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Tag Archives: Zoom

Just Desserts – February 2021 – The thriller series of Melinda Leigh

During the February 25th, 2021 meeting of the Just Desserts mystery fiction discussion group on Zoom, the assigned reading topic was the five different thriller series by author Melinda Leigh. Each participating group member was to have read ANY novel in ANY of the five series, and everyone was then given an opportunity to share their thoughts and opinions on whatever they had read.


Here’s the list of thrillers written by Melinda Leigh, discussed by Just Desserts members in February 2021:

See the Melinda Leigh Thrillers handout for all the books in all five series!

If you didn’t have a chance to join us for the February online meeting, but have read one or more Melinda Leigh novels, we’d love to know which ones you’ve read, and what you thought. Share your opinion as a comment on this post!

Join us for our March 2021 meeting on Zoom on 3/25/2021 at 6:30 p.m., when we’ll discuss Anthony Horowitz’ Magpie Murders!

Just Desserts: Join the discussion of Liane Moriarty’s “Nine Perfect Strangers”

The Just Desserts mystery fiction discussion group met online using Zoom meeting software, on October 1st, 2020, due to the libraries suspending all public meetings (starting March 20th) as a safety precaution during the Coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic. Attendees discussed Nine Perfect Strangers, a stand-alone suspense novel by Australian author Liane Moriarty. If you read this book, and would like to contribute your comments about it, please do so as a reply comment to this blog post, below.

For additional reminders about upcoming Just Desserts meetings (once they resume) and/or other announcements of interest to mystery fans, don’t forget to sign up for the Just Desserts e-mail list. Or, once in-person meetings are possible again, if you’re logged into your account on Facebook, you can visit the Events page for the Lincoln City Libraries, and mark whether or not you plan to attend upcoming sessions of Just Desserts – this is a great way for you to help us promote this engaging discussion group!

So…What did you think of Liane Moriarty’s Nine Perfect Strangers?

We hope to return to public meetings, including Just Desserts, by next Spring, although watch the libraries’ website and social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) for the latest updates! In the meantime, we hope Just Desserters will join us on Zoom on October 29th, for our final meeting of 2020 — a discussion of the body of works of classic suspense author Patricia Highsmith.

Just Desserts: Join the discussion of Robert Harris’ “The Second Sleep”

The Just Desserts mystery fiction discussion group met online using Zoom meeting software, on June 25th, 2020, due to the libraries suspending all public meetings (starting March 20th) as a safety precaution during the Coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic. Attendees discussed The Second Sleep, a stand-alone mystery/suspense novel by Robert Harris. If you read this book, and would like to contribute your comments about it, please do so as a reply comment to this blog post, below.

For additional reminders about upcoming Just Desserts meetings (once they resume) and/or other announcements of interest to mystery fans, don’t forget to sign up for the Just Desserts e-mail list. Or, once in-person meetings are possible again, if you’re logged into your account on Facebook, you can visit the Events page for the Lincoln City Libraries, and mark whether or not you plan to attend upcoming sessions of Just Desserts – this is a great way for you to help us promote this engaging discussion group!

So…What did you think of Robert Harris’ The Second Sleep?

We hope to return to public meetings, including Just Desserts, by this Fall, although watch the libraries’ website and social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) for the latest updates!

Just Desserts: Series Share and Reading Recommendations from group members in May 2020

Hey, mystery fans! Looking for something good to read?

At the May 2020 Just Desserts meeting that took place online using Zoom meeting software, 9 members participated in our annual “Series Share” discussion, in which attendees were encouraged to read the first or second volume in a new series that’s started within the past few years, and share their thoughts in a “round-robin” format. Here’s a list of the novels/series that were mentioned by group members. We asked all attendees to also give a “Thumbs Up” or “Thumbs Down” for whatever series they sampled – all participants this month gave a “Thumbs Up” to whatever they read – some more strongly than others:

  • The Jimm Juree series by Colin Cotterill, starting with Killed at the Whim of a Hat (as an audiobook)
  • The Coffeehouse Mystery series by Cleo Coyle (a.k.a. Alice Alfonsi & Marc Cerasini), starting with On What Grounds (as an audiobook)
  • The Jack McEvoy mystery series by Michael Connelly, starting with The Poet (she actually read both The Poet and The Scarecrow)
  • The Maeve Kerrigan series by Jane Casey, starting with The Burning
  • One of us wanted to sample the Wayward Pines mystery series by Blake Crouch, but was unable to get them due to the library closure
  • The Evelyn Talbot mystery series by Brenda Novak, starting with Her Darkest Nightmare
  • The D.C. Belsey series by Oliver Harris, starting with The Hollow Man
  • The Atlee Pine mystery series by David Baldacci, starting with Long Road to Mercy
  • The Alaska Wild series by Paige Shelton, starting with Thin Ice
  • The Timber Creek K9 series by Margaret Mizushima, starting with Killing Trail

Following the “Series Share” portion of the meeting, we held our monthly round robin in which all 9 attendees were able to share recommendations of what other books they’ve been reading recently.

Here’s the list of mystery, thriller and suspense books recommended by Just Desserts members in May 2020:

  • Unholy Writ, in the Mark Treasure series by David Williams
  • Various books in the V.I. Warshawski series by Sara Paretsky – past author selection for Just Desserts
  • Various books in the Atlee Pine series by David Baldacci on audio – past author selection for Just Desserts
  • Various books in the Will Robie series by David Baldacci – past author selection for Just Desserts
  • Various books in the Dylan Reinhart series by James Patterson and Howard Roughan – past author selection for Just Desserts
  • Various books in the Alex Cross series by James Patterson – past author selection for Just Desserts
  • Splinter the Silence and Insidious Intent by Val McDermid – past author selection for Just Desserts
  • The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
  • The Heat of the Sun DVD series
  • The Hamish Macbeth DVD series
  • The White Bones by Ridley Pearson – past author selection for Just Desserts
  • The Cat Who series by Lillian Jackson Braun on audio – past author selection for Just Desserts
  • The Troubleshooter series by Suzanne Brockmann on audio
  • The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie – past author selection for Just Desserts
  • A few group members were unable to attend the Zoom meeting, but shared recent reads via e-mail:
  • Friends in High Places by Donna Leon (I’ve read all the books in her Commissario Brunetti series, and this is one of the ones I really like, so I listened to it in Overdrive. I like the plotting with a twist at the end, and the doggedness of this police procedural. It’s interesting to listen to a book you’ve read, to catch all the different nuances.) – past author selection for Just Desserts
  • Morse’s Greatest Mysteries by Colin Dexter (I’m more of a Morse/Lewis/Endeavour TV series fan rather than a book fan, having read a couple of Dexter’s Morse novels and not liking them so much. I thought I would listen to the short stories to see if I would like his style better in small doses. The book was acceptable, and laid out some good examples of the grumpy Morse, so I would recommend it for a newbie, but I wouldn’t read it again since it was just so-so. Again, I listened in Overdrive.)
  • Shake Hands Forever by Ruth Rendell (I’ve read her Inspector Wexford series and liked them, but I hadn’t read this one. It was available in Overdrive, and I liked it, though there was a deadline before the suspect left the country, and Inspector Wexford was hampered at every turn, including being taken off the case. You knew there would be an 11th hour save, but you didn’t know how it was going to happen. Even so, the coincidence with another case was a little unbelievable, so I would rate this as a good read/listen, but not my favorite of her series.) – past author selection for Just Desserts
  • Hid From Our Eyes by Julia Spenser-Fleming. (Two of my thumbs up! After a six year hiatus, the return of Rev. Claire Ferguson and Police Chief Russ Van Alstyne, wife and husband mysteries. The author returned to school to earn degrees in Law and Theology. In 2017 her husband died of cancer and her mother died. The mysteries set in the small community of Millers Kill remind me of Louise Penny when the genre rises above a good story to the depths of tragedy.)
  • Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler. (The first Bryant and May Peculiar Crimes Unit mystery begins in the present with flashbacks to 1940 and the beginning of the friendship. Two thumbs up! Fowler is a master of characterization. He makes me laugh at foibles and ponder the injustices. Thank you, Scott, for introducing me to the series. I would never have picked it up on my own.) – past author selection for Just Desserts
  • I enjoyed The Other Mrs. by Mary Kubica and The Big Lie by James Grippando – Grippando was a past author selection for Just Desserts

And here were some non-mystery titles some group members also recommended in May 2020:

What mysteries have you been reading lately that you’d recommend?