[All summaries via Goodreads.com]
Attachments
Beth Fremont and Jennifer Scribner-Snyder know that somebody is monitoring their work e-mail. (Everybody in the newsroom knows. It’s company policy.) But they can’t quite bring themselves to take it seriously. They go on sending each other endless and endlessly hilarious e-mails, discussing every aspect of their personal lives.
Meanwhile, Lincoln O’Neill can’t believe this is his job now—reading other people’s e-mail. When he applied to be “internet security officer,” he pictured himself building firewalls and crushing hackers—not writing up a report every time a sports reporter forwards a dirty joke.
When Lincoln comes across Beth’s and Jennifer’s messages, he knows he should turn them in. But he can’t help being entertained—and captivated—by their stories.
By the time Lincoln realizes he’s falling for Beth, it’s way too late to introduce himself.
What would he say . . . ?
Goodreads.com
Attachments has a sweet, slightly creepy premise that develops into to the type of adorable romance that Rainbow Rowell does so well. After I got past the creepiness of snooping through someone else’s email, I really fell for the characters and rooted for them to make it work.
Rating: Pretty Darn Good
The Tea Dragon Festival
Rinn has grown up with the Tea Dragons that inhabit their village, but stumbling across a real dragon turns out to be a different matter entirely! Aedhan is a young dragon who was appointed to protect the village but fell asleep in the forest eighty years ago. With the aid of Rinn’s adventuring uncle Erik and his partner Hesekiel, they investigate the mystery of his enchanted sleep, but Rinn’s real challenge is to help Aedhan come to terms with feeling that he cannot get back the time he has lost.
Goodreads.com
*Note: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher. This has not affected the contents of my review.
What a lovely companion to the original tea dragon book! The art, as always, is colorful and gorgeous, and the story is sweet and gentle. I loved it.
Rating: Re-read Worthy
Outlander
The year is 1945. Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is just back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach—an “outlander”—in a Scotland torn by war and raiding border clans in the year of Our Lord…1743.
Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire is catapulted into the intrigues of lairds and spies that may threaten her life, and shatter her heart. For here James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, shows her a love so absolute that Claire becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire—and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.
Goodreads.com
This was not for me. The book is filled with what a back cover blurb calls “striking sex scenes” and rape, and it was excessively long. I’m glad others enjoy this series so much, but I will not be reading any of the other Outlander books.
Rating: Meh
Bridge of Clay
The breathtaking story of five brothers who bring each other up in a world run by their own rules. As the Dunbar boys love and fight and learn to reckon with the adult world, they discover the moving secret behind their father’s disappearance.
At the center of the Dunbar family is Clay, a boy who will build a bridge—for his family, for his past, for greatness, for his sins, for a miracle.
The question is, how far is Clay willing to go? And how much can he overcome?
Goodreads.com
Slow to start (530-some pages), but once it got going, it was a touching story of the five Dunbar boys, their parents, and their tragedies and hopes. I enjoyed it but didn’t love it.
Rating: Good but Forgettable
The Flatshare
Tiffy Moore needs a cheap flat, and fast. Leon Twomey works nights and needs cash. Their friends think they’re crazy, but it’s the perfect solution: Leon occupies the one-bed flat while Tiffy’s at work in the day, and she has the run of the place the rest of the time.
But with obsessive ex-boyfriends, demanding clients at work, wrongly imprisoned brothers and, of course, the fact that they still haven’t met yet, they’re about to discover that if you want the perfect home you need to throw the rulebook out the window…
Goodreads.com
I don’t read many romances (although there are a few in this post), but I enjoyed The Flatshare. There is a truly sweet romance between Tiffy and Leon, along with a surprisingly intense backstory involving an abusive ex and a brother in prison. A fun, satisfying story.
Rating: Pretty Darn Good
Crocodile on the Sandbank
Amelia Peabody inherited two things from her father: a considerable fortune and an unbendable will. The first allowed her to indulge in her life’s passion. Without the second, the mummy’s curse would have made corpses of them all.
Goodreads.com
A fun mystery with a great setting (Egypt) which is marred by outdated, insensitive stereotypes about Egyptians. A sweet romance subplot fits in well with the mystery. This is the beginning of the Amelia Peabody mystery series, and while I have read some of the later books, I’m not sure I’m committed to finishing the series.
Rating: Pretty Darn Good
Fangirl
Cath is a Simon Snow fan. Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan…. But for Cath, being a fan is her life—and she’s really good at it. She and her twin, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it’s what got them through their mother leaving.
Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fanfiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere. Cath’s sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can’t let go. She doesn’t want to.
Now that they’re going to college, Wren has told Cath she doesn’t want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort zone. She’s got a surly roommate with a charming, always-around boyfriend; a fiction-writing professor who thinks fanfiction is the end of the civilized world; a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words… and she can’t stop worrying about her dad, who’s loving and fragile and has never really been alone.
For Cath, the question is: Can she do this? Can she make it without Wren holding her hand? Is she ready to start living her own life? And does she even want to move on if it means leaving Simon Snow behind?
Goodreads.com
A great picture (though dramatic) of the freshman year of college and the world of fanfiction. There is such a sweet romance between Cath and Levi, and the family relationships are so well drawn. Rainbow Rowell’s books are sometimes hit or miss for me, and this definitely was a hit.
Rating: Pretty Darn Good
Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian Lions
On her sixtieth birthday, Auntie Poldi retires to Sicily, intending to while away the rest of her days with good wine, a view of the sea, and few visitors. But Sicily isn’t quite the tranquil island she thought it would be, and something always seems to get in the way of her relaxation. When her handsome young handyman goes missing—and is discovered murdered—she can’t help but ask questions . . .
Soon there’s an investigation, a smoldering police inspector, a romantic entanglement, one false lead after another, a rooftop showdown, and finally, of course, Poldi herself, slightly tousled, but still perfectly poised.
Goodreads.com
Another fun mystery with a great setting (Italy this time), but not as enjoyable as I had thought it would be. There was a lot of buzz around this novel when it first came out, but I found it a bit forgettable.
Rating: Good but Forgettable
Neverwhere
Under the streets of London there’s a place most people could never even dream of. A city of monsters and saints, murderers and angels, knights in armour and pale girls in black velvet. This is the city of the people who have fallen between the cracks.
Richard Mayhew, a young businessman, is going to find out more than enough about this other London. A single act of kindness catapults him out of his workday existence and into a world that is at once eerily familiar and utterly bizarre. And a strange destiny awaits him down here, beneath his native city: Neverwhere.
Goodreads.com
Neverwhere is not super creepy, unlike some of Neil Gaiman’s other work; it’s about the London Below where the people, places, and times fall through the cracks. Fantastical and magical, but I wanted more of the world—not something that I usually say about the setting and world building in fantasy novels!
Rating: Good but Forgettable
The Ice Princess
Returning to her hometown of Fjallbacka after the funeral of her parents, writer Erica Falck finds a community on the brink of tragedy. The death of her childhood friend, Alex, is just the beginning. Her wrists slashed, her body frozen in an ice-cold bath, it seems that she has taken her own life.
Erica conceives a book about the beautiful but remote Alex, one that will answer questions about their own shared past. While her interest grows into an obsession, local detective Patrik Hedstrom is following his own suspicions about the case. But it is only when they start working together that the truth begins to emerge about a small town with a deeply disturbing past.
Goodreads.com
This Swedish novel presents a classic murder mystery with a little bit of gore. I’m interested to read more from the burgeoning Scandinavian crime genre because I really enjoyed this one.
Rating: Pretty Darn Good
A Quiet Life in the Country
Lady Emily Hardcastle is an eccentric widow with a secret past. Florence Armstrong, her maid and confidante, is an expert in martial arts. The year is 1908 and they’ve just moved from London to the country, hoping for a quiet life.
But it is not long before Lady Hardcastle is forced out of her self-imposed retirement. There’s a dead body in the woods, and the police are on the wrong scent. Lady Hardcastle makes some enquiries of her own, and it seems she knows a surprising amount about crime investigation…
As Lady Hardcastle and Flo delve deeper into rural rivalries and resentment, they uncover a web of intrigue that extends far beyond the village. With almost no one free from suspicion, they can be certain of only one fact: there is no such thing as a quiet life in the country.
Goodreads.com
A cozy mystery starring Lady Hardcastle and her maid/friend Flo Armstrong being the sweetest of English friends and solving a village murder. This was the series that kept me going through the early days of quarantine. They are fun, witty, gentle mysteries starring two strong female leads with a great friendship at the core of the series.
Rating: Pretty Darn Good
The Thirteenth Tale
All children mythologize their birth…So begins the prologue of reclusive author Vida Winter’s collection of stories, which are as famous for the mystery of the missing thirteenth tale as they are for the delight and enchantment of the twelve that do exist.
The enigmatic Winter has spent six decades creating various outlandish life histories for herself — all of them inventions that have brought her fame and fortune but have kept her violent and tragic past a secret. Now old and ailing, she at last wants to tell the truth about her extraordinary life. She summons biographer Margaret Lea, a young woman for whom the secret of her own birth, hidden by those who loved her most, remains an ever-present pain. Struck by a curious parallel between Miss Winter’s story and her own, Margaret takes on the commission.
As Vida disinters the life she meant to bury for good, Margaret is mesmerized. It is a tale of gothic strangeness featuring the Angelfield family, including the beautiful and willful Isabelle, the feral twins Adeline and Emmeline, a ghost, a governess, a topiary garden and a devastating fire.
Margaret succumbs to the power of Vida’s storytelling but remains suspicious of the author’s sincerity. She demands the truth from Vida, and together they confront the ghosts that have haunted them while becoming, finally, transformed by the truth themselves.
Goodreads.com
A gothic tale, reminiscent of a twentieth century Jane Eyre, filled with twins, a fire, unknown identities, and dark passions. (As a content warning/possible spoiler, there is a large amount of incest in this book.) As with some of the other novels on this list, I enjoyed it but didn’t love it.
Rating: Pretty Darn Good
Kindred
Kindred has become a cornerstone of black American literature. This combination of slave memoir, fantasy, and historical fiction is a novel of rich literary complexity. Having just celebrated her 26th birthday in 1976 California, Dana, an African-American woman, is suddenly and inexplicably wrenched through time into antebellum Maryland. After saving a drowning white boy there, she finds herself staring into the barrel of a shotgun and is transported back to the present just in time to save her life. During numerous such time-defying episodes with the same young man, she realizes the challenge she’s been given…
Goodreads.com
This was my first Octavia E. Butler novel, but it won’t be the last. Dana’s journeys into the past become more and more horrific as she faces more of the awfulness of slavery. Rufus thinks of black people like objects or animals, while Dana’s white husband Kevin brings his own 1976 racial bias into his five years of being stuck in the 1820s. I will be thinking about this intense, gripping book for a long time to come.
Rating: Pretty Darn Good
Check, Please!
Helloooo, Internet Land. Bitty here!
Y’all… I might not be ready for this. I may be a former junior figure skating champion, vlogger extraordinaire, and very talented amateur pâtissier, but being a freshman on the Samwell University hockey team is a whole new challenge. It’s nothing like co-ed club hockey back in Georgia! First of all? There’s checking. And then, there is Jack—our very attractive but moody captain.
A collection of the first half of the megapopular webcomic series of the same name, Check, Please!: #Hockey is the first book of a hilarious and stirring two-volume coming-of-age story about hockey, bros, and trying to find yourself during the best four years of your life.
Goodreads.com
So sweet! Bitty balances playing hockey, college classes, baking, and romance. This book helped kickstart my new interest in hockey. I absolutely loved it.
Rating: Re-read Worthy
Arcanos Unraveled
Meet Anya Winter, junior professor of magical textiles at Arcanos Hall. Thrown into exile with only her knitting needles and invisibility cloak, Anya teams up with a mysterious programmer to save her school–and her reputation–before it’s too late. But can she really change the world with just a ball of yarn?
Goodreads.com
Fun and adventurous. Anya and the mysterious Kyril work to fight against the elitist wizards with her knitting magic. A truly enjoyable fantasy.
Rating: Pretty Darn Good
The Dry
In the grip of the worst drought in a century, the farming community of Kiewarra is facing life and death choices daily when three members of a local family are found brutally slain.
Federal Police investigator Aaron Falk reluctantly returns to his hometown for the funeral of his childhood friend, loath to face the townsfolk who turned their backs on him twenty years earlier.
But as questions mount, Falk is forced to probe deeper into the deaths of the Hadler family. Because Falk and Luke Hadler shared a secret. A secret Falk thought was long buried. A secret Luke’s death now threatens to bring to the surface in this small Australian town, as old wounds bleed into new ones.
Goodreads.com
A great mystery/suspense novel. Aaron Falk comes back to the small, poverty-stricken town he grew up in and has to solve a horrific murder that may have a connection to what happened to his childhood friend. There are some intense moments, but Falk remains likable throughout, which I appreciated.
Rating: Pretty Darn Good
The Man in the High Castle
It’s America in 1962. Slavery is legal once again. The few Jews who still survive hide under assumed names. In San Francisco, the I Ching is as common as the Yellow Pages. All because some twenty years earlier the United States lost a war — and is now occupied by Nazi Germany and Japan.
This harrowing, Hugo Award-winning novel is the work that established Philip K. Dick as an innovator in science fiction while breaking the barrier between science fiction and the serious novel of ideas. In it Dick offers a haunting vision of history as a nightmare from which it may just be possible to wake.
Goodreads.com
This book offers a look at what would have happened if Germany and Japan won WWII. The ending is strange and abrupt; it fails to tie together some of the plots and felt unsatisfactory to me.
Rating: Good but Forgettable
Behind the Red Door
When Fern Douglas sees the news about Astrid Sullivan, a thirty-four-year-old missing woman from Maine, she is positive that she knows her. Fern’s husband is sure it’s because of Astrid’s famous kidnapping—and equally famous return—twenty years ago, but Fern has no memory of that, even though it happened an hour outside her New Hampshire hometown. And when Astrid appears in Fern’s recurring nightmare, one in which a girl reaches out to her, pleading, Fern fears that it’s not a dream at all, but a memory.
Back home in New Hampshire, Fern purchases a copy of Astrid’s recently published memoir—which may have provoked her original kidnapper to abduct her again—and as she reads through its chapters and visits the people and places within it, she discovers more evidence that she has an unsettling connection to the missing woman. As Fern’s search becomes increasingly desperate, she hopes to remember her past so she can save Astrid in the present…before it’s too late.
Goodreads.com
*Note: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher. This has not affected the contents of my review.
Intense and emotional. When Astrid goes missing for the second time, Fern faces memories that she never knew she had and must figure out what happened to her 20 years ago. This thriller is not so much twisty as intense, as Fern looks at who she can trust and what kind of person she wants to be. I liked it but found it unrealistic, which is probably a good thing for a thriller to be, but it did take me out of the story occasionally.
Rating: Good but Forgettable
Recipe for Persuasion
Chef Ashna Raje desperately needs a new strategy. How else can she save her beloved restaurant and prove to her estranged, overachieving mother that she isn’t a complete screw up? When she’s asked to join the cast of Cooking with the Stars, the latest hit reality show teaming chefs with celebrities, it seems like just the leap of faith she needs to put her restaurant back on the map. She’s a chef, what’s the worst that could happen?
Rico Silva, that’s what.
Being paired with a celebrity who was her first love, the man who ghosted her at the worst possible time in her life, only proves what Ashna has always believed: leaps of faith are a recipe for disaster.
FIFA winning soccer star Rico Silva isn’t too happy to be paired up with Ashna either. Losing Ashna years ago almost destroyed him. The only silver lining to this bizarre situation is that he can finally prove to Ashna that he’s definitely over her.
But when their catastrophic first meeting goes viral, social media becomes obsessed with their chemistry. The competition on the show is fierce…and so is the simmering desire between Ashna and Rico. Every minute they spend together rekindles feelings that pull them toward their disastrous past. Will letting go again be another recipe for heartbreak—or a recipe for persuasion…?
Goodreads.com
*Note: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher. This has not affected the contents of my review.
I think I just don’t love romances, despite the few exceptions in today’s post. I liked Ashna and Rico, and I enjoyed the reveal of their secrets, but it just made me sad that they hadn’t communicated better earlier. Plus, I found the cooking show setting a little cheesy. The novel was fine, but it wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be.
Rating: Good but Forgettable