Book Round-Up

 Cold Clay by Juneau Black: Sad to say, I didn’t enjoy this one as much as the first. The authors have created fun characters in a delightfully cozy setting, but the actual writing in this novel was not great — both overwritten and messy.

Moon over Soho by Ben Aaronovitch: I’m enjoying the Rivers of London series, an urban fantasy about a police officer learning to become a wizard. This one centered around jazz music and its vampiric fans.

The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly: This book, about a boy who finds himself in a world of fairy tales, was a lot darker than I expected, but it was a moving exploration of grief and growing up, deeply satisfying by the end. The only flaw was the chapter with Snow White, which was completely out of place tonally.

The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-García: This was a bit of a disappointment; it has lots of interesting elements and characters, but it doesn’t quite cohere, feeling more like a draft than a finished novel. Some elements are left dangling — ownership of the land, so critical in 1908, is not mentioned at all in 1998, and Minerva talks about her mother and great-grandmother, but her grandmother is entirely missing. Then there’s Alba’s relationship with her putative lover: Alba, and the narrative itself, treat it as if it were merely inappropriate and not absolutely awful. I don’t regret reading it, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as Gods of Jade and Shadow.

The Other Side of Midnight by Simone St. James: I try to read a Simone St James novel every fall; she excels at mysteries that are spooky and romantic. I didn’t love this one as much as the first two I read, but it was an enjoyable, creepy-but-not-too-creepy story about psychics real and fake.

Hemlock & Silver by T. Kingfisher: Kingfisher's novels have certain commonalities -- middle-aged characters with ordinary jobs, humor to counterbalance the horror and weirdness, and a pantheon of saints and gods -- but the settings and stories are varied and inventive. This one takes the elements of Snow White (queen, daughter, mirror, apple) and puts them together in an utterly novel way. I just can't get enough of Kingfisher, and I'm pacing myself through her extensive bibliography.

Book Round-Up

 The Baseball 100 by Joe Posnanski: I got this from the library at the start of baseball season, and then spent two months reading it. Not a criticism! Its structure -- 100 essays about some of the greatest baseball players ever -- meant it wasn't a conventional page-turner, but I enjoyed learning about the players, many of whom I knew by name only. A good number were players from the Negro Leagues, too; Posnanski made it clear how much of baseball is entwined with racism, even today.

The Devil at his Elbow by Valerie Bauerlein: I don't read much nonfiction, but this was captivating. The many, many crimes of Alex Murdaugh have been well publicized, but Bauerlein goes into his family history, too, back to his great grandfather. The family business was ostensibly law, but the ethical lapses, conflicts of interest, and sheer corruption going back over a hundred years are appalling. Murdaugh is not an outlier, but the end point of a family that put its own tawdry interests above justice.

The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill: I thought I was getting a library-centered mystery, but the titular library (the Boston Public Library) barely factored into the story. Instead, I got a mystery that served as a commentary on the genre itself -- chapters of the story alternate with letters from a purported reader who offers advice on the choices Gentill makes. My favorite bit: I finished a chapter wondering why the heck [character] was continuing to communicate with [deeply troubled person] and whether that reflected poorly on the novel as a whole. The very next page was a letter from the FBI thanking [character] for alerting them and asking [character] to continue talking with [deeply troubled person] while the agency investigated. I laughed out loud. Gentill knows what she is doing!

The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods: A disappointment. The novel weaves together the story of three characters, including one who runs the titular bookshop. Her story was the weakest, because it covered covered four decades and crammed in too many plot points, neglecting the one that would have been the most interesting -- the magical bookshop. The other two story lines were more interesting, but again too little time was spent on the bookshop.

Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch: this was suggested as an alternative to the sexist Dresden Files urban fantasy series, and I loved it. Peter Grant is a young police officer in London who unwittingly interviews a ghost and learns there is a hidden aspect of the city filled with wizards, vampires, and gods. Aaronovitch weaves a lot of British folklore into the story, which was fascinating, and balanced the more horrific parts with a good amount of humor. I can't wait to read the rest.

The Flatshare by Beth O'Leary: a cute romance about two people with opposite schedules who share a one-bedroom apartment. It's an epistolary novel of sorts, because the relationship between protagonists initially develops over a series of post-it notes and text messages. I also appreciated how the female protagonist came to terms with the abusive nature of her previous relationship -- in fits and starts, with the help of counseling, introspection, and friends, rather than because of some kind of dramatic epiphany.