“The Bewitching” by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

 I quite enjoyed this book. The 3 timelines were cleverly intertwined, with the common link being Minerva from 1998, the most recent timeline. She was a student researching a story about a 1934 disappearance at her college. Her witch heritage attracted Carolyn, a wealthy elderly donor to the college, and a powerful witch. Minerva survived the witch’s attack on her life/blood/heart thanks to knowledge passed on by her great grandmother, Alba, who was the 3rd timeline. 

Minerva also survived thanks to help from a ghost. In fact, I feel that the ghost was a step too far. I have read several books by the author, and I feel that she tends to go overboard into the fantastic, thus decreasing the quality of her writing.

“The Beast in the Jungle and Other Stories” by Henry James

 I enjoyed reading James’ “Turn of the Screw” when I was still in high school, so I had no idea that this collection of his short stories would be so difficult to process. His writing is very dense indeed. I did enjoy the last 2 stories, which had a supernatural element. But “The Beast in the Jungle”, which is supposed to be a masterpiece, was definitely a hard slog.

The Consolations of the Forest” by Sylvain Tesson

 This book describes French author Tesson’s experience of living alone in a cabin on the shore of Lake Baikal in Siberia for 6 months. I found it very slow going, but a lot of his imagery was beautiful, I liked the occasional Russian (Slavic) interactions, and some of his philosophical observations were profound. I was a bit saddened to read that he has strong right wing inclinations.

“The Glacier Murders” by Cristian Perfumo

 Overall I enjoyed this book, though the translation was sometimes sketchy. Parts of it took place in Barcelona, which was fun because Ray and I were on a tour of Spain at the time I was reading it. Normally I don’t like books that jump back and forth in time and change points of view, but Perfumo handled these features very well.

‘Busman’s Honeymoon” by Dorothy L. Sayers

 I read yet another Peter Wimsey book because it continued the tv series I watched on YouTube with actor Edward Etherbridge. I wanted to learn more about Peter and Harriet, his fiance. The book was a pretty good read, but it had far too many quotes by Shakespeare and other famous old English writers. The  interactions between Peter and Harriet were amusing, until they turned serious due to Peter’s WW1 PTSD and guilt over sending criminals to the gallows. At the end, all the psychological tribulations were nicely resolved. Banter, as usual, was perfect, except for the letter to his mother, which made him sound quite ordinary.

“Clouds of Witness” by Dorothy L Sayers

The second Peter Wimsey book was better than the first, I think, but once again, I probably missed a lot of the humour because the writing is so very English. I have a feeling it would be easier to capture the humour in audiobook form.

“Whose Body” by Dorothy L. Sayers

 It was an interesting enough read because it is from the golden age of detective stories, and set in the 1920’s, so it includes interesting historical tidbits. But I can’t say that I was impressed by either Dorothy Sayers or Lord Peter Wimsey. The author’s writing style is so very British that it tends to overshadow the story and is not always comprehensible. I did get used to it after awhile, but it required careful attention to be fully appreciated, and some references were too esoteric for me to understand. Likewise, Peter Wimsey is entertaining, but a cliche in this day and age. He did have a nice relationship with the detective Parker and with his valet Bunter. The mystery was so so.