She and Her Cat: Stories, Herding a Stack of Book Blurbs with Robert Gray, Ursula K LeGuin Award, Hither, Page by Cat Sebastian, Heart of Venom by Jennifer Estep and All the Stars and Teeth by Adalyn Grace

Hello there fellow book dragons and literary friends! I know it's been awhile since I've posted something new, and while that has a sizable back story, I would just like to say that its wonderful to be back here posting again. I don't think I will reach 50 posts by the end of the year, unfortunately, but it's been a really tough year both physically and mentally, so I will give myself a pass for 2022. Next year will be my 40th college graduation anniversary, already. Meanwhile, here are some interesting tidbits from Shelf Awareness and some great book reviews.

This sounds like a fascinating book. I've always loved stories of feral cat rescues and the lovely people who take the time to care for them.

Book Review: She and Her Cat: Stories

She and Her Cat offers a quartet of imaginative, deeply affecting stories of magical realism written by Naruki Nagakawa and based on an original story by Japanese director, producer and manga artist Makoto Shinkai. The book is alternately narrated by multiple generations of isolated Japanese women who face loss and the feral neighborhood cats who come to love them--and vice versa.

In "Sea of Words," a male street cat is rescued by a single gal who works for an art and design college. The woman lives a quiet life and has romantic woes that lead to a falling out with her best friend. She names the cat Chobi, and the two offer each other comfort and solace. As Chobi patrols the neighborhood nightly, he meets a cast of eccentrics including Jon, a dog who is a sagacious philosopher; Mimi, a kitten; and Reina, a woman who lives nearby and feeds feral cats.

Mimi, the kitten now grown, anchors "First Blossoming," where she and Chobi meet up daily to enjoy food provided by Reina. A "gifted" young artist-painter, Reina couldn't get into university, but is offered an exciting internship at a film and manga design company by the narrator of the first story. Reina excels until exploitive corporate culture upsets her life. In the meantime, Mimi "[ties] the knot" with another feral cat and gives birth to kittens.

In "Slumber and Sky," Cookie, one of Mimi's offspring, is adopted by a mother who gives the cat to her young adult daughter, Aoi, whose severe depression keeps her housebound. A huge artistic rift between Aoi and her "soul sister" precipitated Aoi's paralysis of sadness, guilt and regret. When Cookie, normally a housecat, goes in search of her mother--Mimi, who is sick--Aoi is forced to confront her own limitations.

In the fourth story, "The Temperature of the World," a long-suffering and self-sacrificing divorcee takes in her rebellious, disillusioned nephew. His presence forces her to stand up to her domineering brother--with the help of a smart, feral, neighborhood boss cat who knows all.

Read on their own or taken as a whole, these heartfelt, insightful stories offer a thematic continuum about the quiet burdens people bear in the modern, often isolated world and how human-animal interactions enrich and embolden lives. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines

I often rely on the infamous book blurb to get me into a story or make me want to buy a book, and I certainly couldn't do without them in my posts of reviews, where I use the longer blurb to show what the book is about, so that I can comment on what I did or didn't like in the text. It's a time-saver, but I often wonder about those authors who have been coerced into writing blurbs, and how tired they must be of using the same phrases over and over to describe the book to make it enticing to the readers glance. This is Robert Gray's thoughts on blurbs and their purpose in bookselling and reading.

Deeper Understanding

Robert Gray: Herding a Stack of Book Blurbs

“From the moment I picked up your book until I put it down I was convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend to read it.”--Groucho Marx's blurb on the rear panel of Dawn Ginsbergh's Revenge by S.J. Perelman (Horace Liveright, 1929)

I've been thinking about blurbs, which are hard to avoid if you're a reader. There they are, right in front of you, every day. Blurbs tend to travel in groups, often vertically (a stack of book blurbs?), and to nest on packed bookshelves. For an individual title, the stack's numbers can vary from a single blurb on the front cover to three or four on the back. Ambitious blurbists will sometimes even include a few pages of them inside the book. Fellow writers' blurbs, reviewers' blurbs, publicists' blurbs. Do they all get read? I wonder.

Not long ago, Barbara Lane wrote in Datebook: "Blurb is such a wonderful word, It conjures up exactly what it is: a belch of praise for a book, generally found on the dust jacket, to lure the reader to purchase it. I must admit to reading blurbs when deciding whether to buy a book, but I am swayed only by plaudits from publications I trust or authors I greatly admire."

Speaking for the opposition, Joe Queenan noted in One for the Books that

"writers hate writing blurbs for strangers, because it forces them to read books they do not want to read, at a point when time itself is running out on them.... Purists can decode blurbs to see the procrustean contortions a writer had to put themselves through in order to be able to praise a friend without actually praising his book."

I confess I enjoy tracing the six degrees of separation (often fewer than six) between blurberistas, as Queenan describes them, and the writers they plug.

In the Guardian last August, professional copywriter Louise Willder, author of Blurb Your Enthusiasm, shared some book trade secrets including: "The chances are that you have read more blurbs on books than actual books. Perhaps you have even glanced at one I wrote: I've been a copywriter in publishing for 25 years, crafting those miniature stories that aim to distill a book's magic and connect with readers. Part compression, part come-on, blurbs can also, as I found when I wrote a book about them, open up a world of literary history and wordy joy."

Among the many things she discovered is there "have always been blurb haters. J.D. Salinger refused to have any words on his book jackets other than the title and his name. Jeanette Winterson burned her own books on social media in 2021 because she hated the 'cosy little domestic' blurbs on their revamped covers. Joe Orton was sent to prison for defacing library books with, among other things, outrageous fake blurbs.

A copywriter colleague of mine once had a blurb torn up in front of him by an irate editor, while another made him write 21 different versions for a popular novel."

In his New York Times "On Language" column, William Safire observed in 1981 that a blurb "is an effusion, printed in an advertisement or on a book's cover, extolling the contents by a critic, a friend of the author, or if worse (worst?) comes to worst, the publisher.... I have often dreamt of supplying a blurb that goes: 'The book can be put down but the author cannot.' ''

He added that the coinage of the term blurb can be traced to Gelett Burgess, "a writer for Smart Set magazine, [who] came up with an idea in 1907 for a way to tout a book: He drew a picture of a simpering girl on his book's jacket and said that his book was beloved by Miss Belinda Blurb. Our girl Belinda has never been busier: Unforgettable. Gripping. Luminous. The best linguistic gift since the gift of speech."

The inaugural blurb (though it wasn't called that) in the U.S. apparently had a dodgy genesis. When the first edition of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass was published in 1855,  Ralph Waldo Emerson sent the poet a letter that included the phrase: "I greet you at the beginning of a great career." Whitman subsequently had those words stamped in gold leaf on the spine of the second edition.

If you're desperate, Plot Generator manufactures blurbs. For my never-to-be-written crime novel The Boston Story (under the pseudonym Malcolm Canterbury), PG began with the question: "What would you do if you knew there were illiterate booksellers with shocking habits near the ones you love? The night of the conference changes everything for Samuel Emerson, a 55-year-old bookseller from Boston." PG also created a pair of blurbs. My favorite: " 'Never have there been more chilling villains than illiterate booksellers that plagiarize each other.' --the Daily Tale."

My favorite blurb was Michael Ondaatje's literary blessing on the back cover of John Berger's 1995 novel To the Wedding: "In some countries it must still be the writer's role to gather and comfort... to hold and celebrate a moment before darkness. With To the Wedding John Berger has written a great, sad, and tender lyric, a novel that is a vortex of community and compassion that somehow overcomes fate and death. Wherever I live in the world I know I will have this book with me."

Does he really still have that book with him, more than 25 years later? I suspect he does.--Robert Gray, contributing editor

 I'm chuffed that the first Ursula LeGuin award went to an author whose book sounds like something LeGuin herself might have written.

Awards: Ursula K. Le Guin for Fiction

Khadija Abdalla Bajaber's The House of Rust (Graywolf Press) won the inaugural $25,000 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscAaIwegI6alkJx52Gg~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jBWsCgpoMLg-gVdw, which is "intended to recognize those writers Ursula spoke of in her 2014 National Book Awards speech--realists of a larger reality, who can imagine real grounds for hope and see alternatives to how we live now."

The jury praised Bajaber's transcendent writing and innovative, transporting story, saying: "Scene after scene is gleaming, textured, utterly devoid of cliche and arresting in its wisdom. The novel's structure is audacious and its use of language is to die for."

Two finalists were also named: How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu (Morrow) and The Past Is Red by Catherynne M. Valente (Tordotcom Publishing).

 

Hither, Page by Cat Sebastian is a delightful mystery/LGBTQ romance novel that reads like a historical romance in a cozy post-WWII English village setting. I was able to snag this gem for a really reasonable price for my Kindle from Amazon. Here's the blurb: A jaded spy and a shell shocked country doctor team up to solve a murder in postwar England.

James Sommers returned from the war with his nerves in tatters. All he wants is to retreat to the quiet village of his childhood and enjoy the boring, predictable life of a country doctor. The last thing in the world he needs is a handsome stranger who seems to be mixed up with the first violent death the village has seen in years. It certainly doesn't help that this stranger is the first person James has wanted to touch since before the war.

The war may be over for the rest of the world, but Leo Page is still busy doing the dirty work for one of the more disreputable branches of the intelligence service. When his boss orders him to cover up a murder, Leo isn't expecting to be sent to a sleepy village. After a week of helping old ladies wind balls of yarn and flirting with a handsome doctor, Leo is in danger of forgetting what he really is and why he's there. He's in danger of feeling things he has no business feeling. A person who burns his identity after every job can't set down roots.
As he starts to untangle the mess of secrets and lies that lurk behind the lace curtains of even the most peaceful-seeming of villages, Leo realizes that the truths he's about to uncover will affect his future and those of the man he's growing to care about.  

Leo's essential cynicism and feelings of worthlessness (due to a horrible childhood) have helped him become a kind of invisible man during his career, but it's also kept him isolated and lonely. Once he meets the sweet but shy Dr James, who is compassionate and handsome, there's no turning back on their insane chemistry and deepening feelings for one another, though at this time in England homosexuality was illegal and treated as a disease. Sebastian's prose is deliciously elegant and wry and full of the unflagging British sense of humor. The plot wings along like a newly freed bird, and you can feel the joy that the author brings to their writing. I read this heartening and hearty book in one sitting, and I can't imagine any reader, after being hooked in the first chapter, putting the book down and walking away. Jolly good fun, this book deserves an A.

Heart of Venom by Jennifer Estep is book 9 in her Elemental Assassin's series. I've read all the books previous to this one, and I've enjoyed most of this urban fantasy series, though at times it can get redundant, as the main character goes over the "greatest hits" of the past books in every subsequent novel. This takes up a lot of real estate in the current book and I feel it's completely unnecessary because once you've gotten past the first few novels, you don't need reminders of what you've read before, you already have the background in your head. Anyway, here's the blurb for #9:

The hotly anticipated ninth novel in the hugely popular Elemental Assassin series finds Gin Blanco on a dangerous mission to rescue a friend.

When I say you’re a dead man, take that literally.

To me, killing people is like a day at the salon: cut and dry. Well, more like rinse and repeat when you moonlight as the assassin the Spider. But my last spa day ended redder than my freshly painted nails after a twisted Fire elemental and his goons kidnapped my close friend Sophia Deveraux and nearly killed her sister Jo-Jo in the process.

Up Ashland’s most dangerous mountains, and deep into the heart of its blackest woods—I’ll track these thugs no matter where they take Sophia. It doesn’t matter what kinds of elemental magic they try to throw at me, my Ice and Stone powers can take the heat and then some. I will get Sophia back, over their dead bodies.

Because anybody that hurts Gin Blanco’s family becomes a body.

This installment has the usual "they're impossible to kill and have been on the rampage for decades" bad guys that Gin is always up against, only this time, she basically says "hold my beer" and goes after them to rescue Sophia without thought to having backup, initially, but then manages to get Owen and Finn and the rest of the crew behind her to put evil faux "cowboy" and his twisted sister out of commission for good. Like the A Team, I love it when a plan comes together, and the final showdown near the end of the book was gory, but worth the wait. I'm also glad that things (SPOILER) worked out between Owen and Gin. Those two are made for each other. One of my difficulties with this series is that the author, Jennifer Estep, describes all the great Southern cuisine that Gin and Sophia make at their restaurant and at home in great, loving detail...and it always makes me hungry for BBQ! Seriously, do NOT read these books on an empty stomach or you'll end up bankrupting yourself at the grocery store or local restaurant. Anyway, I really enjoyed this installment of the Assassins series, and I'd give it an A- and recommend it to anyone who has read the other books in the series.

All the Stars and Teeth by Adalyn Grace is a diverse fantasy romance with a fair bit of piracy and swashbuckling woven into the text. Though it's close to 400 pages, this is one of those books that, once you've become engrossed in the story, you will have a hard time putting it down and finding your way back to reality. Here's the blurb:

Set in a kingdom where danger lurks beneath the sea, mermaids seek vengeance with song, and magic is a choice, Adalyn Grace’s All the Stars and Teeth is a thrilling fantasy for fans of Stephanie Garber’s Caraval and Sarah J. Maas’s Throne of Glass series.

She will reign.

As princess of the island kingdom Visidia, Amora Montara has spent her entire life training to be High Animancer—the master of souls. The rest of the realm can choose their magic, but for Amora, it’s never been a choice. To secure her place as heir to the throne, she must prove her mastery of the monarchy’s dangerous soul magic.

When her demonstration goes awry, Amora is forced to flee. She strikes a deal with Bastian, a mysterious pirate: he’ll help her prove she’s fit to rule, if she’ll help him reclaim his stolen magic.

But sailing the kingdom holds more wonder—and more peril—than Amora anticipated. A destructive new magic is on the rise, and if Amora is to conquer it, she’ll need to face legendary monsters, cross paths with vengeful mermaids, and deal with a stow-away she never expected… or risk the fate of Visidia and lose the crown forever.

I am the right choice. The only choice. And I will protect my kingdom.

SPOILER ALERT: So Amora discovers that everything she's ever been told as the heir apparent to the throne is a complete lie, and her father the king is a cowardly, evil bastard. I really felt for her, because at one point in my life, toward my late teens, I also discovered that my father was a lying, cheating bastard who had caused irreparable damage to everyone in our family, and who would go on to cause trauma in several other families, but would ultimately get swindled and grifted into a horrible death in a poorly-run nursing home. You live by the sword, you die by the sword. But it's hard, as a young and idealistic person, to have the scales removed from your eyes and realize that your parents have feet of clay, or worse, have appeared to be good people while harboring a rotting soul full of demons. That was why I admired Amora, because, though she discovers it's all been a sham, she works as hard as she can to right her family's wrongs. I also like that she gave people on the ship (and what a marvelous magical ship! Complete with a mermaid!) the benefit of the doubt, and between them the crew was able to kill the bad guy and, after the king dies, bring some semblance of order to Amora's kingdom, though her soul magic has been cursed into her beloved Bastian. The prose in this book is dense, but very readable, and the plot moves at a brisk pace. I'd give this book a B+ and recommend it to anyone who is a fan of Sara Maas's books and other YA fantasies. 

 

Elliott Bay Celebrates Indigenous People's Day, Kindred on TV, Third House Books in FLA, Joy Luck Club Sequel, Wrinkle in Time Musical, Mathilda The Musical, The Matchmaker's Gift by Lynda Cohen Loigman, The Anatomist's Wife by Anna Lee Huber, Magic, Lies, and Deadly Pies by Misha Popp,Keeper of Enchanted Rooms by Charlie N Holmberg,I Choose Darkness by Jenny Lawson,and The Dragon's Bride by Katee Robert

It's Fall, and the air is crisp and smoke-filled, at least out here in the suburbs of Seattle. I'm hoping that my fellow bibliophiles are donning sweaters, making themselves a nice hot cup of tea or coffee and settling in a cozy reading nook for the duration. I've got lots of tidbits to get through and more than a few reviews to post, so lets get to it!

I love that many in the Seattle area have realized how badly the local Native American population has been treated, and are taking steps to deal with it by, in this one instance, celebrating Indigenous People's Day instead of that rank racist/misogynist Christopher Columbus Day.

Elliott Bay Book Company https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscAfZw7gI6allJRF0Tw~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jAC8LwpoMLg-gVdw, Seattle, Wash.: "Happy #IndigenousPeoplesDay! Our Native American section has a range of titles from contemporary Indigenous authors--including many Northwest and Coastal Peoples--as well as an extensive collection of historical works told from a range of perspectives. We're extremely fortunate to have two of these authors--Julian Aguon and Sasha LaPointe--speaking at Seattle Arts & Lectures this month on Oct 19."

 Octavia Butler's books have been sidelined too often historically, and I'm glad that her books are experiencing a renaissance with her books and with adaptations of her books. This adaptation will premier the day after my birthday! What a gift!

TV: Kindred 

FX's Kindred https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscAfZw7gI6allJRFwSw~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jAC8LwpoMLg-gVdw, the new series based on Octavia E. Butler's novel, will premiere December 13 on Hulu, Deadline reported, adding that the premiere will include all eight episodes. The series will soon be available on Star+ in Latin America and Disney+ under the Star banner in all other territories.

The announcement was made at New York Comic Con during a Kindred panel presentation featuring showrunner and executive producer Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and cast members Mallori Johnson, Micah Stock, Gayle Rankin, Austin Smith, David Alexander Kaplan, Sophina Brown and Sheria Irving.

Kindred has been adapted for television by Jacobs-Jenkins, who executive produces the series with Joe Weisberg, Joel Fields, Darren Aronofsky, and Ari Handel of Protozoa Pictures, Courtney Lee-Mitchell, Jules Jackson, and Ernestine Walker. Janicza Bravo directed and served as an executive producer on the pilot. The season is produced by FX Productions.

People who willingly go out and spread COVID, especially in places where there are people like me, who are immune compromised, are asshats. I laud this bookseller for tossing them out of her store.

Fla.'s Third House Books Holds Grand Reopening

Third House Books https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscAfawewI6allJBwgSw~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jACMCkpoMLg-gVdw, Gainesville, Fla., held a grand reopening last week, after being closed to browsers since March 2020, when pandemic lockdowns started.

Owner Heather Halak, who is the sole bookseller in the store, is immunocompromised, which led her to stay closed to browsers longer than most other stores, and now she is requiring customers to wear masks. If customers don't wear masks, she turns them away. "Good riddance," she told alligator.org "Those aren't the people I want shopping in my store--people trying to kill me."

The bookstore opened in 2016 and moved into its current, larger location only three months before having to close in 2020.

Third House Books specializes in titles from small independent presses and marginalized voices and has an unusual approach to inventory. It carries no more than 300 titles at a time, so that customers can "browse nearly every title in a relatively short amount of time without becoming overwhelmed." The store also carries T-shirts and puzzles.

 I loved the Joy Luck Club book when it debuted, and I liked the movie as well...so the fact that they're developing a sequel is music to my ears!

Movies: The Joy Luck Club Sequel

Nearly 30 years after The Joy Luck Club https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscAfawewI6allJB93Tg~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jACMCkpoMLg-gVdw "changed Asian and Asian American representation in cinema, a sequel is in development with author Amy Tan and Oscar-winning screenwriter Ron Bass continuing from the former's bestselling novel," Deadline reported. Also producing are Ashok Amritraj's Hyde Park Entertainment Group and The Judge producer Jeff Kleeman.

The original leading cast of the Wayne Wang-directed movie are in talks to return to their roles, including Ming-Na Wen, Tamlyn Tomita, Rosalind Chao and Lisa Lu.

"We are excited to be teaming with Hyde Park and Jeff Kleeman in bringing to life the next generation of these four families so close to our hearts," said Tan and Bass.

Amritraj added: "I am thrilled to work with Amy, Ron and Jeff to bring this special film to the screen. Now more than ever it is important to share authentic stories about the Asian-American experience, and we believe this film will speak to wide audiences with its narrative rooted in humanity and connection."

This was one of my favorite books as a preteen, and an adaptation for the stage sounds just perfect. I wish I could see it, but most great musicals and stage plays don't make it out my way.

On Stage: A Wrinkle in Time Musical

A musical adaptation of Madeleine L'Engle's Newbery Medal-winning novel A Wrinkle in Time https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscAfawewI6allJB90Gw~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jACMCkpoMLg-gVdw, is in the works. Playbill reported that the production will feature music and lyrics by Obie-winning composer Heather Christian (Oratorio for Living Things) and a book by Horton Foote Prize winner Lauren Yee (Cambodian Rock Band). Two-time Obie Award winner Lee Sunday Evans (Dance Nation) will direct. Diana DiMenna and Plate Spinner Productions, Aaron Glick, and Charlotte Jones Voiklis are attached as producers. Dates for productions, as well as additional creative team members, will be announced in 2023.

Charlotte Jones Voiklis, L'Engle's granddaughter and director of her literary estate, said: "Knowing my grandmother's love of and devotion to theatre, I had long envisioned a musical adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time that could transport audiences to a different dimension in a way only music can. I am inspired by this creative team who truly love and understand the original novel and yet are ready to explore the possibilities of what it could be on the stage. Heather masterfully layers meaning with her unique voice and story-telling compositions.

Lauren's inventive and lyrical plays, many of which explore the relationships between generations, make her the perfect match to write the story for the stage. Lee, who is known for helming emotionally potent new plays and musicals that boldly re-invent familiar story-telling conventions and forms, is ready to bring all the elements together for a deep and magical stage experience."

 I will watch anything Emma Thompson is in, but I am also a fan of Matilda the book, so I imagine the musical is delightful. I will be keeping an eye out for it on one of my streaming services.

Stage to Film: Matilda the Musical

The first official trailer has been released for Netflix's Matilda the Musical https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscAfckeoI6allcBAiEw~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jADpCipoMLg-gVdw, a screen adaptation of the Tony- and Olivier-winning stage production that is due for a limited release in theatres beginning December 9, with a full streaming release set for December 25, Playbill reported. Newcomer Alisha Weir stars in the title role opposite Emma Thompson as Miss Trunchbull.

Based on the 1988 children's novel by Roald Dahl, Matilda the Musical was adapted for film by the production's book writer Dennis Kelly, with original music and lyrics by Tim Minchin. Tony winner Matthew Warchus, who directed both the West End and Broadway productions, returned to direct the Netflix film. Working Title's Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner and The Roald Dahl Story Company's Jon Finn and Luke Kelly serve as its producers. Appearing alongside Weir and Thompson are Lashana Lynch as Miss Honey, Sindhu Vee as Mrs. Phelps, and Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough as Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood.

The Matchmaker's Gift by Lynda Cohen Loigman is a delicious magical realism novel that has been recommended to me several times because I'm a fan of Alice Hoffman's Magic books. What I really enjoyed about this book is the through line of history, of the women who had various gifts for doing good things in their Jewish neighborhoods. When the protagonist Sara discovered her gift of matchmaking, she had a rough time going up against all the old male matchmakers, and now her granddaugher has that same gift and has to learn that she can't ignore something so intrinsic to her being, though her job depends on helping people divorce, not fall in love. I could not put this book down, I was so engrossed, I read it in one sitting! Here's the blurb: "Loigman's latest is a gem. A scrappy Jewish teenager newly arrived in 1920s New York struggles to follow her calling as a matchmaker––seventy years later, her cynical divorce-attorney granddaughter realizes she has very inconveniently inherited the family gift for matching soulmates. Both funny and moving, The Matchmaker's Gift made me smile from start to finish."
––Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Rose Code

Even as a child in 1910, Sara Glikman knows her gift: she is a maker of matches and a seeker of soulmates. But among the pushcart-crowded streets of New York’s Lower East Side, Sara’s vocation is dominated by devout older men—men who see a talented female matchmaker as a dangerous threat to their traditions and livelihood. After making matches in secret for more than a decade, Sara must fight to take her rightful place among her peers, and to demand the recognition she deserves.

Two generations later, Sara’s granddaughter, Abby, is a successful Manhattan divorce attorney, representing the city’s wealthiest clients. When her beloved Grandma Sara dies, Abby inherits her collection of handwritten journals recording the details of Sara’s matches. But among the faded volumes, Abby finds more questions than answers. Why did Abby’s grandmother leave this library to her and what did she hope Abby would discover within its pages? Why does the work Abby once found so compelling suddenly feel inconsequential and flawed? Is Abby willing to sacrifice the career she’s worked so hard for in order to keep her grandmother’s mysterious promise to a stranger? And is there really such a thing as love at first sight?  

The prose in this novel is outstanding. Intricate and intelligent, it swoons it's way over a beautifully-rendered plot that will hook you in and not let you go until the final page. The insight into generations of Jewish women who must fight against prejudice and sexism to ply their trade is fascinating. But it's Sara and Abby as characters who keep you reading into the wee hours. They're both so realistically portrayed as strong women who don't give up that I couldn't wait to see what happened next. I'd give this book an A and recommend it to anyone who likes Alice Hoffman or Sara Addison Allen's works.

The Anatomist's Wife by Anna Lee Huber is a historical romance mystery that I found to be atmospheric and interesting. I'm a big fan of Scotland and Wales (and Ireland) and I loved the moody setting and the gruff inspector who helps the protagonist, Lady Darby, find out whodunnit. Here's the blurb: Scotland, 1830. Following the death of her husband, Lady Darby has taken refuge at her sister’s estate, finding solace in her passion for painting. But when her hosts throw a house party for the cream of London society, Kiera is unable to hide from the ire of those who believe her to be as unnatural as her husband, an anatomist who used her artistic talents to suit his own macabre purposes.

Kiera wants to put her past aside, but when one of the house guests is murdered, her brother-in-law asks her to utilize her knowledge of human anatomy to aid the insufferable Sebastian Gage—a fellow guest with some experience as an inquiry agent. While Gage is clearly more competent than she first assumed, Kiera isn’t about to let her guard down as accusations and rumors swirl.

When Kiera and Gage’s search leads them to even more gruesome discoveries, a series of disturbing notes urges Lady Darby to give up the inquiry. But Kiera is determined to both protect her family and prove her innocence, even as she risks becoming the next victim.

This is a very dense novel, and at times it can be almost suffocating, because there's way too much redundancy in going over and over every emotion and thought in Lady Darby's mind. She's got low self esteem and constantly feels like everyone hates and judges her because they all think that a woman who can draw the inner workings of a human body (provided by her abusive husband, who forced her to use her artistic skills to draw muscles and bones and organs during his autopsies) is somehow "unnatural" and insane. As this is set in the 19th century, when women were sent to houses of horrors known as asylums for a lot less than drawing dead bodies, we're made to know that Lady D considers herself lucky to be living with her sister's family in a huge mansion. She is pretty weak when it comes to seeing dead bodies, which seems odd, as she's seen so many before, and she constantly claims that she hated every minute of drawing them, when it sounds like it was the only thing that kept her from being another boring aristocrat. I'm hoping that future books have Lady D growing a spine and helping the handsome Agent Gage solve crimes. I'd give this book a B-, and recommend it to those who like historical romances with a mystery twist.

Magic, Lies, and Deadly Pies by Misha Popp was a delightful contemporary romance with a bit of magic added in, ala Alice Hoffman and Sara Addison Allen.  I loved the premise of the protagonist baking magic into pies that showed evil men the harm they'd caused, and allowed them to change or die. I also liked that pie maker Daisy's bisexuality was taken as a given, not something strange or unusual. Here's the blurb: Daisy Ellery’s pies have a secret ingredient: The magical ability to avenge women done wrong by men. But Daisy finds herself on the receiving end in Misha Popp’s cozy series debut, a sweet-as-buttercream treat for fans of Ellery Adams and Mary Maxwell.

The first time Daisy Ellery killed a man with a pie, it was an accident. Now, it’s her calling. Daisy bakes sweet vengeance into her pastries, which she and her dog Zoe deliver to the men who’ve done dirty deeds to the town’s women. But if she can’t solve the one crime that’s not of her own baking, she’ll be out of the pie pan and into the oven.
 
Parking her Pies Before Guys mobile bakery van outside the local diner, Daisy is informed by Frank, the crusty diner owner, that someone’s been prowling around the van—and not just to inhale the delectable aroma. Already on thin icing with Frank, she finds a letter on her door, threatening to reveal her unsavory secret sideline of pie a la murder.
Blackmail? But who whipped up this half-baked plot to cut a slice out of Daisy’s business? Purple-haired campus do-gooder Melly? Noel, the tender—if flaky—farm boy? Or one of the abusive men who prefer their pie without a deadly scoop of payback?
 
The upcoming statewide pie contest could be Daisy’s big chance to help wronged women everywhere…if she doesn’t meet a sticky end first. Because Daisy knows the blackmailer won’t stop until her business is in crumbles.

 I really didn't like the strident, rude and traitorous Melly at all, I felt she was heartless and conniving and stupid, which is a dangerous combination that almost gets Daisy, whom she claims to like, killed. I felt like the author wanted to paint all women who protest injustice toward woman as being like this, when that's just not true. I mean, we're supposed to believe that a strong feminist leader would be so easily bamboozled by an evil man who tells her a fairly transparent lie to get her to harass Daisy? Really? And Daisy lets this stupid person back into her life with only a short apology? Why? I would want her to go to jail for B&E if nothing else. I did enjoy Daisy's PBG business and her way of making pies helpful to people, like students, as well as making pies that can harm. The prose was as smooth as Boston cream and the plot flowed like cool lemon chiffon. I'd give this book a B+ and recommend it, again, to those who like magical realism, similar to the kind of books written by Alice Hoffman and Sara Addison Allen.

Keeper of Enchanted Rooms by Charlie N Holmberg is a delightful novel that reminded me of TJ Klune's House on the Cerulean Sea. It has magic, mystery, romance and a very British sensibility about it, though it takes place in America. I wasn't expecting too much of this low-priced ebook, to be honest, so I was pleasantly surprised when I found myself totally engrossed in Merritt and Hulda's struggle to set this magic haunted house to rights. I also loved that Merritt evolves from a fussy, immature and spineless sap of a man into a caring person who believes that the house and the spirits within it are his "found family." Here's the blurb:

A house of haunted history and ill temper. Make yourself at home in this beguiling novel of love, magic, and danger by Amazon Charts and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Charlie N. Holmberg.

Rhode Island, 1846. Estranged from his family, writer Merritt Fernsby is surprised when he inherits a remote estate in the Narragansett Bay. Though the property has been uninhabited for more than a century, Merritt is ready to call it home—until he realizes he has no choice. With its doors slamming shut and locking behind him, Whimbrel House is not about to let Merritt leave. Ever.

Hulda Larkin of the Boston Institute for the Keeping of Enchanted Rooms has been trained in taming such structures in order to preserve their historical and magical significance. She understands the dangers of bespelled homes given to tantrums. She advises that it’s in Merritt’s best interest to make Whimbrel House their ally. To do that, she’ll need to move in, too.

Prepared as she is with augury, a set of magic tools, and a new staff trained in the uncanny, Hulda’s work still proves unexpectedly difficult. She and Merritt grow closer as the investigation progresses, but the house’s secrets run deeper than they anticipated. And the sentient walls aren’t their only concern—something outside is coming for the enchantments of Whimbrel House, and it could be more dangerous than what rattles within.

The character of Hulda is a gem, and I loved how straightforward she was, and how tenacious. The prose was excellent and the plot swift, if a bit twisty in the final lap of the book. All in all, this book was worth twice what I paid for it. I'd give it an A- and recommend it to anyone who likes haunted houses and organizations that look after taming them (I thought the acronym BIKER was hilarious). 

I Choose Darkness by Jenny Lawson is  a short but funny essay by the author of Lets Pretend This Never Happened, among other non fiction comedy tomes. While it's ostensibly about Christmas, several other holiday traditions are outlined here, and all are just as bizarre and hilarious as you'd expect from Lawson. Here's the blurb:

From cheap costumes to creepy dolls to questionable candy, number one New York Times bestselling author Jenny Lawson weaves a hauntingly hilarious account of her ongoing—sometimes outrageous—Halloween life.

The holly-jolly holidays aren’t for everyone, least of all when you look back on that one Christmas when there were two definitely haunted dolls waiting for you and your sister under the tree. You have to assume that’s where it all started.

And so it was for Jenny Lawson. Now, she lives in the land of eternal Halloween, as evidenced by her interior decor and general state of darkness. (Although, if you ask her, her taxidermy zoo is less dark, more delightful. But not everyone has taste, so what are you going to do?)

This essay takes Jenny back to where it all started, from her humble beginnings as a trick-or-treater in the 1980s, on high alert for (logistically improbable) candy laced with razor blades and the (allegedly) ever-present threat of satanists on the loose. From there, she has risen from the candy-wrapper ashes of her childhood to claim her rightful lifestyle as the queen of Halloween.

Because Lawson and I are somewhat similar in age, I found the paragraphs of "Halloween How it Used to Be" totally hilarious, because Lawson is right, we did used to hear, all the time, about razor blades in apples and drugs injected into candy. It was all urban legend, of course, but when you're a kid, that all has so much significance in your life that it makes the repercussions almost real. Though I'm no longer a fan of Halloween (COVID put paid to that), I did enjoy reading about Lawson's obsession with it and how weird her other family holidays were. The prose here is light and breezy and fun, and I'd give this essay a B+ and recommend it to anyone who likes Lawson's odd and entertaining sense of humor.

The Dragon's Bride by Katee Robert was a fantasy romance freebie e-book that I got from Amazon. I'm actually glad that I didn't pay anything for it, because it was not a very good read. I had to stop reading it several times because the love scenes were so strange, full of sexist cliches and the whole background was weird. Here's the blurb: Briar Rose might have a name out of a storybook, but she learned at a very young age that no prince was coming to save her. She’ll have to save herself. Unfortunately, even that is an impossible task in her current situation—trapped in a terrifying marriage to a dangerous man.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, which is how she finds herself making a deal with a demon. Freedom from her husband…in return for seven years of service.
She expects the service to be backbreaking and harsh. She doesn’t expect to be put on an auction block in a room full of literal monsters and sold to the highest bidder.
To Sol.
A dragon.

He might seem kinder than his fearsome looks imply, but she knows better than to trust the way he wants to take care of her, or how invested he is in her pleasure. In her experience, if something seems too good to be true, it certainly is.
Falling for Sol is out of the question. She’s suffered enough, and she has no intention of staying in this realm…even if she leaves her heart behind when she returns to her normal life.
  

Though we are supposed to believe her husband is controlling, abusive and evil, I found that Sol the dragon didn't seem a whole lot better. He was just as possessive, demanding, overly sexualized and controlling as her ex-husband. It seemed to me that she changed out one harmful imprisonment and sexual slavery for another. I failed to see why the latter situation, with Rose in the contracted enslavement to a demon, then sold to sexual slavery to a dragon, is that much better than her husband. Of course, she's not being beaten and physically abused in that way, but she still has no agency over her own body, and is constantly being called upon to have wild sex with the dragon/man she was sold to. This book came off as fantasy dragon porn to me, and I wasn't looking for that kind of novel at all. The female protagonist is the "perfect" blonde petite woman, of course, who loves having lots of sex with a dragon who has dual penises. The fact that she just left a horrific abuser seems to have no effect at all on her libido. Robert, the author, seems to write more like a horny old man than a woman who understands abuse. The prose was workmanlike and barely helped the bumpy and irregular plot along at all. I'd give this book a C-, and I can only think fans of the horrible romance of Twilight and 50 Shades might enjoy it, as they're obviously not interested in quality prose or plots, or characters who aren't sexist cliches.

 

Spirited, A Christmas Carol Movie Musical, The Copper Bell Bookshop Opens in WA, Dune the Sisterhood Comes to TV, Legends and Lattes Pro Review, Plain: A Memoir of a Mennonite Girlhood Review, Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree, The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna, Spells for Lost Things by Jenna Evans Welch and Be the Serpent by Seanan McGuire

It's getting spooky and misty in here, fellow book lovers! Welcome to the end of the first week of October! I've gone on a reading binge, so I have 4 books to review today. But first, news of books, bookstores and adaptations!

This looks hilarious and fun, just because it has some funny people in it, like Ryan Reynolds. I will have to watch it in November.

Movies: Spirited, A Christmas Carol Movie Musical

AppleTV+ has set a release date for its upcoming holiday movie musical Spirited https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscAeAleoI6almdU92Gw~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jAUpSipoMLg-gVdw, a new adaptation of the Charles Dickens classic story A Christmas Carol, Playbill reported. Directed by Sean Anders and written by Anders and John Morris, the film will hit theaters November 11 and stream on AppleTV+ beginning November 18.

Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds lead a cast that includes Patrick Page, Joe Tippett, Octavia Spencer, Sunita Mani, Loren Woods, Marlow Barkley and Jen Tullock. The film will feature new songs written by Dear Evan Hansen team Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, along with Khiyon Hursey, Sukari Jones and Mark Sonnenblick.

 This sounds like my kind of place! Art supplies, journals, candles AND books? Heaven!

The Copper Bell Bookshop Comes to Ridgefield, Wash.

The Copper Bell Bookshop opened October 1 in Ridgefield, Wash., the Reflector reported https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscAeAkOoI6allIxpwGg~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jAUpGipoMLg-gVdw.

The store sells general-interest titles for all ages, along with gifts and nonbook items like art supplies, journals and candles.

Prior to opening Copper Bell Bookshop, owner Debra Warnock worked as a realtor for more than 30 years. She told the Reflector that she's been planning to open a bookstore for nearly 10 years, though "in the beginning, it was more like dreaming about it and kind of laying out what I would do."

The longer she thought about it, the more serious the idea became, and eventually she joined the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association and started learning the ropes of running an independent bookstore. She spent three years as a prospective PNBA member while "trying to pull everything together and get a location." She noted that after the Covid-19 pandemic began, she and her husband, Paul Warnock, nearly dropped the idea, but decided instead to keep forging ahead.

Warnock plans to host a variety of community-focused events, including book club meetings and storytime sessions. The store's initial author events will be with local authors, with Warnock looking to gradually expand from there. "Our goal is to keep building the community involvement and our level of events that we offer." She added that her aim has been to make the bookstore warm, comfortable and welcoming, where "people can come in and visit and shop and talk books."

This is going to be a smash hit, I think, and I can hardly wait to see it. The Bene Gesserit were based on the Jesuit priests sect of  the Catholic church back when they were considered the intelligent, ninja-like arm of Catholicism. 

TV: Dune: The Sisterhood

Dune: The Sisterhood https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscAeAkOoI6allIxp-Sw~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jAUpGipoMLg-gVdw, the HBO Max prequel series from Legendary Television, has cast Emily Watson (Chernobyl, The Book Thief) and Shirley Henderson (Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire) in lead roles, Variety reported. The project is based on the novel Sisterhood of Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson.

Watson will play Valya Harkonnen and Henderson Tula Harkonnen, two sisters who "have risen to power in the Sisterhood, a secret organization of women who will go on to become the Bene Gesserit," according to the logline.

Diane Ademu-John is the creator, co-showrunner, and executive producer on Dune: The Sisterhood. Alison Schapker serves as co-showrunner and executive producer. Johan Renck (Chernobyl) will direct the premiere episode and executive produce. Also exec producing are Denis Villeneuve, Jon Spaihts, Scott Z. Burns, Matthew King, John Cameron and Cait Collins, along with Brian Herbert, Byron Merritt and Kim Herbert for the Frank Herbert estate.

 I just finished reading this book, and will review it below, but it exceeded my expectations.

Review: Legends & Lattes

Professional audiobook narrator and game developer Travis Baldree initially self-published his "high fantasy and low stakes" first novel, Legends & Lattes, which became a social-media sensation. This slice-of-life comfort read stars an unlikely coffee shop owner as she vies for business, builds a supportive social circle and quests for the perfect hot drink.

Orc barbarian and career adventurer Viv is ready to hang up her broadsword and live out her dreams of opening a cafe serving the exotic gnomish beverage coffee. Her research leads her to the city of Thune and an abandoned livery building that will need considerable work to pass as a cafe. Viv faces the challenge, wanting "something she built up, rather than cut down," and launches the city's first coffee shop. Helping her out are carpenter Calamity the hob, cafe assistant Tandri the succubus and baking genius Thimble the rattkin.

Business gets off to a less than promising start, but little by little, the cafe begins to take off. The menu expands as Viv begins to form a customer base, but challenges arise when a local crime boss sends thugs to extort protection money, leaving Viv struggling to keep to her new nonviolent way of life. To make matters worse, Viv has a deep secret about the cafe's success, and someone from her old life has figured it out. She'll need to use all her wits and newfound connections to keep from losing everything she's built, including her growing relationship with Tandri.

Baldree's combination of humor, fantasy elements and gentle plot lends itself to a comforting story that's something like a cross between Terry Pratchett's Discworld series and Becky Chambers's Monk and Robot novellas, with a dash of cafe simulator games thrown in for good measure. Stalwart, disarmingly uncertain Viv shows both the frightening and rewarding sides of starting over. When she falters, her found family are nearby to bolster her spirits and lend their help. The subtle romance between Tandri and Viv will warm hearts as the two steadily grow closer. The cafe's regular customers are based on stock coffee shop customers with a fantasy twist, such as a college student studying ley lines and a bard with a rock-and-roll lute. Even the conflicts resolve in ways that bolster the book's message of inclusion and nonviolent solutions. Fans of comforting stories, tabletop fantasy RPGs and unlikely heroes should find much to love in this charming outing. --Jaclyn Fulwood , blogger at Infinite Reads

 My paternal grandparents lived in the SE part of Iowa, where their farm was surrounded by Amish and Mennonite farms and families. My grandmother had a quilting bee/circle of Amish and Mennonite women who used a barter system to keep all their families well fed and clothed and blanketed. Whenever I'd go visit my grandparents my grandmother would have jars of honey, piles of fabric or fabric scraps, or baked goods provided in trade from her Amish and Mennonite friends (since they had their own meat processing plant, my grandparents had a fairly brisk trade in meats). Anyway, this sounds like a fascinating story.

Review: Plain: A Memoir of Mennonite Girlhood

Mary Alice Hostetter tells an authentic and evocative story about her early years entrenched in strict Mennonite religious traditions and her experiences when, at the age of 18, she decided to leave the community.

In 2008, Mary Alice edited and published The Measure of a Life, a book that chronicled the diaries of her mother, Ruth Martin Hostetter, who recorded details of being a Mennonite wife and mother, living and farming in a tight-knit church community in Gap, Pa., from 1920 to 2000. In Plain, Mary Alice continues writing about farm life, family and its meaning. However, she more deeply probes emotional truths from the past, exploring what her Mennonite upbringing meant to--and for--her own life.

Hostetter grew up the 10th of 12 children. For 18 years, she toed the line, being good, obedient and God-fearing. She conformed and strove to fit in. However, yearnings beyond what she considered the limitations of her patriarchal community--especially watching schoolmates enjoy worldly pleasures--raised questions that lured her away from the traditions and expectations of her birthright.

Twenty-one beautifully captured essays comprise the book. Hostetter digs deep into her childhood working on a farm, tending house and churchgoing; school experiences; rebellions such as sneaking off to movies; early paid jobs like a stint as a local tour guide of the Mennonite and Amish communities; her quest to go to college and become a teacher; breaking many rules of her upbringing in pursuit of cultural activities; changing her wardrobe; frequenting happy hours; and traveling stateside and abroad. Hostetter's journey to a very small town in West Virginia--a sabbatical taken from teaching to write a book--changes her life unexpectedly.

Intrigued by welcoming townsfolk, she ends up learning how to make cheese. In many ways, her West Virginia experiences bring her back to her roots, while they also widen the scope of her world as she finally recognizes and embraces being a lesbian.

These moving, tenderly rendered essays straddle the line between Hostetter expressing a fervent desire to leave her upbringing and way of life, while also finding pride and nostalgia for where she came from. The two pathways ultimately merge and come to reflect how Mennonite influences will always infuse Hostetter's being. Readers are the blessed beneficiaries of her early formations and experiences, as without them, she would not have become such a sensitive, perceptive and wise writer. -- Kathleen Gerard,  blogger at Reading Between the Lines

Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree was an ebook that I just had to have, as the more I read about this book, the more I wanted to read it ASAP. I was NOT at all disappointed, as this book reads like Fannie Flagg married to TJ Klune's House on the Cerulean Sea and Under the Whispering Door with a bit of Neil Gaiman's fantasy tales and Terry Pratchett's Discworld books added for fun. The story is lovely, moving and tender and laugh out loud funny while also being a story of resilience and strength and hope. I loved every moment, and the romance between the protagonists was especially sweet. Here's the blurb: The much-beloved BookTok sensation from Travis Baldree, Legends & Lattes is a novel of high fantasy and low stakes.
Come take a load off at Viv's cafe, the first & only coffee shop in Thune. Grand opening!

Worn out after decades of packing steel and raising hell, Viv, the orc barbarian, cashes out of the warrior’s life with one final score. A forgotten legend, a fabled artifact, and an unreasonable amount of hope lead her to the streets of Thune, where she plans to open the first coffee shop the city has ever seen.

However, her dreams of a fresh start filling mugs instead of swinging swords are hardly a sure bet. Old frenemies and Thune’s shady underbelly may just upset her plans. To finally build something that will last, Viv will need some new partners, and a different kind of resolve.

“Take a break from epic battles and saving the world. Legends & Lattes is a wholesome, cozy novel that feels like a warm hug. This is my new comfort read.”—Genevieve Gornichec, author of The Witch's Heart
 

The prose was as delicious as the cinnamon rolls served at L&L, which swept along the full bodied, aromatic plot at a racing pace. I could not put it down, so I read this engaging book in 4 hours, one sitting. Kudos to Travis Baldree for creating such a warm and fuzzy hug of a book. I just can't spoil the story or plot any more than I did with the review from Shelf Awareness, above, so I will just say that this is an A+ book and should be read by all fantasy fans everywhere.

The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna is a rousing and delightful fantasy romance, its pages sprinkled with a sweet/smart tale of blended and diverse families. It reminded me of Bewitched and Different Strokes (TV shows) combined with the Sound of Music (movie) and Alice Hoffman's magical books with TJ Klune's found family tales. The pristine prose and curvy but sensible plot keep the narrative moving. Here's the blurb:

A warm and uplifting novel about an isolated witch whose opportunity to embrace a quirky new family—and a new love—changes the course of her life.

As one of the few witches in Britain, Mika Moon knows she has to hide her magic, keep her head down, and stay away from other witches so their powers don’t mingle and draw attention. And as an orphan who lost her parents at a young age and was raised by strangers, she’s used to being alone and she follows the rules...with one exception: an online account, where she posts videos "pretending" to be a witch. She thinks no one will take it seriously.
 
But someone does. An unexpected message arrives, begging her to travel to the remote and mysterious Nowhere House to teach three young witches how to control their magic. It breaks all of the rules, but Mika goes anyway, and is immediately tangled up in the lives and secrets of not only her three charges, but also an absent archaeologist, a retired actor, two long-suffering caretakers, and…Jamie. The handsome and prickly librarian of Nowhere House would do anything to protect the children, and as far as he’s concerned, a stranger like Mika is a threat. An irritatingly appealing threat.
 
As Mika begins to find her place at Nowhere House, the thought of belonging somewhere begins to feel like a real possibility. But magic isn't the only danger in the world, and when peril comes knocking at their door, Mika will need to decide whether to risk everything to protect a found family she didn’t know she was looking for.
 

Fair warning there's a little bit of Jane Eyre swirling around the main character, Mika, who is looking for a place to belong and finds a family to give her heart to, and of course their curmudgeonly caretaker Jamie falls in love with her and they begin a happy vs grumpy romance that is by turns frustrating and endearing. Though you can see the HEA coming a mile away, it doesn't go down exactly the way most readers think it will, and the surprises in the last third of the book left me breathless. I'd give this book an A, and recommend it to anyone who loved Jane Eyre and who love stories of found and diverse families with a magical twist.

Spells For Lost Things by Jenna Evans Welch is a fun and sweetly awkward YA romance novel that had me hooked from page one on. (And I also read Love & Gelato and enjoyed it). Willow and Mason are both teenagers who have problematic parents, especially their mothers, who are cold and distant and disapproving (Willow) and a missing drug addict who left her son to fend for himself in foster care, and now in the care of her best friend (Mason). Both teens are searching for love and guidance, but they're also searching for a place that feels like home. Here's the blurb:

From the New York Times bestselling author of Love & Gelato comes a poignant and romantic novel about two teens trying to find their place in the world after being unceremoniously dragged to Salem, Massachusetts, for the summer.

Willow has never felt like she belonged anywhere and is convinced that the only way to find a true home is to travel the world. But her plans to act on her dream are put on hold when her aloof and often absent mother drags Willow to Salem, Massachusetts, to wrap up the affairs of an aunt Willow didn’t even know she had. An aunt who may or may not have been a witch.

There, she meets Mason, a loner who’s always felt out of place and has been in and out of foster homes his entire life. He’s been classified as one of the runaways, constantly searching for ways to make it back to his mom; even if she can’t take care of him, it’s his job to try and take care of her. Isn’t it?

Naturally pulled to one another, Willow and Mason set out across Salem to discover the secret past of Willow’s mother, her aunt, and the ambiguous history of her family. During all of this, the two can’t help but act on their natural connection. But with the amount of baggage between them—and Willow’s growing conviction her family might be cursed—can they manage to hold onto each other?

Though the witches in Willows family come off as caricatures of witches (kind of like the witches in Hocus Pocus...exaggerated insanity and amusing weirdness) they serve as a kind of deus ex machina here to keep the plot and characters moving in the right direction, toward their fate or destiny. I found myself worried about Mason and his deep desire to see his mother and reunite with her under the false belief that she would have kicked her drug habit and wanted to parent him. It was devastating to him to learn that she chose her addiction over her child. Less devastating but equally harsh is Willow's cruel, cold mother who has lied to her about her heritage her entire life, and who says she doesn't believe in witches or magic, yet stays away from her daughter, emotionally starving her because she fears an old curse will tear them apart. Sadly, only one of the teenagers realizes their hopes of parental reconciliation. But it all makes for a very satisfying ending. I'd give this book an A, and recommend it to those who like fish out of water YA romances, and found family stories.

Be The Serpent by Seanan McGuire is the 16th book in her October Daye series. I've read all of the previous novels, of course, but I noticed that they all had one thing in common that became a trope of her work. The protagonist, Toby, always gets carved up and dies or nearly dies in every incarnation of the series, and her squire, her boyfriend turned fiancee turned husband, and all her magical friends, from kings and queens to immortal gods of the Fae, never seem to be able to help her in her battle to save them all from the latest insane big bad Fae monster. Here are all these amazing folks with all this power and what, they can't summon enough strength to help Toby out in her time of need? Or at least keep her from being stabbed to death, hit with lethal magic, beaten and imprisoned, etc? It's always Toby alone fighting for her life and vanquishing the monster of the month. Much as I admire her commitment to being a hero, what is the point of building, over the course of 15 books, a group of people she loves, respects and admires, who tend to feel the same about her, if all they can do is occaisionally growl at those threatening Toby, or mill around mindlessly while Toby figures it out on her own? At least in this book, there's relatively little in the way of violence or blood, and Toby tries to settle into her life with her Caith Sidhe husband. Yet while we are lulled into a stupor with half the book dedicated to reviewing everything that happened in the previous novels (So boring, if you've read them all and you already know this stuff...and few people will start a series on the 16th book, so I don't know what McGuire's thinking, but it seems lazy to me, like she only had enough original material for a short story so she used her past exploits as padding), McGuire rams a startling and horrible ending on to the book that left me groaning "Not again!" Here's the blurb:

Now in hardcover, the sixteenth novel of the Hugo-nominated, New York Times-bestselling October Daye urban fantasy series.

October Daye is finally something she never expected to be: married. All the trials and turmoils and terrors of a hero’s life have done very little to prepare her for the expectation that she will actually share her life with someone else, the good parts and the bad ones alike, not just allow them to dabble around the edges in the things she wants to share. But with an official break from hero duties from the Queen in the Mists, and her family wholly on board with this new version of “normal,” she’s doing her best to adjust.
 
It isn’t always easy, but she’s a hero, right? She’s done harder.
 
Until an old friend and ally turns out to have been an enemy in disguise for this entire time, and October’s brief respite turns into a battle for her life, her community, and everything she has ever believed to be true. 
 
The debts of the Broken Ride are coming due, and whether she incurred them or not, she’s going to be the one who has to pay.

At least readers don't have to read about Toby vomiting every time she eats anything, which is rarely, as she seemed in previous novels, to live on coffee and air and blood. This time she has one of those relatively "worthless in a fight" family friends forcing her to eat sandwiches or some other food every time they see her...and she seems able to keep them down, which is the opposite of what you'd think she'd do...but that's as far as I'm going to spoil that plot point. The prose is clean but doesn't help the plodding plot much at all. I was so uninterested by the time I read the awful ending that I couldn't bring myself to read the "All new novella" which I believed to be more of the same, and I'm not up for extended plodding. I'd give this book a C+, and I would only recommend it to those who have read her other October Daye stories, because this is just one more stepping stone in a long trail of them. 

The Mirror and the Light Comes to TV, Murder at the Serpentine Bridge by Andrea Penrose, Dark Rise by C.S. Pacat, and Starry-Eyed Love by Helena Hunting

Welcome fellow book lovers to autumn and the wonderful month of October! I will admit that I should have posted some reviews earlier, but thanks to being paid for a study that I did over the past two years, I was able to buy 8 new books that I have been waiting to read for a long time. So I wasn't able to post reviews until I'd gotten the books just days ago, and read a couple of them right away. Meanwhile, the weather has been way too hot for this time of year, and there's been lingering ailments in our household, which only adds to the frustrations of not having the time or energy to update my blog. But here we are, and I will start off with a sad tidbit before I get into the reviews.

I read only a couple of Hilary Mantel's books, but the ones I read were superbly written and the characters brought history alive within their pages. Now that Ms Mantel has passed (RIP) they're continuing her legacy with another adaptation of her novels. I will look forward to seeing this.

TV: The Mirror and the Light

The BBC adaptation of Hilary Mantel's novel The Mirror and the Light https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscAeMxL4I6almJUxxHw~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6jAXsX2poMLg-gVdw, the conclusion to her Tudor trilogy that began with Wolf Hall, will continue as a memorial to the beloved author, who died September 22.

Variety reported that director and screenwriter Peter Kosminsky, who worked closely with Mantel on the first BBC/PBS series (combining the initial books in the trilogy, Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies), had known Mantel for "many, many years."

"Quite apart from my personal sadness, I've also lost my main collaborator. So now we will have to continue this as a memorial to [Mantel], but also without the advantage of her guidance and advice," Kosminsky  said. "As we were putting that show together, I was constantly in touch with her and met her on a number of occasions asking her for advice. She was encyclopedic on the sources, and spent five years researching the subject before putting pen to paper, so if I needed any detail about a character or an event, or even about details like how they ate or removed their caps with a bow, she was the person to go to. A strong case can be made to say she was the greatest living writer in the English language."

He added that Mantel sent him 100-page installments of The Mirror and the Light as she was writing the 2020 book, with an eye on getting the TV adaptation underway. The BBC confirmed its plans for the new series in 2019, when the book's publication was first announced. Mark Rylance is set to return as Cromwell, while Wolf Hall screenwriter Peter Straughan is also adapting the latest book.

"The script is largely written but now is exactly the moment we would have gone to Hilary to ask her input and thoughts, and from my point of view as a director, I would have sought her advice on certain specifics which would have allowed me to realize [her vision]," said Kosminsky, noting that at the moment the future of the series is a secondary concern: "A great light has gone out. The word 'great' is used very easily these days but nobody could dispute that it's an appropriate epithet for Dame Hilary Mantel. If you look at the scale of her achievements, the impact she's had, the breadth of her knowledge and reading.... She's someone whom people went to for thoughts and opinions on a variety of different novels and nonfiction works. People recognized her for the massive intellect as she was. It's hard to imagine a world without her."

Murder at the Serpentine Bridge by Andrea Penrose is 6th book in her Wrexford and Sloane historical mystery series (and I've read them all). I find Penrose's characters utterly delightful, especially as they are a multigenerational household in which everyone contributes their skills to solving the latest historical mystery. Charlotte and Wrex are a match made in chaos, but their relationship rings much truer than most book romances, where the protagonists can't seem to keep their hands off one another and there's little real romance and not much at stake in the relationship (especially if the female protagonist has a child...said child is always nearly perfect, adorable and biddable and all too ready to accept the new boyfriend as a father figure). Charlotte has adopted two street urchins who are savvy and slippery and smart, but who were starving, and they're anything but biddable. They're messy, mischevious and and very protective of Charlotte who realizes that putting their street skills to use is the pragmatic thing to do. They're not easy to parent, and when Charlotte falls in with Lord Wrexford, they put him to the test, and he succeeds in winning them over. So now they're a family, but one that gets into and out of a lot of trouble for the sake of the common good and justice. Here's the blurb: “[Penrose] mixes well thought out mysteries, early forensic science, great details of the era and a slow burning attraction creating a compulsive read.” —The New York Public Library
 
Charlotte, now the Countess of Wrexford, would like nothing more than a summer of peace and quiet with her new husband and their unconventional family and friends. Still, some social obligations must be honored, especially with the grand Peace Celebrations unfolding throughout London to honor victory over Napoleon.
 
But when Wrexford and their two young wards, Raven and Hawk, discover a body floating in Hyde Park’s famous lake, that newfound peace looks to be at risk. The late Jeremiah Willis was the engineering genius behind a new design for a top-secret weapon, and the prototype is missing from the Royal Armory’s laboratory. Wrexford is tasked with retrieving it before it falls into the wrong hands. But there are unsettling complications to the case—including a family connection.
 
Soon, old secrets are tangling with new betrayals, and as Charlotte and Wrexford spin through a web of international intrigue and sumptuous parties, they must race against time to save their loved ones from harm—and keep the weapon from igniting a new war.

Penrose's prose is finely wrought and seasoned with great historical moments and characters that are woven into the plot in such a way that they don't weigh it down at all. Speaking of plots, the plot of this book is so intricate and yet swift and breathtaking that you're halfway through the book before you realize it. I agree with the NYPL that this is a compulsive read...you will not be able to put it down! Therefore I'd give this latest addition to the Wrex and Sloane books a solid A, and recommend it highly to anyone else who has read the previous books in the series.

Dark Rise by C.S. Pacat is a magic and military YA fantasy that I found riveting reading. There's so many twists and turns in the plot that you have to hang on to your metaphorical hat while you careen around with the clear but sturdy prose through this weird but fascinating story arc...and beware the bomb drop of an ending! Here's the blurb:

In this stunning new fantasy novel from international bestselling author C. S. Pacat, heroes and villains of a long-forgotten war are reborn and begin to draw new battle lines. This epic fantasy with high-stakes romance will sit perfectly on shelves next to beloved fantasy novels like the Infernal Devices series, the Shadow and Bone trilogy, and the Red Queen series.

Sixteen-year-old dock boy Will is on the run, pursued by the men who killed his mother. Then an old servant tells him of his destiny to fight beside the Stewards, who have sworn to protect humanity if the Dark King ever returns. Will is thrust into a world of magic, where he starts training for a vital role in the oncoming battle against the Dark.

As London is threatened and old enmities are awakened, Will must stand with the last heroes of the Light to prevent the fate that destroyed their world from returning to destroy his own.

Like V.E. Schwab’s A Darker Shade of Magic and Shelby Mahurin’s Serpent & Dove, Dark Rise is more than just high intrigue fantasy—it’s fast-paced, action-packed, and completely surprising. Readers will love exploring the rich setting of nineteenth-century London. This thrilling story of friendship, deception, loyalty, and betrayal is sure to find a passionate audience of readers.

I find it odd that Violet, who is just as much of a main character as Will, isn't mentioned in the blurb and it would seem that the whole book focuses on Will's journey, when that is just not the case. Violet plays an equally important role to Will, and Violet is more of the reader's "eyes and ears" in the book than Will is, but somehow she's seen as nobody or invisible or a pest because she's the half sister of the Villain's second in command, a "lion" who apparently requires a blood sacrifice to come into his full dark magical powers (and guess who they have lined up to be that sacrifice?) But Violet flouts convention and works with Will to try to thwart the powers of darkness and keep the Light from being extinguished. And while the actual descendants of the Lady of Light were not who I thought they would be, I was startled by those dedicated to the dark, because in the end they seemed blinded by their own ambitions. The prose in this book is clear and sturdy and it works well in keeping all the twists and turns of the plot from being confusing. Though this book was a bit too long (450 pages? Really?) and could have used an editor to slash about 75 pages out of it, I'd still give it an A-, and recommend it to anyone who is interested in "light vs dark" stories in a historical setting.

Starry-Eyed Love by Helena Hunting is the second contemporary romance in the Spark Sisters trilogy, and because I'd read the first, and enjoyed it, I figured the second book would be just as charming. I was, unfortunately, wrong. While the book had the usual "reluctant" young career woman with damage in her past and a ton of self esteem issues who decides she will not date, but of course finds the man of her dreams immediately after said decision, I found London's waffling to be rather childish for a professional woman, and her nearly autistic anxiety, which causes her to loathe crowds and create origami stars constantly, to be equally odd and off putting. Her two sisters pushing her and trying to control her decisions all the time also didn't sit well with me. Bullying people by saying "I only want what's best for you! or  I only want you to be happy!" doesn't wash anymore, and I would have clouted both her sisters and left the business at the first opportunity I got, if I were London. Here's the blurb:

Charming, hilarious, and emotional, Starry-Eyed Love is Helena Hunting at her very best!

Having just broken up with her boyfriend, London Spark is not in the mood to be hit on. Especially not when she’s out celebrating her single status with her sisters. So when a very attractive man pays for their drinks and then slips her his number, she passes it right back to him with a ‘thanks, but no thanks’. As the business administrator for their family’s event hotel, the Spark House, London has more important things to worry about, like bringing in new clientele.

As luck would have it, a multi-million-dollar company calls a few months later asking for a meeting to discuss a potential partnership, and London is eager to prove to her sisters, and herself, that she can land this deal. Just when she thinks she has nailed her presentation, the company’s CEO, Jackson Holt, walks in and inserts himself into the meeting. Not only that, but he also happens to be the same guy she turned down at the bar a few months ago.

As they begin to spend more time together, their working relationship blossoms into something more. It isn’t until their professional entanglements are finally over, that London and Jackson are finally ready to take the next step in their relationship. But between Jackson’s secretive past and London’s struggle with her sisters, London must question where she really stands - not just with Jackson, but with the Spark House, too.

That the older sister Avery refuses to hire more help and refuses to acknowledge that her sisters don't share in her love of working at Spark House as their only career (London wants to do arts and crafts, and the youngest sister wants to work with children) boggles my mind, because she's always going on and on about how much she loves her sisters...but she's taking the "family only business" to an extreme that isn't sustainable. Avery rarely asks London for her input and thoughts, and seems to have no problem dumping all the work off onto her sisters as she prepares for her own wedding. Her selfishness and blind rigid insistence on working her sisters to exhaustion took her quickly form a heroine to someone I despised. I also didn't like the fact that London doesn't have enough spine or grit to get away from the family business and have a life of her own, so of course the new boyfriend shows her that she's valuable enough as a person to ask for what she wants, and only then, with the backing of a guy, does she come out of her shell enough to do what she should have done ages ago: confront selfish Avery. Ugh, I hate the trope of shy/low self esteem young woman finally comes into her own but only with the help and support of a man. It's such a sexist cliche! For those reasons, I'd say this ebook was worth a B-, and I'd only recommend it to those who can't start a series and not finish every book in that series, even if the quality deteriorates from one book to another.