Almost Nothing But Trouble!

Back in March of 2020, before I knew I’d be laid off, and when I was still in the habit of reading fiction, an opportunity presented itself for a great sale of a mystery cat cozy series launched by Carolyn Haines. The first book, Familiar Trouble written by Haines, invested me in this cat turned sleuth. The twist was that except for occasional revisits, each of the books in the series would be penned by different authors. As a big fan of Haines’s Sarah Booth Delaney mystery series, I trust her recommendations and bought and downloaded all the Trouble novels then available.

Then… the pandemic happened and brought with it my inability to focus on reading fiction. Since I’ve been trying to remedy that in 2022, I opened my Kindle library and dove into a world of Trouble. I am not a bit sorry, as I’ve enjoyed all of Trouble’s adventures and getting to know lots of characters in different locales, being introduced to new writers, and enjoying some human romance along the way.

Considering world events and national events–including things that should have been bigger news but which have come to seem routine instead of the cultural shocks they are–for me, March became about reading for the pleasure of escape–no research and all non-fiction.

Following is  what my birthday-month reading list was–the Trouble Cat Mysteries in order:

The last one, Year-Round Trouble, I read in paperback rather than as an ebook like the rest of the Trouble mysteries (thanks to Dean James for making that possible).

In non-black cat reads, I read the exquisite 17th Inspector Gamache 2021 offering from Louise Penny:

I also caught up on Miranda James’s Cat In The Stacks Mystery series:

Received the below as gifts from Tim during the pandemic and now have read them.

I ordered the most recent two in the Plum series and will read those in April.

Just for fun, while I was waiting for the 27 and 28 Stephanie Plums, I reread these three Lizzy and Diesel books on my Nook. I wish there were more in this series, and I’m always happy when Diesel and other characters from the series show up in the Plum books:

That’s a total of twenty-eight! I know that won’t happen again, because I have a lot of nonfiction still to read, and that’s much slower for me than fiction. But I do feel like I’ve made up for lost time and am back in a novel-reading mindset. I’m glad, because I’m four books behind in the series of another favorite writer.

I watched very little television, listened to only one podcast, and slowed down on my own work in progress. I need to hit that writing hard so I can finish the fifth book and get to the sixth one!