Rain rain rain rain rain means lots of reading for me. Which is fine, but I’d rather have been hiking.

So I read some good books last month, and also a couple not so good, including a did not finish and a book I finished mostly out of spite. But the lets talk about the good!

I reread a couple historical mystery series that I loved, and I can highly recommend: The Thief-Takers Series by Alissa Johnson has private inquiry agents and a family of thieves and ends with a heroine with a neurological disorder. The Regency London Series by Michelle Diener is another series I love, and the middle book has a young woman hiding as a French chef.

I read a new K.J. Charles book, Any Old Diamonds which of course I enjoyed. Note: MM boinking here, but it’s also a heist book.

And I found a MM mystery author, Josh Lanyon, who I am enjoying. The first book in the series I wasn’t quite sure about, but by the second book I was all on board. (I just started a new series by her.)

As far as audio books, I’m having a hard time finding a cleaning/exercise book, so went back to The Rook, Audio Edition by Daniel O’Malley narrated by Susan Duerden, which I utterly adore, and which is so unlike anything else it doesn’t get mixed into whatever else I’m reading.

Historical Mystery

The Heretic’s Apprentice (1989) Ellis Peters (Rating: 8.5/10) (Brother Cadfael)
Dark Angel (1994) Tracy Grant (Rating: 8.5/10) (Lescaut Quartet)
The Thief-Takers Series
A Talent for Trickery (2015) Alissa Johnson (Rating: 8.5/10)
A Gift for Guile (2016) Alissa Johnson (Rating: 8.5/10)
A Dangerous Deceit (2017) Alissa Johnson (Rating: 8.5/10)
Regency London Series
The Emperor’s Conspiracy (2012) Michelle Diener (Rating: 8/10)
Banquet of Lies (2013) Michelle Diener (Rating: 9.5/10)
A Dangerous Madness (2014) Michelle Diener (Rating: 8.5/10)
Lady Arianna Hadley Mystery
Sweet Revenge (2011) Andrea Penrose (Rating: 6.5/10)
The Cocoa Conspiracy (2014) Andrea Penrose (Rating: 5.5/10)
Recipe For Treason (2014) Andrea Penrose (Rating: 4/10)

Mystery

The Overnight Kidnapper (2015/2019) Andrea Camilleri translated by Stephen Sartarelli (Rating: 7/10) (Inspector Montalbano)

Audio Books

The Rook, Audio Edition (2012) Daniel O’Malley narrated by Susan Duerden (Rating: 9.5/10) (The Rook)

Historical Romance

The Duke I Tempted (2018) Scarlett Peckham
DNF: The Curse of Lord Stanstead (2015) Mia Marlowe (DNF)

Supernatural Mystery (LGBT)

Offbeat Crimes
Lime Gelatin and Other Monsters (2016) Angel Martinez (Rating: 7/10)
The Pill Bugs of Time (2016) Angel Martinez

Romantic (LGBT) Mystery

Murder Takes the High Road (2018) Josh Lanyon (Rating: 7/10)
Holmes & Moriarity
Somebody Killed His Editor (2009/2016) Josh Lanyon (Rating: 7.5/10)
All She Wrote (2010/2017) Josh Lanyon (Rating: 8/10)
The Boy with the Painful Tattoo (2014/2018) Josh Lanyon (Rating: 7/10)
In Other Words… Murder (2018) Josh Lanyon (Rating: 8/10)

Romance, LGBT

Any Old Diamonds (2019) K.J. Charles (Rating: 8/10)
Another Place in Time (2014) by Tamara Allen, Joanna Chambers, K.J. Charles, Kaje Harper, Jordan L. Hawk , Aleksandr Voinov (Rating: 7/10)
Hexbreaker (2016) Jordan L. Hawk (Rating: 5/10)
Mr. Winterbourne’s Christmas (2018) Joanna Chambers (Rating: 6/10)

OK, the breakdown. Multiple re-reads (but some new releases as well) and almost everything was an ebook.

eBook: 24
Audio: 1
Multiple Formats: 1
Re-read: 7

Lots of romance and mystery and boinking this month.

Fantasy: 5
Mystery: 17
Romance: 22
Boinking: 15
Anthology: 1

Not many male authors this month, although there were several male pseudonyms.

Male: 2
Female: 15
Initials: 1
Male Pseudonym: 6
Anthology: 1

Now for the new categories I made last month. Lots of male leads (due to the MM romances) and lots of LGBTQ, but not many minority characters. Some of that has to do with reading historicals, but I’ll note that KJ Charles often has minority characters in her historicals, so it can be done, it’s just not necessarily easy.

Male: 13
Female: 1
Ensemble: 10
White: 24
Minority: 1
Minority 2ndary: 2
Straight: 14
LGBTQ: 11
LGBTQ 2ndary:

And that’s February in books.

Did you read anything last month you’d really recommend?