The first week of July just flew by, didn’t it? I’m still struggling to pick up blogging again on a regular schedule so I decided to steal an idea from my friend Melissa at Life:Merging and do a weekly update. This might have to last throughout the summer while I give most of my energy and attention to work and our summer reading craziness. It was pretty busy this week despite having a holiday on Thursday. I really love Independence Day, but I dislike spending it in Phoenix which I had to do this year because of work. It’s been a tradition in my family to spend the holiday in Springerville, AZ where my grandparents live and it makes me melancholy to not be there with my aunts and uncles and cousins. This year I had a little barbecue with my dad and we watched baseball and chatted. I left just after dark and got home in time to watch the fireworks that many of my neighbors were launching on their own. Really, not a bad day.
I finished a couple of books this week – Standing in Another Man’s Grave by Ian Rankin and Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein. The Ian Rankin was the first book to feature a retired John Rebus. He’s working for the cold case unit (as a civilian) of the Lothian and Borders police when he discovers a link between several disappearances that could indicate a serial killer is at work. He teams up with his former partner, Siobhan Clark, and in his usual rogue style he attempts to solve the case. I really loved seeing Rebus back at work and being in the wonderful Edinburgh setting, but the mystery part of this novel was just so-so. It was a bit lackluster and the ending was really unsatisfying. However, I’ll read any novel featuring Rebus.
Rose Under Fire is a companion novel to the marvelous Code Name Verity, one of my favorite books from last year. I got an advance copy from NetGalley and started it as soon as I could. This novel focuses on an American Air Transport Auxiliary pilot, Rose Justice, a young woman from Pennsylvania who goes to England to transport planes. While making a delivery to France she loses her way and is captured by the Nazis and sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp. She suffers incredible hardship and cruelty while forming intense and lasting bonds with many of the women she is imprisoned with. Like Code Name Verity, the female friendships are really well done here and I love how the women rely on each other for emotional and physical sustenance. It seems horrible to say that I loved a book about the atrocities that happened in concentration camps, but this is quite good and features strong young women who never give up – qualities I admire in Wein’s novels. It will be released in the US on September 10 and is already out in the UK.
I’m still planning the Mary Stewart Reading Week for September 15-22. More details coming soon!
Have a great week, everyone!
A Certain Fondness 
Did you have to work on Friday, too? I keep hearing about how great “the long weekend” is, and thinking, hey, for some of us it’s just a regular one – and I know you have to work weekends too! I haven’t read any of the Rebus stories, just watched one or two of the series with John Hannah.
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I did work Friday! And I closed on Wednesday night so there was no window at all for me to go out of town. I didn’t work the weekend, though, so that was nice.
I watched a few of the John Hannah episodes and liked them, but he is SO not how Rebus is described in the books nor how I envisioned him.
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I’ve got my unread Mary Stewart ready to go for September! I might have to crack it open sooner though, as it’s tempting me oh so much (it’s The Gabriel Hounds).
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Yes, it would be hard to resist and wait until September to read The Gabriel Hounds! I can’t blame you if you read it sooner 🙂
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This format seems perfect for summer! Hope you have a good week.
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I think it really will work better for me – summer is supposed to be leisurely but it never feels that way to me!
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I really need to acquire some of Mary Stewart books until September. You’ve said so much good thing about them, that You’ve made me very curios. By the way finally I received Pym’s book, Excellent Women, the Virago Modern Classics edition. I don’t know when I’ll have time to read it, because I bought a lot of book lately, but I’ll let You know when I finished it. And I put Code Name Verity on my TBR list.
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I hope you like Excellent Women! It is such a wonderful book.
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I have Code Name Verity on a list somewhere, thanks for reminding me. I enjoyed the first two in Rankin’s new series and am looking forward to a return of Rebus. I really didn’t like John Hannah as Rebus, not a good choice of actor for that part, but the Ken Stott as Rebus TV series is well worth watching.
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I thought John Hannah was okay, but not my concept of Rebus at all. I think I’ve only seen one of the Ken Stott episodes, but I definitely liked him better.
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Hope you have a great week too, with plenty of time to read. I am really looking forward to your Mary Stewart reading week.
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Thanks, Jessica! I’ve been reading like crazy lately and love it. I’m glad you’ll be participating in Mary Stewart Reading Week.
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Glad you had a nice day, if not the one you’d have preferred. It is strange (hard? uncomfortable?) to say you liked a book that is about awful things but there’s that difference in the meaning of like, and ‘appreciate’ isn’t a good substitute because it’s too average. A weird situation.
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It is, Charlie! I think ‘appreciate’ just doesn’t cover it.
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Yay, I love it when bloggers do weekly updates 🙂
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Oh, good! I didn’t want to alienate people by switching to a different format.
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Weekly updates sound great to me right about now, as I have a half-written post in my drafts that I’m putting off finishing! I don’t know what it is, but I’m also having a hard time fitting in blogging and blog-reading so far this summer.
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Summer has a reputation for being leisurely, but I find that I am much busier at work and at home during the summer. I find more time for blogging in the fall and winter!
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You have sold me on Code Named Verity and I am going to order it today. And how exciting about the Mary Stewart reading week. I am unfamiliar with her books and will have to do some research. I hope you are enjoying your summer!
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Code Name Verity is so great – I think you’ll enjoy it!
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