What I read on vacation, part 1

What did I read on vacation?  a stack of genre fiction, that's what.  Some I liked better than others, but not a clinker in the bunch.  yay.

The Thin Woman by Dorothy Cannell.  I enjoyed the first third of this mystery novel as much as anything I've read in the past couple of years.  It's a terrific setup.  Ellie, a snarky, overweight woman, hires Bentley, a writer of smutty mystery novels who supports himself by working for an escort service, to accompany her to a dismal family reunion.  Part of what I enjoyed about it is the surprises--I had no idea what was coming. So that's all I'm going to tell you, except there's a death, a huge creepy castle, and a treasure hunt.  It starts to drag a little in the middle-- much telling and very little showing, to use the writer's workshop catch-phrase.  But still, highly recommended.  If you can, keep yourself from reading plot summaries ahead of time.  Cannell writes great dialogue and her characters are memorable and sharply drawn.  The ending doesn't quite live up to the promise of the beginning, but it's still well worth reading.  And although I did guess parts of the ending, she also surprised me with some of it.  I love it when an author can legitimately surprise me.

Watermelon by Marian Keyes.  I'd never even heard of Marian Keyes until about a month ago when someone mentioned her in their blog (Judy?), and then half a dozen people chimed in in the comments.  Watermelon is her first book, and I enjoyed it.  Claire's adored husband leaves her on the day their first child is born.  Heartbroken, Claire heads home to Dublin for her maternity leave, moving back in with her ditzy family.  Since I've never written a novel at all, I'm very forgiving of first novels.  It astonishes me that anyone can write a novel.  I loved parts of this one.  Claire is a terrific narrator, and she is often snarky and laugh-out-loud funny.  But she also needed a better editor.  There were many places where her snark would go on and on and I would start to skim.  Also, while she is in the midst of being heartbroken, her memories of her ex-husband paint a picture that is completely unrecognizable when he finally shows up in Dublin.  Which is wrong?  her memories, or the present?  Keyes never really fully addresses this.  But this is another one I enjoyed.  Great vacation read.  I will look forward to reading more by this author.

The Toll-Gate by Georgette Heyer.  You all know I love me some Georgette Heyer.  This one is middle of the pack for me.  It's very similar to, but not nearly as good as, The Unknown Ajax, which is probably in my top three Heyer novels.  In both novels, a young man who has recently left the military is thrust into the midst of a family in need of help.  In The Unknown Ajax, Hugo must figure out what is going on with the mysterious actions of the younger brother of the house, ultimately resulting in one of the more clever denouements I've read (it is also one of my all-time favorite audiobooks-- great narrator).  In the Toll-Gate, John Staple gets involved in the life of a community after getting lost in a storm and spending the night in a deserted toll-gate.  It's a good story, and an enjoyable read, but the ending isn't nearly as satisfying as Ajax.  In fact, it's difficult to believe that John will be able to settle down and be happy.  Both books are more about the situation than the romance, although there is a romance in each.

Boy Meets Girl by Meg Cabot- a fun, quick read that worked just fine for a day of airplanes, but wasn't nearly as good as the previous one, The Boy Next Door.  Kate is a human resources representative who must fire Ida, a favorite lunchroom employee, after Ida runs afoul of the boss everyone hates.  There are immediate sparks with the lawyer hired to represent Ida, although there are an appropriate number of hurdles they must surmount before the happily-ever-after.  It was fun, but Kate is just a little too good to be true--the naive, small-town girl schtick doesn't work as well here as it did in the previous book.  Most of the story is told in e-mails, which works really well as long as you remember to check who is the writer and recipient of each e-mail. What doesn't work so well are the numerous journal entries written by Kate, which tended to be long and boring.  And when she writes journal entries on menus in restaurants while she's waiting for people to arrive, it stretches the bounds of believability past the breaking point.  But it's still fun.  Not a bad read.

Then there was the best one, by Lois McMaster Bujold, but it's getting its own post because this is too long already.