Reviews

I thought I would review some of the books that I bought a few weeks ago.  These books have nothing do to with soapmaking or knitting, but this is what I like to read in my spare time, maybe you will too. 

The first book I read is  Moonlight in the Morning by Jude Deveraux.  This book is part of the Edilean series, a series of novels all revolving or taking place in Edilean, Virginia.  I have read the other books that are in this series, they vary a lot in content.  One of the previous books is about how the town was founded in the 1700’s, this current book is modern day.  This book follows the story line in Lavender Morning and Scent of Jasmine. I do find this series a little hard to follow and figure out, because the author will write one book present day, followed by another that is historical, then returns to present day for the following book.  Jude Deveraux has done series in the past, but they were easier to figure out, they all had a common book title, like the James River series all had Lady in the tile or the books with Velvet in the tile all went together.

 

I am a reader that wants to know more about the characters, what did they do after the book finishes, and that’s the great thing about having books in a series.  Sometimes the characters are related, for example, one book is about one brother, and the next is about the sister, but the brother ends up in the second book as well.  So, the reader can see how things are working out for the brother after you left him in the first book.  This Edilean series defiantly follows that same pattern.  This book is about one of three girl friends, staying in the town of Edielan.  Jecca comes to town to visit her friend, Kim, for the summer.  Jecca meets Kim's brother, and the romance begins.  I just could not get over that the woman’s name is Jecca, not a name that I am familiar with or hear every day.  To me it just looks like Jessica spelt wrong.  This books goes the way that many romance novels do, I liked it.  It was a fun read, a little predictable.  I read books to escape, and this book fit the bill. 

On a totally different note, I read the first book in the Dresden Files.  I really liked it and will have to get the rest of the series; there are quite a few, which should keep me going for a while.  In this book we meet Harry Dresden, a wizard just trying to make a living in the modern world.  I knew that there were more books to be read, I wasn’t expecting everything to be jam packed into the first book.  Many exciting magical things happen to Harry, many making his life more difficult.  We are introduced to many magical creatures, spells, and what is really going on under the surface all in this first book.  Harry makes a living at finding things, and helping the FBI solve crimes.  It’s interesting that Harry is a wizard, but has to worry about things that everyone worries about, like paying the rent and getting a date, but he also had to worry about creatures trying to kill him, and figuring out problems that are on the average person’s plane, but also have a magical under current.  It was a really good book, Harry is a likeable character, I am looking forward to reading more. 

To sort of bring it back to the knitting, I read the first in the Knitting Mysteries by Maggie Sefton on my Kobo.  I read the Double Knit Murders where we follow of Kelly Flynn to Colorado.   I had seen these books pop up whenever I typed in knitting novels, I really liked the Friday Night Knitting Club by KateJacobs, so I thought I would try out other books that had knitting in them.  My problem with these two books is that I am reading it because I already know how to and like to knit.  There are whole sections of the first book that was all about teaching Kelly to knit, it was not very interesting to someone who already knows how.  I understand, one had to set up the character, but it was written out almost like a how –to- knit book.  The second book was about an alpaca farm, which I don’t know anything about, so that was interesting.  I have a feeling the next book is going to be about spinning, and I have no interest in that. The books are setting up for some romance, but nothing really happens in the first two books.  The mystery part of the books was pretty good, not too predictable. The way the books are written is a little basic, they are very easy to read and follow, for me, the writing was too simple, for lack of a better word.  Maybe the books are written so you can knit and read at the same time?  There are more books in this series; I didn’t realize they are all about the same person, Kelly.  I feel bad for Kelly, having all this murder surrounding her!  I’m not sure if she moves towns, if not, I would not feel safe with all this murder going on.   I am discovering there are more novels that have knitting in them, I think I will try out more of those rather than continue on in this series.