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This is a Good Book Thursday: Good Intentions

My plan for 2026 was to come out blazing on social media.

Uh, not so much now.

My big plan for Thursdays was to talk about a different book I loved each week in here, having reread it that week to make sure I still loved it.  Still haven’t read anything but Arresting Anna, so nope.

But I know my faves, so I WILL do that.  Soon.  Soon-ish. Maybe Feb 1?  Feb 14?  Fourth of July? 2027?  ARGH..

Oh, hell.  What good book did you read this week?

193 Responses

  1. I don’t think that 2026 is a year for making plans. I know I am not up for the task. Everything is chaos and most of that is on fire. So I am trying to make this a year of being kind to myself, even though I am really bad at it.

    In a fit of desperation I purchased and downloaded Alessandra Hazzard’s Just a Bit Wrecked. I don’t know if I approach authors who I trust differently, knowing that I will finish their work, or if my trusted authors are just better than most these days. Anyway, it’s not a reread, I am going to finish it and it’s holding my interest. Very smutty and problematic, as is the author’s norm. Otherwise I have mostly been reading webtoons before bed, but at least it’s something.

  2. I agree, Lupe, everything is on fire right now. Those of us who struggle with self-care need to up our game.

    I recently completed The Antique Hunter’s Death on the Red Sea by C. L. Miller. It’s book 2 in a cozy mystery series about an antique hunter who keeps getting into adventures with her aunt. I enjoyed both the first and second books in the series. (I listened to the audiobooks borrowed from my library.)

  3. I’ve been using Arghink to search for new-to-me authors for about 6 months now. Simply ordering any recommendations from my local library, and reading at least one book by the author. As I live in Denmark less than half the authors have been available, and not every book has been to my taste, but I would like to second recommendations for Ben Aaronovitch and Rhys Bowen.
    I would also like to recommend the English garden-writer Monty Don, whose book: My Garden World I bought for Christmas. It’s bits from his diary about plants and animals around his garden(s), and the kind of book that you can pick up and read in between doing things around the house. For dog-lovers I can also recommend his book: Nigel: My family and other dogs, and for cooks the cookery book: Fork to Fork that he wrote together with his wife Sarah.

  4. I’m reading books on how to prevent racism. And watching cozy New Zealand mysteries on Acorn TV. Also reading ingredients lots of bags of chocolate like Unreal & Olive & Sinclair

  6. I agree about the world being on fire. It’s a chore getting through the day let alone trying to be creative. I’ve spent more time with my counted cross stitch than I have with my writing.

    I read JAK’s newest, The Shop on Hidden Lane and enjoyed it. Typical JAK which was nice. I also read two by Toni Anderson, Cold Fear and Cold Cruel Kiss. I enjoyed them but probably not rereads.

  7. It’s not been a very read-y week but I did read Something Wild & Wonderful by Anita Kelly, about two men who meet on the PCT hike and become romantically involved. I found it too long plus too young. It reads like YA with sex. Also, I’m noticing that more and more authors include a neurodivergent MC as if that’s a plot point in and of itself. If done well, neurodivergence can absolutely be a critical part of character development. But Kelly stopped writing the character as neurodivergent at some place in the novel so nix on the character development.

    What I’ve still been enjoying is my re-read of the Administration series and on book six where a major political event upends much of the context in Francis’ series.

    Anyway, it is pouring snow here in Toronto and super cold and I’m about to take the dogs out for a walk so wish me luck and send a St. Bernard if you don’t hear from me. I can always use another dog.

      1. I am in fact back. Getting through the unshovelled sidewalks was challenging enough for me and my poor 18 lb Toy Australian Shepherd was quite traumatized. She wanted to go back home immediately and laid down in the middle of the snow to protest. I tried to use logic to convince her to complete her doggy business first and finally, like many a parent, just hauled her along until done.

        1. Snowing heavily in Ottawa too. My 30 lb Aussiedoodle likes the snow but hates the boots that enable you to go out for more than 5 mins in the snow.

  8. For some reason unknown to me, I picked up V.E. Schwab’s The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. This is my first Schwab book – I had the impression that this author is more horror-centric than I care for. This particular book though could be considered a dark fantasy. The MC, Addie, makes a deal with one of the old gods to get out of her impending marriage. He does it by making her un-remembered – once she is out of sight, she is out of mind. It’s helpful when she has to start stealing, since running around the corner means the theft is forgotten. The downside is that no one – not even her family – remembers even that they had a daughter. She can’t write, or paint or otherwise leave a creative mark in the world. Waking up in a lover’s arms becomes very awkward.

    After 300 years, she finally finds one person who keeps her in mind, but he is cursed in his own way.

    Not finished yet, but intrigued.

  9. I’m so thankful for the comfort of re-reads and the worlds in them to escape to. (And for the suggestions for new books and media from this group!) Somewhere I read that listening to Mozart is good for one physically. So I read while listening to a Mozart playlist every evening. Though last night I watched a couple of episodes of Bookish from PBS. I liked it fine for the supporting cast, including Polly Walker. I’m not wholeheartedly for Mark Gadiss. I’ve seen him play too many villians to warm to him.

    I read my second book by the author I discovered last week. The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill is set in the Boston Public Library and surrounding Copley Square area. (Again, I recommend reading it as an ebook so you can search images of the locations.) A first Australian author is writing a book about a second Australian author writing a book about a murder set in the BPL. Most of the point of view is the second author writing in Boston but the reader is pulled out of that story by letters critiquing the Boston story as it unfolds. In addition to the murder mystery and several (non-graphic) romantic threads, I think writers would also enjoy ongoing discussions about writing and plotting. This is just so cleverly constructed that I felt like I gained a few IQ points keeping the plotlines separate. The author did a great job with that –I didn’t have to strain to keep track of the two storylines. I recommend it for both storylines and for the creative structuring. Plus it was published a few years ago so there was no waiting at my library.

    1. I nearly constantly have classical music on for background, so it saddens me to report that the last time I investigated, the scientific evidence that classical music is good for people (even limited to the Western world) is thin. But that’s only a generality, individual results may vary. Also, I’ve just started the Gentill Orient Express novel.

      1. I’m going to continue to believe that the Mozart is helping something. Even if it’s just placebo effect—it’s working.

        I hope you like Five Found Dead!

    2. I really enjoyed the first few books in her Roland Sinclair series, which are mostly set in Australia in the 1930s against a background of rising fascism. The main character and all his friends are artists who get dragged into politics in the process of trying to solve a murder. They’re very well written, and remind me of both golden age mysteries and the Phryne Fisher series.

  10. We work so hard to forget we are mammals, and sensible mammals rest during the winter. They do not get all excited about 30-day challenges or resolve to fix whatever displeases them about their lives. They sleep a lot and wait for spring. They do not beat themselves up because they can’t be productive every day/week/month of the year.

    It snowed last night, so a perfect day to read. I’ve been rereading, dipped into Sayers’ Gaudy Night last night. Still working on Poirot.

    2. Judy, that is an excellent reminder. Not that it’s winter here in the southern hemisphere, but I’ll keep it in mind for when the days start closing in.

  11. Plans. Humor, har.

    I’m reading T. Kingfisher’s newest, Snake-Eater. Unlike most of her fantasies, this one is set in our real world, although out in a small desert community. Like the rest, it has hints of horror, but not more than I can handle, and I really like the protagonist, the setting, and the side characters. Also there’s a dog. So I’m calling this one another win.

  12. I finished my second excellent Garry Disher Australian procedural –“Consolation” book 3 in the Constable Hirschhausen series. I will definitely continue the series and look at his other series as well.
    Since I didn’t have much time to read this week I reread Josh Lanyon’s Adrien English series. M/M romance between a very closeted cop and an “out” bookstore owner. I love this series and each time I reread it I find something new. First in the series is “Fatal Shadows”.

    2. Christina, I have just finished the second book in the Hirsch series, Peace. An excellent read; I’m enjoying this series so much. I haven’t read anything else by him, but will certainly do so after I finish these ones.

      1. I’ve spread the word over here about how good the Hirsch series is and a friend of mine ordered paper copies, she then donated them to her building’s little lending library (take-one-give-one) and has seen other books by Disher there so we conclude the word is spreading! 🙂

  13. I finally finished Deborah Blake’s Wickedly Wonderful. Only had a chapter or less to go, buy that’s what kind of week it’s been.

        1. Have you read the 4th book, Wickedly Unraveled? I self-published that one after Berkley dropped the series. It takes place after the three Broken Rider books.

  14. I could almost cut last GooBooThurs’s post and past it here. Only minor changes. (See what I did there?)

    So, Word Opera! It continues. Just two chapters this week, 159 and 160 of an expected 163 total. Book 6 is Nearly Done.

    I finished MORETA: DRAGONLADY OF PERN by Anne McCaffrey, then the follow-on NERILKA’S STORY. Next in the series would be DRAGONSDAWN, but after eight books in the series, I need a break.

    I have listened to a lot of stories that are technically Reddit Reels, but I hear them on Facebook. As I am not a Redditer, I don’t know the deal there, but it seems like the stories all share the same pool of names. Sometimes Emily is the protagonist, sometimes the evil greedy sister, sometimes just a friend, etc. Whatever. I still listen.

    The dotter and I agreed that some of my exercise would come from shopping on Wednesdays. Then I slept through yesterday. I’m looking forward to next week.

    1. I remember really liking “Nerilka’s Story” – should re-read at some point. Good time to take a break as from memory “Dragonsdawn” is a totally different character set.

      1. DRAGONSDAWN goes all the way back to the “first pass” while the first six and the last four take place in the “ninth pass.” MORETA and NERILKA… “We begin our story toward the end of the Sixth Pass of the Red Star, some fourteen hundred Turns [years] after men first came to Pern. . . .” A totally different character set. 🙂

    2. Some examples of the Reddit Reels:

      At Their Anniversary Dinner, My Parents Excluded Me From The Family Trip And Told Me To Babysit My Calm Reply Stunned Everyone…

      At My Niece’s 6th Birthday Party, I Found A $3,842.40 Charge On My Card. My Sister….

      “We need to talk. Now.” That’s what my dad said after skipping my housewarming. He wanted his name on my deed, my sister’s car registered…

      Dad Kicked Me Out Until I Said Sorry To His Precious Favorites – My Sister And Her Kid. I simply said, “Okay.” By Morning, I Was Gone. Just Like My Ac…

      My Golden Brother Moved His Pregnant GF Into My House While I Was On Vacation—My Parents Called Me…

      My Spoiled Cousin Was Always The Golden Child Private School, Handouts, And A Job At My Uncle’s Firm. At Thanksgiving, I Casually Mentioned My $25 Mil…

      I Never Told My Wife I Owned A $30M Family Business. The Morning After Our Wedding, Her Mom Arrived With Legal Papers And Said, ‘It’s Time To Hand It …

      She Demanded 80% Of My Life’s Work. Her ‘Shark’ Lawyer Smirked, “Take The Deal Or We’ll Destroy You” I Sat In Silence… Until The Senior Partner From…

      For 11 Years, I Did Everything At The Holidays. Cleaned, Cooked, Hosted. I Wasn’t In A Single Photo. Then I Said No At Thanksgiving, Skipped Christmas…

      I Arrived At My Lodge For Christmas: “Clara, You’re Never Here, So It’s Mine Now!” My Sister Laughed With Her Guests. I Was Sick, So I Smiled And Repl…

      I Secretly Bought A $1 Million House. On Moving Day, I Found My Sister’s Husband And His Family With Movers, Trying To Move Their Belongings Into The H…

  15. It’s winter here, again. This has been the strangest on again off again winter. I have stopped reading the news completely. Dumpster Fire Don is off the rails, and yesterday, we learned that it is “appropriate” to flip someone off and say F you to them. Enough!!!

    1. I haven’t been reading or watching news for years. Too depressing. I feel so lucky to live in Canada, away from all the madness. Alas, not far enough, not even here. The world is too small now.

  16. I spent the majority of December happily in Trisha Ashley world and was reluctant to leave. So, I shifted to Georgette Heyer rereads for a gentle transition. Re-listening to Arabella performed by Phyllida Nash was so satisfying as her narration has an undercurrent of gentle humor that is the essence of the novel. Nash’s performance of Mr. Beaumaris talking to his dog Ulysses truly lifted my spirits and I’m still smiling about it.

    1. Arabella is one of my favourite Heyer’s. I think it is time for a reread. Phyllida Nash is a great reader but they redid them with new readers a few years ago, so it is harder to find the original audiobooks. My library has the Phyllida Nash one, so I will reserve it and hope it doesn’t appear too quickly or I won’t be able to keep up.

    2. I read a romance I loved. It was unputdownable. I read until 1am because I had to finish it. I will reread it. OMG, first time this has happened in a long while.

      Last year, I read Laura Wood’s first contemporary rom-com, Under Your Spell, about a rock god falling for a mysterious young woman, it was cute, but it wasn’t quite there. At the end of last year, Wood released a follow-up but still stand-alone, Let’s Make a Scene.
      I’ll be writing this weekend about it for blog/substack, but all I’m going to say here is that it was absolutely great, and I even laughed out loud. It is not yet in the top 5 (Welcome to Temptation, The Morning Gift, A Company of Swans, Sylvester and Frederica – I don’t think that line up will change any time soon). But it’s definitely the best contemporary rom-com I’ve read in eons.

      2. I have this one on my tbr pile and it has just been moved up. I agree that Under Your Spell didn’t quite hit the mark. I’m so happy to hear that Let’s Make a Scene does!

      3. I’ve read both Let’s Make a Scene and Under Your Spell. Agree that Scene is the better book.

  17. •Ali Hazelwood, Mate, 2025.  Like Hazelwood’s previous novel, Problematic Summer Romance, Mate is a sequel, this time to Bride. I turn out not to remember much about Bride, which says something about either my memory or the memorability of that book, given that I read it fairly recently, in June 2024.  In Mate, Serena Paris, a human-were hybrid, takes refuge from assassination attempts with the Northwest Pack, and learns that she is the love-at-first-sniff and presumptive future mate of pack alpha Koen.  The love is on his part only, so far, which is only one of many complications. The biggest one from Serena’s view is that, per medical prognosis, she is dying.  And naturally keeping this as her Big Secret from all except the doctor because the plot requires it, and because of her upbringing.  Since this is a romance novel, it is BLINDINGLY OBVIOUS what the cure for her illness will be. There is only so long that an author can string me along with completely artificial suspense, and I finally jumped ahead, although I did later backtrack and I think I read all of the intervening material. Other problems continue to confront our couple, such as a covenant of celibacy that Koen has undertaken to observe for so long as he is alpha.  To say nothing of vampyre attacks.   All is resolved by the end.

    In fiction, the creators of a lot of hybrids seem to forget most of the time that they’re supposedly half human.  Think Whorf or Spock.  We have that here at least in the sex scenes, where the hybrid Serena seems pure werewolf, but if the scenes are viewed simply as an exploration of were sex as contrasted with human sex, the scenes do convincingly show that differing emotions and behavior are perfectly normal for weres.  As with Problematic Summer Romance, we have a lot of flashbacks, something else I can do without. Hazelwood’s snarky dialog does persist, and something about her snark is attractively different from the snark available from other writers (not that they’re bad, but variety is good).

    For me, this is the weakest of Hazelwood’s novels to date.  Multiple gushing reviews online show that many folks beg to differ.  But for me, we have two novels in a row that are off Hazelwood’s high mark. I will hope for interesting STEM worked into the next one.  But hey, it’s Hazelwood, so mildly recommended despite all.

    1. Oops, my relative indifference to ST is showing. The name is spelled Worf and he’s not a hybrid, although his son is. Worf was raised by humans but is biologically 100% Klingon.

  18. I used up all my Hoopla borrows by the middle of the month plowing through Lee and Miller Liaden Universe chapbooks. I never bought any of them and neither did my library so finding this trove on Hoopla was exciting. Next month, I will continue. I also found Sharon Shinn’s Shifter and Shadow there and enjoyed it. Finished Consolation (from the library not through Hoopla) but will wait a while to start another Disher because of my problem stopping and going to sleep. I could have finished it much faster if I could just manage to put it down at a reasonable hour.

    Rereading Wells’ Demon Queen continues, and I’m also rereading The Orb of Caraido which I love.

      1. I love it, so keep an eye out for it. It may be my second favorite after Goblin Emperor. It’s sort of the reverse of competence porn, in that the hero stumbles around trying to avoid trouble and fails. Multiple times.

          1. Yes, that’s good to know. Audible was trying to get me to pre order it today. I wasn’t sure… It seems quite short (just over 3 hours) and I try and keep credits for longer books, but you have made me think about it, I’ll look for it on Spotify. No kindle version and the hardback is £25, which seems a lot for a short book

  19. •Ali Hazelwood, Two Can Play, 2024 (audio novella competently read by Kelsey Navarro Foster).  A Big Misunderstanding of about six years’ duration is resolved when teams from two rival smallish game design companies jointly go on a retreat to see if they can productively work together to gamify our heroine’s favorite fantasy novel series.  All culminates in a really long sex scene.  Hazelwood evidently has not bothered to research online game development–although (as far as I know as a layman) what she depicts is accurate, she teaches me nothing new.

    Despite a meh plot and lack of interesting background, other Hazelwood virtues remain, such as in the diaIog.  I’m clearly not in the central demographic for Hazelwood books, but for what it’s worth, I found this one barely better than Mate, and for my money Hazelwood has been a bit off her stride for at least a year.  Mildly recommended nonetheless.

    1. I think that’s the one where the retreat is at Mt. Baker or somewhere else in western Washington and there is mention of the many pine trees. We have very few pine trees in this area but lots of Douglas firs and cedars. It annoyed me all out of proportion.

      1. I probably couldn’t tell the difference myself, and Hazelwood, I gather, lives in a state with Southern pines. And all I know about conifers in her land of birth is Respighi’s tone poem, “Pines of Rome.” But the game developers are from the Seattle area and presumably should know more than I do about trees in Washington state. I’d be annoyed too in your place.

  20. •Nathan Lowell, The Wizard’s Cat, 2025. The long-awaited sequel to The Wizard’s Butler, 2020.  In the former, Roger Mulligan teaches himself to be a butler and goes to work for Joseph Shackleford, an aging eccentric millionaire. Roger learns that magic exists and that his employer is a powerful, mildly benevolent wizard, a bit past his prime, and a bit behind the times. Trouble arises and is largely resolved.  In the sequel, Roger has settled into his role, deciding that he likes working for Shackleford even though rewards from the first novel have given him other options. The new challenges are not mostly not about butlering but about coping with things magical despite being a non-magical person and/or about coping with new interpersonal relationships. The biggest new magical problem is that for unclear reasons the magically preserved mansion and grounds seem to be falling victim to so-far minor decay.  The relationship challenges mostly involve Fidelia, a wealthy, elderly magical friend of Shackeford who moves into the mansion; Barbara, Shackleford’s adult niece and heir apparent, who also moves in; Molly Flint, a nurse unconnected to Shackleford who lives in an apartment house nearby and has become Roger’s jogging partner, and later an incipient friend of Barbara’s; and, oddly enough, a tomcat who has turned up and seems to have some sort of connection with Shackleford’s mansion. By the novel’s end, some things have been resolved but much remains open.  I hope we don’t have to wait 5 years for the next book in the series.  I slightly preferred the first book, since in the second there is nothing comparable to the lessons the first one gives us about the art of butlering, but this one is still recommended.

    1. Patrick, thanks for this review. I have been dithering about whether to buy this one or not. I don’t like cliffhanger endings and was wondering if this one had that. I am still not sure if I want to buy it, but am leaning more towards it rather than not.

  21. This week I mostly read my book club book which was ‘Three Women’ by Lisa Taddeo. It is a non fic exploration of the sexual relations of three different women in three different scenarios. One story is much stronger than the others and though the book was labelled as an exploration of female desire I didn’t think it really got into that as much as it might have. It is really a telling of three stories without comment and there isn’t any analysis or consideration of social constructions or influences which I missed. We had a good discussion though and most people liked it more than me.

    The rest of the time I read AO3 Hockey RPGs. It is kind of icky reading made up stories about real people but I eased in with a story where I didn’t know anything about the players in real life which made it a bit less weird (and I might say it is icky but I was reading them so you can judge me!) Anyway, two of the three I read were pretty good and the third was fine. I probably shouldn’t have read them one after another as I am going to mix them up in my head (let alone mix them up with real life players) but my head was a bit fried at work and these were a good escape.

    On Audio I finished ‘Tomb of Dragons’ by Katherine Addison. Enjoyed it, it rounded out the trilogy well. However, Lupe, I see what you mean about the ending (or last part). Something that was building for two and a half books was disposed of pretty quickly and the author went in a different direction. At least I was semi warned. Trying not to do spoilers there, though having spoiler might help prevent the disappointment. Sorry, that’s all very cryptic but IYKYK.

    I have moved on to the ‘The Secret Commonwealth’ Philip Pullman, part 2 of The Book of Dust Trilogy. I read or listened to it a few years ago and I was given the latest (and final) book in the Trilogy for Christmas, but I understand there is no background or reminders in the third so I feel I had better get back up to speed before trying the new one. As I remember this one ended very abruptly (mid scene/mid event I think) so I assume that in future they will be considered two parts of the same book rather than a part 2 and a part 3. Anyway, I’m enjoying it again, great reading by Michael Sheen, and I’d forgotten the details.

    1. Yeah Tammy and I both had a little whiplash with the ending, which is a shame because I really liked that series and think it could have been a favorite reread. It feels like the author just didn’t want to tell the story anymore. I don’t hate it, will probably listen to it again, but I wish she had an editor or beta reader or someone chip in and say, “write another book if it needs another book. Don’t rush the important stuff.”

      1. I kept turning the page looking for the rest of the story. It’s really not enough to say “The End” as an author unless you’re Alice Munro.

      2. Assuming this is about Tomb of the Dragons, it left me hopeful that we will get another book with Thara. But it’s not a cliffhanger.

      2. Sorry, I wasn’t sure there beich interest in AO3 RPGs.

        Here they are. All future set, slow burn, not particularly angsty but not sweet either.
        red_wine_supernova by donderwolk https://archiveofourown.org/works/51454093
        The _Next_Next_One by your blues https://archiveofourown.org/works/22625812 and
        Burn_the_straw_house by theundiagnoseable https://archiveofourown.org/works/14604195 which was, I think, the weakest of the three, but it’s an early work, and still good. I just saw there is a second part to this but I haven’t read it.

      3. I put in the links but forgot I should have done them one at a time, so they’re awaiting moderation.

        Also I see a typo in the other post beich=be much 🫣

          1. I’ve read this one and quite enjoyed it so if it is the weakest of your three I am looking forward to the other two!

  22. •Jim C. Hines, Slayers of Old, 2025.  Hard as it is to believe, it will be 23 years in May since Buffy the Vampire Slayer went off the air.  The aging ex-slayer and cohorts in this novel differ enough from the TV show that Hines hopefully won’t be sued, but even the publisher’s blurb calls this “Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Golden Girls.”  Ex-slayer Jenny is really no Golden Girl, only 56. She evidently had entered on duty at age 16.  Assuming the novel is set in its year of publication, she started in 1985, over a decade before the TV show’s start and before even the 1992 Buffy movie.  The setup also differs in that Jenny had been a Hunter of Artemis and the goddess shows up as a character. Jenny long ago broke with Artemis, however, regarding her as too intolerant of relatively harmless magical creatures and too bloodthirsty.  Among other things, the novel’s counterpart to rogue slayer Faith (named Hope, leaving Charity for the next writer), failed to repent like Faith, and, under orders, Jenny killed her, a deed which she now bitterly regrets.

    Jenny now runs a bookstore in Salem, Massachusetts together with half-succubus Annette and with Temple, a wizard old even by wizardly standards, but still powerful, and on the side she provides simple curative treatment for magical creatures. Recently the house in which the three live, and which contains the bookstore, is showing alarming signs of decay despite its magical protections (although the cause turns out to be different than for the similar problem in The Wizard’s Cat).  A seemingly unrelated problem is that someone turns out to be corrupting local teens, with the goal of raising a powerful demon, and Jenny’s suspicion eventually falls on the equivalent of Xander from her old Slay Team.  So it is time to come out of retirement and save the world yet again. Multiple complications follow.

    Hines’s balancing act of playing off of Buffy but changing the setup enough so as not to be writing straight Buffy fan fiction gets a little confusing to the reader at times. Moreover, despite a considerable leavening of humor, I found the novel a little too fraught to serve as a reliable distraction from the present times. But Hines cannot really be blamed for that.  Recommended for what it is.

    2. I found it to be a perfect season finale to season 23. Had a lot of fun with it and I’m not a Xander fan so the antagonist worked for me too.

  23. Jenny, speaking as someone who is also healing bones, seems like you are asking a lot of yourself. Healing pelvis, self care for asthma and heart, moving, writing a book —I’m just grateful when you have a chance to start a post so we can all chat.

    I reread all the Miss Marples. It was that kind of week. I also realized I stopped reading New Yorkers post surgery so I need to read 3.

    I want to read Snake Eater as an e book but I think I have to buy a paperback (can’t drive myself to the library yet. Sigh.)

    I need to dig into my physical TBR stacked next to my recovery recliner.

  24. I read a romance I loved. It was unputdownable. I read until 1am because I had to finish it. I will reread it. OMG, first time this has happened in a long while.

    Last year, I read Laura Wood’s first contemporary rom-com, Under Your Spell, about a rock god falling for a mysterious young woman, it was cute, but it wasn’t quite there. At the end of last year, Wood released a follow-up but still stand-alone, Let’s Make a Scene.
    I’ll be writing this weekend about it for blog/substack, but all I’m going to say here is that it was absolutely great, and I even laughed out loud. It is not yet in the top 5 (Welcome to Temptation, The Morning Gift, A Company of Swans, Sylvester and Frederica – I don’t think that line up will change any time soon). But it’s definitely the best contemporary rom-com I’ve read in eons.

    3. Looking up the novel in Kingle, I also saw the German edition:
      All of the following text is bolded as the title of the German edition of the novel: “Let’s Make a Scene: Roman – Eine spicy Second-Chance-RomCom – diese beiden muss man einfach shippen! (German Edition).” From Eine to the exclamation mark, 5 recent English borrowings out of 11 words, only 1 one altered (to put an infinitive ending on ship). And the title left in English because the pun presumably doesn’t work on German.

          1. It’s unnatural sounding in English too. The only natural context I can think of is people planning ahead of time to get into a feigned screaming match.

  25. When the world is horrible, I need my comfort reads where things turn out well.
    The books this week worked for me, they may likely be too cozy for others:
    A “Draft Bust” got his HEA with a laid off beat reporter – by Hannah Henry, the audiobook (I liked the book well enough the first time that I got the audiobook even though one of the narrators usually doesn’t do it for me; I still don’t love him but the style of narration calmed him down enough that listening was okay).
    Two novellas by EJ Russell were a nice distraction (Cursed is the Worst and At Odds with the Gods): I love the narrator, Greg Boudreaux, so now I’m listening to Howling on Hold – I love the side characters almost as much as the main characters. The young wolf shifters in the “dog house” (for youngsers from 18-21, a way to grow up/mature under supervision) feel like puppies. Some will get their own books (I’m listening the series out of order), some remain very likeable side characters (egvJordan, the disaster-magnet) and I just love that I don’t need a identifyer because Boudreaux narrates them so distinctly that it’s obvious who is speaking.
    On my commute, the outside noise is too loud to listen via ear buds. Here I’ve just started Ice Ice Babygirl, the newest title by Ashlyn Kane/Morgan James. Not far into the story, but it feels nice.

    A few days ago, I’ve pre-ordered Unrivaled, the 7th books in the Game Changer series (and 3rd book with Ilya and Shane) – I’m very much looking forward to September 29th.
    Well, only readingwise that is.
    Knocking on wood – by early autumn, kid #1 might have started his adventure abroad. Not looking forward to having my tall teddy bear leaving the nest, but I’d love for him to get the chance.

    1. I’m obviously late to the party, I hadn’t realised there was to be another Game Changer book. Not sure how that will work, I thought the Ilya Shane story had been pretty well resolved by the end of The Long Game.

      1. I have faith in Rachel Reid but I still worry a bit about another Shane-Ilya story — why mess with a really really good thing? One funny thing: this evening I went to a San Jose Sharks vs Washington Capitals game (the Sharks won! Yay!) and they played music from Heated Rivalry! That made me laugh and wonder how many people got the joke.

        1. By now even Gary Bettman was forced to make a statement about HR! And not to push away the many new fans he even had to be positive about it. It cost him quite a bit, one could see.

      2. The blurb sounds promising: Holkanov have settled into life as a couple but not everyone in the hockey world is okay with it. Remember the trouble Troy and Shane had with the commissioner in book 5 snd 6? I guess the conflict may be along those lines – facing harsh winds. RR already stated that she won’t ruin Hollanov and she’d mentioned that she would only write anpther book with them if she’d had a good idea. Also (according to what she said on the What Chaos! podcast) she had written the majority of the book before the adaptation came out, so it’s unlikely just a response to the success of the series.
        I’ve faith.
        And the covers are gorgeous (one in bi colour scheme, not availablefor preorder in my parts).

        1. This was meant as reply to Frozen Pond’s post.
          Obviously even with the new format I manage to botch my replies.

    2. Unrivaled got my son watching and reading fiction other than Agatha Christie (he reads a lot of history).

  26. Jenny, Man plans, God laughs, as the saying goes. Even now I haven’t done most of what I expected to have accomplished by the spring or summer of last year. This sometimes happened even when I was younger, but at our age we definitely have to roll with the punches. (Use of “man” to mean “humankind” is old-fashioned and the Yiddish is sex-neutral, but all the synonyms that I can think of are less pithy and lose the assonance.)

  27. One of the Best Books I’ve Ever Read
    After Hours at Dooryard Books by Cat Sebastian is tender, whimsical and profound. It really sneaks up on you. I mean, I liked it from the start but then it just gets better and better. Many delightful characters. Excellent personal growth. Philosophical in the best possible way. I read this on DS’s kindle. Now I am going to buy it myself: 1. To reward this excellence and 2. So when I reread it (and I don’t think it will be long till I do), I can feel completely unrestrained in highlighting and adding notes (even though DS says she doesn’t mind). Highly recommended.

    1. Yes! I keep thinking about this book weeks after I read it. Not so much the romance but the personal growth and found family. And the characters’ sense that the world was falling apart in 1968 perversely gave me hope that we might make it through the horrors of our time too.

  28. I struggled to read the Rough Guide to Italy I borrowed from the library – the print in the intro/practical sections, especially, was a tiny, faint, sans face. I got so frustrated I took them up on their offer on the back cover of a free ebook version instead, gambling on no other library user having done so. Much better! But I then had doubts about where I’d planned to go, so ended up downloading a sample of the Bradt guide to Emilia-Romagna, and have just bought that book.

    I borrowed several novels from the library, too, but made a mistake with Nora Roberts’ Nightwork. Like most of her thrillers, I didn’t like it. Well, I did really like the hero and his pals most of the time, but hated the fact – however much she justified it – that he was a thief. I ended up skimming most of it. I also borrowed the first two of her Inn at Boonsboro trilogy, which are inoffensive cosy romances I’d read when they came out about twelve years ago.

    1. Thank you JaneB – I didn’t care for Nightworks either but never knew why, you are right him being a thief was it. It was a clever novel with good characters but…

  29. Another thing – My husband and I watched the Jane Austen: Rise of a Genius series. Many people were consulted and contributed to this work. It’s an eye-opener. I knew that she was a genius but didn’t realize the depth of how she changed literature for good and forever. Brilliant. The biggest surprise to me was a new view of Mansfield Park. That has always been my least favorite of her books and Fanny P my least favorite of her heroines. The series shed light on the person in Jane’s life who inspired the character of Mary Crawford, but more than that it gave me a new empathy for Fanny. I have bought the movie of that book that they excerpted for the series. After that I will reread Mansfield Park.

    1. Mansfield Park has always been one of my favourite. I always liked Fanny enormously. She is not vivacious. She is not beautiful but she is such a good person. She actually deserves a better love interest 🙂

    2. Ok I want to see this. Fanny has always baffled me and also it’s a book where I think the audience of the day understood the moral positions it takes—especially on the slave trade—in a way that isn’t obvious to us today.

      1. And acting. I see explanations like “it was because the father was away” or “they chose a salacious play”.
        But the father didn’t want it when he was home and Fanny and Edmund disapproved even when they were considering Hamlet (which was treated as fine to read aloud in Sense and Sensibility) and we know the Austens did family play acting. I bet anything the contemporary audience understood exactly why they opposed it. I have yet to see a satisfactory modern explanation.

        1. Some of the explanations here sound plausible, especially spending money on the theater when the family is in financial straits and the dangers of the sexes mingling while supervision is away (like today teens throwing a party with the parents gone) but it does almost sound like the father may also have puritanical religious objections, even if it’s almost two centuries since they had the power to close the London theaters.

          2. I’m rereading Mansfield Park and it does jump out that Fanny who is so moral on everything else has absolutely no problem with Henry Crawford using his uncle’s influence to get Fanny’s brother William promoted. I know that was largely how the navy operated; I know two of Jane’s brothers became Admirals, one of them Admiral of the Fleet. Nevertheless it is a stunning example of how moral values change over time.

  30. I had plans in 2025. The plans were executed. For 2026, I’m giving myself permission to be reactive and/or to hide in a pile of romances in front of the Great British Baking Show. This week’s reading:

    1. ‘You’ve Found Oliver’ by Dustin Thao, a literary New Adult mm romance, and by ‘literary’ I mean it’s mostly about things other than the love story (chiefly grief), and it doesn’t have a HEA or even a HFN, only a second chance to start over. Interesting and involving, but the use of alt timeline as a metaphor for dissociation was frustratingly opaque and anxiety-inducing.

    2. [re-read] my own F/M novel ‘A Winning Hand,’ the one about a Las Vegas piano player/songwriter and the cop she falls for, because I needed something funny and this one makes me laugh even though I wrote it.

    3. ‘Style of Love’ by AJ Sherwood, ‘Gay 4 Renovations’ book 1. MM contemporary set in Michigan. The setup is that four friends started their own design/build/renovate business; presumably each friend will eventually get a book. This one is about their interior designer and his lifelong BFF who suddenly realize they have sex feelings about each other. Not quite enough renovating given the setup. Includes a serious secondary plotline about toxic families and divorce from same. Lots of great allies.

    4. ‘Structure of Love’ by AJ Sherwood, Gay 4 Reno bk 2. This one features the structural engineer/architect, at whom I squint because getting both those licenses and starting a business by 30 or whatever is Romancelandia Academia at its best. His love interest is a bar owner at whose pub the architect’s wastrel younger brother washes up. Next to no internal conflict, convincing falling-in-love arc, more excellent allies, and another toxic family. Also a more generous dose of on-the-page reno! Both these books are sexy when it serves the relationship-building.

    5. ‘Stuck in the Middle’ by Will Forrest, a MMM+ why-choose romance set in Toronto. Three thirtysomething men, two of whom are lifelong BFFs clueless about true feelings coalesce into a polycule tied together by a younger former model recovering from previous lifestyle. Sexy, with a lot of growth for all.

    Would def rec the Sherwoods to those who want books about men being friends and being competent and saying important shit to the people who need to hear it.

  31. I read One Death at a Time by Abbi Waxman. Someone here recommended it along with Christa Comes Out of Her Shell, which I had previously read and enjoyed. One Death at a Time is a straight up mystery though and a very enjoyable one. Mason is a 25 year old recovering alcoholic who gets assigned as the interim sponsor to a formerly famous actress who has just been accused of murder. Problem is that although she’s sure she’s innocent she was blackout drunk at the time and can’t remember anything that actually happened. Mason gets involved in trying to find out what happened, which gets very convoluted very quickly.

    I also read the latest Doyle and Acton mystery, Murder in All Patience by Anne Cleeland. Doyle is heavily pregnant again and Acton is up to something again. It’s more of a continuation of previous books, so if you’ve been following the series you’ll probably enjoy it but it doesn’t stand on it’s own at all.

  32. Just got the Reactor magazine in my email. This issue includes Jo Walton’s reading list for the month. One of the items on her list: she read and compared Strange Bedpersons vs. The Cinderella Deal. A fascinating discourse. I’m tempted to re-read both, like Walton, back-to-back. I haven’t re-read either in a while.

    1. I read Jo Walton’s column and thought the same thing! I should reread them together. I was not aware of the backstory but did know I preferred Cinderella Deal to the other one. And now I know why.

    2. I like The Cinderella Desk. One of my favourites which ch I reread every year. I will read Strange Bedfellows again.

    3. That comparison was intriguing & I like how she obviously likes Jenny’s writing. I am going to read them back to back just for fun. I have read both of them several times.

  33. As for new books, my son gave me a gift for Christmas – Travis Baldree’s latest, Brigands & Breadknives. Of course, I started reading it right away. Unlike the other 2 books by this author, which I adored, I didn’t like this one. The reason for my dislike: I didn’t care for its protagonist, Fern.
    Fern is bored and unsatisfied with her life, but she doesn’t know what she wants, and the beginning of the book reflects that. The reader is bored too, for several chapters. Then Fern decided to have a midlife crisis. She feels so maudlin, she gets soused and stumbles into a strange wagon on a neighboring street to sleep it off. When she wakes up, the wagon is already far away from her home, her adventure starts, and the story finally gets more interesting.
    Lots of fights and blood ensues, but Fern doesn’t know how to fight – she is a professional bookseller. Whenever a confrontation erupts, she just huddles in terror and bemoans her pointless life.
    Always angry for no reason – at herself and the world – Fern is not as much a heroine as an observer. A miserable observer at that. She is not evil, but she blunders from place to place without any motivation or aspiration and feels irate and bitter because of it. That is how the novel started and that is how it ended. Fern is still ambling about with no responsibility or even desire. No terminus in sight for Fern. She doesn’t care for anyone, not even her ‘beloved’ pet – she leaves it to her friends to care for.
    So why did the author make her his heroine? She doesn’t have a story of her own. She is just along for the ride in someone else’s stories.

    1. I didn’t mind Fern, but I didn’t like the ending. Too sad for my tastes. (Trying to avoid spoilers, so no details.)

    2. I agree that I didn’t like this one nearly as much as the first two, although I hadn’t put my finger on why. It really was about the protagonist. By the end of the book, it got better, but I still liked many of the side characters better than I liked Fern.

  34. I’ve had good intentions of working through some of my arcs and writing reviews. I did finish the arc of Ilona Andrews’ new fantasy, This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me, and got a review up. Did truly love it and been rereading it an unhealthy number of times. I also finished and reviewed Platform Decay, the new Murderbot story. I had to go back and refresh myself on System Collapse. It’s been almost 3 years. Not surprisingly, it’s excellent, if a different sort of mission for SecUnit. Another intention was reading more of my nonfiction TBR pile, so I finished Judi Dench’s Shakespeare memoir (those 60-70s UK actors were something else!) and I’m dipping into Ada Palmer’s Inventing the Renaissance little by little. It’s very long, so not for a read straight through, but it’s fascinating and Palmer can write.

    1. Re This Kingdom Will Not Kill me, I decided to wait and read the whole novel. However, picture my impatient finger drumming. ☺

    2. Oooooohhhhhh. I can hardly wait for the new Murderbot!

      Tor hates me (and/or thinks I don’t have a big enough platform or high enough rating), so I never get any arcs from them via netgalley.

      1. I think you’ll enjoy it. It’s very self-contained and it was shorter than I realized. I looked up and it was over. That could just be SecUnit pulling me in.

    3. I’m also reading the Ada Palmer book a bit at a time. It is so engaging but there’s a LOT of it.

      1. Yes, it’s daunting but also so entertaining. And I appreciate the historiography that she’s sprinkling through it all. I was inspired to dig out my dvd of Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet which I owned but last watched in 10th grade English class. Good accompaniment!

      2. I’m working on it. Only library e-copy is audio and I’ve had to sit on hold to take it out a second time and may have to repeat process. I’ve heard the US author speak in person and in podcast so it’s a little odd to have a British accent for the voice narrator, but they needed someone who could handle Italian, probably limiting the field.

        1. I just bought it—the ebook is under $4 and it sounds like something I would want to read over time and not have to return .

          1. Unless I missed it, it just came out as a print ebook and thanks to you I just grabbed it, although I’ll continue with the audio at least until it’s due.

          3. Yes, I would recommend that approach and the book is structured that way as well. Take it in stages.

  35. I’m reading a new-to-me Lady Astronaut book, since someone on here reminded me of them.
    Last week I reread Have Spacesuit Will Travel, since Connie Willis thanked Heinlein for putting her on to Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat with that book.
    The reference was on the first page, but I read on because it’s such an engaging book.
    Once again I think I need to study physics, higher math, and how to use a slide rule. Didn’t work out 50 years ago, though

    1. I still use my pocket slide rule from high school (yes, I am Old) and the pocket abacus I acquired in college but my father’s engineering slide rule was beyond me. Every now and then I get it out and stare at it hopelessly.

      1. I once could use a few of the scales on a slide rule, but I think that anything beyond multiplication would now defeat me and I haven’t even done that in years. I do have at least one and I think two slide rules around, though.

        I have a Japanese abacus that I got as a gift in probably HS and a Russian abacus (different number of beads on a string) that I bought in the USSR back when, but I never used either for anything except hobby calculations for fun.

    2. Heinlein wrote Have Spacesuit just before the Sputnik Scare put some rigor back into HS, so my experience was nothing like Kip’s, but I enjoyed the book. Much later in grad school at Princeton, I calculated that Kip and Peewee should be walking the streets of Princeton in their spacesuits near the end of the novel about then, but nary a sign of them.

      As I think I have mentioned here, there is, improbably, a Russian musical film version of Three Men in a Boat available in a DVD to US video standard (Region 1). It may be on YouTube by now.

  36. Jennifer,
    Have you noticed that there is a Monument Valley 3 game available? I know you really liked the first 2 and didn’t know if you’d found the 3rd. Apple App Store is where you can find it. I’ve just started it and still love this game.
    Cheers,
    Mary Tyler

  37. I seem to have had a crime week. I read the second book, Peace, in Gary Disher’s Hirsch series about a police officer in small town South Australia. These are such satisfying books– I think I’d rate them as competence porn. And the protagonist is a character who I can trust to do the right thing, which is a major attraction for me.

    Also City of Ghosts by Ben Creed, who is actually two writers working together. This is a crime novel set in Stalinist Russia, so definitely not a cosy. But the level of paranoia and brutality was within tolerable limits for me, and it’s an extraordinary picture of a particular time and place.

    Pretty much everyone is looking over their shoulders, paranoid for very good reason, and half expecting to be arrested at any moment. The protagonist is an ex -violinist prodigy who had his fingers broken by the secret police and has subsequently become a member of the militia. The crime he’s investigating takes him back into that world of music.

    Finally, Marjorie Allingham’s Hide My Eyes, one of her Albert Campion books. Her ability to create a really chilling character in very few words is extraordinary. An excellent read.

    1. I have to look up Hide My Eyes. In the US it was published as Tether’s end or, apparently, Ten were Missing.

  38. Thursday is senior discount day at Wegmans and anyhow I had a prescription to pick up, so I managed a shopping trip today, despite my medical trip yesterday with a side trip then to the library. I think that marks a gain in recovery of stamina. I’ve still got a way to go and I left some non-perishables on the (inside) landing by the door to be lugged upstairs tomorrow. And we’ll see tomorrow if it feels like i overdid it. While putting other groceries away, I noticed that I’m closer to using up the milk than I’d realized. I should have bought more. Ah well. Errands should bring me close to grocery stores next week in any case.

    The sticker shock was pretty impressive this time too. Particularly steep on beef, but on pretty nearly everything else as well.

    It’s not all that cold out (above freezing), but the wind makes it nasty.

    2. Patrick, lucky you to have a Wegmans where you can shop. I used to live less than a 10 minute drive away from one, but life got complicated and I relocated to where I now live, and now the closest one is an hours drive away!

      1. Argh! I do have a Wegmans in shopping distance, but today I went to Harris Teeter. Wegmans doesn’t do senior discounts. I’m not sure why I confused the names.

        1. My Wegmans does senior discounts on Tuesday. I used to live just south of Rochester NY and then moved. I was really happy when they opened locally.

  39. Thanks to the ARGHer who recommended the Eli Easton series “How to Howl At the Moon”. I’ve been reading this series all week. I love all the characters in the town, especially Lily. I’m only on Book 3 of the series, but I would hope that she may, at least in the background if she doesn’t get a book of her own, get a bonded companion.

      1. Though it’s a bit worrying when an author writing about someone who is an expert in plant breeding uses ‘pistols’ instead of ‘pistils’.

        1. Hahahaha omg this is why automated spell-check cannot be 100% trusted. Just because it’s spelled correctly doesn’t mean it’s the correct word (I’m looking at you, ‘discreet’ and ‘discrete’).

  40. Over the last week I read three different Agatha Christies that I had somehow not read before, although I had seen the TV adaptations. The Sittaford Mystery, The Halloween Party, and Hercule Poirot’s Christmas. I also listened to Seven Dials because I was waiting for the new adaptation of that to be released on Netflix. It will be interesting to see how it differs from the book.

    The latest Faith Martin novel, A Dangerous Train Of Thought, has come out in audio format so I am diving into that today. It’s the third in the Val and Arbie mysteries set in 1920s England and I’m expecting it to be just as good as the first two. I love the push-pull dynamic between lazy, successful despite himself Arbie and energetic, serious minded Val.

  41. Due to watching a lot of figure skating events (US National FS championships, and now European FS championships), I haven’t read much, but I did download and read the first Unselected Journals of Emma M Lion by Beth Brower. I am also about 2/3 of the way through a nonfiction book, What Matters in Jane Austen by John Mullan. I am finding it interesting enough to want to go back and reread JA’s works with a fresh eye.

  42. For the winter of 2026 I’ve started a very limited edition bookclub (Jan to April) in which we read or reread some classics that might help us cope. Or maybe just give us words to explain the current messes. We’ve started with Slaughterhouse-Five, which I last read as a naive high school student.

    Any suggestions for the next book, anybody?

    1. 1984? Lord of the Flies? Machiavelli? The Iliad? The Ones who Walk Away From Omelas? The Lottery?

      I think those all help us understaffs it’s harder to come up with ones that help us cope—I am eager to see what others suggest.

        1. Seriously though Hans Christian Anderson wrote a lot of very pointed political satire and if you can find a good un-bowdlerized translation, his collected works are worth reading. Depressing sometimes, but then look at Denmark now, how things change.

    2. Depending on everyone’s grimdark tolerance, I consider Stephen King’s ‘The Dead Zone’ to truly be the great American novel. It’s about the uniquely American intersection of politics, religion, and violence.

      2. That is a book i never would have thought about — i don’t think I have ever read Stephen King, although enjoyed many movies based on his books. Thanks!

      3. chacha1 – have to look that one up. I don’t read him a lot because he scares me but The Stand was fabulous. Also – his book on writing is my favorite book on writing.

    3. When I read it, I did not think Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here was very plausible, but perhaps I would reconsider if I reread it.

      Heinlein’s novella “If This Goes On—”, perhaps along with the excerpts concerning Nehemiah Scudder from Heinlein’s earlier written but posthumously published For Us the Living, where the author devotes a few pages to an earlier account of the same incidents as the novella from a different perspective.

    4. Catch 22
      Slaughterhouse 5

      Although those are both war books, and I’m not sure they encompass the political chaos right now.

      1984 and Clockwork Orange might speak to some of that.

  43. Not much this week. I’m almost to the end of my re-listen of Brockmann’s troubleshooters. I even listened to the ones I don’t like as much so they’d be fresh in my mind again for Breaking the Rules.

    And I think those are the only books I’ve finished this week. Currently slogging through a book which asks the burning question: what if the Unabomber had a daughter whom he raised off the grid? Which wasn’t a question I particularly needed answered, but someone chose it for my book group. I’m 1/4 of the way through and I’m hoping it picks up the pace.

    1. You might like Naomi Kritzer’s Freedom’s Daughter – a look at a libertarian enclave and a girl growing up in it. It had turns I did not expect, and was surprisingly touching.

      1. It’s Liberty’s Daughter, actually. I read it too and liked it. I reviewed it here in December 2024.

  44. Re-reading JD Robb’s In Death series.

    Off topic, but with the new blog design, I’ma fan of the button that jumps the page back up to the top.

  45. Read the new JAK; she doesn’t disappoint.

    Need to read more fiction and less political news/opinion.

  46. Good book I’ve read in the last few weeks: “Agnes and the Hitman” – still very funny after dunno how many re-reads. Although not a good book to read when the cupboard is bare – I really want Agnes to cook for me. I totally agree a man who buys a woman an air-conditioner (and installs it!) – he can stay as long as he likes 😉

    Another re-read was “Mackenzie’s Mission” by Linda Howard (1992) which held up very well, although I wasn’t sure to start with. I love the uber-competent FMC and her insistence on a good apology. Assuming this is set contemporaneously to publication, it pushes Wolf & Mary’s story back into c.1973, which frankly makes more sense.

    Then back to Seanan McGuire’s “Backpacking Through Bedlam” (2023), #12 Incryptid. I would have been happy with the book just being Alice, Thomas & Sally dropping off the last of their refugees, and then settling back into Buckley and meeting all the family: that bit was really very nice. Instead they’re drafted to help out with the war the Covenant have started. There’s something nice about a big interconnected series – it feels messy and real. But it also means it’s messy, plus McGuire is willing to break prior HEA to serve the current story, and if you mind missing things, then there’s a lot of pre-reading to be done.

    But mostly in the last week I’ve been reading New Zealand guidebooks 😊

  47. There are 28 libraries in the Edinburgh City Council district, and I can search for a book and if it is anywhere in the system and borrowable (there are some that are for reference only) I can order it and they will deliver it for collection at my local library. It is a wonderful service and I read an awful lot of books from the library.

    Last week (after I waited months) I read The Impossible Fortune by Richard Osman – the fifth and latest Thursday Murder Club book. It was fantastic and it was so good to meet all the characters again. It would not work as a stand-alone I don’t think.

    I read another in the Val McDermid Karen Pirie series Past Lying (#7) again probably not a stand-alone. It was set during the pandemic and was a great murder mystery, with lots of twists, red herrings and some grief and sorrow that was sensitively handled. A cracking crime and getting justice done.

    Other than that it has been a lot of re-reads from my keeper shelves (I had to buy another bookcase). Several friends, on first visiting my home had asked why I have so many US Authors (and Australian too) and I tell them that if I can get it out of the library I do, but if I can’t I buy. So many are self publishing now so that is adding to my shelves as the library will not stock those. Sometimes I buy something I’ve borrowed from the library if I want to do a re-read (because the book is no longer stocked).

    My local library also does some amazing things (already told about the Secret Santa, and Valentines Blind Date wrapped books to borrow – hoping they do the Valetines Blind Date again this year). On a Wednesday afternoon at 2pm they show a movie (DVD), there is free tea and coffee and biscuits too. It is quite an eclectic selection of movies – previous week was Grease (which I’ve seen too many times), this week it was Bringing Up Baby and I had forgotten what a screwball comedy it was. But oh, my the costumes! It was well attended (around 30 people) and there is quite a friendly community of people who seem to be regulars (I’m not a regular but go when I fancy the movie). It is warm and fun, there are usually subtitles, and the biscuits (cookies) disappear very quickly saw one person with a handful! It is such a nice idea. On the last day of school before Christmas (Friday when schools close at lunchtime here) they showed The Grinch at 3pm. I’d not seen that movie so I went. Again well attended, I was not the only childless woman attending, nor the oldest (she had a Grandson with her). There was about 25 of us and quite a lot of them were, not children! Next week is The Fifth Element (mmm, Bruce Willis) so I will be going again. It certainly makes going to the library fun.

  49. Last night I stumbled across “What Matters in Jane Austen: Twenty Essential Questions Answered” by John Mullen (well, that is the title at the top of each page—for some reason the subtitle on the cover is “Twenty Crucial Puzzles Solved”.
    I am really enjoying it and find it illuminates many of the subtleties in her writing.

    1. Well, I enjoyed it so much I finished it. And I think some folks here might be interested in its discussion of “free indirect style” which we talked about not long ago here and which is particularly discussed in the last question on “How Experimental a Novelist is Jane Austen?”

      I do recommend this book for fans of Jane Austen. It’s interesting without being academic.

    2. It’s John Mullan with an A. (Appropriate for a book about Austen with an E. ) Neither Libby nor Kindle figured that our, but Google did, and it turned out I already had the book in Kindle but had not read far into it! Original edition was 2013.

    3. I’m embarrassed. I checked it out because of Rouan—I didn’t just stumble across it! Thanks Rouan!

  50. I zipped through all nine of the Eric Carter urban fantasy (by Stephen Blackmoore) in audio, and while the series was a bit darker than I prefer, and the protagonist was a bit more of a bad guy than I prefer, the books were really addictive. Disappointed that the series ended before the author was ready for it to end (I believe).

    The narrator of the non-dramatized versions, Rudy Sanda, is really good. I didn’t care for the dramatized version of the first book, so I opted for the regular audio for the rest. The main character’s narrator in the dramatized version seemed to be rushing through the story, and there were some other directorial choices that were offputting for me.

    1. I read the first few, and found them very good. Stephen is married to a friend of mine, which is how I ended up with them. Alas, they are also too dark for me, despite being very well written, so I walked away around book 4. And yes, the publisher cancelled the series, despite its relative success. Sigh. Publishing.

  51. No shame, apart from new audiobooks, I read a handful of new books last year. Recently I listened to Lindsay Buroker’s Hammered and Way of the Wolf mainly as her narrator Vivienne Leheny is good. I listen to audiobooks dependent on if I like the narrator’s voice. Her books are a good start into the series

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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