The Book Haters’ Book Club

The Book Haters' Book Club
by Gretchen Anthony
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 9781867260110
Publication Date: October 10, 2022
Pages: 335
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: HarperCollins

All it takes is the right book to turn a Book Hater into a Book Lover...

That was what Elliott – the beloved co-owner of the Over the Rainbow Bookshop – believed before his untimely passing. He always had the perfect book suggestion for the self-proclaimed ‘book hater.’ Now, his grief-ridden business partner, Irma, has agreed to sell the cozy Over the Rainbow to condo developers.

But others won’t give up the bookshop without a fight. When Irma breaks the news to her daughters, Bree and Laney, and Elliott’s romantic partner, Thom, they are aghast. Over the Rainbow has been Bree and Laney’s sanctuary since childhood, and Thom would do anything to preserve Elliott’s legacy. Together they conspire to save the bookshop, even if it takes some snooping, gossip and minor sabotage.

Filled with humor, family hijinks and actual reading recommendations, The Book Haters’ Book Club is the ideal feel-good read. It’s a love letter to everyday heroes – those booksellers and librarians dedicated to putting the right books in the right hands every day.

Ding ding ding! LibraryThing has served up a winner! I loved this book, and have ordered up a copy for my library. Gretchen Anthony serves up a great story, well written, with delightful interludes between chapters, that for me, elevated this book from ‘good’ to ‘really, I’m enjoying the heck out of this’. Some of the interludes add a bit of backstory to what’s going on, as well as a bit of depth. Truly, without these, I think the book would still be good, but average, and I’d argue that Anthony’s best writing is found here.

The dynamics between the mother and her daughters here hits close to home for me, so I enjoyed the dip into the familiar, and I loved watching how they conspired to save the bookstore. Laney has all the best lines, and I’ll admit I found Bree a bit too fragile for my tastes, but she finds her own in the end. The conflict at the beginning of the story isn’t the real conflict of the book, but even so its resolution was stunningly anticlimactic. Making it more realistic wouldn’t have really added anything to the real story, so I have no problem over looking it.

It’s just a fun book and well worth investigating if you’re in the mood for some heartfelt entertainment.

Blood Kissed (Lizzie Grace, #1)

Blood Kissed
by Keri Arthur
Rating: ★★★½
Series: Lizzie Grace #1
Publication Date: January 1, 2017
Pages: 336
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Self-published

In a world where magic and science sit side by side, and powerful witches are considered necessary aides for all governments, Lizzie Grace is something of an outlier. Though born into one the most powerful blue blood witch families, she wants nothing to do with either her past or her magic.

But when she and Belle, her human familiar and best friend, open a small cafe in the Faelan werewolf reservation, she quickly finds herself enmeshed in the hunt for a vampire intent on wreaking bloody havoc. It’s a hunt that soon becomes personal, and one that is going to take all her skills to survive–that’s if the werewolves, who hate all things witch, don’t get her first.

Another book from LibraryThing’s recommendation engine, and another good library book. Fortunately, as the author is apparently an Aussie, my local libraries have it; I think if I’d bought this one I might have felt more ambivalent about it.

Blood Kissed is a pretty standard Urban Fantasy story with your wares, vampires, witches, etc. and it’s surprisingly well written for a self published book (yes, I’m biased and I’m comfortable with it as the vast body of self published works out there support my bias against them). It’s not on a par with Ilona Andrews or Patricia Briggs, but it does a respectable job of coming close. The characters are engaging, the world building seems solid and the plot is very straight forward. An easy and engaging read for when one is in the mood for some urban fantasy.

My library seems to have the entire series, so I’ll likely be dipping back in sooner rather than later.

Spider’s Bite (Elemental Assassin, #1)

Spider's Bite
by Jennifer Estep
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9781439147979
Series: Elemental Assassin #1
Publication Date: April 15, 2010
Pages: 395
Genre: Fiction, Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Follow Gin Blanco, a kick-butt female assassin who moonlights at a BBQ joint in Tennessee, as she searches for the person who double-crossed her in this heart-pounding and fresh paranormal romance series.

After Gin’s family was murdered by a Fire elemental when she was thirteen, she lived on the streets and eventually became an assassin to survive. Now, Gin is assigned to rub out an Ashland businessman, but it turns out to be a trap. After Gin’s handler is brutally murdered, she teams up with the sexy detective investigating the case to figure out who double-crossed her and why. Only one thing is for sure—Gin has no qualms about killing her way to the top of the conspiracy.

Good. Similar in tone to Ilona Andrews’ Kate Daniels, but without the humor. The characters are well written, though without any levity to speak of, they’re hard to connect with. The world building leaves a bit to be desired; I’d have liked a little bit of information about how elementals and vampires and dwarves are integrated into society – have they always been in this alternate world, or was there some event that changed everything? It’s not necessary, but my curiosity is a little tweaked over it.

The ‘mystery’ was ok, although not much of a mystery in terms of who the villain is; the pool is tiny. The writing teeters on the edge of being too graphic, although it’s not as dark and confronting as Briggs’ work. Mostly, I liked it enough to stay up wwaayy too late last night to finish it, and I’ll be requesting book 2. But I didn’t like it enough to gush about it.

The Librarian of Crooked Lane

The Librarian of Crooked Lane
by C.J. Archer
Rating: ★★★
isbn: 9781922554208
Series: The Glass Library #1
Publication Date: January 1, 2022
Pages: 275
Genre: Fiction, Mystery, Paranormal
Publisher: Self-published

Librarian Sylvia Ashe knows nothing about her past, having grown up without a father and a mother who refused to discuss him. When she stumbles upon a diary that suggests she's descended from magicians, she's skeptical. After all, magicians are special, and she's just an ordinary girl who loves books. She seeks the truth from a member of the most prominent family of magicians, but she quickly learns that finding the truth won't be easy, especially when he turns out to be as artless as her, and more compelling and dangerous than books.

War hero Gabe is gifted with wealth, a loving family, and an incredible amount of luck that saw him survive four harrowing years of a brutal war without injury. But not all injuries are visible. Burying himself in his work as a consultant for Scotland Yard, Gabe is going through the motions as he investigates the theft of a magician-made painting. But his life changes when he unwittingly gets Sylvia dismissed from her job and places her in danger.

After securing her new employment in a library housing the world's greatest collection of books about magic, Gabe and Sylvia's lives become intwined as they work together to find both the painting and the truth about Sylvia's past before powerful people can stop them.

A thoroughly average read that wasn’t a waste of time, but definitely was the perfect library loan. I would have been displeased had I bought this, but as a library loan I can forgive a lot. And there are quite a few things requiring forgiveness.

First off, the synopsis implies this book is a lot more involved than it actually is. After securing her new employment in a library housing the world’s greatest collection of books about magic, Gabe and Sylvia’s lives become intwined as they work together to find both the painting and the truth about Sylvia’s past before powerful people can stop them.
But sometimes the past is better left buried… Um… no. I mean, yes, they’re searching for the painting, but there is no search for Sylvia’s past beyond occasional speculation, and there are no powerful people trying to stop them. There’s an attempted kidnapping at the beginning that’s never explained, but perhaps that’s part of a series arc? And the ‘magic’ isn’t really anything of the sort. It’s described as magic and apparently spells are used, but as near as this book comes to explaining it, ‘magicians’ are merely people who are extraordinarily gifted at their chosen craft and are obsessed with it. Which doesn’t strike me as all that magical.

For all of that though, the writing was good, and way better than average for a book that was apparently self-published. While the writing lacked sophistication and polish, it was far better edited and copyedited than your average big publishing house efforts. The plotting of the mystery was very well done too. I feel like, had the author had a big publishing team pushing her, this could have easily been a 4 star read.

This was a fast read that Libby informs me took just a few minutes over 4 hours to finish. If my libraries have the second book, I’d be happy to read it, and might enjoy it more now that my expectations have been adjusted by book 1.

Flying Solo

Flying Solo
by Linda Holmes
Rating: ★★★½
isbn: 9781399707787
Publication Date: June 28, 2022
Pages: 304
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Hachette Books

Smarting from her recently cancelled wedding and about to turn forty, Laurie Sassalyn returns to her Maine hometown of Calcasset to handle the estate of her great-aunt Dot, a spirited adventurer who lived to be ninety-three.

Alongside boxes of Polaroids and pottery, a mysterious wooden duck shows up at the bottom of a cedar chest. Laurie's curiosity is piqued, especially after she finds a love letter to the never-married Dot that ends with the line "And anyway, if you're ever desperate, there are always ducks, darling."

When the mysterious duck disappears under suspicious circumstances, Laurie feels compelled to figure out why anyone would steal something worth so little -and why Dot kept it hidden away in the first place.

Suddenly Laurie finds herself swept up in a righteous caper that has her negotiating with antiques dealers and con artists, going on after-hours dates at the local library, and reconnecting with her oldest friend and her first love .

Desperate to uncover her great-aunt's secrets, Laurie must reckon with her own past and her future-and ultimately embrace her own vision of flying solo.

This is one of those books that I enjoyed, but should have loved. It has all sorts of elements that resonate with me, and it was well written to boot. If I were to use a fishing metaphor (and I am), I’d say the hook caught, but failed to set, leaving me with an enjoyable ride that I was able to shake off when finished, without lasting effects.

The MC is a 40 year old who has always known she doesn’t want kids of her own, and after a cancelled engagement, is coming to realise she doesn’t want to get married either; she cherishes having her own space and not having to share it with anybody else. But coming back to her hometown reunites her with her high-school boyfriend as they and her BFF try to figure out the mystery behind the wooden duck.

I like what the author was trying to do here, with the romantic dynamic, but I’m not sure … I think she might have written herself into a corner, and her attempt to extricate herself from that corner left the ending unsatisfying. It’s probably the most realistic ending in Real Life, but in fiction it left me wishing for a better resolution. The plot about the duck was fun, and I enjoyed how they did the research and followed the clues, though as a long time mystery reader, some of it felt a tad clumsy. Nothing that made me cringe, but these characters weren’t investigators, so their awkwardness was probably quite realistic.

All in all, it was a great library read; I enjoyed the story, but I’m not going to wish I owned a copy of my own. I’m glad I read it, but I’ll be happy to return it too.

The Murder of Mr. Wickham

The Murder of Mr. Wickham
by Claudia Gray
Rating: ★★★½
isbn: 9780593313817
Publication Date: May 2, 2022
Pages: 382
Genre: Fiction, Historical, Mystery
Publisher: Vintage Books

The happily married Mr. Knightley and Emma are throwing a house party, bringing together distant relatives and new acquaintances—characters beloved by Jane Austen fans. Definitely not invited is Mr. Wickham, whose latest financial scheme has netted him an even broader array of enemies. As tempers flare and secrets are revealed, it’s clear that everyone would be happier if Mr. Wickham got his comeuppance. Yet they’re all shocked when Wickham turns up murdered—except, of course, for the killer hidden in their midst.

Nearly everyone at the house party is a suspect, so it falls to the party’s two youngest guests to solve the mystery: Juliet Tilney, the smart and resourceful daughter of Catherine and Henry, eager for adventure beyond Northanger Abbey; and Jonathan Darcy, the Darcys’ eldest son, whose adherence to propriety makes his father seem almost relaxed. The unlikely pair must put aside their own poor first impressions and uncover the guilty party—before an innocent person is sentenced to hang.

I’m conflicted about this book. On the one hand, the mystery was very good (although the ending was somewhat predictable, not because of bad plotting at all, but because of who the suspects are). On the other hand, Gray is trying to write Austen’s characters, which for some of them, I can’t say she succeeded overmuch.

Gray was smart; she wrote the book from the POV of all the characters, so she never has to spend too much time with any of Austen’s creations. This keeps her from straying too far outside the lines of their personalities as written by JA. The MCs, on the other hand, are the offspring of the Darcys and the Tilneys (the Tilneys are the only ones that do not appear in the book; instead they are represented by their daughter). This leaves Gray free to develop these characters while remaining true to Austen’s generation.

But, when she does spend time with those characters, she takes some liberties that I’m not entirely comfortable with. She makes Fanny and Edmund so holier than thou – although they are sincere, I’ll give her that. She also takes a HUGE liberty with Fanny’s brother William, in an effort, I suppose, to make the book more socially relevant to today’s audience. It gives Fanny a weakness that can be exploited by Wickham, sure, but its execution is entirely implausible. View Spoiler »

Overall, it’s an excellent mystery and probably an enjoyable read for anyone who hasn’t read Austen’s books more than once. For those of us who have, the same caveats apply to this book as any other work that uses classic characters and reimagines them.

Half a Soul

Half a Soul
by Olivia Atwater
Rating: ★★★
isbn: 9780356518763
Publication Date: June 28, 2022
Pages: 280
Genre: Fantasy, Fiction
Publisher: Orbit

It's difficult to find a husband in Regency England when you're a young lady with only half a soul.

Ever since she was cursed by a faerie, Theodora Ettings has had no sense of fear or embarrassment - a condition which makes her prone to accidental scandal. Dora hopes to be a quiet, sensible wallflower during the London Season - but when the strange, handsome and utterly uncouth Lord Sorcier discovers her condition, she is instead drawn into dangerous and peculiar faerie affairs.

If Dora's reputation can survive both her curse and her sudden connection with the least-liked man in all of high society, then she may yet reclaim her normal place in the world. . . but the longer Dora spends with Elias Wilder, the more she begins to suspect that one may indeed fall in love, even with only half a soul.

A reading friend read this recently and called it a sweet, cozy read and my local library had a copy so I thought, why not?

It’s definitely sweet, but I might call it closer to YA than cozy. I’m not sure I can explain why though – maybe because of the strong fairy tale parallels? Either way, Atwater is a solid writer who definitely has a moral to share in this story – one that comes across strong, and almost heavy handedly, to this reader, but might be right on target for younger, or less cynical – or more passionate – readers. For me, the message was better shared in the author’s Afterword, when she tells the story about the little girl on the beach, throwing all the struggling, beached, fish back into the sea. (For those that haven’t heard it: a man approaches the little girl and asks her why she bothers, the fish are going to die, it doesn’t matter; to which she replies “it matters to this one”.)

I struggle with nasty, mean characters that don’t end up the centre of a murder investigation by the end of the book, so I struggled with the Aunt’s treatment of Dora; treatment she faced no consequences for. I enjoyed the strong friendships though, and the satire of the British ton that was faire land was acerbic.

All in all it was a light read strongly focused on kindness.

The Last Graduate (Scholomance, #2)

The Last Graduate
by Naomi Novik
Rating: ★★★
isbn: 9781529100891
Series: Scholomance #2
Publication Date: September 28, 2021
Pages: 388
Genre: Fantasy, Fiction
Publisher: Del Ray Books

At the Scholomance, El, Orion, and the other students are faced with their final year--and the looming specter of graduation, a deadly ritual that leaves few students alive in its wake. El is determined that her chosen group will survive, but it is a prospect that is looking harder by the day as the savagery of the school ramps up. Until El realizes that sometimes winning the game means throwing out all the rules . . .

While the story remains a good one, the tendency to natter continues. Randomly flipping to a page, there’s a few lines of dialog at the top of page 202, and then nothing but introspection and inner-dialog until page 208. That’s a random page, so it’s not a rarity, and it happened at least once in the middle of not only a scene, but a conversation; by the time I got to the character’s response I had totally forgotten there was a ‘scene in play’ and I had to flip pages and pages back to figure out what the character was responding to.

I dinged the story itself 1/2 star from the first one because it’s meh. Not quite as good as the first, although El’s attitude improved exponentially. She also gets a mouse familiar who is loaded with sass, but neither is enough to pull the story up.

Though I’m damning with faint praise, the last one in the trilogy is out later this month and I’m willing to reserve it at the library to see how the story ends. I’ll probably skip anything else by the author though.

I read this because it was sitting on my coffee table; it isn’t readily fitting any available squares on my Halloween Bingo card, so I’ll leave off shoe-horning it in somewhere unless I need it later (I might, for Country House Mystery and a Wild Card usage).

A Spear Of Summer Grass

A Spear Of Summer Grass
by Deanna Raybourn
Rating: ★★★½
isbn: 9780778314394
Publication Date: May 1, 2013
Pages: 373
Genre: Fiction, Historical
Publisher: Harlequin

Paris, 1923

The daughter of a scandalous mother, Delilah Drummond is already notorious, even amongst Paris society. But her latest scandal is big enough to make even her oft-married mother blanch. Delilah is exiled to Kenya and her favorite stepfather’s savannah manor house until gossip subsides.

Fairlight is the crumbling, sun-bleached skeleton of a faded African dream, a world where dissolute expats are bolstered by gin and jazz records, cigarettes and safaris. As mistress of this wasted estate, Delilah falls into the decadent pleasures of society.

Against the frivolity of her peers, Ryder White stands in sharp contrast. As foreign to Delilah as Africa, Ryder becomes her guide to the complex beauty of this unknown world. Giraffes, buffalo, lions and elephants roam the shores of Lake Wanyama amid swirls of red dust. Here, life is lush and teeming—yet fleeting and often cheap.

Amidst the wonders—and dangers—of Africa, Delilah awakes to a land out of all proportion: extremes of heat, darkness, beauty and joy that cut to her very heart. Only when this sacred place is profaned by bloodshed does Delilah discover what is truly worth fighting for—and what she can no longer live without.

Don’t believe the stories you have heard about me.

I have never killed anyone, and I have never stolen another woman’s husband. Oh, if I find one lying around unattended, I might climb on, but I never took one that didn’t want taking.

And I never meant to go to Africa.

So many random thoughts; I picked this up at the library purely on the strength of Deanna Raybourn and my enjoyment of her other novels. I knew it wasn’t a mystery, but I grabbed it anyway because it was set in Africa, and I really enjoy Raybourn’s writing; the dry wit, the sass.

The only thing this novel had in common with her Julia Grey / Veronica Speedwell novels is the male love interest; it’s safe to say Raybourn has a type, and she sticks with it. Brisbane, Stoker and Ryder could all be the same character with different hair styles. As for the rest of the story, it’s utterly different from anything else of hers I’ve read.

A Spear Of Summer Grass starts off slowly – so very slowly – and its plot is tenuous, at best, for the first … 70% of the book? For that first 2/3, it was a 3 star read and that was because Raybourn captured the romance of interwar Africa (Kenya, specifically) perfectly for a reader whose chance at experiencing it herself has been postponed. The main character, Delilah, is not a typical Raybourn heroine. She looks like it on the outside, as she does what she pleases and apologises to no one, but it’s not coming from a core of strength; Delilah’s core is pretty amoral when it comes to sex. She’s Phryne Fisher without a purpose. Eventually, the reader learns where this comes from, but Raybourn makes the reader work for it.

Round about that 70% mark it’s clear that this story comes closest to a coming of age story mixed with a romance, whose chemistry is also every bit like the chemistry between the characters in her other books. There are also some developments that really work towards ratcheting up the pace – and the reader’s interest. Some of the secondary bits and characters were clunky, but for that last third of the book, I was hooked; I was invested, and I was sorry to see it come to an end.

Would I recommend it? I don’t know. I’m glad I read it – it was beautifully written, well researched (even if some of her research came from funny sources), and ultimately it was a good story – but I think it’s one the reader has to be in the mood for more so than for most books.

I did NOT read this for Halloween Bingo, and it doesn’t fit any of the squares.

Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials that Shape Our Man-Made World

Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials that Shape Our Man-Made World
by Mark Miodownik
Rating: ★★★½
isbn: 9780544236042
Publication Date: November 6, 2014
Pages: 252
Genre: Non-fiction, Science
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

I have this in hardcover, but I listened to the audiobook from the library. So I’m not sure if my feelings about the book are because I listened to it, or if I’d have felt the same reading it. I do know that Storm in a Teacup is a much better read about slightly similar subjects.

Stuff Matters is a relatively slim tome covering some of the marvelous ‘stuff’ we live with, and the selection is quite varied: concrete, stainless steel, chocolate, plastics (the most irritating of the chapters), glass, graphite. There was good information about said stuff in here, but I admit it didn’t hold my attention in nearly the same way as Storm in a Teacup.

The narrator’s voice reminded me strongly of an actor, whose character I can clearly see but can’t place. Very, very British, balding, bow tie, condescending and misanthropic in a humorous way. This might have had something to do with my impressions of the book, too, though I’d have to read the print version to be sure. And someday, I likely will.