2024 book 109

 Emma Alban's Don’t Want You Like a Best Friend

Very cute historical romance involving two young women who are supposed to be finding husbands during the Season, but they’re not super interested in marriage (not really a spoiler: they’re lesbians but aren’t initially aware lesbianism is a thing), so they decide to matchmake their widowed parents, who have a Romantic Past, which will solve various financial problems and mean they don’t have to find dudes to marry. But of course they’re also busy falling for each other, and things only get more complicated when a wealthy lord becomes interested in one of the women. I really enjoyed this, especially the pack of hilarious cousins (it looks like one of them is the main character in the sequel and I can’t wait). A/A-.

2024 book 108

 T. Kingfisher’s A Sorceress Comes to Call

HOORAY for new T. Kingfisher! I actually texted a friend when I was like a third of the way in “it’s SO GOOD and nothing creepy has happened yet!” Well, that didn’t last, lol. Anyway, this has two POV characters—a fourteen year old girl whose mother is a powerful sorceress, and who punishes her daughter by controlling her body so she’ll be “obedient.” Mega yikes. AND a fifty year old spinster, whose brother the sorceress is determined to marry. And what better way to try and interrupt a proposal than inviting over some friends for a house party? This is like a straight up Regency style mystery romance setting, one of my FAVORITE settings. Of course, with an unscrupulous sorceress on hand, things quickly get grimmer, and stuff does get unsettling! I would expect nothing less. This has elements of the Goose Girl fairy tale—there’s a horse named Falada, and the spinster sister breeds geese (I was here for the geese)—but it’s telling a different story entirely. It’s GREAT. Very funny, amazing characters, satisfying ending. Another awesome Kingfisher book. A.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on August 6th.

2024 book 107

 Kate Elliott's Crown of Stars

What a GREAT ending to one of the more interesting series I’ve read! Lots of diplomacy and politics and religious wrangling, great characters, surprises, etc. I mean also some dark parts, this series was grim at times, but what a satisfying and lovely ending. A.

2024 book 106

 Kate Elliott's In the Ruins

I think this was my favorite in this series so far, even though some super brutal stuff goes down. A lot happens,but also not that much happens? Lots of plotting and intrigue and sorcery. I have hope for a satisfying outcome and happy endings for all my favorite characters…. Maybe. A/A-.

2024 book 105

 Blair Braverman's Small Game

Taking a break from epic fantasy to reread this for book club! For some reason I enjoy survival stories, maybe bc I am NOT outdoorsy and will hopefully never experience anything similar. Anyway, this is the story of contestants on a survival reality tv show and of course things go wrong. Braverman IS very outdoorsy and has been on Naked and Afraid so lots of great little details. Great characters, terrifying and sad moments too. Very quick and entertaining read.

2024 book 104

 Kate Elliott's The Gathering Storm

This one was pretty slow for me—I’m not super interested in armies traveling all over—but once again the ending is so good that I immediately forgot all the parts that frustrated me. I will also say a lot of stuff that I didn’t think would happen till the last book happened here, so like what are the next two books going to be about?? Here’s hoping for political and magical intrigues! But first I have to take a break to reread my book club book. :) B+.

2024 book 103

 Kate Elliott's Child of Flame

This was so long and there was so much journeying (metaphysical and otherwise), and yet I still really liked it! Parts are slow but that is balanced by characters I’m very invested in, ongoing mysteries, and several HOLY SHIT moments. There are still some characters I hope meet grisly deaths sooner rather than later, but there are still three books to go. A-.

2024 book 102

 Kate Elliott's The Burning Stone

SO MUCH happens in this book. It starts off a little bit slow but when things get rolling, they really roll.  I admire Elliott for letting plot things happen quickly instead of dragging them out for all seven books. But there is starting to be a lot to keep track of! I am so intrigued about what is going on in this series, which is very compelling and mildly confusing. I love it but also be warned this one is somehow even darker than the first two. A-.

2024 book 101

 Kate Elliott's Prince of Dogs

The second book in this series has even more POV characters, even more religion, even more politics and war! Riveting stuff. The nice thing about the POV changes is that it makes it easier to balance dreadful stuff with nice and hopeful stuff (I love you, Alain). There is one character who REALLY stresses me out and I hope he meets a grisly end soon, but I expect we'll be stuck with him through all seven books. I’m really enjoying this, though! Elliott definitely takes things in directions I don’t expect. A-.

2024 book 100

 Kate Elliott's King's Dragon

I've enjoyed what I've read of Elliott's more recent work, so here I am checking out her older mammoth fantasy series. There is a LOT going on here and I was into it!! It has a lot of classic fantasy stuff going on--an alternate version of Europe, lots of politics, lots of magic, etc--but it also has a VERY interesting religion/society (both feature women in very prominent roles) and it goes to a lot of unexpected places. The two main characters are a girl who's lived life on the run with her dad for secret magical reasons, except then he dies and a local powerful dude manipulates things so that she becomes his slave, because he wants her knowledge, and also to sleep with her (this is all pretty unpleasant, check content warnings). The other main character is a young man with mysterious origins AND a gift with animals, who has a vision of a war goddess and ends up embroiled in some high level politics/war stuff. There are also other POV characters who pop up occasionally to flesh things out, which I appreciated, primarily the girl’s best friend, the king's illegitimate son, and a woman historian/adviser to the king. This book was long but it never dragged, I’m looking forward to the next one! A-.

2024 book 99

 Rebecca Fraimow's Lady Eve's Last Con

This was a very fun sci-fi book involving a woman who, along with her little sister, is basically a hustler, but now she’s on her biggest con yet—disguising herself as a debutante and getting engaged to the very wealthy dude who broke her sister's heart (and left her pregnant). Buuuuuut she’s way more interested in his older sister, and complications ensue. This was a little slow at parts but the last third was all fire emoji. Plus I loved the glimpses of future Judaism. A-/B+.

2024 book 98

 Rachel Neumeier's Rihasi

Oh, now this is interesting--it's set in the Tuyo universe, but I think this is the first one that doesn't involve/center the Ugaro people--all the major characters are Lau. Anyway, this involves a woman who's determined to expose a lot of injustices to Aras (who of course is a major character in the other books), and the mercenary she hires to travel with her, who has a secret from his past that means he absolutely does not want to see Aras. Also, she's in disguise as a dude, and there are so many fun details there. I LOVED both these characters (I always love Neumeier's characters but really loved these), and as always loved the writing and plot. Lots of light and funny moments balancing out the action and traveling. And the very end of this one is particularly entertaining. Neumeier writes such satisfying stories, but I am really partial to the Tuyo-verse. A.

2024 book 97

 Yume Kitasei's The Stardust Grail

Kitasei's first book was one of my favorites of 2023, so obviously I was psyched for this one, and it was SO GOOD! Our protagonist is a renowned intergalactic thief (or repatriator of stolen objects) who, after a job went very wrong, has gone back to Earth to be a grad student. But when she gets wind of a legendary artifact--that could save her old friend's species from extinction--she's back in the game, trying to track it down (with a motley crew, of course!) before more powerful people can get their hands on it. Cool world building, action packed, great characters—VERY fun! A/A-.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on June 11th.

2024 book 96

 Leah Hager Cohen's To & Fro

This is one of those books where you can read one half of it, or flip it over and the other half of the story is on the other half of the book (this is one thing ebooks don’t do well, and the last chapter has the stories come together in a cool formatting thing, which doesn’t translate to the ebook at all, and I wonder how the audiobook would handle it). Anyway, I started with “To,” which involves a young girl traveling on a journey accompanied by a tiny kitten, and it STRESSED ME OUT. So I switched over to “Fro,” which involves a young girl in our world, and loved it. And then I had more context and went back to “To” (important note: THE KITTEN IS OKAY). Really interesting book, sad but hopeful. A-.

2024 book 95

 Moniquill Blackgoose's To Shape A Dragon's Breath

Rereading this for book club and I think I liked it even more the second time. There are still some bits that I think could have been pared down/more subtle, but I was way less distracted this time trying to translate all the words/places. I was like it’s just a fantasy novel, it’s fine, go with the flow! I mean, also I knew that I loved the characters and was way more focused on them. Anyway, this is the story of an indigenous girl in a version of North America that was colonized more by Vikings/Northern Europeans, and what happens when she bonds with a baby dragon and has to go to a dragon-training school run by white people (because her people have lost their dragon raising lore). A lot of people are super racist to her but she also makes some cool friends and continues to buck the system! With a baby dragon! So good and I hope the next book is announced soon.

2024 book 94

 Lois McMaster Bujold's Falling Free

This is kind of a stand-alone set in the Vorkosigon universe, set a few hundred years earlier, so I skipped it when I was reading that series. But I was in the mood for some classic sci-fi, so here we are! I will say this felt VERY cliched, but I'm not sure if that's because I've read a lot of books that were influenced by it, or that it's just super cliched (the human savior of the childlike slaves and the romance especially). I also found all the technical talk to be pretty slow. It ended up being enjoyable enough, I do enjoy Bujold's characters. B.

2024 book 93

 Rufi Thorpe's Margo's Got Money Troubles

Y’all, I have really liked all of Rufi Thorpe's previous books, so I had high expectations, and this WAY exceeded them. It’s SO GOOD. It’s about a nineteen year old girl in junior college who gets pregnant after a brief affair with one of her professors, and decides to keep the baby, assuming things will work out. But then she loses her waitressing job bc she has no childcare, and her roommates move out because they don’t want to live with a baby. And that’s when her former pro wrestler dad shows up and moves in, and she decides to try and make money on OnlyFans. And also, the whole thing alternates between first and third person, so you’re aware that this character is writing a novel of her life. Even when I was worried for the characters, I was totally engrossed, this absolutely hooked me from page one and was beautiful and moving and weird and bittersweet. Definitely going to be on my favorites of the year list. A. 

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in June.

2024 book 92

 Sharon Shinn's Echo in Amethyst

Now this was interesting--the main character of this one is an echo who has become sentient (there were some hints in the first book that some echos had some awareness, but I don't think to this extent). It's also interesting because it actually starts before the events of the first book and kind of plays through all those from another perspective. But I didn’t really enjoy the romance—it’s not as well-developed as the ones in the other books. And the political stuff and the end were both somewhat unsatisfying. This one was more romance focused than plot focused, and I think that balance was better in the first two. B.

2024 book 91

 Sharon Shinn's Echo in Emerald

I liked this better than the first one—the plot is a lot stronger, I think. The protagonist here is a young woman, the illegitimate daughter of a noble, who has learned to disguise her echoes and make her own way in the world. And then she’s drawn into helping solve a murder and an assassination attempt (and obviously falls for the noble leading the investigation, who is a perfectly nice love interest, if not super compelling). The mystery helps carry things along and there are some interesting twists along the way. Looks like things are heading toward some serious political intrigue for book three! A-.

2024 book 90

 Sharon Shinn's Echoes in Onyx

I've been having a hard time getting into books lately, but luckily I had this unread Sharon Shinn trilogy saved for a rainy day (or a reading rut), since I always enjoy her writing and world-building. This is set in in a fantasy world where nobles sometimes have mysterious copies of themselves, and the main character is a young woman who becomes the lady's maid for a noblewoman with three such echoes. I thought this would be a fairly typical court politics story but soon enough there are clumsy attempts to cover up a murder AND secret lesbians. And of course the protagonist's love interest is investigating the murder. I actually really liked how this wrapped up, even though I was uncertain of that along the way. B+.