Books Completed Since October 1

  Inventing English, Seth Lerer
I never could resist a good linguistics book, and this was an enjoyable one.

In nineteen chapters, Lerer sketches watershed moments in the English language, from the poetry of Old English to modern vernacular. Indeed, much of the changes discussed relate to poetry, which is different from most of the English language books I have. Once French enters the scene, it becomes the language of politics and of the wealthy. Words not only change, but word order changes as well, and dialects change depending on what region of England you're from. Then along comes the Great Vowel Shift (you didn't think we could talk about the English language without this phenomenon, did you?). Chapters on Samuel Johnson's dictionary and American English and regionalisms are especially interesting.

 The Comfort of Ghosts, Jacqueline Winspear
After seventeen mysteries and several adventures along the way, this is the final novel in the Maisie Dobbs series.

World War II is over. Maisie, consulting detective for several decades, is now married to American Mark Scott, a Federal employee. They have an adopted daughter, Anna. Maisie discovers that four teenagers are living in her old Belgravia house, and that they are nursing a shell-shocked and gravely ill former soldier. As she helps them, she discovers a secret about her late husband James Compton.

In Maisie's final story, her future takes a new turn, and we see somewhat into the future of her family, her friends, and even some new family. In a surprising turn, I learned that, because of fears of invasion by the Nazis, the British recruited and trained orphan teenagers to be assassins.

I will certainly miss Maisie and her extended family. Perhaps Winspear might update their story sometime so that we find out what happened to Anna, Priscilla's sons, and others.

  Lady of the Silver Skates, Catharine Morris Wright
This is a biography of Mary Mapes Dodge, who wore many hats in her life, especially as the editor of the magazine "St. Nicholas," one of my favorite things, but she is most famous as the author of the children's book Hans Brinker; or The Silver Skates. Known as "Lizzie" in her family, she grew up in a literary family who published magazines. Lizzie later married William Dodge, but when family fortunes started reversing, and one of their children became sick, Dodge abandoned the family and was later found to have committed suicide. Lizzie was forced to support her family and thus became the editor of one of the most famous children's magazines of all time, sharing correspondence with some of the most famous writers of the time.

I was happy to find this book because of my love for "St. Nicholas," and indeed, there is almost as much about the magazine as there is about her most famous book. It's very oddly written; I can't explain totally, but it has sort of a folksy narrative that is very odd in a biography. Sometimes it annoyed me a bit; I would have preferred it more conventionally written. But it was the most I'd ever heard about Mary Mapes Dodge, who was once a household name.

 The Black Bird Oracle, Deborah Harkness
This is the first book in Harkness' sequel to the All Souls trilogy that began with A Discovery of Witches. Matthew de Clermont and Diana Bishop have lived a quiet life since Diana confronted the Congregation, raising their twin children Philip and Rebecca. They are planning to take their usual summer in London when they are summoned: because they are "Bright Born," the children must be tested by the Congregation as they turn seven. Based on her own childhood experiences, Diana is afraid that Pip and Becca will be found wanting or dangerous, and will be spellbound as was.

Diana flees with the children to Ravenswood, her mother's family's home, where a community of witches also stand in judgment toward her. Later some of the community embrace her, and others see her as an enemy. It's here she will learn secrets about her mother's family.

It's not as compelling as Discovery, but I love the universe and the characters. I was a little disappointed that all of a sudden that Diana's father, who has appeared as a nice character in the previous books, seems to become a different person in this one, and not a pleasant one. I fear she might be retconning things to make the female characters more powerful. Still, I'm looking forward to the future of this series.

  London's Secret History, Peter Bushell
I picked this up at a book sale thinking it was about unusual places in London. Instead, it contains anecdotes about the eccentric people who lived in London over the years, including Samuel Johnson, Samuel Pepys, and Sydney Smith. Some of the names are well-known, like the Mountbattens, the Duke of Devonshire, Sir Walter Raleigh, the infamous Nell Gwynn, and more.

I found this to be very funny reading before bed and am glad I spent the $1.50 on tit.

  Spy, Spy Again, Mercedes Lackey
After her awful Eye Spy, which was ruined by her totally obvious hatchet job on an unpopular (yet truly odious) politician (it could have been done so much more subtly, but no, she had to be so obvious about it that it was stupid), this final book in the trilogy about Mags and Amily's brood is a corker. Tory, the youngest, has been the best friend of Prince Kyril "Kee" since babyhood. Neither of them have been Chosen by companions, and their combined Gift (Kee can amplify Tory's farseeing) makes them prime agents to go undercover in Karse to rescue the kidnapped daughter of Bey, Mags' cousin, a professional assassin.

Siratai, however, is holding her own. Being held hostage in a keep with magic baffles, the talented assassin is keeping her Karse captors at bay, but it will take more than the assistance from Earth elementals to get her from her prison.

Tory and Kee take second place in this story to Sira, who is a kick-ass, clever protagonist. You can read this just for her.

  Over My Dead Body: Unearthing the Hidden History of America's Cemeteries, Greg Melville
This is a fascinating history of the United States from the point of view of the earliest graveyards in Jamestown which show the conditions that first winter were so bad that the remaining explorers resorted to cannibalism through the years of graveyards to cemeteries to memorial parks, and finally the future of cemeteries, given the lack of land and the damage modern burial does to the environment. One chapter talks about how Plymouth settlers' survival depended on robbing Native American graves; another addresses how enslaved persons' graves were relegated to neglected areas of plantations. Fascinating insights into how embalming became popular after the Civil War (and how embalmed bodies are polluting our planet), how cemeteries became parks, military cemeteries, the infamous "Forest Lawn," and more.

Terrific reading.

  From Bad to Cursed, Lana Harper
Part of the "Witches of Thistle Grove" series. Four families live in Thistle Grove, the earth witch Thorns, the Avramovs (who deal with dark magic), the Blackmoores descended from Camelot, and the Harlows. During Beltane celebrations, dark magic attacks Holly Thorn, nearly killing her and halting her magic. Her cousin Rowan Thorn, and Isidora Avramov, who summons demons for fun, are partnered to solve the mystery. Issy has a history with Rowan that isn't pleasant, but she tries to act professional. Naturally, they fall in love with each other.

I found some of the magic intriguing. Isadora and Rowan, not so much.

Books Completed Since October 1

  Creatures of the Kingdom, James Michener
This is a compilation of all the nature and animal chapters from Michener's sprawling novels like Centennial, Alaska, Chesapeke, and more. I've been wanting it for ages and finally found it in a used book store. These sequences are always preludes to the human dramas of his books and I look forward to them. Some of his most memorable characters are Rufous the bison and the two competing water dogs in Chesapeake.

 The Bride Test, Helen Hoang
Damn, this book made me cry.

Khai Diep is autistic, but all he sees is that he has no feelings. When his favorite cousin Andy dies, he doesn't cry, so he feels he is unfit for a "regular" life that includes falling in love and getting married. His troubled mother travels to Vietnam to find a woman she feels might change his mind. She returns with Mỹ—now known as Esme Tran—a young woman who cleans bathrooms to support herself, her mother, and her secret child. Esme will try to woo Khai, and his mother will pay for her summer in the United States. If it doesn't work, she will go home, at least, with some savings. Khai can't believe what his mother's done, and Esme will do just about anything to get this handsome young man to love her. Except surrender her principles.

Everything about this book feels right: the young man who feels like an outcast because he can't seem to feel, the young woman who wants a better life, even the older brother who's desperate to help. A fulfilling romance read.

 The Murder Room, Michael Capuzzo
This is the story of the Vidocq Society, founded by an FBI agent turned private eye (William Fleisher), a self-taught forensic artist (Frank Bender), and an eccentric profiler (Richard Walter): a group of professional crime fighters who get together once a month to take on cold cases of murder (others include people like Robert Ressler, the basis for the Jack Crawford character in Silence of the Lambs and a forensic pathologist, Hal Fillinger). It's an interesting book, first chronicling the three founders' initial interest in crimefighting and then going on to cover some of the more interesting cases the Vidocq Society had investigated.

However, Capuzzo goes on and on about such things as Bender's "open marriage" (his wife allows him girlfriends, but he has to bring them home and she has to approve them). Bender weaves through this book like a forensic sculptor Hugh Hefner, constantly on the make. Richard Walter is described as precise and eccentric, a living embodiment of Sherlock Holmes, chain smoker, living in a Victorian home. He and Bender partner like oil and water, and if I'd heard him described one more time as "the thin man" I thought I was going to scream. The crimes are fascinating, but there should have been less focus on some private lives.

  A Curious History of Sex, Kate Lister
I bought this for Valentine's Day, but only read it now. With tongue firmly in cheek, Lister takes us through the wonderful world of human sexuality, from a discussion of that four-letter word (not the "f word," but the "c word") to a history of the "boy in the boat" (the clitoris), whores, sexual racism, the "evils" of masturbation, sexual gland transplants, sex and food, vibrators and other sex toys, condoms...well, name it, it's here, and illustrated with many examples of Asian sex manuals, "French postcards," and erotic Victorian photography.

Lots of fun to read.

  Star Trek Strange New Worlds: The High Country, John Jackson Miller
This was recommended to me by a friend who usually doesn't like tie-in novels. Thanks, Bill!

Captain Christopher Pike, First Officer Una Chin-Riley, Science Officer Spock, and Cadet Nyota Uhura are testing out a new shuttlecraft to be used on Prime Directive landings. This will keep advanced technology away from planets that are being explored. But as "Eratosthenes" approaches planet FCG-7781 b, on which the Starfleet vessel "Braidwood" disappeared some years go, all her sensors go out and the ship loses power. The crew is evacuated safely, but each person lands in a different place: Pike near what looks like an old West town, Chin-Riley in a forest, Spock underwater, and Uhura near a volcano. What Pike discovers on the planet is incredible: humans from Earth transported from the 1800s and not allowed to progress technologically. But one of them isn't from that era; it's someone Pike knew back on Earth.

This book is a sequel of sorts to a Star Trek: Enterprise episode called "North Star" in which Drayko and his people were introduced, but you need not have watched it. It's a corker of a good SNW story, with inventive plotlines for each of the missing characters (although Spock gets slightly short shrift), great worldbuilding, interesting original supporting characters, chase scenes along with thoughtful processes. Should not disappoint any Star Trek fan.

  Witcha Gonna Do?, Avery Flynn
Matilda "Tilda" Sherwood is a powerless witch—an outré—in a family of witchy overachievers. All of the other witches turn up their noses at her. (Think of her as Rudolph.) Even her presence on a dating service doesn't help, because the darn thing keeps matching her up with Gil Connolly, who she considers a jerk. Actually, it keeps happening because the Witch's council thinks Tilda is faking and keeps sending Gil to check her out. If he makes good on his investigation, they just might let his parents back from banishment. And then, somehow, even without power, Tilda manages to mess up one of her sisters' spells and quick freezes the whole family. The only hope: stealing a heavily guarded spell book. Who's gonna help? Gil, of course, because he's discovered Tilda's real secret (the one so secret she doesn't know about it).

As opposed to the Asher book below, this is a much more whimsical book. I liked Tilda and Gil, but the whimsy got tiresome quickly.

  Not Your Ex's Hexes, April Asher
Another rom-com from Books-a-Million's clearance section, this is the second in a series about the magical Maxwell sisters, Violet, Rose, and Olive, who live in a world where vampires, werewolves, angels, demons, and witches live side-by-side with humans. The first book was about Violet; this volume is about Rose. When the story opens, Rose, her sisters, and her bestie Harper are trying to rescue two emaciated horses, not knowing they've already been rescued by veterinarian Damian Adams, half-demon. Rose, as the organizer of the rather illegal rescue, is given community service rather than arrest, service at Damian's animal rescue. Predictably, sparks fly, but Damian's keeping a secret: he can't fall in love because his ex-girlfriend hexed him. If he does, he'll lose his soul.

I liked this much better than Witcha; the sister dynamic is fun, the animal work is cool, and the troubles Rose and her sisters have seem more realistic, but, as I notice other people complained about this book, these folks are supposed to be in their thirties, with responsible jobs. Most of them act more like lovesick teens or college students.

  Better Hate Than Never, Chloe Liese
This is book two in Liese's Wilmot sisters trilogy. I didn't like it as well as the first because Kate is just so angry. She says her parents loved her and Christopher back in their childhood was like a brother, but she never felt loved, but always like a third wheel because her parents had each other and Beatrice and Juliet were twins. The parents sound very supportive, so I don't understand the self-hate.

The story: Kate, the youngest sister, grew up knowing Christopher Petruchio as a good friend, but they have always argued. Christopher, knowing her hostility, tried to keep away from her, but has always been attracted to her. When Kate comes home for Thanksgiving, not wanting to admit she's down and out, as well as out of a job, she immediately gets hostile to Christopher again and he responds in kind until Kate makes a drunken admission that she always thought he hated her.

The absolutely best thing about this book is that near the end there is one of those romance story situations that almost always happens: "the misunderstanding." Almost, but it doesn't, because the characters act like adults and trust that they've heard the wrong thing. Thank you so much.

Books Completed Since August 1

 The Majic Bus: An American Odyssey, Douglas Brinkley
I bought this at the book sale because I was writing a story about a cross-country book tour and it looked fascinating. It is fascinating, but sort of disappointing at the same time. The book chronicles a course Brinkley taught out of Hofstra University on a six-weeks' odyssey on a tour bus: "An American Odyssey: Art and Culture Across America." They visited not only historical sites, but cultural sites, visiting people like Bob Dylan, Ken Kesey, and William Burroughs. They rented a bus from a strange but manic man named Frank Perugi, who didn't even have the bunks for the students to sleep in when they first started out. The students didn't seem to mind, though, and they have some nifty adventures. It just bothered me that they seemed to concentrate so much on cultural figures who were drug users or frequently bombed on alcohol. 

  People We Meet on Vacation, Emily Henry
Poppy Wright works at a travel magazine and comes from a happy, messy family; Alex Nilsen is a teacher and comes from a fractured one; they meet at college discovering they both come from the same home town. One year they drive home together and then for ten years they go, as friends, on a summer vacation together—until they give in to romantic feelings.

Now Poppy feels dissatisfied: with her job, with her life, and realizes the last time she was happy was on her last vacation with Alex. So she invites him to take one more vacation to her, on what turns out to be a disastrous trip to Palm Springs, in hopes she can get him back. But even the course of friendship doesn't run smooth this time.

Not quite as good as Beach Read, but enjoyable.

 The Book of Books, text by Jessica Allen
This is the book PBS put out when they did "The Great American Read" (which I'm still pissed at because they didn't include The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn). It includes summaries of all one hundred books covered in the specials, plus pullouts about banned books, literary terms, famous book characters, movie adaptations, book covers, and more. I got it on a remainder table. It's worth that.

 The Seven Year Slip, Ashley Poston
I liked The Dead Romantics so much I tried this one, and while I didn't like it as much, it's a sweet story about book publicist Clementine West, who is devastated when her beloved Aunt Analea dies. She's inherited her aunt's New York City apartment, which her aunt once told her had a magical component, a pinch in time. Grief-stricken Clem finds consolation in her job at a publishing house which specializes in cookbooks and who's trying to obtain a new author, the brilliant chef James Ashton.

And then one morning she wakes up to find a strange guy named Iwan in her apartment with a note from her aunt saying he's subletting the apartment for the summer while they're abroad, her aunt's old furniture back where it used to be, and a calendar saying it's seven years earlier. Iwan's time slip continues to pop in and out of Aunt Lea's apartment, and Clem becomes very fond of the young chef...and then more than fond.

It didn't give me the "feels" as much as Romantics, but enjoyable all the same.

  Unmasked: My Life Solving America's Cold Cases, Paul Holes
As a kid, Holes loved the series Quincy, and that's what he finally decided to do for a living, work as a crime analyst in California. His single-minded devotion to his job cost him his first marriage; when he married a second time it was to a woman who also did crime work, so she could better understand him, but there were times even she was dismayed. Holes was there when Laci Petersen's body was found and knew there was foul play; he and a fellow officer were there when Jaycee Dugard was discovered, kicking themselves for having obvious clues. And he was the one who finally tracked down the infamous Golden State Killer, who turned out to be a police officer.

This is the story of Holes' career, from his early days working in a makeshift lab to the final days until his retirement when he picks up the loose ends about Joseph DeAngelo, of sleepless nights spent away from his family because he was so obsessed over catching criminals. It's a fascinating insight of how one man worked, yet sad, too, because so many times he couldn't make the connection, and there were more victims.

 The Sign of Fear: A Doctor Watson Thriller, Robert Ryan
Alas, this is the last of Ryan's wartime mysteries featuring Dr. John Watson, and, as the book opens, he is worried about his old friend Sherlock Holmes, who is in the hospital after suffering a heart attack. Soon, however, he is involved in two mysteries: who has kidnapped members of a wartime board of governors who will decide how much pensions for wounded soldiers will be, protesting that no amount of money is comparable to what they have suffered, and also in the disappearance of an evacuee ship called the Dover Arrow, which was carrying Watson's friend Staff Nurse Jennings. Plus the Germans are plotting a new incendary bomb that threatens to wipe out London.

These are excellent, complex tales with grim wartime themes and this one is no exception; great reads, but the levels of violence are sometimes high—beware that as you go into them.

 The Usborne Science Encyclopedia
This is ostensibly for older children, but I found it a great science refresher, starting with atomic structure and ending with the human body. It covers the elements, plant and animal life, electricity, geology, chemical reactions, and more. Plus the book contains QR codes which can be scanned to show additional videos about the subjects addressed.

 The Secret History of Christmas Baking, Linda Raedisch

Books Completed Since March 1

  To Write Like a Woman: Essays in Feminism and Science Fiction, Joanna Russ
You cannot read books about Star Trek fanfiction without seeing Joanna Russ mentioned: she was a feminist and science-fiction writer who was also a member of the LGBTQIA community. She not only wrote essays about whether science fiction and fantasy are legitimate literature, but ones where feminism and misogyny are addressed. This is a collection of those essays. The few that justify SF&F as lit are interesting, but the meat of the book comes where she begins talking about feminist issues. One essay addresses "feminist" books written by men, in which the ruling class of women turn out to be just as corrupt as men, and end up being "tamed" by the healing power of male sex! Another points a finger at Harlan Ellison's "A Boy and His Dog," although she admits the movie is more at fault than the story.

My favorite essay in this book is her essay about the very popular "modern Gothic" novels of the 1970s. I remember these things all over the bookstores, with the pretty heroine always marrying some type of brooding male who was hiding some secret (shades of Mr. Rochester!). It's pointed and humorous at the same time.

 The Belle of Belgrave Square, Mimi Matthews
Julia Wychwood is a heiress with a problem: her sickly parents expect her either to nurse them through their (usually psychosomatic) illnesses or make a good match. Julia, an introvert who prefers her books and horse riding to socializing, hates going to parties, and just wants to be left alone to read. But her parents believe reading novels is "inflaming" her and keep having the doctor bleed her, sometimes until she is totally debilitated.

The "notorious Captain Jasper Blunt," the harsh hero of Waterloo, is in search of a bride, or more appropriately, a bridal dowry that can replenish his Yorkshire estate and provide for his two bastard children. Why would Julia Wychwood not do as a bride? They both love books—in fact, the same author's books—and he agrees that he will let her live her own life (and rescue her from her parents) if she will take care of his children. But her parents have found a more appropriate—older, with better social connections—match for her and they will manipulate her as much as they can. In the meantime Julia and Jasper grow closer, but one of them is harboring a secret.

This is an enjoyable takeoff on Beauty and the Beast with two book lovers from different worlds, but who bond over their love of books. I kind of guessed the secret one of the protagonists was keeping about halfway through the book, but it didn't ruin my enjoyment of the story—except I wanted to beat the crap out of Julia's parents, who considered her some hired slavey, just given birth to provide them comfort.

  Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters, Anne Boyd Rioux
This book illustrates my problems with e-books. I read this first as an e-book, and dismissed it. Then I picked it up as a remainder book, and enjoyed it a lot more. Rioux first talks about Alcott's history and the reason she wrote the book—her publisher requested "a book for girls." This perplexed Alcott, as she claimed she didn't "know any girls," except for her sisters, so she wrote her story around her family life—and her simple narrative became a hit.

Over the decades, Little Women has remained popular, although its audience has changed: boys, for instance, were also readers of the book in its early days; now it's considered "too girlie." Others believe that with today's mores Little Women, with its themes of traditional femininity, having nothing to say to modern girls, while Rioux refutes this, since both contemporary men and women need to learn lessons of controlling their temper, keeping house, etc. Media versions are also considered, and modern girls' stories as compared to Alcott's classic.

If you're an Alcott fan, and I am, this book will exactly suit.

  Murder at Crossways, Alyssa Maxwell–
In this seventh book in Maxwell's Gilded Newport series, it's the summer of 1898, and Emma Cross, distant relative to the Vanderbilts (the poor side of the family) is working as acting editor-in-chief at her fiance's paper, the Newport Messenger. When she must fill in for the society editor at the wealthy Fishes' Harvest Festival, she, like the rest of the crowd, is awaiting the arrival of the guest of honor, Price Otto of Austria. But he never shows up, and then turns up in the garden, dead, his method of death very close to a man who was found on Bailey's Beach a few days earlier. When Emma investigates the beach death, she is stunned to discover the victim looks familiar—in fact, like her half-brother, but older. Could this be his father?

In the meantime, a series of mishaps at the Messenger convince Emma that someone is trying to sabotage the paper, or at least her editorship of it.

Mamie Fish, the eccentric—and she and her husband are based on the true-life Mamie and Stuyvesant Fish, who really were loving and eccentric as portrayed in the novel—owner of Crossways joins Emma as she investigates both crimes, and she's a definite plus in this story. Oh, and Emma finally has a new horse and poor Barney is finally retired.

  Eleanor and Hick: The Love Affair That Shaped a First Lady, Susan Quinn
You can't read anything about Eleanor Roosevelt without a mention of Lorena Hickok, the brash woman journalist Eleanor met when her husband Franklin Delano Roosevelt was on his original presidential campaign trail. She and "Hick" became best friends—in fact, in reading their letters you might say they were more than just best friends.

Whether you believe or not that the two women also had a physical relationship or that they were platonic lovers, but lovers indeed, they did share intimacies over the course of their friendship that helped the First Lady break away from negative influences. Hick had her own bad habits: she was a chronic workaholic, smoked heavily, and didn't take care of her diabetes, and eventually her possessiveness—since Eleanor eventually had many friends, including those Hick was jealous of—strained their friendship to the breaking point. This is a vivid story of two women, one (Hick) who had to be strong after being thrown out of the house at age fourteen and the other (Eleanor) who was raised "with a silver spoon" that nevertheless came with a bleak childhood and an adult experience that included her husband cheating on her, having a child die, and having to nurse her husband through polio.

Very enjoyable especially if you are an Eleanor Roosevelt aficionado as I am.

  Into the West, Mercedes Lackey
Kordas Valdemar and the people who have followed him to escape the cruelties and the smothering rule of the Empire now take steps to move beyond the lake they emerged from through a magical gate.

This is the next part of the "Founding of Valdemar" saga, and it was a good read, just not as compelling as the first book. A lot of the story is about Kordas' good faith efforts to be a just leader, and his learning to become a good leader as the Valdemarian expedition searches for a permanent place to live without displacing any of the people already there. The mage storms have left their mark, and they are attacked by deadly, unusual creatures who were melded together by weird magic, and come upon a sinister forest that projects malevolence.

While the statecraft bits can make the book drag a little, Delia, Kordas' sister-in-law, undergoes a transformation in this book, from little sister with a serious crush on Kordas to an explorer and much-needed member of the scouting team, her own person.

With a little help from the Hawkbrothers and the hertasi, Kordas and his people find a place to spend the winter. Could this be the place to settle?

Looking forward to the next volume! Have come to love Kordas and his people.

  All That Remains, Sue Black
I bought this because in looking through it discovered Black, a forensic scientist, using her skills to identify dead bodies found at crime scenes. However, this is so much more: the author discusses death itself, the nature of our fears about death, and about working with corpses and how she is thankful for the people who donate their bodies to science so that she can learn about the human body from real remains rather than computer simulations, which she states are poor imitations of learning anatomy from bodies. She even tells a story about a elderly man who is preparing to donate his body to her institution who insists on coming into the anatomy laboratory and watching the students dissect a body so he will know everything that will happen to his corpse—definitely a braver person than I'll ever be.

I'm pretty squeamish about death (having been afraid of dying since I was quite young), but I found this fascinating reading, if even a little comforting, but I would definitely not read if things like this trigger you. There are some very explicit scenes of dissection and discussion of preserving bodies for dissection.

 The Crocodile's Last Embrace, Suzanne Arruda
I hadn't read the rest of my Jade del Cameron books in ages. This one, number six, is an action-fan's dream. Jade's great love, the movie maker Sam Featherstone, has not yet returned from the United States, and the once fearless Jade had, in the interim, gone back to France and seen an eerie vision of her dead fiancé David Worthy, killed in the carnage of The Great War. Now back in Kenya, she is receiving notes from David and seeing visions of him. Her friends tell her she needs to relax and hope Sam will return soon; then Jade almost witnesses a car accident at a bridge in which a car was deliberately pushed off the side. This is only the beginning of a murder investigation and more—in which Jade begins to suspect her one true foe: David's evil mother Lilith.

This book gets off with a bang and never quite stops moving. I figured out part of what was causing Jade's distress almost immediately, but it didn't spoil the rising tension and the heart-stopping climax. I'm sorry there's only one of these unread left. Probably the best of the books since the first, Mark of the Lion.

  For Her Own Good: Two Centuries of the Experts' Advice to Women,  Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English
I had to pick this up for Women's History month. In general I enjoyed it, although it was more scholarly than I expected. The basic premise is that although most society was patriarchal in the past, men had their roles and women had equally as important, but different, roles. However, with the coming of industrialization came masculinism, which infantilized women, drove away "wise women" and midwives who knew the workings of women's bodies, and turned them over to male doctors, who had all sorts of fantastically weird ideas, like that menstruation messed with a woman's sense of reason, that all women automatically wanted to be nurturing wives and mothers, and that women's brains were not fit for more complicated reasoning—studying things like medicine, physics, chemistry, etc. would make them "less womanly" and might even burn out a woman's brain! (And with that came the "rest cure" as Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote about in "The Yellow Wallpaper," which would drive anyone stark raving mad.) Just the change in nurturing children between 1900 and 1960 (going from treating kids like miniature adults to considering children as small angels to keeping children to rigorous time schedules even as babies and then Dr. Spock says "For heaven's sake, cuddle and love them!") switched back and forth so quickly that you were liable to get whiplash.

Illuminating and infuriating, but be prepared for much quotation from medical texts.

A Baker's Dozen of Favorite Books of 2023

  Gulp, Mary Roach (informative and funny study of taste, digestion, and elimination)

  Becoming a Writer, Staying a Writer, J. Michael Straczynski (not only writing, but publishing and afterward)

  The Dead Romantics, Ashley Poston (sweet romantic as well as a family love story)

  Bryant & May: London Bridge is Falling Down, Christopher Fowler (the last of the series, although not the last of the Bryant and May books)

  Twelve Moons of the Year, Hal Borland, edited by Barbara Dodge Borland (daybook containing the best of Borland's nature columns)

  Ghost: My Thirty Years as an FBI Undercover Agent, Michael M. McGowan and Ralph Pezzullo (title's self-explanatory)

  Confederates in the Attic, Tony Horwitz (history of "the lost cause" and how it still clings in the southeastern US)

  Movie-Made America: A Cultural History of American Movies, Robert Sklar (how society affected the movies and vice versa)

  Notes from the Underwire, Quinn Cummings (the former child star talks Hollywood and adulthood and raising a child)

  Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll Through the Hidden Connections of the English Language, Mark Forsyth (linguistics fun)

  The Love Hypothesis, Ali Hazelwood (fun romcom taking place in a STEM environment)

  Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, Ibram X. Kendi (bravura study of racism through classism from Greek civilization to the present)

  Wintering, Katherine May (beautifully written memoir of May's season of quiet after a series of disasters)

Honorable Mentions:

  Distilled Genius: Quotations, Susan Branch (regular quotations, but illustrated with Branch's beautiful watercolor art)

  How Y'All Doing?, Leslie Jordan (the late actor/comedian's humorous memoir; just his chapter on Ronnie Claire Edwards is worth the price of the book)

Books Completed Since March 1

  Sorry for the Dead, Nicola Upson
This eighth in the Josephine Tey mystery series was my first for Women's History month and tells a sad history indeed. Tey (whose real name was Elizabeth MacIntosh) is reimagined in Upson's mysteries as a playwright and later author who also solves mysteries. The book opens in 1948 basically with the conclusion of the story and then flashes back to 1938, where a nasty gossip-columnist type makes insinuations that Tey was involved in a murder in 1915. Then it further flashes back to 1915, when, during the first World War, Tey was sent to a horticultural college where young women are trying to make up for the absence of men on the homefront by becoming more self-sufficient in growing food for the British populace. However, one of the young women Tey is overseeing, a spoiled young rich girl, dies mysteriously in the greenhouse. Although the two women who own the college were cleared, there has always been resentment and hatred toward them because of suspicions they were lovers.

The 1938 portion of the novel takes place at the time the Lillian Hellman play The Children's Hour was raising eyebrows for its discussion of lesbianism, and the bulk of the novel is more a damning social commentary about how "deviant" behaviors were treated in 1915. The women running the college are continually harassed, even though there is no proof of their "behavior" except the accusation from the girl who died. There is a sequence where one of the women is treated shamefully and something horrible done to her personally. It's more a psychological study of hatred of those "different" than a murder mystery until the final few chapters.

Slow-moving but telling throughout, and we learn something of Josephine's early life and how she met her good friend Detective Inspector Archie Penrose.

  Notes from the Underwire, Quinn Cummings
Remember cute little Lucy from The Good-bye Girl? And smart little Annie Cooper on Family? For a while you couldn't go anywhere in media without seeing cute little Quinn Cummings—and then she grew up, gave up acting, became a mom, and decided to write hilarious books.

Think of Erma Bombeck in Hollywood and you've got Cummings' funny journey through the absurdities of her life, including running into a door at her daughter's art class location, her inevitable duels with her smart-as-a-whip child Alice (who at one point asks her mother to get her a cow's heart to dissect), the time she house-sat for a woman and was rewarded with being invited to her birthday party (only to turn out to be the "child-star guest entertainment" at the party), her adventures being a talent agent (including with an actor who didn't seem to want to act), the cat who catches all manner of small creatures and brings them home and the dog who doesn't want to be touched, and more. I laughed aloud through most of this book, except for the one serious chapter called "Dog Days" where she talks about Ursula, a rescue dog.

You also learn a lot about life behind the scenes in crazy Hollywood. Tempted to buy her other two books!

  The Silver Bullets of Annie Oakley, Mercedes Lackey
Well, now I'm disappointed again. First I got exasperated at Lackey's oh-so-obvious parody of Donald Trump in Eye Spy, and then the first of her "Founding of Valdemar" books was so good, and now this, the next in her Elemental Masters series, about Annie Oakley on tour in Europe with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, showed such promise. It opens with a basis in truth: Annie Oakley, then Annie Moses, was farmed out as a servant to a couple who abused and starved her. In Lackey's version, the couple are actually werwolves and the Alpha Male has a sinister future planned for Annie, but with some magical help, she escapes.

Fast forward: Annie and her supportive husband, Frank Butler, are now the big stars of Buffalo Bill's show. In winter quarters in Germany, just before Christmas, Annie meets Frida, who is also a sharpshooter, but with a bow, and her American husband Jack. They are also Elemental Masters who tell Annie she has magic and so does Frank. During the course of the winter Annie and Frank begin learning magic under the tutelage of Frida and Jack, and even hunt with the supernatural Hunters on Christmas Eve. Finally, the wild west show is back on the road, but Annie must receive her final tutelage of being an Air Master to defend herself from the werwolves.

This story builds and builds with endless description of the clockwork precision of how the Wild West show travels, the beautiful castle and decor of Frida's friends Theo and Sofia (she likes Art Nouveau, which we are told endlessly), the wonderful Christmas market, etc. And there are a few exciting scenes of the Hunters hunting demons on the town streets at night. But there's finally a moment were Annie has to receive her final training and she can't get it, so she gets it in an alternative way. Then she gets kidnapped by the big bad.

The whole climax that the story has been building toward is resolved basically in four pages. What? I expected her to meet this great enemy from her childhood which we've been told is terrifying and has some hold on Annie, and that she would have to fight the enemy off for five or six chapters. There might be some physical or psychological torture involved. Instead she does a basic bit of magic that was taught to her at the beginning of her training and...whap! story over! What happened? Did Lackey get bored and just decide to end it, or reach her page limit and decide she didn't want to get rid of the descriptions, so she got rid of Annie struggling against her enemy instead? I was waiting for a big payoff and instead it was pretty much solved by a finger snap. Really disappointed.

  What Abigail Did That Summer, Ben Aaronovitch
This is technically a re-read because I first read it when I got my first or second COVID vaccine in 2020 as an e-book. But I don't remember e-book plots unless I review them immediately (like the book above); it's like e-book print slides by my eyes. This novella takes place in Aaronovitch's "Rivers of London" universe at the same time as the novel Foxglove Summer. While apprentice wizard Peter Grant is in the country involved in a fey kidnapping, his neighbor Abigail Kamara meets an offbeat kid named Simon who lets her know that teenagers are disappearing in the area of Hampstead Heath and then returning with no memory of where they have been. It's here Abigail gets involved with the foxes Indigo and Sugar Niner (as part of her esoteric powers, she can speak to foxes), who help her with the mystery of the missing teens, which involves Simon's mum (a government type), the crazy Cat Lady on the Heath, and a house under renovation that happens to be a genius loci.

Abigail narrates in a lot of slang which is duly translated, and it's magic from a different perspective than Peter's, which I found interesting, but many people did not. She's a precocious kid with street smarts and a terminally ill brother, gutsy as all hell, and a level head. The problem with the house is intriguing, and I enjoyed this "side visit" to Peter's world.

  Fatal Fried Rice, Vivien Chien
Lana Lee runs Ho-Lee Noodle House, the family business, in Cleveland's Asia Village, and, despite her earlier misgivings, does the job well. But the one thing she's never learned to do well is cook, so, on the sly, she decides to take an adult learning course in cooking Chinese food. The first night goes well, until Lana returns to the school for the grocery list she forgot and finds her cooking instructor, Margo Han, dead on the floor, stabbed in the back. She and the janitor call the police, and find themselves suspected of the crime by Detective Bishop.

Of course Lana, who's already faced murder mysteries in the previous six books in the series, feels she needs to look into the crime, if nothing else to clear herself, so with the help of her best friend and roommate Megan Riley, her childhood friend Kimmy Tran, and even a little assistance from her police officer boyfriend Adam Trudeau, Lana starts discreetly asking questions; in the meantime a fellow classmate, Bridget Hastings, is also interested in the crime. Can Lana get Detective Bishop off her back? And what's with the mysterious photographs sent to Margo Han? Could she have been having an affair with whomever killed her?

Still wondering why Adam has started calling Lana "dollface," which is very noir, and, even worse, "woman." I'm almost starting to hope Ian Feng makes a play for her, because I'm starting to find Adam a little annoying. About average for this series, although the ending felt a little rushed.

 Re-read: The Secret History of Home Economics, Danielle Dreilinger
If I say "home ec" (or as it was called when I was in junior high, "homemaking"), what do you think? Me, it brings back mostly unhappy memories of dull cooking classes when we made "surprise muffins" (with jelly fillings) and disgusting pea-ham-and-cheese casseroles, and sewing classes where we made a pillow with an embroidered cover and an A-line skirt. But in Dreilinger's fascinating study of home economics, what we find are women who used home ec to not only break into scientific fields at a time when a woman was expected to be a wife and baby tender, but to make solid contributions to American life (like devising healthy meals during the "wheatless, meatless days" during World War I and rationing during World War II).

Catharine Beecher is first noted as a prototype for the trailblazing home economists; the spinster sister of Harriet Beecher Stowe and brother of the rock-star-like preacher Henry Ward Beecher, Catharine was as highly educated as her brother and became a teacher, writing the bestselling A Treatise on Domestic Economy, not just how to cook and clean house, but how keeping a good home led to a  successful life. Her two spiritual descendants were white Ellen H. Swallow Richards, an ambitious New England girl who could talk literature, milk cows, and keep house, and—well, talk about the people who get excised from history: I've heard from childhood about Booker T. Washington and his efforts to advance racial equality; I had never heard about his third wife, Margaret Murray Washington, who was the first Black home economist, and all the effort she put into making life better for the African-American woman, despite barriers thrown at her left and right. I found myself inspired by this seemingly indomitable woman.

Sadly, Richards and her comrades never integrated to join forces with Washington and her followers; together they would have been an awesome organization. Others followed in their footsteps: Flora Rose and Martha Van Rensselaer, soulmates from the beginning; Lillian Moller Gilbreth, who graduated college (gasp! and she was even pretty!) with a home ec degree and after her husband's death became a noted industrial advisor; Annie Dewey, whose husband was Melvil Dewey of the Dewey Decimal System; Fabiola Cabeza de Baca Gilbert, who, as the only Spanish-speaking member of the organization was sent to the American southwest; and Mollie and Russell Smart, who enjoyed true professional and domestic equality in their marriage but still persisted in writing "the party line" about women as homemakers. These are only a few of the great people you'll meet in this narrative.

By the way, for God's sake don't think of this as a "woman's book." My husband is currently reading it and is enjoying it as much as I did, and I can almost hear him rolling his eyes at the old-fashioned sentiments quoted by the professionals of the times, like college professors saying women didn't have enough brain power to complete a typical college curriculum, or personnel departments not wanting to hire women because "they had no control of their emotions during their menstrual periods." An absolutely fabulous sociological read!

  A Sunlit Weapon, Jacqueline Winspear
In the newest Maisie Dobbs mystery, Jo Hardy, an ATA (women's air transport) who found a black American flyer tied up in a barn and is afraid the man will be blamed for the death of his white companion who disappeared is advised to consult with Maisie for his sake.

Happily married to American agent Mark Scott for a year, Maisie still runs her investigative agency as well as cares for her adopted daughter Anna, who lives near her grandparents in Kent. But the case with the black American soldier, who worked with the white flyer on a nearby Kent farm, coincides with Anna having troubles at school due to the color of her skin. Maisie soon becomes concerned for the soldier as well, knowing the conditions under which black Americans live. When she finds a message in the barn that looks like code, Mark is suddenly drawn into the mystery.

This newest Dobbs is a satisfying mixture of World War II domestic troubles, the usual complicated Maisie mystery, and several subjects that have been covered in one of the Maggie Hope mysteries, including the bigotry of the time, Eleanor Roosevelt's travels, and female air transport pilots.

 The Royal Diaries: Victoria, May Blossom of Britannia, Anna Kirwan
In real life, Queen Victoria was an avid diarist who began writing journals at the age of thirteen; in this fictionalized diary, we see Victoria at ages ten through twelve, writing in a diary that is essentially an old account book of cows in the royal herd. From babyhood, Victoria has had no privacy—her mother sleeps with her, she is surrounded by servants—and the diary is the only place she can record her private thoughts, including the hatred she has for Sir John Conroy, who seems to have a hold on her widowed mother, the former wife of the deceased Duke of Kent, son of King George III.

The story has us see the frustration of young Victoria as she is put through a tiresome plan of education called "the Kensington System" to prepare her for possibly becoming the monarch someday, and how she misses her half-sister Feodora, who moved to Germany following her wedding, and of the pleasures of being a princess that are tempered much by rules, regulations, and her education. She can't even go barefoot or play with other children as she likes, and must put up with Toire, Sir John's stoolpigeon daughter, as her only playmate.

The story is very ambling as it attempts to tell of the strict education of a princess, even though some shocking things are revealed to her (her uncle's illegitimate children, Conroy's possible physical abuse of Victoria's mother). Enjoyable but not unforgettable.