Déjà vu can be deadly…

A year ago, Rose Mcgovern’s sister was found dead at the bottom of a bridge. A tragic accident. That’s what the police called it. What they still call it. What everyone except Rose believes to be true. But she won’t change her mind. No matter how many seconds and minutes and days go by, no matter how much time she’s had to spend in the psych ward, and no matter how much her life falls apart. She will never give up on her quest for the truth.

And now, it’s happening again.

Another woman’s body has been found. The circumstances are far too similar to be a coincidence. There might even be more victims. Which would mean that Rose was right all along. But the police have long since dismissed her as paranoid, and she’s driven away every friend she’s ever had. With nothing but her own conviction on her side, how can she prove that an accident is really a murder? And even if it’s possible, can she do it before she makes a deadly mistake and the killer claims her life, too?

Dear Ms. Di Lorenzo, 

Another one of our reviewers reads a lot of mystery/thrillers and I decided to give one a try. This one attracted my attention because of the fact that Rose has had to battle not only with her own fears but the fact that so many others see her as being paranoid and won’t believe her. I wanted to know how she was going to solve this mystery and get people to take her seriously.

This was a fast read. Rose is a sympathetic character and I was on her side from the get-go. Not only has she lost her beloved sister (no mention of the parents) but despite the fact that she’s taken her concerns to the police sergeant in charge of the (non) investigation of her sister’s “accident,” not only has nothing been done but Rose has ended up in a psychiatric hospital twice for a few days each. It’s never made explicitly clear but from what I gather, she left her stove on twice to the point the fire department was called (though there’s no mention of smoke damage to her apartment) and she hears her dead sister talking to her in her head and (I’m guessing) sometimes talks out loud in reply. Then she finds something that she’s sure will get the sergeant to see what Rose has been saying all along – Daisy’s death was no accident and not only that, her death mirrors that of another woman six months prior. 

Of course nothing works out as Rose hopes but she catches a break when she discovers and unexpectedly connects online with someone who also lost a person to an “accident.” Orin actually believes Rose and Rose believes Orin. Together the two begin to try and find what might have linked Daisy to Orin’s sister-in-law only to realize that they’ve got something much worse on their hands. 

Orin and several other characters are written in such a way that Rose is alternatively sure and unsure of what their motives might be. Things happen, people act strangely but there are reasons for all this. Right? This could just be Rose being more paranoid (both mentally and due to what she’s worried is happening) or a coincidence. Yes? Or is someone really after Rose, trying to cut off her investigation and maybe kill her? 

I waffled back and forth a bit before settling on my pick for whodunnit. Rose and Co finally realize who the killer probably is which sets up a fast paced finale showdown. Rose does her fair share of “I know I shouldn’t do [whatever]” before she goes ahead and does just that but to her credit, what she does isn’t TSTL level stuff. There are some slightly, okay fairly, unbelievable things that conveniently occur to speed the plot along but I wanted to know what was going to happen and how all the pieces of the puzzle were going to fit together. I was left with a few niggling questions such as how did the killer choose his victims and manage to kill the last person, but most everything else was wrapped up and the feeling I get is that Daisy won’t be “talking” to Rose anymore. The twist at the end? That did catch me by surprise though. B-   

~Jayne

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What’s the difference between mazes and labyrinths? Proverbs and adages? Clementines and tangerines? Join author Eli Burnstein on a hairsplitter’s odyssey into the world of the ultra-subtle with Dictionary of Fine Distinctions. Illustrated by New Yorker cartoonist Liana Finck, this humorous dictionary takes a neurotic, brain-tickling plunge into the infinite (and infinitesimal) nuances that make up our world.

The perfect gift for book lovers, word nerds, trivia geeks, and everyday readers, this illustrated gem is more than just a book—it is an indispensable resource akin to a thesaurus but filled with charm and wit. Each entry, from “latte vs. flat white” to “Great Britain vs. The United Kingdom,” is accompanied by mnemonic aids, quirky asides, and detailed illustrations, making it a standout dictionary for any bibliophile or language enthusiast’s library.

Review

This looked entertaining and since I’ve enjoyed a number of books dealing with words and what we do with them, I asked to review it. The blurb correctly leads one to believe that the distinctions between the terms covered will be, in most cases, small and I found this to be the case. I amused myself by glancing at the word pairings and seeing if I could mentally distinguish between them before reading what Burnstein had to say about them. I did okay on my own but did learn some things that, frankly, I’m not sure I’ll retain. Burnstein also said that for many of these pairs, the distinctions are being lost so this book is probably aimed at those who are curious or those who want to be pedants.

The book is filled with line drawings to illustrate differences but these are rather hit or miss as to usefulness. And despite being over 200 pages, it’s a quick read. The words chosen to examine varied from common to vanishingly specific. There is little to no organization that I noticed so readers can fill a free moment or two without fear of losing their place. Here are some (abbreviated) examples of what you can find discussed.

Ethics vs morality – … why an immoral act sounds graver than an unethical one: One may get you fired, but the other could land you in hell.

Snitch = tattletale and a rat = traitor

Amp vs. Volt vs. Watt – In short, when you hear amps, think current, when you hear volts, think pressure, and when you hear watts, think utility bill.

AWD vs 4WD – One is safe and sophisticated. The other, rugged and badass.

Parable vs fable – A parable is a brief tale with a moral lesson. A fable is a brief tale with a moral lesson – plus animals.

I had fun reading it but it is more entertainment rather than a reference to be returned to. B-

~Jayne

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Just when she thought she’d gotten far enough away . . . a life-changing phone call throws an antisocial scientist back into her least favorite place—the spotlight.

After a tumultuous childhood, Christa Barnet has hidden away, both figuratively and literally. Happily studying sea snails in the middle of the Indian Ocean, Christa finds her tranquil existence thrown into chaos when her once-famous father—long thought dead after a plane crash—turns out to be alive, well, and ready to make amends. The world goes wild, fascinated by this real-life saga, pinning Christa and her family under the spotlight. As if that weren’t enough, her reunion with an old childhood friend reveals an intense physical attraction neither was expecting and both want to act on . . . if they can just keep a lid on it. When her father’s story starts to develop cracks, Christa fears she will lose herself, her potential relationship, and—most importantly—any chance of making it back to her snails before they forget her completely.

CW/TW – past teen alcohol and drug use, past sexual assault attempt

Dear Ms. Waxman, 

I’ve said before that my experiences with your books have been mixed. This is one which I sorta love it and sorta dislike it. Parts had me laughing out loud, or cringing, or upset. Most of the characters pissed me off at times and the one who didn’t piss me off felt too good to be true. But I sucked down roughly 400 pages in two days (taking a bit of time out to watch the eclipse which I feel sure Christa, as a scientist would approve of). 

Christa is in her happy place, on a remote island in the Indian Ocean studying her snails, when her world detonates. Suddenly she’s flying home (Reunion to Paris to LA) back to a family which has complicated dynamics. Her (long lost and presumed dead) father has reappeared, her family is stunned, and her father’s long term (reptilian) agent is attempting to micromanage every stage of his return and their reaction on a world stage. What the heck is going on here and how soon can Christa escape? Before she can head back to her snails, she’ll have to come to terms with how life is now.

Christa is little but she can be fierce. Her default survival mechanism though is run and hide. If that doesn’t work, then she’ll come out swinging. Her childhood was a bit of a mess partly due to the fact that her well organized mother took over her father’s TV Show and Conservation Foundation activities after dear old dad’s plane crashed in the Alaska wilderness and his body was never found. Christa was too young to remember her father but through a series of widely published photos, being hauled onto the set of TV shows to hold the cute animals, and some unfortunate acting-out as a teen, Christa gained some notoriety. 

She, her sisters, and their mother (who, after dad was ruled to be legally dead, married a man she loved), have dealt with many “sightings” before over the years but when Jasper appears on Oprah, they know he’s really back. The press and general public with smartphones descend on the family turning things into a circus. If that wasn’t bad enough, the slimey agent and his minions intend to milk this for every exclusive deal possible with Christa, as the only bonafide scientist, front and center with her father about whom she has conflicting opinions once the truth starts coming out. Then there’s Nathan, someone who has been in Christa’s life for ages and for whom she’s beginning to feel feelings she’s never felt for him before while Nathan appears to reciprocate those feelings. 

Given her background, I can understand why Christa prefers to be out of the limelight now. As a child and given no choice in the matter, she got dragged into a lot of stuff that she didn’t want any part of. She did finally bust loose and do things that were, unfortunately, caught on camera leading her mother to wake up and get Christa away from it all. As Christa tells mom Denny (Denise) when mom apologizes as she should have done years ago, this all led to Christa finding her passion in marine biology (and I loved the biology stuff!) so it wasn’t all for naught. There were times though when I wanted to shake Denny as she immediately starts committing Christa to doing public things (again!) with no consent from Christa. Mom is mostly good but has her moments. 

Christa’s sisters are much older which caused some rifts in years past but they’re acting better now due to intensive therapy. Yay that they’re not their old selves who Christa had been dreading seeing but I felt that there was still a lot of old family drama that had never been quite worked out either and which got – more or less – swept under the carpet. Both sisters also appeared fine with disappearing back into their lives and leaving Christa as the Liddle sister stuck with the machinations of dad and the agent who pulled no punches in manipulating Christa into doing what he wanted.

Jasper Liddle is one of those charismatic souls who can read a room, easily slip into friendships with total strangers but who really isn’t the nice guy he might appear to be. Jasper’s got some “‘splaining to do” about where he was for so many years and once that ugly truth begins to tumble out, I disliked him intensely. And yet, the family is conflicted about how to react to his return. This is also somewhat understandable as the daughters were young and Denny was able to provide for them all and also found her true love. Christa, who has no memories of her father, probably has the purest response which has a lot of anger in it. And things only get worse later on. She’s also (understandably) angry about having her life hijacked for all the Netflix specials, TV appearances, books, and whatnot that the agent is spinning and her dad seems to be falling for. 

The romance in the story gets sprinkled into it in various places but I found I liked this the least. Nathan is quite frankly too good to be true. He’s endlessly understanding, beyond patient with the whole three-ring circus situation, always ready to drop what he’s doing and appear at a moment’s notice to help the Liddles, and unbelievably supportive of Christa. I’d love a man like this in my life but honestly, I don’t think they actually exist. After Christa has pulled back, then moved in, then announced she’s leaving, then spouted her “I love yous” only to announce for the umpteenth time that she’s headed back to the snails, good old Nathan is still the totally there for her and urging her to do what she has to. His speech in which he spells out to her just why he thinks she’s the best thing ever in his life is lovely and a great “boombox” moment but I wanted him to finally get a little mad about something, anything in this book which he keeps getting dragged into. 

There are some dark things that swirled through the book such as the power of social media, the hunger of the public for a piece of someone’s life, the price that some people are willing to pay to get what they want, the fact that all the women of the Liddle family have either already gone to or end up going to therapy to deal with the fallout of what Jasper did, the lack of consent for things Christa was made to do and the lack of support her family gave her for so many years. There is also a lot of funny stuff as Christa is an acerbic person who doesn’t worry about filters but yeah, dark places are visited here. The book works more for me as fiction and women’s fiction but less so as a romance. B-

~Jayne    

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70 years on the throne. 13 American presidents. One extraordinary queen.

From the moment she first enchanted the world as a youthful princess, Queen Elizabeth II found a unique place in American hearts—and she also played an unprecedented role in forging transatlantic ties. Over her seventy-year reign, she developed extraordinary and varied personal bonds with thirteen U.S. presidents—Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, both Bush Sr. and Jr., Clinton, Obama, Trump, and Biden—that other diplomats and leaders could only dream of.

A fascinating, in-depth look at international relations and interpersonal intrigue, Royal Audience peels back the curtain on the “special relationship” between the U.S. and the U.K. as embodied by the Queen herself—charting Elizabeth II’s distinctive brand of one-to-one diplomacy through the eyes of those who experienced it firsthand. From horse-riding with Ronald Reagan, to sharing her recipe for scones with Dwight D. Eisenhower, to striking up a kinship with the Bushes and the Obamas, the Queen’s interactions with her U.S. counterparts often acted as a restorative tonic for relations between two nations, even when political tensions ran high. Not all royal encounters with U.S. presidents went smoothly, though. Between Jackie Kennedy’s complaints about Elizabeth and the Queen Mother’s shock at being kissed on the lips by Jimmy Carter, there was never a dull moment.

Throughout the years, Queen Elizabeth II’s sense of duty and service remained steadfast, and her iconic legacy is unlikely to be repeated.

Review

Looking at the cover and reading the blurb, I went into this book hoping for a bit of “behind the scenes” and maybe little tidbits of historical information from the many meetings between Queen Elizabeth II and the fourteen US presidents she met over the course of her life. I did learn some things but as was often mentioned in the book “what happens at private lunches/teas/dinners/meetings with the Queen, stayed with the Queen.”

I’ll be frank and say that the extensive background on the international events of the day was probably needed – especially in the case of the things that influenced US/UK relations 70 years ago (how up are you on the Suez Canal Crisis of 1955?) – but these were inserted as history lessons and they read as one. After the major UK/US kerfluffles during each presidential term(s) were outlined, there usually followed a tit-for-tat exchange of excruciatingly correct notes and letters that could be studied as an etiquette guide. Only after that stuff did the meetings between the Queen and the presidents get discussed.

Once things got personal and the trips/state visits were delved into, I enjoyed the little glimpses of these relationships. Beginning with President Truman while she was still Princess Elizabeth, including President Hoover long after his term, and continuing through President Biden, the Queen was seemingly wielded as diplomatic “oil on troubled waters.” When the Special Relationship (use that as a drinking game and get drunk quickly) between the US and UK needed work, out would come an invitation from one side or the other and she would be put to work.

Despite the protocol filled meetings, from the information and recollections of those there, her tact, charm, sharp sense of humor, and decades of experience did seem to work a charm. From being on the receiving end of a hug from a woman in Maryland, visiting a US grocery story along with Prince Philip, exchanging views on standing for hours in heels with Michelle Obama, or enjoying private visits to the US where she could “let her hair down” a bit more than was possible in the UK, the Queen rolled with the punches, smiled through summer humidity in DC, and forged relationships with the presidents that they fondly recall.

After I began skimming some of the more recent political events and crises – since I lived through them and already knew them – and then also skipping the note exchanges, I cherry picked out the bits that I came for. Perhaps it’s better that the curtain not be entirely pulled back and some of the mystique remain but there are quick flashes here that give a peek into what made her special and such an unrivaled asset for British relations with the US. B-/C+

~Jayne

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THE PRINCESS IS FAKE. THE MURDERS ARE REAL • From the New York Times bestselling author of The Flight Attendant and The Lioness, a Princess Diana impersonator and her estranged sister find themselves drawn into a dangerous game of money and murder in this twisting tale of organized crime, cryptocurrency, and family secrets on the Las Vegas strip.

Crissy Dowling has created a world that suits her perfectly. She passes her days by the pool in a private cabana, she splurges on ice cream but never gains an ounce, and each evening she transforms into a Princess, performing her musical cabaret inspired by the life of the late Diana Spencer. Some might find her strange or even delusional, an American speaking with a British accent, hair feathered into a style thirty years old, living and working in a casino that has become a dated trash heap. On top of that, Crissy’s daily diet of Adderall and Valium leaves her more than a little tipsy, her Senator boyfriend has gone back to his wife, and her entire career rests on resembling a dead woman.

And yet, fans see her for the gifted chameleon she is, showering her with gifts, letters, and standing ovations night after night. But when Crissy’s sister, Betsy, arrives in town with a new boyfriend and a teenage daughter, and when Richie Morley, the owner of the Buckingham Palace Casino, is savagely murdered, Crissy’s carefully constructed kingdom comes crashing down all around her. A riveting tale of identity, obsession, fintech, and high-tech mobsters, The Princess of Las Vegas is an addictive, wildly original thriller from one of our most extraordinary storytellers.

CW/TW – honestly, if you have something that will trigger you, this book might have it. Suicide/murder, sexual abuse, violence, PTSD from mass shootings, drug/alcohol abuse, eating disorder

Dear Mr. Bohjalian,

I guess Diana, or her sorta image, does still sell just about everything. I know both the cover and the title grabbed my attention and made me look deeper into what the book is about. I enjoyed a previous book of yours, “Skeletons at the Feast” so I crossed my fingers and dove into this one.

For a book mainly set in sunshiney Las Vegas, this one has a whole lot of dark shadows and darker people. Honestly I think only one character didn’t make me either snarl, sigh in disgust, want to throw my hands up, mentally mutter “really? really??” or some variant of “I’m not pleased with this person.” Nobody gets away with being a totally good person except for Nigel and even something he does might annoy people. Everyone else?      Sigh.

The book starts off with a bang but then slows down a lot in order for all the (many) characters to be introduced and pertinent information about them to be revealed. Wait, sort of revealed as there are obviously lots and lots of secrets and I don’t just mean who is willing to shoot, kick, slug, or threaten people at the drop of a hat. I guessed a few of the issues that are festering between Crissy and her almost look alike sister Betsy and that haunt them both years to decades after they occurred. Some of these will be triggers but I think readers might be able to see the reveals approaching. There’s also a lot of time spent on cryptocurrency and a fair amount of disbelief is needed about some plot points and actions. 

Things pick up as all the pieces and threads begin to fit and weave together. The action is tighter and the pace increases. But the wheels also start leaving the ground a bit as the plot swerves around corners at full throttle. And yet as things got worse, I had to know what was going to happen next. How were the (relatively) good guys going to get out of this alive? Some clues had been sprinkled along the way but in sort of an obvious way, too. Everything does come together and yet I was left with a few worries – we are talking about ruthless people – and a feeling of slightly unrealistic happiness and unresolved issues. Maybe as Crissy is redoing her show now that (the real) Charles is King, she can work in some therapy sessions. B-       

~Jayne    

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She’ll light the fire of resistance—but she may get burned…

1942. Though she survived the bomb that destroyed her home, Yvonne Rudellat’s life is over. She’s estranged from her husband, her daughter is busy with war work, and Yvonne—older, diminutive, overlooked—has lost all purpose. Until she’s offered a chance to remake herself entirely…

The war has taken a turn for the worse, and the men in charge are desperate. So, when Yvonne is recruited as Britain’s first female sabotage agent, expectations are low. But her tenacity, ability to go unnoticed, and aptitude for explosives set her apart. Soon enough she arrives in occupied France with a new identity, ready to set the Nazi regime ablaze.

But there are adversaries on all sides. As Yvonne becomes infamous as the nameless, unstoppable woman who burns the enemy at every turn, she realizes she may lose herself to the urgent needs of the cause …

Dear Ladies,

When I first looked at this book, for some reason I thought it was a straight non-fiction account of a French resistance agent. Then I started reading it and looked closer at the cover and saw “a novel” and wondered if I’d imagined what I initially thought. Further investigation revealed that this is the novelization of the life of a real, older woman, Yvonne Rudellat, who had been turned down when she tried to volunteer for various agencies in London to help the war effort but who eventually came to the attention of the SOE.

I can believe that it was difficult to turn her story into a novel. She was in her early forties when she was recruited, small, short, easy to overlook. Who’d believe that she would stick out the grueling training needed to become an agent. Her exploits once in France did “set [her small corner of] Europe ablaze” as Churchill wanted. The real events that are known of what she and her recruited band of resistants achieved are impressive. What is imagined of what happened to her after the Germans finally managed to get their hands on her makes sense. The postwar letter written to her daughter by Vera Adkins explains much that might (as I’ve gathered after reading other reviews) puzzle readers.

I liked how Yvonne’s training in the UK and time in France are alternated. Her male trainees and resistants might have initially dismissed her but the Germans knew of her and were determined to catch her. One thing that did bother me a bit is that Yvonne, as written, appears to have brushed aside the civilian deaths that resulted from the actions of her resistance cell. C’est la guerre I suppose. While at times the pace of the novel gets bogged down a little in explanation, the dangers that agents faced were palpable which makes their determination to keep going all the more admirable. B-

~Jayne

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From the time she was a young girl, Luisa Voekler has loved solving puzzles and cracking codes. Brilliant and logical, she’s expected to quickly climb the career ladder at the CIA. But while her coworkers have moved on to thrilling Cold War assignments—especially in the exhilarating era of the late 1980s—Luisa’s work remains stuck in the past decoding messages from World War II.

Journalist Haris Voekler grew up a proud East Berliner. But as his eyes open to the realities of postwar East Germany, he realizes that the Soviet promises of a better future are not coming to fruition. After the Berlin Wall goes up, Haris finds himself separated from his young daughter and all alone after his wife dies. There’s only one way to reach his family—by sending coded letters to his father-in-law who lives on the other side of the Iron Curtain.

When Luisa Voekler discovers a secret cache of letters written by the father she has long presumed dead, she learns the truth about her grandfather’s work, her father’s identity, and why she has never progressed in her career. With little more than a rudimentary plan and hope, she journeys to Berlin and risks everything to free her father and get him out of East Berlin alive.

As Luisa and Haris take turns telling their stories, events speed toward one of the twentieth century’s most dramatic moments—the fall of the Berlin Wall and that night’s promise of freedom, truth, and reconciliation for those who lived, for twenty-eight years, behind the bleak shadow of the Iron Curtain’s most iconic symbol.

Dear Ms. Reay,

I remember growing up in a world with an East Germany and a West Germany, an East Berlin and a West Berlin – divided by a wall I thought would never come down in my lifetime. Then I remember watching over some weeks as the Iron Curtain disintegrated which was then followed quickly by thousands of joyous West Berliners as they danced on the remains of the wall and welcomed East Berliners over. All of which made me want to read this book once I’d read the blurb.

This is a book that I read very quickly. It’s propulsive and takes readers from the unbelievable morning after the wall went up with no warning through to when it became irrelevant. Told in first person chapters by Louisa (covering a brief week in time in 1989) and her father Haris (from 1961 through 1989), we get a glimpse into how people living in East Berlin survived the restrictions and snitches which might lead to a message to appear before the Stasi. Who could you trust and what did you dare say?

But the events that start the book, and some that preceded it, still have long term effects on some of the characters. Louisa’s family survived the war and her mother and grandmother were there when the Soviet Army swept through eastern Germany in 1945. Louisa has heard of the repression and danger of that era but it’s only when she discovers what has been going on between her Opa and her father that she truly sees how much her Oma’s memories still terrorize her. War orphaned child Haris initially viewed the Soviets as saviors which drives his acceptance of and enthusiasm for the utopian world promised by communism. It takes years of reality to change his opinion and drive him, as a journalist, to speak the truth in the only way he can.

I will be honest and say that I enjoyed reading the sections by Haris about life in East Berlin more. The gray, hazy world and the threats that everyone lived under felt more immediate and visceral. Louisa initially impressed me with her code breaking skills both at work and with the letters she finds. But once she decides to save her father, as another reviewer says, I can see why she would have been pulled from operative CIA training – even if ostensibly her lack of skills were not the reason that was done. Louisa heads into danger with a laughable plan and then proceeds to muck even that up. Had she tried to pull off what she did a day earlier – let’s just say things would not have gone well for her. I inhaled this whole section, but I was shaking my head at it, too.

The HEA seems a little sugar coated and rushed. There are parts of it

~Jayne

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A story of love, madness, sisterly devotion, and control, about the two beloved daughters of renowned 1700s English painter Thomas Gainsborough, who struggle to live up to the perfect image the world so admired in their portraits.

Peggy and Molly Gainsborough—the daughters of one of England’s most famous portrait artists of the 1700s and the frequent subject of his work—are best friends. They spy on their father as he paints, rankle their mother as she manages the household, and run barefoot through the muddy fields that surround their home. But there is another reason they are inseparable: from a young age, Molly periodically experiences bouts of mental confusion, even forgetting who she is, and Peggy instinctively knows she must help cover up her sister’s condition.

When the family moves to Bath, it’s not so easy to hide Molly’s slip-ups. There, the sisters are thrown into the whirlwind of polite society, where the codes of behavior are crystal clear. Molly dreams of a normal life but slides deeper and more publicly into her delusions. By now, Peggy knows the shadow of an asylum looms for women like Molly, and she goes to greater lengths to protect her sister’s secret.

But when Peggy unexpectedly falls in love with her father’s friend, the charming composer Johann Fischer, the sisters’ precarious situation is thrown catastrophically off course. Her burgeoning love for Johann sparks the bitterest of betrayals, forcing Peggy to question all she has done for Molly, and whether any one person can truly change the fate of another.

A tense and tender examination of the blurred lines between protection and control, The Painter’s Daughters is a searing portrait of the real girls behind the canvas. Emily Howes’s debut is a stunning exploration of devotion, control, and individuality; it is a love song to sisterhood, to the many hues of life, and to being looked at but never really seen.

CW/TW – depictions of mental illness, parental (not the Gainsboroughs) physical abuse, miscarriage 

Dear Ms. Howes, 

I know a bit about Thomas Gainsborough, as I love his portraits, but when I saw the blurb for this book I realized I know zip about his daughters even though I’ve seen Gainsborough’s portraits of them. Overall, I found this novelization of their lives to be well written and interesting though a bit uneven at times. 

It is told from the first person present view of Margaret (the younger daughter) who is also known as Peggy, Peg, and called Captain by her father and intercut with the third person present story of their grandmother for Reasons which become clear as the story progresses. We follow Peggy and her older sister Mary – aka Molly – (and the Gainsboroughs had two daughters they named Mary, the first of whom died as a young child).from a young age when they lived in Ipswich, to Bath, then ultimately to London and (just a bit) of their later life in seclusion.

Peggy gives a rundown of the household which is run by their harried mother and of how her father’s profession influences their lives. There are paintings hung everywhere, including ones of the sisters, showing Gaingborough’s talent to entice prospective clients. Their father’s work precludes him spending as much time with them as everyone would like but when he takes his kit out to the countryside to paint the landscapes that he loves, sometimes the sisters will tag along with him. As portrayed, Gainsborough is a loving father though perhaps not the best businessman as mother Margaret (whose mother’s name was also Margaret) does all the household accounts. 

Persuaded to move to fashionable Bath to increase his prospects, Peggy gives us a child’s view of a carefree life in the country which morphs into life in busy, noisy, crowded, and slightly filthy Bath. Life is good but Molly’s tendency to vanish into herself as well as wander and do other frightening things is a hint of what is to come.

I found the first part to be the most interesting. Peggy is a child of ~ eight and the way she describes her life feels that age. Later during the early years in Bath – while she’s still supposed to be fairly young – her voice feels older than it should to me. I would have preferred life in the country too, wandering fields, picking blackberries, and playing in a stream rather than Bath, no matter how interesting the people or sights. 

During the second half of the book, I felt more ill at ease but also a little bored. It’s endless rounds of parties for the sisters who are now back from their six years at a school (one of those ubiquitous schools for girls that haunt historical romance books). As their portraits had when they were children, their adult social activities were meant to serve as accessories for their father’s career. But also I knew that the Event that nearly separated the sisters as well as Molly’s final descent into mental illness were around the bend. 

The descriptions of 18th century life are not prettied up. This is particularly evident in the parts with the sisters’ grandmother. Her life was grim but she did find a cleared-eyed way out of it. Thoughts regarding how she did this might differ but she had a goal and she got it. Early in the book, Peggy mentions a series of eight (Hogarth) prints that the family has which (from her description) are illustrating Bedlam. This horrible place is how we begin to see what might happen to Molly if she’s deemed to be “mad” and why Peggy works so hard to cover up her sister’s symptoms. But yes, there is a degree of becoming her sister’s keeper involved as well. I can also understand – as it’s shown – why Molly might have tried to throw over the traces at one point in order to try to live a normal life. 

The sparse details of their lives and the possible backstory of their mother and grandmother are wound into an interesting explanation of the sisters’ lives. I like that the events for which there is no evidence other than the known personalities of the people involved are mentioned in the afterwards note. It’s sad that Peggy’s and Molly’s lives couldn’t remain as happy as they were as children chasing a white butterfly in a garden as their father painted them. B-

~Jayne   

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In the vein of acclaimed popular-science bestsellers such as Atlas Obscura, Astrophysics for Young People in a Hurry, The Way Things Work, What If?, and Undeniable, the co-founders of the global science organization Nerd Nite bring readers a collection of wacky, yet fascinating STEM topics.

For 20 years, Nerd Nite has delivered to live audiences around the world, the most interesting, fun, and informative presentations about science, history, the arts, pop culture, you name it. There hasn’t been a rabbit hole that their army of presenters hasn’t been afraid to explore. Finally, after countless requests to bring Nerd Nite to more fans across the globe, co-founders and college pals Matt Wasowski and Chris Balakrishnan are bringing readers the quirky and accessible science content that they crave in book form, focused on STEM and paired with detailed illustrations that make the content pop. The resulting range of topics is quirky and vast, from kinky, spring-loaded spiders to the Webb telescope’s influence on movie special effects.

Hilariously named after Dale Carnegie’s iconic book, How to Win Friends and Influence Fungi features narratives, bursts, and infographics on all things STEM from scientists around the world. Chapters are sure to make you laugh-out-loud, with titles such as “The Science of the Hangover,” “What Birds Can Teach Us About the Impending Zombie Apocalypse,” and “Lessons from the Oregon Trail.”

With fascinating details, facts, and illustrations, combined with Chris and Matt’s incredible connections to organizations such as the Discovery Network and the Smithsonian Institution, How to Win Friends and Influence Fungi is sure to reach joyful STEM enthusiasts of all ages around the world.

Review

I’d never heard of Nerd Nites before (and sadly there are none near me) but this sounded like a great offbeat and interesting book. It’s composed of short essays on STEM subjects that have been presented at said Nerd Nites around the world where experts tell a little bit about interesting subjects to an audience drinking alcoholic beverages. I think the idea is to be both fun and informative. 

In a group of subjects as large as contained here, there will obviously be some of interest and some that just won’t float your boat no matter how well done. With that in mind, I will admit to skipping about 5-7 of the essays but that still left a lot that I read. Some I found to be great – informative, long enough to cover the subject, and well explained. Others were okay but perhaps ended too quickly before really getting going. A few made me think “Huh, what was the point of that?” I wish that a few of the presenters would have stayed on the subject and left their politics out of it and when I say this, keep in mind that I don’t want anyone’s politics regardless of their side. As Sgt Joe Friday never said, “Just the facts, ma’am.” 

Interesting subjects and information I learned: someone actually studied dating apps for their PhD, octopi are as fascinating as I thought they were (their suckers taste things!), “Finding Nemo” got about everything regarding clownfish wrong, I wish the essay on misophonia had been more detailed and less “cutesy” but it did make me go look it up to learn more, phonemes and phonemic constraints for different languages are fascinating, NASA’s “waste” management is fascinating and a potential source of rocket fuel, reading about maggot wound debridement is simultaneously fascinating and revolting, microbiomes might be a source of neuropsychiatric disorders, GMO’s are nothing to fear, bacteria are just waiting to be our friends but we must treat them well, Sam Kean does a great job describing what drove the interest of the guy who helped formulate standard ways to design scientific experiments as well as explain why some people like their milk added first then tea or vice versa, if your dog gets into your underwear/knickers drawer and swallows them it’s better for the dog if you wear thongs, and flames – I never thought what they actually are either.

I speed read this but it’s the style of book that you can do that or dip a leisurely toe in when you’ve got a minute or five. Delve into what interests you or skip what doesn’t. And check to see if there’s a Nerd Nite near you. B/B-

~Jayne 

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Dear Sophie Sullivan,

Presley Ayers has been dating Emmett for months but things are not going well. In order to try and get things back on track and prove she can encourage him to do things he likes even if she doesn’t, she books a 10 day holiday to Get Lost Lodge on a small island in Lake Michigan. It’s all nature, hiking, fishing; things Emmett apparently likes (although Presley’s best friend Rylee notes she’s never see Emmett doing any of them) and which are not really in Presley’s wheelhouse. Her idea of sport is a long day battling other shoppers looking for a bargain in the Black Friday sales. But she’s a good girlfriend so she surprises him with the holiday he would want. And he does… except he doesn’t want to go on it with her.  Emmett, as we can all tell very early on, is a jerk.

Presley breaks up with Emmett (go girl!) and goes on the holiday herself. She’s determined to try new things and have a great holiday without Emmett so there.

Presley works at a hotel in Great Falls, Michigan (which I think isn’t real and may be a stand-in for Grand Rapids but don’t quote me; I’m Australian) and has been trying to work her way up to Concierge. It seemed to me that she was doing all the work but not being compensated for it and her boss is a bit of a weasel – super demanding and severely lacking in appreciation for Presley. Presley also is something of a low-key (her description) social media influencer, with 50,000 followers on Instagram and a growing following on Tik Tok. Her specialty is helping people find luxury on a budget. She was able to get free airline tickets to the place she needed to get the ferry to the place she needed to get the boat to Get Lost Lodge. (Getting there was complicated.)

Beckett Keller is a Smile (the local town on the mainland) local (I’d guess Smile is not a real place either – when I Googled it it was a dental association). His brother, Greyson, recently divorced and in the settlement (due to, I expect, romance reasons) he ended up with the Get Lost Lodge. It’s run down and in need of quite a bit of TLC. As he had been working for his father-in-law, he’s basically got nothing but the lodge now so he’s determined to make a go of it. Beckett, together with their sister, Jill (and her 7-year-old, Olivia aka “Ollie”), are helping Grey with the lodge. The siblings have always been close and helping each other out is what they do.  Beckett works in a sporting good store in Smile but is on vacation in order to help Grey as much as he can with the lodge. Beckett is also tossing up some further opportunities; his boss has offered him a role managing a second store. It includes a buy-in option but the downside would be he’d have to leave Smile and work further away from his family and friends. There’s something else Beckett is interested in though; he’s been keen to open a bike rental business in Smile. He’s been saving money and has applied for a business loan. The other option would be to give/loan Grey the money he’s put aside in order to assist Grey with the lodge and stay doing what he’s been doing. He’s torn and hasn’t said anything to the family because he wants to work out what he wants to do first. Also, he may be just a teensy bit scared of change but don’t tell Beckett I said that.

Presley and Beckett arrive at the lodge at the same time (although Beckett’s been there before of course). It’s Presley’s first time on a boat. She’s not a fan. Beckett notices her right away; she’s pretty and also obviously uncomfortable and scared but just as obviously trying not to show it.

The lodge is very much a family affair and the vibe there is welcoming and cosy, with all the Keller family bending over backwards to provide their guests with whatever they need. The main lodge has rooms and there are some cabins as well but they are in need of repair and so Grey and Beckett are using one each while they work on them and the others.

The AC is on the fritz in Presley’s room – it’s arctic in there – and all the other rooms in the lodge are either full or not ready for guests yet so Beckett offers up his cabin to her – he will sleep on the couch at Grey’s. Only, Presley is not an outdoors girl and she’s nervous being away from the main house so Beckett ends up sleeping on his own couch. I think we all see where this is going.

When I saw Love, Naturally on NetGalley I wondered if it might have the vibe of It Happened One Summer by Tessa Bailey; – someone wealthy and privileged, a bit (a lot) like Alexis Rose (Schitt’s Creek) is banished to a small town and falls in love with a bearded hottie who is a salt-of-the-earth grumpy type. (It’s one of my favourite books in recent years actually – super fun, charming and funny and my oh my the steam!). Love, Naturally is not very like It Happened One Summer in almost all the ways.  Presley is not wealthy or privileged. Yes, she has little experience with the outdoors but this isn’t used for laughs. She tries fishing (she likes it), hiking (not a huge fan) and biking (better than hiking and fishing, not as good as bargain-hunting) while on her holiday and she never comes across as shallow. (Piper Bellinger – comes across as shallow; she is not.) Presley’s skills and experience are directly relevant to what’s needed at the Get Lost Lodge. She knows where to get hotel quality bedding at bargain prices, she knows about marketing and promotion, she has a following on Instagram and uses it to promote the lodge. She’s respectful about offering her expertise to the Kellers (who are grateful to receive it).  Beckett is not grumpy. He’s friendly and open, a little shy even. When #HotMountainMan starts trending he’s embarrassed but not angry about it. The main similarity between the two books is the conflict – in both cases, the guy is certain the girl will not want to stay in their small town. That’s really about it.

I had initially tagged Love, Naturally “fish out of water” and I suppose the tag fits to a degree but really, Presley fits in so well at the lodge and in Smile and her own desires are are about belonging and family than bright lights and the big city so I didn’t really ever feel Presley didn’t belong or would be unhappy staying.

Perhaps because of a preconception about what the book might be like (and possibly wishful thinking, who can say) I was also expecting more steam. Love, Naturally is not steamy. There are some hot kisses but what happens after that stays off the page and is protected by a moat and portcullis. I read plenty and across the spectrum of steam levels. One of my favourite books from last year (I listened to it so it’s not in my top 10 here) was Hello Stranger by Katherine Center. Center writes a similar steam level to you and I barely noticed. I’ve been trying to put my finger on why I felt the lack of steam in this book but not others. I’m not sure I can articulate it but it just seemed to me like a book which should have had more heat and didn’t. I’m not sure if that makes sense.

Apart from Emmett, just about everybody in Love, Naturally is lovely – friendly, kind, generous and talented in one way or another. There is little by way of conflict. Presley fits in with the Kellers so well it’s not a surprise where things end up. Perhaps because of that and maybe that lack of heat, I found the book to be somewhat lacking in tension. I liked it but I didn’t find it compelling.

For readers looking for a low-conflict, fairly gentle story though it’s an enjoyably safe bet.

Grade: B-

Regards,
Kaetrin

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After Tova Sullivan’s husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she’s been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago.

Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn’t dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors—until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.

Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova’s son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it’s too late.

Shelby Van Pelt’s debut novel is a gentle reminder that sometimes taking a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible.

I got the book from the library.

Review:

Dear Shelby Van Pelt,

For once I get to read a New York Time Bestsellers List Book when the book is still sitting on that list. It appears that the book is number four this week when I am typing my review. I have to admit that this book confused me. The plot was simple and the main “mystery” (it is not billed as a mystery, but the characters need to figure out something and the blurb kind of hints at it, but not quite, so that is why I called it a mystery) was easy to figure out, but Marcellus the Octopus confused the heck out of me.

Please do not get me wrong, I am aware of books that use animals as narrators, I am aware of the movies that do the same thing!  Not as if this was a narrative device completely new to me, however sometimes I can buy an animal who can express thoughts more complex than many human beings and sometimes I cannot. For me, the book either has to be a fantasy to buy it OR the animal’s narration should be limited to the things they can observe to share with the reader if that makes sense.

I think the author did try to describe Marcellus talking as an actual octopus in captivity and that made sense, but then he started making general observations about human beings and moreover he figured out a “mystery” way before the main human characters did, moreover he figured out what to do to speed up the human characters’ thought processes – so to speak – and I was sitting there, asking “What?”  And at the same time, I really liked his slightly sarcastic voice, despite all my criticisms. That is why I said that this character confused me.

This is billed as a story of friendship between the main female character Tova and Marcellus and I agree with that, although they never actually talk to each other (thank Goodness for that if you ask me, because if Marcellus started making small talk I probably would have been done with the book), but they still find a way to communicate and I liked that.

I really liked Tova, I even admired her and this story is also about her living and dealing with her grief over her son’s death (and, relatively recently in the book’s timeline, her husband’s death as well). This is also about Tova trying to understand how her son died, even if it happened many years ago. Also the book is about something that came out of her son’s death and I cannot discuss that at all, because to me this is the biggest spoiler of the book.

The story’s narration switches between Marcellus (first person mix of past and present), Tova’s (third person mostly present tense) and a couple other characters, one more prominent another rather secondary (I think he only got a few chapters but I can be wrong).  This unnamed third prominent character I actually found the most annoying in the book. I warmed up to him as story moved along, but for at least first half of the story I thought of him as a loser.

The ending was quite hopeful and I was glad for Tova’s sake, as I thought she needed that.

Grade: B-/B

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For readers of Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier and Enemy Women by Paulette Jiles, an evocative, morally complex novel set in rural 19th century North Carolina, as one woman fights to keep her family united, her farm running, and her convictions whole during the most devastating and divisive period in American history.

Talk of impending war is a steady drumbeat throughout North Carolina, though Joetta McBride pays it little heed. She and her husband, Ennis, have built a modest but happy life for themselves, raising two sons, fifteen-year-old Henry, and eleven-year-old Robert, on their small subsistence farm. They do not support the Confederacy’s position on slavery, but Joetta considers her family to be neutral, believing this is simply not their fight.

Her opinion is not favored by many in their community, including Joetta’s own father-in-law, Rudean. A staunch Confederate supporter, he fills his grandsons’ heads with stories about the glory of battle and the Southern cause until one night Henry runs off to join the war. At Joetta’s frantic insistence, Ennis leaves to find their son and bring him home.

But soon weeks pass with no word from father or son and Joetta is battered by the strain of running a farm with so little help. As the country becomes further entangled in the ramifications of war, Joetta finds herself increasingly at odds with those around her – until one act of kindness brings her family to the edge of even greater disaster.

Though shunned and struggling to survive, Joetta remains committed to her principles, and to her belief that her family will survive. But the greatest tests are still to come – for a fractured nation, for Joetta, and for those she loves . . .

CW – description/discussion of miscarriage, derogatory description of enslaved people

Dear Ms. Everhart,

This was not an easy book to read. Civil Wars divide families, friends, and neighbors. Even those who want to stay apart will usually get drawn in eventually as do the McBrides. But healthy servings of guilt and pain also haunt Joetta as her world crashes around her.

The blurb doesn’t truly reveal the unpopular stance Joetta takes after rumors of coming war finally reach their small town in Nash County, North Carolina. After her father-in-law fills her restless older son’s head with visions of glory on a battlefield of a war that will soon be won, Henry leaves in the night. Ten days later, after the boy should have reached Raleigh and been turned away due to his age, Joetta guilts her husband into going after him only for Ennis to now be caught up in it as well. Refusing to let her neighbors believe that her menfolk have joined the Glorious Cause, Joetta begins to earn stares and whispers. After she allows NC Union troops to water their horses at her farm, things begin to get ugly with, at times, her father-in-law leading the charge.

Joetta staunchly refuses to change her mind and her neutrality although, after a visit from troublemakers ruins their corn and sorghum crops, she tempers her public outspokenness and tries to fade into the background. Then devastating news reaches her before someone new arrives to give her hope only for this to be followed by worse troubles. Can the McBrides who are left hang on in the face of angry resentments and desperate deserters?

There were times I cheered Joetta and her determination to hold onto her convictions. The easy way was there all the time but even biting her tongue was hard for Joetta in the face of needling comments designed to catch her out. She also had to deal with her younger twelve year old son who has lost the two men most important in his life and who now must help his mother wrest a living from the farm. Feeling her son slip away into resentment and pain at his own losses hurts Joetta even more. Yet there were also times when I yelled through my ereader at Joetta to just play along, read the room, and try to keep from upsetting those who could, and did, arrive with harmful intentions.

Joetta stubbornly sticks to her guns and there was one point where she ruminated on the fact that someone in her life called her pigheaded. Yep, that’s a good description. I kept feeling that she could have handled things better and still held onto her beliefs while also keeping her son and crippled father-in-law a bit safer. The middle of the book meanders around a bit with a lot of repetition of how the McBrides survive while the ending drags a little. Could they have managed through a harsh winter and two summers as they did? Possibly but it’s a stretch.

I think the two books listed above the blurb are accurate as far as which readers might enjoy this book. It is a hard look at a hard time. Though the McBrides and most of their neighbors don’t own enslaved people, there are some large plantations with owners who do. Nasty reasons for people to support the Confederate cause are mentioned. Sadly some of the attitudes are not ones that have died away in the century and a half and crop up in daily news now. Holding onto the courage of your convictions at any time when those convictions run counter to the prevailing viewpoints is challenging. There is much to admire about Joetta but watching her fight against the current leads to a darker story. B-

~Jayne

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An intimate look at the Moon and its relationship to life on Earth–from the primordial soup to the Artemis launches–from an acclaimed Scientific American and Atlantic contributor

Far from being a lifeless ornament in the sky, the Moon holds the key to some of science’s central questions, and in this fascinating account of our remarkable satellite, award-winning science journalist Rebecca Boyle shows us why it is the secret to our success.

The Moon stabilizes the Earth’s tilt toward the Sun, creating reliable seasons. The durability of this tilt over millennia stabilizes our climate. The Moon pulls on the ocean, driving the tides. It was these tides that mixed nutrients in the sea, enabling the evolution of complex life and, ultimately, bringing life onto land.

But the Moon also played a pivotal role in our conceptual development. While the Sun helped humans to mark daily time, hunters and gatherers used the phases of the Moon to count months and years, allowing them to situate themselves in time and plan for the future. Its role in the development of religion—Mesopotamian priests recorded the Moon’s position to make predictions about the Moon god–created the earliest known empirical, scientific observation.

Boyle deftly reframes the history of scientific discovery through a lunar lens, from Mesopotamia to the present day. Touching on ancient astronomers including Claudius Ptolemy; ancient philosophers from Anaxagoras to Plutarch; the scientific revolution of Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler; and the lunar fiction of writers like Jules Verne–which inspired Wernher von Braun, the Nazi rocket scientist who succeeded in landing humans on the Moon–Boyle charts our path with the Moon from the origins of human civilization to the Apollo landings and up to the present.

Even as astronauts around the world prepare to return to the Moon, opening up new frontiers of discovery, profit, and politics, Our Moon brings the Moon down to Earth.

Review

I’ve read a lot of books about space exploration and specifically NASA’s Apollo missions but what interested me about reading this book was that it would cover more about the Moon than just that. Earth has a long history with the Moon and I wanted to read about that. The book is divided into sections, some of which worked better for me than others. Be aware that for the most part, it has a very European/Middle Eastern focus with only brief references to Chinese astronomers and a slight detour to discuss First Puebloans in North America.

It may be pedantic of me but there are some flubs that I hope have been corrected before publication. Boyle discusses how the Moon retains a geologic record of asteroid and meteor impacts while, due to wind, water and subduction, the Earth does not have any.

“Combined with wind, water is a destroyer of worlds. Entire mountain ranges rise and fall through the work of water. It also erases craters. Though the timing and duration of the beating are still up for debate, we know Earth was bombarded by asteroids long ago, and yet there are no battle scars to show for it.”

Um yes, there are. Vredefort Crater, Chicxulub Crater, Sudbury Crater, Popigai Crater, Manicouagan Crater, Acraman Crater, Morokweng Crater, Kara Crater, Beaverhead Crater, Meteor Crater, and the Chesapeake Bay Crater are just the top eleven ones. Also there are some things such as not listing BCE/CE/or adding no notation at all to certain dates as well as some other pesky things like listing a temperature with both Fahrenheit and Kelvin degrees in one place but then only one in the other. Why? Okay I admit that these are inconsequential but if you’re writing a book with facts, get them correct and consistent so I don’t begin to doubt anything else in the book.

The first section is mostly science based and focused on astronomy. There’s lots of science here including various past and present ideas about how our Moon was formed, how planets were (probably) formed, and many scientific terms used for all this. Apollo missions feature in it a lot. For some reason I had difficulty plowing my way through this part and had to force myself to focus a lot.

Part two is what I view as more anthropologically focused and I loved it. Could the moon have influenced the development of life on Earth? Then once the tidal pool of amino acids yielded life, the wildly swinging tides of areas with lots of fossil evidence of the lobed fishes might have been where life crawled out of the oceans and onto land. The author makes some compelling arguments and backs them up with information about the scientific experiments being done now as well as fossils that have been discovered.

Boyle visits locations (mainly in Scotland) and discusses discoveries (such as the Nebra Sky Disc) which point out how Neolithic and Bronze Age Europeans built spaces and things to possibly track the Moon to tell future time and correct drifts between solstices and Moon based time keeping. The narrative then shifts to ancient Mesopotamia and their Moon God and how a king’s devotion to this deity might have led to the downfall of the Babylonian empire. Ancient Greeks watched the Moon’s movements but they, along with Ptolemy, and the view of an infallible Bible screwed up European beliefs for over a millennium. It took until the late sixteenth and into the seventeenth centuries to begin to accept Moon and planetary movements as they really are.

The book finishes up with a bit of discussion on if/should/will we journey back to the Moon and the implications of this. Businesses are the ones driving this and businesses are usually for profit. Is it right to turn the Moon into a business venture and who will profit? As I said, I enjoyed some parts of the book more than others but it gave me plenty of cool information and things to think about. B-

~Jayne

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When the Duke of Stanmere’s will reveals a nasty secret, London Society is shocked—and so is his widow, Joan. Humiliated by the scandal, Joan flees to Inverley in disguise. Surely the quaint seaside town would be the last place anyone would look for a duchess on the run.

After her mother’s remarriage, fashionable spinster Miss Maeve Balfour must make a living with hands whose only labor has been arranging her hair into the latest style. With nowhere to turn and nothing to lose, she persuades mysterious newcomer Joan to let her stay in her manor house.

Although entranced by worldly and seductive Maeve, Joan doesn’t know if she can trust again. As Maeve learns Joan’s secrets, she yearns to protect her from the men who have sought to destroy her. But can a spinster and a widow dare to defy a dukedom—and win each other’s hearts?

Dear Ms. Walsh,

I had hoped that the next book in this series would feature Maeve whom I met when reading “The Accidental Bride.” It does and it also has the MCs from the first book “The Accidental Heiress.” New readers need not worry though as Caroline and Arabella are in this book to support it rather than hawk their own.

Joan, Duchess of Stanmere is flabbergasted to learn that her late husband, the odious Duke, has only left her £200 per year in his will. Her protests are met with scorn from the new Duke, his uncles, and his aunt. Threats are made against Joan that if she raises a stink, the late Duke’s bastards will be attributed to her even though the oldest one is only five years younger than she is. Retreating to London, she learns that all her clothes and jewels have been confiscated. When she remembers the property in Inverley she bought with money gifted to her by her late father, she knows where she can go.

Maeve Balfour is shocked when her mother remarries and leaves Maeve behind with six months worth of living expenses and advice to find a rich husband to support her. Sapphic Maeve has no intentions of doing that but how can she support herself in a world with little use for spinsters? Events cause Joan to allow Maeve to rent a room in her house and soon Maeve begins to wonder if this woman might be the love she’s always longed for but Joan has secrets that are about to upend everything.

Maeve and Joan both have flaws that actually made them well rounded if at times frustrating. Maeve has always lived in genteel society but with her means of support – her now remarried mother – gone, she realizes she’s going to have to learn to earn her own keep. Easier said than done as Maeve likes how she’s lived and doesn’t initially want to start working. Her friend’s suggestion for Maeve to sell some of her better clothes dismays Maeve as being well dressed is a part of who she is but she soon realizes that needs must. Joan is the daughter of an Earl and now a Dowager Duchess. She’s had men taking control of her life from day one and even when she did question her father about anything, he did the usual dad/man thing of that day and told her not to worry and leave details to a man. To her later regret, she did. Unused to making plans, Joan does stumble a bit.

Yes, I wanted to shake Maeve but it’s also understandable that she’d like to continue living high on the hog. Who wouldn’t? She does face reality and try gainful employment before finding a niche only to face facts about how this affects others. When Maeve is offered a position for which she’d be perfect, she’s finally embraced her new status and goes for the opportunity. Joan also has missteps as she slowly realizes what she faces from the Dukedom and how her choices could end up harming others. But she does begin to act and make decisions on her own.

When I’d finished the book, I decided that I actually believed the Sapphic historical aspect more than the general historical one. Maeve has known her sexual preferences for a long time and acted on them when she could. She is friends with two lesbian couples (Books 1 and 2 of the series) and longs to find her “someone.” Joan was sheltered and married off then endured her husband’s matter-of-fact visits to her bed but she heard other debutantes discussing things so is not surprised when Maeve carefully hints at what she wants. Joan isn’t that experienced in any type of sexual relationship but Maeve takes it slowly and I can believe that they’d be able to carry on a relationship in private. No, there’s no hot and heavy public displays of affection but women walking arm in arm was common then plus a generation of women missed out on marriage due to the Napoleonic Wars so two women living together was also accepted. Besides the two other couples, there is a male character who is described in a way that leads me to think he’s asexual.

Some of the historical aspects of the book caused me the most problems. Joan does own her home but on a mere £200 annual budget the idea that she’d be able to employ the size household she does – plus maintain a carriage and horses – stretches belief. The Dashwood women lived in what appears to be a smaller house with two (?) servants and pinched pennies on £500 per year. Then there are the issues that Joan deals with from her in-laws. As much as I hate to say it, I think they’re correct in what they say about what she owns. Still the way that Someone intervenes and gets the new Duke to call off the dogs is in keeping with how that person is written and what they know. Okay, I’ll go along with how things work out. These parts of the book are also a bit of a downer even if they do free Joan from her past and set her loose to fashion the rest of her life. So there is that.

I liked the real character growth displayed by both Maeve and Joan. Past characters don’t crowd the story. And if the Found Family, “we’re all equals” parts seem more modern than historical, they make up for the darkness to which Joan is subjected until All is Righted in the End. B-

~Jayne

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When mysterious faeries from other realms appear at her university, curmudgeonly professor Emily Wilde must uncover their secrets before it’s too late, in this heartwarming, enchanting second installment of the Emily Wilde series.

Emily Wilde is a genius scholar of faerie folklore who just wrote the world’s first comprehensive encyclopaedia of faeries. She’s learned many of the secrets of the Hidden Ones on her adventures . . . and also from her infuriatingly charming fellow scholar Wendell Bambleby.

Because Bambleby is more than brilliant and unbearably handsome. He’s an exiled faerie king on the run from his murderous mother and in search of a door back to his realm. And despite Emily’s feelings for Bambleby, she’s not ready to accept his proposal of marriage: Loving one of the Fair Folk comes with secrets and dangers.

She also has a new project to focus on: a map of the realms of faerie. While she is preparing her research, Bambleby lands her in trouble yet again, when assassins sent by his mother invade Cambridge. Now Bambleby and Emily are on another adventure, this time to the picturesque Austrian Alps, where Emily believes they may find the door to Bambleby’s realm and the key to freeing him from his family’s dark plans.

But with new relationships for the prickly Emily to navigate and dangerous Folk lurking in every forest and hollow, Emily must unravel the mysterious workings of faerie doors and of her own heart.

Dear Ms. Fawcett, 

I finished last year’s “Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries” knowing that I wanted to read the next installment. Yes, that book was complete in itself but there were plenty of threads left to pick up and use in another book. This book ended up having some of the same things I liked as well as some of the same things I didn’t like about the first one. There’s a lot of telling and some of the layout of the plot felt lifted straight from the first book.. But the liked stuff still edges out for the win. I will add that readers who didn’t like the first book probably won’t like this either. 

Emily Wilde’s book “Encyclopedia of Faeries” has been published to acclaim and earned her a tenured position at Cambridge. Em has an idea of how she might help colleague Wendell Bambleby (the human name by which he is going in the mortal world) find his way home to his fairie kingdom in Ireland. Em has a gift for seeing patterns and putting together disparate things and she thinks she’s got an idea – a good idea – to discover a “backdoor” to Silva Lupi which could help Wendell regain his lost throne. A few things stand in the way though including the department Head who is riled up at the two of them for shoddy research and Emily for publishing a book on a subject which he had been working on. Then the assassins arrive which leads to another discovery about Wendell. Can Em find the means to help Wendell back to his kingdom and also counteract something that is weakening Wendell to exhaustion and death? And if so, what will Em’s answer be to the question Wendell asked her?

Em is self assured in academia but hopeless in social situations. In this she is matched by Farris Rose, the department Head who shoehorns his way into the journey that Em, Wendell, and Em’s niece Ariadne embark on to Austria. As Rose has done much research and field work about Austrian Folk, he could be a good addition but he’s also Old School about how to go about these things which can frustrate Em. Honestly, she seemed close to saying “Okay, Boomer” a time or two. 

Ariadne is hopping with excitement to come along. Em will admit that the young woman is an excellent research assistant who tracked down some needed information in record time but Em worries about what they’re up against. Still Ariadne’s bubbling enthusiasm is sweet to watch though she mainly serves as a handy way for Em to explain things to the reader. Em’s (endless) journals also help answer this need. 

Wendell isn’t quite as annoying this go round but he’s also a bit more bland. He’s still charming, a bit lazy, rather dismissive of those in or about whom he has little interest and his casual dismissal of the common fae still drives Em batty but he’s smitten with Em and continues to press her for an answer. I will admit that I remain a bit baffled about Wendell’s smittenness for Em.  

I enjoyed learning about the Folk of Austria. I enjoyed Em’s competence almost as much as her bullheadedness and blind belief in her abilities annoyed me. Em’s statements of how infallible her instincts are only to have this disproved and often quickly followed by her charging headlong into trouble and danger could be turned into a drinking game. She also comes up with answers and ideas almost magically out of thin air. Some of these are set up with clues but others really did seem as she pulled them out of the ether. One scene in which she told off two people who should have been more grateful had me laughing though. 

As in the first book, the initial pace of this one was glacial with a lot of time spent in Em educating the reader on every little itty bit of Folk knowledge she has whether or not this seemed needed. Details are also over described with way too much page space spent on every bit of Alpine scree, trees, valleys, and knotholes in the cabin boards. Okay, I exaggerate about that last one but wow, some of this could have been cut. Yes, yes I realize she’s an academic who journals obsessively but it was too much. Then just then things heat up and I’d like more details, Em’s in a place where things become hazy as events race to a finale.   

I did like Austria – both characters and their Folk. I thought Ariadne was given some good page time and abilities when needed, and Rose surprised me in a good way. Wendell was sort of just “there” for a lot of this book though he helped soothe the villagers who were coming with torches if not pitchforks and, wonders never cease, he appeared to finally appreciate common fae. Yay that Em appeared to be picking up a bit more social skills and ended up handling Ariadne with love if not tact. I wanted more Silva Lupi though. Oh, and I saved the best for last. Shadow once again made me want a fae dog plus we got a fairie cat! Orga ruled! B- /C+  

~Jayne       

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Dear Mary Balogh,

I’ve been reading your books for ages now. I read everything you release and some of your older books (many of them actually) are on my keeper shelf and are books I go back to again and again. Of course I was going to read Always Remember. I can’t say I wasn’t a bit nervous about it though. It features Lady Jennifer Arden (sister of Luc, the hero from the previous book, Remember Me), who is unable to walk as a result of (apparently) childhood polio*.  As much as I love your books, there have been issues with disability representation in them before. This time, disability is front and centre to the story. There is no way to brush it aside.

(*According to the WHO “the first known clinical description of polio, by British doctor Michael Underwood, was not until 1789, and it was formally recognized as a condition in 1840 by German physician Jakob Heine” so I guess it’s possible it was regarded as a mystery at the time Jenny was ill in the early 1800s?)

Ben Ellis is the firstborn son of the Earl of Stratton. He is also illegitimate. He came to live with the Ware family when he was three years old after his mother had died. Devlin, the heir, was a newborn. The Countess of Stratton was presented with another child and evidence of her husband’s philandering almost immediately upon giving birth to her first child. It was a lot for her to take in. Nonetheless, Ben was loved and raised as a member of the family. Almost. He always knew he was not really one of them.

You are treated as an equal as long as you do not behave like one.

Ouch.

It is a somewhat strange situation to be in. I don’t know if there are actual historical analogues but I expect if there were, they were rare. (I know there were illegitimate offspring of royalty (“Fitz-insert-name-here’s) and they sometimes had something of a special status because even illegitimate they were still related to royalty. This is different I think.)

Devlin left Ravenswood following a public argument with his father in Remember Love. Devlin joined the military and went off to war on the Continent. Ben went with him as his batman. When Devlin returned home, Ben did too – carrying a baby in his greatcoat. Ben had been in a relationship with a washerwoman during the war. She fell pregnant, he promptly married her and they had a daughter together, Joy. Then Marjorie died, leaving Ben a widower with a very young baby.

In the two years since he and Devlin returned to England, Ben has purchased (from Devlin) a property by the sea – Penallen – and begun to make a home for him and his now-three-year-old daughter. He’s a man who enjoys being in a steady relationship. He misses it. He doesn’t expect hearts and flowers but he wants a companion and regular sex. He wants Joy to have a mother and he wants more children. His ponderings about who to court among his neighbours are interrupted by a visit to Ravenswood for the first summer fete held in eight years.

The whole extended family are at Ravenswood in the lead up to the fete, not just Ben and Joy. Lady Jennifer Arden is there too.

Ben and Jenny (OMG I have just realised – Ben & Jenny! LOL) have met before but Ben usually keeps himself somewhat apart, making an effort to be inconspicuous and ordinary as a result of his peculiar status within the family and within society. And for his part, Ben realises, he has been uncomfortable with Jenny because of her disability. Once he realises this, he feels awful and determines to do better. Ben is a practically-minded man; he sees a problem and sets his mind to finding options to solve it. When he sees Jenny struggling to walk in the courtyard one day with crutches and gets to talking with her about her dreams of being more mobile, he starts to think of ways he can help.

I did like that Jenny very firmly set him straight and told him she was not a “project”. Ben tried to step into the role of saviour but Jenny wrested that away and “saved” herself.

But, the first thing Ben does is teach Jenny how to drive a gig. Jenny is delighted. For the first time since her illness she is moving freely on her own volition (of course she has the cooperation of the horse).

I did wonder, given how much Jenny is loved, that no-one else in her life had ever tried to help her be more mobile. It was never really answered in the story. I suppose it was put down to her being smothered in love and Jenny being determinedly cheerful so she would not be a mopey bother due to her disability. There’s a scene later in the book where Ben wheels Jenny’s chair around the lake at a picnic. She’d been sitting in one spot before then. Sure people would come and talk to her and she wasn’t ignored but no-one else even thought she might want to move. That seemed weird to me.

In Ben, Jenny finds someone she can confide in; she does not feel the need to be ever-cheerful and is open with him about her hopes and dreams and her struggles. And Ben in return finds someone who understands being different and not quite belonging.

“But I went and had that talk with Cam Holland when I had no business doing so,” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “And I might have rebuked you—as I did. I might have sent word immediately to Mr. Holland that I would have no need of his services, now or ever, thank you kindly. I did not do it. I went instead to talk to him myself, and I took Pippa with me. That whole matter was an issue that became mine, Mr. Ellis. I am a grown woman, and a woman, moreover, with a mind and a voice. I used both. I am becoming increasingly annoyed to find that you and I—both of us—are treated differently from other people by our families. I am coddled, as though I were still the child I was when I fell ill and was quite incapable of managing my own affairs. You are treated as an equal as long as you do not behave like one. If we wish to be friends while we are both here at Ravenswood—which will not be for very much longer—then why should we not be? I do not need permission from my brother or my aunt. You do not need permission from anyone at all.”

When Ben arrived at Ravenswood a letter is waiting which opens the possibility of finding out more about his mother and her family – something he had almost no knowledge of before. He can talk to Jenny about this in a way he feels he can’t talk to the Wares.

As Ben and Jenny spend time together the rest of the family become “concerned” because Ben is illegitimate and something something social damage if they get together. I admit I didn’t quite understand this. Surely a Duke and an Earl can stare (almost) anyone down about such things if they choose? What social situations exactly would Jenny be unable to participate in if she were married to Ben? Would she care? Would it actually do any damage to the rest of the family? For as much as the Wares have always loved Ben and said they regarded him as their brother, there was a divide. It is not until the book ends (with a HEA because of course) that I felt that gap was mostly bridged and only really because of his (spoiler!) marriage to Jenny. Which, when you think about it is a bit sad really.

There was a scene I desperately wanted but which was not in the book. Luc is concerned and warns Ben off. He at least is not a Ware and so I could understand where he was coming from (mostly?). Luc and Devlin go to town to check on something and I really wanted to know what they talked about. Did Devlin (as he should have) tell Luc to pull his head in and that he’s be lucky to have Ben as a brother-in-law? Or did he agree with Luc’s concerns? What did they talk about?

I don’t quite know how to feel about the disability representation in Always Remember. It wasn’t all bad. But I don’t think it was exactly good either. I’m not qualified to make any definitive pronouncement but there were some things I liked and some things I didn’t. Whether that adds up at a passing grade or not is not my call to make.

In any event, Jenny decides to think about her disability differently – as her incapacity only affecting “one leg” and that it ought not affect her whole life. She knows she will never walk easily but she longs to be less reliant on others. She decides to be more active in her own life rather than being a passive observer.

Ben finds out things about his mother and addresses some complicated feelings about his father. The family realise that Ben knows he’s not really a Ware. (Like, this is a revelation?) I felt a little out of phase with this part of the story. As if I could only fathom it if I looked quickly but the more I stared the blurrier it got.

By the end of the book however, both Ben and Jenny were better off and happy together and Joy was delighted with her new “mama”. I enjoyed the book while I was reading (even though I think some of the social mores the family chose to adhere to were just stupid, especially the one at the end – hello romance reader here) but I don’t think it’s a book I’ll read again.  I liked Ben very much. I’m glad he ended up with more than he thought he’d ever have. I liked Jenny too but for me the book was very much about Ben, his history, his place in the family and finding a place where he truly belonged. (Also, I’m a sucker for a single dad and Ben is an exceptional father.)

Grade: B-

Regards,
Kaetrin

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Is it ever okay to stop caring for others and start living for yourself?

After a lifetime of taking care of his impossible but irresistible sister and his cherished niece, Tom is ready to put himself first. An architect specializing in tiny houses, he finally has an opportunity to build his masterpiece—“his last shot at leaving a footprint on the dying planet.” Assuming, that is, he can stick to his resolution to keep the demands of his needy family at bay.

Naturally, that’s when his phone rings. His niece, Cecily—the real love of Tom’s life, as his boyfriend reminded him when moving out—is embroiled in a Title IX investigation at the college where she teaches that threatens her career and relationship. And after decades of lying, his sister wants him to help her tell Cecily the real identity of her father.

Tom does what he’s always done—answers the call. Thus begins a journey that will change everyone’s life and demonstrate the beauty or dysfunction (or both?) of the ties that bind families together and sometimes strangle them.

Dear Mr. McCauley,

This turned out to be not at all what I expected. The blurb led me to believe that this would be a madcap dramedy. Yes it had moments of humor and drama but it is more a quiet look into a family life that is somewhat dysfunctional but loving for all that.

I think most people have got someone in their family who has to be bailed out of situations while everyone else looks on and either shakes their heads or rolls their eyes. For architect Tom, this is his impulsive, impetuous younger sister Dorothy. Dorothy flows through life never paying any attention to planning ahead or worrying about tomorrow. Everything will work out and, thanks to Tom bailing her out with money, her life pretty much has. Tom also looks after Dorothy’s daughter Cecily who has the self possession and quiet reserve of someone who has lived with chaos all her life.

But now Tom is facing losing his job due to a wealthy, balky client (who also happens to be a long time friend of Dorothy’s) and her husband. Tom has also lost his long time lover because of always putting Cecily first over Alan. Cecily is being investigated for a Title IX infraction with a female student in whom Cecily saw a bit of herself. Cecily is also worried about how her boyfriend’s mother is (not subtly) trying to ease Cecily out of a relationship with Santosh. And flighty Dorothy is desperately trying to finally have a successful venture in her life in order to pass on a legacy to Cecily and also spill the beans as to who Cecily’s father is. Will everyone’s life fall apart, or finally come together?

Yeah so I was expecting more of Tom finally cutting the umbilical cord with his breezy free spirit sister. I never thought he’d push Cecily out of his life, though. But the book is more about how we handle dysfunction, long time life patterns, and family. I settled into it and just let it take me away like a Netflix drama.

Most of the characters have some flaws or are (I suspect intentionally) made to be a bit unlikeable. Tom might silently grumble about how often and for how long he’s had to be the responsible person in his family and how much this has cost him both financially and in his relationships. Still we know that when someone calls needing advice or help, he will do what he can. Yet he also has trouble letting Alan go and ends up doing a few things that, even as he’s thinking about doing them, he knows are bad ideas.

Cecily thought she was on her way up in her academic career with a published book, TV guest appearances, and a seminar that had so much demand that it was expanded into a lecture. But her bright future might implode because she tried to help a talented student and didn’t realize the situation was too far out of control. Instead of confronting Santosh’s mother and pushing back there, Cecily has remained too passive – afraid that asserting herself will cause her to lose this man she’s crazy in love with.

Then Dorothy has landed herself in a situation she wants to work out and working with an author who aggressively micromanages their business endeavor then lets Some News out of the bag. And Dorothy refuses to face the reality of something in her life because she thinks doing what she’s told to in this instance would be a sign of weakness. Dorothy thinks managing her life means simply waving away bad news.

I have to admit that many of the characters in the book are rather two dimensional and could have used some filling out. There’s a lot of telling instead of showing. In the end, the big events of two of the major characters are rather unfinished. And yet I was left feeling that the book is mainly about choices and family rather than the end result of the plot points. Life is sticky and messy, family will sometimes drive you nuts, and making your way through the trials of relationships and jobs can be exasperating but that’s what living is about. I wanted to keep reading and clocked roughly 150 pages a day. I was a little astonished at one person’s actions (and what inspired them) but quietly pleased that another character finally spoke up and insisted on being heard. Many of the characters are also facing and dealing with getting older which I, as a slightly older person, appreciated seeing handled with humor and love. B-

~Jayne

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An illuminating and thought-provoking examination of the uniquely American institution of marriage, from the Colonial era through the #MeToo age

Americans hold marriage in such high esteem that we push people toward it, reward them for taking part in it, and fetishize its benefits to the point that we routinely ignore or excuse bad behavior and societal ills in the name of protecting and promoting it.

In eras of slavery and segregation, Blacks sometimes gained white legal status through marriage.

Laws have been designed to encourage people to marry so that certain societal benefits could be achieved: the population would increase, women would have financial security, children would be cared for, and immigrants would have familial connections.

As late as the Great Depression, poor young women were encouraged to marry aged Civil War veterans for lifetime pensions.

The widely overlooked problem with this tradition is that individuals and society have relied on marriage to address or dismiss a range of injustices and inequities, from gender- and race-based discrimination, sexual violence, and predation to unequal financial treatment.

One of the most persuasive arguments against women’s right to vote was that marrying and influencing their husband’s choices was just as meaningful, if not better.

Through revealing storytelling, Zug builds a compelling case that when marriage is touted as “the solution” to such problems, it absolves the government, and society, of the responsibility for directly addressing them.

CW – there is part of a vile racist period editorial about the enslaved African-American woman with whom Vice-President Richard Johnson had two daughters. 

Review

I knew from the blurb that this wasn’t going to be a lighthearted, fun look at the history of the institution of marriage in the United States. And it wasn’t. But by the end of chapter one, I knew it was going to be a fairly bleak examination of something that most people take for granted that they will, at one point in their lives, be a part of – marriage. As far as how it affects women, minorities, and immigrants, well let’s just say that despite some laws meant to help, and many laws meant to hinder, the outcome usually isn’t good. 

But it’s about love! Not really, to be honest. Historically most people married for reasons other than love. It was actually thought to be the smart thing to do. Women were mainly looking for financial security both for themselves and whatever children they might have. Men were looking for legal sex (sex was only legal in marriage – all else was fornication), domestic helpmeets, and mothers of the sons they needed for inheritance. Squandering this opportunity on love was thought to be a poor bargain. It’s only fairly recently that love began to play much of a role in it. 

Many laws have been passed to influence marriage rates and to try and protect the rights of women though these actually didn’t do much to equalize very unequal partnerships. Age of Consent Laws and Women’s Property Laws in the US date back to the early nineteenth century as legislators sought to protect women from male gold-diggers. Oregon tried to encourage marriage among its first American settlers as married men were more likely to stay in place but this led to teen and child marriages. Land set aside for Native tribes sometimes passed into the hands of white men who married Native women for just this reason. 

For many immigrants, marriage was the only way to bypass the laws put in place to limit certain groups such as Asians and single women. Female survivors of World Wars I and II were quite blunt when asked if they married US military men to escape shattered Europe. Marrying in the expectation of getting a Green Card but not actually being in love with the US citizen is not illegal – if both spouses intend on remaining in the relationship and building a life together. Historically, marriage could also change your race. Mixed race children could eventually be legally white. If a person of color was accepted in white society as white, then legally they became white.   

I must warn people about chapter four. Chapter four is one huge trigger warning as it basically describes the many ways that marriage can be used as a “Get Out of Jail Free” card by abusers, criminal suspects, and rapists among others. If this isn’t bad enough, the (recent) statements made by judges in some of these cases are enough to make me want to go postal on them. Apparently, based on studies of Civil War pensions, bigamy was widespread in an age in which divorce was difficult. 

Unmarried people are still often regarded as “failures” by society. Historically they were often looked on with disdain (in the case of men) or pity (women). Many married people are willing to stay in unhappy marriages due to the social cache of being married. Married couples (usually heterosexual) are still favored for AI treatment payment coverage and adoptions. Custody battles are often resolved in favor of a parent who is in a marriage vs a parent who is single or in a non-marital relationship. And back to marrying for the financial benefit? Two polls from 2022 indicate that people are looking for “a financially stable partner” and “wouldn’t marry someone with bad credit.” 

Marcia Zug has produced a book that is well written and detailed with about 70 some pages of footnotes but which is still accessible for an armchair reader. “You’ll Do” is an informative but (I’ll be honest) ultimately depressing look at why people marry for reasons other than love. B-

~Jayne

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It’s the perfect Solstice present, even if it’s slightly illegal.

Chief Engineer Shandi Leavenworth has been crushing on Major Tyra Sur ever since she joined station staff, though the laconic customs officer doesn’t give up personal information easily. A few scraps of information leads Shandi to the perfect Solstice present, until of course everything goes horribly wrong.

Major Sur took the job on Onwa Station for the stability, the quiet, and out of a need to be useful. It’s been all of those things up until the woman she’s been quietly flirting with at the bar puts in a desperate call for help. There’s no question they need to save the station, but Tyra’s not so sure about saving their budding relationship.

Dear Ms. Martinez,

Catching up with the Pudding Protocol Universe again for another Solstice book. Well, kinda as Solstice is the reason that Shandi wants to get a fellow space habitat worker a gift but the gift is what takes up the majority of the story rather than the holiday.

As with “Safety Protocols for Human Holidays,” we’re in a universe of multispecies space. This time the action takes place aboard a space habitat. Shandi has been trying to get to know Tyra but that woman is not a party animal. In fact, Tyra might be wonderfully competent in her job and had been awarded medals for saving a ship while she was a Marine but Tyra doesn’t easily do “social.” When in company she feels that “words run off where I can’t find them.” Shandi’s idea is to get Tyra a pet for Solstice but as Tyra is part of the department that clears all incoming life forms and Shandi wants this to be a surprise, she, um, goes a bit unauthorized and that leads to things going sideways. 

I happily dove into this world with lots of different species who cohabitate. Each is described a little and given some distinctive characteristics. Pronouns are inquired about and friendships abound. These beings really seem to care about each other. All is not perfect as Tyra has actual reasons beyond her innate reserve for screwing up the relationship that Shandi seems to be starting. The reason is because of what Tyra’s last committed partner did to save a ship of people. And eventually when Tyra and Shandi take a chance, the kisses don’t start perfectly and the sex is fumbled a bit but in the end, all is well.   

As I said, most of the action centers on the pet that Shandi (illegally) gets for Tyra. Described as an ussi the little blob of black fur with black eyes and three sets of legs sounds adorable. Ah-dorable. It nomnomnoms on kale chips and … doubles in size. Hmmm, the guy Shandi bought it from didn’t say anything about that. Then it doubles again and then things get out of control. But Shandi’s friend and Tyra’s colleagues spring into action and try to contain a ravenous beast with a taste for food and hats. 

There’s some protocol to getting the creature – which can ooze a bit in shape and thus is called a “pudding” – under control and when all is said and done, Tyra does get her pet and a second chance at a relationship. This is a bit quick and I would have liked to have seen more of a balance between the ussi wrangling and the romance though. But we do get to see Tyra being supremely competent while they capture the critter. B-

~Jayne      

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