Category Archives: 08. Throwback Thursday

Throwback Thursday: 7.10.25

I thought it would be fun to start using a theme or key word to select books for my Throwback Thursday posts. This week, the theme is the miss and mrs. of it all!

I’ve read a lot of books with Miss or Mrs. in the title, and I’ve already reviewed several of them. But here are a few that I hadn’t yet reviewed:

Miss PinkertonMiss Pinkerton
by Mary Roberts Rinehart
Rating: ★★★½
Series: Hilda Adams #1
Publication Date: May 1, 1932
Genre: crime, mystery
Pages: 264
ReRead?: No
Project: American mystery classics, throwback thursday

Miss Adams is a nurse, not a detective—at least, not technically speaking. But while working as a nurse, one does have the opportunity to see things police can’t see and an observant set of eyes can be quite an asset when crimes happen behind closed doors. Sometimes Detective Inspector Patton rings Miss Adams when he needs an agent on the inside. And when he does, he calls her “Miss Pinkerton” after the famous detective agency.

Everyone involved seems to agree that mild-mannered Herbert Wynne wasn’t the type to commit suicide but, after he is found shot dead, with the only other possible killer being his ailing, bedridden aunt, no other explanation makes sense. Now the elderly woman is left without a caretaker and Patton sees the perfect opportunity to employ Miss Pinkerton’s abilities. But when she arrives at the isolated country mansion to ply her trade, she soon finds more intrigue than anyone outside could have imagined and—when she realizes a killer is on the loose—more terror as well.


I read Miss Pinkerton back in 2022, when I checked a few of the American Mystery Classics out of my public library. Miss Pinkerton is the first installment in a short series of books using the same character, Hilda Adams, who is a nurse with a penchant for a bit of light detecting on the side.

I liked this book fine, but many of the details are lost to the sands of time. I didn’t enjoy it as much as I enjoyed the Rinehart mystery I just finished, The Wall.

Mrs. Palfrey at the ClaremontMrs. Palfrey at the Claremont
by Elizabeth Taylor
Publication Date: January 1, 1931
Genre: fiction
Pages: 232
ReRead?: No
Project: a century of women

On a rainy Sunday in January, the recently widowed Mrs. Palfrey arrives at the Claremont Hotel where she will spend her remaining days. Her fellow residents are magnificently eccentric and endlessly curious, living off crumbs of affection and snippets of gossip. Together, upper lips stiffened, they fight off their twin enemies—boredom and the Grim Reaper. Then one day Mrs. Palfrey strikes up an unexpected friendship with Ludo, a handsome young writer, and learns that even the old can fall in love.


I read this one in March, 2020, and I loved it. It’s my favorite Elizabeth Taylor so far – I’ve read three others: A Game of Hide and Seek, A View of the Harbour, and Sleeping Beauty. It’s a poignant and melancholy book about aging and about being forgotten by your family and society in general.

Elizabeth Taylor is an interesting author, because all of her books seem to share a rather flinty outlook on humanity, but it’s wrapped in clear and beautiful writing. She’s one of those authors who can be read and reread endlessly, because she excavates humanity with an unerring and perceptive eye.

Mrs. McGinty's DeadMrs. McGinty's Dead
by Agatha Christie
Series: Hercule Poirot #32
Publication Date: February 1, 1952
Genre: mystery: silver age (1950-1979)
Pages: 261
ReRead?: Yes
Project: 2024 read my hoard

In Mrs. McGinty’s Dead, one of Agatha Christie’s most ingenious mysteries, the intrepid Hercule Poirot must look into the case of a brutally murdered landlady.

Mrs. McGinty died from a brutal blow to the back of her head. Suspicion falls immediately on her shifty lodger, James Bentley, whose clothes reveal traces of the victim’s blood and hair. Yet something is amiss: Bentley just doesn’t seem like a murderer.

Could the answer lie in an article clipped from a newspaper two days before the death? With a desperate killer still free, Hercule Poirot will have to stay alive long enough to find out. . .


Agatha Christie wrote 66 full length mystery novels, 33 of them featuring her Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot. Mrs. McGinty is towards the end of the list, and it is hilariously clear from the book, and from her stand-in character, mystery writer Ariadne Oliver, that Agatha has grown rather tired of him.

“How do I know why I ever thought of the revolting man? I must have been mad! Why a Finn when I know nothing about Finland? Why a vegetarian? Why all the idiotic manerisms he’s got? These things just happen. You try something—and people seem to like it—and then you go on—and before you know where you are, you’ve got someone like that maddening Sven Hjerson tied to you for life. And people even write and say how fond you must be of him. Fond of him? If I met that bony, gangling, vegetable-eating Finn in real life, I’d do a better murder than any I’ve ever invented.”

The first time I read this mystery, I confess that I didn’t think much of it and was rather bored. It improved in rereads and while it’s never going to be a favorite, I find it very amusing.

In addition to these three, I’ve read & reviewed several other books with “Miss” or “Mrs.” in the title:

Throwback Thursday

Time for another trip back in time – this time, I am revisiting 2017.

A Casualty of WarA Casualty of War
by Charles Todd
Series: Bess Crawford #9
Publication Date: September 25, 2017
Genre: historical fiction
Pages: 378
ReRead?: No
Project: throwback thursday

Though the Great War is nearing its end, the fighting rages on. While waiting for transport back to her post, Bess Crawford meets Captain Alan Travis from the island of Barbados. Later, when he’s brought into her forward aid station disoriented from a head wound, Bess is alarmed that he believes his distant English cousin, Lieutenant James Travis, shot him. Then the Captain is brought back to the aid station with a more severe wound, once more angrily denouncing the Lieutenant as a killer. But when it appears that James Travis couldn’t have shot him, the Captain’s sanity is questioned. Still, Bess wonders how such an experienced officer could be so wrong.

On leave in England, Bess finds the Captain strapped to his bed in a clinic for brain injuries. Horrified by his condition, Bess and Sergeant Major Simon Brandon travel to James Travis’s home in Suffolk, to learn more about the baffling relationship between these two cousins.

Her search will lead this smart, capable, and compassionate young woman into unexpected danger, and bring her face to face with the visible and invisible wounds of war that not even the much-longed for peace can heal.


The random number generator handed me a whole bunch of series entries this time around. This first one is the 9th entry in the Bess Crawford series, previously written by mother & son writing team Charles Todd. It sounds like the maternal half of the writing team either retired or passed away, so it’s just the son writing at this point. They/he also write the Ian Rutledge series, which I haven’t read, but I’ve been reading Bess Crawford for at least ten years. There are a total of 13 installments in the series, and I’ve finished through #11, which means that I have two available for catching up.

I used to read a lot more historical mystery than I do now, but there are a few series that are pretty reliable pleasures for me, and this is one of them. Set during WWI and the immediate aftermath, I have enjoyed following the adventures of Bess, who was a nurse during the Great War, and who is intrepid and independent. This is a nice reminder that I have a couple of additional titles that I should get to soon.

A Pocket ApocalypseA Pocket Apocalypse
by Seanan McGuire
Series: InCryptids #4
Publication Date: March 3, 2015
Genre: urban fantasy
Pages: 367
ReRead?: No
Project: throwback thursday

Endangered, adjective: Threatened with extinction or immediate harm.
Australia, noun: A good place to become endangered.

Alexander Price has survived gorgons, basilisks, and his own family—no small feat, considering that his family includes two telepaths, a reanimated corpse, and a colony of talking, pantheistic mice. Still, he’s starting to feel like he’s got the hang of things…at least until his girlfriend, Shelby Tanner, shows up asking pointed questions about werewolves and the state of his passport. From there, it’s just a hop, skip, and a jump to Australia, a continent filled with new challenges, new dangers, and yes, rival cryptozoologists who don’t like their “visiting expert” very much.

Australia is a cryptozoologist’s dream, filled with unique species and unique challenges. Unfortunately, it’s also filled with Shelby’s family, who aren’t delighted by the length of her stay in America. And then there are the werewolves to consider: infected killing machines who would like nothing more than to claim the continent as their own. The continent which currently includes Alex.

Survival is hard enough when you’re on familiar ground. Alex Price is very far from home, but there’s one thing he knows for sure: he’s not going down without a fight.


Next up, we have A Pocket Apocalypse by Seanan McGuire. I’ve posted about this series before because it is one of my favorite, if not my favorite, urban fantasy series (brief review of book 11 here). McGuire writes her October Daye series, as well as the Wayward Children series, and she also writes under the penname Mira Grant. I don’t really read her Mira Grant books because they tend to be more horror than UF, but I really enjoy her three UF series. Incryptids is my favorite of them all. There are 13 series entries, and I have read all but the last.

The basic format of this series is that she gives each member of the Price family (a family of cryptozoologists who sympathize more with the cryptids than with the humans who are trying to eradicate them) two books. She started with Verity Price, who is still my favorite character, in Discount Armageddon and Midnight Blue Light Special. From there, she moved on to Verity’s brother, Alex, whose first book, Half-off Ragnarok, was set primarily in Ohio. For A Pocket Apocalypse, she shifts the action to Australia. Alex is not my favorite character, but these books are reliably entertaining as heck.

A Faint Cold FearA Faint Cold Fear
by Karin Slaughter
Series: Grant County #4
Publication Date: July 28, 2003
Genre: mystery: modern (1980-present)
Pages: 422
ReRead?: No
Project: throwback thursday

The third pulse-pounding novel in the Grant County series from New York Times bestselling author Karin Slaughter.

Sara Linton, medical examiner in the small town of Heartsdale, Georgia, is called out to an apparent suicide on the local college campus. The mutilated body provides little in the way of clues -- and the college authorities are eager to avoid a scandal -- but for Sara and police chief Jeffrey Tolliver, things don't add up.

Two more suspicious suicides follow, and a young woman is brutally attacked. For Sara, the violence strikes far too close to home. And as Jeffrey pursues the sadistic killer, he discovers that ex-police detective Lena Adams, now a security guard on campus, may be in possession of crucial information. But, bruised and angered by her expulsion from the force, Lena seems to be barely capable of protecting herself, let alone saving the next victim...


And, finally, the 3rd book in the Grant County series by Karin Slaughter, A Faint Cold Fear. The Grant County series has 6 entries, at which point it basically merges with the Will Trent series, when the main character of Grant County, Sarah Linden, becomes romantically involved with Will Trent. I prefer the Will Trent books, but Grant County provides some good backstory.

The thing about Karin Slaughter, though, is that her books are super-violent, and especially sexually violent. I don’t recommend them to my friends, even though she tells a great story, until I get a sense of how much violence the reader is prepared to handle. Her characterizations and plots are really good, but man, she does not pull her punches.

As an aside, the Will Trent television adaptation is completely delightful in a way that the books are not.

Throwback Thursday: 6.19.2025

I’ve been tracking my reading on the internet since approximately 2013 more or less continuously, and if you look on my sidebar, you will find 12 pages that are titled Book List with a designated year.

On occasional Thursdays I will use a random number generator to point me to three books from the lists (leaving out 2025), and then I’ll post about them – what I remember (if anything), whether I would recommend them – probably not, if I don’t remember anything about them – and if they have stuck with me in the years since I read them.

2019, Book 105

Palace of TreasonPalace of Treason
by Jason Matthews
Rating: ★★★
Series: Red Sparrow #2
Publication Date: June 2, 2015
Genre: espionage
Pages: 480
ReRead?: No
Project: throwback thursday

From the bestselling, Edgar Award–winning author of the “terrifically good” (The New York Times) Red Sparrow, a compulsively readable new novel about star-crossed Russian agent Dominika Egorova and CIA's Nate Nash in a desperate race to the finish.

Captain Dominika Egorova of the Russian Intelligence Service (SVR) has returned from the West to Moscow. She despises the men she serves, the oligarchs, and crooks, and thugs of Putin’s Russia. What no one knows is that Dominika is working for the CIA as Washington’s most sensitive penetration of SVR and the Kremlin.

As she expertly dodges exposure, Dominika deals with a murderously psychotic boss; survives an Iranian assassination attempt; escapes a counterintelligence ambush; rescues an arrested agent and exfiltrates him out of Russia; and has a chilling midnight conversation in her nightgown with President Putin. Complicating these risks is the fact that Dominika is in love with her CIA handler, Nate Nash, and their lust is as dangerous as committing espionage in Moscow. And when a mole in the SVR finds Dominika’s name on a restricted list of sources, it is a virtual death sentence…

Just as fast-paced, heart-pounding, and action-packed as Red Sparrow, Jason Matthews’s second novel confirms he is “an insider’s insider…and a masterful storyteller” (Vince Flynn, #1 New York Times bestselling author).


This is one of the books that I remember almost nothing about, beyond that I moderately enjoyed it, which is not surprising given that I enjoy spy novels. I read the first book in the series, Red Sparrow, in May of 2018, probably connected to the release of the Jennifer Lawrence movie adaptation. It’s sort of odd that it took me a year to read this one, which was the follow up, and looking at my Goodreads account, it does not appear that I ever read the third book, The Kremlin’s Candidate. I obviously lost interest to the extent that I didn’t bother to finish the series.

2021, Book 59

The Secret ServantThe Secret Servant
by Daniel Silva
Rating: ★★★★
Series: Gabriel Allon #7
Publication Date: July 24, 2007
Genre: suspense, thriller
Pages: 385
ReRead?: No
Project: throwback thursday

A terrorist plot in London leads Israeli spy Gabriel Allon on a desperate search for a kidnapped woman, in a race against time that will compromise Allon’s own conscience—and life...

When last we encountered Gabriel Allon, the master art restorer and sometime officer of Israeli intelligence, he had just prevailed in his blood-soaked duel with Saudi terrorist financier Zizi al-Bakari. Now Gabriel is summoned once more by his masters to undertake what appears to be a routine assignment: travel to Amsterdam to purge the archives of a murdered Dutch terrorism analyst who also happened to be an asset of Israeli intelligence. But once in Amsterdam, Gabriel soon discovers a conspiracy of terror festering in the city's Islamic underground, a plot that is about to explode on the other side of the English Channel, in the middle of London.


Interesting that the next one that the random generator handed me was another spy novel – entry #7 in the Gabriel Allon series. I reliably enjoy these, so much so that I’ve read up to book 10 in the series, and plan to continue. Because it’s a long-running series, I often don’t remember which plot goes with which book. I would definitely recommend that this series be read in order, though, because there are a lot of over-arching plot lines that take multiple books to completely resolve, and the characters (and spy teams) change and develop from book to book.

2013, Book 93

The Demon KingThe Demon King
by Cinda Williams Chima
Rating: ★★★★
Series: Seven Realms #1
Publication Date: October 6, 2009
Genre: YA
Pages: 506
ReRead?: Yes
Project: throwback thursday

Times are hard in the mountain city of Fellsmarch. Reformed thief Han Alister will do almost anything to eke out a living for his family. The only thing of value he has is something he can't sell—the thick silver cuffs he's worn since birth. They're clearly magicked—as he grows, they grow, and he's never been able to get them off.

One day, Han and his clan friend, Dancer, confront three young wizards setting fire to the sacred mountain of Hanalea. Han takes an amulet from Micah Bayar, son of the High Wizard, to keep him from using it against them. Soon Han learns that the amulet has an evil history—it once belonged to the Demon King, the wizard who nearly destroyed the world a millennium ago. With a magical piece that powerful at stake, Han knows that the Bayars will stop at nothing to get it back.

Meanwhile, Raisa ana'Marianna, princess heir of the Fells, has her own battles to fight. She's just returned to court after three years of freedom in the mountains—riding, hunting, and working the famous clan markets. Raisa wants to be more than an ornament in a glittering cage. She aspires to be like Hanalea—the legendary warrior queen who killed the Demon King and saved the world. But her mother has other plans for her...

The Seven Realms tremble when the lives of Hans and Raisa collide, fanning the flames of the smoldering war between clans and wizards.


I’ve read this one at least three times, on my kindle and as an audiobook. I first discovered it when my daughter was in the middle-school I’ve-finished-Harry-Potter reading stage, and I was looking around for more series that I thought she would enjoy (this would be around 2010’ish, probably) and this one of the series that made it onto my radar. I was reading a lot of YA at that time, to keep up with what she & my son were interested in, so I read it too. Obviously, I enjoyed it for its own sake, because I’ve reread the entire series a couple of times since. It’s high-ish fantasy, with interesting and compelling teen characters.

Throwback Thursday 11.18.2021

I’ve been tracking my reading on the internet since approximately 2013 more or less continuously, and if you look on my sidebar, you will find 8 pages that are titled Book List with a designated year.

On occasional Thursdays I will use a random number generator to point me to three books from the lists (leaving out 2021), and then I’ll post about them – what I remember (if anything), whether I would recommend them – probably not, if I don’t remember anything about them – and if they have stuck with me in the years since I read them.

2018, Book 82:

The Brass VerdictThe Brass Verdict
by Michael Connelly
Rating: ★★★
Series: Harry Bosch Universe #19
Publication Date: October 14, 2008
Genre: mystery
Pages: 422
ReRead?: No
Project: throwback thursday

Things are finally looking up for defense attorney Mickey Haller. After two years of wrong turns, Haller is back in the courtroom. When Hollywood lawyer Jerry Vincent is murdered, Haller inherits his biggest case yet: the defense of Walter Elliott, a prominent studio executive accused of murdering his wife and her lover. But as Haller prepares for the case that could launch him into the big time, he learns that Vincent's killer may be coming for him next.

Enter Harry Bosch. Determined to find Vincent's killer, he is not opposed to using Haller as bait. But as danger mounts and the stakes rise, these two loners realize their only choice is to work together.

Bringing together Michael Connelly's two most popular characters, "The Brass Verdict" is a thriller which reaches for, and then surpasses, the highest level!


I am a huge fan of most of the Harry Bosch Universe and really enjoy the majority of Connelly’s long-running series. The main exception to this are the Mickey Haller books,  which I generally don’t love. I found this entry mediocre – the pace dragged and the plot was uninspired. I’m sort of an outlier here, though, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

2016: Book 122:

Tomorrow, When the War BeganTomorrow, When the War Began
by John Marsden
Rating: ★★★★½
Series: Tomorrow #1
Publication Date: May 1, 1993
Genre: fiction, suspense, YA
Pages: 276
ReRead?: No
Project: throwback thursday

When Ellie and her friends return from a camping trip in the Australian bush, they find things hideously wrong — their families are gone. Gradually they begin to comprehend that their country has been invaded and everyone in their town has been taken prisoner. As the reality of the situation hits them, they must make a decision — run and hide, give themselves up and be with their families, or fight back.


This is the first book in a fantastic YA series that I listened to on audio. Published all the way back in 1993, the book involved sort of a “Red Dawn” scenario, set in Australia, with a group of young Australians who end up engaged in guerrilla warfare and a resistance against the occupiers who have taken over their community while they were camping. I ended up blowing through the entire 5 book series in about a month. I am a little bit surprised, on reflection, that this series hasn’t had a prestige t.v. adaptation, since it seems ripe for that sort of treatment.

2014, Book 155:

The Shivering SandsThe Shivering Sands
by Victoria Holt
Rating: ★★★★
Publication Date: September 3, 1969
Genre: fiction, gothic romance, suspense
Pages: 331
ReRead?: Yes
Project: throwback thursday

Ancient ruins. Family scandal. Forbidden love.

Caroline knows something is wrong. Her sister Roma has gone missing, and no one can tell her why. The only option is to go where Roma was last seen—an estate with a deadly history...

The Stacy family has lived off the Dover coast for generations, carefully navigating the treacherous quicksands nearby. But the sands aren't Caroline's biggest threat. Everyone here has a secret, especially enigmatic young heir Napier Stacy. No matter where Caroline turns, the ground she walks is dangerous. And the closer she comes to unraveling the truth, the closer she comes to sharing her sister's fate...


Victoria Holt can be very hit-or-miss, and this one was a hit for me. I liked the setting a lot, and I still remember the very effective use of “the shivering sands” or the quicksand that plays such a significant role in the events. The villain/ess is quite convincingly scary and the book itself, at least as far as I recall, was suspenseful. The plot was no more implausible than is usual for these old-fashioned gothic romances.

Throwback Thursday 11.11.2021

I’ve been tracking my reading on the internet since approximately 2013 more or less continuously, and if you look on my sidebar, you will find 8 pages that are titled Book List with a designated year.

On occasional Thursdays I will use a random number generator to point me to three books from the lists (leaving out 2021), and then I’ll post about them – what I remember (if anything), whether I would recommend them – probably not, if I don’t remember anything about them – and if they have stuck with me in the years since I read them.

2015, Book 161:

Many WatersMany Waters
by Madeleine L'Engle
Rating: ★★½
Series: Time Quintet #4
Publication Date: September 1, 1986
Genre: classic, fantasy, YA
Pages: 369
Project: throwback thursday

Some things have to be believed to be seen.

Sandy and Dennys have always been the normal, run-of-the-mill ones in the extraodinary Murry family. They garden, make an occasional A in school, and play baseball. Nothing especially interesting has happened to the twins until they accidentally interrupt their father's experiment.

Then the two boys are thrown across time and space. They find themselves alone in the desert, where, if they believe in unicorns, they can find unicorns, and whether they believe or not, mammoths and manticores will find them.

The twins are rescued by Japheth, a man from the nearby oasis, but before he can bring them to safety, Dennys gets lost. Each boy is quickly embroiled in the conflicts of this time and place, whose populations includes winged seraphim, a few stray mythic beasts, perilous and beautiful nephilim, and small, long lived humans who consider Sandy and Dennys giants. The boys find they have more to do in the oasis than simply getting themselves home--they have to reunite an estranged father and son, but it won't be easy, especially when the son is named Noah and he's about to start building a boat in the desert.


A few years ago, I started a Madeleine L’Engle project. I planned to read all of her books – I got somewhat sidetracked, but I did manage to read the entire Kairos series (the Murry family novels) and all of her Austin series, as well as a few others. This one was probably the weirdest of all of them, and that is definitely saying something. In Many Waters, the twins – who are typically depicted as the most “normal” of the Murry kids – disrupt time and end up in the Old Testament, during the Flood. Yeah, that flood – the one that involves Noah. I’m not sure if it was my least favorite of L’Engle’s books, but it definitely competes. If you are interested in a L’Engle YA, read either A Wrinkle in Time or A Ring of Endless Light. Do not read this one until you’ve read at least four or five of her other books first.

2019, Book 72:

Touch Not the CatTouch Not the Cat
by Mary Stewart
Rating: ★★★½
Publication Date: April 28, 1976
Genre: gothic romance, magical realism, romance, suspense
Pages: 384
Project: throwback thursday

After the tragic death of her father, Bryony Ashley returns from abroad to find that his estate is to become the responsibility of her cousin Emory. Ashley Court with its load of debt is no longer her worry. But there is something odd about her father's sudden death . . . Bryony has inherited the Ashley 'Sight' and so has one of the Ashleys. Since childhood the two have communicated through thought patterns, though Bryony has no idea of his identity. Now she is determined to find him. But danger as well as romance wait for her in the old moated house, with its tragic memories . . .


This book was so problematic for me, and yet I still really liked it. What I remember about it is that the main heroine was named Bryony and there was some bizarre telepathy thing. In addition, Bryony referred to her cousin, with whom she can communicate telepathically, as “lover.” I loathe word “lover” and cousin-love doesn’t work for me at all. Given that those were the main points of the book, along with the suspense because someone is trying to kill Bryony, of course, I would have expected to hate it. But, Mary Stewart is such an exceptional writer, that I still enjoyed it. So, if you want a book that will carry you gently away, with evocative prose, to crumbling manors where beautiful young women who communicate telepathically with their cousin-lovers are being stalked by a would-be murderer (who may also be the cousin-lover), this book is for you.

2018, Book 124:

In the BalanceIn the Balance
by Patricia Wentworth
Rating: ★★★
Series: Miss Silver #4
Publication Date: January 1, 1941
Genre: mystery
Pages: 342
Project: throwback thursday

His first wife died suddenly—and his wealthy new bride may be about to meet a similar fate . . .

Former schoolteacher Miss Maud Silver is on her way back to London when, with a violent shudder of the train, a young woman is thrust into her compartment. She’s beautiful, well dressed, newly married, and wealthy—a lethal combination.

In a state of shock, Lisle Jerningham explains that she fled her home in a hurry after overhearing a sinister conversation. Her new husband’s first wife died in an apparent accident, and the resultant infusion of cash saved his family home. Now, he’s broke again—and attempting to engineer a second convenient mishap. Miss Silver is unsure whether the drama is real or a figment of Lisle’s imagination—but if this frightened young lady is a target for murder, the killer will have to deal with the governess-turned-sleuth first.


I have read a lot of the Miss Silver books. I remember NOTHING about the plot of this book, so my rating is basically based on the fact that my baseline enjoyment of Miss Silver is 3 stars, except for Grey Mask, which I hated.

Throwback Thursday 11.4.2021

I’ve been tracking my reading on the internet since approximately 2013 more or less continuously, and if you look on my sidebar, you will find 8 pages that are titled Book List with a designated year.

On occasional Thursdays I will use a random number generator to point me to three books from the lists (leaving out 2021), and then I’ll post about them – what I remember (if anything), whether I would recommend them – probably not, if I don’t remember anything about them – and if they have stuck with me in the years since I read them.

So, for my first Throwback Thursday post, the random number generator gave me: 2018, Book 116:

Wicked AutumnWicked Autumn
by G.M. Malliet
Rating: ★★★½
Series: Max Tudor #1
Publication Date: September 13, 2011
Genre: mystery
Pages: 297
Project: throwback thursday

Max Tudor, former MI5 agent, has adapted well to his post as vicar of St. Edwold’s in the idyllic village of Nether Monkslip. Wanda Batton-Smythe, highly vocal and unpopular president of the Women’s Institute, turns up dead at the Harvest Fayre. Peanut allergy looks accidental, but Max has many suspects for murder.


So, I read this in approximately December, 2018. I absolutely bought this book for the cover – I love seasonal mysteries, and at the time that I bought it, I think I actually picked it up for Halloween Bingo and never got to it. I don’t remember a lot about it, except that I liked it, although it was a bit cozy for my tastes. I’m not a fan of twee in my books, and this one had a bit of that, with the Harvest Fayre. Just the spelling of Fayre is twee. I also recall that Max takes up with a local Wicca, and there’s a lot of tea.

I liked enough to check out & read book 2 in the series, A Fatal Winter, but lost interest by book 3 and never read Pagan Spring when it came up on my library holds list. I may continue with the series, but probably not.

2013, Book 34:

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour BookstoreMr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore
by Robin Sloane
Rating: ★★★½
Series: Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore #1
Publication Date: October 2, 2012
Genre: fantasy, fiction
Pages: 288
Project: throwback thursday

The Great Recession has shuffled Clay Jannon away from life as a San Francisco web-design drone and into the aisles of Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, but after a few days on the job, Clay discovers that the store is more curious than either its name or its gnomic owner might suggest. The customers are few, and they never seem to buy anything; instead, they "check out" large, obscure volumes from strange corners of the store. Suspicious, Clay engineers an analysis of the clientele's behavior, seeking help from his variously talented friends, but when they bring their findings to Mr. Penumbra, they discover the bookstore's secrets extend far beyond its walls.


I am surprised by how little I remember about this book, because I do remember that I liked it. It was published in 2012 and I read it just a few months after publication, in 2013, at the time that it was everywhere. It’s also right up my alley. I recommend it, because I recall that it was delightful, but that’s basically all I recall and I’m wondering if a reread is in order.

2017, Book 148:

Down a Dark HallDown a Dark Hall
by Lois Duncan
Rating: ★★★★
Publication Date: September 1, 1974
Genre: fiction, gothic, horror, YA
Pages: 240
Project: throwback thursday

Kit Gordy sees Blackwood Hall towering over black iron gates, and she can't help thinking, This place is evil. The imposing mansion sends a shiver of fear through her. But Kit settles into a routine, trying to ignore the rumors that the highly exclusive boarding school is haunted.

Then her classmates begin to show extraordinary and unknown talents. The strange dreams, the voices, the lost letters to family and friends, all become overshadowed by the magic around them.
When Kit and her friends realize that Blackwood isn't what it claims to be, it might be too late.


This is a book with which I have a long history. It was published in 1974, and I probably read it as a twelve-year-old in 1978 or so. I remember that Lois Duncan was incredibly popular with the tween set back in the 1970’s and this book was always on hold in the school library. I waited for my turn to read it for months. When I finally got it, it scared the bejeezus out of me. I read tons of Lois Duncan, and I maintain that this is the scariest of all of her books. At least for me.

Kids today are much cooler than we were in the late 1970’s, and I’m not even sure that Duncan will scare them, but I know that my own daughter, also when she was about fourteen, went through a Duncan phase and spent a summer binging on a bunch of kindle reissues (which is how I came to own this, and 9 other Lois Duncan ebooks) in approximately 2012. I remember her coming to me all summer and asking if she could please by another one. I always said yes.