I finished up the Abigail Adams mystery and enjoyed it, although the nature of the crime seemed somewhat 21st century to me despite the author’s best effort to show it in an 18th century light. I figured it out along with Abigail and, as I mentioned earlier, found the depiction of Boston and its daily life to be the most interesting.
An aside on the nature of the Internet and multitasking…I began to write this post while I was rendering video. As I wrote the post, I thought I would check to see if there were plans for another mystery in the series. I discovered that Barbara Hamilton is actually a pseudonym of Barbara Hambly, a mostly fantasy and science fiction writer. I spent a little bit of time trying to confirm this but Wikipedia was no help at all. Nor the Fiction Database. There is a brief mention in a comment on Good Reads and an online bookstore lists both names as the author. But, she has an interview with Barbara Hamilton on her website that makes it pretty clear. I’m wondering if I should update the Wikipedia entry? I feel like I need a definitive source. I did find the answer to my original question: There are at least two more books in the works in the series and maybe a fourth that will involve Martha Washington.
Now, I’m back from that bit of birdwalking…I edited the video and it’s rendering some more while I write. Yesterday, I wasn’t sure what I was going to read and spent some time in the afternoon looking at the pile of books in the bedroom that were supposed to be the ones I was reading in 2010. I have gotten through very few of them as I’ve either read new books or books from other shelves. (The biographies, all hard backs, cleaned off half a shelf in the office.) I was thinking about more bios: John Adams, Marie Curie, Margaret Mead, or doing a Jasper Fforde weekend with the two new ones I have, or immersing myself in English history with Sharon Kay Penman, Alison Weir, and Antonia Fraser. But then…at the bottom of the pile in the back, there were three library books. (As a prof at WM, I get to keep books for a year.) They were from Bernard Cornwell’s Civil War series, The Starbuck Chronicles. I have the first three and it turns out there are five of them. The first one–Rebel–opens in Richmond, the day after Fort Sumter and after spending some time with it this morning, that’s what I’ll be reading for the next few days. Aah, I am relieved that I have made that decision since I’m going to sit out in the sun this afternoon and I’ll need a book in hand.
I managed to get through most of the books I had been reading since at one point I had about four going at the same time, not something I usually do, but I still haven’t finished Bound for Glory. It’s on the Kindle but I don’t know if that’s the problem or not.
Meanwhile, the video is rendered and it’s time to move on…
