Jan Jones

Bronchitis sucks! There, I said it, and I mean it! Between coughing, blowing and napping, I had little time to read. In fact, I dozed off after only a few pages.

Good thing I had a short, light book to read. I chose the unlikely title “Pastries and Pilfering” by Danielle Collins. This was the third book in her Margot Durand series of cozy mysteries, but it is OK as a short stand-alone book.

While on InfoSoup, I noticed a comment stating that a series of books by Tim Dorsey were very similar to those by Carl Hiaasen. Since I’m a fan of Hiaasen’s quirky characters, I immediately downloaded Dorsey’s “Triggerfish Twist.”

I should have found book one instead of starting with book four in the series. The cast of characters is enormous, so keeping track of them was a real challenge. I can’t begin to do justice to the story, but I will give you a thumbnail sketch.

If you’ve ever tried to figure out what a pet is trying to say, you will like Kathy Manos Penn’s three-book set “Dickens and Christie” mysteries.

After Aleta Petkas Parker’s husband Henry died in a cycling accident, “Leta” took early retirement, packed up and moved from Atlanta to the quaint village of Astonbury in the Cotswolds of England. She lives in a converted schoolhouse with her beloved Dickens, a dwarf Great Pyrenees dog, and Christie, a regal black cat.

I felt like a bit of fantasy this week so I selected “Dragon Force” by Lucia Ashta. Once I got past Ashta’s rather strange names of places and things, it was a pretty good read. After only a few chapters I noticed that the story has strong religious undertones, giving it an almost parable-like feel.

The adventure is set on Planet Origins. It has two suns, the Auxle and Suxle, and a purple moon known as the Plune. The population of this area of the planet are the Ooba people. For centuries they have been ruled by chieftains. The current chieftain is named Pumpoo.