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 Rook's mom is an actress; changes: no Alexis, and Captain "Montrose" has been replaced by the ineffective Captain Irons.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 July 2025

 The Early Life of Walt Disney, Andrew Stanley Kiste
What a total surprise to find this book; I didn't know it existed. Walt's life has been stringently chronicled (I have most of his bios, even the defamatory one), but his early years not in so much detail as this provides. Kiste goes back to the early history of the Disney family (Norman French who later settled in Ireland, then emigrated to Canada and later to the United States. There's a great deal more about Walt's father Elias and mother Flora; their life in Chicago, Marceline, Missouri, and Kansas City; plus about the other adult figures in Walt's short childhood, and the bond with his brother Roy. While there are not many more details about Walt's early life that have not been covered briefly in other biographies, Kiste expands the experience by talking about the historic events going on around Walt at the time: the changing status of the Midwest as the country shifted from an agricultural country to an industrial one, the average life of a farm family at the time, what Walt would have experienced in France as an ambulance driver, and the craft of early animation.

Takes a "deep dive" into what Walt would have experienced. Includes a tour of the reconstructed Disney home on Tripp Avenue in Chicago where Roy, Walt, and Ruth Disney were born.

  Sounds Like Love, Ashley Poston
Joni Lark, celebrated songwriter, with her creations performed by the likes of Willa Gray (think Taylor Swift), has suffered a setback ever since her mother was diagnosed with dementia: she can't write. But after she meets arrogant Sebastian Fell, son of hit rock star Roman Fell (who Joni's mom once performed with), a melody starts running through her head, and a voice begins speaking to her, a wry, lonely guy who claims he keeps hearing her thoughts. After Joni convinces herself she's not going crazy, she starts to warm up to the voice in her head, as he does to hers. It's this companion who's keeping her from losing it when she returns to her hometown of Vienna Shores, North Carolina, and her parents' business, a music hall called the Revelry, where she hopes to break her writer's block. Instead, she finds out her parents mean to close the venue, and that even her best friend is going through changes she can't talk about.

As in all Poston's romances, a little bit of otherworldly air in this sweet novel, which addresses what happens when stress causes your creativity to dry up, and, most importantly, making the most of the time you have left when medical problems intervene. 

  As Various as Their Land: The Everyday Lives of Eighteenth Century Americans, Stephanie Grauman Wolf
This is part of HarperCollins "Everyday Life in America" series. (I have all the others.) It covers the period from the end of the early colonial period through the Revolutionary War, addressing topics from how (and what style of) homes were built, who lived in them (originally just one room, it wasn't just a nuclear family, but possibly grandparents, grandchildren, adult unmarried siblings, even the hired hand or a servant), what they ate, how their children were treated (as the century went on, even lower-class families cherished their youngsters more) and then how the elderly were treated (they often ended up at the almshouse), how and what they worked at, and how injustices and crimes were handled (yes, men had the upper hand, but a man could still be put to death for murdering his wife). One of those books where you wondered how people survived even the most day-to-day crises.

  Harvest of Hope, Faith Baldwin
Fourth in a series of nonfiction inspirational books by Baldwin, who was a popular "woman's novel" author of the 1920s through the 1970s (she'd be shocked, I think by the "dark romances" currently in vogue). She was also a popular speaker at women's clubs and religious gatherings. I picked up her nonfiction because she was a friend of Gladys Taber, and these books are similar, although not as compelling. A seasonal tour through one year in her life.

  Problematic Summer Romance, Ali Hazelwood
This is a sequel to Hazelwood's Not in Love, about Eli Kilgore's rebellious younger sister Maya. She and Eli's friends and co-workers are in Italy for Rue and Eli's destination wedding in Taormina when almost all of them get food poisoning. This leaves Maya to obsess about her brother's partner Conor Harkness, who's dark and broody due to a really obnoxious family situation, but whom she became friends with years earlier during an emotional crisis.

The "problematic" part of the romance is that Conor is fifteen years older than Maya, and he thinks the gap will ruin her life if he engages with her. For me, the "problematic" bit is that for a mid-twenty-ish professional, Maya acts like a spoiled teenager and constantly flaunts herself in front of Conor thinking that seducing him will change his mind. Very frustrating reading. The protagonists from Deep End, which seems to be very popular, have a cameo.

  The New Girl, Cassandra Calin
I'll read anything that takes my interest, and I have picture books, like The Parakeet Girl, in the library to prove it. The cover of this book immediately caught me. It was only after I bought it that I realized that I'd seen the author's comics shared on Facebook.

Lia is a 12-year-old Romanian girl whose family (mom, dad, and little brother Denis) is moving to Montreal. If it isn't bad enough to be torn from school and her best friend, she gets her first period at the airport! After a summer spent trying to learn French, she starts school where they put her (and other immigrants) in an immersive homeroom to improve her French. Lia thinks she'll never make friends, but slowly she does, and her talent at art eventually gets her a spot on the school newsletter.

One of the reasons I bought this is that Lia is finally an adolescent protagonist I could identify with: she has horrible cramps every month (which, thankfully her parents, like mine, and her school—unlike mine—sympathized with). This was a great graphic novel, and I want a sequel because does her classmate ever tell her about their crush???? I enjoyed this more than Ali Hazelwood's new book!

  A Life Drawing: Reflections of an Illustrator, Shirley Hughes
I found a surfeit of illustrations by Hughes online one day, having loved her art for years, and wondered if there was a book about her career as an illustrator, like existed for Beatrix Potter or Tasha Tudor. Well, yes, there is: this book, from her childhood reading comics through her children's book series like "Alfie."

The book includes the sketches she made in art school, quick little illos in the margins, and beautiful two-page spreads of memories from her lifetime, including a gorgeous one of a railway station during World War II, with families and wives saying farewell to their soldiers. Great stuff for Hughes fans. Can be found used for reasonable prices.

  The Dog Who Followed the Moon, James Norbury
Inspirational book about a lost puppy who learns life lessons from a dying wolf—basically, enjoy your whole life, not just the goals, but the journey itself. The watercolor illustrations are beautiful. 

  Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and Other Lessons from the Crematory, Caitlin Doughty
Maybe this was a strange reading choice for a new widow, but it was actually very helpful, if slightlymacabre. Doughty was fascinated by mortality from childhood, and the book chronicles her years working at a crematory, and how it solidified her feelings concerning the deflecting way we treat death in the modern world.

If nothing else, it made me feel better about our decision as a couple to use cremation as a body disposal method. Dead bodies packed in overpriced containers taking up land needed for living people seems selfish, and the descriptions of embalming were just gross, not to mention that embalming fluid and other chemicals contained in coffins are now leaching into our ground water. Let's not even talk about the "extras" they talk you into.

  Cop Talk: True Detective Stories from the NYPD, E.W. Count
I suspect this was published to feed the interest in New York City crime engendered by Law & Order, since it came out four years after the series premiered. It's a collection of stories about NYPD detectives and some of their more interesting cases, from drug busts to murder cases.

  The Cloisters, Katy Hays
My first "dark academia book. Ann Stilwell is eager to get away from Walla Walla, Washington, after the tragic death of her father. Excited by academia, the work of her academic tutor on augury, and the idea of working in New York City, she accepts a summer job at the Met, only to be snapped up by Patrick, a curator at the Cloisters, Manhattan's evocative medieval museum. Here she meets Rachel, sophisticated and with all the connections, and Leo, the earthy but sexy gardener for the institution. Curator Patrick and Rachel enlist Ann to delve into the secrets of a tarot deck from the Renaissance era, but the twisted secrets of the personalities soon make Ann wonder: who should she trust? I enjoyed it.

Books Completed Since July 1

 The Fake Mate, Lana Ferguson
I bought this because I had read some Omegaverse fanfiction on AO3 (some of it quite rough) and I wondered how it would be handled in a rom-com setting.

Alas, the fanfic was better. Noah Taylor is a gruff alpha wolf shapeshifter cardiologist who's being reported because unmated alphas are usually too aggressive. Mackenzie Carter is an emergency room nurse who's an omega and tired of her custodial grandmother nagging her about relationships. So Mackenzie, on a whim, asks Taylor to pretend to be her boyfriend while she will pretend to be Taylor's mate so the board of directors will leave him alone. Of course it turns out they're both secretly attracted to each other and having sex was a mistake, because they're really, really into each other.

Two-dimensional characters having lots of sex don't make that interesting a story, really. Once again the female lead has a gay best friend. Really, can't she have a het best friend who's male? I've had one. At least her best friend isn't flamboyant and flashy like the others I've encountered. And the last minute villain in this one has all the depth of Frank Burns from M*A*S*H.

Go read an Eames/Goren story called "Zodiac" on AO3, okay? It's in German but Google will translate it for you. Much better use of shifter themes and better characterizations, too.

  Answers in the Form of Questions, Claire McNear
Naturally, it's a book about Jeopardy!

Jeopardy! first saw life as an NBC daytime game show hosted by Art Fleming in the 1960s to early 1970s (you can see a clip of this version in Airplane II). But, brought back in syndication in the 1980s and hosted by Alex Trebek, it reached its zenith. This is the story of Jeopardy, from origins to celebrity tournaments, from favorite quirky players like Austin Rogers and James Holzhauer, from how to find a Daily Double to how that buzzer works.

I found the bits about stats and percentages a bit dull, but there's fun stuff here, I promise.

  Front Desk, Kelly Yang
The cover on this was so appealing I didn't care if it was a kid's book. It's the story of ten-year-old Mia Tang and her parents, Chinese immigrants to California in the 1990s. Even though Mia's parents were professionals in China, here her dad can only find work as a dishwasher, and no one wants to hire her mother, a former scientist. Instead, they are offered an opportunity: running a rather run-down motel in Anaheim. The Tangs are hoping they can save money to buy a home and get better jobs, but the landlord, Mr. Yao, is dishonest and running the motel will take all three of them, except when Mia's in school.

I loved this book: Mia's narrative is both thoughtful and optimistic, and the book is straightforward about the obstacles encountered by immigrants, especially POC, and how they are shortchanged and lied to by employers like Mr. Yao. Also some inside looks about bigotry in the motel industry: most "good" motels were encouraged to tell Blacks that there was no vacancy, as they were considered dangerous.

This is the first in a series of books about Mia and her friends Lupe and Jason.

  Home Sweet Anywhere, Lynne Martin
Tim and Lynne Martin were lovers in the 1970s who separated on riendly terms. Lynne married Guy and was happy until he died; later Tim walked back into her life and they discovered they still were attracted to each other. This time it was for good, but both were restless and wanted to see the world; both had good jobs, but weren't rich enough to take fabulous vacations. They did some planning, sold up nearly everything they owned, and then were off, with a couple of suitcases, two laptops, and a few other items, finding inexpensive cruises and affordable places to live abroad where they could work and be like the locals.

It's a good life if you can do without a homebase. The Martins made it work, and you'll enjoy the travelogue: the go from Turkey to Mexico to Italy to Spain to England and Ireland. I think you'll end up envious in the end but also wondering how they could endure it. Come for the local culture rather than the tourguide's carefully planned route.

  Now You See It, Carol Perry
Thank goodness! I thought Perry had ended this series in favor of one taking place in (yuch!) Florida and am so glad to see a new story. Newly married Lee Barrett, now promoted to historical documentary executive at WICH-TV, and her husband Pete Mondello, police detective, are both involved in a murder investigation as Lee prepares to profile the new Salem International Museum's "Seafaring New England" exhibit. Many valuable historical items will be displayed, and the driver transporting some of the exhibits to the museum has turned up dead.

Lee's "scrying" ability turns up minimally in this story, which is more a straight mystery, with a priceless vase going missing, a ship's model appearing to be haunted, and other skulduggery going on at the museum. The usual supporting cast is afoot: Lee's co-workers, her Aunt Ibby and her girlfriends, Lee and Pete's new neighbor, an ex-con writer, Ibby's "gentleman friend," and of course the magically-inclined O'Ryan, the orange tabby cat. Pleasant and fairly twisty.

 The World is My Home, James A. Michener
This is an atypical memoir by the prolific Michener; don't come to it expecting a biography. He doesn't even address his childhood until the final chapters, where he reveals he was basically brought up in a foundling home by a widow, and was once tormented by another person with the surname "Michener" for claiming to be somebody he wasn't. Instead, he sections the book off into different aspects of his life that built him into a writer, starting with his tour of duty in the South Pacific during World War II (which, of course, inspired his first popular book). This section is an eye-opener about how American officers interacted with the other countries involved in the war and with the Polynesian natives. He talks about the great books he read during his schooling and memorable people he met during his world travels, and then the second half of the book delves more into how he got ideas for his novels and the writing process. Some of it was fascinating, some a little pedestrian, and the chapter on his being involved in politics was pretty dull to me; your mileage may vary, but I found it an enjoyable whole.

  A Novel Love Story, Ashley Poston
Once a year Elsy Merriwether and her friends get together for a book retreat, except maybe this year it isn't going to happen: her friends, including her best friend Pru, all have conflicts. This year Elsy really needs them: her fiance deserted her just days before their wedding and she's feeling depressed and bruised. But the cabin has been reserved, so she decides to go there even if she has to be alone—but her old car breaks down in a little New York village before she can arrive.

As she discovers with surprise, it's Eloraton, the village in her favorite romance novel series. And all the occupants of this village are the people she's been reading about in the series. Except for the grumpy blond man she almost runs down on the bridge, Anders. He doesn't seem to belong there at all.

As always, Poston mixes a little bit of magical whimsy in with her romantic plot, this time it's the little town of Eloraton, which is a big like Brigadoon. What happens when Elsy begins mixing with these fictional characters? She's afraid she might make them stray from their original happy endings. And where does Anders fit in? Who is he, besides the town bookshop owner? Again, not quite up to The Dead Romantics, but a sweet read.

 The Alps: A Human History from Hannibal to Heidi and Beyond, Stephen O'Shea
This is a fun and also historically fascinating travel book about O'Shea's drive along the length of the Alps, discovering that there isn't one "Alpine" culture, but many, due to the countries spanned by the mountain range. He starts in France at Chamonix, the through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria, and Slovenia, encountering the dreaded "Dutch campers," who apparently drive like snails and hog rest areas. In a fascinating chapter, he visits Hitler's World War II aerie near Berchtesgaden (and I wish he wouldn't be so apologetic about it; we need to learn about despots like Hitler and the cruelties they performed on their fellow human beings). There's also his enjoyable chatter about the differences between the Italian (Dolomites) and German Alps, including the attitudes of the people and especially the food (lots of discussion about the lard/olive oil "line"), and exploration of how the mountains were feared until they suddenly became a tourist destination. As enjoyable as his WWI odyssey, Back to the Front.

Books Completed Since June 1

  Butcher & Blackbird, Brynne Weaver
Our friends' daughters were passing this around at a birthday dinner at a Korean steakhouse. I bit more than the delicious dinner.

The protagonists are Sloane Sutherland and Rowan Kane. Both are serial killers who only kill serial killers. Rowan's known as the Boston Butcher, Sloane as the Orb Weaver (because after she kills she creates a "map" of the serial killer's victim's locations with thread and the victim's flesh and eyeballs). They meet when Rowan rescues her from a cage in which she's trapped with her latest victim. There's no denying the sexual attraction, or the competition between the two, so once a year they meet up to see who can take down a serial killer first, a game arranged by Rowan's older brother, who's a hit man. (In the real world, Sloane is a data scientist and Rowan is a chef.)

You're right if you think this is a dark romance. Very, very dark. Both have their demons—in Sloane and her best friend Lark's case, it was a school at which they were abused—and their sex and their romance and the text is all very rough. Not for kids or people who get nightmares easily.

  Watership Down: The Graphic Novel, Richard Adams, James Sturm and Joe Sutphin
I've read the book, but the graphic novel looked so beautiful...there are wonderful watercolor-looking drawings of the English countryside and the little farms and nature scenes. The rabbits are slightly anthropomorphized (the big eyes, especially the blue eyes on Fiver and Pipkin), but they don't look cartoonish, and the other animals are beautifully drawn.

   Re-read: Enterprising Women, Camille Bacon-Smith
Two seminal texts on (mostly) fanfiction came out in 1992; I snapped both of them up at Magicon (the 59th World Science Fiction Convention in Orlando, FL) and re-read them every so often, because it was so novel to see serious writing, indeed serious educational writing, about a subject much-maligned: fanfiction ("All written," detractors jibe, "by hormonal teenagers who want to have sex with Spock").

Bacon-Smith, an ethnographer (studying of cultural norms in individual groups), became interested in the mostly female fans of Star Trek, Blake's 7, other science fiction shows, and also non-science fiction series (mainly Starsky and Hutch and The Professionals) who, for entertainment purposes only, wrote further tales involving the characters from their favorites in various themes: hurt/comfort tales, continuing adventures, psychological thrillers, and sexual encounters both hetero- and homosexual. As she became friends with the participants, she found that they bonded through these stories, worked out emotional disruptions in their lives, and took a far more realistic look into the emotional lives of the characters and the original characters created to interact with them than the source material, since the source material had to "play it safe" within boundaries set by the producers.

As indicated by the title, the text concentrates on women in (mostly SF) fandom, a place where many times they have been unwelcome, and how they made a society for themselves. While the shows and also the media (fanzines and story sharing) have aged, the themes have not (women worrying about sexual harassment, for example). Pair with Textual Poachers for a wide view of fandom.

  Re-read: Textual Poachers, Henry Jenkins
This was the other academic study of fandom and, by extension, fanfiction that came out in 1992. Jenkins' text takes off from William Shatner's infamous "Get a Life" Saturday Night Live skit, in which incensed fans responded that they did have a life; that interest in science fiction/detective series/British programming was just as legitimate as sports fandom or any other intense interest. It also takes the time to define "fan" and "fandom," and note how fans have been portrayed as distorted crazies.

The following chapters address much more than fanfiction: one discusses how the fans of the fantasy drama Beauty and the Beast felt betrayed by the network's choice to turn the romantic/action storyline to just action. Another discusses fanfiction, while a third addresses slash fanfiction, and there is also a chapter about music videos and another about filksongs, something rare in the online fandom today. Although the author in this case is male, there is still much discussion about women being the primary "makers" in fandom and how they react to female characters being marginalized in programming at that time.

Fan art is scattered throughout the book.

Again, much academic vocabulary, but the fan studies are fascinating.

  Not in Love, Ali Hazelwood
Rue Siebert grew up in an uncertain world: her mother was chronically underemployed and she and her brother often had to shift for themselves. Now she has a stable job in the food science industry under an clever woman who has fought her way up in the business world, and she feels safe for the first time in her life.

Then she finds out her boss started Kline, the business, with a big loan, and the Harkness Group has taken over that loan. Is the Harkness Group also going to buy out Kline? For Rue, this fact is almost as bad as when representatives of Harkness come to talk to Kline's scientists, it turns out she knows one of them: it's Eli Killgore, the man she unsuccessfully hooked up with on a dating app, only to have her brother horn in on their meetup.

As it works out, Rue and Eli are much more than rivals; they're rivals with an undeniable attraction for each other which they give into—surely two adults who are not in love can have kick-ass sex and not get emotionally involved? Outside of the hot sex, there's a duplicitous co-worker lurking at Kline and an injustice trying to be resolved. Much more sex that Hazelwood's usual mix and a sniffly HEA but still not quite up to Love Hypothesis.

  American Ramble: A Walk of Memory and Renewal, Neil King Jr.
King had, for some time, toyed with an idea to walk from Washington, DC, where he lived, to New York City, but after a cancer scare and treatments, decided to make the dream real. So in the spring of 2021, with a backpack and arrangements to stay at small bed and breakfasts or alternative lodging (and not averse to sleeping wild), King did just that, traveling the back roads from his home "nine blocks east of the U.S. Capitol" to the Ramble in Central Park. What follows are his adventures along the road, including incredulous people who can't believe he's walking the whole way (he does, except for a couple of minimal car rides), encounters with curious people along the way, including Amish and Mennonite communities, stops at tiny museums (like one which holds only tools that early Americans would have used) and historical spots, meeting people of all philosophies from MAGA stalwarts to offbeat rebels, enjoying spring blossoming over the countryside (he walks north just in time to follow the flowers blooming), crossing through historic sites (like the crossing of the Delaware and also Valley Forge), and other diverse adventures.

One interesting part is his endeavor to use only old roads and ways to travel, so he doesn't wish to cross modern bridges. This leads him to being lent a kayak to cross a river gap only otherwise accessible through a major highway. He also accepts a ferry ride from the New Jersey shore to Staten Island.

I enjoyed hell out of this, although I could never emulate him!

  Winter's Gifts, Ben Aaronovitch
FBI Special Agent Kimberley Reynolds, who was introduced in Aaronovitch's "Rivers of London" in Whispers Under Ground, is the focus of this short novella with a seasonal theme (after The October Man and What Abigail Did That Summer). A retired FBI agent calls in an alarm about a mysterious event in Eloise, Wisconsin, that no one understands until Reynolds finds out about it. She travels to Eloise to find that portions of the town have been destroyed by an "ice tornado," the FBI agent is missing, and some ominous creatures are wandering the shore of the nearby lake.

This starts out slowly, with Reynolds narrating her involvement due to her knowledge of esoteric activity that she learned from Peter Grant during his involvement in the previous case and talking about her past. However, the pace picks up very quickly as odd "monsters" creep out of a blizzard and wreak havoc in the town. The end is a tense chase straight out of a horror film as a long-buried curse has been unearthed involving Native American spirits.

I enjoyed this although it was a different narrative from the British-set books. Some British-isms do creep in, but I don't find them all that distracting. Reynolds herself is an interesting character because she was brought up as a strict Christian, but is now dealing with otherworldly events with no relation to the beliefs her mother tried to instill in her. I also liked the slow-attraction romance that is very peripherally part of the story (the ending is particularly sweet).

  Any Other Name, Craig Johnson
The tenth book in the Longmire series. Longmire's daughter Cady, now married to the brother of Walt's undersheriff Victoria Moretti, is expecting her first child and expecting Walt to be there at the birth. And he expected to be there, until his friend and former boss Lucian Connally asks if he will help out in the case of a fellow law-enforcement officer in the next county who apparently committed suicide. He figures it will only take a day or two.

If you believe that, you haven't read a Longmire book. Vic Moretti and Walt's best friend Henry Standing Bear end up helping in the investigation, which comes to involve a missing woman from a strip club, sending Walt from a casino to a lodge on the trail of what made Gerald Holman kill himself.

Slow build with a frantically tense ending involving a railroad spur line that will leave you gasping.

Does Longmire make the birth? It's Walt—you figure it out.

 The Joy of Independent Living for Seniors, FC&A Publishing
From the book sale. Really nothing I didn't know. I got some tips from it, though. Worth the $1.50 I paid for it.

Books Completed Since April 1

 The Kiss Quotient, Helen Hoang
I read the second book in this trilogy, The Bride Test, first. It made me cry. This one did, too.

Stella Lane is a whiz at her job—she configures algorithms to predict customer purchases, which is perfect for someone with high-functioning autism—but her social skills are low and at thirty her parents are nagging her about getting married. Her sexual experiences so far haven't been sterling because she really has no idea how to react. So she decides to hire a professional escort to teach her the ropes.

Michael Tran is quite good at what he does, but he doesn't do it because he wants to—he has debts he needs to pay off. He figures he'll take on Stella's project; what he doesn't count on is Stella becoming special to him. Nor does socially awkward Stella realize until she meets Michael that maybe she doesn't need "lessons," she just needs someone to understand her.

All of Helen Hoang's books that I've read so far involve neurodivergent people navigating living in a neurotypical world. I've especially enjoyed them since I've always suspected I'm slightly on the spectrum.

I have what looks like the final book in this trilogy, The Heart Principle, to read next month. I'm whipping out the hankies in advance.

 The Road From the Past: Traveling Through History in France, Ina Caro
I loved Caro's Paris to the Past (day trips you could take on the road or railway to French historic sites from Paris) so much that I had to pick up this earlier book I found at the library sale. The watercolor cover of an old French village was so compelling. And indeed, Caro's chronological history of France, told from its first Roman ruins in Orange through the residences of Louis XIV takes us through some picturesque places indeed: castles, fortresses, palaces, aqueducts, monuments, all set among the lovely French countryside where Caro and husband Bob enjoy the food (sometimes—tourist traps seem to undo them) and roll their eyes at the rude tourguides who don't like people who don't speak French.

But it's a lot of French history, so as much as I like history and old buildings, this was rather a slog to get through. If you're a Francophile historian, come here first!

 The Annotated Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster
What I would have done without the school libraries at Stadium Elementary and Hugh B. Bain Junior High? We were over a mile from both the Arlington and the Auburn libraries and Mom didn't drive; the books at Arlington were so old that the most recently published volumes still had cars with running boards. Stadium and Bain gave me wonderful adventures like Miss Pickerill, Johnny Tremain, The Green Poodles, my first Heinlein juveniles, A Wrinkle in Time (thank you, Judy Martini, for recommending it!), and so many more. And it gave me The Phantom Tollbooth, a daft-looking book with scrawly illustrations by cartoonist Jules Feiffer, whose work I saw in the newspaper. I'd never read a book like Tollbooth, with its literal use of idioms, its fantastic wordplay, the ideas of infinity and bravery and other concepts it put into my brain. Milo, the boy who didn't know what to do with himself; Tock, the Watchdog (literally); the braggart Humbug; Chroma, the conductor who directed the colors of the universe; Dr. Dischord and the Terrible Dynn—they all lived now in my head as beloved friends.

What a joy to find this annotated edition and so much information on the illusive Norton Juster, the things that almost made it into the story (a chocolate moose?), and how he edited unceasingly until every word made The Phantom Tollbooth, like Mary Poppins, "practically perfect in every way."

  On Writing, Stephen King
This is King's memoir about growing up almost from the beginning with stories in his head, and having to tell the tales. Between great writing and editing tips—he got some of his best advice writing for the school paper—you get some glimpses of his childhood and his teen years—including the time he almost got expelled for insulting a teacher in a "humor" magazine he printed and brought to school in which he cruelly skewered each of his teachers—and then his meeting Tabitha Spruce, who later became his wife.

Unfortunately, you have to get through his alcohol and drug addiction. That part was very distasteful.

 The Dead Guy Next Door, Lucy Score
This book looked like such fun. And parts of it were fun. But a good comedy should be short and sweet. Four hundred and sixty pages of cute retorts, car chases, weird goings on, and strange characters was about 200 pages too much.

Riley Thorn's goofy mom is psychic, and so is she, but she suppresses and denies her visions of the future. She married a well-known television anchor, then he divorced her and for some reason she has to pay alimony. Broke, she lives in this appallingly awful rooming house with a bunch of elderly people who I guess are supposed to be funny and adorable, but are neither. She has to share a bathroom with a disgusting guy named Dick who flashes her and leaves his dirty underwear out for her to find. One day she has a vision of him being shot. But who's she going to report it to? When she tries to hint about the threat to the police obliquely, she becomes the prime suspect when he is killed. Then a friend asks ex-police detective Nick Santiago to investigate further. Gorgeous and handsome Nick sees sexy and flaky Riley and the attraction is on.

The story just goes on, and on, with witty banter after witty banter, almost sexual encounters, Riley's totally irritating elderly neighbors, her dippy mother...I couldn't wait to finish this one. Will not go on with the series.

  In the Form of a Question, Amy Schneider
In general, I enjoyed this book. I have trans friends and I was especially interested in Amy's narrative of being born in a male body but never feeling as if she belonged there. (I was quite surprised that she was so open with her "dead name," as so many trans people are reluctant to reveal that information, although I can understand why.) That was the best part of this book, also finding out that she was a Daria fan, her interest in tarot, etc. I was less fond of the parts where she talks about open marriages—of course, if it works for the couple, it's fine, it just made me uncomfortable, and that's my problem—and where she talks about using drugs. I don't even like taking prescription drugs, and mind-altering drugs or sedatives/uppers creep me out, so I was happy to leave that chapter behind, too.

And, after awhile, the cutesy little footnotes in every single chapter got on my nerves.

  Weather Girl, Rachel Lynn Solomon
Ari Abrams has loved the weather since she was a child, and she almost has her dream job at Seattle's KSEA television, where she's the "weather girl"  under the aegis of Torrance Hale, her idol and the station's chief meteorologist. "Almost perfect" because Hale isn't giving Ari much direction and also because her feud with station owner—and ex-husband—Seth Hasegawa makes working conditions at KSEA a little rocky—even though it's clear the couple still love each other. After an inebriated December holiday party in which Hale throws one of Hasegawa's awards out a hotel window, Ari and her buddy from the sports department, Russell Barringer, decide to start doing little, anonymous things to bring their bosses' together, and perhaps make them think about having a fresh start.

But it also brings Ari and Russ together in ways they couldn't have imagined, to the point Ari thinks there might be a future between them—if she can keep her "bad days" covered up. For Ari, like her mother, suffers from depression, and believes she's unlovable if she doesn't keep the fact covered up.

A nice love story entwined with Ari's struggle to "be her sunny self" rather than letting her dark side show.

  Whoever Fights Monsters, Robert K. Ressler and Tom Shactman
If you watch Mindhunter on Netflix, Ressler is the person that Bill Tench, played by Holt McCallany, is based on. He was the man who coined "serial killer" as a name for repeat murderers with similar pathologies, and served as an advisor on Silence of the Lambs. In this volume he talks about how behavioral crime analysts form profiles, and some of the serial killers he has encountered, including Charles Manson, John Wayne Gacy, David Berkowitz, Ed Kemper, etc. While most of these men—serial killers are almost exclusively men—are spur-of-the-moment, disorganized, and unprepossessing, there are also some very cunning ones who view their killings as "games" with the police.

Worth reading for the reality behind television series like Criminal Minds and other psychological-based crime dramas.

  Georgie, All Along, Kate Clayborn
Georgie Mulcahy is suddenly floundering; her high-powered Hollywood boss Nadia has retreated to enjoy the simple life and personal assistant Georgie is out of a job. To collect her thoughts, she goes back to her east coast small-town birthplace to spend some time with her best friend Bel and her husband Harry, who are expecting their first child. Georgie plans to stay at her peripatetic hippie parents' empty house while she gets her life together, only to find town bad boy Levi Fanning housesitting. Georgie and Levi settle into an uneasy truce, and George finds among her childhood things a "friendfic" she and Bel wrote together before going to high school about all the things she planned to do in high school and then in the future. To cheer herself up, Georgie decides to do a few of the things in the fic that she wrote about, and, to her surprise, grumpy Levi, who seems to figure he owes her one after she allows him to stay at her parents' house, volunteers to help her.

Yeah, it's a love story, so it goes where you think. It's a nice story, nothing special, but sweet. Levi's unforgiving father hangs like a big dark cloud over the whole story—I dare you to get through the story without wanting to slap the jerk—and the jokes about Hank (Levi's dog) farting got old fast. But a nice summer read about two old friends, a new one, and facing the future.

  Life in an Old New England Country Village: An Old Sturbridge Village Book, Catherine Fennelly
Found this at a book sale only to discover it was about Old Sturbridge Village. It's from 1969, and the first chapter talks about what it was like to live in New England following the Revolutionary War until shortly before the Civil War, and then the rest of the book enumerates the current buildings and displays at SV and how they fit into life 1776-1840. The Village, which we visited for the first time in 2015, as very much expanded since then, but it was fun to read the inception of Sturbridge and the histories of the first buildings on the site. Totally still worth picking up at a book sale if you're an OSV fan or a fan of early American history.