2024 book 197

Kate Fagan's The Three Lives of Cate Kay

Yall, this was really good! I had to force myself to put it down and go to bed last night! The eponymous Cate Kay is the VERY reclusive author of a trilogy of bestselling books--which led to a trilogy of blockbuster movies, etc. But only like two people know her real identity. And this book is the memoir telling her whole life story, including chapters from childhood friends, colleagues, ex-girlfriends (this book is very queer), and more. The description says this is a thriller but it totally isn't— it's a really engaging, occasionally messy, and sweet novel. I could quibble and say some of it is too neat or some characters could be more fleshed out, but I don’t want to quibble! I loved this! Apparently the author is best known as a sportswriter, but I hope she keeps putting out fiction. A.

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

2024 books 194, 195, 196

 Rainbow Rowell's Carry On

Rainbow Rowell's Wayward Son

Rainbow Rowell's Any Way the Wind Blows

I reread the Simon Snow series (including the story in the Scattered Showers collection) while traveling this weekend; things have been stressful lately and that calls for rereading a favorite series I know will be satisfying, full of magic and action and (queer) romance. So good.

2024 book 193

 Celia Lake's Complementary

This author writes romances set in a fantasy version of England in the early 1900s, and this one involved ladies so I figured I’d try it. It was a very sweet romance but the plot just like stopped existing after a while (initially it involves the ladies going to investigate magical weirdness at an artists' colony). Like I get that is is a novella and a romance but you gotta have more than “we'll do this thing to solve the problem” and then the next chapter is several weeks later after things presumably got solved. Or at least I like a tiny bit of actual plot in my romances. But still, very pleasant characters and the romance is cute. B/B+.

2024 book 192

 John Wiswell's Someone You Can Build a Nest In

I've seen this recommended so many times, and I was intrigued.... I saw it described as like "cozy horror" and while there are some funny moments and some sweet moments, this is actually pretty dark.The narrator is a sort of shapeshifting blob creature, who can disguise herself as a human using parts of the people she eats. But then she starts to FALL for a woman who helps her, and has to rethink a lot of stuff! The dark stuff mainly involves the love interest's background, as opposed to monster murder shenanigans (though there is also a fair bit of that). It gets a little slow in the second half but I loved how things wrapped up. A-.

2024 book 191

 Charlotte Vassell's The In Crowd

I’ve seen this mystery recommended a few times recently—it’s actually the second in the series, but the first didn’t really grab me, so I just went for this one instead (there are a lot of references to the first book but I felt like I got the gist of it). Anyway, this involves a London detective working on two cold cases involving rich British people—there’s also a lot of shady political shenanigans going on. I enjoyed this but there were a few too many coincidences for my taste. I did like the detective and was rooting for him/his romance/his colleague pals. I’d read another involving him. B+.