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 May 2025

  Novel-in-the-Making, Mary O'Hara
Wyoming Summer is one of my comfort reads, but I didn't realize O'Hara had two more nonfiction books! This one is the story of writing her novel The Son of Adam Wyngate. It begins with her driving east with her collie after her divorce from Helge Sture-Vasa to re-establish herself in Connecticut, and thinking on what she wants to write next, a family drama based on her own father. I was heartened by reading about how many false starts she had! At one point, she envisioned it as a trilogy and began writing the second book first. It was quite encouraging to know that even as an experienced writer, she had so many false starts.

The book also makes me glad I live in the computer age: her talking about having to edit her drafts by cutting and taping multiple pages of typewritten manuscript together made me exhausted.

  Any Trope But You, Victoria Lavine
Margot Bradley's once-flourishing romance writer career has gone down the tubes: someone found her private file, the one the now-cynical author kept to herself because she wrote unhappy endings to all her famous rom-com epics after an epic breakup with her fiancé, and broadcast it to the world. Her sister Savannah, who has chronic autoimmune disease, proposes that she go away for six weeks to a lodge in Alaska and write in a new genre: mystery. But no sooner does Margot arrive in Alaska than she runs afoul of Forrest Wakefield, a former researcher who is now taking care of his invalid father and is guilty because he wasn't there to care for his mother.

Two cynics, in this genre, equal romance, although neither of them will admit it at first. Great fish-out-of-water protagonist who discovers the "cozy lodge" comes with physical challenges, and a hero with heart.

  The Rhine, Ben Coates
The Dutch are different, but then so are the Germans. And the Swiss, and all the other countries along the length of the Rhine River. Starting in Amsterdam, Ben Coates follows the path of the Rhine all the way to its source at Lake Toma, covering the history, sociology, and current political and social customs of the countries he travels through, comparing and contrasting the people, the food, and the treatment of the river.

Sometimes Coates has his tongue more firmly planted in his cheek than perhaps he should have, but I enjoyed his journey up...down?...along one of the most notable rivers in Europe. I bought this book because I was tired of all the good travel narratives being about France!

  Juneau, the Sleigh Dog, West Lathrop
Grosset & Dunlap's "Famous Dog Stories" series. I ate these up as a kid. Nope, didn't want to read about girls dating and gushing over boys, or, when I was younger, little girls simpering over their dollies and having tea parties. Adventures. I wanted adventures! These, along with Albert Payson Terhune's wonderful collie stories, captured my imagination.

Got this from a friend who knew I liked old dog books. It's a corker: an engineer and his son are on vacation in Alaska. Dad is called away unexpectedly for a few daysand wants to take son Pierre with him, but Pierre persuades him to leave him at the cabin with Juneau the husky, knowing a neighbor, Andy, will help him if there's a problem; besides, he's in the care of their Native-American guide Ka-uk, a member of the Tlingit tribe.

Alas, these books were not exactly enlightened: Ka-uk deserts the boy and proves to be treacherous, and Pierre and Juneau are obliged to fend for themselves. Considering when this was written, I was impressed that Ka-uk's problem didn't stem from being "naturally bad" due to his heritage, but because he was an outcast from both his own people and from white people. Pierre gains maturity and experience during his unfortunately long ordeal, and the dog is magnificent.

  Fake Heroes, Otto English
Nobody's perfect.

This is a book about ten heroes--historic and celebrity-- whose lives were not what the public believed. I admit, I bought this book because the first chapter was about Douglas Bader, a World War II pilot whose positive press covered up the fact that he wasn't who he seemed; my husband, the consummate fan of aviation heroes, had read about him and scorned his fame. My mother, the ultimate JFK fan, knew all about his peccadillos and, later in life, knew about his illnesses. Almost everyone knew he didn't write Profiles in Courage; Ted Sorenson did. And once Mother Teresa died, the word about her forcing people to suffer without painkillers because "suffering was good for them" became known. And how many people didn't know Coco Chanel was a Nazi collaborator?

English offers up as well, in each of ten chapters, people he believes more worthy of the honors.

  The Curse of Penryth Hall, Jess Armstrong
Ruby Vaughn had one chance at a good marriage, but was "ruined" by an in flagrante reveal. After serving in the first World War, she now lives in England working—and sharing a house with—an elderly bookseller, who unexpectedly asks her to travel to Cornwall to deliver some esoteric books to a folk healer. Ruby is reluctant to go because her old friend Tamsyn lives there after marrying an English aristocrat. Mr. Owens' client turns out to be the town Peller, a cross between a healer and, from what Ruby can gather, some type of witch.

When Tamsyn's husband turns up dead, everyone is under suspicion, including Tamsyn.

An atmospheric thriller set in the 1920s with lots of twists (although the characters seem to spend most of the book soaking wet).

  Re-read: The Selected Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder, edited by William Anderson
There is some meat to this collection of Wilder letters, including some of the letters she and her daughter Rose Wilder Lane shared about the editing of the "Little House" books. Sadly, Rose burned most of the letters, especially those from the 1940s, so we will never know the full editorial partnership she shared with her mother. There is an impassioned letter of Laura's insisting that The Long Winter be confined to the Ingalls and Wilders with a few supporting characters rather than a full pallet of townspeople as Rose wanted to give full import of the isolation families faced during that hard winter of 1880-1881, which showed she did have the flair for storytelling that some literary scholars have denied her. But most of the letters are banal little responses to schoolchildren, with a few lovely gems.

The trouble is, I've read so many books about Wilder, including the recently published Pioneer Girl, that I've already seen many of these "surprise bits" (like the fact that a young couple and their baby lived with the family during the long winter), so the revelations aren't. It's also sad to read Wilder's last letters with her longing for her late husband clear even in the few paragraphs, and it's also obvious that the sisters did not remain very close after Ma and Pa and Mary died.

I've been a Laura "junkie" since I first saw the television series and wanted to know "the real story," so I'm glad I picked this up, but if you have less of an attachment to her, I would invest in one of the biographies instead.

  The Pocket, Barbara Burman & Ariane Fennetaux
What's the one thing women always complain about in modern clothing? Of course, not enough pockets. From 1660 through 1900, however, most women did have pockets, often capacious ones, which tied around the waist and went under their skirts (the skirts usually had a slit/slits to access the pocket(s).

This is a history of those pockets, most made of cotton, some of wool or leather or linen, some embroidered and many plain, and what women kept in them, from valuable things like coins and keys, to items for beauty (powder compacts, rouge), to things like snacks, books, visiting books, and sentimental objects. Often the pocket(s) were the only private places women had for their cherished items and they were often stolen by cutpurses who cut the tie strings or brazen thieves who reached under a sleeping women's pillow for her stash. Other women used their pockets as shoplifters hide things under their coats, to steal.

This is a scholarly study, but an interesting one.

  Modern Loss, Rebecca Soffer and Gabrielle Birkner
These are selections from a website called "Modern Loss," where stories of grief are shared. One of the stories from the co-authors sounds like it came out of a Law & Order episode: her father and stepmother were killed by a handyman who, a few weeks earlier, had done repair work at their home. He intended to just rob the house, but when he found them at home, he beat them both to death.

This book made me more depressed, so, obviously not what I needed to be reading at this time.

  A Musical in the Making, Mary O'Hara
This book was interesting to me not only about how she developed, then wrote and re-wrote, her musical play The Catch Colt, but how much work some of the process was. Since she was composing the music and writing the book, she had quite a load on her shoulders, but I never realized how laborious the orchestrations were! Fully half the book is about how she had to work and work on these orchestrations, and then she had to finally sell the play. I've seen behind-the-scenes of play production, but not ones that include the writing and the music. Pretty much just for O'Hara or play fans, though.

  Anything from Nothing, edited by Mercedes Lackey
The 2023 collection of Valdemar short stories. Much better than Shenanigans, which I really didn't like at all. The quality in this volume is pretty solid, from the opening story about a blacksmith's son who feels stifled in his small town and requests that a Herald take him away to Lackey's own tale of a small town under siege. Several of the stories are serial in nature, so we continue the stories of Healer Erenal and Nwah the kyree being held captive. One of my favorites was the story of a traveling carnival, "What a Chosen Family Chooses," and how they help a captive in a stifling village. "Needs Must When Evil Bides" is another good one, about a herbalist who helps a servant rescue a wealthy family taken hostage by bandits.

All the stories are worth reading.

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 March 1

  Getting Smarter: A Memoir, Barbara Feldon
Agent 99 was my first heroine (well, after Lassie...). At age 9, I fell head-over-heels in love with Maxwell Smart, and "shipped" Max and 99 with all my heart.

Barbara Hall grew up in Pittsburgh, From childhood she wanted to go on the stage, and as soon as she was old enough, she moved to Manhattan to try to make her living at acting. She became a model and in an accident of fate, was about to be interviewed for the big television program of the 1950s, the game show $64,000 Question. It was as she was deciding whether to do this or not, she meets suave, French-accented Lucien Feldon. He tells her he's about to be divorced and that he's a commercial airline pilot. Later she finds out he survived the Occupation of France.

Alas, that wasn't the only untrue thing he ended up telling her during their relationship. In fact, at one point he even convinces her he's a spy.

While this memoir talks about her career, the years on Get Smart (she and Don Adams didn't become close friends until after the series ended, but she enjoyed working with him) and afterwards, most of the narrative has to do with her relationship with the enigmatic and ultimately duplicitous Lucien. He made things sound so real she automatically believed him; only as years passed did she become suspicious and then finally realize he was playing her.

At my age, I read it and wonder how she could have been so naïve, but then I remember: once upon a time, so was I.

This is a book I'll hold close to my heart.

(Don Adams loved history books! And read and wrote poetry! Damn, I wish he'd also written something.)

 The Love Con, Seressia Glass
I picked this up at Books-a-Million because (1) cosplay, (2) mentions of DragonCon, and (3) it takes place in Atlanta. Kenya Davenport is a talented cosplayer and gamer; while she has a degree in engineering, what she really wants to do with her life, to her parents' dismay, is become a professional costume designer. Her close friend Cameron Lassiter, who she's known since he was a neglected boy in grade school, owns a maker shop in which she works.

Now she has the chance of a lifetime, winning a prize in a televised cosplay contest—except her last project has to be done with her romantic partner! Kenya doesn't have one, but she hopes that Cameron will cooperate and pretend to be her boyfriend. He knows her dreams and she's sure he'll be supportive, but can they make a pretend relationship work? She doesn't know that Cam is already in love with her...or that the producers of the series Cosplay or No Way will stoop to everything sordid to create a little conflict!

Boy, did I want to whack the producers of the television series, not to mention the one judge who seems to hate Kenya. She's so blatant about not liking a plus-sized Black girl that I wondered how the producers would permit it to continue. This was a fun read having to do with conventions, cosplaying, and friends to lovers.

  Flâneuse, Lauren Elkin
Cool! I said when I saw this at Barnes & Noble, a woman walks through Paris, New York, Tokyo, Venice and London and explores their history and observes society in each urban area. Instead I'm treated to depressing essays about writers like Jean Rhys, how terrible Tokyo is for women walkers--although her main complaint seems to be she wants to go back to Paris while her boyfriend X is having a grand time (well, either leave the idiot, stupid, or quit complaining), a chapter where she describes an entire film about a woman named Cléo, a history of protests in Paris, and other snooze-worthy topics. Some interesting observations about how Paris neighborhoods are homey, and a too short chapter on Martha Gellhorn (after she goes on and on about George Sand). About halfway through I just sped up my reading because I was bored, except in the Gellhorn chapter.

I have lots of wonderful travel books, many written by women. This one is not a keeper.

  Half Sick of Shadows, Laura Sebastian
You've heard the saying "Behind every great man is a good woman"? This is the story of Elaine of Astolot, a very different woman from the one who inhabits Lord Tennyson's brooding poem, and who dies from viewing the real world. In this Arthurian retelling, Elaine, along with Guinevere of Lyonesse, Lancelot, and Arthur's half-sister Morgana, are basically the support from which Arthur, destined to be the king of England, derives his strength. When the time finally comes, Arthur and his friends journey to Camelot, only to find that Merlin the magician is ready to declare the evil Mordred king. If Arthur wants to be king, he will be required to carry out three tasks, including marching into Lyonesse to ask permission to marry Gwen. And Lyonesse is a treacherous place indeed.

This is a reworking of the Arthurian legend with women on an equal footing with men. Elaine particularly carries a heavy load, as she can see the future, and, in no future she foresees does Arthur not end up betrayed by his sister, despite how hard she tries.

I'm picky about my Arthurian tales ever since I read Mary Stewart's Merlin books. This one kept my attention.

 The Defense is Ready, Leslie Abramson
I don't follow true crime stuff, so I had no idea the author was the attorney for the Menendez brothers. I just watch so much Law & Order I wanted to see some criminal law from the POV of the defense attorney rather than from the district attorney.

So she's defended a lot of people, some absolutely clueless, others badass, some who were just mixed up in the wrong thing. Some she liked, some she was happy to get away from. She also talks about the different personalities of judges and how they often make convictions based on their own prejudices, and also about her opponents: the district attorneys and other prosecutors, some who are doing their best and others who are just lazy.

It was an interesting read. I don't have any opinion if she was right or wrong about the Menendez brothers.

  Bride, Ali Hazelwood
Hazelwood, known for her rom-coms involving STEM couples, branches out in a new direction in this paranormal romance.

Vampyres, werewolves, and humans have an uneasy alliance in Misery Lark's world. Many of the alliances hinge on the keeping of hostages. For years Misery, who's never been her father's favorite person, has been keeping a low profile in human society. Now her father calls upon her to marry the alpha male of of the werewolves, Lowe Moreland, to cement another agreement. She does so reluctantly, but in order to achieve another goal. What she didn't count on was becoming fond of a member of Moreland's family, or...fond of Lowe himself.

Enjoyable dynamics and a twist at the end, and Ana is cute.

  Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer
I enjoyed this so much. Kimmerer is a botanist and also a member of the Potawatomi Nation, so her narrative about her interactions with plants, nature, her students, and the earth is infused with both botanical knowledge and indigenous wisdom. Some of the chapters are sobering, such as the one about how chemical plants not only polluted a lake but poisoned the land around it, and how they are trying to revive both, and in various parts of the texts where she described how Native American children were sent to schools which tried to "rip the Indian out of them." Other chapters relate how she tries to bring her technologically-addicted students back to thinking about and relating to the earth.

Scattered within the text are Native wisdom, founding myths of the Potawatomi and other Native nations, and some of the loveliest descriptions of nature that I've ever read. Well worth your time as a nature read or for Native lore.

Books Completed Since September 1

  Dear Little Corpses, Nicola Upson
This is the tenth book in Upson's "Josephine Tey" mysteries in which the writer (the real Tey's actual name was Elizabeth McIntosh; Upson writes of Tey as an original character who wrote McIntosh's novels) is enjoying a quiet stay in at the country cottage she inherited from an aunt in the village of Polstead with her lover, Marta. It is the day before World War II is declared and the village is preparing for the arrival of evacuee children from London. Unfortunately the buses arrive with more children than expected and in the chaos a little girl named Annie from the village vanishes. The longer the search goes on, the more dire the consequences appear to be. In the meantime, an eccentric family take on one little girl but refuse to take her 10-year-old brother, who is temporarily billeted with Josephine and Marta, who are in conflict when Marta's demanding director, Alfred Hitchcock, requires she come to Hollywood early.

I love Upson's writing; she has the talent to make these mysteries sound as if they were written in the 1930s without the unfortunate racism and classism that was rampant at the time. This also captures the spirit of the day leading up to and then the days after Great Britain declared war on Nazi Germany, and the attitude of a small town preparing to take in frightened and bewildered children. The menace of secrets held within the village limits is also well portrayed. I really enjoyed this one.

  Border Crossings: A Journey on the Trans-Siberian Railway, Emma Fick
This is the niftiest travel book I've seen in a long time. Fick and her "then-boyfriend, now-husband" Helvio, inspired by a used book about traveling the Trans-Siberian Railway, decide to do just that. They start in Beijing and end in Moscow. The unique thing about the book is that it's narrated in Fick's watercolor sketches and hand-lettered narrative. The whole thing is priceless...sketches of Mongolian nomads, Chinese train officials, countrysides, local houses, decorations, foods, passports, tickets, customs, animals, even the Moscow subway stations. It's fascinating, a real treat for the eyes.

 The Make-Up Test, Jenny L. Howe
Picked this up off the remainder table in Books-a-Million and discovered with amusement that it was set in a fictional college in Rhode Island (and the protagonist is from Maine)—it even features the Jack O'Lantern Spectacular at Roger Williams Park in one chapter. Allison Avery and her ex-boyfriend Colin Benjamin find they're going to have to work together in graduate school. Allison's looking forward to talking about literature and especially with working with Professor Wendy Frances, but the thought of teaching a class has her flummoxed. A whole book about people who obsess about books! And although Allison is plus-sized, it's not mentioned on every page of the book but exists as an undercurrent of the difficult relationship she has with her father. No crazy gay friends; they're all sane here. And Professor Frances is a wonderful, supportive character.

 The Rediscovery of America, Ned Blackhawk
An exhaustive scholarly history of how European exploration and settlement of North American, primarily the United States, ruined the thriving Native American settlements all over the continent. I was quite pleased to find an expansion of a history of the southwestern settlements like Acoma that Alistair Cooke touched on briefly in the second episode of his 1972 series America. Also enjoyed a further exploration of my home region of New England, if "enjoyed" can be properly used to refer to a narrative of steady betrayals and brutalities. I was also interested to learn of the contributions of Native American women like Laura Cornelius Kellogg and Elizabeth Bender Cloud in the fight for Native rights, since I had never heard any historical references to Native women, just modern ones like Wilma Mankiller. One must be strong-stomached to read the endless litany of broken agreements, unfulfilled treaties, and flat-out removals of indigenous people from the lands where their ancestors had fished, farmed, and hunted for ages, not to mention the terrible boarding schools and removal of children from their parents into foster care, where the kids were forbidden to speak about their heritage and they were often abused physically and sexually. Note that early settlement is covered more thoroughly than modern events.

I did find a minor error in the chapter which talks about the popularity of Westerns on television/in movies in the late 1950s featuring stereotypical and more than often offensive Native characters. Blackhawk states that Disney's "Peter Pan...Americanized the English tale Peter and Wendy and incorporated Indian characters and music in its depiction of Never Never Land." The "Red Indians" (as the British called them) in Peter Pan were ported directly from J. M. Barrie's book, which I read for the first time only a few years ago. Tiger Lily and the other members of her tribe were already there in glaring racist display, with Tiger Lily talking in a horrific "Pidgin Chinese" manner, substituting "Ls" for "Rs" ("Velly velly good" and similar dialog). It was repulsive. The British were apparently fascinated by American and Canadian "savages" and loved to see them in adventure tales.

 Truly, Madly, Sheeply, Heather Vogel Frederick
This is the last of the Pumpkin Falls mysteries, according to the advertisement, and I will miss Truly Lovejoy, her ex-military family, and her new home in New Hampshire. It's a busy autumn for the Lovejoys: Aunt Truly is marrying her old sweetheart, and they're buying a dilapidated farm on which they plan to raise sheep to make specialty yarn, plus at school they're building catapults in science class for the annual pumpkin toss. But someone seems to be trying to drive True and Rusty off their farm, not to mention decorative pumpkins are disappearing all over town. It will take Truly and her friends to solve both mysteries. And what about the new boy in school? Will he take Truly's mind off her friend Calhoun?

A couple of quibbles: What kind of fourteen-year-old still believes in haunted houses and ghosts, especially in a military family? And then there's the matter of the names of the sheep: One of the ewes (all but the ram named after famous women) is named "Frances" Scott Key? Couldn't another female historical figure have been found rather than turning a man's name into a woman's? Dolley after Dolley Madison, who saved the Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington? Sybil for Sybil Ludington who rode through the night to call the militia to help at the Battle of Ridgefield? Anne for Anne Hutchinson, who was a woman minister in Rhode Island who was persecuted because women weren't supposed to preach the gospel? Celia for Celia Thaxter, famous New England artist? Sheesh.

This has the most beautiful cover of any of the Pumpkin Falls mysteries. I'd love to have a print of it to frame!

 Travels With George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy, Nathaniel Philbrick
A delightful voyage with Philbrick and his wife (and their Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever Dora) as they retrace a tour of the entire United States as taken by George Washington by mostly carriage (but some by ship) between 1789-1791 to rally the states to accept the new Constitution. Like our first president, the Philbricks do the tour in stages following Washington's route via his journals and diaries, so it's a travelogue, a history of Washington's life, and a slice of life in post Revolutionary America all at once. I loved this book to death.

 The Ghost and the Stolen Tears, Cleo Coyle
The eighth book in the "Haunted Bookshop Mystery" series taking place in the fictional Quindicott, Rhode Island. Jack Shepard, the New York private eye shot dead in the entrance to the old bookstore now owned by Penelope Thornton-McClure and her aunt Sadie. Penelope, a widow with a school-age son, returned to her hometown and revived the fading shop, is the only one who can see Jack's ghost, now haunting the store. Alas, in this outing, as in the seventh book, Jack has turned into a martinet again, talking too much slang and bullying Penelope. As always, Penny's travel "back in time" sequences via Jack's lucky nickel are the most interesting parts of the book, and her two buddies Seymour the postman and Brainert the professor get more annoying by the day. Oh, the plot has to do with a missing necklace and a nomadic woman who travels around in her trailer.

 The Director: My Years Assisting J. Edgar Hoover, Paul Letersky with Gordon Dillow
This is Letersky's story of being an assistant to the famous and sometimes infamous J. Edgar Hoover. Letersky is evidently a Hoover fan, although he's not silent about Hoover's likes and dislikes. One hears so much about Hoover's buddy Clyde Tolson, but in this narrative he's a tottery cranky old guy. The best part of his book are Paul's stories about Helen Gandy, Hoover's private secretary for over fifty years, and about his own career as an FBI agent.

  It Happened One Fight, Maureen Lee Lenker
This book would be a lot shorter without the male and female protagonists constantly shoring up each other's egos once they finally begin talking to each other. It has its good parts—a lively 1930s based romance between Dash Howard (based on Clark Gable) and Joan Davis (based on Joan Crawford and Bette Davis), who find themselves married after a prank. So they go to Reno to make a film, after which they will be publicly divorced. But they've always had feelings for each other. and things don't go as planned.

Lenker has a nice sense of the 1930s, and so many of the things the actors endured back then (including the casting couch and pleasing gossip columnists, even if the latter costs your soul). In the end, though, I felt a bit empty.

  Pony, R. J. Palacio
Silas Bird is an unusual 12-year-old. Some years earlier he was struck by lightning and survived. Brought up in a solitary cabin by his photographer father in the 1860s, one night rough riders abduct his father to help with some sort of project that will make him a fortune. His father tells him to wait at the cabin until he returns, but after two days he packs up and mounts the bald-faced pony the kidnappers had brought with them and then apparently escaped. The pony leads him—and his "imaginary companion" Mittenwool—to a wood where he teams up with a grizzled marshal looking for counterfeiters, and this is only the beginning of Silas' adventure. Silas is a very peculiar boy and I was irritated by the narrative at first, but the story soon becomes very compelling.

Warning: some people have had problems with this story because there's a very subtle gay character in it. Big deal.

 The Best American Travel Writing 2021, edited by Padma Lakshmi
I don't know what possessed me to buy this book after what happened in 2020...but I was pleasantly surprised! Many of the essays had to do with staying home during the pandemic and missing travel or discovering new things about staying at home, or what happened to travelers during the pandemic, like the first story about quarantine on a cruise ship "Mississippi: A Poem, in Days" and "Out There, Nobody Can Hear You Scream" are the two best, and most sobering, essays about Black travelers and the challenges they still face in America's tourist places. Deep sea diving, the residents of Las Vegas, bathhouses, traveling and suicide—I don't think I caught a bad essay here.

  Heat Rises, Richard Castle
This is the third in the series of "Nikki Heat" novels supposedly written by the author hero of the television series Castle. The stories are basically extended Castle stories with the characters' names changed and a couple of tweaks. Kate Beckett = sexy Nikki Heat, Richard Castle = magazine journalist Jameson Rook (Castle/Rook, get it?), Captain Montgomery = Captain Montrose, Ryan and Esposito = Raley and Ochoa, Laney Parish = Lauren Parry. (Rook's mom is also an actress, and has a part in this novel as well.) In this outing, Heat is called to a crime scene at a bondage dungeon where the victim turns out to be a priest. As she works on the case, she's supported by someone from "higher up"—until she gets too close to information no one wants revealed. Surprisingly complicated and nonstop plot includes a nail-biting chase through one of the tunnels under Central Park. Really enjoyed this one.

  Yesterday's Britain: The Illustrated Story of How We Lived, Worked and Played, by Reader's Digest
This is a delicious coffee-table sized book (a little over 300 pages) summing up the years 1900-1979 (with a brief coda to the end of the 20th century) in Great Britain starting with chat about the new century, through agonizing Edwardian fashions to the terror and carnage of "the Great War" to the sparkling Twenties that landed, like the United States in a 1930s crash, to explode into World War II.

As usual with these books, I get bored once I get to the 50s with all the rock and roll and later hippie stuff, but it's all good with photos, pamphlets, maps, advertisements, and personal recollections. Found this at the library book sale. Would love if there was one for France...I wonder!

  Her Name, Titanic, Charles Pellegrino
This is a nifty combination of a narrative of the voyage of the Titanic alternating with Pellegrino's interviews of Bob Ballard and the story of how Ballard and his crew found the wreckage of the doomed liner. Even if you've already read other Titanic books, Pellegrino's narrative of the night of April 14, 1912, is compelling and interesting, and even contains trivia I didn't know. The latter includes Pellegrino talking about his dad, who worked on the Minuteman missile program. There's an interesting parallel introduced by Pellegrino between the Titanic and the space shuttle Challenger, since both were done in by ice.

Not your typical Titanic book!