Come Shell or High Water: 07/30/24

Come Shell or High Water by Molly MacRae and Callie Beaulieu (Narrator) (2024) is the start of the Haunted Shell Shop mystery series. Recently widowed folklorist Maureen Nash has gone to Ocracoke Island for reasons all her own during a hurricane. She comes to in the Moon Shell hours after its owner was murdered on the beach.

Maureen, rattled by a slight concussion and possible electric shock, finds herself a prime suspect in Allen Withrow's murder. She also finds that she has unknown ties to him. Further more, her two new acquaintances give her conflicting information on who to trust. But the weirdest thing is the ghostly appearance of a Welsh pirate who seems tied to the shell shop and a shell she found on the beach.

As Maureen is from Tennessee, I have to wonder if she's from Blue Plum, and a minor character from Haunted Yarn Shop mystery series. Regardless, the ghost in this series, Emrys Lloyd, seems to work under many of the same rules and restrictions as Genevieve.

The mystery itself wasn't that hard to solve once the focus of the book moved from establishing Ocracoke and Maureen's part in it. Getting to that point, though, takes a good half or more of the book. Getting Maureen's wits back after she wakes up on the floor of the shell shop takes way too long. If I had been reading the book in print, I would have gone into skimming mode.

Four stars

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The Mysterious Tadpole: 07/29/24

The Mysterious Tadpole by Steven Kellogg (1977) is a tale of a boy raising the creature his grandfather has given him, even after he turns out to be very large and very unusual.

Louis is given a "tadpole" and takes it to school so he and his classmates can watch it turn into a frog. When the creature grows much too large to be a frog and again much too large for the school classroom, Louis has to find something else to do with Alphonse.

Louis doesn't have the help from his parents as either the children in Dinosaur Bob and His Adventures with the Family Lazardo by William Joyce (1988) or Emily Elizabeth does with Clifford in Clifford the Big Red Dog by Norman Bridwell (1963). Instead, he's left to his own ingenuity and luck.

The Mysterious Tadpole most reminds me of The Sea Serpent and Me by Dashka Slater and Catia Chien (illustrator) (1988). Both these books deal specifically with sea serpents and the large amounts of water needed to keep one healthy and happy.

Five stars

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The Twelve Books of Christmas: 07/28/24

The Twelve Books of Christmas by Kate Carlisle and Kimberly M. Wetherell (Narrator) (2023) is the seventeenth book in the Bibliophile mystery series. Brooklyn and Derek have been invited to Scotland for the New Year's wedding of Claire and Cameron. While there, Brooklyin is tasked with finding a dozen Christmas themed books from the castle library.

There's also a pair of murders that are really more like afterthoughts than major plot points to this book. I swear these two deaths are included because it's expected of the cozy mystery genre. The missing books and the slanderous rumors being spread about Claire through the village would have been enough of a mystery.

Let's be blunt, Kate Carlisle isn't very good at writing subtle villains. The villains in this book spent the entire book being obvious enough that even the other characters in the mystery mention it. What keeps the villains at hand is Cameron's sense of decorum as the laird. Two people end up dead because he was too slow to act.

Four stars

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The Rock from the Sky: 07/27/24

Running in Flip-Flops From the End of the World by Justin A. Reynolds (2024) is the sequel to It's the End of the World and I'm in my Bathing Suit (2022). Eddie Gordon and the other neighborhood kids left behind after everyone else disappeared on the Beach Bash day are still trying to get to the beach.

Every time the kids try to leave the neighborhood, something happens to the car they are driving. These scenes have a fun Twilight Zone vibe to them. But ultimately they serve more as filler than dramatic foil.

As this volume unfolds it becomes clear that Running... is the second in some yet to be determined number of books. Second books are moments to breath. They're transitions between acts or dramatic moments over a larger plot arc.

Unfortunately, since this book is so different from the first one, it's impossible for me to estimate how many books will be in this series. I have the feeling that Scholastic is trying to milk this series for book fairs, meaning we'll get a dozen or so books with diminishing returns in plot progression until similar diminishing returns on book fair sales forces the publisher to cancel the series.

Like the previous book, Running... sits on the Road Narrative Spectrum. The travelers and the route stay the same same, marginalized (66) and Blue Highway (33) but the destination changes from home (66) to utopia (FF) as something prevents them from reaching the beach.

As of writing this review there isn't a third title announced.

Four stars

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The Rock from the Sky: 07/25/24

The Rock from the Sky by Jon Klassen (2021) begins with a massive falling rock. Then it cuts to a hard of hearing tortoise stubbornly standing in the path of rock. The remainder of the book is an on-going tension and expectation that someone will be crushed by the rock.

Besides the tortoise, there's a prairie dog and a rattle snake. All three wear dapper hats, keeping the hat motif going. Through series of conversations, misheard words, and thought-experiments, the three manage to avoid certain doom.

Klassen's understated artwork done in geometric shapes, earth tones, and flat colors, works well with the dry humor of the book. The Rock from the Sky is a perfect example of how to build suspense and create surprise.

Five stars

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Murder in a Cape Cottage: 07/24/24

Murder in a Cape Cottage by Maddie Day and Rachel Dulude (Narrator) (2022) is the fourth book in the Cozy Capers Book Group mystery series. Mac and Tim are in the last days before their wedding. They're working together on Tim's place to build a new bathroom. While breaking down a wall, Mac discovers the mummified remains of a woman in a wedding dress.

Now Mac is distracted from her wedding planning by a cold case. Who is the woman? Who entombed her? When was she murdered? Why was she murdered, and so forth.

In other cold case mysteries I've read, especially ones where a body is found tucked inside the walls of an old house, there's usually a modern day murder tied to it. This one is unusual because there is no modern day murder, although there are some attacks.

I like how the wedding planning is interwoven with the sleuthing. The wedding events aren't tacked on as an extended epilog. Instead, the need to solve the cold case is a frustrating but compelling distraction from the wedding.

The fifth book is Murder at a Cape Bookstore (2023)

Five stars

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The Yellow Bush: 07/23/24

The Yellow Bus by Loren Long (2024) is about the passage of time in a city in a valley as experienced by a school bus. A consistent artistic style and sense of place makes for a poignant story.

The book begins as one expects with children riding to and from school on a school bus. Already one can see Long's commitment to narrative through art. The majority of the cityscape is rendered in black and white pencil drawings, save for the bus and anyone on the bus.

As time passes the way the bus is used changes. It sits abandoned It becomes a bus for seniors. Then it's a home for seniors who repaint the bus. And on and on until ultimately the bus ends up as a home for fish in a newly created lake.

Without knowing any more about the book than what is presented in the story and via the illustrations, it's a remarkable book. However, in the afterword, the author shows how he created the entire landscape in miniature so he could accurately draw the world he had imagined from every angle and under different lighting set ups.

Like Long's Otis, Yellow Bus sits on the Road Narrative Spectrum. The Bus is an orphan (FF), eventually abandoned before the flood. They wish to give happiness to whomever needs them, and ultimately find it in an unmapped, underwater utopia (FF). Their route there is the Blue Highway — the road that took them from the town to their final resting spot (33).

Five stars

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Happy Place: 07/22/24

Happy Place by Emily Henry (2023) is a summer romance set in Maine. Harriet and Wyn had been engaged. As far as Harriet's friends know, they still are. She's hoping to spend a well needed summer break with them before telling them the sad news. Except, her ex has been invited and they are being forced to share a room.

A Maine setting and fake lovers to actual lovers are two things I normally enjoy in a book. Unfortunately this time the pieces didn't come together. Harriet and Wyn's relationship remains toxic to long to believe the eventual happy ending.

I think the main failure of this book is in the decision to only tell the story from Harriet's point of view. These fake lovers books works because we can see what both are thinking and feeling through alternating chapters. Without Wynn's POV, he just remains an enigmatic ass.

Two stars

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Witch Hunt: 07/20/24

Witch Hunt by Cate Conte and Amy Melissa Bentley (Narrator) (2020) is the start of the Full Moon mystery series. Violet Mooney runs the Full Moon crystal shop in North Harbor, Connecticut. Shortly after she's accused by Councilwoman Carla Fernandez of voodoo and running seances in her shop, the councilwoman is murdered. Violet, of course, is the main suspect.

Carla's murder is just the start of Violet's trouble. After a pendant she always wears breaks, she's suddenly able to do supernatural things. To make things even weirder, her estranged mother and a sister she's never met are back in her life with the news that she, like them, is a witch.

The series has a similar vibe to the Magical Bakery mystery series by Bailey Cates. Both series imagine a world where witches live and work in both mundane and magical societies. Both main characters come into their powers as adults because they were shielded from them by older adult women in their lives. They have an entire culture and rules to learn.

Unfortunately this opening mystery has some major pacing issues. Some of the pacing stems from Violet being absolutely unwilling to accept the magic around her despite teleporting herself and doing other obviously magical things.

Second, Violet's magical relatives are there with their own agenda which is at a complete tangent to the murder of Carla. In other cozy mystery series where there's a magical element, the magical characters are usually willing to help solve the murder. Here, though, it was like reading two divergent books haphazardly stitched together.

The second book is Witch Trial (2021)

Three stars

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Icarus: 07/19/24

Icarus by K. Ancrum (2024) is a YA queer romance that uses the myth of Icarus as it's jumping off point. Icarus, named for the plant, not the myth, lives with his art forger father. While swapping out artwork at the Black house, he meets Helios.

As with every K. Ancrum book I've read (and loved), the novel takes time to find its footing. The first 50 pages are tough. The short chapters, some only a paragraph or two, and the many different settings, make the opening feel longer and more confusing than it needs to be.

But once Icarus and Helios begin a friendship that's clearly going to become more, everything falls into place. The two characters are living parallel lives under the abusive watch of their fathers. For one, the abuse comes from grief. For the other it comes from anger and a desire to control.

The novel also sits on the Road Narrative Spectrum. Icarus and Helios are a couple (33). Their joint goal is a safe place they can both call home (66). Their route is the labyrinth (99) as represented by the massive, confusing home of Helios and his father. Although both face abuse, the journey is a transformative one, thus a labyrinth instead of a maze.

Five stars

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Tik-Tok of Oz: 07/17/24

Tik-Tok of Oz by L. Frank Baum and John R. Neill (1914) began as a theatrical retelling of Ozma of Oz. Baum, in his enthusiasm to flood the market with all things Oz, had lost the theatrical rights to Ozma, Dorothy and a bunch of other key characters. Tik-Tok, being a rather minor character in the book, was still his. So he created a new princess, a new girl, and a newish adventure centered around the wind-up man from Ev.

The Tik-Tok Man of Oz premiered in Los Angeles in 1913. Book and lyrics were by Baum. Music was by Louis F. Gottschalk. With the musical filling his time and mind, it makes sense to also release a book. But there's so much borrowed from other books as well as material that would then be used in a later book, Rinkitink of Oz that the novel dances a line between being uncomfortably weird and derivative in ways that earlier books aren't.

The book also suffers from continuity errors galore. The biggest one is the reassertion that Glinda is now living in the North. I think Baum's oversight in naming the Good Witch of the North made her a forgettable character. So forgettable that even Baum neglects her in his last books.

The new princess for the book — the Ozma stand in — is Queen Ann Soforth who rules a small kingdom in the north west corner of Winkie Country. She decides to invade the Emerald City for reasons and is immediately waylaid by Glinda. Rather than invading Oz, she and her small army end up in the Dominions of the Nome King.

Meanwhile, Betsy Bobbin and her mule, Hank (who John R. Neil draws like a donkey), end up the the Dominion of the Roses (Ev adjacent). It's there that Betsy meets up with the Shaggy Man who is searching for his brother.

The early chapters are taken from varying points of view: Ann's, Betsy's and the Nome King's until circumstances bring Betsy, Ann, Shaggy, and Tik-Tok together. From there things go off the rails, even by Oz standards.

There's an entire side quest involving a tunnel to the other side of the world and a dragon. The dragon looks more like a dark ride boat than any dragon I've ever seen. Part of it, though, is dragons were clearly outside of the illustrator's comfort zone. The tunnel also brings up questions about Fairyland — Baum's collective term for Oz and the nearby countries. Fairland is clearly also on a spherical planet. Since the tunnel at the other side of the world is more Fairyland (here be dragons!), clearly Fairyland is a wholly contained planet in a different dimensions that's still reachable (via near death experiences and magic roads) and contactable (via short wave radio and magic pictures)

Having re-read this book for the second time in four years, I'm calling this one a "hot mess." That said, I'm keeping my original rating of four stars just to be consistent.

The next book is The Scarecrow of Oz (1915).

Four stars

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Woe: A Housecat's Story of Despair: 07/15/24

Woe: A Housecat's Story of Despair by Lucy Knisley (2024) is a graphic novel memoir of life with an orange long haired cat named Linney. It focuses on Linney's final years of the cats life as Lucy and her husband are also parents to a toddler.

The book opens with an introduction to Linney, to cats in general, and to the difficulty in accurately portraying cats. The problem with drawing cats is they are unknowable and artists are too blinded by their love to draw them accurately.

As an artist who like Lucy struggled with pregnancy, had a cat, and had to find a balance with my art and family finally being a parent, I find Woe incredibly accurate and poignant. I knew where this book was going to end and got teary eyed thinking both about Linney and about Caligula (1995-2014).

Lucy's art has evolved since her earlier memoirs. The careful details are missing, replaced by a looseness in line and color. These are drawings done in snatches of time, efficiently rendered in between all of her other commitments. They are raw and wonderful.

Four stars

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The Villa: 07/15/24

The Villa by Rachel Hawkins (2023) is set up like a mash-up of The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim (1922) and The House of Brides by Jane Cockram (2019). Emily, a recently divorced author of cozy mysteries is invited to an Italian villa with her estranged friend, Chess.

Although Emily is supposed to be working on the tenth book in her cozy series, she's drawn in by the tragic events that happened in the villa in the summer of 1974. She choses to write something new, something inspired by those events, the novel inspired by them, and her own experiences in the present day.

Unfortunately her investigation into those events brings up painful memories of betrayal by Chess. She also begins to feel suspicious of Chess's current motivations and actions. Emily begins to realize she's trapped by Chess's machinations and might be doomed to repeat the events of 1974.

The Villa is a short book bloated with filler. There are alternating chapters with the present and the past. The ones in the past don't add anything extra except for extra pages. Everything we need to know about those events are repeated and expanded upon by Emily in her present day investigation.

This novel sits in the same spot of the Road Narrative Spectrum as Orlando by Virginia Woolf (1928).

Four stars

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Future Tense: How We Made Artificial Intelligence—and How It Will Change Everything: 07/14/24

Future Tense: How We Made Artificial Intelligence— and How It Will Change Everything by Martha Brockenbrough (2024) is a YA nonfiction about the history of computers and the development of AI. As it's a short book, it's more of a broad survey than an in depth discussion of any particular piece of this subject.

The book begins with early descriptions of how automation could better life. Rather than using those early theories of what might be possible as a jumping off point for the ethical discussion of automation, autonomy, data collection, etc, the author instead choses to rehash the the innovations that lead to the modern day computer.

The book is too short to be spending that much time on an extremely basic primer of computer and programming history. Yes: AI is built on this foundation. But none of this history lesson helps explore the how AI "will change everything."

Much of the AI discussion is centered on gaming programs: chess, checkers, and go. Again, yes, these are foundational but these games aren't where people are concerned over the ethics of the programs, the resources they use, the collection and training of data sets.

There's a very brief mention of Chat GPT and even less of a discussion of text to image generation. These two are what artists are concerned about. They're also the place where corporations are playing fast and lose with data collection, job losses, transparency with their customers, quality of presented "information" and so forth. There's no discussion at all about how language models like Chat GPT hallucinate and are so far incapable of giving reliable, correct information, despite corporations putting them in positions to do just that.

Three stars

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The Tatami Time Machine Blues: 07/12/24

The Tatami Time Machine Blues by Tomihiko Morimi and Emily Balistrieri (translator) (2020) officially is the sequel to The Tatami Galaxy (2004). But with the way the author reuses characters, it feels like the third book, with The Night is Short, Walk on Girl (2006) in the middle.

A year or so has passed since the unnamed narrator dreamt he was trapped in a labyrinth of endless four mat tatami rooms. Now he has moved up to the second floor into the only room with an air conditioner. That is until the day when a spilled bottle of Coke shorts out the remote rendering the AC useless.

As the previous books have demonstrated, the author likes repetition of scenes to further explore themes. So it's no surprise that the scene with the remote will be replayed. The mechanism this time, though, is a time machine built on a tatami mat (of course).

Of all these books, Tatami Time Machine Blues is the shortest. It deals with the day of the event, the day before the event, the day of the event again, and tomorrow. For all the desire to have remote working again, there's also the very real fear that doing so would destroy the universe!

Like the other two books, Tatami Time Machine Blues sits on the Road Narrative Spectrum. In the chart I've included The Night is Short, Walk on Girl as it is more closely situated on the spectrum to Time Machine Blues than the first book. This book has a couple or family as travelers, to uhoria, via the labyrinth.

Five stars

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How to Solve Your Own Murder: 07/10/24

How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin, Alexandra Dowling and Jaye Jacobs (Narrators) (2024) is the start of the Castle Knoll Files mystery series. In 1965 Frances Adams was given a mysterious fortune that foretold of her murder. After a lifetime of obsessing over it, her niece has to solve her murder.

I chose the book for the title and the premise. The dead relative with a message from the beyond claiming they've been murdered is an old standard in mysteries. A cryptic fortune coming true piecemeal is also a popular trope. A cold case tied to a modern day murder is another mystery standard. These three ingredients are tropes I have enjoyed and given high ratings to in the past.

Here, though, it doesn't work. The problem is mainly with pacing. Although it's the set up for a new mystery series, this book is paced like a standalone thriller. It bears more in common with Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney (2022) than with Be My Ghost by Carol J. Perry (2021) or any of the other cozies that use the same tropes.

The current day mystery is bogged down with lengthy first person journal entries by the teenaged aunt about events that happen well before the actual cold case: the disappearance of one of the girls from her old friend group. More typically the cold case scenes would parallel modern day events. Here there is too much of a disconnect between Annie Adam's attempts to solve her aunt's murder and her aunt's journal from 1965.

Finally, there's the authenticity of the narrators' voices. The book is set in England but the author is American, and I suspect the audience is intended to be American. So the words used for things are a jarring mix of British English and American English.

Other than Frances's future husband being titled, there's nothing about this book that needs to be set where it is. There are plenty of places in the United States that would have worked just as well and read as more authentic.

At this juncture, I'm not planning on continuing with the series.

Two stars

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The Friendly Book: 07/10/24

The Friendly Book by Margaret Wise Brown, Garth Williams (Illustrator) (1954) is on a very short list of all time favorite picture books. I have a copy that was given to me by my Uncle Ross when I was very young. I've had it read to me and read it myself more times than I can count.

It's a plot free info dump on things the unnamed narrator likes. Are these things Margaret Wise Brown liked or things someone close to her liked? Or someone she knew? Who knows!

The book has the same general appeal as One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss (1960). Except, it predates Seuss's work by six years. It's also grounded in reality, taking joy in list making and the minutiae of life.

Save for the last page, the book is just a series of loosely rhyming lists of things liked. There's a page devoted to trains. A page for boats. A page to cars. And so forth.

Each of these lists is then brought to life by Garth Williams's illustrations. He uses people and animals to build intricate scenes of varying scales similar to Richard Scarry's books.

Five stars

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Ashes to Ashes, Crust to Crust: 07/09/24

Ashes to Ashes, Crust to Crust by Mindy Quigley and Holly Adams (Narrator) (2023) is the second book in the Deep Dish mystery series. Delilah O'Leary is busy planning for the upcoming "Taste of Wisconsin" event. She wants the perfect deep dish pizza for it.

But then a man is poisoned in the local juice bar and his death seems to be tied to the arrival of a recently released hit man. Besides his murder, there are break-ins, missing food, an almost poisoning and some other mayhem. Are they all connected or just a series of bad events?

On the homefront, Delilah and her ex-fiancé are in a custody battle over Butterball the cat. The cat meanwhile is miserable with having to switch homes every couple of weeks. Her rich ex continues to be a thorn in her size, though he's not as aggressively awful as some cozy mystery ex-boyfriends. Although he ultimately manages to help Delilah in some crucial ways he does it in an absolutely cringey way.

The third book is Public Anchovy #1 (2023).

Four stars

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Time After Time: 07/08/24

Time After Time by Sarah Mlynowski and Christina Soontornvat (2023) is the third book in the Best Wishes series. Lucy Usathorn's parents are divorced. Mom is remarried and has twins. Dad is still single and Lucy enjoys dividing her time between the chaos of Mom's and the quiet of Dad's.

But now Dad goes and ruins everything by proposing to Lucy's school librarian. If only she can get a redo to make her day perfect and avoid this awkward proposal during a field trip. That's when the magic bracelet is delivered and Lucy finds herself on an endless repeat of her worst Friday ever.

Of course there's more going on than just the proposal during a field trip to the museum where Dad works. There are friendship problems, a scavenger hunt that she wants to dominate, an upcoming science fair, and her new white shoes that keep getting messed up in the worst ways possible.

Ultimately this book is about empathy and listening. Lucy pretty much lives in her own head and ignores the feelings of those around her. She's unaware of how frustrated her BFF is, how nervous her Dad is about proposing, and how convinced the librarian is that she'll mess things up for Lucy.

The fourth book is Like A Boss by Sarah Mlynowski and Hena Khan. It releases November 12, 2024.

Five stars

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James: 07/07/24

James by Percival Everett (2024) is to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (1884) is to The Tragedy Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare (circa 1600) is to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard (1966) Put another way, the retelling is a way to examine the Black experience through the eyes of one of the few Black characters nearly American child is introduced to in school.

Jim narrates the book this time with the scenes from Huckleberry Finn intersecting as Huck comes in and out of his life. Yes, they do still end up on the Mississippi, floating south. They run into the Duke and the Dauphin. But this isn't Huck's boyhood adventure / coming of age story; this is Jim's inner conflict.

Jim's first person narration is written in well crafted, erudite English, instead of Twain's approximation of Huck's Missouri dialect. His dialog with characters code switches. All of the Black characters do — save for one for reasons that are explained as the novel unfolds.

James has a similar feel and plot progression as The Journey of Little Charlie by Christopher Paul Curtis (2018) in that it's about a boy traveling with a formerly enslaved adult as he tries to reunite with his family and find freedom in the north.

Five stars

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The T in LGBT: 07/06/24

The T in LGBT by Jamie Raines is a memoir and handbook for figuring what it means to be trans. The author uses his own personal journey to outline how the process works.

I say process because the book includes the legal how-tos for name changing, gender marker changing. The chapters start with the basic, what is gender and what does it mean if you don't feel like your assigned gender, all the way through to what current surgeries are available.

As the author lives in the UK his information is specific to the UK when it comes to legalities and how the healthcare system works. Nonetheless, there's enough other useful stuff for people in other countries.

Four stars

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Emily Windsnap and the Monster from the Deep: 07/05/24

Emily Windsnap and the Monster from the Deep by Liz Kessler (2004) is the second book in the Emily Windsnap series. Emily and her reunited parents have moved to an island in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle, a safe haven for merfolk and the humans who love them.

The story is driven by two things: a lack of communication from the adults, and Emily's desire to be the cool new kid. Emily ends up exploring areas she shouldn't go. In the process she awakens the "monster of the deep." She then has to use the power of friendship to fix the problems she's created.

For the most part I liked this book. It's a quick read and full of adventure and new places to explore. But the bully from the first book is shoehorned in as a weird B plot. The story of her and her parents isn't needed here.

The third book is Emily Windsnap and the Castle in the Mist (2006).

Four stars

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Into the Riverlands: 07/04/24

Into the Riverlands by Nghi Vo (2022) is the third book in the Singing Hills Cycle. It begins with a bar fight that Chih and Almost Brilliant witness. Afterwards they meet up with the women involved and share each others stories as they trek through the riverlands.

This novella though it continues on the path of multilayered storytelling is more in the present — in Chih's present — than the previous had been. Chih is there to question the tales being told and to react to them. I liked having more of them and their avian companion to ground the stories.

Like the previous two, this thin book, coming in at exactly one hundred pages is layered and nuanced. No word is wasted. No gesture is filler. Every thing has meaning and purpose. What this means for me, is a solid understanding of how much I've probably missed at this first go with the book.

The next book in the series is Mammoths at the Gates (2023).

Five stars

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Coyote Lost and Found: 07/03/24

Coyote Lost and Found by Dan Gemeinhart (2024) is the sequel to The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise. Ella aka Coyote has been in school and is living in a house with her father after their years' long life on the road in a converted school bus. Now, though, it's time to head on the road again after Ella finds her mother's ashes hidden on the bus.

If this had just been a story of a road trip to scatter Mom's ashes, it would have been enough. If it had only been about finding the lost book with the location for scattering the ashes, it would have been enough. If it had only been about meeting a modern day 1%er who was burned out from work and is now recreated Sullivan's Travels, it would have been enough.

But it's also set in the earliest months of the COVID shut down. It's set at the time when most people were stuck in their homes, rightfully afraid of a rapidly spreading disease that had no cure and no vaccine. What this book hits on is the other side of the coin, those folks who had to risk traveling cross country during these early days where the disease was the first of the worries. There was also the worries of there being nowhere to eat along the way, no gas, or worse, angry violent people afraid of strangers coming into their town.

All of that is in the periphery of Coyote's desperate hunt for a specific copy of Red Bird by Mary Oliver that she had left somewhere at a thrift store on their last jaunt across the United States. They have to mask up. They are sometimes blocked from doing things because of the shut down.

Like the first book, this one sits on the Road Narrative Spectrum. It's not too far removed either. The only change is the destination. In the original the destination was uhoria — an unknown future because of the tragic past where Ella's mother and her two sisters were killed in a car crash. Now the destination is rooted in a tangible place, the final resting place for the mother's ashes once the book is found.

Five stars

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Cloche and Dagger: 07/02/24

Cloche and Dagger by Jenn McKinlay and Karyn O'Bryant (Narrator) (2013) is the start of the Hat Shop mystery series. I began reading it because of the crossover in Death in the Stacks (2017).

Scarlett Parker is now infamous on social media as the party crasher for tossing cake at her boyfriend when she realized he was still married. To escape notoriety she has left her life in Florida to take up a long offered role as co-owner of Mim's Whims, a haberdashers in London. When she arrives, her cousin is missing and she essentially has to wing it.

For a sizable chunk of this book it seems that the cousin's disappearance will be the mystery that needs solving. Her vanishing is so perfectly timed with Scarlett's arrival to either be a kidnapping or worse, a murder. Don't forget that many proto-cozy series begin with the murder of a shop owning relative!

At about the two third's mark there is in fact a murder. The murder is rather petty and not in keeping with all the other murders I've read by this author. It also has a couple boners of lazy descriptions. The first is the murderer's access to the victim in a house with a full staff. There's no way they'd get in without the housekeeper or butler knowing about it. Second, is the cousin's explanation when she finally returns: namely that she had gone to Africa. Can you be more specific?

The second book is Death of a Mad Hatter (2014).

Four stars

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June 2024 Sources: 07/02/24

Even after graduation, my youngest kept me busy. As did some emergency plumbing work in the garden. So reading was primarily audio or ebooks at night.

In April I read 19 TBR books, up from the previous month's 17 TBR. One book was published in May. Three books were for research. None were from the library. My ROOB score for May was -4.26, down from the previous month's -4.14. It was my best May.

I predicted a -4.0 and was too high. For June, I'm going with -4.5.

My average for May improved from -2.83 to -2.93.

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Canadian Book Challenge: 2024-2025: 07/01/24

July 1st, Canada Day, is has also been the starting day for the annual Canadian Books Challenge. This year I don't know if there is a host for what would be the 18th annual reading challenge, but I enjoy reading Canadian books, so I will continue the challenge at least for myself.

I have been participating since 2009. The official goal has been to read thirteen (or one per province/territory). Last year I managed 18. I would like to do more, perhaps 24.

Books read and reviewed in 2024-2025

I'm tracking books read and reviewed for the 18th annual Canadian Book Challenge

1. The Body in the Back Garden by Mark Waddell and Daniel Henning (Narrator)
2. Clara and the Birds by Emma Simpson
3. A Cold Dose of Murder by Emily George and Chelsea Stephens (Narrator)
4. Emily Climbs by L.M. Montgomery
5. Fishflies by Jeff Lemire and Shawn Kuruneru (Illustrator)
6. Hooked on a Feline by Sofie Kelly and Cassandra Campbell (Narrator)
7. The Incident of the Book in the Nighttime by Vicki Delany and Kim Hicks (Narrator)
8. Night for Day by Roselle Lim
9. Paws to Remember by Sofie Kelly and Casandra Campbell (Narrator)
10. Peril at Pinecone Rock by M.A. Wilson
11. The Rock from the Sky by Jon Klassen
12. Shadow of a Spout by Amanda Cooper
13. Shot Through the Book by Eva Gates and Elise Arsenault (Narrator)
14. Sidewalk Flowers by JonArno Lawson and Sydney Smith (Illustrator)
15. Someone Is Always Watching by Kelley Armstrong
16. Star Trek: Lower Decks―Warp Your Own Way by Ryan North and Chris Fenoglio (Illustrator)
17. Supergirl: Being Super by Mariko Tamaki and Joëlle Jones (Illustrator)
18. Time After Time by Sarah Mlynowski and Christina Soontornvat
19. Trouble is Brewing by Vicki Delany and Shaina Summerville (Narrator)
20. Whiskers and Lies by Sofie Kelly and Cassandra Campbell (2022)
21. The Whole Cat and Caboodle by Sofie Ryan and Marguerite Gavin (Narrator) (2014)

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June 2024 Summary: 07/01/24

June should have been a quiet month, a time to catch up on art projects and reading. It wasn't. After my youngest graduated high school, she needed her wisdom teeth extracted. After that we had a leak in our irrigation system which ended up being a month long garden repair project for thousands of dollars. On top of that, Ian was on a ten day business trip to Zurich!

I read more books in June, 23, up from 22. Of my read books, 13 were diverse and three were queer. I reviewed 23 books, one more than the previous month. On the reviews front, 18 were diverse and four were queer.

I have 1 book left to review of the books I read in 2023, two books from May, and 16 from June of the 128 read in 2024.

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