2023 book 40

 Rachel Neumeier’s Tuyo

I started a few different books that I just wasn’t vibing with, but then I remembered a new book in the Tuyo series is out this week, about the boy who gets adopted into the main character's tribe, so I figured I’d reread the two that are sort of predecessors to that, and which I knew I’d enjoy. And I did enjoy this one! I love the writing here, so engrossing, and I love that the focus is on (non-romantic) relationships and politics but with a goal of peace in mind. Hard stuff happens but it leaves me with a hopeful feeling. So good.

2023 book 39

 Celia Lake's Eclipse

This is part of a series of books set in the 1920s in a magical version of England, but the author says they can be read in any order, so obviously I chose the one about teachers at a magical school. These books are billed as romances, but refreshingly, there is not any romance at all until like halfway through, the characters (a lady astronomy professor and a dude professor of “protective magic”) are just colleagues and friends dealing with magical school mysteries and academic drama. It rules. The writing here is occasionally jumpy and I wished for a little more resolution of the actual plot, but this was enjoyable and I’d read another book in this series (or set in this world: it looks like this series is all straight romances but the author has some queer ones that seem related). B+.

2023 book 38

 Malka Older's The Mimicking of Known Successes

HECK YES, I am fist-pumping about how much I enjoyed this book! It’s a sci-fi academic mystery!! It has cute awkward lesbians!! I am here for this!!!! Anyway, the main character is an academic on Jupiter (where humanity fled after effing up Earth too much), who is drawn into an investigation of a missing colleague, bc the Investigator is her college girlfriend and needs her input. I am actually not sure how well the mystery elements worked, per se, but the brisk pace kept things moving along enough that I never really questioned it, and obviously I was into the characters/world. Very entertaining, and I am excited for the sequel. A.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on March 7th.

2023 book 37

 Rebecca Thorne's A Pirate's Life for Tea

So I didn’t like this as much as the first one, though it was still fun. There’s a romance, between a constable and the pirate she’s chasing down (her childhood best friend), the couple from the first book is there still trying to complete their mission from the first book, and also enjoying some meddling. The pirate stuff is great, but the plot just doesn’t feel as tight as the first one, and some of the characters aren’t as well-developed, particularly the constable. And the new romance is very tell, not show. It didn’t hold my interest as much as the first one. Things pick up toward the end once the focus is more squarely back on the characters from book one, and the hint of the third book was certainly intriguing, so I’m hoping that one will be more satisfying. B/B+.

2023 book 36

 Rebecca Thorne's Can't Spell Treason Without Tea

** This book is FREE on Kindle this week since the author is taking it off of Kindle Unlimited (and since the sequel is out on Thursday). **

When you’re cranky because you read a book that mildly annoyed you, the cure is to read a book that is FUN, so here I am, finally checking out one of the hot new cozy fantasy novels. And it WAS fun! It’s about a woman who works as part of the royal guard for a cruel queen, and her secret girlfriend, a powerful mage, and what happens when they decide to run away together and open up a bookshop-slash-tea shop. (The dream!) Of course there are locals to befriend, stray teens to adopt, dragons to fend off, griffins to fly around on, mysteries to start solving, etc. I am excited to see what adventures they have next! A-.

2023 book 35

 Temi Oh's Do You Dream of Terra-Two

So let me start by saying all of my issues with this book are because I didn’t realize at first that it was YA, so when teen drama/tragedy kicks in a few chapters in, it totally took me out of the plot, because who in their right mind would send teens on a space mission???? To back up, this is a novel about a group of (racially diverse) teens who have been trained to go on a twenty-three year space journey to settle an inhabited planet (there are also like four actual adults on board, which makes having teens even SILLIER, like don’t get me started, I could go off about psychological testing and brain development for a WHILE). I wanted to read a book about a space journey, I did not want to read a book full of teens being melodramatic/having mental breakdowns/beating each other up/having romances in space. Now, if you like YA books and/or sci-fi, this may totally be up your alley, but it wasn’t for me. B.

2023 book 34

 Kate Saunders' The Secrets of Wishtide

Rereading this for book club, and it totally holds up to a second read, even though I remembered whodunnit. It’s the first in a series about a respectable Victorian widow who solves crimes (usually at the behest of her lawyer brother), with the help of her no-nonsense landlady and various friends (I love the friendships and family relationships in this series). The plot here involves a wealthy man hiring her to investigate his son's lady friend's background, but things of course take a turn toward murder. A very well-done mystery, with bonus Dickens references. A/A-.

2023 book 33

 Ursula K. LeGuin's Always Coming Home

You know, for all the deserved praise LeGuin gets for her groundbreaking novels, I don’t think I’ve ever seen this one mentioned, and that’s weird because it’s VERY ambitious. It’s presented as sort of an anthropological report and collection of materials dealing with the far-future denizens of post-apocalyptic California. There are long narrative sections, but also folktales, plays, poems, even an excerpt of a novel. Obviously some of this will be more compelling than other parts to each reader (I admit to skimming most of the poems). I was reading the Library of America edition, which is over 800 pages long, but the last 40 percent is just more information about the world/society and not part of the actual novel (which is to say: don’t be intimidated by the length!). I guess I can see why this isn’t as beloved as many of her other books, but it is really an interesting project and worth checking out. A/A-.

2023 book 32

 Janice Hallett's The Twyford Code

This is about a guy who's gotten out of prison after a long time, and he's trying to stay on the straight and narrow, but when he starts to ask around about a teacher who went missing from a school trip when he was a kid, he's suddenly sucked into a whole thing with a secret code in a series of WWII-era children's books. This is interspersed with memories of what led him to prison. Now there is an interesting framing device here, where we're reading transcripts of his voice memos and garbled phone calls and the like, but like halfway through I was like, is this going to come into play again? What's REALLY going on? Not to say that I wasn't entirely engaged, because I was, I was just... trying to solve the mystery! I did figure part of it out, but the end still took me by surprise (in a good way). Very fun read. A-.

2023 book 31

 Akwaeke Emezi's Pet

I’ve been meaning to read something by Emezi for a while, and since my tastes run toward speculative fiction, obviously this was the one to choose! It’s set in a future world, where all the “monsters” (bad people) have been conquered, and deals with what happens when a young (Black, trans) girl frees a monster-hunter from a painting. It’s all very metaphorical and beautiful, but gets dark and intense. It did feel kind of short or like there wasn’t a ton to the plot, but it is a YA book, I just wished it had gone a little deeper. A-.

2023 book 30

 Sienna Tristen's The Heretic's Guide to Homecoming: Book Two

Well, this book just blew my lil mind! I guess we had to trudge through the dark thoughts of the first book to achieve the heights of this one! SOOO much happens and there is a section in the middle that is a bit stressful (for emotional reasons, not dangers in the plot or anything), but the back third is like OMG YES, a gorgeous warm hug holding hands with adventure. I LOVE THIS, def one for the Victoria Goddard fans. A.

2023 book 29

 Sienna Tristen's The Heretic's Guide to Homecoming: Book One

This was an interesting and beautiful book that was often stressful to read—not because of plot events, but because the main character is plagued with severe anxiety and depression, and his head is a very uncomfortable place to be. Anyway, this is the story of a young man trying to fulfill a mission for his goddess, when he impulsively agrees to accompany a mysterious figure en route to a place out of stories. It’s really a story about self discovery etc though. And stories! Lots of bits of storytelling strewn about. I liked that the main character was a giant history nerd who kept finding stuff to nerd out about—relatable. But yeah, not always a pleasant read. A-/B+.

2023 book 28

 H.G. Parry's The Magician's Daughter

I had started reading a different book and was just not into the writing style at all, so was very relieved to try this one and immediately get hooked. It’s about a teenage girl in 1912, who was shipwrecked on an enchanted island as a baby, so she’s been raised by the magician and his rabbit familiar who live there, and she’s never even seen another person (she is a big reader, and all her knowledge of humanity comes from classic novels, lol). But magic is leaving the world and things are getting dangerous, and soon she’s caught up in all sorts of magical adventures and mysteries! And also learning class-consciousness! I just really loved reading this even when things got dark or tense—I had faith that the author would make it all work. And she did. A.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on February 28th.

2023 book 27

 Ren Hutchings' Under Fortunate Stars

This was a fun sci-fi story about two spaceships that encounter each other after losing power in a weird area of outer space—one is a corporate ship that does science stuff, the other is a ramshackle ship with a ragtag crew… except that ramshackle ship and its crew are famous for having brought peace to the galaxy a hundred and fifty years earlier. But … things aren’t quite lining up with the official version of history. It’s pretty obvious how this is going to play out, but the journey there is mostly entertaining. There are a lot of flashbacks, some more effective than others, and a late romance that I wasn’t at all invested in. Otherwise I did enjoy this. B+.

2023 book 26

 Rebecca Makkai's I Have Some Questions For You

This gripped me from page one and didn’t really let go of me until the bittersweet conclusion. It’s the story of a forty-something woman (I actually think my exact age or the year ahead of me in school), a well-known podcaster and Film Studies professor, who’s returning to the boarding school she attended in the 90s to teach a couple of classes. She’s kind of a messy person so when one of her students wants to do a podcast about the murder of a girl at the school—the narrator's classmate and one-time roommate—she’s totally on board. There are some interesting little mini-mysteries along the way: what's the protagonist's deal, who is she addressing in her narration, etc, but of course the main thing is, was the wrong person arrested for the murder, and can a couple of podcasting high-schoolers crack the case? I actually wasn’t sure for a while if this was going to be a traditional mystery novel, and not just a literary novel about crime and our society's fascination with pretty dead women and middle-aged people confronting their pasts, but it’s both! I admit to being the target audience for this book (the mention of Sunflowers perfume caused a visceral sense memory) but I think it does deserve an A.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on February 21st.

2023 book 25

 Kate Forsyth's The Fathomless Caves

A mostly satisfactory ending to this series. As expected, there was a lot of war, and also a lot of (straight) romance. Some cool moments, but it felt kind of predictable. Or maybe it’s just that where it was going was inevitable after five books of buildup. B+.

2023 book 24

 Kate Forsyth's The Skull of the World

I liked this fifth volume a lot, not just because things were focused on Isabeau again, and she’s undergoing all sorts of cool rites and learning cool magic, but because there aren’t any endless battle scenes. I’m much more interested in the people and their relationships and the magic (I've been hoping for some queer ladies but it’s looking less likely as we go on, alas). A few characters I’ve been wondering about pop back up again, and we also have a few POV scenes from a young prince from the sea-people (who were dispossessed when the humans came in and took over). This ends on a major cliffhanger and I’m glad I can dive right into the last book. A-.

2023 book 23

 Kate Forsyth's The Forbidden Land

I think this series was initially a trilogy that spread into six books because it had so much going on. This fourth one is a slight departure, in that it has only one POV character, the little thief girl from the first two books (now in her teens), but it is still continuing the main story from the first three books and we see plenty of those characters. There’s been some business over the last few books with an enemy army made up of what are basically Christians, and that continues here. (The first half of this book is basically a heist/prison break, and I liked that much more than the war stuff in the second half.) I keep waiting for more of the THEYRE ON ANOTHER PLANET! to kick in, but there are still just brief mentions here and there. I am enjoying these, though. B+.

2023 book 22

 Kate Forsyth's The Cursed Towers

I’m still invested in the (many) characters in these books, but this third one involves a lot of war, which I personally found fairly slow and occasionally unpleasant. Isabeau has some awesome adventures and magical education, though! I’m curious about what will happen next. B+.