Comments | plantgirl: random reading challenge

plantgirl

random reading challenge

Mar 02, 2014 20:26

I saw a challenge on Goodreads and it appeals to me. The challenge is called Read Around the USA. The goal is to read a book set in every state in the US.

I plan on doing a variant of the challenge. My goal is to read a mystery set in every state. I read so many mysteries I figure I've got to be a third of the way there, & I can pick away at this ( Read more... )

challenges, lists, mysteries, books

Comments 11

Hmmmm clashfan March 3 2014, 02:34:10 UTC

I helpfully submit that the Nevada Barr/Anna Pigeon books are primarily set on national parks--federal lands--and therefore not so many of them actually take place in their respective states ( ... )

Re: Hmmmm plantgirl March 3 2014, 04:58:14 UTC

Yeah, but the Nevada Barr mysteries give me Colorado, Georgia, Mississippi, Montana, and Texas. :)

What confuses me is I have read a very many books set in the SW, but none of them appear to have taken place in Nevada.

Re: Hmmmm plantgirl March 3 2014, 05:09:45 UTC

I am also fairly certain that at some point I read a mystery that took place in Alaska, but I have no idea what it was. I wish I'd started keeping records of what I read long before I started keeping records.

Re: Hmmmm plantgirl March 3 2014, 05:08:02 UTC

Thanks for the leads! I added in first books for series that my library possesses.

joyce March 3 2014, 05:26:26 UTC

For Alabama, may I recommend the Southern sisters novels? They are just lovely.

plantgirl March 3 2014, 05:54:34 UTC

Oooh, and my library has them. Thanks!

labelleizzy March 9 2014, 21:05:31 UTC

An author for Nevada *might* be Zane Grey... Haven't read them since I was a kid though...

Nora Roberts _Northern_Lights_ was quite enjoyable and set in Alaska.

And the ex librarian part of my brain points out that here is where an old school Dewey decimal library catalog would come in handy, search "Alabama--Fiction", etc...

Minnesota, mini-review (& possibly Wisconsin) plantgirl July 6 2014, 15:44:55 UTC

For Minnesota I started w/ PJ Tracy, their Monkeewrench series, and promptly read 4 of them in rapid succession. They are sharply written, in a style I very much like, with complex, flawed, compelling characters. They also give a good feel for life in Minneapolis/St. Paul, and some of them venture into rural Wisconsin as well. Some of the plots are a bit much, but so far it's been within my tolerances. I will be reading the rest of them soon.

Montana, mini-reivew plantgirl July 6 2014, 16:02:16 UTC

While I have read books set in Montana, as Clashfan pointed out they take place entirely in Glacier National Park and don't really represent the state. Two weeks ago I picked up Karen Harper's Inferno. (I'd intended to read a different book/series by her, but this one fell into my hands.)

It was... adequate. It's set in a small town in Northern Montana, outside of Kalispell & met the criteria of giving a sense of remote mountainous Montana. Unfortunately it turned out to be romantic suspense, not mystery. This might have been fine. For example I adore Suzanne Brockmann, who specializes in romantic suspense. But I kept being irritated Inferno. I finally figured out that a) the author wasn't fusing her genres well. She wrote a suspense novel using language found in romance novels. And b) despite having a potentially strong female lead (widowed single mom, pilot and owner of a small business, outdoor-savvy), she kept having male characters wanting/needing to rescue female characters. Gah!

Re: Montana, mini-reivew plantgirl July 6 2014, 16:18:02 UTC

The author has a series of books set in Ohio that are on my list so I can check off Ohio. Looking at the author's website & good reads, yep, they are also romantic suspense rather than straight mystery. I can get through one of them, to try it, then I'll have to decide if it counts as a mystery set in Ohio. :/