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This is a Good Book Thursday: The Late Edition

I have spent the entire day on book blurbs and covers, getting ready for publication that’s probably two months away and losing my mind.  I have been sending covers to Mollie and Bob for months and saying, “Is this okay?” and they’ve been pretty much ignoring me until NOW when they’re explaining that they want “An Art Task Force Novel added to covers that were finished.  Oh and the font has to be bigger on New York Times Bestselling.  And . . .

And all along I kept thinking, “Thursday.  I know I’m supposed to be doing something . . .” And then I’d get another e-mail.

I apologize for the late post.

So what did you read this week?

145 Responses

  1. •Edgar Wallace, The Four Just Men (with The Council of Justice). Original editions 1905 and 1908 respectively, this combined edition from Oxford University Press, 1995.  This edition of the two works follows the text of the American edition of 1920 but has an introduction by Prof. David Glover.

    In the 1905 thriller, as we open, a small international group calling itself the Four Just Men has been, as they see it, redressing wrongs by killing evildoers in the United States and Europe in instances where the law has failed.  As part of the backstory, one of the original four had been killed in France and has been temporarily replaced by a man made of coarser stuff, recruited for his technical skills and retained partly by blackmail.  We open in the near future from 1905, as the UK Foreign Secretary proposes a law permitting political refugees to be expelled to their home countries for reasons of state.  The original three seem particularly upset by the possibility of a Spanish exile being returned.  Evidently having decided that the discussion over the merits of the case has finished, the Four announce publicly (through untraceable written messages) that for this cynical transgression of Britain’s traditional policy, on a specified date the Foreign Secretary will be assassinated if he has not withdrawn the bill from Parliament. A cat-and-mouse game ensues, which we see mostly but not entirely from the viewpoint of the Four. 

    Publication of The Four Just Men ruined Wallace financially, since his publicity schemes to turn it into a bestseller cost him far more money for much slower profits than he had anticipated. Fortunately,  he still had his day job as a reporter for the Daily Mail, although, since the newspaper had been embroiled in his publicity schemes and lost considerable money putting things right, they took the expense out of his salary over time.  According to the Wikipedia, but unmentioned by Glover, Wallace even eventually declared bankruptcy. In the long run, the book’s fame plus Wallace’s amazing productivity established his lucrative writing career, although he continued to write mere thrillers rather than more respectable fair-play mysteries.  He died in 1932 at age 56, within months of arrival in Hollywood, reportedly of influenza rapidly leading to pneumonia, contracted while he was working on the script for King Kong.

    According to the Google AI, the word count of the original 1905 book was only about 37,500 words.  By the Hugo Award word-count definition of many years later, which has by now gained some acceptance in genres outside of science fiction, this would make the work a novella, since minimum length for a novel is 40,000 words.  At the time the book seems to have been accepted as a novel, although an unusually short one. This word count was probably part of the reason that the American publisher added the sequel The Council of Justice, thus bringing it up to a normal novel length, and indeed the publisher counted the two as Parts I and II of one novel. 

    In The Council of Justice, the original three pick up a new temporary fourth member, oddly enough a young noble adventurer with connections to the Spanish throne, which monarchy, for unspecified reasons, the three seem to view far more favorably than they did in the 1905 work.  The Four  have now officially renamed themselves the Council of Justice, perhaps to reflect their fluctuating membership. A group of international anarchists are taking advantage of British political tolerance to hold a convention on British soil. Although not opposed to extralegal acts of justice, the Council find that the anarchists unworthy of repect, largely because they routinely disregard collateral casualties, and the Council take measures to thwart them.  Many in the British police begin to view them in a more positive light. 

    Alas, one of the original three has his cover blown and is arrested.  The authorities cautiously try him only for the killing they can best prove, that of an abusive sweatshop owner.  The prosecution concedes that in a just world the victim probably deserved death, but that it was not the defendant’s place to take the law into his own hands. The accused assures the court that he perfectly well understands that if everyone were to behave as he has, chaos would ensue and that the authorities must do their duty.  He will make no defense (the judge enters a not-guilty plea for him), but he assures the court that he will escape before his gallows date. The rest of the book then becomes a prison-escape caper, with almost all the work done by his companions on the outside.

    A few minor personal annoyances: Wallace, like many Anglophone authors to come, bungles by putting a Russian feminine ending on the surname of a man. Next, Znamya, “banner,” turns into Znamza in a periodical’s name—unfortunately, Russian words in English text are particularly likely to be typoed.  Finally, there is a reference to Petrograd, which was the correct name of the once and future St. Petersburg in 1920, but the setting of the story is clearly before the Great War.  Presumably the American editors stupidly and unthinkingly updated the name.

    I found the book surprisingly readable despite its age.  The scenes set in newspaper offices were especially vivid, probably thanks to Wallace’s background. I now have a clearer idea of why Edgar Wallace was once a household name. But I found the book insubstantial in the end and I think that my encounter here with Edgar Wallace was a one-and-done thing.

  2. Slightly off-topic: Do any of the British Arghers know what is going on with the persistent British literary delusion that suntans last nearly forever? I think I first encountered it with Doyle, where he explains how he knew that Watson had Ben in Afghanistan:

    “He has just come from the tropics, for his face is dark, and that is not the natural tint of his skin, for his wrists are fair.”

    Watson has not been in Afghanistan for months, including a month-long voyage home. If he was frequently on deck, he might have preserved a tropical tan until his ship got out of the tropics, but since then: a) the ship finished its voyage, b) Watson completed the formalities of his discharge and c) was signed up for a pension for the first 9 months, d) moved to London, and e) after a stay in a hotel, decided he needed to find someplace cheaper to live in.

    There are numerous other instances in the Canon and in the writings of other writers where I have seen this delusion.  Even at a time when Brits could easily travel to sunnier climes and see how long a suntan lasts, in a story by Paul Harding from 1993, I read that in 1396 John of Gaunt, now in London, has “skin burnt dark brown from his campaigns in Castile.” Gaunt had not been in Castile since 1389, per Wikipedia!

    Skin might be wrinkled and generally aged looking from sun exposure seveal weeks later, but it certainly won’t be brown or even light tan!

    2. Ever since I spent a couple of years in sunnier countries, mainly Australia, I’ve had a base tint on my arms, in contrast to the white of the rest of me. And people who work outside tend to get weatherbeaten – which includes having a base tan. So it seems real to me. I don’t think you’re allowing for the fact that many British natives, like me, are naturally extremely pale.

    3. Well I’m amazed you’d think the tan would vanish so quickly I’d expect it to last at least a season. I’ve been housebound for the last few years with just a few minutes here and there out of doors and yet my arms are still visibly darker than the rest of my body. May be the sun affects us milk bottle white types more profoundly? Or maybe our concept of what a tan is, is just what you would consider a healthy skin colour?

    4. Interesting food for thought from the responses. Some people retain tans better than others, but I think that the level of tan that lasts “at least a season” may be the kind that is continually reinforced by brief exposure. I wear Bermuda shorts a lot in summer and I notice that there’s a clear skin tone difference between above and below where the shorts leg ends, despite the fact that I’ve spent little time outdoors this summer.

    5. My father – a red-haired Dane like myself – sailed on the far east as a young man, and maintained that this was the reason, he tanned so easily as an adult. He burned in the sun as a boy, but only ever brownes as an adult.

      2. I go red and then go white again, can’t tan at all. Spent a month in California in the 70’s and sunbathed every day – going from blue to very, very milky latte. Came home and everyone asked when I was going to California! I was 18 and decided then that sunbathing was a waste of time and never did it again.

      3. Supposedly, Europeans of Germanic ancestry tan better than Europeans of Celtic ancestry. I’m of mixed origin. While I tan a little, a cousin with a Germanic mother tanned a *lot* better than me when we were children. (But the tan was still gone by winter.)

        1. I’m bemused by the idea of tanning “better”, although I’m sure you didn’t mean it that way.

          Tanning is just sun damage, and depending on skin type and exposure, if the damage is deep enough then the damage may be more than the skin can repair in a few weeks or months. If it is bad enough the damage will be visible for years later – hence long-term tanned aka weathered skin. In my mother’s generation, people basically cooked their skin – that they would be prematurely aged and their skin was like leather was all acceptable in pursuit of a “healthy” tan.

          1. Yuri, My cousin’s tanning was better than my burning for the same amount of sun exposure when we were playing together. I don’t think we were old enough to be thinking of tanning as good in a fashion sense.

            I agree (and already said) that a lot of sun exposure ages the skin. I grant that possibly it even can turn skin permanently slightly darker long-term, but nothing that I think I’ve ever heard Americans refer to as “tanned” or “browned.” “Weathered” yes.

  3. Jenny, I’m relieved that you were just busy and not down with medical problems, but given past record, I wouldn’t have gotten seriously worried for several days yet. Good luck with the covers and such. I wouldn’t worry too much about covers and blurbs. I think you’ll get most of your sales on name recognition for you and Bob in any case.

  4. It’s OK Jenny, just glad to hear from you!

    “The End of All Things” by John Scalzi (2015) is a solid continuation, #6 in the Old Man’s War series and answers questions from “Human Division”. More a series of novellas than a straight narrative, at least until the last section wraps up the first one – satisfying nonetheless. I’m happy to see Harry Wilson and Abumwe again. Good place to end it.

    I really love that “The Incandescent” by Emily Tesh (2025) starts with filling out a risk assessment, grounding it delightfully. There are demons and pesky meetings, gifted students and janitorial staff, poor romantic choices and the ethics of elite schooling, and refreshingly our protagonist is a teacher. I loved the beginning, found the middle a bit saggy, thought it ended well. Plus I always like competent porn, plus a promising f/f flirtation. Doesn’t quite rise to the level of Tesh’s “Some Desperate Glory” or her lovely novella “Silver in the Wood”, nonetheless enjoyable.

    I’m not generally a comics reader, but “Absolute Wonder Woman Vol. 1: The Last Amazon” by Kelly Thomson was Hugo nominated, so gave it a try. Gods and monsters, and a nice riff on Medusa. The art style changed several times and some I liked better than others, and the connection with Steve felt a little forced. Nonetheless liked it enough to put the second volume on order.

    Also Hugo nominated, in Related Works, was “The Cuddled Little Vice (Sandman)”. Elizabeth Sandifer uses as her frame what she calls the Last War in Albion, “the magical war between Alan Moore and Grant Morrison”, but for the most part this is a straightforward literary biography of Neil Gaiman, from his childhood through to “American Gods”. The sexual assault allegations against Gaiman are not directly addressed until almost the end and they are horrifying. The bulk of the work is an interesting in-depth analysis of Sandman and although I didn’t always find Sandifer persuasive, I think it is important to pull the two aspects of Gaiman together, and this is a substantive effort at doing so. Free via https://www.eruditorumpress.com/blog/the-cuddled-little-vice-sandman

    For light relief went back to Stella Riley and “The Wicked Cousin” (2017), an m/f historical romance, very much a drama of ballrooms and society. I liked both MCs, I particularly like when the FMC’s family begin to compare her to a Valkyrie in defence of her beloved. The MMC has a jealous ex which is never my favourite but everything else worked for me.

    1. I agree the Incandescent sagged. I felt like it could have ended after they defeated the first big demon, like maybe some of what came after should have been before?

      1. I did enjoy the last battle so much though! And it pulled together the final plot threads.

      2. I’m not sure, I think she was trying to make the point that after the big battle, life keeps happening, that there’s always the next one. But it still dragged for me.

    2. I loved the fact that The Incandescent was told from the teachers point of view, and that the admin stuff was such an important part of it. so much more interesting than having another student centred book.

      1. I also enjoyed the rational and objective way that she tried to make a difference with teaching her individual students in a way that best worked for each one of them. Especially since she acknowledged herself she didn’t have the warm or charismatic approach that could work for other teachers.

    3. I also read the Incandescent and enjoyed it a lot. There was that one thing though that the oxford educated did which annoyed me immensely. The idea that if you throw away the chance to go to Oxford, your life will not be worth living.

      Please, give me a break. There are lots of other excellent universities out there who will educate you well and provide you with excellent opportunities.

    4. Emily Tesh is one of the two hosts? Speakers ? on the podcast Eight Days of Diana Wynne Jones that I am enjoying so much. Not sure about the term because many of the episodes don’t have guests just Emily and Rebecca Fraimow.

  5. I’ve read mainly rereads. I’ve been listening to Murderbot while working and reading an old Jayne Anne Krentz Arcane Society to fall asleep at night.

    I’m still in Ohio, but I’m going home Saturday! Finally!

    I told my mom no one can have a major health crisis until at least Sunday and then my dad woke up this morning with chest pains. ER trip and a few tests and hours later, they said they thought he’d pulled a muscle coughing so hard yesterday. So it’s only looked like a health crisis! Phew!

  6. I read Fan Service, which I liked a lot more than Dodo did. It’s pretty light, but it was fun, and I really enjoyed the MMC learning to live with his wolf after a childhood where he spent his life pleasing others. It probably won’t make it onto the reread list, but I’m glad I read it and would quite happily check out more of her books.

    Reread Black Powder War, the third in the Temeraire series, and it’s probably my least favourite so far, mainly because the second half of the book is all about losing battles and treating from Napoleon’s forces, over and over again.

    Now I’m rereading Swordheart, because someone on one of my email lists mentioned that the next book in the series, Daggerbound, is coming out in August. I do so love T Kingfisher’s middle-aged protagonists.

    3. Lian, good to see you liked Fan Service more than I did. I liked the MMC too btw. Yet, I couldn’t connect with the FMC – though in theory, I should have had no problems. And sometimes, one realizes that an author’s style just isn’t for you.

  7. IN WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER, Tom Clancy’s THE BEAR AND THE DRAGON. I forget what genre this is considered to be in. Techno-thriller? Mil-fic? I’ve been reading the books set in the “Ryan-verse” for decades.

    After that, Rachel Vincent’s NO ONE IS ALONE. If nothing else, this book caused me to watch Sondheim’s INTO THE WOODS, both the movie and the play (The play is better.)

    IN THE KINDLE AP, Dirk Knight, THE FRESHMAN EXPERIENCE: A Slice of Life Contemporary Harem (Harem University Book 1). Porn, or porn-adjacent. Or “erotica” which is porn with better PR. I can’t recommend it. It’s bad porn. I suspect Dirk is fifteen years old.

    I opened Vincent’s EVERY SINGLE LIE. I have tissues ready ’cause I remember this one. I just started Chapter 9, 39% done. I’d love to have the audiobook, but there doesn’t seem to be one.

    IN MOBIPOCKET READER, I’ve finished Lockwood’s DANCE OF A LIFETIME, which is so sweet at times it threatens diabetic coma. I confess that for ease of consumption, I broke the six books out separately and renumbered the chapters to start over at ONE in each of the books.

    ON THE WEB, the other word opera continues. Grey Wolf’s VARIATION ON A THEME Book 7 is up to Chapter 8. Chapter 7 was the wedding of Elizabeth Vinton to Janet Collins, fictional lesbians who played important roles in all the books. Chapter 8 is the reception.

    I finished CASTLE IN THE SAND by Dean A Johns. I don’t know why. It wasn’t that good. I just have trouble putting down anything… some kind of Sunk Cost fallacy.

    Other than that, I read the contract for the new HVAC system I had to buy. The heat pump died. My house is unbearable without it. 18K.

      1. Forget Dirk Knight.

        She sits on her knees on one of the bar stools. “Can we skip the baking and just eat the dough?”
        “No. Raw eggs. But we can eat the cookies right out of the oven. While they’re all melty and gooey.”
        Landry laughs. “Clearly those are technical culinary terms.”

        Vincent, Rachel. Every Single Lie

        There are better takeaways.

  8. I finished Suzanne Palmer’s Finder series and then read her newer book, Ode to the Half-Broken, which felt a lot darker and more depressing than the Finder series. Ironically, the Publisher’s Weekly review calls it a “refreshing ray of hope,” when I had to keep noping out for a break because it was too depressing.

    A lot of the horrors of the apocalyptic setting are things happening today (climate change, immigration detention, destruction of public health), and it hit just a little too close to home for me, I think. The Finder series is set further into the future, offering more distance from today’s headlines, which may be why I found those stories lighter. Or maybe my different reaction is partly due to the multiple timelines/POVs in the newer novel — not my favorite structure, and I don’t like being deep in the POV of characters who are meant to be unpleasant-to-evil.

    The narrator was very good, which might actually be a detriment in a sense, since she did such a good job of making the bad guys sound really annoying, enough that I didn’t want to have to listen to them. I find it harder to literally hear bad guys sneering at the good guys in audio, than in my imagination when reading by eye. There’s a bad guy in one of the Lady Sherlock series (a cop who wants to put a good guy in jail), and even though (or perhaps because) Kate Reading does such a great job with narrating, it’s painful to listen to the cop’s sneering at the witnesses he’s interrogating.

    1. Such a pity you didn’t enjoy “Ode to the Half-Broken” Gin. I would have called it hopeful and fun but yeah I guess the post apocalypse is pretty close to home.

      1. Reminds me of Lois Bujold who also likes big age gaps. I know that this can work. I personally am very glad that hubby and I have had very similar childhood experiences (18 months apart). It’s fun not to have to explain stuff but share memories with just half a remark.

  9. I have found it impossible to stick to one new book. I kept flipping through a few pages and couldn’t concentrate. So I’ve been re-reading – Taylor Fitzpatrick’s And Then and Under the Influence. Fitzpatrick has announced that she is going to finish up her current projects in her hockey world and then stop writing it so I now read her stuff with a certain poignancy. I also reread Josh Lanyon’s Come Unto These Yellow Sands (my favourite) and Kill Your Darlings (right up there). One of the reasons I like the latter is simply because one of the MC’s cares offorthe other through a migraine. Love the tenderness of those scenes. And then Lanyon gets just a little smutty in future chapters. I wish all authors could pull off that kind of tone change.

  10. I just finished a re-read of A Scourge of Plesantries, a Gobbelino London story that always makes me chuckle. I especially love Susan the rat Empress-Queen. It’s urban fantasy just this side of farce.

    For my vacation reads, I raced through Lindsay Buroker’s Star Kingdom series. I love the MMC Casmir, a geeky roboticist, plagued with allergies and motion sickness as he tries to do the right thing. I will note that the books really should be read together as each ends abruptly with many threads unresolved and it can get a bit tiresome to watch Casmir plunge from one crisis to the next for eight books!

    In contrast, I’ve been reading Invictus by Neumeier- I’ve finished book 1 and am into book 2 – a more serious space opera with lots of intrigue but very little action – it’s all interior dialog, strategy, secrets within secrets, that takes hundreds of pages to cover just a few weeks. The pace didn’t bother me but YMMV.

  11. Life got too complicated to do much new reading this week so I reread of some of Josh Lanyon’s standalone novels/novellas. Perfect comfort rereads.

    “Come Unto These Yellow Sands” is still a one of my absolute favorites of hers — M/M romance between a professor with issues and the local police chief. It’s a gem of a story.

    “Cards on the Table” – M/M romance between an FBI agent and writer/reporter working on a book about an unsolved 1950s Hollywood murder. She conveys the old Hollywood atmosphere wonderfully.

    “A Vintage Affair” — a wine specialist is called upon to catalog the wines in an antebellum style home in the south. Another excellent story with so much emotion packed into few words.

    “The French have a word for it “ — a second chance M/M story about a young artist trying to get out from under his very wealthy family’s thumb and his former body guard. Paris, romance and some angst make this another excellent short read.

    Good news for those of us who are following the Josh Lanyon stories of Jack’s POV that go along with the Secrets and Scrabble books: both the ebook and audiobook of “High Tide” — Jack’s POV of the Scandal at the Salty Dog — are now available via Bookfunnel.

  12. I finished reading The Retired Assassin’s Guide to Country Gardening. You might remember I wasn’t sure about it at the start, but it definitely picked up and as soon as I was done, I ordered the second book, so I guess I liked it. LOL. (In a side note, apparently, despite its popularity, none of the books are available from the library, maybe because it is self-published? I wanted to read it in print, so I had to buy the book. Maybe when the third book in the series comes out and I’ve read that one, I’ll donate them all to my local library.)

    Then I started the new Mary Kay Andrews, Road Trip, about two estranged sisters whose deceased mother sends them to Ireland, where they have to track down the origins of a painting that has been handed down through the family, to find out if it is the real thing. I’m enjoying it, but not enthralled, at least as yet. Mind you, they’re not in Ireland yet…

    1. My library (Vancouver, BC) never carries anything self-published, so I’m not surprised yours doesn’t either. I think it is a distribution issue. Especially as the author lives in New Zealand.

      1. Also I think it’s how much time the author has to put into that side of things. I’ve seen Goddard, KJ Charles and our hostess in the Cloud e-library, usually when I’ve suggested them, but not in Libby/Overdrive which has the biggest market share (and is getting less and less user-friendly). And there are trad publishers who just don’t seem to like e-libraries, e.g. anything published by Orbit.

        I know dead tree rights are segregated by country – is it the same for e-book rights?

        1. Yes. I don’t know if it’s always the case but there are plenty of books available as e-books in the US which are not available in the UK and I believe vice versa. Sigh.

        2. Yuri, I don’t think Libby has a base collection, or if it does it’s optional and my local libraries don’t subscribe to it. Instead I see listed whatever ebooks or e-audio my local libraries have chosen to acquire, which varies quite a bit from one to another but does include (or has included) some independent authors including a little Crusie-Mayer and at least one Goddard book. Independently published e-fiction is often but not always sold worldwide. Sometimes it’s country-limited for reasons I don’t understand. Obviously my experience is US, not Australian.

        3. Oh, as for Yuri’s other comment, traditionally published ebooks seem to be rights limited pretty much like print ones.

        4. Yuri, I don’t know how these things work in Australia, but if local rules allow you to sign up at multiple library systems, that might be worth doing, and if they all use Libby, you can search all of them with one query there and borrow ebooks from them. I can in principle sign up to almost every county library system in Maryland, although I generally would have to show up in person with proof of residence in the state, so that really means ones within easy travel distance. Having multiple libraries greatly improves my odds of finding a given ebook. And I did use Ann Leckie as a test case for Orbit Books, her publisher in at least the US, and I did find her ebooks in some of my libraries.

          1. Aus has pretty similar library joining rules – basically in state, and me being me, I belong to over a dozen of them. I have access to four different e-library platforms including Cloud, Indyreads, Borrowbox and Libby/Overdrive (Freading and Axis seem to have disappeared). Overdrive used to be my preferred platform and that multi-library search feature is great, however with the change to Libby they have brought in a lot more changes that are reducing the usefulness of the platform, but still better than not having it.

            Maybe the Orbit thing is a rights issue as well, because I have never been able to access Leckie or a number of other popular authors via an e-library.

    2. I am also reading Road Trip. Just started it today. The bickering sisters in my head I think of Flo from the Progressive commercials and her annoying sister.

  13. I listened to Out of Time, Book 6 of Jody Taylor’s Time Police series, and enjoyed it tremendously. Running around, dinosaurs, haunted time travel pods, it’s exhausting!
    I’m re-listening to The Brothers Karamazov, now that my book group finished it, and finding it very satisfying to be able to read with foreknowledge. Also, not feeling rushed to catch up to where we were assigned.
    Other readings are not interesting me very much. I’m pretty dull.

  14. Finally, after a few weeks of DNFs and re-reads, a new book I enjoyed: Michelle Diener’s Crash Course, #7 in the author’s CLASS 5 sci-fi series. This book was like a sweet, refreshing breeze blowing across the bleak landscape of current news and much of recent fiction. The heroine is Fiona from Dark Deeds, the novel #2 of this series, but this book is an entirely new adventure for her.
    I always liked Fiona and I liked her in this novel too. Her character is not very deep, but she is kind, courageous, and resourceful, and her competence and positivity are uplifting. No anxiety attacks, no self-doubts, no artificial faults, which plague so many fictional protagonists. Fiona simply shines in all she does, and her glow, though shallow, cheered me up considerably.
    Overall: this light sci-fi flick was fun to read, and the escalating danger to the heroes kept me glued to my kindle for two days.
    A note of caution: don’t start this series with this book. It is not a standalone. Start at the beginning of the series. Otherwise you won’t enjoy it as much as I did. But then, I enjoy most of Michelle Diener’s writing.

    1. That’s good to know.

      I love the first 3 but after that they felt very formulaic to me: abducted earth woman rescued by dashing captain… rinse and repeat.

      The whole singing voice and weighting a ton never fail to delight me though!

  15. I’ve finished Hamnet which was … fine. I found it hard going as it was so slow. I ended up listening to it on double speed just to get through it. I’m not sure why it was so popular but to each their own.

    I’m in the middle of We Solve Murders by Richard Osman which I’m enjoying.

  16. I read the Summoning urban fantasy triology by Tanya Huff. It’s a series about a Keeper whose job it is to repair magical and supernatural things that go wrong in the Ontario/Toronto area. Huff is one of my favorite writers and this series is gull of a gentle humor. I also read The Cloak and its Wizard, by R.Z. Nicolet, which is narrated by a magical cloak who attaches itself, quite literally, to a wizard, the first wizard the cloak has found worthy of teaming up with in many decades. Together, they team up to avert modern day magical disasters resulting from tears in the fabric of our universe. It started slowly but by the end I was totally on board, so thanks to whoever recommended it. For a change of pace, I’m now reading the illustrated children’s fantasy A Comet in Moominland by Tove Jansson, who, I think, needs no introduction. What can I say, I was just in need of a dose of Moomins…

  17. Only novellas and re-reads/re-listens for me – Roommate by Sarina Bowen (I usually like her books better on the re-read), Single White Incubus by EJ Russell, the 4th of July novella by Emmery Fox and How to Meet a Parent (a Goose Run series novella) by Lisa Henry and Sarah Honey. All of it feel good stories by authors I know I like.
    With Switch-up Playbook by AJ Kyler I’m stuck in the middle (rivals to lovers) and unsure if I want to continue, it’s not bad, but also rather long (ca. 500 pages) and with books of such a length, I usually need more “meat” to it – more conflict than two youngsters figuring out that they more than like each other.
    I still have to read up some non-fiction books and somehow those I never track on GR or StoryGraph.
    After another, thankfully shorter heat wave, an a VERY hot day yesterday spent cruising across a nearby lake (our annual company outing, this time without strange team-building games – yay!), we got the great gift of rain in the evening – it’s considerably cooler now (the sun is slowly heating up again). What a treat!!

    1. I have rain envy, though we’ve not been as hot as you I don’t think. My potatoes have cropped very poorly – many only pea-sized – and other things are coming and going very fast.

      1. Jane, I feel you.
        Our mayor has issued a water restriction – we’re not allowed to water the gardens between 9 am – 7 pm (just logical imo) and other luxury water use is prohibited too now (like private pools). The winter was too dry, the heat waves too drastic so far.
        From elsewhere were people are used to a severe climate, our current summers seem okay and might even feel nice since almost comparable to e.g. Italy.
        Temperatures above 30 degrees Celsius (stretching to 40+ Celsius and more in the sealed surfaces cities) for long stretches of time seem nice enough for those people vacationing. The buildings are not designed for a more meditarranean climate – but for keeping the warmth inside which is not very handy nowadays. Imagine public transportation without AC ;-).
        At least yesterday, we got quite a bit of rain and unlike forecast, the wasn’t combined with hail.
        It’s again getting hot outside. I’ll definitely take my paper fan and some more for my guys for tonights school concert in my kiddo’s (very warm) all purpose hall.

  18. Read A. J. Demas’s latest – The Boy Bride – and didn’t like it as much as the rest of hers. The world of this story is darker and the pace slower; plus it ends on a downer. She’s obviously expecting me to buy the next two in the series, but I’m not sure I will. Reread The House of Red Balconies & Something Human to remind myself how much I usually like her stories.

    1. I am having the same problem with The Boy Bride, Jane, trying to soldier on though.

    2. When she announced the new series, the blurb made it obvious that there’d be no HFN for book 1 and a kind-of-maybe-second chance for book 2.
      Thanks for your feedback – makes it easier to keep my FOMO in check.

      1. Oh, I missed that. I know she published it in instalments first; guess she’s looking for ways to make more money – which is understandable.

          1. It kind of does, there is a bit more going on. I know i had a slump somewhere in the middle and when I went back to it I did finish it. I liked the minor characters.

    3. I quite enjoyed The Boy Bride, but didn’t love it (see below). I did realise about 3/4 of the way through, that it seemed to be more of a ‘Part 1’ book with no proper ending, than the first in a series (if I have explained that properly). I find this kind of annoying, it should be made clear that the story isn’t complete.

      On this occasion i just shrugged and got on with it, but previously with Keira Andrews (Wed to a Barbarian I think) I was annoyed enough to refuse to read the next one.

  19. Jenny,

    I SO understand both your frustration and Molly & Bob’s sudden rush. I get antsy about stuff early while my family tells me to stop over planning. Then, suddenly, they’re hot to act because the due date has arrived. So it goes.

  20. Jenny,

    I SO understand both your frustration and Molly & Bob’s sudden rush. I get antsy about stuff early while my family tells me to stop over planning. Then, suddenly, they’re hot to act because the due date has arrived. So it goes.

    1. I’m surprised that got past the “duplicate detector”, Elizabeth. If I accidentally click on the Post Comment button twice, it seems to balk, and I have to leave the site and come back again to see if it actually posted it.

  22. Every summer our local library runs a book bingo program for adults. I love a project and so I usually participate. Right now I’m listening to People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks (category: diaspora) and reading Wolf Worm by T. Kingfisher (category: horror). I read People of the Book many years ago and am finding it more dramatic than I remembered. It’s about an old book, the conservator who studies it in the 1990’s, and all the historical events the book survived. Wolf Worm is definitely creepy. I generally don’t like horror but can tolerate it for Kingfisher’s sense of humor.

  23. I haven’t been posting much over the last few years due to my own health issues and those of my husband who sadly passed away a few months ago. I’m hoping to do better going forward.

    I have been reading your recommendations though and am very grateful to the people who recommended the following books that I enjoyed over the last few months:

    Strange Practice by Vivienne Shaw
    A House of Ghosts by WC Ryan
    Demon Overlord’s Retirement Plan by M H Foster
    Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter by Heather Fawcett (enjoyable but a tad sweet for my tastes)
    Dog On It by Spencer Quinn
    Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman
    The Retired Assassin’s Guide 1st 2 books by Naomi Kuttner
    Division Bells by Iona Datt Sharma (A.perfect little romance and educational too. I was able to nod knowledgeably when a Third Reading was mentioned on the news the other day)
    Bitter Wash Road by Garry Disher
    The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson

    I’ve also read new-to-me books by favourite authors including T Kingfisher, KJ Charles, Allison Montclair, Sherry Thomas and Sally Gardner among others .

    I hugely enjoyed FledgeWitch and SpellHound by our own Lian Tanner and bought copies for two of my granddaughters who I am sure will love them too.

    I reread The Serpent Garden By one of my favourite authors that I don’t think I’ve seen mentioned here. Her forte was historical adventures with a little romance, a lot of dry humour and a twist of fantasy. This one’s about a female artist working for Cardinal Wolsey… and a demon is involved.

    Once I got over the initial disappointment of finding that She-Merchants, Buccaneers and Gentlewomen by Katie Hickman was not about female pirates but instead was a history of British women in India, I raced through it. I found it a fascinating story packed with anecdotes about some truly amazing women- especially in the early days. My own st is generally in the days before the Raj bit was so hooked by the time I got there that I carried on and read the whole book. For me, this one is up there with the author’s earlier book Daughters of Britannia about Diplomatic wives, which I also loved..

    Finally, I am currently rereading We Solve Murders by Richard Osman in preparation for the sequel that is due out soon. I know I’m in the minority in preferring this one to the Thursday Murder Club books. I like those too but there’s something about the trio of Amy, Steve and Rosie that I find irresistible.

    Thank you for your patience if you got to the end of all that. I’m certain I’ll be much less wordy next time!

    1. Sigh, I thought I’d thoroughly checked the above but see I omitted the author of The Serpent Garden – she is the ineffable Judith Merkle Riley

    3. Thanks for all those recommendations.
      It sounds like you have been having a really tough time. I hope things do continue to get better for you.

    4. I’m sorry to hear of your loss. I wouldn’t worry much about typos and editing errors, which are inevitable in this kind of writing, but it indeed helps to have the author’s name since sometimes several books have identical titles.

    5. I don’t think we mind wordy here at GBT; it is literally our raison d’etre, lol. Also, immense sympathies for your loss.

    6. Welcome back! I’m sorry for your loss and troubles, and wish you much better times going forward. Also glad that GBT could guide you to some diversions during the bad times.

    7. Catie, I’m so sorry about your husband, that must have been a devastating blow, and I hope you’re doing okay and have lots of support.

      Thanks for all the recommendations. Quite a few of them are books that I have loved, so I’m going to check out the others, as we obviously share excellent taste! 🙂

      And I’m really pleased that you enjoyed Spellhound and Fledgewitch! Make sure your granddaughters read Spellhound first, as there are so many spoilers in Fledgewitch, the second book. And if they’d like a couple of signed book plates, let me know.

    8. I’m sorry for your health problems and for the death of your husband. And I’m glad that books were comfort to you. We like so many of the same books. I’m gonna try the ones that you’ve listed that I have not read.

      1. Thanks all of you for your kind wishes. I hope any of you that try books I recommended enjoy them. Fingers crossed, I always get anxious when people say that.
        Lian, I will certainly impress on the girls that the books should be read in that order, but I doubt it will be necessary for Immy who will be 10 next weeks as she loves All Animals and will naturally be pulled towards the one with the dog on the cover…
        It’s very kind of you to offer the signed bookplates. I’m not certain to what extent Amelie or Immy would appreciate that but will have a little chat to find out. Thank you.

  24. Inspired by the comparison to Justice Bells, I picked up Ada Maria Soto’s His Quiet Agent, and yes, I see what you mean. It is a sexless romance? A platonic romance? but the characters are delightful, and also going through some stuff, and I love them. I went on a tear of other of her work, but I liked that one and the follow on, Agents of Winter, the best.

    And then out of desperation, I clicked on Libby’s advisor to get some book recommendations, and ended up with Natasha Pulley’s The Mars House, which is probably properly classified as SF, but went off in so many unexpected directions it kept me glued to it for two days. So I have a couple more of hers now, and once you cast off any idea about rationality or science or how something works, the stories are interesting and fun. Both of my kids bounced off her because they were reading too hard – and I had a moment in Bedlam Stacks where I understood what they meant… altitude doesn’t work like that, nor does catalepsy nor does geology or volcanic glass or salt in rivers, but that’s still a pretty cool story idea you’re noodling with.

    1. I reviewed Mars House here long ago and my reaction is more like that of your kids. It also showed uncomfortably pro-Chinese Communist tendencies: Mars is a Special Territory (or some such), much like Hong Kong, and Pulley thinks that is just fine.

      I don’t really understand or sympathize with this ability that some people have to completely shut off their critical faculties and just go with the flow of a story. Disbelief should be suspended, not hanged by the neck until dead.

      1. It’s a fairy tale? I mean, Martha Wells has the most extravagantly wild scenery in the assorted Raksura books, and they tell a pretty good story as well. I just had to flip it from one bin to another in my head.

    2. “once you cast off any idea about rationality or science or how something works, the stories are interesting and fun.” … loved that.

      I really enjoyed “Mars House” too. And my physics knowledge is so weak these days it really didn’t trigger my disbelief (or maybe I was enjoying it too much to notice). I haven’t read Bedlam Stacks yet but I loved the Watchmaker duo.

  25. Once again a lot of reading for me. My speed must be picking up, because I’m also still, you know, working full time and occasionally interacting with the other humans sharing the house.

    1-2. [re-reads] my own FFM novel ‘Undertow’ and MM novella ‘Come to Me.’

    3. ‘I Could Write a Book’ by Andie Elliott, MM contemporary using the holiday house swap scenario. Quite funny, quite accurate in depicting the life of an actual writer, sweet slow-burn romance between the house sharers (developing over weeks of emails, then texts, then phone calls). I liked this a lot.

    4. [re-read] my MM novel ‘Into You’ and related trans F/bi M novelette ‘Star of Wonder.’

    watched ‘Leatherheads’ which was OK, ‘Project Hail Mary’ which I thought was fantastic, and re-watched ‘Dance With Me’ for the Nth time, also re-watched ‘City Slickers’ which is a surprisingly durable mid-life-crisis comedy.

    5. ‘Finders Keepers’ by N.R. Walker, short & sweet (but with some sexy sex) MM contemporary set in tropical Australia and featuring MCs brought together by a lost dog. A soothing low-conflict read for those looking for such things, as I most definitely was.

    6. ‘That’s What Friends Are For’ by Wade Rouse. Gay fiction. If anyone watched the short-lived sitcom ‘Midcentury Modern,’ this book is basically that but with a lot more family drama, conflict, and potential for disaster. All four Palm Springs ‘Golden Gays’ get to the end in better shape than they started, which was a relief because they were all downward spiraling at the beginning.

    7. ‘Borderlands and the Mexican American Story’ by David Dorado Romo. Nonfiction in the Race to the Truth series, the most infuriating to date. History from prehistory to 2024, well documented, frankly should be assigned reading for all Americans.

    8. ‘Project Hail Mary’ by Andy Weir, which I’d bought on sale yonks ago because I loved ‘The Martian’ but hadn’t read because I wasn’t feeling smart enough for sciencey science fiction for a while. Loved it.

    9. ‘Our Own Light’ by Logan Sage Adams (she/they). A gay romance category finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards in 2025, featuring an unusual setting (early 1900s West Virginia mining town) and characterizations. MC1 is a coal miner in a lavender marriage (much-loved BFF wife & her daughter), MC2 is a rich young man, scion of an Ohio railroad family, who’s getting away from unmeetable expectations of unloving family. Consistent and well-developed characters free of anachronistic psychobabble (which was a feat considering the issues the modern reader can identify in both men) though there are a few anachronisms in the narrative language elsewhere. Writing a bit flat but did deliver some deep feels. Plus, there’s no villain except hard times. The conclusion was satisfactory. I would recommend this book for those who are tired of the same old jump-on-the-bandwagon MM contemporary and/or weakly historical romance and would like to try something very different.

    1. Chacha1, I’m intrigued by the frequency with which you reread your own books. I don’t think I’ve reread any of mine since they were published, mainly because I read them so many times while drafting, editing, and proofreading that I couldn’t bear to step back into them. However enough time has passed since the early ones that it would probably be an interesting exercise.

      1. 1. Well, you know how people say “write the book you want to read”? That’s what I’ve been doing from the beginning (2012) because I did not (and still do not) find many romances centering the kinds of characters and settings of deepest interest to me.

        2. It’s fair to say I’m a compulsive reader. At a pace averaging a book per day, All New is both too expensive and too hard a target (see above re: interest). So when I want something to read but can’t face anything in the TBR and don’t feel like re-reading somebody else, I pull up one of my own.

        3. I’m still actively writing in a story universe that now comprises nearly a hundred distinct stories set from 2000 – 2025 and involving several hundred characters, many of whom know each other and do things together. Keeping track of everybody is a TASK. 🙂

        Just as an example, I recently began writing a story centering two characters from a previous novel in which at least a dozen other previous characters will be at least tangentially involved and 2 new characters, who have history with two other characters, will be introduced. The action in this story (novella or novel, don’t know yet) will describe some events that involve more than just the two main characters and lead up to a big multi-character project. So … while I do have a concordance, it was not as complete for the years of concern (2020-2021) and re-reading my stuff that touches on or leads into those years helps me a) fill in the gaps and b) avoid continuity errors.

      2. I haven’t written enough fiction to matter and have published even less of it, but I’ve been known to reread my commercially published nonfiction and translations (not that there’s a lot of either), although I think less often now than I once did. I usually did so with enjoyment and a feeling “just what I would say!” (because I already did). I don’t think I’m as likely to reread the stuff I’ve posted on websites or in fanzines unless for specific research, perhaps because it was written less carefully.

  26. I actually finished a book this week. Recently I have been losing interest at about 70%. I read the new AJ Demas ‘The Boy Bride’. In this MM romance a boy who is an assassin is sent into the mountains to marry a defeated hero who has been walled up in a fortress. I enjoyed the MCs and there is a very good range of minor characters. Beware however, this is a ‘Part 1’ rather than the first book in a series, so it ends in the middle of the story.

    I got reading for ‘Husband material’ by Alexis Hall by listening to ‘Boyfriend material’ again. I enjoyed it more than I expected to, in my memory it had fallen off a bit at the end, but I didn’t find that this time. However, although the narration is excellent it is also a bit ‘full on’ so I realised that I needed a break before moving on with series. If I rad too many books forma series together I usually get fed up with them, so ‘Husband Material’ is still waiting.

    I found that ‘The Orb of Cairado’ by Katherine Addison is now included (without additional payment) on Spotify so I listened to that instead. At just over 3 hours listening time I didn’t want to use an audible credit on it. Enjoyable though it took a little while to get used to the narrator. Even though most of the characters are male, a female narrator (who sounds quite young) was used, which was a bit of a surprise especially as the MC is middle aged and gloomy enough. Any, I got used to her and she did a reasonable job. As with all the Katherine Addison’s set in that world, I can never remember character names, the honorifics used of any of the placenames. It might be easier if I was reading it. So this is a recommendation but not an urgent one!

    1. Thanks for the warning about The Boy Bride, Frozen Pond. I shall wait to read it. Also, I love Demas’s work, but I was a bit put off by the title, which smacks of paedophilia. I trust her enough to be sure that’s not the case, but I do think it’s an unfortunate choice.

      1. She does seem to like a big age gap – I realized on rereading The House of the Red Balconies that there’s twenty years between that couple, though mitigated by the older hero’s inexperience.

        1. Reminds me of Lois Bujold who also likes big age gaps. I know that this can work. I personally am very glad that hubby and I have had very similar childhood experiences (18 months apart). It’s fun not to have to explain stuff but share memories with just half a remark.

          2. Well Heyer was writing about a period where that was the norm for wealthy families .

          3. OK now I’m trying to think of Bujold couples with big age gaps other than Dag & Fawn. All of Miles’ romantic interests are fairly close in age. I think Cazaril might be older than his lady, or maybe he’s just prematurely aged through suffering – not sure on that. Maybe I just haven’t noticed?

          4. Yuri,
            Cazaril is 35 in Curse of Chalion and his LI is 18 when they meet. He notices her very fondly but remains the perfect gentleman towards her because he doesn’t consider himself the right fit for her (too battered, too poor, too world weary and then, when contracting his unwelcome belly guest, with his death in close reach). I had noticed the age gap because when he notices his attraction, he also reminds himself that Betrix’s father clearly wants a good fit for his daughter – a husband who can offer her a sound economical basis and an honorable societal standing. When his old friend (who was his mentee, so younger than himself, ), the captain of the Lady’s men, comes to visit, that guy seems an obvious candidate (and we know that he would be a good husband to her because Caz is a good judge of character).
            Caz is clearly very fond of Betrix but never acts on his attraction, because her future is more important to him. I love how we see how much she cares for him, how competent she proves herself to be throughout the story (and yes, she feels more mature than your average 18-19 year old in current books) – and eventually, she’s the one who makes the move and wins him for herself as her husband. Which somehow makes the large age gap more palatable to me as this sort of counteracts the usual imbalance of power through experience a bit.

          5. Shards of Honor as well, I thought. I confess, I thought it was a favorite choice for Bujold, but I haven’t read much besides the ones mentioned above and Penric.

          6. Aral is 11 years older than Cordelia. Which isn’t that much (my parents had more so arguably I’m biased) but her life expectancy is apparently a lot better, maybe because she is betan ?

            But then when Aral dies and she takes up with Oliver I think Oliver is significantly younger than her? I think Bujold is interested less in a particular age difference than how different ones play out if that makes sense. In Paladin of Souls Ista is 40 and her Romantic partner is about the same. Penric and Nikys are the same age. I think Miles and Ekaterin are about the same.

            Whereas even the Heyers where the hero and heroine knew
            Eachother as children have age gaps — Desford and Henrietta in Charity Girl are 3 years apart and Sherry and Kitty 2 or 3. Someone helpfully created this chart and they are tbe closest and many have a much bigger gap.
            https://www.heyerlist.org/ages.html

          7. Cordelia, with more advanced Galactic longevity treatments than anyone in Barrayar has had except perhaps the youngest of the aristocracy, is an example of what I mentioned below for male authors, namely large age gaps with older women who remain biologically young because of science or magic, at least regarding Jole. Probably Betans pay less attention toward relative age in general because of longevity, so it might even influence her attitude toward the older Aral.

          8. Good points Dodo & Debbie. It makes sense that any author with a number of large number of couples is going to play around with various dynamics. The Heyer chart was interesting for its range of 2-21 years: 18 couples with ten year gap or greater and 17 with less than ten between them. I rather love that someone did the numbers!

            Thus one of Bujold’s biggest age gaps would then be between Aral and Oliver. There’s a lovely fan fic that fills in that story and I always forget that it isn’t canon 🙂

        2. When age gap fiction (with a substantialy younger woman) is written by a male author, there’s always a suspicion that it’s a low sort of wish fulfillment, especially when seen in fiction not set in an era where that was the custom. But it appears from a surprisingly large number of women authors as well. Besides ones mentioned, there’s Laurie R King and Ally Hazelwood, for example.

          From male genre authors, hetero couples with a substantialy older woman are rare, possibly less so than in real life. An exception is sf/f where science or magic makes the woman stay young-looking and with the health of a young woman. Lots of fae women in medieval romances and Haggard’s She and many more modern ones. There are actually a great number of those.

          1. As I hope was clear from context, “less so” should have been “less frequent” than in real life.

        3. Yuri, Unless I am forgetting something, the Aral-Jole relationship is not something we have much detail about until discussions after Aral is long dead, so I don’t think it is comparable to the ages in the Heyer chart, which tracks only romantic protagonists. Heyer also alludes to, say, previous marriages of widows and widowers, and if memory serves, some of those were decidedly of the May-December sort. Not to mention the age gaps with the former mistresses of some of the more rakish heroes.

  27. I read Jayne Castle’s Sweetwater and the Witch, which is a cute flirty romance, on the male’s part. The female resists as long as she can. There’s a dust bunny who collects pens, too. It has a nice HEA.

    I reread The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison. It’s a long book, and just when you think everything is working out, something else happens. That society is very civilized, because on this read, I found it amazing that the emperor had survived so long amid all the enemies he had. In some ways, it was a good antidote to what’s going on in the USA.

  28. So tired, needed uncomplicated so read a children’s book Hunt for the Golden Scarab by M G Leonard, nice easy dive into Egyptian history

    1. when I am in that state, I go back to Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons, and all the follow on books – love them, kid level excitement, and sweet dreams when I stop reading in the middle of them!

  29. More of the Dungeon Crawler Carl series and re-read of Ruth Reichl’s “My
    Kitchen Year.”

  30. Read JAX’s latest; it was ok. Not her best.

    Just started Dungeon Crawler Carl.

  31. What with the World Cup, the All Star Game, second week of a new executive director, major organizational fund raiser, going to two in person baseball games with my cousins, and the two month house guest getting all her stuff out of the house, I didn’t have much reading time. Still reading Terry Pratchett and Diana Wynne Jones and listening to the DWJ podcast.
    Listened to them discuss a piece I have never read, “A Guide to the True State of Affairs in Dalemark”, which is a novella for adults she wrote long before she wrote the children’s Dalemark series but released later and which is quite different and I think a musing on what moral compromises heroes make to advance a good cause and how it feels to be the victim of those moral compromises. As far as I can tell it’s only available in her collection Minor Arcana which is currently priced at $250 on Amazon secondhand so I am going to monitor for cheaper editions.

    For those who may be wondering (Hi Lupe!) while house guest is out the drama may just be beginning. Foster daughter has asked if she and boyfriend can “talk to you about navigating living with his mom?”

    Um. We wish we had that convo before they decided to live with her and signed a lease. We did gently suggest back then that perhaps his mother would not be free child care (her comment) but as a woman on oxygen one more person they will need to care for. (No kids yet.)

    DH wants to stay out of the situation; I want to be helpful given they asked for advice. We ended up saying “We are happy to talk to you about processes for how to make this work. We obviously can’t say “do this “ or “do that” because what matters to each of you in living in a family or group will be different and what upsets you will also be different.
    You might also want to ask DD how they handle things. I know they have family meetings and group calendars and assigned responsibilities and I think also an understanding about finances.”

    So…life is still not calm or boring.

      1. I KNOW! Every morning we wake up and say we have the house to ourselves! Huge sighs of relief. (We have been restoring the house to normal including airing out the bedroom and washing all her linens twice because she uses a very strong perfume — the week that half her belongings sat in our front hall you could smell her perfume even though she hadn’t been there for days.)

        Also we haven’t had dinner guests for two months. Our pattern is to have people over for food once or twice a weekend (DH would happily do even more because his extended family would drop in on eachother frequently with no notice, I grew up with a mom who found hosting extremely stressful involving cleaning the whole house and making everything from scratch and I can actually only remember her having a party once although there must have been a few more, so this is a compromise we developed over years.)

        So last week we had my cousins for raspberry soup after a baseball game, and a family whose kids we think of as back up kids for pizza (on her way out the daughter sought my approval of her fiance, said she wouldn’t marry him if I didn’t like him, very sweet although I am sure she still would, her mom died about 10 years ago and while she clearly likes her dad’s new partner it was nice to be also treated as mom), we are hosting a friend who lost her husband a year ago for lunch tomorrow and our neighbors who got back from a week at Chautauqua* for pizza Wednesday.

        I realize for many people this would not be life getting back to normal but for us it is!

        Has anyone here ever been to Chatauqua? Our neighbors go annually and are encouraging us to try it. Would value others experiences.

          1. Debbie – my favorite book of his is Haroun and the Sea of Stories. I checked a cd of Salman Rushdie himself reading it from the library years ago.
            It was magical!

    2. I am glad you have your space back at least, but it doesn’t sound like more drama is in store. I feel bad for foster daughter, but she chose this. Family is hard. Care giving for someone is hard on everyone involved. Hopefully they will find a way to live together amicably.

      1. I think I hope so? We are not impressed with this woman ( I bet you knew that) and are already discussing what we can do to support foster daughter if it doesn’t work. I mean, if this is the future she wants we will support her but we don’t want her feeling locked in with no choices. And I think boyfriend feels committed to living with mom and while she has medical issues I think she is going to be around for quite a while.

  32. Really enjoyed The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst – not really a ‘romantasy’ but definitely cosy and never quite what I expected. I also keep looking at my spider plant wistfully…

  34. Jenny – I love your book covers so your work is worth it. As far as NY Times Bestseller – that is way too common to be effective. When I notice that – which is rare – I think oh that means nothing. Every book gets that now.

    3. I agree on the “NYT” thing, but the business minds are insisting. It used to be a lot harder to get, but they loosened the requirements and now it’s pretty meaningless. Actually, it was meaningless before, it’s about velocity of sales not number of sales, you have to sell a lot really fast in certain bookstores. Lots of people who have never hit the list have sold a lot more books than some NYT bestsellers.

  35. I have been reading excel spreadsheets of car information to submit to Bring a Trailer. After two months of working on it, BaT accepted the car and today TODAY the auction went live. It is a 1965 Morgan 4/4 and was my 30th birthday present. We loved that car but I can no longer comfortably drive a car that the driver sits about 6 inches off the ground. And they could make humorous videos of me trying to extract myself from it.

    2. Oh, that is a great car. Loved all the low slung cars. My first car was a ’66 Triumph Spitfire, could never get down that low now.

  36. Hydrophobic Gardenugen (Just kidding.)

    So the dotter is clearing storage in the upper floors and shifting it to – where else? – the basement. She’s trying to be a Gud Pairn’t. She wants to clear what is otherwise regarded as a storage space on the second floor (no window, no closet, no air conditioning) and make it a bedroom for third grandkinder (male) who currently shares a room with twin (female). There are other options, but whatever.

    One of the things in that room is a hydroponic garden. It’s an enclosed unit for growing Very Tall plants. Space has been requested in my garden room. I acquiesced. That means I have a bunch of units available for sale on Facebook Marketplace:
    – 6 Click & Grow Smart Garden 3s
    – 4 Elevon Sprouts
    – 3 Lyko 12-pod units
    – 4 iDOO 12-pod units
    – several AeroGarden Aerovoirs.
    – pods and sponges and covers and baskets for every unit.

    Everything I’m keeping is AeroGarden. For reasons. Oh, and the amber mason jars.

    1. Guess it is lucky she doesn’t want to put a bunk bed in the basement for him. Though given what the storage room sounds like, maybe she would prefer to use a bunk bed frame with privacy curtains to give him his own bed/space in a more ventilated area. Air flow is important

      1. Interestingly, the only vents in the basement are a pair of return ducts.

        In order to set up a bed, I’d have to give up the entire Garden Room. I love my grandkinder, but if I have to do that, I’m moving upstairs and sending the boys – all of them – to the basement.

  37. Returning to the subject of books subtitled A Novel– I just saw a mention of Robin Sloan’s Sourdough, which is so subtitled. I think it was mentioned here, back when. I read part of it once and it’s not “literary.” I said earlier that one justification might be if a title would otherwise be taken to be for a nonfiction book. I think this is an instance.

  38. Speaking of good books … Arresting Anna popped up on my Amazon yesterday! The cover is fantastic! I can’t wait to read it 🙂

  39. It is almost 10 PM EDT on Thursday, July the twenty-third and here is the latest Gud Buk Thursdie post. Yes, it was posted a week ago, but I for one do NOT wish to put pressure on Herself to whip out a new one. So, here is my GBT post for 2026-07-23:

    – IN WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER, I listened to Our Hostess’s HOT FLESHY THIGHS, or whatever she ended up titling it. Then I listened to FAKING IT. Fabulous as always. As long as I was doing the audiobook thing, I acquired FAST WOMEN and THE CINDERELLA DEAL which I will listen to in reverse of that order.

    – IN THE KINDLE AP, THE FIFYH ELEPHANT by Sir Terry. I love the story. I love most Pratchett. But… the formatting is annoying the buh-jayzus out of me! No separators, not even a skipped line to transition from one scene to the next.

    – IN MOBIPOCKET READER, THE ALEXANDER INHERITANCE by Flint, Goodlett, and Huff. This is one of the Assitti Shard universes in which shards transfer someplace and something back in time. The first was 1632 and all the books about Grantville and such. The second was TIME SPIKE in which a prison goes back to coexist with dinosaurs. This is the third universe, where a cruise ship and a towed fuel barge go back to 321 BCE, shortly after the death of Alexander the Great. Others involve an angelic Peterbilt truck sent to America (1,000 AD?) and fifth, a squad of Military School Cadets with modern weapons (THE CROSSING) are sent back to the revolutionary war. (They don’t have live ammo, though. They’re cadets.)

    – ON THE WEB, the word opera continues. Grey Wolf’s VARIATION ON A THEME Book 7 is all the way up to Chapter 10. The story is still in the summer between Sophomore and Junior years in college, and the Core Four and associates are all taking summer classes (around attending weddings.)

    – ON NETFLIX I finally watched ENOLA HOLMES 3. It was okay. Not as good as 1 and 2, but okay.

    Meanwhile, I spent 6.5 hours in the dark today while they reworked the electrical system in support of the new HVAC system. I discovered that my new(est) Kindle hasn’t any stories downloaded to it and my new phone doesn’t even have an ereader. I spent a fair chunk of those hours trying to read an a-book (analog, or tree-book) by flashlight. NAKED THROUGH THE SNOW by Sailor Jim Johnston. I love that book. It’s a book of his essays published to alt.callahans on Usenet, what he calls his “little bits o’ silliness.” One of the early bits is how the book got its title. He allows that such books are usually named after the most famous bit, but that his most famous, most widely shared, most known, is titled “On the Subject of Penises” and nobody would buy a book with that title. He has a point. The link takes you to a GBT post from 2021. On the Subject is reprinted in its entirety (with permission).

    1. Thanks for your post, Gary!!
      I really miss Good Book Thursday on Thursdays, but at least Jenny posted here and on the Novella post, so I hope she’s alright, just very busy.

  40. Good point Gary, no reason I guess why we can’t just update last week’s reading here. So …

    “The Shattering Peace” by John Scalzi (2025) is the latest in his Old Man’s War series. I really liked seeing Gretchen Trujillo, Zoe’s once best friend, and I really enjoyed her relationship with her Obin assistant Ran. There are political shenanigans and a reunion romance with an old boyfriend, and the villains this time are the people who I expected to be the villains two books ago so that was satisfying. Ultimately, I didn’t love the solution, nonetheless it would be a decent place to leave it if Scalzi chooses. It’s a strong series, and I really like how Scalzi take what might be considered plot holes or obvious questions and uses them as a basis for a future book. In other books have focussed on answers to questions like – hey, isn’t that slavery? And, where are all the diplomats? Here, he plays out the ramifications of the technology introduced in book one which is rather neat.

    Also read some books that I can see how other people would love them, but aren’t really for me. “The West Passage” by Jared Pechaček (2024) was deeply deeply weird with rich imagery following our protagonists as they journey around a crumbling city palace with intricate histories and traditions. Needs a reader who likes puzzle narratives and contemplative reflection more than I do, nonetheless good enough I might try Pechaček again.

    Lots of people loved “This is How to Lose the Time War” whereas I merely liked it, so I shouldn’t have been surprised that the lyrical “The River Has Roots” by Amal El-Mohtar (2025) didn’t work better for me, despite the magic based on wordplay. For me, it’s a murder ballad – a retelling of the harp made of a murder victim’s bones, and no matter how dressed up that’s a sad story. Although I liked Agnes Crow.

    I really wanted to like Rachel Hartman’s work more than I do and I know people love her but “Among Ghosts” (2025) is the third book of hers that doesn’t work for me. Not bad, particularly the back half with its histories of some rather intriguing girl ghosts, but not something I wanted to read either.

    So for something completely different I picked up “Depending how you feel about baseball” (2019) / “Stay the Course” (2020) by the theundiagnosable and yes everyone was right! Aww…

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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