June-Sept, 2024: A whole summer's worth of reading

Strap in, we have much to catch up on. As if I needed another hobby, I’ve started painting. Mostly watercolour and some acrylic. I am not at all good at it, but I am having lots of fun. So, doing lots of things, including reading, canning, stitching and now painting – just not keeping up so well on writing about it. But I do love keeping track of books I’ve read, so here we go!

Blue-Skinned Gods by SJ Sindu. Just an absolutely gorgeous book. A boy is born with blue skin. To his community, and with the encouragement of his father, that makes him a god. As he grows, he’s faced with tests of his faith and his godliness. As his family falls apart, he begins to question everything from faith to friendship to sexuality. So good. And Blue-Skinned Gods is an excellent band name.

Beartown by Fredrik Backman. A hockey town places the burden of its future hopes on the backs of its junior team. And when sexual violence occurs, they need to reckon with choosing between their heroes and believing the young woman and her family. Ugh. Such a compelling book and way too real. I’m on hold for the sequel at the library, and will gobble it up as soon as available.

Sealed Off by Barbara Ross. Seems unfair to compare a cozy like this to the heavier books above. It was just the change of pace, and weight, I needed.

Bad Cree by Jessica Johns. If you enjoy the work of Eden Robinson, you will find this story absolutely compelling. (And if you don’t enjoy the work of Ms Robinson, don’t tell me. I will judge.)

The Duke and I by Julia Quinn. The first Bridgerton book. I mean, it’s fine. I think this is a rare case where the TV series brings more to the party than is on the page. But I did enjoy it.

Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood. Another modern enemies-to-lovers rom-com with fake dating, professional conflicts, and alternate sexualities in the mix. Again, fine.

Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson. Now this novel, on the other hand, was pretty wonderful. There were twists and drama and beautiful descriptions. It kept me engaged thoroughly throughout.

Every Time I Go on Vacation, Somebody Dies by Catherine Mack. Great title, perfectly enjoyable cozy.

Going Rogue by Janet Evanovitch. Stephanie Plum has lost her magic for me. Maybe cause she’s settled down with Joe? I dunno. I’ll read another in the series if it lands in front of my eyeballs, but I won’t go looking.

The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman. In this the fourth installment of the Thursday Murder Club, the series just keeps getting richer and more emotionally involving. Really so good. Sad and lovely and gripping.

A Curious Beginning by Deanna Raybourn. A new series to me, and it promises to be a banger. Taking place in 1880s London, this novel follows Veronica Speedwell, a free-thinking, scientifically minded young woman as she embarks on her independence following the death of her aunt. She narrowly escapes abduction, is rescued by a mysterious German baron who is subsequently murdered, and ends up sheltering with his friend Stoker, a cranky natural historian/taxidermist. The characters are unique, and the world, vividly created.

The Viscount Who Loved Me by Julia Quinn. This and the next are books two and three in the Bridgerton series. They are fine. Fine, I say.

An Offer from a Gentleman by Julia Quinn.

One Plus One by Jojo Moyes. Thoroughly enjoyable. Cranky rich guy ends up driving his housecleaner – a struggling single mom – and her two kids to a math Olympiad in Scotland. It’s an opposites attract story with quirky but real feeling characters, and quite entertaining.

The Golden Spoon by Jesse Maxwell. Imagine the Great British Bake-off set in the Martha Stewart-type-host’s mansion, but with secret passages and murder. Sound good? You’ll love it. I enjoyed it very much.

Georgie, All Along by Kate Clayborn. Another sort of enemies to lovers, sort of fake dating type scenario. I know I enjoyed the book while reading it, and barely remember it now even after rereading a synopsis. So there you go.

A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J Maas. I think this fantasy series might be this generation’s Twilight? But they seem to taking it really seriously. Actually, I guess the Twihards took it really seriously too. Never mind. Anyway, it was a real page turner even while I was eye-rolly a lot while reading. Based on the buzz and tee-heeing of some addicted co-workers, I expected the sex scenes would be more vivid than they actually were.

Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez. Need another fake dating that turns into real love book? Here it is! It’s what you expect. A good vacation read that won’t keep you up at night.

Mrs Mohr Goes Missing by Maryla Szymiczkowa. Pretty slow going for a historical murder cosy, I have to admit.

Cold by Drew Hayden Taylor. A Indigenous lit professor, a bush pilot, a wendigo, and a writer walk into a murder mystery… So good. I was cracking up laughing but also had the creepy crawlies at the same time. Sincerely, I want to see this movie.

A Perilous Undertaking by Deanna Raybourn. The second book featuring Veronica Speedwell and Stoker, and I enjoyed it as much as the first.

Mystery in the Title by Ian and Will Ferguson. Fun, light, silly.

A Treacherous Curse by Deanna Raybourn. The third, and I’m going to have to slow down so I don’t burn myself out on these characters. Really fun read, and an immersive world.

A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J Maas. This series is not good and yet each ends on a cliff hanger that compels me to pick up the next. Then I’m moderately cranky reading through like three-quarters of the book until I’m hooked again. What is this sorcery??

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. Oh my gosh, I was so riveted by this book. One man wakes up to find himself alone in a spacecraft sent on a one-way trip to save Earth. It does not sound like a book I would pick up, and indeed, several people encouraged me to read it before I did. SO SO GOOD. Charming, entertaining, maddening, scary, fascinating.

The Good, the Bad, and the Aunties by Jesse Q Sutanto. A perfectly fine cozy with some characters. Apparently it’s the third in the series, and I probably would have enjoyed it more if I read the others first.

Finlay Donovan Rolls the Dice by Elle Cosimano. On the other hand, this book is also part of a series and I have read them in order, and I realize upon reading this one that I’m kind of over it. So who can predict the way I my heart will zig?

A Murder in Time by Julie McElwain. This book is a series starter, and wow, did it grab me. A rogue FBI agent seeking revenge for the death of a colleague ducks into a secret stairwell in a castle in England to escape an assassin on her trail… and when she steps back out, she has traveled more than 200 years into the past. When a stranger is found murdered on the estate, can she use her expertise to find the killer - without access to any modern technology or crime-solving procedure? What a concept. I tore through it, and immediately searched up (and purchased!) the next in the series.

A Twist in Time by Julie McElwain. The second instalment held my attention thoroughly as well. Sure, there were moments when my suspension if disbelief was tested, but never too thoroughly. So good. I’m forcing myself to wait a little while before reading the third because I don’t want to burn out on the series.

The United States of Paranoia by Jesse Walker. Published in 2013, this book offers a history of US conspiracy series up until that time. I guess there’s always been an element of batshit crazy in the American populace. Funny I somehow thought that pre-QAnon, pre rise of the anti-vaxxer, people might have been a little more level-headed. But alas, they like Fox Mulder want to believe. I admit, I didn’t get all the way through the book. It was depressing and perhaps a little too much description, not enough analysis for me. I would love to better understand not just what these folks thoughts or said, but WHY. What is in the air or the zeitgeist that made (and make) outrageous tales seem believable?

Better Hate than Never by Chloe Liese. An honestly kind of boring enemies to lovers romance. Not great.

Moon of the Falling Leaves by Waubgeshig Rice. Ten years after the power went down in Moon of the Crusted Snow, the survivors have built a new community deep in the northern woods. They realize, however, that they are starting to exhaust the resources around them and will need to move on. A small group sets out to find the route “home” - to the rich, lakeside land that their people had been evicted from by the government generations earlier. The journey is fraught with danger, both natural and from other survivors. Will they make it? Another page turner. So so good, and heartbreaking and somehow reassuring.

On the pod:

A friend of mine suggested the Handsome podcast starring comedians Fortune Feimster, Mae Martin, and Tig Notaro. The premise is that in each episode some famous person or another asks them a thoughtful or provocative question that they then discuss their answers to. The reality is that it’s mostly these three hilarious humans shooting the breeze about their lives, loves, careers, childhoods and whatever else bubbles up. It is so entertaining. Both Dave and I get the biggest kick out of it. Perfect for road trips.

May 2024: Maxin’ and relaxin’

Look at me, being all optimistic and stuff. May was a good month for reading. I took a week off, grabbed my mama, my knitting, and a fully library-loaded tablet, and hightailed it into the woods. Peace and quiet and easy-breezy company. It does wonders for one’s outlook!

What Lies in the Woods by Kate Alice Marshall. Similar to I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai, this novel also focuses on a woman looking back with mature perspective at a traumatic event in her childhood. Central questions in each being, was the right person accused? And, if not, what is her culpability in his conviction? Another good read.

Happiness Falls by Angie Kim. A father disappears and the only witness is his non-verbal (violent? dangerous?) teenage son who was with him at the time and returned home without him. Narrated by Mia, the super-analytical 20 year old daughter and sister, tries to put the pieces together. It’s a mystery, and it’s also a meditation on the nature of language, our perception of intelligence, family, fitting in, standing out. It’s a really good read and a thinker!

I’d Know You Anywhere by Laura Lippman. Psychological thriller, I guess? Another middle-aged woman looking back on teenaged trauma and wrangling with her own sense of guilt (why didn’t she escape or get help when she had the chance?). Elizabeth had been been kidnapped and taken on the run for over a month when she was just fifteen. Now her kidnapper, a convicted murderer, has a last request for her before his execution. There’s a lot here to wrestle with but, unfortunately, I feel like this novel does more telling than showing. I never really felt immersed.

Mindful of Murder by Susan Juby. Lots of cosy murder mystery ingredients here – not one but three(!) butlers, quirky characters galore, food descriptions, flower arranging, an inheritance up for grabs – but this novel doesn’t feel formulaic. It’s got a great setting too, at a retreat centre on an island off the BC coast . I want to go to there!

My Favorite Half-Night Stand by Christina Lauren. A friends-to-lovers story arc that’s pretty solidly meh.

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt. I felt trepidation starting this book, to be honest. Not really keen on books where animals suffer in any way, and because this novel includes an octopus in captivity I was concerned how it would make me feel. Well, as it turns out, it was wonderful. Yes, there is an exceptionally intelligent octopus who narrates some chapters alternating with an elderly woman who is a caretaker at the aquarium and a young man who doesn’t seem to fit in anywhere. What transpires is a beautiful, sensitive and gripping story that reveals how they are all connected.

You Have a Match by Emma Lord. I really appreciate that YA books like this – where straight and gay and non-binary characters are just part of the world and not a thing – seem to be becoming the norm. At least the ones I stumble across are, so maybe it’s more about my algorithm. Anyway, in the great tradition of young adult literature, this novel explores the eternal themes of identity and belonging and longing and friendship as well as today issues like living for the ’gram. Well done.

Dead on Target by MC Beaton, RW Green. This novel reads like M.C. Beaton’s beloved characters as puppets moved around by someone else. It made sense when I realized that the author had passed away and this novel had been completed by another writer. I wonder if in fact that it was entirely written by the co-author to Ms Beaton’s outline or notes. Anyway, it didn’t have the inimitable charm of all the others in the Agatha Raisin series, and that’s a bummer.

The Bullet that Missed by Richard Osman. Book 3 in the Thursday Murder Club series, this is another delight. Highly recommend. I’ve been reading them in order, and I suggest you do too because they build on each other.

Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney. The twists and the turns in this one. They just kept coming! I enjoyed it a lot.

April 2024: The sun came back, yay!

This is what Lake Erie looked like at the totality of the eclipse. My camera brightened it up a bit, but while the stars were visible and it got cold and felt a bit like night, there was a straight pink-yellow line at the horizon.

Lots of pages turned this month! Like, in a literal sense. not figurative. While seeing the totality of the eclipse was a very cool, likely once-in-a-lifetime experience, it did not inspire in me any great epiphanies. Sorry if that’s what you come here for. I must be quite disappointing. At any rate, the books were not disappointing, so let’s get on with them.

A Most Agreeable Murder by Julia Seales. The most absurd, delightful and honestly hilarious book I’ve read in ages. It’s just a ridiculous mix of Jane Austen, regency era soap opera (think Bridgerton), cozy mystery and Monty Python. I don’t even want to attempt to explain it. Just pick it up, and enjoy.

Business or Pleasure by Rachel Lynn Solomon. For whatever reason (friend recos, algorithm, overall trends in the universe), I’ve been reading a lot of books lately that mine the vein of A/ two people pretending to be a couple for reasons then finding themselves falling in love (and being unable to confess their real feelings) or B/ two people who become physically involved for reasons then finding themselves falling in love (and being unable to confess their real feelings). Either way, they’ve become familiar tropes that are ripe with sexy possibilities. This novel follows the latter path, and I enjoyed it.

I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai. It took a little bit for me to get absorbed by this book, but then it really caught me. Several years after graduating from the boarding school where she thought of herself as a mostly miserable outsider, a successful film producer and podcaster returns to teach a course. Being back on campus evokes memories of her dead roommate – and an unsettling belief that maybe she knew more about Thalia’s murder than she had understood at the time. I found myself mulling the nature of memory and power and social pressures, particularly on young women, while also throughly enjoying the read.

Wreck the Halls by Tessa Bailey. At several points while reading this novel, I eyerolled, hard. The main characters are a woman named Melody and a man named Beat. Yes, indeed, they **are** apparently destined to be be together, why do you ask? I’ve enjoyed this author before, but I think I need a break.

The Five by Hallie Rubenhold. This fascinating history seeks to illuminate the lives of five real women who lived in London, England during the early reign of Victoria: Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine and Mary-Jane. Five individuals with histories and families and hopes and dreams and loves and losses, who are today remembered (if they are even named and mentioned) as the five known victims of Jack the Ripper. This deeply research book uncovers the lives of these women and allows the reader to know them as much more than footnotes in someone else’s story.

The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections by Eva Jurczyk. You’d think I’d fall head over heels for this novel. But despite the list of ingredients that would seem tailor made for me– a mystery plot, a library setting, a variety of characters – it never really got beyond meh for me. It wants to be literary fiction, somehow elevated from the mystery genre, but it doesn’t quite get there.

The Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead. The 900+ pages of this novel seemed daunting to me at the outset. It’s a honking long novel, but absolutely engaging. It tells the story of two women, one a pioneering early pilot who vanished while circumnavigating the globe via the North and South Poles, the other an actor hired to play her 80ish years later in a film. There are many threads to the plot, and jumps between threads, so that the novel moves quickly, ultimately weaving together in a very satisfying conclusion.

Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn. Are there more books now with “elderly” heroines, or am I just more open to them? At any rate, this novel features four assassins, newly retired after forty years working for an extra-governmental agency with the mandate of hunting down and eliminating Nazis, traffickers, pirates and assorted other menaces to society who might otherwise evade justice. The four woman soon realize that they have become targets themselves, and it’s kill or be killed. Along with hot flashes, aching bones and a tag-along pet cat named Kevin. Deelightful.

Feb and March, 2024: So early in the year to be so far behind

A catch-up post most of the way through April, but I’m gonna hold on the including April books with the hope that my April post will be on time. No way to know really. Who’s even in charge of this anyway?? Oh well, I am being kind and giving myself grace. Hobbies are for fun, after all.

Anyhoo, here goes.

The Spook in the Stacks by Eva Gates. A perfectly fine, ladylike, traditional cozy mystery. Sounds like I am being sarcastic or snide, but I’m not. Just noticing that the general temperature of this genre seems to be getting a little racier and this addition to the field is not.

The Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood. A delightful entry into the hall of eccentric elderly sleuths. This is the first of a series, and I’ll look forward to reading more.

Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall. Another fake relationship turned twue wuv story. But I can’t hate on it. There’s a reason I keep reading these books. The formula is rich with possibilities, and I love happy endings. In this case, it’s a love-hate-love dance between two men, an uptight business type and a manic pixie dreamboy. And it’s honestly hilarious. I read passages out loud to Dave when he asked what I was laughing at. Fun!

Ring Shout by P. Djeli Clark. just thinking about this story kind of gives me the willies - like the physical horror shudder down the spine kind of willies. What a read. It’s a dark (fantasy genre, I guess?) reimagining of what happened when the movie The Birth of a Nation in 1915 led to the real-life rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan. Except in this telling, some of the demons wearing white hoods are actual demons. If it’s ever made into a movie, which it should be, I won’t watch it because I’d never sleep again.

The Defector by Chris Hadfield. The follow-up to The Apollo Murders, this novel did not have me quite as entranced. I think having the setting on good ol’ Planet Earth made it just a little less of a page turner. It was very good, mind you.

I Wish You All the Best by Mason Deaver. A YA novel about a young person trying to make it through their final year in a new high school, having been rejected by their parents after coming out as non-binary. Thankfully, their older sister offers a safe place to live, and an outgoing fellow student takes them under his wing. Sweet and affecting.

The Intimacy Experiment by Rosie Danan. An attractive young rabbi and a former porn star turned sexual intimacy coach walk into a bar… Chemistry abounds. Fun!

The Readers’ Room by Antoine Laurain. After a Parisian publishing house releases a brilliant debut murder mystery, life begins to imitate art when a series of murders starts to echo the events of the events of the book. And the pseudonym-using author is nowhere to be found. The editor is not the hook to produce the author, but she’s just survived an accident and has gaps in her memory. Intriguing!

Murder in the Margins by Margaret Louden. Another highly conventional, booky cozy novel. Different details, same story.

We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian. A love story set in the world of 1950s newspapermen – one the silver spoon son of the owner, the other a rough-around-the-edges reporter who’s had to work for every break he’s ever gotten. Lovely and heartfelt and sad.

Eat, Poop, Die by Joe Roman. The thesis is basically that all living things on our planet, through the actions of the title, have a massively underestimated effect on our ecosystem. These basic biological activities make and remake our world in ways that we seldom consider or don’t understand at all. As well-written as this book is, I struggled to get through it. I’m just not in a non-fiction place, I guess.

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas. I heard of this series in the same way I did Fifty Shades of Grey - through whispers between various mildly embarrassed women at work. Let me be abundantly clear though, that’s where the similarity ends. While there is mild sexual content in this book, it also has plot and world building and characters. This is a full-fledged fantasy series (humans, magic, elves, etc.) not BDSM erotica dressed up as a novel. I’ll definitely read the next instalment when my hold comes up!

Jan 2024: New year, same fabulous me

How’s that title for managing expectations? No Brand New Me is gonna happen in 2024. Same fabulous me is gonna keep on keepin’ on. I just counted the books I posted about in 2023. There were 96 total. I had been contemplating setting a reading goal for this year, but now I’m thinking to what end? The obvious goal to set would be 100, but 96 is plenty. Heck, a lot fewer than that is plenty. Quantity is not the objective with reading. Reading is the objective with reading. Right? Right. So let’s carry on, shall we? Here’s what I got into in January.

Unfortunately Yours by Tessa Bailey. The sequel to Secretly Yours, which I know I read and not that long ago, but I can’t find it listed. Maybe I forgot to write it down? (Wait, maybe my total s actually 97?) This is also that kind of perfectly comfortable, enjoyable, ultimately forgettable book, but you know what? It was fine.

The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna. A witch, whose only chance to spend time with others of her kind must happen in secret and rarely, gets the opportunity to teach and live with three young witches, along with the house’s other occupants: a retired actor, a master gardener, a couple of caretakers (one of who is smokin’ hot) – but not its owner, a mysteriously missing archaeologist. (Long sentence, immaculately punctuated; savour that, Strunk & White.) Everything she’s learned tells her this is forbidden, but she can’t resist the temptation. Plus she needs a new place to crash. I liked it a lot. The characters are excellent.

The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston. A ghostwriter for one of the world’s most popular romance novelists faces a crippling case of writer’s block. And she sees ghosts. Then she falls in love with one of them. I did not see the ending coming. Great read! Written by the author of The Seven Year Slip. I’ll look for her again.

The Gentleman’s Book of Vices by Jess Everlee. Ultimately a love story with some verrry racy content. Fun.

Flunked (Fairy Tale Reform School #1) by Jen Calonita. I so wish I had an 11 year old reader on my gifting list! This novel aimed at middle schoolers absolutely charmed the heck out of me. When Gilly – a girl who lives with her cobbler parents and younger siblings in an overcrowded boot – gets caught stealing from a princess, it’s her third strike. Off to Fairy Tale Reform School with the other “villains” for her. Run by Cinderella’s formerly (?) wicked stepmother, the school houses ogres, fairies, sirens, unicorns and other humans too – all of whom need to change their evil ways. But then the real baddies show up… I loved it.

The Red House Mystery by A.A. Milne. Yes, that A.A. Milne, of Pooh fame! First published over 100 years ago, this novel was Mr. Milne’s only mystery. I expected it to feel dated but hoped the story would hold up. Turns out, I was not being fair at all. It actually reminded me of Three Men in a Boat in how fresh and fun it still feels. I love a novel that pokes fun at its conventions, while it adheres to them. A genuine treat!

Nacho Average Murder by Maddie Day. A pleasant cozy murder mystery packed with yummy food descriptions and some well-deserved homages to the late, lamented, genre master Sue Grafton.

Practice Makes Perfect by Sarah Adams. Yet another fake boyfriend joint. Nevertheless, it was pretty sweet, with some genuinely heart-tugging character development. The overall plot was nothing we haven’t read a bunch of times before, but you don’t get experimental when you’re looking for a comfort read, and this fit the bill nicely. (It was either this or read Pride and Prejudice again, which… I’m probably due for soon.)

Cassandra in Reverse by Holly Smale. Cassandra discovers she can travel back in time, but only in small increments. The kind that allows to “fix” her reactions in the moment – and she has a lot she wants to fix as she never seems to act or react how other people expect, how normal people react. She think she’s broken because she never can quite fit in at home or at work. This is a highly enjoyable novel and an unusual one, coming from the perspective of a person with (undiagnosed) autism. I loved it. My only question is, how would blunt, non-people-savvy Cassandra have landed her coveted PR job in the first place? That little detail nagged at me, but all in all a great read.

Nov and Dec 2023: Powering through the greyness

Hi, yes. Better late (and brief) than never, okay???

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang. So deliciously agonizing to read. Highly recommend.

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfield. A fun rom com (surprise!) where love blossoms – eventually – between the given-up-on-love comedy writer for an SNL-type sketch variety show and the smokin’ hot musical guest star.

Murder in the Drawing Room by C.J. Archer. Historical cozy mystery. It was fine. I had to look at the cover blurb to remind myself what it was about before writing this a month after reading it. But fine!

Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney. Entertaining and creepy.

New Girl in Little Cove by Damhait Doyle. A young woman comes from away (Ontario) to teach in a wee fishing village in Newfoundland where everybody is throughly immersed in everyone else’s business, and no one is quite sure what to make of the stranger. A thoroughly charming story.

The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood. A fake boyfriend story. How many of these can there be? Has my Libby app algorithm gotten me in some kind of dimension where one must read a faux relationship novel at least monthly? And yet, I enjoyed this one.

Home Before Dark by Riley Sagar. Another creepy tale! A woman moves home to the haunted? possessed? house her family had fled decades earlier. She’s determined to renovate the house and sell it once and for all. But dark secrets still lurk. Will she make it out alive?

This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub. On the cusp of turning 40 and not living quite the life she’d imagined, Alive wakes up to her sixteenth birthday again. She’s young, the world is fresh, she just thinks she’s wise and jaded, and her dear ailing dad is well! Young! There’s time to make better decisions that can change the course of her life and maybe – just maybe – keep her dad healthy. What should she do differently this time, and the next, and the next? I ate this novel up, even as it stabbed me in the heart repeatedly.

Enchanted to Meet You by Meg Cabot. I thought I recognized Meg Cabot’s name as an author I’ve enjoyed, but this novel fell flat for me. There’s a witch who’s not very good at being a witch. Then a sexy guy (also a witch) comes along and tells her they need to save the community together. Also something, Chosen One, something, something. It’s a bit of a muddle. (Anyway, I just googled the author’s booklist and I think I just plain recognized her name because she pumps novels out a rate of more than one a year. Full respect, but… is this a Carolyn Keene situation?)

The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston. Can love survive when the two members of the couple live seven years apart in time? A great read with emotional depth, interesting characters and a novel premise. Two time travel novels in one post. Huh. I’m on some definite streaks here.

Don’t Believe It by Charlie Donlea. Just when you think you’ve got it figured out, there’s another twist to the tale. The author warns you right in the title.

Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamen Stevenson. Very much my jam, thank you. I love a fictional narrator who’s aware of their audience.

Leslie F*cking Jones by Leslie Jones. Highly enjoyable and enlightening. I knew nothing about Leslie Jones-the-person, and she’s interesting and introspective. As well as crass, spiritual, self-confident, insecure, tall, strong, and funny.

Oct 2023: Happy birthday to meeeeee

Twas a good month. Let’s dive right in!

The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman. A fun second installment to a mystery series featuring a handful of retirement home-dwelling seniors, a couple of local cops, some small-time thugs and a murderer (or two!).

Now is Not the Time to Panic by Kevin Wilson. A really lovely novel about two lonely teenagers, Frankie and Zeke, who meet one summer and make an evocative poster together. The poster becomes a social phenomenon – basically “goes viral” but analog – before that’s a thing people are savvy to, or skeptical about. Fear of satanists, kidnappers and other miscreants soon runs through their small town in what becomes known as the Coalfield Panic. Someone even ends up dead. The two kids swear each other to secrecy. Then 20 years later, a journalist starts investigating…

The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, MD. Six months after starting, I finally finish reading this tome. Not only is it big, it’s heavy. Also, interesting and critically important. But yeah, I had to read it in little chunks so as not to become overwhelmed. If you are interested in how your body and mind hold onto trauma, this book is for you. However, this doctor (not a doctor) orders you to take it in manageable doses.

Very Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q Sutanto. A widowed tea shop owner in Chinatown forces her way into the lives of several potential murderers after an unexplained death. Was it a murder? The police say “No.” Vera says “Yes.” She’s determined to figure it all out, and a new family is formed in spite of themselves.

Huge by Brent Butt. This debut novel by beloved Canadian comedian Brent Butt was such a treat to read. I felt like I was getting a real insider’s view of life on the road and what it’s like to be a working comedian. And then wow, the wild ride started. This novel is a genuinely suspenseful psychological thriller, with a side of bananapants. I loved it.

Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade. A very fun, very sweet rom com featuring a fan fiction writer and the lead actor of the series she’s writing about. It’s light reading, but not dumb – and neither are the characters. I absolutely love that both main characters are highly successful in their own circles and not as confident outside of them. They are each on an individual journey to self-acceptance, with the writer relatively farther ahead than the actor. It’s lovely. Recommend.

Sept 2023: Eastbound and I'm not down

For the first summer in I think forever, I did not book any weeks off for vacation. Instead, Dave and I and momma waited until September to jump in the car and head “down home.” Good things are worth waiting for! It’s been a terrible summer for Nova Scotia with record-breaking fires, floods, and hurricane rains. But oh my heart, through it all it remains one of the best places on Earth. Beautiful, welcoming, and full of people I adore. Tha gaol agam air Alba Nuadh. Tha e cho àlainn.

The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield. My teen son ripped through this novel in a week while working full-time in his summer job and keeping up with karate and myriad other activities. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him so hooked. I picked it up next and was every bit as preoccupied. Absolutely riveting. Great action. mystery, and some for-real gasp out loud moments. Is there anything Chris Hadfield can’t do??

Marion Lane and the Deadly Rose by TA Willberg. The second in a series, this novel wasn’t quite as entrancing as the first. Possibly because it focuses less on revealing the peculiar, magical underground world of London in which Marian Lane finds herself working and more on a somewhat typical mystery. Still quite enjoyable, make no mistake.

My Murder by Katie Williams. What a gripping read! A woman is murdered by a serial killer, then brought back to life – sort of. She is a clone with transferred memories from her previous self. But as she starts to uncover information about her own murder, things just aren’t adding up. So, so good.

Hotline by Dimitri Nasrallah. A quietly lovely novel about a young woman who immigrates from war-torn Lebanon to cold, lonely, far away Montreal with her small son in the wake of her husband’s kidnapping and (likely) death. It was available a staff pick, I think, in the Libby app for my library. Caught my attention somehow, anyway, and I’m so glad it did.

The Library of the Dead by TL Huchu. At the beginning of this promising series, Ropa is a 15-year-old ghostalker of Zimbawean heritage in “post-Catastrophe” Edinburgh. Ghosts hire her to give convey messages to their surviving relatives. Her magic is considered to the lowest kind and is disdained by the great schools of magic. Events soon lead her to an underground library and she is drawn into higher-stakes magic than she’s ever imagined. Highly enjoyable, and I look forward to more.

The Lion’s Den by Katherine St. John. I read this entire novel with the sneaking suspicion that I’d read it before. The title and a couple of plot elements seemed familiar – a character named “Amythest” (sic) and something about a watch – but I could not remember anything further. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. As it turns out, it was for the second time. I first read it in July of 2020 and thought it was a fabulous beach read then too. At least I’m consistent. Let’s see if it sticks with me this time!

Our Lady of Mysterious Ailments by T. L. Huchu. Yeah, I always do this. I find a new-to-me author or series that I enjoy and tell myself that I will pace my reading of them - then I don’t. Mere days after reading the first, I found myself deep in the second instalment. It did not let me down. Now, a break. Probably.

Truth and Reconciliation Day

In honour of Truth and Reconciliation Day, I made a quick list of my top ten favourite books by Indigenous authors that have stuck with me after reading in the last few (maybe several?) years. Not really in order, and I know I’m leaving out many worthy books. These are the first ten that sprang to mind and gave me that frisson of, “oh, that book!”

Mostly fiction because that’s my jam, but all deeply true in that real Truth way. Some incredibly tough to read from an emotional/denial perspective, but all wonderfully written. Many offering passages so beautiful, or evocative, or thought-provoking, that I needed to reread them – sometimes aloud – and just sit with them on my mind.

I’d love to hear about your own favourites and recommendations.

Ragged Company by Richard Wagamese – Beautifully written (many pauses to savour) and one heckuva story.  

ANYTHING by Eden Robinson - Monkey Beach is a fantastic standalone, and her Trickster novels are a delightful series.  

Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice – I’ve reread it a couple of times. Post-apocalyptic suspense; totally haunting. 

Take Us to Your Chief: and Other Stories by Drew Hayden Taylor  – Sci fi and fun!

Birdie by Tracey Lindberg – Absolutely gorgeous language. 

Unreconciled by Jesse Wente – A memoir that feels like you’re spending time with a dear, no-BS get-a-grip friend. (Get-a-grip friend = someone who loves you enough to tell you the truth and respects you enough to expect you to deal with it.)

Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death and Hard Truths in a Northern City by Tanya Talaga. Not surprisingly from the title, this is a hard read. Important. 

Five Little Indians by Michelle Good. Fiction and also wrenchingly true. Have your tissues at the ready.

The Strangers by Katharena Vermette. And keep those tissues handy for this novel. It explores the bonds and burdens of family, generational trauma, and individual strength within the Stranger family.   

The Night Watchman by Louise Erhdrich. Grabbed me right by the heart from the outset. Based on the life of the author’s grandfather.

And finally, one of my favourite poems. I came across it in an anthology in university, and it just imprinted on my mind and heart instantly. At the time, I understood it very personally as my grandfather had just died, and I realized when we all got together as a family, usually for a holiday meal, it really felt like he was there too just in the next room or about to come in. Now, I see the poem has a much bigger scope as well, across multiple generations and a cultural heritage under imminent threat. Simple and beautiful, yet it says so much.

Round Dance by Sarain Stump
Don’t break this circle
Before the song is over
Because all of our people
Even the ones long gone
Are holding hands.

August 2023: The holds list, my new BFF

Several months ago, I started being more intentional about going through my list of recos from friends and putting books on hold at the library. Many of them had months-long waiting lists. It’s really paying off now. Seems like just as I get towards the end of one book, I receive the notice that another is ready. It’s glorious. Regular little gifts to myself from my past self and from the library. Yay! I think all of the books this month are from the holds list, possibly why the quality is really high. (Yes, I started out with one I didn’t end up loving – or even liking – but it was well-written.)

Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney. This might be a generation gap talking here, I don’t know. Or maybe the people raving about this novel are way more generous and patient than me. But I just could not care about the stilted, emotionally constipated, spoiled brat of a main character – even if her name is Frances. The premise was promising: two young women, formerly girlfriends, now just girl friends, become emotionally and romantically entwined with a married couple more than a decade older than them. Could be interesting, right? It was so tedious. Just ugh.

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus. Another novel getting lots of raves and, in this case, I fully understand why. Absolutely lovely. I thought based strictly on the title, it was going to be an opposites–attract–repel–attract-type rom com. Several pages in, I still thought that was where it was basically going. Highly enjoyable. Then something dramatic happens that I did not see coming (no spoilers here) and the main story arc begins. Wonderful.

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix. The writing is like a cross between Stephen King, Christopher Moore and Flannery O' Connor. Do not – and I mean DO NOT – read if you have any kind of pre-existing fear of dolls or puppets. You've been warned. Other than that, it's an absolute blast.

The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff. This book was a genuine treat to stumble onto. Libby the library app served it up, and it turns out Libby has great taste for me. So much fun, and while the plot is completely outlandish and the characterization delightfully (purposefully) over the top, I was transported into a different society. The novel follows Geeta, a woman believed to have killed her husband, making her an outcast in her small, old-fashioned, extremely hierarchical Indian village. She sees more benefits than drawbacks in her dangerous reputation because it means people leave her alone – until one of the women in her microloan group comes to her for husband-murdering advice. It’s the start of the absolute manic gong show of events in the novel and the start of a new lease on life for Geeta.

Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez. I’ve read a couple of books by this author before, and they are reliably enjoyable. Well-written with characters that are easy to fall in love with, perfect for a nicely spicy modern romance. This one was really formulaic in following the “fake couple that falls in love” trope, but in a self-aware way. In fact, the main character’s best friend says to call her when they get to the part where there’s only one bed available for the two of them. Then it actually happens. I have a high tolerance for genre formula when it feels like the author respects their audience, and that’s the case here. It’s fun.

The Lie Maker by Linwood Barclay. This novel’s main character is the now-grown son of a criminal-turned-witness who disappeared into the Witness Protection Program years earlier. So when the struggling novelist son is tapped to write fake back-stories for that same program, it seems like one heck of a coincidence. Or is it? Crisp writing, likeable characters, lots of twists and turns and action – so even if you figure some of it out before the end, you’ll have a great ride. Another banger by Mr. Barclay!

Unraveling: What I Learned About Life From Shearing Sheep, Dyeing Wool, and Making the World’s Ugliest Sweater by Peggy Orenstein. The subtitle says it all really, but what it doesn’t tell you is that if you just happen to be a knitter, a woman sneaking up on fifty whose kids are literally in the middle of leaving the nest, and are just trying to understand where the time went, what it all means, and what’s next (me, I’m talking about me), this’ll really hit home. In a good way.

I Only Read Murder by Ian Ferguson and Will Ferguson. If you recognize the authors’ names, you’ll know to anticipate the ridiculous, hilarious, and utterly charming story that unfolds. Miranda Abbott is a has-been TV star, so far past her prime that she’s not even welcome on a reality show for Hollywood has-beens. Then she makes her way to Happy Rock, a picture-perfect West Coast town straight out of an Andy Griffith fever dream where she ends up in the middle of a little theatre production – and murder. So much fun.

Have you read any of these? What did you think?

July 2023: A great month for being, and reading

Would I treasure these long hot humid stanky days so much if I lived somewhere that the season was longer? Probably not. If you ever hear me complain about the heat or the sun, I’ve likely been bodysnatched and you should call the authorities. Just FYI… Anyway, lots of good books this month.

Babel by RK Huang. An alternate history taking place at the academic heart of the British Empire – mixing fantasy and alchemy and linguistics – this novel had me in its grip from page 1. Highly recommend!

This Bird Has Flown by Susanna Hoffs. The debut novel by Susanna Hoffs (yes, that Susanna Hoffs, of The Bangles) tells the story of Jane, a musician with stage-fright who’s 10 years past her one hit, who moves from LA to England to be with her new boyfriend. I think I would be absolutely raving about it had I read it in the right order from start to finish instead of how I actually read it, which was starting somewhere in the middle. I opened my Kobo and started reading at what I thought was the beginning. It launched me right en scene into a small but alarming house fire with the main character desperately trying to deal with it. I really thought it would then zoom back out and I would eventually get the blanks filled in. That never happened in a satisfying way, and then I found myself at the end. I have no idea, truly, how I didn’t notice the high chapter numbers at the start or anywhere through it. What can I say? I blindly trusted the journey I thought the novelist was taking me on. Lol. Dumb. Anyway, literally after I finished the last page I realized what had happened. So I restarted it. It was really very good, but I recommend you read it starting from Chapter One.

Happy Place by Emily Henry. If you like Emily Henry, you will enjoy this novel. I do, and I did!

All Good People Here by Audrey Flowers. An ambitious journalist returns to her small town to care for her beloved uncle as he lives with early onset dementia. Shortly after she arrives home, a young girl is murdered in an eerily similar way to the protagonist’s best friend many years before. She is irresistibly drawn to covering the case, but is blocked every way she turns. It’s a heckuva good read!

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson. Another excellent small town murder mystery, with another (in this case, high school aged) young woman determined to get to the bottom of a past murder. Pippa doesn’t think the main suspect, who later died by suicide, was actually the murderer, and she sets out to prove it for her high school capstone project.

The Family Remains: A Novel by Lisa Jewell. This novel is the sequel to The Family Upstairs, which I read during the heart of the pandemic and, honestly, I hardly remembered it at all. As I started this one, it occurred to me that the backstory of the characters seemed familiar so I checked my list. But that was as far as my memory went. This one worked fine as a basically standalone novel, and I enjoyed it. I probably would have enjoyed it more – and maybe would have caught on to the undercurrents in the plot faster – had I remembered the first instalment.

A Very Typical Family by Siera Godfrey. Three adult siblings need to come together after years apart in order to claim their inheritance from their estranged and now deceased mother. While I found some of the backstory a bit hard to believe, the novel unfolds in a moving and satisfying way. I like a book with no actual bad guys.

How to Keep House While Drowning: A Gentle Approach to Cleaning and Organizing by KC Davis. Attainable goals! Whether you are currently in a season where you are struggling to achieve the basics or if you’ve been there before, you will appreciate the warmth and big sister wisdom of this book.

The House Across the Lake by Riley Sager. I feel like I say this a lot, but this novel will probably be made into a movie. The characters and plot are absolutely Hollywood ready. It’ll go straight to Netflix; actually, it’ll be made for streaming, maybe a mini-series to really let the suspense build. None of this is a criticism, mind you. It was a banger.

June 2023: Look up, waaay up (it's the sun!)

Things are looking up. I didn’t feel the need to exercise my newfound book-not-finishing powers this month even once. Maybe the planets are getting back into alignment for me. Or out of alignment. Whatever the good thing is for planets and outlooks on life and reading!

The Change by Kirsten Miller. OMG, loved this book. The three main characters, all distinctive vibrant smart successful women in mid-life, all going through The Change. And in this case, the change is not only referring to the physical/hormonal implications of perimenopause and menopause. It’s the change that happens when you aren’t going to put up with bullshit conventions or restrictions imposed by career or family or society at large and you embrace your natural – or, in the case of these women, supernatural – powers. It is magnificent.

The Satapur Moonstone by Sujata Massey. I enjoyed this, the second Perveen Mistry novel, as much as I did the first. In some ways it’s a more conventional genre cosy than the first because all the work of establishing the main character and her back story were done already, but it was another delightful visit to early 20th century India.

Ducks by Kate Beaton. Dave and I are huge fans of Kate Beaton’s work. Her comics are hysterical, charming and often utterly absurd. This is not a book of comics; it is a non-fiction memoir of her time spent working in the Alberta oil sands told primarily through comic-strip style graphics. It’s visually rich and emotionally devastating. Very, very real. Brilliant.

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman. An unscrupulous developer wants to expand his posh retirement community on the grounds of a former convent and makes plans to to bulldoze a graveyard full of nuns, he is murdered, an extra unaccounted skeleton turns up, and hijinks ensue. I do enjoy novels that show older people (people of all ages, really) with wit, personality and agency over their own lives. Speaking of which –

The Golden Girls’ Getaway by Judy Leigh. A sweet, fun, utterly low stakes novel of three elderly ladies who embark on a roadtrip together after coming through the isolation and loneliness of the pandemic in London. An actress, a retired nurse and an opera singer drive a giant RV through the English countryside, walk into a pub in Wales (among other adventures)… and I am soothed.

It Starts with Us by Colleen Hoover. This entire novel exists to provide the main characters of It Ends with Us with a well-deserved happy ending. Though I felt like the previous novel ended on an up note that signalled things would turn out, it was still quite nice to read through it to be sure. No one can call me a cynic, I guess, because turns out I’m fine that the author 100% pandered to the petition launched by her online fandom.

Anxious People by Fredrik Bachman. I started this novel with a little trepidation, due mostly to the fact that I knew nothing about it other than the title and that it was reported “quirky” and “so funny.” Over the last while I have found myself becoming more and more of an anxious person, and it’s a decidedly unfunny experience. So. But anyway, once I began to meet the characters I settled in. The events unfold in a looping manner, with bits and pieces being told from different perspectives so the reader (and each individual character) never has a fully omniscient perspective. It really is quirky, and funny, and warm, and lovely. And also maybe my Paxil prescription is kicking in. Either way, I recommend it!

People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry. Awww, a love story involving good people that turns out exactly how it should with lots of entertaining twists along the way. A really wonderful vacation book.

Two Parts Sugar, One Part Murder by Valerie Burns. As you can guess from the typical cosy genre-style title, this is a typical cosy mystery. Perhaps – no, definitely – a cut above some of the cosies I’ve read over the last few months. It is a fun fish out of water story, with a recently single socialite heroine who inherits a bakery from her great aunt with the condition that she needs to keep the bakery running for at least a year. Murder and “sleuthing” (has anyone ever said that word aloud in casual conversation in real life?) unfold.

Hypnosis is for Hacks by Tamara Berry. Another entertaining cosy featuring a medium, a hypnotist who’s her ex-partner in crime, her current boyfriend, his rich mother, assorted other colourful characters, and several ghosts, some real (in the story) and some not (in the story). Whether ghosts are real in real-life or not, well I couldn’t say for sure either way.

The Love Wager by Lynn Painter. If I was a book jacket blurb writer, I would be very tempted to strap line this novel, “A fizzy fun romp with likeable characters, believable chemistry… A perfect sexy beach read!” So there you go. Review complete.

Have a wonderful summer!

May 2023: These reviews are not AI-generated

Huh, Squarespace has a new feature. A little lightning bolt icon that opens up Chat GPT functionality for AI-driven content creation. How quickly this technology has become absolutely pervasive. I’ve been using it here and there to help distill research and I definitely see the advantage. But ugh. I kind of dread wading through the coming flood of derivative genre novels (especially cosy mysteries!) that are no doubt being created as I type. There is quite enough dross in the world, thank you.

But that point actually takes me to something I’m quite pleased about this month. On more than one occasion, I started reading a book that I realized I was not enjoying and then – brace yourself – I stopped. Over the years, I’ve grudgingly slogged my way through many books that did not captivate my brain out of some weird sense of obligation. And I’m talking about books I was ostensibly reading for pleasure, not for school or work. When I ran into that experience this month, I had a little talk with myself. The book’s feelings are not going to be hurt, Frances. The author will never know, Frances. Just put the damn book down, Frances. So I did. So liberating!

Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Speaking of which, I read the first part of this book (40 or 50 pages) and just could not get into it. First book of the month and I put it down. I have to laugh at myself for the enormous sense of pleasure this gives me.

Five Total Strangers by Natalie D. Richards. If I was worried that my inability to concentrate on the previous book was due to some personal ennui or something, this book instantly cured me of that notion. A tense psychological thriller that should probably be made into a movie, this novel hooked me from the outset and kept me turning pages all the way through.

Beach Read by Emily Henry. Several pages into this, I was having a strange sense of deja vu. I became sure I’d already read it, but since I couldn’t really remember the plot I kept on. I enjoyed it just fine. I didn’t actually record what I thought of it the first time (the latter half of 2021 kind of slipped by), but I suspect I liked it fine then. Probably if I read it in another 18 months or so, I’ll feel the same.

November 9 by Colleen Hoover. Really good read. It’s a love story between a writer and a former child star who has given up acting due to a terrible injury. They meet for the first time on the day the young woman is set to move across the country. For plot reasons, they decide to meet up for one day each year for the next five years – with no communication in between. It’s a very unlikely premise, but the charm of the characters and the storytelling makes it easy to suspend disbelief and go with the flow.

The Dating Dare by Jayci Lee. For the first several pages, I somehow thought I was reading a novel by Jasmine Guillory and I was so disappointed. This is just so flat and formulaic, I thought. She’s lost her magic touch, I thought. Plot twist: that’s a whole different author of a whole different book also on my tablet but not the one I had opened. lolololol I’m so sorry, Ms Guillory! This book had potential to be a fizzy fun beach read: hot young brewmaster who runs a beer pub with her protective older brothers secretly hooks up at her best friend’s wedding with the brother-in-law of the new bride and secretly agrees to date him on a dare. But it was not fun and sadly short on charm. So, I stopped reading it a little over mid-way through. I just could not be arsed.

Love from A to Z by S.K. Ali. Starring two Muslim teenagers who meet by chance on Spring break, this story alternates between their two points of view as captured in their journals. Adam, a university student facing an illness alone and trying to be strong for his widowed father and young sister. Zayneb, an American teenager who gets angrier and more frustrated with each racist comment by her teacher, until she confronts him and ends up suspended. They meet in Doha where Adam grew up and where Zayneb is visiting her aunt. I think this is technically a YA novel, and it’s a great one. But the themes it deals with – ignorance, fear, overt and covert racism, loneliness – are universal. So moving.

Nightshade on Elm Street by Kate Collins. An easy, breezy cosy mystery. Just one big nit to pick with one character who is constantly spouting malapropisms that aren’t believable or funny. Was not enough to drive me away, but you’ve been warned Kate Collins.

Seeds of Deception by Sheila Connolly. Another DNF! This one because of the utterly unlikable main character and dumb dumb plot. The main character and her husband are newlyweds, and there is much mention of how everything went so fast that they didn’t have time to discuss finances, if they wanted children, etc. Then we find out they have been dating for two years! What. These two grown-ass “mature” adults are idiots. And then she repeatedly criticizes her parents’ marriage even as they’re in the middle of trying to solve a murder. Plus, casual racism. Blech.

All Your Perfects by Colleen Hoover. Content warning for anyone who has had challenges conceiving or carrying a pregnancy. This is not an easy read on that score. But it was a good read, for sure.

While We Were Dating by Jasmine Guillory. Now THIS is Jasmine Guillory. She’s still got it! I love her well-rounded smart, sexy, deeply competent characters who nevertheless feel like real imperfect humans. They can be unreasonable, irrational. They go to therapy and know better, but sometimes get in their own way. Lots of fun. I also like how a secondary character in a previous novel – in this case Ben, brother of Theo and brother-in-law of Maggie – becomes one of the main characters in this one. I expect we’ll see him and his love interest, the famous and beautiful but down-to-Earth actress Anna Gardiner, show up as side characters down the road. Predicting we’ll see a book starring someone like her admin assistant next. Or – ooooh! – maybe one of their therapists. That would be fun. Sign me up.

April 2023: Just keep swimming

April may not be the actual cruellest month, but this year hasn’t been, like, the best. Although I won’t get into it, let’s just say I feel like there might not be enough ashwagandha in the world. Feeling awash in free-floating anxiety. Gah. Deep breath in, and exhale.

There have been lovely bright spots: Easter with the extended family, quality time with my bro, a chatty salt therapy day with besties, monthly dinner with dear friends, both darling kids at home… Deep breath in, and exhale. Lots of bright spots. Plus I finished a cowl I’ve been working on in fits and starts since October! Oh, there. That feels better. Deep breath innnnn and out…

Now, on to the books.

Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume. For Gen Xers like me, at least in North America, Judy Blume is one of those icons who occupy an outsize place in our psyche and heart. She was an absolute mainstay of every elementary school library and Scholastic Book Fair of my childhood, starting in about grade 2 or 3 (Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing) and on up (Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret). I don’t remember the plot of Tiger Eyes from when I was a kid, so it mustn’t have made the biggest impact on me, but its storytelling really holds up.

It deals with incredibly tough topics - the main character’s father is murdered at the store he owns, so Davey, her mom, and little brother move temporarily to New Mexico to live with her aunt and uncle. Here, she’s faced with racism, classism, teenage alcoholism, her mother’s spiralling depression – all while she deals with her own deep grief and confusion. Heavy, but also real. Judy Blume respects her audience and, for that reason, this book is probably on a lot of banned books lists.

Deadhead and Buried by H.Y. Hanna. A cozy mystery that follows the genre conventions – big city girl inherits a charming English cottage, stumbles over murder – and yeah, it fit the bill nicely.

Less by Andrew Sean Greer. In the weeks leading up to struggling novelist Arthur Less’ 50th birthday, he receives an invitation to his longtime boyfriend’s wedding… to somebody else. Suddenly, he has a reason to accept all of the myriad invitations to random literary events around the world. He can’t possibly attend the wedding; he’s touring. But he’s still Arthur Less, a hapless, strangely innocent, selfish, generous, skeptical romantic. Delightful. I highlighted some passages as I read them (don’t panic, twas an ebook), and I may just buy my own copy to keep.

Dial P for Poison by Zara Keane. Back in Ireland for another cozy. Much better than the one I read last month, and I didn’t even need a glossary.

Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern. Tough going, this one. Because it was highly recommended by more than one person, I kept picking it back up and trying again even after deciding I was done with it. Then, once I got halfway in to this almost 600 page tome (paperback edition; my e-reader version was 800+), it felt like I was too far in not to finish. Ultimately, while there is some lovely imagery, a few characters I’d like to get to know better, and a unique world created, I just was not that interested. And honestly? The payoff simply wasn’t there for my persistence.

Book Lovers by Emily Henry. Now this is what I’m talkin’ about! I gobbled this book up and enjoyed every bite. This very fun read is a love letter to and send-up of fish-out-of-water romance genre tropes. It starts with narrator explaining how in the well-worn scenario where the high-powered big city lawyer moves to the small town and finds true love with the klutzy beautiful innocent baker/schoolteacher/florist, she’s the cold workaholic who gets left behind. But then, she’s compelled to spend a month in a small town where she comes face-to-face with her professional nemesis. Hijinks ensue. Loved it.

It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover. This novel involves really dark and difficult themes – domestic abuse, gun violence – and it has some truly powerful moments as well as several touching vignettes. It’s a compelling read, for sure, but I think it doesn’t quite achieve the depth or gravity it wants to. Ultimately, it’s a popcorn potboiler but I liked it. (I just saw that it’s going to be a movie, and that doesn’t surprise me a bit.)

Verity by Colleen Hoover. I enjoyed the previous so much that I dove directly into another novel by the same author. This story was gripping. Omigosh, like a full-on psychological thriller. I can’t wait for the movie of this one! (I have no idea if it will be a movie but also I am certain it will be a movie.)

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo. Many experiences of Black, English womanhood are explored in this engaging novel. Section by section, we meet a different girl or woman or “Other,” from Amma to her daughter Yazz, to her old friend Shirley, then to Shirley’s colleague, Penelope, to Morgan who was once Megan, but changed their name to accommodate their growing sense of being a non-binary person, to Hattie, who’s Morgan’s great-grandma, and others. The relationship amongst the characters sometimes takes a while to emerge, and it’s never the most important aspect of the story. Each of the characters is distinctive and real, and the hero of their own life story. I was fully rapt.

March 2023: Not a lamb in sight

This has been a tough month on a lot of fronts. Everywhere I look or whatever I think about, there’s something that brings me down. And I don’t think it’s just me. It feels like everyone, everywhere is just going through it. Thank goodness for books, I’m tellin’ ya. They weren’t all bangers this month, but any book is better than no book. Just noticing that there is a higher proportion of “meh” books listed below than usual. Last month, I said I was going to focus on light n fluffy escapist fiction, but those types of books just didn’t land for me. Maybe, just maaaaaybe, this lousy Smarch mood/weather has affected my perceptions. I’d love to know what you think.

The Diva Cooks Up a Storm by Krista Davis. A typical cozy with lots of lovely food descriptions. Two or three days after finishing it, that’s pretty much what stands out to me.

The Second Husband by Kate White. This is one of those woman in danger but who can she trust?-type psychological thrillers that feels like maybe it should be a movie starring, say, Shailene Woodley channeling an older, more businessy version of the character she played in Big Little Lies. This novel comes complete with lots of genre tropes, competently executed. I enjoyed it.

Stay Where I Can See You by Katrina Onstad. I think I found this novel in the psychological thriller category, and it’s sort of that, but mostly it’s a very believable mother-daughter drama overlaid with a creeping sense of suspense. (Wait – maybe that’s actually the definition of a psychological thriller? Anyway…) This novel was the rare case for me where one of the main characters is almost exactly my age and of the same time and place. While our life experiences are very different, I felt grounded in her story from the outset because I just got her. It was a real page turner for me.

A Murder in An Irish Village by Carlene O’Connor. This cozy starts with a glossary that explains what phrases like “the cheek of him” or “taking the piss” mean and how to pronounce Irish names like “Seamus” or “Siobhan.” The author having so little faith in their readers and in their own ability to convey meaning through context offered me a shrieking alarm bell that this book was not for me. I almost put it down, but curiosity got the better of me. It was not as bad as I feared but not actually good – a fairly standard cozy with abundant genre tropes and more than enough Irish stereotypes to go around.

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. In sharp contrast to the above, this novel drops the reader into an utterly unfamiliar setting and slowly, gradually unveils details about the main character (Piranesi, sort of), his … friend? (“the Other”), and the world they occupy. It’s absolutely masterful and rewards the patient reader with a fascinating story.

The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani. I was going to say that this kid-lit novel had enough plot for three or four books, and the storytelling suffered a bit by cramming so much in. Then, I looked it up and realized that this is actually the first in a series of nine books. So, wow. Props to the author for tapping into such a well of creativity. It deals with big themes – good versus evil, obviously, but also destiny, friendship, love, and ambition – in a way that ultimately feels superficial. It’s a good-not-great book with the potential to be a lot more.

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner. Someone recommended this book to me last month when I was reading memoirs, and I added it to my list. Very much worth waiting for. It’s absolutely beautiful, emotionally honest, and captivating from the first line: “Ever since my mom died, I cry in H Mart.” Chapter by chapter, Ms Zauner creates a portrait of a complicated mother–daughter relationship, suffused with love. Highly recommend and, yes, you might need a tissue or two.

February 2023: Getting personal

This month I’ve stuck with a theme: people writing about their own experiences. My first two choices were fine, not great. But then, wow - did the engrossment ever kick in. All of these titles differ substantially from each other, and they all in multiple ways knocked my socks off. What a rewarding month of reading.

Madly, Deeply: The Diaries of Alan Rickman by Alan Rickman. While Mr Rickman led an interesting life, inhabited some truly iconic characters (could anyone else ever have made Snape Snape?) and had a wide and star-studded list of enduring friendships, he wasn’t pouring his heart and soul into his journal. It seems obvious he didn’t intend these jottings for the eventual consumption of anyone other than himself. Nevertheless, I found myself fairly immersed in the vast web of his relationships and many roles - googling intensely, trying to figure out about what and to whom he was referring. Also, I realize I must watch more of his work. HP, Sense and Sensibility and – of course – Truly, Madly, Deeply only scratch the very surface. All told, if you have a set budget of time you want to devote to Alan Rickman, you’re better served by enjoying his work onscreen than reading his diaries. [Note: these diaries do not include the time period of T, M, D, so I am unreasonably irked by using a variation of its name for the title.]

We are Never Meeting in Real Life: Essays by Samantha Irby. A collection of personal essays (blog posts, I guess?), this book is about as different in style from the Rickman’s diaries as two modern autobiographical works can be. Where Rickman was mostly terse and reserved, this collection is aggressively self-revealing to the point, for me, of being off-putting. I’LL SHOW YOU HOW GROSS AND UNLIKEABLE I AM. Lots of pathos as well as funny moments, but I won’t be in a hurry to read another instalment.

Sex Cult Nun by Faith Jones. Born into and raised in the Children of God cult founded by her grandfather, Faith Jones chronicles her life from her earliest memories through to adulthood and eventual independence. The early chapters feel like reportage – this happened and then this happened – of events and attitudes that are shocking to the reader. The matter-of-fact style effectively conveys how very normal all of the absurdity was to the narrator; this was the only world she knew. As Faith matures and has glimpses of other types of experiences, the reader feels her increasing awareness of how insular her life is as well as her struggle to assimilate her growing confusion with the foundational beliefs she has not yet started to doubt. Her innate curiosity and drive compels her to seize every elusive chance she gets for structured education and, over time, she equips herself to embark on a life outside of the cult. What a wrenching and rewarding read.

Tender at the Bone by Ruth Reichl. This memoir is an absolute love letter to food and the people who taught the author how to – and how not to – prepare it as she was growing up and figuring out her place in the world. A utter pleasure to consume. (A cheap pun, but I’m not above it.)

Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood. Tricia Lockwood is the daughter of a man who was first ordained as a Lutheran minister before converting to Catholicism and receiving a Papal dispensation to continue as a priest. I knew in theory that there were Roman Catholic priests who were married, but it never occurred to me to wonder about their children’s experiences. Lockwood’s entertaining and thought-provoking memoir is beautifully written, and filled with the complicated mix of love and resentment that many (most?) adult children hold for parents who both did their best and inflicted lasting damage. Immediately after finishing this memoir, I looked up her poem Rape Joke, which contains the lines:

It was a year before you told your parents, because he was like a son to them. The rape joke is that when you told your father, he made the sign of the cross over you and said, “I absolve you of your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” which even in its total wrongheadedness, was so completely sweet.

Love and resentment. The balance between which flips and flops throughout the memoir. I will read more by this author.

No Bootstraps When You’re Barefoot by Wes Hall. Honestly, as I was starting this book, I was worried the author – a highly successful Jamaican-Canadian Bay St businessman, dragon on Dragon’s Den, etc. – would turn out to be a JD Vance-style ideologue who basically blames the generationally poor for their own situation (as in, I escaped – if others can’t, it’s because they’re unworthy). But Wes Hall is not that, not at all. He knows what an exception he is, and he doesn’t take credit for his exceptionalism. He credits luck and opportunity and, in one way at least, his own naïveté.

He notes that growing up in Jamaica, he saw people who looked just like him everywhere in positions of power: police, judges, businesspeople. So as he was forming his own self-image and ambitions, he never saw his race as a limiting factor. Money and access, yes. Skin colour, never. In contrast, his half-siblings who grew up in Canada – though they were more more advantaged than him in terms of family stability, nutrition, security, schooling, and almost every other way – saw very little representation of Black people in roles to aspire to. As the memoir progresses, it becomes clear that he’s dedicated to creating luck and opportunity, and mentorship, for those coming up next.

Funny, You Don’t Look Autistic by Matt McCreary. This memoir busted a lot of preconceptions and assumptions that I didn’t quite realize that I held. The author describes himself as “an autistic comedian, actor, author and TEDX speaker who’s been performing stand-up comedy since age 13.” He reflects on all the ways he’s had to learn to cope in a world that’s geared entirely to the neurotypical. It wasn’t just an educational read either, mind you. He’s hella-funny, and I laughed out loud (for real!) several times while reading. Highly recommend.

Shakespeare Saved My Life by Laura Bates. Written by an English professor who volunteered for years teaching Shakespeare in prisons, this memoir focuses mainly on her experience with one particularly gifted inmate – Larry Newton, a man sentenced for murder at age 17 to life in prison without the chance parole ever – and his entirely novel insights about the Bard and his plays. (Whew, that was a long sentence. But not as long as his!*) The prisoners make connections between the plays and their own lives and experiences. The details about life in segregation and the prisoners’ growth and self-reflections are fascinating. For me though the real treat, and what I read aloud to my English major daughter for funsies, is the plot summaries Larry Newton wrote to entice other inmates to join in the learning. So astute and deeply entertaining.

After 400 years, we’ve forgotten that Shakespeare was not of the elite nor just for the elite; Shakespeare is for everyone. As the author notes, “I quickly learned, however, that a university education is not a prerequisite to reading Shakespeare. After all, his original audience was not college-educated. Neither was he.”

There you have it. Now, Imma feast on some fiction. Light, fluffy, escapist fiction.

* Worst joke ever. But hey, my blog, my terrible standards.

January 2023: Ready, set, SPRINT into the new year!

This month has been a lot. Sometimes the year just starts off at a gallop, I guess. Fortunately, the books that accompanied me on my life’s journey in January have been an absolute treat. Not a dud in the bunch.

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. Oooo, what a treat to begin a new year. January 1st I get notified that I can jump the library holds queue if I agree to a shortened 7-day loan period. Yes, please! A modern retelling of David Copperfield set in rural Kentucky, this novel grabbed me by the heart and throat at the very first paragraph: “First, I got myself born. A decent crowd was on hand to watch, and they’ve always given me that much: the worst of the job was up to me, my mother being let’s just say out of it.” That voice, the vividness of the scenario, the big questions it opens up – I was spellbound the entire way through. My first read of 2023, and it’s likely to be one of the very best.

Party of Two by Jasmine Guillory. Exactly what I’ve come to expect from Jasmine Guillory, an engaging, smart, sexy romance between two highly competent individuals who face some kind of significant obstacle on their way to forming a lasting partnership. It’s her formula, for sure, but it doesn’t feel lazy. Maybe she’ll zig on her next novel or maybe she’ll stick to what has bee proven to work? Either way, I’m here for it.

Fleabag: The Scriptures by Phoebe Waller-Bridge. If you haven’t watched the show Fleabag, I highly recommend you do. Even better would be to get a lovely hard cover copy of the complete scripts as a Christmas gift from a dear friend and read then watch, episode-by-episode, as I did. Experiencing the two media in combination like that, I realized just how very beautiful and spare the writing is – just exactly enough and just exactly right. Sooo good.

Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) by Jerome K. Jerome. Published in 1889, this still-funny fictional travelogue narrates the day-by-day adventures of “J” and two friends as they row the Thames on a two-week holiday. Montmorency, a free-spirited fox terrier, makes for a chaotic neutral fourth member of the party. (As if I would say nothing of the dog.) Bill Bryson, Tim Moore, and many others including Connie Willis, below, owe Jerome K. Jerome a huge debt of gratitude.

Sign Here by Claudia Lux. What a ride! Peyote Trip has put in his time in Hell (yes, actually Hell), recruiting those folks who decide to sell their souls for whatever they desperately want. He’s just got to sign one more person from a particular family line – he has four already – to complete the whole set, which will grant him the promotion of his dreams. While none of them seem particularly evil, he sees the potential. Then Cal, a newbie recruiter to the deals department, shows up. And everything changes for Peyote. (That description makes it sound like this is going to be a love story. It’s not not a love story, but definitely not that kind of love story.) Anyway. you should read this novel. It’s really fantastic.

No One Left to Come Looking for You by Sam Lipsyte. I am not the audience for this novel. This novel is for people who include Trainspotting – novel or movie – on their top 5 list. This novel is well-written, the story is well-plotted, the characters are believable: crusty, pathetic, sincere. Here’s the promotional blurb if you’re interested: “A darkly comic mystery set in the vibrant music scene of early 1990s New York City. Manhattan's East Village, 1993.” You might love it. It’s just not for me.

Iona Iverson’s Rules for Commuting by Clare Pooley. Iona was once an acclaimed It Girl and model, tracked and fawned over by the tabloids, paid to attend parties, out and proud when that was an outrageous thing to be. Now, she rides the tube to and from her job as a magazine advice columnist, taken for granted by her coworkers and ignored (she thinks) by everyone else. But when a fellow commuter she’s internally dubbed “Smart-but-Sexist-Manspreader” chokes and is saved by another regular who happens to be a nurse, it acts as the catalyst for a series of increasingly significant interpersonal interactions that end up changing everything for all of them. Absolutely delightful.

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis. A 25-year-old time travel comedy, mystery and love story that pays homage to Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat and, like it, is as fresh and funny today as it was when published. The only element that was jarring to me reading it in 2023 are the references to a pandemic of the early 2000s. Since this novel’s “present day” is 2057, the Pandemic is long past and can be referred to casually. For me reading it after what we’ve all lived through recently, it doesn’t feel at all dated but rather TOO SOON.

December 2022: At the close of a year

Thanks for reading with me in 2022. The best to you and yours in 2023!

What We Talk About When We Talk About Dumplings by John Lorinc. I stumbled upon this book, and I’m so glad that I did. It’s a collection of personal essays by different writers with one overarching theme in common: dumplings – or potstickers, or ravioli, or matzo, or pierogy… And the list goes on. Whatever you call them and whatever the specifics, they truly are a universally recurring comfort food across cultures. For the bargain price of $1 each (or a dozen for $11!), the savoury potato-and-veg filled samosas from one of our local halal grocery stores are a go-to lunch staple for me to the extent that I’ve been known to refer to myself as a “samosatarian.” Now that I realize how closely related these pockets of delight are to my other long-time favourite har gow (steamed shrimp dumplings), I now know the correct term for my food religion is “dumplingism.” I’m a true believer. 

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gotlieb. I was really captivated by this book. The author is a therapist based in Los Angelos, and this is a fictionalized memoir of her work as a clinician and her own experience as a patient in therapy. I cried more than once – not just welled up, but full-on cried – but also smiled a lot. I felt emotionally involved in everyone’s outcomes, let’s just say. (I mean, maybe I should talk to someone?)

My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout. I don’t really know how to describe this lovely, unusual, brief novel. It’s about the relationship between a woman and her mother, the woman and her husband and children, and the woman and herself. You should read it.

Payback’s a Witch by Lana Harper. Take a chick lit romance (except both people in the prospective couple are women), add in a life-long best friend and a douchey ex-boyfriend, and blend with the Triwizard Tournament from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and you get this novel. I thoroughly enjoyed it and will look for sequels as this is the first of a series.

Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer. Wild. Just freakin’ wild. Subtitled “A Story of Violent Faith,” this deep dive into the Mormon faith and the murder of a woman and her baby by LDS fundamentalists is absolutely horrifying and riveting. I can’t help but think that when this book was published in 2003, it was at least partially intended as a counterpoint to some of the anti-Islam sentiment flowing at the time: like, “hey, if we’re going to worry about fundamentalist whackjobs, let’s look at the culture right here in the heart of the USA!” I mean, holy shit. (Ha, is that a truly terrible pun? Imma let it sit there.)

City of Likes by Jenny Mollen. Whew, I needed a palette cleanser after the last book, so I went for something rather frothier. This did the trick nicely. Quick and light.

The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian. A flight attendant wakes up in a lavish Dubai hotel room after yet another night of heavy drinking. Except this time, there’s a dead man in bed beside her and blood everywhere – and she hadn’t simply passed out, she’d blacked out. Meaning she has very little memory of what had happened the night before and a plausible fear that she’d killed him. There is also a Netflix series based on the novel, and I watched and enjoyed season 1 when it came out a couple of years ago. There are some differences in plot points, but enough distance in time for me that I couldn’t tell you exactly how they differ.

Hook, Line, and Sinker by Tessa Bailey. The blurb calls this novel a rom-com, but the “com” part is a bit scarce on the ground. Rather, it is a fine-but-not-great, fairly standard romance. Would likely be a good beach read, but was a little eye-rolly for a work week in December.

The Gown by Jennifer Robson. Its subtitle is “A Novel of the Royal Wedding,” no doubt suggested by an editor with an eye to grabbing on to the publicity coattails of Harry’s wedding the same year this book was published. Don’t let that mislead you. I enjoyed this novel very much on its own merits, which is good because it’s not about the royal wedding much at all – the royal wedding in this case being between then-Princess Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten in 1947. It tells the stories of two alone-in-the-world young women, Ann and Miriam, who meet and become friends when they work in the embroidery studio of dressmaker Norman Hartnell, who is selected to design and make The Gown for Elizabeth and the gowns for the rest of the bridal party. The (I think?) accurate historical details about the studio, the gown, and the wedding are very interesting, but what really makes the novel is the heart, courage, loss, love, and small joys of the main characters.

Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver. Given the author, you already know it’s going to be beautifully written and a cut above most of your other reading options. That said, I wasn’t as absorbed by this novel as I expected. The main character, Codi, feels disconnected from her life and her own choices. Her journey to a state of attachment and sense of self and place provides the backbone of the novel, but that feeling of temporariness and floating along also made it challenging for me to engage or care all that much.

Oct and Nov, 2022: Into the woods ahead of the snow

Spent a week with my momma at her lovely home deep in the middle of nowhere at the end of October. Limited internet access, no phone, no TV. Lots of peaceful quiet, books, knitting, and plenty of trails perfect for gentle hikes. (Or not so gentle hikes, but we’re talking about me, an octogenarian, and a deaf 14 year old dog. So we keep it gentle.) Basically, heaven. Except for that one night when I was outside for Tarzan’s last pee and a snorty-snuffle from just outside the circle from my phone’s flashlight scared the actual tuna salad out of me. Tarzan was unbothered until I practically teleported the two of us up the steps onto the deck then back inside the house where there were definitely no bears. Anyway, the reading was good and the livin’ was easy.

Then back to the whirlwind of life of November, complete with snow and a business trip to Chicago. Where there was also snow. Hurrah? On to the books.

The Summer Tree – The Fionavar Tapestry Book One by Guy Gavriel Kay. A co-worker of mine recommends this trilogy at every opportunity, so when I was selecting books for a week off-the-grid and saw it was available into my downloads it went. Five students at the University of Toronto attend an event on campus, meet an unusual pair of travellers, and then find themselves swept up into a coming war in the parallel (?) world of Fionavar. The world building is just *chef’s kiss* really excellent, and it makes for a fantastic fantasy adventure. 

A Scandal in Scarlet by Vicky Delany. A perfectly fine cozy genre mystery that has less of the usual warmth and coziness. 

Farewell Blues by Maggie Robinson. Kinda forgettable to be honest. Writing this blurb less than two months after reading, and I don’t remember it all that well despite having reread the online summary. So there ya go.   

The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix. A ridiculous and entirely creepy-fun mash-up of like a Reese’s Book Club pick + a trashy 1980’s grocery store tabloid + true crime + Harlequin Romance bodice ripper. I give it an A. 

Grave Secret by Charlaine Harris. Another highly readable novel with likably creepy characters, a whiff of the supernatural, and a good helping of humour from modern Southern Gothic queen, Charlaine Harris. She of True Blood, Sookie Stackhouse, etc. If you dig her other novels, and I do, you’ll enjoy this one too. 

The Wandering Fire – The Fionavar Tapestry Book Two by Guy Gavriel Kay. I probably should have waited a little longer before reading the second book in the series. I was feeling a little tired of it by the time I finished, and I don’t think that’s fair. But anyway, it didn’t turn me off the series. I will read the third… eventually. 

The Appeal by Janice Hallett. I paused at moments while reading this novel to just appreciate how much I was enjoying it. It’s a modern epistolary novel, with the story meted out in chunks through emails between two young lawyers who have been given a bunch of evidence to digest and analyze with fresh eyes, but little additional context. So good. 

Persuasion by Jane Austen. In this classic, the protagonist is an actual full-on common-sensical adult (a practically antique thirtyish!), past her best years and best looks – as everyone thinks, including herself – until she finds herself with another chance at true love. A classic for good reason.

Poppy Done to Death by Charlaine Harris. I always forget about the Aurora Teagarden mysteries when I think about Charlaine Harris (see directly above!) because they don’t fit my conception of her as an author. These are straight-ahead cozy genre novels with perhaps just a smidge more spice than conventional. I enjoy them too.    

It Begins in Betrayal by Iona Whishaw. Another in a series I’m enjoying a fair bit, this installment takes main character Lane away from central British Columbia and back to her home country of England. She’s following Darling, her police inspector boyfriend, who has been summoned to London to face charges regarding something that happened in WW2, a few years previous. It’s all official secrets and former spies and skullduggery, and I’m here for it.    

Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty. Really suspenseful, really enjoyable. Like Ms Moriarty’s other novels I’ve read (Big Little Lies, Nine Perfect Strangers), I’m sure it will translate beautifully to the small screen and I look forward to watching it. Is Nicole Kidman gonna play the eldest sibling or the mom though? She’s just about exactly in between their ages. Note: I have no idea if this is really in the works and Google has no info, but I can’t believe it’s not. 

The Verifiers by Jane Pek. With a unique premise – the main character works in an agency that gets hired to verify that people’s dating profiles are true – this novel hooked me from the outset. It turns into a mystery (Was the sudden death of one of their clients a murder? If so, whodunnit?  And why is the protagonist being blocked from investigating?) which, as you know, is very much my cup of tea. 

Something to Hide by Elizabeth George. I mean, Elizabeth George novels are always going to be good. I don’t really feel like this one is up with her very best though. It felt very effortful as I read. Maybe because the community that is being investigated (Nigerian immigrants and first-gen Brits living in London) and the issue being investigated (female genital mutilation) is so very removed from the world of Lynley and Simon and Helen. Yet, they all become involved “coincidentally.” YMMV, let me know what you think!

Memphis by Tara M. Stringfellow. Hard to read from an emotional point of view for me, but the characters, setting, and intergenerational storytelling kept me to the end. It is a debut novel released this year, so I’ll definitely be watching for what’s next.    

My Summer Darlings by May Cobb. This novel packs in a lot of details that could be ingredients in a scorcher of a read, but never really comes together. It’s like the author kept a bedside table list of ideas for creepy psychological thrillers, then challenged herself to pack them all into a single book – whether or not they made sense, moved the plot ahead or what. Or perhaps, and I am actually leaning to this hypothesis, it was written by an AI platform that had ingested every single buzzy popular movie or book in the last decade and was instructed to fill the novel-to-movie pipeline with the next big thing.

September 2022: Bangers, all of them

Wow, September has been an absolutely banner month for reading. Honestly, nothing less than stellar in the bunch. Or wait – have I been in an exceptionally good mood all month? That can’t be it. It’s gotta be luck of the draw with these books!

The Mechanical by Ian Tregillis. This was a reread for me, and SO GOOD again. If you haven’t read it before, you probably should. I don’t even know what genre it is, it’s that unique. BRB. Okay, so Google suggests Science, Alternate History, Fantasy Fiction. Steampunk, Thriller, Historical Fantasy… So, all the things? Amazing, really.

Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P. Manansala. And this, on the other hand, is a delightful cozy mystery firmly rooted in genre conventions but with lots of flavour and originality too. I will read this author again, for sure.

All Adults Here by Emma Straub. Really charming and enjoyable to read. It’s about the Strick family, comprising the widowed matriarch, Astrid, her three children, their spouses and children, and a few of their friends and acquaintances in Clapham, a classic Americana kind of town a couple of hours from New York. The characters are a mix of everyday jerks, absolute gems (the teens!) and mostly people who are somewhere in between, trying to do their best. (As an aside, I just saw a comment on GoodReads about the graphic sexual content in this book. That… did not cross my mind about this book. Like, at all.)

The Night Watchman by Lousie Erhdrich. Based on the life of the author’s grandfather, the night watchman of title, this novel grabbed me by the heart early on and did not let go. The story is mainly told through his perspective and that of his niece, Pixie. Thomas works literally night and day to keep his family and the tribe safe – during the night at the jewel bearing plant and in the day on the Tribal Council, fighting the government proposal to “emancipate” the Turtle Mountain Chippewa from federal responsibility. At the same time, 19-year-old Pixie is balancing her job at the plant, home responsibilities, and trying to find her sister who has disappeared into the big city. This novel is truly gorgeous – at once a story about the weight and trauma and heritage of the past and about intimate personal journeys.

Emma by Jane Austen. Every once in a while, I get a hankering for some Austen. She never lets me down with her imperfect heroines, scoundrels and Regency society mores.

Love at First Spite by Anna E. Collins. As part of moving on from her cheating ex-fiancé, the protagonist of this entertaining rom-com decides to buy the plot of land beside his dream home – which was supposed to be their dream home. And on this narrow plot of land, she plans to build a tall, view-blocking “spite house” to rent out just to spite him. There are plenty of twists and turns and a conveniently hunky Mr Darcy-type architect along the way.

Finlay Donovan Is Killing It by Elle Cosimano. A struggling, recently divorced mom-of-two novelist – accent on struggling – accidentally becomes a killer-for-hire, sort of. It’s delightful.

LIfe’s Too Short by Abby Jimenez. A highly enjoyable, occasionally eye-welling story about a young social media influencer/travel vlogger whose family history means a 50% chance of developing ALS, who lives her life to the fullest for that very reason. It’s another rom-com and, in this case, the love interest is her extremely handsome and no-fun-having lawyer neighbour. Sparks – eventually! – fly.

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston. I thought The Mechanical was hard to pin a genre on, but along comes Casey McQuiston and says “hold my beer, Tregillis.” If you’re looking for a book that combines time travel, 70s punk, latter twentieth century queer history, Brooklyn neighbourhoods, lesbian romance, pancakes, drag queens, psychic phenomena, and a missing person mystery, have I got the novel for you. Sincerely. I enjoyed it so much.