Canadian Book Haul 3/23/2018

Greetings from Canada! I'm visiting my lovely Canadian friend, and yesterday we walked around Stratford, Ontario. We mostly just walked around and looked into what shops were open. There was a bookstore open, and of course, I did have to check it out. I think I amused the shopkeeper because when he had commented on me finding some books, I replied with "I rarely leave a bookstore without books" he seemed to laugh. He also appeared to be amused by my random selections of books. I didn't get a ton of books, sadly. I have a ton of books at home I need to read, plus the husband seems to be displeased when I try to spend all of our vacation money on books.

Goodreads: From the author of Outlander...a magnificent epic that once again sweeps us back in time to the drama and passion of 18th-century Scotland...

For twenty years Claire Randall has kept her secrets. But now she is returning with her grown daughter to Scotland's majestic mist-shrouded hills. Here Claire plans to reveal a truth as stunning as the events that gave it birth: about the mystery of an ancient circle of standing stones about a love that transcends the boundaries of time ...and about James Fraser, a Scottish warrior whose gallantry once drew a young Claire from the security of her century to the dangers of his...

Now a legacy of blood and desire will test her beautiful copper-haired daughter, Brianna, as Claire's spellbinding journey of self-discovery continues in the intrigue-ridden Paris court of Charles Stuart in a race to thwart a doomed Highlands uprising ...and in a desperate fight to save both the child and the man she loves...

Goodreads Rating: 4.31 stars with over 220,000 ratings

Genre Listing: Historical Fiction, Romance, Fantasy, Time Travel

Get the book: Amazon, Book Depository

Review of other books in the series: Outlander Review

Initial Thoughts: I've been searching for the second book in the Outlander series for a while. I feel like every time I remember to look for it it's not in stock. I'm pretty excited to read this one because I loved Outlander so much. I'm not sure exactly when I'm going to get a chance to read it. I have such a hard time reading long books though due to time constraints. At least whenever I do get around to reading it will be a great one to put under the book over 500 pages category on the reading challenge.

Goodreads Summary: Discover the real-life mystery centered on the queen of crime herself: Agatha Christie. In this tantalizing new novel, Christie’s mysterious ten-day disappearance serves as the starting point for a gripping novel, in which Christie herself is pulled into a case of blackmail and murder.
“I wouldn’t scream if I were you. Unless you want the whole world to learn about your husband and his mistress.”

Agatha Christie, in London to visit her literary agent, is boarding a train, preoccupied with the devastating knowledge that her husband is having an affair. She feels a light touch on her back, causing her to lose her balance, then a sense of someone pulling her to safety from the rush of the incoming train. So begins a terrifying sequence of events—for her rescuer is no guardian angel, rather he is a blackmailer of the most insidious, manipulative kind.

“You, Mrs. Christie, are going to commit a murder. But, before then, you are going to disappear.”

Writing about murder is a far cry from committing a crime, and Agatha must use every ounce of her cleverness and resourcefulness to thwart an adversary determined to exploit her expertise and knowledge about the act of murder to kill on his behalf.

In A Talent for Murder, Andrew Wilson ingeniously explores Agatha Christie’s odd ten-day disappearance in 1926 and weaves an utterly compelling and convincing story around this still unsolved mystery involving the world’s bestselling novelist.
Goodreads Rating: 3.51 stars with just over 600 ratings
Genre Listing: Mystery, Historical Fiction, Crime, Thriller
Get the Book: Amazon, Book Depository
Initial thoughts: I don't know much about Agatha Christie at all other than she wrote a ton of mystery books. That was part of why Tress and I put reading Agatha Christie on the reading challenge. Apparently, she disappeared, which I didn't know. Without reading this or any Agatha Christie, I already want to know more. I think a mystery writer disappearing is fascinating.

Goodreads Summary: For the first time in one volume are Agatha Christie's first two mysteries that introduced the world to Hercule Poirot and to Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, all sleuths who have starred in the PBS Mystery! series: with a sudden death as the initiation of his career, Hercule Poirot calls upon the sprawling estate of the Styles Court to identify the murderer of a wealthy heiress from a crowd of jealous relatives and a fortune-hunting husband; and while trying to locate a missing woman known to have been carrying secret documents at the time of her disappearance, Tommy and Tuppence discover a deadly web of espionage and murder in the aftermath of the Great War.
Goodreads Rating: 4.24 stars with around 1800 ratings
Genre Listing: Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Crime
Get The Book: Amazon, Book Depository
Initial Thoughts: I didn't actually buy this one, but thought I'd include it since I acquired it in Canada. My friend that I'm staying with gave it to me when she found out I was going to need an Agatha Christie book. I have no idea what either of these novels is about or really anything about Agatha Christie. This book seems like a good starting point, though.

Goodreads Summary: Set in Victorian London and an Essex village in the 1890's, and enlivened by the debates on scientific and medical discovery which defined the era, The Essex Serpent has at its heart the story of two extraordinary people who fall for each other, but not in the usual way.
They are Cora Seaborne and Will Ransome. Cora is a well-to-do London widow who moves to the Essex parish of Aldwinter, and Will is the local vicar. They meet as their village is engulfed by rumors that the mythical Essex Serpent, once said to roam the marshes claiming human lives, has returned. Cora, a keen amateur naturalist, is enthralled, convinced the beast may be a real undiscovered species. But Will sees his parishioners' agitation as a moral panic, a deviation from true faith. Although they can agree on absolutely nothing, as the seasons turn around them in this quiet corner of England, they find themselves inexorably drawn together and torn apart.

Told with exquisite grace and intelligence, this novel is most of all a celebration of love, and the many different guises it can take.
Goodreads Rating: 3.69 stars with over 20,000 ratings
Genre Listing: Historical Fiction, Romance, Victorian, European Literature, British Literature
Get the Book: Amazon, Book Depository
Initial Thoughts: I'm a little nervous I won't like this one. I thought the cover was pretty and saw Victorian London on the back and went for it. There are a few readers who have listed it as abandoned on Goodreads, so we'll see if I can get through it. I'm hoping I'm wrong and that I enjoy it. If I get through it, it'll be a good one to list under favorite color on the reading challenge. (Not sure what the reading challenge I keep mentioning is? Check it out here.)

Goodreads Summary: From Harper Lee comes a landmark new novel set two decades after her beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece, To Kill a Mockingbird. Maycomb, Alabama. Twenty-six-year-old Jean Louise Finch--"Scout"--returns home from New York City to visit her aging father, Atticus. Set against the backdrop of the civil rights tensions and political turmoil that were transforming the South, Jean Louise's homecoming turns bittersweet when she learns disturbing truths about her close-knit family, the town and the people dearest to her. Memories from her childhood flood back, and her values and assumptions are thrown into doubt. Featuring many of the iconic characters from To Kill a Mockingbird, Go Set a Watchman perfectly captures a young woman, and a world, in a painful yet necessary transition out of the illusions of the past--a journey that can be guided only by one's conscience. Written in the mid-1950s, Go Set a Watchman imparts a fuller, richer understanding and appreciation of Harper Lee. Here is an unforgettable novel of wisdom, humanity, passion, humor and effortless precision--a profoundly affecting work of art that is both wonderfully evocative of another era and relevant to our own times. It not only confirms the enduring brilliance of To Kill a Mockingbird but also serves as its essential companion, adding depth, context and new meaning to an American classic.
Goodreads Rating: 3.31 stars with over 179,000 ratings
Genre Listing: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Classics
Get the book: Amazon, Book Depository
Initial Thoughts: This is another one that my friend gave me. I saw it on her shelf and asked her how it was since she had two copies she gave me one. I should probably reread To Kill A Mocking Bird before I dive into this one. I probably haven't read it since high school.