(psst I love you all and your grumbles)
Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
For the next 6 and a half days, Zulily is having a Buy One, Give One event for Random House books, under $9.99. If you've got kids to buy gifts for, check it out!
I used to have a Barnes and Noble membership, when they had a store a couple of blocks from my office. The store closed (as so many are) and I dropped the membership ... for one thing, when I tried to order online, they refused to take my credit card - said that the address I had registered didn't match the billing address for my card.
Years pass and - since it takes about 45 minutes to get to an actual store and I do stop in about once a month - I got a new membership. Today I decided to try to order something online ... which was the single most frustrating experience I've had for a long time. I had to reopen the account (which was automatically set up when I got my previous membership), reset the passsword and log in ... and never got it to recognize the membership. I tried to contact them by email ... but never got past the sign in page - signed in repeatedly and it kept staying on the sign in page.
Called customer service and, after hearing a repeated message that they didn't show any orders coming from the phone I was using and a long-ish wait, got to an actual human ... who seemed to only say that the website was fine, the system was fine, so what was my problem.
Maddening.
I gave up my B&N membership for good when they charged me three times in one year for the membership fee. Getting it refunded over and over was too much effort.
Request for recommendations: I'm not usually a huge mystery person but have recently gotten into a few series and figured I'd see if y'all could recommend any similar ones. I enjoyed the Lady Darby series by Anna Lee Huber, and the Lady Emily series by Tasha Alexander. And there's some other series I've forgotten that is similar. Not saying I need historical aristocratic heroine, but I enjoy that (a) it's not all serial killer all the time, and not super creepy or graphic, and (b)there's the element of no you shouldn't be working on this mystery (which aristocrat historic female part fulfills)
Any recommendations?
Did you read the Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters? Good stuff.
Kate Ross' regency historical mysteries are lovely, although the hero is male. Unfortunately there are only four of them because she died. (Edit: I should totally reread those. It's been an age.)
Not mystery, but if you haven't read Joanna Bourne's historical spy novels they are excellent.
Brother Cadfael? Miss Silver?
Couldn't get into Brother Cadfael, but will check the others out...
An Unsuitable Job for a Woman?