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This is a Good Book Thursday, the Murder Edition

I’ve been reading Rex Stout, working my way through all the novellas and starting on the novels. It helps to read books where bodies are dropping regularly, that way I don’t get so freaked out about the body counts in the books we’re writing.

What did you read this week?

125 Responses

  1. I read an article (syndicated from Washington Post) that’s basically Person of Interest, coming to a school near you. I’ll link it in the comment.

    I also reread the Will Darling series from KJ Charles. Such excellent, angry heroes. Then because I’m feeling that give just now, I also read a Seditious Affair also from KJ Charles for more righteous angry MCs. I think Agnes will be on my reread list this week too. The world, ugh.

    And then I skimmed my favourite bits of Son of the Shadows by Juliet Marillier, which is about a determined MC and which I still love love love (yes it’s book two, but I think it’s the best of the three).

    Must try and read something entirely new this week! Looking forward to your recces.

    2. I did an almost complete Juliet Marillier reread last year. She completely avoids middle-book-sag.

  2. I am almost through Bujold’s Demon’s Daughter, and have only one last novella to go, I think. It’s been really nice to have a long list of fairly gentle, comforting things to listen to without having to really pick something new. I will probably need to take a break before trying some of her full length work.

    And I finished Hogarth’s Mindtouch series. Although there may be more coming there too? I will have to check the author’s site but it didn’t feel necessarily finished. Now I need more gentle stuff to read and listen to.

    1. There is more on Hogarth but – it takes a dark and vicious turn before it goes back to being gentle so beware…

    2. Can I recommend Bujold’s Paladin Of Souls if you want something longer? MC is SO good, I love her almost as much as Cordelia in all the Vorkosigan books, but she is having a different kind of crisis.

      1. Did you also feel apprehensive having her as FMC in Paladin comkng from Curse of Chalion. Her positive development arc in Paladin was fantastic!

      2. The short length has been working really well for me. I am apprehensive about something longer. Someday I will give the longer books a try but I have this theory that short story format makes for gentler stories.

    3. Hey I forgot to ask – did you finish The Incandescent? Any final thoughts? Or are you afraid to tell me because I will sulk if you didn’t love it?

      1. I dnfed it at the 80 percent mark with throw at the wall rage. Yeah, I wasn’t going to tell you. Sorry! I understand that the author was making a commentary on failed systems, but it was not a good fit for me.

        2. I also stalled at the (approximately) 80% mark. I did go back and finish it, yesterday, because I did want to know what happened, but I didn’t really enjoy that last 20%. I did kind of enjoy the first 50%.

          1. Glad to hear I am not alone. If I was reading instead of listening, I would have flipped to the end.

      2. The library says I have 14 weeks to wait. I hope I remember this by then.

  3. Finished The Women, by Kristin Hannah. The ending was satisfying, but felt like the editor said, “This sucker is running way too long, (it’s 464 pages) wrap it up.” The last 1/4 of the book feels almost summarized.

    Also re-reading The Demon Always Wins, my retelling of the story of Job as a paranormal romantic comedy (because what could be funnier than the story of Job?) In preparation for meeting with a book club about it later this month.

    It’s the book I started at McDaniel while studying with Jenny, and I haven’t looked at it since I published it in 2018. It’s a first book, so I was afraid it would be really cringe, but so far it’s not too bad.

    2. I had that same reaction, that the author had said to himself about 50 pages from the published end, “This thing is running long, I’ve got to wrap it up,” about a completely different novel, David Brinā€™s Existence. (Worth reading despite that.)

      A slightly different phenomenon is when an author has failed to get a renewal for a book series that has a plot arc with clearly several books to go, or else just gets bored with it himself (all the examples I can think of are by males), and decides to give it an implausibly drastic and abrupt end rather than leaving threads hanging. I can think of several of those.

      1. Or has a sharp turn in direction, so that you go huh – that was *not* the sequel to book 1!

  4. Now I want to read my Rex Stout book collection again too! When you finish Rex Stout’s 50 Nero Wolfe books, you might also want to try out the 17 Nero Wolfe Mysteries that were written by Robert Goldsborough. (And maybe watch the 2001-2002 A&E Nero Wolfe series with Timothy Hutton, that can be found on DVD.) Yup, I’ve been a Nero Wolfe fan for 50+ years LOL. So much fun!

  5. Jenny, thanks for asking “what did you read” and not what we could recommend šŸ˜€

    I mainly listened to podcasts, it seems, but those were fine: These Packs Puck interviewed Rachel Reid and Lexi Lafleur Brown respectively and those were delightful. RR always is, she also spoke about the tv adaptation – filming is already wrapped! Lexi is a new to me author but I found her book on sale while in BC, so it’s on top of my tbr.

    I’ve also listened to what feels like tons of podcasts on audiobook narration which had the effect that I now have an even deeper appreciation of the guys (and women) behind the mic.

    Readingwise, Tammy mentioning Love in Tuscany gave me the push to finish the book – I guess the novella format just isn’t my length, I usually run out of steam early on in anthologies (technically, I’m still reading the anthology “Delicious”). I agree with Tammy, JJ Mulders contribution to LiT was also my fav. It has a dreamlike quality. And the vibe of the Italian places they visited felt right.
    Currently listening to Understatement of the Year and reading 10 Ways to Accidentally falling in love – the latter very cute. Idiots to lovers. Maybe unrealistic how a man in his 20s (ond MC, the other has endless patience) can be so clueless, but it’s fun to read.
    Next in line: a Neil Gaiman I have to finish before heading to BC again. For a bookclub of 2.
    One major dubb this week: #5 never crush on your captain (hockey). I do have a masochistic streak, it seems. It didn’t work for me on many levels. Should have been another sport e.g. soccer. Would have maybe worked better. Maybe. Or maybe not.

    1. The bad news is that the Oilers lost the Stanley Cup. The good news is that it’s now clear the Leafs came closer than any other team including the Oilers to beating the Panthers in the playoffs so we can stop bad mouthing them now.

      1. The game (that I was emotionally amd practically unable to watch) followed me into my dreams.
        I fon’t think any team was as vicious.
        Not the Leafs, not the Oilers.
        My hubby compared the Panthers to the Ice Frost Giants (he’s test reading a Grade 5 book with Loki as MC for his class): the description rang true.
        I don’t like the beating the teams receive – not the Leafs, not the Oilers. I don’t like the media (and some fans) constantly undermining the players – Skinner, Marner, you name it.
        Both teams could do with a rat, though.
        That’s the only positive: Brad Marchand winnkng hhd Cup was a major middle finger to the Bruins front office that deemed him too old, too expensive or whatever.

    2. I tell everyone I come across who listens to podcast that, if they haven’t already, they need to give a listen to “Midnight Burger,” the best scripted podcast there is. The elevator pitch (from their website) is: ‘When Gloria took a waitressing job at a diner outside of Phoenix, she didn’t realize she was now an employee of Midnight Burger, a time-traveling, dimension-spanning diner. Every day Midnight Burger appears somewhere new in the cosmos along with it’s staff: a galactic drifter, a rogue theoretical physicist, a sentient old-timey radio, and some guy named Caspar. No one knows who built Midnight Burger or how it works, but when it appears there’s always someone around who could really use a cup of coffee. “When the waves of the universe crash unrelentingly, when the stars seem indifferent to your plight, suddenly there is a diner.” We open at 6.’

  6. I’ve been reading A Proposal to Die For by Molly Harper. It’s a cozy mystery with humor, and well written, although not my favorite of the things I’ve read by her.

    On the Kindle is The Cottage at Glass Beach by Heather Barbieri. This is a new author to me, which I discovered thanks to an online group I belong to. The book is a charming novel, with just a hint of magical realism (there might be selkies, or not) and deep without being depressing. The author’s use of words is lovely.

  7. I read An Academic Affair by Jodi McAlister, which I loved and in which Jenny got a brief mention!
    Jodi McAlister does romance tropes right, and this one makes the most of the cut-throat world of academia. The heroine is an academic specialising in popular and romance fiction, and there’s a mention of a Jennifer Cruise book.
    I adored Jodi’s Marry Me, Juliet trilogy about the filming of a Bachelor-type reality show (the third book, Not Here to Make Friends, is the best but the way each of the three books layer over each other is so clever) and I was so relieved that Academic Affair lived up to what I hoped for after that trilogy. I ripped through it in one day, which is rare for me at the moment.

    1. I also really enjoyed her Marry Me, Juliet books and so I was so excited to see that she has a new book. But, alas, it wonā€™t be published until November. Did you get an arc?

      1. I’m in Australia, and she’s an Australian author, so for once we got a book release ahead of the rest of the world šŸ˜
        I can confirm, though, that it’ll be worth the wait.

  8. Still working my way through your books, now onto ‘Bet Me’ which means I’ve read the Dempsey novels, which I loved massively. Have you ever considered bringing another Dempsey book out, would there be a storyline for it? For a long time ‘Welcome to Temptation’ was my fave of all your novels, but reading them all again now I’m not so sure if I do actually have a fave. I love all of the books you’ve released so…..I think I need to give careful thought to this ‘favourite malarky to be honest.

    1. I have never understood people who say they have a favourite book.

      I have an ever expanding, very ecclectic list of favourite authors, very much thanks to the good people of Argh!

      1. I can’t understand how people can pick a favorite or even top ten anything. Colors? Fabulous. Food? It’s all so different. Shoes? Don’t get me started. Life is full of so many wonderful varieties of things.

  9. I read The Oak and The Ash by Annick Trent, recommended by Frozen Pond last week. A lovely read. I enjoyed the two MC’s meeting over the duel conducted by the employer of one MC, the consequences of which thread its way through the book. And I enjoyed the careful look at class politics in England at that time.

    I finished the last of the post Imperial Radch series books, Translation State. It’s probably been my favourite of the whole series, so very satisfied that it ended with a bang. I’ve decided my favourite species are the Geck.

    I tried to read Tanya Huff’s Direct Descendant, I really did, but I kept picking it up and reading a few pages and then putting it down. So I DNF’d it. I don’t have any real explanation why; I just couldn’t get into it. I’ve found previously that I like her sci fi better than her fantasy so maybe that’s why?

    I listened to two of the Penric novellas by Lois McMaster Bujold and I have to agree with everyone that they are comforting and quietly beguiling. Am onto the third now.

    No hockey books this week. Just licking my wounds over yet another Stanley Cup loss for our country. Sigh.

    1. The Geck are marvellous aren’t they? I really enjoyed “Translation State”, although I think maybe “Ancillary Mercy” is my fav.

    2. Tammy, I’m cautioudly rooting for the Abbitsford Canucks facing game 4 gaving hhe lead. Which doesn’t mean much against the AHL affiliate of ghd bl***y Cats.

  10. Speaking of body counts, finished Rebecca Roanhorseā€™s Between Earth and Sky trilogy (2024) ā€“ an epic fantasy inspired by Pre-columbian cultures. Mostly liked where it ended up, but thereā€™s a lot of darkness and death along the way.

    Had a lot of fun with Jess Anatasiā€™s ā€œBurn it Downā€ (2020), an m/m contemporary between a park ranger and a firefighter. Bit of a kitchen sink plot, with foster kids and a stalker ex and potential arson, but still really enjoyed the story. New author for me and will look out for more by her.

    ā€œA Skinful of Shadowsā€ by Frances Hardinge (2017) is a YA fantasy set in the English Civil War about a girl who can see ghosts, including the wonderful Bear. Really enjoyed it and I loved the kindness of the FMC. Really must read more Hardinge.

    ā€œThe Trouble With Hating Youā€ by Sajni Patel (2020) an m/f contemporary in Houstonā€™s Gujarati community with an attempted arranged marriage gone wrong. Not the easiest read a there was some horrible trauma in the FMCā€™s history, but I really liked that the MC liked her in-your-face attitude and that he defends her against gossip even before he knows her.

    Best of the week was a re-read of Goddardā€™s ā€œAt the Feet of the Sunā€ ā€“ I adore this world, its richness and seeing Cliopher again!

  11. Turned my book in on Monday so I was able to do a couple of quick reads. Two older Harlequin books that I wouldn’t necessarily recommend but didn’t hate. One was from the 80’s with a chain smoking hero and questionable fashion sense for both H/h and the other from the 90s. No smoking but heroine was considering sex with the hero about a week after giving birth.

    2. I was thinking the other day about how quickly what is acceptable changes — for example, the Mary Stewart heroines who smoke, just wouldn’t if she were writing today.
      I think I would find it hard to write a smoking heroine even if it was acceptable at the time of the story. I don’t mind if the hero smokes the occasional pipe or cigar, though… Hmm, is that prejudice? Both my parents smoked when I was a child, so it seemed fine then but really doesn’t now.

      In After the Armistice Ball, Dandy Gilver smokes — she even has a special smoking outfit to wear — and apart from a bit of a wrinkle of my nose at the smell, I don’t mind, because it really was the done thing in the 1920s, and Catriona McPherson wrote it well.

      1. I generally dnf a book with a smoker MC – recently they have been increasing not decreasing unfortunately, and you’re right, they’re all heroes, no smoking heroines.

        This week I read one by a favorite author whose MMC grew up in the Soviet Union and only smokes when he’s anxious, which was just about acceptable to me. Him quitting is part of the HEA in the epilogue, for which I was very grateful, but it was very unattractive.

  12. I was feeling in the mood for some smut, so I picked up Ice Planet Barbarians. It was a quick read, interesting (if you don’t question things too closely), and precisely what I was looking for. I don’t know if I’ll read the rest of the series, but I’m not sorry I read the first one.

  13. I had an interesting discussion with my daughter about Katherine Addisonā€™s Witness for the dead series. She loved the Goblin Emperor so when I went to see her at her art school, I brought her the trilogy to read (she likes to read paper books).

    She told me she really liked the fact that Celehar was just an ordinary kind of guy doing his job as best as he could rather than a super powerful person with lots of magical power and/or physical prowess.

    It made me realise how much my taste and also the fantasy field has evolved.

    I am still reading Celia Lake as I havenā€™t yet managed to read everything she has published since last time I read her stuff. She is incredibly prolific.

    By now, she has a huge cast of characters which are more or less interconnected but the way they pop up in other books is actually quite nicely done. They are there for a reason and donā€™t take over or become dei ex machina.

    Also her heroes and heroines are pretty different in terms of ages, professions and other things.
    I loved the series about the craftpeople, especially Shoemakerā€™s wife and Weaving hope, ordinary people with quiet but satisfying romances, no extraordinary magical powers in sight :).

  14. Iā€™ve started a John Scalzi book about the moon suddenly turning into cheese. But itā€™s not drawing me in the way some of his other books have done and Iā€™m not going to finish it.

      2. I wasnā€™t crazy about the ending but some of the vignettes are amazing (especially the billionaires competing over who gets to taste the moon first)

    2. I just finished that and frankly, it’s more of a book of short stories and never comes together as a full-on novel. I would say if you want to read it, get it at the library. It’s too many new characters every few pages, few of which overlap or tie together…it’s just not coherent. Obviously there’s no explanation for what happens and then things just magically go back to normal. Meh. I know Scalzi’s been in his “fun fluff, I need distraction from the world” era, but I miss having some depth and this is a bit too fluffed.

      1. This was pretty much my opinion too. I may go back to it, but for now I bailed out and returned it. As someone may have said here already, Scalzi has a new Old Man’s War book forthcoming, presumably less frothy.

  15. I got an ARC of KJ Charles’ next book, All of us Murderers, a Gothic romance. And I loved it! My review’s already on Goodreads if you want to see me gush about it. It’s definitely worth it if you like old school gothics or if you want to see them turned a bit on their heads.

    Otherwise, some Ja Krentz relistens and a book that I didn’t love but finished anyway so I won’t name it.

  16. ā€¢Martha Wells, Artificial Condition, 2018.Ā  Audiobook read by Kevin R. Free.Ā  The novella has already been pretty well discussed here.Ā  The story was rather less fraught than I was expecting back when Murderbot set off by its lonesome into the wide and scary world at the end of the previous novella.Ā  By great good fortune, Murderbot lucks into meeting a friendly and helpful AI and another set of sympathetic (although naĆÆve and otherwise misguided) humans.Ā  The reading by Kevin Free was again good, although a touch less so than last time.Ā  Also, unless my tablet is developing glitches, the sound engineering was inferior to the previous installment.Ā  My tablet’s reproduction still seems fairly good in other books and podcasts,Ā  but possibly it was a matter of sympathetic vibration with Free’s particular tone of voice.Ā  Recommended,Ā  naturally.

    (More coming.)

  17. I listen to audiobooks during my commute, while doing stuff around the house and while felting (fiber art). Fifteen minutes ago, I finished Button Man by Andrew Gross. I give it 10 stars out of 5! Yes, there were bodies dropping. Read the description on Goodreads. It is historical fiction. Think 1920s-1930s New York City, gangsters, the garment trade and Jewish families. References to real historical events like the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. It made root for the main characters, cry, shout “nooooo”, smile and then cry some more. It is one of the books I’ll remember for quite a while. I rank it alongside The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America by Eric Larson.

  18. I have nearly finished the ā€œWell of Ascensionā€by Brandon Sanderson, which is book 2 in his Mistborn series. Only about another hundred pages left. The hardbound is 590 pages. If you want to talk about a body count, this book has it. Two days ago, I read the scene where the heroine goes annd attacks a small army and kills 300 people. The whole series is rather violent. Yet I will finish this book and read book 3 in the trilogy because it is epic fantasy, it is long. I do think there couldā€™ve been parts edited out to make it a few hundred pages shorter. General premise is a dystopian world led by an evil ruler, and thereā€™s a prophecy. In book one you have the heroā€™s adventure where the evil ruler is overthrown. Book 2, sets up the new government and the aftermath while being a little bit of filler and character building to get you to book 3, when you face the really big bad.

    And speaking of bodies, I am also reading the ā€œHuman Bidy Theaterā€ by Maris Wicks. It is a graphic novel that explains the human body. so far I have learned about the skeleton, the muscular system, the respiratory system, the cardiovascular system, the digestive system, the excretory system, the endocrine system, and the reproductive system. I still have the immune, nervous, and sensory systems to go. It does a pretty thorough job and uses actual medical terminology. I have definitely learned some things. It could be helpful to parents wanting to teach the kids more about a personā€˜s body.

  19. Malka Older, The Potency of Ungovernable Impulses, 2025.Ā  Third in the Mossa-Pleiti series.Ā  Mossa, like Holmes, tends to fall into a deep depression when she lacks a stimulating case.Ā  If we needed one more reminder that the series is science fantasy rather than science fiction, we find it here in the fact that Jovian society has no more clue than the Victorians on how to treat depressionā€”which, correspondingly, they have reverted to calling “melancholia.”Ā  They can gird Jupiter in steel rings that somehow stay in place although not in orbit, protect the rings’ inhabitants from the planet’s deadly radiation belts, somehow transmute the atmosphere into something warm and breathable, bring extinct species back to life from DNA samples, and design new species, but they can’t produce pharmaceuticals even as effective as those of the early 21st century, much less the improved versions we would expect from the Jovians’ command of biology.Ā  One would have expected that if Mossa herself failed to do anything about the recurrent melancholia, then her physicians, her superiors in the Investigators, or indeed anyone else who wished her well, including Pleiti, would have induced her to seek help.Ā  Ergo, there is no medical help to be had, and Mossa, like Holmes, must just tough it out (but at least she avoids hard narcotics, unlike Sherlock).Ā 

    While Mossa is sunken in melancholia,Ā  Pleiti is recruited by a former college classmate as moral support, and possibly detective support, if she can apply Mossa’s methods or devise her own, for another former classmate, now with a post at Stortellenā€”which, we learn, is Jupiter’s other major universityĀ  besides Valdegeld, where Pleiti works.Ā  (It is not exactly an Oxford-Cambridge parallel, in that Stortellen is several days’ travel away.)Ā  Pleiti’s ex-classmate Villette is up for a donship there, but someone is covertly pursuing a campaign against her getting it, and perhaps against her in general. The university administration doesn’t much care and tends to blame the victim.Ā  Meanwhile,Ā  Mossa is doing what any reader of the Holmes canon would expect of her.Ā  The solution of the case is not a particularly striking one.Ā 

    Ungovernable impulses are all over the place, on the part of the bad guys, others at Stortellen, Mossa with her melancholia, and Pleiti with her insecurity about Mossa’s love for her.Ā  (Pleiti seems far more high-maintenance here than in previous books.)Ā  And of course another impulse is Mossa’s and Pleiti’s mutual love. Readable, but perhaps a bit inferior to its predecessors.Ā  Still recommended.

    (Possibly more coming today, if I get it written up.)

    1. I forgot to mention that I think Pleiti’s language is picking up a still increasing number of borrowings from an oddly restricted range of languages, mostly Spanish, with French next in line, and only token representation from other tongues. I was glad I was reading this in ebook form and could easily look up translations, although context always provides the general idea. An online interview with Malka’s brother tells me that their mother is Cuban, and I would not be astonished if Malka was raised bilingual. A lot of Pleiti’s vocabulary is new-to-me Spanish words for things that I already knew other Spanish words for, a constant feature of language learning.

      1. In the first one, I didn’t even notice that “chisme” wasn’t English; I’ve known since elementary school that it was “gossip.” This time there were words I didn’t know, and words I figured out that I couldn’t trace the origin of.
        (Since I learned to read I’ve been constructing meaning from context; reading Dumas and the Brontes and Victor Hugo and Marx and Freud at age 10 meant I didn’t have time to keep getting up and going to a dictionary.)

        1. I found that it helped that I could figure out how to put infinitive endings on some of the Spanish borrowings like “to frunce,” which made them easier to look up.

        2. In general, figuring out words from context so that you don’t have to keep looking so many up is an essential skill in reading foreign languages. I think I’ve seen it asserted that you’re probably okay of you already know nine words out of ten in a text. As I said, Older is careful to provide general context. I just kept looking things up out of curiosity. And either I never learned _chisme_ or I had forgotten it. (Last Spanish course was junior year of HS, although I’ve done some reading over the years, and on rare occasions have spoken it with native speakers.)

      2. Love the mix of languages in a story. More and more people are growing up bi-lingual or more. I especially love that many Spanish words are “snooty” English words e.g. masticate vs masticar in Spanish.
        My college roommate spoke 5 languages she’s from Aruba; Dutch, Papiamento, English, Spanish and French.
        I spoke only 2 at that time English and Spanish and felt jealous. Now I only speak three (Portuguese) but can manage to understand 5 (French and Italian).

  20. I’ve been reading snippets and pieces of non-fiction on Hedge Witchery, Quantum Physics, and in The Contrarian posts. The Contrarian is a group of mostly offshoots from the Washington Post, who resigned over the Post’s editorial positions. My brother, the lurker, recommended it. They are unpacking the idiocy going on in Congress and the White House, right now. Surprisingly, Hedge Witchery and Quantum Physics have many overlapping areas of thought/practice.

    I’m drawn back to the Lavender’s Blue trilogy, and may start a reread, soon. The chaos and viciousness are a perfect match for what’s going on in the US right now.

  21. I didn’t get much reading done this week because I was doing last minute promo for Lady Rosamund Confesses, which came out yesterday. (Which reminds me of another thing on my list – email the info to Jenny.)

    But I did finish After the Armistice Ball by Catriona McPherson. It’s a very complex mystery, and I enjoy her voice, but I got quite riled when she didn’t spell one important thing out at the end. But she’s a well-known author, so I googled and of course found where some savvy readers spelled it out. (Which was good, because I was tempted to go through the book and try to figure it out, which I don’t have time for. The only book I ever did this for–and willingly–was Margery Allingham’s The Beckoning Lady, which I have read three times. Looking back, I don’t know what I didn’t understand the first time, but it doesn’t matter. All her books are great reads.)

    But it made me feel even more guilty about finishing my Lady Rosamund book three with an emotional cliffhanger and then not writing another one for 2.5 years, which is the reason for the novella I just published — to resolve that issue. I even put an apology at the beginning.

    This is going to be a complain-y sort of post, it seems. I’m not going to name names, but I’ve read Regencies by a few authors lately who tell a good story but use some archaic expressions or stilted-sounding language that to me make their stories difficult reads. I find myself rephrasing the awkward bits in my mind, which really gets in the way of just reading the story. I do understand the problem — I sometimes reread something I’ve written and wonder if it sounds too old lady-ish. OTOH I notice modern words and phrases in Regencies, too — but if the writing is engaging, I don’t mind. Ah, well. Does any of this really matter?

    Now I’m reading one of the Miss Fotheringays mysteries by Florrie Boleyn — Victorian-era stories about two aging spinsters living in a country village on a barely-adequate fixed income. Very sweet and entertaining and fun. I had forgotten about these stories, and then got an email from the author saying #11 was out now and was free! So I went and got it and also bought #3, which shows how far behind I was.

  22. ā€¢Natsu Hyuuga, The Apothecary Diaries No. 1, translated by Julie Goniwich. 2017, translation 2020.Ā  The manga version of a fantasy series, adapted from the original “light novel” (a specific Japanese genre).Ā  A series of mysteries with so-far minor fantasy elements, set in an invented world based loosely on ancient China, and more specifically, set in the Imperial harem.Ā  The closest things that I had previously read, and not very close, were The Tale of Genji and The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon .Ā  I found it enjoyable,Ā  but I’m currently in the queue for the translation of the light novel version, and I think I’ll wait to try that format before deciding which way to continue.Ā  I do on occasion read manga and Western comics, but I’m really more oriented toward the written word.

    (And that seems to be everything reportable that I’ve finished.Ā  I bailed out of some other items, either decisively or just for now, and am in progress on others, although in some cases getting close to the end.)

  23. I posted this in the wrong spot, but I’ve decided to work my way through Rivers of London since it looks like my library system has finally gotten most of the books instead of only having book 1 for years. I’m listening to book 1 again in audiobook.

    I’m reading How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying, but it’s very video-game-y and I am not a gamer, so I dunno right now. I’m only at the start, though.

  24. Iā€™ve had a mixed week. Tried several samples and bought two: Gary of a Hundred Days by Isabel Murray: OK but extremely silly. I like her contemporary stories better. And I ended up skimming KD Caseyā€™s Unwritten Rules. Turns out baseball (a fancy version of rounders played in Edwardian costume) is even more tedious than I thought. The storyā€™s extremely slow and downbeat, and I found the characters not wholly convincing.

    So Iā€™ve just started an Elizabeth Peters/Amelia Peabody reread, with The Last Camel Dies at Noon. I think the series really gets good with the next one, The Hippopotamus Pool, but this Rider Haggard tribute is fun. (If you donā€™t know them, do begin with The Crocodile on the Sandbank, which is a wonderful romcom; but the stories immediately after that are too farcical to be keepers, I think.)

    1. Love those books generally do a reread once a year. Like Jennyā€™s Faking it, I have given crocodile on the sandbank away so many times I finally got it on my Kindle.

  25. Still not reading anything new, but since I subscribed to Apple tv for Murderbot, I’ve been checking out other shows there, including Slow Horses. I almost didn’t keep going after the first season, but eventually succumbed, because the characters are just so compelling and the performances amazing. The thing I didn’t like about it though was that it felt like the mirror image of competence porn (which I love — Leverage, Person of Interest, Burn Notice). This was instead INcompetence porn, where all the lead characters are, by definition, washed-out rejects. They eventually save the day, but it’s by dogged persistence rather than any competence, and despite making all sorts of stupid mistakes along the way (rather than being thwarted by a particularly genius antagonist). Really mixed feelings about whether it’s a storytelling trope that’s satisfying or not. I think it’s probably one of those things that would fail badly if attempted by less brilliant cast/writers.

    1. Maybe that’s what put me off the books. I tried the first two and quit on both after a few chapters, not able to define why I wasn’t enjoying them.

      1. I didn’t realize they were based on books! Without the quality of actors, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have made it far. I mean, the guy in charge of the Slow Horses is a compelling character (and also the only competent one in the group), but I don’t think that would have been enough to keep me reading.

        1. Gin, that’s so interesting to me because I didn’t see it that way, at least regarding the main younger character, whose demotion kicks off the story. At some point, not sure which season, we learn (SPOILER) he was set up for the demotion because he was too close to a truth about powerful people in the agency. He’s insubordinate as hell and no longer has the support or protection of the agency; nevertheless, he persisted :-). I viewed it more as an underdog story.

          It’s also possible I was just enthralled by Gary Oldham and Kristin Scott Thomas’s performances, which are SO fun to watch!

  26. VARIATION ON A THEME is up to chapter 71. They are actually on the Winter Break proposal trip. Finally.

    ā€œIn roughly the worst-kept secret ever in our house, Steve and Angie will be proposing to their girlfriends over winter break,ā€ Cammie said, giggling.

    I’m taking a break from HOUSE. That gave me time to enjoy HOT TOY, which I thoroughly did. There’s something about reading it in June when it’s eighty-odd FahrvergnĆ¼gen (high twenties Canadian) outside.

    I listened again to Michael Daltonā€™s GOBLIN APOCALYPSE OMNIBUS books 1 through 3. Great series. Of course, it’s Dalton, so there was a harem. He likes to say “polyamory” but there’s only ever one guy with lots of females.

    My other repeat listen was to Scalzi’s REDSHIRTS I get teary-eyed at the end.

  27. Iā€™ve been reading my way through the In death series. Because I needed something totally predictable with the good guys winning.

    My hold on Iā€™m Afraid Youā€™ve Got Dragons by Peter Beagle came in so thatā€™s next if I can make myself focus.

    And Iā€™m considering buying the Seventh Bride by T Kingfisher since my library doesnā€™t carry it. I love her writing but not her true horror books. Has anyone read it ? Thoughts ?

    Also I may have fixed the icon change ā€¦

    2. Debbie, I read the Seventh Bride and was not enamored of it. Maybe it was just too strange, or too gruesome? It will not be a reread for me.

    3. I read Seventh Bride, and while it was a few years ago, so I don’t remember much about the plot, I don’t recall it as being particularly horror-heavy. More in keeping with Nine Goblins if I remember correctly.

  28. I read a lot this week, most of it unremarkable but ok. I read Yoon Ha Lee’s The Fox’s Tower and other stories, which given my usual meh reaction to shorts was very good.
    I read three more of the twenty-two A.Y. Caluens I bought at last year’s Smashwords sale, and enjoyed them very much. (I am not about to describe in detail my reactions to all twenty-two.) I intend to finish them all in time to buy more at next year’s sale. Behold, a reading goal, which is not something I usually do. I think I enjoy these especially not only because of their diversity but because so many romances are set in backgrounds that are strange to me. People who Do the Arts are where I belong, even if it is not my career. (Um. Space opera appears not to be a background that is strange to me.)

    1. Plus the racial and cultural diversity of the MC’s. Although I hear diversity has been outlawed in America so enjoy while we can I guess.

      1. <3 fyi I've put a couple of titles on 3-month sale. INTO YOU, full-length M/M age gap Hollywood novel starring Mexican American aspiring actor and 10-yrs-older multi-ethnic porn director – 99c everywhere; and related novelette STAR OF WONDER, trans F / bi M holiday romance, which is 99c at Amazon and free everywhere else. Both titles feature my Puerto Rican trans character Patrice Diaz; she is one of MC1's best friends in "Into You" and stars in the novelette. šŸ™‚

    2. “(Um. Space opera appears not to be a background that is strange to me.) ” Love that!

    3. Mary Anne, I appreciate you! And I *am* planning to do the Smashwords sale again in July (once we are home and I have full access to my brains, 70% of which live on my home computer).

  29. I mentioned the holiday yesterday,Ā  but to make it official, Happy Juneteenth!Ā  Heaven forfend that I say anything ethnic about a US Federal holiday during the orangutan’s administration, but surely we can all commemorate the final military assertion of authority over a bunch of traitors who forswore their oaths to defend the Constitution and did their best to send the country (or part of it) back to the Bad Old Days.

  30. I read Mimi Matthews’s latest, The Muse of Maiden Lane. It was a decent Victorian romance, although my pleasure in reading it was tepid. The lead characters are both vulnerable, both must find courage deep inside themselves to get to their HEA. I liked them both and sympathized with them, but one thing bothered me.
    The heroine, Stella, is a horsewoman. She loves riding her mare, Locket, and she rides twice a day. Stella has a small inheritance and spends almost all her income on maintaining Locket and paying wages to her groom. For the day-to-day necessities – food, housing, etc. – Stella relies on her brother, a vicar. When they have a fallout, and the brother kicks her out of the vicarage, she is facing a dilemma.
    Her limited funds can allow her either to keep Locket, or to sell Locket and keep herself fed and housed. Not both. She refuses to sell her horse and comes up with the crazy notion of becoming a paid companion (with room and board, of course). I wonder: does she imagine that as a paid companion, she would be allowed to ride her horse twice a day, as before? It is such an inane idea, it is almost not worthy of this author.
    Then I re-read This Heart of Mine by Susan Elizabeth Phillips. A great story.

    1. Got confused for a second there as Maiden Lane is also Elizabeth Hoyt and I was trying to place this character in her world šŸ™‚

  31. It’s funny — Gin’s comment about competence vs. incompetence Porn kind of parallels my experience reading “The Goblin Emperor” by Katherine Addison for the second time.

    Years ago, when I first tried reading it, I ended up getting frustrated by the many long unpronounceable names and the lack of female characters, so I sent it back to the library unfinished. Lots about the book was very good, but I just couldn’t get past those qualities that were obstacles for me.

    Last week I took it out from the library again, forgetting exactly what my problem with it had been, and this time it just resonated deeply with me.

    The central character is a young man, part goblin (less privileged than fully elfin), who wakes up one morning in exile, as he’s been most of his life. His mother was with him for his first 5 or 6 years, but since she died he has been living with, and at the mercy of, an angry, impatient, selfish man, likewise living in exile. Waking up he learns that the emperor of his world has died, and he is the only living son and heir of that emperor, which begins a journey back to the empire and the absolute necessity to learn very quickly what is expected of him, what life is like in the empire, and how to stay alive in a confusing, formal, largely hostile environment while finding out how things work there, in bits and pieces.

    I don’t quite know why the book felt so different than it did when I first tried to read it, but this time I felt I was reading a masterpiece, and I’ve read it a second time and begun it a third time, because I found it so gripping. A wonderful book in spite of the obstacles!!

    1. Jinx, I’m glad you gave The Goblin Emperor a second try. I read it at least once a year, since I first found it. The MC is such an empathetic, earnest, mature being. So much the opposite of what we see now in political circles.

      1. Yes, absolutely, Jan! You just can’t help but feel for and with him, and admire his ability to think and make mature judgments about things, even though he has been all alone for most of his life. Wonderful book! So glad you feel similarly!!

        1. Jinx, I especially appreciated his principles and not being willing to inflict suffering, even though he endured a great deal of it, himself.

  32. Finished Sophie Laporte’s Lady Emilie’s Matchmaking Mishap. It is as promoted a sweet romance. There are a couple interesting premises around the MCs relationship. It’s what I could handle now. Began second in the Kelsie Hoss’ series Hello but dfnd, turned out I had already read it.
    Restarted the Mrs.Jeffries series by Emily Brightwell ( almost done with the series , sadly)

  33. I read Say Youā€™ll Remember Me by Abby Jimenez – I enjoyed it and especially liked that the romantic obstacles werenā€™t anything to do with the MCs or their relationship but were external and they worked together to overcome them.

    Also, We Came to Welcome You – suburban horror by Vincent Tirado. I appreciated the ending, but I felt like there were some holes in both the premise and execution. Ultimately kind of unsatisfying.

  34. We’re having a new roof with solar panels, so our house has been in even greater disarray than normal as we prepare for this. The upside is that I found a stack of books I had totally forgotten about, including several Sword and Sorceress anthologies edited by Marion Zimmer Bradley. So I am happily diving into those.

    This is especially important as one of the first activities of our builders was to unwittingly stomp all over the internet cable, leaving the house with no internet, and me relying on the O2 network on my phone which is, quite frankly, pants.

    1. I was just looking for Sword and Sorceress V yesterday!

      I think it must have gone west a few moves ago. I’m pretty sure those anthologies introduced me to Mercedes Lackey, Charles de Lint, Rosemary Edghill etc.

  35. I’m rereading The Farseer-trilogy by Robin Hobb, starting with “Assassin’s Apprentice”, for the first time in English. I first read them as a teenager, think I was 14 or 15 when I read the first book for the first time. Anyway, the extensive knitting has allowed me to read both book 1 and 2 since last Friday, and I’m now about 1/3 into book 3, which is 37.5 h long, so… still plenty to read. I actually picked it up because of a mention in one of the books of the Tawnyman-trilogy (same world, later in time) that Sven and I keep coming back to, of a kitten walking on a table stating something like: “That’s mine, and that’s mine, and that’s also mine” – That is so very much how Triple behaves. But, I wanted to start at the beginning, so here we are. It’s actually quite a lot darker than I think I should read right now, but since I can’t figure out what I need instead, I guess I’ll stick with this assassin for a while longer. At least a lot of bad guys get what they deserve! AND I know how it ends, which definitely counts for a lot.
    I also hopped onto Bookshare earlier tonight and got myself 2 books on gaslighting (how to spot and counter it, and how to heal from it), and a few books on burnout, since I’m starting to worry that’s what my body is trying to tell me is happening. When or if I will be able to read them… is another question entirely.

    1. The Farseer trilogy was such a tremendous read, but I remember being so mad at the end of it! Iā€™m not sure if it was something particular about the ending or just general emotional exhaustionā€”probably both, actually.

  36. My favourite read this week, in amongst a whole bunch of DNFs, was Annabel Monaghan’s Summer Romance. I really loved Nora Goes Off script, and this one was another big tick. Quite a gentle story in many ways, without much major drama but with a slowly evolving love story.

    1. I really liked Summer Romance but unlike many people here, I didnā€™t like Nora goes off script. I just canā€™t take a bigHollywood star as a hero.

    2. I loved Summer Romance and liked Nora Goes Off Script. I thought Same Time Next Summer was okay and am now reading It’s A Love Story and struggling to finish and not sure why.

      1. Me, too, Carrie. Summer Romance was very satisfying, but I had to push to get through Same Time Next Summer. I also liked Nora Goes Off Script. I decided to wait on her newest until I’d read a few reviews here.

  37. I read the sequel to the house on the cerulean Sea, somewhere beyond the sea, and I loved it. Then I reread a Jayne and krentz book and then I needed to go back The Very secret Society of Irregular Witches. By Sangu Mandanna.
    Iā€™m halfway through it and have no idea what to read next. Now that I know thereā€™s something called cottage core Iā€™d like to read more of it. I suppose I could go back and read Rex Stout. I think I have all of them in my library. But Iā€™m kind of in a cottage core magic mood if I could find some more of it.
    I loved the spell shop by Sarah, Beth Durst.
    I havenā€™t watched murderbot. Iā€™m waiting so I can binge. I woke up with some ideas about my book so maybe thatā€™s where Iā€™ll go next.

  38. I started a reread of Amanda Quick stand alones. So far I’ve read Reckless Rendezvous and Mischief which is one of my favorites. I really love that heroine, Imogen.

    Currently reading Wait Until Midnight which I don’t remember although I know I’ve read it before.

  39. I am re-reading things I’ve already read many times before because my brain wants to unplug. Trying hard to read the news sparingly and not doomscroll.

    1. For a more positive counter-balance to the news I recommend “https://fixthenews.com/301-the-fifth-monotreme/?ref=fix-the-news-newsletter” – really helps with perspective šŸ™‚

      1. Thanks, Yuri! I signed up for the newsletter. I really like Heather Cox Richardson but lately I haven’t been able to read her as it’s too much of what’s going on.

        1. Hope you enjoy it. It’s really nice getting the counter-balance, sometimes its even just re-framing the same story to look at the positives, sometimes its something I never would have seen otherwise such as the archeology in Upper Michigan.

          Plus the echidnas are really cute!

  40. I read and enjoyed the latest Mary Russell & Sherlock Holmes by Laurie King: The Knave of Diamonds. It features a third narrator in Mary’s disreputable uncle.

    I also very much enjoyed Slow Burn Summer about the publishing industry. In this case a well-known author writes a book completely out of character and refuses to attach their name to it. So the agent and publisher hire an unknown actor to be the ‘face’ of the book since it’s destined to be a best seller. The actor soon realizes she’s in for a bumpy ride in this social media obsessed world. It was very timely and illuminating for me as an author and a reader.

  41. The only book(s) I started and finished this past week is Emma Jameson’s Deadly Trio series with Lord and Lady Hetheridge. The series contains three stories of supposedly cozy mysteries if you can get past entering a Halloween party with an axe imbedded in the head of one of the victims. Just saying. Anyway, Lord Hetheridge is a Chief Superintendent of Scotland Yard 60-year-old confirmed bachelor who takes on DS Kate Wakefield as one of two detectives that work directly under him. The other is DS Paul Bhar. Both of these detectives put up with bias from colleagues, one because she is a woman and Paul because of his heritage. I also like the other characters that take up the page. Lady Margeret, a friend of Tony the CS, who places Kate under her wing, Kate’s brother and sister and Paul’s mother who becomes a romance novelist after her divorce. Now I just have books 4-8 to look forward to.

  42. A pre-purchase dropped into my Library and I started it. I’m not at all sure I’ll finish. Michael Dalton’s TRAILER PARK ELVES 5 (of 6). The first issue was that I couldn’t open it in my Kindle PC ap. It says I need an update. This is just Amazon BS to tie readers tighter into their DRM schemes. Part and parcel of their demanding paperback prices for a “license to read the book” rather than selling one a copy of the book.

    I was able to open it in Amazon and read way-too-much front matter before finding the actual story, and by that point I just set it aside. Maybe I’ll try again.

    Anyway, I won’t mention that book next GBT unless I pick it back up. Harrumph.

About the Author

Jennifer Crusie is theĀ New York Times,Ā USA Today, and Publisherā€™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 visitingĀ JennyCrusie.com

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