So, Gideon is a trained warrior and orphan in the House of the Ninth on a resurrected planet in a resurrected galaxy and she just wants to get out and join the army. You know, do something with her life instead of finding herself wasting away on a planet full of people who don’t care about her. But then her plan goes to hell and she ends up having to be the swordswoman to her childhood nemesis, the necromancer Harrowhark Nonagesimus. Harrow, and the heads of all other houses, have been invited by the emperor to undergo trials and join him. If Harrow can beat the trials, she becomes immortal and can join the emperor. Gideon isn’t keen on this, but she’s promised her freedom if she helps.
This book was so freaking enjoyable. I couldn’t put it down. I had so many questions that I had to keep listening in hopes of finding out answers. Gideon is delightful. She’s smart and funny and just a wonderful character. I was so into it.
I’m glad so many people recommended this and I can’t believe I waited so long to pick it up!
Y’all, this book is so cute. I absolutely loved it. Chloe Brown decides she needs to get a life and become the badass adventurous woman she was meant to be. So, she makes a list of things she needs to do in order to achieve this goal. The first thing on the list is move out of the family home and into her own place. Which of course she does and that’s where she meets Redford Morgan, the building manager/artist/beauty/lovely guy. But, Chloe has fibromyalgia and on high pain days, she has a short fuse and, of course, that is always when she runs face first into Red.
Red is an artist and used to be out there, showing his work, and making waves. But he’s been hiding for a bit after a bad breakup back in his hometown working for a friend. He paints at night and he wonders if he’ll ever feel ready to get his work back out into the world.
I loved both the main characters in this. They both had really great individual arcs and their romance was heart warming and also hot. This is a 2 chili pepper book. I bombed my way through this while it snowed outside. The audio book is read by Adjoa Andoh, who really brought the text to life.
So, if you like novels that involve personal growth and heartwarming and a little spicy romance, give this a try.
This book was so funny. I listened to the audible ebook narrated by Wil Wheaton and it’s just perfection. Charlie has had a string of bad luck. He was laid off from his journalist job and now working as a substitute teacher. He’s divorced and his father just recently died. He is living in his families home that his siblings want to sell. Things are not great. Then his estranged Uncle died and he’s thrown in the world of villains. He founds out that his Uncle may have had a legit business of owner parking lots but his real business was being a villain and messing up the plans of other villains. Charlie is now a head of his Uncle’s business and with cat spies and talking dolphins. He’s a bit over his head. Even more so when a group of other villains want him to join their group or he’ll lose everything.
This is book is ridiculous in all the best ways. His cats Hera and Persephone are spies that were sent to watch him and can communicate with specialize keyboards. The dolphins that guard his Uncle’s volcano island lair want to unionize. Charlie is funny and grounded. He takes everything with an awe and WTF reaction that is appropriate in situations like this. While everyone underestimates him, he outwits all of them with his knowledge and journalistic experience to dismantle his rivals in one fell swoop. To say this book was enjoyable that I was so sad when it was over and there isn’t a sequel. I forgot what it’s like to read a standalone book. Go read the book or listen to the Audible. You will not be disappointed.
I don’t remember adding this to my waiting-list-queue this summer and I didn’t remember what it was about when I checked it out from the library. But, I really enjoyed it so, good job, Past Kate on book selection!
Casey Fletcher is a character actor with two famous parents, a recently deceased husband, and a life made for tabloid fodder. Following an incident where she’s caught toasting the paparazzi with a double manhattan and getting fired from the play she is in, her mother banishes her to the family vacation home on Lake Green in Vermont. This is the worst place for her to be banished to alone as it is where her beloved husband was found dead a little more than a year before. One morning after arriving, she notices something in the lake and realizes she’s seeing someone drown. She rescues former supermodel/current philanthropist Katherine Royce. Katherine and her husband tech bro husband Tom have recently bought the house across the lake. Everything gets weirder and spookier from there.
This novel was part Rear Window, part ghost story, and part murder mystery in the best way. There were mysteries to solve and unexpected twists. This was a really entertaining novel. If you like unreliable narrators, not being sure whose side you should be on, and satisfying twists, I’d say give this a go.
I’ll admit I was curious of what Cassandra Clare could do outside her Shadowhunter series. Sword Catcher is a good book. It actually is better than her last couple of Shadowhunter books. I think it was good for her to explore a different kind of world. This is a high fantasy that is set in the kingdom of Castellane and is narrated by Kel, the Sword Catcher or the body to the Prince and Lin, a physician outcast. An outcast because not only she a woman in a man’s field but she’s an Ashkar, who can’t live in the city but only in the Sault. Kel was an orphan who looks enough like the Prince that with a talisman he can look just like the Prince and stand for him if needs to. Kel was raised in the Palace, among the courtiers and wealthy but will never be one himself. Both Kel and Lin are outsiders to this world but they collide when he is stabbed and left for dead. Now they are caught up in the political intrigue that neither knows what to do with it.
Now, it wasn’t the best book I’ve read but it was definitely entertaining. I really liked both of Kel and Lin’s voices as they navigated a world that needs them but doesn’t necessarily want them. This was a good set up novel. I am not sure how many books are in the series but it was a good introduction to the world. People and the upcoming trouble to come. It still leaves a lot to explore, like what is the madness the king suffers from? Is Lin really the returned Goddess to bring magic back to world? All and all a good start.
This was so good I can’t believe it’s taken me almost a whole month to write this review.
Kara moves home to her uncle’s to help him run his Mystery Museum while he recovers from surgery and she decides what her life looks like post-divorce. One day in the museum, a customer tells her there’s a hole in a wall. She goes to investigate and discovers a mysterious hallway that could not actually be there. It physically makes no sense. She discovers the hole is a portal to other realities and meets ravenous creatures who appear to hear thoughts.
This novel was consuming. It was scary and thrilling and I needed to know what happened next. I liked the main characters and the relationships in the book and I devoured it in a day. Absolutely worth the read.
Man, I really let the team down on reviews this year. It wasn’t that I wasn’t reading. It was that I felt like I forgot I’d read something two seconds after I read it. But that’s also not true, because I definitely had favorites this year that I still think about. Anyway, it’s been a busy, distracted year but here are 5 things I read and loved.
1. Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute by Talia Hibbert
This book was so great. The leads are high school students trying their best to secure a prestigious scholarship through a leadership program that involves being outdoors and being self-reliant. The characters were so likable that I just wanted them to succeed and I love it when I get to cheer characters on. The plot complications were good, the romance was good, the resolution was lovely.
2. Lone Women by Victor Lavalle
Set in the beginning of the Nineteen hundreds, the main character leaves her home in tragic circumstances and buys a claim in Montana. She’s hoping to disappear and settle someplace out in the wilderness where no one will ever discover her family’s terrible secret. You know what happens next, right? The story was compelling and I couldn’t put it down. There’s mystery, there’s sisterhood, there’s adventure, what more could you want in a book?
3. What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher
This novel is a retelling of the Fall of the House of Usher. The main character Alex Easton rushes to the Usher home when they hear a childhood friend has fallen ill and is dying. The tale spirals out from there. It is creepy and Alex Easton is an excellent narrator. I loved every stinking minute of this novel.
4. Halo-halo and Homicide by Mia P. Manansala
This is the second book in a series and I also read and loved the first book this year. The main character Lila is settling in to life back home. She returned in the first novel following a break up and now she’s decided to stay. These are cozy mysteries and they are great. There is enough intrigue to keep you interested and wanting to know more but nothing gory that might keep you up at night. Oh, and Lila is a pastry chef and is constantly putting a Filipino-American spin on classics and everything sounds so good. Mia P. Manansala has recipes from the novels on her website which is wonderful. I made her Lila’s ube crinkles and they were a hit at three different functions.
5. The Undertow by Jeff Sharlet
Part travelogue/messy reckoning with the fractured political landscape in post-2020 America, this book of essays follows a cross-country journey Sharlet took starting in the hometown of Ashli Babbitt, who was killed on January 6th at rhetorical Capitol. This was an interesting meditation on perspective, distrust, and social division. It left me with questions In still considering.
Man, I really let the team down on reviews this year. It wasn’t that I wasn’t reading. It was that I felt like I forgot I’d read something two seconds after I read it. But that’s also not true, because I definitely had favorites this year that I still think about. Anyway, it’s been a busy, distracted year but here are 5 things I read and loved.
1. Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute by Talia Hibbert
This book was so great. The leads are high school students trying their best to secure a prestigious scholarship through a leadership program that involves being outdoors and being self-reliant. The characters were so likable that I just wanted them to succeed and I love it when I get to cheer characters on. The plot complications were good, the romance was good, the resolution was lovely.
2. Lone Women by Victor Lavalle
Set in the beginning of the Nineteen hundreds, the main character leaves her home in tragic circumstances and buys a claim in Montana. She’s hoping to disappear and settle someplace out in the wilderness where no one will ever discover her family’s terrible secret. You know what happens next, right? The story was compelling and I couldn’t put it down. There’s mystery, there’s sisterhood, there’s adventure, what more could you want in a book?
3. What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher
This novel is a retelling of the Fall of the House of Usher. The main character Alex Easton rushes to the Usher home when they hear a childhood friend has fallen ill and is dying. The tale spirals out from there. It is creepy and Alex Easton is an excellent narrator. I loved every stinking minute of this novel.
4. Halo-halo and Homicide by Mia P. Manansala
This is the second book in a series and I also read and loved the first book this year. The main character Lila is settling in to life back home. She returned in the first novel following a break up and now she’s decided to stay. These are cozy mysteries and they are great. There is enough intrigue to keep you interested and wanting to know more but nothing gory that might keep you up at night. Oh, and Lila is a pastry chef and is constantly putting a Filipino-American spin on classics and everything sounds so good. Mia P. Manansala has recipes from the novels on her website which is wonderful. I made her Lila’s ube crinkles and they were a hit at three different functions.
5. The Undertow by Jeff Sharlet
Part travelogue/messy reckoning with the fractured political landscape in post-2020 America, this book of essays follows a cross-country journey Sharlet took starting in the hometown of Ashli Babbitt, who was killed on January 6th at rhetorical Capitol. This was an interesting meditation on perspective, distrust, and social division. It left me with questions In still considering.
I thought at the end of The Final Gambit that this series wrapped up nicely. I didn’t know what else needed to be said. True, Avery’s journey was wrapped up nicely. She made it a year, inherited the Hawthorne fortune and figured out what she was going to do with that vast wealth. However, Grayson and Jameson’s stories has some work to do. True their relationship with each other have improved. They both still have some major daddy and granddaddy issues to work out. Both of them get intertwined with their father’s families. Jameson’s father shows up out of the blue and wants him to infiltrate a secret club to play a game to reclaim his ancestor’s home. Grayson, who’s father kidnapped Avery and died in the last book has been keeping tabs on his half sisters. He jumps into action when his sister Gigi gets arrested. At first, I wasn’t really all that interested in Grayson and Jameson’s troubles and wondered why that it was necessary but as it went along I started to go with it. Grayson’s sisters Gigi and Savannah are a welcome addition to the story and it’s good to see Grayson have a family that he always wanted whether he admits it or not. Jameson, to be honest, my least favorite of the Hawthorne’s and was a bit bummed that he ended up in Avery but there were moments, I really felt for him. The emotional abuse inflicted on all his brothers by their grandfather is tragic. I do think that Jameson ended in a better place at the end then Grayson did but guess what there is going to be more books. The journey of the Hawthorne brothers continue as Avery is creating a new game for anyone can play and change their fortunes. I do hope that Xander plays more of role in the next book.
It’s that time of the year! Where we look back at all of the books we read this year and pick our favorites. These are my favorite books of 2023. They are in no particular order but in order that I read them.
The Dangerous Damsels series by India Holton – The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels, The League of Gentlewoman Witches and The Secret Service of Tea and Treason were such a fun trilogy of books I loved all the prim and proper pirates and witches and their flying houses. It has the perfect mix of romance, hijinks and adventure.
The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty – Keeping with the pirate theme. The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi is such a fun story of piracy, adventure and magic. Unlike most books where the protagonist is young and just starting out, Amina is in her 40’s and well established. She has to come out of retirement for this adventure and not only have battle the present but the past. So much fun.
Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros – This was the book of the year. I don’t remember the last time that people were excited about the release of a book. The sequel, Iron Flame got the full Midnight release party treatment. Violet has a chronic illness that makes her a poor candidate to be a dragon rider but she’s forced to join by her mom. In a mixture of Hunger Games and Harry Potter. Violet will become a rider if only she can survive, which in this school is not a given. Did I mention there are dragons?
Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade – Spoiler Alert and it’s sequel All the Feels are delightful. This is such a nerd romance. It’s mixture of romance, fandoms and fan fics is irresistible. Who doesn’t dream of meeting a handsome actor and falling in love? Marcus and April are the perfect couple. It’s also so great to have a plus size romantic lead. To often we are forgotten about so it’s great to finally get the guy at the end.
The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood – This was another TikTok find. I am a sucker for enemies to lover trope and I guess also the relationship of convenience trope. It was was such a fun read and I was invested from the beginning. I can’t wait to read more from Ali Hazelwood.
Those were mine. I want to hear what books you loved this year! Maybe they will be mine in 2024!
2 Women, So Many Books 