Reading Room

January

• The Door into Fire (Diane Duane) - First book in The Tale of the Five series. A sorceror has power but can't use it, a prince lost his throne and is seeking to regain it and a fire elemental is intrigued enough by humans to not only want to travel with them but learn what it is to love.
• The Door into Shadow (Diane Duane) - Second book in the Tale of the Five series. Freelorn still seeks his throne, Herewiss has learned how to use his power and we meet Segnbora who has a past trauma in her life preventing her from accessing her Fire. Also, dragons. This book has a pretty graphic rape scene which was put in there as part of a character's development and the way it was worked - I just didn't feel right about. Other than that, the book was enjoyable.
• The Door into Sunset (Diane Duane) - A kingdom regained, an evil power vanquished, a land restored. This is the third book in the Tale of Five series.

February

• Bunny (Mona Awad) - My son recommended this book to me. It was fucking weird. I also didn't get it and had to look up what the deal was with the main character. If you're ok with body horror, give it a whirl.
• Death on the Tiber (Lindsey Davis) - This is book 12 in the Flavia Albia ancient Rome mystery series.
• Year of the Hyenas (Brad Geagley) - Murder mystery set during the time of Ramses III. Excellent mystery, featuring a detective who has problems of his own but pulls it together to uncover a conspiracy.
• Day of the False King (Brad Geagley) - This novel follows up on events in the Year of the Hyena. This time instead of ancient Egypt, we are in ancient Babylon. Another excellent novel. The ending could have allowed for a third novel but the author hasn't written any more novels in this setting.
• The Reluctant Widow (Georgette Heyer) - The queen of regency romances writes about a woman who is a bride at midnight and a widow at dawn. Follow the most unlikely adventures of lady from a good family that has fallen on hard times.
• The Corinthian (Georgette Heyer) - Before he can agree to marry the woman his family wants him to but who he has no interest in, Sir Richard Wyndham becomes caught up in the travails of an orphaned heiress who is being pressured to marry a man she has no interest in.
• The Restaurant of Lost Recipes (Hisashi Kashiwai) - This is the second book in the Kamogawa Food Detectives series. Follow along with Chef Nagare and his daughter Koishi as they attempt to recreate recipes from their clients' pasts.
• DNF The Harper's Quine (Pat McIntosh) - Medieval mystery set in 15th centry Scotland which I just could not get into. Gave up on it when young unmarried servant girls are portrayed as having their hair loose and flowing under their caps. Maybe I'm too much under the influence of the ladies over at Frock Flicks but this was just too much for me. If you're going to write a historical book, do a little research!

March

• Forever Amber (Kathleen Winsor) - Historical romance published in the 1940s about an orphaned girl who gradually sleeps and marries her way up 17th century society. The setting and details are gorgeous. I thought the main character was annoying as hell because she never seemed to grow out of that 16 year old mindset. But also, she was always true to herself and had absolutely no pretentions as to who she was which is kind of an admirable thing.
• The Keeper of Lost Things (Ruth Hogan) - I loved this sweet story about lost people and lost things finding each other. One of the reviews said it had House in the Cerulean Sea vibes and I can see that.
• Washington's Spies (Alexander Rose) - Historical book about Washington's Culper spy ring. Well written and very engaging, not at all a dry history book.
• A Sorceress Comes to Call (T. Kingfisher) - Another wonderful book by Kingfisher, this is about a girl and how she fights to free herself from her domineering sorceress mother and save an innocent family from being her next victims.
• Pangur Ban the White Cat (Fay Sampson) - If you know about Pangur Ban, you might remember that he keeps a monk company. But what happens when the cat does cat things and ends up spilling ink all over an illuminated chronicle the monk had been working on for years, completely ruining it? Nothing good. This book, allegorically, has Narnia vibes. First in the series.

April

• The Chilbury Ladies Choir (Jennifer Ryan) - Cozy book set in 1940s England. The women of the village form a choir. You follow many of the villagers through various storylines. The driest of descriptions for a truly lovely book!
• DNF Veil of Lies (Jeri Westerson) - Another medieval mystery that just didn't do it for me. The premise was interesting - a nobleman accused of murder had his life saved but at the cost of his lands and title. Now he makes his living as an investigator. I can't put my finger on why this didn't work for me because I usually like medieval mysteries! This is the first in a series so I don't think it was bad writing. It was me, not the book.

May

• The Wedding Dress Circle (Jennifer Ryan) - Another sweet cozy book set in a rural English village during the 1940s. The women of the village try to manage clothing rationing by having a sewing circle. They end up specializing in wedding dresses. During the war, silk was rationed so women either had to remake an old dress or just get married in their best dress, instead of a dedicated wedding dress. This is another book following several storylines in the village and there is a sweet happily ever after ending.
• Murder Past Due (Miranda James) - One of the people I follow on Bluesky read this and gave it a good review. It was a perfectly fine mystery. I've read lots of cat mysteries and in some of them the cats talk and do their own sleuthing (as in the Midnight Louie mysteries) and in others they are just cats. This was one of the latter. Diesel, the Maine Coon, and his librarian owner have to figure out who killed a famous author and why. This is the first in a series - not sure I'll follow up with it on purpose but if I'm ever stuck for something to read, I might check out more of this series.
• Crocodile on the Sandbank (Elizabeth Peters) - First in a very long mystery series, set in the mid 1880s. I read a lot of this series decades ago (the book was published in 1975) but I never finished it and always wanted to get back to it someday. In this first novel we meet Amelia Peabody who has become used to the idea of being a spinster. She's a no-nonsense, well educated epitome of a Victorian woman who is armed with a deadly parasol and accepts nonsense from no one. In this first book she meets two people in particular - a woman who becomes a life-long friend and a man who accepts her for who she is. She also develops a love for Egyptology. Humorous but not farcical, this was as fun a read as I remember it being.
• The Curse of the Pharaohs (Elizabeth Peters) - The second book in the Amelia Peabody mystery series. It's been 4 years since the last book and Amelia and her husband Emerson are at home in England with their 4 year old son when another mysterious event beckons them back to Egypt. You know what you're going to get with these books and this one was as fun as the first.
• The Icarus Hunt (Timothy Zahn) - This space opera features a smuggler captain and his alien sidekick who take on a job with a motely crew on a ship that's not all that it seems. Fun book! It's the first in a series and I quite enjoyed it. I will be following up with the rest of the series.

June

• Crystal Rain (Tobias Buckell) - Carribbean steam punk with Aztec gods on another world. I was a little lost at first because the book just dropped you in the middle of the story and it's only as it goes on that you find out the background. I thought the setting was pretty interesting and liked it enough to want to check out the other 2 books in the series.
• The Mummy Case (Elizabeth Peters) - Third book in the Amelia Peabody series. Amelia, her husband Emerson and their extremely precocious 8 year old son, Ramses, are once again solving mysteries in Egypt.
• The Lion in the Valley (Elizabeth Peters) - Fourth book in the Amelia Peabody series.
• DNF I Haven't Been Entirely Honest With You (Miranda Hart) - I like Miranda Hart as a comedic actor and I thought this was going to be a humorous autobiography. Instead it's more of a self-help book where she gives details on how she coped with a long-undiagnosed chronic illness. It was humorous, just not quite what I was expecting.

July

• Deeds of the Destroyer (Elizabeth Peters) - Fifth book in the Amelia Peabody series.
• The Life of Nuns (Henrike Lähnemann and Eva Schlotheuber) - The authors describe the lives of German nuns in the 15th and 16th century. Their source material is primarily a diary kept by one of the nuns, who never named herself. The diary ended mid-sentence during an episode of plague. Surprisngly interesting, the book details the types of women who entered the convent, what their daily lives were like both internally within the convent and externally, dealing with the townspeople. The nuns could be surprisingly feisty! The book is available for free download here.
• Terrible Lizards (ed. by Kyle J. Durrant) - an anthology of some truly middling dinosaur horror with just a few good outlier stories.
• The Adventure of the Demonic Ox (Lois McMaster Bujold) - Another installment in the Penric and Desdemona series. This one was a novella so delightful as usual but too short!
• A Short Stay in Hell (Steven L. Peck) - Not the type of story I usually go for but it came recommended. Psychological horror novella about a man waking up to find himself in a Hell that didn't even belong to his religion. He's in this hell because apparently there is only one true religion and his wasn't it. He's condemned to roam an endless library, looking for a book that perfectly describes his life.
• Mirror, Mirror (Gregory Maguire) - Retelling of Snow White set in 16th century Italy with Lucrezia Borgia as the Wicked Stepmother.

August

• The Last Camel Died at Noon (Elizabeth Peters) - Sixth book in the Amelia Peabody series. It's set in 1897-8, starts in Egypt and moves down to Sudan. The Emersons find a hidden lost civilization, are taken prisoner and have to rescue themselves. The style of this novel seems to be an homage to the novels of Henry Rider Haggard, a Victorian English adventure story writer.
• Stories to Tell (Richard Marx) - Autobiography from singer/songwriter Richard Marx. Breezy tone, lots of interesting stories, nice summer read. I always knew him as a singer, I didn't realize he was such a prolific songwriter.
• The Last Murder at the End of the World (Stuart Turton) - Science fiction/mystery about a post-apocalyptic group of people on an island surrounded by deadly fog. One of the scientists responsible for maintaining the devices that prevent the fog from engulfing the island is found murdered. The islanders have 72 hours to find out who the killer is. Oh, and everyone has lost their memory of that night.