Beth Brower’s The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, vol. 7
Hooray for a new one in this series! I do love the irrepressible Emma and the scrapes she and her motley assortment of friends get into. Lots of exciting stuff in this volume as aunts come to stay, the Season begins, romance is negotiated, journals are bound, and some secrets of the past are revealed. Very chill and enjoyable. A-.
Cat Sebastian’s The Missing Page
Sometimes you are in the mood to read a historical mystery and then you remember you never read the sequel to Hither Page! Cat Sebastian to the rescue! Anyway, in this one, the adorable post-war couple are trying to find out what happened twenty years earlier when one's cousin disappeared, supposedly in a swimming accident. Very satisfying mystery, great characters, just what I wanted to read. A/A-.
Martha Wells' Wheel of the Infinite
I was excited to read a Martha Wells book I hadn’t read before, but this one was somewhat impenetrable. Interesting world and characters but the plot was pretty slow, just everyone wondering what mysterious people are trying to destroy their world. And there were so many interesting hints of politics (religious and secular) but it’s frustrating to read something where everyone is clueless, including the reader. B.
John Scalzi's Starter Villain
Most important thing first: this book has maybe the BEST fictional cats I have ever read. (Related: this book also has maybe the best cover ever, do click the link to see.) I mean it is a very fun action movie of a book, wherein a thirty-something schlub's very wealthy parking garage mogul uncle dies, and he’s the heir, but of course the parking garage business is just a cover for some high level villainy and soon he's got other villains coming for him! Very fun and highly entertaining, lots of humor, but the cats are *chef's kiss*. A/A-.
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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on September 19th.
Heather Rose Jones' Daughter of Mystery
Well, this was interesting, and in many ways up my alley. It’s a historical fantasy, set in 1800s Europe, centering on two young women—one, who inherits a ton of money and property from her godfather, including the other young woman, who he’s had trained as a duelist (shades of Ellen Kushner). There’s lots of interesting magic (which is tied into Catholicism somehow) and politics, and scholarship, and then it turns out both girls are lesbians and are into each other. Score. But it’s not really written with the framework of a romance novel until near the end. I wanted to get into a series and this one has four books, but it looks like each one focuses on a different pair of ladies. On the one hand, this one had a lot of other stuff going on and I was into the characters, but also I want a big ol' epic series and I’m not sure that’s what this series is. We'll see, I guess! A/A-.
Rachel Neumeier’s Winter of Ice and Iron
I’m still catching up on Neumeier’s backlist of books and this one was entertaining! All sorts of gods and magic and family drama and politics in a world I found very interesting. GREAT characters, including a princess and a Duke who end up teaming up to try and take down an evil power that threatens both their lands. I really enjoyed this until the end, which I wasn’t into for some reason. Just kind of all over the place. A-.
Rebecca Makkai's The Great Believers
I wanted to reread this, so obviously I made it this month's book club pick. And as I texted to Christina, who was ahead of me on her reread, “I remembered it was gutting but didn’t remember it was GUTTING.” Absolutely beautiful book but, yeah, kind of gutting! There are two storylines—one focuses on a group of gay men (and one's little sister) in 1980s Chicago, as they’re being decimated by AIDS, and the other features the little sister thirty years later, in Paris looking for the daughter she hasn’t seen in years. I am still a little weepy so I’m going to wrap this up now.
Sarah Beth Durst's Race the Sands
Durst can be hit or miss for me, but I’d heard enough good things about this one that I figured I’d try it. And it’s interesting, with great characters! It’s set in a world where people are reincarnated into animals based on how good (or not) they are, and the most evil people turn into monsters that are then raced for sport for some reason (like horses). The main character is a single mother who trains said racers and has to have a winning season, and ends up with a brand new monster thing and a brand new rider (also a POV character). The thing is that the first half of this is kind of slow, especially since it’s obvious to the reader what’s going on. I did like the politics/intrigues aspects of the story, and things picked up in the second half, but the end was kind of eh. But like I said, great characters and very atmospheric. B+.
John Scalzi's The End of All Things
I have said on this blog many times before that I love sentient AIs, and I especially love spaceships with feelings. But y’all…. this is not what I meant! In the last book, we found out that the bad guys were stealing ships and killing their crews and using their pilot's brain to run the whole ship, and the narrator of the first part is one such brain in a box spaceship. I was very invested in that character and was annoyed when the next POV started, even though it’s a character I like. Like the previous book, this one is interconnected stories, but four novellas this time (so we see the spaceship again). I have mixed feelings on how that worked to wrap up this series, and how it’s used to try and address the moral ambiguities of the organization that a bunch of the characters work for. Still, a quick read and a fairly satisfying end to the series. A-.
John Scalzi’s The Human Division
This was an interesting entry in this series—it’s sort of a bunch of interconnected stories or vignettes, mainly involving some diplomats and their spaceship crews (including Harry Wilson, glad to see him again). I did enjoy this a lot (I love stories about diplomacy) but wished we had gotten more of a resolution—it’s somewhat unsatisfying to know for an entire book that someone is sabotaging stuff but never to find out who. A-.
John Scalzi's Zoe's Tale
I was a little bummed when I started this, because the third one lands in such an interesting place, and this one goes back to retell all those events from Zoe's POV. And I like Zoe as a POV character, I just wanted to know what happens NEXT! But I pretty quickly got into it, bc Scalzi tells a good story. Lots of dumb teen moments, moving moments, bittersweet moments, cool alien moments. A/A-.
John Scalzi's The Last Colony
The third book in the Old Man's War series is set several years later, and finds John and Jane in charge of a brand new colony--but it's called Roanoke, which is maybe a clue that things aren't going to be easy. And they sure aren't! All sorts of new political problems pop up and there are some really interesting and exciting moments. And a banger of an ending. This series is really fun. A/A-.
John Scalzi's The Ghost Brigades
The second book in this series was also very fun, taking on new enemies, traitors, and science! The main character is a brand new member of the Special Forces, and Jane from the first book is prominent as well. Again, a good balance of action and character moments, I’m really enjoying these. A/A-.
John Scalzi's Old Man's War
I wanted to read a fun sci-fi series and several people whose tastes I trust have recommended this over the years, plus I like what I’ve read of Scalzi's stuff, so here we go! This has a wild premise: when people on earth turn 75, they can enlist in the space army, who will turn them young again so they can fight aliens and thus colonize far off planets. But actually I loved all this? A good mix of outer space science stuff, friendships, battles, action, etc. I really enjoyed the narrative voice. I was mildly sad that everyone named their personal brain AI stuff like “asshole” when obviously I would have named it after a pet. But that’s not really a quibble. Can’t wait to see what happens next. A/A-.
Lauren Groff's The Vaster Wilds
I made a noise sort of like “waaaaaahhh” when I finished this book, it’s very beautiful but also like omg. It’s the story of a teenage servant girl, an English colonist in the 1600s, who flees sickness and starvation and runs into the winter wilderness with a sack full of useful things, her faith, and her intelligence. Now this is a survival story so some parts disturbed my delicate vegetarian sensibilities. And things are often grim, and tense. But it’s still lovely and dreamlike, somehow. But also, grim and tense. Interesting balance there. I am very curious about how people will respond to this. A/A-.
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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in September.
Katy Watson's A Very Lively Murder
I was in the mood for a mystery, so decided to check out the sequel to The Three Dahlias, which I liked a lot. This one is set on the … set … of the new Dahlia movie, and our three actresses are once again on the case when one of them starts receiving death threats. I will say I was very entertained while reading this, but the mystery ends up being fairly unhinged, not in a good way, so I was left feeling vaguely disappointed. I do still love the characters, though, and would definitely read another one in this series. B/B+.
Patricia McKillip’s Harpist in the Wind
This series ended up not being my jam. This third one is more like the first, very slow-paced and with most of the action taking place in one guy's head. Some interesting moments for sure but just a slow, dreamlike kind of book. Kind of exhausting. B.
Patricia McKillip's Heir of Sea and Fire
OK, I did like this one more! It has much zippier pacing, and I thought the storyline was more interesting--young women on a mission! The characters are also a lot more dynamic. The second half focuses more on one of the young women learning about her heritage and powers and is a little slower, but still enjoyable, and the end is really intriguing. I’m curious about how this series will wrap up. A-
Patricia McKillip’s The Riddle-Master of Hed
I didn’t love this the first time I read it, but I never did read the sequels and I’m running out of unread McKillip books! So I made my way through this again and still found it fairly impenetrable. It’s about a young prince from farming country who has a great destiny, but he’s reluctant to accept it, mainly bc a lot of people are trying to kill him. He has magical adventures and learns cool stuff and eventually journeys to his destination, but it’s all very slow and the end is a confusing cliffhanger. I’m hoping the sequels will be more up my alley.
Ann Patchett's Tom Lake
Hooray for new Ann Patchett! This one is set in the early days of the pandemic, and involves a woman and her three twentysomething daughters, picking cherries in their cherry orchard, as the mother tells them stories about her life when she was a young actress, and how she briefly dated an actor who later became very famous. I will say I probably missed some literary allusions here, being generally unfamiliar with both The Cherry Orchard and Our Town (which features prominently), but it didn’t affect my enjoyment at all. The narrative voice immediately drew me in and I was hooked the whole time and just wanted to give all these women hugs (and some other characters too—Joe!). So good and so completely satisfying. A.
