2021 book 237

 Margaret Rogerson's Vespertine

I don’t really feel like trying to explain the plot here, as it’s tied to the (very interesting and cool) world-building, so I’ll just say it’s mainly about a girl who wants to be a nun in this fantasy religion, but then she gets possessed by one of the most powerful spirits, except he’s chill and wants to help her save the day from bad magic! It’s like Penric and Desdemona (yay!), but not really funny. Except this makes everyone believe she’s a saint, and she’s bad at dealing with people and does not WANT to be a saint. Eventually she begrudgingly (and adorably) makes friends and allies and they fight the bad magic etc. There are hints of a burgeoning romance for later books. This was hella fun, I’m psyched to see what she and her spirit get up to next. A-.

2021 book 236

 Darcie Little Badger's A Snake Falls to Earth

It wasn’t planned to spend thanksgiving weekend reading a book by an indigenous author (I actually assumed I’d have finished this before thanksgiving, but I just didn’t do a ton of reading this past week), but now I feel like I should have planned that and will do that going forward. ANYWAY this was another awesome book by Little Badger, about young Nina, a Lipan Apache girl growing up in the semi-near future, interested in storytelling, and specifically in understanding the stories of animal people told by her great-grandmother; and Oli, one of the aforementioned animal people, a young snake setting out to try and be independent (I was very wussy about this book and kept putting it down as Oli got into scrapes—he loses the blanket his mother gave him!!—but a review assured me he soon makes friends and has more /fun/ scrapes, so I got back into it). Eventually these two characters intersect and then things start to get really good, as they all try to save a friend and a home. Y’all, this was so good and hopeful even as it deals with the ravages of climate change and creepy people hunting animal people. I loved this. A.

2021 book 235

 C.L. Polk's Witchmark

I tried to read this when it first came out, but I have realllllly limited patience for steampunk (no one cares about your gas lamps and your aether!) and couldn’t get into it. But I liked Polk's most recent book a lot, and decided to go back and give this series a shot. And it was mostly really fun, except for the grim parts! The main character is a doctor, returned from the war (it’s basically a fantastical version of historical England) working with veterans, hiding from his past, hiding his MAGIC, etc, and then he’s thrust into a murder investigation with a cute guy who can see his magic, etc. I thought the world building here was really interesting—cool stuff with gender, interesting magic, took some turns I didn’t expect. Things do end on a bit of a cliffhanger and I do think I’m interested enough to read it. B+.

2021 book 234

 Laura Lam's Goldilocks 

So this starts off really strong, about a young woman in the near future, part of a team of five women WHO HAVE FREAKING STOLEN A SPACESHIP FROM NASA! See, they were supposed to be the crew of the ship heading to a habitable planet (because Earth is a mess), but then politics and misogyny came into play and they were replaced. But no one is taking their spaceship to space except them! This is interspersed with flashbacks to the protagonist's younger days, early career, her relationship with her adoptive mother (also the captain of their mission). Things bog down a little in the back half as there's a little too much focus on her love life, and then they find out the captain is being shady in ways that are completely ridiculous and unbelievable. So it didn’t end up being the story I thought it was, and it wasn’t really a satisfying conclusion. On the plus side, two of the lady astronauts are a married couple and one is a POC (maybe more? I sort of lost track of things a little bit, there are so many planets and corporations that all have names that are last names and all of the astronauts go by last names). Anyway, this was fine, I just was expecting something else. B.

2021 book 233

 Phyllis Ann Karr's Frostflower and Thorn

I had read another book by this author that fell into the quiet fantasy sort of category, and I was hoping for more of the same here. We start with grumpy, rude, crude warrior Thorn, pregnant and trying to afford an abortion, when she encounters sorceress Frostflower, who offers to speed-grow the fetus and adopt the child, as sorcerers must be virgins to access their power and this is her only way to have a child. So here I am hoping for an odd couple sort of story where they road trip around and have adventures in babysitting, except they keep bringing up that whole virgin thing and soon the entire book is just suffused with dread. And it’s a slow paced book so the dread is just always THERE. Content warning for rape and torture by a dude who is creepily gentle about it all bc of his creepy religion, and when I tell you I spent the rest of the book praying for him to die painfully…. I don’t know why I kept reading except to ensure they got away from him. And also there’s a sequel which I am hoping doesn’t involve any rapey farmer priests. B-.

2021 book 232

 Patrice Kindl's A School for Brides

After reading Keeping the Castle, I of course has to dive right into the sequel, which finds one of the stepsisters from the previous book running a finishing school. This one has a little more going on in terms of getting several more couples together, plus a jewel thief, several other shady characters, a giant dog, and a couple of babies, so it isn’t as tight a story. Still a fun and charming read.

2021 book 231

 Patrice Kindl's Keeping the Castle

My book club is split between Jane Austen lovers and ppl with no interest in Jane Austen, so I thought I’d try and split the difference with a slyly funny but cute take on a Regency romance. Our protagonist is a very pretty young girl who knows she must marry for money, to maintain their family's crumbling castle for her baby brother. So when a new young lord comes to town, she’s ready! But of course in a comedic novel things are never that simple, especially with step-sisters, cousins, and new friends in the mix. Not to mention a PUPPY. This book is just a lot of fun.

2021 book 230

 Connie Willis' Bellwether

Willis is kind of hit or miss for me (though her hits are big hits!), so when I saw someone mention this as a fun light book I decided to check it out. It’s sort of a corporate satire, about a social scientist studying trends who encounters a chaos theorist at work. It does have a sort of archly amusing vibe, but there is an undertone of crotchety “kids these days” that didn’t really work with a thirty year old protagonist (she is weirdly mad about anti smoking initiatives?? Like public health concerns aren’t a fad! And she brings this up a LOT). This was written in the mid 90s so is hilariously dated at times. I enjoyed reading this, it was like a workplace screwball comedy, but it didn’t one hundred percent work for me. B+.

2021 book 229

 Laurie Marks' Air Logic

Woof, this ending to this series is a stunner, like bad things happen in this book but this whole series has that sort of optimism I like in my fantasy worlds. Rebuilding a society, slowly changing hearts and minds, the occasional magical storm helping things along, unusual magical children trying to save the day….I love everything about this.

2021 book 228

 Laurie Marks' Water Logic

These books are kind of weird and philosophical, but somehow still really engrossing? This one adds magical time travel to the mix and makes it work. The characters and their struggle to figure out how to rebuild their society are both compelling.

2021 book 227

 Laurie Marks' Earth Logic

It’s hard to to a plot summary of a book like this, because on the one hand there is SO much going on, and on the other, nothing much really happens? Lol. Anyway, our core group has officially formed a family, but the pressures on them to fix the world might be threatening their unit. We also have a couple new pov characters from the other side of things. Can they work together to find a peaceful solution? Will this book make you hungry because one of the new characters is a cook? I can at least answer that, and the answer is yes.

2021 book 226

 Laurie Marks' Fire Logic

I had started a couple new books and couldn't get into them, and I'd been wanting to reread this series, so there we go. Strong start for sure--compelling characters (pretty much all are gay), found family elements, a world at war, interesting magic/divination stuff. Parts of it are a little dark (references to rape and torture, plus all the war stuff), and there is a section where a character tries to get off of a strong and fatal drug. But it ends on an optimistic note that has me eager to keep going.

2021 book 225

 Cherie Priest's Grave Reservations

So this is your fairly typical paranormal/fantasy mystery, wherein a cop whose life was saved by a psychic travel agent enlists her help in solving a cold case, and she agrees, hoping he'll in turn help her solve her own cold case/tragic past. Funny/quippy writing, fine characters, the mystery itself is okayyyyy, but I could not get past my suspension of disbelief! Not that she was a psychic, or even that she was a millennial travel agent, but that a cop would do . . . any of this. I did like her whole psychic karaoke thing (but found the descriptions of the gay bar owner to be off-putting). Looks like this is the start of a series; I might read another one if I was in the right mood. B/B+.