Where Is Your Bookmark? (06/23/2015)

Happy Summer! I hope your week has gotten off to a good start. Mouse was unable to start her swim lessons as planned last week. Her cold turned into Walking Pneumonia, unfortunately. She finished the last dose of her antibiotics this past Sunday and seems to be doing well now. She was unhappy about returning to school yesterday, having all of last week off.  I cannot blame her, really.

With the doctor's approval, she joined her swim class in progress Monday evening. My water loving daughter was suddenly afraid to get into the pool. It was my turn to be that parent whose child cries and screams about having to get into the pool. Hopefully Tuesday's lesson goes better.

This past weekend I was able to finish reading Heather Graham's The Silenced, the 15th book in her Krewe Hunter FBI series, which I enjoyed. I loved the historical tidbits the author threw into the novel about the Civil War and Virginia, in particular.

I recently began reading Alexandra Sokoloff's Cold Moon, the third book in her Huntress/FBI series, and am also in the middle of a short story collection called The Lovers Set the Spoons Down by Heather Slomski. One is a more intense, can't put down sort of book and the other is more the kind you want to take your time with and savor. I do need to hurry up with Slomski's book, however, because I need to get it in the mail by the end of the month for the next person in my Postal Book Club. I don't know how I got so behind!

My progress through Paula Hawkin's The Girl on the Train is slow going. I have not had much time to listen. I am still enjoying it though and hope to finish before then end of July. That's my goal anyway.

What are you reading at the moment?  Is it anything you would recommend?

A blurb from the publisher about The Lovers Set The Spoons Down:

In the fifteen stories that comprise this collection—some short as breaths, two of them novelettes—Slomski writes with a keen eye about relationships. About the desires that pull us together and the betrayals that push us apart. About jealousy, obsession, loneliness and regret—the byproducts of loving someone that keep us awake at night.

First Paragraph of the first story in The Lovers Set The Spoons Down with the same title:

We are sitting at a table in a restaurant. The four of us. You. Me. The woman with whom you had an affair. Her boyfriend. I sit across from her, you across from her boyfriend. There is wine, red and white. There are four water glasses, four linen napkins, four spoons, eight forks, four knives. There are tables on all sides of us.

The opening of the first story struck me as interesting in that I automatically could tell the four characters are in an awkward situation. The story is written in the style of a play, which I also found interesting. The first paragraph sets the scene.

Teaser from page 67, from the short story "Iris and the Inevitable Sorrow, or The Knock at the Door": 

On the wooden desk piled with books and papers was a red envelope scribbled with her name. Inside was a card with a small pink heart on the cover, and upon opening it she found in Stephen's handwriting the words, "I've met someone." Underneath his signature he apologized for the misleading card, but Valentines were all he could find in the shop.

The teaser is from a short story later in the book, with a title I just love:"Iris and the Inevitable Sorrow, or the Knock at the Door". It's written in a very different style from the opening story. I felt an instant sadness for the woman who receives Stephen's card.

What do you think? Would you keep reading?  

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