I loved returning to the Lady Astronaut universe after several years. This installment looks at the Second Mars Expedition, and the start of the permanent colony. Elma York is back as the first-person narrator, and this book brings her arc to a satisfying point, if not the end of her adventures.
Rom-com meets action-adventure spy novel in The Blonde Identity. It’s full of danger, chase scenes, and action sequences, but it’s also funny and sexy and frothy in all the right ways. And it hits some familiar romance and spy novel tropes in ways that somehow feel comfortingly familiar and fresh at the same time.
A cozy mystery set on a generation spaceship, Murder by Memory features a practical, wise, and observant detective who unexpectedly finds herself inhabiting the body of… a murderer? A victim? Or both?
The Verity Kent series gets off to a good start with This Side of Murder. Huber revisits the classic “trapped on an island with a killer” trope, but gives it tension and immediacy… Huber is skilled at plotting, characterization, and atmosphere. I found all three here, plus a believable, complex heroine.
I generally enjoy Agatha Christie, and I love Miss Marple, but this is not one of my favorite of her books. On the other hand, the 1985 BBC adaptation starring Joan Hickson is a longtime favorite and a comfort movie for me.
This book grew out of interviews that actor and director Brendan O’Hea held with esteemed Shakespearean actress Dame Judi Dench. In it, the pair discuss a number of Shakespeare’s plays, particularly in terms of the great female roles Ms. Dench has played in her time… The whole book is a masterclass in how to read, understand, and play Shakespeare, and more generally, how to act.
Weaving Hope is a very gentle, very slow-burn closed-door romance set in magical 1920s Britain.
The Lost Flock: Rare Wool, Wild Isles and One Woman’s Journey to Save Scotland’s Original Sheep by Jane Cooper Narrator: Jane Cooper Published by Chelsea Green Press on 9/14/2023 Genres: History, Memoir, Nature Format: Audiobook Source: the library Purchase: Amazon | Bookshop | Barnes & Noble | Audible | Chirp… Read more »
I loved The Teller of Small Tales, Julie Leong’s debut novel. It’s a cozy quest fantasy with a found-family vibe, set in a vaguely British renaissance-era world.
Naomi Novik’s Buried Deep and Other Stories is a stellar collection of short fiction that displays all of her skill as a writer as well as the breadth of her imagination. I read it slowly, savoring each story.
