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This is a Good Book Friday: The ARRRRRGH Edition

I’m very, very, very sorry.

What did you read this weekend?

105 Responses

  1. As long as you’re OK Jenny! Wednesday just lasted a little longer than usual 😉

    Best thing I read this week was “How the Marquess was Won” by Julie Anne Long (2012) – m/f historical romance between a Marquess and a foundling turned schoolteacher. LOL funny banter plus an excellent, if violent, cat.

    I continued my re-read of Seanan McGuire’s Incryptid series with #8 “That Ain’t Witchcraft” (2018) and enjoyed it a lot, even though I haven’t read its predecessors in years. Strong FMC even when she’s scared and good found family. Plus I like animus mundi, and when Antimony starts quoting the mice I almost cried. Lots of fun. Started re-reading the prequel shorts as well, of which I think the best so far is the 1930s Chicago set “Sweet Poison Wine” available free at https://seananmcguire.com/icshorts.php

    Another good short was KJ Charles’s “The Rat-catcher’s Daughter” (2019), a sweet ace romance between a female impersonator (who is actually trans) and a gentle Polish-born fence. Precursor to the Lilywhite Boys series, which moves up my tbr.

    Currently also reading “Carbon: The Book of Life” by Paul Hawken (2025) and bouncing off it a bit, largely I think due to its lyrical prose, as I don’t have to agree 100% with a book to appreciate it. Still finding it interesting and I want to go read some of the references for more detail. I wonder if the style might be more to, for example, lit-fic readers than it is for me?

  2. That’s fine, Jenny. I agree with Yuri that it was just an extended Wednesday. (Actually an extended Thursday here, because Good Book Thursday crops up on Friday mornings for me.

    I read T Kingfisher’s A Sorceress Comes to Call. So good! She is high on my list of favourite authors, and does fantasy so brilliantly. The villain in this is chilling, and Kingfisher skirts close to horror, but not so close that I can’t read it.

    My other favourite this week was I Died at Fallow Hall by Bonnie Burke-Patel. On the surface of it, it’s a murder mystery, but it’s so much more. Anna, who has left her life as a ballet dancer to become a gardener in a small cottage on the estate of an historic home, digs up the bones of a woman who has been shot in the back of the head. It’s an unexpectedly delicate story about love and deception, and trying to find the sort of life that you want, all interspersed with parent-child relationships, and a subtle love story.

  3. I reread Salt Magic, Skin Magic by Lee Welch. I read it a long time ago and remembered the secret, but not 99% of the rest of the book. It’s really good!

  4. Good morning 🙂
    I’ve continued with my EJ Russel audiobook binging: finished the Quest Investigation 4-book-series, only the novella is missing now. After The Lady under the Lake and Death on Denial I continued with The Skinny on Djinni and Witch under Wraps. Yes, after that many books by now (a dozen?) I notice Russell’s formula, but her MCs are just nice and the world feels cozy. There’s clearly a red thread from book one (Cutie and the Beast, which I’m now listening to although it almost feels a bit weird with Joel Leslie as narrator instead of Greg Bourdreaux who continued for most of the series) – sinister forces at work that pop up and become more prominent in the later books. Which makes me long for the newer installments! Definitely some Harry Dresden vibes but much less gruesome in spite of some nasty stuff like a bird flu epidemic and a curse that reads a lot like Covid (still less awful than Covid though).

    And after Tammy’s heads up I dove into Drawn to You. Somehow the first chapter with the artsy MC searching for a Sugar Daddy made it more difficult for me to start the book but that nudge was all I needed. Love those two idiots and I’m glad the second book in the series is already scheduled and will feature the friends group I just got to know a bit. I love the descriptions of Gabe making art – and noticed that my kiddo uses the very same sketching program on her iPad as Gabe LOL.
    And since the MCs of Henry’s first book (Drive the Net) are strong side characters, I’ve finally started that book as well – on audio yesterday and I’m already 44% along.
    I LOVE the domesticity in Henry’s books. I can do without high heat easily in my romances but the everyday smallish details, the tenderness, the cuddling is my cat nip/hook/kryptonite.
    And I’m pleasantly surprised that the calm vibe of Drive the Net had a calming effect on one of the narrators who I usually avoid as I don’t like his usually very excited way of narrating (his voice somehow feels “pressed” to my ears, e.g. in Egotistical Puckboy where he narrated Ezra, the vulcano of a character), but here he’s rather good – less pressure, more focus.

    1. Addendum: It helps that I really, really like the team the Minnesota Northern Lights is clearly inspired by (don’t know about their real-life-acceptance but the team and coach seem chill enough). No cameo of someone like Flower, sigh, but that would be too close to real life anyway.

    2. Hannah Henry used to exist for me as a guilty pleasure, because her writing is so simple and sometimes fluffy. Then I realised her writing was actually economical – she says a lot with a little. She’s been in my tier two of MM hockey writers for a while now.

      1. Same here.
        I got hooked on her hockey books with Draft Bust – it’s rare to read a successful romance about a first pick with unfulfilled potential and a laid-off journalist. A very rewarding read.
        I was totally charmed by In Every Universe. It just worked for me – even with so very little hockey yet the concussion bit was well drawn. As was the evolving relationship.
        I’m slowly discovering the rest of her hockey series.
        It helps that the audiobooks will be released over the next couple of months – if I don’t come around to reading, I’m tempted to purchase the audios.
        I do have some more authors to catch up to and some more on AO3. Not enough time…

  5. I finished From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout last night. A lively romantic fantasy that was a free ebook (Kobo).
    The banter was fantastic and the writing was devoid of long explanatory paragraphs and full of figuring out how her world worked by the actions and events throughout the book, so I was a little confused in the beginning but you know what’s going on by the end.

    It is of course a trilogy, and the next ebook is $10 which is worth it, but I checked and my local library has the series!
    So now I have to first finish The Song of the Jade Lily by Kirsty Manning because I’ve already renewed it once. Ahem.

    1. I heard once there was a big controversy with one of Armentrout’s books having a triad as HEA and always meant to read something of hers. Glad to have a recommendation.

      1. The allusion to that is at the end of book one, so I’m looking forward to seeing how she brings it in.

  6. Short from me this week as I am in the middle of two books for my book club which I will comment on next week.

    This week I read the last Cecilia Grant — the novella ‘A Christmas Gone Perfectly Wrong’ which is a prequel about Andrew, the eldest Blackshear who is focused on duty and propriety and the LI he meets when going to buy a falcon. I enjoyed this, the FMC is a strong, lively character who wants to see more of the world and sees duty and propriety in a different way to Andrew. There are some nice philosophical discussions but overall it is a sweet seasonal book (free for kindle on amazon.co.uk and probably elsewhere).

    I’ll miss the Blackshears now, which is unusual for me, often by the last member in a family series I have had enough of them all.

    Also read most of a Drarry (Draco Harry) fan fic on AO3 which is fun, but as often happens, it loses its way a bit when the MCs get together. I guess that is why I like slow burn.

  7. I read Kelly Hunter’s The Outback Cowboy’s Christmas Baby this week. I loved everything about it except the title. It felt like a throwback to romance at its finest, with a hero and heroine with flaws and deep-seated pain. They were both smart, hard-working, and mature. Jess was only 24, but I never once rolled my eyes or wanted to smack her. Mac was just something special. I am anxious to read more by Ms. Hunter.

  8. No sorrys, Jenny. We are happy to talk about books any time.

    I listened to Camera Shy by E.J. Russell this weekend. Sweet and simple but I didn’t have the bandwidth for more than that.

    And I listened to Florence and the Machine’s new album, Everybody Scream. Very Florence, witchy and weird. I was feeling the anger and pain in the lyrics. I think this is one of her stronger works.

    And I listened to Legacy and Passage by Bujold in the Sharing Knife series. I really enjoyed Legacy. Passage a little less so, but still good. I need a break from her though before I continue.

    Reading, I started R. Cooper’s A Suitable Captive, but there is still so much to do and I am already going to bed late that I haven’t progressed past the first chapter or so all week. Still, the sweetness is there. Clueless mmc, protective love interest. Cozy and comforting.

    3. Lupe, Passage is my least favourite in the series. The last one is excellent with the introduction of an excellent new character 🙂 A treat in store for you!

  9. Rereading Charles Todd’s Bess Crawford mysteries. Comfort reads, rich in detail and atmosphere from viewpoint of WWI English nursing sister. Intriguing mysteries with a hint of romance. Just as good this time.

  10. I’m reading Ghost Business by Jen DeLuca, a contemporary romance set in a small town that has some paranormal aspects. Second in the series. I’m enjoying it, but I enjoyed her previous series, set at a Ren Faire, better.

  11. I pushed through Loretta Chase’s Lion’s Daughter. It picked up speed (for me) after they left Albania. I think this was a passion project for LC, exploring her heritage. Once the two MCs get together, there are the “usual” misunderstandings which do get resolved when they talk to each other. I agree that it may not be the best Chase, and I probably don’t need to reread it, but I’m glad I did the first time.

    I’ve moved on to “When the Moon hits your Eye” by John Scalzi. The moon gets changed to cheese. And there are complications. I’m intrigued.

  12. Actually, Friday works better for me, as I was both sick (a !@#$% cold) and too busy yesterday.

    Anyway, I was surfing my Kindle looking for something that was Not A Regency, and came upon Lavender’s Blue, and thought, OK, a good reread is perfect.

    Which reminded me that I’m going on a business trip to Ohio next week, and since reading so many of Jenny’s books, I have weird feelings about Ohio, as if there’s a Crusie universe existing at the same time as the usual one, and wondering which one I’ll find myself in. Sort of like visiting Ireland and not seeing any leprechauns, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there.

  14. •Garrett G. Fagan, The History of Ancient Rome, Great Courses, 1999.  I started in video, but switched to audio format when the library turned out to lack Part II in video. The course seemed to work just as well in audio.  Fagan covers the period from the beginnings of the Republic to the fall of the Western half of the Empire. He leaves the entirely of the subsequent Byzantine Empire to other courses, and also skips rather rapidly over the last couple of centuries from the conversion of Constantine to the Western fall. This last was arguably a mistake, since the Christianization of the West was probably Rome’s single most important effect, for good and ill, on the region’s subsequent history.  On the other hand, Fagan had taken 48 lectures to cover what he did cover and was probably at a practical length limit.  About the newest thing to me in his presentation was his contention that the governmental structure of the Republic was an awkward historical accident that somehow kept working via everyone’s observance of precedent. Then, for what seemed like strong reasons, certain players started making moves that had been legal all along, but seldom or never acted upon, thus starting a chain reaction ultimately resulting in one-man rule with succession often determined by civil war.  One wonders if we in the US stand at an early stage of something similar (although to be sure our constitution was more deliberately designed). I found Fagan a good lecturer, with a strong Irish accent not frequently encountered in the Great Courses. (He was educated in Ireland through his master’s,  earned a doctorate in Canada, and was tenured at Penn State, where he died untimely young.) Recommended.

    1. ▪︎No listed editor, Great Classic Science Fiction, audiobook on CD, 2010 (reportedly also available on Audible).  I happened upon this at the library. Contrary to the title, only 1 of the 8 included stories is a classic, only that same story is arguably great, and only 7 of the 8 are science fiction.  All, however, are by notable authors, so I conjecture that the compilers looked for whatever oldish short works by major sf writers that they could pick up the reprint rights for. The only classic is “A Martian Odyssey” (1934) by the tragically short-lived Stanley Weinbaum, pretty much the first attempt in sf to portray non-hostile aliens who thought markedly differently from humans. The non-sf story is H.G. Wells’s “The Door in the Wall,” either a straight fantasy or a story of a psychological delusion, depending on how the reader interprets it (and pretty good for what it is). The others are legitimate sf stories of varying quality. I DNFed three that had antiwar themes, not being in the mood for such misery. If you run across the collection, it does have a good audio rendition by Nick Sullivan of the Weinbaum.

  15. I read only new to me books, no rereading this week, very unusual for me.

    I read the new Penric, Testimony of Mute Things. I assume she wanted to explore another of Desdemona’s prior riders and had to write about when he was younger to do that with someone that was still alive. I will read anything she writes but it wasn’t the strongest one.

    I finished the Jane Austen essays by Tony Tanner but kind of wish I had DNFed them. They added nothing to my knowledge of her books, and I find it not helpful to quote extensively from things written later that could not have influenced her. I bought it second hand because I had seen it referenced to as discussing Mansfield Park and slavery and I thought it was not good on that. I have always felt that the book has a subtext about religion and slavery that was clear to Austen’s contemporaries and less to us. I want to understand it better. Then I went to Wikipedia to see if the references there might be helpful in finding a better book and was pleasantly surprised at how good the actual article on Mansfield Park was. But I am going to see if I can find a really good annotated version. Now I’m reading the book on her gardens which so far means the gardens in her book not her gardening. Too early to tell but it feels fluffy.

    I read Donna Andrew’s For Ducks Sake which really was about dogs and which left me tired because Meg kept walking back and forth between houses and never sleeping. Maybe it left her feeling tired too because for once Meg isn’t saddled with running everything. I have a hold on the newest one.

    I read several new to me Hercule Poirots.

    I’m working my way through A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages but I’m frustrated because I still don’t know how people planned trips. There were travel guides but since this was before printing most people didn’t have them and also couldn’t read. There presumably were no maps. I can see how people got to the next town by asking but I can’t imagine you could be in a small English town and ask which road to Jerusalem. And yet people went on pilgrimage. Millions each year apparently! I am sure many of those were relatively short trips but still.

    Also many New Yorkers.

    On Wednesday’s theme of selling books, my daughter just posted a video saying “give my book to someone you hate—you can say to someone who talks hateful politics at the dinner table I know you are interested in politics so I got you this book ‘Don’t talk about politics’”. I cannot imagine anyone will do this (her book is far left and about why debate doesn’t change minds) but I’m giggling at the idea.

    1. There’s a saying in Russian, “Your tongue will go even to Kiev.” The original context was that if you live in Central Russia and want to make a pilgrimage to the holy places in distant Kiev, you set off and just keep asking the way.

      From Canterbury Tales, it’s clear that inns were gathering places for making pilgrimages within England. Note, however, that there are no peasants among the depicted pilgrims. I think the lowest orders generally stayed closer to home, restricted to local pilgrimages. It doesn’t seem to have ended well for them when they set off without noble sponsorship to join the Crusades. The higher ranks had literates among them, or could hire such, and more importantly had networks of acquaintance. And I suppose chains of monasteries helped, not only providing shelter but directions to the next stop.

      But on this site probably we have people more qualified than I to give a definitive answer.

      1. Wait — exactly WHAT holy places are in Kiev? Did that make Ukrainian independence even more galling to the Russians?

        1. Back before Russians had become differentiated from Ukrainians, Kiev was the first center of Christianity. There is at least a cathedral and a monastery of great antiquity, probably other stuff. You may recall that fairly recently the Ecumenical Patriarch (Istambul) declared that the Ukrainian Orthodox Patriarchate had been illegally extinguished and absorbed by Moscow and declared that null, which obviously Putin’s altar boy (as Pope Francis called him) refused to acknowledge, and now things are a huge tangle.

          1. Didn’t the Rus (Vikings based in Kyiv) visit 10th century Byzantium and convert to Christianity thereafter because they were so impressed? Plus it was politically advantageous.

    2. Debbie, maps existed since at least the Roman times. The maps in my books are big elaborate luxury items, though. The Roman map I remember from my carthography studies at uni wasn’t like we’d imagine maps: it was one long strip of iirc parchment which more or less listed one postal station i.e. accomodation and stop to change horses after the other.
      Hypothesising here:
      Much might have been an oral tradition similar to that – being advised to go to the next station: in the Middle Ages, bigger monasteries had “hospitals” which were first guest houses (lat. hospes – guest) and then developed into hospitals (some guests would have needed treatment).
      Craftsmen were also very mobile (for a lack of a better word): still to this day some young craftsmen “go walking” (auf die Walz gehen) as part of their professional training. fascinating tid bit: they were not allowed to come near their home for a set period of time so they could aquire new skills from elsewhere. There’re still some (mainly carpenters) who follow this old tradition, easily recognizable by their distinct clothing. I’d guess that they would have followed recommendations by their current master craftsman pointing out where to go next.
      However, these are just my ramblings – I can’t yet point you to any more resources.

      1. As I understand it, in the Classical world and into the Middle Ages, maps were at best for conceptual purposes and at worst simple decorations, and one rather relied on itineraries for practical purposes. Similarly, the nautical equivalent was the rota rather than a chart, notations on wind and current and landmarks to take you from one port to the next. I don’t think maps got hugely useful until the 18th century or so.

        1. It struck me that a contemporary analogy might be just following the Step by Step Directions in Google Maps and ignoring the maps. On the same lines, reportedly a generation is growing up who follow the oral directions from a GPS or phone and have trouble reading a road map.

          2. And some of us who grew up reading maps still have trouble reading maps. 🙂

            And have managed to get lost using GPS. {{shrug}}

            🙂

          3. luvcubs, my kiddo was exasperated that I had trouble with some maps in London (those at stations meant as help) – I’m just used to having all maps oriented to the north and those often weren’t. I’m aware that maps don’t have to use this orientation, but my brain is just wired that way.
            And yes, although I love old-fashioned maps, getting lost is still an option. Especially when the streets have no signs (Augsburg – horrible experience when I wanted to pick up my kid from a concert. I was the one who got lost in spite of having a map because there weren’t hardly any house numbers, but certainly no street signs). *She* then found *me* and together we found our way back to our hotel. Hmpf.

        2. I can see that an itinerary would be more useful. And pilgrimages often but not always had a leader. But a lot of people traveled for other reasons. I continue my research on this.

          1. I’m thinking that merchants passed through pretty frequently and had information on how to reach the Roman roads and bigger towns with inns catering to pilgrims. Perhaps you could even pay them to guide you. Following any Roman road would eventually get you somewhere significant in most cases. And after the first crusade, there would have been cross markers along the primary pilgrimage route to the Holy Land.

  16. No apologies, Jenny.

    1. [re-read] Mr. Collins in Love by Lee Welch.

    2. [re-read] All of Us Murderers by KJ Charles, plus ‘In Perfect Time,’ a sweet short story by K.L. Noone.

    3. ‘Human Body Theater’ by Maris Wicks, a great little nonfiction book in graphic novel style, funny, appropriate for readers 10 and up. At least, I would definitely have read and liked it at age 10. But it’s complete enough for adults and doesn’t talk down at all. 5 stars.

    4. ‘Oyster’ by Fearne Hill. Lambda Literary Award winner this year in the LGBTQ+ Romance & Erotica category. This is a romance, not erotica, though the sex scenes (when they begin – these MCs don’t rush into it) are quite good. MC1 is a formerly straight-identifying French oysterman who falls for a closeted trans woman who happens to be a famous soccer star. It’s a very good book, 5 stars.

    5. ‘The Meaning of You’ by Jay Hogan, and
    6. ‘The Question of Us’ by Jay Hogan. 2-book series that ends with a new personal mystery beginning. The MM love story is more or less resolved at the end of book 2, along with the 2-book central mystery. These are romantic suspense, heavy on the suspense, and featuring some fairly shocking violence. The prologue is in POV of a character whose death brings the MCs together and precipitates the rest of the plot – it’s the last, frightened, frantic hour of his life. (In effect. He suffers a catastrophic brain injury.)

    Giving you all that because it’s a challenging way to enter a book billed as “romance.” And in fact the romance was a bit flat for me here, because the two MCs are very much Jay Hogan Characters who don’t 100% stand out from previous characters and one of them frequently goes beyond prickly/grump to Utter Asshole. A thing he did work on, but mostly off page.

    The things I most liked about the MCs had to do with their professions, which we barely see them doing (for plot-coherent reasons, but still). All the other characters also seem plugged in from a box of stock JH characters. Well before the end of book 1, the dialogue style for all characters has become essentially one style. All that said, I was invested and stayed up much too late to finish book 2. Rated both books a slightly generous 4 stars and will likely read the next in series, though I might wait for a sale.

    One last note, I know Jay was writing these while being treated for breast cancer and give her grace for that.

      1. I’m not chachal, but read Mr Collind in Love. I really really liked it. It explained why Mr Collins is the way he is and created a lot of empathy for him. Jane Austen mostly made him comical and annoying. This book explains him.

      2. Hi Lian, ‘Mr Collins’ has more in common with ‘Mended With Gold’ than with the two alt-historical fantasy novels by Welch. I loved all of them. 🙂

        ‘Mr Collins’ is explicitly a Pride & Prejudice-adjacent Regency story and the historical world is accurate. Several characters are as they appear in Austen’s book. It’s been a while since I read ‘Pride & Prejudice’ but as I recall, Mr Collins didn’t play a large role, existing primarily to point up the Bennet family’s marital ambitions and conflicts.

        This book answers the question of why Mr Collins and his fiancee made the marital choice they did, in a way that totally worked for me, while turning a realistic lens on a relationship rarely seen in Regency settings and giving it a credible happy ending.

  17. •Andrew M. Greeley, The Bishop Goes to The University, 2003.  At the University of Chicago in 2003 (when Russian-American relations had only begun their downward slide), a decapitated body is found in the locked office at the Divinity School in Swift Hall assigned to a Russian monk who is a visiting scholar. Mysteriously, a full set of robes for a Catholic cardinal are found among the Orthodox monk’s effects, making the business odd enough for Chicago’s cardinal to dispatch auxiliary bishop Blackie Ryan to get to the bottom of it. The plot considerably thickens, ultimately enveloping among others the Vatican, the French police,  French schismatic Catholics, the CIA, and the “FSB.” (The last, at least in most allusions, is clearly a mistake for Russia’s rough equivalent to the CIA, the SVR.  Per the internet, although Putin re-merged most of the agencies formerly making up the KGB into the FSB, he left the SVR independent.)  The American and Russian mafias each explicitly disavow involvement, and the Russian Orthodox Church looms in the background but never directly plays a role.  Ryan, naturally, disentangles the mess, and also receives an invitation to lecture at the Divinity School and presides at a wedding in the University’s Bond Chapel.  (This last arranged with shorter advance notice than the Archdiocese of Chicago normally requires, but I suppose it helps to have a bishop on your side.)  I found the solution to the mystery more than a little contrived, but I think the author was striving for entertainment and humor more than for realism.

    Also, when explaining the monk’s scholarly specialization, the Old Believers (Starovery), to Cardinal Cronin, Blackie makes mistakes that I surmise were also Greeley’s own.  And I have met Russian Orthodox monks on only a few brief occasions, but none of them behaved like Greeley’s, whose behavior is somehow what everyone in the novel expects from Russian monks.

    Rather oddly, Greeley calls the institutional setting almost nothing but the University, often but not always with the definite article italicized, even though the University of Chicago is clearly intended.  Greeley uses the real names of streets and buildings, making the university name omission a bit of a head-scratcher.  At least in my day, in the real world, nobody ever stressed the article and we often called it “UC.”  (This being a highly ambiguous abbreviation, there is a recent official push toward the written short form “UChicago,” but I doubt that anyone uses that in speech.)  However, faculty parlance could have differed from that of undergraduates and Greeley did have a long association with UC, first as a grad student and then as a researcher. Possibly it is his way of emphasizing what he says in an author’s note at the start, that all characters and events are fictional (and hence this is not a roman ĂĄ clef). (Greeley does slip the university’s full name into the novel at least twice in fairly obscure contexts, pp. 37 and 238.  In at least some of Greeley’s other mysteries in this series, the University of Chicago appears under the pseudonym “the University of Cook County.”  )  The novel contains substantial spoilers for the earlier The Bishop and the Beggar Girl of St. Germain, evidently because Greeley wants to wrap up the earlier story more thoroughly than he did at the time. 

    I found the novel enjoyable in spite of its flaws.  Sometimes perhaps indeed because of them, since they drove me down several rabbit-holes of resarch even beyond the ones mentioned above.  Such as that (as also alluded to in the novel) there was an earlier semifamous murder in Swift Hall.

    1. I think my favorite books by him are “God Game” and “Angel Fire”. It’s been a while since I’ve read any of his books.

      1. I know I own God Game and I think I do Angel Fire, which I’ve certainly read. But I’d read nothing of his in a long time before recently embarking on a reread.

  18. I read Kaje Harper’s book Changes on Ice which is actually the third in a mini series. I read the first book a while ago and didn’t continue with the third. I sometimes find her writing a bit flat. But I was lured by the hockey players romance in the third one. And now I’m going back to the second one to read it out of order! Serves me right.

    And I also tried a hockey romance writer new to me, Ava Olsen, with Rule Breaker. I made it all the way through but I don’t think I’ll try another of hers.

    As an antidote, I re-read my favourite hockey novellas/short stories:

    Too Many Men on Ice by imperfectcircle (A03 author)
    Hearts Upon the Hill by Ari Baran
    Next Season by Avon Gale
    Depending How You Feel About Baseball by theundiagnosable (A03 author)

    Plus watched the Leafs game against the Mammoth where we put that woolly thing into the ice. A very hockey week.

  19. I just started “Thrown for a Loop” by Sarina Bowen. It’s the fourth book in a row now that alternate between scenes in the past and present. What is up with this? Are all books being written using this annoying structure now? Grrr, arghh.

    2. I’m way too linear to be comfortable with time jumps. Much as I love Martha Wells (including a lot of her fantasy books, not just Murderbot), I really struggled with Witch King because of the parallel timelines, and it’s made me reluctant to read the sequel, which apparently has the same structure. It just doesn’t work for my brain.

      1. I just read one of those myself. It wasn’t every other chapter, but close. I’m getting very tired of them.

  20. As others have observed, there is and was no need for you to apologize to us for giving us an extra day to read something.

    Alas, I didn’t take that opportunity. All I’ve read all week was the Word Opera, and even there, I haven’t read the latest three chapters. I was doing a reread and caught up to book 6. Rather than read chapters 130, 131, or 132, I’m instead back at chapter 75 “Happily Ever After.” Steve and Angie have proposed to Jasmine and Paige, respectively and affirmatively and are now checked in at Disneyland to enjoy the afterglow.

    I expect I’ll catch up by Monday, when chapter 133 comes out.

    I also fiddled with my Soshul Meteor. Posted to LiveJournal for the first time in forever.

  21. I’m rereading Daniel O’Malley’s Rook series. This week is the third book, “Blitz.” It’s very engrossing, and I keep seeing things I missed the last time through.
    My theme this fall is reading my favorite series from start to finish, as if each were one very long book.

  22. Not to worry–I suspect we’re all just glad you forgot and are not hospitalized.

    I’ve been rereading classic Cruisie and reading for the first time Agatha Christie’s Poirot series.

    Doing a lot of staring into space, too.

  23. Because of the pause, I have two books to report! Yay, Jenny.

    I reread Grace Burrowes’ The Trouble with Dukes, about an eligible young woman who is stalked by a fortune-hunting scoundrel. She can see only at a certain distance with her blue-tinted glasses, and he has some letters she wrote to him when younger, and stupidly “in love” with him, which he is using to coerce her into marrying him. A newly-minted Scottish Duke rescues her glasses from destruction when the scoundrel drops them, purposely, in a dress shop. There is great dialogue, some really funny behavior by male cousins, and a lot of military background. Also a HEA.

    My teacher-DIL sent me a book called “Always Remember” The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, the Horse and the Storm, by Charlie Mackey. It is hand-written and illustrated by the author, so the print is easy to read, and the book is charming. I marked the page that says:”Those are dark clouds” said the boy. “Yes,” said the horse, “But they’ll move on… the blue sky above never leaves.” I’ve ordered the precursor book. This quartet of friends is unusual and darling!

    1. The first book is called The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse: Inspiring Conversations on Hope, Love and Personal Growth.

      2. There is an animation of this book. Not sure how widely available it is, but it is beautifully done.

  24. I read Bill Clinton and James Patterson’s latest political/legal thriller, The First Gentleman. The narrative is compelling, switching from first person for Bea and third person for Cole and others, with short chapters. The story turns on the premise of the first woman president’s husband, a former football star, being accused of a cold case murder of his team’s cheerleader. Feels a bit like Woodword and Bernstein, but I did figure out the villain about 2/3 in. Characters aren’t particularly deep or especially likeable, but the mystery was interesting.

    I’m currently reading an older Jonathan Stroud, Buried Fire. Reminds me a bit of Greenteeth and A Sorceress Comes to Call, but with a dragon.

  25. I think I missed a few weeks here due to other life stuff (so I’m certainly not going to judge a mere day here or there!) Here’s a quick catchup of what I enjoyed:

    Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove: SF novella that felt a bit like if a sentient ship like ART from Murderbot faced off against some of the monsters from the Greta Helsing books by Vivian Shaw. I loved the relationships between non-human people and the touches of humor mixed with complex emotions.

    Cinder House by Freya Marske: Gothic fantasy retelling of Cinderella as a ghost story, but also a really interesting exploration of what it feels like when your body isn’t under your control anymore and your mobility is limited (in particular ghostly ways.) Different vibe from her other books, but I agreed that T. Kingfisher and Naomi Novik fans would like this one. (I am, and I did!)

    The Summer War by Naomi Novik: fantasy novella that fits with her fairytale retellings. I always appreciate how Novik uses/explodes tropes, and how everything is more complicated than it appears. I also enjoyed the power of stories here.

    Queen Demon by Martha Wells: Sequel to Witch King; I really love the range of her characters and her worldbuilding. I also love how this series has such a strong focus on complex adult friendships.

  26. I mentioned a few days ago that fantasy author Jilleen Dolbeare had died. Today from her mailing list I got word that a memorial scholarship has been set up for early-career fantasy authors. I’m not sure how many of the folks on this site would qualify but some might, or know those who would.

    The Jilleen Dolbeare Scholarship – for Indie Fantasy Authors

    The application form is at:

    https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScp42b60Haf7l4HuKrPzv1go0TVKtl84h3688ECx9v2o8NedQ/viewform?pli=1

    Probably there is more info on Heather Harris’s site, although I haven’t looked myself.

  27. Jill Shalvis’s The Bright Spot was an OK novel, a contemporary romance with a dash of humor, but it didn’t make me a fan of this writer. Just the opposite. I don’t think I’ll read more of her.
    The story was decent: ‘let’s save a farm and its colorful employees.’ The writing was professional, if not inspired. No, my problem with this author is her female protagonists. I tried to read Shalvis’s books before and DNFed a couple of them because I disliked their female protagonists.
    Her women are too needy and too bitchy. They get wonderful guys and put them through the wringers because of some imaginary insecurity stemming from 20 years in the past. Nothing to do with the current men. I liked the men, but I didn’t like the women. I guess, Shalvis doesn’t work for me.
    Then I read Lois McMaster Bujold’s latest Penric’s novella, Testimony of Mute Things. I swallowed it in one sitting. While this novella is #15 in the publication order, in the chronology of Penric’s life, it would be #4, right after Penric’s Fox but before Penric’s Mission.
    Penric is still single, still at Martensbride, serving Princess-Archdivine Llewen. In her train, he and his demon Desdemona arrive in the town of Occo, discover a murder, and play detective.
    The story is not as light as most Penric’s stories. There are grim undertones here. The darkness seems encroaching, while the plot explores human ruthlessness and greed.
    Overall: a solid murder mystery, with magic in the background. Penric still shines, but the story made me sad.

    1. That’s the thing about Penric, it’s a life told in bite sized moments with its ups and down. I don’t think Testimony is as sad as Knots of shadow but it is quite nostalgic and knowing how hard Penric will take Llewen’s death later on, it is quite bittersweet meeting her here properly.

  28. Due to my book group, I just finished a lovely book by Simon Van Booy, “Sipsworth.” It’s a story of an eighty-three year old woman who has returned from Australia to her native England to die. She is isolated, closed off, and expects to die shortly. She is rescued from her depression by a very small refugee from a trash heap. The effect on her life of finding a mouse is transformational. I would never have picked up this to read on my own and my life is richer because I did. I highly recommend it.

  29. Woman why are you sorry? I’m just getting to read comments & it’s Friday & I’m not sorry. Why are you so hard on yourself? I would like you to be kinder to my favorite author – Jenny Crusie!!!

    1. Also I’m sure you have noticed that we just kept conversations going in the Working Wednesday blog post.

  30. Three rereads for me: Sarina Bowen’s The Year We Fell Down–still great–then the next in the series, The Year We Hid Away. Also very good, but I couldn’t ignore a couple of minor plot holes. I haven’t read any others in the series yet.

    And I found a copy of Georgette Heyer’s Sylvester, or the Wicked Uncle at a used book sale (I know, right?!), so that was my third repeat.

    I don’t feel like reading any more college-set stories at the moment, and I’m having trouble with new reads, so I’ll probably dig out another Heyer.

  31. I reread The Full Moon Coffee Shop in preparation to reading Best Wishes from the Full Moon Coffee Shop, both by Mai Mochizuki. Not content with this, I also have started several other books, jumping back and forth between them depending on my mood. Mrs. Endicott’s Splendid Adventure by Rhys Bowen, a reread of The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong, in preparation of reading The Keeper of Magical Things, which is now sitting on the coffee table along with all the other TBRs, as well as Cat Dragon by Samantha Birch.

  32. I am almost finished with a reread of the Corina Chapman series by Kerry Greenwood. Loving it as usual. In between books I get a little sad, though, thinking we will never have another Corina Chapman or Phryne Fisher book since Kerry Greenwood died recently.
    Sad. May she RIP.

    1. Judy, the final Phryne Fisher book (Murder in The Cathedral) has just been published, at least in Australia. I haven’t gotten my hands on a copy yet, so can’t provide a review but just wanted to let you know in case you didn’t.

      1. Cathedral is not yet in eye ebook in US. There are entries for Audible and print, but I didn’t check if those are released yet.

  33. PSA, Agnes & the Hitman ebook on sale. As for recent reads, thumbs up to Witches of Dubious Origin by Jenn McKinlay. It’s a cozy urban fantasy about a modern day librarian who reluctantly joins the Books of Dubious Origins library staff in an effort to decipher her family’s grimoire and save it, and herself, from unsavory people who seek to possess its power.

  34. I’m so late to the party that I guess I could better wait with my books to next week. I mostly wanted to say: JENNY, no apologies needed! As many before me have already said, we are just happy to know you’re still around kicking butt, starting fire-alarms, baking muffins and being you. Nobody here cares about a late post, so long as you are okay. <3

  35. Many of the implements of my hydroponic gardening are Mason jars. Though not currently in use, I have wide-mouth and narrow-mouth quart amber Mason jars and a dozen clear pint-size jars. To restate: none of them are in use in the garden.

    I’ve repurposed the pints with some plastic lids as tea glasses and one as a jar full of hot peppers and distilled white vinegar.

    I have a K-cup coffee maker, having given my Mr. Coffee 1-cup to eldest grandson. I don’t microwave water nor set a pot on the hotplate. Instead, I use the K-cup machine, using first the 6-cup setting and then the 8-cup setting to fill a mason jar (with sweetener and a teabag already in it). I also have some K-cup English Breakfast tea.

    I drank three jars so far today and I have six jars with either 12 or 14 ounces of tea cooling on the counter. I find I miss the Mr. Coffee. I like tea, hot, cold, or tepid.

    1. I love canning jars!

      I’ve been switching all the plastic storage (and broken drinking glasses) in my kitchen to jelly jars (which can go in both the freezer and the microwave). Plus a few quart sized jars that I use for making “mixes” (all the dry ingredients) for my favorite and most frequently made treats, like brownies and cookies and pancakes and quick breads. It’s almost as easy to measure out the dry ingredients for four batches as it is for one, and then when I feel like baking, all I have to do is add the wet ingredients, and it all goes together with a minimum of fuss and mess.

      I don’t know if you’ve seen them, but you can get lids with handles, making canning jars them into pitchers. I use them for the molasses that goes in my morning oatmeal, and the quart jars that I use as teapots (one for decaf, one for with caf, color-coded). https://www.amazon.com/Regular-Airtight-Leak-proof-Pouring-Pitcher/dp/B08C4P2RXL (Not necessarily endorsing this brand. The first pair I got were perfect, fit all my jars. The second were “improved,” and work great on pint and jelly jars, but for some reason don’t work on quart jars. No idea what the difference is.)

      1. I looked up my lids.
        18 Pack 9 Wide Mouth & 9 Regular Mouth Mason Jar Lids with Silicone Rings,Thickened Leak-proof Lids Fit Ball,Kerr and More, 18 Color Plastic Lids, 86mm &70mm Plastic Mason Jar Lids
        (Holy crap, what a link!) I have others. These are the ones I use with tea.

        Just in case anyone is at all interested, I just edited the November 2025 Farm Report to add a video at the bottom. 1 minute 40 seconds of a look at my hydroponic gardens. No sound except the overhead fans blowing across the microphone in the camera. Some of the amber Mason jars are visible at the end, including the one my SIL is using to grow “herb.” I expect it will be available until the December report.

  36. Me… currently clueless, you could have told me you put this up Thursday, I’d never have noticed. It’s been that kind of a week, Currently re-listening to audiobooks of Agatha Christie’s the Mysterious Mr Quinn. I like most of the short stories.

  37. I’ve been rereading Mary Balogh’s “Westcott Series”. Last night I reread “Someone To Remember”. I just cried. 🙂

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

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