Ursula K. LeGuin's The Tombs of Atuan
My last read of 2021! This is the one Earthsea book I’ve read before, though I disagree with my past assessment, and liked it much more this time. The protagonist is a young girl, taken from her family and raised to be the priestess of an old, dark religion, one that seems in danger of being usurped. I just found her journey much more compelling this time around, and liked Ged much more too. Some really beautiful writing in this one, A-.
Ursula K. LeGuin's A Wizard of Earthsea
I haven’t read much by LeGuin so have decided to rectify that! I actually have tried to read this one before, but the protagonist is such a brat for the first few chapters (I think “sullen” is the word used to describe him most) that I gave up on it. But I am reading this whole series so had to plow ahead, and he does get much better. The back half is kind of a slow psychological quest that I was personally not super into (catch the freaking shadow already!!), but I did like how it all wrapped up. All the main characters and good guys are people of color and all the baddies are white, very progressive for a book written in the 60s! Also, some good bro friendships. B+.
Lisa Lutz's The Accomplice
I’ll read anything Lutz writes, but this wasn’t my favorite of her books. It centers on a man and woman who have been best friends since college, and then his wife gets murdered and the police are looking into them. This is interspersed with flashbacks to their college days, when she’s hiding a big secret about her past, and there are hints that something bad is going to happen. One mystery resolves in a much more satisfying manner than the other (I mean, I can’t spoilt it, but COME ON), but the ending here is weirdly bleak. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, I was just not in the mood for bleak tonight. B.
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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on January 25th.
Fonda Lee's Jade Legacy
I came into this third volume pretty pessimistic about the fates of the main characters here, and wondering how on earth Lee would craft a satisfying conclusion. I will say she does the latter fairly well, but there are some BRUTAL parts along the way. It’s all still very exposition heavy but compelling characters make up for that. Pretty entertaining series, in all. B+.
Fonda Lee's Jade War
Lots of interesting character and plot developments in this second volume, though it was even more exposition-y than the first! There were so many lengthy descriptions of wars that their foreign allies were involved in and my eyes kept glazing over. That is balanced out with plenty of action scenes, nice character moments, and badass women. I'm definitely interested in seeing how Lee wraps this up. B+.
Fonda Lee's Jade City
This is an interesting start to a series, and I’m ready to dive into the next one for sure. It’s an Asian-influenced fantasy gangster sort of story, centered on the siblings of one of the country's powerful ruling crime families, as they deal with their plotting rivals and their own personal issues. I found all these characters compelling and the story definitely took some turns I wasn’t expecting. There are some interesting hints about pressure from foreign allies/adversaries and other political machinations. I didn’t love the end of this particular volume but I am still excited to see where things go next, B+.
Jaclyn Moriarty’s The Astonishing Chronicles of Oscar from Elsewhere
The fourth Kingdoms and Empires book is another narrated in turns by two children- here, Imogen, the eldest of Bronte's girl cousins, and the titular Oscar, a boy from our own world who stumbles into theirs while looking for a mysterious skate park. Soon he’s part of a quest along with Imogen, her sisters, Bronte, and Alejandro, as they try and track down the pieces of a missing key and save an Elven town. Another really fun and satisfying adventure with a killer ending. Moriarty is so good. A/A-.
Jaclyn Moriarty’s The Stolen Prince of Cloudburst
I think this makes me cry more than any other Moriarty book, for a variety of reasons! The narrator is one of Bronte's girl cousins, the middle one, who’s dealing with an odd new teacher, and trying to solve various magical mysteries and secrets. It also is kind of about depression and neglect and gaslighting? Interspersed with all the magical adventures and mysteries, of course. Really solid ending on this one, ties everything together perfectly.
Jaclyn Moriarty’s The Slightly Alarming Tale of the Whispering Wars
The second book in the Kingdom and Empires series is actually a prequel to the first one, focusing on a group of children who have to team up to save the day, even though they are bitter rivals—one set is from the local orphanage, one from a snotty boarding school, and the story is narrated in turns by a student from each. (The bickering between the narrators is pretty funny.) And of course some familiar faces from the first book do pop up. Action-packed, bittersweet, great story.
Jaclyn Moriarty's The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone
A fourth book in Moriarty's very fun middle grade series just came out, so why not reread the first three for funsies? Moriarty is one of my favorite authors and this book is funny, action packed, moving, and clever. It centers on the titular ten-year-old Bronte, whose parents have been off adventuring her whole life, only now they’ve been killed by pirates, and now their will sends her on a journey across various kingdoms to deliver gifts to her many aunts (and have adventures along the way). Just a really fun read with a great narrative voice.
Cat Sebastian's Hither, Page
This turned out to be a seasonally appropriate read, as it’s set just before Christmas, in a small town in England in 1946. Our heroes are the local doctor (with severe PTSD) and a spy sent to investigate a murder. Great secondary characters here—I especially liked the elderly lesbians and their sassy teenage ward—and a pretty satisfying mystery. I did like the two main characters and their building romance was cute, but the end felt a bit rushed, romance-wise. Still, a nice cozy winter read. A-/B+.
Marissa Levien's The World Gives Way
I’ve been meaning to read this one for a while, and was reminded to actually do so by a couple of year end lists. I saw someone describe it as “optimistic post-apocalyptic, like Station Eleven” and I’m going to go ahead and disagree a little. See, it’s the story of a young woman, a contract worker (basically an indentured servant/slave), who will gain her freedom when their GIANT SPACESHIP makes it to a new planet, except then her wealthy employers tell her the ship is broken and can’t be repaired and everyone is going to die realllll soon, and then they kill themselves. So she goes on the run with their little baby (it kind of makes sense in context). It’s also the story of the rookie cop assigned to find her. And the story of a world that is literally falling apart. Sooooo some parts of this are pretty bleak. There are also some really beautiful moments. I would not use the word “optimistic,” however. A-.
Another weird year where I didn't read half the books I meant to read, stuck mostly to genre fiction, and did a lot of rereading. That being said, I did read some 2021 books that I loved, so here they are, in alphabetical order by author:
Monica Byrne's The Actual Star
Louise Erdrich's The Sentence
Claire Kann's The Marvelous
T. Kingfisher's Paladin's Strength and Paladin's Hope
Cat Rambo's You Sexy Thing
Rainbow Rowell's Any Way the Wind Blows
Miriam Toews' Fight Night
And here are three books I read this year that I LOVED that came out earlier than 2021:
Jordan Ifueko's Raybearer
Darcie Little Badger's Elatsoe
Elizabeth Moon's Remnant Population
Victoria Goddard’s Plum Duff
As usual, Goddard totally subverts my expectations of where she’s going with this series, as most of the plot here involves Greenwing and Dart getting ready to celebrate their winter holidays with their families and friends. But the stakes are raised yet again! Along the way we get more insight into their religion, several kittens are named, a unicorn gets a sweater, there are a lot of hugs, and I can’t wait to see what happens next. A/A-.
Victoria Goddard’s Love-in-a-Mist
After the major events and revelations of the previous book, this one takes on a story of a smaller scale: a murder at a snowed in manor house! Of course there is also a BABY UNICORN, an invisible butler, a blackmailer, and a couple of burgeoning romances! Plus some burgeoning political situations. Mr Dart gets to shine a bit more in this once which is nice, and now I will wrap up this review to start reading the brand new book six!
Victoria Goddard’s Blackcurrant Fool
God, I love this book. Not just because it’s the continuing adventures of Jemis and friends, as they take a road trip, encounter old friends and foes, check out a rival college, etc, but because I WILL NEVER GET OVER THAT THE PLOT HINGES ON LITERARY ANALYSIS. Poetry saves the day!! There are also interesting magical adventures and some great moments of catharsis. Everything about this book rules.
Victoria Goddard’s Whiskeyjack
The third Greenwing and Dart book has more awesome magic, friendship, action, and feelings, along with finding out a lot more about Jemis' family, about local smuggling rings, and about interpreting poetry. This also has an ending that I really love. I also really appreciate the sort of dryly hilarious narrative voice that has occasion to arise in this one. So good.
Victoria Goddard's Bee Sting Cake
The first book in this series is fun and entertaining, but this one is where it starts to get GOOD. Dragons, riddles, baking contests, long lost relatives, people frozen in time….Great pacing, great humor, great friendships, just great fun.
Victoria Goddard's Stargazy Pie
A sixth book in this series just came out, so obviously I'm doing a whole reread (perfect cozy reads for December). I've read this book many times but love it every time, because how can you not love a book full of man feelings, mysterious pies, secret societies, complicated families, bookstores, magic, and friendship?! These books are also very funny. Now, could the plotting here be a little tighter, yes, for sure, but sometimes it’s nice to read a shaggier sort of story and spend more time in the world. I am certainly here for shaggy and sweet stories.
Cat Rambo's You Sexy Thing
Y'ALL THIS WAS SO GOOD. Just everything I love in a sci-fi book all smushed together! It’s about an ex military captain and her multi-species crew, who now run a restaurant on a space station, and they’re getting ready for a big important restaurant critic to pay a visit, when things go haywire, and they find themselves on a living ship with a mind of its own (spaceships with feelings are MY FAVORITE). Adventures, yummy food, and space pirates ensue! (Note that stuff with the space pirates gets pretty grim but otherwise this is a very fun book.) This is ripe for a sequel and if one ever comes out, I will be reading it for sure. A.
Anne Ursu's The Troubled Girls of Dragomir Academy
I don’t have strong thoughts about this one, it was a pleasant enough read with great themes/messages and an interesting throughline about women's crafts, but I was never super invested in what was going on. I think it needed more character development from the secondary characters and maybe a little more to the climactic bits toward the end? The reveal is kind of grim but at least the book does acknowledge that these kids are traumatized by it. It did make me care about embroidery though. B/B+.
Alison Evans' Euphoria Kids
I gotta keep investigating Australian authors, because some of my recent faves are coming out of there. This was so good! It’s about a teenager who grew from a seed in their mothers' garden, who wishes for friends, and then they meet a girl made of fire (and later on the pair encounters a nameless boy). There are witches, and coffee shops, and fairies, and art class, and all three kids are trans/non-binary and kind of nerdy, and it was all just delightful. More books like this please. A/A-. (Did you like House at Cerulean Sea? This has those vibes, but I liked it much better.)
Margaret Mahy's The Magician of Hoad
This was an interesting and somewhat odd fantasy book, following three children—a boy gifted with magic, a prince, and a noble girl—as they grow up being used as pawns in various political machinations. Some parts of this I figured out and some parts surprised me, and it always seemed to zig when I thought for sure it would zag. But in a satisfying way! Really cool characters (especially the magician) and unusual antagonists. A-.
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-.
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.
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+.
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.
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-.
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.
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.
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+.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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+.
Lois McMaster Bujold’s Knot of Shadows
This ended up being an apt story to read on Halloween, because it turned out to be a sad ghost story. Things start with a dead body being fished out of the harbor, except then…. he wakes up. And Pen gets called in, only to discover the guy is possessed by a ghost, but not his own ghost. And it just gets stranger and sadder from there. So this is /satisfying/, but not /fun/ in any way, and it kind of suffers in comparison to the whole fleshed out novel that precedes it. A-/B+.
Lois McMaster Bujold’s The Assassins of Thasalon
This is actually a full length novel (the others in the series are novellas), which is good, because it’s an interesting story and it’s nice to spend a little extra time with everyone getting JUSTICE! Anyway, someone tries to assassinate Pen's brother in law with sorcery, which starts to unravel a whole magical plot and his god is NOT happy about it. Soon he's off on a road trip with a saint and a new student to try and save the day! Just a really solid and fun story all around, lots of badass ladies and a cute puppy, what's not to love.
Lois McMaster Bujold’s Masquerade in Lodi
This is another flashback of a novella, but a much more enjoyable one, as Pen and a young woman saint try and track down a runaway demon during a festival. There’s a minor mystery element, the plot moves quickly, and it’s all very CUTE. Super satisfying.
Lois McMaster Bujold’s The Physicians of Vilnoc
This is another one that isn’t fun or funny at all, but at least the pacing is better. It involves Penric getting involved in a mysterious contagious illness up at his brother in law's army barracks, and trying to solve what’s causing it and keep everyone alive. It’s fairly grim. I don’t really say it much in these reviews, but I do really like the religious system in these books, and there are some cool glimpses of it here. Doesn’t really offset the grimness, though.
Lois McMaster Bujold’s The Orphans of Raspay
I remembered liking this one less than the others in the series, and that proved to be the case on a reread as well. It involves Penric on a ship that’s captured by pirates, where he encounters two little girls (the titular orphans). But like, the whole time they’re about to be sold into slavery (sex slavery, it’s implied, in the case of the little girls) and it’s slow and upsetting. Like, the other books in this series are FUN and FUNNY, this is just “how will we avoid a terrible fate” for basically the whole book.
Lois McMaster Bujold’s The Prisoner of Limnos
Ok, I definitely think it’s more satisfying to read these in chronological order as opposed to publication order, because this one jumps right back to Pen courting the young widow. He’s not having much success, but when she finds out her mother has been imprisoned for political reasons, she comes right to him for help planning A PRISON BREAK! (She’s imprisoned in a convent but it’s still pretty dramatic). This one introduces some cool new characters and is pretty funny to boot. But it definitely is a better read as part of a series with Penric's Mission and Mira's Last Dance.
Lois McMaster Bujold’s Penric’s Fox
Well, it turns out Amazon and Goodreads disagree on the reading order for this series; Goodreads choose publication order, where Amazon goes chronologically (doesn’t Amazon own Goodreads??). So I definitely read it in Amazon order last time and am accidentally doing Goodreads order this time, making this book a flashback. It’s set just after book two, and finds Penric teaming up with a couple characters from that book to solve the murder of a sorceress—and find her missing demon. Solid plot and satisfying for sure.
Lois McMaster Bujold’s Mira's Last Dance
As mentioned, this one immediately follows the previous book, with Pen (and Des) on the run with his love interest and her brother, which leads to Pen in disguise as a courtesan (with the help of one of Des' previous personalities). It’s all really funny and kind of sweet and there’s good dramatic tension, but still not resolution on the romance.
Lois McMaster Bujold’s Penric's Mission
I actually thought this storyline came a bit later than the third book, because it’s the one where Pen meets his love interest, but then I remembered that whole thing plays out over several books. Anyway, it’s several years after book two and Pen has been sent on a mission to see if he can be an effective spy, only things go wrong basically immediately. Good thing he has a smart ol' demon living in his head and the accompanying magical powers! Great characters as always, if a slightly unsatisfying end (because, as I mentioned, the next few books are basically all one story).
Lois McMaster Bujold's Penric and the Shaman
The second Penric and Desdemona book picks up a few years later, with Pen now fully qualified and working for the local princess/archdivine (am I the only one who would have enjoyed a book with Pen and Des in seminary?), when he’s enlisted to help search for a fugitive and solve a magical mystery. Great characters and humor, as always, plus some good dogs!
Lois McMaster Bujold's Penric's Demon
I was in the mood to reread the Penric and Desdemona novellas, and when I went to look up the reading order, it turns out a new one came out last week! So that worked out very nicely. This first one is a strong start to the series, as a likable but inexperienced young man encounters a dying woman on the road—and ends up with her powerful demon (and the experiences of the 12 women the demon previously possessed). Shenanigans ensue as Pen learns about his new powers and everyone tries to figure out what the heck to do with him. Good times.
Makiia Lucier's Year of the Reaper
I really enjoyed Lucier's first two books, so was psyched for her third, a stand alone. And I also really enjoyed this one! It's set in a place where two countries have been at war for over fifty years—until a princess from one country marries the king of the other. And out protagonist is a young noble who was kidnapped and imprisoned, and has returned home after three years to find said married couple in residence at his brother's estate. But soon there are all sorts of assassination attempts aimed at the new queen—and the little baby prince—and he can’t help getting involved. Especially since the king's little sister (a historian!) is in the mix too. (Just when I was worried about how heteronormative this was, it's revealed that the brother is gay). Anyway, the assassin's identity is pretty easy to figure out, but it’s still interesting to see how things will play out, and the plot and characters are satisfying. Content warning for lots of plague deaths and references to torture. A/A-.
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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on November 9th.
Louise Erdrich's The Sentence
So I always love whatever Erdrich writes, but man, I LOVED THIS. It's a bit of a departure in that it’s not set in Erdrich's usual fictional world—BECAUSE IT'S SET IN THE MF-ING BOOKSTORE THAT SHE OWNS IN REAL LIFE! Are you kidding me?! I am pretty sure all the characters are fictional (except for, you know, the owner Louise, who appears here and there in the background), and probably her store is not actually haunted by a very annoying deceased customer? Aaaaanyway, the protagonist and narrator is Tookie, who gets a job at the bookstore after being released from prison (her sixty year sentence was commuted), and at first you’re like, this is going to be a fun and sweet book! Tookie has an interesting personal life and their coworkers are an amazing cast of characters! And then you get to a heading that reads “February 2020” and the realities of the past year and a half hit you in the face like a brick (not just Covid—the bookstore is in Minneapolis, and the sadness of the George Floyd murder and the protests play a part). Not to mention the ghost going from annoying to slightly more sinister. And yet Erdrich somehow brings it all home. So good. A.
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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on November 9th.
Darcie Little Badger's Elatsoe
I made book club read this, which of course meant I had to reread it so it would all be fresh in my mind! And it totally holds up to a rereading—all the clues to the mystery are there, but there are also just so many details about the world and characters to notice too. Not to mention crying about ghost dogs (I grew up with a springer spaniel so am especially invested in Kirby). Such a great book.
Olivie Blake's The Atlas Six
This is one of those books TikTok is all over, but I hadn’t been impressed with several of their other buzz books so was like eh. But then Tor snapped this series up and since I usually like their books, I was like, sure, I’ll give it a shot. And it was awesome! It’s about six people (mostly in their twenties but a couple seem to be early thirties), powerful magicians, who are selected to try out to be part of an elite secret society descended from the library of Alexandria (who hoard its knowledge! So rude!). But only five will make it through…. Obviously some of the characters work better than others, but the plot and the magic and the tension keep things moving. Great reveals near the end. The only bummer is having to wait for the sequel. A/A-.
Ovidia Yu’s The Frangipani Tree Mystery
I was in the mood for a cozy mystery now that it feels like fall, and wanted to start this series about a young woman working for the police in Singapore in the 1930s, but this first volume is just the meandering road that gets her the job. She’s mission educated and on the verge of being assigned to work as an assistant/housekeeper to the local (British) police inspector, but ends up working as the nanny to the acting governor’s mentally impaired daughter after her previous nanny dies a mysterious death. The characters here are pretty underdeveloped, partially to try and throw in some red herrings, but the plot is pretty obvious. The writing itself is weirdly inconsistent and repetitive. The setting is interesting and I was interested in the protagonist and her friends and family (who are barely in this) but this book was not a satisfying mystery at all. B/B-.
Freya Marske’s A Marvelous Light
So this was pretty much my jam, being a mashup extraordinaire: a queer historical magical mystery! One hero is assigned a new government job as punishment—the liaison to England’s magical community. Except he did not know magic existed! And now bad dudes are after him (and cursing him) because of something his predecessor did! Enter his magical counterpart (and love interest), a scholarly sort who is like, let’s go to my family house so I can research your curse etc. adventures and romance ensue (honestly I would have liked this a bit more if it was a magical mystery with some romance and not a romance set in a magical mystery). Great characters, interesting families and side characters, mentions of bad ass ladies, totally calls for a sequel (which I assume will involve one of the side characters falling in love while further unraveling things, I’m rooting for it to be one of the women, perhaps the very competent secretary??). A-.
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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on November 2nd.
Michelle Sagara's Cast in Shadow
I fully admit that I've had a hard time starting this series because of its name: The Chronicles of Elantra. Because I DRIVE AN ELANTRA. How did no editor put a stop to this?? The car definitely predates these books! Anyway, this weirdly has like an urban fantasy feel re: characters and plots, but set in a high fantasy world. Our protagonist has a Sad and Mysterious childhood backstory (and magical tattoos of unknown origin), but now works for a branch of local law enforcement, where she's assigned to work a case with a dude from her Sad Past and also with a Dragon person (this world also has lion people and eagle people, among others, it rules). But the case is related to her Sad Past and she is the key!!!! Ok, I know I sound facetious, but this was actually a fun read, I will definitely check out more in this series. B+.
Helene Tursten's An Elderly Lady Must Not Be Crossed
The sequel to An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good is not humorous, but is still entertaining, if in a more uncomfortable way. It finds our 88-year-old protagonist traveling from Sweden to South Africa, reminiscing about some of her past murders (new to the reader) along the way, but then she's just hanging out with a tour group on safari for most of it. Eventually some violence does occur (justified), but the end reeks of white saviour-ness (I don’t know how much of these attitudes are because this is by a Swedish author). I am still kind of rooting for the policewomen to nail her. B+
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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book is available now.
Tamara Shopsin's LaserWriter II
This is an interesting little novel about a young woman who gets a job at an Apple repair shop in 1994. There is not much plot to speak of (though there are some undercurrents), but it’s very evocative of a specific time and place. I enjoyed the characters and the bits about the history of Apple computers, but could have done without the scenes where printer parts talked to each other. Cool interstitial graphics, very nostalgic. A-/B+.
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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on Tuesday.
T. Kingfisher's Paladin's Hope
Yay! It’s another romance in Ursula Vernon's paladin series! Of course this means that we immediately start with people investigating a dead body, because the romance is between a paladin and the local forensic pathologist (but like the fantasy world version), who has the power to see how people died. Solid plot, really interesting as the duo teams up with a gnole to investigate a series of bizarre murders (as always, I am here for the gnoles). The romance was super cute, I was rooting for these two dudes pretty hard, and if the late turn towards melancholic self-pity to cause conflict feels formulaic, well, this is technically a romance novel, lol. It works out in a supremely satisfying manner, for sure. A.
Jordan Ifueko's Redemptor
So I did not love this as much as its predecessor. I felt like the pacing was a little off—like it only got good three quarters of the way in, and before that the protagonist is just plagued with self doubt, literally haunted by demon children, and making all the obviously wrong choices. I did really like that last quarter, but all of that stuff should have come a lot earlier! B+.
Jordan Ifueko's Raybearer
I often have limited patience for YA fantasy books—awkward or melodramatic writing, too much focus on romance, etc—but y’all, this was GOOD. It was so good that I refused to wait the estimated two weeks for my library hold on the sequel, and straight up bought it before I was even finished with this one. It’s centered on a young girl whose mother conceived her as a weapon/pawn in her political games—but she is determined to resist her mother's orders, and to find her own path. I really enjoyed the narrative voice here, even if she occasionally wallows in self pity. ;) This goes all sorts of unexpected and interesting places, lots of fascinating political and cultural stuff, idealism, feminism, great friendships and bonds, magic, a mystical leopard, just so much to love here. Really good stuff, A.
Diana Wynne Jones' Eight Days of Luke
I recently discovered this book existed and was psyched to read a new (to me) Diana Wynne Jones story! It was a nice pleasant read, about a boy named David with unpleasant relations, who meets a mysterious boy named Luke, who is obviously Loki, and gets involved in a quest to keep him free. I definitely wanted more from the ending, like another chapter at least, but this was pretty fun. A-/B+.
Aden Polydoros' The City Beautiful
This book should have been my catnip—queer, historical, VERY Jewish fantasy? I mean, yes please! But it didn’t totally work for me. Maybe because it’s a lot darker than I usually go for—I’m fine with dybbuks, but serial killers and serial child rapists are not fun to read about. I also did not enjoy reading the several lengthy anti-Semitic speeches where villains talked about how Jews are vermin. So content warnings all around, I guess. Anyway, this is the story of young Alter Rosen, whose father died on the way to American (1890s Chicago, to be precise) and now he is struggling to get enough money together to bring his mother and little sisters over. And then his friend (and crush) is murdered, and weird stuff starts happening, and a cocky thief from his past turns up…. Parts of this are a little slow, parts are kinda upsetting. I was one hundred percent here for loud socialist downstairs neighbor Raizel, a wannabe journalist. It was interesting to see which Jewish phrases/concepts were specifically defined and which were left to context (or I’m just a nerd about these things). I wanted to love this, and did love how rooted in Jewish history it is, but it was just a little too dark for my tastes. B+.
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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on Tuesday.
Sonia Hartl's The Lost Girls
Are vampire books coming back? If so, I hope they’re in this vein (pun very much intended). It’s centered on Holly, whose boyfriend turned her into a vampire when she was sixteen, and thirty years later, dumped her. And it turns out she’s not the first he did that to, as his previous two exes, also teen vampires, come to enlist her in a plot to kill him so they can be free. And maybe to stop him from doing it to the super cute new girl in town, too? The characters and relationships are kind of underbaked here, and I had a lot of questions about like why the people in town didn’t seem to notice the dead bodies these girls leave everywhere??? The villains are over the top, but I liked the girls' friendship stuff, and it ended up going some places I didn’t expect. Solid ending for sure. B+.
Miriam Toews' Fight Night
Man, this is one of those gorgeous and slightly devastating novels that Toews does so well. It’s narrated by a nine year old girl, living an unconventional life in Toronto with her heavily pregnant actress mother and her eccentric grandmother. Some of the details/themes will be familiar if you’ve read other novels by Toews, but the narrative voice here is so great (and the grandmother is so wonderful) that it didn’t even matter. Hilarious and bittersweet. A.
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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on October 5th.
Rebecca Roanhorse's Black Sun
It took me a while to really get into this and I almost put it town several times (one character was conceived to be the vessel of a god, and is subject to a fair amount of abusive tutoring; another character is one of four Priests of the local religion but is frustratingly clueless about the politics that entails and I found reading her sections very annoying). Luckily one of the four POV characters is a half mermaid lady sea captain and she rules, plus there is some really interesting religion/magic going on, so I kept plowing along, and by the end I was feeling it. I am mildly curious about events and will probably read the second book when it comes out. B+.
Jesse Q. Sutanto's Dial A for Aunties
I read this for book club, and I’ll just say: this wasn’t for me. I had hopes that it would be fun and/or funny—it’s about a girl whose family runs a wedding event business (she’s the photographer), and they set her up on a blind date but she accidentally kills the guy, and her mom and three aunts help dispose of the body—all right before/during a massive wedding weekend! But like at no point does she ever act like an actual human being; even the flashbacks find her acting like someone on a teen soap. Like, there is filial duty and then there is codependency. The whole thing is totally contrived and very predictable, except for when it’s ridiculous and frustrating (everything with the sheriff). This book made me DISLIKE A LESBIAN. I did not enjoy reading this at all and honestly would have given up if I didn’t, you know, run the book club. That being said, of the two friends I’ve spoken to about this, one felt the same way I did, and the other LOVED it. The mix of (attempted) dark comedy and sappy romance wasn’t my personal fave, but YMMV. C.
Naomi Novik's The Last Graduate
I don’t want to be spoilery here, since this book isn’t out for a week, so I will just say it is a very good follow up, I read it in one sitting and stayed up way past bedtime, I cried more than once out of niceness, there are hilarious mice familiars, and teamwork and friendship, and the end PUNCHED ME IN THE GUT. What!! WHAT!!!!
Marking this with the “LGBTQ+” tag because the protagonist seems to be bi and a couple of the secondary characters are gay/lesbian. I feel like the race stuff is handled better too (had some mixed feelings about the one Jewish character, for reasons I can’t pinpoint, but the author is Jewish so I’ll just give it a shrug).
I mean… is this going to be a trilogy? God, I hope so, because I don’t know if I can handle it otherwise. A/A-.
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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on September 28th.
Naomi Novik's A Deadly Education
I’m rereading this because the sequel is out soon—I loved this when I first read it, but soon after that, people online pointed out various problematic/insensitive things about how race was handled, which I hadn’t noticed bc I am a clueless white lady. I think they actually managed to edit some of the more egregious cases out, because I didn’t see a couple of specific examples I was primed for. Otherwise this is still a really fun YA fantasy about a snarky, grumpy girl at a murderous magical school, trying not to give into her evil fate, begrudgingly making friends, trying to survive, etc. Normally I hate romances in YA books, but the one here is so funny (and slow building) that I was rooting for it. Hoping the sequel is more of the entertaining same.
Victoria Goddard's Petty Treasons
Look, I’ll read anything Goddard writes (and have), but I’m not sure this novella was…necessary? I mean, I love spending time with Cliopher and the Emperor, but their working relationship and growing friendship has been pretty well covered, at length, in The Hands of the Emperor and, to a lesser extent, in The Return of Fitzroy Angursell. So a novella about Cliopher's early days as the Emperor's secretary is trodding pretty well-worn ground. The writing here also tends toward the overwrought, which is not my personal favorite (though there are some nice funny moments too). B+?
Martha Wells' The Harbors of the Sun
I also liked this one a little less on reread, because I’m just not interested in people exploring weird ancient cities at length. Luckily this was balanced out by more interesting queen on queen matchups and basically adopting a group of reformed bad guys, not to mention the fights to save their species from genocide. But I’m kind of meh about this series now.
Martha Wells' Edge of Worlds
This one is not super great on a reread. It starts strong but soon all the characters are on yet another interminable journey to explore yet another mysterious ancient city. I’m interested in their relationships and their court politics and rules and families, not in ten chapters where they’re trapped in a building. And then when it finally starts to get interesting again, it abruptly ends! At least it makes me eager to dive into the last one.
Martha Wells' Stories of the Raksura Volume Two
Similar to the previous book, this contains two novellas and assorted short stories about the Raksura. In the first novella, we see a young Moon in his pre-Raksura days; in the second, an anxious Moon awaits the birth of his children and faces a new threat in the forest. These are fine and I always like the family stuff, but was mainly reading this to fill in the gaps between books three and four.
Martha Wells' Stories of the Raksura Volume One
I was going to skip the two books of novellas/stories this go-round, but when I started book four I remembered there was some relevant stuff in one of them, and anyway, I tend to be a completist. The first novella finds our usual cast of characters on a fairly typical adventure (though does begin the redemption arc for the resident asshole). The second deals with the founding of their court, a story that involves lots of diplomacy, politics, a little romance, basically everything I love. The two short stories provide some background but aren’t super necessary. Still entertaining.
Martha Wells' The Serpent Sea and The Siren Depths
I read these (the second and third Raksura books) back to back, but didn’t get a chance to blog the first one between Yom Kippur services and a failing iPad battery. And I already forget what happened in which! In the first they’re trying to build up their new home, and in the second we find out where our protagonist came from, and there’s lots of politics/diplomacy around that, at least until the creepy bad guys come around. Still lots of great relationships, I just really enjoy these characters and their world (aside from the creepy bad guys).
Martha Wells' The Cloud Roads
Once again I am rereading a fantasy series and ignoring the MANY, MANY unread books on my kindle. But I was talking to someone about Martha Wells last week and the heart wants what it wants! Anyway, this is an awesome start to an awesome series that puts the fantastical in fantasy, as a guy who has no idea where he came from or even what kind of species he is is finally found by another of his kind, and whisked into a world of intrigue, action…and cuddles (let them cuddle you, Moon!). Will he allow himself to be adopted into their court? Will they fight off the extremely creepy bad guys? Are there flying people AND flying boats? I love all the relationships building up here and honestly want to immediately start to reread the next ome even though it’s bedtime. So good.
Ada Hoffman's The Outside
So this book is set in a world where humans created super advanced AIs that became gods (and then forbade humans from using advanced technology lol). Our protagonist is a postdoc whose advisor mysteriously disappeared, so now she’s in charge of a weird spaceship science thing. You know what, this was really interesting but trying to explain the plot is going to break my brain (a recurring theme of this book, ironically?). Lots of physics, metaphysics, and a touch of Lovecraft?? I was here for the cute lesbians and the bionic angels but the “what is REALITY” stuff is not exactly my jam. I wanted more GOD STUFF! If you’re into thought provoking sci-fi, though, this may be your jam! B/B+.
Juliet Marillier’s A Song of Flight
The third book in Marillier’s Warrior Bards series is an entertaining read, though I really don’t feel like it’s the end of the story! Lots more secret missions, encounters with magical beings, a little bit of romance (two secondary characters are a very cute gay couple), a young woman learning to take on a leadership role, etc. There’s no torture in this one, bonus! A-.
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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on September 21st.
Seanan McGuire's When Sorrows Come
This series is now fifteen books deep and shows no signs of coming to a conclusion, but I’m in it for the long haul. In this one, Toby is finally getting married (in Toronto, lots of Tim Horton's jokes), if political crises and assassination attempts don’t get in the way. I actually liked this one! I mean still a little too much of “let me explain the fairy genetics of every single type of fairy” and 14 books worth of exposition, but entertaining. For some reason (I assume because it’s not plot relevant per se), there’s a “novella” at the end that picks up right where the book proper leaves off, so if you’re wondering “but what about that cake??” don't worry, you will hear about the cake in the “novella” (I’m sorry, it’s so ridiculous that it’s not part of the actual book when it’s relevant to the actual book!). All that aside, fun times. A-.
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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on Tuesday.
Ruth Ozeki's The Book of Form and Emptiness
So I will read anything by Ruth Ozeki, and my hopes were especially high for this one based on the pre-pub buzz and of course on her previous novel, A Tale for the Time Being. And parts of this definitely lived up to said hopes, and some other parts kind of stressed me out. This is the story of young teen Benny (and to a lesser extent, his mother), as told by a Book with occasional interjections from Benny himself. Benny's musician father has died in a fairly ridiculous accident, and now Benny is hearing voices of objects around him. Meanwhile his mother, grief-stricken and traumatized by childhood sexual abuse, has become a hoarder. I loved the meta parts of this; everything with Benny and his book was great. I also loved all the denizens of the Library (of course). The novel deals unflinchingly with drug abuse, trauma, grief, and mental illness, and that makes it a little hard to read at times. This book is great, but the ending didn’t a hundred percent work for me. Ozeki creates such interesting worlds, though. Definitely worth a read. A/A-.
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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on September 21st.
Darcie Little Badger's Elatsoe
Well, this was awesome in every way. Our main character is teenage Ellie, a Lipan Apache girl whose family knows the secret to raise ghosts (except they don’t raise human ghosts, only animal ghosts, which means Ellie has a GHOST SPRINGER SPANIEL!!!) (she’s also asexual but that’s not relevant to the plot). When her cousin dies in an accident, but he appears in a dream to tell her he was murdered, she and her best friend (and her mom and other people) have to figure out how to prove it, and also what is up with this weird town where the murderer lives? I thought the magic in the book was really cool, there are just all these different magical systems (and vampires!) but it’s all just presented as matter of fact with no lengthy exposition. And all the characters are great, all the ghosts are great, all the family stories and legends are GREAT, everything about this was great. The author has another book due out this fall I think and I can’t wait to read it. A.
Samantha Shannon's The Priory of the Orange Tree
I’ve honestly had this on my kindle for like two years, but every time I started it I was kind of meh about it and read something else instead. But recently I downloaded tiktok and basically all the videos I see are queer book recommendations, and like 90 percent of them feature this book! And I was up for an 800 page fantasy novel! So this does have some queer characters but the romance is pretty minimal; there’s mainly lots of politics between countries with different religions that all hate each other, and a lot of pro-dragon vs anti-dragon sentiment, and good and evil dragons, etc. I really liked most of the characters here, and all but one of the POV characters were really interesting and had fun arcs (I still don’t see the point of the alchemist character). Parts of this were a little slow but it builds to a pretty satisfying climax (maybe more so if you are more into battle scenes than I am). It was fine but I didn’t end up LOVING it, B+ I guess?
Monica Byrne's The Actual Star
Y’all. This book was so good. Like, this is definitely going to be on my list of favorite books of the year, and if it’s not on a bunch of actual year end lists, it’s a goddamned travesty. So ok, this book is set in three different time periods—1012, following three royal children (well, one child and two teenagers) in the Mayan Empire; 2012, following a young American woman, Leah, on a trip to Belize to connect with her heritage, and the two twin brother tour guides she meets there; and 3012, in a utopia built after the ravages of climate change, with a really interesting society (everyone uses she/her pronouns in honor of Saint Leah, and there is some other gender/sex stuff going on as well), but one philosophical question might unravel everything. The characters here are great, the connections between the different time periods are great, all three time periods have compelling stories, everything about this book kind of blew my mind? Also, the author is local! I am going to be thinking about this one for a while. SO GOOD. A.
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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on September 14th.
Lauren Groff's Matrix
I haven’t been into literary fiction lately (boring, depressing), but I’ve stanned Lauren Geoff since her first book and will read anything she writes…. especially if it’s a book about a convent in the 1100s??? Unexpected, but awesome! Our protagonist is Marie, a seventeen year old Royal bastard, raised by a family of Amazonian lady crusaders, crushing madly on Eleanor of Aquitaine—who sends her from France to England to be prioress of a convent (since Marie is too tall and awkward to be married off). And then it is the story of Marie living at the convent, accepting her role, determined to protect her sisters and make their lives better. Somehow Groff makes this super compelling, though of course I am into stories about the inner lives (I typed “loves” there and that is true too) of women, and the community Marie builds is honestly amazing. This book is totally stunning, in all senses of the word. A.
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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on September 7th.
Zoraida Cordova's The Inheritance of Orquidea Divina
This was a magical realism sort of story, about the mysterious matriarch of a family who invites her many children and grandchildren to her home to receive their inheritance, because she’s about to die. But really she turns into a tree, and various magical things happen to her family (the POV characters are two of her grandchildren, who both end up with roses growing out of their bodies). I loved the first half of this! But then the action shifts to seven years later, when things are going wrong, and they have to investigate their grandmother's past to find out the source of … all this. And the story of the past is not very interesting? I was here for the characters checking out low budget museums in comic book stores and resurrecting dead relatives to get answers, but it just wasn’t super satisfying in the end. B+, I guess?
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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on September 7th.
Dhonielle Clayton et al's Blackout
We're reading this for book club this month, because a couple of us saw this interview and were like WE MUST SUPPORT THESE AUTHORS! I hesitate to say it has a Love Actually vibe because I don’t actually like that movie, but it does have a similar structure—a bunch of interrelated characters/love stories set during one night during a blackout in NYC, culminating in a big ol block party. I am generally pretty lukewarm on YA romance, but all these stories were super cute (especially the queer ones), and since they were short they didn’t bug me too much. :) For a minute I almost started a murder board to keep track of all the connections (siblings, BFFs, cousins, etc) but then I just let the whole community wash over me. It really does gel as one story. Really well done and a very fun read. A/A-.
Cynthia Zhang's After the Dragons
This was a nice little novel about two young men in a slightly fantastic version of Beijing: one, a local, suffering from a terminal lung disease caused by pollution, who spends his time rescuing stray and injured dragons: and the other, a biracial (Chinese/Black) American in Beijing to do medical research, inspired by his grandmother, who recently died there of the same lung disease. Which maybe sounds depressing, but actually it’s weirdly hopeful? Like, the world sucks in many ways but if you can do even one thing to try and make it better… why not cuddle and rehabilitate lil dragons? Plus I thought their romance was super cute. My only complaint is that this novel is too short and I want more of it! A/A-.
Patricia Wrede’s The Raven Ring
Well, this didn’t turn out to be much of a /series/ per se, just five novels set in the same universe. This last one was pretty cute though. Our protagonist is a young woman from the warrior people, who heads to the big city to pick up her deceased mother's belongings from the army. But pretty soon a lot of mysterious people are after her, and she has to figure out why, with the help of a young noble and of a thief (there is a little bit of a love triangle, but the protagonist isn’t actually aware of it, lol). I liked the characters and story here much more than the last couple. Great ending, too. A-.
Patricia Wrede’s Caught in Crystal
This one is a little more interesting than its predecessors with both plot and characters: our protagonist is a thirty six year old widowed mother of two, running an inn, when a sorceress and a wizard with ties to her past come searching for her (separately). I actually couldn’t figure out when in the world's chronology this was meant to take place, though I had the impression it was a prequel? Anyway it’s pretty good, but ends the same way as all the other ones (final battle is somewhat anti-climactic and then there’s a heteronormative kiss, the end). I don’t really have high hopes for the last one but it’s an entertaining enough way to spend an evening, I suppose. B+.
Patricia Wrede’s The Harp of Imach Thyssel
In the third Lyra novel, a young minstrel and his friend (the song of a Duke) find a powerful magical harp of legend, and soon several people with a variety of motives are on their trail, hoping to steal it. I liked the characters here (the love interest is a lot of fun) but the plot feels more like an outline than a novel. Everything wraps up too quickly, and it follows the same story beats as the previous ones. I really need this series to be like building to something. I mean, this was /fine/, just not particularly compelling. B.
Patricia Wrede’s Daughter of Witches
Not a ton actually /happens/ in this second volume, but I enjoyed it just the same. It’s set in a different part of the world, with all new characters (though the protagonist of the previous book is mentioned). The main character here is a teenager in a fairly sexist/patriarchal society, whose parents were burned as witches several years earlier, and now she is a bondwoman to an abusive innkeeper. Until some foreigners come to stay, setting some magical adventures into motion. Most of the book involves all the characters hiding in the woods from the baddies while our heroine tries to decide how she feels about magic, but I kind of liked that? B+.
Patricia Wrede's Shadow Magic
Here I am diving into another fantasy series that I’ve somehow never read, even though I adore the author's Enchanted Forest Chronicles and the Sorcery and Cecelia books. This is a more traditional sort of fantasy, good vs evil, magical peoples (an elf analogue and some awesome and badass fox people, among others), battles, etc. Our protagonist is the daughter of a lord, but a fairly skilled one, who gets kidnapped by the baddies, setting some huge world events into action. The other POV character is her brother's merchant friend (and her love interest, though the romance is a minor part of the story, which I was fine with). Anyway, this was a very fun read, lots of cool women and interesting magic, looking forward to seeing where it goes next. A-.
Natania Barron's Queen of None
Honestly, I’m here for all these recent Arthurian stories! This one came out last year, but the library just added it, presumably because of the Green Knight movie: the central figure here is Arthur's youngest sister, Anna, mother of Gawain (plus I think the author is local!). Our story starts with a recently widowed Anna coming to Arthur to give him her husband's crown, but soon she’s become a political pawn yet again. I liked her character a lot, and loved the network of women, but wished some of the other characters (Lancelot, Gawain) were more developed, and definitely thought the back half revenge plot would have benefited from some more build up (though I did like the end). I also wished for one more pass with the proofreader; lots of homonym errors. Content warning for abusive husbands and one rape threat. B+.
Sam Hawke's Hollow Empire
Parts of this feel slow and repetitive, because they’re having the same arguments as the last book and wondering once again who is a traitor, and parts of this are kind of grim. It’s also very frustrating at times, because the protagonists are justifiably paranoid and everyone treats them like they’re nuts. The solution to the mystery is interesting enough; once again there was a teeny bit of a romance but between two women this time; I like the characters still. I guess I just wish this was all a little bit tighter. I’m honestly not sure if another book is planned in this series or not, the end feels a little ambiguous. B+.
Sam Hawke's City of Lies
I actually finished this yesterday, but my internet was down for 12 hours and I couldn’t blog! Scream emoji. So this book is narrated by a pair of siblings from a family whose secret job is to protect their chancellor, primarily from being poisoned. The brother is the current anti-poison guy (struggling with severe anxiety/OCD) while his sister is more on the spy side of things (and chronically ill thanks to a poisoning gone wrong). But soon things are even more dangerous as their uncle and the currently chancellor are murdered by an unknown poison, their young friend has to take up rulership, and the city is suddenly under siege. Who is behind all this and what the heck is going on?? Most of this is really engrossing, though some parts do drag, and the romance feels really shoehorned in (I did like the love interest and wish her character had been built up more). Interesting worldbuilding where the families run down matriarchal lines. Lots of secondary characters are gay. I’m already halfway through the sequel. A-/B+.
Felicia Davin's Out of Nowhere
So this one was a little less awesome, because I wasn’t as into the characters, minor characters from the first book—the teleporter who's trying to start a union (cool) and his best friend since childhood (Jewish), who is maybe not as straight as they both thought. The plot here is also egregiously silly—they want to kidnap a guy from an alternate reality who is the double of the bad guy in /their/ reality, and make him confess to the bad guy's bad doings. And everyone just goes along with it!! Plotting is definitely the weak element here, but the end was pretty cute. I don’t think I’ll read the third one in this series; I was hoping it’d be about some of the local lesbians, but it’s about two of the stoic dude scientists I don’t care about. The author has a fantasy series I might check out instead. B.
Felicia Davin's Edge of Nowhere
I was in the mood for something outer spacey, and this super cute queer romance fit the bill for sure. Our one hero is Kit, who has a rare teleportation ability and a mysterious background and an adorable found family! Our other hero is Emil, a large botany nerd who runs a crew on a space station doing weird experiments with the stuff Kit teleports through! Also, there are some cats! Pretty much everyone in this book is queer (Emil is definitely bi and I had the vague impression Kit was as well), the romance is cute, the adventures are fun, there is maybe a little too much made-up science about teleportation but it becomes relevant to the plot so whatever. This is the first of a trilogy and I am immediately starting book two. A-.
Robin Stevens' Once Upon a Crime
And this is truly the end of the Wells and Wong series, sniff sniff! This is a collection of shorter stories set in the world, a couple published before but the rest new. Always nice to see these girls in action, and I was glad to see a couple stories set after the events of Death Sets Sail (one of those being a prequel of sorts to Stevens' upcoming series about Hazel's littlest sister—though I don’t buy for a second that Hazel wouldn’t listen to her sister about a murder!). A-.
Terry Pratchett’s Snuff
This is the final Watch book, and I definitely have that book hangover feeling, where you finish a book/series and are bereft that it’s over and nothing else you start will be as good. I mean, just a bunch of crying emojis all around. Anyway, in this one, Sam and his family are off on a vacation in the country, but of course Sam immediately sniffs out some ill doings. Sybil is great here, and Young Sam reminds me of many small boys I have known. Sigh. Book hangover. A.
Terry Pratchett’s Thud
Here we find Sam dealing with rising tensions between dwarves and trolls, exacerbated by the murder of a dwarf rabble rouser, not to mention hiring his first vampire to the watch, and trying to get home in time to read his little dude a bedtime story. Very entertaining all around, if not at the emotional depths of its predecessor. Loved to see the ladies of the watch going out for a girls' night, extra points for that! A/A-.
Terry Pratchett’s Night Watch
This was…weirdly devastating? Things start off with Sam's wife in labor, but he’s on the hunt for a serial killer—but then a magical storm sucks them back in time, to thirty years earlier, as the city is on the brink of a revolution—and young Sam is just starting his job on the Watch. Now our Sam has to mentor his younger self, keep history on track, and keep everyone safe. We also get some glimpses into the past of various other characters, which is interesting. But this was kind of a gut punch by Discworld standards! ILU Sam. A.
Terry Pratchett’s Fifth Elephant
Well, I /loved/ this one! Sam is off to a neighboring land for diplomatic reasons, with Lady Sybil, Cheery, and Detritus in tow, but soon he is caught up in politics, trying to investigate a stolen scene of importance, and dealing with dwarves, vampires, and werewolves. Sybil gets to do some stuff in this one, which I always appreciate, and it was in general just really funny and sweet and silly and action-packed. Great stuff. A.
Terry Pratchett’s Jingo
This Discworld City Watch book finds their city on the verge of war with the local Middle Eastern analogue (lots of characters spouting racist stuff, but clearly not approved of by the author). This drags a little compared to some of the other ones, but still has some great moments, and we actually get to see Sam's wife for a change! B+.
Terry Pratchett’s Feet of Clay
So I have actually read this one before, because it’s about golems, but I enjoyed it much more this time, since I had all the relevant character backstories and was much more invested in them. I might also just have more of a sense of humor now than I did in 2008. Anyway, the watch is dealing with a case of mysterious poisoning, AND some mysterious murders, not to mention dwarf Cheery Littlebottom is actually a girl dwarf and is trying to let ppl know about it (the internet is right: Pratchett would not have been a terf). Props for most of the golems having Yiddish names. A/A-.
Terry Pratchett’s Men at Arms
The second Guards books finds the team dealing with some new diversity hires—namely a dwarf, a troll, and a woman. But soon the town is in an uproar thanks to a killing spree with a mysterious weapon and the Watch is on the case! I am super here for Sam Vimes, Corporal Carrot, and the rest of these silly and lovable people. A/A-.
Terry Pratchett’s Guards! Guards!
Recent events have made me want to read some Pratchett, and honestly there’s still a lot of the Discworld I’ve never gotten to (I’ve mainly just reread all the ones with the Witches and Tiffany Aching). So now I’m getting to the city watch books, only here they’re the Night Watch, led by a drunk Sam Vimes, with an eager new volunteer joining the force. But they’ll have to get their acts together when a magically summoned dragon starts coming to town. Luckily they have the help of the local (orangutan) librarian and a wealthy woman who breeds little (adorable) dragons. Anyway this was all very funny, super entertaining, with Pratchett's trademark great characters. Just what I needed and I can’t wait to read more. A/A-.
G.A. Aiken's The Blacksmith Queen
This was a pretty fun book about a big badass blacksmith woman whose sister is prophecied to be queen after the old king dies and his sons all start killing each other for the crown—and now they’re after her family. Some of this is kind of formulaic, but there are a couple of interesting twists, lots of humor, amazing animal friends, a whole slew of warrior women with various skills, and centaurs! There is unfortunately also a lot of implied rape/mentions of rape, which, bleh. The romance is cute but perfunctory. I loved all the bickering siblings though. This was entertaining enough that I’ll probably read the sequel. B/B+.
Rainbow Rowell’s Attachments
The only downside to rereading a beloved book by a beloved author that you don’t want to end and then feel all bereft when it does—well, what do you read next? All other books feel MEH. So in this case I chose to reread a different book by that same beloved author (I had been thinking of this one anyway bc for some reason was reminded of the scene where Lincoln changes a tire). (I only hope this doesn’t turn into a vicious cycle where I can only read Rainbow Rowell books.) Anyway, AS USUAL, great characters, great relationships, great personal growth, lots of love, and a happy ending that only Rowell could pull off. I’ve read this book many times and never get sick of it.
Rainbow Rowell's Any Way the Wind Blows
I can hear y'all saying to yourselves "surely, Alicia, you are not reading this book for a THIRD time in less than a month," but I am, because a) I needed a palate cleanser after that last book, and b) we're discussing this at book club this week and I needed to be fresh on the details to best answer questions about Simon and his magic! And also because I love this world so much and just want to BATHE in it (Ted Lasso reference).
Barbara Hambly's Dragonshadow
Ooof. This starts out like it’s going to be another fun adventure, there’s bandits and dragons etc, but then demons come into the mix and things take a turn for the dark and grim and gross. Like there are not enough content warnings in the world for this book. I’m torn because based on the descriptions, the third book looks like it might also be grim and gross, but the fourth seems like it might be awesome? But I can’t read another like this. This gets a B bc the dragons-witch friendship remains a standout.
Barbara Hambly's Dragonsbane
I was in the mood for a classic fantasy story, and remembered I’d only read this one, but none of its sequels (I’m not sure I realized it was a series at the time). Anyway, it’s an awesome story about an interesting thirty-something witch, who goes off with her partner on a quest when he's asked to go slay a dragon. Magical adventures ensue, and the central couple rules. Great stuff.
Sarah Pinsker's We Are Satellites
Pinsker is GREAT at these near-future technology sorts of stories, so I’m not sure why I didn’t read this as soon as it was published. This one involves a brain implant—that creates a little light on your temple—to allow multitasking and optimized brain whatever, focusing at first on a family whose teen son and one mother want one, while the epileptic daughter can’t get one and the other mother is generally opposed. But soon it’s telling a bigger story about privilege, corporate corruption, the military-industrial complex, etc. not to make it sound boring; it’s super readable and the characters are great. I did want a little bit more from the ending, though. A-.
Ryka Aoki's Light From Uncommon Stars
Look, if the marketing is going to say a book is “Good Omens meets Becky Chambers,” it has gotta be GREAT. Otherwise it cannot possibly live up to that! And this book was good, but not great. It just has a lot going on, and while I loved the characters and the general plot, the execution was kind of clumsy. First we have a trans teen runaway violin prodigy, and then there’s the woman who decides to take her on as a student, except really she has a deal with Hell and has to deliver a seventh student's soul or Hell gets her soul. And then there’s the teacher's love interest, the owner of a local donut shop, except really she is the captain (and mother) of a ship of interstellar refugees (honestly I was here for the donuts, and the AI daughter). So all of that plus the description made me think this would be light and sweet, and parts of it are, but a lot more parts deal with transphobia, homophobia, racism, sexual assault. There are SO MANY slurs in this book, just as a general content warning. I found a lot of it to be really upsetting. (I’d wager a lot of those experiences are realistic, but I read genre fiction to avoid realism.) The tone of this book was just all over the place and I still can’t decide how I feel about it. B/B+?
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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in September.
Victoria Goddard’s The Return of Fitzroy Angursell
I have all sorts of unread books on my kindle but once I start rereading Victoria Goddard, I just want to /keep/ rereading Victoria Goddard! This is not a direct sequel to Hands of the Emperor, but does take place immediately afterward, as the Emperor sets off on a quest to find his heir, and maybe reunite a certain legendary band of heroes while he’s at it? This also has some fun tie-ins to the Greenwing and Dart books, so probably I will reread those next, sorry to all the other books out there!
Victoria Goddard’s The Hands of the Emperor
I can’t entirely explain why my ultimate comfort read is a 900 page book about a highly ranked government official slowly enacting sweeping societal reforms (like universal basic income), except that maybe I want to live in this world? I mean, it is also a book about a bunch of middle aged men and their friendships and their FEELINGS, which is also somehow a rarity in fiction. I mean, this book is not perfect: the stuff about the protagonist’s family and friends not understanding his job gets a little repetitive. And I don’t know if there are any issues with the depictions of the protagonist's minority culture, which I think is based on the Pacific Islands (and since this is clearly another world, if that matters), though I am a minority in some respects and think she nails the insider/outsider stuff. But it makes me cackle and it makes me cry and I love all these dudes and their need to be hugged.
Martha Wells' City of Bones
This is an earlier Wells novel, which means it is interesting and cool, but not quite as awesome as her later series (Raksura and Murderbot). It’s sort of a post-apocalyptic fantasy novel, and it’s too complicated to explain, but the protagonist is a guy who's sort of a marsupial and therefore not totally accepted in the city, but he and his pal make a living as experts on ancient relics. And then the local head magic dude (and one of his students--she’s also a POV character) hire him to track down some super rare stuff. Like I said, super interesting world-building; I’d read a whole series with the academics and the magic ppl and the politics. The ending felt a little flat, which does make me wonder if more was planned? Still, an enjoyable read. It just made me want to reread Wells' other stuff. :) B+.
Elizabeth Moon's Winning Colors
This wraps up the first chunk of this series, though I didn’t like it as much as the first two. It was somehow a lot slower and also all over the place? I mean it had some great moments—an awesome battle scene, a cluster of competent aunts—but it just didn’t entirely come together for me. B+.
Elizabeth Moon’s Sporting Chance
The second book in the Serrano Legacy series picks up right where the last one left off, as the crew of our space yacht and their intrepid captain and badass owner get sucked into a bunch of plots (some related to the smuggling from book one, some political). Really interesting women in this one (I think all the villains are women) and there we even some lesbians (and one maybe bisexual) among the secondary characters. A lot to like. Definitely more on the serious side than the first one, but some great scenes of awesomeness. I stan Brun. A-.
Elizabeth Moon's Hunting Party
OK, this was super up my alley. It's about a woman from a military family who has left the outer space military for ~reasons~ and has now taken the job as the captain of a luxury spaceship yacht, owned by an eccentric older woman. And they're off to a sort of England-themed planet (owned by a man called Bunny) for a season of fox hunting (well, hunting a creature that was bioengineered to look like a fox), with the yacht owner's spoiled nephew and his hangers-on in tow. I loved both women's narrative voices and found this really engaging and funny. And then things took a hard turn toward ACTION! Lots of great and interesting women doing stuff! I had high hopes for outer space lesbianism but things wrapped up in an aggressively heteronormative manner. Sidebar, the captain seems coded as a minority based on the text (several mentions of her dark skin) but the book cover shows a white lady! Uncool, book cover artist. Anyway, very fun read, I'm psyched to see where this series goes next. A/A-.
Rainbow Rowell’s Any Way The Wind Blows
Ok, YES, I /did/ read this twice in one day, because I wanted to experience it all again and because I wasn’t ready to be done with these characters just yet. Just as good the second time. I don’t know what vibes I was giving off but one of my kittens was extra snuggly/concerned for the last hour! Enjoy this pic!
Rainbow Rowell’s Any Way the Wind Blows
As expected, Rowell stuck the landing. This definitely was full of surprises and went places I didn’t expect, while still being completely satisfying and making me cry several times. Honestly I might just restart reading this immediately because I loved it so much? A.
Rainbow Rowell’s Wayward Son
The first time I read this book, I raced through it like “WHAT IS HAPPENING!/WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN!” and the second time, when I saw where Rowell was going with things, I was into it a little more, because it’s deeper and more interesting than what I had initially anticipated. I mean there are still plenty of road trip adventures, but also a bunch of kids with unprocessed trauma trying to figure out their shit (or being in denial about their shit). This time around, it was weirdly bittersweet? So I have no idea where the third book will go, but I have great faith it will be full of surprises and be satisfying.
Rainbow Rowell’s Carry On
The third Simon Snow book comes out on Tuesday (and why yes, I /did/ schedule a vacation day to read it), so this long weekend is for catching up on the first two (to my great joy, of course)! I still cry about Lucy, cheer for Penelope and Agatha, and adore Simon and Baz. Just great characters, great plot, lots of real emotion.
Lois McMaster Bujold’s The Hallowed Hunt
Now I know why I never bothered reading this before: it’s not as good as the first two in this series. It’s set elsewhere, and the only familiar characters are the gods. Now I did like a lot about this—I’m always here for the Temple divines and all the holy/magic stuff, and I liked the protagonist and his love interest as well. But on the whole this is just a darker, grimmer, sadder book. It wraps up in a satisfying way but it’s not one I think I’ll reread. B/B+.
Lois McMaster Bujold’s Paladin of Souls
The second book in the Chalion series focuses on one of the secondary characters from the previous book—the mother of the princess, who everyone thought was mad because of the curse they were all under. Now a few years have passed, and she just needs a break from everyone and decides to go on a pilgrimage. But if you’re on a pilgrimage, the gods might decide you can help them out…. GREAT characters, lots of good magic and mysticism, a teeny bit of romance, a little more humor, a demonic horse…. I want more books exactly like this! A/A-.
Lois McMaster Bujold’s The Curse of Chalion
I’m still on my Bujold kick, and since I've never read the third book in this series, decided to start at the beginning. My recollections of this were vague, except that it had a lot of business with the gods (the same ones in the Penric and Desdemona books) and was satisfying. And both those things were true! Bujold is great at stories with political machinations, kicky heroines, weary dudes, wry saints, and a little bit of romance. Parts of this are a little unpleasant along the way (there are some rape threats, plus the titular curse), but the end just makes everything awesome. A-.
Doris Egan's Guilt-Edged Ivory
In the final volume of the Ivory series, our protagonists are married, dealing with the pressure to have kids, and also solving a murder mystery! The mystery itself is pretty satisfying; I guessed some but not all of it. But of course once again the plot isn’t even really the point! This whole series is somehow a sci fi magical stream of consciousness slice of life story! I wish there was more because I just enjoyed these characters and their relationships and the narrative voice so much. A/A-.
Doris Egan's Two-Bit Heroes
In the second volume of the Ivory trilogy, our protagonist and her boyfriend are contemplating marriage and heading out on a routine fact-finding mission, except then they're immediately kidnapped by a band of outlaws. I love the narrative voice--she's a scholar of folk tales and has a sense of humor as she ruminates on their current problems. Again, great characters here, just really interesting and fun. A-.
Doris Egan's The Gate of Ivory
So Egan wrote this SFF trilogy in the 90s before pivoting to life as a tv writer/producer, which honestly I find kind of a bummer because I liked this first volume a lot! It’s a fun mix of sci fi and fantasy, set on a planet where there’s magic (but no one knows why). Our heroine is a student who’s been stranded there after being robbed, whose recruited for a job by a prominent and mysterious sorcerer. Soon attempts have been made on her life, she’s hanging with his family and learning life lessons, and interesting adventure ensue. But this wasn’t really action packed, it’s more about her adapting to a new way of life, and figuring out a way forward when things get tough. Really great characters (and the romance is kind of on the backburner but I was here for it) and I’m psyched to see what they do next. A-.
Lois McMaster Bujold’s The Spirit Ring
This is a standalone fantasy novel from Bujold, not one of her better known works, but still entertaining and moving. Set in a fantasy version of Renaissance Italy, it centers on the biracial teenage daughter of a master artisan-slash-mage, who longs to follow in his footsteps, but is beset by racism and sexism! And also the story of her love interest (the romance is not the main thing here, but I was here for it), who is supposed to be apprenticed to her father…. Except then his patron Duke is assassinated, an enemy is taking over the town, and her father is murdered. Oh yeah, and the bad guys are also evil sorcerers! (Really interesting magic/political stuff here, as the local Catholic Church is in charge of non-evil sorcerers.) So this wasn’t the best Bujold book, but definitely still worth a read. A-/B+.
Zen Cho's Black Water Sister
I’ve really enjoyed all the other stuff I’ve read by Cho, but this one didn’t one hundred percent work for me. It’s about a recent Harvard grad who moves to Malaysia with her parents (who are from there) and realizes she’s being haunted by her recently deceased grandmother, who is determined to protect a temple from corrupt developers. Only maybe there’s more going on? I did like all the supernatural stuff with the gods and their mediums, and I loved the family dynamics, but the plot was kind of … not there? So parts of this were just reallllllyyyy sloooooow. It felt really repetitive. And the whole secret girlfriend thing was way underdeveloped. I will still read whatever Cho writes next, this just wasn’t my favorite. B/B+.
India Holton's The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels
Do you want to read a fluffy, funny, and mildly silly historical romance? Shall I sweeten the pot and tell you it’s set in a fantasy version of Victorian England populated by pirates who fly around in houses? And that the titular society is made up of genteel middle-aged ladies who rule the skies and frequently set assassins on one another? And the protagonist, the niece and companion of one of said society members, just wants to read a book, dammit! And her love interest is working for about twelve different bosses and has as many aliases (he’s very likable, and I was rooting for them, but she is much more interesting, and her mysterious backstory is relevant to the plot). Plus the villain of the piece is determined to restore women to their rightful places, make himself king, and force everyone to read his poetry! Anyway this was pure giddy entertainment, with a slyly hilarious (and feminist) narrative voice. I just hope they corrected all the “discrete”s to “discreet” in time for publication. A-.
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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on Tuesday.
Connie Willis' Doomsday Book
I’ve tried reading this a couple of times, but never got far because I assumed the story of a young woman historian getting stranded in the 1300s would be stressful. But I love To Say Nothing of the Dog so much that this time I plowed ahead anyway. And it was stressful, but not in the ways I expected. Meanwhile, her colleagues back in the future think something has gone wrong with her trip, but soon there’s a flu pandemic getting in the way of figuring it out (a timely read). Anyway the characters here are great but this book is GRIM. I kind of admire Willis for writing one book that is so fun and one that is the opposite of fun in the same series (and with a couple of the same characters). B+?
