Hello Patrons! 🙂

(This was the post I whoops on y’all! Technology is great.)
Tell me if you sense a theme with the books I’ve been reading lately. Some people read spooky books during October, I read cozy mysteries. I have so many thoughts, but what else is new?

Let’s first talk about the audiobook that I finished today at work first.

Murder At The Vicarage (Miss Marple #1) by Agatha Christie

Basic synopsis: guy in tiny village in England isn’t liked by his neighbors, is murdered in his parson’s (British priest’s) home. Miss Marple (a nosy little grandma character) uses her gossipy deduction skills to solve the mystery.

I got distracted a lot the past couple of days so I didn’t catch a couple plot points. (The big whodunnit didn’t make sense to me for that reason). I had a fun time listening though. It was narrated by a posh British dude, who gave Miss Marple a classy British accent. There was a character named Lettice (pronounced Lettuce (?)).

I came for the fact that it was an Agatha Christie book, and I stayed for Miss Marple. She was my favorite character. She is such a smart character, and she is being constantly belittled in the book for trying to solve the mystery. I enjoyed the ending solely for the fact that Marple got to be like SURPRISE I WAS RIGHT!

Christie should have written a crossover story about Miss Marple and Hercules Poirot solving a mystery together. Someone get on that! (Snorts).

Overall I had a fun time, but wasn’t blown away by it. I gave Murder at The Vicarage 3/3 stars on Goodreads. Highly recommend the audiobook.

Next lets talk about the mystery that’s not a murder!

Good Girl, Bad Blood by Holly Jackson

I loved the first book of this series so I was so excited to get back to Pip and her sleuthing. I am 75 pages in and really liking it. I got a little tripped up at first because several small items are changed from the UK edition to the US edition. Which I get… kind of. For example in the hardcover US edition the first book is set in Fairview, but in the UK edition the town is called Little Kilton. Also the different spellings of things and the British-isms (car park, mum, solicitors, etc). I think because the UK and US editions are published by different publishers, they thought that Americans wouldn’t get it unless things were Americanized. Which I don’t agree with.

I like that Pip is back at it solving mysteries, and that it’s directly after the events of the first book. It doesn’t have the “Nancy Drew Affect” where you can read any of the books out of order, which I like. You need to see Pip’s growth from the last book to now. (Also side note, the US cover of this book isn’t as cute as the UK edition).

Pip’s just been asked to help with a missing persons case of the sibling of friend. She has a podcast hashing out the murder case that was the plot of the first book, and she decides to have season two of her podcast to help find her friends brother. Nothing investigatory has happened yet. I am ready for it though.

I like the podcast element in between the chapters, its very immersive.

Reading Update:

British writer of crime and detective fiction, Dame Agatha Christie (1891 – 1976). (Photo by Walter Bird/Getty Images)

I got another Agatha Christie audiobook on Libby! Surprise! Murder at the Links is the next cozy mystery for my listening enjoyment. I also got a copy of Vampires Never Get Old from the library as well. Just in time for Halloween. This is obviously a anthology of short stories centered around vampires. I am going to start that tonight.

I will update y’all tomorrow on my progress with all of these books.

Tell me what your reading and listening to in the comments below.

Take care of yourselves, wash your hands, wear a mask in public, VOTE!, and…