Outlaw / Tony Lee

 

2 out of 5 stars 

***2024 Summer in Sherwood***

Tony Lee manages to cobble the many assorted aspects of the Robin Hood myth in one coherent whole in this graphic novel. We have Robin returned from the Crusades to take up his dukedom. He immediately comes into conflict with the Sheriff of Nottingham and Guy of Gisborne, the obvious bad guys of the tale, who naturally support Prince John and the Norman aristocracy. The Prince has his eye on the throne and has delayed gathering the necessary ransom for his brother, Richard the Lionheart. The gang’s all there: Little John, Will Scarlet, Much the Miller's Son, Friar Tuck, and Maid Marian. Lee even manages to incorporate the archery contest, one of the iconic deeds of Robin Hood. Nor does he leave out the return of Richard and the reward of Robin and his loyal men. He does avoid calling them the Merry Men—the implication being that their plight is too dark for much merriment.

I found the artwork confusing. Marian was distinguishable because she was the only female character but the men were exceedingly difficult to tell apart. The Sheriff and Guy had to be parsed by dialogue. Often I had to identify Robin by situation. More often than not, the eyes are just black shadows and not the windows to the soul that we are used to. In my opinion, it should be easy to identify the characters, by costume if not by face. Richard was easily indicated by his Crusader garb, but he was the only easily identifiable man.

I find myself wondering about readers who first encounter Robin Hood through this medium. Because I've read the stories, I recognized what Lee was doing with the plotline, but would it make sense to someone new to the story? Would it inspire them to read further or would it satisfy their curiosity? I would certainly be confused if this was my first encounter with Sherwood's famous outlaw.

A Ruse of Shadows / Sherry Thomas

 

4 out of 5 stars 

Book 14 of the 2024 Read Your Hoard Challenge

Sherry Thomas writes a delightful historical mystery. I was concerned that the eighth book in this series would be tired, but instead it pulsed with intrigue. Charlotte Holmes embodies the canonical Sherlock Holmes very well. Her use of disguise is prominent in this installment and her plans within plans match or exceed those of the original Holmes.

Where she differs from her progenitor is in her ability to love, albeit in her own way. This whole book was devoted to the possibility of uniting her sister Olivia with her beloved Stephen. The plot of the book was intricate: it alternated between the interrogation of Charlotte in the present concerning the death of Lord Bancroft following his escape from prison and the elaborate back story of what actually happened. It was the gift of a loving sister, to give her sibling happiness and hope.

Also unlike Sherlock, Charlotte has her devoted Ash. We know from early volumes of the series that she has always sought his company and that he has come to feel deeply for her. I think it is safe to say that this is the book where their relationship levels up. Indeed, he is among the most important people of the circle of friends that Charlotte has built for herself. Although she appears emotionless at times, Charlotte obviously feels deeply and values friendship and loyalty.

I love books that feature found family as this series does. I find more of this in fantasy literature so it is a treat to find it in the mystery genre. As Moriarty is still on the loose, I assume that at least one more book will be forthcoming. Bring it on!

Becoming Earth / Ferris Jabr

 

4 out of 5 stars 

If you consider deep-earth microbes, soil organisms, plankton, seaweeds/algae, and plants to be humble parts of our world, Ferris Jabr may change your mind! Microbes provided the grease that got plate tectonics moving and continents growing. Without the complex orchestra of soil organisms, nothing would grow and those continents would be barren wastelands. The amazing bulk of plankton in our oceans provide the majority of the oxygen we breathe and influence our weather in addition to feeding a plethora of creatures up to the size of baleen whales.

“[T]he vast majority of chalk and limestone formations on Earth, including large sections of the Alps, are the remains of plankton, corals, shellfish, and other calcereous creatures. Every impossible edifice that humans have constructed with limestone, including the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Colosseum, Notre Dame, and the Empire State Building, is a secret monument to ancient ocean life.”

We are used to centering the narrative on humans (we're hubristic that way) and we have definitely made a mark on our planet, not in dreadfully positive ways. Unfortunately, we have thrown the carbon cycle of the planet way out of whack. One of the best things we could do at this point would be to break our addiction to plastics. Micro- and nano-plastics are found everywhere on Earth now. Eventually there will be a natural process to deal with them, but probably not until we are as extinct as Australopithecus.

If the plastic situation was dismal, I gained encouragement from Jabr's discussions of soil management and fire regimes. Healthy soils and forests are fabulous at sequestering carbon, exactly what we need. I could wish that we could get everyone moving in the same direction, but these things never seem to be easy. People are resistant to change, even sensible changes. At least we have some options. Preservation of grasslands, forests, bogs, swamps, bayous, and peatlands looks like one of our best paths forward. Here in Western Canada, we have lived through several catastrophic fire seasons now, and I hope that our governments can finally admit that fire suppression sets us up for these major events. Controlled burning, using the expertise of our aboriginal peoples, would seem to be a good future path. As a bonus, healthy oceans and forests can create beneficial weather, a good cycle to get going.

We need to readjust our focus—quit only considering ourselves and look to the health of microbes, plankton, algae, fungi, and plants. Invest in renewables, sequester carbon dioxide, plant trees, protect land, farm smarter. Everyone will benefit. So, the meek shall certainly inherit the Earth. In fact, they seem to have orchestrated Earth as we know it and will be around to rehabilitate it when we quit making a mess of it.

Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen / Lois McMaster Bujold

 

4 out of 5 stars 

Book number 526 of my Science Fiction and Fantasy Reading Project 

 If you read this series solely for Miles Vorkosigan, you will be disappointed by this installment. The Imperial Auditor appears in it but isn't the focus. The previous book centered on cousin Ivan Vorpatril and this one returns to Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan with the addition of Admiral Oliver Jole.

It takes place three years after the heartbreaking event at the end of Cryoburn. We quickly learn things about Aral Vorkosigan that I personally never suspected, namely his bisexuality. Plus, his attachment to Oliver Jole. Cordelia's too. Perhaps because I am an older woman, I welcomed the return to Cordelia's viewpoint and the acknowledgement that we don't age out of needing intimate relationships, despite what younger people may believe. Time's passage has healed both Cordelia's heart and Oliver's. It seems inevitable that they will rediscover each other.

Oliver Jole is turning fifty. Suddenly, when he believed his life and career to be winding down, he has a number of life changing decisions to make, requiring hard choices. I couldn't help but love him, as I trust Cordelia's judgment and I felt that uncertainty of choice that can feel like agony until you reach a decision. 

It's been eight years since this 16th book was published. I would never count LMB out—she may write more in the Vorkosigan universe, but I got a rather final feeling from the conclusion here. It's like she needed to circle back to Cordelia, get her retired and settled, in order to wrap things up. I am okay either way: a new book would be outstanding, but I can happily reread these sixteen volumes for many years to come. Thank you, Ms. Bujold, for this entertaining ride!

Uncanny Times / Laura Anne Gilman

 

3.5 stars (maybe even a little more) out of 5

This is my second time trying a Laura Anne Gilman novel. She has ideas that attract me, combinations of fantasy, supernatural, and mystery that I think ought to be excellent, but somehow I don't attach properly. This one has the Uncanny—all the supernatural creatures like werewolves and vampires—but they hide in the shadows. If they threaten humans, Huntsmen get sent to investigate and eliminate.

Aaron and Rosemary are siblings of a Huntsman family. They have been trained since they were children to wield weapons, to master the arcane knowledge, and to conceal their mission from regular humans. I loved their huge hound, Botheration, who is protection, early warning system, tracker, and defender, all wrapped in one furry body.

The Harkers get called to the scene of a cousin's death to determine its cause. They get mixed messages from both the clues and from the townsfolk. It's 1913 and industrialization is going strong. There's a new mill in town and no one wants to lose this economic driver. However, workers are thinking about unionization and women are active in the suffrage movement. It's enough to make a businessman cranky and there are a couple of grouchy movers and shakers staying at the same boarding house as Aaron and Rosemary.

The surname Harker may be suggest some relationship to the Harkers in Dracula? If so, it's very subtle. The siblings acknowledge that the Huntsman genome probably owes something to Fey ancestors, giving them a sensitivity to the Uncanny. Among their landlady's employees are two young women with a touch of the Sight and who end up helping them out in small but significant ways.

I like all of the ingredients, but the finished product failed to delight. It's good, but I am left reluctantly with the feeling that something crucial and unidentified is missing from the recipe.

A Tidy Ending / Joanna Cannon

 

3.5 out of 5 stars 

I have to hand it to Ms. Cannon, she kept me off kilter for all but the last few pages, when everything clicked into place. I kept reading, wondering what is wrong with Linda? She obviously doesn't understand people—is she autistic? What about her germ phobia? I spent a fair amount of time also considering what happened when she was a child in Wales. That at least became clearer as the novel progressed.

Was her mother actually as awful as Linda leads us to believe? Maybe she's trying to support a child with emotional problems and is being misinterpreted by that child. How in heck did Linda end up married to Terry? I had so many, many questions. Linda seems far too trusting and I cringed as I see dishonest people trying to take advantage of her. But Linda has a secret power: she has carefully observed other people all her life and she sees the details. She sees past the surface despite having difficulty determining the motives of salespeople.

I wasn't sure what I thought of the novel right until page 382. Those last two chapters blew me away! I can't give any details, much as I would like to, or I would be spoiling things for other readers. Give Linda a chance. She will frustrate and amaze you.

Filthy Rich Fae / Geneva Lee

 

4 out of 5 stars 

Well, if I didn't already know that I'm a visual learner rather than audio, I surely would now. Once again, my library only had this title available in audiobook format. I think the only reason that I remember enough to write a review at all is because this is complete fluff and there's not a helluva lot to have to recall. This romance is also proof (once again) that paranormal trappings make romance novels enjoyable to me.

I had a good time listening to this despite a lot of repetition and the heroine, Cate, being very nearly TSTL. What a centuries old fae would see in her is beyond me, but I still enjoyed the banter and the story arc. But I swear, if she had “lifted her chin" one more time….. Plus, her foster brother, Channing, is even dumber than she is.

Channing starts the whole plot off by being a stereotypical foster care graduate and getting involved in organized crime. Cate is a nurse and is on duty when Channing arrives in hospital while she's on duty. Despite the fact that the crime boss, Lochlan Gage, pretty much owns Gage Memorial Hospital, Cate decides it would be an excellent idea to go to a sketchy area of town to confront him and settle her brother's debt. See what I mean about TSTL? For reasons of his own, Gage releases Channing and takes Cate's soul instead. The relationship starts adversarial, which is my favourite trope, so I was willing to put up with the stupidity.

Warning to cliffhanger haters: there's a dilly! If my library won't order the next book, I'm going to be forced to spend my own cash (and they've rejected my request to purchase the second book of the Filthy Rich Vampire series, so……). Being weird in my own way, when I realized how much I want to read the next book, that added a fourth star to my rating. Perhaps I'm just as contrary as Cate.

Bad Men / Julie Mae Cohen

 

4 out of 5 stars 

What happens when a female vigilante serial killer gets a serious crush on a true crime podcaster? Homicidal mayhem, that's what! Saffy Huntley-Oliver has been killing bad men since she was a tween and accidentally killed the stepfather who was sexually abusing her and planning to move on to her younger sister. She and her sister inherit wealth from their parents and stepfather, leaving Saffy free to pursue whatever interests her. After a murder or two, she realizes that murder is her primary interest in life and that there is definitely no shortage of men who deserve her attentions.

Saffy uses her stalker skills to “run in to" her crush, Jonathan Desrosiers, and neatly inserts herself into his life. Heck, she even gets him a dog. She's a little concerned about his attachment to his ex-wife, but that can be dealt with later. Her commentary is surprisingly humorous, as she plots and plans.

Cohen cleverly contrasts Saffy, the sophisticated, well groomed woman, with two male killers. Jonathan is surrounded by the kind of people that he podcasts about without being immediately aware of it. This seems to me to be a sly commentary on the whole true crime industry so prevalent in our society and on the fascination with serial killers.

If you enjoy (or anticipate enjoying) this book, I would also recommend How to Kill Men and Get Away with It or Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide. If you don't want fictional true crime, consider True Crime Addict: How I Lost Myself in the Mysterious Disappearance of Maura Murray and I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer. If you want to read about obsessive investigators, consider Unmasked: My Life Solving America's Cold Cases and Chase Darkness with Me: How One True-Crime Writer Started Solving Murders. In the former, you'll meet a law enforcement officer who has ruined multiple relationships by ignoring the people he loves. In the latter, the author's marriage was still hanging together when the book was published, but I predict it won't last based on his proclivities.

Now You See Me / S.J. Bolton

 

3.5 out of 5 stars 

My enjoyment of this book suffered for a couple of factors. It was only available in audio from my library. I'm still relatively new to audio and sometimes found details of this convoluted mystery were getting muddled in my mind. The recording was made from a CD version, announced whenever the end of a disc was reached and annoyingly, the progress scale didn't match up with actual chapters. Secondly, there were some long breaks between my listening sessions, giving me time to lose the thread of what's going on. And there's a lot going on.

We meet DC Lacey Flint as she accidentally becomes part of her first murder investigation when the not quite dead victim slumps onto her car. Flint has been trying to stay on the down low at work, for reasons we don't learn until much later, and is dismayed to be plunked in the middle of things and coming to the attention of senior officers DI Dana Tulloch and Mark Joesbury. More murders happen and Flint continues to be the epicentre of events.

As a youngster, Flint was fascinated by the Jack the Ripper murders and is the first to see the linkages between those crimes and the current ones. (I was annoyed about some of the Ripper “facts" until I checked publication dates and realized this was published before Hallie Rubenfeld's The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper.) Flint becomes integral to the investigation and finds herself increasingly under the eye of Joesbury. She tries to deflect his attention by admitting to a past of homelessness and drug use, but insists that is all in the past. She is aware that Joesbury remains suspicious of her story and why the murderer seems focused on her, but believes that her only solution is running away (completely in character for someone with a precarious background).

Bolton deals out the bread crumbs gradually, letting the reader assimilate a new fact and adjust their view of the situation. Then she hits with another item, expanding our view again. She is a very effective tease. The ending was still a complete surprise to me, despite all those hints, but I love being surprised. Since Lacey has been seriously considering fleeing for the whole book, I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to say that her future on the police force is questionable by book's end. As is her relationship with Joesbury.

Thankfully, the library has volume two in paper, as I am sure this one would have been a solid 4 stars if I had a dead-tree version instead of the audio.

The Martian / Andy Weir

 

4.5 out of 5 stars 

2024 Re-read

I recently finished A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?, a book about the plausibility of sending people to the Red Planet. It reminded me of how much I had enjoyed this novel and inspired me to revisit it. Assisting this decision was the acquisition of my own copy of it in a charity book sale in May. I was amazed to realize that it has been 10 years since I first read it. I was also happy to see that Weir was well aware of the treaties governing space exploration. Mark Watney takes great glee in declaring himself a space pirate, taking possession of the Ares 4 MVA.

Incidentally, I did see the movie just before it left the theatres. I thought it was great, though in different ways than the book. I loved the panoramas on Mars, the awesome and beautiful setting.

I enjoyed this novel just as much as the first time. My rating and remarks remain the same.

Original Review

Actual rating: 4.5 stars.

“If the women don’t find you handsome, they should at least find you handy.”—Red Green (for whom duct tape is the handy man’s secret weapon). Apologies to those unfamiliar with the Red Green TV show.

Mark Watney is indeed a handy kind of guy, right out of the Red Green mold. Mind you, astronauts have to be problem solvers and able to tackle everything from malfunctioning water dispensers during space walks to fixing the space station toilet (see Chris Hadfield's memoir An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth). Mark demonstrates this ability to take on whatever the planet Mars throws at him. (In this case, he is nothing like Red Green & the Possum Lodge members, whose motto is “Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati, If all else fails, play dead.”)

Reading this book was like eating peanuts—once I got started, it was really hard to stop. I found the device of log entries to be delightful, as I always have loved books that use the form of exchanged letters or journal entries. I also found Watney to be a charming narrator, if a bit of a smart aleck. Some reviewers have found his upbeat way of looking at his situation to be tiresome, but the log entries are always made after the worst of the crisis is over and Watney has survived to write another missive. He fully realizes his situation (“I’m fucked”), but chooses realistic optimism over simply giving up.

So, I enjoyed the form, the attention to scientific detail, and the humour. The pacing was relentless—just when the situation would settle down to a dull roar, the author would throw yet another problem at Watney. I was reminded of a GR friend of mine, talking about a writer in the noir detective genre, who would fix inaction in his plots by having a man with a gun walk through the door. Yet another equipment failure in The Martian replaces the man with a gun. As a reader, I was always anxious to know how he solved this problem. Although the journal entries were great, I was also glad to have the NASA view point interspersed with them, giving me another voice and viewpoint besides Watney’s.

The GR summary of the book describes it as “Apollo 13 meets Cast Away.” No accident to describe it in movie terms, rather than bookish terms, I think. And I understand that 20th Century Fox has purchased the film rights—I think it has potential to be a good movie and I will definitely go see it. I have mused before about whether modern books have the potential to become “classics” and I think this may be one novel that does have a chance at that status. Despite the moaning of the publishing industry, there seems to be a tidal wave of new titles produced each year and only time will divide the wheat from the chaff, but in my opinion The Martian stands a good chance of being in the wheat category. Or perhaps in this case it’s a potato!

 

A City on Mars / Kelly & Zach Weinersmith

 

4 out of 5 stars 

Why is there a subset of people who are obsessed with moving to Mars and how likely is this dream to come true? I suspect that they have a variety of reasons including adventure, loving technology, wanting a new start on a new frontier, and a long standing love of science fiction. If you have a thorough grounding in genre fiction, you can envision space stations, planetary colonies, asteroid mining facilities, and spaceships making regular flights just like airlines. The problem with these visions is the beginning: how do you get these things started?

How long have we (humanity, that is) had space stations? It's been decades and these facilities are nowhere near being self sufficient. They are close enough to Earth for regular resupply, as they must be. Going outside is a major endeavour, fraught with danger from debris and radiation, not to mention the cold vacuum out there. Heck, they still are constantly having to fix the station toilet (see An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth or Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void. It turns out gravity really is your friend if you want well functioning plumbing).

The authors of this book state that they are concerned that space settlement seems to be becoming a purview of tech billionaires, who have unusual ideas about human behaviour that may skew the process. Indeed, if you pay any attention to these matters, you know that Musk has his eye on Mars while Bezos is a proponent of giant space stations. There seems to be a lot of hand waving about how the actual details will be worked out. Making a rocket to take people off Earth is easier than creating a balanced environment to welcome these travellers. Space agencies and rich guys all have a very entitled white guy mentality—they seem to take for granted that the environment will simply accommodate them, just as Earth does or that the new place will easily be adapted to human necessities. Since biosphere experiments here on Earth have been somewhat harrowing, this doesn't bode well for our space pioneers. Devaluing the natural world and its processes doesn't negate its importance. They also just seem to assume that pregnancy and fetal development will just happen naturally in low to no gravity situations, taking women for granted too. Shouldn't this be researched a bit?

I was very engaged in the first 200ish pages, as the technical details of survival are examined. Then the legal chapters followed, inspiring a great deal of yawning and very heavy eyelids on my part. Yes, it's important. Yes, it has implications for space development. However it's like reading your cell phone contract--only interesting to certain folks and a horrible slog for the rest of us. Of more interest to me was the discussion of company towns and the economic relationships between administrators and workers in the very isolated environs of space. Planners of space settlements seem to forget that humans aren't very good at utopia. We bring human nature with us wherever we go, even to Mars and beyond. (Read Martha Wells' Murderbot Diaries and see if her corporate entities sound familiar. See also C.J. Cherryh's Company Wars series.) After all vanity, ambition, and stubbornness are known in every human society. You can rest assured that they will accompany us to space.

If this book interests you, I would recommend also reading Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires to get a good feel for how billionaires view the world. If you want to read fiction about tech billionaires trying to escape the rest of humanity, try The Future. Science fiction about the planet Mars is everywhere. Most notable is the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson, which envisions humans moving to the Red Planet, doing some serious terraforming, and developing their own society and politics. I found that series technology and politics heavy, but I finished it eventually. More fun (and realistic) to my way of thinking is Andy Weir's The Martian (which I now have a burning desire to reread).

The Passage / Justin Cronin

 

3 out of 5 stars 

Book number 525 of my Science Fiction and Fantasy Reading Project

I didn't believe it existed—the vampire book that failed to enthrall me. But here I sit, having finally finished this novel, knowing that I had to convince myself to knuckle down. I'd been saving this for a treat and instead it turned into a chore. Boo!

Part of my problem is that the vampires in question aren't at all what I'm used to. Instead of a “naturally occurring” species, they seem to be a result of an ill advised government project. So there's a beginning conspiracy kicking off the narrative. An apocalypse. A girl, Amy, who has some connection to the vampires but has apparently remained human. Post-apocalypse. Lots of survival stuff. A remote outpost of humanity. Amy shows up there. Things go batshit crazy. A long, dangerous trip through the desert to Las Vegas. Rescue by a cult. Escape from the cult. And so it goes.

There's just so much and I didn't care much about most of the people. There's enough time that passes and enough danger that the cast of characters keeps changing. When reading, I did okay, but when I set the book down, it became difficult to pick it back up. Now that I've made it to the end, I can tell you that Cronin does link up those long ago first chapters to the last couple of hundred pages. I can appreciate full circle moments and the planning that went into them.

Influences seem to include I Am Legend (humanity getting reduced to a tiny minority) and the trip through the desert reminded me strongly a similar trip in The Stand. Maybe even The Road though that's just the scavenging food and fuel along the way. Everyone has scattered, like the break-up of the Fellowship of the Ring. Will they meet up again? There are lots of unanswered questions, of course, which will lead some readers on to the next volume. Who knows, maybe someday I'll be one of them, but I won't hold my breath.

The Wren in the Holly Library / K.A. Linde

 

R

3.5 out of 5 stars 

This is a decent new romantasy. If you liked Lore of the Wilds, The Cruel Prince or A Court of Thorns and Roses I'm willing to bet that you'll like this novel too. It's Assistant to the Villain adjacent too, although much sexier. You know the formula: a young woman with unusual skills and a finely honed sense of independence, a deal with a powerful, dark man (literal and figurative), the deal turns personal, etc. If you like that recipe, you'll also like this cake.

It was an absorbing read. Kierse is a very talented thief. She exists in a monster haunted world in which the Monster Treaty mostly keeps everyone in line, though the monsters are straining the boundaries of the treaty. Kierse is hired by one monster to steal from another. She can't believe how easy it seems to be—until the robbed-from monster shows up and easily captures her. It's Beauty and the Beast. She has no choice but to accept his terms, which chafes, but she has friends that she needs to keep safe.

These stories hinge on our perception of the male main character. What is his motivation? In this world it boils down to whether he wants to protect humanity or rule them. Kierse is very much a protector and therefore liable to interpret Graves in a similar light. But can she trust her judgement of him?

Honestly, the novel is written better than many romantasy books on the market right now, but its predictability reduced the star value to three for me. Add an extra half-star for using the Holly King/Oak King myth, which I adore. Your mileage may vary. If Beauty and the Beast is your jam, I recommend you grab this one.

A Talent for Murder / Peter Swanson

 

3.5 out of 5 stars 

I didn't realize when I requested this book from the library that is was the third installment featuring Lily Kintner and Henry Kimball. I usually want to begin at the beginning (and I may eventually retrace my steps to find the first two volumes). At any rate, I didn't find that it affected my enjoyment of this novel.

It took a little while for the set-up, getting to know Martha Ratliff as a student and as a married woman and seeing her begin to have doubts about her rather dull husband. Wherever he attends a conference, when he leaves there's a dead woman. Since he's a travelling salesman, the bodies are stacking up. If he's guilty, Martha wants him stopped, but she's reluctant to go to the police. After all, she has no proof, just suspicions.

That's where Martha’s college friend Lily comes in. Martha needs a sounding board and she trusts Lily's judgement. The two women agree to work together to figure out what's going on. Things get complicated quickly.

The author takes us on a plausible trip, where the past can come back to haunt you and hurt you. Martha's taste in men is questionable to say the least. Lily's moral compass seems to be a bit off kilter. Her friend Henry seems to be pretty off balance by the end. None of the characters feel particularly real, but you can see that they are certainly possible. Suffice it to say that I am glad that none of them are real, although there are most likely unfortunates like them out there, unnoticed by anyone, even the police.

Destination Unknown / Agatha Christie

 

3.25 out of 5 stars 

One of Dame Agatha's spy novels, reflecting the 1950s fears of defections to Russia among the scientific elite. It is very cloak and dagger, with numerous plots, a wealthy backer, a hidden lair in Northern Africa, lavish laboratories and a gilded prison for the defectors. Everything the budding evil genius requires.

Hillary Craven has gone to Casablanca to either find peace or rest in peace. Her ex-husband has remarried and her daughter is dead. Deciding that she has no reason to go on, she buys as many sleeping pills as she can and prepares to swallow them. Imagine her surprise when an English espionage agent interrupts her and offers a slightly more complicated way to commit suicide: impersonate the wife of a scientist who defected. Hillary is strangely drawn to the idea and transitions to her new identity, Olive Betterton. A new life, full of surprises begins at once. She reminds me of Victoria Jones, a Christie heroine from They Came to Baghdad. Both women end up in difficult situations in very foreign surroundings and relay on their wits and acting ability to see their way through.

I completely believed in Hillary's despair in the initial chapters. I would venture a guess that Christie channeled the emotions that she experienced when her first husband left her for another woman. At that time, she went off the rails for ten days, abandoning her car and checking into a posh hotel under the other woman's name. Pretty dramatic stuff.

This is an elaborate confection by a talented writer. In other hands it would seem frivolous, but with Christie's steady hand, it becomes quite entertaining. Espionage may not have been her strong suit, but it obviously intrigued her enough to write several of these thrillers.

A Novel Love Story / Ashley Poston

 

3.75 out of 5 stars 

Have you ever wished you could spend time in the world of your favourite book series? Personally, I use that idea when I'm having difficulty falling asleep. I imagine myself as a neighbour of one of my favourite characters and have conversations with them. In this book, Eileen Merriweather doesn't just lucid dream this scenario, she accidentally drives into the fictional town of Eloraton. 

Eileen (Elsy for short) has just experienced a big disappointment. Usually, a group of friends (the Super Smutty Book Club) assembles at a holiday cabin to relax, eat good food, drink wine, and of course read romance novels. This year, everyone else has conflicting events. Even her best friend is going to Iceland on a spur of the moment trip with her boyfriend (who she hopes is going to propose). Elsy, sad and on her own, decides she is going anyway. In a downpour of rain, her GPS gives up and she just about runs over a man who is standing in the middle of the road. And finds herself in Eloraton.

We gradually get to know Elsy's personal history. We meet the fictional characters that she has loved for years. We share her disappointment that the author, Rachel Flowers, died with the series unfinished. Elsy gets her bearings and finds that everyone in town is kind of stuck in a holding pattern and that her arrival has caused a disturbance. She gets to know Anders, the man she almost ran over, who seems to have been Rachel Flowers’ next book idea and who has been left high and dry by Flowers' death.

I participated in a buddy read of this book with a romance reading friend. I think we both enjoyed Ashley Poston's examination of a number of romance tropes as Elsy tries to figure out what's going on around her. Elsy is both an English professor and a romance reader, so she is well equipped for the task. We also enjoyed watching Elsy blossom from a compulsive people-pleaser to a woman who realizes that she deserves to have a life that she wants. To quit following others and to find what actually makes her happy.

The ending is happy, of course, but just as much from Elsy's newfound self confidence and willingness to try new things as from the new relationship she's developed. And that's how life should be, right? We should all have many things contributing to our happiness and not be dependent on a friend or a lover to be our only source of contentment. It takes a village to make a happy person.

Saxons vs. Vikings / Ed West

 

3 out of 5 stars 

Earlier this year, I took a mini-class in Medieval English history both because it sounded fun and because I wanted to get a clear timeline in my head. I requested this library book to help me get the facts solidified in my memory. It turns out that I'm very glad that I took the class first, rather than the book.

Ed West has a quirky sense of humour, but I appreciated it (not a given for me). The book is short despite the fact that it covers a fair swathe of time. However, as the author points out, very few people were literate during this period so there wasn't really anyone capable of writing many records. We are reliant on Church records, such as they are, and The Anglo Saxon Chronicle, whose author(s) were not notably loquacious.

I did feel like I was quickly skating over history, as I'm sure was meant. The nitty-gritty of all those Anglo-Saxon names would be overwhelming. But at least when I read historical fiction in the future I will have a much better idea of where it slots into the historical record.

Looking for Love in All the Haunted Places / Claire Kann

 

3 stars—I liked it.

I was lured by the flowery purple cover, y'all. Plus the idea of a romance taking place in a haunted house. Lucky Hart is the cheeky young psychic who has been the successful candidate to star in a show about a caretaker of Hennessee House. The previous attempts have ended quickly, but Lucky hopes to live up to her name. During her interview process, she butts heads with the money man Xander, owner of the house. I expected him to become the romantic interest but I was way off base. Instead it's the rather misnamed Maverick Phillips who has the usually brash Lucky stammering and blushing. 

As psychic women main characters go, Lucky is neither the best nor the worst. I didn't find myself wanting to shake her but I couldn't find a way to care much about her either. The whole production team was available to be used as found family, but the author chose to only involve half of them in any meaningful way. Even those relationships felt rather thin. Maverick was totally the wrong name for the very cautious, introverted love interest. I did like the addition of his daughter Rebel, who did at least try to live up to her label.

I far prefer enemies to lovers as the premise for a romance, so Xander would have been a better choice from my perspective. Frankly, the whole novel felt more like a mere vehicle for explaining asexuality than for dealing with a haunting or even running a film project. I would have preferred a really good haunted house story where I learned about asexual people as a subtheme but to each their own.

I know there is an audience out there for this book. I never thought I'd say this, but it was too tame for me. If I, Queen of the Cowardly, can read a ghost book after dark, it is not nearly edgy enough.

The Queen of Poisons / Robert Thorogood

 

3.25 out of 5 stars 

I enjoyed the first third of this book a great deal. At about that point, my mood began to change and it took me a little while to put my finger on the reason. Tanika, the police officer in charge, has received a promotion and now has the authority to make Judith, Suzie, and Becks official assistants to the investigation. So why was Judith going rogue? She was excluding Tanika, deliberately disobeying reasonable requests, and truly running amok, questioning people in bull-in-the-china-shop style. It had been my impression in the second book that Tanika had better rapport with the older women than that. To see Judith disregarding that relationship and Tanika tolerating it annoyed me.

And, while the mystery is a good twisty one, I don't think that many people would have chosen the murderer who was finally revealed. I felt like Thorogood didn't play quite fair, but I can't complain too hard, as Agatha Christie pulled similar shenanigans. But it was the fracture between Judith and Tanika that truly disappointed me.

I have mixed feelings about continuing on, should another book be published. The subplot concerning Becks and her mother-in-law was well done and Becks' life as a vicar's wife reminds me quite a bit of Griselda Clement, the vicar's wife in The Body in the Library.

Palm Sunday / Kurt Vonnegut

 

3 out of 5 stars 

I was introduced to Kurt Vonnegut when I was in university and I became a fan. I am attempting to gradually revisit his work now as a much older person. I still appreciate him, but sometimes for different reasons. This book is a loosely stitched together collection of his short writing, connected with his memories of the context around them.

I vividly remember the first time I read this. I was sick as a dog with a horrible throat infection. I was reading Palm Sunday and swilling cough syrup directly from the bottle. I was in my mid-20s, living in a crappy basement suite, working my first real job. I think that is why this book made such an impression on me, containing as it does some of his speeches to young people. Vonnegut speaks about how to live life and this was information that I needed at the time. I fully believed him that loneliness and boredom would be the worst problems that I would face. I had enough experience in the work force at that point to make this argument meaningful.

I followed some of his Palm Sunday advice—cultivating my network of extended family. I got to know not only my first cousins, but second and third cousins and enjoyed spending time with them. I didn't leave things there, though. I joined societies devoted to various interests of mine and made good friends there. I volunteered and made more friends. I made sure that I had a busy and full life. Thank you Mr. Vonnegut. I can honestly say that I have rarely been lonely since I was 28, though I certainly enjoy a fair amount of solitude. I have rarely been bored.

Vonnegut shows us how the world could be improved by the application of compassion and kindness. He warns us that nothing is all good or all bad. There are plenty of gray areas and we should keep that in mind before getting all judgey. He reminds us of the value of the arts, whether you read, paint, sculpt, act, or indeed if you provide an audience for those who create. Kindness, companionship, creativity. These are the finest parts of life.