Regularly Scheduled Programming

So I'm trying to get back into the "normal" swing of things, though I have to admit it's going to be a little weird for me until all the wedding stuff is over. I've been making huge progress with the planning (better be since the date is starting to loom dead ahead). We're doing cake tasting and catering tasting this week. I feel like I must be forgetting something, but obviously can't for the life of me figure out what it could be.

To top it off, it's created a sort of reading slump. I have a stack of abandoned titles on my bedside table (along with TBRs) that I swear I'm going to get back to at some point in the near future. My slumps are almost always due to mood and other outside forces, as is the case this time: By the time I can collapse with my book at night and try to get my brain to calm down, I'm literally passing out. I've been falling asleep with my books, too bad I can't absorb them through sleep osmosis (yes, I know that's water -- can't think of an alternate term right now, though) or something, only to be snapped out of it to turn of the lamp and drop the tomes sans bookmark and poke around for my place the next day when I start it all over again. Bad reading habits to get into!

Amazingly, though, a few books have slid by to finishing point. And I have some titles I've been meaning to post on since before the crazy wedding planning began.

My very first post family visit read last week was a super great one to start off with, I must admit.

Helen Grant's debut, The Vanishing of Katharina Linden, was originally released in the UK as a teen mystery, though it's being packaged as an adult novel here in the States. Personally it's great either way in my opinion. A wonderful mix of folklore and thrilling mystery, the story centers around a ten-year-old girl and her determination to solve a local missing kid case. Pia thought life was pretty ho hum until her grandmother spontaneously combusted at a family holiday dinner. Now Pia's the talk of town and the subject of some mean school kid taunting. When fellow student Katharina Linden disappears, Pia is convinced that unnatural forces may be behind it. Together with her friend Stefan, she welcomes the distraction and sets out to solve the case. As more children go missing, however, Pia's parents become increasingly worried and the townspeople start to take matters into their own hands.

I love Grant's style. Pia is a charming and smart lead, but she is a ten-year-old. The reader sees things, including the adults around her, through those eyes, which makes the book all that much more captivating. A real gem of a book and a fantastic mystery!

Grant's second teen release, The Glass Demon, is just out in the UK. No word yet on a US release.