The Survivors

The Survivors

By Jane Harper

Kieran Elliott's life changed forever on the day a reckless mistake led to devastating consequences.

The guilt that still haunts him resurfaces during a visit with his young family to the small coastal community he once called home.

Kieran's parents are struggling in a town where fortunes are forged by the sea. Between them all is his absent brother, Finn.

When a body is discovered on the beach, long-held secrets threaten to emerge. A sunken wreck, a missing girl, and questions that have never washed away...

You all know I'm a big Jane Harper fan, and I was very excited about this one.  It felt a little different from her others, not so much because of the Tasmania setting, which does for the sea what her other books do for the outback and the jungle, but more because the main character wasn't isolated. 

As in several of her other books, the main character is coming back to town after being semi-ostracized for a youthful incident which led to someone's death.  Someone else dies and we begin to find out the connections between the two, usually alleviating some, if not all, of the guilt the main character felt at the start.  It was interesting to see here how the addition of the partner and baby made Kieran feel less likely to be killed, or have some sort of attack or something.  It just felt more secure, both in their attitude about what happened, but also in their future.  A baby can do that for you, I guess.  We see that explicitly in the book, too, when Kieran confronts the killer and the killer asks him how he overcame the guilt he had, and Kieran kind of goes, "I found something else to live for" referring to his baby and baby mama. 

I know that's kind of vague, but it really makes the book feel less of a "thriller" and more of a slow, easy mystery read.  There's very little concern that the main character will end up meeting a nefarious end.  And, like her other books, by the end the main character is absolved, not only of the recent death, but of their past guilt as well.  It's very explicit here, with repeated references to "The Survivors" a trio of monuments on the rocks which are meant to symbolize survivors of an earlier shipwreck.  They pop up repeatedly though, and the idea of survivor's guilt is heavy, not only with Kieran's youthful mistake in staying too late at the caves and requiring the ill-fated assistance, but also in the sense of those who were able to leave town and those who aren't, who are semi-captive to a fading locale, wholly dependent on tourists and dying out.  Kieran's father, who has dementia, and his mother, who is packing the house up in preparation for his father's departure, are also emblematic of the survivor's phenomenon, both wrapped up in the past in their own ways. 

Harper does a masterful job with the setting as usual.  Like her others, the location and elements are another character (gosh, how trite, but it's true) and the sea is a looming presence over everyone.  I would say that I still prefer The Dry  of all her books, but this was a good addition to her catalogue.  

A Girl of the Limberlost

A Girl of the Limberlost

By Gene Stratton-Porter

Set amid Indiana's vast Limberlost Swamp around 1909, this treasured children's classic mixes astute observations on nature with the struggles of growing up in the early 20th century. A smart, ambitious girl, Elnora lives in the dwindling wetland with her mother and pays for school by collecting local moth specimens to sell to naturalists. Harassed by her mother and scorned by her peers, Elnora Comstock finds solace in natural beauty along with friendship, independence, and romance.

Well, if you're looking for the spiritual kin of L.M. Montgomery, you've found her.  This had a lot of the same hallmarks many of Montgomery's books do (not necessarily the Anne of Green Gables series, but a lot of her others): fiercely proud, independent women, some of them disappointed in love and taking it out on other people, friendly farm neighbors, rich benefactors, "mean" city people who actually love the country person's bold and simple way of life and speaking, etc., etc. I was reminded, reading this, about a recent article that reframed our country's political divide not as one between conservative and liberal, but between rural and urban, and called out all of this literature and media which gave rise to the myth of the rural pure and urban suspect.  This book would certainly add to that myth (although I doubt it's widely read enough to actually affect most voters).

We start out with Elnora walking the three miles to the high school in town, only to find out she needs books and tuition (and probably something other than calico and heavy boots if she doesn't want to stick out like a sore thumb).  Her mother, who is an ENORMOUS BITCH, by the way, knew all of this, but wanted Elnora to be defeated by the experience and give up.  Instead, Elnora sells some bugs and this farm couple help her out, since both their own daughters died in infancy.  We end up following Elnora as she (and her farm "family") charms the local girls and succeeds wildly in school, befriends a young, demanding boy whose alcoholic father dies conveniently timed so that the farm neighbors can adopt him, deals with her awful mother, who is a huge asshole until she finds out her husband died while cheating on her and suddenly about-turns into a caring woman and no one holds a grudge for the last twenty years of abuse, and then a recovering rich boy/Chicago lawyer comes to the swamp for health purposes and calls her "unspoiled" which we all know is code for "going to leave my fiance for you". 

So, yes, maybe I sound dismissive, but I really loved (and love) my LM Montgomery books, and even if this feels like a version of one of her books with about 1000% more bugs and 75% more wooden characters, I found it very readable. It does skip around in time, improbably, and is sort of vignette-y (although we spend a good chunk of time on Elnora's first week at school and her romance with Phillip), and as I mentioned, the characters don't really "develop" with the sole exception of Edith, Phillip's erstwhile fiance, who (somewhat understandably) throws a fit at their engagement party when he abruptly leaves so he can catch a moth for Elnora, and then compounds her sins by going down to the Limberlost and implying Phillip is hers for the taking anytime, so you know she's going to get her comeuppance by the end of the book, and she does, not only giving up on Phillip, but actually being gracious to Elnora and giving her an elusive moth, which is how you know Elnora's innate good character and moral values have finally subdued every possible person she's ever met. 

Well, and NOW I find out that apparently this is a sequel of sorts to Freckles, which goes a long way to explaining who the hell HE is, and why we're never given any information about what his connection is to the moths, the swamp, or Eleanora, aside from leaving her all these valuable pieces. This becomes more pertinent at the end of the book, when Elnora goes to stay with Freckles and his family when she's waiting for Phillip to make up his mind about whether he's really interested in marrying her.  This also sort of explains the mentioned-but-never-really-resolved storyline of the band of criminals who use the swamp for their midnight expeditions (and spy on Elnora through the window, DAMN that creepy mess was just sort of glossed over!) and how the Bird Woman, Swamp Angel, and Freckles all know each other.

Overall, the plot feels a bit thin, and the characters are not much thicker, with the sole exception of Elnora's mother who does a complete 180, but if you're looking for books about moths, you've come to the right place.  Ironically, it was published just as the Limberlost was drained, although it has since been reclaimed for wetlands. 

Beach Read

Beach Read

By Emily Henry

Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast.

They're polar opposites.

In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they're living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer's block.

Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She'll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he'll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no one will fall in love. Really.

Yet again, I was misled by a blurb and a cover.  Not that I mind! I actually liked the book this was more than the book I thought it would be (does that make sense? I was unsure about even reserving the book I thought it would be on my hold list).  But the jacket implies a frothy meet cute about two writers falling in love, whereas it's actually about two writers falling in love, but they've met before, and also both of them really need therapy. Now that I say that, I can see why they didn't go for that on the blurb.

We meet January holed up in a house in Michigan, which happens to be the previously unsuspected second home of her father who'd been having an affair.  Her struggles with that information (disclosed at his funeral, no less) are probably also the reason she can't write her next romance novel. Meanwhile, her new neighbor turns out to be an old college acquaintance from the same writing program, also struggling with writer's block about his next ("literary") novel.  We find out partway through that he's in the midst of a divorce, not to mention dealing with his traumatic childhood.

What with one thing and another, they decide to take each other out on expeditions to get the other out of their comfort zone (Gus takes January to interview previous cult members, January takes Gus to the state fair, basically).   And naturally, we find out Gus actually kind of pined for January when they were in school together - it's sweet.  Anyway, I thought it would be a lot more treacly than it was.  And honestly, there was a bunch more writing going on than I assumed there would be - ha, it feels like half the time, the characters' jobs are just background noise, but here they're front and center.  

It was very much not a "loll around on the beach and trade sunscreen tips while flirting" but more of a "you tell me what's bothering you and I'll tell you what's bothering me, and maybe we can both move past it" kind of book, and I liked that.  It felt very Midwestern summer (humidity and storms, Fourth of July pool parties, etc) and the romance between the two doesn't feel forced or shallow.  It probably helps that the book does take place over several months, and you do get that feeling of time passing (albeit hazily).  

I agree with other reviewers that the secondary characters are minimally fleshed out, but who needs secondary characters, anyway?  This is the rare "romance" book where I actually found myself highlighting quotes (for example, one about the enjoyment of reading) that I found particularly profound/poignant.  That was a rare quality, for me, and even if we got less lighthearted as the book went on, I still found it to be a good summer read, preferably when it's warm, but raining outside.  I wouldn't call it a beach read, but definitely the thing when your whole day is ahead of you and your only plans are to curl up and listen to the rain with the windows open. 

 

The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea

The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea

By Maggie Tokuda- Hall

The pirate Florian, born Flora, has always done whatever it takes to survive—including sailing under false flag on the Dove as a marauder, thief, and worse. Lady Evelyn Hasegawa, a highborn Imperial daughter, is on board as well—accompanied by her own casket. But Evelyn’s one-way voyage to an arranged marriage in the Floating Islands is interrupted when the captain and crew show their true colors and enslave their wealthy passengers.

Both Florian and Evelyn have lived their lives by the rules, and whims, of others. But when they fall in love, they decide to take fate into their own hands—no matter the cost.

I liked this quite a bit more than I was anticipating.  I know, why read a book if you don't think you're going to like it? I'll be grossly honest:  the part where Flora/Florian the pirate falls in love with the Lady Evelyn, I was not interested in at all.  But the temptation of the title, The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea was too evocative, too enticing for me.  Eventually it wound up on my hold list, and onto my little e-reader.  And in all fairness to myself, whom I know quite well, the romance was the part I enjoyed the least. The mermaid, the witch, and the sea, all came through. And also the feel of the book is much more adult than I think the cover implies.  Don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful cover, but it feels more middle-reader or YA than adult, and I would really push this into an adult fantasy category (which is great, sometimes YA fantasy feels too "easy"). 

So, okay, this island world revolves around the Empire, which is colonizing every island it can, while also dealing with pirates marauding the seas (and drinking illegal mermaid blood) and colonial problems.  There's some loose Japanese influences there, some references to a not-yet-colonized island with dark skinned people, etc.  Evelyn is basically sent off by her parents to marry some up-and-coming soldier on one of the colonies, partly because she's a real disappointment at home (among other reasons, she makes out with her servant and doesn't care about tea service), and partly for reasons that are a complete SHOCK later in the book.  I really disliked Evelyn from the start.  I always find it hard to like characters like that, who are privileged but do nothing except complain about their circumstances (or make really stupid decisions) and yet are well-liked by non-privileged people for unknown reasons, and in this particular case, someone who also puts their servant at risk too, selfishly.  And when Evelyn takes off, her servant's out there crying and getting fired, and Evelyn's like, well, "I wasn't in love with her, she was just a warm body pretty much." Then she ends up on this pirate ship, assumes she'll make friends with everyone, and winds up getting Florian's finger chopped off (spoiler!) because she's mad that Florian doesn't want to hang out with her for ONCE and she insists on going up top, whereupon Florian's desertion is discovered and punished. What a catch!  Although, to be fair, Florian is also lying to her about the fact that they're planning to kidnap and enslave her and sell her as a prostitute. I mean, I'm not sure exactly why Florian likes her, but Tokuda-Hall does a decent job of making me believe that it's not the dumbest decision Florian could make.

But aside from whatever attraction draws them together (which is a little mystifying, I guess, but to each their own) the real juicy parts of the book make up for that weaker link.  The shifting allegiances of the crew members, Florian's very real worry about his alcoholic brother's fate, and the fate of their passengers, the mysterious Lady What's-Her-Name (the mother's friend) who serves a much larger role than initially suspected.  And when the crew does make the switch from cruise to slaver (FINALLY) the action really kicks up - then we get midnight escapes, gun fights, cast aways, witches, Empire-spanning PLOTS, assassins, double agents, spies, and all sorts of fun new characters, or new sides to characters we thought we knew.  I wish the first part hadn't taken up so much time, but I guess it was necessary to get you invested in Florian/Evelyn's relationship.  

Even though we get resolution to the storylines, it's really setting things up for a Book 2: Lady What's-her-name's "servant" from Quark is last seen drifting toward the Red coast, we know the Witch and the Pirate Supreme (which, brief aside: that is one of the dumbest titles I can think of and it really jarred me every time I read it.  Really, Pirate Supreme? Is he/she a pizza? Even Supreme Pirate sounds better.  I don't know why I'm so aggrieved by it, but I AM. Aside over!) are former lovers and will probably end up meeting again (or it's one hell of a Chekhov's Gun), and I assume there's going to be more Empire plots.  So for all that it really is basically an enclosed story, it feels weirdly incomplete. 

I would also classify it among the new(er) strain of fantasy books which make more explicit references to diversity.  Flora/Florian for one (although my first introduction to sex/gender fluidity in fantasy was twenty years ago in the Tamir Trilogy, starting with The Bone Doll's Twin (and which I still need to finish, since it was a series that was incomplete when I started and I never got back to it)), and the many references to various skin/hair tones throughout, not to mention the implicit, then explicit oppression of the Empire, and the by-play with the mermaids.  I didn't find it awkwardly placed, preachy, or distracting, but I assume others may find it so, because some people are never satisfied unless they're dissatisfied.  Also, everyone has different levels of tolerance.

And I don't want to really spoil more here (BUT I WILL), but how good was that reveal that the whole "slaver ship drops off virginal Lady Evelyn to be despoiled" turned out to be an actual plan for invading the Red coast and adding more territory to the Empire thing?!  And like, all these people were in on it!  I loved it.  That's when the book really started coming together for me.  Honestly, I thought it was really well done - things that you ( i.e., "me") never suspected of someone, but also not out of character for them, plus plugging plot holes (like, "why invite the Empire's wrath by doing this to a whole bunch of citizens really brazenly?" and "why wouldn't they take the minimum safety measure of changing the name of boat when they do this?") that I was willing to overlook in the interest of "story" but are so much better now they're not actually holes. 

The Near Witch

The Near Witch

By V. E. Schwab

The Near Witch is only an old story told to frighten children. 

If the wind calls at night, you must not listen. The wind is lonely, and always looking for company. 

There are no strangers in the town of Near. 

These are the truths that Lexi has heard all her life. 

But when an actual stranger, a boy who seems to fade like smoke, appears outside her home on the moor at night, she knows that at least one of these sayings is no longer true. 

The next night, the children of Near start disappearing from their beds, and the mysterious boy falls under suspicion. 

As the hunt for the children intensifies, so does Lexi's need to know about the witch that just might be more than a bedtime story, about the wind that seems to speak through the walls at night, and about the history of this nameless boy. 

I can't help comparing this to AWGTDB, which I read immediately beforehand, and honestly, the comparison was in Wizard's Guide's favor.

In my copy, the author notes that this is an early book of hers, which has been published after she's been successful otherwise, and maybe this is a self-fulfilling perspective, but it felt more derivative and less "established" than her other works. Of course, it also has that trope I hate, of the late teen/early twenties lady protagonist falling for some random "mystery" boy, and then making choices that range anywhere from silly/ill-advised to dangerous/dangerously stupid because she's just DRAWN to him, and no one else understands her and he's just misunderstood and therefore all choices must lead back to protecting this boy from outside forces (like older adults) who aren't as enamored of him.  I just wish there were more natural skepticism in these scenarios.  Romance is not even necessary in most of these cases! You can not want to make out with someone, but still object to the idea of them being summarily executed for a crime they probably didn't commit! Also, maybe it would be easier to convince people he's innocent if you weren't so clearly biased. 

So, a big part of the book was a non-starter for me, which made the rest of it feel very slight and maybe low-stakes?  It was very atmospheric, and the writing is good, but I guess I was never really surprised at any point - yes, her sister will disappear at a point when Lexi is supposed to be watching her (or was warned to watch her), yes, the town elders are all men who don't listen to her/believe her, no, her new boyfriend isn't actually responsible for the child abductions (although how awesome would it have been if he WAS?!), yes, the kids are found alive at the end (how??) and no one dies, except for maybe the bad actor (and sometimes one of the town elders who really deserves it).  It felt a little derivative, which I wouldn't use to describe her other work, so it surprised me - in a bad way. 

Other reviewers talk about it being fairy-tale like, and I guess I would agree with that - it works best if you just go with it and don't worry too much about nuanced characters.  Everyone here has a given role, and they will rigidly adhere to it!

There's an additional story - The Ash-born Boy - in my copy, which goes into Cole's background, and it was okay, although since I found him very uninteresting in Near Witch, I wasn't exactly waiting on bated breath for his backstory. Like I said at the outset, it compared unfavorably to Wizard's Guide, even though maybe the writing/story was more adult, but right now, I want something very different, more pep, less angst!  Even though I generally like heroines who get shit done, a lot of the choices Lexi made bugged me because they felt so antagonistic and needlessly invited pushback.  And I could have done without the romance, which dragged the story down.  I really am noticing that when I finish a book I'm not excited about, it takes forever for me to pick out my next one, which is counter productive, since what I really need after a less than excellent book, is a great book! Right now I'm in the mood for re-reads though, so we'll see what I manage to find.

A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking

A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking

By T. Kingfisher

Fourteen-year-old Mona isn't like the wizards charged with defending the city. She can't control lightning or speak to water. Her familiar is a sourdough starter and her magic only works on bread. She has a comfortable life in her aunt's bakery making gingerbread men dance.

But Mona's life is turned upside down when she finds a dead body on the bakery floor. An assassin is stalking the streets of Mona's city, preying on magic folk, and it appears that Mona is his next target. And in an embattled city suddenly bereft of wizards, the assassin may be the least of Mona's worries...

 

I enjoyed this - it was a YA-ish/middle readers take on despotic fantasy and a heavy emphasis on baked goods.  I'm in the midst of my next read right now, which is (spoiler alert) crammed full of Atmosphere, but (so far) lacking in Personality, and it's helping me pin down why AWGtDB is so charming.  The story is both dark and light: yes, it does involve murders, and attempted coups and registration of wizard folk for eventual extermination (not to mention battle scenes, and death of friends/companions) but everything is squarely centered around 14 year old Mona, who knows very well that she's too young to have to deal with all this shit, but she hasn't yet become cynical and or angsty about it.  

It's also pretty creative in what you can actually do with bread, and how terrifying an enormous golem who doesn't care if it gets stabbed would be.  It also feels nicely original, or at least not overwhelmingly overdone (bread pun!) although maybe it's because I don't read as much middle-reader as I do YA, so I haven't gotten as much exposure to those tropes.  

It does have a little bit of an uneasy balancing act between younger and more adult themes though, and I'm not sure it's always successful in walking that line.  The book opens with a murder, and Mona is being stalked by the murderer, but it's relatively lighthearted, considering she has to flee her house, hole up in a church, flee guards who are also on the lookout for her after she's accused of treason, and then try and find a way to alert "the people in charge" that wizards are being systematically killed.  In an older book, the people in charge would have been behind the whole thing, but in this one, it's an attempted coup. Again, we get back to that lack of cynicism. It does seem a bit simplistic at times, that all the good people are good (although sometimes ineffectual), and the bad people are bad, with no redeeming qualities.   Is it "realistic"? Maybe, maybe not, but it's nice to visit a world where things get set right in the end. 

Ten Second Reviews

The Worst Best Man

By Mia Sosa

Left-at-the-alter wedding planner Lina is offered an opportunity to join a corporate hotel team that would alleviate her financial and business worries.  But she has to compete for the position - and her partner in the competition is the brother of her ex-fiance.

Man, I hate to be be hard on this one, since it's not that bad, but it also wasn't my jam.  It felt like it had very little substance, even though the set-up is delightfully juicy: left-at-the-altar Lina becomes unwillingly attracted to the brother and best man who convinced her ex to leave? But the book doesn't even stick to that depth, revealing in the final chapters that the brother didn't actually urge the ex to leave Lina, the ex just made it up.  And then the book sort of ends, after detonating that bomb, and I know it's years later, but uh, we're not going to explore what the hell that was all about, I guess.  Ex-fiance is let off the hook with a handwave, even though it makes him an objectively HUGE asshole, and brother is fully redeemed, even though honestly, he didn't need to be.  

Anyway, they meet, they hate, they bang, etc etc, and why does sex in modern romances feel so much more coarse than in historicals? Just me? Anyway, Lina gets the job, happy ever afters for all involved, except me, because this book talks about food and desserts a LOT, and right now I have a really bad sweet tooth except that my doctor just told me I should be eating more APPLES to avoid constipation with all the iron I'm taking. Great.   

 

Why My Cat is More Impressive Than Your Baby

By Matthew Inman (The Oatmeal)

A book of comics from the creator of The Oatmeal, and for a one-time flip through and lighthearted look at cat/dog/baby stereotypes, it was pretty fun.  I though it was amusing, but not worth buying or reading more than once.  It's a lot of " my cat is evil and mysterious but also delightful" and "babies are disgusting" so you know, pretty standard.   My husband, on the other hand, is still raving about it a week later and already bought three copies - one to keep and two to give away, so definitely there's an audience for it! To be fair, he's also particularly enamored of one of the more bodily humor based cartoons, which is not as much my jam.  To each their own!

 

 

The Witch's Heart

The Witch's Heart

By Genevieve Gornichec

Angrboda’s story begins where most witches' tales end: with a burning. A punishment from Odin for refusing to provide him with knowledge of the future, the fire leaves Angrboda injured and powerless, and she flees into the farthest reaches of a remote forest. There she is found by a man who reveals himself to be Loki, and her initial distrust of him transforms into a deep and abiding love.
 
Their union produces three unusual children, each with a secret destiny, who Angrboda is keen to raise at the edge of the world, safely hidden from Odin’s all-seeing eye. But as Angrboda slowly recovers her prophetic powers, she learns that her blissful life—and possibly all of existence—is in danger.
 
With help from the fierce huntress Skadi, with whom she shares a growing bond, Angrboda must choose whether she’ll accept the fate that she’s foreseen for her beloved family...or rise to remake their future. From the most ancient of tales this novel forges a story of love, loss, and hope for the modern age.

I just finished this one (like an hour ago), after reading it all through on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.  It's mostly sort of a character study, I suppose, although the incipient Ragnarok kicks the action up in the second part of the book.  

I had some loose knowledge of the Norse mythology, thanks to Horrible History and various collections of myths and legends, but all of Angrboda's story was unfamiliar to me.  From the bare minimum of research I did in the last five minutes, it looks like Gornichec fleshed out a fairly minor character and gave her an entire, cogent storyline of her own.  I have to say I would never have known it was all pieced together from very little source material.  She did a great job of making a solid, cohesive, and poignant narrative.  Although basically all of it is sad, the book itself wasn't sad - Angrboda's fairly angry and upset at parts, but avoids a lot of moping and it ultimately ends on a  hopeful note - Angrboda's primary goal of saving her daughter being successful in the end. 

Gornichec does a good job of introducing the various characters and defining the various factions, although some of the initial bad feeling between the Aesir and the giants (or why it's taken so long to start the end of the world, if it can be caused by a single fire giant) is glossed over. 

It's also interesting to me - and I don't know if this is more due to the source material or the sex of the author - that of all the violence that is done to Angrboda (and there is a lot), none of it is sexual violence.  I was talking with my mother the other day about a tv show and she was complaining that although it never went as far as sexual violence, it heavily implied the threat, which ruined her experience.  It does seem to me like it's become an easy (read: lazy) shorthand for artists to use when women are in danger.  It's so commonplace now that I almost assume that if a women is threatened, sexual violence is part of the threat.  And that sucks.  So while it seems weird to say about someone who is burned three times and had her heart cut out (and that's just in the first two pages), I appreciate that rape never comes into her storyline.  Not that it's entirely without weird sex stuff.  I mean, she hooks up with Loki, who is at one point a pregnant horse, and has three children, two of whom are a wolf and a snake, respectively. 

Overall, this was well written and engaging, a little bit slow and bittersweet.  It does feel a little fish-lens focused, in the sense that Angrboda is (naturally) the primary character, but everyone around her is a little fuzzy and out of focus, especially the further away they get.  Even Loki, who has maybe the second biggest role in this, suffers a little bit in that we never really do get into why he's so incapable of not getting into trouble. Gornichec is maybe unfairly constrained here because she doesn't have much flexibility over his actions from the original myths, and myths are more about the archetypes than nuance, but it is something to keep in mind - we're not here for Loki, or Skadi or Odin or Ragnarok.  We're here for Angrboda. 

Did I like it? Yes.  Am I passionate about it? Well, not really, and I feel a little guilty about it (can you tell), because it definitely deserves to find some passionate readers, but I did enjoy it and sometimes that's all we need.

The Mystery of the Yellow Room

The Mystery of the Yellow Room

By Gaston Leroux

Reporter and amateur sleuth Joseph Rouletabille is sent to investigate a criminal case at the Château du Glandier and takes along his friend the lawyer Sainclair, who narrates. Mathilde Stangerson, the 30-something daughter of the castle's owner, Professor Joseph Stangerson, was found near-critically battered in a room adjacent to his laboratory on the castle grounds, with the door still locked from the inside. More attempts are made on Ms Stangerson's life despite Rouletabille and police detective Larsan's protection, and the perpetrator appears to vanish on two occasions when they are closing in on him, echoing Professor Stangerson's research into "matter dissociation".

This is supposedly the original "locked room" mystery, and I was intrigued by the premise, but man, it was a bit of a tough go.  First of all, Leroux is the same guy who wrote The Phantom of the Opera, and this was written in a similarly overwrought style.  I've read older books before, and even ones that were a bit more flowery in their style still managed to engage, but this one just made me want to skim everything.  Second, I kept thinking it would be a short, fast read, but every chapter was agonizing.  Third, the solution to the mystery was kind of silly.  Let's get into nitpicks!

Sooooo, the lady was attacked earlier that day, but (for various reasons) did not want to tell anyone, and managed to go about her business for a couple of hours until bedtime, when she suddenly has a nightmare, trips and falls out of bed, hitting her head on her nightstand, and then becomes insensate and hospitalized? Why didn't she just tell people it was a nightmare? I mean, sure, the bloody handprint, but she could have just said she had no idea how that got there.  

Then we find out that the master detective is actually the attacker and a huge fraud, so, his plan after his wife leaves him and he escapes jail is to... go to France and pretend to be a detective for at least five years, and then wait around for his wife to decide to marry someone else, at which point... he attacks her and then gets himself assigned to the case so he can frame her new lover for the crime? Great long term thinking there!  I did correctly guess the attacker was a previous (and jealous) lover of the lady, but apparently this guy has just been hanging around town for years, literally solving crimes, and he couldn't be bothered to track her down? And if he wasn't hanging around for years solving crimes, how on earth did he join the detective force in time to "investigate" this one?? For that matter, why on earth was he pretending to be a detective in the first place? So he can make a steady living, while also framing people for crimes they didn't commit? Seems kind of petty for a master criminal. 

And meanwhile her new lover is arrested because he's being conned away by an associate of the husband, each time she's attacked - you'd think after the first time he'd wise up and stop letting that happen.  Instead, she's attacked like, three times!  And each time, this guy has no alibi! 

Maybe I'm just bitter that I didn't figure out that Larsan was the criminal.  In my defense, (a) I think it's ridiculous that a master criminal worked his way up through the Paris detective ranks and just did that for years and (b) my copy of the book was on an e-reader, so the "detailed plans" of the various crime scene layouts was just a jumble of lines and labels, and (b, part 2) Rouletabille is so obtuse in his manner of talking that I couldn't figure out what the eff was going on. You could have set that scene to "Yakety Sax" for all I knew.  

There's also a lot of misdirection about the landskeeper, and every other servant is called "Daddy" something (not a joke) so I wasn't even entirely sure who was who, but we'll call that sour grapes and  chalk it up to my not caring enough to read carefully or attentively.  Good for the completist, but otherwise I prefer my other mysteries.

Shipped

Shipped

By Angie Hockman

Between taking night classes for her MBA and her demanding day job at a cruise line, marketing manager Henley Evans barely has time for herself, let alone family, friends, or dating. But when she’s shortlisted for the promotion of her dreams, all her sacrifices finally seem worth it.

The only problem? Graeme Crawford-Collins, the remote social media manager and the bane of her existence, is also up for the position. Although they’ve never met in person, their epic email battles are the stuff of office legend.

Their boss tasks each of them with drafting a proposal on how to boost bookings in the Galápagos—best proposal wins the promotion. There’s just one catch: they have to go on a company cruise to the Galápagos Islands...together. But when the two meet on the ship, Henley is shocked to discover that the real Graeme is nothing like she imagined. As they explore the Islands together, she soon finds the line between loathing and liking thinner than a postcard.

With her career dreams in her sights and a growing attraction to the competition, Henley begins questioning her life choices. Because what’s the point of working all the time if you never actually live?

 

This is another of those workplace rom-coms where the prospective couple is vying for the same job, which always makes me a little nervous - there's gonna be some tricky maneuvering to make sure everyone gets their happy ending, and I didn't love that part of The Hating Game.  But I was persuaded because of the strong focus on the Galapagos, which was definitely the best part of the book.  

I liked it well enough, and it was a super fast read, so I finished the whole book one night after dinner, but  I never went back to re-read any parts, you know? It was cute, and amusing, but light.  Also, no explicit sex scenes, if you're curious.  Implicit!  

We get the entire book from Henley's perspective, which is for the best, since she comes off as more the "wronger" than the "wronged" in the initial (and subsequent) interactions with Graeme, especially once we get his side of the story.  From his perspective, I'm not entirely sure what her attraction would be.  

And I know that the whole plot of the book is about two people vying for the same job, but all that stuff with her boss and the big denouement was, eh, not that fun.  The cruise trip was much more entertaining, and I wish we'd had a week longer of that, and less time back at the office at the end.  Plus, three different men have taken credit for her projects in her work career? That's... majestically unlucky.  I also thought her and her sister's relationship was a little bit off.  She loves her, but thinks she's a failure, sure, okay, I'm on board, but then this whole plan of her sister's to get Graeme too distracted for the competition is just blown off like it's just another day in the Evans household and all is quickly forgiven.  And then we come out into a hard left when we find out her sister is being abused.  Jeez, it just kept getting weirder and weirder.  And a little 27 Dresses of it all.  

Anyway, it's fun, breezy, and light, and don't think too hard about it and you'll have a good time! And also desire to book a cruise asap.