December was a busy month, but I had two weeks of vacation and was looking forward to reading, and reading a lot. And I did. And it was wonderful! I hunkered down and spent good quality hygge time in my want-to-be-home, Sea Harbor, MA. But tragedy struck December 8--my beloved Kindle Voyage died! Amazon made the wrongheaded decision 4 years ago to cease production of the Voyage, even though many of us Kindle diehards thought it was the best Kindle ever made. I tried to live without a Kindle but broke down within a week and ordered an Oasis, which will be delivered soon. I hate reading on my phone, so most of the books read this month were audiobooks or library books. A Net Galley ARC was interrupted by the tragedy, but I will resume reading Comet Madness as soon as Fred the Fourth arrives.
A Dark and Snowy Night by Sally Goldenbaum Years ago this series was published by one of the mass market publishers, and I fell in love with it when I discovered it early on. After several books, the publisher decided not to pursue the series, but luckily for us, Kensington Publishing picked up the author and the series continues. Sea Harbor, Massachusetts, is a small coastal town, but it's home to a large number of great businesses I'd patronize if they were real. Chief among them is the Seaside Knitting Studio, owned by Izzy Chambers Perry. The series began years ago with Izzy opening up her yarn shop and over the books, she knits deep relationships with three women in town. They are all very different, in age, in lifestyle, in experience, but they bond over their shared love of knitting and their lives become interwoven. Over the series, their lives change, but the friendships and love stay strong. I would love to be best friends with Izzy, Nell, Birdie, and Cass, and have Thursday night knit-ins and Friday night dinners with them. The mystery is almost secondary for me. I love escaping to this cosy, beautiful town full of caring and conscientious people and set in a gorgeous, sea side locale. But, a mystery series this is, so someone does get murdered, and each investigation is spearheaded by a different woman. I had just read two of the Seaside Knitters mysteries in November, and I didn't want the happy glow of living in Sea Harbor to dissipate, so I immediately jumped into my third consecutive book, which is also the most recent. This time around, the mayor's holiday party is marred by a murder, and the victim is discovered by Nell, Izzy's aunt (and personally my favorite of the four women). With Christmas and the holidays looming, the women decide to solve the murder so the town can enjoy the festive season without worrying that a murderer lurks in their midst. I love this series, and passed this book on to a friend to read on her vacation, and she is now a convert and fan, too. What better way to celebrate the season than with this wonderful trip to my favorite place.
Black Orchids by Rex Stout This audiobook has two stories, Black Orchids and Cordially Invited to Meet Death. As all fans know, Nero Wolfe never leaves his townhouse, but the one thing that might get him to leave his home is a rare orchid, and this is not just a special rare orchid, it's a black orchid. When Archie Goodwin discovers a dead body at a flower show, Nero is drawn into a complex mystery that centers on an exceedingly rare little bloom. The black orchid reappears in the second story, in which a society matron receiving poison pen letters tries to get Nero Wolfe to find out who is sending the letters to her. Wolfe turns down the job, and then regrets it. This audiobook is literally just the old cassettes now in a digital format, complete with "end of cassette 1, please turn the cassette over." But the wonderful Michael Prichard and his gravelly voive are perfect for Nero Wolfe, so less than perfect presentation aside, I love these audiobooks.
The Capture of Cerberus and The Incident of the Dog's Ball by Agatha Christie Hercule Poirot read by David Suchet. There is nothing more to be said. Perfection.
Knot on Your Life by Betty Hechtman years ago, I gave up on Hechtman's other series because, as detailed in other reviews on this blog, the stories are simplistic, the writing often juvenile, and the mysteries unsatisfying. But, sometimes it's hard for a reader to know if some of the fault lies with the publisher, who demands a certain kind of mystery for a certain audience, and constrains the author with requirements and limitations. So when I found that Hechtman had another series out there, I thought I'd give it a try. Casey Feldstein has created a career arranging yarn retreats in Vista Del Mar, but the resort idyll is not without its evils. In this, book number 7, her nemesis, the resort manager, has started arranging retreats, trying to poach on Casey's success, but his attempts leave his first clients, a Silicon Valley tech company, unsatisfied, and they reach out to Casey to save their retreat. But it's not a restful retreat when someone dies, and Casey decides to solve the murder herself. Gentle Reader, I had so many issues with this book, it's hard to list them, but here are some, and they are my last straw pet peeves: why does Casey think she is a better detective than the police, because she worked as an assistant to a detective long ago? Why on earth does her boyfriend, the cop, tell her things that could get him fired if his boss knew he was telling her these things? Why does she let him do this? And why the heck is a 30-something woman afraid to date a man in the open? Does she really think the locals will gossip nonstop about them? Casey, you're neither that important nor that interesting. The juvenile romantic relationships Hechtman always has make the bad mysteries absolutely unreadable for me. It's insulting to Ms. Christie and Mr. Stout to read something like this right after reading their classic and well-written mysteries.
AlterKnit Stitch Dictionary: 200 Modern Knitting Motifs by Andrea Rangel Fantastic stitch dictionary of modern and unusual motifs for the adventurous knitter who wants to move beyond diamonds and chevrons into dinosaurs, robots, and 3-D inspired motifs, among others. This is a great addition to any knitter's library. Nicely illustrated, but only charts.
And there you have it. The 69 books I read in 2022. On to 2023 and adventures with my new Oasis.
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