This engaging little science book for early readers is a gem. My thanks go to Net Galley and Sourcebooks Landmark for the review copy. This book will be available to the public April 2, 2024.
The title is the content in a nutshell. One page has a large, sometimes whole page photograph, but we don’t know what animal it belongs to, or what end we’re looking at. These are cleverly chosen and stumped me about half the time. When I set it down, my spouse picked it up, began leafing through it, and I heard him say, “What? You’re kidding!”
There is no real story here. You open the book, and you leap right in. Picture, then the solution, right down the line. Whereas I like a bit of scaffolding and accompanying narrative myself, I also know that there are children that will prefer this book exactly the way that it’s written. Children in early elementary school that are in the stage of development in which they find potty jokes gut-bustingly funny will absolutely adore it.
I was previously unfamiliar with Lavelle’s work, and hadn’t seen the first in the series, but after perusing this one, I knew my grandsons had to have it, and since this one won’t be out till spring, I bought the first volume of Butt or Face for the second grader’s Christmas gift. That’s a strong endorsement.
“I’m telling you, Finlay, this book is good. This whole SERIES is good. The plots may be a little far-fetched, but these characters are so real! It’s like they just jump off the page!“
Finlay Donovan Rolls the Dice is the fourth in the raucously entertaining series by Elle Cosimano. My thanks go to the Minotaur and St. Martin’s Press Influencer Program and NetGalley for the review copy. It will be available to the public Tuesday, March 5, 2024.
At the end of the previous book, Javi, Finn’s nanny Vero’s boyfriend, was abducted by mobsters that wanted to collect a gambling debt incurred by Vero. In this one, the two women plan to travel to Atlantic City to rescue him, with the cover story of needing time to unwind. However, things snowball, and before you know it, almost all the people they hold dear—and a few people that they don’t—are headed there, too. What follows is a riotous adventure with a lot of moving pieces. I love it.
More than any other, this installment has been controversial among reviewers. In the series debut, Finlay is an innocent, entirely law abiding single mother strapped with bills, work, and child care issues. She’s in the midst of a contentious divorce and her soon-to-be ex is an attorney, which makes Finlay’s efforts an uphill battle. She’s easy to relate to, and when, through no fault of her own, she finds herself with a corpse in her car, it seems entirely believable.
With the second and third books in the series, Finn, accompanied by the more street smart Vero, find themselves in deeper trouble. Just as they mop up one mess, another arises, until there’s a sort of house-that-Jack-built tower of problems that see both women in increasingly tenuous circumstances. They break the law once as a life or death matter, but then cannot safely come clean, so they do their best to put it behind them, but someone or something comes along to threaten the modest safety and security they’ve begun to enjoy. Bodies and crimes pile up, and now, with the fourth installment, the author can’t reasonably convince the reader that whatever happens next is purely an oopsie. Instead, she has to draw on other possibilities. Personally, I like it.
Finn and Vero are chasing down the underworld figures that they believe have abducted Javi, and there’s considerable risk involved. A couple of times I literally draw in my breath at the risks they take. Add to this the need to fabricate excuses to tell the myriad members of the retinue that have descended on Atlantic City with them, and it’s an ambitious undertaking.
In this circumstance, I no longer require realism. The whole thing takes on the flavor of a comic caper, what with the clown car full of women, including Finn’s mother; Finn’s ex-husband, who is in charge of the children; and various others (I am being deliberately vague here) that descend on them once they arrive. To put it another way, if Stephanie Plum and John Dortmunder—or if you prefer, Bernie Rhodenbarr—had a baby, she might be Finlay Donovan.
If you need a good laugh, this book is for you; however, with this series, you really should begin with the first in the series, Finlay Donovan is Killing It. With just four in the series (and the audio is outstanding, too,) this will be a quick and hilarious adventure. What are you waiting for? Jump on in.
I’m not going to write a full review for this one; my spouse got it for me for Christmas, so I don’t owe anyone anything. I will tell you, though, that it’s just what I needed, funny, warm, and of course, not even close to realistic. After all, it’s fantasy. The level of unreality is well crafted and consistent within the narrative, and it’s hugely inventive. This is my first John Scalzi novel, and I will read him again in a heartbeat.
By now the word is out about this genre-bending novel. North Woods, by Daniel Mason, is nothing short of brilliant. My thanks go to NetGalley and Random House for the invitation to read and review; this book is available to the public now.
This book is all about the setting; there are some terrific characters, but don’t get too attached to any of them, because for the most part, they come and then leave. Rather, our story is about a cabin in the woods of upstate New York, and the acreage surrounding it, and how its use changes over the years.
We commence before the American Revolution, and so in the beginning, the narrative has the style of a very old diary, with antiquated spelling and language. This section is the reason I am so dreadfully late reading and reviewing this book. Honestly, the first fifteen percent or so is as dull as watching paint dry. I would begin reading it, but then my eyes would glaze over and I knew I had some other things to read by authors I knew and loved, and so I would switch books. But my Goodreads friends were raving about this book in unusually large numbers. Nobody didn’t like it. And so I summoned my self-discipline and went to it in a determined fashion, fortified by the audio version, which I received from Seattle Bibliocommons. This was very helpful. And once I got past that dry beginning, I began to understand why other readers were raving about it.
The first characters that are noteworthy are twin daughters named Alice and Mary, who are left to run the apple orchards on their own when their father goes off to war. He is a Loyalist, determined to save New England for his king. He doesn’t survive the war, which is just as well, because the locals hate him; he chose the wrong side to fight for. Neither daughter marries, and the property eventually goes to someone else.
The chain of owners is varied and, in many regards, absolutely hilarious. We see one new owner after another explore the house and the grounds, and of course, none of them has a full picture of the previous owner. I love the fact that I know more about this place than its most recent purchaser, and the assumptions that they make range from the merely incorrect to the disastrous. I cannot say too much more, although I particularly enjoy the character of George, whose phlegmatic, unattractive qualities are rendered uproarious in the audio version, and also the medium, a complete charlatan who’s horrified when she inadvertently awakens some actual supernatural beings. I would love to say more, but that would ruin it for you, and that would be a crime because surprise is an important part of the book’s success.
There is a formidable cast of actors that take on the reading for the audio book, and for those readers that are on the fence between audio and print, I recommend the audio version; better still, use both together.
After reading this one clever, memorable book, I will be watching to see what Daniel Mason writes next, because whatever it is, you know it will be good.
Highly recommended to those that enjoy historical fiction, literary fiction, humor, and horror.
System Collapse is the seventh book in Martha Wells’s acclaimed Murderbot Diaries series, and it’s a humdinger. Fans have been waiting for this one, and they will not be disappointed. My thanks go to NetGalley and Tor Publishing for the review copy. This book is for sale now.
If you are one such fan, I’ve already told you what you need to know; for the uninitiated, I’ll continue. I am a reluctant science fiction reader. I generally avoid anything that involves complex world building or a new vocabulary extensive enough to require a glossary. I absolutely don’t read science fiction series anymore, because I am not that dedicated. As we age, our brains become less flexible, and so whereas I loved reading a handful of excellent but rather intricate series when I was thirty, I’m just not up for it in my retirement years. I include this information because I know that a good number of my readers are also at or near retirement age, and may be similarly reluctant. So, first: you can do this, and it will be painless.
I was finally persuaded to try this series—not for review, merely as an audiobook from the library, which is about as low risk as it gets—when readers from a number of unrelated places in my life all recommended it. I saw good things from a couple of my Goodreads friends online. How nice, I thought, but I’ll pass. Next came my children, my eldest and my youngest, both grown, of course. Their rabid enthusiasm cracked my resolve a tiny bit, but I thought, maybe later. The final straw came when a couple of lifelong friends came to visit from out of state last spring. They were embarking on a road trip around the Pacific Northwestern USA, concluding their stay here in Seattle, and they, too, were wildly enthusiastic—and one of them doesn’t read for pleasure much at all! They listened to the audiobooks of the entire series up through the sixth, which is what was available at the time, and heartily recommended it.
Well, I thought. I could check the library. I could probably listen to the first one while watering the plants, and if I don’t like it, I’ll just send it on back. But of course, I didn’t send it back; I checked out the rest of the series, and friend, if you have to stand around for thirty or forty minutes daily with a hose in your hand, this is the way to do it.
The Murderbot is a being that is part machine, part human, and the term for this within the fictional world it inhabits is “sec unit,” because it has been invented for the security of the human beings inside the various spacecraft that are flying around out there, and also partly for the security of the ship also; but as we learn, the ship can sometimes take care of itself.
“Murderbot” is the specific name that our protagonist has chosen. And the main character is indeed about ninety percent of what’s important here. We don’t need a host of invented words. There are a bazillion other characters, and no effort is made to introduce them to us gradually, but it doesn’t matter. Just let it flow over you and at some point, the most important characters will click in.
This seventh installment in the series is the first time that I have read it with my eyes. I wasn’t sure how this would go, since voice actor Kevin R. Free is so adept at reading the series that I had begun to equate his voice with the character; I needn’t have worried. In fact, I find that I prefer reading it this way, because the internal monologue is immense, and it’s much easier to tell when the character’s ruminations have ended and the action resumes when I can see the (many, many) parentheses. Also, the humor here is often sly, and when listening to the story, I don’t get a pause that provides me with time to consider what’s been said; we’re off and running, and if I don’t want to miss anything, I have to forget all about that little witticism and move forward. Reading by sight allows some reflection.
The series is drop dead funny, and it is also timely, as AI makes more inroads toward humanity of its own, raising all sorts of ethical questions for the future.
For any fans of the series that are still reading, despite having been dismissed at the start of this review: my favorite character, apart from the protagonist, is Art, the ship that is also Murderbot’s beloved friend. Murderbot’s sarcasm is matchless, except when Art is around. matching snark for snark with Murderbot as it does here, and foreshadowing suggests that when #8 is written and available, the same will be true.
And I cannot wait for the next in the series. Highly recommended!
“Thanksgiving is not about being happy. The holiday is not about mirth and beauty and the warmth of gaiety. Thanksgiving is about fulfilling family obligations and being miserable the way the good Lord intended.”
When we meet our protagonist, Nub Taylor, it is Thanksgiving night, and he and his cousin and best friend Benny are three sheets to the wind, idling in a rusty old truck across the street from the dignified, stately home of Nub’s daughter, Emily. Nub has been invited to dine there, but knows better than to attend. Emily is a widow; she married up, and every mover and shaker in town has shown up. No, Nub won’t be joining them. Nothing good would come of it.
My thanks go to Net Galley and Harper Muse for the review copy. This book is for sale now.
Our story is set in the 1970s in a tiny town in Alabama. Nub is long divorced from Emily’s mother, who keeps her distance these days. He takes his meals at the Waffle House, and that includes today:
“Waffle House did not close on Thanksgiving because Waffle House never closed. Waffle House was like the Vatican, only with better hash browns. Nobody on staff at the Waffle House had a key to the store, not even the manager. Because there were no keys. The doors were never locked. Waffle House just went on and on. Sort of like a disco.”
It is here that he meets Minnie. Minnie is fifteen years old and well over six feet tall. Why is this girl spending her holiday here, instead of with her kin? The answer is that she has none. Her father is in prison, and her mother has just recently killed herself.
Of course, Nub doesn’t know these things at first, but something about her calls to him. Perhaps all children of suicide victims wear something similar in their expressions; Nub had lost a parent the very same way, and he has never gotten over it. How does anyone? He knows “the cardinal rule about suicide. You don’t talk about it.”
Now, Minnie is orphaned and she is pregnant, courtesy of a thoughtless, spoiled local boy that told her he loved her, then laughed behind her back. And so it is that Nub realizes, as he learns more about Minnie Bass, that perhaps he may have a chance to redeem himself.
This is a wonderful story, full of warmth and a lot of heart. Dietrich is a master story teller, able to create viscerally real characters that leap from the page and a narrative that billows with home truths. There is no question that Kinfolk is among the finest books to be published this year.
My thanks go to Net Galley and 8th Circle Press for the review copy. This book is for sale now.
When I saw the cover of this children’s book, I thought it had strong possibilities. It’s original, and I thought it was conceptually strong, so I read it. Having done so, I have come away underwhelmed.
For a book like this, a takeoff on Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, two things are important. We need resonant, bold, eye-catching artwork to engage the little person that is reading it, or to whom it is being read, and we need a regular cadence. We’re supposed to be singing this book to the same tune as the song, and while the text certainly rhymes, it’s nowhere near in pocket. It’s awkward as hell, actually. Get out your metronome and try it, I dare you.
And as for the artwork, it can best be described as minimalist. When I saw Mothman on the cover, I was thrilled. Kids would love it, I thought. But that’s basically what’s on every single page. Mothman, plus a small amount of unengaging other stuff. There’s no bold artwork at all, and very little art of any kind. The illustration of our protagonist is the entire show, over and over.
I’ve since learned that this is a series. I haven’t seen any of the other books, but I’m going to guess they are more of the same. In fact, if I continue writing much longer, I will talk myself into dropping the rating to 2.5 stars instead of 3.
It feels lazy to me; it didn’t come close to meeting my expectations. When I took the galley, I thought that if this book was as good as I hoped it might be, I would purchase a copy of it for my grandsons. I’m not going to do that now, and if I won’t, I cannot recommend you buy it either.
In the Pacific Northwest, October evenings are a great time to stay home. Of course, some people put on their hunting jackets, grab their gear, and head out into the woods; some are party animals seeking a good Halloween bash; and some are charitable souls that organize haunted houses and other seasonal attractions, with the proceeds going to good causes. But a fun fact is that a majority of us do exactly what I plan to do: curl up at home with my beagle, my book, a cup of hot apple cider and a bunch of Halloween candy that trick or treaters never show up to claim. Can’t let all that chocolate go to waste, now can we. If my plan looks good to you, check out these scary reads that I’ve collected over the years. A note of apology: ten years with Word Press isn’t enough, apparently, for me to adequately intuit all of the layout options. I have tried mightily to post each of these choices in a reasonable arrangement with links, but there are gremlins involved. Once again, then, I must ask that if you wish to read my review of one or more of these goosebump-worthy selections, please enter the title in the search bar. All of them are waiting for you!
Len Bronstein is an art teacher. He has a whole lot of clay he’s filched from his employer’s supply closet, and now he’s stoned. He should make something. He should make a Golem. And friend, that’s just what he does.
Traditionally, The Golem is made by a rabbi to help the Jewish people during difficult times. Len isn’t a rabbi, and he doesn’t expect much from his creation:
Five minutes passed, and nothing happened. Len reminded himself that he didn’t actually expect anything to…he didn’t believe in any of this shit. He stood, dusted himself off, and went inside to grab a beer…Len deposited his beer in the sink just as The Golem ripped his back door off the hinges and flung it aside.
My thanks go to Net Galley and Random House Ballantine for the invitation to read and review. This book is for sale now.
Now that The Golem has awakened, he needs to know what his target is. His answer comes to him as he views the news on Len’s television. White Supremacists are railing about a Jewish conspiracy; the Holocaust, they say, was a hoax. The Golem was asleep during the Holocaust, but once it’s explained to him, he’s ready to get busy. But first, he must talk to the rabbi.
Our second main character is a woman named Miriam, Miri to you and me. She works at the bodega down the street, and Len recruits her to be a translator; The Golem, you see, only speaks Yiddish, and Len doesn’t. Miri has been drummed out of the temple because she is a lesbian, but The Golem likes her just fine. Before you know it, Len, Miriam and The Golem are on a road trip beyond all others, first to find a way in to see the Sassov Grand Rebbe, a wealthy and powerful man with a great many gatekeepers, and then to a scheduled White Pride rally down south.
This is, as may be obvious by now, very edgy humor. There’s a great deal of profanity, and whereas most of it is hilarious, at the beginning, the author could have varied his choices more. There are lots of cuss words out there, and not all of them begin with F. But this is a small matter. This novel’s action is interspersed with brief passages of Jewish history that I find very interesting, and they are so brief, and so skillfully woven into the narrative, that you may not notice that you’re learning some things.
My favorite passages involve a bombastic politician, and multiple encounters with cops. (The Golem doesn’t care for them.) As for me, I have read several very funny novels this year, but none made me laugh out loud as often as this one. And in the end–well, you don’t expect me to tell you how this ends, now do you?
Highly recommended to readers that lean left and can tolerate profanity.
I love a wry mystery series, especially when it features a wry female sleuth. Kinsey Millhone is done and there’s nothing I can do about it, but Marian Warner is here, and this series is just getting off the ground. My thanks go to Net Galley, Level Best Books, and Shelley Costa for the review copy. This book is for sale now.
Marian is a private eye, mostly; when there isn’t enough custom to pay the landlord, she does other things on the side. But now, her sister Joan is sending her to investigate whether a former Jesuit Mission house in Carthage, Ohio qualifies for National Landmark status. Carthage is a tiny little hamlet in the middle of nowhere, but it contains Marian’s old flame, Charlie. She goes.
The first book of a mystery series poses extra challenges to its author, who must simultaneously spin out the mystery itself while also introducing and developing its protagonist and any repeating secondary characters, all without slowing the pace. Costa does both splendidly.
By the time Marian hits town, things have grown more complicated; you see, the possibly-historical mission house now sports its own murdered corpse. From here, the story builds in a way that is undeniable, and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny. In particular, there is quirky figurative language sprinkled throughout, and it jumps at the reader unexpectedly.
By the story’s conclusion, I feel as if I’ve just stuffed myself with something delicious. Nothing here is predictable, and I can’t wait to see more of Marian Warner. Highly recommended to those that like a cozy mystery with a bit of an edge.
Seattle Book Mama 