Drink Deep / Chloe Neill

4 out of 5 stars

Merit and Mallory just repaired their friendship in the last volume, only to have it threatened again, this time by black magic. Looking back, there was plenty of foreshadowing of Mallory's new obsession. We are set up to suspect that imprisoned ex-mayor Tate has something to do with it, but so far his role has not been revealed.

Neill also uses Mallory's black magic to restore what she took away from us in the last volume. Yes, she pulled a Dallas on us. Whenever a major character is nuked, I have to wonder if the author plans to resurrect them somehow and speculate on the method. Neill used a very creative method. It's pretty difficult to revive someone that you've seen reduced to ashes!

Now Cadogan House must plan a revolution against the Greenwich Presidium and continue their campaign to keep Chicago safe. If humanity can be persuaded to resume friendly relations, that would be a bonus. Everybody needs goals. Giving your characters something to strive for is imperative. There are plenty of things for Merit to work on, so the series continues. Well done, Ms. Neill.

• m

Hard Bitten / Chloe Neill

 

4 out of 5 stars

In writers workshops, they are often urged to kill their darlings. A writer should not be so in love with a character that they are unwilling to sacrifice them in the interest of a better book. Neill seems to have taken this directive very seriously. She knocked me galley-west in this installment.

The European vampires here reminded me a fair bit of Faith Hunter's Jane Yellowrock series, which boasts malevolent Euro vamps who look down on their North American kin and expect to rule the roost. In both series, they seriously underestimate the independent spirit of Americans. People who stage a Boston Teaparty, who fight a War of Independence, and who settle their own differences with a Civil War are unlikely to acquiesce to unreasonable demands from foreign rulers.

I was glad to see Merit and Mallory regain their friendship mojo in this book and resume their supportive yet snarky banter. As Ethan observes, Mallory keeps Merit in touch with her lost humanity, which makes her a better Sentinel. For an English Lit student, Merit has become both a warrior and an investigator in short order. I've read studies about people who read being more empathetic, having spent more time seeing the world from the viewpoints of other people. Perhaps Merit's reading habits help her too.

This series is addictive! I have zero ideas about where Neill expects to take things from here, but I assume there is a master plan or there would have been no reason for the sacrifices mentioned earlier. Quite an exciting prospect!

The Woman in Blue / Elly Griffiths

 

4 out of 5 stars

I always enjoy this series, but the installments that have more of Cathbad the druid are the best! This book benefited from his frequent presence. I think that a religious theme here also gave this book extra oomph, since Nelson and Ruth are both wary of religion and Cathbad seems to love it in all its forms.

Ruth is someone I would love to have as a friend. She is intelligent, academic, and has a wide range of interests. You could have a wide ranging conversation with her and never be bored. Nelson's wife, Michelle, is pretty but very shallow. When the whole Michelle & Tim situation explodes into view, Ruth ends up wondering what two intelligent complex men could possibly see in Michelle. I guess Michelle is the obvious choice if you are fixated on physical appearance. For me, attraction is a complex mix of appearance, sense of humour, intelligence, kindness, and interests. Just being handsome is not nearly enough. If I was to go speed dating, I'd be asking questions about his last vacation destination, if he speaks a language besides English, or how he spent his last weekend.

It's also great to see members of the supporting cast getting on with life. Cathbad and Judy are living together and enjoying their two children (although Judy seems to be itching to return to the police station). Clough has settled down some, although his junk food consumption hasn't reduced at all. Tim is understandably moving on. Time will tell if Tanya and her girlfriend will feature more prominently.

I suppose the “will they, won't they” dynamic between Ruth and Harry may eventually become tiresome, but I haven't reached my limit yet. I completely understand Ruth's ambivalence about actually having to live with another adult. There's no guarantee that a man in the house would make life better for her and Kate. Or worse for that matter. I still have a half dozen novels awaiting me and I look forward to the next one (eventually).

The Dead Romantics / Ashley Poston

 

4 out of 5 stars

What a delightful book! I'm not the most enthusiastic romance reader—I need more to the novel than simply the romantic plot to keep me happy. Ashley Poston gave me plenty of questions to answer and dilemmas to be resolved, keeping my brain busy as Florence lives her life.

Florence is an interesting main character. She is a successful ghost writer for a well known author, yet she is riddled with self doubt. Her predicament began in school, when she inadvertently revealed that she inherited her beloved father's ability to see and communicate with ghosts. And because the family business was a funeral home. Kids are cruel and they persecute Florence for her differences. She moves to New York to escape from her past, only to get mixed up with a narcissistic man who steals and misinterprets her life details for a book that he's writing. When confronted, he kicks her out into the rain.

It's a struggle to write a good romance novel when you believe that love is dead. Florence goes to meet her new editor, hoping to get an extension of her deadline for the last novel that she's contracted to write. He's gorgeous but she's so self conscious that she can barely speak and things do not go well. All of which seems important until her family phones to let her know that her dad is dead.

Poston writes grief even better than she writes romance. Florence regrets that she never returned home, she has a hard time believing that he's gone, and she longs to feel like she fits back into her family again. Her despondency feels real (or maybe I'm channeling my own feelings after my dad's death). At any rate, have a box of tissues at hand, just in case.

Florence has just returned home when she answers a knock at the door, only to find the ghost of her editor waiting for her. She's the only one who can interact with him and has to explain the situation. Unlike most ghosts, he hangs around and they get to know each other. I think you know where that is going!

I read on with pleasure, mopping my eyes from time to time, wondering how Poston would resolve things. And I must say that her solution was ingenious. Highly entertaining, heart wrenching and heart warming, all in the same package.

Evil Under the Sun / Agatha Christie

4 out of 5 stars

Ah, Dame Agatha, as tricksy as the Fae, really. She is such a magician, waving a hand over here to catch your attention while she unobtrusively manipulates something with the other hand. There were so many plausible red herrings in this novel. I completely misjudged several characters and was led astray by the fishy aroma of those herrings! By the end, I was willing to believe anyone but Poirot himself had murdered the woman in question.

As usual, Christie gives us a well known selection of suspects to choose from: a businessman with a teenage daughter from a previous marriage and a former actress as wife. An obvious paramour for said wife, who has a resentful spouse of his own. An old boring military man. An obnoxious loudmouth who is avoided by all. An American couple acting very stereotypically American. An old friend of the first businessman's family who is a successful businesswoman in her own right. A former churchman with a religious mania. The possibilities abound! Especially if you start to consider that more than one person may be involved. Looking back, I can see how skillfully my expectations were set up.

I think my biggest surprise, however, was the sympathy for the murder victim displayed by Poirot and by extension by Christie herself. I wonder if she knew a similar person in her own life? As the men of the novel observe several times, Arlena's enemies seem to be exclusively female. Women tend to dislike femme fatale types for obvious reasons.

As an aside, it was a pleasant thing to read about the seaside and picnicking on a cold, snowy day in my city. Christie picks such lovely settings for her crime scenes. It makes me want to book a getaway at Bigbury-on-Sea, the reputed real world model for Leathercombe Bay.
 

Lost in the Moment and Found / Seanan McGuire

 

4 out of 5 stars

This is perhaps the darkest book in the Wayward Children series. There is a personal note from McGuire at the beginning to reassure readers who have experienced similar trauma. She makes it quite clear that she is writing from personal history here. I would even speculate that she has been writing this entire series just to get here, where she could tell her own story with a better outcome.

This is the book in which we get to see behind the curtain so to speak. We learn about the nature of the Doors, how and why they work, plus the price of using them. When Antoinette (Antsy) runs away from home and opens a Door incautiously, she finds herself in the Shop of Lost Things. She meets an older woman and a talking magpie who introduce her to the rhythm of the Shop world. From this safe base, she can open many doors and explore many worlds with assistance to return to the shop.

But, as Robert A. Heinlein was fond of saying, there's no such thing as a free lunch. Antsy does her best to avoid this lesson, but some things just cannot be ignored. She would also probably agree with the sentiment that ‘you can't go home again.’ These are short little novellas, but each packs a punch. Even at number eight and despite their distressing subject matter, I find them irresistible.

The Darwin Affair / Tim Mason

 

2.6 out of 5 stars

Somehow this book just didn't do it for me. It's well enough written. The plot tension is good. The villains are sufficiently villainous. The main character is realistic. The time and place are well researched. So what was it that bugged me?

Well, number one reservation: the author just throws in too many well known people. Charles Darwin, Thomas Huxley, Sir Richard Owen, Charles Dickens, Queen Victoria and her Prince Consort, Albert. What are the odds that an actual Victorian policeman would encounter ALL of these prominent people? Not to mention Mary Do-Not, who seems to be based on the American Typhoid Mary.

My other complaint is that the murderer just seems too 21st century. Yes, I know, the Victorian era saw Jack the Ripper and the start of our culture's fascination with the serial murderer. But this type of crime wasn't too sophisticated yet. The Chorister is like a character out of the tv show Criminal Minds and to me feels much too modern for the setting. He pursues his targets with Terminator-like persistence and has traits that the FBI would easily recognize. It just didn’t feel time appropriate to me.

This was a choice for the book club sponsored by a local bookstore and I am planning to attend my first meeting to discuss it. I truly wish that I had enjoyed it more, as I find more joy discussing books that I like than those that I'm not wild about. Ah well, c'est la vie.

Mistborn: the Final Empire / Brandon Sanderson

 

4 out of 5 stars

2023 Re-Read

I may be giving the same star rating as I did in 2014, but I enjoyed it more this time around. If I recall correctly, the first time I read it in bits and pieces while traveling around Japan. This time I was able to pay focused attention and could appreciate the novel more.

I was dismayed at how little I remembered! I guess nine years is a fair gap, but it does also show how distracted I was on that trip. I recalled the characters and I remember being somewhat annoyed by Vin. This time around I had more sympathy for her. She had good reasons to doubt that friendship could really exist. I still feel that her romance is telegraphed too obviously and too early, but Sanderson handles it at least as well as many romance authors so I can't complain too hard.

It is my intention to continue the series (finally!) this year. Since I wonder whether I actually read the last chapters originally, I'm glad I revisited this novel.

We'll Always Have Parrots / Donna Andrews

 

4 out of 5 stars

Ah, this is more like it! Meg has found her stride in book number five. She and Michael attend a fan convention devoted to the tv show that he has a role in. The bitchy main character is murdered and her body is discovered by, who else, Meg. Being the ultra-capable, over-responsible and busy-brained woman that she is, Meg begins sorting through the evidence and interviewing the witnesses, all the while claiming that she is doing no such thing.

Some bright spark organizing the conference thought the jungle themed decorations would be improved by the presence of monkeys and parrots. Both are highly intelligent animals, highly motivated to escape, which they do immediately. Monkey business ensues. And the parrots of the title make themselves known.

The author must have fun researching all the various subjects that feature in these books. In this case, politics of television casts, the ownership of large cats, the drawing of comic books, and the care & feeding of a convention and its denizens. Obscure bits of knowledge must lodge in her brain, only to be produced when needed. Hey presto!

Great fun and Andrews discovered her title shtick with this volume. Not only Meg, but Donna Andrews has found her stride here.

The Game is a Footnote / Vicki Delany

 

4 out of 5 stars

After finishing a rather harrowing mystery this morning, I felt the need to read something lighter, fluffier, cozier. This book filled the bill. By this point, book 8, the reader will be pretty familiar with Gemma Doyle. We also know her boyfriend Ryan, her BFF Jayne, her employee Ashleigh, and various other members of the supporting cast. We know Gemma's methods and so do her neighbours. So when mysterious (possibly ghostly) things start to happen in a historic building, who do you call? There aren't any ghost busters in West London, so Gemma's presence is requested. Gemma doesn't believe in ghosts, so she starts a skeptical investigation. And things not only continue to happen, someone is killed, escalating the matter.

Now don't get me wrong, Gemma is still a know-it-all, but she isn't as obnoxious about it anymore. She seems to realize that her friends and relatives don't care for being talked down to or told what they ought to be doing. It helps that Jayne has found a guy that Gemma approves of, so there's no need to try to steer her straight. Gemma is actually committed to helping with their wedding planning. I also used to object to Gemma's treatment of her dog Violet. Now she has two dogs, having added Peony in the last book. And they seem to get well fed and well exercised. Gemma has issues with her shop cat Moriarty, but he is successfully rushed to the vet. He survives although he may have become even more vindictive.

Somehow this book doesn't feel final. I have a feeling that the next installment may feature Jayne's wedding and possibly a bit more commitment between Gemma and Ryan. I have a hunch that Delany will see them definitely attached before she declares the series done. Time will tell.

How to Keep House While Drowning / KC Davis

 

4 out of 5 stars

Morality concerns itself with the goodness or badness of your character and the rightness or wrongness of decisions….How you relate to care tasks—whether you are clean or dirty, messy or tidy, organized or unorganized—has absolutely no bearing on whether you are a good enough person.

I think I knew this in my head, but my gut feelings don't match. I heard somewhere that women view their homes as representations of themselves. Often when they want their lives to change, they start by working on their homes. Housework bores me and I am completely unmotivated to do it. Perhaps by reframing it as care tasks, done to care for Tomorrow Me, I'll be able to do the truly necessary tasks. I hope so. And who knows, maybe that list will expand over time.

The Quarry Girls / Jess Lourey

 

4 out of 5 stars

I've read other books by Jess Lourey, namely her Rom-Com mystery series, which had a serious mystery in each book, but also had a fair amount of comic relief. It was this experience that prompted me to pick up this novel. Whoo boy, is this a different kind of read!

The law might not recognize it, but fifteen's a girl and sixteen a woman, and you get no map from one land to the next. They air-drop you in, booting a bag of Kissing Potion lip gloss and off-the-shoulder blouses after you. As you're plummeting, trying to release your parachute and grab for that bag at the same time, they holler out you're pretty, like they're giving you some sort of gift, some vital key but really, it's meant to distract you from yanking your cord.
Girls who land broken are easy prey.

And who among us isn't just a little broken? Everyone who thinks that small towns are safe, idyllic places to raise children should read books like this one. (I should know, I went to school in a small town and watched similar things. It was all part of living in the 1970s). Are the girls in the title to be found in the quarry on the outskirts of town or are they the quarry of predatory men? Both, y'all, BOTH.

Part of the reason that this book spooked me so badly is that I am exactly the same age as the main character, Heather. I was just as naïve as her too. I lived in a rural district, eleven miles from town, and that distance kept me out of much of the trouble that small town girls can encounter. (As a result, my narrow escapes happened once I started university and was separate from my family, making them more panic inducing.) I found I had to take frequent reading breaks because the novel connected me so strongly with my young adult fears. The 70s may have seen the beginnings of feminism, but men still very much inhabited the authoritative offices of society and many of them saw nothing wrong with rewarding themselves for their hard work with women, the younger the better. Just listen to the music of that decade and you'll hear all about “sweet sixteen” and the whole “you belong to me” idea. Women were prizes, not people.

Jess Lourey has seen some of this too, although she's about a decade younger than me. Her introduction talks about serial killers who haunted the Minnesota community where she grew up. As she says, they were far from geniuses, but they knew how to manipulate young women who were insecure about their looks or their social status or desperate to feel grown up and therefore easily convinced that sex would give them sophistication.

At any rate, this is very well written. I found the plot tension excruciating, but part of that may be my personal history speaking. Although I usually don't love endings that tie up with a bow, in this instance it felt right and comforting. But I will be much more careful to vet the blurb on future Lourey novels, I don't know if I could withstand another story like this one.

The Kaiju Preservation Society / John Scalzi

 

4 out of 5 stars

2023 Re-Read

I'm not sure why I felt the need to revisit this Scalzi novel, but it was calling out to me! I answered the call and enjoyed the heck out of it once again. I recently returned to the author's blog and found this book matched the blog's subtitle “Furiously Reasonable.” It is idealistic—I can't imagine any group of employees being as unified and mutually appreciative as the KPS staff are. Having worked in a number of offices over my career, I can virtually guarantee that there will be people who rub each other the wrong way, who squabble, and who aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer. No matter how carefully they are selected, that's the result of human nature. Nevertheless, it is a pleasant dream, to have a group of congenial coworkers.

I hadn't realized when I read the book the first time that Scalzi manages to tell the entire tale without revealing Jamie Gray's gender. Other readers may have assumed, like I did, that Jamie was a man because of the job they were recruited for. As Jamie frequently says, “I lift things.” Which proves how even someone with strong feminist leanings can let childhood programming sway her.

I think it was actually the idealistic nature of the KPS that I needed right now, when the world around me seems to be going to the dogs. I have days when I just have to turn off the news and turn up the music. I have the privilege of being able to retreat from reality for a few days when the world seems too heavy. Fantasy literature has been my haven during the whole pandemic, not to mention my whole life. Thank you, Mr. Scalzi for an inspiring, funny fantasy novel that cheers me up when I'm feeling blue.