I ask because Bob just wrote a brilliant novella prequel for the Lavender series, about Vince and Rain in Afghanistan, and it’s brilliant. Completely reversed my previous feeling about prequels. Although not prologues. Really, go read Red Rain, it’s terrific.
And if it’s August 6th when you are, Jodi Taylor’s sequel to Smallhope and Pennyroyal, A Family Affair, just dropped. And that’s what I’ll be reading tonight.
So what good book did you read this week?
146 Responses
I read Yarrow by Charles de Lint and I realised I had forgotten 90% of the plot. I found actually quite harrowing and much creepier than I remembered.
I don’t want to reread it. I am trying Moonheart now and so far so good. It has the magic house that I dimly remembered. I don’t want to give up on Charles de Lint yet!
I do like a magical house 🙂
He can be very dark.
Okay switching from Yarrow to Moonheart on my TBR list.
Read his latest stuff. The Juniper Wiles books. They’re good and not much darkness.
Like everything else – it depends on the prequel! I think Arghers will read anything you write so not very helpful – sorry 😊
Best thing I read this week was “A Harvest of Hearts” by Andrea Eames (2025) – a fantasy with a subtle and effective m/f romance, and surprisingly given the grisly premise, there’s very little body horror. Mainly I loved the Magical House, the talking cat, and the delightfully practical and hardheaded FMC. I only picked it up as the co-editor Diana M. Pho is Hugo nominated and I’m really glad I did.
If you like gothic horror, then you might like “The Villa, Once Beloved” by Victor Manibo (2025) as it’s well written with a strong central character in Sophie. Unfortunately gothic horror isn’t really my thing, despite the interesting exploration of what it’s like to be separated from your cultural home, by migration or adoption, and the evocative decaying Filipino colonial mansion setting. Also co-edited by Diana M. Pho.
Read a bunch of Hugo nominated graphic novels: “The Invisible Parade” has gorgeous illustrations by John Picacio but is more of a children’s book about Día de Muertos. “The Power Fantasy Volume 1: The Superpowers” could go somewhere interesting, but it’s just an introduction so far. “The Space Cat” by Nnedi Okorafor has delightful art by Tana Ford and is quite funny. And I’m stalled at the end of Act One “A Girl and Her Fed”: it’s a funny web-comic, particularly the snarky codebreaking koala, but very long, having been written over a 20 year period.
“Curves For Days” by Laura Moher (2023) was a nice change. I liked the FMC, who’s just won the lottery, but the MMC made some assumptions that didn’t work for me. OTH he handled the FMC being a rape survivor really well. So lots of good aspects and enough for me to try Ms Moher again.
Best of the short fiction was T. Kingfisher’s “That Thing with Bob and the Crop Circles” (2025) – really rather lovely and somehow Kingfisher can make almost anything adorable. Free at Escape Pod https://escapepod.org/2025/05/15/escape-pod-993-that-thing-with-bob-and-the-crop-circles/ (also audio)
Loved Curved for Days, Yuri. I understand your feelings about the MMC’s assumptions but got over it because of how he treated FMC overall. There are another two in the series that I enjoyed just as much. She was such a great character, so strong and centred.
There was definitely an appeal – and I felt very envious of the house by the end!
That was a great short story.
Loved the short story.
Bob and the crop circles was great! Thank you
I love so many of the short stories you suggest and I don’t have short stories in any of my other reading suggestions. Thank you !
Thanks Debbie and everyone – I’m glad you enjoyed it! Sometimes I’m not sure about including them so I’m glad you like them. In this case it was Kingfisher so a certain winner 😉
Hi Jenny, Red Rain is added to my ever growing tbr library.
Prequels: I like them. If I loved a book, a book series, I usually want to keep in contact with the characters. So a prequel is great! Adds to the whole but is forced to keep to the canon and not risk ruining everything by a new ending to things.
I didn’t read much – it was just so very hot.
Good book:
I finished listening to Textbook Defense by A. Kane and M. James and am sooo glad to I got the audio! I like Nick J. Russo as narrator and he managed what the text sample didn’t accomplish: make me fall for the character that I previously (in the text sample) just didn’t care about. As he’s MC2, I should care about him…
And I also liked the story A LOT: hockey romance with MC1 a player and single parent to a kindergarten kid. MC2 a librarian temping at a kids libary – the meet cute happened thanks to the library’s summer kids program. For not quite realistic reasons (who cares?) MC2 gets roped in helping out as live-in-nanny to MC1’s kid. It’s a romance, so of course there’s a HEA.
On GR many readers complained about the coverage of the kid, but to me this felt quite real and I liked that it wasn’t a picture perfect kid. She wasn’t conveniently stored away when the adults felt like together-time, the adults were exhausted often and had to actively find the rare moments of privacy. The story also didn’t shy away from the kid having melt downs and the father as well as the caregiver being stumped on how to react occasionally. The hockey here is minimal, the focus more on how the job affects family (and love) live. What I particularly like is how this author duo incorporates former MCs into the story. And yes, it’s not perfect but I got sucked into the audio fast, so that’s been a very nice suprise.
After remembering how much I liked the Two Mrs MacKinnons last week, I read another title by Jayne Davis – An Improper Correspondence – which wasn’t that improper in content. The improper part was the fact that the correspondents were a female and a man not previouosly introduced. The MCs were perfectly alright and likeable, almost too likeable in comparison to the antagonist and his family who came across as caricatures of villains. Jim Butcher once wrote a brilliant piece on the importance of crafting good villains and he’s sooo right. Here, there was never a question IF the FMC – who is really intelligent and level headed – will end up in marriage to this titled guy who charmed her prior to his leave for war into a sort-of-betrothal. We soon learn that he and his family are deeply in debt and the FMC is targeted to be their money cow. Quite stupid to treat the rich girl arrogantly and abominably from the start before you nailed her down in marriage! If you so desperately need her money, you better show your true colours after the vows are exchanged. It was a quick read and I was more curious HOW she’d get rid of him not IF. And I liked the first bit when we learn how the officers (the horrible fiance is a cavalry captain, the nice MMC an infantry captain – animosity here, too) are treated as prisoners of war in France (Napoleonic Wars): Rather differently to ordinary military. As romance, it was a bland story though.
Because it’s free on audible for subscribers, I’m currently listening to JJ Mulder’s Changing the Game. Not far into the story, but imo it’s clear that the author has come quite far since this debut (?): the story proceeds like it does because the author needs it to progress that way, I’d have liked to get more thinking about the two MCs giving into their insta-love and lust (bi-awakening, I prefer some coping if not with the revelation then at least with the practicalities – Emmy Sanders did a good job with this aspect in 10 Ways to Accidentally Fall in Love imo).
I’ve also skimmed the new Fearne Hill, Seen. Just skimmed because it was far too hot this week (plus 38 degree Celsius which felt hotter and like a wall of humid heat) to dive into drama (one MC is a people magnet, singer and bar co-owner whose eyesight is deteriorating which makes him act out, the other a dermatologist riddled with anxiety and depression – a side character of this series’ first book), but I might go back and really read the book. Hill ALWAYS has a medical focus in her books and I like this about her stories.
It’s cooled down a little bit thanks to some much needed rain (not enough), but the weather forecast is not good – next week there’s another heatwave looming. Our idea to escape the heat and watch a movie didn’t work out yesterday: if they had AC (it didn’t feel like it) it wasn’t successful against the heat. Imaging a room full of people at ca. 27 degrees… We went to see a sneak preview, I had high hopes because this movie theatre is known for its art house selection, but kiddo was kind of traumatized by our latest attempt at a sneak preview (all trailers horror movies and a killing-spree movie as actual film – we left after 1/3 of the film). We were soooo lucky – Sunny Dancer took us to a summer camp for cancer surviver kids in Scotland. Talented young acters (Bella Ramsey as lead!) and a good story. Shook us emotionally, but clearly recommeded!
Good point about the risk of ruining everything by a new ending to things. I hate it when an author breaks a HEA to set up the arc for a sequel.
Sometimes I’d like a prequel about the parents, or if its a mystery, about an earlier case. Occasionally I want an AU – I haven’t read “All the Queen’s Men” for years and years but I remember I fell in love with the FMC’s first love but he dies at the end of the prologue. Would love an AU where he survives 😉
I am worried about the new Practical Magic movie for just this reason. The trailer seems to imply that they undo the happy ending/resolution to the first one and I don’t want to know that. Why would they do that? Grrrr. I will not be watching it until someone else reports back that it is ok.
I don’t usually have high hopes for sequels either, but this is still disappointing.
I’ve heard people complain about the book sequels for exactly that reason. I am *not* seeing that film.
I tried the prequel for some unknown reason and it was just too sad. Hoffman often is for me, but I love that movie.
Yes, the original move is gorgeous.
What! I am out of it. I had no idea they were making another movie. I had to go look it up. I was very much against it, but Sandra Bullock is still in it as well as Lee Pace. Yes please. I don’t see many movies in theaters anymore, but I will make more of an effort (which means a little effort) report back if I do.
Lee Pace has me wavering too. He and Chris Pine have the best eyebrows.
I love Lee Pace. Did you ever see him in Halt and Catch Fire? One of the few where he’s playing a human being, not a villain or with elf ears.
I became a Lee Pace fan with Pushing up Daisies “A pastry chef with the power to bring dead people back to life solves murder mysteries with his resurrected childhood sweetheart, a cynical private investigator, and a lovesick waitress.” as per IMBD.
Pushing Up Daisies! Canceled far far too soon. What a great cast
I don’t think I’ve ever read a genre romance where the HEA is broken within the book, although quite a number start the sequel with one partner having been killed off, and a contemptible few posit that something happened after the first ended to ruin the HEA for a decade or so to set up the sequel where they reconcile.
On the other hand, in other genres where an HEA to the romantic subplot is not guaranteed, something can thwart it at the ending of the first volume. Even Edgar Rice Burroughs did it at the end of both the first John Carter novel and the first Tarzan novel. (Deja Thoris gets trapped in a gizmo with a sort of time lock and Tarzan nobly renounces Jane because of a Big Misunderstanding, respectively.)
In Joanna Bourne’s Black Hawk we see episodes where they are together, end their relationship because they will be on opposite sides of the Napoleonic war, and in the framing story they get back together. I think it works because it’s not their behavior or conflicts between them—it’s the sweep of history. I hate books that take you back in time from the main action
And I love this. But Joanna Bourne—amazing craftsman. I’m so sad she doesn’t write any more.
Yes, that book is a masterclass in a technique that shouldn’t work but does. Stunning.
Funny you should ask about Prequels. Because this week I read a book by Jesse Reign called Unrequited and I could not figure out why it felt like I’d read it before…until I properly read her newsletter and realized I’d read the followup, Requited, which was actually a retelling of the original story which had been pulled down by Amazon for years and was only now restored. Probably should capitalize that because it was a huge deal for her – Restored. Anyway, one of the few times when I enjoyed the story more than the smutty parts which I kind of glazed over.
I also read Crushed, Alessandra Hazard’s latest, and loved it. If you like her Straight Guys series this is a great one. For once, there’s no power imbalance and neither of the guys is a twink. One is a super rich guy and the other is a Formula1 racer. This time I loved all the smutty, kinda kinky bits.
And finally, for a palate cleanser, I read the second of Ilona Andrews’ Innkeeper series, Sweep in Peace. Dina has agreed to hosting the mediation of three warring factions. A calming and excellent read.
I read Harmless Women by Rebecca Sharpe, and it was an excellent thriller.
Avalon is a thief who researches her victims very well, but her current mark, Prim, still manages to make things not go according to plan. And Bianca, we’ll, she’s got issues!
Prequels are good when they’re great!
I need to look for A Family Affair! I loved Smallhope and Pennyroyal.
I reread We Solve Murders (still loved it) in anticipation of We Chase Shadows next month. I also read an old Anne Stuart, Museum Piece. It was fun and not terribly dated.
Oooh, thanks for this
1 just pre-ordered it. and I will reread We Solve Murder too before reading this one, even though I’ve already read it twice. 🙂
Prequals are almost always a hard pass for me. I guess I feel like they are one long flashback?
That said, I listened to Tuyo this week (thank you Tammy) and then went into book two, Nikolas, without realizing it is a sort of prequel. I enjoyed it too and am almost done, although I think this one has a pacing issue. I thought the story was done and then it went into a long and detailed battle full of characters we didn’t really know. I’m kind of slogging through that bit but almost done now. Battle scenes have never been my thing, so maybe that is the issue.
I’ll be interested in your take on Nikoles when you’re finished – it’s the only one I still haven’t been able to bring myself to read.
I liked it better than expected, considering I know where it ends. Still could have done without the last battle scene, although I understand why the author thought it was necessary. Could have been a novella instead of a book maybe.
I will try it some time. But right now I can’t do anything dark or sad.
•John L Esposito, Great World Religions: Islam. Great Courses, audiobook on CD, 2003.
Esposito rushes through the basic teachings of Islam in 6 lectures out of 12, and then uses the other 6 to discuss the Western and Islamic situation in 2003 in the light of 9/11. This may have seemed a good idea at the time, although a little iffy for inclusion in a Great World Religions series even back then. It has left me rather underinformed on the basics of Islam as a religion, even granting that Islam is one of those religions where orthopraxis (proper conduct) is more important than orthodoxy (proper belief). For instance, Esposito emphasizes that _zakat_ is an annual obligation to give to the poor not merely at least a minimum prescribed proportion of income (as I had previously understood), but at least a minimum prescribed proportion of total wealth. This sounds like something that should have had radical redistributional consequences for reducing social inequality in Muslim societies, but these seem conspicuously absent, and Esposito never explains why. Similarly, Esposito mentions Islamic banking a time or two, but I don’t think he ever even explains that _riba_, borrowing or lending money at interest, is forbidden, and that mechanisms have evolved to compensate for this. Nor, obviously, does he outline how those mechanisms work.
Although Esposito was a lifelong Catholic (he died very recently, while I was listening to these lectures), Esposito here seems to be conceding a great deal of ground lest he offend any listening Muslims. For instance, he never mentions Muhammed without using the full formula “the prophet Muhammad,” long after it has become perfectly clear which Muhammad he is referring to. (He is more succinct in the written course notes.) Similarly, he speaks of Muhammad’s teachings as having been “revealed” in a series of “revelations,” without using any distancing qualifiers such as “believed.”
Somewhat similarly, in trying to claim a three-way Abrahamic kinship of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, I think Esposito could have made more of an effort than he does to assess the effect on this kinship of the Islamic claim that the Bible is so hopelessly distorted from the original messages of Moses and Jesus that it is fully uncanonical and is to be completely disregarded by Muslims. Only the brief retellings and revisions within the Qoran of some tiny fraction of the Bible’s content are to be regarded as authentic. (Muhammed and Qoran are Esposito’s preferred spellings to better reflect the Arabic.)
At one time I had been puzzled by the claim that Islam once represented an advance in women’s rights. Esposito explains that this was definitely true relative to benighted pre-Islamic Arabia. Moreover, I myself have over time become more aware of how constrained women were in at least parts of the Christian world before the Arab and Turkish conquests, so that, polygamy and easy divorce for males aside, this contention had an element of truth in other Islamic-ruled regions even later (after most of the population had stopped paying the tax on non-Muslims and instead had converted to Islam). Married women’s right to own property, guaranteed in Islam, was not assured in the West until about the late 19th century.
Esposito’s next six chapters, on the Islamic world in more recent times, are less dated 23 years after his lectures than one might have expected. I expect their analysis is more familiar today than it was in 2003, in part through Esposito’s own later efforts. One change might be that nonviolent efforts by some reformers to promote a less secularized elite and a more Islamic society by means within the system look less benign today than Esposito had hoped in 2003. Consider the short-lived disaster prompted by the free election putting the Muslim Brotherhood in power in Egypt in 2012, or the continuing constitutional rule from 2002 onward of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey, first as prime
minister and later as president. The sort of liberal religious reforms that many Westerners might welcome remain, as they were in 2003 and earlier, the province of a tiny minority of Muslim intellectuals, many of them living in non-Islamic countries.
Not a very pleasant listen, especially in the second half, and definitely dated, but still useful. Mildly recommended.
One more review coming when I get it finished.
I think it is more difficult to write a decent prequel than a decent sequel but not impossible. I’m still working on Bob’s novella (any war after WWII being a little too fresh for me right now), but he seems to be handling the prequel problem well, as far as I’ve gotten. On the other hand I just finished an Andy Carpenter prequel by David Rosenfelt that doesn’t work well at all.
Robert Conroy, 1862: A Novel, 2006.
I just noticed that there is a gap of 11 years between publication of Conroy’s bestseller 1901 and this second novel. Whatever the explanation (and I could find none offhand), the second book strikes me as a marked improvement on the already fairly good 1901. The novel 1901 broke new ground by imagining that what was on our timeline an obscure German staff exercise, or at most a contingency plan, had turned into a real, if intentionally limited, Imperial German invasion of the US.
The present novel, a little more conventionally, starts with reaction to the Trent Incident. Harry Harrison’s distinctly implausible Stars and Stripes trilogy (1998 to 2002) seems to have been the only prior alternate history novel using this starting point, but histories of the American Civil War have often suggested that there loomed a real danger of war after the US had halted the British RMS Trent on the high seas and removed the Confederate representatives that it was conveying to Britain. Prince Albert’s softening of a diplomatic ptotest note, plus Lincoln’s fulsome apology and release of the envoys in defiance of American public opinion, smoothed things over and is generally considered to have averted the danger (although in many respects Britain remained “neutral on the Confederates’ side” through the war).
Conroy has Prime Minister Palmerston deciding to push the issue and support Southern independence even after receiving Lincoln’s apology, since he views the South a a properly aristocratic society and the Northern-dominated US as a rising power and hotbed of vulgar democracy that could eventually threaten the British Empire. This novel, the Harrison one, and subsequent efforts (the latter mostly for the niche market of military alternate histories for a specialized readership) all tend to make Palmerston behave with less risk-aversion than he showed in reality.
Conroy does a fairly good job of rationalizing Palmerston’s willingness to support the Confederacy, on the basis that the disaster of First Bull Run and the lack of success of Union armies early in the war, led him to believe that intervention could quickly tip the scales in favor of the Confederacy and that the faltering Union Army was incapable of threatening British North America. Moreover, Palmerston turned 78 in 1862, and Conroy portrays him as having not fully assimilated the recent technological changes that made the Union more of a challenge than he realizes—Northern US industrialization, ironclads, steamships, railroads, early versions of repeating rifles.
As usual in his alternate histories, Conroy’s main protagonist is a relatively low ranking but knowledgeable figure with an assignment allowing him to travel and view various aspects of the war. This was already a fairly standard narrative strategy before Conroy’s adoption, used for instance in Wouk’s The Winds of War and to an extent even in Tolstoy’s War and Peace. In Conroy’s hands the protagonist tends to end up in a romance with a heroic woman caught up in the violence. Conroy’s handling of these personal subplots is at best workmanlike, but that is counterbalanced by his better grip on the main plot. Recommended. It turns out that I have read fewer than I had realized of Conroy’s alternate histories published after this one, and I now plan to search out the remaining ones, although I know that their quality is uneven.
As a side note, this may be another book with “A Novel” as a subtitle that is genre fiction, not “literary.” However, internal inconsistencies make it unclear if the words are officially part of the title. Here, the words appear on both the cover and the title page, but not on that page’s reverse or in the Introduction. I have noticed other cases where A Novel appears on a book’s cover but nowhere else.
Generally I am not a fan of prequels – usually they are too short to provide any “feels” for me and often they feel like flashbacks. That said, I will always read (and love) anything you or Bob write so “Red Rain” in now officially on the top of my tbr mountain.
I don’t know if it’s the heat or what my problem is but it has been hard to focus on anything new lately. This week I reread the first two books in TA Moore’s “Digging Up Bones” series “Bone to Pick” and “Skin and Bone” and really enjoyed them (again.) They are M/M romance between an FBI agent and a dog handling deputy sheriff — in the category of two guys investigating and falling in love. I reread them in preparation for Book 3 in the series which came out in June.
I am half way through “Liar City” by Allie Therin. This is book 1 in a trilogy recommended by Rachel Reid. I swore off taking any more recommendations by “authors you like” cause they’ve almost all been disappointing but it was Rachel Reid… And it turns out this one might be an exception to that rule. The story is an M/M urban fantasy/paranormal between an empath and a government agent who deals with empaths. Urban fantasy is not usually my jam at all but this enemies to lovers story has me hooked so far.
Oh I definitely must try Liar City now.
It really depends. I was intrigued by Bob’s prequel, but was afraid it would be too violent for me. It’s sitting on my Kindle, though. I think. Have to check.
I’m still plodding through Jenny Colgan’s Meet Me at the Seaside Cottages. It got a little better, but I’ve come close to DNF-ing it multiple times, and I think it will be the last of hers I read. All the characters seem so whiny! Note to self: Do not write whiny characters.
On the bright side, Donna Andrews’ new one should arrive tomorrow, so at least I know I have something good to read next.
I’m reading Probable Caws now. I started the series based on your recommendation and eagerly anticipate each installment. Thanks, Deborah.
You’re welcome! I’m glad you’re enjoying them. I continue to be amazing at her ability to keep up her standards in such a long series.
I don’t care one way or the other about prequels being prequels.
I’m in a dark, in-between place of having nothing new to read while I wait for books I’ve got on hold at the library.
I’m halfway through The Bedlam Bride by Mark Dinniman, but not enjoying it as much as the rest of the series so far.
Hi all! I’ve already added two things to my wishlist thanks to the reading reports so far. 🙂 Mine:
1-2 [re-reads] ‘Magic Burning’ and ‘Magic Escaping’ by Kaje Harper. Action-packed MM starring a firefighter and the teacher / sorcerer he falls for.
3. ‘Kamikaze Boys’ by Jay Bell, YA MM starring two Kansas teenagers who get up to some stupid adolescent shit and end up in real trouble. But all is worked through, lessons are learned, parents clean up their acts, and ultimately the MCs have a credibly promising future ahead. Well written and gripping – I stayed up waaaaaayyy too late to finish this.
4-5 [re-reads] my own Las Vegas-set FM novel ‘A Winning Hand’ (it’s my discounted title this month) and related FM novella ‘Take a Note.’
6. ‘Recipe for Trouble’ by Dylan Morrison, a new-to-me author who I mini-binged. This one is set in NYC. POV character (all three I read are close 3rd person single POV) is a video editor who’s a contractor for a big publishing conglomerate shifting from mostly print to mostly online; the love interest is a test cook for their foodie magazine. Both have anxiety issues. While this is billed as “grumpy + sunshine” it’s really “socially awkward + pathological pleaser,” the latter being manipulated by company higher-up. Not low conflict, but most of the conflicts are external. The resolution/conclusion glossed over a couple of things, but that did not prevent me from buying another.
7. ‘Fall Into You’ by Dylan Morrison, which I liked even better. MM set mostly in Ohio. The POV guy is a research botanist in Chicago who learns he’s inherited his estranged father’s apple farm, heads over to investigate, is immediately subjected to escalating pressure from a consultant to a big entertainment company that’s been trying to buy the property for years, and immediately at odds with the farm’s manager, for good reasons that are carefully revealed and resolved later on.
8. ‘Second Helpings’ by Dylan Morrison, which I liked just a touch less, because there is present day stuff but also scenes (some really stressful & painful) from the MCs’ teenage relationship, in which traumatic events affected both boys but POV guy in reputationally damaging ways that other characters, particularly his SHITTY parents, do not wholly make amends for. Second-chance this time. The POV guy runs a long-established Cleveland, OH deli which is in trouble because … (no spoilers).
All three Morrisons recommended for anyone looking for MM romance set in the real world, featuring realistic obstacles/problems, fade to black sex scenes, humor + Real Feels, and some of the most thoroughly imagined characters I’ve seen in a while.
Which books did you add to your wish list? and which Dylan Morrison would you recommend the most?
I added Bob’s ‘Red Rain’ and Kane/James ‘Textbook Defense’ on the basis of dodo’s not too much hockey comment. 🙂
Top Dylan Morrison rec would be ‘Fall Into You.’
Putting it on the list. Lotta books on the list this week. Stop reading good books you people!
Borrowed .
My algorithm suggested The Summer Share by Jenn McKinlay and it was a nice beach read. Her writing style is very similar to Annabelle Monaghan’s. (McKinlay’s writing is a bit spicier than AM’s but the few scenes can be skipped if that’s problematic for you.) Lots of yearning with sensual description before the lovers get together. There was a supportive found community. Both the FMC and MMC were interesting and likable plus there was a dog. All the drama came from family and seemed believable. I definitely recommend this as a light palate cleanser. Then I went for another of her books, Summer Reading, because the FMC has dyslexia (like Cal Morrisey in Bet Me). I was interested in the modifications she used to get by. Again the drama was family caused. Again there was a nice supportive community. I didn’t like it as well but still liked enough of her style elements to try more of her books.
DNF: 12 Ways to Kill Your Family at Christmas by Natasha Bache. I didn’t get far because it was an unreliable narrator. It may have been a funny book if I had realized that sooner but I didn’t have the patience at this time for that.
Have you seen Ride or Die with Hannah Waddingham and Octavia Spencer on Prime? It’s a lot of fun and action with There are 8 episodes of this best friend buddy movie about a 50-y o assassin (HW) who’s best friend thinks Hannah is a forensic accountant.
I’m also quite titillated by the trailers for Alexander Skarsgard’s upcoming movie Wicker. In a magical village, a middle-aged woman is tired of being mocked for being unmarried so asks the basket maker to make her a husband. The basket maker makes a wicker Skarsgard who is hard working and seems to adore his wife. At first he’s a joke but then he begins to show up the local men because he treats his wife so lovingly. Plus he’s strong as a tree and just as hard. “Vulgar, horny, and unexpectedly tender”—it sounds delightful!
Good grief – “vulgar, horny and unexpectedly tender” sounds like…all the perfection.
Go look up the trailer! I heard the movie described as “50 Shades of Hay”.
I’d see Alexander Skarsgard in…anything. Did you see Pillion?
Agreed! No but I’m looking for it now.
Pillion, although it has a lot of sex in it, is not a sexy movie. But Alexander is a walking talking sex doll in that film.
My husband and I just watched the Wicker trailer. Yummy.
I’ve watched the first Ride or Die (love them both) and will watch the rest. Love the woman action leads.
And I saw the trailer for Wicker. Oh, my. The actress (Olivia something, British) is great too.
Wow, Deborah, the trailer looks good!!
And that’s a star studded cast!!
Olivia Coleman gets better and better, Skarsgard looks indeed yummy and adorable, Dinklage, Debicki, the actor who olayed the other Bennett sister is on board as well…
My god, that’s an amazing cast for Wicker. I’ve loved Olivia Coleman since Hot Fuzz; she never disappoints.
Seriously. My friend John, who is mostly the person I go to movies with, says he’ll watch anything with her in it. So I guess we’re seeing Wicker 🙂
I’m not keen on prequals, sometimes changes my opinion of a character and mars the original for me. Plus, a lot of prequals are also novella’s and I’m not keen on them either.
Read two really good murder mysteries this week, from the library:-
Seeking the Dead by Kate Ellis. Good thriller, did not guess the killer until it was revealed. A lot of other ‘bad actors’ which added to the red herrings. Start of a series and I will be ordering more of this from the library. Set in a fictitious city that read like York.
The Corfe Castle Murders by Rachel McLean. Good mystery with relatable characters and seemingly pointless murder but loads of suspects. MFC sent to a small town Police Office to recover from being involved in a major bombing in her former big city P.O. Well written and want to read more of this series.
This week’s movie at the library was Il Postino – Italian with subtitles. Really enjoyed this quiet and slow story set on a small island in 1953. Listed as a rom-com (which it sort of was) but was way more than that.
The Festival(s) have started this week (including the Edinburgh Military Tattoo), so I am avoiding going anywhere near the city centre – which is hard because I live two blocks from the UNESCO World Heritage Site’s boundary. Hoards of tourists, crammed onto pavements and busses (‘cos the trams aren’t running through town due to a fire and a building about to collapse) make it hard for someone on double elbow crutches. Booked two things on-line at the Book Festival though so I can enjoy some of it from the safety of home. If you are coming to Edinburgh and haven’t been to the Tattoo I can thoroughly recommend it, though due to said shoogly building there may not be the fireworks and fly pasts that usually feature (unless the building is secured soon).
That “changes the character” thing can also get to me in a series when a prior minor character or side kick gets their book. In that case it sometimes feels like the author cannot sustain the character.
I reread Anyone But You, and enjoyed Fred’s antics anew. The angst that Nina goes through about an aging body is real. Alex’s family is a nightmare. Charity’s book chapter titles are a hoot.
I am really on the fence about Red Rain. I remember the references to Vince and Raina’s service in the Liz Danger series, and if we get to read about those horrors in detail, then it will be a hard pass for me. I do enjoy encountering the characters again. I liked Rocky Road, but it was a sequel, not a prequel.
I also read Never Been Witched, by Molly Harper, on Deborah Blake’s recommendation. The witch is also a medium, and some of the ghosts are a lot of fun. Some are just plain mean. There’s romance and intrigue. It’s a fun read, and I kept going back to it in between rereading Anyone But You.
I’m glad you’re enjoying Never Been Witched. Molly Harper is a dependable read.
I’m finding that out, Deborah. I also read Witches Get Things Done, before this. Big Witch Energy is up, next.
I was going to write a sequel to that, HQ accepted the proposal for and for another sequel, and then they did something stupid with their contracts and I left. It was called “Jane Errs.” I have always regretted not using that title. The other one was “Newton, the Rat with Women.” I liked that title too.
I loved Charity’s play on words in that title, Jane Errs.
The thing is that my Websters New Collegiate says that the most common pronunciation is ur (as in term) and that’s the only pronunciation in my Oxford Reference Dictionary. Many Americans do say “air,” but the rest would need to stop and think before the pun works.
So you say,” to ur is human”? Where do you live? Maybe it is a regional variant.
I agree Patrick, it would never occur to me to rhyme “err” with “air” and absolutely would not have got that pun. Must be an American specific pronunciation, and apparently not even all the USA. Similarly it took me ages to realise when US-ians said “Erin” as a male name they mean “Aaron” – twas very confusing!
Its funny how language changes, and you can see it in old poetry or Shakespeare – words that used to rhyme no longer do.
Please write those. Pretty please! (You know, in your copious free time.)
The last role I saw her in was as Queen Elizabeth 2 in The Crown. What a change in roles!
Oops meant to respond to Deborah B.
I also just reread Anyone But You, and would love a sequel to follow Nina and Alex, and to bring together his brother and Charity and their futures 🙂
Now THERE’S a combination that I’d love to see! Max needs to get a life of his own and Charity’s just the one who could teach him to laugh.
Yep, that was the sequel. The book is a big hit and Charity goes on a book tour and gets hit on a lot and Max is burned out, so they send him to join her to deflect horny readers. I had a whole proposal done including the first chapters which I have long since lost. Well, it was a million years ago.
Sigh. Too bad.
SIGH. I am in no position to complain, considering how many things I lose, but since I’m on my second copy of “Anyone But You” I could really see myself loving that.
I’m biased in favor of prequels after writing one for my secret project series. It started out an exercise in figuring out a character’s backstory, but soon developed a life of its own. For me, the key was making sure that there was an actual story arc, with GMC, and it wasn’t just backstory infodump. Whether I succeeded or not, I guess I’ll find out when it’s finally published (probably in 2027).
For current reading, I jumped on the Dungeon Crawler Carl bandwagon, and I don’t fully understand my reaction to the book(s). As I’m reading, I’m conscious of not caring about big chunks of what’s going on (all the game-specific stuff) and my mind wanders as I listen, and yet, as soon as I finished the first book, I downloaded the second (in audio — narrator is excellent). So something is working for me; I’m just not entirely sure what it is. May be as simple as the fact that it succeeds occasionally in making me laugh out loud, and I NEVER do that when reading!
And finally, for anyone who’s read the first three Garlic Farm Mysteries, the new fourth book in the series, A FAIR DEATH, will be released (Amazon only) on Tuesday to (probably) wrap up the series. No prequel in the works, but I’m toying with the idea of a holiday novella that happens after A Fair Death. If you haven’t read the garlic farm mysteries and would like to check out the first one to see if it’s your cuppa, I just set it to free, starting tomorrow (sorry, didn’t think to do it in time for today — the heat/humidity have fried my brain) through Monday. Here’s the link, but wait until Friday to get it! https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0GSXJPPGH
I finished two books this week. I finally got around to Crying in H-Mart by Michelle Zauner. I can’t say I enjoyed it exactly, though I’m glad to have read it. Trigger warning for those who’ve lost a parent or been there at end of life. It’s a memoir of the author’s childhood/young adulthood through the lens of her mother’s final illness. I first heard about the book through the Sporkful podcast (“not for foodies, just for eaters”) and the food descriptions in the book made me want to run out to the nearest Korean restaurant. Or follow Maangchi and cook my own.
I also read Time to Shine, one of Rachel Reid’s non-Game Changers hockey books. I quite liked it, partly because there was virtually no homophobia at all. One of the MCs is bi and out to his team and the other is pretty sure he’s gay, but neither one worries too much about being together in public or their parents reactions. It was refreshing. I also liked both MCs. It was just a good non-angsty read.
I love Time to Shine. Is a regular re-read.
That’s funny, because Time to Shine is the only one I didn’t buy. I enjoyed reading it through the library, but not enough to keep. Of course, the fact that the library is now buying more than one copy per title may have made that decision easier.
Aunt Snack, I liked Time to Shine just fine the first time round, too. Had bought the audio first, didn’t like the narrator, read the ebook instead. Then TTS was the ONLY Rachel Reid paperbook I found in any bookshop in Canada on my trip in April 2025 (clearly pre-HR hype). Read it again, listened again and found that a) I grew to like the formerly unlukeable narrator a lot b) I appreciated the story and its structure and characterization better with each re-read.
But that’s true for me with each RR title. Must re-read Shots on Goal soon because that one I liked least if her books. So far.
I got to wondering what the typo unlukeable would mean if it were really a word:
•My first thought was unlike and incapable of ever resembling Luke in Gilmore Girls, hence unreliable or unattractive.
•But that seemed a little specialized, so how about always blowing hot or cold, never lukewarm. Always opinionated, no matter the topic.
Okay, Dodo, now I’m confused. I assume that the difference in titles has something to do with international copyrights or differences in translation. Is that the one with the retiring goalie (Eric) and the grad student (Kyle) in New York? Because if it isn’t,
I’ve missed a book.
I bought Red Rain but haven’t felt up to it yet (my wife died last week and I’ve been out of sorts).
I’ve started a bunch of stuff but the only thing I finished in the last month was the sequel to One Death at a Time by Abbi Waxman, called Deadly Does It, which was also excellent.
I did just buy Sarah J. Wynde’s third book in her Rift Keeper fantasy/LITRPG series, under the name WYNDES, through her Patreon page. But that was only 20 minutes ago. I’m looking forward to that.
Gary, My sympathies, inadequate as that is.
Very sorry to hear that, Gary. Take care of yourself.
I’m so sorry, Gary. Take care of yourself.
I’m very, very sorry, Gary!
Oh, no, Gary! I’m so sorry. You’re certainly entitled to be out of sorts! If reading isn’t helping right now, I hope you have other resources to get you through such a difficult time.
Your wife died last week??! Gary, that is terrible news. My heart goes out to you, as unhelpful as that is.
There are moments when reading cannot be soothing enough. All my condolences Gary.
I’m so sorry to hear about your wife dying Gary.
So sorry for your loss. 🙁
My sincere condolences, Gary. My husband passed a few months ago and I found it took a while for my appetite for anything to come back, but it has been gradually coming back and I am sure it will be the same for you. Just go at your own pace and take care.
Big hugs to you too, Catie. A few months is barely a minute in grief time.
I’m so so sorry for your loss Gary.
So sorry to hear about your wife, Garry.
I’m so sorry. Please take care of yourself.
Oh, Gary, I am so, so sorry. I am sending a huge supply of hugs to help you and keep you company at this awful time.
Oh Gary my sympathies. What a hard time for you.
Oh, Gary, I’m so sorry. Please take care of yourself.
Gary, I am so sorry!
My condolences on your wife’s passing.
I’m so sorry for your loss
Oh, Gary, I’m so sorry. Sending lots of hugs.
Our condolences to you, Gary in this very difficult time.
So sorry for your loss Gary.
No good words at a time like this. Sympathies.
Prequels – I don’t know. It depends on what you consider a prequel. Bujold in her Penric series wrote a couple of novellas out of time, not in Penric’s chronological order. For example, Testimony of Mute Things was #15 in the series, written after <The Adventure of the Demonic Ox. In the latter one, Penric is over 40-year-old, with children approaching their teen years. In the former one, Penric is still young and unmarried. Is it a prequel?
No. Because in the first book he is joined with Desdemona, and it’s after that. It would only be a prequel if it was about Penric, or Desdemona, before the events of the first book.
When I first read Shards of Honor I thought it was a prequel to The Warrior’s Apprentice. However, Shards of Honor was actually written first, though published second, so it wasn’t actually a prequel. Barrayar also takes place before the first published book. But it too isn’t a prequel as it is actually a sequel to Shards of Honor. IMHO
I am pretty sure I read somewhere that Barrayar is the second half of Shards that LMB cut because the book would have been too long and that she took that part of the manuscript out of the attic or something and reworked it into the masterpiece that Barrayar is… That shopping scene is so masterful a way of ending a war.
Gary, Similarly, because the Brichters’ background is so well established in Pulver’s Murder at the War, I suspect that the second book, set before their marriage, was written or at least drafted first, but the publisher decided to lead with Murder as the stronger novel. I would still count it as a prequel on something of the same principle as in modern science, where it doesn’t matter who discovered something first, just who published about it first and thereby made it known to others.
I would agree that The Unforgiven Minutes was almost certainly written first, for the exact reasons you stated. But that means that although Amazon lists it as book 2 in the series, which would indeed make it a prequel, it’s not by virtue of having actually been written first.
Possibly this is based on my general dislike for prequels, because I think they are usually badly done, and things often don’t fit. And sometimes the author ends up changing the original book because something didn’t work out in the prequel, or they found something they liked too much better, that didn’t fit with the published first book.
Some prequels are great. I think the majority are not, and are sometimes problematic. I’m also one of those people who can’t start reading a series in the middle. I have to go back and read the first book first. Which is far easier to do now than it was thirty or forty years ago.
The Unforgiving Minutes (not Unforgiven)
Gary, Internal evidence is also consistent with it being only a draft before Murder’s publication and touched up afterward, and in any case I’m inclined to take the viewpoint of a reader reading each book as it comes out. Hence a prequel. I grant that my logic gets iffy when an author jumps all over a character’s timeline, especially once we’re several books or stories into a series, as with Penric or even Sherlock Holmes.
After a few DNFs of new library books, I’m re-reading Troubled Waters by Sharon Shinn. My latest reread of that novel was a few years ago, and I forgot how much I enjoyed that book. I’m enjoying it now. An undiluted pleasure.
I think a good prequel can be great and can fit in to a series and readers who come to it first may not realize it’s a prequel. For example Jo Bourne wrote a book I think third in her series that is great and can be read first.
And that should be the goal.
Prequels that need you to have read the other book first — I have to be so in love with that character that I am hungry for any morsels more. That’s rare. Mostly I want to know what happened next not what happened before.
The Forbidden Rose is third in her series but first in the time period.
Prequels for me depends on the author.I did buy Bob’s book ,I really enjoyed The Organization books,so thought i’d give it a try.Just finished reading A Charm Of Finches and An Ambush Of Tigers by Sarah Yarwood Lovett,a really good series.
Shane and Phoebe versus the Assassins drops on August 15th.
He never tells me anything.
This is not news.
I can’t recall reading any prequels, so I don’t have an opinion other than not generally picking up anything shorter than a full novel (Murderbot 1-4 excepted thanks to vigorous recommendations :)).
With the upcoming release of Daggerbound by Kingfisher, I discovered there is a book 1, Swordheart, so I figured I’d better read it. Awesome book! Loved it for the romance and the banter. So funny and such great characters.
I also finished The Fatal Unpleasantness at Netherfield and enjoyed it much more than the previous book in the series. These Claudia Gray mysteries really capture the Austen voice while delivering great new characters.
I loved Swordheart. I e-mailed Anne Stuart and said, “You have to read this book, it’s about an older heroine who’s beset by her dead husband’s family, and when she draws an old sword to protect herself, it turns out the sword has imprisoned an ancient warrior . . .” and she said, “I’m there.” She loved it, too.
I think Swordheart is my favorite of all of hers. And that’s really saying something.
My next novella will be a prequel to a prologue to an epilogue in omniscient translucent voice.
Except for the translucent voice, that actually could be done. A lot of novels, especially romances, have a “six months later” epilog or some such. Such an epilog could have its own prolog, perhaps explaining that the evil queen finally died and soon after a son was born to our hero and heroine, this paving the way for the nursery scene constituting the epilog itself. The prequel to the prolog could be a novella in itself concerning the conspiracy that killed the evil queen.
the ice pirates zombies conspiracy
Oh Bob I am here for all of that. Plus the ice pirate zombies.
I’d read that
And this is what I work with every day.
I’m surprised you don’t drink more.
Aren’t you glad it isn’t in person?
With zombies?
Like Gin, I’ve jumped on the Dungeon Crawler Carl bandwagon; and, like her, I’ve downloaded book 2.
But first, Christina Dodd’s Teach the Torches to Burn. Which is entertaining, set in 16th century Verona, and chock full of contemporary language. It’s fun.
Either Red Rain or Family Afair’s next.
I’m listening to Dungeon Crawler Carl. Jury is out on the book so far but the narration is really well done.
I keep stopping from time to time to marvel over the range of voices just one person does in the Audible audiobook. I had to research it to make sure it really is just one person (Jeff Hays, not sure I’m spelling it right), and apparently it’s a common enough question that it pops into the search engine soon after typing in his name! Apparently there are some guest narrators in later books, but in the first two, it’s just this one guy!
Yes! I like prequels very well if they are good. DS points out that authors learn about their characters lives and well, characters as they continue to develop over time. It makes perfect sense that an author would think up new pieces of the story and they go. I love all the Murderbot books but loved them better when I’d made a list of them in time line order, rather than publishing order. Same with Lois McMasters Bujold’s Vorkosigan series. Thanks for the tip on Bob’s new one!
Read No Light but the Stars – a kind of interesting story set in WWII with ties back to a story 300 years previous. At first I thought I would not recommend it to dear sister, but by the end it did move me. I’m kind of a sucker for inter-species communication. There is an element of that in the two stories that, while fairly well unbelievable, made me like it more. Good horrible bad guys. Justice in the end. (She had me worried there for a while.)
Also having a long cozy Jennifer Cruise reread binge that I am finding enormously comforting in these difficult times. First I read the two Dempsey books – Welcome to Temptation and Faking it. Both masterful story telling of course, with delightful characters.
Then I was looking for the one with the detective and the middle-aged lady. I read What the Lady wants, and that was good, but not the one I was looking for. Found Fast Women finally and I am greatly enjoying it. Thank you, Jenny. Nobody beats you for pure entertainment and deep comfort.
I know you’ve been struggling with your WIP. Have you made a collage for it? I’m sorry if you’ve already talked about it—I must have missed it. But I used to really admire how your collages seemed to clarify and sharpen characters and mood. And other, ethereal things.
Your collages would be good newsletter content without making more work for you if you are still doing them.
I am a big fan of not making more work for you.
Red Rain is fantastic!! But I read it on the treadmill at the gym and got all teary-eyed. Love Vince and Rain.
Reading Red Rain right now. Just finished chapter 11. I have words for Mayer.
So far I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all of Bob’s add-ons. It gives the reader a little “fix” of your (partnered writing) worlds and characters, and gives us something to sustain us while we “patiently” wait for your next collaboration.