The Hunt for Red October (Jack Ryan, #4)

The Hunt for Red October
by Tom Clancy
Rating: ★★★★★
isbn: 0870212850
Series: Jack Ryan #4
Publication Date: October 1, 1984
Pages: 387
Genre: Political Fiction, Thriller
Publisher: Naval Institute Press

I haven’t read this since soon after it came out in the late 80’s, although I’ve seen the movies numerous times over the years. It’s every bit as good as I remember – even better, really, because this time around I didn’t have any trouble keeping track of the boats and the subs. True, bits of it are dated (the average American salary being 20k a year, or even more startling, the superiority of the CRAY-2 supercomputer, which cost tens of millions of dollars, was available only at NASA and a few military centers, ,,, and had the same computing power of the first iPad.), but overall the action is fast, the writing intelligent, and the suspense top notch.

Having gone so long between reads, and having seen the movie enough times in between, I had forgotten how much the movie deviates – especially at the end – from the book. I’m generally pretty vitriolic about movie adaptations, especially when they significantly alter things, but full credit to the screenwriters; I don’t know that the book’s ending would have worked as well on-screen, but the spirit of the thing was caught perfectly. Re-reading this ending was like experiencing it for the first time and it was tense.

I’m thankful to Peregrinations for getting me thinking about this book again. I’m sort of tempted to re-read a few other Ryan books now. Or, at least, after Halloween Bingo.

I read this for Halloween Bingo 2022, but I’m still not sure which square I want to use it for – either Fear the Drowning Deep, or Film at 11. For now, I think I’ll assign it to Fear the Drowning Deep, since that square has already been called.

Other Birds

Other Birds
by Sarah Addison Allen
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9781250019868
Publication Date: August 30, 2022
Pages: 290
Genre: Fiction, Magical Realism
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Between the real and the imaginary, there are stories that take flight in the most extraordinary ways.

Right off the coast of South Carolina, on Mallow Island, The Dellawisp sits—a stunning old cobblestone building shaped like a horseshoe, and named after the tiny turquoise birds who, alongside its human tenants, inhabit an air of magical secrecy.

When Zoey comes to claim her deceased mother’s apartment on an island outside of Charleston she meets her quirky and secretive neighbors, including a girl on the run, two estranged middle-aged sisters, a lonely chef, a legendary writer, and three ghosts. Each with their own story. Each with their own longings. Each whose ending isn’t yet written.

Well, talk about author’s who try something different.

This is not the Sarah Addison Allen I know and adore. This is something more ambitious, edgier, with sharp, uncomfortable characters that survived sharp, uncomfortable experiences. Rather than 2 characters Allen bounces between, this is an ensemble cast, and every one of them are victims of abuse (TW for molestation, though never explicitly described) and neglect. None of them define themselves that way, but all are living the lives they live, in part, as a reaction to that abuse or neglect. Only one truly continues to suffer.

This is also almost more a ghost story than it is a magical realism. The magical realism is still here, though muted and without playing a central role in the characters’ lives. Instead, the ghosts that haunt the dellawisp condos are the driving force behind the characters, with one ghost in particular driving the plot of the book itself. The ghosts range from kind and loving to horribly broken.

In spite of what may sound like a melancholy, depressing setup, the story is actually quite optimistic and full of hope. These people aren’t damaged goods (save one of the characters and her part is a centre stage one, even though her story is pivotal); they’re all building their best lives, and after the death of a tyrannical neighbor, they come together as friends, some with the possibility of romance, although no romance occurs on these pages.

The dellawisp birds add a spot of comedy here and there, as these little tiny turquoise birds rule the roost at the dellawisp condos (named after them), bossing the residents around, stealing their stuff, attacking strangers, catching a ride on residents’ heads.

So, while this isn’t the kind of Sarah Addison Allen story I love so very much that re-reading them is like shrugging into a favourite blanket when it’s cold, it was a very good, well told, well-written story.

I read this for Halloween Bingo 2022 for the Magical Realism square, but it would work equally well for Ghosts & Hauntings.

The Book of Cold Cases

The Book of Cold Cases
by Simone St. James
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9780440000211
Publication Date: March 15, 2022
Pages: 352
Genre: Fantasy, Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: Berkley

Here’s the thing with me – and I can’t blame it on age, I’ve always been this way – when I read a book that resonates with me, of course I look for more by that author, but I want some of the same … template I got in the first story. I like the predictability; it’s relaxing to a degree (any why I enjoy a good series so much). So, when I pick up an author’s later books and they go and change it up, I did my heels in and become truculent.

With no other author has this been more true than with Simone St. James. I loved her first 5 books. They were spooky, don’t-read-at-night ghost stories set in the interwar period. Then came Broken Girls and I got my feathers so ruffled over the change to a dual timeline, present/past format that I’d decided I wasn’t going to read it. Nope. No way. Doesn’t matter how long that lasted, because of course I caved and read it. And I loved it. So I eagerly bought The Sun Down Motel and liked it too, and when the announcement came out for The Book of Cold Cases, I pre-ordered it. Only to find out that she’s messed with the format again.

The changes she made this time were more subtle. It’s still a dual, present/past timeline, but this go-around both the characters are still alive and they’re interacting, facing off in a weird frenemy sort of fashion – shades of Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale. There are definitely ghosts and at least one is malevolent, and the spookiness kicks off immediately. (What is it about turning around to find all the cabinet doors open at once that is so creepy and spooky?) What’s most dramatically different though, it that although there is a definite resolution to the mystery the Lady Killer Murders, there isn’t an ending to the book that wraps everything up in a neat, tidy package, with everyone getting the emotional release they want.

So did I like it? Well, yes, after I got done sulking through the first several chapters. The ghost(s) were unsettling, and St. James took the mystery in all sorts of jagged directions; both the reader and the MC had to pry the facts of what happened out of the story and Beth (the past’s MC). I never knew what was happening until it happened, and the ending left me feeling unsettled, which I suppose is what a ghost story should do.

Did I like it as much as her previous books? No. It was good, but I still prefer the style of the first 5, and something about The Broken Girls felt edgier than this one, but I’m not sorry I read it or that I bought it. It’s a solid, well told ghost story with a straight forward mystery.

I read this for Halloween Bingo 2022 for the Ghosts & Hauntings square.

A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking

A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking
by T. Kingfisher
Rating: ★★★
isbn: 9781614505242
Publication Date: July 21, 2020
Pages: 309
Genre: Fiction, Middle Grade
Publisher: Argyll

Fourteen-year-old Mona isn't like the wizards charged with defending the city. She can't control lightning or speak to water. Her familiar is a sourdough starter and her magic only works on bread. She has a comfortable life in her aunt's bakery making gingerbread men dance.

But Mona's life is turned upside down when she finds a dead body on the bakery floor. An assassin is stalking the streets of Mona's city, preying on magic folk, and it appears that Mona is his next target. And in an embattled city suddenly bereft of wizards, the assassin may be the least of Mona's worries...

This title flowed across my radar a while back, and I’ve seen a lot of other T. Kingfisher titles too, but this one is the title that kept standing out, so I thought I’d give it a go.

As the YA book it’s labelled as: meh. Maybe it’s me, but it isn’t all that dark and the voice is a bit juvenile for YA. I suspect my 13 year old niece wouldn’t have patience for it. But her younger sister, who’s 11, might love it. So as a middle grade level book, it’s probably not bad.

Mona was a bit whiney (again for the YA it’s labelled as), but I loved Bob the sourdough starter, and the gingerbread man. Neither of whom had any dialog, which might be a bit telling. But Kingfisher packs a lot of personality into these two without giving them a voice. The rest of the characters – the adults – all spoke to Mona as if she was 10 rather than the 14 she is, and yet she’s asked to save the kingdom single-handedly.

There is a very poignant scene at the end between a character named Molly Knacker and her skeleton horse; that scene stood out in what was on whole rather bland writing.

<img class=”alignleft wp-image-16083″ src=”https://www.secretreadingroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/monsters-300×300.jpg” alt=”” width=”110″ height=”110″ />I read this for Halloween Bingo 2022, although without any thought about what square it might fit. After some consideration, I’m going to use it for the Monsters square, and re-assign my original book, The Dark Place to Genre: Mystery. It would also fit Dem Bones, Gallows Humor, Genre: Supernatural, Spellbound, and Sword and Sorcery.

The Dark Place (Gideon Oliver Mystery, #2)

The Dark Place
by Aaron Elkins
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 0802755658
Series: Gideon Oliver #2
Publication Date: January 1, 1983
Pages: 200
Genre: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: Walker Publications

Deep in the primeval rainforest of Washington State’s Olympic Peninsula, the skeletal remains of a murdered man are discovered. And a strange, unsettling tale begins to unfold, for forensic anthropologist Gideon Oliver determines that the murder weapon was a primitive bone spear of a type not seen for the last ten thousand years. And whoever—or whatever—hurled it did so with seemingly superhuman force. Bigfoot “sightings” immediately crop up, but Gideon is not buying them.

But something is continuing to kill people, and Gideon, helped by forest ranger Julie Tendler and FBI special agent John Lau, plunges into the dark heart of an unexplored wilderness to uncover the bizarre, astonishing explanation.

I’ve only read one other Gideon Oliver book, and it’s a much later entry in the series (Skullduggery), which I enjoyed. I wanted to start at the beginning but after a lot of research, everyone who has ever read the first book says it’s not worth reading it, so I’m jumping in at #2.

I wasn’t sure what to expect, and I didn’t really read it with any particular HB square in mind. This was a really good story, and not at all the kind of story I expected. What starts off with 3 disappearances in the rainforest of Washington State leads to dead bodies, an unknown Amerind burial ground, and, for the first 60 pages, Bigfoot is a contender! So much fun!

The reality, as the story progresses, is much, much more interesting than Bigfoot (no offence meant), and this mystery becomes the most anthropological anthropology-mystery I’ve ever read. It’s short – 200 pages – but concise and fast paced. Little is wasted on descriptive filler, although I’d have liked for the sex scenes not to have made the final edits. I’m fine with sex scenes in general, but in a cozy, written by a man, well, for some reason it just sort of squicked me out. But they really were the only unnecessary scenes and were pretty PG, for all I’m complaining about them.

Without giving anything away, it was just a really solid, well-written, mystery, with great characters and an even better setting.

I read this for Halloween Bingo 2022 and beyond the obvious Genre: Mystery square it also fits Amateur Sleuth, Cozy Mystery, Dem Bones, In the Dark, Dark Woods, Monsters, and The Barrens.

I’m going to use it for Monsters because, Bigfoot! 🙂

Unseen Academicals (Discworld, #37)

Unseen Academicals
by Terry Pratchett
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9780385609340
Series: Discworld #37
Publication Date: January 1, 2009
Pages: 400
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Doubleday

Football has come to the ancient city of Ankh-Morpork. And now, the wizards of Unseen University must win a football match, without using magic, so they're in the mood for trying everything else. This is not going to be a gentleman's game.

The prospect of the Big Match draws in a street urchin with a wonderful talent for kicking a tin can, a maker of jolly good pies, a dim but beautiful young woman, who might just turn out to be the greatest fashion model there has ever been, and the mysterious Mr Nutt (and no one knows anything much about Mr Nutt, not even Mr Nutt). As the match approaches, four lives are entangled and changed for ever. Because the thing about football - the important thing about football - is that it is not just about football. Here we go! Here we go! Here we go!

Every time I start reading a Pratchett, I always ask myself why? Then I get 20 pages or so in, and ahhh, yes, that’s why. MT asked me what about his writing made the beginning such an obvious struggle when I end up laughing myself stupid through the rest, and I think – for this book at least – it’s because he starts with so many random bits. I never quite know where he’s headed or what’s necessarily important, and it makes my brain ache.

But it’s generally worth the ache, as it was with this one. Unseen Academicals, even though it’s about football, or foot-the-ball, as it’s known in Ankh Morpork, and soccer everywhere outside Europe and the UK, was possibly the … earthiest, in terms of humor and innuendo, of all the Pratchett’s I’ve read so far. It was hilarious, and there were a few parts about the football that I had to read to MT. Pratchett nails both the lunacy, and I suppose, the community of fanatical sports.

Underneath all that though, were rather endearing stories about 4 different people who start out only tangentially acquainted through work (although Glenda and Julia grew up together), but who come together to help the Unseen University build a football team, and consequently find their dreams.

This felt like a very sympathetic, dare I say, romantic?, Pratchett, and it was one of the few where I became invested in the characters’ outcomes. Oddly, I’m not sure how I feel about Mr. Nutt’s resolution. I think I’d have liked his ending more if Pratchett hadn’t turned him into a future hero. Regardless, he was my favourite of the four. The wizards got all the best lines, though.

When I started, I feared it was going to take me an age to finish, but once I got past the randomness and the story coalesced, I really did not want to put it down.

I read this for Halloween Bingo 2022’s Dark Academia square, as the book takes place entirely at the Unseen University. It would also work for Gallows Humor, oddly enough, Monsters might work (Mr. Nutt’s potential), Spellbound, and Sword & Sorcery.

Soul Taken (Mercy Thompson, #13)

Soul Taken
by Patricia Briggs
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9780440001614
Series: Mercy Thompson #13
Publication Date: August 23, 2022
Pages: 389
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Ace

The vampire Wulfe is missing. Since he’s deadly, possibly insane, and his current idea of “fun” is stalking me, some may see it as no great loss. But, warned that his disappearance might bring down the carefully constructed alliances that keep our pack safe, my mate and I must find Wulfe—and hope he’s still alive. As alive as a vampire can be, anyway.

But Wulfe isn’t the only one who has disappeared. And now there are bodies, too. Has the Harvester returned to the Tri-Cities, reaping souls with his cursed sickle? Or is he just a character from a B horror movie and our enemy is someone else?

The farther I follow Wulfe’s trail, the more twisted—and darker—the path becomes. I need to figure out what’s going on before the next body on the ground is mine.

My first read of HB bingo, done and dusted. I tore through this one in one day, which is easier to do when walking is still an iffy proposition; I have to do something while icing my leg.

The first chapter frustrated me, as Briggs put the reader in the same confusing space Mercy was in, but strung the confusion out just a little bit too long. Once past that though, the reader is treated to some answers to questions left open in the last Alpha/Omega series book, Wild Sign (if you don’t read this series it doesn’t matter in the least). This scene slowly segues into the main plot of the book, the disappearance of Wulfe, and secondarily, Stefan and Marsilia.

It was hard for me to move on from Sherwood’s intrigue, smallish though it was, and I was disappointed that he played little to no part in the main story, but the race to figure out why so many low-level magic users disappeared, and finding Wulfe and his connection to events was one of the better storylines, I think (probably because Briggs laid off on the black magic stuff). Wulfe’s story is rather convoluted, but I suspect Briggs has no intention of bringing clarity to his character. Even though the plot is about the vampires, the story itself is about the fae, and Zee gets a little more depth.

I’m rambling a bit. It was a good read. Not blow the doors off spectacular, but good.

I read this for the Urban Decay square in 2022’s Halloween Bingo. It also definitely fits Relics & Curiosities, Monsters and Splatter.

September is coming … it must be time for Halloween Bingo 2022!

Forget the pumpkin spice flavoured everything – it’s the season for Halloween Bingo!

Every year I swear the next year will be easier and every new HB I’ve long forgotten what I did last year and end up, to some degree, re-inventing the wheel. I was going to do regular markers this year, but I couldn’t’ decide on a marker, and then I found a really cool background, so there you go.

If I’ve read it, the sticker is semi-transparent over the square; once the square has been called, it will go fully opaque. (I’m not marking called-not-read on the card, just the table below). As always, I’m assuming the WordPress Reader app will break these posts and make it look like a dog’s breakfast, but I can’t fight WP on two fronts without going stark raving.

Accumulative reading table with links to reviews below the card.

A summary of my reading for the game, along with links to the reviews can be found on the next page. (Note: all call dates are off by one because here in Australia, we live in the future. :D)

Continue reading September is coming … it must be time for Halloween Bingo 2022!

Ruby Fever (Hidden Legacies, #6)

Ruby Fever
by Ilona Andrews
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9780062878397
Series: Hidden Legacy #6
Publication Date: August 23, 2022
Pages: 384
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Ace

An escaped spider, the unexpected arrival of an Imperial Russian Prince, the senseless assassination of a powerful figure, a shocking attack on the supposedly invincible Warden of Texas, Catalina’s boss... And it’s only Monday.

Within hours, the fate of Houston—not to mention the House of Baylor—now rests on Catalina, who will have to harness her powers as never before. But even with her fellow Prime and fiancé Alessandro Sagredo by her side, she may not be able to expose who’s responsible before all hell really breaks loose.

This arrived on Wednesday, and I tried, I really did, to hold out for Halloween Bingo. I made it 2 whole hours before I caved. I don’t think I’ll need it for HB, but if I do, I’m happy to re-read it.

I admit that of the two sets of characters in Hidden Legacies, I prefer Nevada and Connor, featured in the first 3. I think in part because there was less romance and more telekinesis; I think I prefer someone throwing huge things around to hand-to-hand combat and magic singing. Still, it’s the same family and it’s the family that pulls me in and makes me want to re-read, as much as the action.

A couple of random things: I was not surprised by the revelation of Caesar’s identity; I had that nailed after book 1. I was surprised at Andrews’ attempts to humanise Victoria, and the whole ‘we love you even though you’re terrible’. I did not buy that at all. I was also a little surprised by Grandpa, although I shouldn’t have been; I remember well Allessando’s muttered comment in the first Catalina book.

The story wraps up all the open threads, while definitely leaving a few openings for Arabella’s story, presumably in books 7-9, but I read something on the authors’ site about ‘now that we’re through with main-steam publishing’ that makes me wonder if Arabella will get her three books or not, and if so, if we’re going to have to wait years for the authors’ to get around to writing them. (I’m getting bitter about how long it’s taken to get Hugh’s second book, never mind Julie’s).

Bitch: on the female of the species

Bitch: On the Female of the Species
by Lucy Cooke
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9781541674899
Publication Date: July 14, 2022
Pages: 369
Genre: Science
Publisher: Basic Books

Studying zoology made Lucy Cooke feel like a sad freak. Not because she loved spiders or would root around in animal feces: all her friends shared the same curious kinks. The problem was her sex. Being female meant she was, by nature, a loser.

Since Charles Darwin, evolutionary biologists have been convinced that the males of the animal kingdom are the interesting ones—dominating and promiscuous, while females are dull, passive, and devoted.

In Bitch, Cooke tells a new story. Whether investigating same-sex female albatross couples that raise chicks, murderous mother meerkats, or the titanic battle of the sexes waged by ducks, Cooke shows us new evolutionary biology, one where females can be as dynamic as any male. This isn‘t your grandfather’s evolutionary biology. It’s more inclusive, truer to life, and, simply, more fun.

Now this is what I was looking for when I read the page rage inducing Invisible Women, albeit a much more narrowly focused version. Lucy Cooke looks at the theory of evolution from the perspective of the female of the species. She had the anecdotes, she had the data, and she had the sources. She writes with humor but without the bitterness. I was both fascinated and frankly, often appalled, at what nature has done to the anatomy of some species’ females (I’m looking at, and cringing hard, at you laughing hyena). Lots of this got read out to MT, because I wasn’t going to suffer those visuals alone.

The book isn’t perfect; there were at least two instances of Post hoc ergo propter hoc early on in the book, and an overall logical fallacy in the premise, which is that because there are many examples throughout the natural world of non-binary (in terms of sex not gender) species, then therefore sexually binary systems do not exist. This is false. Mammals are sexually binary (NOT GENDER): one sex can give birth, and the other cannot. Mammals cannot naturally change their sex, as many non-vertebrates, fish, birds, and reptiles can. Mammals cannot naturally procreate via parthenogenesis (Bible aside), like some non-vertebrates, birds and reptiles (and amphibians) can. So arguing that we need to see the whole of nature as non-binary is misleading at best and scientifically inaccurate at worst. Moreover, the larger overall fallacy of the book is that arguing that we need to remove binary bias from biological research, is itself a binary argument (ie, the world is either binary or it’s not). Some species are sexually binary, and some aren’t. One size does not fit all.

My other complaint was more of a niggle: throughout the text, Cooke and the scientists she speaks with often emphasise that the practice of sex for non-reproductive purposes has been widely documented, which is factual as far as it goes, but of all the reasons hypothesised for this non-reproductive sex, every one of them were transactional, which to me isn’t any different than sex for reproduction purposes. It was disappointing that no one cited thought that perhaps it was just done for the fun of it.

My final niggle is that Evolution, or Darwinism, is a theory, not a law, and it feels like scientists conflate the two in their writing. A theory is meant to evolve as new discoveries are made and is therefore fluid – but this is, more often than not, my constant complaint whenever it comes to natural science writing.

It doesn’t sound like it, but I really did enjoy reading this book and I’d recommend it to anyone who is interested in both science and the sexual bias in it.

*Note bene: at no point in my review did I intentionally touch on non-binary gender because gender issues are irrelevant to the nature of this book. For the record, a person should let their flag fly whatever that flag looks like but it’s none of my damn business and I don’t want anyone to try to make it my business.