Is it that time already? I suppose that’s what happens when the month starts on a Saturday.
Let’s get right into the book talk!
Claudia: I just finished A Rogue of One’s Own by Evie Dunmore ( A | BN | K | AB ) and I really liked it! I had been saving this one for so, so long (I got an ARC long ago) and for once I wasn’t disappointed. There were some issues that felt unresolved, but for the most part it was a very good one.
Shana: I’m in a poly relationship with 7, no…8 books right now. The one I’m enjoying the most is Artificial Condition, the second Murderbot book. ( A | BN | K | G | AB ) It’s so good. I just finished Samantha Irby’s new collection, Wow, No Thank You ( A | BN | K | AB ) and her essay on the awkwardness of trying to make new grown-up friends really spoke to me. It’s not my favorite of her books, but it made me laugh.
Sarah: Shana, which is your fave?
Shana: I loved We Are Never Meeting in Real Life. I remember laughing until I cried reading it. One of the essays is a mock application to the Bachelorette, and it’s gold. She also has some great pieces on living with a chronic illness. Should you want to relive the hilarity and miserableness of dating, her first book, Meaty, covers that with painfully accurate precision.
Amanda: I’ve been in an RPG playing mood, so I’m hoping The Librarian and the Orc ( A ) scratches that itch in my reading. I would also definitely play a Dragon Age-eque video game with an open world and an archivist trying to romance their orc party member.
Elyse: I am in the middle of The Golden Cage by Camilla Lackberg ( A | BN | K | AB ) but it’s not holding my attention
Carrie: I just started How the Multiverse Got Its Revenge by K. Eason. And still reading War and Peace at a chapter or three a day! Pierre just joined the Freemasons! My God, the excitement!
Maya: I’m also in that Murderbot frame of mind! I read Network Effect this weekend and loved it so much I turned right around and read through all the novellas again. And now I’m back to reading Network Effect a second time.
Sarah: Yesssssss! (I did that too. Twice.)
Tara: I am also bouncing between a bunch of books right now. I’ve just started Aurora’s Angel by Emily Noon, ( A ) which is an f/f paranormal romance between a shifter and an angel. It’s too soon to tell, but it’s holding my attention pretty well.
The other, which I’m totally in love with, is Lindy West’s forthcoming film book Shit, Actually. ( A | BN | K | AB ) I’ve started reading half an essay or an essay a night and it has made me laugh really hard at least 10 times and I’m only three chapters in.
Catherine: I’m having difficulty reading anything at the moment, because things are rather depressing in Melbourne right now, but I am halfway through A Wizard’s Guide To Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher. ( A | BN | K | AB ) It’s funny and foodie but also a little grim in tone (I think. That could just be me.), with a fourteen year old apprentice baker heroine who is also a minor magician who can animate bread and sourdough in a town that is becoming increasingly hostile to magicians. It’s clearly headed for a happy and satisfying ending, but I think I’m the wrong reader at the wrong time for this book.
Aarya: I’ve been listening to the audio of Jeannie Lin’s The Dragon and the Pearl for weeks now and with no end in sight. It’s not that it’s bad (I love Lin!), but then Taylor Swift’s folklore came out and that took over my entire listening time (“the last great american dynasty” is the best song and I will not be accepting alternate opinions). I really need to get back to the Lin — I’m using it for a Ripped Bodice summer bingo square and that ends in a few weeks!
I also just started Rebecca Roanhorse’s Black Sun (out October 13) last night. It is glorious and I can’t say enough good things about it (and I’m only on chapter five!). I want to pause and savor it so that it won’t end, so maybe I’ll take a few weeks with it.
Shana: I’m so jealous, I can’t wait to read Black Sun!
Ellen: I just finally read Rafe: A Buff Male Nanny and while any kind of nanny situation is like the opposite of my catnip, it was so funny and sweet that I loved it! I’m also still reading a lot of comics because sometimes that is all my poor tired brain can handle and I just started the classic manga series Nana by Ai Yazawa. So far I have met only 1 of the 2 nanas but it is very fun.
Amanda: The Nanas ARE TOO POWERFUL. I have a softness in my heart for that manga.
Sarah: I am about to start The Lost Jewels, ( A | BN | K ) which came out last week.
It’s based on the true story of a hoard of incredible jewelry from the Tudor era – I’m very curious. Lost treasures through time are a catnip strain I like.
Sneezy: Ai Yazawa? Did they also write Paradise Kiss?
I’ve been really agitated and anxious, so I’ve been having trouble focusing on one book. However the recent update of the webtoon Muted has me wailing.
(And my phone thought I misspelt ‘webtoon’ because I was screaming in all caps. Calling me out like that, how dare.)
Ellen: Yes, the very same Ai Yazawa!
What have you been reading? Let us know!
I didn’t post last time because I was in the middle of my Gideon the Ninth wallow. That is one heck of a book as many of you have said or implied. I don’t know that the characters were all that sympathetic though I did like Gideon. But the writing and the plot and the world building were totally wow. I read it in a hurry the first time, to get through the story and find out what happens. Then I went back and re-read very slowly, over more than a week. Just wallowing.It is so good that I am afraid to read the second in case it is not as good. This is, actually, a problem I deal with. It took five teen girls to convince me to read City of Ashes.
Anyhow, since then, I have read several other very good books so it has been a good time.
I read Headliners by Lucy Parker. It was sweet and cute and funny. I did enjoy and will probably re-read.
I also read Girls on the Line by Aimie Runyan. It is a novel but based on history. It’s about the telephone operators, young women who joined the army in 1917 and went to France to run the phone lines. There is a romance though I am not sure it is really the focus of the story. The heroine is from a well to do Philadelphia family hoping to move up socially. She is engaged to a young man who is fighting in France. While there, she meets a less socially acceptable but more appealing medic and has to think about her life, what she wants and what she owes her family. While dealing with a war. The book is well researched and about a topic I have not seen addressed before. I would recommend it.
I read Cherish Hard by Nahlini Singh. It is about the brother to a character in another series. I enjoyed it though not as much as some of the others in the series. Would still recomment.
I just finished 69 Million Things I Hate About You by Kira Archer. An executive assistant to a difficult billionaire (is there another kind?) wins the lotto and, instead of quitting, decides to have fun getting him to fire her. I especially enjoyed the day he makes her babysit his mother. Fluff but fun.
Also, given that we are now dealing with Covid positive women delivering at work, a welcome break. Happily, moms and babies have all had positive long-term outcomes so far.
I read and enjoyed The Golden Cage but found it a bit unbelievable. There is a follow up apparently. I do wish Camilla Lackberg would write more Fjalljbacker (?) books with Erica and Patrick
@Vicki, you are an angel among us.
@DonnaMarie – I think that combination of vintage and progressive is exactly my problem with Shupe’s The Harlot Countess. As I remember the book, the hero and heroine had been building a romantic relationship based on mutual admiration, respect, and hormones when the heroine was sexually assaulted by an engaged man in the gardens at some social event. And the “hero” immediately joined his peers in literally tuning his back on the heroine. I’m vintage. I can roll with this. But I need a hero who has some reason for so swiftly turning on his romantic interest. Plus a major grovel and some character growth for him. Instead, as you note, the heroine rescues herself, taunts the “hero” who failed her, and moves on with her life…except she ends up with this guy who let her down for no reason. If the hero had been the villain and the heroine had found a new love interest, the book would make more sense to me.
Finished up my Dianna Wynne Jones reread with the previously-unknown-to-me third book in the Howl series, House of Many Ways. It’s full of wonderful magical confusion, brings back several characters from Castle In the Air, and Howl is at his most outrageous, stealing every scene he’s in. However I was disappointed that Sophie did not have much hand in solving the mysteries and mostly just ran around after Howl and Morgan; and also that the main character really did not have a character arc, she was the same unlikeable person at the end that she was at the beginning and I felt her HEA was entirely undeserved.
Taking a break now with a reread of Georgette Heyer’s Venetia, which so far is as amusing as I remember. But VERY excited that the original Japanese novel of Kiki’s Delivery Service has finally been translated into English and just made its debut this week. Heading over to the BAM website to pick it up now.
I am getting back to reading words on pages instead of just listening to audiobooks, and I’m so happy about that! I really enjoyed LOVE LETTERING by Kate Claybourn (thank you SBTB for the many recommendations that meant I picked it up). Now I’ve ordered MERCENARY LIBRARIANS #1 and I pick it up tomorrow from B&N store, so that’s next! I also have BEGINNER’S LUCK by Kate Clayborn coming — it’s the first of a series about three friends who win the lottery together.
@EC Spurlock I love the Diana Wynn Jones books! I have many in print and think it may be time for a reread. I loved The Hob’s Bargain and Deep Secret. The Tough Guide to Fantasyland is hysterical and so clever. It goes hand-in-hand with Dark Lord of Derkholm.
I just finished re-listening to Venitia. It remains perhaps my favorite retelling of the Beauty and the Beast myth, even if Heyer didn’t mean it to be. Heyer books are stress-free comfort listens for me,and I’ve been going back through them over the past few months. Beauvallet while one of her histories, is very romantic, and one of my all time favorites. It’s next in line for a re-listen.
I purchased my first eBook reader last week and now I’m living my best bookish life.
I’m currently listening to the audiobook of Mary Balogh’s “Only Enchanting” on my way to and from work and I love it so much that I’m planning to get the other Survivor’s Club books as well once I’m finished. Since Mary Balogh was on the podcast a while ago I also got very interested in “Truly” and bought the eBook version yesterday (no more looking for old, expensive romance paperbacks, hooray!).
Since I’m in dire need of comfort reads atm I’ve started to re-read my favourite fantasy book series (“The Belgariad” by David Eddings) and I also found PDF versions of all of Naoko Takeuchi’s (author of “Sailor Moon”) work that my eBook reader can display.
Lastly I’ve also started reading “Mexican Gothic” by Silvia Moreno-Garcia because everyone is hyping it up and I need to know why.
I’m not usually someone who reads more than two books at a time (one physical book and one audiobook) but it’s kind of working for me right now so I’m just rolling with it.
@Carrie G, I think you’re thinking of Patricia Briggs not Diana Wynne Jones with the Hob’s Bargain (one of her pre-Mercy Thompson run of standalone/duology books; while I applaud her finding that Urban fantasy groove I miss the more variable classic fantasy books she gave us earlier).
@lucida you are absolutely right! Thank you. I have a lamentable memory and The Hob’s Bargain is on the same shelf with my Diana Wynn Jones books. 🙂 And I agree, while I’ve enjoyed the Mercy Thompson books, Briggs early works are wonderful,too. The Hob’s Bargain is one of my favorites. In fact, if I’ve forgotten who wrote it, it’s obviously time for a reread.
I just finished Diana Biller’s Widow of Rose House- wonderful book. Highly recommend to historical romance fans. Aarya wrote a review last year when the book came out- great review thank you Aarya
@MirandaB
I absolutely love Jodi Taylor’s books!
I had the same slightly squicked reaction to that scene. Arguably it’s nice to know that the series’ Big Bad is dead For Realz this time, but the body-horror was out of my comfort zone.
The Death of Alien!Jack earlier in the books manages to be just gruesome enough to work as effective horror without going too far. I suspect the way that scene was prolonged as well as body-horror made it uncomfortable for me (but I’m always in it for the comfort rather than the hurt).
Have you tried her Time Police books (one out now, next due in October)? Set in the future with Max’s son and a couple of other misfits joining the Time Police. No heavy gore scenes, plenty of humour, and I think the book’s slightly fresher for trying out related but different characters. Go Team Weird!