The Crown Companion Volume 2; The Other Windsor Girl; Darkly Dreaming Dexter; Dearly Devoted Dexter

I was disappointed by the second volume of the companion to the Netflix series "The Crown" (much like season 3...ugh). The first volume was lovely: beautiful full color photographs and clear descriptions of each episode of season 1 and which parts of the story were myth and which were real. This volume, which covered seasons 2 and 3, felt very rushed and haphazard. Hardly any photos, and most were black and white. The recaps of each episode weren't nearly as concise as in the first volume, either. 

I checked Georgie Blalock's "The Other Windsor Girl" out on a whim, and was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed it. The book starts in 1949 with Vera Strathmore, dreaming of writing "real" fiction one day instead of the romance novels she churns out under the pen name of Lavish. Vera's fiance died in the war, and she's saving her money to go to New York and leave drab, decaying Britain behind. Her cousin introduces her to Princess Margaret one evening, and the Princess takes a liking to the unconventional Vera, who quickly becomes one of her "set". Vera is caught up in the whirlwind that is Princess Margaret: drinking and dancing all hours of the night, meeting all the best people. When the Queen asks Vera to be Margaret's second lady in waiting, Vera has a tough decision to make. It will mean giving up her own hopes and dreams to be available for Margaret 24/7. It was a fun book, a quick read, and despite some questionable slang (at one point Margaret uses the word "crap", which just struck me as absurd, especially in the 1950s) it was entertaining.

Sigh. So I happened upon Dexter reruns on Showtime the other day, and started rewatching them. Which led to me picking up the first Dexter book, "Darkly Dreaming Dexter", and rereading it. Despite the fact that I have a million library books checked out with due dates, and a million more books I own that I haven't read yet. Oh well. I know better than to fight it.
We meet Dexter, a serial killer who works as a blood spatter analyst for the Miami Homicide department. His foster sister, Deb, is a cop who is looking to make detective. When a series of hookers are murdered and drained of their blood, Deb begs Dexter for help catching the killer. The show dubbed him the Ice Truck Killer and had poor Deb actually date and get engaged to him, but in the book he's just Brian, Dexter's homicidal older brother. On the show Dexter killed him to save Deb, but in the book he let him run to show up and pester Dexter another day.

And then, once again ignoring all the library books, I reread the second Dexter book (I checked the third one out this morning from the library, since I only own the first two, so clearly we can see where this is headed...). Dexter accidentally becomes engaged to Rita. Doakes is following him night and day, making it very difficult for Dexter to cut people up. There is a killer on the loose who is cutting appendages off of people but leaving them alive and basically insane from the torture. Kyle shows up from Washington to handle the situation, and tells Dexter the killer's name is Dr. Danco, and he was involved with some shady stuff back in the day. So was Doakes. Deb and Kyle start a relationship, and then Dr. Danko kidnaps Kyle, so Deb turns to trusty Dexter to save him from a terrible fate.

Voyager

Diana Gabaldon's third Outlander book, "Voyager", was pretty good (so glad the Jacobite rebellion stuff is over and done with--I don't know why it bored me so much). Roger Wakefield helps Claire track Jamie's whereabouts after Culloden. There's a possibility that Claire could go through the stones again and find him. It would mean leaving their daughter, Brianna, behind in 1968, but Claire has to take that chance. She does make the trip back in time to the 1760s successfully, and even finds Jamie with very little effort. But of course that's where the easy part ends. For many reasons, the Frasers are again forced to flee Scotland, this time bound for the West Indies. It was very exciting, and a lot of it takes place on the sea, and since I started sailing last year I actually understand what all the nautical terms mean, so that was nice.

Twisted Twenty-Six

Janet Evanovich's latest Stephanie Plum was actually pretty good. Grandma Mazur is recently widowed after her husband of 45 minutes, Jimmy, dropped dead. Jimmy's previous wives, sisters, and kids are all enraged at the thought of Grandma inheriting Jimmy's fortune. And because Jimmy was in the mob, his fellow mobsters think Jimmy gave Grandma the "keys". No one will say what the keys unlock or what they look like, but everyone assumes Grandma has them, so half of New Jersey is after her. Stephanie is burnt out on her job, but she actually seems to be improving, which is a relief, honestly. I sometimes feel like the series get a little ridiculous: I mean, after working for how long at this and she *still* can't get it right? Evanovich poked a little fun at how old Stephanie would be now if she had aged her along (the first book was published 25 years ago!). It looks like the next book is breaking away from the numbering naming convention, which is interesting.

Sam Houston and the Alamo Avengers

I enjoyed this short but exciting book by Brian Kilmeade. We all know the ultimate outcome of the Alamo, but how the brave defenders were avenged was something I wasn't familiar with.
Mexican General Santa Anna brutally refused to give quarter and take prisoners, executing everyone at the Alamo and later, Goliad, despite them surrendering. The Texas Army rallied behind Sam Houston and his rousing battle cry of "Remember the Alamo!" and ended up crushing the much bigger Mexican Army at San Jacinto. Santa Anna was captured and the Republic of Texas was recognized as an independent country.

Janis

I was looking forward to this biography about Janis Joplin. The majority of the book was really good: Holly George-Warren meticulously researched and recounted Janis's early days in Port Arthur, Texas: her family life, her high school and friends, and then moved on to talk about San Francisco and the start of her time singing with Big Brother and the Holding Company. But the last bit of the book felt really thin: she got to the last two years of Janis's life and then basically sketched them out without much substance. I don't know if she thought that the stories of Janis's success and sudden early death had been told so many times already they weren't worth repeating, but it was a little disappointing, since the book had been so good up to that point. I still enjoyed it, I just wish the ending wouldn't have felt so rushed.

Dragonfly in Amber

Book two of the "Outlander" series starts 20 years after "Outlander" ended--it's 1968, and Claire is in Scotland with her daughter, Brianna, to finally tell her the truth: Frank Randall was not her biological father, Jamie Fraser was. After telling Brianna, the story flashes back to 1744, and Claire and Jamie are in France, trying to stop Bonnie Prince Charlie's planned 1745 rebellion that wipes out the Highland Clans. Their plans are thwarted, though, and they return to Scotland to see what they can do to help the Highlanders win the battle. In the end, Claire returns through the stones to her own time, two years after she disappeared, and pregnant. I enjoyed most of it, but I'm glad the Jacobite rebellion bit is (hopefully) over in the third book, that part didn't interest me very much (I know it should, but it didn't).