What I’m Listening to Now: Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert
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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.
What I’m Listening to now: The House Across the Lake by Riley Sager
What I’m Listening to Now: Starter Villain by John Scalzl
I’m still reading The Spy and I but I saw this on Audible. It’s narrated by WIl Wheaton and so far it’s delightful.
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: The Spy and I by Tiana Smith
I got this as an ARC from work. Let’s just say, It had me at ” She’s code-blooded”
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.
What I’m Listening to Now: The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher
Let’s start this year off on the right foot with a new book
2 Women, So Many Books 