Mini-Reviews: Ivy, Psalm, Lady

May 2, 2023April 30, 2023Leave a comment

Lauren Willig, Ivy and Intrigue

This story (or short novella?) in the Pink Carnation series revisits Richard and Amy from the first book. They’ve now been married several months and are enjoying life together in the English countryside, but they both sometimes miss their active spying days in France. Espionage finds them again, however, just as Richard’s first love re-enters his life. Can Richard and Amy learn to recognize and communicate their true desires, all while thwarting yet more Bonapartist shenanigans? This is a cute but unnecessary interlude in the series…it’s nice to see a bit more of Richard and Amy (as well as Miles and Henrietta), but the plot is negligible and there’s no character development to speak of. It’s a decent, quick little read, but definitely not necessary even for fans of the series.

Becky Chambers, A Psalm for the Wild-Built

Sibling Dex, a monk who serves the god of small comforts, suddenly decides to change their life, abandoning the city to travel among rural villages as an itinerant tea monk. But eventually even this makes them restless, and they travel into the wilderness, where they meet a robot named Mosscap. This shocks Dex, since robots retreated to uninhabited portions of the planet after they gained sentience, and they haven’t interacted with humans since. This charming short novel has very low stakes, but it’s quite poignant and philosophical if you’re into that kind of thing. I liked the relationship between Dex and Mosscap, especially their conversation about humans’ desire for purpose. If the premise intrigues you, I think you’ll like this one.

Cecilia Grant, A Lady Awakened

Martha Russell is a recent widow, and she’ll be forced to leave her late husband’s estate when his brother, the heir, takes possession. But the heir is a terrible person who raped two maids, so Martha is determined to prevent him from inheriting somehow. The only option is for her to give birth to an heir herself, which is impossible . . . but if she can convince her neighbor, Theo Mirkwood, to have sex with her until she conceives, she can pass off the baby as a legitimate heir. She has no intention of enjoying their illicit relationship, but the lighthearted, charming Theo is determined to change her mind.

Admittedly, this plot is completely nonsensical, but I didn’t mind because the book is so good! Martha is dismissive, detached, and cold, which makes her a challenging but very interesting heroine. It’s wonderful to watch her grow throughout the book as Theo helps her become less guarded. Meanwhile, Theo also improves as Martha teaches him how to manage his estate. There are a lot of sex scenes in the book, which I’m normally not a fan of, but in this case they wonderfully reveal the progress of the romance. The early scenes are awkward and deeply unsexy, which is so counterintuitive for a genre that tends to idealize sexual relationships. I highly recommend this one to fans of historical romance, especially if you’re interested in a twist on the usual formula.

Mini-Reviews: Falling, Shoe, Kiss

January 11, 2022January 21, 20221 Comment

Lois McMaster Bujold, Falling Free

Space engineer Leo Graf doesn’t want to be a hero; he just wants to keep his head down and do his job. But his latest assignment involves genetically engineered humans called quaddies — they have a second pair of arms instead of legs, which makes them excellent workers in a zero-gravity environment. When Leo learns how the quaddies are exploited and what their eventual fate will be, he decides to take action. I enjoyed this competently written sci-fi adventure, but I wasn’t blown away. Parts of it feel dated now (understandably, since it was published in the ’80s), and the story and characters aren’t particularly unique. Still, the book does raise some interesting moral questions, and I’m excited to continue with the series!

Julie Murphy, If the Shoe Fits

Aspiring fashion designer Cindy has just graduated from design school, but now she’s at a loose end and feeling creatively blocked. Due to her stepmother’s connections, she is offered a place on Before Midnight, a Bachelor-esque reality show. Cindy is skeptical, but she thinks it could be an opportunity for her to publicize her name and brand, as well as break some ground by being a plus-size woman on a show full of thin beauties. But when she unexpectedly falls for the guy on the show, she has to figure out how much of their relationship is actually real. This novel, loosely based on Disney’s Cinderella, is a cute, quick read, but nothing about it really stood out to me. The love interest doesn’t have much personality, so I wasn’t invested in the romance. It’s a fine read if you like the premise, but definitely not a keeper for me.

Mary Balogh, Only a Kiss

Percy Hayes is the Earl of Hardford, but despite acceding to the title two years ago, he’s never been to the Hardford estate; located in the “wilds of Cornwall,” it’s a world away from his carefree, pleasure-filled life in London. Indeed, when he finally visits the estate on a whim, he runs into a bewildering set of problems and responsibilities. He also meets the beautiful but cold Imogen, Lady Barclay, and finds himself unwillingly attracted to her. But she carries deep emotional wounds from the Napoleonic Wars, in which her husband was tortured and killed, and she’s seemingly impervious to Percy’s charm. Can he convince her to open her heart? This sixth book in the Survivors’ Club series is one of my favorites. I loved seeing Percy’s normal charm and poise desert him in his conversations with Imogen, and his growth as he embraces his responsibilities is very satisfying. Definitely one of the strongest books in the series, in my opinion!

Mini-Reviews: Fly, Wrong, Arrangement

September 24, 2021September 23, 20211 Comment

Frances Hardinge, Fly by Night

In this quirky, somewhat dark fantasy novel, 12-year-old Mosca Mye runs away from her village and teams up with wordsmith/con man Eponymous Clent. The two of them get caught in a vast web of political intrigue, with factions including a mad duke, a slew of would-be monarchs, some sinister and powerful guilds, and the fanatical Birdcatchers. This book seemed like it would be right up my alley — the summary had me at “Eponymous Clent” — but I actually found it a somewhat difficult read. It was hard to keep track of the various factions, who was in league with whom, the good guys vs. the bad guys…and of course, all that kept changing as the story went on! Everything does eventually come together, so the book ends on a high note, but overall I didn’t like it as much as I was expecting to.

Elan Mastai, All Our Wrong Todays

It’s 2016, and in Tom Barren’s world, it’s the glorious future imagined by 1950s science fiction: there are jetpacks and hover cars, not to mention completely realistic sex robots. But Tom is miserable — his mother recently died, his genius father hates him, and he’s just permanently lost the woman he loves. As the book’s cover copy says, “What do you do when you’re heartbroken and have a time machine? Something stupid.” This book is very clever, and I simultaneously enjoyed its cleverness and found it annoying. The novel tries to be a fun futuristic romp while also examining serious philosophical questions such as: If you travel back in time and alter reality so that billions of people who would have been born now aren’t, how morally guilty are you? I found the book most interesting when it grapples with these big questions, but it never really resolves them. Instead, the denouement is just a lot of dizzying time-travel hijinks that I couldn’t follow and didn’t really care about. So, full points to this one for a unique reading experience, but it didn’t entirely work for me.

Mary Balogh, The Arrangement

Vincent Hunt, Viscount Darleigh, is blind as a result of wounds sustained in the Napoleonic Wars. His large, loving family is determined to take care of him, but he feels smothered by their constant concern. When they start pressuring him to marry, it’s the last straw: Vincent runs away to get some distance and time to think. During this time, he meets Sophia Fry, a poor young woman whose family neglects her and cruelly refers to her as “the Mouse.” To rescue her from an untenable situation, Vincent offers marriage but proposes that they can separate after a year if they want to. Of course, we all know that’s not going to happen! I liked this book; both Vincent and Sophia are endearing characters, and I enjoyed their shared sense of humor. There aren’t really any external obstacles to their relationship, but they each have some realistic baggage that makes them guarded with each other at first. Overall, this one was an improvement on The Proposal, and I look forward to continuing with the Survivors’ Club series.

Mini-Reviews: Stitches, Murders, Light

January 28, 2021April 28, 20211 Comment

Olivia Atwater, Ten Thousand Stitches

Euphemia “Effie” Reeves is sick of feeling invisible and insignificant. As a maid in a noble house, she is either ignored or mistreated by the family. When she falls for the youngest son of the house, she knows a relationship between them would be impossible, but she can’t help wishing for it anyway. Luckily, she has an ally in the faerie Lord Blackthorn, who is determined to pursue virtue by being kind to the powerless. Unluckily, despite his good intentions, his interference often does more harm than good. When Effie’s dream finally seems to be within reach, she discovers that her desires have changed. Like Atwater’s previous book, Half a Soul, this is a charming fantasy romance with some social satire baked in. I especially loved Lord Blackthorn’s enthusiastic efforts to help, despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that they usually led to disaster. Recommended for fans of the genre!

Elizabeth Daly, Murders in Volume 2

Rare manuscript expert Henry Gamadge once again plays detective when Miss Vauregard, a member of one of New York’s most prestigious old families, asks him to discover the true identity of a mysterious young woman who has ingratiated herself with the family patriarch (and holder of the purse strings). As Gamadge investigates, he becomes convinced that the woman is working with someone in the family; things get even worse when the patriarch is murdered and Gamadge himself is the most likely suspect! I enjoyed this novel, which is well plotted and contains such intriguing elements as a hundred-year-old unsolved mystery, a cult, and possible travel to and from the fourth dimension. This is also the book in which Henry Gamadge falls in love, and I would have liked a bit more development of the romance. But overall, I liked this book and will definitely continue with the series.

Connie Willis and Cynthia Felice, Light Raid

Sometime in the future, North America is engaged in a civil war, and 17-year-old Ariadne has been evacuated to neutral territory. But when her parents’ letters become less frequent and stop telling her anything specific, Ari knows that something must be wrong. She flees her foster home to return to HydraCorp, the large and powerful company where her parents live and work, only to discover that her father is falling apart and her mother is in jail for treason. Outraged, Ari intends to prove her mother’s innocence, but she is thwarted by the mysterious Joss Liddell, who is as irritating as he is attractive. As Ari investigates the situation at HydraCorp, she discovers a secret so big that it could change the course of the war. I never felt like I fully understood the world of this novel — the book doesn’t spend any time on exposition — and I’m still not sure what the war is actually about. But I did enjoy this book; it’s action-packed and full of plot twists, and there’s also a fun YA romance. I liked Ari’s narrative voice; she reads as immature sometimes, but that makes sense since she’s a teenager. Overall, while I don’t think this book is as good as Connie Willis’s solo stuff, it’s still an entertaining read.

Mini-Reviews: Puzzle, Viscount, Sparrow

October 28, 2020October 26, 20201 Comment

Patrick Quentin, A Puzzle for Fools

Broadway producer Peter Duluth has been drinking his life away ever since the tragic death of his wife two years ago. Now he’s hit rock bottom and checked himself into a sanatorium to dry out. When he hears a creepy voice talking about murder late one night, he initially thinks he’s imagined it — until a couple of the other patients mention a similar experience. Then a member of the staff is murdered, and while the police are officially investigating, Peter decides to do a little sleuthing of his own. This is my first book by Patrick Quentin, and I’d definitely consider reading more. It’s a solid Golden Age mystery with a perfect sinister setting. The only thing I didn’t particularly like was the romance, which was quite superficial. Still, I’ll keep my eye out for more Peter Duluth mysteries.

Mimi Matthews, The Viscount and the Vicar’s Daughter

Like A Rogue of One’s Own, this novella is a Victorian romance featuring the “reformed rake” trope, and the rake is even named Tristan! This book’s Tristan shows up at an annual country house party that is known for being exceptionally racy, where he unexpectedly befriends Valentine March, a vicar’s daughter who is attending the house party as a lady’s companion. When Tristan and Valentine are caught in a passionate embrace in the conservatory, Tristan does the honorable thing and offers marriage. But Valentine, despite her attraction to Tristan, isn’t sure she wants to marry a man with his unsavory reputation. I liked this novella more than A Rogue of One’s Own, but the many similarities made me feel like I was reading the same book again! I did enjoy this one more, but it’s definitely not my favorite by Mimi Matthews. Still, I look forward to trying some more of her full-length novels.

Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow

The premise of this novel caught my fancy immediately: humans have discovered intelligent life on another planet, and the Jesuits (an order of Catholic priests) are spearheading the mission to make contact with these life forms and learn about their culture. The novel starts in 2060, and Fr. Emilio Sandoz is the sole survivor of that mission; he has returned to Earth badly damaged, both physically and spiritually. The book then jumps back and forth in time, giving the backstory on Emilio and his companions and describing what happened on the alien planet and its aftermath. The novel is epic in scope, and I’m frankly still digesting it. Overall, I think it’s wonderfully done, although it takes a while to get going — we don’t actually meet the aliens until about 2/3 of the way through the book. So it’s not quite an action-packed sci fi story; but as an examination of faith, of human goodness and human frailty, and of the complexity of relationships, this novel has a lot to say and gave me a lot to think about.

Mini-Reviews: Chaos, Never, Slightly

July 9, 2020July 9, 20201 Comment

Jessie Mihalik, Chaos Reigning

The final book in the Consortium Rebellion trilogy focuses on Cat, the youngest daughter of House von Hasenberg. Her persona is that of a ditzy space princess, but in fact she uses her social capital to gain valuable information for her House. When she’s invited to a house party that is also a prime intelligence-gathering opportunity, her sister Bianca forces her to take two bodyguards — one of whom, Alex, is far too attractive for Cat’s peace of mind. The house party brings unexpected dangers and eventually culminates in news of an open rebellion against the Consortium. I thought this was a fine conclusion to the series, although I enjoyed the first half of the book more than the second. The house party intrigue was a lot more interesting to me than the straightforward space-battle stuff at the end. Overall, I’d recommend this series to people who enjoy action-filled sci-fi romance.

Mhairi McFarlane, If I Never Met You

For women’s fiction with depth, you can’t beat Mhairi McFarlane! I’ve loved several of her books, but this one may be my new favorite. Laurie is a successful lawyer in a prestigious firm, and she’s been in a loving relationship with her boyfriend Dan for more than a decade. So when Dan dumps her out of the blue, she’s completely blindsided; and to make matters worse, he works at the same firm, which means there will be gossip. Meanwhile, Jamie Carter is the office playboy, but he desperately wants to be taken seriously so that he can make partner. He proposes a fake relationship to Laurie: his “commitment” will show the bosses that he’s a responsible adult, while Laurie will avoid the pity of her coworkers and possibly even make Dan realize his mistake. I love a fake relationship, and moreover I just really loved these characters. They’re very different, but they’re able to find common ground as they build a friendship through mutual respect. Highly recommended if you enjoy this genre!

Mary Balogh, Slightly Married

I picked up Balogh’s Slightly Dangerous some time ago because I’d seen many people praise it as their favorite Balogh novel and compare it to Pride and Prejudice. So I obviously had to add it to my TBR pile immediately! But then I was advised to read the entire six-book Bedwyn series — of which Slightly Dangerous is the last book, naturally — so that I could get a complete picture of the hero and his relationship with his family. So I caved and started with the first book, Slightly Married, which is a marriage-of-convenience story. The hero, Aidan Bedwyn, is a military officer who promises a dying soldier that he’ll take care of his sister no matter what. As it happens, the sister, Eve, is about to be forced out of her home unless she marries quickly, so Aidan proposes. I love a good uptight, duty-bound hero, and Aidan is a great example. The more open-hearted and empathetic Eve is a great match for him. I liked this book a lot and will continue to read the series in order.

Review: Aurora Blazing

October 31, 2019October 28, 20191 Comment

Jessie Mihalik, Aurora Blazing

Bianca von Hasenberg, a daughter of one of the three High Houses in the Consortium (an interplanetary governing body), adopts the public persona of an empty-headed space princess. But she’s actually an extremely gifted intelligence-gatherer with a wide network of informants, usually women she has quietly rescued from bad domestic situations. Thanks to the illicit experiments of her late husband, Gregory, Bianca also has the ability to detect and decode nearly any message sent via technology, no matter how complex its encryption. So when Bianca’s brother Ferdinand — the heir to House von Hasenberg — is kidnapped, she feels compelled to use her expertise to save him. But Ian Bishop, House von Hasenberg’s head of security, is determined to protect Bianca by refusing to let her participate in the investigation. Bianca doesn’t take his orders lying down, however, and soon she’s on the run with an angry, and infuriatingly attractive, Ian in hot pursuit. Eventually, they realize that they will accomplish more by working together, but their fragile trust may not survive all the dangerous ordeals that await them.

I enjoyed the first book in this series, Polaris Rising, and was excited for this sequel, which seemed like it would contain more of my favorite romance tropes—forced proximity, enemies to lovers, grumpy hero, and so on. But while those tropes do exist in the book, they fell flat for me, mostly because the romance definitely takes a backseat to the external plot in this book. It’s almost the halfway point before Bianca and Ian end up on the same spaceship, and even then, there isn’t very much development of their relationship. The turn from enemies to lovers seems very abrupt, and Ian’s shift in demeanor was particularly jarring to me. The character development is clumsy; Bianca and Ian each get a scene where one explains a tragic incident in his/her past to the other, but that’s it. It all feels very rote. I wanted more about Ian’s past, especially how he was able to become the head of House von Hasenberg security before age 30, and I think Bianca’s disastrous marriage should have been explored in more depth too. Plot-wise, there’s plenty of action, as well as fun tech discussions if you’re into that sort of thing. But overall, I’m pretty “meh” on this book. I will probably still read the third one when it comes out next year, though!

Mini-Reviews: Station, Artistic, You, Book

July 1, 2017June 29, 20171 Comment

Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven — This novel centers around an apocalyptic event, a virus that wipes out 99.9 percent of the world’s population. There are two major narratives: one involves a famous actor who dies just as the virus begins to spread, and the other is set several years after the virus, focusing on a traveling theater troupe and orchestra whose motto is the Star Trek: Voyager quote “Survival is insufficient.” I was much more interested in the latter story than the former, and I also found the postapocalyptic landscape somewhat implausible (there’s not a single person left alive who can figure out how to keep a power plant running, yet there are multiple cellists?). So my feelings about the book are mixed, but overall I liked more things than I disliked.

Elle Pierson, Artistic License — When I discovered that Elle Pierson was a pseudonym for Lucy Parker, I downloaded this book immediately! The heroine is a painfully shy art student; the hero is a tough-looking security guard who is extremely insecure about his “ugly” looks. Their budding romance is threatened by the baggage they each bring to the relationship. This book really worked for me because I loved the main characters and how they both cherished the most “unlovable” parts of each other. It’s not quite as polished as Act Like It or Pretty Face, but it’s still a very enjoyable contemporary romance.

Mhairi McFarlane, It’s Not Me, It’s You — This is a chick lit novel about Delia, a girl whose life is turned upside-down when she proposes to her longtime boyfriend, only to discover that he’s been cheating on her. She promptly moves out of their shared home and relocates to a new town, where she gets a new job with a shady boss. Ultimately, Delia has to uncover the boss’s shenanigans with the help of several friends, including an abrasive-yet-handsome young journalist—all while her ex-boyfriend desperately tries to win her back. On the surface, the book is about a woman choosing between two men, but really, it’s about the choice between two lives—the familiar vs. the unknown, the safe vs. the brave. I liked this book a lot, and Mhairi McFarlane will definitely be one of my go-to authors for this type of read!

Mechthild Gläser, The Book Jumper (trans. Romy Fursland) — When Amy and her mother move from Germany to their ancestral home in Scotland, Amy discovers that her family has a special legacy: they can “jump” into books and spend time in their favorite fictional worlds. As Amy practices her book jumping skills, she learns that someone is stealing important plot elements from her favorite works of literature (the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, the cyclone from The Wizard of Oz). While solving this mystery, Amy also uncovers secrets from her family’s past and embarks on a romance with unforeseen complications. I really liked the premise of this book, and I was impressed by the ending, which is a little darker and more complex than I’d expected. But overall, this was just an okay read for me. A more interesting take on the book jumping premise is Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next series.

Review: The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

March 30, 2017March 29, 20173 Comments

Becky Chambers, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

In a universe where space travel is common and humans mingle with aliens of various species, Rosemary Harper is about to join the crew of the Wayfarer, a spaceship whose job is essentially to facilitate interplanetary travel by punching wormholes through space. When Rosemary boards the Wayfarer, she meets a wildly diverse crew that nevertheless manages to live in (mostly) harmony. There’s Sissix, the lizardlike alien pilot; Kizzy and Jenks, the chatty engineers; Ashby, the captain; and Lovelace, the ship’s artificial intelligence system. They all embrace Rosemary as one of their own, even when they discover that she’s hiding a big secret from her past. But when the Wayfarer is hired for a particularly dangerous job, peace is threatened both among the crew and within the whole galaxy.

I’d read a lot of great reviews of this book, and I saw some comparisons to Firefly, so I was really hoping to love it. Unfortunately, I guess I’m in the minority on this one, because it honestly did nothing for me. The worldbuilding is excellent; the various alien species are well drawn, and the author obviously had fun exploring the cultural differences between her main characters. But the plot is practically nonexistent until the very end of the novel, when it’s finally revealed why this job is so dangerous and what’s at stake for the main characters. I also didn’t particularly care about any of the characters, and again I think it’s because there are no stakes; I don’t know what these characters want or what obstacles stand in their way. Finally, there’s an interspecies sexual encounter that I found distasteful, but of course other people’s mileage may vary. Overall, the great worldbuilding wasn’t enough to save this novel for me, and I won’t be reading the rest of the trilogy.

Review: Crosstalk

January 4, 20174 Comments

Connie Willis, Crosstalk

In a near-future society, people are looking for ever more efficient ways to communicate and connect with each other. A new experimental procedure, the EED, allows couples to feel each other’s emotions and thus (theoretically) strengthen their relationship. Briddey Flannigan is thrilled when her boyfriend Trent asks her to get an EED with him, but her nosy family doesn’t like the idea, nor does her reclusive colleague C.B. Nevertheless, Briddey goes ahead with the procedure, only to discover that something has gone terribly wrong — she’s now connected to C.B., not Trent. Moreover, she doesn’t just sense his emotions; she seems to be able to read his mind. Now, with C.B.’s help, Briddey must figure out why this connection occurred and learn how to break it, before the negative effects of their telepathic connection cause irreversible damage.

I’m huge Connie Willis fan, so I had high expectations for this book, and I’m happy to say I wasn’t disappointed! This novel has just as much humor and romance as her other light novels, with an added dash of commentary on the negative aspects of incessant communication. I really enjoyed the little asides about past scientific research into telepathy, as well as the speculation that famous historical figures who heard voices (most notably Joan of Arc) might actually have been telepathic. I do think the plot had a few too many twists and turns at the end; the book’s length could have been trimmed somewhat. But I was having such a ball following Briddey and C.B.’s story that I barely noticed at the time! To be fair, the book does have its flaws, which I think the NPR review covers quite well — I can definitely see the reviewer’s point. But I still loved the book, and I would definitely recommend it to Willis fans! Newcomers to her work might want to start with To Say Nothing of the Dog or Doomsday Book (although the latter is much darker) instead.

You Book Me All Night Long

Tag: future