The third book in McCall Smith's No. 1 Ladies series, following The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency and Tears of the Giraffe. This used copy was purchased from Powells.com, and happily added to my TBR shelf.

The full series:

1. The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
   
2. Tears of the Giraffe
   
3. Morality for Beautiful Girls
   
4. The Kalahari Typing School for Men
   
5. The Full Cupboard of Life
   
6. In the Company of Cheerful Ladies
   
7. Blue Shoes and Happiness

At the end of Tears of the Giraffe, Precious Ramotswe is engaged to garage mechanic Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, who promptly adopts two orphan children to join their household. As Morality for Beautiful Girls begins they are still engaged (though not yet married), but all is not well with Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, who is -- it transpires -- suffering from depression. This provides an opportunity for Precious' assistant, Mma Makutsi, to try her hand at managing Speedy Motors while Mr. J.L.B. takes time off to recover (he is absent throughout most of the novel).

There are lots of storylines left hanging at the end of this installment of the No. 1 Ladies series: the state of Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni's health, the health of both his business and that of Mma Ramotswe, and the future of the Ramotswe/Matekoni household (though we anticipate nothing but happy endings on that front!). Most poignantly, a new character is introduced: Mma Makutsi's brother, who is ill with a mysterious illness his sister goes to great lengths to conceal.

(Photo: Botswana grandmother and child in 2001, courtesy ACM SIGGRAPH-Eurographics.)

I'm sending this to niana in Deventer, Netherlands, since it was on her wish list. Happy reading, and best wishes from New Westminster, British Columbia!

Wow... that was fast! This little book has literally flown across the Atlantic. Thanx so much, goatgrrl, for the pretty little pin & the book (that just landed on top of TBR-pile).

I'm taking this book with me on holiday to New Zealand, to be read & released there. Probably in an OBCZ, since I can't take a lot of books in my backpack (it's stuffed with campinggear) and a girl still has to read ;-) And since there are so many bookcrossing Kiwi's I guess we have a fair chance for a NZ-catch!

Wow... I'm actually able to make a proper journal entry! I started this book on the plane a week ago, got back to it yesterday after a wonderful week of travelling around the Northern Island (I've seen dolphins! And killer-whales! And walked on a real live working marine vulcano!), and I finally finished it this afternoon. We're having a lazy day in the house of lovely friends in Rotorua, and I just spend two hours lying on the bed reading, which was really nice with all those impressions swirling around in my head.

Back to business now: the book. Nice light reading, as always. Lovely characters, storylines going everywhere, sometimes to be seen again in odd places, taking unexpected turns. But there were a little too much odds&ends going nowhere to my taste. And even a few continuity-errors where an editor should have said something.
Well, I must not complain. I had fun reading, and now I feel totally relaxed, ready to go out there and have some more adventures. Thank you again for sharing this book, goatgrrl!

RELEASE NOTES:

'mystery spot' is just the crossing zone I was looking for ;-)

We're travelling from Rotorua to Wellington tomorrow (10th), to go to the South Island the next day. I plan to leave this book somewhere in Wellington (or maybe on the ferry), but I'm in total dark about locations (haven't read the Wellington entry in my travelguide yet).

But maybe...
If you are a Wellington-based bookcrosser, reading this release-note and would like to adopt this cute little book, just find us on the busstation tomorrow around half past four local time. I have reddish hair and I'm towing a battered grey-blue backpack, a small black one on wheels, and an even smaller babyblue one. (We had plans to go camping, so we're carrying TONS of not very useful baggage...)I'll probably be carrying The Penguin history of New Zealand as well, since it turns out I know next to nothing about this beautiful country's history. Working on it though! ;-)

Well, since I didn't meet any Wellington bookcrossers (and because of a lot of other reasons that are explained in the releasenotes for this book) we didn't get to see Wellington. This book ended up in Picton, in the swap-bookcase in a really nice hostel named The Villa. Happy travels!