Q is For ….

Q is for …. Quality over Quantity

My Q stack is small but they are a couple great series books! Two of my favorites series actually.

Another little fun fact about me, I am a also a Quilter! I don’t have quite as much time as I would like to give to this hobby but it brings me so much joy when I can.

Quicksand by Iris Johansen

Published: 4/22/2008

Book 8 in the Eve Duncan series

This is one of my favorite Crime Thriller series and I talk about it all the time! I can’t remember when I first started the series, it’s been over a decade, lefts start there. 🤔 I found The Killing Game (Book 2) and The Search (Book 3) at a garage sale. The books themselves do not call out that they are a series or what order they come in, so I assumed they were just stand alone books. After I started on the second one, I quickly realized these were related and looked up the rest to see where they fell in the series. I was very thankful that they were just # 2 and 3. I have to say that I absolutely hate starting a series unknowingly somewhere in the middle or god forbid the end. 😩 I will be honest, have a slight control problem 😏. I quickly figured out the series order and book 1 and got back on track, been reading them ever since and loving it! I will be reading Eve (Book 12) this year as part of my 50 Books 50 States Challenge.

I love everything forensics, and I am so intrigued by the forensic sculpting. To be able to reconstruct the face of the person just from the skull is amazing to me! Aside from the great plot and twists these books have, I think that it is the mix of science and art with forensic sculpting that has me captivated the most in these.

Book Blurb:

The number-one blockbuster bestselling author returns with a thriller that pits Eve Duncan against the one man who can put her darkest horror to rest – or make her relive it over and over again….

“Do you still miss your little Bonnie?”

This one sentence, spoken by a madman in an anonymous phone call, is all it takes to drag Eve Duncan right back to that horrifying day years ago when her only daughter vanished without a trace. Since that day, her life has become an obsession to find Bonnie’s remains and put the pain of her death to rest. However, one man wants nothing more than to prevent that from happening. He is every woman’s waking nightmare: a brilliant, ruthless killer whose hunting ground stretches from coast to coast. But taunting Eve Duncan might be his first and last mistake….

For Eve is armed with more than just her talent as a forensic sculptor and her fierce protective nature. She brings with her former Navy SEAL Joe Quinn, an Atlanta detective who will do whatever it takes to bring Eve some kind of peace, even if he has to lie to do it.

Eve’s only salvation may be through the mysterious skills of another woman whose chilling talent leaves her as tormented as Eve – and as driven to bring this monster to justice. But when lives are in danger, every step could be a trap, and every inch of solid ground seems to be shifting under their feet. And this killer wants nothing more than to lure Eve further and further into his swamp of madness….

With relentless pace and gut-wrenching intensity, Quicksandis Iris Johansen at her best.

Q is for Quarry by Sue Grafton

Published: 10/14/2002

Book 17 in the Kinsey Millhone series, or the Alphabet series as most like to call it.

I have not yet got to this one yet, I am only up to C is for Corpse (book 3), which I will be reading this year as part of my 2021 Popsugar Reading Challenge. If you have not heard of Popsugar or their yearly reading challenges, you need to go check them out! So much fun and a great way to expand your horizons while also smashing through your TBR’s. The 2021 POPSUGAR Reading Challenge Is Here — Ready, Set, Read! You can also join their Goodreads Group, Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge.

I was introduced to this series just a few years ago by a great friend who also gave me all the books up to this one. 💕 As a huge fan of Private Investigator books, I love these! Even with only the first two books completed I can tell already why this series is so popular and loved around the world. I can’t believe that I had never heard about them before.

I love that this particular book in the series is based on a true crime and that the author is trying to help identify the victim and bring her peace.

Book Blurb:

She was a “Jane Doe,” an unidentified white female whose decomposed body was discovered near a quarry off California’s Highway 1. The case fell to the Santa Teresa County Sheriff’s Department, but the detectives had little to go on. The woman was young, her hands were bound with a length of wire, there were multiple stab wounds, and her throat had been slashed. After months of investigation, the murder remained unsolved.

That was eighteen years ago. Now the two men who found the body, both nearing the end of long careers in law enforcement, want one last shot at the case. Old and ill, they need someone to help with their legwork and they turn to Kinsey Millhone. They will, they tell her, find closure if they can just identify the victim. Kinsey is intrigued and agrees to the job.

But revisiting the past can be a dangerous business, and what begins with the pursuit of Jane Doe’s real identity ends in a high-risk hunt for her killer.

“Q” is for Quarry is based on an unsolved homicide that occurred in 1969, and Grafton’s interest in the case has generated renewed police efforts. During the past year, the body was exhumed and a nationally known forensic artist did the facial reconstruction that appears in the closing pages of “Q” is for Quarry. Both Grafton and the dedicated members of the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department are hoping the photograph will trigger memories that may lead to a positive identification.

On the day Jane Doe was reburied, many officers were at the gravesite. “It’s eerie,” Grafton writes, “to think about the power this woman still has. Here we are, thirty-three years later, and she still wants to go home.”

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My Year in Books

2020 was definitely not a normal year for any of us. It felt, at times, like we were living in one of the books we read, and not one we want to. But we made it through and are settling in to our new normal, whatever that may look like.
I, like so many, experienced an emotional tribulation that took a few months to overcome. In that time, I remembered that reading books was not a competition on how many I can get through in a month or a year but something that I love doing. I have a tendency to set goals and then obsess over them. I am working on breaking this unhealthy habit. I also don’t need to feel like I must write a blog post everyday. If I do, that’s awesome, if not, its not a big deal and people will not unfollow me because of it. There are so many other things that I enjoy doing as well and I don’t want to forget about those or spending time with the people that I love.

So, 2021 will be about having fun and doing what makes me happy every day.

2020 books completed:
36 Books
12,454 pages
My average rating – 3.9 🌟

5 🌟 Books:
Skipping Christmas by John Grisham
Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir by Natasha Trethewey
Strawberry Shortcake Murder by Joanne Fluke
Gilchrist by Christian Galacar
What Doesn’t Kill You by Iris Johansen
Dark Places by Gillian Flynn
Chasing Evil by Kylie Brant
Jamie Quinn Mystery Collection by Barbara Venkataraman
1st to Die by James Patterson
American Predator: The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century by Maureen Callahan

I hope everyone has a wonderful and safe New Year. Happy Reading! 😉

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July Recap

4 Books
2,182 pages
Average Rating 4.25

What Doesn’t Kill You 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
Bayou Myth 🌟🌟🌟🌟
Digital Fortress 🌟🌟🌟🌟
IT 🌟🌟🌟🌟

I finally got out of my 2 book slump!  Whew!  July was a crazy month for me so I am very proud that I completed these 4.  I am so ready for life to resemble some kind of normalcy.  I need a vacation so bad it’s not even funny anymore.  Our planned trip this year has been cancelled and rescheduled 3x so far.  Which I completely understand, and I want to be safe, but it is just torturous.  You get your hopes up and then… Just kidding!  Now we are looking at November. 
I am 7 books behind schedule on my year goal 😫 however 2020 is not like a normal year that’s for sure.  I certainly don’t want to rely on my vacation to catch up, just in case, so we might need to schedule a little weekend getaway to unplug and relax.

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Book Review – What Doesn’t Kill You

What Doesn’t Kill You by Iris Johansen

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Romantic Thriller

“I merely encountered Lucifer, and he thinks I can bring him out of hell and give him back paradise.”
“I avoid Lucifer if I can. I understand his ambition and recognize it in myself. It’s just another name for power, and it can be a heady brew.”


Catherine has just returned from a job in Peru when she gets a call from Venable, the deputy director of the CIA and her boss. He needs her in Hong Kong now. There is a situation that only she can help with, Hu Chang. A mysterious Chinese medicine potion maker, he is also a master poison maker and assassin but he is the closest thing to a father that Catherine knows. He took her in when she was young, alone, and on the streets.
“Hu Chang stopped being innocent a long, long time ago. He’s capable of doing anything that he chooses. But he doesn’t usually choose anything that would get him into this kind of trouble. What’s he done?” “I think he’s concocted some potion or drug that’s fairly world-shaking.”

Continue reading Book Review – What Doesn’t Kill Yousignature

Book 17:  Kentucky

Book 2 in the Catherine Ling series.  This is a spin off of the Eve Duncan series, which I am obsessed with!  The first book which was #12 in the Eve series, Eve meets Catherine and helps her get her son back from a murderous Russian mafia head.  I am looking forward to finding out if I like Catherine Ling as much as I like Eve Duncan.  Only time will tell.

“It’s the deadliest poison known to man. He’s the only one who knows its true power. She’s the only one who can stop the evil.

The chase is on. . . .

Catherine Ling was abandoned on the streets of Hong Kong at age four. Schooled in the art of survival, she traded in the only commodity she had: information. As a teenager, she came under the tutelage of a mysterious man known only as Hu Chang—a skilled assassin and master poisoner. As a young woman, she was recruited by the CIA and now she is known as one of their most effective operatives. When her old friend Hu Chang creates a formula that’s not only deadly but completely untraceable, the race begins to be the first to get it. Catherine finds herself up against a group so villainous and a man so evil that she may not survive in her quest to protect those she cares about: Hu Chang and Luke—the son who was stolen from Catherine and only recently brought home safe. Using all of her formidable skills, Catherine Ling proves the age-old belief that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

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D is for …

D is for …. Dark and Deadly.

“D” is another very popular start for True Crime and Thrillers. 

Dark Tribute, Dark Summer, Darkness, The Dark Half, Dark Places. 

Dead Aim, Deadlock, Deadly Deceit,  Deadly Lust, Dead and Buried, Deadly Pretender, Deadly Devotion, Dead Reconing.

Several on this list are from Iris Johansen.  She is by far one of my very favorite authors!  I LOVE the Eve Duncan series!  Eve’s daughter was murdered when she was 5 years old and her body was never found.  This drove Eve to  become a forensic sculpter, she reconstructions skulls so that they can be identified.  Helping the FBI, Atlanta PD, and occasionally the CIA to bring home lost ones to their families and hopefully one day to bring home her Bonnie.   She is always getting involved in some dangerous cases and situations that put her life in peril.  These books are thrilling and full of danger and excitement, I also enjoy the science behind forensic sculpting.  I highly recommend it, if interested, the first 3 novels are The Face of Deception, The Killing Game, and The Search.  I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!  There are 26 books in the series and counting. There is also several spin off series too that I enjoy.

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