2023 book 76

 Juno Dawson's The Shadow Cabinet

This is the second book in the Her Majesty's Royal Coven series, and I can't say much about the plot without spoiling the first book (plus there are a lot of characters and a lot of plot threads so it's hard to summarize anyway). Suffice it to say there's lots more witchy action and adventure this time around, as well as new threats to deal with, plus we get to know a new character and uncover some mysteries. Some plot lines are more interesting than others, some are stressful as hell, there is a lot going on! I kind of want a tv show based on this though? And I’m so intrigued by where book three will go. A-.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on May 23rd.

2023 book 75

 T. Kingfisher’s Summer in Orcus

I had gotten pretty well into two different books that I wasn’t gelling with, and the only cure for that mood is to reread something you know is good. And I had been wanting to reread this one! I think it’s very underrated as far as Kingfisher's books go—it’s one of her middle grade books, about an eleven year old girl with a difficult and overprotective mother, and what happens when she meets Baba Yaga. AMAZING animals in this one—a no-nonsense weasel, a foppish bird, and one of the best fictional wolves of all time—plus a heroine who is very relatable as she undergoes adventures. So good.

2023 book 74

 Peg Kerr's The Wild Swans

I really liked Emerald House Rising, so wanted to try this other book by Kerr, and I might have liked it even more? It’s a retelling of the fairy tale about the girl with the eleven cursed swan brothers, set in 1600s England, but it’s interwoven with the story of an eighteen year-old boy who's been kicked out of home for being gay, and eventually he finds a community and love. But…. it's New York in the early 80s and the AIDS crisis is looming. I was SOBBING BUCKETS. The modern storyline is a little more compelling, but I enjoyed the whole (my only complaint is also one I have with Shakespeare [lol]—why is it a happy ending for a woman to get back with a man who accused her of a horrible crime? But that’s how fairy talked and Shakespeare stories go, I guess). But anyway, subbing buckets. It does seem like Kerr only published these two novels and I think that’s a shame, they were both so good. A.

2023 book 73

 Janet Edwards' Earth Flight

Well, if you like a book with plot, this book has plot out the wazoo. There's diplomacy and politics, conspiracies, romance, archaeology, going on the run, romance, aliens, murder attempts, and more that I can’t even remember bc there was so much going on. It was a fine conclusion to this series but very busy. B+.

2023 book 72

 Janet Edwards' Earth Star

The second book in the Earth Girl series finds our protagonist, still a college student, recruited to help lead a vital military operation. Which is COMPLETELY ABSURD, but sometimes you just gotta roll with it. And I was willing to roll with it because it was all very entertaining. Another thing I like about this series is that there is a romance, but it’s kind of on the back-burner, plot wise, which seems rare in YA these days. Anyway, more interesting sci-fi adventures, and I’m excited for book three. A-.

2023 book 71

 Janet Edwards' Earth Girl

This is set like 700 years in the future, where humanity mainly lives on far-off planets, but some babies are born allergic to the atmosphere and have to be shipped off to live on Earth, and they get called things like “apes.” Our protagonist is one such teen girl, and decides to stick it to ‘em by applying to an off-world university whose first year takes place on Earth (she’s a huge history/archaeology nerd and I’m here for it), with the big plan to eventually say like “I’m an ape and y’all can suck it” and then transfer. Lol. But of course she loves her program, and makes friends, and is lying about her background, and it all starts to get very complicated. I loved the narrative voice; I am a sucker for smart but snarky and slightly sad teen girls telling their stories in the first person (maybe the only YA I love?). This is also amazingly action-packed for a book about a history nerd. I really liked this and have already purchased the sequel. A/A-.

2023 book 71

 Peg Kerr's Emerald House Rising 

Well, I really loved this. It has everything I love: magic, mystery, court politics, an ambitious heroine, etc. Our protagonist is a young woman who is apprenticed as a jeweler under her father when she discovers she has the ability to do magic, and obviously adventures ensue. But the plot never went where I expected, there are so many cool women, the magic is so interesting, and the conclusion is very satisfying. This was first published in 1997 but it feels very modern (though it is very hetero, but otherwise!). A.

2023 book 70

 Moniquill Blackgoose's To Shape a Dragon's Breath

This book was my JAM. It’s set in a fantasy version of our world in the 1800s, not fantastic just because there’s magic and magical science and dragons, but because the main colonizers seem to be from Norway (though everyone speaks “Anglish”—it’s one of those books where normal words are spelled slightly differently and math is called “anglereckoning” and so on, because Fantasy). The main character is an indigenous girl from a tribe that is mainly left alone by the colonizers, until she sees a dragon and finds its egg, and the baby dragon chooses to bond with her. But they haven’t had a dragon in her tribe in generations, and the only way she can learn to train it is to go to the white people dragon training school. Where obviously she has to deal with racist jerks and politics, but also makes some cool friends. I was even into the romance(s)! If I had any complaints, it’s that this book is not subtle, but I really liked it and am very eager for book two. A/A-.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on May 9th.

2023 book 69

 Kim Fay's Love and Saffron

Rereading this for book club—it’s a little bit more of a traditional “book club” kind of book than we usually read, but I think most of them will like it—it’s the story of two women writing to each other in the 1960s and it’s very sweet and a teeny bit cheesy. Some of the historical events feel shoehorned in, but I like both the characters and I do love an epistolary novel.

2023 book 68

 Victoria Goddard’s Derring-Do for Beginners

I love how Goddard keeps fleshing out her expansive world, here with the origin of the infamous Red Company—more specifically, the origin of the always delightful Jullanar of the Sea and her first real friendship with the great swordsman Damien. Of course they’re both just awkward teens here! Jullanar is supposed to be going to a far-off college, but when that plan gets stymied, she leans into having an adventure. And Damien is a dude who mainly only cares about swordsmanship but also secretly wants friends, and when he’s tasked with teaching Jullanar the local language, he decides to teach her self-defense as well. PLUS there are some very cool middle-aged ladies in this book (I was more interested in Damien's mom than in him for the first few sections, haha). Very entertaining, and I look forward to meeting more of the Red Company babies soon. A/A-.

2023 book 67

 Ann Leckie's Translation State

Leckie's latest is another set in a new part of the Imperial Radch universe, centering on three characters—a young man of unknown origin who just wants to know where he belongs; a woman sent on an impossible quest by the new head of her family; and one of the mysterious Translators, who doesn’t want to do what they were designed to do. Eventually all three stories collide and the stakes get very high. Lots of good space politics and diplomacy, with a little bit of angsty pining for good measure. And lots of hugging for characters who need and deserve hugs! So good! A/A-.

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

2023 book 66

 Ann Leckie's Provenance

This is set in the same universe as Leckie's Imperial Radch trilogy, but a different part of that universe, which provides an interesting perspective on all those goings-on. The plot is mildly convoluted so I won’t try to explain, except that a young woman is trying to execute a plan to prove herself to her powerful mother, and things go awry basically immediately, and suddenly there are big political stakes. I really enjoy all the sci-fi politics and this has great characters and an interesting world. A-.

2023 books 64 and 65

 Ann Leckie's Ancillary Sword and Ancillary Mercy

I finished both of these yesterday while traveling but didn’t get a chance to blog ‘em until now, and I’m just doing one write-up since they're part of the same story. Anyway, lots of good sci-fi action and politics, several very funny moments, and a ton of heart. Very satisfying and also very interesting! I love AIs with feelings!!!

2023 book 64

 Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice

I’m rereading these because a new book set in this world is coming out soon! Plus they’re awesome! The central character here is a giant spaceship in the body of a human; once she was a big spaceship with all sorts of capabilities and a bunch of human bodies, but now this one is the last piece left. And she is on a QUEST. A quest that is complicated when she comes across a former officer on her ship who is on drugs and at death's door. This is interspersed with flashbacks to twenty years earlier, showing what started her on this quest. I love AIs and specifically spaceships with FEELINGS, so I love this. 

2023 book 63

 Ngaio Marsh's The Nursing-Home Murder

I liked this third Inspector Alleyn book less than the first two. It involves a prominent politician who dies while in surgery for appendicitis—and the surgeon and one of the nurses both have personal reasons for wanting him dead (stupid ones), and one of the other nurses is a “bolshie” and also wants him dead (there is some ridiculous stuff with politics in this one), so could it have been murder, and if so, who did it. Blah blah. I’m wondering if all of these books will follow the formula where the inspector makes everyone reenact the crime, which felt more organic in the other ones. I mean this was fine, I still enjoyed the diversion, but not particular interesting as mysteries go. B.

2023 book 62

 Ngaio Marsh's Enter a Murderer

The second Inspector Alleyn book finds Alleyn and the journalist from book one (who has become a Watson-esque figure) off to see a play together, when one of the actors is murdered on stage!! Because someone swapped fake bullets for real ones! And the dead guy sucked and lots of people had motive! This is occasionally more melodramatic than the first book (romance-wise) and is also mildly silly, but I do enjoy reading a chill classic murder mystery. And I appreciate that the inspector is kind of a drama queen. A-/B+.

2023 book 61

 Ngaio Marsh's A Man Lay Dead

I’m always looking for more classic mysteries a la Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie (the latter unfortunately tends toward racism and antisemitism), so decided to check out another woman writer of the 1930s, Ngaio Marsh. This is the first of her Inspector Roderick Alleyn mysteries and involves a murder at an English house party, which is legit my favorite subgenre of murder mystery. Interesting characters and even though I was /pretty/ sure I knew whodunnit, Marsh kept me guessing a little. There is some silly side business with Russian secret societies and their sacred knives (and bizarrely depicted accents) but otherwise this was solidly entertaining. I will be checking out more in this series. A-.

2023 book 60

 Martha Wells' Witch King

Wells' latest is a return to fantasy for her, involving a powerful demon and his best friend, a witch, who escape a mysterious imprisonment and must figure out who captured them, and why—and also find the witch's wife, who is missing. This is interspersed with flashbacks to the story of how they met fighting an invasion and became mildly legendary. Really cool world building and magic stuff here and I enjoyed reading this a lot, I just found the ending to be slightly anti-climactic. Still very entertaining though. Wells is so good with characterization. A-.

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

2023 book 59

 Peter S. Beagle's The Way Home

So this is two novellas set in the world of The Last Unicorn—the first, which isn’t new, is totally beautiful and moving, about a little girl who goes to find the now elderly King Lir to get help dealing with a griffin that is preying on the children of her village, and of course she runs into Schmendrick and Molly Grue on the way. Great narrative voice, I’ve read it several times and always love it. The second one is new, and picks up with that same little girl on her seventeenth birthday, off on a journey to rescue her sister from Fairyland. But it’s one of those stories where someone is just JOURNEYING the entire time, and not getting anywhere (literally, bc it’s Fairyland), and it’s a bummer, and also she gets raped which is entirely unnecessary for this story. It has a vibe that I would say is “suffused with melancholy” and I found it very slow and occasionally tiresome. It does pain me to say that. I guess that averages out to a B+?

2023 book 58

 Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn

I’m rereading this not just because it’s one of my all-time favorites, but because a companion came out today featuring two novellas set in this world, one of which I’ve already read, but one is new! A perfect excuse to revisit a classic. I will say I’m reading the recent reissue this time, and there do seem to be some changes to the text (minor additions, as far as I can tell, though in one case two versions of the same sentence appear, an awkward error). I hope they reissue more of Beagle's books soon.

2023 book 57

 Jessa Maxwell's The Golden Spoon

Great premise on this, but I found the execution unsatisfying. It’s billed as a murder mystery set at a show that is basically GBBO but set in Vermont, but the murder doesn’t happen until 80 percent of the way in, and there are really no mystery elements at all. (Someone is also sabotaging the bakers, but the author immediately shows the reader who that is.) And the characters, aside from one reveal, aren’t interesting enough on their own. In the back half, a lot of the POV sections don’t feel real/authentic at all, and things feel pretty predictable. Maybe this was a marketing issue, but I was pretty disappointed. B/B-.

2023 book 56

 Laurie J. Marks' Dancing Jack

This is an older work by Marks that was recently reissued, about a country that was ravaged by a plague seven years ago, and the three middle-aged women (a farmer, a riverboat pilot, and a toymaker) who are going to help put things right. It’s sad and dark and weird at times, but also hopeful? I had some mixed feelings about the end until I read the author's note and then I was like, well, ok. A-/B+.

2023 book 55

 Emily Tesh's Some Desperate Glory

When I’m reading a book, a little part of my brain is kind of composing the little summary I end up writing here, and for the first chunk of this I was like “it’s a sci-fi book about a teen girl raised to be a soldier who totally buys into everything she’s been told, but when she and her brother's crush escape their space station to rescue her brother, she begins to realize she’s been naive.” And “I was eager to keep reading, even though I was occasionally annoyed by the main characters being teen dummies.” And then the second half of this book hits and I was ALL IN. This was SO GOOD. This was smart, and beautiful. I loved this. A.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on Tuesday.

2023 book 54

 Jeanne Thornton's Summer Fun

This was a very cool book about a young trans woman in New Mexico in 2009, writing to the lead singer/songwriter of the band she’s obsessed with—a character very much modeled on Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys—writing about her life, and the history of the band, etc. I am a sucker for epistolary novels and this didn’t disappoint! I did wish we had a little more insight into the narrator but on the whole I loved this story. A/A-.

2023 book 53

 Andrew Joseph White's Hell Followed With Us

So this is darker and way grosser than I usually go for, but the writing and story were so gripping that I had no problems getting through it. It’s the story of a trans teen boy, raised by a terrorist Christian group who caused some sort of apocalypse, and they’ve done something to turn him into a holy monster… only he’s escaped and found a band of queer teens to join! But terrorist Christians aren’t going to let go of him that easily. I’m glad the Trans Rights Readathon popped this up my to-read list because I definitely enjoyed it. A-/B+.

2023 book 52

 Chana Porter's The Seep

This week is the Trans Rights Readathon, so I’ll be reading books by trans/non-binary authors and donating 15 dollars for each book to the Transgender Law Center. I’m starting off strong with this one, which had AMAZING writing, I read it all in one gulp! It’s about a super chill and gentle alien invasion, as seen through the eyes of a Jewish and Native American trans woman, who’s dealing with grief after her wife decides to be reborn as a baby (you can do a lot of stuff like that in this alien invasion). Really beautiful and moving. A. 

2023 book 51

 Meg Howrey's The Wanderers

I chose this for book club this month to hit the literary/sci-fi spectrum, but it was slower and more philosophical than I remembered, and I’m very curious to see the reactions. (I liked it a little less this time, but I don’t have as much interest in literary/philosophical novels these days.) Anyway, this is the story of three astronauts in the near future training for a Mars mission, as well as the experiences of some of their relatives. Hits that For All Mankind spot. 

2023 book 50

 Emilia Hart's Weyward

This was… fine. It’s the story of three women from a family of women with a strong connection to nature—one in 2019, fleeing an abusive husband; one, a teenager in the 1940s, who wants to study insects; and one, in the 1600s, on trial for witchcraft. It was engaging enough that I kept reading, but it tended toward melodrama, especially in the 2019 story. Really hammering those points home. Content warnings for domestic abuse and rape. B.

2023 book 49

 Shannon Chakraborty's The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi

This shouldn’t have taken me so long to read, but I’ve had a lot going on the past week (and that will continue till mid-April, and there are so many books I want to read but I have less time and concentration right now!). This book is about a middle-aged Muslim lady pirate in the age of the Crusades, who’s retired to raise her daughter, but comes back for ONE LAST JOB to rescue a kidnapped girl. And she has to GET THE BAND BACK TOGETHER. But obviously things are way more complicated and soon monsters and demons and creepy Frankish dudes are in the mix! I will say that once I hit the second half, I tore through this, and am hoping for a sequel for sure. A-.

2023 book 48

 Stina Leicht's Loki's Ring

I was in the mood for a fun sci-fi adventure, so I thought I’d check this out—it's about what happens when a captain on a ship receives a distress call from the AI she's raised as a daughter, and I’m here for sentient AIs and their families! But there are a lot of characters and corporations and political entities, and a lot of moving parts, and it didn’t really come together for me. B.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on March 28th.

2023 book 47

 Melissa Scott's Point of Sighs

The fifth book in this series is very slow, until the last ten percent, which is very tense. But I’m not even going to try to do a plot summary, because the plots/mysteries in these books, and especially in this one, are overly complicated. By the end of this one, I barely remembered what had started their investigation in the first place. Seriously! I liked all the stuff with the various fantasy cop groups and their politics, but that got subsumed in everyone wandering around all the time while more plot happened to them. Not to sound all grumpy about it! It was a fine book. I’m just frustrated. B.

2023 book 46

 Melissa Scott's Fairs' Point

The fourth book in this series finds our boys trying to solve a large mystery centered around dog racing—and of course Philip has recently obtained a dog from a dude who owed him money, and is once again conveniently on hand. There are missing people, mysterious thefts, jerky colleagues, and more. I wasn’t a hundred percent sold on the end of the mystery but I like this world even more when it has lil terriers running around. B+.

2023 book 45

 Melissa Scott and Lisa Barnett's Point of Dreams

This volume in the Astreiant series finds our two dudes now formally a couple, working together to solve a bunch of murders at the theater! Solid mystery in this one, and I really enjoy this world (it is SO QUEER, which considering the first one came out in the mid-90s and this in 2001, is pretty cool. The authors were together for over 20 years until Barnett passed of cancer and I’m glad they could write a book like this together). A-.

2023 book 44

 Melissa Scott's Point of Knives

I think this is technically the third in this series,but it was written to fill in the gaps between the first two, so I read it in chronological instead of publication order. It involves the two dudes from the last book (who apparently were intermittently hooking up, but had to break things off as one is basically a cop and one works for a shady businessman) teaming back up to solve a double murder and track down some missing gold. But mainly it’s about them trying ti make their relationship work. Which is great, because the mystery here ends up being kind of blah, but I like these guys and was happy to spend time with them and their banter. B+.

2023 book 43

 Melissa Scott and Lisa Barnett's Point of Hopes

I saw this compared to Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint books so obviously wanted to check it out. It is similar in that it has queer dudes with swords and some court politics, but it’s set in a less decadent sort of pseudo-historical fantasy world, where everyone is super into the stars and their horoscopes, there are guilds, etc. The main characters are a city watchman, investigating a large number of missing children, and a former soldier, new to town (there is no romance per se in this one, just hints they like each other, but I have hopes they get together in later books). This was a little bit slow but I did enjoy the world and characters, thought the mystery and resolution were pretty satisfying, and look forward to seeing what happens next. A-.

2023 book 42

 Rachel Neumeier’s Tano

The latest in the Tuyo series is from the point of view of Tano, the teen who was basically adopted by the protagonist of Tuyo and Tarashana, and starts right where the latter left off, with Tano figuring out his new place in the world, learning how non-abusive families function, etc. There is a lot here dealing with his abusive father, as well as some implied sexual abuse, so general content warnings. But despite that it’s still hopeful, just like its predecessors! Neumeier does the friendships and family relationships in these books so well—I love seeing Tano and the other three boys set off on a little quest, get into (serious) trouble, bond. The characters here talk a lot about generosity, and that feeling suffuses a lot of this book. Plus there’s a sweet lil PONY. A/A-.

2023 book 41

 Rachel Neumeier’s Tarashana

This is the book that actually introduces Tano, and I forgot how much actually happens in this book—not just family and other meaningful relationships, and politics, but journeys through the underworld, and magic, and a little mayhem. Just gripping stuff.

2023 book 40

 Rachel Neumeier’s Tuyo

I started a few different books that I just wasn’t vibing with, but then I remembered a new book in the Tuyo series is out this week, about the boy who gets adopted into the main character's tribe, so I figured I’d reread the two that are sort of predecessors to that, and which I knew I’d enjoy. And I did enjoy this one! I love the writing here, so engrossing, and I love that the focus is on (non-romantic) relationships and politics but with a goal of peace in mind. Hard stuff happens but it leaves me with a hopeful feeling. So good.

2023 book 39

 Celia Lake's Eclipse

This is part of a series of books set in the 1920s in a magical version of England, but the author says they can be read in any order, so obviously I chose the one about teachers at a magical school. These books are billed as romances, but refreshingly, there is not any romance at all until like halfway through, the characters (a lady astronomy professor and a dude professor of “protective magic”) are just colleagues and friends dealing with magical school mysteries and academic drama. It rules. The writing here is occasionally jumpy and I wished for a little more resolution of the actual plot, but this was enjoyable and I’d read another book in this series (or set in this world: it looks like this series is all straight romances but the author has some queer ones that seem related). B+.

2023 book 38

 Malka Older's The Mimicking of Known Successes

HECK YES, I am fist-pumping about how much I enjoyed this book! It’s a sci-fi academic mystery!! It has cute awkward lesbians!! I am here for this!!!! Anyway, the main character is an academic on Jupiter (where humanity fled after effing up Earth too much), who is drawn into an investigation of a missing colleague, bc the Investigator is her college girlfriend and needs her input. I am actually not sure how well the mystery elements worked, per se, but the brisk pace kept things moving along enough that I never really questioned it, and obviously I was into the characters/world. Very entertaining, and I am excited for the sequel. A.

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

2023 book 37

 Rebecca Thorne's A Pirate's Life for Tea

So I didn’t like this as much as the first one, though it was still fun. There’s a romance, between a constable and the pirate she’s chasing down (her childhood best friend), the couple from the first book is there still trying to complete their mission from the first book, and also enjoying some meddling. The pirate stuff is great, but the plot just doesn’t feel as tight as the first one, and some of the characters aren’t as well-developed, particularly the constable. And the new romance is very tell, not show. It didn’t hold my interest as much as the first one. Things pick up toward the end once the focus is more squarely back on the characters from book one, and the hint of the third book was certainly intriguing, so I’m hoping that one will be more satisfying. B/B+.

2023 book 36

 Rebecca Thorne's Can't Spell Treason Without Tea

** This book is FREE on Kindle this week since the author is taking it off of Kindle Unlimited (and since the sequel is out on Thursday). **

When you’re cranky because you read a book that mildly annoyed you, the cure is to read a book that is FUN, so here I am, finally checking out one of the hot new cozy fantasy novels. And it WAS fun! It’s about a woman who works as part of the royal guard for a cruel queen, and her secret girlfriend, a powerful mage, and what happens when they decide to run away together and open up a bookshop-slash-tea shop. (The dream!) Of course there are locals to befriend, stray teens to adopt, dragons to fend off, griffins to fly around on, mysteries to start solving, etc. I am excited to see what adventures they have next! A-.

2023 book 35

 Temi Oh's Do You Dream of Terra-Two

So let me start by saying all of my issues with this book are because I didn’t realize at first that it was YA, so when teen drama/tragedy kicks in a few chapters in, it totally took me out of the plot, because who in their right mind would send teens on a space mission???? To back up, this is a novel about a group of (racially diverse) teens who have been trained to go on a twenty-three year space journey to settle an inhabited planet (there are also like four actual adults on board, which makes having teens even SILLIER, like don’t get me started, I could go off about psychological testing and brain development for a WHILE). I wanted to read a book about a space journey, I did not want to read a book full of teens being melodramatic/having mental breakdowns/beating each other up/having romances in space. Now, if you like YA books and/or sci-fi, this may totally be up your alley, but it wasn’t for me. B.

2023 book 34

 Kate Saunders' The Secrets of Wishtide

Rereading this for book club, and it totally holds up to a second read, even though I remembered whodunnit. It’s the first in a series about a respectable Victorian widow who solves crimes (usually at the behest of her lawyer brother), with the help of her no-nonsense landlady and various friends (I love the friendships and family relationships in this series). The plot here involves a wealthy man hiring her to investigate his son's lady friend's background, but things of course take a turn toward murder. A very well-done mystery, with bonus Dickens references. A/A-.

2023 book 33

 Ursula K. LeGuin's Always Coming Home

You know, for all the deserved praise LeGuin gets for her groundbreaking novels, I don’t think I’ve ever seen this one mentioned, and that’s weird because it’s VERY ambitious. It’s presented as sort of an anthropological report and collection of materials dealing with the far-future denizens of post-apocalyptic California. There are long narrative sections, but also folktales, plays, poems, even an excerpt of a novel. Obviously some of this will be more compelling than other parts to each reader (I admit to skimming most of the poems). I was reading the Library of America edition, which is over 800 pages long, but the last 40 percent is just more information about the world/society and not part of the actual novel (which is to say: don’t be intimidated by the length!). I guess I can see why this isn’t as beloved as many of her other books, but it is really an interesting project and worth checking out. A/A-.

2023 book 32

 Janice Hallett's The Twyford Code

This is about a guy who's gotten out of prison after a long time, and he's trying to stay on the straight and narrow, but when he starts to ask around about a teacher who went missing from a school trip when he was a kid, he's suddenly sucked into a whole thing with a secret code in a series of WWII-era children's books. This is interspersed with memories of what led him to prison. Now there is an interesting framing device here, where we're reading transcripts of his voice memos and garbled phone calls and the like, but like halfway through I was like, is this going to come into play again? What's REALLY going on? Not to say that I wasn't entirely engaged, because I was, I was just... trying to solve the mystery! I did figure part of it out, but the end still took me by surprise (in a good way). Very fun read. A-.

2023 book 31

 Akwaeke Emezi's Pet

I’ve been meaning to read something by Emezi for a while, and since my tastes run toward speculative fiction, obviously this was the one to choose! It’s set in a future world, where all the “monsters” (bad people) have been conquered, and deals with what happens when a young (Black, trans) girl frees a monster-hunter from a painting. It’s all very metaphorical and beautiful, but gets dark and intense. It did feel kind of short or like there wasn’t a ton to the plot, but it is a YA book, I just wished it had gone a little deeper. A-.

2023 book 30

 Sienna Tristen's The Heretic's Guide to Homecoming: Book Two

Well, this book just blew my lil mind! I guess we had to trudge through the dark thoughts of the first book to achieve the heights of this one! SOOO much happens and there is a section in the middle that is a bit stressful (for emotional reasons, not dangers in the plot or anything), but the back third is like OMG YES, a gorgeous warm hug holding hands with adventure. I LOVE THIS, def one for the Victoria Goddard fans. A.

2023 book 29

 Sienna Tristen's The Heretic's Guide to Homecoming: Book One

This was an interesting and beautiful book that was often stressful to read—not because of plot events, but because the main character is plagued with severe anxiety and depression, and his head is a very uncomfortable place to be. Anyway, this is the story of a young man trying to fulfill a mission for his goddess, when he impulsively agrees to accompany a mysterious figure en route to a place out of stories. It’s really a story about self discovery etc though. And stories! Lots of bits of storytelling strewn about. I liked that the main character was a giant history nerd who kept finding stuff to nerd out about—relatable. But yeah, not always a pleasant read. A-/B+.

2023 book 28

 H.G. Parry's The Magician's Daughter

I had started reading a different book and was just not into the writing style at all, so was very relieved to try this one and immediately get hooked. It’s about a teenage girl in 1912, who was shipwrecked on an enchanted island as a baby, so she’s been raised by the magician and his rabbit familiar who live there, and she’s never even seen another person (she is a big reader, and all her knowledge of humanity comes from classic novels, lol). But magic is leaving the world and things are getting dangerous, and soon she’s caught up in all sorts of magical adventures and mysteries! And also learning class-consciousness! I just really loved reading this even when things got dark or tense—I had faith that the author would make it all work. And she did. A.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on February 28th.

2023 book 27

 Ren Hutchings' Under Fortunate Stars

This was a fun sci-fi story about two spaceships that encounter each other after losing power in a weird area of outer space—one is a corporate ship that does science stuff, the other is a ramshackle ship with a ragtag crew… except that ramshackle ship and its crew are famous for having brought peace to the galaxy a hundred and fifty years earlier. But … things aren’t quite lining up with the official version of history. It’s pretty obvious how this is going to play out, but the journey there is mostly entertaining. There are a lot of flashbacks, some more effective than others, and a late romance that I wasn’t at all invested in. Otherwise I did enjoy this. B+.

2023 book 26

 Rebecca Makkai's I Have Some Questions For You

This gripped me from page one and didn’t really let go of me until the bittersweet conclusion. It’s the story of a forty-something woman (I actually think my exact age or the year ahead of me in school), a well-known podcaster and Film Studies professor, who’s returning to the boarding school she attended in the 90s to teach a couple of classes. She’s kind of a messy person so when one of her students wants to do a podcast about the murder of a girl at the school—the narrator's classmate and one-time roommate—she’s totally on board. There are some interesting little mini-mysteries along the way: what's the protagonist's deal, who is she addressing in her narration, etc, but of course the main thing is, was the wrong person arrested for the murder, and can a couple of podcasting high-schoolers crack the case? I actually wasn’t sure for a while if this was going to be a traditional mystery novel, and not just a literary novel about crime and our society's fascination with pretty dead women and middle-aged people confronting their pasts, but it’s both! I admit to being the target audience for this book (the mention of Sunflowers perfume caused a visceral sense memory) but I think it does deserve an A.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on February 21st.

2023 book 25

 Kate Forsyth's The Fathomless Caves

A mostly satisfactory ending to this series. As expected, there was a lot of war, and also a lot of (straight) romance. Some cool moments, but it felt kind of predictable. Or maybe it’s just that where it was going was inevitable after five books of buildup. B+.

2023 book 24

 Kate Forsyth's The Skull of the World

I liked this fifth volume a lot, not just because things were focused on Isabeau again, and she’s undergoing all sorts of cool rites and learning cool magic, but because there aren’t any endless battle scenes. I’m much more interested in the people and their relationships and the magic (I've been hoping for some queer ladies but it’s looking less likely as we go on, alas). A few characters I’ve been wondering about pop back up again, and we also have a few POV scenes from a young prince from the sea-people (who were dispossessed when the humans came in and took over). This ends on a major cliffhanger and I’m glad I can dive right into the last book. A-.

2023 book 23

 Kate Forsyth's The Forbidden Land

I think this series was initially a trilogy that spread into six books because it had so much going on. This fourth one is a slight departure, in that it has only one POV character, the little thief girl from the first two books (now in her teens), but it is still continuing the main story from the first three books and we see plenty of those characters. There’s been some business over the last few books with an enemy army made up of what are basically Christians, and that continues here. (The first half of this book is basically a heist/prison break, and I liked that much more than the war stuff in the second half.) I keep waiting for more of the THEYRE ON ANOTHER PLANET! to kick in, but there are still just brief mentions here and there. I am enjoying these, though. B+.

2023 book 22

 Kate Forsyth's The Cursed Towers

I’m still invested in the (many) characters in these books, but this third one involves a lot of war, which I personally found fairly slow and occasionally unpleasant. Isabeau has some awesome adventures and magical education, though! I’m curious about what will happen next. B+.

2023 book 21

 Kate Forsyth's The Pool of Two Moons

This was a very interesting follow up, and I think I liked it more than the first book! I liked how it didn’t seem predictable, and how things I worried would be strung out through several books (reunions, quests, etc) were resolved in this one. I also appreciate that most of the main characters—and the antagonists—are women. I am intrigued to see where this series goes next. A-.

2023 book 20

 Kate Forsyth's The Witches of Eileanan

I don’t even remember where I heard about this series, but I’m always determined to find a new multi book fantasy adventure to escape into, so here we are. This has a whole Celtic thing going on, set in a world where witches and fairies were outlawed, but one little foundling has been raised by a witch in the old ways. And they’re determined to restore the witches to their rightful place and being down the evil sorceress that’s controlling the kingdom! Lots of interesting characters here, lots of unexpected stuff, and partway through the book it’s revealed that the witches descend from humans who colonized the planet from outer space??? Well, obviously I have to see what happens next. Content warning for a very unpleasant/rapey torture scene (this was originally written in the 90s). B+.

2023 book 19

 Shauna Robinson's The Banned Bookshop of Maggie Banks

So, this was cute. This is the sort of book I’d recommend to certain members of my book club who like cute books. It’s about twenty-something Maggie, who's at loose ends in life, who drives cross country to work in her college best friend's bookstore while her friend is on maternity leave. But the bookstore is in a small town where everything is about their one famous author, and the bookstore isn’t allowed to sell books that were published after the author died in the 1960s. Plus, Maggie hates reading, especially boring classics! At least until she meets a local romance author and discovers that some books are fun! Soon she’s secretly selling modern books and hosting secret silly book events and trying to hide it from the Society who runs all the town's businesses—including her new love interest. All very cute. Buttttttt a lot of things in this book don’t 100 percent make sense—lots of suspension of disbelief required. And I lost interest in the second half when I was ready for it to just come to its inevitable conclusion already (it does pick back up toward the end). A pleasant enough diversion for me, but I think ppl who like cute books and contemporary romances would be into it. B/B+.

2023 book 18

 Cherie Dimaline's VenCo

I really WANTED to love this book. It’s blurbed by Louise Erdrich! It’s about a group of diverse witches who have to unite to form a coven (take a second look at that title) to save the world from being, you know, our current world! But there is just too much going on, too many characters, too much stuff that has to be explained that gets interrupted, it just keeps jumping around way too much. Also an immortal witchhunter is trying to stop them by any means necessary and he has some creepy sex magic going on, and all of that made me anxious (I said “what the fuck” out loud a lot during his scenes). But the main problem here is that I never got invested in these characters /felt like they were real. The dialogue never feels real. I'm bummed that I didn’t like this. B.

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

2023 book 17

 Victoria Goddard's Plum Duff

The first time I read this, I was a little disappointed, because it wasn’t about what I was expecting it to be about. But actually, reading it all in a row with the others, it’s so much about magic and /home/ and absolutely follows on with everything that came before. Plus Jemis knits a sweater for a unicorn, so. Very enjoyable on a reread. 

2023 book 16

 Victoria Goddard’s Love-in-a-Mist

The fifth Greenwing and Dart book finds our intrepid crew trapped in a stranger's manor house during a storm, and of course a murder occurs and they must solve it! There’s also a baby unicorn, which is perhaps even more relevant to my interests. 

2023 book 15

 Victoria Goddard’s Blackcurrant Fool

Ah, this one makes me laugh and cry in equal measure. Things start off simply enough, as Greenwing and Dart head to the big city for various reasons—looking at a grad school, dealing with banking, meeting up with more long-lost relatives, going to a book fair, etc, but things soon take a more serious turn. I will NEVER stop cackling that the back half of this book depends on a good literary analysis! Perfection!

2023 book 14

 Victoria Goddard’s Whiskeyjack

I will admit that one of the reasons I’m rereading this series is that a recent short story revealed one character had a crush on the protagonist, which I had NEVER picked up on, though he does hold Jemis' hand for a while in this one and so now I see it, haha. Anyway, LOTS of adventures with highwaymen, cults, long-lost relatives, natural phenomena, magic, etc. And an ending that makes me cry every time! We also learn more about Jemis' academic studies, which become even more relevant in the very next book!

2023 book 13

 Victoria Goddard’s Bee Sting Cake

Now that is how to tell a story! The second Greenwing and Dart book is way more tightly plotted than the first, plus it features old and new friends, family reunions, dragons and riddles, and a cake baking competition! (Plus, the first time you reread this after Hands of the Emperor, you will GASP at the introduction of a very minor character.) Just a solid and satisfying read. 

2023 book 12

 Victoria Goddard’s Stargazy Pie

I like to reread this series in winter, since it generally has cozy vibes (except for the creepy cult in this one, haha), and since my previous read left me feeling a little down, it’s Greenwing and Dart to the rescue! There are some great characters in this series and this is a fun introduction to them, even though the plot is frustratingly confusing and the last chunk drags on (I always understand the explanation at the end, and then that understanding slips right out of my head, but it honestly doesn’t matter as the relevant points will pop up in later books). It’s also fun to reread this series after exploring the rest of Goddard's world and catching all sorts of little hints and jokes. But the second book is WAY more fun so I’m gonna jump right into that.

2023 book 11

 Xochitl Gonzalez's Olga Dies Dreaming

I didn’t /love/ this when I first read it, but I did think my book club would be into it, so here I am rereading. I still love all the complicated family dynamics and relationships, but do think the second half bogs down as the story becomes more focused on politics (which is weird, because I should find that compelling, but I just think it’s not written as engagingly, and I can’t tell how much is meant to be satirical). Plus I was dreading having to revisit one particular scene (a rape) and that sense of dread kind of permeated the whole rest of the book (the scene happens toward the end) which made for a less-than-pleasant reread. 

2023 book 10

 Kosoko Jackson's Yesterday is History

I love a time travel story, and this one had an amazing premise: a teenaged black gay boy receives a liver transplant from someone from a family with the genetic ability to time travel, and suddenly he is time traveling back to 1969 and hanging with the (white) teenage boy who lived in his house back then! And the (white) organ donor's family wants their other son, a surly lacrosse bro, to train him in their time traveling ways. Now, the writing here is occasionally awkward in that YA way, and I definitely wished it went a little bit deeper into some things, but did I cry a little bit at the end? Obviously. Also LOL THIS PREMISE, seriously, amazing. A-/B+.

2023 book 9

 Diana Wynne Jones' Howl's Moving Castle

When you’ve read three disappointing books in a row, the only solution is to reread a book you know /won't/ be disappointing. And this never is! I love all the magic and mayhem, humor and heart. And it’s so satisfying to reread and watch all the pieces come together. Not to dis the Studio Ghibli movie, but I’m still mad there isn’t a more faithful adaptation of this out there.

2023 book 8

 A.M. Tuomala's The Map and the Territory

You know how sometimes when you’re reading a novella, character development feels rushed/underbaked, and it’s frustrating? Well, this a full length novel that somehow suffered from that issue. Really interesting world-building here, as a young woman cartographer and a young wizard dude in training meet each other in the midst of a worldwide disaster, with cities destroyed in mysterious magical ways (this isn’t a romance, at least not between them: he’s gay and she’s ace), and they go to try and see if they can find out what happened and if their homes are okay. But they end up dealing with politics in one of the cities they stop in, and things king of bog down, and I don’t know, I just wanted MORE from this! I will say there is a very interesting epilogue that makes me want to read the next book in this series (assuming one is coming). The bones of a good story are here but it didn’t totally come together for me. B/B+.

2023 book 7

 Laurie Colwin's Goodbye Without Leaving

I was talking to a friend about Colwin yesterday, and I was like, she would be a good palate cleanser, and surely there won’t be any racist slurs in this one! It’s about a young white woman in the 70s who drops out of grad school to be a backup singer in a (black) girl group, and how she has to come to terms with her life/settling down after her singing job is over. But like, did white New York liberals in the 70s just throw around a lot of racist slurs? Because these characters sure do! (And I'm not talking about terms we wouldn’t use today, though those also appear.) This book was released in 1990 so even if people /did/ talk that way in the 70s, surely there is no need for such a faithful recreation. Aside from the gross language, this book has Colwin's trademark charming voice and interesting characters. But also, eye roll that I have to say “aside from the gross language.” Things improve in the second half but *shrug emoji*. B.

2023 book 6

 Tanya Huff's The Better Part of Valor

I don’t think I’ve ever made it past book two in a series by Huff, and I won’t this time either. This was the slowest and most boring book I’ve read in a long time, even though it was action-packed. I’m not really sure how that works. This book is not badly written and if you like reading battle scenes you might like it, but I didn’t enjoy it at all once I hit the like one-third mark. B-.

2023 book 5

 Tanya Huff's Valor's Choice

Huff is pretty hit or miss for me, but this definitely fell on the hit side—it’s a solid example of military sci-fi. I don’t really know much about military stuff, but Huff does a great job of showing the camaraderie between soldiers (especially soldiers of different species), and also showing the tensions between officers and non-officers. The central figure is a staff sergeant who’s assigned to a diplomatic mission under a new lieutenant (who, oops, she had a one-night stand with the night before, lol, but there’s no romance to speak of here), but obviously things are going to go wrong. I really enjoyed the characters and world-building here, and am diving right into book two. A-/B+.

2023 book 4

 Melissa McShane's Emissary

I saw this compared to Ursula Vernon's books, and on the face of it, it should have been right up my alley—it’s about a woman who's sort of a servant/priest to the God of Death, and she and her bodyguard are sent to a city to investigate some mysterious apparitions, but they’re not regular ghosts. So she has a mystery to solve! The problem is that halfway through the author decides to stick a romance into things, which means the narrative loses some focus (I also personally found everything with the romance really annoying, like I was not into it at all). The religion and the mystery are both pretty interesting, and I just wanted more of that! B. 

2023 book 3

 Annalee Newitz's The Terraformers

So this wasn’t a book where I was like “omg what is gonna happen next???” but it was a book where I was like “this is pretty interesting and I like these characters! Let’s keep going!” It’s set in the far future and, as the title suggests, is about people terraforming a new planet. There are some interesting conflicts between corporations and environmental groups and lots of cool reveals along the way. The description makes it seem like it’s just one person's story, but it actually covers several generations on this planet as we see the situation, and the planet, evolve, and each new cohort tries to figure out the best way to thrive. Like I said, /great/ characters here, I was partial to Whiskey (a moose), Moose (a cat journalist), and Scrubjay (I won’t say more about Scrubjay as that’s a spoiler). There are human-y people too, and some cool robots. I will just say that like, if you think current capitalism is bad, just wait till you get a load of future capitalism. Big yikes!! This is being marketed as “hopeful” and I don’t think that’s /quite/ the word I’d use. But a good read. A-/B+.

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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on January 31st.

2023 book 2

 Mizuki Tsujimura's Lonely Castle in the Mirror

This book centers on a Japanese middle-school student who has stopped going to school because of severe bullying; one day, the mirror in her bedroom starts glowing, and it turns out to be a portal to a mysterious fairy-tale castle, ruled by a little girl in a wolf mask, where seven middle-schoolers are told they can hang out. And oh yeah, there’s a magical key that can grant one of them a wish, if someone can find it. It took me a little while to warm up to this—I didn’t love the writing style, but I’m not sure if that’s a translation issue or not—but I was all in by the second half and sobbing buckets by the end. I will pat myself on the back for correctly guessing most (but not all) of what was up, but that didn’t make me like it any less. SOBBING BUCKETS. A/A-.

2023 book 1

 Cat Sebastian's Daniel Cabot Puts Down Roots

I wanted to start the new year off with something on the lighter side, so a queer Cat Sebastian romance it is! (This is the second in a series, but it works fine as a stand-alone—I didn’t read the first one and I don’t think any of those characters even appeared here.) Anyway, it’s 1970s New York and our heroes are a prickly pediatrician (a Ukrainian immigrant) and a music writer/gardener from a wealthy family. They’re best friends and secretly in love with each other, it’s very cute. I loved them and all the secondary characters and just the vibe of this book in general. I personally could have done with maybe one fewer sex scene, but that’s not really a complaint, I just find sex scenes repetitive after a certain point. A/A-.

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.

2022 book 219

 Elizabeth Moon's Command Decision

I am still into this series! Lots of stuff happening in this one, as the evildoer conspiracy gets even more evil (a baby is killed, but off-page) and our protagonists try and assemble allies to fight the space pirates, including some dandified history buffs. I basically immediately forget all the action-y details as soon as they’re out of my eyeballs, but I enjoy them while they’re there! Looking forward to the final volume, I predict DRAMA. A-.

2022 book 218

 Elizabeth Moon’s Engaging the Enemy

The third Vatta's War book mainly focuses on the protagonist trying to get people to band together against the space pirates, who are stepping up their attacks. Meanwhile, her great-aunt is dealing with enemies back home (I was VERY pleased to see more of the great-aunt in this one) and cousin Stella is trying to figure out her role in the family business. A lot happens in this one, and some was tense and some was obvious and some was thrilling, and I’m looking forward to the fourth book. A-.

2022 book 217

 Elizabeth Moon's Marque and Reprisal

This picks up pretty much where the first one left off, only now the mysterious group destroying intergalactic communication devices comes for the protagonist’s entire family, leaving most of them dead in a series of attacks. So now it’s up to her, her famously flighty cousin, and her fruitcake-baking great aunt to figure out who’s after them and why (both the other women are extremely awesome, I hope we see more of the aunt in later volumes). The end chunk of this was kind of confusing and messy (literally in the latter case), lots of battling etc, but I’m intrigued about where things might go next. A-.