2024 book 46

 Micaiah Johnson's The Space Between Worlds

This was one of my favorite books of 2020, and I've had it on my list to read for book club ever since, and I finally made it a pick this month because a companion novel is out in a couple weeks! Anyway, it was JUST as good on a reread, still totally gripping and fun but also really hitting on some complex themes. The protagonist is a young Black woman whose job is to hop between different worlds for research purposes, but she can only travel to worlds where that version of her has died--and she's died on so many worlds. SO much happens in this and it's such a fun but also a GOOD read, can't wait for the followup.

2024 book 45

 Seanan McGuire’s Aftermarket Afterlife

Gonna give this one a big YESSSSS bc it’s from the POV of ghost babysitter Mary, who rules, and which means we get to spend time with ALL the characters as she bounces around, plus it’s super action packed. I mean, SO much goes down. I think this may actually have been my favorite of the series (despite some dark moments), which is impressive since it’s like the thirteenth book. But Mary is such a good POV character, so much insight into an increasingly complicated family. Really good stuff. A/A-.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on March 5th.

2024 book 44

 Seanan McGuire’s Backpacking Through Bedlam

This one picks up where book eleven leaves off, wrapping up those storylines and hopping back to our world for some family reunions and more battles with the Covenant. Another fun and action-packed one and I do like seeing the larger groups of the family and their various friends and allies together, very entertaining. I do wonder when one of the major characters of this series had a kid though; I have skipped a couple of the novellas because sometimes I’m not in the mood for bonus material, so maybe it was mentioned in one of those? A-.

2024 book 43

 Seanan McGuire’s Spelunking Through Hell

Ooh, now THIS was firing on all cylinders! It’s the story of Grandma Alice, who’s spent the last fifty years hopping through different dimensions searching for her missing husband. If you’re like, awesome, I want to read about a badass eighty year old, she looks twenty and has a bunch of magical tattoos, but she’s still pretty cool. This was just really fun, lots going on, new allies and new enemies. My only complaint is that these need a better proofreader; at one point she calls a character her son-in-law and the character is her daughter-in-law's father. I’ve noticed other things like that along the way as well. Still, very minor in the grand scheme of things. A/A-.

2024 book 42

 Seanan McGuire’s Calculated Risks

This was an interesting one, seeing as it takes place in another dimension, but it felt a lot slower than the rest of the series. Solid ending though, and I was here for the adorable spider. B+.

2024 book 41

 Seanan McGuire's Imaginary Numbers

Ooooh it's finally a SARAH book!! (And Artie, too!) She was very prominent in the first two books, and made appearances in the two after that, but wasn't in the next three (which was fair, since they focused on Annie being away from her family). This is set five years after Sarah did major damage to herself at the end of book two, and she's mostly healed and coming to visit the extended family for the first time. Well, until she's kidnapped, anyway. Lots of cuckoo lore here, I did think the story dragged a little towards the end but the very ending had me skipping the included novella to get right to the next book. B+.

2024 book 40

 Seanan McGuire’s That Ain't Witchcraft

This volume involves Annie and her friends adopting a young sorcerer in Maine who wants to destroy the crossroads—lots of adventures ensue, especially once the Covenant pops back up. More solid plotting in this one too, and I keep forgetting to mention that I love Annie for her pop culture references. There’s a novella at the end about Alex and Shelby helping out their local gorgon friends, which also answers a question that was raised during this book or the one before (they sort of blend together at a certain point when you’re racing through them). A-.

2024 book 39

 Seanan McGuire’s Tricks for Free

So the plot on this one was a little flimsier, but it was definitely more fun than the previous one! Here, we find Antimony taking a job at a theme park in Florida (not that one) to basically try and stay in hiding from the people after her. She also finds a powerful cabal of magicians running things at the park and they want to train her to use her powers (this needed more buildup for the plot to work—we don’t see much of this, just hear about it after the fact). What I like most here is the friendships, just such good friendships! And if, like me, you were bummed at the lack of Aeslin mice, there is a novella at the end featuring Mindy and Mork (and Sam, but I was obviously more interested in the mice). A-.

2024 book 38

 Seanan McGuire’s Magic for Nothing

This one stressed me out quite a bit, since it involves youngest Prince sibling Antimony being sent on an undercover mission to infiltrate the Covenant, the evil organization of monster hunters, who consider her whole family traitors and will absolutely kill her if she’s found out. Also, she secretly has magic powers and can’t control them. It eventually comes to her joining a circus and meeting a cute boy, so really a lot of emotional highs and lows. I did really end up liking this one, very interesting ending and A+ Aeslin mice action. A-.

2024 book 37

 Seanan McGuire’s Chaos Choreography 

This was a VERY fun one, not only because it returns to Verity as the main character, but because it involves her going back to be on the all-star season of a dancing reality show. Except of course a snake cult is killing the contestants. Solid mystery, entertaining conclusion, occasionally hilarious, and I always love seeing dragons and Aeslin mice. Not to mention finally meeting Grandma Alice. A-.

2024 book 36

 Seanan McGuire's Pocket Apocalypse

The fourth Incryptid books finds scientists Alex and Shelby off to visit her family in Australia—and to deal with a werewolf outbreak. Another fun and action-packed adventure, if occasionally heartbreaking. B+.

2024 book 35

 Seanan McGuire's Half-off Ragnarok

This third book in this series switches up the protagonists—here, it’s the older brother of the woman from the first two books, who works at a zoo in Ohio, where he’s trying to keep his more supernatural studies hidden from his girlfriend. Until dead bodies start showing up, that is. The villain is pretty obvious and is also not super interesting, but it is interesting to see another corner of this world (and to see more of cousin Sarah). B+.

2024 book 34

 Seanan McGuire's Midnight Blue-Light Special

The title of this one is silly and also has nothing to do with the story, which involves some members of the group of vicious monster-hunters coming to New York. Again, lots of action, fun characters (cousin Sarah gets to be a POV character for a while), cool powers, very entertaining read. A-.

2024 book 33

 Seanan McGuire's Discount Armageddon

I was in the mood to read something on the more fun/entertaining side, and remembered that I only ever read the first few books of this series and then never got back to them, so here we go! I remembered the major plot beats of this one and it is very fun and action-packed—about a young woman who’s a cryptozoologist in Manhattan, and also a ballroom dancer (way too much dance related info for my tastes but ymmv). Things kick off when a dude from a notorious group of monster hunters comes to town, various supernatural people start disappearing, and rumors of dragons start popping up. I like the big extended worlds of family and friends—McGuire's Toby Daye series does that really well too. B+.

2024 book 32

 Elspeth Barker's O Caledonia

This was interesting, and beautifully written, but ended up leaving me kind of cold. It starts with the burial of a teenage girl who was murdered, and the prevailing emotion seems to be “good riddance.” And then it flashes back to tell her life story, growing up in Scotland in the 1940s and 50s in an eccentric family, loving animals, loving learning, never fitting in. But I ended up just feeling depressed about it all. B+.

2024 book 31

 Ann Aguirre's The Only Purple House in Town

This was VERY cute, definitely for fans for Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches. It centers on a young woman from a family of psychic vampires, except she’s never figured out her own powers, and her family judges her for not living up to her overachieving older sisters. And her love interest is a dude who’s a were-hawk who had a crush on her when they were little kids! Things kick off when she inherits her great-aunt's house and decides to rent out the rooms, and he takes one, along with a fun cast of other characters. (The main couple is straight but all the other characters are queer in some capacity, including several elderly people.) So there is a romance, and it’s sweet (until the inevitable last stage annoying disagreement), but this is just as much about the found family vibes, which I loved. GREAT characters, very fun. A-.

2024 book 30

 Joma West's Twice Lived

This was such an interesting book! The premise is hard to explain (it makes sense when you’re reading it)—the main character is a girl who switches between two worlds at random, living totally different lives as totally different people. But most people who shift settle down on one side or the other when they’re young, and as she gets older it starts to become more dangerous. But how can she choose between two lives, two families? I’m not sure what to think about the ending but like I said, very interesting. And totally gripping writing; I read this in one sitting. A/A-.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on February 20th.

2024 book 29

 Patricia Wentworth's Miss Silver Comes to Stay

I think I’m burning out on these a little—this was fine, I just wasn’t super into it. Things start off with Miss Silver going to visit an old school friend, but when an unpleasant local rich man is murdered, she has to help get to the bottom of things. I did like all the characters and the mystery ended up being pretty interesting, so I do think I just need a little break from classic mysteries as a palate cleanser. A-/B+.

2024 book 28

 Patricia Wentworth’s The Catherine Wheel

This is one of the ones where Miss Silver comes into things early on and we get to see her in action, very satisfying! The mystery involves a bunch of cousins who have never met due to a family argument being invited to the old family inn for a reunion—and Miss Silver is on the scene because the police suspect it’s the center of some smuggling activity! But soon she has to solve a murder as well. I did figure the whole mystery out, I think because Miss Silver is always schooling the policemen and so the reader has extra clues. :) A-.

2024 book 27

 Premee Mohammed's The Butcher of the Forest

This has T. Kingfisher vibes to me--which is obviously a compliment! It's about a woman, the only person ever to return from a mysterious forest, who is forced to go back there to rescue the Tyrant's children. But she only has a day. There are some creepy parts and some dark parts and it has a fairy-tale feel to it (hence the T. Kingfisher comparison), great pacing and characters. Really beautiful writing too. A/A-.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on February 27th.

2024 book 26

 Patricia Wentworth’s Eternity Ring

I do enjoy these, even when they are on the more formulaic side. This one involves a pair of estranged newlyweds, a girl who swears she saw a man dragging a dead body, but no one can find the body, and some stolen diamonds. Ok, maybe only the young couple is formulaic--there’s always a couple! And yet I am always invested in their dilemmas! Miss Silver is on the case early in this one, but isn’t super active. I do appreciate that she can solve a mystery while knitting, though. I can barely read a mystery while knitting. :) A-.

2024 book 25

 Patricia Wentworth's The Case of William Smith

I am just really vibing with the Miss Silver mysteries! I would have read this all in one sitting had my schedule allowed. This one involves a young man with amnesia due to a head injury during WWII; he now works at a toy store but there are hints he has a loftier background. Also, someone is trying to kill him. And someone else is keeping secrets! Leave it to Miss Silver to unravel everything. I really liked this until the end; the explanations for villainous behavior were weird and the “here's what happened” was long and boring because we knew it all already. Otherwise entertaining! B+.

2024 book 24

 Victoria Goddard’s The Bone Harp

This is an interesting departure for Goddard—not just because it’s a stand-alone, not set in her usual world (she has many series and characters but the rest are all related to some degree), but also the writing style feels very different. The central character is an immortal elf, who after centuries of war and cursed wandering, has awoken someplace different, healed. His journey home (literal and metaphysical) is a slow one, and the history of the world is revealed slowly as well—it’s all very beautiful and meditative. Great characters as always, and I do love how Goddard writes families and friendships. I’d read another one set in this world. A-.

2024 book 23

 James McBride's The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store

I didn’t purposely read this during Black History Month (I actually assumed I’d finish it while it was still January, but this week ended up being busy), but it was certainly an appropriate pick! It centers on a bunch of the residents of a small town in Pennsylvania during the 1930s, particularly a Black couple and a Jewish couple trying to protect a little Black boy from being institutionalized. But there are plenty of other characters in the mix (obviously I loved Chona and Addie, but I was partial to Paper). Great atmosphere here, the neighborhood really feels vivid. Parts of this are pretty grim, though, and parts were a little slow. Still, definitely worth being on all the 2023 best-of lists! A/A-.