Review: Starter Villain by John Scalzi

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.

Quick Review: The House Across the Lake by Riley Sager

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.

Review: Sword Catcher by Cassandra Clare

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.

Quick Review: The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher

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.

Stuck

Since last summer, I have been having trouble starting things. This happened with books. It happened with music. It happened with TV shows. I ended up rewatching and relistening to the same things. My spotify wrapped podcast list is a monument to the harrowing amount of minutes of true crime and politics adjacent series’ with back catalogues I binged in the back half of the year.

I was hoping, when I started the new year by completing a book in a day that things were turning around. But since then, I’ve checked three things out of the library that expired before I made progress in them.

When the last of them expired, I looked at my waiting list queue and I made a decision. I’m only going to check out one thing at a time and I’m going to try and make a habit of listening to audiobooks when I cook. So, we’ll see if that is any help to getting me out of this slump.

What I’m Reading Now: Sword Catcher by Cassandra Clare

New Year New Books. With that in mind I have set my Goodreads reading challenge to 20 books. I read 35 last year but I do most of my reading on my commute to work but since I work more from home lately I don’t think I’ll be doing as much reading this year. I wasn’t sure if I was going to read this one from Cassandra Clare but it was on sale. It’s the first in a new series not based in the Shadowhunter world so I guess I’ll give it a go.