2022 book 239

 Megan Whalen Turner's Return of the Thief

A very satisfying conclusion to this series, full of war and intrigue and betrayal and loyalty and love! It’s narrated by a very young attendant of the king, a boy born with a physical disability and raised mostly in isolation, and thrust into the king's court as part of a political game (he’s mentioned very briefly in the fifth book, which overlaps with the beginning of this one, and I was like ??? about it, since he’s from a family of political enemies, but of course it all makes sense). There are a few explicitly queer minor characters in this one, which is nice, but feels odd since there never were any in the earlier books. Like, thanks, I guess? Well, anyway, just a small quibble, I really liked this. A/A-.

2022 book 238

 Megan Whalen Turner's Thick as Thieves

I think this does work better read with the first four and not as a stand-alone, since the main POV character is a minor character from book two (the slave/secretary to the imperial ambassador) who's been stolen away by the main POV character from book three (the soldier). However, it is still a very slow read, as it’s just the two of them on the run for 90 percent of the book. I did enjoy their growing friendship, but books where it’s just people journeying around can be very tiresome. I do have hopes that the sixth book will be more action-packed (or at least have more political intrigue).

2022 book 237

 Megan Whalen Turner's A Conspiracy of Kings

It’s funny to me that when I read this twelve years ago, I complained about there being too much “boring political stuff” when now I’m like “yeah!! Intrigues!!” I do still think this is maybe the weakest of the first four, but still very entertaining, as the earnest young guy from book one gets kidnapped and has to foil plots against him and claim his throne. I enjoy that character a lot. 

2022 book 236

 Megan Whalen Turner's The King of Attolia

I think I liked this much more this time around than last time I read it—I am guessing I wasn’t super into court politics back then, but it’s exactly the sort of thing I enjoy these days. The main POV character here is a member of the Queen's Guard who ends up guarding the king and slowly coming to respect him. This is ALL court politics and I love it.

2022 book 235

 Megan Whalen Turner's The Queen of Attolia

It’s funny, I read this book over a decade ago, and if you asked me to describe it before this reread, I’d have just shrugged, but as soon as I was into it I remembered so many of the details (and reveals). (It was a little distracting waiting to see if I remembered correctly.) This second volume is a fair amount darker than the first one, but I enjoy all the war and diplomacy and court politics and gods of it all. I found it very satisfying. 

2022 book 234

 Megan Whalen Turner's The Thief

I didn’t actually dive right into another fantasy series after that last one, but both of the palate cleansers I tried—a contemporary literary fiction and a stand-alone fantasy—were SO BORING that my palate was ready for something fun. I have read the first five books in this series before, but a very long time ago, and meanwhile a sixth one came out, so here we go. This first one involves a young man who’s in prison for theft, at least until the local powerful mage guy frees him to help the mage steal something out of legends (this book has cool gods/world-building stuff going on). Very entertaining.

2022 book 233

 Tanith Lee's Wolf Wing

The final book in this series ended up being fairly tedious. I don’t care enough about it to try and think of anything else to say. B-.

2022 book 232

 Tanith Lee's Queen of the Wolves

This one also takes a while to actually get interesting (how many times is this protagonist going to get kidnapped and take forever to learn some crucial information????), but the second half has some awesome parts. This world is a weird mashup of fantasy and sci fi, I wonder how that will all be addresses in the final volume. B+.

2022 book 231

 Tanith Lee's Wolf Star

The second book in this series doesn’t actually get interesting till the second half—the book starts with the heroine being kidnapped and taken on a long journey and eventually imprisoned in a weird and isolated palace where the rooms move and the servants are the products of strange experimentations. I am curious about where her story goes next but this was kind of blah. B/B+.

2022 book 230

 Tanith Lee's Wolf Tower

I’ve been looking for more series to read that are told as diaries, and found this one, and I was into it! The narrator is a sixteen year old girl, a maid in a fantasy world, whose parents were exiled when she was just a baby. And then a traveler is captured, and a powerful old woman asks the maid to help him escape, and adventures ensue. But not the way I expected. I liked this very much and am immediately starting the second one. A-.

2022 book 229

 Stephanie Burgis' Scales and Sensibility 

This is a regency-era fantasy romance in a world that is pretty much historically accurate, except there are cute lil dragons that ALL the fashionable ladies wear as accessories. Our story starts with a young woman, a poor relation living with her spoiled cousin, who rescues her cousin's mistreated dragon and runs away! Some of the plot is really interesting and fun; I was less interested in the romance, but that’s mainly because our heroine falls in love with a dude she's known for literally a day. Lots of fun shenanigans here, though. This is the first of a series (the heroine has two younger sisters) and I look forward to the next. B+.

2022 book 228

 Kate Elliott's The Keeper's Six

Elliott is sometimes hit or miss for me, but this was really fun! I'm not going to try and explain the world here (it’s interesting though)—suffice it to say the protagonist, a sixty year old woman, has to get the band back together when her adult son is kidnapped by a dragon and she has to go on a mission to free him. The main character and her family are all really vivid; I did think the secondary characters could have used a bit more development (but it looks like there might be more in the series and room for that later). The protagonist also happens to be Jewish, which isn’t super relevant to the plot but is important to her character, so I was here for that. I hope there will be more books with her and her rabble-rousing, unionizing family. A-.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on January 17th.

2022 book 227

 Rachel Neumeier’s Shines Now and Heretofore

Neumeier likes to do this thing where she will just write a book about a secondary character in her main series, which I think is delightful! Said character here is The Outlaw Leader With The Mysterious Past, and it’s great, lots of cameraderie and feelings etc. I wanted a little bit more of the ending but no major complaints. A-.

2022 book 226

 Rachel Neumeier’s As Shadow, A Light

An action-packed finale to the main trilogy in this series—wars, outlaws, prison breaks, etc. I do like the author's sense of humor. There is some business in this one where one of the main characters—the sassy twenty-two year old, who gets to use her martial arts skills quite a bit—dyes her fair skin and blonde hair to better blend in with the locals, and that gave me a little bit of pause. Is that blackface? Can you have blackface in a fantasy world where it has no social/cultural context? She is also threatened with rape a couple times, but see aforementioned martial arts skills. Her dad is also a POV character and undergoes what amounts to psychological torture, so this in general is a little darker than the first two. But balanced with moments of lightness. B+.

2022 book 225

 Rachel Neumeier’s Of Absence, Darkness

The second book in the Death's Lady series takes place sixteen years after the first, and finds the psychiatrist from the first book whisked away to the other world with his former patient, now friend, and his now-twenty-something daughter. This was kind of slow, like the first, but I enjoy court politics, and there’s a mystery element in trying to figure out who their enemy is. I mean I am not like OMG about these books, but they are an interesting diversion. A-/B+.

2022 book 224

 Rachel Neumeier’s The Year's Midnight

Starting another series by Neumeier; this one is intriguing because it’s set in our normal world (but it is a fantasy series!). The main character in the first half is a psychiatrist who’s moved and taken a new job in the wake of his wife's death, and one of his new patients claims to be from another world—except the reader knows from page one that she’s telling the truth. I’ll be honest that nothing much happens in this,but the characters were enough to keep me interested, and there are hints later volumes will be more action-packed. A-/B+.

2022 book 223

 C.J. Cherryh's Foreigner

I had tried to read this book once before, and bogged down in a chapter where space-traveling humans decided to settle a planet that already has an advanced civilization, and I was so annoyed at those COLONISTS and it went on FOREVER. But then I found out that’s not actually what the book is about—there are two sections at the beginning kind of explaining the history of the current conflict, and that’s one of them. So the main story is set a couple hundred years later and focuses on the sort-of-ambassador from the humans to the pre-existing people being a political pawn. But like he spends 90 percent of the book just being confused about everything, which is not really fun for a reader. There are some interesting moments and characters, and normally I am down for diplomacy in my books, but this guy was SUPER frustrating. I wanted to get into a big ol' series, but it seems like he’s the protagonist of the next few books and I just can’t do it. B.

2022 book 222

 Kate Saunders' The Mystery of the Sorrowful Maiden

Somehow I missed there was a new one in this series about a respectable Victorian widow who solves crimes (with a dry sense of humor). This mystery involves a scandalous group of actors, and at first it’s just financial stuff, but pretty soon a body is uncovered and there’s a murder to be solved. I will say some of the late reveals are pretty obvious, and I’m not sure how obvious some of them were supposed to be, but the mystery was solid and I did have my doubts about whether my guesses were correct. I want to give a content warning here but it’s kind of a spoiler?? B+.

2022 book 221

 Makoto Shinkai and Naruki Nagakawa's She and Her Cat (translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori)

I was having one of those days where every book I started just felt MEH, so I grabbed this one, figuring cats always hit the spot—and it was so good I cried. Just a really nice book, a set of stories about people in the same neighborhood, narrated by them and by their cats. But just SO DELIGHTFUL. Apparently it’s based on some manga by Makoto Shinkai (the guy who made Your Name and other excellent movies), so if that’s your vibe,  e sure and check this out. Also check it out if your vibe is NICE PEOPLE AND CATS. A.

2022 book 220

 Elizabeth Moon's Victory Conditions 

Well, I didn’t really love this last volume of this series. There were plenty of enjoyable moments, but way too much time was spent on a shoehorned-in romance. Like literally I think there was one sentence in an earlier book suggesting the dude has feelings for the protagonist, and there was no buildup here, they are just in love and angsty about it (but in an annoying way). I will say I also found many of his sections really awkwardly written for some reason, and very repetitive. Even the was stuff was kind of boring! The big battle was not satisfying at all. There are also so many unresolved subplots! I still enjoy all the family relationships, but I don’t know if I’m going to bother with the sequel series. B.