Hey there! Are you ready to get rec’d?
This is where we get to talk about book recommendations, whether we’re receiving them or giving them out. I love to do a bit of handselling at the bookstore and it’s always a point of pride when a customer takes a chance on your suggestion or staff pick.
Have you recommended any good books lately? Picked up anything based on a friend’s suggestion?
A Botanist’s Guide to Parties and Poisons
I feel like even if you think you’ve exhausted your list of historical mysteries to read, there’s always another one popping up!
Saffron Everleigh is in a race against time to free her wrongly accused professor before he goes behind bars forever. Perfect for fans of Deanna Raybourn and Anna Lee Huber, Kate Khavari’s debut historical mystery is a fast-paced, fearless adventure.
London, 1923. Newly minted research assistant Saffron Everleigh attends a dinner party for the University College of London. While she expects to engage in conversations about the university’s large expedition to the Amazon, she doesn’t expect Mrs. Henry, one of the professors’ wives to drop to the floor, poisoned by an unknown toxin.
Dr. Maxwell, Saffron’s mentor, is the main suspect, having had an explosive argument with Dr. Henry a few days prior. As evidence mounts against Dr. Maxwell and the expedition’s departure draws nearer, Saffron realizes if she wants her mentor’s name cleared, she’ll have to do it herself.
Joined by enigmatic Alexander Ashton, a fellow researcher, Saffron uses her knowledge of botany as she explores steamy greenhouses, dark gardens, and deadly poisons. Will she be able to uncover the truth or will her investigation land her on the murderer’s list?
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The Killing Code
This one was actually recommend to me! I loved Marney’s None Shall Sleep, which I recommended here before. I had no clue she had a new one coming out that is a WWII YA thriller.
A historical mystery about a girl who risks everything to track down a vicious serial killer, for fans of The Enigma Game and A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder.
Virginia, 1943: World War II is raging in Europe and on the Pacific front when Kit Sutherland is recruited to help the war effort as a codebreaker at Arlington Hall, a former girls’ college now serving as the site of a secret US Signals Intelligence facility in Virginia. But Kit is soon involved in another kind of fight: Government girls are being brutally murdered in Washington DC, and when Kit stumbles onto a bloody homicide scene, she is drawn into the hunt for the killer.
To find the man responsible for the gruesome murders and bring him to justice, Kit joins forces with other female codebreakers at Arlington Hall—gossip queen Dottie Crockford, sharp-tongued intelligence maven Moya Kershaw, and cleverly resourceful Violet DuLac from the segregated codebreaking unit. But as the girls begin to work together and develop friendships—and romance—that they never expected, two things begin to come clear: the murderer they’re hunting is closing in on them…and Kit is hiding a dangerous secret.
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As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!The Killing Code by Ellie Marney
The Sleepless
A woman came into the bookstore, wanting a dystopian/sci-fi read for her husband. I sold her on this murder mystery with the caveat that it does feature a pandemic that changes the population, if that’s a no-go for them right now.
In a near-future New York City where a minority of the population has lost the need for sleep, a journalist fights to uncover the truth behind his boss’s murder on the eve of a sinister corporate takeover—while his own Sleeplessness spirals out of control.
A mysterious pandemic causes a quarter of the world to permanently lose the ability to sleep—without any apparent health implications. The outbreak creates a new class of people who are both feared and ostracized, most of whom optimize their extra hours to earn more money.
Jamie Vega, a journalist at C+P Media, is one of the Sleepless. When his boss dies in a suicidal overdose, Jamie doesn’t buy this too-convenient explanation—especially given its suspicious timing during a controversial merger—and investigates.
As Jamie delves deeper into Simon’s final days, he tangles with extremist organizations and powerful corporate interests, and must confront past traumas and the unforeseen consequences of being Sleepless. But he soon faces the most dangerous decision of all, as he uncovers a terrifying truth about Sleeplessness that imperils him—and all of humanity.
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This book is available from:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!The Sleepless by Victor Manibo
The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy
This is why it’s good to have people whose opinions you trust! I used Sarah’s review of this one to get my friend, Emma, to pick this one up. I would say my dear friend Emma and Sarah have similar interests in the romances they read and I’m eagerly awaiting Emma’s thoughts.
Hart Ralston is a demigod and a marshal, tasked with patrolling the wasteland of Tanria. The realm the exiled old gods once called home is now a forsaken place where humans with no better options or no better sense come seeking adventure or spoils, but more often end up as drudges: reanimated corpses inhabited by the souls of those who’ve died in Tanria before. Hart tells himself that his job is simple: neutralize the drudges with a quick zap to the appendix and deliver them back to polite society at the nearest undertaker’s, leaving the whys and hows of the drudge problem for men without the complexities of a god in their family tree. But working alone, Hart’s got nothing but time to ponder exactly those questions he’d most like to avoid.
Too much time alone is the opposite of Mercy Birdsall’s problem. Since her father’s decline, she’s been single-handedly keeping Birdsall & Son undertakers afloat in small-town Eternity—despite definitely not being a son, and in defiance of sullen jerks like Hart Ralston, who seems to have a gift for showing up right when her patience is thinnest. The work’s not the problem—Mercy’s good at it, better than any other Birdsall—but keeping all her family’s plates spinning singlehandedly, forever, isn’t how Mercy envisioned her future.
After yet another run-in with the sharp-tongued Mercy, Hart considers she might have a point about his utter loneliness being a bit of a liability. In a moment of sentimentality, he pens a letter addressed simply to “A Friend,” and entrusts it to a nimkilim, an anthropomorphic animal messenger with an uncanny connection to the gods, (and in Hart’s case, a bit of a drinking problem). Much to his surprise, an anonymous letter comes back in return, and a tentative friendship is born.
If only Hart knew he’s been baring his soul to the person who infuriates him most–Mercy. As the two unlikely pen pals grow closer, the truth about Hart’s parentage and the nature of the drudges creeps in. And suddenly their old animosity seems so small in comparison to what they might be able to do: end the drudges forever. But at what cost?
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This book is available from:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy by Megan Bannen
Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots. It was the first book I read during the pandemic that I actually finished in a day, because it was just terrific. My attention span had been terrible for whatever reason and this book got me out of my reading funk.
I picked up The Undertaking of Hart of Mercy due to Sarah’s review and I absolutely adored it. I think it would be a fantastic rec for anyone who normally reads “standard” contemporary or historical romance but wants to branch out a bit. I thought the romance at the heart of the story was lovely, so it would be familiar enough to a romance reader to get them through the fantastical elements. And of course, it’s a great read for anyone who regularly reads PNR, urban fantasy and/or SF and fantasy.
All these stories about people getting discriminated against for beneficial traits are starting to annoy me. Someday I’m going to troll publishers by sending in a manuscript about how society has turned against those with perfect pitch, or the ability to dunk a basketball.
I just read Rose Lerner’s new novella Sailor’s Delight and it was really great. It is a Regency m/m romance centered around Rosh Hashanah and it was simply a joy.
Thanks for the “Botanists Guide” rec… I love historical mysteries and enjoyed the 20’s setting with just enough post war angst combined with the murder whodunnit and (hopefully) a budding nerd romance. Editing was needed at the beginning with the heroine’s name being used too many times (her dad is a botanist and she’s named after a plant WE GET IT) but luckily that tapered off so I’m glad I stuck with it.