THE ENCHANTMENT EMPORIUM: TANYA HUFF I really liked this one!

Alysha Gale is a member of a family capable of changing the world with the charms they cast. Then she receives word that she's inherited her grandmother's junk shop in Calgary, only to discover upon arriving that she'll be serving the fey community. And when Alysha learns just how much trouble is brewing in Calgary, even calling in the family to help may not be enough to save the day.

Much much more interesting than this makes it sound. A new way of looking at witches, dragons and magic. I loved it and hope there are more in the series. This is my favourite work of hers so far.

THE FUNERAL BOAT: KATE ELLIS

Ellis' fourth book featuring Detective Sergeant Wesley Peterson is cleverly plotted and competently written, providing an engaging glimpse of what life is like for the average small-town British cop. Daily life in Tradmouth, Devon, is usually relatively calm, even for a copper, but that isn't the case this summer. Identifying the skeletal remains found in a field outside town and finding the gang of thieves who are robbing isolated farms in the area are more than enough to keep Peterson and his partner, Inspector Gerry Heffernan, busy. But when a visiting Danish woman is abducted and her brother is killed, the pair really have their hands full. Fortunately, Wesley's keenly analytical mind and ability to charm confessions out of even the most reluctant perp, combined with Heffernan's experience, give the copper's all the tools they need to set matters right. The skeleton, which belongs to one of the hordes of Danes who invaded England in 997, produces the most interesting story line in pleasantly entertaining and engaging procedural.

I'll get into order soon but I needed to read something so I skipped ahead to what I had on hand. Light reading, decent little mysteries. Better than a lot of the works out there.

THE FIFTH HARMONIC: F. PAUL WILSON

The Fifth Harmonic is the story of Will Burleigh, a hard-nosed M.D. When he is diagnosed with throat cancer he faces a gut-wrenching decision: undergo massive radiation and radical surgery that will leave him permanently disfigured or trust his life to the mysterious and beautiful Maya, a woman who claims she can heal him-but at what cost? A fast-paced thriller.

Not really. Lots of ideas but a nothing new involved. Don't bother unless new age and crystals appeal to you. Don't click on the book..I saved the photo wrong.

AN UNHALLOWED GRAVE: KATE ELLIS

From Publishers Weekly
In her third mystery featuring Trinidadian police sergeant Wesley Peterson, Ellis proves herself once again adept at linking a contemporary British police procedural to a crime from centuries in the past that neatly parallels the present-day murder. When the body of Pauline Brent, a doctor's receptionist, turns up hanging from a yew tree in Stokeworthy churchyard, Wes and his colleagues of the Tradmouth (Devon) police soon determine that she was initially strangled. But who would want to murder Pauline, who by all reports had led a blameless life? While Wes and his team interview people who knew the victim, who mysteriously doesn't have much of a past, an archeological dig unearths the 500-year-old skeleton of a young woman whose broken neck suggests that she was hanged. As the police draw closer to identifying Pauline's killer, 15th-century legal documents just as suspensefully reveal an ancient miscarriage of justice. Besides providing a clever dual mystery, Ellis humanizes her characters with glimpses into their reassuringly ordinary personal lives. (Wes's wife, Pam, for instance, worries about finding child care for their newborn son.) This is a series that just gets stronger with each new book.

As you can see I'm still at this series as the books arrive from the library. With their size, pace and the ability to be put down and picked up during the day, they make good reading to have in the house.

4 books