Year of the Projects - Riviera Gold + Deadly Appraisal

 
I do love a good list.  It gives a nice sense of order and focus and I love making lists about the books I want to read.  Last year I focused just on series I was behind on.  The project went great and I caught up on a ton of series but I felt like I was neglecting other books on my shelf and books at my library.  This year I have a few lists going - Series, Library, Clear Off My Shelves, and a random TBR Bingo where I pull books off my Goodreads TBR.  Here are a few of my most recent reads.

Goodreads: Riviera Gold (Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes #16) by Laurie R King

Project: Finish Up Series

Blurb:  It's summertime on the Riviera, where the Jazz Age is busily reinventing the holiday delights of warm days on golden sand and cool nights on terraces and dance floors. Just up the coast lies a more traditional pleasure ground: Monte Carlo, where fortunes are won, lost, stolen, and hidden away. So when Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes happen across the Côte d'Azur in this summer of 1925, they find themselves pulled between the young and the old, hot sun and cool jazz, new friendships and old loyalties, childlike pleasures and very grownup sins...

My Thoughts: I've really been enjoying getting back to this series and focusing on catching up on the newer books.  It's definitely a series best read in order and best read reasonably close together.  I feel like I'm missing a bit because I read some of the earlier books 20 years ago and remember very little of them.  This was a fun book because not only did a character from the previous book come along but a former regular character shows up as well.  This was an entertaining read with a fantastic setting.  I enjoy following Mary and Holmes as they investigate and this was no different.  Looking forward to reading the next book.  My Rating:  Really Liked It!

Goodreads:  Deadly Appraisal (Josie Prescott Antiques #2) by Jane K. Cleland

Project:  Finish Up the Series

Blurb:  Josie Prescott is settling into her new life in New Hampshire. Her antiques business is thriving, she's beginning to make some close friends, and her relationship with the local police chief is becoming more interesting. Not bad for someone who has completely uprooted her life as a New York City auction house expert in order to get a fresh start in a small New England town.
With so much suddenly to lose, Josie can't help but worry when murder invades her seemingly quiet community. Josie is sponsoring the Portsmouth Women's Guild Annual Black and Gold Gala and is looking forward to receiving a kindly worded thank-you for her efforts. Instead, the Guild representative, Maisy Gaylor, dies a horrible death in the midst of the banquet. Who could have wanted to kill earnest, drab little Maisy? "Funny, isn't it," muses the hostile Detective Rowcliff, "how a lot of people end up dead when no one has any enemies."
Everyone who had access to the wine Maisy drank, including Josie herself, soon comes under suspicion. Can Josie manage to ferret out the truth, keep her business running smoothly, and continue to put down roots in her new town, or will everything prove too much for her to handle on her own?

My Thoughts:  This was a fun mystery.  The victim is someone that no one could possibly want to kill - or would they?  Since Josie is a possible victim as well as the host of the Gala where the murder occurred she is drawn into the mystery.  I really enjoyed this second book in the series.  Josie works with a lawyer from the beginning as well as with a local reporter who is both a friend and an annoyance.  I had an idea of the who but there were a number of possibilities that kept me guessing.  My Rating:  Really Liked It!