What Fiction are you reading this week, June 9, 2024?

[yellowdogintexas]

35. "Christmas Crime" another Kat Makris Greek Mafia novel (by Alex King)

Kat Makris’ time in Greece is up.

She’s been kidnapped, shot, and used as a corpse’s mattress … and that’s on the good days when her grandmother isn’t drugging the cookies. Why stay in Greece when there is no safer place for Kat and her menagerie of unusual pets than her childhood home in Portland, Oregon?

Yes, Kat is quitting Greece and the Greek mob mostly fine-ish. So what if Hipster Burger’s fake mustache is giving her a rash? At least she’s working, right? And there’s a tiny issue with her other new job, but nothing the fire department and Homeland Security can’t fix.

Kat’s biggest problem is that the Greek mob can’t quit Kat—and they’re coming for her just in time for Christmas.

I was having a horrible night last night so I dived into this book. It was just what I needed. I read up until about 4 am and finally fell asleep. These books are chock full of quirky characters and hilarity. Kat herself is somewhat of a smartalec. If Alex ever finishes with Kat she has at least 2 other good sized series going.

I finally finished 'Neverwhere' by Neil Gaiman
It is the story of Richard Mayhew, a young London businessman with a good heart and an ordinary life, which is changed forever when he discovers a girl bleeding on the sidewalk. He stops to help her—an act of kindness that plunges him into a world he never dreamed existed. Slipping through the cracks of reality, Richard lands in Neverwhere—a London of shadows and darkness, monsters and saints, murderers and angels that exists entirely in a subterranean labyrinth. Neverwhere is home to Door, the mysterious girl Richard helped in the London Above. Here in Neverwhere, Door is a powerful noblewoman who has vowed to find the evil agent of her family’s slaughter and thwart the destruction of this strange underworld kingdom. If Richard is ever to return to his former life and home, he must join Lady Door’s quest to save her world—and may well die trying.
I really enjoy Gaiman's work
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I also finally finished 'The One Hundred Years of Lennie and Margot' by Marianne Cronin. An extraordinary friendship. A lifetime of stories.

Seventeen-year-old Lenni Pettersson lives on the Terminal Ward at the Glasgow Princess Royal Hospital. Though the teenager has been told she’s dying, she still has plenty of living to do. Joining the hospital’s arts and crafts class, she meets the magnificent Margot, an 83-year-old, purple-pajama-wearing, fruitcake-eating rebel, who transforms Lenni in ways she never imagined.

As their friendship blooms, a world of stories opens for these unlikely companions who, between them, have been alive for one hundred years. Though their days are dwindling, both are determined to leave their mark on the world. With the help of Lenni’s doting palliative care nurse and Father Arthur, the hospital’s patient chaplain, Lenni and Margot devise a plan to create one hundred paintings showcasing the stories of the century they have lived—stories of love and loss, of courage and kindness, of unexpected tenderness and pure joy.

Though the end is near, life isn’t quite done with these unforgettable women just yet.

This was such a sweet and sad yet uplifting story. highly recommend