Weekend Reads

Time for the weekend again, thank God.  As usual, I am hoping to get some reading time in.  I am currently reading one book (paper) and listening to another in audio book.

I am about 90% complete Carnival of Shadows by R.J. Ellory and I have been loving this book.  I am usually all about plot and character development when it comes to reading enjoyment but the writing in this book is so well done that it actually caught my attention and I have slowed down reading this book in order to savor it.  The basic premise of the story is a FBI agent (Michael Travis) has had a disturbing childhood where his father abused his mother until she couldn’t take it any longer and she killed Michael’s father.  She is convicted and executed for the crime which leaves Michael with no family.  After a number of months in the child welfare system, a distant relative (by marriage, not blood) is located and he goes to live with her until he reaches adulthood.  He then joins the army and later becomes a FBI agent.  One day he is assigned to a case where a body has been found underneath a carousel at a carnival that has arrived in Seneca Falls, Kansas.  He is the only agent assigned to the case and is told that he is not to request any assistance from other FBI branches or agents.  He arrives in Seneca Falls and starts his investigation, interviewing all the people who work in the carnival.  As time goes on, he becomes more disturbed as he cannot make any head-way in the case and some of the carnival workers have this uncanny ability to know what has gone on in his past, almost like they were reading his mind.  I’m to the point in the book where the reader starts to wonder whether Michael Travis has been set up by his employer.  I can hardly wait to finish it to find out the truth of the matter.

The other book I will be “reading” this weekend is an audio book that I started a few days ago.  It is called the Wild Rose by Jennifer Donnelly and is the third and final book in the Tea Rose series.  I read the first two books in paper format but I am enjoying the audio book format just as much.  I have been listening to big sections of this book while I do some coloring and I am finding that time just flies by when I do this.

Finally, I anticipate starting Linda Fairstein’s new book called Killer Look.  This book is another addition to the Alex Cooper series.  I have deliberately not read what it is about so that there is some element of surprise as there are now many books in this series and I find it is becoming a little stale.

So that pretty much wraps up my reading plans for the weekend.  Hope everyone has a good one!  Gwen