High Summer Read-a-Thon

Next week, starting Monday, I am joining Michelle of True Book Addict, and a group of other bloggers and book readers, in her High Summer Read-a-Thon. I like these low key events, especially because I never manage to read everything I hope to. Mainly, it’s a chance to engage with other bloggers and – if I’m lucky – find some new blogs to follow.

While I do that, I’m going to attempt to read two books – doable I think. First up is a cozy, something I’ve never read before but whose descriptions often catch my eye. Because I’m watching the series on TV at the moment, I’ve picked Agatha Raisin and The Quiche of Death by M. C. Beaton.

Putting all her eggs in one basket, Agatha Raisin gives up her successful PR firm, sells her London flat, and samples a taste of early retirement in the quiet village of Carsely. Bored, lonely and used to getting her way, she enters a local baking contest: Surely a blue ribbon for the best quiche will make her the toast of the town. But her recipe for social advancement sours when Judge Cummings-Browne not only snubs her entry–but falls over dead! After her quiche’s secret ingredient turns out to be poison, she must reveal the unsavory truth…

I’m also going to try and finish a book I’ve started a few times but not finished, The Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman.

Coralie Sardie is the daughter of the sinister impresario behind The Museum of Extraordinary Things, a Coney Island boardwalk freak show that thrills the masses. An exceptional swimmer, Coralie appears as the Mermaid in her father’s “museum,” alongside performers like the Wolfman, the Butterfly Girl, and a one-hundred-year-old turtle. One night Coralie stumbles upon a striking young man taking pictures of moonlit trees in the woods off the Hudson River.

The dashing photographer is Eddie Cohen, a Russian immigrant who has run away from his father’s Lower East Side Orthodox community and his job as a tailor’s apprentice. When Eddie photographs the devastation on the streets of New York following the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, he becomes embroiled in the suspicious mystery behind a young woman’s disappearance and ignites the heart of Coralie.

Fingers crossed I will make it through this time. Either way it will be fun and I’ll do updates as to my progress on this post.  If you want join in or see what others are planning on reading, head over to seasons readings.

Emma