Hurrah! It's September, the start of my favorite season, Autumn, and my favorite time of year, as it gets cooler and the skies get grayer, and book lovers get cozy with a stack of great titles, a warm blanket, a fuzzy friend and a nice hot cuppa tea or coffee or hot cocoa. Bliss. Unfortunately its unseasonably warm for this time of year in the Pacific Northwest, so I'm going to have to be patient as I await chai tea latte afternoons with a book and blanket in hand. Here are some interesting reader reviews and my own while you wait.
This is what all bookstores should be...a light in the dark, and a sanctuary for bibliophiles. I also love the chosen name of this store.
Quotation
of the Day
"Why I'm Here. Why This Matters.
When I first opened The Wandering Soul, I didn't fully know what it
would become--only that I needed to create a space where people could
feel something again. A space to be curious. To
be quiet. To feel seen. What started as
a shop filled with local artists
and oddities has grown into something
that feels like its own heartbeat.
A bookstore, yes--but also a sanctuary
for stories and souls. A place
where the strange and beautiful
collide. Where magic hums in the
corners, and community feels like a
warm light flickering through the
cracks.
"I'm still here because this
matters. Because there are still books that
need to find their people. Still
artists who deserve to be seen. Still
stories that whisper, "stay a
little longer. This shop has carried me
through some of the hardest parts of my
life--and I've poured that same
care back into it, for whoever needs to
find a little light in the dark.
So if you've ever felt like a wanderer,
or a little lost, or a little
weird in the most wonderful
way--welcome. This space was made with you
in mind."--Dani Johnson, owner of The Wandering
Soul Bookstore
Interesting take on a library and libations theme, which is usually a fundraising evening for libraries, which are increasingly scrambling for funding under the iron fist of the fascist POTUS currently in power. There are also more banned and challenged books than ever, so librarians are having to go to the mat to save freedom of the press and the freedom of ideas that this country was founded upon.This bookstore is trying to bring in the booze-loving crowd to keep them reading and understanding the power of the written word and the community it fosters.
Field
Day Books & Bottles Opens in Portland, Ore.
Field Day Books & Bottles, a new
and used bookstore serving a selection of
alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages,opened this month in Portland, Ore.,
the Oregonian reported.
The bookstore, located at 6836 N.E.
Sandy Blvd., in Portland's Roseway
neighborhood, emphasizes LGBTQ, BIPOC,
and neurodiverse perspectives and
carries books that encourage new
experiences, co-owner Kitty
McLeod-Martinez told the Oregonian. In
addition to books, there is a
fridge featuring beer, wine, and cider,
along with non-alcoholic options
like kombucha.
McLeod-Martinez and co-owner Alec
Ballweg first met roughly 10 years ago while working at Powell's
Books in Portland. They kept in touch while
taking different career paths, until
Ballweg reached out to
McLeod-Martinez about a year ago to ask
if they had ever thought about
opening a bookstore. McLeod-Martinez
recalled answering: "Only all the
time."
The bookstore's name comes from Casey
McQuiston's romance novel The
Pairing, in which the main characters
open a combined bakery and
cocktail bar called Field Day. Both
Ballweg and McLeod-Martinez loved
the book and felt the fictional Field
Day had "exactly the vibe that we
want to curate." They got
McQuiston's blessing when the author was in
town for the Portland Book Festival,
and the owners hope McQuiston can
one day visit the bookstore.
"There're very few spaces that
encourage people to spend time together
and foster the sense of community that
they'd been missing,"
McLeod-Martinez told the Oregonian.
"It's not about drinking and getting
drunk.... It's about the experience of
sharing something."
Oh how I miss our former wise, handsome and literate POTUS, Barack Obama. He was a wonderful president, and has continued to be a strong support for civil rights and intelligent debate. Here's his reading list (I don't think our current POTUS even knows how to read).
Obama's
Summer Reading List 2025
Barack Obama has released his summer
reading list. On Instagram, he wrote, "Reading has always been
an important part of my journey, which is why I couldn't be
more excited that we'll have a new branch of the Chicago Public Library at
the Obama Presidential Center when it opens next year. For now, I
figured I'd share some of the books I've read recently, along with some
notes about why I liked them--and why you might, too. Take a look and let
me know what I should check out next."
Obama's list:
Mark Twain by Ron Chernow
The Book of Records by Madeleine Thien
King of Ashes by S.A. Cosby
Abundance by Ezra Klein & Derek
Thompson
Rosarita by Anita Desai
Audition by Katie Kitamura
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen
Graham Jones
A Marriage at Sea by Sophie Elmhirst
Who Is Government? by Michael Lewis
The Sirens' Call by Chris Hayes
I'm so jealous of the surfer dude who found this key and got all those great prizes! Lucky guy! More authors should sponsor treasure hunts like this!
Cool
Idea of the Day: Waikiki Key Found
To celebrate the one millionth copy
sold of Catherine Steadman's
thriller Something in the Water--a
Reese's Book Club pick and the story
of a honeymooning couple's shocking
underwater discovery--Ballantine
Books held a treasure hunt on Waikiki
Beach at the luxury Halekulani
hotel in Hawaii. People were invited to
search for a key dropped into
the waters off Waikiki. The prize: a
$1,000 Bookshop.org gift card, a
two-night stay at the Halekulani, and a
signed, complete set of novels
by Steadman. The winner: Justice
Leonard, a local surfing instructor.
There are some great books listed here, and I'm looking forward to seeing who wins. A tough decision with all these great books.
WA State Book Award Finalists Chosen
Finalists have been selected for the
2025 Washington State Book Awards,
sponsored by the Washington Center for
the Book. Winners will be
announced September 16. To see the 42
finalists in seven categories,
click here
https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJsdgmIn-kI6axichlxTA~k1yJoKXv-hs8x67OWp6hpoMLg-gVdw
and
don't miss the fiction nominees, who
include Shelf Awareness's Elaine U.
Cho, for Ocean's Godori (Zando).
I'm sold on this idea of a character study of librarians and others who work in a public library in the reddest of red states, Texas. The battles waged against book banners and other ignoramuses must be epic!
The
Librarians
by Sherry Thomas. "This intriguing
mystery is also an in-depth character study of a group of people
working for a small public library in Austin, Texas. No one is quite
who they seem, but when two suspicious deaths happen in the area,
with both victims having recently been in the library, the staff must
band together to try to decipher what happened. Books about
librarians are always a win/win, and this one is particularly well
done." --Douglas Beatty, Baltimore County Public Library, Md.
The Remarkable Retirement of Edna Fisher by E.M. Anderson is a cozy and fascinating magical fantasy with an 83 year old protagonist who, in previous decades, would barely merit a mention in any fantasy novel, purely out of ageism and misogyny. Here's the blurb: The reveal (SPOILER) that the terrible sorcerer is actually her son, who was thought to be long dead (she's been mourning him for 30 years) was nearly gasp-worthy, but I found his reasons for destroying whole towns full of innocent people, along with their homes and businesses, (he was hazed horribly as part of becoming a knight) to be rather weak, as young people who are still working on becoming knights are keeping this horrible tradition alive, and most have the bruises to show for it. Apparently these youngsters are then expected to participate in the hazing of squires, and most do so because having been hazed/abused turns them into psychopaths who are only out for revenge on those innocent squires who haven't felt the pain that they have. This makes little or no sense to me, as someone along the line must have spoken up or tried to break the cycle, and not just those who join up with "Red", the guy who thinks that burning it all down with dragons is the appropriate response. I was physically and mentally "hazed" all throughout junior high and high school, but it never occurred to me that I should burn the entire town down and kill everyone in it because I'd been hurt for years, and no one helped me. But it didn't turn me into an abusive jerk. Still, Edna was kindness personified, and she was able to get her son to understand that what he was doing was wrong. So despite the cozy atmosphere, there was a gentle and decent message behind this book, about how to respond to the cruelty around us with love and kindness. I'd give this well written and sleekly plotted novel an A, and recommend it to anyone over the age of 55 who knows that adventurous spirits can live on in older bodies.
For Whom The Belle Tolls by Jaysea Lynn is a romantasy/comedy full of fun and flirting and plenty of SPICY sex scenes, so if you're a pearl clutcher, this novel is not for you. Also, you have to have an appreciation for puns, both bad and good. Here's the blurb: From Hell’s Belles BookTok sensation Jaysea
Lynn comes a hotter-than-hell romantasy about love, magic, and found
family in the Afterlife.
They told her to go to Hell.
She went, but on her own terms.
Lily isn’t exactly thrilled with her arrival in the Afterlife, but what awaits her there is more fantastical than she ever could have imagined: Deities wait in line at the coffee shop. Fae flit between realms. Souls find ways to make death a beginning.
As she explores the many corners of the Afterlife, Lily finds herself surprisingly drawn to a place most people would avoid at all costs: Hell. Armed with years of customer service experience and pent-up sarcasm, Lily carves a job out for herself amongst Hell’s demons, sending souls to their rightful circles with more than a hint of sass.
Lily’s expectations are subverted every day in Hell—especially by Bel, a demon general with a distractingly sexy voice. The two meet by chance and form an immediate, deeply healing friendship, but the undeniable heat between them threatens to combust.
Meanwhile, something stirs beyond the boundaries of their world, threatening to destroy everything they’ve known and everything that could be…unless they fight like Hell to stop it.
This debut novel from BookTok sensation Jaysea Lynn invites you to lose yourself in a world where love ignites in the unlikeliest of places, magic defies the rules, and the Afterlife proves more thrilling than anyone could imagine.
They told her to go to Hell.
She went, but on her own terms.
Lily isn’t exactly thrilled with her arrival in the Afterlife, but what awaits her there is more fantastical than she ever could have imagined: Deities wait in line at the coffee shop. Fae flit between realms. Souls find ways to make death a beginning.
As she explores the many corners of the Afterlife, Lily finds herself surprisingly drawn to a place most people would avoid at all costs: Hell. Armed with years of customer service experience and pent-up sarcasm, Lily carves a job out for herself amongst Hell’s demons, sending souls to their rightful circles with more than a hint of sass.
Lily’s expectations are subverted every day in Hell—especially by Bel, a demon general with a distractingly sexy voice. The two meet by chance and form an immediate, deeply healing friendship, but the undeniable heat between them threatens to combust.
Meanwhile, something stirs beyond the boundaries of their world, threatening to destroy everything they’ve known and everything that could be…unless they fight like Hell to stop it.
This debut novel from BookTok sensation Jaysea Lynn invites you to lose yourself in a world where love ignites in the unlikeliest of places, magic defies the rules, and the Afterlife proves more thrilling than anyone could imagine.
I have to admit that I was surprised to discover that the videos that I'd been watching nearly daily on Facebook (which were migrated over from BookTok, an app that I don't have) were this authors visual representation of her characters in Hell, being sassy at the HELLP (get it?) desk and bantering with demons and damned souls who come to Hell in an endless variety of asshats. Demons, in the book, are actually pretty nice guys and gals, who just want someone to love and a good home and family life. This mammoth tome (over 600 pages) manages to encapsulate Lily's journey from her arrival to her falling in love with demon Bel, to her adoption of Sharkey, an abused child in desperate need of love, kindness and good parenting. Though its hefty, Lynn's sparkling prose and brilliant swift plot keep readers engrossed for hours, while the chapters fly by. I expected it to take at least 8 days to read, and it only took 2.5. It's quite an accomplishment to make a door stopper of a novel into a page-turner that will have you laughing and crying in equal measure. At any rate, I loved it, and would give it an A, and recommend it to anyone who longs for a different kind of spicy romantasy that isn't for the YA crowd and is not watered down.
Keep Me by Sara Cate is Scottish romance with plenty of spice and an intriguing premise that will keep you turning pages into the wee hours. Note that I'm a huge fan of Scottish men in general (Gerard Butler, YUM) so the idea that a grumpy Scot with a lot of money needs to learn to love is a fantasy that I can get behind in a variety of ways. Here's the blurb:
Their marriage of convenience is anything but…
All
Killian Barclay wants is to be left the hell alone. He's had enough
heartache to last a lifetime, and he has no more need for love―earning
him the reputation of a broody Scot and eventually turning his famous
ancestral home into a den of iniquity. It doesn't take long for tales of
his raunchy house parties to reach the rest of his family, though,
inspiring them to hatch a plan to shake Killian out of his routine.
New
Yorker Sylvie Devereaux is tough as nails―as the daughter of famous yet
neglectful parents, she's grown a hard shell and keeps everyone at
arm's length. So when she sneaks into Barclay Manor during a trip to
Scotland to get a glimpse of a famous heirloom, she doesn't anticipate
facing off against the brutish, maddening highlander who lives there.
And she certainly didn't expect to ever see the bastard again.
Yet
just weeks later, she's approached by Killian's family with a
proposal―move to Scotland and marry Killian to improve his playboy
reputation, and after one year, she'll walk away with ten million
dollars. Sylvie agrees, even knowing that their plan is more deceptive
than he realizes. But as she grows closer to Killian and the end of
their year together, she has to decide: Is the love of a good man with a
dark soul worth keeping, or is she willing to break Killian's heart now
that it's well and truly hers?
Heck, I'd live with a grumpy Scotsman for half that amount! Anyway, I loved how tough Sylvie was and how she didn't back down even in the face of Killian's mean spiritedness. I also loved the slow burn of their attraction, and the fireworks when they eventually got together. The prose was shiny and the plot slick, and I finished this delightful book in an afternoon. I'd give it an A, and recommend it to those who think Outlander and men in kilts are hotter than the surface of the sun (Sign me up!). The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson is a beautifully turned-out tome that, while over 630 pages long, reads like a book half that size, with sizzling prose and a dancing, twisty plot that keeps coming up aces. Here's the blurb: “A labyrinth of a book—vast and intricate,
full of fiendish twists and clever traps—with a deeply human heart at
its center."--Alix E. Harrow, author of Starling House
The Raven Scholar is a masterfully woven tale of imperial intrigue from an electrifying new voice in epic fantasy—in a stunning edition featuring French flaps and silver foiled cover effects!
Let us fly now to the empire of Orrun, where after twenty-four years of peace, the reign of Bersun the Brusque has come to an end. In the dizzying heat of midsummer, seven exceptional warriors, thinkers, strategists compete to replace him.
When one of them is murdered, it falls to Neema Kraa, the emperor’s brilliant, idiosyncratic High Scholar, to find the killer and fight for the throne. Neema believes she is alone. But we are here to help; all she has to do is let us in.
If she succeeds, we will win an empire. If she fails, death awaits her. But we won’t let that happen.
We are the Raven, and we are magnificent.
Neema Kraa's journey through this epic fantasy/adventure is amazing and intricate, with so many unexpected twists and turns that if you're not paying close attention, you will get mental whiplash. I found the world-building here unparalleled, and the prose was clever enough to keep readers engrossed long past their bed times. Just when readers think they have the whole "ruler isn't who he claims to be" thing figured out, wham! Hodgson flips the script and we're now looking at an unprecidented evil magic mastermind who would sacrifice anything and anyone, including his son, to stay in power! Yikes! I was riveted right up until the weak sauce ending, which showed Cain and Neema on a boat, one of them sleeping, and Neema still having to placate the piece of Raven in her chest by stroking his ego. What?! After all that, all the fighting and strangeness and magic and mayhem, it comes down to sleepy couple on a boat to wherever? For shame, Hodgson! Why let your readers down now, when they've read through over 640 pages of your complex tale?! Why the simplistic and sad ending? Anyway, I'd give this huge tome a B, and recommend it to anyone looking for an epic fantasy with a twisty plot that involves a lot of birds.
The Raven Scholar is a masterfully woven tale of imperial intrigue from an electrifying new voice in epic fantasy—in a stunning edition featuring French flaps and silver foiled cover effects!
Let us fly now to the empire of Orrun, where after twenty-four years of peace, the reign of Bersun the Brusque has come to an end. In the dizzying heat of midsummer, seven exceptional warriors, thinkers, strategists compete to replace him.
When one of them is murdered, it falls to Neema Kraa, the emperor’s brilliant, idiosyncratic High Scholar, to find the killer and fight for the throne. Neema believes she is alone. But we are here to help; all she has to do is let us in.
If she succeeds, we will win an empire. If she fails, death awaits her. But we won’t let that happen.
We are the Raven, and we are magnificent.
Neema Kraa's journey through this epic fantasy/adventure is amazing and intricate, with so many unexpected twists and turns that if you're not paying close attention, you will get mental whiplash. I found the world-building here unparalleled, and the prose was clever enough to keep readers engrossed long past their bed times. Just when readers think they have the whole "ruler isn't who he claims to be" thing figured out, wham! Hodgson flips the script and we're now looking at an unprecidented evil magic mastermind who would sacrifice anything and anyone, including his son, to stay in power! Yikes! I was riveted right up until the weak sauce ending, which showed Cain and Neema on a boat, one of them sleeping, and Neema still having to placate the piece of Raven in her chest by stroking his ego. What?! After all that, all the fighting and strangeness and magic and mayhem, it comes down to sleepy couple on a boat to wherever? For shame, Hodgson! Why let your readers down now, when they've read through over 640 pages of your complex tale?! Why the simplistic and sad ending? Anyway, I'd give this huge tome a B, and recommend it to anyone looking for an epic fantasy with a twisty plot that involves a lot of birds.
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