I inhaled this audiobook. I recommended it to a friend when I was about 15% in – risky, I know – and then I reinforced that recommendation a few times as I continued listening. I think she wanted me to calm down. Homemaker is as much a mystery as it is about the cost of being in a marriage that functions like a shrinking cage, with the key held by an emotionally immature man. It’s … Continue reading Homemaker by Ruthie Knox and Annie Mare →
When Sarah first told The Bitchery about the new US version of the British reality show The Traitors, I immediately thought it sounded too stressful for my taste. The Traitors has twenty contestants competing in a murder mystery game where a few of them are secretly Traitors, trying to eliminate the rest of the contestants and keep the prize money for themselves. They’re all trapped in a sprawling Scottish estate where they spend their days … Continue reading Stuff You Should be Watching: The Traitors →
I have a confession to make: the actual mystery in mystery novels is usually not very interesting to me. I don’t care who died, or how, or who dun it. Yet I eat up historical mystery novels like M&Ms, because in a mystery novel we often have a detective (official or unofficial) who, in the course of their investigation, gets to talk to people from a variety of classes and backgrounds, which I find fascinating. … Continue reading Miss Aldridge Regrets by Louise Hare →
Opium and Absinthe is a mystery with a romance thrown in. In this book, a Gilded Age heroine tries to solve the mystery of how her sister died, and who killed her. The book is lush with vampire lore, grounded in social issues, and bathed in the nightmare atmosphere of addiction. While I thought this book could have gone deeper into issues and characters, I adored it overall because of the protagonist’s character growth and … Continue reading Opium and Absinthe by Lydia Kang →
Dangerous Women is a dangerous book in the sense that once you pick it up you won’t want to put it down. This historical mystery novel explores a murder on board a ship full of convict women being transported from England to Van Dieman’s Land (Australia). By switching between several first-person narrators, the book is able to explore the lives of underclass women in urban Victorian England and the choices they made to survive, while … Continue reading Dangerous Women by Hope Adams →
Virginia, Lady Dulverton is widowed and happy to be so. After an abusive childhood and an unsatisfactory marriage, she prefers to give her attention to the orphanages that were her husband’s passion. She has no intention of marrying again, which is a good thing, too, because the terms of her husband’s will are…complicated, and make remarriage difficult. Unfortunately, she is finding Francis, Lord Wolverstone hard to resist, and he is not particularly inclined to let … Continue reading Virginia and the Wolf by Lynne Connolly →
Content warning: Kidnapping, rape, violence against women. All off-screen, but you do see the results of it. Also, the heroine’s past contains, essentially, forced seduction by someone to whom she went for help. Earl’s Well that Ends Well is a romance with a fair bit of adventure and melodrama – it reminds me a little of some of Heyer’s early works in both good and frustrating ways. I liked the fact that both Arthur and … Continue reading Earl’s Well That Ends Well by Jane Ashford →
Bronze Gods is a steampunk mystery/urban fantasy by married couple Ann and Andre Aguirre (writing as A.A. Aguirre). I loved the world and the main characters, but I was disappointed by the mystery. The plot is very simple in essence but very complicated in detail. James Mikani and Celeste Ritsuko are inspectors with the Criminal Intelligence Division. They have to work together to stop a series of murders. They have been partners for three years, … Continue reading Bronze Gods by A.A. Aguirre →
Content warning: References to child abduction, the sexual abuse of children, and sexual exploitation generally. It is all referred to in fairly vague terms and is not depicted on the page, but there is a lot of upsetting back story. There is also a subplot that hinges on infidelity. The Road to Ironbark is two stories in one. At the tail end of the Gold Rush, Aurora Scott, a respectable widow with a less than … Continue reading The Road to Ironbark by Kaye Dobbie →
The first time I read Paladin’s Grace, I finished it, turned back to the beginning, and immediately read it again. This is partly because it’s very good, which I’ll get into later, and partly because for me, it was the right book at the right time. I’ve been having a hard time reading this year because of, you know … (*jazz hands*) everything. It’s hard to connect with Happily-Ever-After when we’re in the middle of … Continue reading Paladin’s Grace by T. Kingfisher →
Content warnings: childhood sexual abuse, murder, sociopathy I have read and reread Jane Doe (Book 1 in the series) more times than I can feasibly count. So it was with an intense case of Grabby Hands that I dove for Problem Child, a novel that follows Jane during the next step in her life. And…well…. It pains me to say this, but it was okay. It’s a solid, capable book, but it never reaches the … Continue reading Problem Child by Victoria Helen Stone →
