In Which I Light the Night

Storms came pounding through the area last night. No thunder and lightning, just lots of lovely rain.

I was all cozy in bed listening to the rain and reading Baltimore Blues by Laura Lippman. This is the first in a mystery series starring unemployed journalist Tess Monaghan. Tess lives in an apartment over the bookstore owned by her Aunt Kitty; she is fit from sculling on the Patapsco River and running; and she tries to make ends meet by working part time in the bookstore and doing some clerking work for an uncle who has a state job.

Things pick up for her when her best friend and fellow rower, Rock, is accused of murdering a high-profile lawyer who just happens to be having an affair with Rock's fiancée. So Tess is digging around trying to find proof of her friend's innocence.

I can't say that I am very committed to the characters, but it is an easy bedtime read and it is the first in a series so I will give it time.

Anyway, in the middle of chapter ten, there was a huge BOOM and the lights went out. It took me a second or two to figure out what had happened because I am reading the book on my Kindle Fire and of course it stayed lit. The rest of the house was pitch black. 

So I have found another use for the Kindle besides holding books. It makes a great flashlight! I climbed out of bed and held the lighted ebook in front of me as I padded to the front of the house to see that, yes, the entire neighborhood had gone dark. 

I trundled back to bed and continued reading for a while. I know that a book can light up one's imagination, but I had no idea that I could use one to light up the room in a power outage. I am glad to know that I am surely getting my money's worth from my Kindle - in more ways than one.