#allison montclair

[meganwhalenturner]

Reading for a writing retreat: I like to have a big fat non fiction book that will last the whole trip. The Frankopan was perfect. I like to have something just for fun and the Sparks and Bainbridge mysteries by Allison Montclair were delightful. Thanks to Andrea at the Cleveland Heights Library for the recommendation. I read the entire series on my phone, all checked out from the library—it’s so great to be able to take as many books as you want on a trip without having to carry them in a suitcase.

The other three I bought at the Nautilus Bookshop on Donoussa which was tiny but had a beautiful selection. The proprietor pointed me to the English language books and I admit I was expecting Twilight and John Grisham and maybe Eat, Pray, Love, but no! It was a shelf of Greek authors in translation. The first two are old-fashioned and seem quaint now. The Seferis is lovely and calm and quietly heartbreaking.

[e-b-reads]

35 and 78 for books you read in 2024 :)

Thank you!

35. The Waterman, Tim Junkin

Oh you hit on the one that StoryGraph picked out in my wrap-up as "least shelved," i.e. only 2 other users have interacted with it? I really enjoyed it! Probably because the main character (and, I think, the author) feels such a strong connection to the places and people around the Chesapeake Bay, and I relate. It's set in the 1970s (written in the 90s) and is sort of a book in two parts - first the main character quits college to move home and be a waterman after his dad dies, and then Hurricane Agnes hits and messes with the Bay ecologically so he has to move down to Virginia from Maryland to crab there...and gets sort of caught up in a plot related to some drug runners, which is when it gets a little less introspective and a little more thriller-y. I still liked it a lot.

78. A Rogue's Company, Allison Montclair (Sparks and Bainbridge Mystery #3)

A middle-of-the-series book! I don't remember anything about this book specifically (as opposed to the series as a whole) to mention, but it's overall a fun read, and enough different from other historical mystery series to be worth picking up if you like that kind of thing!

Set in post WWII England, two very different women (one a former spy, one a war widow with a young son and rich in-laws) set up a marriage bureau where they can matchmake clients - except they keep getting drawn into mysteries and capers instead. I liked that, although both ladies have various (war-related) traumas, they deal with them and even go to (period-typical, I think) therapy, rather than being crippled by them or ignoring them. Also I enjoyed the resolutions to each book - generally there's the kind of scene where the ladies go "oh I have a plan," and then we as readers have to wait and have the plan revealed during the action, making the ladies look smart and the baddies look amusingly silly. The dialogue can be pretty funny at points, too!

(send me a number from 1 to 208 and I'll tell you about a book of 2024! There's a good chance it will be a middle book in a series!)

[mercerislandbooks]

Time for a Mystery?

When the Island Books staff got wind that Louise Penny’s newest Chief Inspector Gamache book would be published early September, we knew our customers would be interested. Sure enough, after brisk pre-order sales, a shelf full of All the Devils Are Here hardbacks waited to be picked up by eager readers on September 1st. More than one person has remarked on the fact that we keep the full Chief Inspector Gamache series on hand in the mystery section, but it has less to do with the enthusiasm of the staff for the series, though we are fans, and more with the reality that person after person on Mercer Island keeps discovering the series and buying them by the handful.

Chief Inspector Gamache is a wonderful mystery series in the best of times, and now, as we keep hearing from over the counter that reading has become an escape, they would be a satisfying reading project. For anyone who has yet to discover Louise Penny, these are contemporary mysteries, set in the fictional town of Three Pines, on the border of Canada and the US in Quebec. The inhabitants of Three Pines are quirky, to say the least. With All the Devils Are Here, the series stretches to sixteen books and I find with each successive book, the psychology of the characters and the mysteries deepen. I’ve rarely, if ever, been able to guess who did it in a Louise Penny mystery, and for the last several I’ve not even tried. Now I just let her take me along for the ride and cross my fingers that everyone comes out okay at the end.

With a new Louise Penny out, it got me thinking about other mystery series I’ve enjoyed that have a new addition!

One is a historical mystery series, The Right Sort of Man (Sparks and Bainbridge Mystery #1) by Allison Montclair. This is perfect for those who like Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs or Charles Todd’s Ian Rutledge series. Set in post-WWII Britain, two enterprising women, Iris Sparks and Gwendolyn Bainbridge, partner up to establish a marriage bureau, matching their clients seeking lasting relationships. But within pages someone is dead and Iris and Gwen are drawn into the hunt for the murderer. The dialogue between the two is light, snappy, and full of humor. Montclair is deft at dealing with mental health issues (Gwen spent some of her war in a mental institution) and the tricky morality questions that arise from having worked in intelligence (Iris). Just as much as finding the murderer, this is about Gwen and Iris forging a friendship and trust that goes beyond the workplace. A Royal Affair (Sparks and Bainbridge Mystery #2) came out the end of July and did not disappoint me as a next installment.

The second is the long awaited Hid From Our Eyes, Book #9 of the Clare Fergusson and Russ Van Alstyne series from Julia Spencer-Fleming. This is a series I was introduced to by customers once I started working at Island Books and I loved them. This is a good pick for Louise Penny fans. I don’t tend to read contemporary mysteries but I found the premise of the series intriguing. And once I read the first, I was invested in the characters and the town and I had to see what happened next. In book #1, In The Bleak Midwinter, we meet Clare Fergusson, the newly named first female Episcopal priest of St. Alban’s in the town of Millers Kill, upstate New York. She really has enough on her plate with trying to win over her conservative congregation but when an infant is left at the doorstep, Clare joins forces with the Police Chief, Russ Van Alstyne, to discover what has become of the mother.

There’s been a six year publishing gap between Book #8, Through the Evil Days, and the April 7th release of Book #9, Hid from Our Eyes. Julia Spencer-Fleming shared that several difficult life events put her writing life on hold for a while, but now she is back with this newest book, and at work on Book #10, which is welcome news given the ending of Book #9!

In addition to enjoying the latest from these three wonderful authors, I’ve also added A Murder in Time, Book #1 of the Kendra Donovan Mysteries by Julie McElwain, and The Lost Man by Jane Harper to my TBR. Lillian, our children’s specialist recommends the Kendra Donovan series, calling it CSI with time travel and Jane Austen. And so many mystery readers love Jane Harper that I want to try her for myself!

In addition, the Knitting Book Club will be reading Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers for our November 5th meeting, my favorite of her mysteries.

I hope this gives you all some new ideas for fall reading!

-- Lori

[e-b-reads]

Books of the Spring (April-May 2024)

I started this back in June but then life got busy again...books of the summer will be out soon, but for now: here's some books I read way back in April and May that I think other people should read too!

Maniac Magee (Jerry Spinelli): I think I read this when I was a kid, but long enough ago that I forgot most of it. Anyway, picked it up at a thrift store to put in the camp bookshelf of free books to borrow/take, and wanted to (re)read it first. It's good! A good book for kids (or adults) to read. Silly and exaggerated in the way good middle grade fiction is, but also about racism and family and having a home. Sweet, and a good way to get you thinking.

The Right Sort of Man (Allison Montclair): Yet another first in a historical mystery series, this one following a pair of women who have started their own business in post-WWII London - a matchmaking agency. Except they also keep getting caught up in solving murder mysteries. I enjoyed it; the dialogue and actions are snappy and funny, but the characters also have and acknowledge real struggles (they go to therapy! unusual in a 1950s-set book but handled realistically). I have now read through the latest published book and look forward to more.

Tomboy (Liz Prince): A graphic novel memoir of the author's gender experiences. Not earth-shattering, but I have long enjoyed a book that makes me feel less alone in my own experience of gender. Obviously I'm not exactly Liz Prince (for one thing, based on the illustrations, she's maybe willing to wear skirts as an adult but wasn't as a kid? And I am the exact opposite) but a lot of what she had to say struck home for me. And it's good for books to exist that showcase a small part of the diverse ways people are.

To Shape a Dragon's Breath (Moniquill Blackgoose): This one has done some of the rounds on tumblr for sure, but I did enjoy it, and posted something about it here. An interesting fantasy world that's obviously this world but with alternate history where the Norse colonized the Americas. (And the dragons, that's different too). I don't usually reach for YA fantasy anymore, but I will be looking for the sequel to this one when it comes out.

[thisbibliophiile]

Books of 2026 #9

The Right Sort of Man by Allison Montclair Alan Gordon

[living400lbs]

‘But this isn’t what I saw myself doing when I was seventeen and starting at Cambridge,’ she said.

‘Most people don’t end up doing what they expected at seventeen,’ he said.

'That doesn’t make it feel any better,’ she said. ‘I was supposed to be a world-travelling adventuress by now, alternating voyages into dark jungles to discover new species of beetles with shattering societal structures while clad in smashing, risqué frocks.’

‘And it took an entire world war to thwart those dreams.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Only that could have had enough power to stop me.'

- from Fire Must Burn by Allison Montclair

[living400lbs]

‘I was young, full of myself and suffering from delusions of grandeur,’ said Iris. ‘I had all sorts of big ideas. That’s what university is for.’

‘And now?’

‘Not so young and constantly confronted by the smallness of reality,’ said Iris.

- from Fire Must Burn by Allison Montclair

[living400lbs]

‘Men who put women on pedestals end up with statues'

- from An Excellent Thing In A Woman by Allison Montclair