N is for The Nature of the Beast by Louise Penny

is for The Nature of the Beast.

For this year's A to Z I'm featuring books I've read based on the Reading Challenge.

Today's book is a mystery or thriller: The Nature of the Beast by Louise Penny.

Except that this isn't a book I've read, it's a book I'm eagerly anticipating!

The last time I mentioned Louise Penny's series of mysteries featuring Inspector Gamache, I noted that I'd "been lost in the village of Three Pines created by Louise Penny, reading about Inspector Armand Gamache, his team, and the inhabitants of that village. The food! The drinks! The depth of character -- one of those books where the setting is just as much a character as the people. The Eastern Townships region of Quebec (and Quebec City) comes alive, in all four seasons. I've already ordered the last four books in the series and am haunting our mailbox."

The reading order of the books, bottom up, is:

Now I've read all of them and am looking forward to the next book, due out in August:

No cover art yet!

To whet our appetites, there's a new series of inspirations for the settings of the books called the Real Places of Three Pines. Here's a list of the places that will be featured, the book they're from, and the date the inspiration will be posted:

"April 6: Still Life/Arts Williamsburg
April 20: A Fatal Grace/Hadley House
May 4: The Cruelest Month/boulangerie
May 18: A Rule Against Murder/Manoir Bellechasse
June 1: The Brutal Telling/general store
June 15: Bury Your Dead/Literary and Historical Society
June 29: A Trick of the Light/Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal
July 13: The Beautiful Mystery/Monastery of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups
July 27: How the Light Gets In/Champlain Bridge
August 10: The Long Way Home/Baie-Saint-Paul
August 25: The Nature of the Beast is published!
August 31: The Nature of the Beast (TBA)"

Meanwhile, ROW80, a brief update: Nothing doing! I've been very busy at work, to the point of bringing work home. Hoping for more time next week!

Do you enjoy visiting the settings of your favourite books (if possible)
or prefer to keep them in your imagination?