Rae: The Westing Game

I finished The Westing Game this morning in bed. Ivan and I have an unofficial arrangement in the winter when it's so cold outside. I wake Bill up for school and Ivan takes him. So sometimes I can finish a book in bed. Believe me, after working full-time for so many years, I know what a luxury this is. I also know I have a good husband!

I enjoyed this fun little inheritance mystery very much. It had the flavor of an Agatha Christie. I read somewhere that Ellen Raskin wrote a mystery that pays homage to Sherlock Holmes. I might just have to try and find it. My love for mysteries came from reading Nancy Drew novels. I still remember the first ones that Mom gave me--as I recall she bought me three of them and gave them to me after she and Dad had been on vacation. I was so thrilled to have my OWN books. I would have been in fifth grade. They were just the best! I learned how to be prepared and independent from good old Nancy, Bess and George. Always keep extra food and emergency supplies in your vehicle!

I have read more than my share of romantic gothics, too. It used to just amaze me what the heroines would be willing to do...climb down creepy and dark stairwells, climb up into cobwebbed attics, go outside in a nightie looking for the ghostly apparitions...so funny but for some reason so satisfying in my teen years.

Lulu: You mention on your Goodread site how the Nancy Drew books have changed. Aren't they atrocious!?! I think the new ones came out about the same time as the Sweet Valley High books did and they were trying to compete. I've actually read three...just to see if they were all bad...as far as I know they are! Stick with the tried and true ones. I lived and breathed them for about five years straight. I can still visualize most of the covers! Wonderful stuff!

Happy reading!