Setting out for a Sci-Fi Summer adventure

With Memorial Day weekend upon us, the official start to summer for many is here. Yet, for others of the page turning persuasion, Seasons of Reading’s Sci-Fi Summer readathon is our launching point for the hot and hazy months ahead.

Beginning June 1 and running the entire month, this readathon is firmly to science fiction but does allow for fantasy as well. That works for me as my taste runs more towards the magical than the mechanical.

The first book on my TBR pile for this challenge is the third entry in the School for Good and Evil YA series, The Last Ever After by Soman Chainani.

With formerly faithful friends Sophia and Agatha on separate sides of the fairy tale realm, finding a balance between the forces of destruction and harmony is more difficult than ever.

To preserve not only the fictional but the mortal world as well, both girls must find their way back to each other with the help of various allies on their mutual paths. Can they fix both realities and their friendship to save the day once and for all?

This series is very engaging, with good amounts of humor and heartbreak, plus plenty of good for thought regarding fairytale tropes. The conclusion ought to quite the battle royal indeed:

The closest to science fiction on my reading list here is N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season , which starts off her Broken Earth trilogy.

The story is set on a world where all reside in The Stillness, a large continent that deals with “seasons “ of environmental chaos such as earthquakes and volcanic activity. The only people who can quell these turmoils are known as orogenes, who are feared and forced into the service of the ruling class.

Three characters are the focus of this book, one a girl newly recruited to the governing forces, another young woman angered by her situation and discovering a few secrets that might help or hurt her and a mother whose family has fallen apart upon realizing their orogene abilities.

As their paths collide , so do the fates of many others and with another destructive season to come, the choices to be made are potentially powerful in their impact to say the least.

I’ve read great things about Jemisin’s work and figured this would certainly be a good place to start. Hopefully, 

I will be continuing with the other two books that follow. The epic energy of this narrative promises to be captivating there:

Rounding this selection is one of my Book of the Month Club books that I saved for this particular occasion.

The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty has a retired pirate queen as it’s leading lady. Amina fully intends to spend the rest of her days residing in a quiet mountain village with her daughter Marjana but her past literally comes back to demand her assistance.

The wealthy mother of a crewman who died during Amina’s last voyage wants her to rescue her granddaughter Dunya  from the clutches of Falco, a man obsessed with mystical objects and willing to risk any life but his to claim a very dangerous treasure known as the Moon of Saba.

Out of a sense of obligation as well as to protect her own child, Amina agrees to head back out to sea. Facing demons both personal and in the fearsome flesh, she is willing to do what she can yet can Amina truly resist the call of a pirate’s life once the task is done?

This is meant to be the first in a series (becoming a theme in this readathon for me!) and with any luck, I won’t have to wait too long for more of these seafaring stories:

There is still plenty of time to sign up as June starts in the middle of next week and much thanks to Michelle Miller at Seasons of Reading for getting our summer reading off and running here.

One of the best things about summer reading is that you can enjoy a blockbuster story right in the comfort of your home under whatever form of air conditioning is available to you. I’m all for going to the movies, mind you, but the heat does make one want to wait for cooler weather to go out for entertainment.

Not to mention that a certain book based epic will be in theaters before Thanksgiving and should whet your cinematic appetite for new sci-fi storytelling indeed:

 

Extending an invitation to The Late Mrs. Willoughby for a sinister sleuthing party

The works of Jane Austen are to a writer’s imagination as a little black dress is to a fashionable wardrobe: suitable for many occasions and much more versatile than you might think.

To that end, author Claudia Gray follows up her excellent Jane Austen themed mystery, The Murder of Mr. Wickham , from last year with another amiable adventure for the two young amateur sleuths featured in that story, Jonathan Darcy(son of a certain Pride &Prejudice couple) and Juliet Tilney (daughter of a pair of Northanger Abbey residents).

In The Late Mrs. Willoughby, these two inadvertently reunite as Juliet visits Marianne Brandon, who is still recovering from the events of their previous encounter at Donwell Abbey.

While her new guest is quite a welcome sight , Marianne is concerned with a number of things such as her dear sister Elinor being close to giving birth to her first child, becoming friends with Colonel Brandon’s ward Beth and what the neighbors must be thinking of what happened to her at Donwell.

One neighbor she hopes to avoid as much as possible is Mr. Willoughby, her former suitor who cruelly abandoned and publicly snubbed her in order to marry the wealthy Sophia Grey. 

He has now inherited his aunt’s estate at Allenham, not far from the Brandons,,and brought his new wife along with a party of former schoolmates to celebrate his new home. A welcoming party for the Willoughbys is being held by the boisterous Sir John Middleton, an invitation that hard for anyone to refuse, even Marianne:

Staying with Willoughby at Allenham is Jonathan, who was at school with him but could hardly call his former classmate and bully a friend.

While attending the welcoming party, Jonathan is pleased to see Juliet again in what should be much better circumstances than their prior encounter.

Unfortunately, that is not to be the case as not long after drinking a glass of port during a toast in their honor, Willoughby loses his wife to poison before the night is over.

The shock of such a terrible tragedy in the collective midst is compounded by the local constabulary who are too quick to see Marianne as the only suspect. Jonathan and Juliet find themselves taking up the  gruesome yet exciting task of searching for the real killer yet again.

Since Willoughby is not as charming to everyone as he thinks he is, many suspects abound such as another guest at Allenham who was courting Sophia but backed down once Willoughby started pursuing her.

One suspect that neither Jonathan nor Juliet wish to look  at all into is Beth, whose brief relationship with Willoughby made her a single mother and him in danger of losing his inheritance , which caused him to exchange Marianne for Sophia on the bridal market.

While Beth is now in their neck of the woods, her attempts to get Willoughby to at least see his son have been bluntly rejected. Could her despair drive her to such misplaced revenge? Regardless of their sympathies for her situation, Jonathan and Juliet do have to consider all possibilities here:

As the two of them, along with a newly made friend, quietly yet eagerly seek the truth, the risk to Marianne‘a liberty and perhaps her life grows stronger as time goes on. 

Can the killer be captured before another innocent person is done in? Worse still, is the ultimate culprit right in front of them all?

While reading The Murder of Mr. Wickham will enhance your pleasure with this new Austen inspired story, this novel can be read on it’s own merits. Gray possesses an apt ear and a steady eye for Jane Austen’s creations and her nuanced embellishments do justice to both the source material and fandom alike.

If Sense and Sensibility happens to be your favorite Austen novel(it’s in my personal top three), you would throughly enjoy this book as many of those particular players are present here(including a most unwelcome visit from certain in-laws!) to liven up the sub plots nicely.

What is most agreeable to see is the growing bond between Jonathan, who suffers from social anxiety issues, and Juliet, who is aware of how their friendship appears to others yet is unsure of how to move forward on such personal level.

The two of them balance each other out so well and the mutual acceptance of each other’s intelligence and abilities is such engaging character development for any time period. However, the social standards of their day are and will continue to put up some challenges to any romantic future:

Hopefully, more of that journey we will get to read about  soon as the subtitle of this book is “A Mr. Darcy and Miss Tilney Mystery “. This is a series well worth the wait for but hopefully not too long!

I am very thankful to be invited to this blog tour for The Late Mrs. Willoughby by Laurel Ann Nattress at Austenprose and hope that everyone involved as well as Jane Austen mystery fans have a fabulous page turning time with this graciously gripping book.

A  well written Jane Austen variation like this  is always in style and much like a little black dress, perfect for parties even when not all of the action is on the dance floor:

 

Preparing for a book haul vacation

As much as I love books, there are times when you need to slow your roll or risk being seriously overwhelmed by your to be read piles.

I’m at that point now so I plan to take what Bridget Jones would call a “mini break “ from book buying, at over the summer. Rest assured that I have plenty to read and talk about here(more on that in a moment) but for now, this is my last regular book haul post.

My Book of the Month Club(which I am going to take a break from also) selections include a thriller and a romance, the former being The Last Word by Taylor Adams. Our leading lady is Emma, a woman house sitting at a remote beach house during the offseason.

She is recovering from a personal loss, accompanied by her dog Laika and her only other human contact is a distant neighbor who communicates via whiteboard messages. 

Emma spends most of her time reading inexpensive thriller novels online and the most gruesome one that she’s read so far prompted her to give it a one star review at the bookseller’s website. Much to her surprise, the author who calls himself H.G, Kane sends her a message demanding that she take the review down or else!

Emma refuses to do so and a series of strange situations begins-I’m early in the story at this point but I can say that the dog is not harmed(even the author doesn’t consider that a spoiler!). I find the premise intriguing so far and haven’t indulged in a page tuning thrill ride like this in awhile:

I paired that with Christina Lauren’s latest, The True Love Experiment. It’s a follow up to The Soulmate Equation and focuses on Felicity aka Fizzy Chen, a romance writer looking for love in more ways than one.

Feeling the need to revive her spirits, Fizzy decides to work with Connor Prince, a reality show producer, to find her real life love via a dating show. As long as her list of demands are met, Fizzy is willing to tackle any challenges thrown her way yet things get more difficult when it appears that her real meant-to-be is the guy behind the scenes instead on camera with her.

The duo of Christina Lauren (yes, this is a writing partnership) are great at creating engaging and nuanced characters, making Fizzy’s chance to be in the storytelling spotlight all the more fun. 

If these books haven’t been optioned for film adaptation yet, that is such a crime and I nominate Liza Lapira to play Fizzy at some point in the future!

Meanwhile, there was a bit of belated birthday book shopping done at an actual bookstore (again!) and I chose a couple of fantasy books that have gotten quite a lot of good word on Booktube lately.

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree is being heralded as “cozy fantasy “ or as the author puts it “high fantasy with low stakes”. The premise for this book alone defines this genre nicely: a warrior orc decides to retire from her adventurer for hire life and open up a coffeehouse.

Viv has some of the usual problems in starting up a new business in Thune, a small town that doesn’t know her well. Finding the right staff, adjusting the menu to local tastes and hoping for a good opening day are par for course but when most people in Thune don’t even know what coffee is in the first place makes things ever so more tricky.

Plus, Viv has to pay off the local magical gangster on a regular basis and an elf who used to be part of her former gang comes into town to claim what he believes is due to him from a previous job. Turns out that she may require the magic of friendship rather than a battle ax to save the day here.

This does sound like gentle fun and I love that the name of Viv”s shop is Calamity Coffee. Just imagine Gilmore Girls in cottage core mode:

The other fantasy novel I picked up is practically on the opposite end of L&L’s scale.

Fonda Lee’s Jade City is the first entry in a trilogy known as The Green Bone Saga, set in Hong Kong where two rival forces use jade stones to power their magic.

Leadership of one of the clans, No Peak, has changed hands but the new Pillar is not as strong as his predecessor, giving his female counterpart in the Mountain clan an opportunity to take his whole family operation down. 

Her ruthlessness appears to hold no bounds but there may be a member of No Peak’s younger generation that can rise to the formidable occasion when push comes to shove.

I’ve heard many great things about this series, including that this first book is inspired by the iconic Godfather movies, which is a plus for me. If this book works for me, I can get the other two volumes later on but right now, this entrance point promises to be royally entertaining to say the least:

Putting my book buying on pause is a necessary thing to do but not a real hardship at all.

 Between the summer TV hiatus and the current writers strike (which I fully support because we wouldn’t be readers/viewers without writers and they deserve to be fairly compensated), there’s going to be plenty of reading time to enjoy.

Also, I have a couple of readathons to take part in such as Sci-Fi Summer next month and next week, my contribution to the book tour for The Late Mrs. Willoughby by Claudia Grey-the sequel to late year’s The Murder of Mr. Wickham-will be posted! For those who like Jane Austen and old school mysteries, this should be your particular cup of literary tea.

Plus, I have other bookish blog plans for this summer that will include a library haul at some point (have a stack of those borrowed books to tackle too!). Yes, this ought to be a great season for books indeed.

Speaking of great seasons, I did dive into Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story this past weekend and that was infinitely more edifying than a certain coronation taking place elsewhere. 

While I am eagerly awaiting season three of the regular Bridgerton series. this bonus insight into the strong women in this fictional world was a true dance of delight and those who insist otherwise are much mistaken indeed. Let folks have fun, people! These days, a staycation is looking to be the better option and a good book on hand or a binge worthy show can make that option all the more enticing in the best sense:

 

Stirring up a cup of Spring Into Horror sleuthing tea

This year I have to say my progress with the first two readathons from Seasons of Reading has gone very well in that I was able to finish my small sets of TBR selections on time!

Granted, the books that I chose for Spring Into Horror were not lengthy reads(I did give myself a brief pause over Easter weekend) but there is still joy to be found in achieving such a fun goal nonetheless.

My old fashioned mystery theme began with The Maid by Nita Prose, with the title character being the type of person who takes pleasure in her work as a hotel maid yet is easily taken advantage of by those mistaking her lack of social nuance as a weakness to be exploited than  a trait to be respected.

Molly does have trouble recognizing the precarious situations that others have put in her(particularly since her beloved grandmother died) and when she’s framed for the murder of a brutal businessman, none of those “friends “ are there to help her.

Fortunately, Molly does have some unexpected allies to lend her a hand but when all is said and done, finding the real killer is more complicated than it seems.

This is a wonderful debut novel that more than lived up to the hype there. Smart, engaging and a few touches of humor and heartbreak abound on the pages, much like a good episode of Molly’s favorite mystery show, Columbo:

After that, I dove into Marie Benedict’s The Mystery of Mrs. Christie and what a wicked treat that was!

The story is told in two parts, one through the eyes of Archie Christie, who is planning to leave his celebrity author wife Agatha for a younger woman that will cater more to his particular needs.

Agatha’s suspicious disappearance makes that rather difficult for him and thanks to a mysterious note that she left for Archie(which he quickly destroys before the police can read it), his agony over being in the spotlight becomes a slow motion torment.

Agatha gets her viewpoint in as a “manuscript “ written by her details her relationship with Archie, who grows controlling and cold towards her over the course of their marriage. Her reasons for why things have happened this way become clear but not without that clever twist of the proverbial knife that her best mystery stories are known for.

While I do know that Agatha Christie emerged from her eleven day disappearance just fine, claiming to have no memory of what occurred, this fictional version of that event was a thrilling suspense ride well worth taking.

Benedict gave this story a Gone Girl energy that was very justified (Archie was a total creep) and eerily entertaining indeed:

Finally, I wrapped things up with a Miss Marple mystery, At Bertram’s Hotel. It was good but not great, I have to say.

The main setting is a seemingly old style hotel in London that Jane Marple visits to do a little shopping and recall some fond memories from the past.

However, the disappearance of a confused clergyman and the schemes of a long estranged mother and daughter shake the place up to say the least. Miss Marple does lend a hand with the authorities via her keen observations but her role in these matters is rather minor for the most part, sad to say.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a decent read for a rainy weekend (which I finished the book during) but not one of the better Agatha Christie/Miss Marple books out there. Then again, a little Miss Marple can go a long way:

My thanks to Michelle Miller at Seasons of Reading for giving everyone who took part here a good opportunity to whittle down those looming TBR piles! I also hope that those who joined in here had a good time with their books as well.

While I am happy to have completed two readathon stacks in a row, my chances of doing that in June for the next challenge, Sci-Fi Summer , are slim to be sure. At least two of the books I plan on reading for that are quite hefty when it comes to page count. Since one of them is an out and out science fiction book, I really can’t switch it out for a smaller one(nor do I want to, actually).

The other pair of books are fantasy (which is allowed) and one of them is the third in a fairytale themed trilogy that ought to be a real show stopper in the best sense of the term. Well, at least they’re big enough to offer plenty of shade this summer!: