Welcome to March!

I am travelling this week for work, so there may be delays in responses to e-mails. I’m also writing this on the eve of 10 days of travel, so let’s dive right in, as I still have to pack!

And, even more importantly, I still have to decide which audiobook to listen to while I pack.

After reading His & Hers by Alice Feeney, I was able to get Daisy Darker by her from the library to listen to. This one sounded right up my alley – essentially a locked room thriller on an island.

I found it quite slow and was ready to give up on it for the first 20%, but the story picked up. It had a big twist that was just not my cup of tea, unfortunately. I did think the author did a good job leading up to the twist, and I think it’s one where you could re-read it and gain a deeper appreciation for the twist, but it took me out of the book.

I listened to Don’t Look For Me by Wendy Walker. This is a psychological thriller about a woman who goes missing – and they don’t know if she just walked off, or if she was kidnapped.

This was superb – from the story to the narration – and highly recommended. I just randomly chose that one too and had never listened to or read anything by Wendy before – but I’ll be going through the rest of her thrillers promptly.

For the Book Notification podcast, I read When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead, a Newbery Medal winner aimed at middle graders. I really didn’t enjoy this book. I felt it tried to do too much at once, had an unreliable narrator, and was just all over the place.

I’m judging it from both a middle-grader and an adult perspective. It used a jumping timeline, but it wasn’t clear which chapter corresponded to which timeline, so I struggled to keep up. And I feel that if I’m struggling, it’s going to be an extra chore for middle-graders.

The host of the podcast, Care, loved it, which was nice to hear. Made for a great podcast with different opinions and solid discussion.

I finished Misery by Stephen King. I enjoyed it a lot overall, and it ended very well. However, one of those rare cases where I’d rate the movie higher than the book.

I’ve been rewatching Shrinking on Apple TV, and the Murderbot series keeps popping up on there. I decided to give the first one a try, All Systems Red, and wow – this was GOOD. I thoroughly enjoyed it and will be binging the rest of the series. If you haven’t read this series yet, give it a try. Some great work by Martha Wells.

I then read The Bittlemores by Jann Arden. This one was for the Book Notification Podcast as well, and the episode should be dropping tonight or tomorrow.

Oh wow – was the description of this misleading. You might see opening descriptions like “comic” and “humour” and expect some amusing farmhouse romp. I had seen those keywords but otherwise went in blind – and almost DNF’d this book about 6 or 7 times.

The amount of animal cruelty in the opening 20% of this is brutal. I won’t describe it here because I am pretty sure it would result in hate mail, but it really bothered me, and I was ready to stop multiple times.

Funny thing is, I persevered and ended up LOVING the book. It just kept getting better, and I rated it 8/10. A few continuity flaws, a bit too much plot contrivance, and, of course, pages and pages of brutal animal cruelty knocked it down a bit. But if you can get past that – highly recommended!

I listened to the novella Blonde Hair, Blue Eyes by Karin Slaughter. It’s about a missing girl, which reminds a college newspaper reporter of herself, and she decides to dig deeper into it. I didn’t realize, but this actually leads into the book Pretty Girls.

It started off well, but I felt it lost its focus before a rather abrupt ending. Not one I’d recommend, personally.

I absolutely loved last month’s mailbag about whether you lend your books out to people. One e-mail stood out to me; he didn’t win the random drawing, but I am sending $25 his way anyway.

Butch: Used to. Never again. Back in the 60’s I loaned a very special book “to a pregnant friend” of mine. A really cool book re baby’s experiences while in mommy’s body…never got back, she said I never loaned to her. Started putting on my nameplates. Another time a friend said a book I loaned her belonged to her. Showed her the nameplate inside with my name on it. She took marker, crossed out my name, said was hers now. I repeat, NEVER AGAIN!

It’s the anger in that e-mail that I love. And the absurdity of someone doing that. I have thought about that e-mail a lot this past month, and it has me laughing every time.

That’s about it for me.

As always, if you want:

  • 20x the authors as OrderOfBooks
  • Get notified of new books by your favourite authors
  • A Personalized Book Release Calendar
  • Track Your Reads and TBR
  • Printable book lists
  • And much much more….
  • …then check out our sister site Book Notification

Each month, we give away 5 $25 Amazon gift certificates to random subscribers.

To win, all you have to do is be a subscriber. Nothing more! When we click “Publish,” we take a list of all our subscribers, put them into a random draw, and those are the winners.

Our winners this month are:

Sharon from Minneapolis, MN (email begins with fromgr)
Tom J. from Oxford, England
David D. from Dennis, MA
Paul E. D. from Leesburg, VA
Nancy G. from Mount Vernon, WA

All of you have been e-mailed. If you don’t see anything, check your junk folder or contact me.

So it goes.

Graeme

OrderOfBooks.com

Book Recommendations

In this section, I give 3-5 random book recommendations from readers of the newsletter. They can be old books, they can be new. Feel free to e-mail suggestions to me. Just hit reply. If you wish to add a description for the book around the same size as the ones below that’d be great too! 

Detective Dan Riley Series by Anna-Lou Weatherley: This one was recommended by John, who said he has read all of them and really enjoyed them.

The first book is Black Heart, and 9 books have been released so far. It follows DCI Dan Riley and his team as they investigate dark, modern crimes in and around London, where ordinary lives and relationships can hide deadly secrets.

The books move fast and deliver twisty, surprise-ending plots. Weatherly has been praised for her Christie-like construction and a protagonist you will immediately get invested in.

William Warwick Series by Jeffrey Archer: We’ve recommended the Clifton Chronicles in here before, but I don’t recall ever recommending the Detective William Warwick series – until now.

Barbara wrote in to recommend it. Here’s what she wrote:

“I just finished the 8 book William Warwick series by Jeffrey Archer. This is a spinoff of his other series called the Clifton Chronicles. I’m the type of person that needs to read one book continuously after the other. I absolutely enjoyed both of these series as I get involved in the characters lives. I absolutely wizzed through the second series.. William Warwick is a detective so the series contains crime, courtroom drama in the art world. Both are binge worthy during the cold winter months.”

Death In The Cards by Mia P. Manansala: What looks to be the first book in the Dizon Detective Agency series – and an Agatha Award nominated novel by the author of Tita Rosie’s Kitchen Mystery.

A different Barbara wrote in with this recommendation.

“I am a professional Tarot reader and when I read books about Tarot readers I usually cringe. The readings are so wrong. There is a lot of leeway in a card interpretation, but they still make it very cringe Not this time, the readings are very sound. This is a YA murder mystery among high school students, so it gets a little Teen angsty, but it is not a bad read. I would recommend it. ”

Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky: This one is from Keith who wrote:

““Shroud” by Adrian Tchaikovsky, read by Sophie Aldred.  Humans believe they are alone in the universe, and it is ripe for exploitation.  A mining / colonization crew arrive at a distant gas giant with high gravity and a high-pressure / zero oxygen atmosphere that is so dense that its star’s light doesn’t reach the surface, but the planet is radiating intense radio signals.  This environment is hostile to human life and difficult for robotic probes to survive long enough to return useful data.  However, the crew soon discovers that there is abundant animal life on the planet, and some of it may be sentient.  The author created an intriguing world filled with an intelligence that perceives its environment and thinks very differently from us – basically, completely alien.  The reader gave an excellent performance, with distinct voices for multiple characters.  I loved this!  8.5/10”

The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner: Keith also wrote in to recommend this one. Here is what he says:

““The Shockwave Rider” by John Brunner, read by Stefan Rudnicki. Originally published (dead tree format) in 1975, Blackstone reissued this novel in 2020. It’s the story of a gifted orphan rescued from the foster care system and coerced into a government funded elite school / think tank. The school is dedicated to advanced research and behavioral modification, with the goal of producing “perfect”, intelligent, otherwise statistically average indentured workers with a broad range of skills”

“Unfortunately, the process includes erasing the students from all public databases and deleting all records (and memories) of their past – effectively creating people who don’t exist. Meanwhile, a post-apocalyptic U.S. is basically ruled by powerful corporations in collusion with a neo-socialist Federal Government / Military. Our hero cracks the seal on his identity and then makes his escape – living on the run and changing identities / occupations frequently to avoid recapture. Then he decides to apply his considerable talents to upend the whole system”

“Considering that this book was written over 50 years ago, Brunner was eerily prescient about computer hacking, politics and people’s behavior. I’m relieved that we haven’t suffered the disaster that destroyed the country and that I don’t have to live in the future that Brunner imagined. A great book from an author I admired when I was young. 8/10”

March Book Of The Month

The Dark Time by Nick Petrie: We have many Jack Reacher fans subscribed to this newsletter, and I always recommend that they read the Peter Ash series by Nick Petrie.

In all my years of recommending book series, no series receives a more positive response than this one.

The ninth book in the series, The Dark Time, is out this month, so you better believe this is going to be my book of the month.

If you haven’t yet – don’t sleep on this series. Check out the first book, The Drifter and enjoy the absolutely best series for Jack Reacher fans.

10 More Notable Books Releasing in March

Brought to you by BookNotification.com where you can get updated on all the upcoming books by your favourite authors with your own personalized calendar!

Pictures of the Month




Thanks to Carla for the first three, and Norma of the picture of the Wuhan Marriott Hotel Hankou.

Send in your own to site@orderofbooks.com or by replying!
Images, jokes, etc. We’ll take it all!

Your Thoughts!

Last month, I asked if you ever lend your physical books to friends/family. The answers are later in the newsletter.

This month I am asking:

How Many Books Do You Read In A Year?

I’m always surprised when I check my Book Notification list and see how many books I have read in a year.

Especially these last few years – it feels like half of these newsletters I open up by saying that it was a poor month for reading. But I still manage to get in, on average, 80 books per year for the last five years.

I can’t even fathom how many books I will read if I ever retire. I’m pretty sure I will be able to read all of them!

But I know that 80 books is nothing for some of you – but for others, it’s a crazy amount. Whether you read 5 books a year or 500 – we’re all readers, and that’s all that matters.

So what about you – how many books do you read in a year?

E-mail us your feedback to site@OrderOfBooks.com or just reply to this e-mail, and we’ll pick the best comments and feature it in next month’s newsletter. Five people will also randomly win a $25 gift certificate to Amazon.

Reader Mailbag!

Click here to read.

Book Notification
Order of Books » Newsletter » OrderOfBooks March 2026 Newsletter

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