Books Completed in May 2026

 Merry Hall, Beverley Nichols
Picked this up at a book sale; it's supposed to be a classic of "gardening literature." Why, since I hate the thought of gardening with all the loathing of my soul?

Well, because I love gardens, and English ones at that, and Nichols, a noted British playwright, writer, and, apparently, someone of a gadfly, was known to love gardening. As this begins, he had sold a previous estate where he had a garden and buys, imprudently per his friend Bob, a run-down country house with room for a traditional English garden. It's kept, now that the owner has passed, by the imperious Oldfield, who Nichols finds a superb gardener, if often disapproving, and, with Oldfield's help, Nichols works to turn "Merry Hall" into his dream English estate/garden, despite the criticisms of his neighbor Miss Emily and a floral "designer" named Rose who Nichols despises.

While his indispensable butler takes care of the renovation of the inside, with the soothing presence of the cats "One" and "Four," we follow the adventure of Nichols in trying to create his dream garden. It's very funny and old-fashioned and I'd love to read the sequels some day if I could find them cheap.

 Deadly Heat, Richard Castle
In the previous book, Frozen Heat, New York City detective Nikki Heat (who out-Mary Sues SVU's Olivia Benson), received more clues to the mysterious death of her mother, and in this fifth book in "Castle's" Nikki Heat series, she and her lover Jameson Rook (Rook = Castle, get it?), Pulitzer-Prize-winning magazine journalist, hunt down fresh clues. But there's a new threat in town, a serial killer who's definitely after Heat's attention—if not after her life! What with threats from the past and a new one about a biological threat to the city, it's pretty busy even for the perpetual motion team of Heat and Rook.

The Nikki Heat books are Castle stories under a different name and a couple of tweaks. Kate Beckett = sexy Nikki Heat, Castle = Jameson Rook, Ryan and Esposito = Raley and Ochoa, Laney Parish = Lauren Parry. Rook's mom is an actress; changes: no Alexis, and Captain "Montrose" has been replaced by the ineffective Captain Irons. Castle fans will probably enjoy, but they're written so that even a person who's never seen the series can follow.

(Oh, once again the two detectives Malcolm and Reynolds are featured! And, thank goodness, an annoying regular character is disposed of!)

 Brave Companions, David McCullough
This is a collection of essays McCullough wrote for various history magazines about the famous and infamous—Harriet Beecher Stowe, for instance, Theodore Roosevelt, artist Frederic Remington—and those who were once household names, like Louis Agassiz and the Roeblings (builders of the Brooklyn Bridge), and those not familiar: Henry Caudhill, Miriam Rothschild, David Plowden. There are even a couple of essays about places, like Washington DC, and even one about a clock.

David McCullough is always good reading, and I can hear his voice when he writes. Enough said. Go read!

 The New Girl: First Crush, Cassandra Calin
This is Calin's graphic novel sequel to The New Girl, which I enjoyed so much.

Christmas vacation is over, and Lia Lordache is back to school, juggling learning French so she can pass "Welcome Class," reuniting with her group of friends in the class, and dealing with her crush on Julien, the blue-eyed boy from the school magazine to which Lia contributes. At the end of The New Girl, it was left hanging that someone had a crush on Lia, but had not found the courage to tell her. That all comes to fruition in this sequel, in which Lia really makes a mess of things several times, but also manages to have good times, such as during the winter activity period where she and her friends learn to ice skate.

I so love Lia. She's so me, always putting her foot in her mouth and saying the wrong thing, and I so get her horrible troubles with her period. In this volume, Lia's mom even takes her to see a doctor about her terrible cramps and nausea, and the doctor basically just says it's very early in her period yet, and it may "settle down," then writes a prescription for what's basically over the counter pain meds (that don't work). I wanted to smack him.

  Re-read: Fannie's Last Supper, Christopher Kimball
I hate to cook, but there was nothing better that I liked than to read Christopher Kimball's column that used to run in each issue of Cooks Illustrated. His articles about Vermont always put me in mind of Gladys Taber.

In this book, Kimball has brought his desire to cook a 12-course dinner from the original Fannie Farmer cookbook to life. We follow Kimball and his assistants as they plan the meal and attempt—as closely as possible—to cook it in period style. Of course (if you're familiar with Cooks, you know they always change recipes to improve flavor), Kimball and the Cooks folks play with the recipes and actually reject some of them for not being all that tasty. This has apparently disturbed some of the folks who read this book, and it is a bit ironic that Kimball wrote a book about cooking à la Farmer and then did not follow her recipes precisely, but instead used better-tasting ones from other chefs. But since I have no interest in the actual cooking part and just read this for the historical perspective on cooking, I quite enjoyed the narrative as a whole. The revelations about cooking over the wood stove were especially "eye-opening." I knew they made the kitchen hot, but I never imagined things melted!

Warning: the chapter about the calves' brains may be a bit much for the modern person who gets everything packaged in plastic.

 Meet Claudie and Adventures With Claudie, Brit Bennett
I've grouped these together because they form a whole novel in that way. Claudie Wells is growing up in New York City's Harlem during the 1920's Harlem Renaissance, where jazz musicians and poets and painters are flourishing, yet she and her family and friends are restricted by societal bigotry. In the first book, Claudie discovers Miss Amelia, who owns the boardinghouse the Wells family lives in, is behind in the rent and they may all be evicted. She decides to organize a variety show as a "rent party" to make up the difference. In the sequel, Claudie takes time off to travel to her mother's home town in Georgia with Mrs. Wells and her cousin Sidney to meet her grandmother and cousins for the first time. Here she learns some hard truths about "sundown towns," white bigotry, and fighting back.

And, upon returning to Harlem, will Claudie's variety show succeed and save Miss Amelia's boardinghouse?

I was impressed that they addressed lynchings—subtly so not to terrify kids, but not to whitewash them, either—and other things like sundown towns and bullying by white racists. I'm also glad they're including the historical notes at the back of the books again, too!

 Erased, Anna Malaka Tubbs
This is Tubbs' examination of how the patriarchy has negatively affected the lives of women—chiefly minority women, but in truth women of all races—from self-respect down to medical decisions about women's bodies.

I enjoyed reading this and nodded a lot in agreement so much, especially when she talks about medical decisions (so much of that made my blood boil), but it would have been a much better book if she had not kept summarizing what was written in previous chapters in the next chapter. It was as if it was written as a doctoral thesis, where these summaries are standard. I don't believe your average reader needed them.

 The Lily of Ludgate Hill, Mimi Matthews
This is the third book in Matthews' quartet of "The Belles of London," a group of four young women who are also equestriennes. This time the story centers around Lady Anne Deveril, whose only emotional attachments seem to be to her horse Saffron, and her mother, who has been in mourning for ten years, consults spiritualists, and doesn't show signs of stopping any time soon. Anne lives in mourning with her mother, but is worried about her friend Julia Wychwood (her story is told in Belle of Belgrave Square). So she reluctantly enlists the aid of "Hart," Felix Hartwood, the man who would have married her if she was not so attached at the hip to her mother, to escort the two of them to check on Julia.

Gradually, during the trip to Yorkshire, and then later when Anne and her mother are driven out of their home by a cousin, their long-dormant romance seems to be reviving.

The grief theme adds an extra texture to this story that others lack.

 Raquel Reyes Saves the Wedding, Angela Cervantes
Raquel is American Girl's "Girl of the Year" for 2026. She lives in Kansas City with her parents, who run a paleta shop (paletas are "a Mexican ice pop made from fresh fruits, natural ingredients, and creamy bases"), but they have traveled east for the wedding of Raquel's cousin Harper, a marine biologist. Raquel loves being a DJ and her skill proves a boon later in the book. She and her favorite cousin Sloan, who's acting a bit distant this summer, also participate in a pickleball tournament and help save a beached dolphin.

The big "catch" in this book is that Raquel is the great-great granddaughter of Samantha Parkington; her Grandma Meg remembers Samantha and they have kept Grandmary's house in Mount Bedford in the family. Raquel even finds Samantha's diary in the old house, all setting the stage for a novel about an adult Samantha being released in October 2026.

It's an enjoyable book, but almost too much plot is piled into one little book! 

 How the Post Office Created America, Winifred Gallagher
This is a mostly cut-and-dried, statistic-dotted narrative of the post office and how it not only delivered letters and parcels, but was part of the network that tied the thirteen colonies together and contributed to the cause of working for independence. Early on, newspapers were delivered for a rock-bottom price, so via those newspapers the arguments for liberty were circulated from New Hampshire to South Carolina.

Of course, emphasized is the terrible state of American roads, which continued for years, and the hardships of the carriers. Even into the 1920s mail wagons (and other goods-carrying vehicles) could be mired up to the axle after it rained. At first the mail was only delivered in cities, but the development of RFD (Rural Free Delivery) brought it to everyone, and when the mail-order catalogs came about, consumerism rose. Plus the fact that everyone seems to "know," but isn't true: the Pony Express was never part of the Unite States Post Office (and it only lasted 18 months, until the transcontinental railroad was finished). The rider that used to be the symbol of the US postal system (until the collapse of the Post Office in the 1960s, to be replaced by the Postal Service, which is a contacted service) was never a Pony Express rider; he went back to the original post riders that existed back to colonial times.

 The Hidden City, Charles Finch
I haven't read a Charles Lenox mystery in five years (since the last book), and I can't tell you how I enjoyed it! In this outing, Lenox is still in pain from the knife attack and subsequent infection he incurred in the United States, although the wound is ostensibly healed. Then a mystery ends up in his lap: his previous housekeeper, retired now, fears that an old murder that happened in the home she now rents may be having repercussions for her.

In addition, Lenox's dear cousin Jasper has died in India, and the family—his wife Lady Jane and their two daughters, Sophia and Clara—are awaiting the arrival of Jasper's 20-year-old daughter Angela and her companion, an Indian girl named Sari, both of whom will cause excitement in the household as the season proceeds from a cold autumn to Christmas.

I was so happy to be back in this universe. I had a rocky start with this series, but came to love it. This had an equally intriguing plot.

 American Rambler: Walking the Trail of Johnny Appleseed, Isaac Fitzgerald
I'm so on the fence about this book. I enjoyed all the historical input about John Chapman (Johnny Appleseed), as I grew up on the Disney cartoon and at least two episodes of Lassie that concerned trees supposedly planted by the man, as well as about Swedenborg and his religious beliefs, and enjoy Fitzgerald's encounters with the many people he meets on his travels (he doesn't walk the whole way as is rather implied by the cover; don't buy this if that fact disappoints you), and even most of his stays with friends.

I just have trouble getting past the drug use and drinking that is part of Fitzgerald's life. I understand it; his childhood was very fractured and I'm not surprised he chose ways of escaping. But according to his narrative, at the time he "followed the trail" he had a fiance and was sort of on friendly terms with his parents, so I don't see the need for him to be passing out drunk or stoned.

Warning that there is a very serious event at the end of the book after he's concluded his "walk."

 An Obvious Fact, Craig Johnson
Tenth book in Johnson's Longmire series (he's writing them faster than I can read them). Ever wonder about the person Henry Standing Bear named his classic 1969 Thunderbird after? Well, here you find out, as Walt and Henry travel to Hulett, Wyoming, at the foot of Devil's Tower, for Henry to participate in the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally—and, oh, yeah, Walt's looking into a suspicious motorcycle accident that left a young man in a coma. It's a clash of motorcycle fanatics, smuggled items that has the ATF prowling the countryside, a force of nature named Lola Wojciechowski, the return of Vic Moretti, and the trio of Walt, Henry, and, of course, Dog, and a page-turner at that. Any Longmire that has more Henry is fine with me. Enjoy!

Books Completed in April 2026

 The Masquerades of Spring, Ben Aaronovitch
The fourth of Aaronovitch's seasonal novellas set in the "Rivers of London" universe. But this one has a twist: it's set in the United States, where Englishman Augustus Berrycloth-Young—friends call him "Gussie"—lives in New York City enjoying the delights of the Jazz Age, hiding the fact that he is not only one of those who practices "the love that dare not speak its name," but that his lover is Black. Helped by a talented valet called Maximillian Beauregard, Gussie's living the good life, until Thomas Nightingale shows up on his doorstep, seeking help. Somewhere in the wild, there's an enchanted musical instrument on the loose, and Nightingale wants it confiscated and returned.

Aaronovitch writes a mean Bertie Woosterish romp crossed with magic. Gussie is a gem of a narrator and if you're a "Rivers" fan, you'll want this for your collection.

 The Home Front: The Best of "Good Housekeeping" 1939-1945, Brian Braithwaite, Noëlle Walsh, Glyn Davies
Big "coffee table book" I found in a thrift shop, reproductions of the British edition of "Good Housekeeping" during World War II. Lots of articles about keeping a stiff upper lip, being thrifty, working your Victory Garden, and ads for conserving food. A snapshot of the times.

 Anne of a Different Island, Virginia Kantra
A modern take on Anne of Green Gables, with unpredictable Anne Gallegher returning to her home on Mackinac Island after the death of her father, who always understood her ways. She hopes to become closer to her mother, who runs the island fudge shop, but she arrives without her doctor fiancé Chris, who can't leave his pediatric patients, and pretty sure she's lost her teaching job at an exclusive school because she objects to banning certain books in the school library. At the dock to meet her is Joe Miller, an older boy who always teased her, who's also her late father's apprentice in the carpentry business.

As Anne helps her mother, and her "bosom friend" Daanis, married and a new mother, she begins to understand herself, and her mother's special reliance on Joe.

This was sweet, and I cried at the end.

 Between the Lines: Master the Subtle Elements of Fiction Writing, Jessica Page Morrell
Picked this up at a book sales and glad I found it. Author provides concrete excerpts of writing she considers good examples of descriptions, characterizations, flashbacks, theme, etc. An excellent addition to your writing library.

 Deep End, Ali Hazelwood
This story was very popular last year, and the main characters even had a cameo in Hazelwood's Problematic Summer Romance. College student and championship diver, Scarlett Vandermeer is still recovering from a traumatic diving accident and is unable to dive at her best. Her teammate Penelope discovers Scarlett has certain sexual kinks that Pen's boyfriend, the Olympic champion swimmer Lukas Blomqvist, would like to indulge in as well, but she (Pen) doesn't want to. So Pen, who's actually broken up with Lukas drunkenly suggests Scarlett and Lukas get together—just sexually, you understand.

Naturally, it becomes much more than that. As Scarlett works through her trauma, it turns out Lukas' infamous calm actually stabilizes her. But for two people who are trying desperately not to fall in love, they're doing it pretty well.

Still don't get Pen's reluctance to tell people she and Lukas broke up a year earlier, so what she does near the end of the novel really makes me hate her, even if she apologizes for it.

 The Ride: Paul Revere and the Night That Saved America, Kostya Kennedy
Long ago I read Esther Forbes' Paul Revere and the World He Lived In, which she used as a template for her classic Johnny Tremain young adult novel. It's still as complete a bio of Revere as you can get, but if you're just curious about the famous Ride (which, as even Revere would have told you, he didn't finish; Samuel Prescott did) and what prompted it, this is an enjoyable modern review of the times and the man.

  Re-read: Mr. Revere and I, Robert Lawson
How could I read a book about Paul Revere's ride without re-reading a childhood favorite, the story of Revere's ride told by his faithful horse?

Of course, Revere didn't own the horse he rode that night; she was a borrowed mare named, they think, Brown Bess. But who cares when this delightful story is narrated by Scheherazade—just call her "Sherry"—who was originally a proud British cavalry horse brought over to guard the city of Boston from those terrible Rebels. Brought to ruin by her frankly stupid owner, Sir Cedric Barnstable, Sherry eventually pulls a noisome cart, but is rescued by the Sons of Liberty as a horse for Paul Revere to carry dispatches with.

Full of sly criticisms of stupidity of the British officers (who bought their commissions) and even the local prominent citizens like John Hancock and Samuel Adams, this book is a delight from beginning to end, actually portraying Revere's backbreaking trips in realistic style. Worth reading even by adults.

 This Way Up: When Maps Go Wrong, Mark Cooper-Jones and Jay Foreman
Apparently, these guys, The Map Men, are famous on YouTube, but I bought this because I've always been a little potty about maps. Would have loved to have been a cartographer. The Map Men talk about...surprise!...maps. Like a global map sold by IKEA which completely left out New Zealand (they apologized). Or trying to complete a map in the 1700s when the world wasn't completely explored. Or trying to navigate London...using a map of Paris (privately I didn't understand the purpose of this).

The problem with this book is when it's good, it's good, but then the authors start goofing around. I guess in an effort to make the Donner Party story less grim, it's told in this terrible style that I found really offputting. Telling the story of the deadly shortcut that led to the Donner downfall needn't have been told in a flip matter. Some other chapters are also depressingly flip. I expected to like this more.

 The Complete Guide to the Bible, Stephen M. Miller
Tempted by this when I saw it at Walmart. Containing maps, vintage images, pullouts containing additional info, modern photography, Miller walks you through each book of the Bible, explains the significance of each, points out any relevance to modern life, and provides other insights. Enjoyed this. Biggest takeaway, however, was: don't get involved with Assyrians. They perfected the art of torture.

 Fight, Sloane St. James
Callahan Woods is a wildland firefighter. Since being betrayed by his fiancée, Molly, a former childhood sweetheart, Cal has sworn off permanent relationships and lets any woman he gets involved with know it. Into his life walks Prescott Timmons, new EMT recruit. It's sparks aplenty, and they're not in the wildfires.

But "Scottie" is hiding a very big secret, one Callahan might never get over.

Whew, is it hot in here? Spice aplenty in this firefighter romance, plus you learn about the process of fighting wildfires and how the men and women live during fire seasons. Scottie's past is unique compared to other romances I've read.

 Robert Heinlein, Leon Stover
This is Stover's 1987 biography/examination of the life and fiction of Robert Heinlein. He certainly is a Heinlein enthusiast: he compares him to Mark Twain, and states that Have Spacesuit Will Travel should be as famous as Huckleberry Finn. (Okay, Have Spacesuit Will Travel was my first Heinlein and probably my favorite, but I'm also a Finn fan--so, sorry, Leon...no.) Did enjoy reading Stover's POV on characters like Friday, Valentine Michael Smith, Delos Harriman, and more.

 The Geographer's Guide to Romance, India Holton
Professor Elodie Hughes was a flighty but magically talented geographer at Oxford when she entered into a marriage of convenience (he wanted quieter digs) with stern, grumpy Professor Gabriel Tarrant. Their wedding night turned out to be magical for both of them, except neither knew how to communicate that. So it's been a year since they've seen each other when both Professors Tarrant are summoned to a magical eruption in a small Welsh village. It's growing in power, and if it can't be stopped, the rampant magic may destroy England.

Fighting wild magic, Welsh villagers glad for the business magic brings to their town, bonkers tourists, a pet goat, and their irresistible attraction to each other, Gabriel and Elodie scramble to halt disaster. A comic romantasy period romp.

Books Completed in March 2026

 Rules for Ruin, Mimi Matthews
Euphemia Flite is in debt. Rescued from a terrible life by Artemisa Corvus, proprietor of an eccentric girls' school that teaches young ladies how to overthrow the patriarchy, she's told that if she helps Miss Corvus defeat an odious man named Lord Compton, she will be free of obligations and can look forward to a life of her own.

Unfortunately, if she ruins Compton, she'll twist the plans of Gabriel Royce, a betting shop owner in a notorious poor neighborhood, who's actually using Compton to fund reforms in the area.

"Effie" is introduced to London society at a brilliant ball, where she meets Gabriel—and of course, the sparks fly. It's also a grand adventure with secrets, and a connection to Charles Dickens. Matthews writes grand books if romance mixed with history is what you like.

  Re-read: The Swiss Family Robinson, Johann Wyss

A friend was giving away some books, and I found a handsomely illustrated copy of one of my childhood favorites in the edition of which I first read it, which begins: "For many days we had been tempest-tossed. Six times had the darkness closed over a wild and terrible scene, and the light of dawn as often brought but renewed distress, for the raging storm increased in fury until on the seventh day all hope was lost." (How can you not fall in love with vocabulary like that? This is the stuff I grew up with, and Albert Payson Terhune, whose narratives and words always made me swoon.)

I discovered there are several translations on Project Gutenberg, including the "French" version, which includes the native attack that was used in the Disney film. I also found out that Jules Verne did two sequels to the book, The Later Adventures of the Swiss Family Robinson and The Castaways of the Flag. (Please note that this means Verne wrote fanfiction!)

Wyss made up the story to please his own four sons (like the Fritz, Ernest, Jack, and Franz in the story), and the variety of animals they run into is almost comical, knowing about geography and habitats as I do: lions side by side with tigers, agoutis rubbing noses with kangaroos, onagers sharing the spotlight with elephants, as if all of the continents banged up against "New Switzerland" and disgorged their native species before floating away again. (Talk about continental drift!) Add in the "how to" survival manual stuff, and it's a really odd book, but I do still love it.

(And everyone knows, right, that the Swiss family's surname isn't "Robinson"?—Wyss does not mention their last name at all, nor the father's first name; the mother is Elizabeth. It's The Swiss Family "Robinson" because it's a "Robinsonade," a tale of survival on a deserted island, like Robinson Crusoe, based on the real-life sailor Alexander Selkirk.)

 Rebel With a Clause, Ellen Jovin
Ellen Jovin has been teaching grammar and writing for years, but when she decided to set a table outside her Manhattan apartment with a "Grammar Table" sign on it, she discovered just how many people wanted to discuss spelling and grammar with her, basically, "What's right and what's wrong?" So she took the "Grammar Table" on the road to every single state in the lower 48 and had her husband film the interviews.

From the Oxford comma—"a national obsession"—to telling the difference between "affect" and "effect," from whether adverbs are overused—or not—to the joys (or not) of spelling bees, everyone wanted to talk English language conundrums. This is a compilation of the best, and sometimes the funniest, grammar conversations—and you learn something in the bargain.

 The Backyard Bird Chronicles, Amy Tan
Everyone knew Amy Tan could write. But who knew she could draw so beautifully?

This is a gorgeously illustrated book about Tan's observations of the habits, quirks, and life of the birds at her feeder from 2017–2022. Bird lovers will adore. I sure did.

 Death Scene, Carol Perry
The fourteenth in the "Witch City" mysteries.

So happy Perry has continued this series! (I didn't want to read her other about Florida. Yeeech.) This time WICH-TV producer Lee Barrett Mondello, along with the rest of Salem, is invested in a new film about magic and witches being filmed at various historical sites, starring famous screen stars Darla Diamond and Lamont Faraday. Also working on the set is Doug Walker, Lee's crush from an old television show about a boy and his pet bear, someone she's dying to meet.

Then someone poisons Darla Diamond (who, according to other cast members, was pure poison herself) with something injected into her special chocolates—but the producer insists that the production go on with a body double and special effects.

There are lots of red herrings, but I guessed the killer early on. Still, it was great to see Lee, Pete, Aunt Ibbie, and the other regulars again, especially the orange tabby cat O'Ryan.

 Paris in Love, Eloisa James
I loved this story of romance writer Eloisa James, who was diagnosed with cancer just like her mother (things turned out fine for her). She convinces her Italian husband to sell everything, and they and their two children, Anna (the drama queen) and Luca (the teen cynic), move to Paris. While the children navigate going to school in a foreign language, the whole family comes to love their life in Paris. The chapters take the form of short essays on a particular aspect of French life, followed by Eloisa's diary entries. It's all very charming. I love Anna's little battles at school with the local "queen bee" student, and the stories about Alessandro's mother and how she has custody of the family dog.

Books Completed in February 2026

 Eye Spy, Mercedes Lackey
It has literally taken me years to read this book, the second of the Family Spies book, about Abidela, the second of Mags and Amily's three children. I threw it down the first time because she had a very obvious parody of a Certain Political Person in the early narrative, and I hated that Lackey wasn't more subtle about it: I would have liked to have had his identity revealed more slowly and less blatantly.

Anyway, Abi has an unusual Gift: she can sense weak spots in structures, and, because of this, she and her best friend Princess Kat were able to save people from being harmed when an unknown weak spot caused a much-used bridge to collapse. Since Abi is studying to be an Artificer (engineer), this makes her invaluable, but she needs to be instructed by Healers to get the most out of her Gift. The story follows Abi's training and then the one final mission she finds herself on before she can be called a Master Artificer, one that involves invaders from outside the kingdom of Valdemar, ones hoping to ruin that country's good name.

This was better than the parody would have led me to believe, but there's quite a lot of detail about structural engineering in the book (although it is about engineering students, after all), and the plot tends to get lost in the details. Still glad I finally read it.

 Gemini, Jeffrey Kluger
Everyone remembers Project Mercury: John Glenn, the race against the Russian space program, Gus Grissom almost drowning. And, of course Project Apollo took American astronauts to the moon.

But between them was Project Gemini, two-astronaut missions that served as the testing ground for the equipment that landed NASA astronauts on the moon: the backpacks for spacewalks, the testing of docking equipment in space, long-term missions, and studies on how long-term missions affected the human body. Usually the contributions of the Gemini missions have been summarized or simply highlighted, but this is Kluger's in-depth survey. You'll find out about the names behind the scenes along with the astronauts, like Gene Kranz and Christopher Kraft; why Scott Carpenter and John Glenn never flew again (Carpenter for the wrong reasons); and more dangerous events that were not made public at the time.

Easy to read, but a great narrative about this phase of the space program.

 Harlem Sunset, Nekesa Afia
Louise Lloyd, who as a young girl foiled a kidnapper, and rescued other kidnapped girls like herself, returns in the sequel to Dead, Dead Girls. She's living happily with her paramour Rosa Maria Moreno, and working at the Dove, owned by Rosa Maria's brother Rafael. One night a young woman spends some time after hours drinking in the Dove with the trio, who all wake up next morning to find Nora dead. The police are quick to pin the crime on Rosa Maria. Louise is also trying to save the sanity of her suicidal sister Josie, who hasn't made peace with the death of her twin, but their father's harsh dismissal of Louise's lifestyle makes this difficult.

Helped by a reporter named Harriet Sinclair and a mysterious man named Fox Schoonmaker, Louise is determined to prove Rosa Maria innocent. But twisted forces are working behind the scenes.

I didn't recall the author's sentences being so choppy in the previous book. The narrative bothered me for this reason, and I didn't enjoy it as well as the first.

 The Ex Talk, Rachel Lynn Solomon
Shay Goldstein has always loved her career in public radio, but a new employee at Pacific Public Radio is giving her figurative hives. Dominic Yun is a rising, ambitious journalist who wants to use public radio to bring down corrupt politicians, and Shay's boss Kent O'Grady is all for giving him his way. Shay thinks there's room for human-interest stories, the kind public radio does so well.

After Shay and Dominic have a friendly rivalry on a live talk show, Kent suggests they create and star in a relationship talk show in which they pretend they are ex-lovers who broke apart but remain friends. Eager to keep a human-interest show, Shay agrees, although feigning a relationship offends both her and Dominic. To their surprise, the show is a hit, and PPR's ratings soar. And Shay and Dominic, in trying to reconcile their fake relationship (no one knows it's fake except for them, Kent, and a few others), start to grow closer—and closer.

I love Solomon's characters and settings. Another great offering.

 Driving the Green Book, Alvin Hall
By now, everyone has heard of "the Green Book," thanks to a PBS documentary, a BBC radio show, and a (highly fictionalized) film, but for years, the people who knew it best were the African-American families who benefited from it. The original editor was a mail carrier who hoped to aid Black families who needed—and later wanted—to travel, for, back in the 1930s, traveling for Black families/individuals was hazardous and difficult because they were banned from hotels, restaurants, and sometimes even from whole towns. Victor Green compiled a list of boarding houses, restaurants, barber/beauty shops, and other businesses friendly to African-American travelers, who, due to bigotry, usually traveled with their own food, water, and gasoline due to a lack of these services. The last edition of the book was, sadly and incredibly, published in 1961.

Hall and his companions travel to locations listed in the Green Book, and interview people who traveled or whose relatives traveled using the book. The stories they tell are revealing, sad, and infuriating. A complicated but compelling read.

 Lighthouse Families, Cheryl Shelton-Roberts & Bruce Roberts
As a kid, I loved a horse story called "Maudie Tom, Jockey," about a wild girl brought up by her lighthouse-keeper father. I became fascinated by the lives of lighthouse-keepers' families. Found this book at the Air Force Museum, a collection of stories told to the authors by children who grew up on lighthouses. These children played unsupervised on small islands, rowed boats to school, helped their fathers keep the lamp and the lighthouse working and clean, and endured inspections during which they were supposed to keep out of sight.

Modern children, especially, would be shocked at the freedom the kids had and the antics they got into. These are first-person narratives, so you get a feeling for how they talked in the past, and their feelings about growing up as "lighthouse kids."

 Unnatural Ends, Christopher Huang
Three adopted children of a wealthy baron return home after their father dies. Alan, Roger, and Caroline had an unconventional upbringing under a stern father, who was also their tutor, and a retiring, weak mother; their one respite: a playroom in a deserted tower where they played games of Camelot. Now, returning home, they discover their father was murdered, and has indicated in his will that only one child will inherit his estate: the one who solves his murder!

Set in the early 1920s, Huang sets up a mystery worthy of the classic era, with twists galore, and grim truths.

 CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: In Extremis, Ken Goddard
Ken Goddard, according to his author profile, was a former deputy sheriff, CSI police forensic scientist, and crime lab director. And boy, does it show.

This is the first of the CSI novels not written by Max Allen Collins, involving a multi-US Customs Agent shootout at a desert drug-bust. The team has to figure out who shot who and when, and how a prominent mobster some distance away was also shot at the same time as a mule deer. It's all about the procedure in this one, with minute details about the angles of the shots, the bullets used, the sophisticated hardware used. If you want to know how the crime lab works down to the details, check this one out.

 Shocking Secrets of American History, Bill Coate
This is an inexpensive little history book of "surprising and amusing tales." If you've read a lot of history, you probably know most of the trivia. Some interesting items of note: Henry Morton Stanley, who "found" David Livingstone, changed his name to cover the shocking thing he did. Alexander Hamilton never shot back.

A great bathroom or bedtime book, as the stories are told in two, or in a few cases one, pages each.

Books Completed in January 2025

 One Christmas in Washington, David Bercuson and Holger Herwig

  The Joys of Christmas 2013 -Guideposts

  Ideals Christmas 2024

 Ideals Christmas 2025

 The Eight Heartbreaks of Hanukkah, Jean Meltzer

 Old Christmas, Washington Irving

 The Little Book of the Nativity, Dominique Foufelle

  Re-read: A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

 Goodness and Light and Watch for the Light

 Quincy's Curse, Keith Robinson
In this quirky fantasy, Quincy Flack, a boy who believes he's cursed, moves to a new village with his abusive aunt and uncle (think the Dursleys) and is befriended by Megan Mugwood, a plucky girl who lives with her widowed mother, experiencing hard times since her father was killed by a dragon. Next thing you know, they've met a wizard—he says he's not—who can "grow mountains."

This is rather oddly told, from the point of view of each new character that Quincy, Megan, and Pagfire encounter, rather than the other way around, so you really don't get a whole lot of character development. But it's a fun story to see how the coincidences work out.

  Unearthing The Secret Garden, Marta McDowell
I say I didn't inherit the Italian gene for gardening; however, I can't seem to resist these garden-related books by McDowell (Beatrix Potter's Gardening Life, The World of Laura Ingalls Wilder). Maybe because I would like to have a beautiful walled garden like in the Burnett book, but don't want to do the work!

If you like The Secret Garden, you'll probably enjoy this book, as it tells an abridged version of Burnett's life, and her special affection for gardens: wherever she lived, she always had one, even if it was a leased property. If you love gardens/gardening, then this is just the book for you, with beautiful black-and-white/color photographs of Burnett in her gardens or just of the flowers in her gardens. As a bonus, the volume includes three of Burnett's short writings: an essay about her gardens, an article about the "ha-ha," an English estate feature that separated gardens from parkland, and the story of the robin that inspired the robin character in The Secret Garden.

  The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association, Caitlin Rozakis
Vivian and Daniel Tanaka and their five-year-old daughter Aria were just normal people until Aria is bitten by an emotionally-disturbed werewolf. Since she can't go to a human-only school because of her unfortunate tendency to shift, sometimes in mid-play, they are forced to send her to the magical Grimoire Grammar school, where Vivian feels left out because she's only mortal, and tries to juggle Aria's magical curriculum and be part of a community. But someone seems to be targeting Aria as part of a prophecy that states the community will be destroyed.

Think PTA politics taking place at Hogwarts. The enjoyment in this book is the magical, yet mundane, universe that Rozakis builds around the Tanaka family, with gossiping, pushy parents.

  Feuds, edited by Mercedes Lackey
These are 21 new stories from Lackey's world of Valdemar, about Heralds, Bards, Healers, and recurring characters like Nwah the kyree.

I'm still really not sure that I like the "themed" volumes that they've done the last few times. Shenanigans rather bored me, although Anything With Nothing was better. I have to say about this one, though, that I enjoyed how each writer addressed "feuds" differently, with different concepts (especially the first story, which had the creepy "full circle" vibe to it), and that there's really not a bad story in the bunch. We even get a Vanyel story where he pairs up with his aunt in a story that parallels Romeo and Juliet. I got a big kick out of Vanyel posing as "Jackomo, Prince of Minstrels and Minstrel to the Prince," revealing that Misty Lackey is a fan of the wonderful Danny Kaye film The Court Jester (Kaye poses as Giacomo, King of Jesters and Jester to the King).

  The Martians, David Baron
Who hasn't heard of the Lowell Observatory? Certainly I'd heard about it, and thought Percival Lowell was a famous scientist.

He wasn't, just a rich Massachusetts dilettante from the famous Lowell family of cotton mill fame (Amy Lowell, the 19th century poet famous for "Patterns," was his sister). He went looking for novelty, including during trips abroad, where he encountered the charismatic Camille Flammarion, an astronomer who opened the minds of hundreds to the wonders of space. But the real obsession with Mars began when astronomers at the Lick Observatory spotted three lights in a triangular pattern and an Italian named Schiaparelli mapped the planet and identified lines he called "channels," translated as "canals" in English, clear evidence of life on Mars—and Martian obsession was on, with everyone from H.G. Wells to Nikola Tesla involved.

If you thought alien-mania started after Roswell, this will disabuse the notion. Illustrated with black-and-white pictures from the newspapers of the time.

 The Mating Game, Lana Ferguson
This is a companion book to Ferguson's The Fake Mate (Nate, the doctor in that novel, is related to Hunter Barrett). I wasn't enchanted by that one, but this one was half price...another omegaverse novel, this about Tess Covington, who discovers she's a late-bloomer wolf-shifter who's also an omega about to go through her first heat. Her doctors tell her it would be dangerous to take heat suppressants before her first heat, so she's advised to keep away from alphas.

Unfortunately, her next client for redesign—she and her brothers are hoping for a home redesign show on HGTV—is Hunter Barrett, a small-town lodge owner, an alpha who's avoiding romance. The prospects for the redesign are good, since the lodge is charming but how will these two stay away from each other, especially after Tess starts going into full-blown heat?

I liked this one a little better. The lodge sounds like a really nifty place and Hunter's protectiveness of Tess was very sweet.