A Winter’s Promise, by Christelle Dabos
I’ve been eyeing this YA book for some time. The cover art is so intriguing and so is the concept. After reading it, I’ve got to say that it is one of the most unique, best built worlds I’ve ever read. Ophelia is a great character because she is unusual and is perfectly fine being herself. In the story, she has to leave her comfortable home ark (fragment of the Earth that was) to travel to the Ark of the Pole in an arranged marriage. But when she arrives in the cold, desolate North, she finds she is caught up in a dangerous political intrigue and is surrounded by illusions. I liked this book a lot (so much so that I will likely read the other three installments), but it was a bit slow.
 
Mirrorland, by Carole Johnstone
I went into this book expecting some horror, and there was some but it was mostly the psychological thriller kind. Still, this was a really interesting, twisty book. Identical twins Cat and El had a strange upbringing, so even though they are estranged now, Cat feels she must travel back to Scotland when she finds out El has disappeared. There she finds Ross, El’s husband, and the love of her life. While waiting for news about El, Cat begins to find clues left for her that make her remember things about her childhood she’d rather forget. (I’d kind of like to forget it too, because it is harrowing.) Very good book.
 
Lycanthropy & Other Chronic Illnesses, by Kristen O’Neal
I really loved this book. As someone who has a chronic illness, looking at a disability through the lens of a mythological creature was a really fascinating way to take on the concept. However, I can’t recommend this book because the main character and her family is Tamil and the author is white. I don’t know why the author decided to write a POC MC, but it was decidedly not appropriate. Priya is a college student with recently developed Lyme disease. She’s involved online with a group of other people with chronic illnesses including her close internet friend, Brigid, whose illness is not one you go to the doctor for. Priya, Brigid, and their sidekick, Seth, make for a fun trio and an interesting story. I just wish that I could recommend it without all sorts of caveats.
 
Undercover Bromance, by Lyssa Kay Adams
The second installment of the Bromance Book Club follows the sister of the MC from the first book, Liv, and the founder of the book club, Mack. Liv doesn’t trust men or relationships. Mack thinks that because he knows how to romance women, he knows how to be in a relationship. They come together when they decide to bring down the city’s most famous chef for his pattern of sexual assault on his employees. A fun read, just like its predecessor.
 
Hannah Green & Her Unfeasibly Mundane Existence, by Michael Marshall Smith
I’ve read a number of Smith’s books over the years and liked his middle grade book, The Servants. I picked up the ARC for this book thinking it was another kids’ book. It was not. It follows 11-year-old Hannah whose life is upset by her parents’ separation and her dad’s downward spiral. She’s sent to stay with her mercurial grandfather, who, it turns out, is several hundred years old and friends with the Devil. The Devil has a problem with a machine built by Hannah’s grandfather and engages him to help him find the root of the problem. The story is much more sprawling than I can easily sum up, but it’s quite good. There is a theme about writing your own story that is thought-provoking. I wonder at the marketing for this book, though. It really seems aimed at a younger crowd, but it certainly isn’t. Recommend for the 15+ reader.
 
Cursed Objects: Strange But True Stories of the World's Most Infamous Items, by J.W. Ocker
A second nonfiction entry this month! This was a perfect book to read while recovering from surgery. Each chapter covers a different subject and the chapters are only a few pages long. Cursed subjects ranging from precious gemstones to funereal art to online curses are summed-up and reviewed with a tongue-in-cheek style that makes this book grossly entertaining.

I was housebound most of February healing from orthoscopic hip surgery. I felt like I didn’t read all that much, but turns out I read fifteen books, started another four or so, and listened to hours of podcasts. I guess it didn’t feel like I was reading much because my attention span was short, so I would go from one book to another then to a podcast and then back to reading.
 
The Fisherman, by John Langan
Another book in the folk horror genre. It was a wonderful story within a story with otherworldly eldritch dread. A story about grief—accepting it and dismissing it—a fisherman hobbyist tells how fishing saved him after his wife died, how it allowed him to help a colleague after the death of his family. The story within the story is about the horror of Dutch Creek—a history which spans a hundred years and more—and the door to another world that exists there. A world where dead loved ones don’t have to be dead. The narration style was interesting and I tend to really enjoy stories within stories. I liked this one a lot and definitely recommend it.
 
Winter’s Orbit, by Everina Maxwell
Space princes whose love can save their solar system. I’m in. The Iskat Empire is on the brink of destruction when Kiem and Jainan must marry to prevent a diplomatic crisis. The strangers stumble onto a plot that could lead to civil war and in investigating learn to love each other. It’s as good as it sounds. Part romance, part political thriller, with a touch of space opera, this one has it all.
 
False Colours, by Georgette Heyer
This was my first reread of this book. I liked it well enough the first time and really enjoyed it this read. It follows Kit Fancot as he pretends to be his identical twin, Evelyn, when he goes missing in order to secure his marriage to Cressy Stavely. Hijinx ensue. I’m not really into the main characters of this one, they are cookie cutter versions of Heyer’s most loved characters. Kit and Cressy are nice enough, but I love the secondary characters, Kit’s mother Lady Fancot and her cicisbeo Sir Bonamy. Their older person romance is pure delight.
 
Carmilla, by Joseph Sheridan LeFanu
A classic horror this time. Really good. Narrated by Laura, the daughter of an English gentleman who has set up house in a remote castle in southern Austria, the story is about a sudden houseguest who is the only friend of lonely Laura and who may be preying on local women. A quick read that really does vampires right. Much more interesting than Dracula. To be honest, much more interesting than most contemporary vampire stories.
 
Polaris Rising, Aurora Blazing, Chaos Reigning, by Jessie Mihalik
I was inspired to reread the Consortium Rebellion series after seeing Mihalik on a panel with Everina Maxwell (Winter’s Orbit). Plus, these books are major comfort reads and I needed those in February. All three really hold up and I’m sure I’ll read them again.
 
Delicious Dungeon, volumes 1 & 2, by Ryoko Kui
We were gifted this manga series for Christmas by a friend who knows me and my husband well. Ostensibly set in a Dungeon & Dragons-type world, the story follows a group of travelers who are traversing a huge dungeon for riches and to find one member’s lost sister. When they team up with a gourmet chef dwarf, who can make any of the creatures of the dungeon taste delicious, their searching becomes a lot more interesting and delicious. A fun read, especially if you are a D&D fan.
 
The Old Ways, by Robert MacFarlane
A nonfiction entry. I read this over a couple of months. It’s the kind of book that is best to savor. MacFarlane takes to walking and hiking the “old ways,” tracks, trails, paths, and ways that have been traversed by people for millennia. Through Scotland, including by boat, to Spain and the Himalayas, MacFarlane meditates on what these paths mean and how they can change us. Lovely book. It makes me wish that the “old ways” of the U.S. hadn’t been plowed over. I would love to take some myself.  

In January, I spent a lot of the month prepping for surgery, so therefore didn’t have a lot of concentration. There were some fun reads and a big stinker. I don’t usually finish books that I’m not enjoying, but I kept up on one because I thought it might come around. I’ll go back to not finishing books that I don’t enjoy.
 
The Big Finish, by Brooke Fossey
This was a nice read, not as fun as I had hoped, but definitely a good book with which to start the year. Duffy is nearing 90 and lives in a nursing home, sharing a room with his best friend, Carl. Havoc is unleashed when Carl’s unknown granddaughter, Josie, climbs through their window one morning. Josie is in trouble and only Duffy, a lifelong alcoholic himself, recognizes what her trouble is. Filled with nice people and the grumbling, gruff, but caring Duffy, this is a small story that is a great escape from worldly problems.
 
Snow, by John Banville
I listened to this book and could have finished it before December 31st. However, I didn’t want it to be the last thing I read in 2020 or the first thing I finished in 2021. I generally try to say supportive things about the books I read, even if I really didn’t care for them. This book though. I hated it. Ostensibly a mystery, I knew who did it by chapter three. The detective was milquetoast and never asked the right questions, or any questions really. There were egregiously unneeded sex scenes that were quite gross. I know Banville is a celebrated literary author, but after the smugness of this book, I don’t think I want to try any more of his work.
 
Persephone Station, by Stina Leicht
A palate cleanser. A fun space action story with a team of kick-ass female fighters, led by ex-military Angel. Something is not right on Persephone as the corporate overlords have secrets about the planet that they will commit murder to protect. Angel, her team, and the mysterious crime leader, Rosie, come together to protect the sentient species living on the planet. I enjoyed this book, a quick potato-chip read, and I’d definitely read more in this series.
 
The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, by Grady Hendrix
Good heavens this book was fun. Southern charm and gothic horror combine for a highly entertaining story of what mothers will do to protect their families. 40-ish Patricia enlists her true crime book club to help stop a new neighbor when she realizes that the handsome, charming stranger is preying on the children in town. This book has some straight up horror scenes, but the true horror for me was the absolute gaslighting the husbands of the book club do to their wives. They treat the wives like children even though they are behaving like self-righteous 17-year-olds. The wives come out ahead, mostly, in the end, but the middle part had me in tears of frustration. And I’m still thinking about it. Very good book.
 
Ten Rules for Faking It, by Sophie Sullivan
Second audio book of the month. A rom-com. It was alright. The concept was a lot of fun, but the main characters didn’t really do it for me. Everly is an introvert with severe anxiety problems who works as a producer on a radio show hosted by her best friend. After accidentally announcing on live radio that she found her boyfriend cheating on her on her birthday, fan support comes rolling in. To capitalize on the fanfare, the handsome director of the station creates a “The Bachelor”-type segment for the show to find Everly a new beau. There is a list of ten rules, but they are for “making it” not “faking it.” I feel like the title was trying to be too clever.
 
Brightly Burning, by Alexa Donne
Jane Eyre in space! When Stella lands a premium job as a teacher on a wealthy family’s space cruiser, she is only too happy to leave behind the declining generation ship she’s been stuck on. The ship is full of luxuries and food she’d only dreamed about. While secretive, the people on the ship are friendly and her new boss an immediate love interest, but there is something not right about the ship. Stella wants to know the truth, but the truth may cost her life, and the lives of the people she left behind. An interesting way to retell Jane’s story and, of course, I love space operas, so this was right up my alley. Maybe not my favorite read and not one I’ll revisit, but still a good time.
 
Thief of Time, by Terry Pratchett
A reread. This one is the last book where Death is a main protagonist and also the last of the Susan Sto Helit, Death’s granddaughter, books. The most precise clock in the world is about to be completed and when it begins to tell time, time will come to an end. This is fine for the Auditors, who hate the messiness of humans, but the time monks, Death, and Susan have a different opinion. One of Pratchett’s best. Especially as one of the main characters is Lu Tze—who is the subject of Rule Number One. Here is a quote that sums up a lot of how Discworld books develop: “And if you want the story, then remember that a story does not unwind. It weaves. Events that start in different places and different times all bear down on that one tiny point in space-time, which is the perfect moment.”
 
The Friendship List, by Susan Mallery
A third audio book last month! This is a rom com, sort of, that it about two 34-year-old best friends that are stuck. Single mom Ellen’s son is prepping for college and widow Verity still sleeps in her husband’s childhood bed three years after his death. They each create a list of things to do to get themselves out of their ruts. Romance being a feature of both. And it works, but not without a lot of challenges and heartbreak. This was a lovely read and the two women’s friendship was strong and well-done. The one thing I didn’t like was the epilogue, five years on. I’d much prefer it if the epilogue was a few months later with ladies reposing at the luxury spa that was supposed to be the reward after accomplishing their list.

Before the Coffee Gets Cold, by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
This book has a really interesting premise—in a tiny coffee shop on a back street in Tokyo you can travel back in time to meet someone who has already been to the shop. There are a lot of rules surrounding the trip back in time, but those rules just made the premise more fascinating. Overall, I liked this book a lot. However, at the end, I knew that the book had been written by a man (couldn’t tell off-hand by the Japanese name). Why, you ask? Because a woman gives up her life in order to have a baby she will never see. Oh please, that is such a “sainted mother” take on childbirth. Otherwise, it’s really good.
 
The Price Guide to the Occult, by Leslye Walton
I’d been admiring the cover of this book for awhile in the YA section of the bookstore. It was good, not great. The magic was interesting, the villain truly disturbing, but the ending made it seem like there would be a sequel and, as far as I can tell, there isn’t one in the works. It had a Practical Magic movie-version feel to it. On an island of the Washington coast, Nor comes from a long line of witches who have one power, each different, due to a curse by their matriarch eight generations before. The curse is lifted with Nor and just in time as her mother has started using black magic to take over the world.
 
Too Big to Miss, by Sue Ann Jaffarian
This is a fun mystery about a middle-aged, plus-sized, single woman who starts detecting after her close friend kills herself live on webcam. Something doesn’t feel right to Odelia about her friend’s death and it turns out her friend had a lot of dark secrets. Uncovering them leads to a prostitution ring, a hidden child, and a man who used her for his own gain. This is definitely a potato chip read, not too complicated but entertaining.
 
Divine Misfortune, by A. Lee Martinez
Martinez is a great writer who doesn’t get enough attention. This one was not as good as his Constance Verity books but was still great. To get by in Divine Misfortune’s world, everyone needs a personal or family god. From those who keep your car running to ones like Zeus, gods have all sorts of powers. After Phil loses a big promotion because his competition began worshipping a god, he and his wife decide, reluctantly, to get a god of their own. Lucky, a god of fortune in the body of a raccoon, comes with a lot of spiritual baggage and Phil and Terry get caught up in a millennia-old battle between Lucky and the god of chaos. This book is as silly, funny, and odd as the description sounds. Read A. Lee Martinez’s books. You’ll have a lot of fun.
 
Better Luck Next Time, by Julia Claiborn Johnson
I picked this book to listen to because it is supposed to be funny. From the cover and the title, it certainly seems that it would be. I didn’t find it funny at all. It was a good story, though, along the lines of Water for Elephants. It’s a story being told by an elderly man about his time spent as a “cowboy” on a divorce ranch in Reno during the 1930s. Wealthy women would come to the city for a “quickie” divorce. Ward tells the story of the last of the ladies he knew at the ranch, which turns into a love story. I would definitely recommend it but would warn that the hilarity is way overrated.
 
The Curious History of Sex, by Kate Lister
I’ve been reading this in bits and pieces since about April. (I read nonfiction really slow.) It is amazing! Lister is a sex historian and runs the Twitter account “Whores of Yore.” Her writing style is as hilarious as it is nonjudgmental. It’s super informative and incredibly well researched. It starts with why ‘cunt’ is considered a bad word and ends with a history of male sex work. In between are every sort of topic dealing with human sexuality. My favorite thing that I learned, in the section about Sex and Machines, it the term Lister coined for how long it takes between a technology being invented and then being used for sexual purposes—it’s a ‘kink blink.’
 
The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted, by Robert Hillman
Book about books, so of course I had to read it. Taking place in rural Australia in the 1960s, it follows farmer Tom and the life he wants to make with bookseller Hannah. Hannah wants him too, but is still dealing with the scars from her time in Auschwitz where she lost her husband and child. This is a nice book about taking risks and living life even when it seems all is lost. And there is a bookstore that sounds amazing.
 
A Handful of Earth, a Handful of Sky, by Lynell George
My second nonfiction of the month! This is a book about Sci-Fi pioneer Octavia Butler—about how hard she worked and how much she overcame to become the writer she was. The prose work is almost poetry as it portrays Butler’s writing life. The author extensively used the Octavia Butler collection at the Huntington Library to tease out an intimate portrait of Butler. A lovely work for any fan of the dearly missed Octavia.
 
Winterkeep, by Kristin Cashore
Woo hoo! A new book in the Graceling series! It’s five years since Bitterblue weeded out the last of her father’s misdeeds and there is a newly discovered continent that she is establishing diplomatic ties with. When she finds out that some people in Torla may be stealing from her lands, she goes to the new country only to discover she’s at the center of a greedy plot. This is a very vague summary of the book which has some wonderfully complicated political plotlines. It’s a great addition to the series and I enjoyed it a lot.
 
The Elementals, by Michael McDowell
I finally found a horror book that was just what I’ve been looking for. Southern Gothic, creepy houses in a remote location, crazy family traditions come together to create a truly uncanny work. I named this book as one of my favorites of the year because it is the first horror that I couldn’t put down and can’t stop thinking about. The only problem I had with it was the ‘magical black person’ trope where the folksy black lady, who will do anything for the white family she works for, has the cunning to save the day. This book was published in 1980 and that was a common trope of the time. It did work for the story and the black cook was a bad ass, so I can’t complain too much.