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This is a Good Book Thursday: Upgrade Day

Did you notice the new design?  I’m still figuring things out behind the scenes.  Things have Changed, which always throws me for a loop.  For one think it wants me to deactivate (how?) my license (what license?) and then reactivate it again (how?).  Clearly a job for Mollie.

However I’m quite sure you can still post about books here.  I hope.  Actually I’m quite sure you’ll post about books here on whatever was the last post.  A group of free thinkers, that’s you.

So post about good books.  I’ll get the hang of this shortly.

173 Responses

  1. I could almost cut last GooBooThurs’s post and past it here. Only minor changes. Wolf says he is switching from three chapter per week (M/W/F) to two chapters per week (M/Th) for the remaining six chapters of VARIATION ON A THEME Book 6, AKA “the Word Opera.” Then he won’t start posting Book 7 until mid-April. We’ll have to make do with reruns.

    I haven’t finished MORETA: DRAGONLADY OF PERN by Anne McCaffrey. I remember when this book came out and I read it new.

    I was awakened by an urgent call down the basement stairs. The Dotter wanted me to know that my gardens were making a loud buzzing noise. They do that, you see, when the water level drops low enough to suck air into the circulating pump AND the safety doesn’t shut it down. In this case, the sound was coming from a ceiling light that she turned with the switch at the top of the stairs. No plants were harmed in the making of this buzz. Since I was up anyway, I harvested a handfull of tomatoes and made a sausage/tomato/mozzarella/Egg Beaters omelet.

  2. I like the twinkling stars.

    I quite enjoyed ‘Mr Collins in Love’, though am always uneasy with fan fiction. Switched to rereading Nora Roberts’ ‘The Liar’, for a fantasy perfect family hit, then Eli Easton’s ‘How to Howl at the Moon’, which is quite fun, though shape-shifters not my favourite either. At least they’re not werewolves. Might try the rest of the series if I give KU another go.

    1. Jane, I remember reading the Howl at the Moon series some years ago and that I liked the first book quite a bit, but that I liked the next installment How to Walk like a Man better. K9 Roman and his human Matt are an interesting pair I thought back then – maybe I just liked the balanced earnestness of the German Shepard more than the nervous bossiness of Sheriff Lance 😉

      2. Have you read the narration of dear German Shepherd Chet and his teammate human private detective? By Spencer Quinn (a pseudonym). Quite my favorite.

  3. Attention Rock Chick lovers;
    I don’t know if you’ve discovered Kristen Ashley’s series ‘Avenging Angels’ – they are so fun! I’m about to start #4.
    There’s a lot of fun & surprising character crossover. Kristen’s usual 2 or 3 plots going on at once. Her usual big community forming. All the things we love about her!
    And for those of you who love it – lots of sex on the page. I don’t love it. I tend to read it the first time I read the book in case there are things that move the plot along & skip it in future rereads.
    If you liked Rock Chicks you will love Avenging Angels.

    2. Hello fellow Rock Chick! I love her books but, like you, I tend to skim over the sex scenes. KA is my go-to when I am in a reading slump, along with Jennifer Crusie’s older books along with some Barbara Michaels and Mary Stewart. (Yes, I am that old. LOL )

  4. I’m back to re-reading yours, though due to medication I’m having issues holding my book steady. I am coming off the medication so hopefully it won’t be too much of an issue. I love reading your books, they make me happy, and happy is what I need right now.

  5. I did notice the change in design. Because I’m in change management so I’m trained to notice these things. 🤪

    I like it! Makes everything super clear so maybe I’ll stop leaving replies to peoples’ posts when I intend to create one of my own.

    As to books this week…I listened to Lois McMaster Bujold’s The Hallowed Hunt, which was my final in The World of the Five Gods series. In some ways it was my favourite. I thought Ingrey was her most well thought out MC of the series and Lady Ijada was a marvellous foil to him. Many authors can’t seem to write a female MC who pushes back at the hero without making her sound snide but Ijada is wonderfully sketched as an intelligent woman with her strong thoughts. Many fascinating moments in this book. My only complaint is that there was sometimes too much exposition and some heavy duty theology. All in all though, a very satisfying read.

    I also read Eliot Grayson’s A Happy Armitage New Year which is really only for fans of her Mismatched Mates series as it brings most of the couples together in one homage book. Quite enjoyable to revisit everyone.

    I re-read A.Y. Caluen’s Public Offering, the story of a London billionaire who hooks up with the LA lawyer in the patent office he does business with. I forgot how much I loved this book. Don’t hate me Chacha1, but it totally reminded me of Heated Rivalry without the rivalry and without the pucks, since it’s an exploration of a long term relationship that starts out only casually and occasionally and then…evolves. The two MC’s really pop off the page.

    1. Tammy S — The Hallowed Hunt is one of my favorite LMB for the reasons you give about the characters and balance of Ingrey and Ijada. I also like the team that develops and the icebear. I don’t have a problem with the theology. Yet, I see my husband’s point that there’s a lot more talking and therefore less action than in Curse of Chalion or Paladin of Souls. I definitely like the writing/composition, such as the parallel but very different slides down the river.

    2. Please feel free to tell anyone you know that Public Offering reminded you of Heated Rivalry! Best & most timely rec ever! 🙂

      2. Trying to convince myself this means I might like Heated Rivalry if I tried it again. My booklist shows I DNFd it and says “Too! Much! Angst!” You, on the other hand, do not do too much angst.

        1. I don’t think there was too much angst in Heated Rivalry. Certainly not compared to Thrown Off the Ice for example.

  6. I hate change. It’s a me thing. In a couple of weeks I won’t even notice it. I do love the twinkling stars. And really, I’m just happy to be here, no matter what it looks like.

    I’m reading Patricia Briggs’ new book, which is really a series of short stories about side character werewolf Asil tied together into a novel. Apparently some of them were already published (as an author, I’m impressed by the ingenuity, well done, Patty), but luckily my memory is so bad, it doesn’t make any difference. In fact, it is kind of a mellow read, for Briggs, and I’m really enjoying it. It was just what I needed right now, and I love it when books hit just right. It’s like a gift from the reading gods.

    1. Asil is a fun character. Can go from light to menancing so quickly! I’m working my way through the stories too.

    2. I love the bit where he uses the rug to save the beautiful woodwork in the floor because it was exactly what I was worried about. Made me laugh. I also really appreciated that Briggs addresses the series of unlikely coincidences by having Asil assume he is being guided by a higher power. I thought that was a nice bit of awareness about her storytelling.

  7. Good News:
    Rocky Road: A Rocky Start Novella By Bob Mayer is available for Kindle preorder on Amazon! Available 5/27/26 or sooner. Max goes back on the trail. I can’t wait! And I hope it will be available in paperback and audio because I re-read and re-listen that series repeatedly. Really good characters and plotting there! Highly recommend!

    It’s been a while since I read anything worth sharing here. I saw a list of Parade magazine recommended Christmas books and started but DNF several. (I did enjoy re-reading Window Shopping and The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year, last year’s discoveries.) From Parade’s suggestions I very much enjoyed Five Found Dead by Sulari Gentill. It’s a current time murder mystery set on the Orient Express. Definitely read it electronically so you can check out images of the rooms on the OE. Swoon. A published author brother and his sister are celebrating his beating cancer and attempting to kickstart his writing again by traveling on the Orient Express. And suspiciously there are a lot of law enforcement or murder studying types on board who are conscripted to work together when there’s a murder and a disappearance. The author takes many country house stereotypes and gives just enough extra details to make them individual. It’s not a romance so no sex scenes. (Trigger warning: some of the five found dead are nice passengers. Usually authors make the victims kinda repellent.) I found this a fun read and I’m going to check out other books by this author, who has a back catalog.

  8. I love it! I noticed the graphic change yesterday on my chrome front page: the quick-link is now cherries 🍒!

    I read Megan Wade’s Wall Street series. Definitely “sugar sweet” as she promises.

    Reading Deborah Blake’s Wickedly Wonderful, which I’m enjoying much more.

    1. Yes, I particularly love the cherry on the site tab. I don’t know if that is the same as the quick link. Also glad my ‘face’ is the same, now that I have got used to the pink version of me.

      1. Over the holidays I did not finish a slew of cozy mysteries that did not deserve my attention, and my thought throughout was “Deborah Blake could write this so much better.”

  9. I like the new design. It’s pretty while still feeling familiar. Not so different from the old moteif.

    I’m still in a sort of reading limbo. Someone ran a red light and hit my car and I think that the required headspace of dealing with all that is making it hard to read. I did listen to the first two Circle of Magic books by Tamara Pierce. I read this series over and over when I was a young person. I forgot a lot and they hit differently now but I still enjoy them. I have had to borrow them from three different libraries to get them all, which I think is odd. Wouldn’t you think that if they had the second and third book, a library would have them all? Maybe the licence expires at different times.

      1. Thanks. No one was hurt and the other driver was very nice and admitted that it was his fault right away, to both me and the cop. Also, I have a dash cam that is date/time stamped and showed that I was going below the speed limit and that the light was very very green as I was going through it. Mostly it is just the annoyance/hassle/inconvenience of dealing with the fallout. I loved my 12 year old Subaru and was planning on driving it forever, but I expect that she will be totaled and I will have to go car shopping. Argh.

        3. Sympathies. My 12 year old Cruiser was totalled by a very large tree branch falling on it after an ice storm. (I was not in it. It was not parked under the tree. The branch bounced!) I looked out the kitchen window and saw the windshield was shattered and went out to have a look and as I got close I thought “It’s _bent._ The frame is bent.” After seven years I am still sad.

    2. That sucks–and can be so scary! Hope you weren’t hurt and it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

    3. I think it has more to do with each individual branch’s acquisition budget than any thing else. If a series is issued all at one time, that would mean that branch wouldn’t have the money to buy anything else for quite a while. Libraries are charged significantly more per copy of ebooks than individuals are so they can’t afford to buy one copy per branch unless it is a very big seller.

      1. And they also aren’t buying them. Most get a three year lease of each copy, which I think is ridiculous. They paid for it. They should get to keep it like a physical book. If the libraries would band together for bargaining power instead of all negotiating a single entities the way that other countries do, I feel like they could get better terms.

  10. I noticed the change and thought I’d entered an alternat universe. LOL!

    Lots of rereading of comfort reads but now that I have JAK’s latest, The Shop on Hidden Lane, I’ll be diving into that.

  11. I’m happy my screenreader still likes Argh, even after changes. Yay!
    I think I’d just read the Nine Lives magical mystery-series books 1-3 by Danielle Garrett last I wrote on GBT. I went on to read books 4-6 as well: PURR-FECT POTIONS, FURRY FORTUNES and TALISMAN TAILS, because they were such easy reading. I will say, the titles do not match the contents very well, as in: they don’t say anything, or very little, about the plot. Every book has its own mystery and conflict to solve, but as I mentioned already in books 1-3, there was a larger mystery running through the books that hadn’t yet been solved at the end of book 3. Spoiler: It is solved at the end of book 6. I might return to the series later if I need an easy no-brainpower-read (and because I enjoy the talking familiar, Seline), but it is set up so you can stop here without wondering what’s gonna happen next. I think there are 6 or 7 more books in the series.
    I’m made a few more steps on discovering and introducing witchcraft to my life by reading KITCHEN WITCHCRAFT FOR BEGINNERS by Dawn Aurora Hunt. She mentioned one of Deborah Blake’s books at the top of her list of good further reading. 🙂 It was a good read.
    I finished my slow reread of Kevin Hearne’s A PLAGUE OF GIANTS and enjoyed it all over again. The magic of the seven kennings is very interesting, and – as with most of his books – there are a lot of good life-lessons and philosophical musings to let sink in and ponder on. This series takes a bit more brainpower than I have right now, so I’ll wait a bit before I reread A BLIGHT OF BLACKWINGS, but I will have to at some point if I want to read book 3. It’s been out for years and I haven’t read it yet…
    THE CRESCENT MOON TEAROOM by Stacy Sivinski was… not what I’d hoped for, which is probably why I put it aside a while ago. I decided to pick it up again, maybe I’d just not been in the right mood. Alas. I had trouble connecting with the main characters, the pace felt slow, and about the time things got a’rolling, I was about 80 % into the book. I was about to DNF when I realized I only had 1.5h left and could just as well finish it. It might be the perfect book for someone else, but it was not meant for me.
    So I reread A MAN CALLED OVE by Fredrik Backman and loved it all over again and laughed and cried, and laughed, and then cried some more. Such a beautiful book.
    After that I went back to ASCENDANT (aka “The blind-dragon book”) by Michael R. Miller and finally finished it. I don’t know why it took so much effort, it’s a nice piece of epic dragon-fantasy. Blind dragon is adorable, the story is good and the characters as well. It didn’t hit all the right buttons to get a 5, but I really liked it and will definitely read book 2 when the time feels right.
    Last finished book was a reread of THE LOST HERO by Rick riordan, the first book in the “The Heroes of Olympus”-series. Even that went slow, despite my love for the books and the series, and now my brain has ground to a stop. I’m trying to read things, but I can’t focus, can’t take it in, can’t enjoy it.
    What do you read when your comfort-reads don’t work either?
    Oh yes and one last one: I’ve started reading THE SELF-CARE PLAN FOR THE HIGHLY SENSITIVE PERSON by Amanda Cassil. It’s a book with 365 tips for self-care for HSPs. You read the one for the current date, and that’s it, so that… “sticks” is a big word, but I can sort of take it in. But that’s not as much reading for relaxation, comfort or joy as it is reading for practical self-care reasons. I need a book-hug, good escapism…something.

    1. Dawn Hunt is great. I have that book. Kitchen witchery is such a great place to start, especially if you are someone who is preparing food anyway. I’m not sure if you’re aware that I give monthly witchcraft classes online. I’m trying to think if one needs to see in order to benefit from them, but for the most part, I think it’s just me talking…

      1. I have been thinking about your classes, yes. The biggest issue is the time-difference, I think. You hold them in your evenings? Unless it’s possible to watch them back later, that’d be a bit complicated since there’s, I think, at least a 6 hour difference between us. 🙁 So the 8PM at yours is a 2AM here. But, I have definitely eyed your Twitter/Bluesky-posts about those classes over the past months… Who knows.

    3. I just finished the most recent Fredrik Backman which is, surprise surprise, also a tearjerker. I am not into tearjerkers at all but Backman is just that good.

      1. Yes, “My Friends” had me crying too. Ove is definitely my favourite though, closely followed by “My Grandma Sent Me To Tell You She’s Sorry” (…is the English title, I think). I think it’s because he doesn’t write to tearjerk you, his goal is not to make you cry. He just writes about people and the complexicities of life, and it hits right home, because it’s done with such tenderness and respect and yet is so very, very spot on.

  12. Candace Fleming, The Enigma Girls, 2024.  A worm’s eye view of the famous Enigma effort in WWII, with side glances at other work done at Bletchey Park and the radio intercept stations feeding into it, such as the problem of the Geheimschreiber that could be decrypted only with the aid of what was arguably the first digital computer. The “worms” here in question were the young women on the lowest rank of the in-the-know cryptological totem pole, who did most of the classified grunt labor. True, as the author notes, a disproportionate segment of the cryptological “worms” hailed from the high strata of British society, since the rulers of British intelligence figured that only “our sort” could be really trusted to keep a secret.

    The book seems to be aimed at preteens and perhaps the youngest teens. Kindle says ages 8 to12, and the book won Sibert Honor (essentially an honorable mention for the Sibert Award for children’s nonfiction) where the cutoff is age 14.  Author Fleming works the word “teenaged” to death, presumably so as to attract the interest of preteens and young teens. In fact, with, I think, one exception of a 17-year-old, all of the females profiled were 18 or older when they became involved with cryptology. That makes them technically teenagers, but the core meaning of the word is surely high-school aged, whereas these women (although in their time and place mostly never college-bound) were what we would today think of as college-age. Except for one profiled girl who came on board only in 1944, the subjects, mostly joining in 1939, quickly aged out of their teen years as the war dragged on. (There also existed other forgotten and still unsung support personnel, many without security clearance, essential to the effort but lacking any idea of what was really going on.).

    The first chapter is written strongly “down,” although the author’s attempt to helpfully define “barrage balloons” results in the bizarrely inaccurate “blimps on wires,” and she sees no need to define “wrought iron” or “redbrick,” which I think would be equally unfamiliar to an American preteen. Fortunately, in later chapters Fleming hits a more comfortable and readable stride.

    I had already read quite a bit about Bletchley Park, but I encountered new information often enough to keep me reading, deriving either from fairly obscure memoirs or from articles and books published since I last had visited the topic. The book seems well researched and generally accurate. There are extensive backnotes and a bibliography.

    I would think this a good choice for a preteen interested in the topic, and not a bad one even for an adult new to the topic or one seeking a quick refresher or an update.

        1. Well, it says iron right in the name. Could you have distinguished it from cast iron or carbon steel? Probably not necessary for the context in the book, true.

          1. Yes. But then I had seen a blacksmith make my parents’ fire tools
            And marshmallow toasters. 🙂

      2. I certainly knew what wrought iron was before kindergarten. “Redbrick”, however, seems to have some Brit-specific meaning that I still don’t quite get. (My family’s passionate interest in different styles of brick-laying notwithstanding.)

        1. I had some slight experience with wrought iron fences early, but doubt if I knew the term. Certainly not an everyday item in either the Chicago neighborhood where I lived 0 to 5 or the suburban one where I spent the rest of childhood.

          1. My parents loved wrought iron. My father took metal working in high school and showed me the difference between cast and wrought when I was quite young. You know that human tendency to assume everyone knows what you know? Until now I have never wondered if everybody I grew up with knows the difference.

        2. Is she talking about universities?

          Redbrick universities are the universities that were founded at the end of the 19th century in big industrial cities like the University of Liverpool or the University of Manchester. They are named that because of their architecture: the buildings were built with red bricks.

          Nowadays, they are very well respected universities which offer a very wide range of subjects.

          I met my husband at the University of Liverpool. I was an exchange student, he was a mature student.

  13. I was reading a lot at the ER waiting to decide the elder (adult) kid’s gallbladder needs removing, which is a family affliction (me, my dad, all at about this age). Victoria Goddard’s Return of Fitzroy Angursell did me well while they were napping, and I made progress on a sock while they were awake.

    I was reading a bunch of art fraud and thievery books, but they were all written by the guys that discovered them, and the people that perpetrated them were… not as much fun as a Leverage episode? It was confusing to me, so I took them back and am working on Pacific islander navigation techniques instead.

  14. •Donna Andrews, Six Geese A-Slaying, 2008 (audiobook 2017; as usual, excellently read by Bernadette Dunne).  This is already the tenth Meg Langslow book, but by 2026 it feels early in the series. I had somehow missed it hitherto, or else completely forgotten it.  (Five Golden Wings, the 2025 Christmas book, was Meg Langslow novel number 38, with two more titles already chosen for the 2026 books.)  Here, Meg has only been married for six months, but already has been pushed into the post of Mistress of the Revels, which turns out to mean supervising Caerphilly’s annual Christmas parade, now reconceived as a “Holiday” parade with nods to Hannukah and Diwali, but set for December 23, with the emphasis still on Christmas.

    The nasty man playing Santa is murdered.  It is no great loss except that he was the only plausible Santa who could fit into the undersized town-owned Santa suit, and even that turns out not to be critical, since Meg’s father happens to own a Santa suit.  This is the first year for husband Michael’s soon to be traditional one-man show adapting Dickens’s A Christmas Carol.  Hence it is ironically fitting that the murder weapon is a stake of holly driven through Santa’s heart. (In an earlier post I had expressed surprise that Dickens knew about vampires in 1843.)  Less deliberately than in future years, Meg solves the crime. This is fairly standard Andrews Christmas fare.  We have a fairly long Confrontation with the Killer and one of Andrews’s beloved snowstorms (Meg reflects that they are uncommon in eastern Virginia as early in winter as December, although she has no idea yet how often Caerphilly will be beset by such snowstorms in future Christmases.)  Recommended.

  15. The new site design is pretty but I have to confess a non-serif font like Calibri is easier for me to read on screen. Ah well.

    My reading year to date is slower-paced because we’ve been doing a Netflix movie binge. (I subscribed for reasons, thinking I’d unsubscribe after disposing of reasons, but if it keeps feeding us movies we like … .)

    1. ‘The Build-a-Boyfriend Project’ by Mason Deaver. This was a bit of a slog due to the POV character being a guy I didn’t much like who did things I thought were stupid and/or self-defeating (and also bad for his love interest). Given the setup and the fact that it’s “MM romance” I predicted certain plot points, which all came to pass. On the plus side, representation; POV guy is a trans man and love interest is Korean American. Set in San Francisco, and I did enjoy seeing familiar places via the story.

    2. [re-read] ‘Seeing a Large Cat’ by Elizabeth Peters, 9th (I think) in the Amelia Peabody series, the one in which it’s 1903, Ramses is sixteen, and Amelia is having a hard time seeing him as the young man he’s become.

    3. ‘Once Upon You and Me’ by Timothy Janofsky. MM contemporary, older MC is general manager of his ex-wife’s Catskills resort, younger MC is the ex-wife’s personal assistant. Frantic pace, word choice & spelling issues, and disappointingly lacking in big feels despite a setup with huge potential for same.

    Netflix movie recs of the week: ‘K Pop Demon Hunters’ (which is very much about being seen and loved for who you are, very funny, and full of music), ‘Back in Action’ (action comedy starring Cameron Diaz and Jamie Foxx), ‘Nonnas’ (based on a true story, starring Vince Vaughn who is great in it and Susan Sarandon who is always great). If you like violent suspense thrillers, ‘Carry On’ is like ‘Die Hard 2’ only actually good, starring Taron Egerton.

      1. Similar problems with the paleness of the font here. Not just the gray of the normal text, but people’s names are paler as well.

        1. Contrast is important, and font as well. No, I can not see it anymore but I remember 🙂 And I hear it from people around me getting older. I think it’s only good if you point these things out, because then it can possibly be adjusted/fixed/changed. I think it should even be possible these days to add things like possibility to change contrast and fontsize to the workings of a website, so people can click on whatever they need for the best reading-experience. Perhaps Mollie knows the how. 🙂

    3. I loved K-Pop Demon Hunters! Plus, it gives me a conversation starter with the under 10 crowd. They have opinions!

    4. As I said in postings yesterday on the Sunday topic, I agree about readability issues on small screens like my phone’s. Ditching the background from under text would help, as perhaps would just a color change. Would a blue background provide better contrast? I think a thicker font, even if still serif, would help. I’m indifferent to, or positive about, the other changes. I think the bigger heading when one selects REPLY TO may help avert misplaced comments.

      1. I know for people with problems with visual organization blue and gray backgrounds are worse, white and pink are better. Confirmed by DD opthamologist and we got a school accommodation for her after she broke down in tears over A blue 30 page math package and then raced through it when I copied it onto white.

  16. I love new design: the twinkling stars, the blue, the clearness of where the replies are going. 🙂

    I haven’t finished it yet, but I’m almost done and enjoying Lovelight Farms by B.K. Borison. I’d seen recommendations for it popping up everywhere and had it on hold at my library, since it was a new-to-me author. It’s told in only the main female character’s POV, which I don’t love, but it’s an easy and undemanding read, just what I needed right now.

  17. So pretty! Love it. You guys did a great job. I unfortunately have no time for reading as I’m fostering a 9 wk old Great Dane puppy for another week or so.

  18. Wow, this looks really different, but I like it a lot.

    Getting back on track this week and in need of some MM Hockey, I read ‘Drop the Gloves’ AL Heard. I enjoyed it a lot, particularly the exploration of the role of hitting and fighting in the game, something I am not too keen on in real life, so the discussion/ conflict was interesting. Nice MCs and decent plot and lots of hockey.

    I also read ‘The Gilded Cage’ (MF, late 19th Century England, KJ Charles). I’d read and enjoyed ‘Any Old Diamonds’ to which this is a sequel of sorts. Someone here mentioned it a few weeks ago, thanks to whoever it was. I really enjoyed it. Good heroine, competent and independent. I love a good MF with a decent heroine but they can be hard to find (though Jennie has given us many to enjoy!).

    On audio I am enjoying ‘Tomb of Dragons’ by Katherine Addison. This is the third in a trilogy about a witness for the dead. It is perhaps the best in the trilogy, though I have liked them all. Certainly it has a lot more action than the second one, though that is not to say it is action packed. I like the pace and the characters, but I have a lot of trouble remembering their names and the place names. I think that would work better in print where I assume the spellings of similar sounding names is quite different, but the reading is very good so I have stuck with audio.

    1. FrozenPond, if you liked Drop the Gloves but not the actual fighting (I’m not particularly fond of that either unless it’s for defending a team mate), AL Heard sent out a short novellina about Riley and Evan one year after the end of the book: We learn that Riley’s PIM due to fighting have drastically decreased while he’s having a really good year scoring wise 🙂
      Heard sent this out as coda to her newsletter. Interested in reading it?

    2. I have trouble finding good m/f these days too. Especially contemporary which is a shame because it has such promise as a genre. I still enjoy m/f when one of them isn’t human, though, maybe because that provides enough tension to the plot? I don’t watch romcom movies anymore either because anything after the early 2000s usually irks me. I can do Korean dramas still, but maybe that is because the tropes are so different.

      I also really enjoyed Tomb of Dragons, but had mixed feelings about the ending, so am looking forward to hear what you think.

      1. Agree, I can’t see why good contemporary MF should be so hard to find. Maybe it works when one isn’t human as then you don’t have the same expectations. Like the way I don’t have the same expectations of things set in another country as I do for stuff set in Ireland.

        And Yikes! I wasn’t expecting the ending of Tomb of Dragons to be much more than a fade out. Now I’m going to be wondering… I’ll let you know my thoughts next week.

        1. I think that’s why I read so much American romance – the foreign setting makes it that much closer to fantasy.

      2. I haven’t had an idea for a new MF romance for quite a while, but I’m very fond of some of my FMCs … have you tried “A Winning Hand”?

    3. Alas, the spelling of similar-sounding names are NOT quite different. I find it worth the struggle, and after several re reads I can almost always remember who minor characters are.

  19. I like the new format. Clean and easy to read.

    I read 2 books by Abbi Waxman – One Death at a Time and Christa Comes Out of Her Shell. Very different books. One Death is a murder mystery and Christa is a love story/family drama. Waxman is good at characterization and snappy dialogue. I liked them both but Good Death was more enjoyable for me. The 2 MCs, a 20 something and an older actress turned lawyer, are both recovering alcoholics and band together to resolve a murder that the actress is suspected of committing. Both are very prickly and their dialogue is often very funny. I was happy to discover that this was book 1 in a series and the 2nd book comes out in 2026.

    I read Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden for my book group meeting. It’s dark, none of the characters are happy. There’s a very graphic sex scene involving 2 women in the middle. It advances the plot but was still a bit surprising given the overall tone of the book. Also, because my book group doesn’t read books with lots of sex. Our discussion next week will be interesting.

    Finally, I read Season’s Change by Cait Nairy. It was published in 2022 and she thanks Rachel Read in the afterword. It is not quite Heated Rivalry – more angst and Nairy doesn’t have RR’s knack for levity/fun. But it is very good. Both MCs are struggling for different reasons. One is gay and terrified of being outed. The other has a complicated family background. They slowly fall for each other but it a long, emotional process of figuring out how to acknowledge and articulate their feelings. Not 7 years like Shane and Ilya but months. There’s a 2nd book in this series which I’m just starting today.

      1. Same here. I love Season’s Change – the audio is very good, too.

        RR and CN (as well as Ari Baran) have the same agent and are published by the same publishing house – that so totally botched having actual copies of the books in the bookshops.

        The German publisher’s first printing numbers (published in Dec. 11) were too modest and didn’t even cover the pre-orders. I’m still waiting for my preorder as is a dear colleague (he so far hasn’t read RR or hockey romances). Mind you, the show has no airing date here in Germany yet but the book is already a hot number: while HBO Max will launch in mid-January, they haven’t mentioned HR in the ads.

        1. Hmmmm, Heated Rivalry for sure. Thrown Off the Ice and Between the Teeth by Taylor Fitzpatrick, Empty Net and Power Play by Avon Gale, Lucky Bounce also by Cait Nary, and Depending How You Feel About Baseball by theundiagnoseable. Okay I couldn’t quite keep it to five. But those are my most frequent re-reads in the mm hockey genre.

          2. Taylor Fitzpatrick is new to me. Read Empty Net and Power Play (and other 3 in the series) but long enough ago that I can re-read. Thanks for the suggestions.

          3. Heated Rivalry has been included in the long list for CBC radio’s annual Canada Reads event. It’s a nationally broadcast “competition” to find the book every Canadian needs to read. I’d have to go back and see if any previous lists contain romance books. This year there are two. Small potatoes in the grand scheme of literary prizes but a big deal for RR and romance novels, even if it doesn’t make the short list (5 books, usually “serious”).

          4. Which is hysterical since Canada Reads is typically about literature or as a friend of mine says ‘litrachure’.

          5. The old discussion between Literature and genre fiction…
            After school with loads of the former, you have to trick me into reading it.
            At least in my mother tongue, “Literature” feels like work, not joy.

    2. Season’s Change is a top hockey romance for me. I liked the second one as well but preferred Season’s Change. I wish Cait Nary would give us some more M/M hockey books!

      1. I liked the second a lot, though maybe not as much as the first as I like angst, but I am fond of the fake dating trope when it has an original angle. I wasn’t keen on her other one ‘Lucky Bounce’.

  20. •Jack McDevitt,  Ancient Shores, 1996.  In the very near future as seen from from 1996, like-new high-tech artifacts from ten thousand years ago are discovered buried at what appears to be an outdoors recreation center on the shore of a body later to be dubbed by geologists Lake Agassiz, a huge freshwater lake stretching over what are now parts two US states and two Canadian provinces and draining into Hudson Bay. (It disappeared when further glacial melting improved the drainage.) The most interesting artifact, an entire building, stands on the territory of the Spirit Lake Dakota Reservation.  Eventually the building turns to be not merely former housing for vacationing alien tourists but a still-functioning interstellar teleportation center, although there is no sign of aliens on any of the worlds visited so far.  The Earth’s economy immediately tanks at the prospect of near-indestructable materials replacing existing ones and of using teleportation even at short ranges in place of current modes of transportation. There are also unconfirmed rumors that some sort of invisible energy being has gotten loose on Earth.  International complications also arise. The weak-willed US President buckles to economic pressure and general panic and orders the seizure (with monetary compensation) and “accidental” destruction of the disquieting site.  But it sits on Native American land, and the Dakota and possibly other tribes are strongly considering emigrating to one of the discovered worlds, namely an unspoiled, human-compatible, seemingly uninhabited planet. Hence seizing the artifact site is not going to be easy either legally or tactically. All comes to a rip-roaring climax (involving spoilers).

    Parts of the novel are very good, but I find one central premise absurd.  The present-day economy isn’t going to tank just because somewhere in the universe some set of beings had the knowledge and resources (for all we know, perhaps requiring coordination of entire stellar systems) to build super-materials or to construct interstellar teleportation networks.  These technologies probably lie far beyond current human capacity to duplicate or even to scale down.  At the most utterly optimistic, it would require many decades before such alien innovations could hit the marketplace and we have plenty of everyday reason to believe that, whether because of blind economic forces or the short time-horizons of the human directors of the economy, economic trends ignore the long run.

    On the other hand, the novel contains lots of interesting local color about the region of North Dakota near the Canadian border and most of the characters are drawn more fully than is often the case in science fiction.  The Native American characters look plausible to me, although my direct experience is low.

    The population of the Spirit Lake Reservation is something like fully one-eighth that of Greenland, and today, alas, we have the spectacle of a US President trying to bully that only slightly larger, mostly Indigenous, group with even less of an excuse for the bullying than in the novel.

    There is a sequel to Ancient Shores published many years later, Thunderbird, 2015, which seems to be not as well received. I haven’t read it yet, but plan to. This novel is mildly recommended.

  21. I love the new design!

    I started reading White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg last night but have decided that is way too heavy given our current sociopolitical climate. I’ll pick something else off of my 300-book strong TBR shelf for tonight. Perhaps a little Patrick Taylor. I believe I’m up to Irish Country Cottage in his Irish Country series.

  22. I’m still running a backlog. With the holiday rush over, I had hoped to get more books discussed at least briefly, but I had a couple of days when I felt incapable of writing (sometimes even mild illness does that to me) and others when I was busy. We’ll see about next week.

  23. My tbr Everest is too high so what do I do – re-read.
    I reread Bowen’s Hockey Guys after I saw that there’ll be a fourth installment (minor league goalie to be downgraded and a bartender in the Sportsballs bar featuring in I’m Your Guy. There’s only one in that book so I guess it’s the one called beefy who has some words for the head coach. I’m not much for beefy if this means “fleshy” as dict.cc tells me, but “muscular” and strong would do fine LOL.
    I’m now listening to the new audio of “Draft Bust” by Hannah Henry. The narration is done by two guys that are clearly not my favourite narrators, but Alexander Cendese slows down here quite a bit, so it’s less hard to listen to his narration. Draft Bust is probably my favourite of Henry’s first books as I like her tackling the topic of a stellar talent whose career was cut short by injuries not taken seriously enough. And yes, please bear with me still being in my hockey era: after watching HR, kiddo and me are kind of in withdrawal and choose our books accordingly.
    Kiddo is very much regretting that during her year abroad in Canada (!) she didn’t keep up on NHL info (her friends were less into hockey than her family), so didn’t actually realize that we watched a Sharks vs Canucks game while in Vancouver. With CELEBRINI, Smith, Eki, my fav Ferraro, and Toffoli on the ice. My son was (quietly) rooting for the Sharks (they lost, but not for lack of skills), while with hindsight my kiddo cannot believe why she didn’t cheer for the Sharks – well, we attended the game in Rogers Arena… It’s just fun seeing them get quite the momentum this year.
    Hockey as family bonding experience…
    After HR, Kiddo got into watching real life hockey again, too.
    I appreciate that she makes a clear distinction between our fav fiction and real life hockey: here in Europe it’s far less glamorous but still passionate.
    And I love it that kiddo and me prefer having wrecked voices after a game instead of being all girly while getting manicures and sipping aperol sprizz
    We just got tickets for a game next week when our team is facing four of their old team mates now playing for Dresden. Our seats are right behind the guest benches (barn almost sold out since it’s students night). That’s how I spent my b’day money. Kiddo will wear her Ortega jersey while maybe the real Ortega will sit just in front of us.
    Me, however, will likely not wear my xmas present Koivu jersey. It’s no Habs game…

    1. I enjoyed hearing about your hockey game experiences. I managed to get to a game when I was in Czechia in October. Three of the home team at that game have been named to the Czech Olympic team, so I’ll be supporting Czechia in the Olympics for as long as they last.

      1. The U20 team just won silver at the Junior world hampionship, ejecting Canada for the third time in a row from the event. The Czech are strong – Pasta, Necas, Hertel, Zacha, the great goalies Dobes & Dostal etc – they’ve won the World Championship in 2024, they’ll be a hard nut to crack!

        1. Addendum: the great thing is that the Czech National team is not just dependent on the NHL players, those playing at home are strong as well.

        1. Czechia is another name for the Czech Republic (the Czechs resisted it for a while and then accepted it). Chechnya (aka the Chechen Republic), which would be pronounced in English like Czechnia if the latter existed, is a constituent part of Russia inhabited mostly by a Moslem people and where there was a vicious war of secession, ruthlessly suppressed. The Wikipedia article on it has a “not to be confused with” warning.

  25. I like the color and the new, larger font. Good for you (and Mollie). I just started Why We Read, by Shannon Reed, which is a hoot. That cannot be said for a lot of nonfiction. Also just re-read Cotillion by Georgette Heyer, which I love.

    1. Larger font? For me it was smaller than before and I had to enlarge it again. And for some weird reason what I type in the comment box is a larger font than appears after it posts.

  26. I like the new format – everything looks crisp and clear.
    Know I haven’t posted for an ice age but I have been lurking with not much to add to anything going on. I have enjoyed you all without contributing and feel bad about that. I am feeling a bit better now and more able to say…

    A book I read years ago and wanted to re-read (but I got from the library and they no longer stock it) was Trevor Curnow’s The Oracles of the Ancient World. I managed to find a almost-new copy on line for a reasonable price and am loving it all over again. Mr Curnow is a good guild to this fascinating subject and it is more of an armchair travelogue for me and I am enjoying it anew. Who knew there were so many different types of oracle and so many in the ancient world.

    A friend sent me Finding My Way by Malala Yousafzai for Christmas and I read it within two days. I have always been an admirer of this amazing woman but was astounded by her story and love her even more now. Stunning story of courage and strength and purpose.

    I got a Secret Santa book from the library (wrapped book with a one line description – “small town cosy, + gardening”) it was Mr McGregor by Alan Titchmarsh which I would never have picked off the shelf but really enjoyed. A well written novel full of kindness, and love, family and friendship. As I will now be looking out for more of his books in the library it was a really good deal.

    A Librarian introduced me to a Val McDermid novels- she lives in Edinburgh – and I am now working my way through her novels from the library. They are all (so far as I have read) set in Scotland and are really good, thrilling, twisty, murder mysteries. My love of them may also be tempered by knowing a lot of the locations.

    Also – very late to the party – reading the Bridgerton series by Julia Quinn., the library stocks them all.

    Other than that have been doing re-readings off my keeper shelves – Jill Shalvis, Laura Griffin, Janet Chapman, Julia Chapman, Julie Garwood, Pearl Cleage.

    1. I love the idea of a library Secret Santa. I assume you have to return the book after reading?

      1. Yes, Frozen Pond I did, and quickly too ‘cos I zipped through the book with pleasure. And when I took it back all the other Secret Santa books were gone from the display, so others must have loved the idea too. They had a separate Adult and Young Adult sections.

  27. Love Johnny boy on the top banner with his magic ears.
    I just finished Deborah Blake’s Wickedly Dangerous, it’s a great listen. I loved the MC Baba Yagá. Barbara Yaeger(sp)?. Going back to the next book.

  28. Love the new design!
    I read THE GALES OF NOVEMBER by John U Bacon. Excellent NF about the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Lots of history, science, and many interviews with family members, friends and coworkers of the doomed crew. TW: The Gordon Lightfoot song will play on a continuous loop in your head while reading the book.

    If you need something funny in the midst of *gestures helplessly* try WET NOSES AND WORLD DOMINATION by Sheridan Rowe Langford. True stories about dogs on a working ranch, hilariously told. Available on KU.

  29. This week I read book 2 of Garry Disher’s Hirsch police procedural series “Consolation.” I love the Australian bush town atmosphere and life he depicts and which is a big part of the story. This along with a solid plot makes these books addictive. Lian I owe you!

    I have just started to reread Taylor Fitzpatrick’s “You Could Make a Life” for the umpteenth time. A lovely M/M hockey romance. Still excellent. I’m guessing another reread of “Between The Teeth” will be up next.

    1. Christina, I’ve just finished the first book, and loved it. I do love a protagonist who I can trust to do the right thing.

      But I think Consolation is the third book, not the second. The second one is called Peace.

      1. Yes, I’ve noticed that I’ve missed things along the way. The order is a bit confusing on Amazon and for some reason “Consolation” was listed as #2 in the series on audible. I’ll have to go back and find “Peace”.

    2. I am in the middle of Consolation (which I picked at random since my library’s listing does not include the series number) and I’m going slowly because I must not read it at bedtime, my major reading time, because I can’t resist Just One More Page.

  31. Just wanted to pass along this note that Courtney Millan posted over on BlueSky, since I know we have some Heated Rivalry fans here:

    From: ‪Julia Carrie Wong ‪@joolia.bsky.social

    Hello! I would love to speak to women who are fans of Heated Rivalry, including those who are new to MM romance and those who aren’t, for an article I’m working on exploring the genre’s appeal to women. My DMs are open or I’m at juliacarriewong.11 on Signal and julia.wong@theguardian.com on email

  32. I have terrible visual organization so the only comment I will make on the new site is that I tried on both phone and laptop to sign up for emails and it just took me to the home page. I assume Molly just hasn’t got it working yet.

    I read the new Donna Andrews, Five Golden Wings, and enjoyed it. But I think it’s time for Meg to actually solve a mystery instead of just being caught by the bad guy and then rescued. Also working my way through some library books and presents that I will report on later. My time for reading has been reduced by returning to day job (less time than usual but when added to hip care feels close to full time), plus final days with kids, recombobulating the house, and watching US senior figure skating championships it adds up. Plus dinner at neighbors (only my second social outing outside the house in the last month) and a college friend who dropped in after being in town for a conference. He is a computer science professor who created the algorithm that makes all those bike rentals in cities possible and is now doing algorithms on better voter redistricting —I was a history major and policy and policy advocate now working on improving census data—so weirdly 45 years after we met our professional lives are intersecting!

    Anyway, I expect more next week. I’m also compiling a list of romances to consider buying when DH and I go to that romance book store he got me a gift certificate for…needless to say, entirely based on GBT.

  33. Hm. When I was writing my comment I ended up with what looked like something blue smudged on the lower left of my phone screen. But it actually seems to be part of the website, caused by the pop up screen blurring the blue items under it.

  35. I do like the new colours and the font is very elegant but I have been told at work that you should use sans serif fonts to be more accessible (esp. for dyslexics) so I only use fonts like arial now in my powerpoints for teaching. On the other hand, a tan or pink background is recommended for readability.

    Some people are mentioning that it is difficult to find new good contemporary romances and I totally agree.
    However, The Guardian (UK) published a list of its best romances for 2025 and one of them caught my attention: The Wedding people by Alison Espach.

    There is nothing unusual about the plot itself apart from the start which is a bit grim and definitely makes you think you are not in a romance but once I was past that first plot point I really enjoyed the book as well as the remaining plot.

    1. I use Century Gothic, because it uses less ink when being printed out. It is also sans serif.

  36. Linzi Day’s latest book, Spilling the Tea in Gretna Green was a collection of short stories and novellas. If someone didn’t previously read the series, they shouldn’t start with this book. A reader should be familiar with all the characters and storylines of the series to really appreciate this compilation.
    A couple stories have been published before, while most of them were new, although none of the entries inspired more than a lukewarm reaction from me. Besides, there were lots of interludes between the stories: introductions about the origins of this or that story, quotes from imaginary books, and the ending of Market Forces.
    Why were all those appendages there? They didn’t add anything to any of the main stories, just confused my kindle’s table of content. I guess, the author decided that this book shouldn’t be a simple compendium of independent short stories and novellas from her world of Gretna Green novels (which I expected and wanted). Instead, it was a companion book for the readers who crave extra details and deleted scenes. Like in those old DVDs, remember? So all the stories are really snippets that didn’t get included in the novels because they neither augmented the plots nor enhanced the characters. A pleasant time to spend with the characters I love, true, when I had a moment or two to spare, but nothing more.

  37. The change is very obvious and quite nice. Thank you to Jane for pointing out the sparkling stars. I like those a lot! I’m with Chacha1 in preferring a non-serif font, but I will be able to deal with it. I also noticed that the next/last post buttons are now under the comments instead of under the post. Given our tendency to be fairly chatty, maybe that could be moved back up to the top for folks who miss a week or two?

    I have actually read/listened to books!

    START WITH WHAT IF by Doug Fleener – I’m only 1/3rd of the way through, but I intend on actually buying this and hoping others IRL will read it with me. It is really well structured. There are 53 chapters that you are to take for each week of the year, with a change & growth chapter every 4th “What If” chapter. Each chapter is short – a 5-10 min read – and challenges you within the 4-step structure to consider changing 1 thing that week. An example of a What If chapter, “What if you did one thing that you’ve been putting off?” and then the author encourages you that week to pick a very manageable thing (make a doctor appointment, call a friend, etc.) that you’ve been avoiding. Understand why you’ve been avoiding it. Shrink it if need be to something you can do. Notice how getting it done feels. Each week, there’s a new “What If” question with the psychology behind it, an illustration to expand on the point, the steps and encouragement needed for you to move forward. Very doable. Examples of other “What If” questions are
    – what if this week you added a little spontaneous fun just because you can?
    – What if this week you made the decision you’ve been postponing?
    – What if this week you gave yourself credit for what you’re doing well?

    SPELLS & SCHENANIGANS by Karen MacInerney – a fun cosy mystery where the protagonist and her ghostly aunt solve the 50-year-old murder of Ivy, a ghost at the local B&B, and the more recent murder of the rival family of witches, while saving her ghostly aunt from a bad bite from a soul-sucking demon. There’s a kitten. I’m very much looking forward to more books in the series!

    CAT DRAGON by Samantha Birch – It’s a hero adventure story involving 30 ft tall guardians, witches, and cat dragons. Sadly, not enough of the story focused on the cat dragons for me, but it was an interesting tale. A bit of romance as well. The local magical botanist goes on a quest with her best friend’s brother, who is also the caretaker of the town’s guardian, to find the ingredients that may save their guardian, who is dying.

    Finally, I’ve been listening to the “Christmas Cozy Mystery” series by Mona Marple. They take place in Candy Cane Hollow, where Nick, aka Santa, and his folks – Mrs. Claus and Father Christmas, live and run the whole Santa business. Holly Wood is rescued by Mrs. Claus after a car accident in book 1, Christmas Corpse. Candy Cane Hollow is located outside of London, has perpetual snow, and citizens that include humans, elves, reindeer, and killers. Each story is about 4 hours of listening time and contains a cozy mystery that Holly solves while her relationship with Nick blossoms. The four books I’ve listened to so far in order are
    1) Christmas Corpse
    2) Slay Bells Ring
    3) A Lost Claus
    4) Mistletoe Murder
    They were perfect leading into the holiday season. I’m hoping the rest of the series will be recorded and released on audio.

  38. Extra note on the new design… I tried clicking on both links under “Jenny in your inbox.” I was taken to the main site, but didn’t know what to do there. I think the links aren’t going to the right place.

  39. Reading Babylon Berlin by Volker Kutscher, inspiration for the amazing TV series – that’s my print book. On Kindle, Denise Mina, Still Midnight, first of a trilogy with the cranky cop, Alex Morrow, solving a kidnapping in Glasgow. Enjoying both. But am beginning to feel in need of a quick burst of Heyer and Eva Ibbotson.

  40. Re-read an old favorite – “Island of Ghosts” by Gillian Bradshaw which is about a troop of Sarmatians who have just been conquered by Rome are sent to Britain to help keep order.

    Read the Will Darling adventures from KJ Charles. It was okay, but I think her latest standalone “Death in the Spires” – which inspired my KJ Charles’ buying spree – is much better. Although, the first Will Darling book was pretty good, but the other two were not as interesting.

    I am currently reading “Turns of Fate (Isle of Wyrd Book 1)” by Anne Bishop which is interesting, but not anything special. Usual story of good folk menaced by evil men who are then punished by mysterious forces protecting the good people. Although, at least one person who was punished was, in my opinion, only doing a job and should not have been punished so harshly. Just took on a job from the wrong party.

  41. I noticed the change yesterday, when I looked for Working Wednesday. Johnny looks cute. I miss the sidebars where I could have found this post. Yesterday, the sidebars were still there and I didn’t see a new WW, when I looked.

    I reread Getting Rid of Bradley, and enjoyed it again. This read through I noticed that the neighbor’s cat has the same name, Phoebe, as the puppy in Tell Me Lies. It’s not a common name. I also read the blurb on the back page and learned that Jenny was a single mom, and was teaching English at Ohio State. At that time, she also had four dogs and three cats. The FMC ends up with four dogs, in the book.

    I read another Jayne Castle Harmony book. It’s called Illusion Town, and features two interesting female and male characters. It also has a lot more scary moments and violence than the first book I read: It Takes a Psychic. There’s another cute dust bunny, too. No dust bunnies die. If she ever kills one off, that will be tantamount to a dog dying in a book. I hate that.

    I have the flu. Happy Birthday to me. I’m drinking electrolyte fluid, taking acetaminophen, and sleeping a lot. Wear your mask in public.

          1. That was always how the medical establishment promoted flu shots. Might not stop the flu but should make it less serious.

  42. I love the new design in the frame around leaving a reply. Also, the stars and Johnny are great. I look forward to the next JAK Book. And possibly the Jude Devereux Order of Swans.
    Lisa Yee has a new book out in mid grade children’s and I love her work.
    This is a great time to hide under the covers and read.

  43. Love the new design 🤩 Love the book recs as always 😍 I’m currently reading the Mixed Messages series by Lily Morton – I’m finding it’s a good one to be reading in the background while writing (I can’t always read while I’m in a writing burst… because it either starts to bleed over or just distracts me too much).

  44. I think the new format carries a much shorter list of recent comments than did the last version. This could be a problem if one cannot check in for many hours and wants to see the additions since last check. If one misses an entire day of comment, there’s any easy Search In Page for that such as “y 8” for today, but no easy search to catch up on several hours.

  45. The new design looks so good, Jenny. It’s startlingly beautiful, particularly with the blue around it. The fonts of the headings are also gorgeous. The font of the comments is a little smaller than it used to be, which I thought might be an issue, but isn’t causing me any trouble so far.

    Books for the week:
    The Incandescent by Emily Tesh. Set in a school for magicians, but for a nice change the protagonist is one of the teachers/administrators. The whole thing goes in really interesting, unexpected directions, as demons try to attack the school and the protagonist fights back while at the same time trying to keep the school timetable running smoothly and making sure everyone is healthy and happy. An excellent read with a very satisfying ending.

    The Good Losers by fellow Tasmanian Meg Bignell. This was hilarious, and I loved it so much. ‘When Callie March pushes her screen-addicted teenage son to join a local rowing club, she is thrust into a world of irrational obsessions, unseemly intrigue, insufferable dickheads and riverside rooting.’ (That’s Australian rooting, not the American variety.) ‘Callie is torn between enchantment and repulsion – until a trail of corruption and scandal leads her to deep suspicion instead. There’s something fishy in the rowing shed, and she’s determined to find out what lurks behind the closed doors of this pretentious sports club.’

    Coming from a rowing family, this is even funnier and more delightful than it would be otherwise, but you don’t need the rowing background to enjoy it. And one of the teenage girl characters, Bright, is absolutely glorious.

    Bitter Wash Road by Garry Disher. The first book in his gritty, small town South Australia detective series about a whistleblower cop. Hirsch is competent, smart, and one of those protagonists who you can trust. I really love this series and am about to launch into the second one.

    2. I just read and enjoyed the Incandescent too! The practical way people approached horrifying situations reminded me a bit of T. Kingfisher and Naomi Novik, and I loved the perspective of a magical school from a really good teacher.

      1. Kelly, me too. When I saw it was about a magical school my heart sank a little, because it’s been done so much. But this was very different.

  46. For instance, as I write the current list carries only my above comment at 3:55 back to Jane’s at 3:28!!

    And any comments to an earlier topic are going to disappear from view in the list before anyone even knows they are there.

  47. I really like the new design for the back ground. Seeing Johnnie and the twinkling stars on the background really announces that this is where I want to be.

    I really like the new design on the blog. Seeing Johnny and the twinkling stars really announces that THIS IS THE PLACE! However, the fact that the type sizes on the “Leave A Reply” box and the already posted comments are 2 sizes apart is a real pain if you want to go back and forth between the two. Sometimes I want to double check what I am referring to before I post so that I don’t get it wrong. But having to constantly adjust the magnification makes this a real pain.

    1. I also miss having the larger sized avatars. When you are checking back to see if any further comments have been added to a particular post, they used to make the original post much easier to find. And I LOVE the little arrows that show you where your reply will be posted.

  48. Pursuant to Melissa CP’s info above, I checked Kindle, which says that Bob’s Rocky Start continuation should be out sooner than the scheduled May date and that Arresting Anna should be out sooner than November. Also that both will be available in KU. If that’s not a mistake, Arresting Anna will, I think, be the first Crusie-Mayer collaboration offered in KU from publication day.

  49. I think the new design is very readable so yeah. Love the photo of Johnny-does Yoda know Johnny stole his ears?

    1. I just discovered that when you mouse over Johnny he moves his head. 🙂

  50. I like the new design very much; twinkling stars, Johnny, The Best Dog (other than our dogs), every works fine for me. Checked out the links below, they all worked. On my phone it is brighter which I like as I often read in the dark bc I cannot sleep.

    As for for GBT…I’m rereading Tin Man, Sarah Winman. The novel starts with a prologue titled 1950. I accidently did not read it, flipping through the book and then back to what I thought was the beginning. I’ve read it now. Sometimes a prologue seems necessary. I didn’t miss the details in the first chapter. Sarah Winman writes with such sparse-ness and clarity. The prose has a rhythm to it. It was all there in the story. Each character’s arc was clear. I really enjoyed the novel. My friend, not so much, her only complaint was they were all gay. Our family is diverse. So, one is accepting or missing out instead of connecting with wonderful people which is sad. It’s been a crazy week so the reread will take awhile.

    1. The story is the reality of life with all the goodness and complexities through the lens of the characters of which some are gay and some are not.

  51. I have not finished anything new all week. I don’t think I have finished anything old, either; I just keep adding more and more rereads to the stack. (And you all are not helping.)
    I have not finished Consolation, as referenced above, but I can guarantee that is won’t be the only one of this series I read.

  52. I read Slayers of Old by Jim Hines over the break and it was such a lovely homage to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Scoobies. Not a parody or a sequel but imagine a resonance to that series that takes the Hunter (Slayer) into menopause and creaky joints. She can still take you down though and avert an apocalypse or two!

  53. I read and enjoyed my first Barker and Llewelyn mystery, Heart of the Nile. It’s from 2023 and I picked it up for the Cleopatra connection and the British Museum. (Love the Brenden Fraser mummy movies!) Anyway, this is a fast-paced mystery with many moving parts that covers just the days between Christmas and New Year’s.

    Also, we’re enjoying the latest season of Sister Boniface on DVD. Such cheeky fun.

  55. Gosh I’m not sure who I should be contacting but I just tried a link under the Places page, specifically the link for the bridge scene in Don’t Look Down, and it takes me to a page that has been hacked maybe? It references sex and seems very wrong and un-Crusie/Mayer like.

    2. I can’t fine that on the Jenny Crusie website or on the Crusie-Mayer website. Could you give me a link?

  56. I am having trouble reading the font in the comments. It seems to be visually hard work. I spent a lot of time this week trying to to start new books and getting no where so I have gone back to reading Elizabeth Cadell, who wrote cosy romances several decades ago. They have been reissued on Kindle, maybe on KU but I don’t subscribe so I don’t know for certain.

    Also I have taken to watching the kind of movies my husband never wanted to watch (The last movie he watched was First Cow. For Pete’s sake, he was dying. You think he would want something escapist or lively or even interest ) so I watched Quartet, Four Weddings and a Funeral, and Notting Hill. I enjoyed them all. He would’ve found Quartet enjoyable and written off the other two as fluff. I may look for Sleepless in Seattle next since I never saw it.

    1. I have a special fondness for Elizabeth Cadell since her books were the first from the “grown-up” side of the library that I was allowed to check out.

      Her estate released/re-released the titles a while back and, in some cases, they had restored the stories to what Cadell had initially written, rather than the edited versions, which varied from country to country.

  57. It is now Friday evening, about 38 hours since I first posted to this thread. I had been promising myself that I’d make chili, so I sort of did. It’s built on a base of frozen Italian Style Meatballs (20 oz) that were occupying my freezer for months. Then cans of tomato sauce, diced spiced tomatoes, Rotel diced tomatoes with diced peppers, and the last of a jar of Fire Roasted Red Peppers. It all overnighted in my larger crockpot on low. It needs more kick, but I can add that to individual bowls. That way I can share with the dotter and grandkinder, some of whom are not into capsaicin.

    I still have a big container of pork loin with veggies that I mad last week. Time to freeze meals, I think. I need the container for the chili.

    All this preoccupation with food means it’s time to listed to Cranky Agnes again.

    1. The Evil Eggcup is what my browser is using as an image on my favorites list. Ack!! Give me the cherry! But I don’t know how it chooses these things.

  59. Even though this Saturday, I wanted to post somewhere that I just downloaded, again, Darynda Jones’ First Grave on the Right – book one in her Charley Davidson series – because I’m feeling so helpless and disturbed by the horrific things happening just everywhere and I need to listen to a story about a hero whose ultimate life goal is working against evil. And she wins. I’ll put my headphones on and do work and just burrow deep in the series until I think I can raise my head again without rubbing my eyes.

  61. I am watching figure skating to cheer me up…so nice to see the top three US women celebrate together.
    Will get back to reading tomorrow until the Olympics start in Feb.

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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