A Bean to Die For: 02/29/24

A Bean to Die For by Tara Lush and Kae Marie Denino (Narrator) (2024) is the fourth book in the Coffee Lover's mystery series. Lana Lewis has decided to try growing her own coffee for Perkatory and her father has a lead on a plot of land in the community garden. Unfortunately she finds the previous farmer dead among his tomatoes!

This volume hinges on small organization politics. The community garden has aged beyond its founders and is suffering from growing pains. The victim was the founder but the organization has evolved from his initial vision.

Unfortunately for the current president, her known on going strife with the victim makes her a perfect suspect. Lana, though not exactly friends with the woman decides to help her clear her name.

In the background of the murder investigation is Lana's attempts to get ready for meeting her Noah's mother and sister. She's promised to make an elaborate lasagna for everyone. But she doesn't ask for enough help and she doesn't push back when her boyfriend and his family make more demands than she has time or spoons to deal with.

I'm happy that things ultimately work out for her but she needs to learn how to push back and set boundaries. Hopefully in future volumes she will. The book then ends with a coda that focuses on Lana's relationship with Noah and his plans for the future. Secondary characters do sometimes successfully change careers and live to tell about it. I hope that's the case with Noah but I'm worried he'll end up the murder victim in book five, should there be a fifth book.

Five stars

Comments (0)

Iced Under: 02/28/24

Iced Under by Barbara Ross and Dara Rosenberg (Narrator) (2016) is the fifth Maine Clambake mystery. Busman's Harbor is essentially shut down for the year with only a handful of people and families around for the long snowy nights. Even Julia's business partner/boyfriend is down in Florida for extra work. The only thing on Julia's mind is her sister's pregnancy and impending due date.

An unexpected package arriving at the post office changes Julia's course for the winter. Inside is an expensive necklace, one that her mother recognizes from old family stories. The necklace has been missing for nearly a hundred years. A cryptic note implies the necklace is for rebuilding / repairing the family home that burned in Clammed Up (2013).

I've been trained by dozens of mysteries to immediately expect the expensive gift to either be fake or if real, be stolen and a murder tied to it so that both crimes are pinned on the main character or someone closer to her. That doesn't happen here.

Instead, we get more of a family drama, something akin to the The Whiteoaks of Jalna series by Mazo de la Roches. It's a story that covers multiple generations, genealogical research, and ultimately a trip to Boston. But this family drama is told with the conventions of a cozy mystery. The pacing, tropes, and investigations are all still there but the stakes are different and the rewards much greater.

The sixth book is Stowed Away (2017).

Five stars

Comments (0)

Alexander and the Magic Mouse 02/27/24

Alexander and the Magic Mouse by Martha Sanders and Philippe Fix (Illustrator) (1969) is the tale of how the Old Lady who lived on the hill and her menagerie saved a nearby town from flooding.

An Old Lady who has retired from years of travels and adventures, has brought home a cat from London, an alligator from China, and a yak from Tibet. Her Victorian mansion came with the magic mouse.

They have their routines and roles until one day the magic mouse has a vision of a huge rain storm. It will last an entire month. The woman tries to go down to the town and can't. Ultimately it's Alexander the alligator who has the skills to get to the town despite the poor weather.

There's a lot in this book that one just has to take as is. The narrator tells you this is how things are and that's all there is by way of explanation.

More work is done by the bright illustrations. Although they show an old woman who dresses to fit her Victorian surrounds, the illustrations are done in vibrantly warm colors that were typical of the late 1960s-1970s.

Five stars

Comments (0)

What Feasts at Night 02/25/24

What Feasts at Night by T. Kingfisher (2024) is the second book in the Sworn Soldier series of horror novellas. Retired soldier Alex Easton has returned home to invite Miss Potter to study mushrooms in Gallacia as a favor to Angus. From the moment they begin the trek into the mountains ka has a bad feeling about things.

The short of things is the lodge isn't ready. The man in charge of the place is two months dead. And there's probably a curse or some other evil about the place. Nonetheless, Alex and Angus find a housekeeper and her grandson to get the place ready for Miss Potter.

And that's when the horror begins. This is an evil that comes in the form of dreams and steels away one's breath. To practical Alex it means pneumonia or consumption. To the housekeeper, it's a supernatural being. To the grandson, it's his burden to bear as he's the first new victim.

This second story involving Alex, Angus and the unflappable Miss Potter didn't frighten me to my core as What Moves the Dead (2020) did. Fungus gets me in ways that breath sucking dream demons just don't. Like Alex I'm too practically minded and will definitely put up a fight in my dreams. That said, I wonder if T. Kingfisher has further horrors in store for the trio.

Like the first book, this one sits on the Road Narrative Spectrum. This time, Alex et al aren't coming to the problem with status or privilege. Instead, Alex is up against a monster, head to head, making it a Scarecrow/Minotaur set of travelers (99). The journey is to the wildlands (99), the overgrown areas around the neglected lodge. The route there is the Blue Highway (33) in the form of the road that takes the trio up into the small mountain village from the capital.

Five stars

Comments (0)

Mycroft Holmes and the Apocalypse Handbook: 02/24/24

Mycroft Holmes and the Apocalypse Handbook by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Josh Cassara (Illustrator) (2017) collects five comics in this mystery about missing blue prints to various Victorian era super weapons.

Young Mycroft Holmes has been living the life of the perpetual student at Oxford (while younger brother is now at Cambridge). He's mostly using his time with the Victorian equivalents of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. When the British Museum is bombed, Mycroft is recruited to go after the missing blue prints, his first of many missions for Queen Victoria.

The adventure set mostly in the United States after the initial chapter (or what was the first issue of five) reminds me of Elementary, season one's last three episodes. Here again we see different takes on Adler and Moriarty.

Five stars

Comments (0)

Ozma of Oz: 02/22/24

Ozma of Oz by L. Frank Baum and John R. Neill (1907) is the third book in the Oz series and the one where Dorothy makes her first return to Oz. It's also our first good look at Ozma as the Ruler of Oz.

Dorothy's first three trips to Oz involve brushes with death: death by cyclone, death by drowning, death by earthquake. Although later trips won't be so perilous for Dorothy, future travelers (in the Ruth Plumly Thompson Oz books) will face their own near death trips to Oz.

Every time I read the opening chapter I ponder the feasibility of a Kansas based farmer taking himself and his niece to Australia for health reasons. Was the Aus/Oz joke just too irresistible for Baum? Did Baum have ties to Sydney? Or was he just looking for a way for Dorothy and the little yellow hen to wash overboard?

I think the Oz / Aus joke would have worked better if Baum hadn't written himself into a corner with the Deadly Desert that surrounds Oz. It's impossible for Dorothy or anyone else to wash ashore on Oz.

Instead, the novel begins in Ev, a post apocalyptic ocean front kingdom. What remains of Ev is full of creatures and genetically engineered food that brings to mind novels like Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake (2003). Despite the Wheelers, the Lunch Box and Dinner Pail trees, Tik-Tok and whatever other creations left behind by Smith and Tinkers, and the head swapping Langwidere, there is a community of people who seem relatively happy.

Although Dorothy is imprisoned by Langwidere, Ozma of Oz isn't about how Ozma vanquishes her. She, like the Wheelers, ends up being not the threat she first appears to be. She's vain, lazy, and a collector of heads (hello Futurama) but she's otherwise an adequate ruler. Instead, the bulk of the book is focused on rescuing the Queen of Ev and her ten children. They had been sold into slavery to the Nome King by the now dead King of Ev.

Ozma arrives with an army on a magic carpet (green, of course). She gives Langwidere an ultimatum: "I am the Ruler of the Land of Oz, and I am powerful enough to destroy all your kingdom, if I so wish," (p.110). It's our first glimpse of Ozma as omnipotent ruler, quite the contrary to the previous rulers we've seen: the Wizard, the Scarecrow, and Jinjur. Ozmas is also different in that she goes in person to rescue the Ev royal family.

Although Ozma has the most power of any of the other characters, she's not the hero. She tries and her heart is in the right spot but she's too young and still as impetuous as she had been as Tip. We see how her haste fails her in the trial to recognize the Ev royal family as the Nome King's collectables.

Is Dorothy the hero? No. She is the main character but she's not the hero. Yes, she does manage to rescue on of the Ev children, but she fails utterly at figuring out the Nome King's mnemonic for transforming the Ev royal family.

The hero of Ozma of Oz is the Little Yellow Hen, aka Bill. Bill is a no nonsense, rough and tumble chicken who takes her new gift of human speech and just owns it. Whenever and wherever there's trouble, Bill gets right into the middle of it. She fights. She tells people off. She comes up with solid plans. She uses her diminutive status to gather vital information. Her abilities as a spy is what ultimately saves the Royal Family of Ev and the Ozians who were transformed after failing the Nome King's test.

Dorothy's relationship with Bill irks me. Dorothy who is usually a fairly liberal minded adventurer seems to be something of a gender essentialist. She refuses to acknowledge Bill's name because Bill is an egg laying hen. She renames Bill, Billina, to make her more feminine. She goes further and announces to anyone around her that the hen's name is Billina. Bill, though, when left to her own devices, always introduces herself as Bill. For example, when Bill rescues the Queen of Ev, she introduces herself, "Why, my name’s Bill, by rights." (p. 217)

Bill being on her own trajectory from the moment she realized she could talk until she decides to stay in Oz with Ozma, et. al, is why she's one of my favorite characters in the entire series. She's unapologetic for being who she is. She'll put up with people telling her otherwise but when left to her own devices, she goes right back to being Bill.

If you'd like to read more of my thoughts on this book, please see my 2018 review.

The fourth book in the series is Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz (1908)

Five stars

Comments (0)

Haunted Holiday 02/20/24

Haunted Holiday by Kiersten White (2024) is the conclusion to the Sinister Summer series. Twins Theo and Alexander are back at their aunt's house while their older sister and Edgar go to save their parents. Neither twin wants to sit still and let things happen, so they too find a way to do their part.

Throughout the series the biggest question has been what has happened to all the parents? Each book, or each stop during the summer has led to another family and another mystery. The Sinister-Winterbottoms along with the new friends they've made have come to the conclusion that all the mysteries, large and small, are related to a much larger threat.

This book then is their chance to put everything to rights and learn some long held family secrets. It's also the second time in their summer adventure that the twins will learn that adults don't always tell them the truth. Sometimes adults lie and sometimes they just hold back the truth. They'll also learn that adults sometimes do this when they are trying to protect their kids.

The final confrontation primarily takes place at a beachside amusement park. The rides and other attractions are mermaid and kraken themed in keeping with the last family, the Sirens.

As with the previous books, Haunted Holiday sits on the Road Narrative Spectrum. While the series began fairly high up in the fantasy zone, the series ends at the border with horror as the children have come to understand just what is at stake.

With this understanding, they have re-contextualized themselves as marginalized travelers (66). Their destination is uhoria (CC) - both the past to understand what got them to this situation and the future, in their desire to stop things from going horribly wrong. Their route there is the railroad in the form of an underground traveling system that runs on rails (00).

Five stars

Comments (0)

Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands 02/19/24

Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton (2022) is a graphic memoir of time spent in Alberta in some of the worst jobs ever. She worked in the tool cribs of various oil companies in remote places where the men outnumbered women 50 to 1.

Kate is from Nova Scotia and in the early 2000s when she was newly graduated from university and had student loans to pay off. Apparently Canada is less forgiving with payoff than the U.S. ones. With no easy prospect for a job at home she heads to the oil sands where she could pay off her loans in months rather than years.

Much of the book is spent with Kate trying to do her job and trying not to react to the toxic masculinity around her. Unfortunately she like every other woman in this book is ultimately assaulted by one of the men she works with. Of course its her reputation and job on the line.

This is a brutal read with some moments of humor. Beaton's backgrounds are intricate and capture the destruction to a once beautiful landscape.

In the middle of all of this, there's an interlude where she works at the Maritime Museum in Victoria. Having been there and knowing first hand how small it is and how little money small nonprofits like that place have, I knew from the outset that her time there was doomed.

Five stars

Comments (0)

The Black Holes: 02/17/24

The Black Holes by Borja González (2018) es el primero libro de "las tres noches", a graphic novel series where the first book was published in English as A Gift for a Ghost. When I wrote that review I said I would be re-reading it in the original Spanish. I finally have.

The book begins with a woman meeting a skeleton and asking them if they are dead. The skeleton replies that no, they are not dead. But the two speakers are divided by time and quite possibly by space, though they meet at a lake by a forest.

When I read the translation I said I wasn't sure if the two plots ever converge via time travel other wibbly wobbly timey wimey reasons. Having now read the Spanish I can say that they do. These conversations are done across time with subjunctive conjugations probably not usually seen when speaking of death. But they are here and the imply a distance of time in ways that the English doesn't.

Despite having read the book once in translation and despite it being a graphic novel with few words, I found it tricky at times. Part of that's my own fault, choosing to read it in a noisy coffeeshop which frequently has a mixture of languages (English, Tagalog, Spanish, and Mandarin being the most common ones spoken there).

But it's also the text. The characters are young women and they speak like young women. Meaning, they speak in slang and partial sentences. It's no fault of the author or the women portrayed. It's how people are. Since the author is from Badajoz, Spain, the language he uses is different from the Spanish dialects I am most familiar with (primarily Mexicano and Latino Americano more broadly). Spain-Spanish is as different as British English is from American English and that's before we even get into regional dialects.

The next book in the series is Grito Nocturno (2021) or Night Cry. I have the Spanish language version on hand to read soon.

Five stars

Comments (0)

Not Quite a Ghost: 02/15/24

Not Quite a Ghost by Anne Ursu (2024) is a modern day middle grade retelling of "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1892). It's set in the post-COVID years and looks at how autoimmune problems are often undiagnosed or even ignored, especially in children.

Violet Hart is the middle child and is originally thrilled to get her own room again after sharing with her older sister for the last three years. She's given the attic of the old home her parents buy but it's the one piece of the house left untouched over the years, including the mesmerizing and somewhat terrifying yellow wallpaper.

Where in the original short story the main character was locked in the attic for hysteria (most likely postpartum depression), Violet ends up spending tons of time up there when she catches the virus that's going around. What most kids get over in a few days, never quite leaves her. Unfortunately no tests at the doctor's office or in the ER seem to show any cause.

Along with the medical mystery, there's also the ghost story. The third person narrator implies that the house is sentient much in the same way as the home in The View from the Very Best House in Town by Meera Trehan (2022). The narrator further implies that hauntings are like viruses.

From Violet's POV we see the wallpaper move and change. We see and hear a girl shaped entity who is trapped by the house. We hear the entity threaten Violet. We see Violet eventually defeat the entity with help from the house.

How literally the paranormal events are to be taken is left up to the reader. I am interpreting the haunting as being an infection, or the lingering effects of one, just as Violet is suffering from a postviral syndrome.

Five stars

Comments (0)

Mexikid: 02/14/24

Mexikid by Pedro Martín (2023) is a graphic novel memoir of a trip taken from Watsonville to a village in Jalisco. Pedro is one of the youngest in his family, among the set of children born in the United States. His oldest siblings were born in Jalisco.

In 1977 the entire family spread across two vehicles: a pick up truck and an RV drove the two thousand miles to bring Apa's father home to Watsonville. Along the way Pedro and his American born siblings had to adjust to a culture that wasn't quite their's, in the same way that the United States wasn't quite their eldest siblings' culture.

Through the trip the reader learns along with Pedro about Mexico's history, culture, and traditions. The story is told through the author's humorous artwork as well as a mixture of English and Spanish dialog. Some of the dialog is translated and some isn't. Some of the translations are humorous approximations that capture how young Pedro probably understood (or misunderstood) what had been said.

There is also a Spanish language version, and I might go back and re-read it that way.

Five stars

Comments (0)

Little Boy with a Big Horn: 02/12/24

Little Boy with a Big Horn by Jack Bechdolt and Aurelius Battaglia (Illustrator) (1953) is one of those foundational books of my childhood. It's a story that has stuck with me even though I am not particularly musically inclined. For me, it was how Bechdolt's story was interpreted visually by Aurelius Battaglia and how I misread / misremembered one key piece.

Ollie plays a big bass horn. He's young and he's only managed to learn one song so far, "Asleep in the Deep." He plays it a lot. He plays it loudly. His mother needs a break from listening to him practice. Each place he goes he's ultimately asked to leave because of the song until he finds a way to put it to good use.

How and more importantly where Ollie saves the day is where my childhood memory went astray. Ollie's world is confined to where it's plausible for a child of approximately ten to go under his own power while carrying a large instrument. He goes to town, he goes to the fields, and he goes out to the harbor in a rowboat.

At the start of the last act of the book, the set up for Ollie to be a hero, is an illustration of some rocks at the edge of the harbor. The book published in 1953, while full color, made some choices in how to represent things. Ink is expensive. Multiple passes for details ultimately ends up being more effort and money than is needed for the final product.

Take for instance the rocks. The lightest bits of rocks, in other words, the highlights, are left white. They are the color of the paper. It saves ink and time. When I was a child, I saw while rocks in the sea and thought Ollie had somehow rowed all the way either north or south to where there are icebergs. As an adult that detail had morphed into me remembering Ollie in Antartica in his rowboat serenading penguins. There are no penguins in this book.

Despite a forty year old memory gone astray, I still love the book. I love Aurelius Battaglia's illustrations. They firmly set Ollie in a world that's contemporaneous with the song he's playing. Because, yes, the song that causes Ollie so much trouble is a real song and in the public domain if you're so inclined to make your own version of it.

"Asleep in the Deep" was published in 1897. The words are by Arthur J. Lamb and the music is by Henry W. Petrie. The title refers of course to those who have drowned, and by playing the song, Ollie saves a ship from running afoul of the rocks and possibly drowning its passengers.

The same year the book was released, UPA did an animated short.

In a future post I will discuss the 2008 release with art by Dan Yaccarino.

Five stars

Comments (0)

The Dog Knight: 02/11/24

The Dog Knight by Jeremy Whitley and Bre Indigo (Illustrator) (2023) is a middle grade graphic novel about a non-binary drummer and a legion of super dogs saving the world from gremlins. Frankie has one big thing on their mind right now, the upcoming band competition / recital. Unfortunately, Platinum the dog has complicated things by choosing them to be the newest Dog Knight.

This isn't a simple transformation from regular kid into hero. Most of this book is focused on the numerous trials Frankie has to pass on their journey to knighthood. There are tests for loyalty, smell, and stubbornness among others. Each of these tests tie back into Frankie's life as a middle schooler and the upcoming competition.

Ultimately it's about finding the right balance between being genuine and being there for others. Each test is a new mini lesson for reader and Frankie. Set against invisible (unless one is wearing the knight's helmet) legions of gremlins who are responsible for nearly every single bad thing in the world, cheapens the lessons, though. Gremlins and cats (the other anti-dog league in this book) aren't usually the bad guys; it's people.

The book covers some topics of bullying with Dallas, her brother, and their parents. We get some understanding to why Dallas started treating Frankie poorly. We get a vague hint at why her brother is a bully. But mostly these scenes are glossed over again in favor of gremlins.

Three stars

Comments (0)

Saving Juliet: 02/09/24

Saving Juliet by Suzanne Selfors (2008) is a retelling of Romeo and Juliet with similar vibes to the "Naked Montague" episode of Man from Atlantis (1/6/1977). I'll be forthright and admit it was this connection that drew me to the book because while I'm not a fan of the play, I do like the adaptations, especially the wackier ones.

Mimi is the youngest of a once powerful acting family. Her mother desperate to keep the tradition alive and to keep their Broadway theater open, has pushed Mimi into an acting career she hates. She hates it to the point of vomiting on stage. Her swan song is to play Juliet to a young crooner's Romeo.

After a panic attack and fight before the start of her last performance, Mimi is transported to Verona. Not actual Verona, but a version that is part Shakespeare and part her own imagination. To make matters worse, her co-star has been transported too.

The crux of the novel is how to save Juliet — both Mimi who has been playing Juliet, and the flesh and blood Juliet now living in this magical Verona. Troy, her costar, has strong opinions about sticking with the script. Mimi, though, wants something more for Juliet. If fictional Juliet can't get a rewrite, how will she ever get her own life on the course she wants for herself?

My one complaint is that the novel seems much too front loaded with the bulk of the story being Act I. While Romeo doesn't end up being all that important to the plot by reworking the initial scenes the pacing ends up being off.

The novel with its unexpected travel to Verona sits on the Road Narrative Spectrum. As Mimi and Troy end up a couple by the end, they count as traveling couple (33). Their destination is an unmappable Verona, or a utopia (FF). Their route there is the Blue Highway (33), or more precisely the sidewalk / door by the theater.

Four stars

Comments (0)

Coconut Drop Dead: 02/08/24

Coconut Drop Dead by Olivia Matthews and Janina Edwards (Narrator) (2023) is the third book in the Spice Isles Bakery mystery series. Lyndsay Murray and her family are taking their food truck to the annual Caribbean American Heritage Festival. They've attended for years, but this is their first time as vendors.

In the backdrop of this book is a charity CD by the locally popular group, Dragonflies. To make things even more sweet, the lead singer is dating Lyndsay's cousin. That is until she's murdered during the festival. Despite her death, sales of the charity CD continue.

In the cozy genre there are four kinds of murder victims. First there's the character who is so reprehensible that multiple people want him dead — and in some cases they conspire to commit the perfect murder. Next there is the bully who has a beef with the person who will be accused once the bully is murdered. Then there's the complete stranger: someone new to the town who ends up murdered. Finally, there's someone like Camille, the victim in this book, someone too sweet to die but is murdered anyway.

The way Camille is set up I really expected her to be the one Lyndsay would end up helping. She's an honest, creative, loving individual. She's beloved by the community. If she were in a Kate Carlisle book she would have survived and the murderer would be dead instead. I don't normally grieve for the the murder victim in the mysteries I read, but I did for Camille.

Five stars

Comments (0)

All You Need is Fudge: 02/06/24

All You Need is Fudge by Nancy CoCo (2016) is the fourth book in the Candy-Coated mystery series. While walking Mal, Allie McMurphy finds the body of a local socialite floating in the harbor. It's the week of the annual yacht race and initially everyone things she must have fallen in during a late night party. But the sister of Allie's boyfriend is accused of murder.

As Allie's not part of the same social circles as her boyfriend, she and her chocolatier are suddenly shut out of the event they had been partially catering. She's also kept away from her boyfriend and his family, leaving her wondering what's going on and anxious to help his sister.

So of course she sets out to solve the mystery. She probably could have given more time. Unfortunately the ending feels a bit rushed, where the author seemed more eager to finish her B plot (one involving a wedding proposal being planned by one of Allie's longterm employees. To have enough pages left to wrap up the book on a happy ending, the murder ends up confessing at a point when they could have just told Allie to mind her own business.

Save for the abrupt ending that doesn't rely on Allie's skills as an amateur sleuth at all, I enjoyed the book. I even liked the B plot and all the planning that went into the event.

The fifth book is Oh, Fudge! (2017)

Four stars

Comments (0)

Andrew Henry's Meadow: 02/05/24

Andrew Henry's Meadow by Doris Burn (1965) is a picture book about a boy with a drive to build and how he helps the oddball children of his community find a place of their own. The titular character is a boy who will build things anywhere he can, at the annoyance of his family. For example: a helicopter in the kitchen, pulleys in the bedroom, a merry-go-round in the laundry room. Fed up one day he sets out to find his own place.

The special location involves an overland trip through a familiar wilderness if you know the landscape of the Cascades. Doris Burns's accompanying illustrations capture the place while keeping the events rather timeless. The only clue to its age is the missing technology: no Smartphones, no easy way for the parents to track their children.

After building his own perfect home away from home with the materials available, Andrew is asked to build homes for each of children who arrive. There's a treehouse, a bridge house, a house of solitude for one who needs to practice her music, and so forth. Each one is beautifully and intricately illustrated in Burn's precise ink line drawings.

Although this book was recommended to me via a conversation on Instagram, it's not my first time reading one of her books. Seventeen years ago I read and reviewed The Summerfolk (1968).

Andrew Henry's Meadow also happens to sit on the Road Narrative Spectrum. The children who end up creating their own village over the course of four days, are marginalized travelers (66). These are all kids who feel like they don't have space of their own at home. Their destination is a rural area (33). Although it starts off as wildlands, they make it into a small, rural village. Their route there is offroad (66), one that the parents later need Andrew's dog to find.

Five stars

Comments (0)

Bulletproof Barista: 02/04/24

Bulletproof Barista by Cleo Coyle and Rebecca Gibel (Narrator) (2023) is the twentieth book in the Coffeehouse mystery series. The Village Blend is a shooting location for the second season of hit streaming show, Only Murders in Gotham. Unfortunately its plagued with bad luck and possibly sabotage. And that's before the murders start.

What sets Clare on the sleuthing warpath this time is the mishandling of a gun that could have cost Tucker his life. Tucker, actor that he is, is understandably cautious around firearms. He knows things can and do go wrong. If the hadn't been so on top of things he would have been the first body in this book.

The mystery this time is centered on how television is made, whether it's for traditional distribution or for streaming. To drive that point home, the modern day series has ties to an older show that filmed sometimes at the Village Blend when Madame was running the place.

My one complaint with the book is a recurring one; namely the scenes that are from the POV of the murderer. They don't add anything to the book and at least to me are a distraction. I don't care how the murder seems themself or refers to themself or to their victim(s). If anything, these side scenes make the murder's identity more obvious in that it will invariably be someone who on outward appearances is the exact opposite of their internal monolog.

Four stars

Comments (0)

Mislaid in Parts Half-Known: 02/02/24

Mislaid in Parts Half-Known by Seanan McGuire is the ninth book in the Wayward Children series and serves as a sequel / conclusion to events laid out in Lost in the Moment and Found.

Antsy has found her way to Eleanor's school and realizes straightaway that she doesn't belong. She has been total and utterly misunderstood and miscategorized by Eleanor. In fact, Antsy's better qualified to map and categorize the words through the doors.

Of course the other residents figure out that Antsy can find anything that is legitimately lost. That includes doors. In a desire to keep Seraphina from finding her door, Antsy and some other students leave the school through a path of doorways only Antsy can find.

The second half of the book ultimately settles on Antsy's desire to go back to the Shop at the Nexus. The woman still running the shop is continuing to prey on children, spending their lives through frivolous door opening. Antsy realizes she must go back and take over as caretaker to keep future children safe when they invariably arrive.

Although the book is just as short as all the previous novellas, I found it a tedious read. I think I've read enough of McGuire's books to realize how often what her characters say and think are little more than platitudes dressed up in complex language. There's minimal character growth and minimal plot. Instead there are hollow attempts at philosophical explorations of the human condition.

As with the rest of the series, this book sits on the Road Narrative Spectrum. Antsy and the other students are marginalized travelers (66). They are trying to get home (either back to school, or to the Store in Antsy's case) (66). Their route there is the labyrinth (99) of doors (99).

There's a tenth book planned but at this time I'm not expecting to purchase it.

Three stars

Comments (0)

Spy x Family, Volume 10: 02/01/24

Spy x Family, Volume 10 by Tatsuya Endo, Casey Loe (Translator) (2022) looks into Loid's background. As the cover art hints, it's a tragic one. Later chapters in the volume also include one where Yor finds a new group of friends and Anya has some life lessons from the Headmaster.

I'll admit I was reluctant to read this volume and held off for three months. I'm not a fan of tragic back stories or war ones. I realize that sounds ridiculous if you know the fandoms I was part of in my youth. But Tatsuya Endo shows restraint and tells just what needs to be told without dragging things into melodrama.

That said, I still enjoyed Yor's story the most. After her last arc which spread across three volumes, it was nice to have a Yor about town, slice of life piece. She struggles with human interaction, beyond her immediate found family, and so desperately wants to be "normal." This scene while it ultimately gives Operation Strix a Plan C, is Yor's first big lesson that lots of people struggle with knowing what to do and how to fit in.

Anya's part of this book felt like an attempt to reprise the excellent camping story with Donovan Desmond and his two friends from Volume 7. Anya gets some lessons in patience and most of what she's told goes over her head because she's still so very young.

Volume 11 in English translation releases March 19, 2024.

Five stars

Comments (0)

January 2024 Summary: 02/01/24

For the first couple of weeks, Ian was on vacation, so January was a slow start. I'm working more on my online store (Ko-fi) and I've started up a daily painting project like I did back in 2020. I'm also busy at the Sun Gallery again.

I read the same amount of books in January as in December, 18. Of my read books, 14 were diverse and three were queer. I reviewed 22 books, up three from the previous month. On the reviews front, 20 were diverse and two were queer.

I have 1 books left to review of the 273 books I read in 2024 and 14 books of the 18 read in 2024.

Comments  (0)

Previous month | Next month