Red London by Alma Katsu

 

It's a shaky time in world politics.  Putin has disappeared from the Russian scene and a new man has taken over.  It's unclear what has happened or what the new man will be like.  One thing is sure; he needs money and he intends to get it from the Russian oligarchs, many of whom live outside of Russia.

When the mansion of one such oligarch, Mikhail Rotenberg, is attacked one night, his problems become that of M16.  A task force is set up to deal with the whole issue and a CIA operative, in London working on another case is seconded to the task force.  This is Lyndsey Duncan, who was recalled from her last assignment due to an office romance and then blindsided back in her home office by a superior.  Shaken, she knows she needs to contribute to keep her career alive.

The plan is for Lyndsey to befriend Mikhail's wife, Emily.  Emily is an Englishwoman and the couple have young twins.  She lives an isolated life, cut off from her family who opposed the marriage and only associating with other oligarch's wives with whom she has little in common.  When Lyndsey approaches her at a fundraiser, the two strike up a friendship.  

Lyndsey is asked by Emily to move into the mansion so that they can spend more time together.  Times get tenser as the Russians close in and Mikhail is floundering, suspicious of everyone.  Can Lyndsey complete her mission?

Alma Katsu knows the world she is writing about.  She was an intelligence analyst for the federal government for over thirty years and is still a consultant on emerging technology.  This novel was the second in a series featuring Lyndsey Duncan and the description of her tradecraft as she completes her missions is fascinating.  Readers will learn about the Russian oligarchs and how they became so fabulously wealthy and what that means in the cities in which they tend to gather.  This book is recommended for readers of spy fiction.  

Engines Of War by R.S. Ford

 

This book finishes up the story of Rosomon and her children in their quest to win back the land of Torwyn.  Or does it?

Rosomon and her three children have battled the religion of the Dragons and after much turmoil, taken back governance for the Guilds.  But it is after a heavy price and the loss of many of those who fought by their sides.  All of the children have been changed by the battle.  Tyreta is now half animal and unbeatable in close combat.  Conall has been given the ability to fight anyone or anything aided by the force within him.  Fulren has lost his sight, his legs and an arm but all have been replaced with artificial limbs that make him virtually indestructible.  

But is this the end?  It seems that there are new forces aligning against Torwyn, demons and other entities who will be almost impossible to battle.  Is another series on the way?

R.S. Ford is now one of my favorite authors of epic fantasy.  I surely hope he follows through on the hints given in this last volume of the trilogy and creates another that follows the Hawkspur forces.  Many other characters have also survived such as Keara Hollowhill and Ansell, the executioner of the forces of the Dragon.  The young girl Grace who is the only person Ansell loves has survived and is now with Rosomon who is her great-aunt.  I plan to go back in the meantime and read everything else this author has written.  This book and trilogy are recommended for fantasy readers.  

Pure by Andrew Miller

 

The year is 1785, the location Paris.  Jean-Baptiste Baratte, a young man from Normandy, comes to the city hoping for an assignment from the King and his ministers.  He is given one but not what he was expecting.  The cemetery of les Innocents is located in the heart of Paris and has become a problem.  Over the years it has been used and overcrowded, corpse upon corpse upon corpse.  The bodies have overwhelmed the cemetery and the surrounding city; their stink as they decompose poisoning the very air.  The Minister assigns Jean-Baptiste the job of cleaning it up by excavating all the bodies to be reburied elsewhere.

Although it is not the work he expected, Jean-Baptiste is grateful.  He gets his workforce by returning to the mines he worked at for two years and offering the miners there work in Paris.  He brings along his friend from that time to supervise the workers.  There is also a church which must be destroyed and Jean-Baptiste makes a new friend there, the organist who played the great pipe organ.

As he proceeds with the work, issues arise.  The workers are kept on the grounds of the cemetery and they want to explore Paris but Jean-Baptiste hesitates to turn them loose.  There are occurrences of drunkenness, fights over the prostitutes that come there to be with the men and even the rape of a young woman whose grandfather has watched over the cemetery for all his life.  Yet the work progresses and Jean-Baptiste is well on his way to making a success of his work.

Andrew Miller has long been recognized as an English author who enjoys writing historical fiction.  His best known work was The Land In Winter which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2025.  This is a coming-of-age story as Jean-Baptiste goes from a scared young man to an accomplished builder who can manage a team of men and finish an assigned job and as he makes friends and has his first romance.  This book is recommended for historical and literary fiction readers.  

Beginning Middle End by Valeria Luiselli

 

This novel tells about a summer spent in Sicily by a mother and daughter.  The mother, who is an author, has just finished a book tour and since her marriage has broken up, decides to spend the summer in the land of her maternal ancestors.  Her grandmother had come to America from this land as a young teenager, having worked the land and spent time excavating the past on an archeological dig from which she took a tile illustrating Proteus, the sea god of change.  The author's daughter believes that they should take the tile back to the ruins they were found in and leave it there.

The mother has lots of worries.  When her marriage fell apart, her daughter was separated from the only father and brother she had known although they were step siblings so it is unlikely they will be reunited.  She is devasted by this, so hurt that she refuses to speak of them.  The mother needs to start a new book but finds herself floundering, living from day to day and reconstructing a new life and relationship with her daughter.  She also worries about her own mother, a strong woman who has shaped her life and that of her granddaughter but whose mind and memories seem to be slipping.  How can she help her mother from across the ocean?

The two, mother and daughter, live on the kindness of others.  They stay for quite a time in the apartment of the mother's former and maybe current lover as he is traveling.  When he returns, they realize that the living arrangement is not possible with three.  They then drive across the country to a coastal town where the mother's mother has a friend who rents rooms.  It is close to the volcano that is erupting that summer and it is unclear if it will become dangerous.  

Valeria Luiselli is a Mexican author who grew up around the world in South Korea, South Africa and India.  She was formerly married to the Mexican author Alvaro Enrique who wrote You Dreamed Of Empires.  She has one child, a daughter with Enrique.  In this work, she explores the meaning of family relationships as well as the part legacy plays in lives and the need for exploration and connections with the past.  I really enjoyed this novel and know that I will be thinking about it for quite some time to come.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.  

Ocean Prey by John Sandford

 

Three Coast Guardsman are killed when they try to board a boat off the Florida coast.  That makes it a federal case and a task force is made of local police, FBI and Lucas Davenport and his marshal team.  The word on the street is that millions in drugs has been left on the ocean floor and that it is the New York Mafia who are the owners.  

How to get more information?  Davenport comes up with the idea of using Virgil Flowers, an investigator for the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.  No one knows him in Florida and he looks like a surfer.  Better yet, he can dive and the team knows the diver from the original crew has gone missing so the criminals will be looking for another diver.  They team Virgil with Rae Givens, who is also a marshal, posing as his girlfriend and set them up in Fort Lauderdale.

The criminals take the bait and soon Virgil is diving for them.  Who will be the ultimate winners?

This is the thirty-first Prey book in the series.  This one is interesting not only because the reader learns a lot about diving but because it doesn't sugarcoat the danger of being in law enforcement, no matter the branch.  Virgil is always set up as someone who easily fits into criminal situations but is a steely-eyed professional when needed.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.  

A Coin For The Ferryman by Megan Edwards

 

Cassandra has grown up in Las Vegas, dreaming of going to college and being able to study ancient civilizations.  She knows both early Latin and Greek but there's no money for college.  Then one night she meets a man on the Strip who tells her about a scholarship for people like her and that he will help her fill out the forms.  She is granted a scholarship and soon is in California, fully enrolled in her dream program.

Due to her ability to speak ancient Latin, she is given an internship with a group of scientists headed by a Nobel winner who are working on time travel.  Their target is Julius Caesar because they know his exact date and time of death and thus could bring him forward without affecting history.  Caesar will be their pilot program and he makes it to modern times but is not pleased.  He refuses to speak, only gradually relenting to speak with Cassandra who at first he took for a slave.  

Although everyone on the project signed strict NDA's, the word leaks out and other people attempt to kidnap Caesar.  Cassandra escapes with him and takes him to Las Vegas.  There Caesar must deal with the fact that he is still famous in Vegas and only there is he treated as he expects to be.  But there is danger wherever they go.  Can Cassandra get him back in time for his date to go back?

Megan Edwards is an American author who does live in Las Vegas so the parts that occur there have the ring of validity.  I was a bit disappointed as Cassandra gets everything she does only because of her beauty and men fall over themselves to give her whatever she wants.  I liked the development of Caesar's role and the concept of time travel is always interesting.  I listened to this novel and the narrators did a great job.  I think I would have liked the book better if it had been a bit more serious but it is full of danger and adventure and will appeal to many.  This book is recommended for science fiction readers.  

The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver

 

This is the story of Harrison Shepherd.  He is raised between the homes of his father and mother.  His father lives in the United States; his mother in Mexico.  His father is busy with business and when Harrison is with him he spends his time in boarding schools.  His mother flits from lover to lover and has no time for him and he is on his own.  Basically, he raises himself, learning to cook from the Mexican servants and doing that for his first work.

He finds himself in the home of Diego Rivera and Freida Kahlo.  He has little interest in painting but thinks he would like to write.  Through them he meets Leon Trotsky and his wife and spends time in their household as well.  He cooks for both households and is content to grow up there.  When Trotsky is killed and the Mexican government comes for Communists, he returns to the United States now a man.

He works for the government during the war and settles in Ashville, North Carolina.  The Biltmore House, the famous residence of the Vanderbilt family.  It was used during World War II to store many of the famous paintings of the museums in Washington, D.C. and New York.  After the war, Shepherd finally starts to write and writes a succession of best-selling novels that are focused on the history of Mexico.  

But this is also the time of Joseph McCarthy and his obsession with rooting out anyone with Communist ties or leanings.  When Shepherd is called in front of the committee and outed for his ties, his work is suddenly banned or just doesn't sell.  What comes next?

This is an earlier work of Barbara Kingsolver and I was delighted to find it on my shelves.  It isn't my favorite of her works but I never read one of her novels without learning so much about various topics.  This one filled in my understanding of Trotsky and his assassination, the relationship between Diego Rivera and Freida Kahlo and the time of the McCarthy committee.  I had not known about the connection between the Biltmore Estate and the saving of artwork during World War II and found that aspect fascinating.  This book is recommended for readers of historical and literary fiction. 

What Kind Of Paradise by Janelle Brown

 

Jane lives in a log cabin in the wilds of Montana with her father, who is a survivalist.  She doesn't go to school but reads the books, mostly classics and philosophy her father gives her.  She has one friend, a girl whose mother runs the nearest bookstore fifty miles away which they go to every month or so.  She can hunt and farm and could probably survive by herself for a pretty long time.  And Jane wants another life.

She knows that her father went to Harvard and started his working career in Silicon Valley.  But now he sees all technology as the evil that will destroy the world and has devoted his life to destroying it and the people who invent it.  He disappears for days at a time and Jane has no idea where he is.  But he always comes home.  Then one day he asks Jane to go with him on a trip.  He wants her to distract a security guard so he can get in and talk to an old friend who works in a secured location.   Jane agrees as she always does to his requests but while she is distracting the guard, her father goes in, commits murder and sets the facility on fire.

Now Jane must do the emergency routine.  She drives back to the cabin, packs her father's papers and money, blows up the cabin just ahead of the authorities and goes on the run.  Having looked a bit at the papers, she has found out that her mother who she was told died in a car accident is alive and that her father had kidnapped her and changed her name.  Jane heads to San Francisco where she finds a job and attempts to find her mother.  Will everything catch up with her?

Janelle Brown is an American author who worked in technology.  She helped start Wired, which is still the magazine for those who work in the industry and those who want to understand what is happening in technology and then for Salon, writing on technology subjects.  In this novel, she explores family relationships and what one owes a family member, especially when they are set on a bad path, maybe even delusional.  Jane is an independent, spunky girl who navigates the thickets of ignorance her father set up for her, deciding on her own what is right and what is wrong.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.  

Decomposition Book by Sarah Van Os

 

Savannah's life fell apart after a betrayal by her best friend.  Worse than losing her, the friend made herself the victim and Savannah lost all her friends and ended up with a breakdown.  Now out of the hospital, Savannah has convinced her family that what she needs is time by herself in the family's cabin in the woods, a quiet place where she can put herself back together with the help of her therapist.

But Savannah isn't putting herself back together.  She's drinking a lot of wine, taking her prescripted drugs willy-nilly and brooding over and over again about the friendship and what happened.  One night she drinks so much that she passes out in a clearing near the cabin.  

When she wakes the next morning and looks around, she isn't alone.  There is another girl there but she isn't alive.  Savannah can't see any injuries so she doesn't know what caused the girl's death.  There is a journal near her and she takes that back to the cabin to see if she can determine what has happened.

It turns out that the girl's name is Ava and she was lost for weeks in the forest along with two friends, a man and a woman.  Both of them died earlier from various causes and Ava made it this far.  If she had only survived one more day, she could have been rescued.  Savannah is fascinated with her and her first real experience of death.  She knows she should call the police and report the death but as she reads Ava's journal, she starts to feel that she and Ava would have been good friends and that Ava would have understood her as no one else could.  She decides to wait and report the death when Ava is just bones.

This book won't be for everyone.  It is a spiraling view into a mental breakdown plus there are graphic descriptions of how a body decomposes.  It is Sarah Van Os' debut novel.  She is a Mexican-American who lives in New York with her wife and raises pigeons and cats.  The reader is drawn downward and downward, watching Savannah become more entranced and delusional as the days go by and she observes Ava's body and imagines a whole life with them as friends.  It's impossible not to be drawn to Savannah's pain, especially when what the betrayal was is revealed and to wonder in what world did her parents think that leaving her alone in the woods was a great idea for recuperation.  This book is recommended for horror readers.  

Ten Minutes, 38 Seconds In This Strange World by Elif Shafek

 

Tequila Leila is dead, murdered in her job as a prostitute in Istanbul.  But her brain doesn't die when her body does.  It stays alive for ten minutes and thirty-eight seconds, long enough for Layla to look back over her life for one last time.  Her life was shaped by the culture she grew up in and it's insistence on women as second class citizens.  She remembers her childhood and how happy it was until the dark family secret that ruined her life.  More than anything, she remembers her five friends and how they became her family instead.

There is Sinan, her childhood friend.  He was her only friend growing up and his joy was found in seeing her joy.  Once Leila ran away from home, he made it a point to also end up in Istanbul where he searched until he found her.  Nalan was the next friend she made.  When she first met Nalan, it was as a male but she later got to know him after he had changed and become a woman.  Nalan had to work the streets as the bordellos wouldn't accept transgender women.  Jameelah was an African immigrant, antoher prostitute who Leila met in the common police sweeps of prostitutes.  Humeyra had also run away from a stifling family and was now a rock singer in the smoke filled bars and had even done a few pornography films to make a living without family.  Finally, Zaynab was a dwarf, a cleaner in the bordello who formed a fast friendship with Leila.

Together, these six outcasts formed a family that sustained them and provided love and friendship.  Now that Leila is dead, it will fall to them to make sure she rests in peace.  They plan to bury her beside her beloved D'Alia, a revolutionary who fell in love with Leila and with whom she shared a brief, joyous marriage. 

This book was a Booker nominee in 2019 and it is clear why.  The characters are colorful and clearly drawn.  The message is the oppression that the Muslim religion imposes on women and those who are different and the few choices available to those who are different.  Yet, with all the horrid things in her life, Leila manages to make a joyous life and be kind to those around her.  The style reminded me of  Salman Rushdie, one of my favorite authors.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction. 

The Winter Folk by Jen Julian

 

She grew up in a small mountain town, told stories about the creatures that abounded in the woods around them by her mother.  But she is not ready when Lo appears and offers her a job for the winter at a resort named Deerhaven.  Lo takes her for an interview with the master, Mr. Oslin.  He tells her that she will be a housekeeper, doing whatever is necessary to keep the guests happy.  If she successfully finishes her contract, she can have her wish.  She will be called Moth and one of the rules she must follow is that she can never tell anyone her other name.  Moth agrees and wildly asks for something she thought was impossible; a big four bedroom house with a scenic view and moonflowers always in bloom on the patio.  Mr. Oslin agrees and tells her that Lo will come to get her the week before Christmas and bring her back to Deerhaven to start her work.

Moth returns to be a housekeeper, both that year and several others.  She makes two friends, another housekeeper named Briar and Crow, Mr. Oslin's errand boy.  The guests at Deerhaven can be easy to work with or horrific and there are many adventures Moth and her friends have.  Eventually, they start to see the evil at Deerhaven under the glitz and Moth does something so out of character that she is sent away and banned from ever returning.  That despite the fact that she is madly in love with Mr. Oslin.  She never sees her friends again.

Now Moth has returned to her hometown, grown, married and with a daughter who is the same age she was when she was lured to Deerhaven.  Her daughter is remote, spending her time in her room and Moth can't get through to her.  Her husband is an optimist and just assumes that everything will eventually work out but Moth knows there is danger in the mountains and forest and will do anything to save her daughter from being a victim.

Jen Julian is an American author who writes in the fantasy/horror genre.  This is her second novel and I fell in love with it immediately.  She often sets her characters into dangerous surroundings and then sees how they escape them....or not.  She also writes about relationships and there are plenty of those in this novel, Moth and her Deerhaven friends, Moth and Mr. Oslin, Moth and her mother, Moth and her daughter and Moth and her husband.  How she relates to each one and how she faces tragedy and danger is fascinating and I'll definitely be reading more of her work.  This book is recommended for fantasy readers.  

Other Birds by Sarah Addison Allen

 

Off the coast of South Carolina, a small tourist island exists.  It's called Mallow Island and was the home to the marshmallow industry.  These days it specializes in candy shops that feature marshmallows in their treats.  This is where the Dellawisp Apartments can be found.  There are five apartments and every one has a resident with a story.

Two of the apartments are taken by the Lime sisters.  Lizbeth is a hoarder, her crammed apartment running off her son, Oliver.  Lucy is a recluse and no one has seen her in quite a while.  The sisters had a falling out decades ago and have not talked since.  Mac is a chef, born and raised on the island by a woman who took in and fed all the neighborhood children who needed food or love or both.  Charlotte is a henna artist who is running from her past.  The apartment manager is Frasier who has been there for decades as well.  

Into this collection coms Zoey.  Zoey's mother died when she was young and she has been growing up with her father, his second wife and their children, always feeling like an outcast.  Zoey's mother left her the apartment and now she has come there to live and go to college.  She makes friends with Charlotte and Mac and starts to unravel the stories of the Lime sisters.  Will Zoey be what the Dellawisp and its residents need?

Sarah Addison Allen is an American author who writes about relationships and love.  While her books tackle tough subjects, she manages to tread on the fine line between overly saccharine and interesting as her stories unfold.  This novel has plenty of twists and turns as well as educating the reader about local South Carolina history and the marshmallow industry which I found fascinating.  There are not perfect characters just people trying their best to carve out a life that brings them love and friendship.  My personal favorite was Mac who spent his life honoring the woman who raised him and using food as his love language.  This book is recommended for readers of women's fiction.  

What The Night Brings by Mark Billingham

 

It's one of the worst murders DI Tom Thorne has seen.  Police respond to a call where there has been a death.  As Thorne leaves the scene, he stops to talk to four officers who have been setting a perimeter and are now eating doughnuts.  Thorne is starving and slightly resents not being offered any.  But he is glad when all four police die within hours and the doughnuts are found to be poisoned.

It's just the beginning.  More police are targeted and murdered.  Worse, it appears that all were bad cops; cops who were using their position to steal and victimize women.  Now someone is fighting back.  Thorne, his partner Nicola Tanner and his old partner Dave Holland are all assigned to the case.  Upper administration is putting on the pressure and Thorne manages to get into it with a DCI from another station after he goes to his boss and convinces him that the investigation needs to be held closely with only a few trusted officers in the know.  That's because Thorne knows what the others aren't willing to admit; the killer has help from inside the police. 

This is the nineteenth Tom Thorne mystery and the author Mark Billingham says its the last.  I hope that isn't true and that the author will find he misses Tom too much to never bring him back.  But if it is the last, thanks to the author for writing such a memorable character and series.  I've loved every book in the series and been surprised and shocked over and over again.  This novel is recommended for mystery lovers.  

Sipsworth by Simon Van Booy

 

Helen Cartwright has moved back to her small home village after living her life overseas.  She has lost both her husband and her son and she has come home to mark time until her own death.  She stays in her cottage almost all the time, leaving only for absolute necessities and rarely speaks to anyone.  Then it happens.

Helen brings in a discarded fish tank only to discover she has also brought in a mouse.  At first she is appalled but then slowly decides to let him stay and starts to change her routine to accommodate him.  She starts to make friends as she ventures out to find items to feed and challenge him and to keep him healthy.  Eventually Sipsworth, as she names him, creates a new life for Helen with interest in other people and in having a pet.

Simon Van Booy spent his early life in North Wales but currently lives in the United States.  His books are known for their exploration of relationships and for their gentleness.  I loved this book as Helen's boring, quietly desperate life is turned into one of interest and joy.  This book is recommended for all readers but especially for those who enjoy literary fiction.

How Late It Was, How Late by James Kelman

 

Sammy is recently out of jail but he surely doesn't want to work.  He gets by living with his girlfriend in her apartment, doing whatever cons he can find and shoplifting when he's totally out of money.  One weekend he wakes up in a jail cell.  Thinking back, he remembers a fight with the girlfriend, a two day pub crawl and a fight with three soldiers.  He is in pain and he soon realizes, totally blind.

The police seem reluctant to set him loose as they suspect that he knows a lot about the Glasgow underworld.  Once free, Sammy makes his way home only to discover his girlfriend is missing.  He goes to the doctor and the welfare department only to get caught up in government bureaucracy and endless red tape.  It seems that Sammy can't catch a break but what does he really know and isn't saying?

James Kelman was born in the same kind of tenement background as Sammy, with a single mother and a father who occasionally was in the picture.  When he grew up, he wanted to write and his stories and novels had a huge influence on other Scottish writers who would follow him such as Irvine Walsh and Douglas Stuart.  This novel won the Booker Prize in 1994.  It is written entirely in a stream of consciousness format in the dialect of the Glasgow working poor and can be a challenging read for some.  Although I wouldn't want to hang out with Sammy, one can't but admire his ability to take life's hits and find a way to keep going.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.  

Stay Buried by Jennifer McMahon

 

Boone's Ferry, Vermont, is a small mountain town.  Those who lived there had ancestors who'd been there for decades and outsiders were not encouraged.  Back in 1919, a plague had hit the town.  The superstitious townsfolk had blamed it all on the local town pariah, the knackerman who dealt with the town's dead animals. The town's doctor and his protege, Frankie, tried to do what they could but both perished along with many others.

Present day, Ashley and Malcolm who are siblings, have just inherited a house in Boone's Ferry when their grandmother died.  She had come from one of the old families there but insists she has never been there.  Their mother had disappeared two years before when she went to visit the town so the siblings decide to go see their house and discover what they can about their mother.  

But things don't go well.  No one is welcoming and even go out of their ways to discourage the two from staying at all.  Their every attempt to discover the truth is thwarted by the locals and soon the two are even suspicious that their lives could be in danger.  They find out that far from never being there, that their grandmother had grown up in Boone's Ferry and had lived in the house they inherited, that of the town doctor from the plague time.  Can they find out what's going on?

Jennifer McMahon is an American author who grew up in Vermont.  She writes in the psychological suspense genre and this book is another one of these.  It balances on the edge of supernatural terror and explainable events and the suspense slowly builds throughout the novel.  Ashley is determined to find out what is going on while Malcolm is an optimist who refuses to see the danger they are in.  I would have liked to find out exactly what the plague was but that was never explained.  I listened to this novel and the narrator did an excellent job.  This book is recommended for psychological thriller readers.  

 

The Restaurant Of Lost Recipes by Hisashi Kashiwai

 

If you know exactly where to go on the backstreets of Kyoto, you'll find the Kamogawa Diner.  The diner is run by Chef Nagare and his daughter Koishi.  The restaurant is known only to a few and its mission is to recreate the meals that meant the world to someone and that they haven't been able to recreate.  If you find your way there, Chef Nagare will investigate the recipe, traveling to find the exact ingredients and recreate it for you to come back and try.  The price?  Whatever you think is right.

Various characters find their way to the Diner.  There is the young man who is about to become an Olympic swimmer for the nation who wants the bento boxes his father packed for him as a young boy.  A couple who lost their son want a Christmas cake as a neighbor made them one after their son's death.  Now they are deciding if a young man working at their bakery is the right one to take over from them and the cake will give them a clue.  A woman wants hamburger steak that her father made for her son.  On and on the list goes and each time Chef Nagare and his daughter hit the bullseye, making the dish that the customer had dreamed of.

Hisashi Kashiwai is a Japanese author who was born and raised in Kyoto.  He was trained and worked as a dentist for many years while also writing.  This novel is the second in a series of four about the food detectives.  It is a heartwarming tale that emphasizes the relationship between specific meals and our emotional wellbeing.  As with most things Japanese, the emphasis is on creating something perfect regardless of effort.  This book is recommended for multicultural readers.  

The Oxford Detective Society by Faith Martin

 

Lyssa Moore is a biographer, specializing in people whose families want their lives told.  She lives in Oxford in a nice apartment where she has made friends with the couple next door, Carter and Jason.  Her husband died unexpectedly and Lyssa is dealing with that grief and looking about for a new project when she is contacted by a woman who wants her past relative's life written, vindicating her from the press she got when she was alive.

Amelia Montrose, known as Monty to her friends, was a rebellious child of the 60's.  She grew up in a wealthy family but rebelled against the expectation that she would attend university to find a wealthy husband.  Instead, she ran away at eighteen and went to Oxford where she met and fell in love with Glen Bannister, the lead singer of the Lucky Cuckoos.  They never married but lived together much to the delight of the press who labeled Monty as a sleazy woman.  Before the band could make their big break to the top, Glen died of a drug overdose.  The band basically dissolved after that and everyone blamed Monty, especially after it came out that he left her his estate while his family remained in council housing.  She was roundly reviled and held up as a siren who lured Glen to his death.  Now Monty's descendant, Elizabeth Grainger, wants Lyssa to look into Monty's life and death and see if she can rescue Monty's reputation.

But as Lyssa works, she starts to sense that things are happening around her.  She feels that she is being followed and someone breaks into her apartment and bugs her computer while setting up cameras and bugs.  Then there is Neville, who has lived downstairs for several years but never made friends with anyone in the building and is mysterious about his past.  It seems that wherever Lyssa goes, he is there.  Is he an evil presence?  Is Lyssa in danger?

Faith Martin is a well-known English author who has been writing for over thirty years and uses at least four pen names.  This is the beginning book of yet another series.  I had thought that she was a romance writer and had never explored her mysteries and was pleasantly surprised.  The mystery was complex enough to satisfy yet easy to follow.  It had an interesting plot and lots of characters who were interesting in their own right.  I especially enjoyed the insight into how a biographer does their research and how they convince people to talk with them.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.  

North Sun by Ethan Rutherford

 

In the late 1800's, whaling was an industry that employed hundreds of men.  In New Bedford, no family is more prominent than the Ashleys.  Captain Arnold Lovejoy has just returned to New Bedford after an unsuccessful whaling trip.  He is more than ready to be employed by the Ashleys to take their ship, the Esther, on a journey that will end in the Chukchi Sea.  The Ashley's son-in-law had gone there on a whaling expedition and never returned although the family had received a letter from him.  They want Lovejoy to go, find him and bring him home.  Any whales he finds along the way will be bonus money.

The captain hires a crew and sets off.  The go down along the Atlantic Coast, around the Cape, and back up the Pacific side.  At first they find no whales but as they near their destination, whales are found in plenty.   The sailors are happy with their finds but once they get to their destination, they worry that they will get iced in and have to spend the winter on land.  The captain and an Ashley family friend leave the boat and the crew and head out to find the Ashley's son-in-law.

Things are not all rosy.  Two young boys, brothers, are targeted as the prey of a huge man on board who is a pedophile.  The boys are the only ones who see a strange figure arrive,  This figure is half man, half bird and known as the Sorrel.  He tells the boys stories of the sea, how to be safe and generally helps them while refusing to disclose his own mission.  What will happen?

This is Ethan Rutherford's debut novel and it was listed as a finalist for the National Book Awards for Fiction.  Prior to that, he wrote stories that were published in various magazines.  The book is written in short chapters and has a strange, mystic feel to it.  It explores the themes of environmentalism, man's disregard for his exploitation of the environment, man's cruelty and the love between brothers.  This book won't be for everyone as there is a lot of violence, both against the various animals the crew encounters, and against other men and the boys.  The ending will leave the reader wondering if it is an allegory for what can befall humanity in the coming years.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.  

Helen Of Nowhere by Makenna Goodman

 

This novel is laid out in six acts.  The action begins when a man goes to visit a house on the market.  He is a professor and has been released from the university at which he taught and from his marriage so will need a place to live.  Hinted at but never defined, it seems that the man was dismissed for questionable acts with female students and from his marriage for the same reasons along with the wives' thoughts that he was not a man she wanted to stay married to.  The acts are named for the various characters so there is one for the man, his wife, the realtor and Helen although she is only briefly mentioned and defined. 

Makenna Goodman is an American author who has also worked as an editor for a literary magazine and for a major publishing house.  In this book, she explores such themes as male misogyny, retribution for former misdeeds and the way to move forward after a devasting event in one's life.  Although Helen is the title character, she remains a mystery with very little input, although she is represented as woman with immaculate taste and the house as a showpiece of her input.  The man who has lost his job and marriage still seems to be totally clueless as to what he has done wrong in his life and there is little real expectation that he will be changing as a result of what has occurred.  There is also a dog that plays a pivotal role in the novel although he doesn't show up until late in the action.  This book was nominated for the Booker Prize and is on the longlist for 2026.  It is recommended for literary fiction readers.  

Between Two Kingdoms by Suleika Jaouad

 

Suleika Jaouad was living her dreams.  She had recently graduated university and landed a job in Paris.  Everything would be great except that she was constantly exhausted.  When she finally she was twenty-two and was handed the news that she had acute myeloid leukemia, a blood cancer.  Her case was already so severe that the doctors in France suggested that she return home to the United States to get treatment.

Thus started three years of surgery, chemo and eventually, the only hope for healing, a bone marrow transplant from her brother.  Suleika's life basically stopped for those three years, as she was in the hospital most of the time and when she wasn't, her doctors didn't allow her to mingle freely in society as she had almost no immune system.  She had just started a relationship before her diagnosis with Will.  He immediately came to her side and stayed there, focusing his entire life around her health and needs and putting his own life on hold.  Eventually the strain was too much and the two broke up after three years of her treatment.

When she was finally released, she wasn't sure how to get her life back.  While in the hospital, she had written a column that was widely distributed about what it was like to be so sick when young.  Much to her surprise, she got letters and feedback from all over the country and from others who had either shared her experience or had another life-changing event.  She decided to make a pilgrimage and drive across the United States solo even though she had never learned to drive.  But she learned and off she went, learning lessons from others and finding sharing and companionship that would sustain her going forward.

Suleika Jaouad is an American author.  She went on in her life to marry Jon Batiste, a musician she had met at a summer camp in her teen years.  Her life has not been easy after this treatment; she was left infertile and her cancer has returned again and again.  She entered the hospital in September 2026 for her third blood marrow transplant.  Suleika has been an adovate for those struck down by illness, helping them to learn to live the fullest life they are able.  This book is recommended for those who are ill or who are supporting someone who is ill.   

The Doloriad by Missouri Williams

 

This dystopian novel is not for the weak-hearted.  It contains scenes that could trigger survivors of violence and sexual abuse.  

After the disaster, the Matriarch had gathered her family around her and they inhabited the ruins of a city, specifically a hospital.  Her brother came with her and her other children but she knew that wasn't enough to reinhabit the world so she began having children with her brother.  As those children grew, they also began having relations with their siblings and more children were born.  As might be expected, physical anomalies began to appear such as limbs missing.

When the Matriarch had a vision that there were other survivors, she sent Dolores, one of her daughters who didn't have legs and was mentally challenged, to wait in the forest to become a wife to one of the survivors.  No one came and when Dolores crawled home, it caused the beginning of a revolt against the Matriarch who had been proved not to be right all the time.  What will happen next?

Missouri Williams is an English author who now lives in Prague. This was her debut novel.  I chose to read it because her next novel, The Vivisectors, made the longlist for the Booker Prize in 2026.  It was not immediately available in the United States, so I chose to read this novel to get a feel for her writing until I could read it.  I'm not really sure what point she was trying to make with this violent and bleak vision of the future.  Readers won't find anyone to champion in the characters who are all either mentally challenged or violent.  As someone who tends to be optimistic, I hate to think that humanity would devolve this quickly into such bleakness.  This book would be recommended for literary fiction and dystopian fiction readers.  

The Knave And The Moon by Rachel Gillig

 

Things are very different now in the Stone Kingdom.  The Cathedral which supplied the power to the kingdom and the king through divinations is shattered, nothing more than ruins.  Roderick Myndacious, the king's bodyguard, Bartholomew the gargoyle and Maude Bauer who trains the knights are rumored to be dead.  Benji has been named king and to secure his throne, has forced a marriage on Sybil Delling, the last surviving divinator.  To further secure his throne, Benji creates a plan to hold a series of tournaments in which he will be the winner and replenish the royal treasury while tightening bonds with various sections of the country.

But not all plans go as they are visualized.  A masked man rises in the tournament and wins the prize instead.  His compatriots win others of the tournaments.  He is known as The Knave but in reality, he is Roderick, come back to claim his love, Sybil and pay back the king who stabbed him and left him for dead.  Can he do what he wants?

This is the second book in the Stone Kingdom and I thought it was a fitting followup to the The Knight And The Moth where the reader meets all of these characters.  The romance between Roderick and Sybil is both erotic and compelling while the machinations of the king and the religious administration that have kept the power in the kingdom for centuries are fascinating.  Rachel Gillig is one of my new finds for the year and I think she has made it to the must-read list for anything she writes.  I absolutely was drawn into the world of the Stone Kingdom and this will be a fantasy series that I read more than once.  This book is recommended for fantasy readers.  

May We Feed The King by Rebecca Perry

 

A female curator spends her days recreating the past by staging scenarios in museums and exhibits.  She sources and arranges artifacts such as food, costume, furniture to create historically accurate scenes.  She has just accepted a commission to recreate in a castle a barely known king's life.

The king had never expected to rule.  He was the third son, not even the spare but when both his older brothers die, he is crowned the ruler.  His is not a ruling temperament.  He is a mild man who would rather contemplate nature than make plans to conquer neighboring kingdoms.  His queen, whom he loves dearly, is in a long-term relationship with another man and the king allows this to continue if it makes her happy.  The counselors don't know what to make of him as he seems little interested in their plans and warnings.  Even the servants are bemused as the king prefers to eat plainly and rarely asks them to do anything.  Can such a man rule a kingdom?

Rebecca Perry is an English author who started her career as a poet.  This is her debut novel and what a novel it is!  It has been chosen as a Booker Prize shortlist nominee and it also won the Waterstones Debut Fiction prize.  She wanted to explore the issues of authority and imagination.  Can someone without the desire to rule others be the steward of power?  How much authority does the curator have in her choices and timelines to create her art?  I will be closely following this author as she continues her career and look forward to seeing what she next produces.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers and historical fiction readers of alternate histories.   

The Tax Inspector by Peter Carey

 

The Catchprices run a car dealership in Australia.  It was started by Albert and Granny Catchprice.  They had three children.  Mort still works at the dealership.  Cathy does also but wants to go on the road with her husband and their country western band.  Jack left the business and is now a prosperous real estate developer.  Mort had two children.  Johnny has left and is now a Hare Kristna although he leaves the commune periodically to try to straighten out things at home.  Benny is only sixteen and wants nothing more than to turn the dealership into what he just knows could be a business that could make them all rich.

Everything is put in jeopardy when Maria, a heavily pregnant tax inspector from the government comes to the business.  There are suspicions that Catchprice Automotive hasn't been on the straight and narrow with their tax payments and those suspicions are right on target.  Granny says she just signs what the others give her to sign while the children say that Granny is firmly in charge.  Things get even more complicated when Jack meets Maria and falls in love with her.

Peter Carey is one of my favorite Australian authors.  He has won the Booker Prize twice; once for The True History Of The Kelly Gang and the other time for Oscar and Lucinda.  He has written many other novels that illustrate life in Australia, always with an undercurrent of humor and a nod to the fact that Australia was settled by English convicts.  This book discusses sexual abuse of children by their fathers, another thing that has been handed down in the Catchprice family.  How it plays out across the generations is the dirty secret that fuels the family as the need to keep it secret binds them together.  This book is recommended for literary fiction readers.  

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

 

This novel retells the Biblical story of Jacob who was born to Isaac.  Jacob had a twin brother, Esau, whose birthright he stole.  Fearing retribution, he fled his childhood home and ended up at the home of another man who was a shepherd.  Jacob ended up marrying the four daughters of his employer, although he did not claim the last two, who were illegitimate, as open wives.  Jacob had twelve sons by these wives who later headed up the twelves tribes of Israel.  He also had one daughter, Dina.

The red tent was the place where all the women went monthly when the new moon appeared to have their monthly cycles.  While there, they rested, talked and sang, and became closer to the other women of the encampment.  As Dina grew, the skills of the women such as cooking and spinning cloth, were passed on along with the stories of their family and their relatives.

Dina ended up living far from her family as a woman as she first fell in love with the prince of another country and then after his death, went with his household to other countries.  She was skilled as a healer and midwife.  

Anita Diamant is an American author.  There is only a brief mention of Dina in the Bible but Diamant makes up an entire life story for her, while explaining the creation of the twelve tribes of Israel and the story of Jacob and Esau.  The emphasis is on the relationship between various women as they all pull together to make their families strong and on the love between them.  The tent was the place where the women had power as opposed to the rest of the month when they were expected to obey the men of the family.  It was an interesting and informative novel and I enjoyed reading it.  This book is recommended for women's and literary fiction readers.   

The People We Keep by Allison Larkin

 

April Sawicki is definitely not living the good life.  Her mother left years ago and now her father has moved in with his girlfriend who doesn't want April and left her to live in a motorhome by herself, only stopping by occasionally to check on her.  April works shifts in the local diner when she can get them with the diner's owner the only adult who seems to care about her.  She is quitting high school because she just doesn't see the point.  The only thing she has going for her is that the most popular boy at school has picked her for his girlfriend but that's probably because she will sleep with him.  Now he is putting pressure on her to maybe get married and she knows that isn't in the cards.

The only thing she enjoys is playing her guitar.  When she goes to an open mic night at a local bar, the applause she gets tells her the next step.  She takes a neighbor's car and hits the road.  She ends up in Ithaca and finds a job at a local coffee shop.  She makes a set of friends but as time goes by, she knows this isn't what she needs and hits the road again. 

Now April's life is moving from town to town, bar to bar, singing at a gig.  If she needs to, she busks in a local park during the day.  She knows people up and down the East Coast and often spends the winter in Florida, staying in unrented places.  She knows enough men that she can find affection when she needs it but under it all, she knows she needs to go back and resolve her childhood before she can hope for success as an adult.

Allison Larkin is an American author who has written several novels.  April is a forlorn character when we meet her with it seems no one to care about her as she makes her way on her own.  When she makes friends, she always still moves on when she thinks they want too much.  Watching April grow and make a satisfactory life for herself while continuing to care about others is a good way to spend a couple of afternoons and I enjoyed this book of discovery.  This novel is recommended for women's and literary fiction readers.  

The Other Half by Charlotte Vassell

 

This debut mystery investigates the upper class of England along with deaths.  I actually came across the second in the series and read and loved it and went back to see where everything started.  The main character is DI Casius Beauchamp whose team consists of Matt and Amy.  Casius is at loose ends as his girlfriend of three years has just ended their relationship.  He is determined to focus on work but didn't plan on finding a body on his morning jog.

The victim is Clemmey who runs with a group of Cambridge graduates she has known since university.  Chief among these is her boyfriend, Rupert Beauchamp who is about to come into his title.  He and Clemmey have been together for ten years although together has a different meaning for Rupert.  He cheats on her with anyone who catches his eye.  His best friend is Alex and they both studied the classics for their degree along with Nell who they both love but who is unattached at the moment.  

As the murders mount, Casius and his team realize that the answers go back for years and that love is very different in the entitled classes.

This was Charlotte Vassell's debut novel.  She is an English author who studied history and art and trained as an actor before starting her writing career.  Her second novel won the Mystery Writers Edgar Allen Award as Best Novel of 2025.  It was interesting to view the relationship between the average person and the entitled (sometimes literally) upper crust in England and how investigating a murder which involved them carries its own issues.  The characters become more polished as the series progresses and it's also interesting to view love and relationships in modern England.  There isn't a lot of mystery about who is the villain but the interest lies in the investigation.  This book is recommended for mystery readers.  

The Midnight Show by Lee Kelly & Jennifer Thorne

 

After seeing a college group do improv comedy, a television producer in the 1980's decides that this might be the idea he is looking for.  What if he created a show, airing late in case the material got risque, and gave a bunch of comedians their heads to write and perform what they wanted?  The original four are Lillian Martin and her friends Sam, Stevie and Kent.  Add in Gina whose career seemed bright before she froze on a late night talk show, a Broadway star to add pizazz and a male heartthrob and the formula seems unstoppable.

At first it is.  Showrunner Sally Schumacher keeps things in balance while the show finds its place.  Soon it is all anyone is talking about and the stars are becoming famous.  Lillian dates Bobby Everett who is the heartthrob and their romance is feted everywhere.  The stars party after every show and other nights as well and soon rumors of drugs and addiction start to grow.  Can the show continue to exist?

In its third year, after a summer break, the stars return.  Several of them spent the summer trying out their careers in movies while others just drank and drugged the time away.  Lillian in particular seems out of things, barely balancing her life and career.  When she disappears after a show, the rumors start to fly.  Did she and Bobby break up?  Was it a suicide as she was last seen near the Brooklyn bridge?  Where is she?

Lee Kelly and Jennifer Thorne have written a novel that is attention grabbing for anyone who ever watched Saturday Night Live.  The authors are both American although Thorne now lives in England.  Both are authors separately and this novel is the fourth one that they have written together.  Readers will enjoy the nostalgia of the book looking back at the 1980's while they guess which character is a stand-in for the original cast of Saturday Night Live.  This book is recommended for those who love entertainment novels and mysterious happenings.  

Nomad Century by Gaia Vince

 

The main tenet of this book is that climate change will necessitate the migration of up to three billion people in the coming decades.  The entire earth's geography will be redrawn and those areas which are tropical or warm such as the Caribbean, Africa and Central and South America will not longer be able to sustain life.  This will have their inhabitants moving to areas that can be lived in.  But how would this work?

The author believes that the only way for humanity to survive is for those currently living in areas that will be sustainable will have to completely change their ideas about immigration.  They must welcome those seeking new homes, whether it is former farmers from their own country or people from other countries who are totally different in their culture, language and appearance.  Governments must support the immigrants with food, child care, shelter, health care and job training.  

Food will be totally different.  Humans will move to a plant-based diet and entire industries such as cattle and chicken production and fishing will disappear.  This will free up more land for farming plant crops. Humans will get their protein from eating such things as insects or lab grown food.  Many current occupations will disappear while new ones will be developed.  

Gaia Vince is a science writer and broadcaster.  While she provides many novel ideas, I find it difficult to believe that humanity will change their attitudes, occupations, diets and energy production as quickly as she sees it happening.  She believes that all energy production must be green energy by the 2030's.  I can't imagine humanity being happy with a insect-based diet.  Most importantly, I find it difficult to believe that attitudes towards immigrants will change as rapidly or thoroughly as the author believes is necessary.  Countries around the world are becoming less welcoming of immigration rather than more welcoming as more and more countries are moving towards the far right in terms of immigration.  Still, these are interesting and provocative ideas.  I listened to this book and the author was the narrator.  Her voice added to the mix as it was calm yet definitive in her suggestions.  This book is recommended for nonfiction and science readers.