Books Completed in September 2026

I'm sorry I'm so lagged on these. I have so much other stuff to do, and I'm tired more these days.

 The Horse: A Galloping History of Humanity, Timothy C. Winegard
Basically the history of human civilization as chronicled by the taming and use of the horse, starting as a food item and then use as a riding and work animal. Broadly and interestingly told.

The second book I've read that has made me glad that I never ran into any Assyrians and Scythians. Bloodthirsty civilizations.

 The Muse of Maiden Lane, Mimi Matthews
Fourth and final of the "Belles of London" series, featuring Stella Hobhouse, whose hair went grey when she was quite young. In an art gallery, she comes to the attention of artist Teddy Hayes, who has been confined to a wheelchair after a severe case of scarlet fever. Hayes wants to paint her; Stella knows her straitlaced minister brother would never allow it. Even worse, her brother's trying to marry her off now that he's engaged to a woman who despises Stella.

Matthews writes a happy ending for the last single lady in her Victorian quartet.

Stella's brother is singularly infuriating, and I hoped he and his fiance would drive off a bridge.

 Route 1: New England, Dan Tobyne
A beautiful color gift book of the six New England states, and interesting tourist attractions and places to eat along the old Route 1, "the Boston Post Road" in some areas. I grew up off Route 1 and still dream of home.

 Mrs. Porter Calling, A.J. Pearce
In this third of the Emmy Lake chronicles, Emmy is still working at "Women's Friend" magazine and sharing a home with her best friend Bunty while her husband Charles serves during World War II. Shortly after the story begins, Emmy and Bunty take in Thelma, a woman whose husband is also in Europe fighting, and her three children, George, Margaret, and Stanley. They have a Victory Garden and start raising chickens.

Then the publisher of "Women's Friend" dies, and the management goes to Mrs. Cressida Porter. At first the staff is thrilled that Mrs. Porter is bringing new ideas, until the "new ideas" turn out to be fashion articles and stories about wealthy garden parties rather than the advice needed to endure the war.

I loved the story, but selfish and self-absorbed Mrs. Porter made me so angry I found it hard to endure the book.

 Galloping Around the Cosmos: Memories of TV's "Wagon Train to the Stars" from Today's Grown-Up Kids, edited by Jim Beard
Short essays from 25 writers about how they found the Star Trek universe and how it influenced them. Especially if you are an original fan of the series from back in the 1960s, this will be nostalgic and bring back fond memories of evenings in front of the television.

 The X-Files Origins: Agent of Chaos, Kami Garcia
This is one of two young adult novels about Fox Mulder and Dana Scully in their younger years. In this one, Mulder, age 18, just having moved to Virginia and in a contentious relationship with his unforgiving father, teams up with his best friend "Gimble," a neglected boy whose Air Force officer father has gone off the deep end after the death of his wife, delving deep into conspiracy theories. A missing little girl, taken just like his sister Samantha, piques his interest, and soon his best friend from home, Phoebe, arrives to help the two boys track down the kidnapper.

The book is nonstop action, although I was skeptical how Phoebe's parents just allowed her to fly to Virginia and spend time alone with an 18-year-old boy with no supervision!

 Enchantment, Katherine May
This was May's story of breaking away from her personal fears during and following the COVID lockdown. She had trouble sleeping, couldn't concentrate to read, and had difficulties with relationships while she raised a young son and supported an ill husband.

Personally, I liked Wintering better.

 The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery
I had never read this book. It's sweet and imaginative, but I probably came to it too late. I did like the Little Prince's friendship with the Fox.

Books Completed in August 2026

 The Painted Queen, Elizabeth Peters & Joan Hess
Elizabeth Peters (in real life Barbara Mertz) had just begun to write her latest Amelia Peabody novel and had a partial manuscript and an outline written when she passed away. In 2017, after Joan Hess had been asked to finish the manuscript, with help from an Egyptologist, this book was published. I was crazy about the Peabody books and bought it the moment it came out.

And am ashamed to admit that it took me this long to read, due to family health crises, other real-life interruptions, and just plain other books coming up--and perhaps just a little fear that a Joan Hess-completed Amelia couldn't be as good as a total Peters authorship. I wasn't totally disappointed; the story cracks with action, Nefret is back to her normal self (after a disastrous first marriage to the odious Geoffrey Godwin), and everyone is back (this is one of Peters' "fill in" novels after actually completing the Emersons' saga in Tomb of the Golden Bird) including David and the indomitable Fatima. They are back at Armana, and what they seek is the famed painted head of Queen Nefertiti, which has vanished and already dozens of fake versions are being produced.

SPOILERS (if there can be spoilers on a nine-year-old book): But, I thought the idea of Geoffrey's five maniac brothers all having the name of famed assassins (apparently this was their mother's idea) and being taken down in the same fashion as the person they're named after was absolutely absurd. If this was Peters' notion—I'm sorry, it took me out of the story. The ending is also rather abrupt.

 Grammatically Correct, 2nd edition (Writer's Digest Books), Anne Stilman
I saw this, passed it up, and then drove back out to get it. One of the best books on grammar and writing I've ever seen, with examples from actual published books rather than invented examples to show you how its done. I learned all this stuff years ago and still took notes. A valuable edition to any writer's library.

 Album of Dogs, Marguerite Henry
I've wanted this book ever since I read Album of Horses. Marguerite Henry talks dogs? And with 23 full-page color drawings (as well as sketches) by Wesley Dennis? Count me in. But it was out of print.

Until recently. Yes, it's as beautiful as I expected, even if I'm not the age for it any longer.

 Sisters in Crime, edited by Marilyn Wallace
Another booksale find and another good collection of crime short stories written by and mostly featuring women protagonists (the first story was about a man and a teenage boy, which I didn't quite like so much, and the story about the man trying to write the perfect sentence was just plain strange). The second story is a corker, though, about a female cop's first time at a crime scene. Best yet, there are stories from Gillian Roberts (the Amanda Pepper mysteries), Elizabeth Peters and Barbara Michaels (the same person, author Barbara Mertz), Sue Grafton, and even a V.I. Warshawski story by Sara Peretsky.

 Amazon to Zodiac: 101 Scientific Curiosities Across Time and Space, Barry Evans
Mix science and history and you have a book I love! Everything from our past—Neanderthal man, anyone?—to space exploration, and everything in between: Galileo and his moons, ancient maps, insomnia, the long history of anti-vaxxers, the Latin—and Runic—alphabets, Otzi the iceman, the Number of the Beast (is it really 616?), and more.

Reading the table of contents again makes me just want to re-read this.

 The Western Star, Craig Johnson
Thirteenth in the Longmire series, this is a flashback story to when Walt was a newly-appointed deputy to Absaroka County Sheriff Lucien Connally, unsure that he really wanted to be in law enforcement and smarting from a recent argument with his new—and newly pregnant—wife Martha. He and Connally board a train on the annual sheriff's junket, the cars pulled by the vintage steam engine "Western Star." Somewhere along the way one of the sheriffs is murdered, and Walt is suspected of the crime after someone knocks him out at one of the stops, making it look as if he ran away.

So, this is a Longmire mystery, and y'all know Walt is innocent—the fun is in watching his dogged pursuit of the truth, and figuring out how the crime was done, especially after the dead man's coffin turns up empty. It's also enjoyable seeing him as a young man just back from his service in Vietnam, and as an inexperienced husband and father-to-be. Yes, Henry Standing Bear shows up!

 Writers of the 21st Century Series: Robert A. Heinlein, edited by Joseph D. Olander and Martin Harry Greenberg
A series of nine essays about Heinlein's works. My favorite was the first, because it addressed the juveniles, which have always been my favorite (my first Heinlein was Have Spacesuit, Will Travel). Another chapter addresses Stranger in a Strange Land, the book I had to buy behind my mother's back because she objected to the description of it as "an underground classic."

While the essays address different aspects of Heinlein's books, there is a clear emphasis in several of them about Time Enough for Love and Lazarus Long. Also discussed are the Future Histories, politics and social Darwinism, and lots about sexuality, since "Woody" takes up a good deal of discussion. Glad I bought it, even if a couple of them dragged.

 The Adventure of the Plated Spoon and Other Tales of Sherlock Holmes, edited by Loren D. Estleman
Some Holmes pastiches are great, this one is just okay, but then I found it at a book sale and didn't expend much money on it. It contains some stories I'd already read, like Doyle's own parody of his Holmes stories, and an effort by J.M. Barrie. There are some interesting bits, including Holmes on the Titanic, where he meets Jacques Futrelle, who created a 19th century "Sherlock" nicknamed "The Thinking Machine." One doesn't even involve Holmes, but is about a man who solves a mystery ala Holmes. The titular adventure has Holmes teaming up with the American action detective Nick Carter. Good for some hours of amusement, but not top-notch pastiche.

Books Completed in August 2025

 Fan Service, Rosie Danan
Alex Lawson's never felt at home at her dad's place in Florida, where she's been ridiculed for his conservation efforts. The only place she feels at ease is online, where she creates a detailed website for her favorite television series The Arcane Files. But when she meets the star, Devin Ashwood, in person at a convention, a thoughtless remark he makes afterward turns her off him and his character, a werewolf who's also an FBI agent.

Years later, Devin Ashwood, the series over and looking for a new role, wakes up in a field nearly naked, and discovers from a news report that cameras caught him transforming into a werewolf. Everyone else thinks it's a promo for a revival of the series, but he realizes that somehow he's become a werewolf like the character he played on television and searches for a way to reverse it, finding Alex's detailed website. Not knowing she's the young woman he unwittingly insulted years ago, he travels to Florida to meet her. And to her surprise, she agrees to help him.

This is an engaging fantasy-romance with some hard truths about the traumas of child actors and bullied people who don't fit in.

  The Highwayman: A Longmire Story, Craig Johnson
Walt Longmire and Henry Standing Bear arrive in Wyoming's Wind River Canyon to help Rosey Wayman, an old friend of Walt's recently transferred to the area. She keeps hearing a mysterious radio message from a Highway Patrolman requesting assistance—except this Patrolman died years ago in a fiery crash. Wayman's supervisors think she's going nuts, so Walt and Henry need to figure out who's playing a prank on her—and, if it's not a prank, what's going on.

Great little novella with what seems like a supernatural twist—but it will keep you guessing until the end.

  Before Dorothy, Hazel Gaynor
Annie Kelly and her sister Emily, daughters of Irish immigrants, move to the bustling city of Chicago in the late 1800s to work at Marshall Field as salesgirls; Annie meets wealthy John and marries well, Emily falls in love with practical Henry Gale, who wants to homestead in Kansas. Annie tries to talk her out of it, but Emily and Henry are married, and he moves to Kansas to start a family farm while Emily waits until Annie's daughter is born to join him. A daughter named Dorothy.

This is the story of "Auntie Em" and her life before and then after Dorothy came to live in Kansas. Gaynor weaves a credible story about the homesteaders on the prairie, their early crop successes, and then the drought that came to ruin all their hopes of success. Becomes a vivid portrait not only of a woman trying to make her niece feel safe and loved, but of the Dust Bowl that scoured the land, ruined lives, and killed.

  For the Love of the Bard, Jessica Martin
Miranda Barnes, writer and literary agent, writer of young adult fic under the name of Hathaway Smith, is still smarting from bad reviews of her last novel, in which she killed off a popular main villain. She goes home to her parents at the little town of Bard's Rest, which revolves around Shakespeare and the town's annual Shakespeare festival, to complete the next novel in the series. Next thing you know, she's not only been roped into directing one of the festival plays by her actress mother, but she keeps encountering Adam Winters, the new town vet and the guy who ditched her on prom night to go with her older sister Portia, a hotshot lawyer. (Her younger sister Cordelia—sense a theme here?—is the town's favorite baker.)

Enjoyed the story and the characters. There's a sequel about Portia out as well. Wonder if Cordelia will get matched next?

  Writing Black Beauty, Celia Brayfield
This is not just the story of Anna Sewell and her family—her mother and aunt were also writers in "the domestic sphere" as was expected of women in their day—but of the growing movement of rights for animals, whose fate in the late 18th/early 19th century was grim: carriage and wagon horses beaten to death in the streets, vivisection, kittens and puppies drowned after birth. Alternating with the story of Sewell and her family is the story of a public becoming aware of the feelings and treatment of animals. Both an interesting story about Sewell's health problems and a little-known history of animal rights.

  Sweet Music, S.R. Morton
This book is the literary equivalent of watching Bob Ross painting shows. Really, nothing happens. Reverie Vyse, a faerie, and her best friend Cerise (also a faerie) run a bookstore and cafe. Decan Jarris applies for the job of barista after their current barista has to leave. He's a whiz at his job and soon business picks up even more. But Decan's deepest wish is to be a successful musician, but he's been beat down by doubts. His love of Reverie helps him accomplish that. Basically, the whole story is about moral support. It's very sweet.

Horrified to see in a published book the misuse of the word "phased." It should have been "fazed." Also, Decan (and sometimes Reverie) "smirk" too many times when a smile is supposed to be gentle or heartfelt. "Smirking" is sarcastic and is often used to hurt the person being smirked at, and is used correctly very rarely in this book.

  Why to Kill a Mockingbird Matters, Tom Santopietro
After a short overview of Nelle Harper Lee's childhood, the book goes into the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird and the praise and notoriety the novel gained. then covers the making of the film before addressing other topics such as "Is To Kill a Mockingbird racist?", Harper Lee's descent into privacy, the publication of Go Set a Watchman and the hue-and-cry over the revelation that Atticus Finch was racist himself, and the continued relevance of the novel and the film in the 21st century. A natural for any fan of To Kill a Mockingbird. I had to read it after meeting Mary Badham in person!

  All the Feels, Danika Stone
College freshman Liv Walden, still smarting from the death of her father (who hooked her on the science-fiction universe of Starveil), is devastated when Matt Spartan, the hero of the Starveil universe, is killed in the latest film. Her best friend Xander, who dresses in steampunk fashion, tries to placate her, and her mother is determined that Liv's fandom obsession won't hurt her grades. Secretly, Liv creates another identity to start a campaign to bring Matt Spartan back, ropes Xander into helping her, and is astonished when the movement not only gains speed, but becomes a nationwide campaign.

I bought this because the second half of the book takes place at DragonCon (although I was giggling like crazy when Liv is looking at a panel schedule in July, since the D'Con schedule usually isn't up until two weeks before the con), and it does a good job capturing the frenetic madness taking place at five host hotels and the Atlanta Merchandise Mart every Labor Day weekend. It does a less good job explaining how Liv actually got her mom's permission to go to DragonCon (since her mom screamed at her because she failed calculus—although why in the frag did Liv take it in the first place? there's no math requirement in college, especially for someone who's studying the visual arts like she is, unless you're going into a math or science field). Or if they ever worked it out about her mom's busybody boyfriend whom her mom inappropriately shared private information with? Seems Mom was suddenly okay with fandom when she found out Liv could get a job in it!!!! And Xander with his "dearest" is simply too precious for words.

  Cranston Through Time, Sandra Moyer and Jent Cullen Ragno
Then and now photos from my old home town, including my high school, the old coal mine at Garden City Shopping Center, and even "the bad boys school" at Sockanossett.

  Frozen Heat, Richard Castle
This is #4 in the "Nikki Heat" series, supposedly written by the "Castle" of ABC television fame. Basically, the Nikki Heat books are Castle stories under a different name and a couple of tweaks. Kate Beckett becomes sexy Nikki Heat, Castle morphs into magazine journalist Jameson Rook (Castle/Rook, get it?), Ryan and Esposito are Raley and Ochoa, Laney Parish turns into Lauren Parry. Rook even has an actress mom; the only character missing is Alexis, and Captain "Montrose" has been replaced by the ineffective Captain Irons.

In this outing, the frozen body of a woman in her 40s is found in a suitcase that is inscribed with Nikki Heat's initials; this is because the suitcase belonged to Nikki's mother, who was murdered on Thanksgiving Eve years earlier and who's the reason Heat became a cop. Soon Heat and Rook are not only on the trail of the anonymous corpse's killer, but also finding out more about Cynthia Heat's death.

This is a complicated mystery that nevertheless contains many inside jokes: I’m convulsed by the names of a pair of detectives on loan to help solve the murder: Detectives Malcolm and Reynolds. Jameson Rook, Castle’s avatar, even has the line: “I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there’s something I like about Detectives Malcolm and Reynolds." (On Firefly, Nathan Fillion played Malcolm Reynolds.)

Books Completed Since May 1

  Bitter Medicine, Mia Tsai
This was my first read for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month; the cover caught my eye immediately. Elle Mei is a descendant of the Chinese god of medicine. She's laying low because she has done an unspeakable thing in her society: taken away her brother's magic. Everyone believes Tony is dead, but Elle seeks to protect him. Instead, Elle works as a calligrapher at an agency that provides magical glyphs to anyone who pays. One of Elle's customers is Luc Villois, a half-elf who always seeks out Elle's glyphs, not only because he knows she's good, but because he is drawn to her. However, Luc has his own problems, including being held in servitude by a tyrannical boss who knows a secret about his past.

But Elle's hidden magic and Luc's talents are not going to shield them for long: larger forces are at work. And if Elle wants to protect Tony, she's going to have to risk her own talents to do so.

Slow-building, gentle romance with a magical system I've not seen used in any other book. Elle and Luc are unique (at least to me) leads, and Tsai only slowly unravels what ties hold both of them captive. The action shifts from Raleigh, NC, to London, to San Francisco in the course of the story.

 The Wonderful World of James Herriot, James Herriot, edited by Emma Marriott
I bought a copy of this despite the fact that I have all of the Herriot books and have since their original paperback American releases in the 1970s and 1980s. This is a good way to introduce fans of the new All Creatures Great and Small series to the real story of James Herriot rather than the fictional soap-opera stuff they toss into the new series (the actors on the new series are wonderful, I have to admit, and Samuel West is a treat to look at). The volume is chiefly memorable excerpts from all the Herriot books, but I bought it because, between the stories, Emma Marriott narrates the true story of Scotsman Alfred Wight and his wife Joan (James and Helen) and Donald and Brian Sinclair (Siegfried and Tristan Farnon), as names and locations were changed for the Herriot's veterinary memoirs. This also contains two introductions by Wight's son and daughter to their father's life which are illuminating and worthwhile. A photo insert of the family and the area is included; worth the "double buy" if you're already a Herriot fan.

  Misfortune Cookie, Vivien Chien
This is the ninth in Chien's "Noodle House" mysteries, and protagonist Lana Lee is far from Lee's restaurant; she and her attorney sister Anna May are headed for Irvine, California, where Lana will be attending a restaurant convention and the sisters will reconnect with their Aunt Grace, their mother's sister. At the first day of the convention, Lana witnesses a vendor and a journalist having a loud argument; she discovers at a cocktail party she attends with her aunt and sister that the journalist is a friend of Aunt Grace. During the party, this woman is killed. Despite the fact that Anna May wants Lana to stay far away from mysteries, Aunt Grace enlists Lana's help in ferreting out who killed her friend, as she can't believe Nora Blackwell committed suicide as the police believe.

So here's Lana with her nose in crime again. This time she can't ask help from her best friend Megan or work friend Kimmy, or even her cop boyfriend Adam, and she has a disapproving Anna May at her side, but Aunt Grace is definitely in her corner. Sunny California sights await as Lana once again puts her observational clues to the test. (And, needless to say, doesn't attend much of the restaurant convention!)

  Raising Cubby, John Elder Robison
Robison, author of Look Me In the Eye, a memoir of his Asperger's syndrome (and brother of Augusten Burroughs, who wrote Running With Scissors), addresses parenthood on the autism spectrum in this story of raising an autistic son. He opens with his son Jack's impending trial for being dangerous ("Cubby," Robison's nickname for his son, was fascinated with chemistry, especially explosives, and was accused by investigators of being a potential terrorist after his chem lab was raided, even though it contained no explosives and the chemicals were stored safely), and then flashes back to his courtship, marriage, and the birth and childhood of his son.

I know it's Robison's unique narrative, but he's so flip sometimes it irritates me, and the narrative diverges wildly on occasion. The part of the memoir about the trial is truly scary: that these little bits of "evidence" the police and FBI gathered could send this curious and obviously harmless kid to prison for the rest of his life! I found the rest of the book "so-so," but a still intriguing look at how a neurodivergent father and son navigate the neurotypical world.

 The Heart Principle, Helen Hoang
This is the third in Hoang's trilogy (The Kiss Quotent and The Bride Test precede it) where the protagonists are on the autism spectrum.

Anna Sun is a violinist who became famous due to a viral YouTube video, and a composer was so taken with her performance that he wrote a song for her to perform. Unfortunately Anna is now so self-conscious that she can hardly play anything, let alone the song; she decides she's not playing well enough and just plays and replays pieces until it frustrates her. She's also tormented by her ambitious sister Priscilla and an impeccably groomed, handsome fiance that her family loves but who just told her he wanted an open relationship. In revenge Anna goes on a dating app and finds Quan Diep (brother of Khai in Bride Test and partners with Michael in Kiss Quotient), a tattooed motorcycling maverick who, amazingly, makes her feel comfortable. Then her father has a stroke and Anna is expected to pitch in on his care.

Like Sophie Go (scroll down), poor Anna has this family who devalues her at every step. She's seen as "weird," "wrong," "selfish," and other negatives; when it turns out she's on the autism spectrum, a fact Anna can't initially wrap her mind around when her therapist introduces her to the idea, she keeps going back to her family's assessment, especially since the family rejects the whole idea that they have someone "imperfect" in their midst and that she's not just "lazy" and "odd." Anna, too, doubts herself so much she rejects the diagnosis and keeps saying "Yes" to her creepy family. Quan and his friends are the only ones who treat her decently. Keep that in mind when you read the book, because you'll want to cancel most of Anna's family, especially when you see how they treat her father during his "recovery.'

  Beaverland, Leila Philip
Beavers made the first American millionaire: Johann (later John) Jacob Astor. The fashion in those days was the beaver top hat, and every gentleman, especially every English gentleman, wanted one. Thereupon became the run on beaver fur on the North American continent.

Philip takes us on the journey with the beaver and the tragic history in which their numbers diminish due to overtrapping and farming, which changes the landscape of the North American continent. She talks to trappers and fur sellers, asking why they still participate in the lifestyle, and to scientists who have proven that reintroduction of beavers into ecosystems improves them and returns the land to a better state, even when it has been tragically polluted.

The trapping/fur chapters seem rather overextended as she tries to make sense of why ecologically-minded modern men and women would still participate in the activity (most of the trappers are actually game wardens who deal with overpopulation or beavers who are encroaching on farm areas). There's also an odd chapter about iconic New England stone walls in which she...gasp!...realizes were probably built by enslaved Africans or Native Americans and spends the entire chapter apologizing for liking them. This isn't a surprise for anyone who's studied American history—marginalized minorities (African slaves, Native Americans, Chinese/Asians, etc.) always provided brute labor—and discounts the undisclosed artistry with which the enslaved persons built and maintained the walls.

All-in-all the beaver lore is great to read, especially her observations of beavers themselves and the stories of people who interacted with them, like the "Beaver Lady."

  Sophie Go's Lonely Hearts Club, Roselle Lim
The last of my reads for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. Sophie Go has just returned from Singapore having finished her training in traditional matchmaking, and has moved into an apartment in Toronto to start her career. But Sophie has a secret: she never completed the course due to one of her clients, a foolish girl who committed suicide over love. She's determined to work past this event: if her demanding mother and doormat father will allow it. Unfortunately, Sophie's no sooner started to network customers than her selfish mother drops the bomb in public about her not finishing the course. So Sophie proposes to an unofficial club of elderly Chinese men at her apartment building that she can find each of them a match, and that she'll do the first one for free. She also inadvertently acquires a very particular younger male client who seems impossible to match.

Based on the Chinese belief that there is a red thread that binds soulmates, this is a magical little book that follows Sophie's efforts and how she becomes friends with each of her elderly clients and struggles against her family. Her mother is truly a gruesome, grasping, selfish woman and her father just rolls over on his back like a submissive dog to make her happy, choosing his wife over his child to keep the peace, and she is the only fly in the ointment in this delightful story, with Sophie discovering there is a red thread for everyone.

Of course I cried.

 The Women's History of the Modern World, Rosalind Miles
I really need to get Miles' first book Who Cooked the Last Supper?, but this was one of my leftovers from Women's History Month.

Where are the women in history? Oh, we hear about some of them: Madame Curie, Harriet Tubman, Grace Hopper, Emmeline Pankhurst, Susan B. Anthony. But so many others have been buried by the "party line" of history that puts men first. Did you know many musical pieces credited to Felix Mendelsohn were actually composed by his sister Fanny? That women were at that wall striving for freedom during the French Revolution, not just men? That Katharine Wright was an integral part of the Wright Brothers' partnership? That women actually crossed over Niagara Falls on high wires? Notable women, intellectual lights hidden by the patriarchy, like Mary Wollstonecraft, the women of the Seneca Falls convention like Lucy Stone, the stalwarts of the women's lib movement. Chapter after chapter chronicles women's achievements that were left behind, or rights that were toppled by ignorant male beliefs.

A lot of people I knew. Many I didn't. Entertaining narrative that occasionally skitters off track, but it works.

  Re-read: The Case of the Missing Auntie, Michael Hutchinson
This second in the "Mighty Muskrats" series revolves around four children, Samuel, Chickadee, Atin, and Otter, cousins in the Cree nation who call themselves "the Mighty Muskrats," and live at the Windy Lake reservation. Chickadee's grandfather admits to her that his younger sister Charlotte was taken away from his family in the late 1950s in what they called "scoops"—native children who were adopted (mostly to act as servants) for white people. Now with the Muskrats heading into the big city to go to an exhibition fair, a disturbed Chickadee thinks their first mission should be to try to track down their missing aunt, but the boys are full of anticipation about visiting cousins, going to the fair, and Otter just wants to see his favorite Native band perform. No sooner are the kids at the much vaunted mall in the crowded, confusing city that they run into Brett, a boy who used to live on the "rez" and who Chickadee secretly had a crush on., and things start to go a little haywire. But Chickadee is still determined, no matter what, to find missing Auntie Charlotte.

This reads like an old-fashioned kids' adventure—the covers even look like a Happy Hollisters book—with modern sensibilities (internet, cell phones, etc.), real-life problems (Native people still coping with terrible laws once enacted by white settlers), a boy who's ended up in "the wrong crowd" after a move to the city, and the problems of a usually-overlooked culture. The kids meet good and bad people of all cultures, cope with bureaucracy, find out some hard truths about their past, but also are confident that they can help overcome it.

Vesper Flights, Helen Macdonald
This is a series of chiefly nature essays, mostly about birds, by the author of H is for Hawk. While a few address Macdonald's fear about the future of natural places—as we all should!—most of them are lyrical, lovely tales of meadows, discovering nature, the habits of birds and other wild creatures. Her beautiful talent with language infuses every piece with wonder. Her essay about the vanished "Tekels Park" is heartrending; "Eclipse" is stunning and captured all the feelings I had in 2017 watching the total eclipse of the sun in North Georgia. "Swan Upping," about the custom of tagging swans for the Crown, is fascinating. She even talks about Wicken Fen, where the Godolphin Arabian is banished in Marguerite Henry's King of the Wind.

For everyone who loves nature and beautiful essays.

Books Completed Since May 1

 A Light So Lovely: The Spiritual Legacy of Madeleine L'Engle, Sarah Arthur
Where else but here in the U.S. could a woman who wrote a book with deeply Christian themes be accused of being non-Christian because she talked about "witches" and "unicorns" since they are obvious symbols of the devil!

But that's Madeleine L'Engle.

Title is as it says: Arthur's examination of the ways L'Engle's faith shone in her storytelling, even if certain "Christians" said it wasn't "real" Christianity because she didn't adhere to their particular brand of Christianity. In fact, L'Engle and C.S. Lewis were both listed as authors who wrote pornographic children's literature. Seriously?

Arthur isn't blind to L'Engle's faults, especially her disconnection between her family's memories of the past and her family as portrayed in her nonfiction, and that she couldn't really come to terms with her son's death from alcoholism. Enjoyable summary of L'Engle's portrayal of Christianity in her books and in her life.

 Naked Heat, Richard Castle
While the Castle series, which I loved except for the loathsome final season, was on, a series of tie-in novels were published supposedly written by "Richard Castle" (the actual author was mystery writer Tom Straw), both his superspy "Derek Storm" books and his later series "Nikki Heat."

Basically the Nikki Heat books are Castle stories under a different name and a couple of tweaks. Kate Beckett becomes sexy Nikki Heat, Castle morphs into a magazine journalist Jameson Rook (Castle/Rook, get it?), Captain Montgomery becomes Captain Montrose, Ryan and Esposito are Raley and Ochoa, Laney Parish turns into Lauren Parry. Rook even has an actress mom; the only character missing is Alexis. The story begins when Heat, smarting over the article Rook wrote in the first book Heat Wave, is called to the murder of Cassidy Towne, a well-hated gossip columnist from the New York Ledger (the Ledger is also the newspaper that turns up in Law & Order: Criminal Intent). At Towne's apartment? Jameson Rook, who was doing a story on her.

Of course a gossip columnist has a lot of enemies, so Heat has her job cut out for her: the suspects include a singer and a baseball player. She doesn't remain unscathed, either; she's assaulted and almost killed. Rook is driving her crazy for half the story, but their attraction remains unmatched. And what's going on with another murder victim who was found with a coyote standing nearby?

Fun fluff, and good for Castle fans who were sorry the series ended on such a rotten note.

 Re-read: Born Free, Joy Adamson
I was ten and a half years old when the film Born Free came out. I was a passionate animal lover (heck, at that time I liked animals more than people) and saw every film that came out involving a dog, cat, horse, etc. The story, about a lion cub raised by a game warden and his artist wife in the African bush in the 1950s and then their efforts to teach her to hunt so that they could release her to the wild instead of confining her to a zoo, enthralled me. Of course, I wanted the book. It wasn't a children's book, and I didn't care. Mom bought me the Bantam paperback with the Virginia McKenna cover and I read that book so many times it literally fell apart, and I ended up buying another copy as an adult.

The copy I recently re-read is the 40th anniversary edition and I jumped into it gleefully. There are a couple of cringey lines now (Adamson observing the lion cubs didn't like Africans but liked white people, except for the Adamsons' assistant Nuru and other employees), but otherwise it was still fascinating. I never realized as a child how much of the text was devoted not to Elsa, but to George's job of helping the local people rid themselves of predatory lions, about the natural features of Africa, and about the political situations that sometimes made the bush an unfriendly place for both whites and Africans.

Liberally illustrated by photos of the real Elsa and the Adamsons. There was a sequel, Living Free, about Elsa's cubs, and a third book about releasing the lions from the Born Free film to the wild as Elsa had been.

 Two Wrongs Make a Right, Chloe Liese
Back in rom-com territory: Jamie Westenberg and Bea Wilmot don't exactly hit it off the first time they meet, but their friends conspire to match them up with each other. So they decide to get revenge by pretending to fall in love long enough to then dash everyone's hopes with a spectacular breakup. But in pretending to be lovers, guess what, Bea and Jamie start to learn about each other and, whaddya think: maybe they could be friends? Maybe they even could be...more.

This is the first of a trio of stories about the Wilmot sisters: Bea and her twin sister Juliet, and their older sister Kate, all based on Shakespeare plays (this one is "Much Ado About Nothing," Kate's story is next, based on "Taming of the Shrew," and I think you can guess who Bea's twin's story is based on). I liked Bea; she states she's neurodivergent and autistic, but she reminds me a lot of myself, so maybe I'm those things? I just thought I was shy.

The series is amiable enough. I'll probably check out Kate's book when it comes out.

  Life in Five Senses, Gretchen Rubin
This is another enjoyable read in Gretchen Rubin's pop psychology universe. When, after an eye exam, she discovers that no one has ever told her she has a higher-than-usual danger of losing her sight due to a retinal problem, she realizes she's been going through her life not noticing the world around her. Indeed, it's a common problem today with the rise of social media; people pay attention to their gadgets and not what's unfolding around them.

These are basically experiences based around the five basic senses (there are others, Rubin explains, but these are what people think of as the primary ones): finding the newness in what one sees everyday (like what kind of clothes your husband prefers), finding what grabs you at a museum or on the street, discovering music as not just something to dance to but which revives memories or sets a mood, doing a scent tour and realizing there are scent memories, trying new tastes but rediscovering special tastes of the past, eating a meal in without seeing the food, the power of our sense of touch: not just comforting but sometimes rousing bad memories.

The end of the book has suggestions for different exercises to help you rediscover your five senses. As someone with her nose always stuck in a book or writing, I liked this in telling me to pull back and observe the world around me.

  Re-read: A Courage Undimmed, Stephanie Graves
Once again, I got much more reading the non-ebook version. Olive Bright, daughter of the local vet and, like her father, a pigeoneer (one who breeds and trains racing pigeons), continues to help the British war effort by volunteering the Bright birds for messenger service. As a FANY (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry) volunteer, she also works at Bricktonbury Manor, headquarters of Baker Street, a top-secret World War II spy organization, under the aegis of Jameson Aldridge (her feigned love interest), but hopes to become an SOE agent who would be dropped into Nazi-occupied France.

Alas, Baker Street has a new commander, who thinks women have no place on the front lines; he not only tells Olive her pigeons may not be needed any longer, but assigns her to escort an annoying Royal Navy officer who's eager to interrogate a new resident of the village of Pipley, a Mrs. Dunbar who claims to be a spirit medium. In her first appearance in the village, Mrs. Dunbar said she was in contact with the dead souls of a British battleship on which several residents of the village served. Now everyone's uneasy, including the Naval representative, one Ian Fleming, who tells Olive that the ship is fine, but Mrs. Dunbar knows too many unique details for a civilian. But when Olive takes Fleming to a seance where Mrs. Dunbar dies, the question is whodunnit and why.

I love these books and the characters, but this latest one fell slightly short of the mark for me at the beginning. I think it's because I've read one too many mystery books centered around spirit mediums who are murdered. Plus Jamie is missing for the first half of the book, so a lot of the sparring between Olive and Jamie that brightened the previous two books is missing here. The solution to the mystery is rather pedestrian, too. Positives: we get a look behind the scenes at a wartime Christmas, and when Jamie does return he has a great surprise for Olive (including a hint of what his real name is!), and the training that Olive is observing is based on a real-life spy mission during the war.

 The Fourth Enemy, Anne Perry
I have just finished what turned out to be Perry's final book, which I hoped I could give a rousing review to, but, sadly, until the last third or quarter of the book, it frankly had me struggling through.

Gideon Hunter is newly arrived as a barrister at Daniel Pitt's law firm fford Croft and Gibson, just in time to prosecute a smug, ruthless man named Malcolm Vayne who is accused of fraud. (Basically, he has arranged an investment company that we would today call a "Ponzi scheme.") Worst of all, some of his investors are members of Parliament or other government officials, which gives Vayne much power over them. Since Vayne is now so powerful, it is dangerous to cross him, and he is so protected by certain investors that if the firm's prosecution case is not strong enough, it could destroy the firm.

The first 2/3 of the book is very slow, and the conversation is much about financial matters along with Perry's characters' usual soul-searching, except for a section where an elderly woman is threatened. The pace finally picks up near the end of the book, when the evidence against Vayne suddenly turns around and the case—and lives—are threatened. The last few chapters are very suspenseful and would make a good period thriller, but I'm afraid that the lead up is very plodding and you have to like the characters to keep going. Perry tried to give the new man, Hunter, and his wife Rose, some interesting personality, but they were very flat to me.

 The Lady With the Gun Asks the Questions, Kerry Greenwood
Apparently I finished this ages ago and forgot to review it.

I first met Phryne Fisher through the novels, later watching the television series. The latter is fun, but, of course for money reasons several characters have been cut from the stories, and Inspector Jack Robinson has become a love interest (in the books he's married with children). This is a collection of Phryne Fisher short stories, based on the novels. Some are long and convoluted, some are short—one's even solved by the time Robinson and Phryne are done talking about the evidence—but as far as I'm concerned they're all enjoyable to read, just from the POV of Phryne's 1920s setting and the attitudes of the characters. Wish there were more stories that involved Dot, as she is my favorite character in the series.

Well worth it for Fisher fans.

  A History of America in Thirty-Six Postage Stamps, Christ West
This is another interesting book I picked up for almost a song at Books-a-Million. West, a stamp collector, does exactly what he says, tells a history of the United States using 36 stamps curated mostly from the Smithsonian Postal museum, starting with the little revenue stamp that started the problems: a stamp from the Stamp Act. The stamps range from portraits of Presidents (Washington, Jackson, etc.), other important figures in U.S. history (Benjamin Franklin, Jefferson Davis, etc.), and finally, from the 1860s onward, other items significant in the country's history, the first being "the iron horse." It addresses some interesting bits of history you don't usually read about in other history volumes, like the Pan-American Exposition in 1901, the Golden Gate Bridge and Charles Lindbergh's flight, the Cold War, "Earthrise," and others.

Nifty little history volume from a different POV.

  Diary of an Early American Boy: Noah Blake, 1805, Eric Sloane
Always lovely to find Eric Sloane books at the library sale as they are now out of print and fiendishly expensive. In 1805 (yes, 1805) a 15-year-old named Noah Blake was given a journal for his birthday. He kept very brief entries for a year, using homemade ink, and Sloane uses Blake's entries to chronicle the work on an expanding farm of the early nineteenth century. Together Noah and his father, along with help from a neighbor, build a working mill, build a bridge over the nearby creek, and expand the cultivated fields of the farm, all without benefit of power tools, cranes, etc. Sloane's beautiful pen-and-ink illustrations of Early American tools and structures clearly illustrate the ingenious and clever ways 1805 citizens improved their life. But Noah's life isn't all work: he talks about neighborhood frolics, and meeting a special girl named Sarah who is working for their neighbors the Adamses for a year.

If you're interested in historic lifestyles, this book and other of Sloane's volumes are for you!

  War Animals, Robin Hutton
I grabbed this from the bargain book stack of Books-a-Million because I've loved Stephanie Graves' Olive Bright books and this has two chapters on pigeons used in war (the U.S. and the U.K.), plus some familiar characters from my childhood. There was this book by Patrick Lawson called More Than Courage, a Whitman book about horses and dogs, alternating chapters, one chapter about dogs and horses in war. It was there I met the acquaintance of Chips (who later had a vastly inferior movie made about him) the German Shepherd/collie/husky who won a Silver Star (only to have it taken away by commanders who said "that's only for humans) and also a Doberman named Andy.

They appear in this book along with other war dogs/rescue dogs/messenger dogs from World War II (including Smoky the Yorkshire terrier who has had two books written about her), Korea, and Vietnam, a short chapter on a ship's cat named Simon, another short chapter on horses, and the pigeon chapters. All the animals in this book received Britain's prestigious "Dickin" medal for heroic animals.

This is an easy read and you learn some great history about animals along the way.

  Ship Wrecked, Olivia Dade
This is the third in a series of rom-coms taking place among the cast members of a television series called Gods of the Gates (think a cheap version of Game of Thrones). Peter Reedton is a character actor ready for his first big role, but it turns out his co-star will be Maria Ivarsson, the woman he wholeheartedly made love to right before the audition—who then walked out on him without a word. Still, he won't wreck his chance at the role. For the next six years, Peter and Maria work side-by-side, getting to know each other as friends. But both still have hangups...and both live in different places. Is their smothered attraction enough to carry them to the next level?

Of course. This is a rom-com, people. In general, I enjoyed this, although it featured yet another clueless dad (only this one wasn't evil like the dad in Hating Game; he actually turns out to be a bit pathetic). Peter and Maria both have secrets in their past that interfere with their getting closer. Enjoyable stuff: their teasing, Peter in Stockholm with Maria's family, Maria's body pride in which she refuses to lose weight or shave/wax for her role (both our protagonists are plus-sized, as the newest description goes).

I liked Spoiler Alert because it was neat to see protagonists who wrote fanfic, skipped the second because I didn't like Alex in the first book, but this one may be my favorite of the three.

Books Completed Since August 1

 The Happy Hollisters and the Mystery of the Mexican Idol, Jerry West

And here we are at book 31 in the series and I'm thinking I should have taken notes again. John Hollister's brother Russ (the cartoonist) is back, flying into the Hollisters' home town of Shoreham when his flight is delayed. He tells the children (12-year-old Pete; 10-year-old Pam; Ricky, age 7; Holly, age 6; and 4-year-old Sue) and their parents there was a snake loose on the aircraft and in the panic over the reptile, his briefcase disappeared. Luckily he has the important document he's been carrying in his wallet instead: it's the map to a hidden Mayan temple with a "Laughing Idol" in the Yucatan given to him by an injured buddy/archaeologist named Skeets Packer. You guessed it: Uncle Russ, Aunt Marge, and their kids Teddy and Jean are going to Yucatan to search for the temple, and, no surprise, the five sibling sleuths and their parents will be going along. No sooner have they decided this than their house is broken into and searched! Everyone suspects it's due to the map.

 

In short order both Hollister families are in Mexico, the kids have created a code out of Mayan characters (keep it in mind, it does turn up later), they've found a rare coin and a chicken named Tan-Tan, come to depend on their driver Balám, discovered men not happy that they're in Chichén Itzá, and befriended two kids, Tomás Rico and his tagalog little sister Yotam (she says "Yo tam hai" all the time, which means "me, too" in Mayan, so that's her nickname). Add snakes, secretive boys with full sacks, a movie crew, a kidnapping, and the knowledge that Mayan artifacts are being smuggled out of the Yucatan for resale instead of ending up in local museums, and you have the Hollisters on an Indiana-Jones-type adventure with so many plot devices it's difficult to keep them straight.

Having read the previous volumes written in the 1950s where the boys and girls share sleuthing adventures, it's darned annoying near the end of a book written in 1967 to have Pam, Holly, and Jean relegated to learning to make huipils (traditional Mayan dresses) while the boys get to go out to do a little detective work; at least they're all in it at the end. Plus you end up learning a good deal about Mayan culture and the constant fight against looting of treasures, if the tangled plot doesn't make you dizzy first!

 

  Amber: A Very Personal Cat, Gladys Taber

In 1968, Gladys Taber returned from a visit to Cape Cod with a heavy heart; her final dog, Holly the Irish setter, had died while they were at the Cape, the last link between herself and her best friend Eleanor Mayer ("Jill" in the Stillmeadow books), whom she had known since college. Not minutes later Taber's daughter showed up with a magic box: inside was an Abyssinian kitten Gladys named Amber. She became Taber's constant companion throughout her final ten years of life.

 

Partially memoir of life-with-kitten, partial guide to taking care of cats, and all love for everything feline, Taber chats about Amber's friendly personality, her quirks, her uncanny instinct to know who loves cats and also to recognize the car engines of particular visiting friends, her prodigious leaping ability, and her habit of tagging after her mistress like a little dog—so much for cats being aloof! This book is a little bit like her early book Especially Spaniels, with a cat rather than cockers.

 

Some of the cat care items are now outdated, like the care of ticks and fleas (as we now have monthly medications for them) and the attitude toward spaying and neutering (Gladys preferred closely monitoring Amber when she came into "season"), but basic first aid is still the same, and anyone who's loved a kitten will certainly love Amber! Illustrated with black-and-white photos of the very photogenic subject.

 

  Hal Borland's Book of Days, Hal Borland

I enjoyed This Hill, This Valley enough that I sent off for this one. It's not really a Book of Days as in a diary, although some entries are about his observations of wildlife, weather, or seasonal growth and harvest. He says in the foreward that it was intended neither as calendar or almanac, but was his day-to-day thoughts, and the questions he had throughout the year: Who am I? Where am I? What time is it? But a lot of it reads like he took his newspaper columns and broke them up into manageable bits and used them as diary entries, and he's started from one-celled organisms and moved up through the evolutionary scale. Some of his entries, like about birds and mammals, were quite interesting, also the diary entries; I was less enthusiastic about all the material about fish, amphibians, and reptiles, and especially insects, but that's just me. He also talks about the findings of anthropologists in talking about early man, and about Robert Bakker's "new theories" (this was published in 1976) about dinosaurs being warm-blooded, which he disbelieves, so some of the science he talked about then is not up-to-date now.

 

I really would have preferred it if he'd stuck to a diary format of doings around his home, and his observations of animals, plants, and birds, with some of the scientific information tucked in around those observations, rather than what looked like just cutting-and-pasting his old columns into diary entries. It makes you wonder why he's talking about ants in December and birds' eyes in February.

 

  Death Comes to Bath, Catherine Lloyd

Three months after Sir Robert Kurland almost succumbed to an infection in the leg he injured at Waterloo, he does not seem to be recovering well. His forthright wife Lucy Harrington Kurland consults his old friend, an army physician, and moves the household, including her unmarried sister Anna, to the city of Bath, where Robert will "take the waters" and have other theraputic treatments. They rent a fine home, and Robert finds he even enjoys the spa treatments, especially after he finds a kindred spirit in Sir William Benson, a plain-speaking Yorkshire industrialist. Robert, Lucy, and Anna, plus Penelope Fletcher, Robert's doctor's pregnant wife, are more puzzled by Benson's family: three sons from Benson's first marriage, his young wife Miranda and her two spoiled sons, and Dr. Martel, Miranda's live-in physicians, who all appear to hate each other.

 

And evidently one of them hates Sir William, who was found drowned after one of his spa treatments—or it looks as if he were drowned, until Dr. Fletcher finds a stab wound.

This sixth book in the Kurland St. Mary mysteries find both Robert and Lucy eager to solve the mystery of who killed Sir William, if they don't go crazy dealing with the battling Bensons beforehand. The natural children hate their stepmother and stepbrothers, the stepmother knows it and reacts in all sorts of melodramatic ways, and her two sons are just plain troublemakers. In fact, the only person who really seems to have liked Sir William was his valet! More trouble comes when the solicitor comes to read the will: he doesn't have a copy, since Sir William practically changed it weekly. In the meantime Anna has finally found the man of her dreams, but is too afraid of childbirth to want to be married.

The baffling Bensons prove to stymie Lucy and Robert for a while, and they both miss a couple of clues that Lloyd dangles before their eyes. Still, the change of venue and their willing partnership in this detection event make this a winner.

 

 Re-read: Where the Old Roads Go, George Cantor

I found I was in need of a travel comfort read and went back to an old favorite where Cantor travels the old Federal highways in the Northeast (the New England states as well as New York, with a brief dip or two into Pennsylvania), from the real Mother Road, U.S. 1 all the way through U.S. 302. No doubt most of the local attractions Cantor mentions are probably gone (the caboose motel is still there, but it received a terrible rating on Yelp), but the historic background to each road is still solid as we travel from Fort Kent, Maine to the George Washington Bridge on Route 1; the forests of upper Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont via Route 2; drive from Massachusetts through the beautiful New Hampshire countryside on Route 3; cross the midpoint of the Green Mountain State and the Granite State (one of my Dad's favorite shortcuts to Lake George) on Route 4; etc. There's the old Putnam Pike (a.k.a. "Suicide 6," from Rhode Island to Connecticut after traveling the "tail of Cape Cod," my especial darling U.S. 9 from one mountain range (the Catskills) through another (the Adirondaks) taking in beloved Lake George and Fort Ticonderoga, the beginnings of "the Yankee Highway" (U.S. 20), west to Connecticut from Plymouth (a.k.a. in my neck of the woods the Danielson Pike) on U.S. 44, and more. No freeways, no standardized filling stations and chain restaurants...more developed now, alas, but still fun to roam. Thanks for the memories, George.

 

 The Happy Hollisters and the Monster Mystery, Jerry West

In the penultimate volume of the Happy Hollisters series (yes, it's almost the end), Pete, age 12, brings the members of the Shoreham Detective Club to order: his brother and sisters (10-year-old Pam; Ricky, age 7; Holly, age 6; and 4-year-old Sue), and neighbors Dave Mead, Ann Hunter and her brother Jeff, and Donna Martin. They are going to solve "the monster mystery" that has caused gossip in their lakeside home town, Shoreham, after strange footprints have been found around town and small food items missing from porches. They also want to help a nearby school start a toy library (so poor children can borrow toys as they do books) and, in the process, befriend a boy named Alex Kane. Almost as soon as they resolve to investigate the monster, Holly sees it: it looks like a small wrinkled old man with big teeth.

 

The Hollisters have met several different Native American tribespeople in the course of their travels, plus Mexicans, Hispanic Americans, and Swiss, German, and Danish people. It's only in book 32 that they meet someone...black! Alex turns out to be a vital new member of the Detective Club (and his dad has a cool job, too; he's the fire chief) as the Hollisters and friends seek out "monster" clues and even investigate a flying saucer claim. It's a bit irritating that in the newer books in the series, the girls seem to be excluded from sleuthing more, but in the end, once again, it's Pam who solves the whole thing. As a child of the 1960s, having seen this plotline endlessly on television (Lassie, of all series, seemed particularly fond of it), I twigged what was going on about halfway throughout, but it's still a tidy little mystery carried to its inevitable conclusion. And Joey Brill, the jerk, eventually gets a good spanking from his father!

 

 Time's Convert, Deborah Harkness

Judging by some of the lukewarm reviews of this book, some folks were looking for more brooding Matthew and spellcasting Diana. This isn't the book.

 

There are basically three storylines here, all to do with learning and growing: Phoebe Taylor, deeply in love with Marcus Whitmore, resolves to become a vampire, sired by Miriam Shephard. Having agreed to stay away from Marcus during her first 90 days, she is sequestered with Freyja and Miriam as her instructors in learning to live her new life. In the meantime, we join Diana and Matthew in their home in New Haven, Connecticut, where they are both learning what it's like to raise two Bright Born (half-vampire, half-witch) children: Rebecca takes after Matthew and there are fears she may have blood madness and Philip definitely has magical tendencies, especially after he conjures a small griffin he calls Apollo. In the third thread, we learn about Marcus Whitmore's life, from his abusive childhood with a father who returned home from the French and Indian Wars as a drunkard with a violent temper to his participation in the Revolutionary War to his siring by Matthew while on his deathbed at Yorktown to his adventures in France during the Revolution to his life in New Orleans during the early 1800s when Matthew finally had to put a stop to his indiscriminate siring of vampire "children."

 

Marcus' portion of the story reads a lot like a historical novel, with his participating in the Revolution both in the United States and in fractured France. He meets people like the Marquis de Lafayette, Benjamin Franklin, and his idol, Thomas Paine. Harkness vividly brings both the U.S. and the French settings to life, but if you're not a fan of historical stories, this may bore you. Phoebe's portion of the book illustrates how differently a vampire sees the world and how things as simple as walking and grasping things have to be relearned because vampirism makes one super strong and super sensitive. (It also treads very carefully on where the blood that keeps them alive comes from—mostly they buy it from humans willing to sell!) The Matthew/Diana/Becca/Philip part of the book is rather whimsical: remember the episodes of Bewitched where Tabitha was going through "wishcraft"? This is a more serious—since Matthew's brother Baldwin so is fearful that Becca will attack someone or Philip will toss off a damaging spell that he wishes them spellbound as Diana was as a child—version of that, sort of Bringing Up Bébé, if your child is a witch or a vampire, that is!

I am a fan of history, so I enjoyed all three threads that comprise this book, although I must confess I liked the "bringing up vampire/witch babies" sequence the best. The book, as some have complained, doesn't really come to a climax; it actually comes full circle with Marcus, with each protagonist in the book doing some growing. I was satisfied.

(Several reviews complained about the language. I am not naïve enough to think that nobody swore in Colonial times, but, yes, I was a little taken aback that "f---" showed up so often in this book! Surely there were other curse words? Are "damn" and "hell" simply too mild to show "strong emotion" any longer?)

 

 The Happy Hollisters and the Mystery of the Midnight Trolls, Jerry West

#33, and last in the series. The family goes out with an intriguing adventure with a really dumb ending. Everyone is excited when John Hollister brings home his new sailplane, but peculiar things begin to happen: first Grandma Hollister sends them a message in Braille from Canada, asking the kids to come visit and meet a special friend. But she also says she and their grandfather are having trouble with trolls who show up during the night! Then a special invention for sailplanes from Iceland sent to Mr. Hollister is stolen when the kids go to the post office to pick it up. Luckily Officer Cal helps them get it back. Next thing you know the five children (Pete, age 12; Pam, 10; 7-year-old Ricky; Holly, 6; and Sue, 4) are on their way, via bus (yes, alone!—and on the way they acquire a piglet) to Canada, where they meet Helga Karlsdottir from Iceland. (Guess what, it turns out Helga is the daughter of the man who sent Mr. Hollister the package!) In Canada, the kids ride a pony and search for the trolls.

The whole Hollister family are then on their way to Iceland so that the sailplane can compete in a sailplane contest, traveling with Helga and hosted by her parents and brother Olaf. (Pam appears to have a little crush on Olaf, the first time that's happened in a Hollister book.) At the airport they find the sailplane has been stolen. So for the rest of the trip they are searching for the sailplane, the thieves that followed them from Shoreham, the trolls (who appear to be in Iceland as well), and still manage to learn about Iceland itself—the hot springs, the Icelandic ponies, the nearly treeless landscape, the "midnight sun," etc. There's also an ultralight helicopter involved in the story.

The trip to Iceland is fun, but the fact that Helga is blind seems to be put into the plot for no good reason: sure the kids get a Braille message to decode and later they send a secret message in Braille, and there's some talk about the "radar" the blind can rely on so they don't bump into things, but it's not like it helps solve the mystery as in the volume where a deaf boy's ability to read lips assists the kids. Holly is still "twirling her pigtail," an annoying habit she began a few books back. Also, there's a very strange ending involving Sue, who is a little fractious upon leaving Canada. She's sad that there are no trees in Iceland, so she can't see any birds, even though Sue has never shown an affinity for birds in any other book. Helga consoles her by telling her they will take her to see some puffins, but too much goes on, like deserted cabins, geysers, stolen ponies, etc. for that to happen. At the end of the book, Sue still mourns that she never got to see any "muffins," so Helga goes upstairs and brings back something to plunk in front of her: a stuffed puffin! And, seriously, that's how the book ends. Kind of a letdown after 33 volumes!

 

  Don't Make Me Pull Over! An Informal History of the Family Road Trip, Richard Ratay

This is a sweetly nostalgic and tongue-in-cheek road trip about family car vacations in the 1970s, where Ratay's dad and mom piled four kids and tons of luggage in their car at 4 a.m. (so they could drive past Chicago before rush hour) to get on the road. I remember those early morning starts, snacks in the back seat and then having to help Dad drive when I turned sixteen, watching the world spool by outside the window, but am forever grateful my Dad was all about bathroom breaks and having his meals on time and wasn't like Mr. Ratay with his obsession about "making time"! We at least got to stop every two hours and eat at places like Nickerson Farms (oh, that chicken soup!) instead of just pulling through the drive-though at (yeeech) McDonald's.

 

Along with the family trip memories of squeezing six people in a double motel room (at least Ratay's dad sprang for brand-name motels!), Ratay chronicles the history of American roads and road trips, roadside eateries and sleeping places, attractions, and what finally put the kibosh on the great American road trip: airline deregulation. (I've taken advantage of that since 1979—and yet husband and I still miss our past road trips, given the kibosh the last few years due to his health: Gatlinburg in 2013 and 2014; Virginia in 2012;  Michigan and Ohio in 2011; Pennsylvania Dutch in 2009; etc., most of the time with a small dog and a budgie in tow!)

 

Noted: in his chapter about the 1970s gas embargo and subsequent shortage, Ratay has missed a "fun" result of the era: people siphoning gas from your car! In college my Toyota Corolla started getting 15 mpg instead of 24. After the car was vetted as fine, Dad bought a spring-looking gadget that went in the filler pipe. You could put gas in the the car okay, but no one was able to stick a siphon hose down into your tank. Voilá—mileage back to 24mph. I used to park in the very back row (next to the trees) of the parking lot furthest away from the classrooms at RIC; evidently someone was gassing up their car for free by siphoning gas from the back row.

 

The last few paragraphs bring forward a great truth: today's road trips, with their personal tablets and movies in the back seat and headphones, aren't the same. You miss all the cool stuff on the road, and talking about what you've seen, and what you wanted to see. Or in Ratay's words: "More than anything else, that's what made a family road trip so special: the feeling of being inextricably bound together in a great adventure. An adventure based less on where we were headed, and more in the moments we shared along the way. In the end, it never really mattered where we traveled in our car on all those great family road trips. In simply making the drive together, we were already in the best place of all."

If you fondly remember family car trips, or just want to read some warm history, this is a great read.

 

  Conversations With Amber, Gladys Taber

This is Taber's second book centered around her final pet, the Abyssinian cat Amber, but this one is more a cross between one of her Stillmeadow books and her first book about Amber, which was almost a cat care manual. Instead of talking about or with her late housemate "Jill" (Eleanor Mayer), Taber bounces her commentary about the weather, her homes in Stillmeadow and Still Cove, her neighbors on Cape Cod and the wildlife there that she feeds, and more off Amber. It is a sweet, if sad, coda to the restricted life Taber led in her final years.

 

A big plus to this second book: beautiful pointillist pen-and-ink illustrations of Amber as each chapter header by Pamela Carroll.

 

  The Dante Chamber, Matthew Pearl

This is a sequel to Pearl's The Dante Club, which I enjoyed so much, especially the voice in which it was written (Pearl did a good job writing as if he was actually in the nineteenth century). In that story, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell and Oliver Wendell Holmes, along with publisher James T. Fields, become involved in a mystery where recent Boston deaths are emulating the gruesome punishments in Dante's nine circles of Hell (Longfellow is writing a new Dante translation). Now Holmes is in England just as deaths begin happening imitating the punishments Dante doled out to the people in Purgatory, and Christina Rossetti is afraid that her brilliant but unstable brother Dante Gabriel Rossetti, a tortured artist, is involved somehow. She teams up with her dour, non-artistic brother William, along with a still grieving Robert Browning, poet laureate Alfred Tennyson, and Holmes to discover who is carrying out these gruesome murders.

 

Pearl paints Rossetti as a reluctant leader, a woman of strong opinions who is struggling to remain a good Christian, but too intelligent to be bound to the strictures attached to women of that era. She well holds her own against Browning, who admires and tries to protect her; Tennyson, who is torn between his own self-interest and helping his friends; Holmes, who doesn't want to be involved in such horrible events again; and Gabriel himself, who is still guilt-stricken over the death of his wife five years earlier, and who appear to be slowly going crazy. You get a great idea of the personalities, but the story itself is pretty much a rehash of The Dante Club.

 

  Reminisce: Family Road Trips, by the editors

Well, had to grab this one after the Ratay book! It's the best travel stories, vignettes, and images from "Reminisce/Reminisce Extra" magazines in hardback form. Most of the stories are, indeed, about family car trips, but there are other anecdotes about train and bus travel (some during World War II). The most fascinating stories are the ones which take place the earliest: motor travel in the 1920s. Two young men cross the country by motorcycle, getting bogged down in mud on terrible roads and various pieces of equipment breaking down. Car travelers are also continually stuck in mud on non-existent paved roads of the '20s.

 

Plus you have family campers, some of them home made; adventures in road stops before there were motels and restaurants, like camping next to the railroad tracks or in a farmer's front yard. Here too are the stories of kindnesses, like a young man trying to get home before his mother died; everyone who read the letter summoning him home gave him a free lift, even once by aircraft! He spent only $1.50 practically going cross country and did arrive in time to say farewell to his mother. Another man remembers being the only one of six children to go to a big amusement park at age four, only to find out it's because once the visit is over he has to go to a tuberculosis sanatorium for six months. You visit National Parks, big cities, tourist traps, Route 66, classic amusement parks, etc. all illustrated by readers' photos and vintage postcards and memorabilia. Great fun!

 

  Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art, Rebecca Wragg Sykes

This is a recent (last year) publication of the latest finds about Neanderthal man. I grew up with the old scientific information: Neanderthals as strong but stupid, cudgel-wielding "cavemen" who dragged women by the hair. Then graves were found indicating that Neanderthals buried their dead with care, that they nurtured their children just as tenderly, and prompted by these new discoveries, Jean Auel wrote the wildly popular "Earth's Children" books, the first of which detailed the raising of a Cro-Magnon child by a band of Neanderthals. This prompted new, real-life scientific study.

I was fascinated by the book in what I found out: that the "graves" one hears about might not be graves at all, that the Neanderthal burial customs included stripping the flesh off the bones (did they cannibalize their dead as part of a ritual? no one knows), that Neanderthals lived all over the globe, except in Africa, and that all humans, except for those from sub-Saharan Africa, have some percentage of Neanderthal genes, proving that Cro-Magnon man and Neanderthal man interbred.

If there's a problem with this book, there's just so much information. The author obviously knows her subject, and she loves it, so there are pages and pages of detail about stone tools, living spaces, much of it repeated. Sykes does try her hardest to make the Neanderthal world come alive, including with chapter openings "seen" from Neanderthal eyes and "felt" by Neanderthal feelings.

The text is supported by some illustrations of tools from the dig, and a diagram of how Neanderthals are related to modern man and of the intertwining of the family trees.

 

  England's Finest, Christopher Fowler

Here's another dozen short stories starring the two offbeat, elderly head detectives of the Peculiar Crimes Unit, irascible and intelligent Arthur Bryant and urbane and social John May, and their equally offbeat team, including one with Janice Longbright, the next oldest member of the team (her mother worked with Bryant and May) as the protagonist and another where she provides a vital clue, plus a new introduction by Raymond Land, their long-suffering supervisor, and notes by the author.

 

The Bryant and May mystery novels are delightful, offbeat stories which usually involve some aspect of London history, whether it be the local rivers or pubs, parks or traditional customs, Punch and Judy shows or pagan sacrificial beliefs, and more along with a cracking, twisty puzzle that often doesn't end as you would expect. The stories are equally entertaining, with a clue to a murder being a missing reindeer; a body discovered in the PCU's own basement; a flashback tale to the 1950s; even a tale with Bryant and May in Transylvania, and more.

Fowler has recently published the final Bryant and May novel, and that will be a great loss to the mystery community. Thanks for twenty wonderful novels and two collections of short stories (and a graphic novel to boot)!

 

  Face Toward the Spring, Faith Baldwin

Faith Baldwin was a good friend of Gladys Taber (Taber is mentioned in one chapter) who wrote what we'd call today "chick-lit." She also did several volumes of nonfiction in which she chronicled her days and the seasons, and was introspective about life, faith, and responsibility. This is one of those volumes. She writes quite easily, in a similar fashion to Taber, although she has no rollicking dogs and introspective cats and a best friend; her prose is more spiritually oriented, although she does not espouse any specific religion (in fact she states she has been criticized after speaking to religious groups for not doing so).

 

This book made perfect bedtime reading; calming, yet leaving food for thought (pick up some Post-It type notes for marking quotes).