul
	Lethal Games		No Nest for the Wicket	Sep. 1
	Spellbound		The Once and Future Witches	Aug. 31
	Black Cat
	Relics and Curiosities		On the Edge	Sep. 8
Row #3
	Shifters		Naked Brunch	Aug. 30
	Terror in a Small Town		Agnes and the Hitman	Sep. 3
	FREE SPACE		Like a Charm	Sep. 7
	Psych / Highway to Hell		Archive of the Forgotten	Sep. 3
	Truly Terrifying		The Cannonball Tree Mystery	Sep. 5
Row #4
	Noir
	Genre: Mystery		The Alchemist’s Illusion	Sep. 2
	Country House Mystery
X	Tropical Terror	Sep. 4	The Mimosa Tree Mystery	Sep. 4
	Locked Room Mystery
Row #5
	Splatter		Carpe Jugulum	Sep. 9
	Cryptozoologist
	Plague and Disease		Scourged	Sep. 3
	In the Dark, Dark Woods
	Gallows Humor

	Wild Card Spell
	Amplification Spell
	Bingo Flip Spell
	Cell Conversion Spell
	Transfiguration Spell
	Double Trouble Spell

Carpe Jugulum (Discworld series)

Carpe Jugulum
by Terry Pratchett
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 9780857524157
Series: Discworld #23
Publication Date: November 22, 2016
Pages: 412
Genre: Fantasy, Fiction
Publisher: Doubleday

It’s done; I’ve read the whole thing. Which really isn’t saying much because at only a little over 400 pages it’s not like it’s a door stop. But, and I say this as one who thoroughly enjoys Pratchett, reading the discworld books is hard work for me. I love the characters, and I laugh out loud at the jokes, and I welcome the footnotes, but something about Pratchett’s narrative style doesn’t flow effortlessly for me, and because of that I’m always looking at them and thinking up excuses to put off reading them.

This was the case with Carpe Jugulum although once Granny Weatherwax finally got involved, the story started moving along enough for me to ignore the effort.

On the surface, the story is a hilarious one that follows the efforts of Count Magpye and his family to overcome the stereotypes of being vampires, or vampyres, as they prefer. It’s a cautionary tale of what can happen when the wrong mix of intelligence and self-help books come together.

Underneath that are some pretty dark musings, in my opinion. How much of my opinion is coloured by the knowledge of Pratchett’s early onset Alzheimer’s I’m unable to say, but must be mentioned; there are also shades, I’m sure, of my own current and likely permanent cynicism about humanity.

The book starts off with Granny in a dark place; she’s feeling invisible and forgotten by her friends and her community, and an accident with a cow left her forced to make a difficult choice for someone else. I’m not sure if we’re meant to believe that’s why she takes herself off to the gnarly moors or if I missed the moment when her true purpose was foreshadowed. Either way, Granny puts her affairs in order and leaves without a word to anyone, in the throes of a dark depression.

Meanwhile, in an effort to be modern and embrace a modern tolerance for all beings, King Verence invites the vampires into the castle to celebrate the naming of his newborn daughter. Tolerance taken too far is a touchy topic these days, when everybody is supposed to embrace inclusiveness in all forms but naïveté and inclusiveness aren’t a good mix and it wasn’t hard to draw a line from Pratchett’s vampires being invited in to today’s ‘open-mindedness’ that leads to widely accepted conspiracy theories and general apathy about all the ways the world is currently going to hell.

Then there’s the theological battle that takes place throughout the book. This felt very auto-biographical to me, as if Pratchett used Oats and the witches to vent his spleen – a very bitter spleen from the feel of things. So while I was laughing at the numerous moments of hilarity and sly humour, there was a stain over it of … sadness, I guess. The idea that this genius of storytelling was at his core quite possibly an unhappy man. And I don’t say that because I claim that without faith in a higher being it’s impossible to be happy, but because to spend so much time elucidating the reasons why such faith is misplaced doesn’t seem like something a person at peace with his personal philosophy, and fundamentally happy, would spend his time doing. I don’t agree with him about the higher being, but I do agree with him (and Oats and Granny) that one can find the sacred everywhere.

The ending is both simplicity itself and a perfect reflection of the one-way thought processes of humanity. Not to mention that justice and mercy don’t always come wrapped in bows and happiness.

I read this book, which had been on my TBR for years anyway, on the advice of Themis Athena as a good book for the Splatter square on my 2021 Halloween Bingo card.

On the Edge (Novel of the Edge, #1)

On the Edge
by Ilona Andrews
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9780441017805
Series: Novel of the Edge #1
Publication Date: September 29, 2009
Pages: 336
Genre: Fiction, Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Ace

Well, it just goes to show you: people change and you should never say never. I read this book back in 2016 and my review from that reading was … unfavourable, ending with my declaration that I’d never read the book again.

Shows you what I know. I not only read it again, I liked it better than I did the first time. It’s still a little too PNR for me, but I found it easier to get into the story, the setting and the characters. Maybe because I’d already read it and had a vague recollection of not liking the romantic interest, I found him less unbearable than I expected to, and the non-consent issues didn’t feel as egregious this time around, only typically arrogant.

I can’t really say why, except maybe I’ve read more Ilona Andrews’ since, or my mood was more receptive to the story. Who knows? But I went from rating this 3 stars and never reading it again, to rating it 4 stars and buying a copy of it for my shelves. Along with the other 3 book in the series.

I’ve been intending to read this since I ordered it back in July, but its arrival during Halloween Bingo was fortuitous; it’s a great fit for the Relics and Curiosities square. The story line centers on a powerful artefact from a previous civilisation that eats magic and spits out something very akin to a demon hound.

Like a Charm

Like a Charm
by Candace Havens
Rating: ★★★½
isbn: 9780425219263
Publication Date: February 5, 2008
Pages: 289
Genre: Fantasy, Fiction
Publisher: Berkley

I’ve had a few books by Candace Havens on the shelves for over a decade, and the other night I decided I had to re-read them; I remembered the broad strokes, but not much else. I started with this one, Like a Charm and it held up surprisingly well, for the kind of story it is.

Like a Charm is a paranormal romance, but really the romance is only about half the story, the rest is about the MC, Kira, picking herself up and putting herself back together after a horrific work related experience that left her traumatised and seriously ill. She goes back to her hometown and reconnects with the residents and her family, and while she’s there, the town librarian dies, a woman who was like a second mom to her. Kira is bequeathed an extraordinary inheritance, and must weight accepting it against going back to her highly successful law career.

Of course that other half of the story is Caleb. Caleb has all the requirements of a romantic hero: of course he’s hot, and he’s a carpenter, BUT only on the side, when he’s not running around the world being a highly successful investigative reporter, and of course he’s rich, although you’d never know it unless he’s in a suit. And of course he’s a gentleman of the southern variety, holding doors, paying for everything – but only in the most enlightened and charming fashion. I’m used to this sort of stuff in what few romances I read, and I accept that it’s a winning formula for a reason. But where things got really out-of-date, was the whole first time in bed scene. It was just soooo cheesy.

As is obvious, I enjoyed the non-romantic half more. It was largely an ode to books and libraries and the book-title-author name dropping was fun. It was a light, fun read that went fast.

I’ve decided to use this for the Raven/Free Square on my Halloween Bingo 2021 card. It’s full of magic and I-see-dead-people and is set in a small town run and protected by a coven of witches.

Halloween Bingo Update, September 5: I got my first square!

I’ve had my first square on my card called: Tropical Terror, a square for which I had just yesterday finished The Mimosa Tree Mystery. Woot!

I’ve also done my re-read of Agnes and the Hitman for Terror in a Small Town. After reading and loving The Mimosa Tree Mystery, I dived right into The Cannonball Tree Mystery which I used, along with my Amplification spell card, for my Truly Terrifying square.

I have a few more books I know I want to read that will work for my Bingo card, but 2-3 of them haven’t arrived yet. I’m going to take a break from reading for a few hours and then see what appeals to me from what I currently have on hand.

Accumulative reading table with links to reviews below the card.

The spreadsheet:

	Bingo Square	Date Called	Book Title	Date Read
Row #1
	Mad Scientists and Evil Geniuses		Naked Brunch	Aug. 30
	Stone Cold Horror/Creepy Carnival		Wild Ride	Sep. 1
	Vintage Mystery
	Dem Bones
	Read by Candlelight/Flashlight
Row #2
	Murder Most Foul
	Lethal Games		No Nest for the Wicket	Sep. 1
	Spellbound		The Once and Future Witches	Aug. 31
	Black Cat
	Relics and Curiosities
Row #3
	Shifters		Naked Brunch	Aug. 30
	Terror in a Small Town		Agnes and the Hitman	Sep. 3
	FREE SPACE
	Psych / Highway to Hell		Archive of the Forgotten	Sep. 3
	Truly Terrifying		The Cannonball Tree Mystery	Sep. 5
Row #4
	Noir
	Genre: Mystery		The Alchemist’s Illusion	Sep. 2
	Country House Mystery
	Tropical Terror		The Mimosa Tree Mystery	Sep. 4
	Locked Room Mystery
Row #5
	Splatter
	Cryptozoologist
	Plague and Disease		Scourged	Sep. 3
	In the Dark, Dark Woods
	Gallows Humor

The Cannonball tree Mystery (Crown Colony, #5)

The Cannonball Tree Mystery
by Ovidia Yu
Rating: ★★★
isbn: 9781472132031
Series: Crown Colony Mystery #5
Publication Date: June 3, 2021
Pages: 313
Genre: Fiction, Historical, Mystery
Publisher: Constable

Blame it on being written, and punished during a pandemic, maybe, but this one wasn’t nearly as good as the last, The Mimosa Tree Mystery. There were serious issues with editing and continuity, both within the story and with the overall series. In the previous book, Hideki tells Su Lin her mother was the youngest of the cousins, but in this book he is said to have looked upon her as “an older sister or mother figure”. The first murder victim in this book is the sister of Su Lin’s aunt by marriage, but the victim is referred to several times as Su Lin’s Aunt and as ‘being married to your uncle’.

There are at least half a dozen more instances where a character does or says something on one page and then is said to have said/done the exact opposite a page or two later. I don’t know if this is poor story editing, or if it’s meant to reflect the hysteria of war time in an occupation where anybody could be shot for simply now bowing deeply enough. If it’s the latter, then the editing still failed as the narrative left me confused about my confusion.

The storyline itself also failed to compete with the compelling storyline of Mimosa Tree, which involved war time codes, rebel forces, POW’s, treasures and a murder that happened just hours before the story started. In this one, the first murder didn’t take place until well over 100 pages of household drama – pretty horrific household drama, I’ll grant, but overall, not worth the 100+ pages it was written on. The last 200 pages have moments that are far more interesting, but not enough to really shine; I kept reading because I kept waiting for interesting things to happen, and they rarely did.

Most disappointing of all was the absence of Le Froy, a primary character of the series, obviously modelled after Sherlock Holmes. While absent for 99% of Mimosa Tree he was a guiding and motivating force for Su Lin and the plot. Here, his name was barely mentioned and only then in passing introspective thoughts. It’s as if with the absence of Le Froy, the story – and the author – lost it’s focus, organisation, and its logic.

But then again, this book takes place in 1944, when the axis countries started to fall apart, and perhaps this books disorganisation is a reflection of the unraveling of the Japanese Empire towards the end. Who knows? I only know it wasn’t nearly as good a story as I know the author is capable of.

I read this for Halloween Bingo 2021. I’m using it for my Truly Terrifying square by invoking my Amplification spell card. Ovidia Yu is a Singaporean author and qualifies as a diverse voice from an historically marginalised community.

The Mimosa Tree Mystery (Crown Colony, #4)

The Mimosa Tree Mystery
by Ovidia Yu
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 9781472132024
Series: Crown Colony Mystery #4
Publication Date: June 4, 2020
Pages: 311
Genre: Fiction, Historical, Mystery
Publisher: Constable

Even though I’ve enjoyed the previous three entries in this series, I hesitated over this one. The first three were pre-WWII, but The Mimosa Tree Mystery moves the series into Japanese occupied Singapore. I couldn’t see how Yu would be able to write a story that maintained the gentility of a traditional mystery in the middle of a Japanese occupied war-torn setting and maintain any semblance of authenticity.

Yu not only managed, she outdid her previous efforts. There’s no sugar-coating the atrocities perpetuated by the Japanese during that time – Su Lin and her family are Chinese, and the story starts in the middle of a roundup into a killing field – but by focusing on Su Lin and the murder mystery the author avoids the story being overwhelmed by the horror of the times.

I was genuinely surprised by how much I enjoyed this story. I liked the previous ones, but I had a hard time becoming invested in the characters. This time around it wasn’t a problem – the story was riveting enough and the pace fast enough that whether I became wholly invested in the characters didn’t matter. My only complaint was the denouement scene. I understand that the point was the murderer wasn’t rational, but Yu did the job too well and it became extraordinarily difficult to follow along with who supposedly was working with whom and who ordered what, etc. It was a small thing in the overall enjoyment of the story, but it was at the end, so it stuck.

I now find myself eager to dive into the next book, The Cannonball Tree Mystery to find out what happens next with Su Lin, her family, and (former) detective, now POW, Le Froy.

I read this for 2021 Halloween Bingo. It fits the Tropical Terror square rather well, as it is set in Singapore (Tropical) during the WWII Japanese occupation (Terror).

Agnes and the Hitman re-read

Agnes and the Hitman
by Jennifer Crusie
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 9780312363048
Publication Date: August 21, 2007
Pages: 368
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

I recently read Wild Ride by the same two authors for a Halloween Bingo square, and it made me want to re-read my very favorite Crusie of all time. I reviewed it back in 2014, which can be found here, but even then it was a re-read and I don’t have any notes from my original reading.

But it really doesn’t matter, because this book is just as good the 5 or 6th time as it was the first time. Hilarious, not at all realistic, yet believable, and at its heart, endearingly sweet in a way that only a mafia related killing spree can be.

Agnes is engaged and they’ve bought the house of her dreams from her BFF’s mother, where she and her soon-to-be are going to write cookbooks and cater fabulous events. The first event is part of the mortgage contract: throw a fabulous wedding at the house for Agnes’ goddaughter and the previous owner’s grand-daughter in exchange for the first 3 months of payments.

Easy, until someone comes in one night to steal her dog at gunpoint. Agnes, who has a history of anger management issues, hits him with a frying pan, knocking him through the wall into an unknown (to her) basement. She calls her old friend Joey (the Gent) who, hearing what happened and seeing the basement, calls in his nephew, Shane, a government black-op. He comes to protect Agnes and find out who wants the dog, and why.

Meanwhile, the bride’s grand-mother seems determined to relocate the wedding to the country club, and everything that can go wrong with the wedding preparations does. Through it all Agnes just keeps cooking and planning and fixing, refusing to allow anything to stand in her way of having this wedding, not even the dead bodies.

It’s a fast paced read, with no slow spots. It’s a huge amount of fun, and as I said before it’s not at all realistic, but the relationships are feel believable. Even the instant attraction between Shane and Agnes. I continue to absolutely love this book as one of the ultimate comfort reads on my shelves.

I re-read this just because I wanted to, but it fits for Halloween Bingo’s Terror in a Small Town square, so I’m going with that. It’s set in Keyes, South Carolina a tiny (fictional) town that’s home to half the Jersey mob’s family (the retired half) and is beset with a string of murders that leaves a body count somewhere around 7.

Halloween Bingo Update, 3 September

I think just about everybody knows we here in Melbourne and Sydney are in level 4 lockdowns and will be until at least October. My immediate reaction to this has been to go on a reading binge and read all the books. That means I finished two books I started over the weekend and binge read a third from start to finish.

This won’t continue, of course; I’ll either run out of books or develop blood clots from sitting too long. So while this update comes right on the heels of my last Bingo post, it’s not a sign of future frequency. Although I do have my re-read of Agnes and the Hitman that I’ll finish up today for Terror in a Small Town. After that, I have no idea what I’ll pick up next.

There have been two calls thus far, and neither are on my card, so my card remains just hints of stickers to come.

Accumulative reading table with links to reviews below the card.

The spreadsheet:

	Bingo Square	Date Called	Book Title	Date Read
Row #1
	Mad Scientists and Evil Geniuses		Naked Brunch	Aug. 30
	Stone Cold Horror/Creepy Carnival		Wild Ride	Sep. 1
	Vintage Mystery
	Dem Bones
	Read by Candlelight/Flashlight
Row #2
	Murder Most Foul
	Lethal Games		No Nest for the Wicket	Sep. 1
	Spellbound		The Once and Future Witches	Aug. 31
	Black Cat
	Relics and Curiosities
Row #3
	Shifters		Naked Brunch	Aug. 30
	Terror in a Small Town
	FREE SPACE
	Psych / Highway to Hell		Archive of the Forgotten	Sep. 3
	Truly Terrifying
Row #4
	Noir
	Genre: Mystery		The Alchemist’s Illusion	Sep. 2
	Country House Mystery
	Tropical Terror
	Locked Room Mystery
Row #5
	Splatter
	Cryptozoologist
	Plague and Disease		Scourged	Sep. 3
	In the Dark, Dark Woods
	Gallows Humor

Scourged (Iron Druid Chronicles, #10)

Scourged
by Kevin Hearne
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9780525486459
Series: Iron Druid Chronicles #9
Publication Date: April 15, 2018
Pages: 268
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Del Ray Books

I bought a signed copy of this book around the time it came out, before I heard that the general conclusion of other readers’ was disappointment. It sat on my TBR shelf neglected ever since. But recently I read a review for the second book in his new series, which is winging its way to me as I write this and in that review it’s mentioned that Atticus and Oberon play a part and they get the ending they deserve.

Well, in order to appreciate the ending they deserve, I needed to know about the ending they got, so, being in a very bad mood yesterday anyway, I grabbed this book and thought “let’s get this over with”.

And it turned out, I guess because I was braced for the worst, that I didn’t think it was so bad after all. Yes, if you agree with the premise that not all promises are meant to be kept, Atticus’ ending was pretty dire in consequence of keeping that ill-fated promise. And no, I didn’t really enjoy all the self-flagellation Atticus had going on, nor did I think Granuaile’s reaction at the end entirely proportional. But over everything else was kind of fun. I enjoyed seeing all the pantheons show up, and I liked the humour and the ever-so-subtle oneupmanship between them. And as much as I love Oberon, I wasn’t unhappy with his smaller role in this book. There’s a fine line, I think, between Oberon being adorable and funny, and Oberon being insanely obnoxious, and this book found that line before it crossed it.

I’m not sorry to see the series come to a conclusion, though I’ll miss the characters. I am glad I read it too, because I’m really looking forward to what I can only guess is Atticus’ redemption in the new series, Blood and Ink.

I read this book not really thinking how it would fit on my Halloween Bingo 2021 card. And it really doesn’t, although it would work for Gallows Humour. But I have a Wild Card I can use, and a square I don’t like, Plague and Diseases so I’m going to use Kevin Hearne and this book to take care of that space.