Watchmen TV Reboot, Secret Garden's Scott Retires, The Right Stuff TV Show, Socery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson, Aurora Rising by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff, The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang and The Right Sort of Man by Allison Montclair

This quote made me laugh, because it's so true, though I don't see bookstores as menacing, so much as awesome. 

"Aren't bookshops strange? Sitting there with quiet menace as if they were just a shop and not an entry point to 30,000 different universes?"  Matt Haig

A reboot of The Watchmen is coming out, and though my husband, who is a true comic book fan, is skeptical, I am looking forward to seeing this great cast in action.

TV: Watchmen

HBO's latest trailer for Damon Lindelof's upcoming series Watchmen http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz41365163, based on the comic book epic by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, marks a debut for fan favorite Doctor Manhattan. Entertainment Weekly reported there "are still a lot of questions about how (and when) the world in Lindelof's Watchmen operates, but news footage sees Doctor Manhattan flaunting his abilities on the planet Mars. This is where Regina King's character, reportedly named Angela Abar, says he's been living. Only now, it would appear he's back on earth."

The trailer also features Jeremy Irons (reportedly playing an older version of comic character Ozymandias), Don Johnson, Jean Smart, Tim Blake Nelson and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. Also featured in the series are Louis Gossett Jr., Hong Chau, Andrew Howard, Tom Mison, Frances Fisher, Jacob Ming-Trent, Sara Vickers, Dylan Schombing and James Wolk. Watchmen premieres on HBO this October.

I became a fan of the Secret Garden bookstore back in the 90s, when we first moved to Seattle. The booksellers there were always friendly and fun to talk to and they managed to cram a lot of wonderful genres of literature in a small space (after they moved into their shop on Market street in Ballard). I wish Ms Scott only the best in her retirement.

Seattle Bookseller Susan Scott Retires

Secret Garden Books http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz41368831, Seattle, Wash., recently celebrated the retirement of shop manager Susan Scott after a 40-year career in bookselling. Although she worked in retail in college and spent several years as an advertising copywriter in New York City and later Seattle, her long-term future in bookselling was set with her first job, shelving books at the Seattle Public Library in 1967. She began her bookselling career at Books & Co. in New York City in 1980, continued upon her return to Seattle at Queen Anne Avenue Books, working with its original owners back in the '90s, and joined Secret Garden in 1996.

"Susan wanted her last Saturday to be a big (sales) one for the shop, so we invited dozens of past and current booksellers, publishers reps, and, of course, customers, most of whom went home with purchases," events manager Suzanne Perry said.

I loved Tom Wolfe's book and the movie that came from it back in the 80s. I am looking forward to the television series because it has a stellar cast and it's the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, which I watched with my brothers on our black and white console TV when I was 8 years old. 

TV: The Right Stuff

"As America basks in the 50th anniversary celebration of the first moon landing," National Geographic has released the first trailer for its upcoming

series The Right Stuff http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz41368848 "which uses Tom Wolfe's book as its starting point," Deadline reported. The project is from Leonardo DiCaprio's Appian Way and Warner Horizon Scripted Television.

Patrick J. Adams stars as John Glenn and Jake McDorman as Alan Shepard. The cast also includes Colin O'Donoghue, Eric Ladin, Patrick Fischler, Nora Zehetner, Eloise Mumford, Shannon Lucio and Josh Cooke.

"Subsequent seasons of The Right Stuff will carry through to the epochal Apollo Space Program, where humankind saw one of its greatest achievements--man setting foot on the moon--and missions beyond," Deadline wrote.

Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson is an utterly delicious YA steampunk fantasy that is reminiscent of Gail Carriger's Finishing School series of YA fantasy, in that it is brimming with wit and charm and young women who refuse to sit on the sidelines of life. The prose is spotless, and the plot bubbles and sparkles and flows fast, like river rapids in the summer sunshine. I honestly couldn't put it down, and read the whole book (over 450 pages) in a day. Here's the blurb: From the New York Times bestselling author of An Enchantment of Ravens comes an imaginative fantasy about an apprentice at a magical library who must battle a powerful sorcerer to save her kingdom.

All sorcerers are evil. Elisabeth has known that as long as she has known anything. Raised as a foundling in one of Austermeer’s Great Libraries, Elisabeth has grown up among the tools of sorcery—magical grimoires that whisper on shelves and rattle beneath iron chains. If provoked, they transform into grotesque monsters of ink and leather. She hopes to become a warden, charged with protecting the kingdom from their power.
Then an act of sabotage releases the library’s most dangerous grimoire. Elisabeth’s desperate intervention implicates her in the crime, and she is torn from her home to face justice in the capital. With no one to turn to but her sworn enemy, the sorcerer Nathaniel Thorn, and his mysterious demonic servant, she finds herself entangled in a centuries-old conspiracy. Not only could the Great Libraries go up in flames, but the world along with them.
As her alliance with Nathaniel grows stronger, Elisabeth starts to question everything she’s been taught—about sorcerers, about the libraries she loves, even about herself. For Elisabeth has a power she has never guessed, and a future she could never have imagined. 

I loved Elisabeth and her spunky, smart room mate the aptly named Katrien Quillworthy, and I loved the fact that they were both apprentices to great libraries, which were the foundations of their world. The books and grimoires had personalities, and talked to Elisabeth, as well as becoming deadly creatures when provoked. The fact that Elisabeth was a foundling who was raised in the library from infancy, and has "ink in her veins" made me identify with her even more, as I've been a bibliophile for 55 years (having learned to read at age 4). I loved this book so much I can only hope and pray for a sequel. Of course, it has earned a special place in my heart and an A, as well as a recommendation to my fellow Steampunk-loving friends, and those who enjoy a well told tale with a solid female protagonist.

Aurora Rising by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff also sports a strong young woman as a protagonist, in what could only be seen as a YA science fiction/fantasy with romance woven in, because, it is inevitable that there is a love triangle in this type of YA fiction. That said, there was a science fiction comic book/graphic novel feel to this book that made it easy to read fast, and made the plot run on an FTL engine. You find yourself nearly done with the book before you know it. The snarky phone was a fun addition to the pages, as he was able to dole out information in a fun way in chapter headings that didn't feel dull as an info-dump. Here's the blurb: The year is 2380, and the graduating cadets of Aurora Academy are being assigned their first missions. Star pupil Tyler Jones is ready to recruit the squad of his dreams, but his own boneheaded heroism sees him stuck with the dregs nobody else in the academy would touch . . .

A cocky diplomat with a black belt in sarcasm
A sociopath scientist with a fondness for shooting her bunkmates
A smart-ass tech whiz with the galaxy's biggest chip on his shoulder
An alien warrior with anger-management issues
A tomboy pilot who's totally not into him, in case you were wondering

And Ty's squad isn't even his biggest problem--that'd be Aurora Jie-Lin O'Malley, the girl he's just rescued from interdimensional space. Trapped in cryo-sleep for two centuries, Auri is a girl out of time and out of her depth. But she could be the catalyst that starts a war millions of years in the making, and Tyler's squad of losers, discipline cases, and misfits might just be the last hope for the entire galaxy.

NOBODY PANIC.

The POV rotates from one squad member to the next throughout the book, which takes a little getting used to, but manages to not be as confusing as it sounds. SPOILER: I know that it is inevitable that one person dies in such epic tales, but I was rather disappointed that it was the awesome female pilot, who was sacrificed on the altar of the love triangle between Auri and Tyler and the hot alien Kal, who is caught in something like a Vulcan Pon Farr, where he is hormonally required to choose a mate, and has chosen Auri. Though its a tired trope, it doesn't fare too badly here, and I enjoyed all the pop culture references and science fiction classic references in the text, as well. I'd give this book an A, and recommend it to anyone who likes Avengers or Justice League comic books, or YA science fiction involving a group of misfits who make good.

The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang is a sprite of a romance novel, with an interesting premise that kept me turning pages into the wee hours. The prose is stellar and the plot dances along on light feet. Here's the blurb: A heartwarming and refreshing debut novel that proves one thing: there's not enough data in the world to predict what will make your heart tick.
Stella Lane thinks math is the only thing that unites the universe. She comes up with algorithms to predict customer purchases—a job that has given her more money than she knows what to do with, and way less experience in the dating department than the average thirty-year-old.It doesn't help that Stella has Asperger's and French kissing reminds her of a shark getting its teeth cleaned by pilot fish. Her conclusion: she needs lots of practice—with a professional. Which is why she hires escort Michael Phan. The Vietnamese and Swedish stunner can't afford to turn down Stella's offer, and agrees to help her check off all the boxes on her lesson plan—from foreplay to more-than-missionary position. Before long, Stella not only learns to appreciate his kisses, but crave all of the other things he's making her feel. Their no-nonsense partnership starts making a strange kind of sense. And the pattern that emerges will convince Stella that love is the best kind of logic.

The set up of an autistic young woman paying a male prostitute to help her become adept at sex isn't really new (Pretty Woman has basically the same plot with a reverse of gender) and the fact that they inevitably fall in love isn't new, either, but somehow Hoang manages, via steamy sex scenes and character vulnerability, to make it work anew, like a Star Trek reboot full of lens flares. I really enjoyed this A-worthy novel, and would recommend it to anyone who likes diverse/different protagonists and stories about them adapting their lives in new and inspiring ways. Kudos to Hoang for breaking new ground with this delightful tale.

The Right Sort of Man by Allison Montclair was a historical mystery has gotten tons of good ink, with rave reviews, interviews and all kinds of press and blurbs from famed authors and reviewers. Usually, books on bestseller lists leave me cold, as they're rarely worth all the hype. The Right Sort of Man, however, was worth every ounce of good ink and press swoonage, and then some. The prose was sublime, the plot fresh and fast, and the characters utterly fascinating. The British charm is in full force here, as our heroines Iris and Gwen, who have their own matchmaking business, take to the streets to solve the mystery of who killed one of their female clients. Here's the blurb:

First comes love, then comes murder.
In a London slowly recovering from World War II, two very different women join forces to launch a business venture in the heart of Mayfair―The Right Sort Marriage Bureau. Miss Iris Sparks, quick-witted and impulsive, and Mrs. Gwendolyn Bainbridge, practical and widowed with a young son, are determined to achieve some independence and do some good in a rapidly changing world.
But the promising start to their marriage bureau is threatened when their newest client, Tillie La Salle, is found murdered and the man arrested for the crime is the prospective husband they matched her with. While the police are convinced they have their man, Miss Sparks and Mrs. Bainbridge are not. To clear his name―and to rescue their fledging operation’s reputation―Sparks and Bainbridge decide to investigate on their own, using the skills and contacts they’ve each acquired through life and their individual adventures during the recent war.
Little do they know that this will put their very lives at risk.

As utterly engrossing as this book was, I was a bit put out by Sparks being so cavalier about having an affair with a married man. Still, it all came out right in the end, and I hope that there are at least a dozen more of these mysteries in the offing, so that I might pine for them in the future. The world of Sparks and Bainbridge beckons! I'd give this lush and immersive mystery novel an A, and recommend it to anyone who likes well written post WWII mysteries set in England.