Having escaped conscription to the Storm Towers at the last moment?thanks to some very quick train-hopping?Cymin is thrilled to at last be living his dream of seeing new lands and making friends with the fascinating secular mages outside Lux Temple. There’s even a chance he could win over the enigmatic Laithondi and officially join the ranks of the student bound for Saigrath.
Laithondi has already entrusted him with his dazzling ancillary sword, as well as the sacred Fei’suul Scepter. But that trust may prove the undoing of them all, when it marks Cymin as the target for ancient, corrupted spells. As he battles for his life and those of his new-found friends, Cymin must confront the darkest secrets from their shared past lives as well as the deadly plots threatening their lives now.

SOME VAGUE SPOILERS FROM BOOK ONE MAY APPEAR BEWARE

Review:

Dear Ginn Hale,

I dived in this book right after I finished book one. I enjoyed it overall, but want to warn the readers of two things. This book is just a second part of the single story, even the chapter count continues from the first book instead of starting anew in this one. The second thing – this book is not the last book in the series. In the end it says that the adventures continue in the book three, so book three at least is confirmed to appear at some point. However I have heard (this is not confirmed!) that a total of five books are planned. This if true and the themes of resurrection and reincarnation playing a prominent part in the story, strengthens my conviction that the Grandmaster books had been an inspiration source (one of the sources?) for the author.

We catch up with our travelers right where we finished book one and while I cannot say that the story speeds up significantly till the second half of the story, I felt that even in the beginning it moved a little faster. The author did not spend as much time describing the world and the magic as she did in the first volume, however we are not close to learning most of the mysteries and puzzles this world and the characters are keeping, so new information did appear as readers were discovering at least some things along the way.

The blurb of the first volume did not talk much about who could become the potential love interest for our lovely Cymin, but *enigmatic Laithondi* does appear in this blurb so I think I can talk at least a little bit. Did I think that Laithondi behaved strangely towards Cymin? Absolutely! But I also saw the chemistry almost from the time they met. And the explanation made perfect sense and did surprise me. I mean, we had been told and shown that parts of previous lives showed up in our characters, but I was not expecting the twist at the end.

Where romance is concerned, I admit that I am disappointed that after more than 800 pages all we get for two main characters is a cautious friendship between them. But this is good I guess when the reader can *see* more and is left *wanting more*.

There is one part of the story though that left my eyes glazing over. I did not really care about the differences between certain rituals, I just wanted to know that they can do it. I was also a bit confused as to how some of them worked. I am aware that it was pointed in the twist at the end why differences in the rituals matter and because of that, different results may happen, but my feelings remain the same.

I really enjoyed the traitor in the mix storyline, it really helped me care more for other young mages. The author fleshed out their characters in the action and it worked very well for me. I now care about most secondary characters as well, not just the main ones.

The story does not end with a cliffhanger, but a lot of things remain unresolved.

Grade: B+

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An exuberant, hilarious, and profound memoir by a mailman in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, who found that working for the post office saved his life, taught him who he was, gave him purpose, and educated him deeply about a country he loves but had lost touch with.

Steve Grant was laid off in March of 2020. He was fifty and had cancer, so he needed health insurance, fast. Which is how he found himself a rural letter carrier in Appalachia, back in his old hometown.

Suddenly, he was the guy with the goods, delivering dog food and respirators and lube and heirloom tomato seeds and Lord of the Rings replica swords. He transported chicken feed to grandmothers living alone in the mountains and forded a creek with a refrigerator on his back. But while he carried the mail, he also carried a whole lot more than just the mail, including a family legacy of rage and the anxiety of having lost his identity along with his corporate job.

And yet, slowly, surrounded by a ragtag but devoted band of letter carriers, working this different kind of job, Grant found himself becoming a different kind of person. He became a lifeline for lonely people, providing fleeting moments of human contact and the assurance that our government still cares. He embraced the thrill of tackling new challenges, the pride of contributing to something greater than himself, the joy of camaraderie, and the purpose found in working hard for his family and doing a small, good thing for his community. He even kindled a newfound faith.

A brash and loving portrait of an all-American institution, Mailman offers a deeply felt portrait of both rural America and the dedicated (and eccentric) letter carriers who keep our lives running smoothly day to day. One hell of a raconteur, Steve Grant has written an irreverent, heartfelt, and often hilarious tribute to the simple heroism of daily service, the dignity and struggle of blue-collar work, the challenge and pleasure of coming home again after twenty-five years away, and the delight of going the extra mile for your neighbors, every day.

CW/TW – discussions of politics in 2020, discussion of the mass shooting event at Virginia Tech in 2007 (Grant’s father was wounded in the attack), discussion of gun culture in western VA, discussions of COVID and 2020, discussion about mail carriers and dogs.  

Review

I like reading NF books about jobs I know little about and, in this case, a job that I thought I knew about. I mean mail delivery, how hard is it? Take letters, magazines, junk mail, and parcels out and bring stuff back. Easy peasy. Oh, how little I knew about the reality of the job. 

After a two week intro to the job, those who pass have to swear an Oath of Office and become a sworn agent of the US government. 

Then it’s time to really learn the job by doing it and it is hard. Seasoned veterans of the USPS make it look easy. They can “case” their mail and parcels quickly and be out on the road. But to sort the mail by delivery address means memorizing the delivery route which can be 60 miles long. The USPS delivery trucks are both sturdy and a nightmare. Remember rural carriers are supposed to supply their own and everyone has to have a backup. What to wear to avoid heat stroke or hypothermia? Better learn fast as each year mail carriers die from these. Dogs on the route? Veterans tell the newbies that one day a dog (or two) will have your number and you’d better have two to three cans of HALT!. Yes, mail carriers have been attacked by dogs and some have been mauled to death.    

Grant experiences the highs and lows of the job. Newbies often don’t last long and some veterans won’t engage with them for up to two months until they prove they’ve got what it takes to stick with it. “Yes, there is a lot of crying at the post office.” Grant’s first months included the hell on earth of lockdown when everyone started buying online. Then Amazon and the UPS came to loggerheads over a contract so Amazon dumped all their small parcel deliveries on the USPS which can’t say no. The trucks of parcels kept coming and coming and coming which made the piles of boxes climb sky high.    

During his year, Grant sees those who treat the carriers with respect – leaving cold bottles of water or a thermos of hot coffee on the porch – and those who treat them with disdain. He hauls chicken feed – but no live chicks as a particular employee does that using a truck with A/C. He realizes that “Book of the Month” is still a thing and that mail carriers know everything about their regular customers. Everything. He discovers that along with books, delivering mail-in ballots is the most important thing he does all year. And from what he says, the USPS workers take this very seriously. They also have spatial memory of their routes that Grant equates with the Knowledge of London cabbies.         

More than delivering the mail is learned. Grant does a lot of mid-life self discovery. He’s back in the town he was brought up in but seeing it with different eyes. His white collar, soft hands self has to toughen up. He has to be talked out of quitting day by day by coworkers and his wife. At one point, he’s on his knees in a customer’s front yard praying for the strength to keep going. In doing so he rediscovers the people of the area.  

Now I’ll be honest. There is a lot about politics in this book. 2020 was full of it. Grant spends a chapter on getting back in touch with religion and tells of times when he got “the whim whams” on deliveries way back down in the rural sticks late at night and how his USPS reflective vest might have saved his life. He describes the smell that mail has and outlines his ‘survival gear.’ He desperately searches for a new corporate job and in the end, gets one. After reading this book, I’ve crossed “mail carrier” off my theoretical list of “that might be interesting to try” jobs but from now on I have a great deal more respect for them. B

~Jayne   

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Lincoln doesn’t want trouble. Briar is trouble personified.

Lincoln Caster owes everything he has to the Trash Planet recycling plant that hired him, allowing him to lead an uneventful life for a change. When he’s asked to plan a heist from a less than savory rival factory, he wonders if his checkered past is the only reason he got the job.

That is, until he realizes the priceless item he’s been asked to steal will save a top-secret generation ship full of cryopreserved humans…and freakishly intelligent cats.

But first Lincoln has to seduce—or at least fool—the rival factory’s sales agent, cool, competent Briar Pandora, who may or may not be leading a double life as a corporate mole. He’ll have to trust her with the truth…unless her own agenda results in them becoming targets of a vicious intergalactic corporation that will stop at nothing in its quest to hijack generation ships and sell off their parts—and their passengers, be they human or feline.

Tropes: grumpy sunshine, animal main characters, big secrets, blue collar hero, friend groups, found family

Warning – there will be SPOILERS for book one in this review

Dear Ms. Wallace, 

After the wild ride that is “Catalyst,”the first book in the Cat Ship series, of course I had to come back to see What Would Happen Next to the sentient cats trying to save their people and the other cats. There is enough information about the first book sprinkled through this one that readers could start here but then they’d miss so much of the awesomeness that is Pumpkin. 

“Catalyst” ended with some of the people of Trash Planet now aware that cryopods in an old gen ship, from before a cataclysmic war, which has been drifting through old wrecks around the planet, are coming awake. Or partly. Two years ago some of the cryopods activated and those who awakened are now desperate to get the system working enough to release the others. A ship they’ve had their eye on which might have the part they need is suddenly hauled down to the planet as salvage and it’s all hands and paws on deck to get what they need without tipping off anyone else about who and what they are.    

This is definitely a book for cat lovers as we love the little furry despots in spite of their demanding ways. The sentient cats here are no felines to coo “Awwwwww, wook at kittums. He so cute!” at. These cats can think, talk, teleport, read your mind, push thoughts into your brain, and make you do what they want. 

What they want is to get what sounds like a ship of cat ladies and their cats awake again. 3000 years ago, they were promised a new Earth-like planet all their own and by damn they’re going to get it. Or else. 

Many of the characters from “Catalyst” are back along with some new ones. Lincoln has a troubled history of trusting too much and it’s cost him dearly. Briar has been working undercover for one of the Unions that handles salvage and fighting the SlimeBall who has taken the promotion she wanted. But once she realizes what’s actually going on – saving cats! – she’s all in. One of the tropes the book lists is grumpy-sunshine but I think it’s more quiet-bubbly. I adore the scene where Mighty (the cat on the cover) plays matchmaker. There is a romance thread between Lincoln and Briar that starts with sexual attraction and moves towards something deeper.

The last third of the book is emotionally exhausting because curveball after curveball gets thrown at the characters and the reader. The humans and the cats are madly improvising and trying to stay one step ahead of the villains, get the part, all while not revealing to a wider world exactly what is at stake or that cats are now sentient. I had to put the book down once or twice as I was getting stressed, myself. 

There’s some interesting scenes when humans try to explain to the cats that the cats can’t just read minds and spill secrets or push actions on humans. Basically we’re all sentient here and there must be mutual respect. Something we now ought to be doing more of. The cats remain superior at all times though also frantic to save their People with whom they have a bond of love. 

As with the first book, the action in this is resolved by the end but there’s still more to come, much more, in book three. B           

~Jayne

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Alex Lyons always has his mind made up by the time the curtain comes down at a performance—the show either deserves a five-star rave or a one-star pan. Anything in between is meaningless. On the opening night of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, he doesn’t deliberate over the rating for Hayley Sinclair’s show, nor does he hesitate when the opportunity presents itself to have a one-night stand with the struggling actress.

Unaware that she’s gone home with the theater critic who’s just written a career-ending review of her, Hayley wakes up at his apartment to see his scathing one-star critique in print on the kitchen table, and she’s not sure which humiliation offends her the most. So she revamps her show into a viral sensation critiquing Alex Lyons himself—entitled son of a famous actress, serial philanderer, and by all accounts a terrible man. Yet Alex remains unapologetic. As his reputation goes up in flames, he insists on telling his unvarnished version of events to his colleague, Sophie. Through her eyes, we see that the deeper she gets pulled into his downfall, the more conflicted she becomes. After all, there are always two sides to every story.

A brilliant Trojan horse of a book about art, power, misogyny, and female rage, Bring the House Down is a searing, insightful, and often hilarious debut that captures the blurred line between reality and performance.

CW/TW – death of a parent, adultery, mention of past ghosting and philandering

Dear Ms. Runcie, 

I was hesitant to try this book given the blurb which mentions some pretty awful things. And yes, all these things happen. Who tells us about it all is not either Alex or Hayley but Sophie, a fellow newspaper critic who witnesses it while living inside the same flat with Alex in Edinburgh. 

I’ve seen feminist and female rage attached to descriptions of the book. That is here. But there’s a lot more to the book than that. Sophie is struggling with writing reviews of the events that she’s assigned and wonders who she is writing for – the performers/artists or the readers and attendees. Alex has told her what’s behind his (usual) one star (scathing) reviews. Sophie often finds herself trying to be polite in hers. Which is better and for whom? 

“Fair criticism doesn’t exist,” he’d said to me in the newsroom once. “Life isn’t fair, so why should I be?”

Of course the story dips into both Alex’s and Sophie’s private lives and of course their lives influence how they approach their jobs. Alex’s mother is a leading lady in the UK, a “national treasure,” but growing up in a mercurial household of actors who are insecure and emotionally needy wasn’t easy and an experience he had as a teenager shaped how he views writing nicey nice reviews vs being brutally honest to those who need to hear that. Sophie has had to scrap to earn her place at the newspaper and was reminded at the beginning (by Alex) that she was only a newbie and had to earn respect. 

What Alex does to Hayley is terrible and is a choice he made. He could have avoided the whole thing by being honest with her about who he is and what he’d written but he wasn’t and didn’t. When Hayley does exactly what Alex tells Sophie  he wants his criticism to do – make the artist learn and do better – Hayley grabs the upper hand and turns the white hot spotlight of men’s actions against women on Alex. Suddenly Sophie is learning all about some awful to atrocious things that Alex has done. She’s also conflicted. Is she supposed to take a side and which side should she take – Alex’s as a fellow critic in the same workplace or that of women who have been done wrong by both Alex and men in general? 

As his past gets publicized in Hayley’s shows, Alex tosses information about these events to Sophie and tries to rationalize what he did – until a few things come to light that even he admits were wrong. With his professional and personal life circling the drain, Sophie has a front row seat. But Sophie and her partner also have issues to work out as it’s clear that their communication needs work and one did something painful to the other in the past. We also see that even though Hayley is riding the comet of public acclaim, it’s taking a toll on her. 

“Haven’t you ever done something you regret? Why am I the only one who has to learn something here?”

I like that all the characters are nuanced and have made mistakes. No one is perfect in life or in the book. Alex says something truthful when he tells Sophie that no one wants all their faults hauled out for public inspection. What doesn’t work so well for me is that despite this being hailed as a book of feminist rage and smashing the patriarchy, most of the book revolves around Alex who we see much more of than we do Hayley. We hear of Hayley and get told what she’s doing but after her first searing revenge show (and I will admit this is a great scene), she’s actually not in the book much. 

Sadly most of Sophie’s time is also spent focusing on Alex when she’s not thinking of her faltering personal relationship and how much she misses her toddler son. Frankly, she comes across as mostly bland except for a middle section in which she struggles with reviewing vs criticizing and where to land with what she writes. Sophie ought to have been examining why she’s so angry and frustrated with her partner Josh who, like many men, acts as if doing half of what a woman does and for only a few weeks should earn him sainthood.  

By the end of the book, I’m not sure what everyone has learned. Alex makes a public statement in a very public venue but then goes back to work at the paper albeit in a different role. Sophie and Josh … work things out? I’m still not sure but they seem to still be together. Sophie has figured out a few things about what kind of work she wants to do and makes a move towards that. Hayley just sort of drifts off into the sunset which is disappointing. The events and people in the story are a bit depressing and not quite the feminist raging I was promised but there are issues raised that do make me think. B-/C+   
~Jayne

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Dear Lori Freeland,

The Accidental Boyfriend popped up in my NetGalley choices earlier this year but it seems the book originally came out in 2023. 

Jessica Grey, aka Jessica Thorne, is a 17-year-old debut author. She wrote a book on “Digireads” (which I think of as a kind of Wattpad) and it went viral. It was then picked up by a traditional publisher and it’s just about to be released. Jess is off to her first romance convention (which happens to be in her home town of Dallas) where her book will be officially launched. There’s a lot of excitement about her follow-up book too. The book, that is, that Jess has yet to write and which is due in mere days. Eep!

Jess feels like a fraud because she based her book, Haunted, on the diary of her mother at age 16 and 17 when she met and fell in love with “T”. Haunted uses direct quotes from the diary but Jess has fleshed out the story and provided a HEA from her own imagination. It’s not specifically stated but I think this is because the diary kind of ends as diaries are wont to do. Writing Haunted was a way for Jess to begin to process her grief over the loss of her mother two years earlier. Her mother is not dead. But something happened relating to her mother’s alcoholism and it caused an injury to Jess. As a result when Jess got home from the hospital she was told by her dad, Trevor Gray (a famous indie author in his own right), that he’d kicked her mother out, served her with divorce papers and filed a restraining order so there could be no contact between mother and daughter. Trevor was a career Marine and after he left the service he began writing special ops thrillers. He is present in the house but very much absent from Jess’s life. She feels abandoned and unloved by both parents and is desperate to do more than stalk her mother on social media. She wants her family back and blames herself (as children do, even though it’s not their fault) for the breakdown of her parents’ marriage. When she found her mother’s diary she was so taken with the story of her parents’ courtship and she doesn’t understand what went wrong. 

Gabriel Wade is the 18-year-old star of a werewolf-based TV show. He’s in Dallas to (try to) see his mother. His mother is unwell and is in a facility which costs a lot of money each month. His older sister is in college and his mother, while a successful TV star, lost her own money and so it’s up to Gabe to pay for everything. There’s a problem on the show though and it looks like the only option is to sell the family home. This would solve the financial problems but his sister tells him she’ll never forgive him if he does. He hasn’t seen his mother since her took her to the facility and he’s struggling with all of it. 

As it happens, Gabe is staying at the same hotel in Dallas the romance convention is being held and when he arrives, he is immediately smitten by the pretty brunette stumbling on the escalator. He notices something else as well:

“You had this lost look, like you were twisted up inside, and there was this second when I felt like whatever was twisting you might get what was twisting me.”

Jess stumbles off the escalator and into Gabe’s arms. Around the same time, a persistent reporter/paparrazzo tries to corner Gabe to question why he’s in town. He is contractually bound not to reveal the issues on the show and he’s bound by a promise he made to his mother to not reveal why she’s in care – so he begs Jess, his “Escalator Girl” to help him out and give her her very first kiss. From there, thanks to Jess’s agent and romance fairy godmother, a scheme is hatched for them to fake date for the week of the convention to boost each other’s image.

Both young people are dealing with some very serious issues and they’re both struggling. Jess has been home-schooled since her mother left and is very shy and innocent. Gabe is much more worldly but he’s been in show business his whole life. He grew up on “Raising Ryder” a TV series where his mother played his on screen mother and he’s been in the spotlight ever since. He doesn’t often get a chance to be “real”. With Jess, he does. 

Gabe falls for Jess quickly and spends time trying to convince him to give him a chance for real rather than for pretend. He’s a very persuasive and charming young man, not to mention he’s hot. He is sincere though so I never felt like he was playing her. Jess is worried about his reputation (most of which is media spin) for being a girl-chaser and about his co-star, Kimberley Kane, who, according to the press, is his on-again-off-again girlfriend. Gabe has never actually dated Kim. They’re friends and it’s a contract/show/PR thing for them to appear to be together from time to time. Jess has fairly low self-esteem (not surprising given her feelings about and her experience with her parents) and has few friends in real life, especially since she left school after the thing happened with her mother and hasn’t really been in touch with peers since. She doesn’t believe she’s as pretty as she is. In another book this might have annoyed me but it made sense here. 

Over the course of the book, Gabe and Jess fall sweetly in love. Gabe is far more sexually experienced that Jess (who has no experience at all apart from the kiss at the foot of the escalator) but Gabe is respectful of her boundaries. Their makeout scenes are actually pretty steamy but things stay outside of “swimsuit areas” – Jess is only 17, so this made sense to me, plus the book takes place over a short space of time. The pair certainly have chemistry and Gabe’s instinct about what’s twisting each of them up is spot on. They are able to help each other and support one another in ways not available to them from others in their lives. Ultimately, this gives each confidence to address the issues they’re facing and come to what resolutions they can about their respective parental relationships.

The Accidental Boyfriend is a charmingly easy read. The characters are engaging and doing the best they can in some very difficult circumstances. I did think the way things got sorted out between Jess and her dad was a bit hand-wavey. It was a bit too easy all things considered and I never did quite understand why he had been so distant with her. Then again, we only had Jess’s POV on that topic so maybe she was a little unreliable there? Parts of the story are a bit Cinderella but there are some things which cannot be waved away by a fairy-wielding magic wand and there are still hard choices to be made and hard things to be faced. On Jess’s side of things I thought the hard thing she had to deal with was extremely difficult and again, I thought there was a bit of hand-waving as to how she coped with it. I don’t want to give away spoilers but let’s just say that an adult in Jess’s life is not a good person. 

Even though the protagonists were young, I believed in their HEA because the very hard things they were dealing with brought about a certain maturity (particularly for Gabe) and their bond was created in something of a crucible. But, they have fun together and relate to one another as young people. They do not come across as actually being 30. 

While I had a couple of quibbles about some details towards the end, for the most part, I enjoyed The Accidental Boyfriend quite a bit. 

Grade: B

Regards,
Kaetrin

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Cymin’s final tournament representing the East Deity for Lux Temple promises to be thrilling and bittersweet. After it’s done, all his skill and power must feed a Storm Tower to protect the world from fei’lux storms. But before his conscription, he intends to put on a dazzling show and enjoy his last glorious outing.

The streets are thronged with cheering crowds, and the grand procession shimmers with spells. Film stars and government ministers claim the best seats in the stands. And most exciting of all, the legendary Wraiths of Saigrath promise to attend this Spring Exhibition after centuries of absence from the world.
Cymin can’t wait to meet them.

But when disaster strikes the celebrations, Cymin risks his own life and destroys a priceless artifact to prevent a massacre. His action not only plunge him into the battle between foreign provocateurs and his own nation’s spies, but captures the attention of the mythical Wraiths–one of whom has been searching for him in secret for hundreds of years.

Review:

Dear Ginn Hale,

I was really happy and excited to see an announcement of the new book from you and with such a gorgeous cover no less. I then delayed reading it a little bit because a second volume was announced to be published just a month later. I cannot remember when the blurb of a book made me so excited for quite some time actually. I mean I knew that the book would have at least some romantic story line obviously, but this writer’s books usually contain a lot more than just a romantic storyline and I just had no idea where this blurb would lead me. I have to say that in some ways I was really surprised. I really enjoyed this book, and at the same time at least some parts of the story exhausted me.  Basically I think a comparison can be drawn here (not with the story itself but strictly with the writing style) with the series “Grandmaster of a Demonic cultivation”. In fact when our reading group was doing a buddy read of this book I seriously wondered if “Grandmaster” was one of the inspiration sources.

The book moves slowly and when I say slow I mean *painfully slow* in places. This writer usually builds a great world in her books and this was no exception for me. The descriptions of magic alone made me stop and savor them, it was so beautifully done and I could see how much care and work was put in the worlds described in this story.

“Cymin held the flow of fei’lux steady as he swung the broom handle around. The instant he closed the circle, the smoky haze coalesced into dozens of large translucent lotus blossoms. They hung in the air, shimmering for a moment before bursting apart in a shower of fragrant raindrops. Cymin grinned as the perfumed water pelted his bare chest and shoulders and dribbled down his body. Yes! Did it!”

And this paragraph is by far not the most lush one and there were many of them

I loved it and at the same time I felt that at times (let me emphasize – at times, not all the time), I felt that the world was overly described. At times I wished the story would moved faster, just a little bit, but because I loved the narrator so much and because the writer made sure I was utterly confused and wanted to know the answer to the puzzles she was setting up, I kept reading and reading till I finally finished.

The Grandmaster series proved to be too much for me, but because I hope that I will be rewarded for staying with the first volume, I am already reading book two for me (and it does move somewhat faster :)). Maybe the chess figures were set up here and we won’t need to spend so much time describing what the characters saw and ate, etc etc?

So, I probably need to add at least a little more to the set up described in the blurb. The story starts (or at least reader is supposed to think that the story starts there) in the “modern Chyrese Republic” in the year 1919.  Whether the Chyrese republic is supposed to made the reader think about ancient China, I will leave it up to the reader to decide. I thought there was definitely at least a homage paid there, based on the some descriptions, but it is definitely a unique fantastic world with so many interesting magical things happening and I don’t think we know nearly all of it after the first book ends. Cymin and his sister Yinni were both brought up as tuteli in the Lux temple. I thought they were basically brought up as monks of the sorts that were taught magical arts and they are supposed to participate in the Magical Arts exhibition and students from other schools come to participate, too.

Wraiths of the country Saigrath also come to observe and participate and they bring plenty of secrets with them. Actually every character appearing on the pages so far seemed to have the secret of their own which they barely started sharing in volume two :-). Wraiths also would offer for some of the Mage Students from other schools to come and the Wraiths will teach them in their country.

Cymin and Yinni end up coming along for the trip even if they do not come as students exactly and the adventure begins. A really slow moving adventure till the last two or three chapters in the first volume, but the world was so interesting and Cymin was such an engaging narrator, kind and gentle, who teased himself a lot and who has plenty of his own discoveries to make about who he is and who he was.

Please beware that book three is not out yet, but yes, I checked that the ending of book two does not have a cliffhanger at least. This is also just one huge story split up in several books. Volume two literally starts from chapter twenty two.

Grade: A

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Ellen Cuthbert’s husband, Randolph, is now the Earl of Keswick’s heir. Their marriage is a sham, and Randolph’s mistress, Lydia, is present at the house party. When she is found murdered in a locked room, all the evidence seems to point to Ellen. And how could the murderer have escaped the locked room except by witchcraft?

Sir Hugh accompanies his cousin, a magistrate, to the scene of the murder. They investigate, appalled to find their childhood friend Ellen appears to be the chief suspect. Hugh’s lack of prospects years ago prevented their marriage. Now if he cannot find the real murderer, there may be only one final service he can perform for Ellen to spare her a slow death at the end of the hangman’s rope.

Dear Ms. Buckley,

It took me a while to figure out that Sir Hugh is one of the characters in “By Sword and Fan.” Now that he’s made another appearance, I hope that we’ll see more of him and his cousin Wallace solving crimes in the north of Georgian England.

I’m going to go ahead and tell readers that if you’re looking for a romance, there is one here but it takes second place to solving the murder mystery. That may be classified as a “police procedural” and “locked room” one as well as a “closed circle” mystery as the suspects are limited to those at the houseparty. I must say that for a group of people who know that one of them is a murderer, they were a bit nonchalant about it. Ah, the difference between then and now.

Sir Hugh and his cousin are both magistrates and though the location is in Wallace’s jurisdiction, Lord Keswick doesn’t put up any fuss about having Sir Hugh helping with the investigation or putting the two of them up for the two weeks it takes to put things together and flush out the killer. I also doubt today that police investigators would be living alongside their suspects in the same country house.

A lot of time is spent on the layout of the house, questioning everyone about their movements on the day of the murder, questioning everyone about what they saw everyone else doing on the day of the murder, and then trying to figure out how on earth the killer got into and out of a locked room. I’ll repeat this – a lot of time is spent on this. There are also many characters – both guests, family, and servants to learn and keep straight. After a while I managed it but it took some time. I also guessed whodunnit, why, and how but maybe I’m more cynical than these two magistrates are, both of whom admit they’ve never handled a murder investigation before.

As with the previous books of yours I’ve read, I appreciate the attention to historical detail. Several different layers of society are depicted and no, they didn’t mix and mingle, nor are there any secret societies. But it’s delightful to see the close bonds between many of the characters. Readers looking for a more modern take on history will not be happy with this book. As I prefer less wallpaper history and more accurate history, I’m fine.

Hugh, Wallace, and Ellen (or Eilidh, to call her by the name her scoundrel of a husband despises) are solid, sensible people. They know the conventions and legalities of their time and are people you’d want on your side in a pickle. Yay, that Hugh and Wallace, despite their long standing friendship with Eilidh, take care to look at all aspects of the situation and maintain an unbiased investigation for not only her sake but that of seeing true justice done. As I said, there is a narrow ribbon of a romance threaded through the story, one that has waited for years to be tied in a bow. But read the book for the carefully done murder mystery. B

~Jayne

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A rollicking, big-hearted story of long-lost love, friendship, and a life well-lived, set at a Florida retirement resort for queer women, on the last day of resident Hannah Cardin’s life—perfect for readers of Less and The Wedding People.

It’s 2067 and Florida is partially underwater, but even that can’t bring down the residents of Palm Meridian Retirement Resort, a utopian home for queer women who want to revel in their twilight years. Inside, Hula-Hoopers shimmy across the grass, fiercely competitive book clubs nearly come to blows, and the roller-ski team races up and down the winding paths. Everywhere you look, these women are living large.

Hannah Cardin has spent ten happy years under these tropical, technicolor skies, but after receiving a terminal cancer diagnosis, she has decided that tomorrow morning she will close her eyes for the very last time. Tonight, however, Hannah and her raucous band of friends are throwing one hell of an end-of-life party. And with less than twenty-four hours left, Hannah is holding out for one final, impossible thing…

Amongst the guest list is Sophie, the love of Hannah’s life. They haven’t spoken since their devastating breakup over forty years ago, but today, Hannah is hoping for the chance to give her greatest love one last try.

As Hannah anxiously awaits Sophie’s arrival, her mind casts back over the highs and lows of her kaleidoscopic life. But when a shocking secret from the past is revealed, Hannah must reconsider if she can say goodbye after all.

Spanning the course of a single day and seventy-odd years, and bursting with irresistible hope, humor, and wisdom, this one-of-a-kind novel celebrates the unexpected moments that make us feel the most alive.

Review

I’m getting older and thought that a book about 70 somethings in a retirement home bravely living large and facing old age would be affirming. Instead I’m afraid I find this book a little depressing – maybe because of the seemingly frantic effort to be upbeat in the face of what Hannah plans. Too much effort after a while.

The book starts well but I kept losing interest in the chapters focusing on the past and the more of these that showed up, the slower the pace of the book seemed to be. I like parts of it but just not enough to keep going. DNF

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A Proposal to Die by Molly Harper

A fast-paced, witty, and delightful new mystery about a marriage proposal planner whose biggest job yet is threatened by a dead body (or two).

Jessamine Bricker loves a plan. Contingency plans and pros-and-cons lists are her love language, and because of that, her proposal planning business is thriving. But with rent costs rising at her office building, Jess jumps at the chance to plan a proposal between her snobby high school classmate, Diana, and her very wealthy boyfriend, Trenton Tillard…the Fourth.

Roped into joining Diana’s ”pre-bridal” retreat at the exclusive Golden Ash resort, Jess hopes to fade into the background, get some work done, and maybe find some time to unwind. Their first day is anything but relaxing: Diana is furious about the mountain spa’s lack of cell phone reception, the couple next door argues constantly, and Jess swears she just saw a drug deal go down. To top it all off, she’s warned to stay out of the woods by the gruff and sexy chef, Dean Osbourne. Is this a retreat or a horror movie?

As Jess tries to do her job while placating the bride-to-be and her increasingly over-the-top demands, she spends more and more time with the resort owners, finding herself much more in tune with the laid-back Osbourne family than her social climbing “boss.” Between a meditation garden-related drowning and Jess’s discovery of a body in a sauna, it’s clear that deadly secrets abound at the Golden Ash. Now it’s up to Jess to unravel the mysteries here in the mountains—before all her plans are cancelled…permanently.

Review

I love contemporary Molly Harper books. Her Kentucky Bluegrass series is darling. The Southern Eclectic series set in Georgia is hilarious. I was all set to see how much I was going to love seeing what she’d do with a murder mystery book. The short answer is that this is not working for me at all.

Many things confused me straight from the start. Jess is hard at work as the book opens ensuring that her clients are thrilled with the proposal Jess has worked so hard to craft. Great, that’s her job. Then her phone rings with what could be business and she … blocks the call? What, does she not have some way for potential clients to leave her a message? So she can do more business. Then she gets confronted in the parking lot by a potential client and Jess appears to be reluctant to take on a client who could pay her eye watering amounts of money? To do her job. Huh?

I also didn’t realize that Insta and social media and “brands” were going to be front and center. Maybe I’m just too old to give a damn about this stuff but yeah, I don’t and don’t care to read about it or about custom colors of dead microscopic organisms. Plus where is the Harper humor I love? So no, this one is not for me and I will not be finishing it. DNF

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The Art of Vanishing: A Novel by Morgan Pager

Something magical is happening inside this museum. . . .

Jean’s life is the same day in and day out. Frozen in time by his painter father, the legendary Henri Matisse, Jean observes the ebb and flow of museum guests as they take in the works of his father and other masters like Renoir, Picasso, and Modigliani. But his world takes a mesmerizing turn when Claire, a new museum employee, enters his life.

Night after night, Claire moves through the gallery where Jean’s painting hangs, mopping the floors, talking softly to herself to stem her loneliness, and gazing admiringly at the masterpieces above. The alluring man in the corner of the Matisse—is he watching her? Why does she feel a deepening pull to him, like he can see her truest self, her most profound secrets? Did he just move?

In an extraordinary twist of fate, Claire discovers she can step through the frame of Jean’s painting and into a bygone era, a lush, verdant snapshot of family life in France in the throes of the First World War. She and Jean begin a seemingly impossible affair, falling in love against the backdrop of the gallery’s other paintings come to life—glittering parties, exhilarating horse races, and windswept beach bluffs—which they can move through together and where Claire is seemingly the only outside visitor, alone in possession of this gift.

But as their happiness is threatened by challenges both inside and outside the museum, Claire and Jean find themselves in a fight to preserve the love they’ve hardly dared to dream of. Will their extraordinary connection defy the confines of reality, or will the forces conspiring against them shatter their carefully curated happiness?

Review

I was utterly charmed by the description of this book. The reality was a let down. I struggled to stay interested as it had so much telling rather than showing. But as one character was literally stuck in a painting when the other was present, I shouldn’t be surprised. The dialog was flat and boring and when Claire first appears and Jean instantly knows that she’s “special” I think I actually groaned. Listening to Claire talk to herself in an empty museum room was painful. The pair of them come across as mid-teens, sneaking glances at each other and wondering if s/he likes me. I also don’t want to read anything about Covid. Sorry but this one is not working for me. DNF.

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Destination Weddings and Other Disasters: A Spicy Enemies to Lovers Adventure Rom Com (Belize Dreams Book 2) by M.C. Vaughan

A hospitality pro reluctantly agrees to plan her mom’s beach wedding with help from her crush-worthy high school bully in this witty, spicy enemies-to-lovers romance.

Sun, sea, sand…and her high school nemesis.

This destination wedding is about to take a detour.

There are millions of men in Los Angeles, and somehow Julia Stone’s mother just got engaged to the worst possible option. Not that there’s anything wrong with her future stepfather. It’s his son who’s the problem. Event planner Carson Miller is six-plus feet of lean muscle and irresistible charm, and ten years ago he made Julia’s life hell.

Paired with Carson to organize the last-minute Belize wedding, Julia doesn’t intend to let him off the hook for past bad behavior. If only there weren’t surprising new feelings in the mix, like undeniable heat…

Carson claims he made mistakes; he’s a different person than he was back then. Julia’s response: prove it. Now, in between wedding planning, zip-lining and exploring waterfalls, they’re having fun falling hard and wondering if this paradise can last once the party’s over…

From showing up to glowing up, the characters in Afterglow Books are on the path to leading their best lives and finding sizzling romance along the way. Don’t miss any of these other fun titles…

Review

I loved last year’s “Romancing Miss Stone” and was thrilled to be offered an arc for the next book in the series. Not gonna lie – enemies to lovers is not my favorite trope but … see sentence one. I was hoping that I’d get something more along the lines of the first book. 

I made it more than halfway through this one but even before I stopped, I was having trouble. As another reviewer says, we know from the start that Carson is basically head over heels in love – or lust – with Julia and has been for years. Meanwhile Julia had feelings for Carson but initially thinks of him as that bully who ruined her teenage years. This pretty much gets resolved early on. Part of me likes that this didn’t get dragged out and yet, what’s left if such a major plot issue is more or less resolved? Nevertheless, I pushed on.

There’s plenty of lust and ogling. Lots and lots of ogling and thinking naughty thoughts and jealousy – mainly from Carson when any other man looks at Julia. She is obsessed with what Carson is wearing or not wearing as well as feeling left out of her family’s major life events. The wedding planning allows lots of descriptions of how amazing Belize seems to be so yay for that. 

But the scene at an evening beach music concert when suddenly Julia locks lips with Carson and then does a 180, sprinting away and worried that half of the country was watching her and that she’ll be the major person in the next week’s local news cycle baffled me. When Carson hurries after her, we get treated to Julia moaning about her lack of relationship potential in the face of hot Carson telling her she’s hot, too. Sorry but Julia sounds like she’s still sixteen. And suddenly, I’d reached the end of my patience with this story.     

I wanted more fun as in the first book. Instead there’s too much wedding planning, too much Julia whingeing and more lusting than romance. Sadly this one is a DNF for me.     

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Endling by Maria Reva

Ukraine, 2022. Yeva is a loner and a maverick biologist who lives out of her mobile lab. She scours the country’s forests and valleys, trying and failing to breed rare snails while her relatives urge her to give up, settle down, and start a family. What they don’t know: Yeva already dates plenty of men—not for love, but to fund her work—entertaining Westerners who come to Ukraine on guided romance tours believing they’ll find docile brides uninfluenced by feminism and modernity.

Nastia and her sister Solomiya are also entangled in the booming marriage industry, posing as a hopeful bride and her translator while secretly searching for their missing mother—a flamboyant protestor who vanished after years of fierce activism against the romance tours. So begins a journey of a lifetime across hundreds of miles: three angry women, a truckful of kidnapped bachelors, and Lefty, a last-of-his-kind snail with one final shot at perpetuating his species. But their plans come to a screeching halt as Russia invades.

Review

This book is, I think, supposed to be a denunciation of the Ukrainian Bride Industry as well as a plea to save endangered species, and commentary on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It pains me to DNF this one as all these are important issues and the snail aspect is charming and meaningful but that’s what I’m going to do. I feel bad for not being able to keep going as I know the author is working with heavy (real life) stuff that is deeply personal but I’m just not in love with any of it other than the snails and there’s far too little of him/them. Nastia is described as keeping her face blank and not emotionally engaging with any of the bachelors and that’s unfortunately how I feel about most of these characters. They’re all just blank to me. I don’t think reading any further – okay, I lie, I did flip to the end and still don’t get it – will help. I truly wish the book luck.

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Don’t miss the conclusion to this spin-off series from Allie Therin’s acclaimed Magic in Manhattan universe!

Love redeemed them, but the past isn’t done with them yet.

New York, 1925

For jaded Lord Fine—Wesley, to the friends he’s surprised he now has—falling into his lover Sebastian’s world of magic and intrigue has changed everything. But when a plot to destroy magic is linked to Wesley’s own aristocratic world, he’s determined to root it out—especially when it threatens newly vulnerable Sebastian.

Sebastian will never regret sacrificing his magic to save Wesley’s life, even if life without magic is challenging and sometimes dangerous. But now he faces the biggest danger yet: infiltrating Wesley’s viscount circles to find a villain, without magic to protect them, because Sebastian’s magic is gone forever…isn’t it?

Joined by old friends, Wesley and Sebastian follow the clues from New York’s speakeasies, across the ocean to England, and finally to a duke’s country estate. Always one step behind, they must race against time to stop those responsible and end the threat to the world, and magic, once and for all.

Roaring Twenties Magic

Book 1: Proper Scoundrels
Book 2: Once a Rogue
Book 3: Viscounts & Villainy

I RECEIVED AN ARC OF THIS BOOK.

Dear Allie Therin,

I was very eager to read the conclusion of this trilogy. The Wesley and Sebastian story was in turn a spin off from the “Magic in Manhattan” trilogy which featured them as side characters (and sort of villains). Since none of these two people ever felt non redeemable to me, I enjoyed their redemption and love story very much overall. I also had no problem buying that Arthur and Rory and Jane and Zhang (characters from the first trilogy which appear as side characters in these books) decide that they want to be Wesley and Sebastian’s friends now. That begs the warning for the readers. I highly recommend that you start with the Magic and Manhattan trilogy if you want to read these books.  At least start with the first book of this trilogy, but not with this book.

In this book Wes and Sebastian do what the blurb tells you basically, trying to follow the signs to the villains who possibly held the strings of the villain from the last book.  Overall this book felt strange to me. I understand that it was a conclusion to the story, but for the most part it felt like one giant epilogue to me. Except for the last two or three chapters I thought it lacked tension. To be clear, I did not mind at all that Wesley and Sebastian did not have much or any conflict to resolve between two of them. Yes, at times (not all the time) their interactions felt a touch too sweet, but overall I thought that they had enough pain for the first two books. Moreover I get that Sebastian not having magic anymore was supposed to be a source of internal tension (even if I did not really feel much of it).

What bothered me more is how the adventure part of the plot was executed. The characters certainly had things to do and stuff to investigate, but somehow it all lacked tension and urgency to me.  When the things finally escalated very close to the end I was glad, but it also felt a little bit out of nowhere.  To be clear it did not happen out of nowhere plot wise – the villains revealed themselves and started to act as villains finally, but I did not feel that tension in the story was rising throughout it if that makes sense.

Grade: B-/B

For the series overall, and especially for the second trilogy probably B+

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