#BookBeginnings & #Friday56 - MRC Kasasian's The Curse of the House of the House of Foskett

I had read the first book in the Gower Street Detective series back in May (you can read about it HERE). I finally started the second one and just in time for another Book Beginnings & Friday 56!  Friday 56 (share a blurb from the 56th page or 56% mark) is hosted at Freda's Voice & Book Beginnings (share the first few sentences) is at Rose City Reader.

Rambling About.. Alice Brown's Lessons in the Curious Art of Dating

Title: Alice Brown's Lessons in the Curious Art of Dating
Author: Eleanor Prescott
Publication: 1 April 2012 - Quercus
Format: epub - 516 pages

First Lines: “Where are all the men?” Kate whispered as she clutched her orange juice and looked nervously around the room. She tried to stop the disappointment reaching her face. Favorites on 4s: 14 - If you’ve not bagged a man and got yourself pregnant by thirty-five, you might as well skip straight to the end and reserve a single room in the retirement home. 94 - There were so many average women to wade through. Nobody in the matchmaking business ever dared say it, of course, but it was true. 264 - “What are you talking about? The only revenge-thing I know about Sharon Osbourne was that she pooed in someone’s . . . Oh my God. What have you done?” 474 - He visited his parents every month, his fingernails were always clean, and—most importantly—he was single. Operation Fornication-with-Mr.-Nice-Guy was all systems go! 484 - She stiffened with shock. Audrey was never touched, other than by mistake. And she couldn’t remember the last time anyone had touched her like this. She was being hugged, she suddenly realized . . .

Mini-Ramble: Alice works for Table For Two - a matchmaking company founded and owned by Audrey. Audrey isn't a great boss, nor is she a great matchmaker. She herself is perpetually single and hires John from a local escort agency to take her to corporate events. Alice is a great matchmaker for others but not so much for herself. Kate decides to join Table For Two as a client with her list of perfect "Prince Charming" criteria in spite of her best friend, Lou, thinking it's a ridiculous waste of time. Throughout the book the chapters alternate between focusing on Alice, Audrey, John, Kate and Lou as they work on learning more about the 'curious art of dating.'
Like in real life there were so many twists and turns that within a matter of minutes I found myself hopeful, furious, sad, and tickled. SUCH a roller coaster of emotions -- often when least expected. I laughed, I cried, I had to find a murder mystery as my next read in order to give myself time to recover emotionally.

Teaser Tuesday - Alice Brown's Lessons in the Curious Art of Dating by Eleanor Prescott

The Book & Tease

Eleanor Prescott -- Alice Brown's Lessons in the Curious Art of Dating
The Meme

Rambling About.. Mark Svartz's I Hate You, Kelly Donahue

I absolutely bought this on a whim. I had a gift card and it fit the little bit I had left on said card and had an awesome cover.

It's a spiral bound notebook that looks and feels like a journal. The pages are handwritten or drawn or have things "taped" to them ... and it's hilarious.

I don't know why he hates Kelly so intensely so immediately... but he does and he relishes every plan her makes for her ultimate demise. And he makes a LOT of them.

Mouth lice? Really?

Well, at least it fits my whole Valentine's theme for February....

He stalks her. He's nice to her. He's seemingly spending every waking moment (and non-waking moments) figuring out how to rid the world of her (and still with no inkling as to why). He even DATES her.

For the better part of the year he plots and schemes (and writes hilarious journal entries) ...

And then .......

Yeah. 

Like I would actually put a spoiler of such epic magnitude here.

You're new here, aren't you?

I read it during a bus ride home from work. Less than an hour. Well worth the time.

Rambling About.. MC Beaton's Death of a Cad

Title: Death of a Cad     Author: M. C. Beaton Publication: February 1987 -- St. Martin's Press Format: epub -- BookBazaar Reader (149 pages) First Line: Henry Withering, playwright, slumped down in the passenger seat of the station wagon after another bleak look out at the forbidding landscape. Favorites on 4s: 4 - When he had asked her to marry him, all she had felt was a giddy elation at having done the right thing at last; at having finally found someone who would please her parents. 24 - Priscilla bit her lip. Somehow it had never crossed her mind even to turn her back while Hamish was changing his trousers. 64 - Was this what the future held for him? Chatting away in the evenings to a spoilt mongrel? 84 - "I could smell him from here -- fear-sweat. Angry, blustering, ranting people are usually frightened." 104 - "She'll be drooping around the castle by tonight, trying to queen it over the rest of us as if she's some sort of femme fatale, instead of the worn-out trollop she really is." 124 - "The only thing I'm taking to bed tonight is a hot-water bottle."

Ramble: I'm still mad-crushing on Hamish Macbeth. I had read the first in the series back in August and had lamented then that the non-relationship between Hamish and Priscilla was driving me crazy. In this book it's even worse since Priscilla is engaged to be married to someone other than Hamish and her parents have invited a whole slew of people to their estate in order to meet him and celebrate. I was hoping that the "cad" mentioned in the title would end up being him ... but with no such luck. Of course, practically everyone in attendance at the party has motive for wanting the victim dead and it is Hamish who steps up to solve it all in spite of most viewing him as a simple bobbling village bobby.

There wasn't as much humor here as there was in the first book, but I chalk that up to the somberness surrounding the engagement. It's difficult for Hamish to be witty when the girl he adores is set to live happily-ever-after with someone else. Priscilla also seemed greatly diminished in spunk aside from the few times that she and Hamish were alone. There are moments of coffee-snorting-worthy humor, just not as much as there had been .... and, hopefully, not as much as there will be.

The 32nd book in the series is set to be released the end of this month. I think I may need to do some serious adjusting to my monthly reading thing so it doesn't take me the next decade to catch up!