This is a Good Book Thursday, November 25, 2021

~ Jenny

Since this is the US Thanksgiving Day, it behooves me to give a shout-out to one of my favorite cookbooks, Rick Rodgers’ Thanksgiving 101, which has the best gravy recipe, and let’s face it, Thanksgiving is all about the gravy. Plus it’s only two bucks which is always something to be thankful for.

So, what books sparked gratitude in you this holiday? (It doesn’t matter if this isn’t your Thanksgiving, we should be grateful for books all year round.)

66 thoughts on “This is a Good Book Thursday, November 25, 2021”

  1. I’m reading Christmas Ever After by Karen Schaler. It’s about a romance writer who is asked in a television interview how she writes romance when she’s not in one and she says she’s had great love in the past. Three ex boyfriends assume she’s talking about them, 😂 and each shows up to woo her back. It’s free on Kindle right now.

    There’s also a cute Thanksgiving children’s book, Grace and the Gravy Pirates , free on Kindle now. I guess I’m the good free books comment section today. Happy Thanksgiving 🍁🦃🍽

  2. Happy Thanksgiving! I’m not cooking this year and it’s just the two of us, which is okay but odd. I’m still listening to Katie Couric’s GOING THERE and still enjoying it immensely. I have always liked her, but like her more now. And respected her. She owns her mistakes.

  3. I read The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles whose first book was A Gentleman in Moscow. It’s hard to believe The Lincoln Highway was by the same author although you can catch glimpses of him if you squint. Two brothers, one lately out of reform school, are trying to get to California via The Lincoln Highway and are joined by two friends from said school who are trying to get to the opposite coast and there are all kinds of challenges and adventures along the way so there are lots of Homeric/Ulysses references. It is still a fundamentally very American book, more resonant of Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying with its multiple narrators/POV’s and tall tales to boot. The whipsaw combination of victories and problems made it incredibly suspenseful – I held my breath for most of it, not knowing how anything was going to unfold. Really worth the read.

    And to everyone here who is celebrating American Thanksgiving – have a great holiday – I am thankful for all of you Arghers.

  4. I just read Beryl Blue, Time Cop by Janet Raye Steven’s. Set during World War II, it’s about a librarian-turned-time cop sent back to prevent the murder of an Army sergeant important to history. I’ve been working on a WWII story myself, and she absolutely killed the setting–blackout curtains and ration books and cathedral-style radios, and the language–“palooka” and “heel” and “jeepers” and “booshwa.”

    I’m grateful for great stories and a reminder of how unified this country once was. It makes me think we could be again.

  5. I have a rule for myself that I hold off on reading Christmas books until it hits Thanksgiving (so theoretically, I could start today), but I’d gotten one out of the library which needs to go back in a week, so I’ve cheated and started early. I’m reading Susan Mallery’s The Christmas Wedding Guest (the wedding in question is actually the renewal vows of the two protagonists’ parents) and enjoying it. I tend to like her romances a little more than I do her women’s fiction, although they’re good too. This one is romance, and just what I’m in the mood for.

    Once that’s done, I have a pile of Christmas books waiting for me by favorite authors, which I am definitely thankful for (Donna Andrews, Trisha Ashley, and Jenny Colgan–the latter two British…for some reason I particularly like British Christmas books).

    I’m on my own for the holidays, which isn’t unusual, and enjoying the quiet day before things get busy at the shop I run. I find turkey boring, so I am having duck and roasted veg. Must be that British influence.

    Happy Thanksgiving to all the Arghers who celebrate. Happy Thursday to everyone else.

  6. I am thankful for you all and your loving responses to my life update yesterday. I am feeling much calmer now and am really grateful to have a safe, somewhat anonymous space to let it out in. I’m definitely not ready to discuss it with family yet.

    As for books, it was a rough week. I have covid brain, and I am blaming it on that at least in part. Ilona Andrews new book came out this week, but I am waiting to start it. It’s part of a fun short series of theirs, so I have high expectations. Just need to be in a clearer head space.

  7. After the nasty cold last week it took me incredibly long to recuperate, but I’m very thankfult for my company’s approach to work from home, so tomorrow will be the first day I have to go out and tackle the real world.
    Just got off a kick-off meeting for a new research project and feel kind of brain dead right now. I will have to do some more work later (prepare for my yearly interview with boss), but right now I just have to get a break.
    And tackle the immensely high stack of ironing that has accumulated over the last week.
    Since I can listen to audiobooks or my favourite BBC-podcasts, that’s not such a bad prospect and at least I can move at least a little bit instead of being kind of motionless at my desk and laptop.

    Bookwise: I’m very grateful that I was able to read a little bit – “The Best Gift” by Eli Easton was a sweet short Christmas themed novella. Nice, too, to have a protagonist who’s in his forties.
    Two other m/m titles in the Vino et Veritas series were allright but I got impatient and skipped ahead. Not much layering there, too much rehashing of the same stuff over and over.

    Now I don’t know what I want to read next. Something completely different for sure.

    1. Would love to see that; it looks really interesting. But unfortunately I don’t get Hulu. How do you like Only Murders…?

        1. Hulu is running a special for a few days only a few days .. it is 99 cents a month for a year with ads. I signed up for it.. And “only murders in the building” is definitely one of the reasons why.

  10. I read The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood this week about a grad student who fake dates a professor. She initiates it and he’s not on her committee or anything. It just now got me how icky that could be. Reading it I was swept along by the story. Watching them go from making awkward conversations in their ten minutes at the campus Starbucks to getting to know each other is very sweet. And her found family of two best friends are believable and fun.

    1. It happens all the time so it’s not like it isn’t realistic. So many of my professors were on second younger wives, or were at least auditioning them. But it is a real power inequality so that has to be at least dealt with.

      I do remember a friend of mine in grad school who had a really nice guy in her class (we were TAs) and after class was over, he asked her out for coffee, and she was sure he just wanted to talk about the class, and then when they stood up to go, he leaned over and kissed her. They’ve been married for years now and he’s a great step-father to her kids, so it does work out. I wonder if that one didn’t bother me because the power balance wasn’t as bad: She was a TA/grad student and he was male in a patriarchal world (academe is not for the faint-hearted woman).

      1. At my university, there were high-profile cases of professors harassing students. They got away with it for years until the s. h. t. f. Graduate student TAs, on the other hand, get fired from their TA positions at the first complaint. I discuss it with my TAs extensively at the beginning of term. I tell them to be friendly but remember students can’t be their friends. Don’t date them, don’t connect with them on social media, don’t invite them to see your band on Friday night. Wait until term is well over.

  11. It is the start of the holiday season and I’m in the mood for holiday themed books. For a long time I was into Linda Lael Miller’s books and I know she has done Christmas stories. So I checked the library and now have The 24 Days of Christmas and The Christmas Brides in a line up with, not Christmas, The Last Chance Cafe. I’m also going to be busy with Bob’s, Shane and the Hitwoman. Yeesh! My husband is reading The Lincoln Highway mentioned above by Tammy. On tap at the library waiting for me is a Vanderbilt biography Anderson Cooper.

    Today Paramount network is having a free for all starting at 12 Noon with all the seasons up to Season 4. I gave up on that show after a couple of episodes early on because I didn’t like the characters and thought it was too dark. Well they went on without me and really with nothing getting my attention I started to watch Season 4. So maybe I can catch up a little today.

    Thanksgiving is one of those holidays where I have to take a back seat. Talking with my son, he and the kids are going to spend the day at their aunt’s with their cousins and then come here for dessert and the bonfire that our town has. It was a juggling act when he was married but divorce makes it into a circus and we just have to remain calm. I have a friend whose favorite saying is, it is what it is, and that’s the way to look at it.

    Yesterday my husband butterflied the bird and put it in a brine to roast today. In previous years he has boned it out to make it easier to slice. Either way I’m looking forward to great day and I hope you all will too.

  12. Last week I read “Midnight Bargain” by C.L. Polk. It’s urban fantasy romance in a world where magic works but must be studied and assisted by spirits, which take a good deal of contract bickering and know-how in order to subdue and persuade the spirits.

    But women are not allowed to do any of this, for fear that their children will be possessed at an age too young to control them. Which somehow awoke a cauldron of feminism for me — took me back 50 years to my discovery in my teens and twenties of the work that needed to be done for girls to gain just an equal basic starting point in life.

    The turning points in the book seemed to move a little too fast somehow, and for me the book ended less grippingly than it began, but I must say I really enjoyed it.

    After it I started “The Bromance Book Club.” Great premise — group of guys realize that they can’t fix their marriages/relationships unless they study romance novels and talk them over together in a support group. Unfortunately for me, it was a sports superstar group, which I automatically bridle at. The phrase “his kiss plundered her mouth” nearly caused a book toss for me, but the author did a good job of demonstrating that mutual honesty about the pains & vulnerabilities in each person’s back story really form the foundation of a good relationship. So, qualified recommendation.

    1. I’ll look for Midnight Bargain!

      I DNF Bromance Book Club. The kids were cute, but I could tell the prolonged getting back together story would drive me berserk.

    2. Oh my, the plundered mouth. Makes me gag everytime. Also I get thrown out of the story each time the lips get swollen after a bit of kissing. Must research if lips really swell up like an inflatable boat. Never noticed my hubby having swollen lips in our 20+ years…

  13. I really enjoyed The Brightest Star in Paris by Diana Biller. It’s a romance/ghost story set in Paris between, I think, the 2 world wars. Also read The Killing Kind which was a suspense novel by Jane Casey. It was good but I was not in the right headspace to read about the stalking of the protag. So I didn’t enjoy it as much as I’d hoped. First & Then was a YA romance by Emma Mills which I was surprised to like so much, so thanks to whoever recommended it. Now I’m working on the Vineyard series by Philip R. Craig and the Leaphorn series by Tony Hillerman which is also thanks to another recommendation by seceral someones here!

  14. I should elaborate that I was pleasantly surprised by First & Then because it was unusually calm and sensible and histrionic-free for a teen romance book.

  15. I’m rereading The Viscount Who Loved Me (I think that’s the title, not at home to check kindle) and thoroughly enjoying it. Getting ready for the next Bridgerton series. 😉we’re doing TG on Saturday. Guess who is cooking?

    Also, I watched Love Hard on Netflix and really enjoyed it. A gal is catfished. She shows up at his house at Christmas and a lot of fun ensues. Well written and well acted, and I’ll watch it again. It got me in the mood for the holidays.

    Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate. Happy day to everyone else.

  16. I haven’t read a straight romance in a long time, mostly sticking more with fantasy and sci-fi. But I just finished re-reading Yours to Keep by Shannon Stacey and really enjoyed it. I’ve found that lots of books I enjoyed in the past don’t stand the test of time, but this one stayed sweet and funny without anything that felt especially icky in the post-me-too space. Now it’s Thanksgiving, and I’m not celebrating,
    but thought I’d crack open Frost Burned by Patricia Briggs, which is not only one of my favourites in the Mercy series but is a Thanksgiving book (in the same way that Die Hard is a Christmas movie).

  17. I’ve read some new things lately, inbetween comfort rereads.

    Witches and Wedding Cake, part 9 of the Magical Bakery Mystery-series by Bailey Cates – Pleasant read. Cosy mystery with magic, baked goods and solving of murders. There’s something with this community of whitches that makes me relax and feel good. All the baked goods also always makes me want to eat yummy things. I wish she would release a cookbook with everything she’s mentioning in this series, so I could try it out.
    There should be a Garden Mystery series by the same author, other pseudonym, but I haven’t tried that one yet. Because of Jenny’s books, food-related feelgood/romance/cosy mystery speaks to me more than plants do, even if I’m interested in the healing properties and possibilities of herbs and plants.

    Tokyo Ever After by Emiko Jean – YA about a Japanese-American girl whom discovers that her thus far unwknown father happens to be the crown prince of Japan. Never really felt like a part of American society, she hopes to find her home and herself in Japan, but quickly learning Japanese customs and traditions isn’t a piece of cake either. I liked it, but not as much as I hoped. Perhaps I can’t really identify with teenagers anymore. Love interest is cute though. The father is also very nice and not the stern and annoying kind of person I had expected he would be. Go dad! Also go cute love interest. Might read the followup next year.

    Furbinnden Fatality, part 1 of the Catskills Pet Rescue Mystery-series by Deborah Blake – I saw Deborah tweeting about the release of the second part of the series and decided to read the first one. Excellent read! Great community, and the vet is definitely my kind of lad. The Dog Warden also seems to be a good guy, but there wasn’t enough of him in there yet to make that a 100 % certainty. Queenie is a delight. Thanks for a great read, Deborah! Looking forward to read more about Kari and Queenie.

    The Donut Trap by Julie Tieu – YA romance about a Chinese-Vietnamese-American girl working at her family’s donut shop and the pressure her family puts on her to find a boy and get married – only Asian boys are allowed, really. Love interest is a good guy that can admit when he is wrong. Her family aren’t bad people at all, it turns out – but communication isn’t their foremost talent. Minus-points for lots of smirking. I would’ve given it a 3.5 on Goodreads, but that option isn’t there, so I had to settle for a 3…because it doesn’t feel like a book I’ll reread, which is a pity. Again thinking that I can’t connect with teenagers/young adult characters anymore… OR it might just not be the time and mood right now.

    Currently reading Sweet Sweet Revenge Ltd by Jonas Jonasson, the guy behind “The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared”. All his books are absolute cock-and-bull-stories (my dictionary told me that is the term), BUT the bad guys always get what they deserve in one way or another, and the craziness is kinda refreshing, so I’m enjoying myself. This one is about the man that screws everyone over, and about everyone that wants to get even………..through Sweet Sweet Revenge Ltd, offering revenge services for your convenience. If you pay well enough.

    Happy Thanksgiving to all those who celebrate, and to everyone here: Thanks for being such wonderful people. Every day of the year.

      1. I have not! But it’s on my list, so maybe I’ll pick it up after I’m done with Sweet Sweet Revenge Ltd (which should be in… approximately half an hour!). Thanks for the tip/encouragement! I hope you will find something you’ll like among the ones I posted about.

      1. I still have to read the 2nd book about the Hundred Year Old Man, but the other Jonasson-books I’ve read have been crazy and great reads. Takes a while to get into the stories sometimes, but once your in, the rollercoaster crazy can begin.

      2. I just remembered! Just a word of warning (SPOILER ALERT): In Sweet Sweet Revenge, a dog dies. I know Arghers want to know these things.
        I saw it coming and still I was mad about it because it wasn’t necessary. He could’ve solved that part in another way.

  18. Such a multi-function day! First, it’s Good Book Thursday, all day. Books I’ve finished include The Promise of Frost, shane and the hitwoman (does Bob think he’s e.e.cummings?), and Doggone Deadly, each delightful in their separate ways. Books in progress include 1637: The Coast of Chaos, Eric Flint’s latest Ring of Fire anthology, 1637: The Peacock Throne by E. Flint and G. Barber, and Gannon and Waters 1636: Calabar’s War. That’s a boatload of alternate history.

    Next is the holiday, also multifunction. For pay purposes, yesterday was a half-day. I worked it, I accumulated 4 hours comp time. Today and tomorrow are state holidays, 8 hours comp each. Note that the commonwealth does not pay overtime nor holiday pay, regarding comp time as deferred time off with pay. Of course, Thanksgiving is also the great American family gathering holiday. The next generation of my family is gathering a state away (Elizabeth City, NC) while I work to keep prison inmates warm. For the last time, and this is me smiling.

    Next we have Official Weigh-in Day #33 of the Diet of 2021. “One fat man surveyed, top single answer on the board. Name a weight Gary has gotten down to officially today. Survey says… 251.6!” It might go lower. I haven’t enjoyed certain morning ablutions yet that might make it so. But that’s what I have recorded. So let it be written; so let it be done. (I picture Yul Brenner saying that and smile.)

    The next function of the day is to officially kick off the commercial Christmas season, which began before Halloween unofficially, again this year. I used to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, and then watch Miracle on 34th Street in its various versions. I dreamt once of a mashup between that and Die Hard where Kris Kringle was crawly through the vent ducts of the Nakatomi Towers and shooting Alan Rickman… ah, Christmas.

    Have a Happy Day, y’all!

  19. There has been a serious lack of books that I’ve enjoyed over the last week outside of Shane and the Hitwoman which was just So Much Fun. I preordered the next book in the series, Phoebe and the Traitor because Phoebe is just awesome. Also, I loved Shane’s word of wisdom.

    I listened to Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand. It’s a very easy going but creepy story about a 60s folk band and what happened to their lead singer when they were in an old manor house recording their second album. The mood I’m in, I want 100 books exactly like it.

    I’ve started and stopped about 5 in the mean time.

    I’m hanging on to Deb’s new one for next week when I have a time where I’m going to need a paper book to read.

  20. The Book Depository sent me another bunch of Margery Allingham’s novels and I’ve been reading away happily – I particularly enjoyed Dancers in Mourning with Campion’s delicate romance and the nicely worked whodunnit.
    Yesterday I arrived at The Fashion in Shrouds, which I had high hopes of. But oh, I struggled. Amanda reappears and is as wonderfully self possessed and forthright as she was in her first outing. Unfortunately the novel around her is startlingly sexist. All of the other characters are distorted by a weird effort to psychoanalyse romance and gender roles.
    Even Campion is off kilter, going into several reveries about women as feeling rather than thinking beings, and telling his sister “What you need, my girl, is a good cry or a nice rape – either, I should think.” Ouch.
    It’s left a very bad taste in my mouth and I’m hoping that it was a one-off aberration rather than something that’s going to disfigure the later novels as well.

  21. I thoroughly enjoyed Shane and the Hitwoman by Bob Mayer. I am looking forward to the second book about Phoebe.
    I watched the first 3 episodes of the new Dexter. Really good.

  22. Only two book I read last week are worth mentioning.
    Susannah Nix’s Mad About Ewe was a solid contemporary love story with two sympathetic, mature protagonists. I have already read several other books by this author. I’m never in raptures about her novels, but she never disappoints either. She is a ‘feel-good’ writer for me. I think she has a couple more books I haven’t read, and I’m going to buy them.
    Ilona Andrews’s latest, Fated Blades was a fast and furious ride. Non-stop action, grueling pace, and lots of blood and entrails you always expect from these writers. And of course, some sexual tension to add a love story flavor to this sci-fi adventure flick. I breezed through it all in one day. Well done, team Andrews!

  23. I have been rereading Andrea K Höst’s Touchstone. I only read it for the first time recently, thanks to recs here when Jenny recommended the Book of Firsts. I was curious to see if I’d like it as much the second time round knowing what happens next and the answer is yes. I have galloped through it again. I am on In Arcadia now which I really like and am looking forward to the short story with the snow fight too.
    I am still none too clear on the pillars, multiple spaces, aether, malachite marbles and so on but it doesn’t matter, I can suspend my disbelief and get stuck in the story.

  24. Fun read: SH@DY CHARAC†ERS: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks, by Keith Houston — fascinating articles on quotation marks, hyphens, dashes, asterisks, ampersands, the @ symbol, and also the pilocrow (¶), the octothorpe — whose ancestry is amazingly complex (#), the dagger and double dagger († and ‡), the interrobang (‽), and the manicule (☚), with a section on irony and sarcasm (;), emoticons).

    Though it is difficult to nail down the emoticon’s first appearance in print, one likely contender appears in the New York Times’ 1862 transcript of a speech made by President Abraham Lincoln. The transcript records the audience’s response to Lincoln’s droll introduction as “(applause and laughter ;)” — containing an abbreviated form of the same winking smiley.

    Further fun read, though this one is a dip-and-come-again book: DISORDER IN THE COURT: Great Fractured Moments in Courtroom History, by Charles Sevilla
    COUNSEL Do you now wear corrective glasses?
    WITNESS There are three of you?

    Cookbook of the week, no surprise, was THANKSGIVING 101, by Rick Rodgers — A recipe for cranberry sauce is included in the very first printed American cookbook, Amelia Simmons’s AMERICAN COOKERY, in 1796.

    And, of course, I’ve preordered PHOEBE AND THE TRAITOR, obviously. Enjoying SHANE AND THE HITWOMAN, but barely into it yet.

    I should just report that Maggie was dislodged from the dining room sideboard and her bed was temporarily replaced with the warming tray that we like to use for holiday meals. The turkey en croute was good, the Brussels sprouts were roasted, one of the best ways to serve them, and the dessert was an old-fashioned one which reminded me of Martha Washington’s Great Cake since its only leavening was eggs. I was stuffed.

    Maggie’s bed, with Maggie in it, is now back on the sideboard. She’s out for the count.

    1. AND the hearts are behaving normally for me — all gray until I click on one, when it turns red and the count increases by one. First time in a while.

        2. For me, the 💕 recover and they lapse again. No rhyme no reason.
          Very annoying. I think I might just reply with a❤️ from now on when I really like a post, not that I don’t like all posts here but there is always that one post or six which resonates with you 😀

  25. I read Resurgence, the 20th book in CJ Cherryh’s Foreigner series. I’m a huge fan of this series, but I really struggled with this one. Info dump after info dump. I know some of this is Cherryh’s style, and I usually like her deep diving into politics, but this was slower than usual. It did improve, once I got past all the info dumps. But it felt a bit like an in-between book. Things she needed to get out of the way so she could get to the interesting stuff. Not one of my favourites.

    Then I read Of Noble Family, the fifth book in Mary Robinette Kowal’s Glamourist Histories series. (Regency adventure romance with magic.) Really enjoyed it, so went back to the first in the series, Shades of Milk and Honey, which I read some years ago. It’s not bad, but her writing really matured over the course of the series.

      1. Thank you for sharing this article! The comments are great fun and one commenter was the knitting coach for the actors.

    4. Oh that sounds both awful and wonderful at the same time. I shall have to watch it with a large whisky (actually bought in Scotland), and wrapped in my Royal Stewart tartan blanket (Edinburgh Woolen Mill). I might not be Royal but I am a Stewart. At least it’s not pretending to be anything but a piece of fluff, unlike a certain actor’s foray into pretend Scottish history.

  27. I’m reading Cursed Luck by Kelley Armstrong. I read it during one of the lockdowns, when she posted a chapter a week in draft, and enjoyed it. I’m enjoying it even more, now that it’s all together and a little more polished.

  28. I’m enjoying the ongoing happenings around Mma.Ramotswe’s No.1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith.
    Thanks to the person who mentioned the newest book in this series last time!
    I’d somehow stopped checking for new installments at about no.15 so I have several new ones to read now.

  29. Can’t be arsed to quantify this week since there were a number of short things and also since I’m counting through to the book I finished this morning. 🙂

    Top authors of the week: Sean Ashcroft and K.J. Charles. I read Ashcroft’s three ‘Otter Bay’ M/M contemporaries, all of which I loved. The third, ‘Faking,’ is recent and features a famous/not famous, dating-for-show, lifelong-friends-to-lovers premise; read it first and then went to get the others. All three books are about people who have left a small town and who return for love. Engaging friend group. This author is one of very few who can make me laugh out loud *and* get choked up. Since Wednesday night, three books by KJC: the ‘Sins of the City’ trilogy, which is such a knockout job of plotting that I’m just O.O

    Then there was a ‘holiday’ novella that got an honorable mention from a Rainbow Awards reader, but which I found a genuinely unpleasant reading experience. If it had been longer, I wouldn’t’ve finished it. Most of it is a surrealist fantasy, basically a near-psychosis experience of the POV character who, IRL, is on the verge of breaking from domestic partner abuse. Only in the last 10-15% does he reconnect to reality, get out of the bad situation, heal, get stronger, and find love; the new love never appears on the page. It was not what I expected, for sure. I think I understand what the author was going for (there’s a lot to be said about the psychological impact of domestic partner abuse on future relationships), but I am here for the healing, not the torture.

    Right after that, a genuine holiday novella, ‘Calamine & Christmas Cake’ by Lillian Francis, which was an effective antidote to the previous.

    In nonfiction, I read Geoffrey Knight’s book ‘Why Straight Women Love Gay Romance,’ which didn’t contain many surprises (it was a Solidarity Buy) but was, for me, a lively look at the subgenre at a moment in time before I dove into it myself.

  30. Rereading Fast Women threw me for a loop — there’s so much more to that story than just the plot or just the characters or just the themes. So I muddled about for much of the week — feeling that I should catch up on books lent by friends but they’re all either written by men or with male protagonists. I don’t want that anymore. And those stories aren’t going to be anywhere near as relevant to me as Jenny Crusie’s books.

    Ultimately landed on a reread of Getting Rid of Bradley and am feeling really happy again. In almost a male/female reversal, Zack searches for his next step to adulthood while Lucy discovers her inner killer. They both find pleasure in spirited arguing — which truly is honest and brings them together. I’d remembered that Bradley’s body is discovered at the end — NOT the real ending of the book at all. So I had all the pleasure of reading a fresh ending.

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