Old Babes in the Woods / Margaret Atwood

 

3.5 out of 5 stars

I get the feeling from this collection that Ms. Atwood is feeling her mortality. Unsurprising really, since she is in her early eighties and has fairly recently lost her main partner in crime, Graeme Gibson. I am sure she would protest vehemently, but I can't help but see the final section of the book (Tig & Nell) as a way of processing her feelings about Graeme's death. One of the stories (the one with the vulture migration) is something I heard her relate as a personal experience in a radio interview. And, yes, I know writers mine their personal lives for fictional details, but still….

I have enjoyed Atwood's fiction for as long as I can remember. I was a bit dismayed after the first section of this collection, when I didn't connect at all with Nell & Tig. What relief when I moved on to My Evil Mother, which was delightful. I also enjoyed her imagined interview with the shade of George Orwell. The middle section was the Atwood that I remember. The third section returns to Nell, now a widow and having to deal with Tig's absence. The natural history details appealed to me here. No doubt some are personal memories from growing up with Atwood's biologist father and living in the field.

I can't give this an unalloyed 4 star rating. For me, it is more 3 ½ stars, but I am still pleased to have read it.

Backpacking Through Bedlam / Seanan McGuire

 

4 out of 5 stars

I was happy when my book mail arrived this week, including the latest volume of InCryptid. McGuire chose to remain with Alice Healy-Price as principle narrator. I am taking a shine to Alice, who is determined to find a way to fit back into contemporary life and into her much expanded family while keeping her husband within sight whenever possible.

I also liked the addition of Sally to the family. The Prices are generous in their adoption of strays, just as they are in their evaluation of cryptids. Cryptids are people, just not human people. Adoption is sealed when the adoptee is accepted by the family ghosts and the Aeslin mice. Sally's passion for showers, clean socks, and pizza were completely understandable, after years in another dimension short on these amenities.

Speaking of the mice, they continue to be delightful. It was nice to get more of their antics, now that Alice is back home. The novella at the end of the book provided a good dose of mousiness, the point of view alternating between adoptee James and his fledgling clergy, Arcadia and Camden. We get the mouse’s eye view of things.

While attempting to readjust to home, Alice and Thomas get drawn into the effort to expel the Covenant from North America. Thomas' former employers are certainly persistent in their persecution of non-human people. Alice has difficulty with the notion that she is no longer an army of one, but manages to accomplish her objectives relatively unscathed.

So, we get a look at most of the family, get caught up on their news, and have another action packed adventure.

Barchester Towers / Anthony Trollope

 

4 out of 5 stars

If you get three people or three chimpanzees in one place, you will surely see politics in action. The cathedral town of Barchester provides the backdrop for a poo-throwing extravaganza as the old Bishop dies and is replaced by someone from outside the community. The clergy of the town could have tolerated that, had the new Bishop not proven to be a puppet of his wife and her chosen chaplain, Mr. Slope. The Bishop's wife may have chosen Mr. Slope, but he intends to rule the diocese (and her) and begins to plot and plan immediately.

Trollope picks up the story where he left off in The Warden. In the interim, John Bold has died, leaving Eleanor with a new baby. Of course she has inherited her husband's money and thus becomes a desirable potential spouse for both the greasy Mr. Slope and the feckless and useless Bertie Stanhope. Trollope sets both these men up to pursue the young widow and then immediately offers a spoiler, assuring the reader that she does not wed either one. My first thought was “Mr. Trollope, you do not seem to understand plot tension!” However, I was proven wrong, as that knowledge allowed me to completely enjoy the machinations of both men in their useless pursuit of Eleanor. Their arrogance in assuming that they had only to pay a little attention to her to secure her as a spouse is misguided. I was pleased to see Eleanor stand up for herself firmly in this book!

Trollope has a field day showing how the clergy are subject to the same passions, foibles, temptations, and failings as their congregations. He still manages to wrap things up happily and make the tale entertaining. I look forward to future visits to Barsetshire.

Through the Evil Days / Julia Spencer-Fleming

 

4 out of 5 stars

Julia Spencer-Fleming has never disappointed me. She always writes tightly plotted, high stakes novels like this one. I wondered how she would proceed now that Clare and Russ are legally married, but I should have known that wouldn't prevent roadblocks in their relationship.

Clare and Russ are attempting a delayed honeymoon in a remote cabin on a frozen lake when the worst ice storm in history strikes, a little girl is kidnapped, and all hell breaks loose in Miller's Kill. The newlyweds are both holding back information that each wants to protect the other from. And now they are out of phone coverage range, facing some extreme complications.

Russ has a distressing tendency to forget that his wife is a trained military badass who can take care of herself, just as she did in the very first book. It's a cross that we women of a certain age have to deal with in the men of our vintage. They have these old fashioned notions about women's role in their lives and their condescension is frustrating as all get out. Russ manages better than most at pulling his head out of his ass, eventually.

The sad part was the Kevin and Hadley story line. Defeat snatched from the jaws of victory. So many reasons to keep on reading!

Pyramids / Terry Pratchett

 

3.8 out of 5 stars

The camel, You Bastard, is worth the price of admission in this Discworld novel. I loved that Pratchett conceived of his camels being the mathematical geniuses of that world. Apparently, with no fingers to hold back their counting and great boredom on long desert treks, there was time and incentive to develop mathematical expertise.

Add to that the details that fascinate us all about Ancient Egypt. We all picture pyramids, hieroglyphics, gods, priests, and the Pharaoh, and Pratchett provides them all, but from his own hilarious perspective. He manages to comment on the need to keep up with societal changes and how new politicians can get weighed down under the trappings of tradition, handicapping their attempts to modernize.

I already have the next Discworld book in hand, ready for another romp.

A Line to Kill / Anthony Horowitz

 

3.75 out of 5 stars

Anthony Horowitz really gets his Agatha Christie hat on for this novel:

1. It's set in a tiny community where everyone knows everyone else.
2. Most of the characters are situated in the same hotel.
3. They've all been invited to a tiny, remote island for a book festival.
4. The murder victim is widely despised. There are many suspects.
5. Hawthorne is as reluctant to part with his process as Hercule Poirot.
6. Horowitz (his fictional self) takes the clueless Arthur Hastings role.
7. Hawthorne does a final reveal with explanation a la Poirot.
8. A morally ambiguous ending, where a potentially very guilty person gets off relatively easy.

To be absolutely honest, I was less than happy during the first third of the book, until I realized what the author was doing. Why would he make the character bearing his name and narrating the tale such a dim bulb? It annoyed me excessively, until I figured out that he was the Hastings to Hawthorne's Poirot. Suddenly, it became a much more entertaining book! How to feel delighted and kind of dumb in the same instant.

I will be extremely interested to see what my book club members have to say about it! Fingers crossed for a lively discussion!

Ancillary Justice / Ann Leckie

 

4 out of 5 stars

What an intriguing book! I will look forward to the next volume with great pleasure. We meet Justice of Toren One Esk, the one remaining fragment of a former complex of a ship (the Justice of Toren) and its hundreds of ancilliaries, otherwise known as former humans who have had machine intelligence loaded into them. And that's a rotten description of what or whom Breq is.

Breq is traveling incognito, bent on a mission that the reader discovers gradually. After coming across a former crew captain, now a drug addict in danger of freezing to death, Breq acquires her as a companion. And wonders why they saved her? Not even artificial intelligences are completely logical, it seems.

This is a complex universe, with lots of moving parts. Supposedly it is all run by the overall authority Anaader Mianaai, who also has ancilliaries of herself, I assume to be in many places at the same time. There are many varieties of human, many planets and space stations, many possible status levels. Breq is sometimes confused which pronouns to use when addressing someone new and I remained confused about gender all the way through the novel.

I was reminded of several other series that I've sampled. The names, the complexity of the setting, and the relative lack of explanation all reminded me of Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen series (of which I am currently stuck at the halfway point of volume 4). The AI component suggests a slight similarity to Martha Wells' Murderbot Diaries and Iain M. Banks's Culture series.

I love the amount of complex plotting taking place. There's some violence, but no one is currently at war, a state that I appreciate. We'll see if that lasts during the next two books, but I can hope. I've become so bored with long fantasy books centred on warfare and battles.

All the Little Liars / Charlaine Harris

 

3 out of 5 stars

Not my favourite installment of the Aurora Teagarden series, but it was a quick read. Aurora didn't feel quite like the woman I've come to know in the previous eight books. Perhaps that's because she's pregnant and has quietly married Robin Crusoe, her writer boyfriend and father of this baby. Those are big life changes on their own, but she also has her half-brother, Phillip, living with them and finishing high school.

Phillip turns out to be a pivotal part of this novel when he goes missing. Roe is constitutionally unable to just let the police do all the work and she is constantly asking questions and plotting possible scenarios. There are a lot of teenage complications, so plenty of possible distractions. Unlike Agatha Christie, none of them really prove to be completely unrelated to the crime. Harris weaves it all together.

I love the Sookie Stackhouse series and I enjoyed both the Lily Bard and Midnight, Texas series. I think there's only one volume of this one left, so I will eventually finish it, but I'm glad that will finish it off. I assume that Roe and Robin will welcome their baby in the final book and Harris will wind things up for the happy family.

Mansfield Park / Jane Austen

 

4 out of 5 stars

This is the first Austen novel that I have struggled a bit with. At about the 40% mark, I felt bogged down. The younger folk being all involved in putting on a play? Yawn! I strongly considered throwing in the towel. I then read a few reviews by my friends to get a bit of insight into what others were finding to admire in the novel.

My friends sorted things out for me. I needed to keep in mind that Fanny might be the central character, but the book's title is Mansfield Park. It's the household that gets star billing. Fanny's situation gives me a new appreciation for the role of the “poor relation" in the upper classes. She is reasonably well treated, but is ever aware of her lowly status and must be alert to the events in the household. Secondly, one friend recommended repeating to myself, “This is not a romance novel.” A very helpful hint, as I expect a romantic plotline from Austen, but she has other fish to fry in Mansfield Park. So, don't get too fixated on Fanny or romance. Excellent advice. This is no gothic romance where the spunky poor relation gets swept up by a wealthy nobleman. Fanny is far from spunky and Edmund is incapable of sweeping any woman off her feet!

Once Sir Thomas was returned from Antigua and the theatrics were declared at an end, things picked up again. The final half of the book went quickly, quite a contrast to the speechifying and stage building that bogged me down earlier. There were questions to be answered. Would Henry succeed in winning Fanny's regard, despite her obvious devotion to her cousin Edmund. Would Edmund convince Mary to be his wife? Fanny, who has been quietly observing everyone, has definite opinions on these matters.

In the end, I enjoyed the book quite a bit. However, I confess to still prefering Sense and Sensibility.

Biting Cold / Chloe Neill

 

4 out of 5 stars

Older readers may remember a certain potato chip ad featuring Mark Messier angrily biting crispy chips. The tag line: Bet you can't eat just one. That's how I feel about this series. But I have a stack of library books telling me I need to end this chip binge and read other things. But I'll be back, Ms. Neill, to see what Merit and Ethan get up to next. Of that you can be sure.