Facebook

This is a Good Book Thursday, #Still haven’t counted to make sure.

This week, I said, “Screw this,” and read an author I love, Connie Willis. I started with Crosstalk which I loved just as much the third time, and then on to Take a Look at the Five and Ten, which I’m way past the third time on, and finished with The Road to Roswell, which was only the second time. Every one of them was weird and funny and wonderful and just romantic enough, so thank you Connie Willis!

What did you read this week?

120 Responses

  1. I DNFd OPERATION CHAOS and OPERATION LUNA by Poul Anderson. I loved them 40 years ago. I don’t love them any more.

    In the Wearing the Cape series, I’m still only just starting REPERCUSSIONS (Book 7).

    The forever-continuing word opera, VARIATION ON A THEME, is up to chapter 35, 36 tomorrow. I’m also re-reading Book 1.

    I’ve re-read THE HONEY POT PLOT. Still 5 stars.

    At the same time that tHPP prepurchase downloaded to my PC, so did Michael Dalton’s TRAILER PARK ELVES 3. I’m LMAO but I can’t say I’d recommend the series unless you’re deeply, seriously into LitRPG.

    I have Sarah Wynde’s CICI AND THE CURATOR SEARCH FOR TREASURE in the Kindle. It is… different.

    2. I loved Anderson 50 years ago, too. I had sort of forgotten about him though. I think I’ll try a re-read. Is there anything you would recommend?

        1. Those are good starting points. Anderson is not always the world’s greatest stylist but he is brilliant at consistent world-building, and the Falkayn and Flandy novels are, along with others, part of the same future history that gets richer as one reads each new work. Anderson also wrote several successful detective novels, as I recall starting with Murder in Black Letter, and some toneally serious fantasy drawing on the Norse sagas, such as The Broken Sword. Those are grim (too grim for me these days) but gripping.

          1. To clarify, the Norse fantasy is dark. The detective stories are fairly light classical fair-play mysteries with detective Trygve Yamamura (if I spelled that right from memory).

          2. I looked it up. Evidently Murder in Black Letter is the second book in the series, (Perish by the Sword is first), but is the only one in eprint, and is on sale for 99 cents at the moment.

    3. Thanks for mentioning the new Sarah Wynde so I could go and buy it right away.
      I’m still reading Sagacious Blade, by Sherwood Smith, and enjoying it as much as the Phoenix Feather quartet; it’s set in the same Chinese-inspired world a few centuries earlier and is a similar sort of adventure story. No romance but quite a bit of fun derring-do.

  2. After reading Catherine Cloud, I went on to Rachel Reid and then Taylor Fitzpatrick. I have just finished rereading Cards on the table on AO3 and I can’t wait for that story to be finished while hoping it simultaneously that it will go on for a while.

    I can’t decide who is my favourite, Catherine Cloud or Taylor Fitzpatrick but they are both really really good and I like that the sex scenes are not overly graphic (especially Catherine Cloud who tends to leave it mostly to the imagination).

    1. I think Taylor Fitzpatrick is the genius who paved the way for all other MM hockey romance writers and everyone trails in her wake. I love Catherine Cloud too but she’s clearly borrowed liberally from Taylor.

    2. We had a very similar reading week. I reread Catherine Cloud and some Taylor Fitzpatrick and am now rereading Rachel Reid. I love them all ALMOST equally though Taylor Fitzpatrick has the edge for me.

      1. Taylor always wins the desert island test for me. If I could only take one hockey writer’s oeuvre with me it would be hers. Plus it’s so much larger than everyone else’s…that tips it over.

        1. Yes, I agree. I just hope she finishes some of these long term stories before we need to go to that desert island (which is looking more and more necessary today…)

          1. I don’t have anything consoling to say. It’s an ugly week that’s for sure.

  3. My copy of The Honey Pot Plot arrived!

    And, I read Rebecca Daniels’ Leaving the Lights on for Ike, a compilation of her father’s letter to her mother while he was serving England, Africa, and Italy during WWII.

    Great reading. Amazing how people reveal themselves in their letters even when they’re frustrated by not being able to say what they feel.

    Highly recommend.

  4. I finished listening to the eighth book in The Rivers of London series and once again, lost track of what was going on (that’s about me not the book) and once again didn’t really care because I was enjoying the ride. Onto the 9th book now.

    I read Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie, the second in the Radch series, and thought it was even better than the first one. (PS – for an alternate perspective, my goddaughter also read it this week and says there was a “touch too much holier than thou righteous wrath”.) I’m loving the character development of Breq as she grows into her leadership. Anticipating the third with great interest and despite my goddaughter’s critique she too says she can’t wait to read on.

    I also read Just a Big Guarded, the 15th in Alessandra Hazard’s Straight Guys series. More character and less smut than usual, and always fun. Pulled me into a re-read of my faves in this series.

    1. I’m glad you enjoyed Ancillary Sword too! I can see why some readers prefer Ancillary Justice, with its tight personal vengeance plot. But I love it when a series goes beyond “this happened to me and it’s not okay” to “how can I keep horrible stuff like this from happening to others?” It’s what I love about the Scholomance series and the way it opens up into a community-focused plot too. (Plus, I find the Translators fascinating.)

      1. I was wondering if the future series post Ancillary Mercy with the translator in one book (?) are any good. So you would recommend keeping on?

        1. I love Translation State. I hope for more. My favorite, however, is Provenance, which takes place somewhere outside the Raadch (sp.–it must be time to reread).

          1. Ancillary Mercy (3rd) might be my favorite, but I enjoyed seeing the wider universe in Provenance and Translation State, so I’d try them (in that order.) (I particularly love the Geck ambassador too.) When I re-listen I do all five, only partly because Adjoa Andoh is such a fantastic narrator.

          3. One thing I really love about the whole raadsch universe is that people have stuff, and care about their stupid stuff. Many of the futures envisioned by SF authors are bizarrely minimalist. I think that people are always going to have junk drawers and over-stuffed closets if they can.

  5. I enjoyed the Rocky Start books so much I’ve gone back to the Lavender books again.

  6. I’m rereading Curses are for Cads by Tamara Berry, the 3rd in a 4 book series about a fake psychic who is slowly discovering she may not be as fake as she thought. One of my favorite protagonists, she’s clever, vulnerable, and honest about being dishonest. Enjoying the books just as much the second time around.

    On the Kindle is a new release from one of my favorites, Shanna Swendson. Clouds & Curses [HEY! I’m reading two books with curses in the title and didn’t realize it…what are the odds?] a fantasy that’s part of a series as well. It’s charming.

  7. Finally finshed Honey Pot Plot so gone back to the start and currently reading Rocky Start, then Very Nice Funerals, and finishing up with a second reading of The Honey Pot Plot, I’ve ready read the other 2 at least twice now. Thoroughly enjoyed every single reading too, I am adamant that I shall read ‘Don’t Look Down’ next, and then I must get through 5 or 6 books that have been patiently put on the back burner so to speak. Thank you Jennifer and Bob for such awesome books. Luv the pair of ya !

    1. I’m rereading Don’t Look Down for the first time in years. I remembered Pepper, and the alligator, and had forgotten so much else.

      1. That’s one book that (as an audiobook) the library has not withdrawn yet, so I’ve reread it a couple of times within memory. The voice acting is pretty good, although maybe not on the New Orleans accent.

        1. Actually, on further reflection I think the accent is supposed to be Cajun, not that it sounds like that either.

    2. Not trying to be critical here, but I didn’t understand the ending in Don’t Look Down. I get lost and confused and disoriented. I’ve read it and I’ve listened to it and neither time did I fully follow. If someone wants to chat with me about it off-line to help me understand, I’d love that!

  8. Not too much time for reading this past week as I’m scrambling to finish my glued back together manuscript. I had a book hangover after The Honey Pot Plot and reread parts of it over. I’m now about halfway through Swordheart and enjoying it but my own story takes precedence until I kick it out the door and on to my editor.

  9. Best thing I read this week was the Tide Child trilogy by RJ Barker, starting with “The Bone Ships” (2019) – the first book took me a week, and then I spent the weekend reading the next two and they were brilliant. Grippy writing, fantasy age of sail, with sea-dragons, in a grim island archipelago surrounded by a wall of storms, and really good characterization with a young man learning to be a leader. Not perfect but very very good. Thanks to Lian for the recc!

    Obviously I hadn’t had enough of epics, because I followed that up with “Menewood” (2023) the second in Nicola Griffith’s fictional account of the woman who will become St Hilda. The way she imagines 7th century Britain is wonderfully vivid, and Hild is magnetic as a character. Some niggly plot contrivances at the beginning but otherwise enjoyed it thoroughly.

    Then for light relief, “A Prince on Paper” by Alyssa Cole, a lovely m/f contemporary romance with royals from fictional kingdoms (one European, one African) that was really about two lonely people coming together. I could have done without one irritating sub-plot, but really enjoyed it for the most part and really liked the FMC worked through her issues with a nasty father.

    Plus “Would You Promise to be Kind” by Ari Baran – which I think could have stood alone as a romance by itself, a less angsty one that “Goaltender Interference”. In a lot of ways it was what I was missing from GI, being how and why they fell in love, but I have no idea how she would have put all that into GI without breaking it – which is I guess why it’s a separate prequel “novella”.

      1. Yeah, I enjoyed the whole series, but A Prince on Paper was the only one I kept to stuff in my grossly overcrowed bookcase.

    3. I also think Would You Promise to Be Kind had a different, kinder tone than Goaltender Interference so it might have been a bit odd gluing them together.

  10. I finished up Deep End by Ali Hazelwood. I think the second half of the book was more my style. While the first half was devoted to explicitly detailing the consensual kinky sex, the second half had more character development and growth. So, glad I finished it, but it isn’t going to be in the reread pile.

    I’ve moved on to HPP, for which I have high hopes (so far so good!)

  11. I reread tHPP for the second time, (third reading) because I love the cast of characters and the satisfying ending, and I just didn’t want to leave that world. Then I reread Rocky Start for the second time, and remembered why Rose’s lasagna was such a hit with Max. It was a memory of his mother letting him eat strings of mozzarella from her making lasagna. Max’s childhood was desolate. I still wanted to grab Darius by the collar and shake him, to make him listen to Poppy, as they approached the bridge. I will say no more, because “spoilers”. I’m not sure about a third reading of Nice Funerals, right now. There’s too much trauma in the real world.

    I rewatched the 2001 “Sabrina”, with Harrison Ford, Julia Ormond, and Greg Kinnear. Harrison Ford went through the entire movie with an unflattering haircut, and I think he’s the only male star that could manage that, and still be a commanding presence. Julia asks who cuts his hair, and it’s his deceased father’s ancient barber. Thus the bad hair. The acting, and the supporting cast, are superb.

    1. Oh “Sabrina” – THAT is exactly what I need! Thanks for the reminder. I watched the Audrey Hepburn/Bogart version when I was at an impressionable age and that version remains my favorite for nostalgia reasons. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought to rewatch it: I learned to crack eggs from that movie and think of it every time I crack an egg!

      1. My favourite Audrey Hepburn movies are Roman Holiday, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Wait Until Dark, My Fair Lady, How to Steal a Million and Charade. She made a lot of great movies.

        1. Oooh – I love all the rest but I haven’t ever come across Wait Until Dark – will have to seek it out!

  12. •Bellamy Rose, Pomona Afton Can So Solve a Murder, 2025.    Pomona Afton is a poor little rich girl, who had been living a life of empty hedonism until her hotel-magnate grandmother (who only a saint could so much as tolerate) was murdered.  Per the grandmother’s will, if she died by violence, the entire extended family (each of whom would have ample motive to kill her) is immediately disinherited unless such time as the murderer is found.  Dumped into the Real World with no marketable skills, Pomona decides to solve the mystery, regain her trust fund, and rescue the other innocent family members.  Meanwhile she is reluctantly sharing an apartment with the son of her childhood nanny and working in the coffee shop that he manages.  Besides trying to play detective, Pomona starts to straighten out her life.  With some help from her apartment mate, toward whom Pomona’s affections have grown, Pomona indeed finds the culprit.  My one complaint is that, since the grandmother so clearly had it coming, I think that once Pomona had gotten the murderer arrested, she should have helped the defense to argue for a relatively light sentence.  An enjoyable romcom/mystery.

    Author Amanda Panitch writes MG/YA under her own name and romance as Amanda Elliot. (I earlier read her Love You a Latke as Elliot.) As Bellamy Rose, with this novel she has also inaugurated a mystery series .  I plan to try the next book in the series, assuming one comes out.

    •Stephanie Burgis, Wooing the Witch Queen,  2025.  Felix is nominally the powerful Archduke heading a fairly autonomous realm in the Serafin Empire.  But his uncle, who started out as regent when Felix was barely a child, has kept Felix firmly under his thumb, so that Felix knows nothing about statecraft and precious little about anything else other than languages and ancient poetry.  Even so, Felix senses that his uncle is about ready to arrange an accident or otherwise dispose of him.  Moreover, he has just learned that the powerful witch queen of a bordering independent country has fought the Empire to a standstill, so Felix now knows that there exists somewhere beyond even his uncle’s reach..  Felix’s original plan had been to escape to there, identify himself, and plead for asylum.  By a coincidence arranged by a friendly goddess, however, he is mistaken for a wizard applying for the librarian position in the queen’s library.  He is hired and complications plus romance ensue. 

    Not a conspicuously original plot line, but well done, with very likeable characters.  Sequels will clearly find partners for at minimim the queen’s allies, the other the two Queens of Villainy. Long ago I read and enjoyed the author’s middle-grade The Dragon with a Chocolate Heart, 2017.  She has written other novels unread by me.

    •Jennifer Crusie, Bet Me, 2005.  Presumably nearly everyone here has read it, so I won’t describe it.  My local public library had withdrawn its copy, so I hadn’t reread this in a while before it showed up in Kindle Unlimited.  I remember liking it, but I think that I liked it even better this time around.  It’s set in an unnamed city with almost no identifying features, but there’s an allusion to (Route I-)275 that best fits either Cincinnati or its fictional counterpart Riverbend.  I had once said that descriptions of Riverbend did not make it sound as hilly as Cincinnati is.  I’m now unsure if that’s really true even of the books where Riverbend is mentioned by name, but in any case, here we have a long set of steps up from street level to Min’s apartment house and another long set of steps from the street to the bungalow where Min ends up in the epilog (Chapter 17).

    Since the novel seems pretty much contemporary for 2005 (I’d have to check all the movie and song allusions to establish the earliest possible date), the epilog reaches pretty far into the future—not only in the general statement that they all lived happily ever after, but specifically in describing Harry’s career.  At age 8 in the novel, he became an ichthyologist, as we are told in the epilog.  That means a PhD, and so carries him up to at least age 26 or so, or roughly 2023.  I started to say maybe even later, but Harry comes from a moneyed family, and would probably be less worried about an early-career marriage than someone with less financial security might be.  I certainly would not mind seeing more fiction about how Harry and other characters ended up attaining their HEAs.  (Should Jenny start inviting other authors to play in her universes?  This is common in sf/f , but not so much in other genres.)

    Food features heavily in the Bet Me.  Min gives up on abstaining from butter.  Myself, I almost never use butter or even full-fat margarine, but that’s because I’m trying to limit my sat fat damage, considering all the cheese and all the instant ramen noodles that I do eat (to say nothing of lesser sat fat sources). 

    1. I should have written “Only 8 years old in the novel, he subsequently became an ichthyologist,” or some such. I saw that problem only after multiple rereadings!

    2. I was reading the Dragon book to my kiddo a few months ago and he liked it so much he finished without me lol. I remember the premise for that felt really original. Cover for Wooing the Witch Queen is so gorgeous. It’s been on my radar but haven’t picked it up yet.

    3. Patrick,
      If Jenny invited other authors to play in her universe, the characters wouldn’t have the same snap and snark that we love so well.

        1. Not every author can work elsewhere convincingly. I don’t read enough genre romance to have experience of how it works there. But in other genres: I recall August Derleth. Doyle more or less gave him permission to write Holmes-type stories as long as he called them something else, and Solar Pons is a pretty good Holmes clone once you’ve finished all the originals. (Later continuators tended to depart farther from the original, marrying Holmes off or wishing illegitimate children on him.) The Jill Patton Walsh Peter Wimsey continuations are pretty good. Some of Michael Kurland’s early Lord Darcy novels are good, although they go downhill. Barbara Hambley wrote a well regarded novel that is set simultaneously in the Star Trek and 7 Brides for 7 Brothers universes. There are other examples in non-romance genres.

          1. This really goes after the Sarina Bowen reference below. Apologies for messing up my comment placement.

      2. Undoubtedly true, but some authors are not too bad at snap and snark, and Jenny spins out more characters than she could ever detail, even if she liked to go back to previous works more than she does.

      3. Sarina Bowen did this and I found it ultimately disappointing. I guess I trust very few authors.

        1. I actually read a Penny Reid spinoff before reading any of Penny Reid’s own books and found I much preferred the other author!

          1. Out of curiosity, I’m trying a Penny Reid novel. I’m sticking so far, although her humor is a little broader than I prefer. Now I’m curious about who the other author is.

    5. Bought Pomona Afton Can So Solve a Murder—thanks!

      I don’t often read contemporary romcom/mysteries, but this one struck a chord. I’ve read about 30% so far and am really enjoying it. Just hoping the author sticks the landing, on the romance and the murder.

  13. Thanks to Gary J, I have read An Angel Called Peterbilt, after it finally came in at the library. I enjoyed it very much: pure competence porn. Always in Eric Flint’s universe(s) I find myself asking “Why are these people so good at so many things?” and the answer is that if they weren’t, they would all die so quickly there would be no story.

    I DNFd Rachel Reid’s Heated Rivalry about two chapters in, not because of any flaw in the writing but because I am not now and never will be in the mood for So Much Anguish.

    I am very close to the end of Love You a Latke, thank you Patrick.

    I am rereading Elizabeth Moon’s Remnant Population for the nth time because a few days ago while I was cutting up broccoli I started thinking about Ofelia’s garden, and realized this often happens when I cut up broccoli. I didn’t remember anything from her garden except tomatoes, but now, from near the beginning I have noted beans and corn and gourds, and various herbs. I will keep watching, but I don’t think there is any broccoli. At any rate, since the severe weather here I have been thinking about the huge storm that she spends in the Center, and I’m wanting to skip ahead, but I don’t want to miss anything.

    1. Oddly enough, I know I read Remnant Population, but I just looked up the plot summary and it rings no bells. I tend to remember best the novels I read when fairly young, but I don’t tend to forget even later ones that thoroughly. Mysterious.

      No Peterbilt for me to conveniently borrow, alas. I may want to look farther afield or buy a copy. Or put in a purchase request at the library—I hesitate because from the sample it looks much like other Flint collaborations, of which the library already has many.

    2. The weather reports say parts of KY are getting clobbered by rain and rising water levels. I hope you come through it without damage.

      1. I have gotten to work and back without difficulty and still have electricity so all is well so far.

  14. I read a book Forget Me Not by Julie Soto, a second chance romance mf between a wedding planner and a florist which I just devoured. Then I tried her next book, Not a Love Song, about two musicians. At first I was swept away by the two making literal and figurative music together but then I couldn’t make myself care about how they resolved all of the difficulties they encountered in the last third of the book. Actually the difficulties were there all along but they didn’t deal with them.

    I also read Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green. Highly recommend. Even if you don’t like nonfiction I think John Green can make it compelling.

    I also read this book everyone seems to be talking about, The Honey Pot Plot. My favorite of the series. I’m going back to Rocky Start now and rereading them all.

  15. I finished a really stressful grant application this week, and celebrated submitting the stupid thing with: books, blankets, dog snuggles, and more books. Started with the Turner trilogy by Courtney Milan (all good but the third was my favorite), which made me realize just how long it’s been since I’ve read romance.

    Then to something more murder-y with Everyone in My Family has Killed Someone, which was reasonably fun (not perfect, but it suited my mood this week). Now embarking on the sequel, Everyone on this Train is a Suspect.

  16. This week was all rereads for me: I reread Rocky Start and then Very Nice Funerals in preparation for HPP which I plan to read this coming week. I think I enjoyed them both even more this time around.
    I needed some hockey though, so I also reread Catherine Cloud’s “Caught off guard” and then, again, Taylor Fitzpatrick’s Between the Teeth series. She is so so good… And I am now rereading Rachel Reid’s Heated Rivarly.
    Lots of hockey being watched here this week as we ramp up to the playoffs and there is more and more at stake. It’s cutting down on my reading time!

    1. Not to mention Ovechkin needing two goals in his next two games to tie the record.

      1. Oh yes! Each game is getting major hype here because of Ovechkin. Today’s top stories on the local radio were all about the wipe out of stock market — but the second story was about the Ovechkin chase to break Gretzky’s record.
        Also, you live in the land of expensive hockey tickets but I think the next few games here are competing with you for Most Expensive Tickets. It’s amazing to watch the prices soar!

  17. Still not reading anything worth mentioning, stuck on trying to figure out why a series that SHOULD be working for me just isn’t. Broke down and looked at reviews, and I’m not alone in the feeling that it’s got all the elements I like, the writing is competent, and yet, it just doesn’t work for me. I think part of it is the narrator, who sounds angry all the time, and I’m not sure if that’s just his interpretation or if the character really is that inappropriately angry.

    Anyway, I do have an example of storytelling (in a video format) to recommend. If you haven’t seen any of Mychal Threets’ videos, they’re really sweet without being twee. One of them, my all-time fave, is up for a webby award, so you can see it there (the Library kids one), and if so inclined, maybe vote for it? I’m not really big on awards voting usually, but this video is just so good and hopeful at a time when we need hope for the future. https://vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVoting#/2025/creators/individual-creator/social-impact

    2. Narrators truly have the power to make or break a book. Sorry to hear this seems to be the kind that…doesn’t do the book justice. I am not a fan of the angry narrators. Or the overly melancholy ones, in particular not for books that should be light in tone.

  18. I’m still basking in the glow of HPP. I periodically find myself thinking “Boppy and Marco” and smiling like a fool. That’s young people in love done right.

    I’m also working my way through the horror-lite ghost hunter books on KU, which I have until May so there’s less pressure to read 3 a week than I thought, and enjoying them. The stories are fun and the haunting the characters investigate are all very interesting and different from each other.

  19. I am half way through HPP. It’s such fun and I am really enjoying it.

    Apparently all the books I want to read right now aren’t available in audio so I am in a bit of a drought there. I dnfed a few. Meh. I have Leaders Eat Last hanging out in Libby, for the work program, but it is nine hours and I am not overly thrilled about it. Still, I should bite the bullet and get it done while there isn’t anything I want to listen to more.

      1. Yes, Poppy and Marley are great. I also like all the artsy and building a business bits. It helps me want to get back to my own making practice.

  20. Started the reading week with:

    1. ‘Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir’ by Paul Monette, every bit as heart-wrenching as I expected, 5 stars.

    2. comfort re-reads: my own M/M novella ‘Sugar Daddy’ (the one about a New Yorker who survived his partner’s death from AIDS and finds new love with a much young lookalike) and its related F/M novelette ‘This Time.’

    3. ‘Night Shift’ by Kim Fielding, M/M novella feat. an ex-con motel custodian and the night security vampire, 4 stars.

    4. ‘Alec’ by Kaje Harper, M/M contemporary feat. a grieving man, a single dad, a fucked-up FBI investigation, a stray dog, and a sweet romance. 5 stars.

    5. ‘The Star Dressing Room’ by Alan Shayne, memoir by a TV executive who first spent 17 years trying to succeed as an actor (worked regularly, but never hit) and in his early 30s began a 50-yr love affair with artist Norman Sunshine.

    6. ‘Summer Stock’ by Vanessa North, M/M contemporary set in coastal NC feat. a Hollywood actor doing penance for tabloid behavior by starring in two Shakespeare plays for childhood friend + cousin who run the theater. Love interest is a contractor with domestic violence PTSD. Some really good adult conversations here but an overly abrupt conclusion / glossing over of how they get to HEA, so rounded up to 4.

    7. ‘Play Hard’ by Avery Cockburn, M/M Glasgow Lads novella that’s all about two characters after their book (‘Playing With Fire’) getting closer while patching some potholes in their relationship. 5 stars; funny, sexy, and full of affection.

    8. ‘The Great Forest and Other Love Stories’ by Warren Rochelle. The collection, 4 stars; title story, 5. These are all various degrees of SF/F with one just this side of horror.

    9. [re-read] ‘Stolen Moments’ by Michelle Martin, a 1997 F/M contemporary feat. a NYC private investigator and a runaway pop star; full of agency, humor, intelligence, cooperation, and trust *plus* the musician really does music all the way through, which I appreciate, because so very annoyingly often we see nothing of an artistic character doing their art. I’ve held onto the paperback forever because it’s not available as an ebook, alas.

    Happy GBT, whichever number it is. 😉

  21. I read the new Shannon Stacey Kowalski book. I love that series but omg there are so many characters now I cannot keep track of everybody. I might reread the first book because the hero and his brothers in this new series are kiddos in the first book (she said she “soap opera aged” them which cracked me up), and it might help me get the family relations straight, lol. This book was ok. I liked the couple but she kept them in this holding period for too long that kind of made the whole book feel like a non-starter. I wish she’d settled that plot thread early so we didn’t have so much “oh when we find out THIS THING then we will go on and everything will change.” I might reread my favorites in the Kowalski series next, still deciding.

  22. Reading through a psych book, Wooing the Witch Queen, and Iron Flame. The latter book is SO FULL OF EMOTIONAL TEEN DRAMA that it is EXHAUSTING. I realize everyone is 21-24, but still. Enjoyed the first book, but the second one is tiring and I’m just listening to it on audiobook.

  23. I read Gigi Pandian’s latest Secret Staircase mystery, The Library Game. Tempest Raj used to be a celebrated magician, just like her mother and aunt, and her ancestors in India, but after a disasterous onstage accident, she’s left the stage and now works for her family’s contract builders who specialize in secret staircases and other nifty hidden niches, etc. The Library Game is a tense locked-room murder mystery with a disappearing and reappearing body. You don’t need to read the previous books to get into the story since the mystery is a standalone.

    I also read Finlay Donovan Digs Her Own Grave and enjoyed it more than the previous books in the series. This time Finlay shows signs of coming to terms with her conscience and ‘growing up.’ BTW the toilet training of her youngest is a source of great humor.

  24. I read the most recent book in the Sparks & Brainbridge mystery series. Apparently I should have re-read the previous one because there was an important event I did not remember, which make me keep saying “What???” for the first chapter. After I got past that, I liked it as much as the rest of the series.

    I had been saving this one, and it was good that I did, because I needed something good to follow HPP. The only downside to a really good book is, what do you read next?

  25. The last house on Needless street (Catriona Ward).
    A psychological horror. Dark and rough, but I liked it. Especially the Author’s note and its “we always protect the child”.

    Molly Molloy and the Angel of Death (Maria Vale).
    Sad, humorous, dark and full of light. I borrowed it from the library and finished buying it.

    Ten Things I hate about the Duke (Loretta Chase).
    Because I needed lightness and joy after the other two.

  26. I read The Game of Hearts by Felicity Day which reports on the Regency romances six real women and many of their friends and families including Harriet Fane Arbuthnot who was and is widely rumored to have been the mistress of the Duke of Wellington (the author doesn’t believe it). I wasn’t very optimistic but she chose interesting women whose stories are not well known (at least to me), and she discussed their ability to veto potential spouses and what happened when women fled bad marriages. And I’m now trying to find a book on Hoare’s bank over 12 generations by its archivist, which was listed in the references.

    I also read Passions in Death by JD Robb, which I think is not the last release but the one before. I liked that she went back to individuals and probable plots, and that she is continuing to show emotional growth for Eve. But I’m now trying to figure out if we are in real life in the time period of “the troubles” in her book. Also the things she had as futuristic in book 1 are now in real life
    . Except for the autokitchens. Even the cars that will self drive . The challenges of writing a futuristic series for 30 years.

    1. We are almost a decade past the Urban troubles she put in the books.
      It must be weird living in a future she wrote about …

  27. I really enjoyed The Honey Pot Plot. Betty remains a favorite! I’ve enjoyed everyone’s perspective on teacups too (Rose/Poppy/Betty.)

    1. Forgot to say that my personal favorite Connie Willis stories are the Victorian-era To Say Nothing of the Dog (yes, I love Three Men in a Boat too) and Bellwether.

      1. Connie Willis and I both first read Three Men in a Boat because of the allusion to it in Heinlein’s Have Space Suit, Will Travel. Improbably enough, there’s a Soviet cinema musical based on Three Men. (Not remarkably good.) My Willis favorite varies depending on mood, but the short story version of Fire Watch is up there, as are The Doomsday Book and Passage, with To Say Nothing also a contender.

      2. I was about to recommend Bellwether, my favorite Connie Willis book, and Remake. Then there are her marvelous short story collections:
        Impossible Things
        Fire Watch
        Miracle and Other Christmas Stories (favorite collection)
        A Lot Like Christmas (some of the same stories as in Miracle, but with more books/stories/movie suggestions)
        Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories
        Connie Willis is a superb short fiction writer!

  28. I reread Isabel Murray’s Not That Complicated & Not That Impossible, and bought/read the last one, Not That Ridiculous. M/M romcoms that are funny and romantic, around an absurd cosy mystery, set in the Cotswolds. Followed them with her novella, First Dates and Birthday Cakes; but she finally fell down a little with the US-set novella Worth the Wait – though this was published earlier, so maybe she hadn’t got into her stride.

    Before trying the new Eli Easton, I reread the first two in her Men of Lancaster County series – A Second Harvest & Tender Mercies; the new one, Season of the Witch is also good (all M/M romance).

    1. I needed something fun & easy and liked those first two Isabel Murray titles, so treated myself to Not That Ridiculous. 🙂

  29. I’m still in HONEY POT PLOT. I read these slowly to savor.

    Also read a non-fic about CIA history called SURPISE, KILL, VANISH by Annie Jacobsen. Only read up to the 1970s because it’s research for a potential project, but it is surprisingly eye-opening. It also melds well with the Rocky Start books…because it goes into some of the paramilitary/special ops/CIA history and actual declassified covert actions.

  30. I’m halfway through The honey Pot Plot and am thoroughly loving it. My two favourite authors have done it again and delivered a great read. Congratulations once again Jenny and Bob.

  31. Still on my way to Montreal – currently sitting near my connections gate to Montreal.
    We had turbulances that reninded me a bit of the ones in Role Model/The Long Game. Fortunately without an emergency landing!
    Now reading a Lonely Planet, but not comprehending much. Too tired.
    But I’ ca 42% into the new JJ Mulder, On the Edge. A college romance between a German hockey player and a very prickly anti-jock of Asian heritage. I don’t really get the German (Henri – not very German, but these days, that’s ok), I hope we’ll get an explanation why he’s so strange and has such an antiquated English and such difficulty in speaking and understading in spite of being fluent in French, Russian (not many Germans do these days) and Spanish apart from G. Why he writes with a pencil (that’s completely uncommon after elementary school, everyone writes with biro and variations or -not many, but enough- fountain pens).
    He’s certainly VERY different from my teenage kids…
    I also don’t get the spark between the athlete and the jerk (Atlas is behaving very rudely, but what’s his deal??).
    We’ve got an ace rep, so that’s very nice (imo).
    So, it’s interesting and it’s in KU (I’ve subscribed for 1 month to get a wider range of e-travel books), so I will reserve judgement presently.

  32. Started reading a magical with a FMC who is full of herself and a MMC who doesn’t show up until 20% in. But interested enough to continue. I rarely DNF a book but may have to work on that.

    Courtney Milan’s Weekly Tea newsletter has always been inspirational and I am not a tea drinker. She’s done a tariff fact sheet which can be printed and passed out at the 4/5 rallies https://trumpstariffsexplained.com/tariffsexplained.pdf

    1. There’s a website, too. TrumpsTariffsExplained.com Her argument is that “Even if they don’t believe that this will happen, I think it’s important to put it in their brains that if it does happen, the people to blame are Donald Trump and his cabinet.

    2. I have rules for DNFing. If a book doesn’t grab me in the first 50 pages, or if at any time I have put it down and find myself not looking forward to picking it back up… Life is too hard for me to punish myself with something I love.

    3. I don’t recall ever being so firm a non-DNFer as many people are. I do know, however, that in my youth I finished many books that I would bail on today. Probably I had to see what was out there in the wide literary world before my tastes could firm up, and it probably took a while to become familiar with the standard plots in various genres, so that thereafter I enjoyed only books that brought some sort of originality to the enterprise by one means or another.

  33. I read When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi. The moon has suddenly turned into cheese. First everything is just ridiculous, then the gravitational pressure causes moonquakes and steam eruptions as the cheese compresses and a chunk the size of Mt. Everest breaks off and will hit the earth in approximately two years, destroying all life on the planet. There are funny parts, and there are serious parts, but mostly there’s no plot, just a series of vignettes with a variety of people reacting to those two situations. Sometimes revisited later, sometimes not.

    London Blue by Emma Jameson. The newest Lord and Lady Hetheridge book is pretty good.

    Murder in Mercy by Anne Cleeland. The new Acton and Doyle mystery. Various characters from previous books in the series keeping popping up, and one of them dies in what turns out to be a murder, but Acton is up to something again, and Doyle spends most of the book trying to figure out if it’s something nefarious.

    Sagacious Blade by Sherwood Smith. Finishing The Phoenix Feather / Sagacious Blade saga finishing out the circle. Telling Grandfather Ki’s story.

    1. I am still waiting in the queue for the Scalzi. However, based on what you report: Google tells me that Everest has a mass significantly smaller than the Chicxulub asteroid, which (as I’ve read elsewhere) also came in at a high velocity, and (per at least one report that I’ve seen) by bad luck hit a rock substrate suitable, when vaporized, for bringing on an impact winter lasting years. And that only wiped out a bunch of species including all the non-avian dinosaurs, not even close to all life. Something displaced from the orbit of the Moon should be going slower, and if “size” means volume rather than mass, I expect cheese is less dense than rock. So Scalzi may have his science wrong (if that matters when you start off with a cheese moon). I’m not sure that the cheese blob could even wipe out the human race, much less life on Earth. (Similarly, I have severe doubts that the meteor in the Lady Astronaut series could in the long run wipe out humankind on Earth, which Kowal keeps hinting at, although it’s not a settled question in the series and I don’t think that in the novel they even have the computer power to model the problem.) The above are my intuitive guesses; I don’t have the background to offer solid judgments.

      1. Others have obviously been looking at the Scalzi question before me.  When I queried on the comparative density of rock and cheese without mentioning the Moon, the Google AI’s answer started,

        “Yes, cheese is generally less dense than rock. Rocks, especially those found in the Moon’s composition, have significantly higher densities than cheese.”

        Note that I was actually wondering about the rock in Mt. Everest, not the Moon, but at a first approximation,  rock is rock.

        I also found this from 2016, possibly Scalzi’s source for the idea:
        https://www.businessinsider.com/what-if-the-moon-were-made-of-cheese-2016-7

  35. I read a recent book by Peter S. Beagle, I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons. It has a Medieval culture setting with dragons and an evil wizard.

    Goodreads gave it 3.7 out of 5, which is reasonable. Overall it was an enjoyable tale, though it seemed to me that it dragged a little in a few places.

    1. It was also darker than I was expecting, given the title and cover. Although in retrospect it is Beagle, so that is on me for being fooled.

      I do dearly love In Calabria though, which has some cozier vibes, I think.

    2. I finally reached the head of the library queue for I’m Afraid … , but I’m not sure that it fits my mood at the moment. I may end up returning it with the intention of trying again later. We’ll see.

  36. I was saving The Honey Pot Plot as a “break in case of emergency” book, but after a mediocre read earlier in the week and a truly irritating DNF, I started it yesterday and it’s making everything better!

  37. I am currently going back and forth between two books. Exit strategy by Martha Wells is my physical book to read when I’m sitting in the living room. Veiled Magic (by our own Deborah Blake) is the ebook I am reading in bed before going to sleep. The Honey Pot Plot is next on the to read list.

About the Author

Jennifer Crusie is the New York Times, USA Today, and Publisher’s Weekly bestselling author and co-author of twenty-three novels, one book of literary criticism, miscellaneous articles, essays, novellas, and short stories, and the editor of three essay anthologies. She lives in a cottage in Pennsylvania, where she often stares at the ceiling and counts her blessings.

Find out more about Jenny’s published works by visiting JennyCrusie.com

Recent Comments
Archives
Categories