One More Challenge.....

I know...I know...I said that I wouldn't join many challenges this year, and I have already signed up for more than I anticipated. However, when I read about this event on A Novel Challenge, I just knew that I had to make an exception.

I debated long and hard about joining the Thriller and Suspense challenge this year (hosted by Book Chick City), but I knew I would have to commit to reading 12 novels and that would be quite a stretch for me at this time in my life. However, I also know that I enjoy Mystery/Thriller novels and would be reading several of the course of 2010 --- so there must be a challenge that I could join where these books would count toward some goal, right?

Well, never fear --- I found it - and the timing for this challenge is perfect as this weekend is the Mystery Read-athon. I am bound to accomplish at least one of the four requirements at that time, and that will leave me another 11 months to tackle the remaining three. It seems quite doable, doesn't it?

The Mystery Reader Cafe Challenge is hosted by the Yahoo Group, Mystery Reader Cafe, and you have to be a member of the group to join (I am already a member of several yahoo groups, so this was not at all a problem - and I look forward to the online discussions of this group of like-minded readers). The requirements of the challenge are simple:

1. Read a book by an author whose last name begins with "B"
2. Read a mystery in a different country other than your own
3. Read a mystery originally published in 2010
4. Read the first mystery in a series

Now I will show why I HAD to join!

1. I have already planned to read a mystery by M. C. Beaton
2. Her Agatha Raisin mysteries take place in England (a long way from Kansas)
3. I plan to read Thereby Hangs a Tail by Spencer Quinn just as soon as I can get my hands on it
4. I have already planned to read the first Miss Marple mystery, Murder at the Vicarage, sometime this semester

So you see, it was inevitable - it was fate - it was providence - it was meant to be that I join this challenge. I really had no choice now, did I?!