Christmas in London by Anita Hughes, 288 pages

I love armchair traveling especially at Christmastime. I have been lucky enough to see London at Christmastime in real life. It's been years but I can see it like it was yesterday. The first main character you met, Louisa Graham, is a baker. Reading about her concoctions made me so hungry I actually made brownies (from a box...she'd probably be ashamed that they weren't from scratch). I'm not always the biggest fan of dual stories but I really liked Kate, the producer of the TV show that brings Louisa to London to bake for the annual Christmas Eve Dinner TV special at Claridge's. Thanks to the dual main characters you have story lines for two types of romantics...fans of second chances and fans of new love. But as everyone knows there's no guarantee that you'll get a happily ever after.

The Case of the Phantom Cat: The Mysteries of Maisie Hutchins, Book 3 by Holly Webb, 176 pages

Maisie Hutchins is something of an amateur sleuth.  And like most amateur detectives the mysteries just seem to find her.  This time she accompanies her friend Alice on a trip to the country to get away from the London fog that is making Alice ill.  When they arrive at the country home they are informed that the house is haunted and was built on a plague pit.  Of course, all kinds of spooky things happen shortly after their arrival, but Maisie is not buying it.  She's determined to find out the real reason everyone is seeing a phantom white cat and why the library smells so horrid!

Maisie is plucky and courageous.  This was a fun bedtime read with my 7 year old.  The chapters were a nice length so that reading one a night was enough for us.  We did have to power through and read the last 40 pages or so one night just to find out the end.  This is the first Maisie Hutchins book we have read, even though it's book 3.  My daughter is anxious to read the first two though.  I think I'll be introducing her to Nancy Drew in a few years.

Career of Evil (Cormoran Strike #3) by Robert Galbraith, 512 pages

Robert Galbraith is the pseudonym of J.K.Rowling, made famous by writing the Harry Potter series.  This is the 3rd very adult book about the modern day private detective Cormoran Strike, who is based in London.  I listened to this and it is expertly read by gravelly voiced, Robert Glinister.

In this outing, Strike and his secretary/assistant/partner, Robin Ellacott are targeted by a serial killer who likes to stab his female victims and keep parts of their bodies as souvenirs.  The killer has a grudge against Strike and sets his sights on Robin. 

Darkness and danger and suspense ensues and I loved every bit of it.

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins 323 pages

The Girl on the Train is a psychological thriller—my absolute favorite kind of book—told from the perspective of three different women none of them very likeable. But I expect if my husband left me and married a younger, fertile woman and put her in the home that I loved while I had to live with a friend who really didn’t want me there and every day twice a day on my way to and from work I had to see and be reminded, I would probably drink myself to distraction as well. And probably eat myself there too. So it’s not that difficult to understand why Rachel lives in a bit of a fantasy world and why she creates a fantasy life for a young couple who live a few doors down from her old house. And then one day, as the train rushes past she sees something quite unexpected and startling enough to bring her out of her alcoholic fugue to investigate. 

The Girl on the Train starts slow and passes back and forth between three narrators that seem unconnected at first. But what a great read it was. Beautifully written, with real, wounded characters you can feel for even as you’re screaming at them to get it together.  A true can’t-put-it-down kind of book.

Dark Tide by Elizabeth Haynes 384 pages

During the day Genevieve is a white collar worker in London. In the evening she moonlights as a stripper in order to save enough money to fulfill her lifelong dream of owning a houseboat. Not long after she realizes that dream and departs London for good she finds the body of her friend floating near her boat. Dark Tide alternates between the present day and Genevieve’s life on the boat and the not so far off past when she worked in a private men’s club. The answer to the mystery of the floating body lies somewhere between the two.

While this was an entertaining book and the passages of houseboat life were interesting and well written, there were way too many stranger-in-a-dark-alley moments that the character entered into willingly, that should have ended badly but somehow didn’t that I just couldn’t buy into it. This was another case of loving the author’s first book Into the Darkest Corner and wanting and waiting for this one to measure up. It never did. 

The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith 455 pages

Cormoran Strike has one foot (literally) in the door of financial ruin, he’s broken up with his girlfriend, living out of his office, and receiving death threats from a previous client when John Bristow hires him to prove that his supermodel sister did not commit suicide when she fell to her death from the top floor of her apartment building.  So Cormoran charges him an outrageous fee and in a very systematic and organized way begins to investigate what seems from every angle an obvious suicide. But the deeper he delves the more he comes to realize that nothing is as it seems. My first exposure to JK Rowling was Casual Vacancy and I enjoyed it every bit as much as I did The Cuckoo’s Calling. I love the effort she puts into creating her characters, the time she takes to set up the plot, the English village aspect (although that’s pushing it for the London setting of The Cuckoo’s Calling) the way she writes, all of it. And the best news of all! A sequels on its way.