Lily King's Heart the Lover
Rereading this for book club! It was one of my favorites of last year and absolutely holds up. (I think I cried more knowing what was coming.) Christina and I saw Lily King speak about this book a couple months ago and I’m looking forward to discussing the book and her comments with everyone!
Tansy Rayner Roberts’ Teacup Magic: The Second Collection
Back on my adorable historical fantasy bullshit! And this one has LESBIANS!!! Yes!!!! Anyway, it’s another few novellas, the first focused on one of the secondary characters from the first collection, featuring jewel heists, stepmothers, and artists galore. The second focuses on the new Duchess of Storm dealing with ghosts—including her mother in law and her unpleasant first husband. The third has a bunch of queer pirates! And mermaids and kidnappings and bringing all sorts of characters from the other stories together and it’s absolutely delightful. I really enjoyed this series, just what I needed right now. A/A-.
Ursula K. LeGuin’s The Word for World is Forest
I’m still periodically getting to all the LeGuin books I’ve never read! I think I did start this one once and then went “ugh, this guy SUCKS” and put it down, bc we’re in the POV of a guy who LOVES being a colonizer (he likes to think of himself as a conquistador) and he super sucks! But we soon shift to the perspective of the indigenous people he wants to destroy and it’s much more interesting (they have a very cool society!), and we also get the POV of the earth anthropologist. Really lovely writing, of course, and a true bittersweet ending. A.
Ross Montgomery’s The Murder at World’s End
I do enjoy a locked room mystery, and this one has locked rooms galore, as the murder victim believes Halley’s Comet (in 1910) is going to poison the world and insists on all his guests and staff being totally shut in. The main character here is a brand new footman with a slightly seedy past, but of course he’s a good guy REALLY (🙄), who gets enlisted to help solve the murder by a mildly eccentric great-aunt. There are some funny parts and the mystery had an interesting solution, but the book didn’t quite work for me—it kept shifting from first to third person and the pacing was a little off. It looks like this might be the start of a series and I would maybe read another one? B/B+.
Allegra Goodman’s This Is Not About Us
Goodman’s latest is a series of stories about a messy and complicated Jewish family whose matriarchs are in a feud precipitated by an apple cake. There’s babies and divorces and bat mitzvahs and dog walkers and vegans and hilarious Seders. Some of the stories/characters are more compelling than others, and some that I liked sort of disappear, but on the whole I liked this a lot and read it in one sitting. RIYL Long Story Short on Netflix. A-.
__
A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in February.
Tansy Rayner Roberts' Teacup Magic: The First Collection
Jo Walton recommended this in her latest "Jo Walton Reads" column, and since I liked that Jane Austen with dragons book by this author, and was looking for something on the lighter/fluffier side to read, here we go! This is a collection of three novellas set in your typical Regency-with-magic world, but they're all very sweet and very funny (also seems to be a queer-normative world!). The first involves the main character's cousin, a Duke, being pursued by many women who want to be his Duchess--and then he's kidnapped! The second features politics, a secret society of powerful women, a murder, and of course some romance! And the third finds our protagonist on her honeymoon, caught up in a murder mystery, sort of, and all sorts of magical shenanigans (there is also a bunch of fun correspondence). Really delightful and funny, definitely will be reading volume two. A/A-.
Tana French's The Keeper
I've really been enjoying French's series about a Chicago cop who retires to a tiny town in Ireland--they're super atmospheric and I really enjoy the characters, especially now that Cal is more integrated into local society. This third one involves the death of a young woman in an apparent suicide, and soon the whole town is drawing battle lines, with our characters on one side and a very powerful man making their lives hell on the other. Y'all, this book was STRESSFUL. But it wrapped up nicely and the ending was honestly lovely. Gorgeous writing. A/A-.
__
A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in March.
Olivia Waite’s Nobody’s Baby
The second Dorothy Gentleman mystery (about a detective on a spaceship!) involves a baby being left on her nephew’s doorstep, which is wild bc no one on the ship should be able to have babies! Where did this baby come from??? Perfect cozy mystery IN SPACE and I love it! More please!!! A.
__
A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in March.
Alexis Hall’s Audrey Lane Stirs the Pot
Alexis Hall can be hit or miss for me, but this one was pure hit!! I didn’t love the first in this series, and never read the second, but Christina said I’d love this one and I DID! The series is set on basically GBBO and the romance here involves a couple of lesbians—a cute, chubby journalist who’s a contestant on the show, and the show’s foul-mouthed, curt producer (grumpy/sunshine is my fave!). There is also a b-plot involving a 96 year old contestant on the show who worked in the house decades ago and had a secret lesbian affair with the daughter of the manor. Great balance between the stories, great characters, the romance had so many funny moments….just really a good time! A.
CM Waggoner’s The Somewhat Wicked Witch of Brigandale
I’ve enjoyed all of Waggoner’s books, but this one was *chef’s kiss*—a sweet and funny book about a witch who finds an abandoned baby on her doorstep, and when he turns 18 all the forest animals prophecy that he’s the long lost prince, and so he goes off to be king… good thing he has a very practical mother to advise him! This was just a perfect cozy fantasy book, highly recommended!! A.
__
A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in March.
Alice Bell’s The Grapples of Wrath
HOORAY for a new book in Bell’s Grave Expectations series, about a woman who can see ghosts (and whose teenage dead best friend is attached to her) and keeps getting involved in murders! The murder victim here is the owner of a professional wrestling ring and it’s a fascinating setting for a mystery. As always, I love the characters here, the book is really funny, and there mystery is solid. I really enjoy this series and hope there will be many more! A.
Premee Mohammed’s We Speak Through the Mountain
Very cool sequel to Annual Migration of Clouds—lots of near-future post-apocalyptic action! And philosophical discussions! And seeing how the other half lives! I did have my frequent complaint with novellas— I think this would have been stronger if there was more to it—but I liked it a lot and hope for more books in this series! A-.
Premee Mohamed’s The Annual Migration of Clouds
This novella is set in a semi-near-future sort of post-apocalypse—a few generations from now, after we inevitably destroyed the climate. Totally compelling narrative voice—the protagonist is a teen who’s gotten an acceptance letter to a college in a mysterious high tech dome, but her mother doesn’t want her to go. Plus she’s infected with a maybe-intelligent fungal parasite? Really fascinating world—looking forward to the follow-up! A/A-.
Mackenzi Lee’s Lady Like
Hooray for more queer historical romances! This one involves two women trying to marry the same Duke*—one, a pants-wearing actress, has to make a respectable marriage to get her inheritance, and the other, who was once caught in a scandal, wants to find anyone better than the horrible old man she’s engaged to—and of course they fall for each other! It’s all very cute even if the ending is a little hand-wavey. A-.
_
* Everyone CALLS him a Duke but he’s actually the son of a Duke and this annoyed me—like all these people care about is shit like that so why aren’t they being accurate?
Moniquill Blackgoose’s To Ride a Rising Storm
Hooray for the second book in Blackgoose’s series about an alternate version of the US with dragons! (And founded by Vikings? Once again I found the different names for everything distracting.) I love all the characters here, humans and dragons alike, and there are some great new ones—I of course was partial to a girl who’s this world’s version of Jewish!!! But there are also some fun philosophical discussions and some progressions on the romance. Of course there is still all the COLONIALISM and racism going on, so there are some tense moments for sure, but I was totally along for the ride and the ending made me very eager for book three! A!
__
A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on January 27th.
Jo Firestone’s Murder on Sex Island
I’ve been meaning to read this one for a while, but after three mentions of Firestone in the last week, it felt like time! This is a mildly goofy mystery involving a women who has an alter ego who’s a private eye (unclear if she is licensed lol), who is hired to go undercover on a hit reality tv show (the titular “Sex Island”) to find a missing contestant. It was fine! It would be a really funny movie. B/B+.
Rainbow Rowell’s Cherry Baby
For my first book of the year, I had to read the ARC of the latest novel from one of my favorite authors! The only downside of an ARC is that I can’t discuss it with my fellow Rowell-heads for a few months! I don’t want to even hint at spoilers so I’m not gonna do any kind of summary, I will just say I love Rowell’s writing, and even though I was hesitant about some of the plot, she had me all in by the end. I especially loved all the sister relationships (Cherry is one of five girls!) and text threads between them. This also really goes in on the Ozempic discourse (I felt a little weird about this as someone who is on it for medical reasons and I also feel weird that I feel like I have to say that?). I am gonna have to reread this one soon. A.
__
A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in April.
