Sure It's Monday, But a Three-Day Weekend is at the End of This Week!

The weather in my neck of the woods was wonderful this weekend, the temps dropped from intolerable to tolerable.  A local brewery released their Oktoberfest beer and I was very tempted to see if it was possible to go there and stay away from everyone and have my first beer of the fall season. I am planning to taste some new fall beers this year and write about them as I did in the fall of 2017. I also plan to read some beer-centered cozy mysteries!

It's the last day of August, and as you can see I'm working on planning my fall.  On my to-do list for today, I have allotted time to reflect on August and plan September.  If that sounds good to you, join me in doing this practice each month.  I write about the highlights and low lights of the month and then review my planner and see what I want to do in the upcoming month.


I read a novella from a book series I really enjoy over the weekend. I loved that it was set up in classic mystery style, think Agatha Christie or Clue. Everyone had means and motive, and the Main Character had to solve it.  Lots of fun! My review is below-

Diamond Fire by Ilona Andrews
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is done as a classic mystery, everyone involved is at the Rogan family estate and
Catalina is our detective. There is also the comedy that comes from planning a wedding and I enjoyed seeing the wedding planning from Catalina's perspective as well as the scenes with Mrs. Rogan. It was also fun to read how Ilona Andrews had a Sherlock Holmes climax were the mystery was revealed to all the suspects present. I'm already halfway through the next book in the series, the Hidden Legacy series is so hard to put down!


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Summer Reading Challenge

My local library is having a summer reading challenge, not just for kids, also for adults. Adults earn tickets for gift card drawings. There are some pretty good gift cards this go round  including Imperial Oak Brewing and our local independent coffee shop: Strange Brew . I'm doing my best to get as many entries as possible before the challenge ends on August 1st. 

Here are the two books I finished this week-

The Museum of Desire by Jonathan Kellerman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

One in a long, long series of psychological crime books staring Alex Delaware and Milo Sturgis. As is usually the case, the murder is really weird. I have read many of the books in the series. This was alright, not my fave. I listened to it on audible.com. I find the reader for this series is perfect and enjoy listening to these books when I run or when I am cooking. I found during this installment my mind tended to wander away from the story more than usual. I have no idea how writers manage to get 30 plus books out of a series, that's a lot of creepy murders. In any case, I was glad that Milo was still hanging in there, he really doesn't do a great job taking care of himself.


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Sweet Talkin' Lover by Tracey Livesay

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A fun contemporary romance! Lots of fun reading as Calia fell in love with not just Wyatt but also the town of Bradelton. You can't read this and not want to go stay at Sinclair House and go to the Harvest Ball. Tracey Livesay did a nice job of raising the stakes and making it seem harder and harder for our couple to find their HEA. I enjoyed that the issues between them were not other people but the expectations of others. Very well done. I am looking forward to reading all future installments of the Girls Trip books! 

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