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Book Logging (Paper, ebook)
Addison, Katherine. The Angel of Crows - Sherlock Holmes in a fantasy AU. Holmes is Crow, an angel. I liked the characters, but I also felt like the world building didn't entirely work. Possibly it's that I'm insufficiently attached to the Doyle canon and therefore don't have that love to carry me to affection for other variants. The book was fine, well written and all. I just didn't connect with it.
Andrews, Donna. The Falcon Always Wings Twice - Overdrive ebook. Meg Langslow mystery set at a renaissance festival. There is a plot point about a programmer whose employer fires him for working remotely which doesn't really land well and wouldn't have even if the book had come out in 2019. As usual, the characters and situations are considerably more interesting than the mystery.
Andrews, Donna. The Gift of the Magpie - Meg Langslow mystery, the 2020 Christmas book. Meg and her friends and relations have set up an organization to help out members of the community who have things they need done that they can't physically manage or can't afford. A furnace here, manure for a rose garden there. The mystery is more compelling than most because the victim is actually likable.
Andrews, Donna. Revenge of the Wrought-Iron Flamingos; We'll Always Have Parrots; The Real Macaw - Reread. Overdrive ebooks. Meg Langslow mysteries. It's kind of interesting to see what's remained the same and what's changed over the course of the long series.
Andrews, Ilona. Magic Bites, Magic Burns; Magic Strikes; Magic Mourns; Magic Bleeds; Magic Slays; Magic Steals; Gunmetal Magic; Magic Gifts; Magic Rises; Magic Stars; Magic Breaks; Magic Shifts; Magic Binds; Magic Triumphs; Small Magics - Mostly Overdrive ebooks but two or three in paper and Magic Rises as an audiobook because the wait to get it in other formats was longer than it took to finish listening. I read most of these within a few hours of getting my hands on them. I read the shorts out of timeline order, as I could get them, and the last four books presented a difficulty because 7 and 8 had long waitlists on Overdrive during the time when our local library closed again (I had paper copies of the last four books sitting at our branch, waiting for me to pick them up). I ended up reading 9 and 10 as ebooks and then going back to 7 and 8 when the library reopened for hold pickup. I figured that it wasn't as if I didn't have a general feel for the shape of the series arc anyway, and I really don't think spoilers matter to my experience. At any rate, I had fun with these. I was hesitant to try them because vampires and weres frequently rely on tropes I dislike. Some of them are at the flames coming out the sides of my face levels of dislike, and most of the time, reading something that does that isn't relaxing or fun. Anyway, I liked Kate and the ways she changed through the course of the series. I found the weres more likable as the books passed, too, because the cast of characters unflattened. By the end of the series, there were even a few married same sex couples who had speaking parts and who survived. Not enough to be statistically likely, given the size of the cast, but a few is better than the none at all I found in the Edge books. The threats that Kate and her allies faced also seemed to follow a reasonable course of escalation between books 1 and 10. It's not a world I'd want to live in (or even visit as a tourist), but I enjoyed the books a lot.
Andrews, Ilona. On the Edge; Bayou Moon; Fate's Edge; Steel's Edge - The Edge is a space between the world of technology and the world of magic. Most people from one side or the other can't pass their own border let alone the opposite border, but people from the Edge can generally go both ways. There's a romance in each book, and gay and bi people don't seem to exist. I could pretend that I didn't notice that, but it might be a deal-breaker for some readers. There's a fair amount of espionage and counter-espionage involving nations on the magical side of the border to provide plot that isn't focused on the romances. I ran through all four of these over the course of about two days. Excellent brain candy for me.
Andrews, Ilona. White Hot; Wildfire - I enjoyed these books a lot but still ended them feeling like the authors weren't sure about what the world was like outside of a few very specific locations. I also kept looking at the male love interest and thinking that getting involved with him was a terrible, terrible idea. The books even had the protagonist admit that certain difficult aspects of his personality and of his PTSD weren't going to change. The protagonist isn't anything like me, so I can believe that her mental math might be different than mine, but I kept thinking that the relationship choices needed a little more calculation to go with the affection and lust.
Andrews, Ilona. Sapphire Flames; Emerald Blaze - I actually liked the protagonist of this sub-series better than the protagonist of the two books above (who is this protagonist's older sister). Some of it was me feeling like the authors had a better grasp on the broader worldbuilding than they'd had with the first three books. Some of it was that the male love interest came across as more fundamentally stable than the guy in the previous books. I don't know. I particularly loved the sibling and cousin interactions and would read the hell out of more of those without any of the romantic/sexual escapades.
Bartlett, Claire Eliza. The Winter Duke - Overdrive ebook. I actually liked this one a lot. It's YA fantasy. The main character is preparing to leave home to attend university when every other member of her family falls into a magically induced coma. Suddenly, the protagonist is trying to hold onto power in her city-state long enough to make sure that she survives and that some cure can be found for her family. The family acts as exclusive go-between for trade between the mundane world and the source of all magic, an underwater realm underneath the ice upon which the city stands. The pact requires a member of the family to continue, but it only needs one as long as that one has children. I particularly liked this because part of the plot is figuring out that changing the absolute monarch doesn't fix much of anything.
Bourne, Joanna. The Black Hawk; Rogue Spy; Spymaster's Lady - Overdrive ebooks. These romances are all Napoleonic Wars adjacent and all involve espionage with over the top complications and such. They read more as a well developed secondary world than necessarily as fully historical (though I think they're well researched). Brain candy. Excellent.
Eason, K. How the Multiverse Got Its Revenge - I liked this a little less than I did the first book. My impression is that it's covering ground in order to set up a third book. Rory and her former bodyguards and friend have become privateers and salvagers on the fringes of the on-going civil war. Then there's a superweapon and an expansion focused alien species and only for-now resolution. The book makes the universe feel bigger, and it's as well written as the first book, so I'd recommend it to people who liked the first one.
Graff, Kier. The Phantom Tower - Overdrive ebook. This is a kids' book that involves twin boys moving to a new city and discovering that there's something extremely weird about the building they've moved into. I expected time travel based on the blurb, but it's rather more of a haunting/curse (without horror elements) that requires pluck and cleverness to resolve.
Gregory, Philippa. The Princess Rules - Overdrive ebook. Children's book with a series of stories about a princess who has her own rules for how to behave. It read too young for me, and I kept thinking that The Ordinary Princess did it all better, but I expect that the target audience would enjoy it.
Kadono, Eiko. Kiki's Delivery Service - I much prefer the movie to the book. Part of that is that I felt too old for the book and never have felt that way about the movie. I also found the book episodic relative to the movie. I kept waiting for something thematic to tie the incidents together. There was something about how each successive generation of witches in this setting had less power and less knowledge of magic. Book Kiki is pretty clearly going to be one of the last witches, and I found that sad.
Kingfisher, T. A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking - Overdrive ebook. I loved this one. I can see why the author had issues selling it, though, because it doesn't fit any of the age-related marketing categories. I particularly like how the protagonist experimented with her magic throughout the book. It's not the size of the power that matters but creativity of application. And all of the baking details! I wanted bake, just reading it. Highly recommended.
Milan, Courtney. The Duchess War; A Kiss for Midwinter; The Heiress Effect - Overdrive ebooks. I've enjoyed these historical romances, but I'm reading them slowly because they do a lot less skirting around social issues of the era and location than most romances do. I like that because it makes the characters feel more human, but I also don't like it because I've been having weeks when I can't deal with anything that's not cotton candy.
Milford, Kate. The Thief Knot - I enjoyed this book and felt like it added a lot to the setting in terms of geography and history and so on. The pieces worked together, but I kept feeling like they shouldn't, like I was still missing major aspects of the setting and events. A team of kids investigate a kidnapping that may have involved crossing borders and may have nasty political repercussions. I think the book has enough context to work as an entry point for the series, but as I've read most of the other books, I'm not sure if I can judge that accurately.
Murphy, Jill. The Worst Witch; The Worst Witch Strikes Again - Overdrive ebooks. These are further entries in the category of Things I'd Have Loved When I Was the Right Age. These are magical boarding school stories that much predate Harry Potter. It's an all girls school, and the protagonist is terrible at all things magical but always comes through fine in the end. The conflicts are relatively low stakes, more to do with possible failing grades, getting into trouble for minor mischief, and dealing with bullies than with murder and fascism and the possible end of civilization as we prefer it.
Roberts, Nora. Island of Flowers - Overdrive ebook. After her mothers death, a young woman finds an address for the father she hasn't seen in many years and travels to go and meet him. There are assumptions made on all sides that could have been resolved by discussion, but I could at least see why the parties involved didn't think to ask. I found the story largely forgettable but not terrible.
Roberts, Nora. The Next Always - Overdrive ebook. This is the first in a trilogy of romances about three brothers who run a construction company and three women who're close friends and how they pair off. I liked this one. The heroine is a widow with three kids who's returned to her hometown to be near her parents and her in-laws (all of these relations are happy. The dead husband never comes across as anything but a good person). The hero knew her and her husband in school, and his company is doing a big project across the street from her place of business. (I got irritated with the construction project over things like accessibility. As far as I could tell, being ADA compliant meant having one room that was wheelchair accessible with the rest of the building not. I have no idea why there was never mention of an elevator, but the construction crews kept carrying heavy things up several flights of stairs.)
Simukka, Salla. Sisterland - This is a kids' book, a portal fantasy, in translation. There are girls and strong friendships and magics that reach into the original world to change people. I enjoyed it enough to be disappointed that the library doesn't have other books by the author, but it was more comfortable than spectacular, if the distinction makes sense. Nothing surprised me or grabbed hold and wouldn't let go.
Tesh, Emily. The Drowned Country - This novella was entirely okay. I wasn't a huge fan of Silver in the Wood. I didn't dislike it; I just didn't have strong feelings about it in any direction. I'm not sure if I missed something that other readers see or if it's just that my sense of romance is... I don't necessarily understand the appeal of a lot of popular romances. At any rate, this story is more of the same, alternate history with folk magic and with ancient things causing problems for ordinary people.
Turner, Megan Whalen. A Conspiracy of Kings - Overdrive ebook.
Thick as Thieves - I think that my instinct for flow charting plot options undercuts some aspects of Turner's layered deceptions. I still love the characters and have fun following their adventures, but the roots of the plot reveals are always visible even when the characters are making assumptions or when the POV characters are concealing information. There are usually only a handful of likely truths for what's going on, and each of those leads to a stylistically different sort of ending. Some of them even lead to endings that aren't very interesting because they're narrative cul-de-sacs. At any rate, I've enjoyed most of the books in this series (I didn't really connect with The Thief when I first read it and so spent years avoiding the rest of the series).
Vaughn, Carrie. The Heirs of Locksley - Overdrive ebook. I listened to the previous book via Overdrive, but the library didn't have this one as an audiobook. This is novella length and focused on Robin Hood's children as they have a bit of an adventure with the newly crowned (and 13 year old) Henry III. It rolled along pretty smoothly, but there wasn't much to the story, not really.
Weatherspoon, Rebekah. Xeni - Overdrive ebook. Modern day marriage of convenience romance. Xeni's aunt leaves her a big pile of money with the caveat that she has to marry a specific man (also a beneficiary under the will and also only getting the money if they marry) and stay married for a set period. It's either 30 days or 90 days; I can't recall, and it really doesn't matter. The two heirs size each other up and see no reason not to since it's temporary and will benefit them both. Then they act on mutual attraction because why not? They're both adults and not breaking promises to anyone else. Then they catch feelings. (I don't think this is a spoiler since this is a romance.)
Started but not finished
Andrews, Ilona. Silent Blade - Overdrive ebook, novella length. Book one in the Kinsmen Series. I didn't go very far. Seduction for revenge turning into mutual love is not a trope I'm really into. I may try others in this series now that the library has them, but I don't feel any strong impulse to do so.
Belleza, Rhoda. Empress of a Thousand Skies - Overdrive ebook. I read about two thirds of this and finally admitted that I didn't care about what happened to the characters or what was actually going on.
Hall, Alexis. The Affair of the Mysterious Letter - I'm not quite sure how to explain why I couldn't finish this because I did like parts of it. I was curious about the worldbuilding and rather liked the narrator. I just hated the style in which the story was written and seriously didn't care at all about the mystery or the detective. The book crashes together certain Lovecraftian elements with Sherlock Holmesian elements. The problem with the mystery is that the setting isn't logical by the rules of our world or our culture. Shaharazad Haas, the Holmes character, is a sorceress with knowledge of multiple universes and of a lot of things that the author made up. A reader has no sense of 'oh, of course' with the detective's conclusions even when they're explained. I think I could have dealt with that aspect but for the narrative tic of 1st person protagonist repeatedly stating that he was paraphrasing what people were really saying in order to avoid obscenities/vulgarities. I felt like it was happening multiple times in every conversation, and the repeated focus on that aspect got to be like nails on chalkboard. I could have dealt if it was all dashes or if it was a note at the start of the book (or even of the chapter) that the writer was editing the dialogue to avoid such things. Hell, even footnoting it would have been less grating.
Mitchison, Naomi. Travel Light - This simply wasn't to my taste.
Orzel, Chad. How to Teach Physics to Your Dog - I stopped reading because the words were vanishing into puffs of nothing inside my head. I couldn't hold onto the concepts. I'm pretty sure that's a me thing rather than any reflection on the book because this isn't my first attempt to comprehend some of the concepts. I hear/see the words and then... they just don't fit together in a way that makes sense to me. I can tell that they should.
Roberts, Nora. The Last Boyfriend - Overdrive ebook. I got slightly more than a third of the way into this book and stopped dead with a, "Really? You're going make *that* the conflict?" I'd been wondering how there could still be 200 pages left, but I'd much rather have had the short version than the dumbass version. I'm skipping the third book in the series because the hero and heroine have dynamics in the first two books that make me just DNW to read about them further.
Ross, Catrien. Haunted Japan - I found this book disorganized and not useful for what I was looking for. I hoped for some actual folklore or, at least, ghost stories, but the text was more focused on how Japanese traditional culture is more in tune with the spiritual than US culture. The intro talked a lot about how some things are just Meant and couldn't ever happen by coincidence. So the author was Led to truer understanding. (I feel like I'm being snottily judgy, but it set my teeth on edge.) The disorganization part had to do with sliding from big topic to big topic without clear signposting as to what was there and without doing more than vaguely saying, "Oh! And there's this and that and the other." I couldn't find anything.
Stevermer, Caroline. The Glass Magician - I keep trying Stevermer's books and bouncing hard. The premises always sound right up my alley, and there's nothing wrong with the prose or plotting. They just never turn out to be something I want to do the work to read more than a few pages of.
Andrews, Donna. The Falcon Always Wings Twice - Overdrive ebook. Meg Langslow mystery set at a renaissance festival. There is a plot point about a programmer whose employer fires him for working remotely which doesn't really land well and wouldn't have even if the book had come out in 2019. As usual, the characters and situations are considerably more interesting than the mystery.
Andrews, Donna. The Gift of the Magpie - Meg Langslow mystery, the 2020 Christmas book. Meg and her friends and relations have set up an organization to help out members of the community who have things they need done that they can't physically manage or can't afford. A furnace here, manure for a rose garden there. The mystery is more compelling than most because the victim is actually likable.
Andrews, Donna. Revenge of the Wrought-Iron Flamingos; We'll Always Have Parrots; The Real Macaw - Reread. Overdrive ebooks. Meg Langslow mysteries. It's kind of interesting to see what's remained the same and what's changed over the course of the long series.
Andrews, Ilona. Magic Bites, Magic Burns; Magic Strikes; Magic Mourns; Magic Bleeds; Magic Slays; Magic Steals; Gunmetal Magic; Magic Gifts; Magic Rises; Magic Stars; Magic Breaks; Magic Shifts; Magic Binds; Magic Triumphs; Small Magics - Mostly Overdrive ebooks but two or three in paper and Magic Rises as an audiobook because the wait to get it in other formats was longer than it took to finish listening. I read most of these within a few hours of getting my hands on them. I read the shorts out of timeline order, as I could get them, and the last four books presented a difficulty because 7 and 8 had long waitlists on Overdrive during the time when our local library closed again (I had paper copies of the last four books sitting at our branch, waiting for me to pick them up). I ended up reading 9 and 10 as ebooks and then going back to 7 and 8 when the library reopened for hold pickup. I figured that it wasn't as if I didn't have a general feel for the shape of the series arc anyway, and I really don't think spoilers matter to my experience. At any rate, I had fun with these. I was hesitant to try them because vampires and weres frequently rely on tropes I dislike. Some of them are at the flames coming out the sides of my face levels of dislike, and most of the time, reading something that does that isn't relaxing or fun. Anyway, I liked Kate and the ways she changed through the course of the series. I found the weres more likable as the books passed, too, because the cast of characters unflattened. By the end of the series, there were even a few married same sex couples who had speaking parts and who survived. Not enough to be statistically likely, given the size of the cast, but a few is better than the none at all I found in the Edge books. The threats that Kate and her allies faced also seemed to follow a reasonable course of escalation between books 1 and 10. It's not a world I'd want to live in (or even visit as a tourist), but I enjoyed the books a lot.
Andrews, Ilona. On the Edge; Bayou Moon; Fate's Edge; Steel's Edge - The Edge is a space between the world of technology and the world of magic. Most people from one side or the other can't pass their own border let alone the opposite border, but people from the Edge can generally go both ways. There's a romance in each book, and gay and bi people don't seem to exist. I could pretend that I didn't notice that, but it might be a deal-breaker for some readers. There's a fair amount of espionage and counter-espionage involving nations on the magical side of the border to provide plot that isn't focused on the romances. I ran through all four of these over the course of about two days. Excellent brain candy for me.
Andrews, Ilona. White Hot; Wildfire - I enjoyed these books a lot but still ended them feeling like the authors weren't sure about what the world was like outside of a few very specific locations. I also kept looking at the male love interest and thinking that getting involved with him was a terrible, terrible idea. The books even had the protagonist admit that certain difficult aspects of his personality and of his PTSD weren't going to change. The protagonist isn't anything like me, so I can believe that her mental math might be different than mine, but I kept thinking that the relationship choices needed a little more calculation to go with the affection and lust.
Andrews, Ilona. Sapphire Flames; Emerald Blaze - I actually liked the protagonist of this sub-series better than the protagonist of the two books above (who is this protagonist's older sister). Some of it was me feeling like the authors had a better grasp on the broader worldbuilding than they'd had with the first three books. Some of it was that the male love interest came across as more fundamentally stable than the guy in the previous books. I don't know. I particularly loved the sibling and cousin interactions and would read the hell out of more of those without any of the romantic/sexual escapades.
Bartlett, Claire Eliza. The Winter Duke - Overdrive ebook. I actually liked this one a lot. It's YA fantasy. The main character is preparing to leave home to attend university when every other member of her family falls into a magically induced coma. Suddenly, the protagonist is trying to hold onto power in her city-state long enough to make sure that she survives and that some cure can be found for her family. The family acts as exclusive go-between for trade between the mundane world and the source of all magic, an underwater realm underneath the ice upon which the city stands. The pact requires a member of the family to continue, but it only needs one as long as that one has children. I particularly liked this because part of the plot is figuring out that changing the absolute monarch doesn't fix much of anything.
Bourne, Joanna. The Black Hawk; Rogue Spy; Spymaster's Lady - Overdrive ebooks. These romances are all Napoleonic Wars adjacent and all involve espionage with over the top complications and such. They read more as a well developed secondary world than necessarily as fully historical (though I think they're well researched). Brain candy. Excellent.
Eason, K. How the Multiverse Got Its Revenge - I liked this a little less than I did the first book. My impression is that it's covering ground in order to set up a third book. Rory and her former bodyguards and friend have become privateers and salvagers on the fringes of the on-going civil war. Then there's a superweapon and an expansion focused alien species and only for-now resolution. The book makes the universe feel bigger, and it's as well written as the first book, so I'd recommend it to people who liked the first one.
Graff, Kier. The Phantom Tower - Overdrive ebook. This is a kids' book that involves twin boys moving to a new city and discovering that there's something extremely weird about the building they've moved into. I expected time travel based on the blurb, but it's rather more of a haunting/curse (without horror elements) that requires pluck and cleverness to resolve.
Gregory, Philippa. The Princess Rules - Overdrive ebook. Children's book with a series of stories about a princess who has her own rules for how to behave. It read too young for me, and I kept thinking that The Ordinary Princess did it all better, but I expect that the target audience would enjoy it.
Kadono, Eiko. Kiki's Delivery Service - I much prefer the movie to the book. Part of that is that I felt too old for the book and never have felt that way about the movie. I also found the book episodic relative to the movie. I kept waiting for something thematic to tie the incidents together. There was something about how each successive generation of witches in this setting had less power and less knowledge of magic. Book Kiki is pretty clearly going to be one of the last witches, and I found that sad.
Kingfisher, T. A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking - Overdrive ebook. I loved this one. I can see why the author had issues selling it, though, because it doesn't fit any of the age-related marketing categories. I particularly like how the protagonist experimented with her magic throughout the book. It's not the size of the power that matters but creativity of application. And all of the baking details! I wanted bake, just reading it. Highly recommended.
Milan, Courtney. The Duchess War; A Kiss for Midwinter; The Heiress Effect - Overdrive ebooks. I've enjoyed these historical romances, but I'm reading them slowly because they do a lot less skirting around social issues of the era and location than most romances do. I like that because it makes the characters feel more human, but I also don't like it because I've been having weeks when I can't deal with anything that's not cotton candy.
Milford, Kate. The Thief Knot - I enjoyed this book and felt like it added a lot to the setting in terms of geography and history and so on. The pieces worked together, but I kept feeling like they shouldn't, like I was still missing major aspects of the setting and events. A team of kids investigate a kidnapping that may have involved crossing borders and may have nasty political repercussions. I think the book has enough context to work as an entry point for the series, but as I've read most of the other books, I'm not sure if I can judge that accurately.
Murphy, Jill. The Worst Witch; The Worst Witch Strikes Again - Overdrive ebooks. These are further entries in the category of Things I'd Have Loved When I Was the Right Age. These are magical boarding school stories that much predate Harry Potter. It's an all girls school, and the protagonist is terrible at all things magical but always comes through fine in the end. The conflicts are relatively low stakes, more to do with possible failing grades, getting into trouble for minor mischief, and dealing with bullies than with murder and fascism and the possible end of civilization as we prefer it.
Roberts, Nora. Island of Flowers - Overdrive ebook. After her mothers death, a young woman finds an address for the father she hasn't seen in many years and travels to go and meet him. There are assumptions made on all sides that could have been resolved by discussion, but I could at least see why the parties involved didn't think to ask. I found the story largely forgettable but not terrible.
Roberts, Nora. The Next Always - Overdrive ebook. This is the first in a trilogy of romances about three brothers who run a construction company and three women who're close friends and how they pair off. I liked this one. The heroine is a widow with three kids who's returned to her hometown to be near her parents and her in-laws (all of these relations are happy. The dead husband never comes across as anything but a good person). The hero knew her and her husband in school, and his company is doing a big project across the street from her place of business. (I got irritated with the construction project over things like accessibility. As far as I could tell, being ADA compliant meant having one room that was wheelchair accessible with the rest of the building not. I have no idea why there was never mention of an elevator, but the construction crews kept carrying heavy things up several flights of stairs.)
Simukka, Salla. Sisterland - This is a kids' book, a portal fantasy, in translation. There are girls and strong friendships and magics that reach into the original world to change people. I enjoyed it enough to be disappointed that the library doesn't have other books by the author, but it was more comfortable than spectacular, if the distinction makes sense. Nothing surprised me or grabbed hold and wouldn't let go.
Tesh, Emily. The Drowned Country - This novella was entirely okay. I wasn't a huge fan of Silver in the Wood. I didn't dislike it; I just didn't have strong feelings about it in any direction. I'm not sure if I missed something that other readers see or if it's just that my sense of romance is... I don't necessarily understand the appeal of a lot of popular romances. At any rate, this story is more of the same, alternate history with folk magic and with ancient things causing problems for ordinary people.
Turner, Megan Whalen. A Conspiracy of Kings - Overdrive ebook.
Thick as Thieves - I think that my instinct for flow charting plot options undercuts some aspects of Turner's layered deceptions. I still love the characters and have fun following their adventures, but the roots of the plot reveals are always visible even when the characters are making assumptions or when the POV characters are concealing information. There are usually only a handful of likely truths for what's going on, and each of those leads to a stylistically different sort of ending. Some of them even lead to endings that aren't very interesting because they're narrative cul-de-sacs. At any rate, I've enjoyed most of the books in this series (I didn't really connect with The Thief when I first read it and so spent years avoiding the rest of the series).
Vaughn, Carrie. The Heirs of Locksley - Overdrive ebook. I listened to the previous book via Overdrive, but the library didn't have this one as an audiobook. This is novella length and focused on Robin Hood's children as they have a bit of an adventure with the newly crowned (and 13 year old) Henry III. It rolled along pretty smoothly, but there wasn't much to the story, not really.
Weatherspoon, Rebekah. Xeni - Overdrive ebook. Modern day marriage of convenience romance. Xeni's aunt leaves her a big pile of money with the caveat that she has to marry a specific man (also a beneficiary under the will and also only getting the money if they marry) and stay married for a set period. It's either 30 days or 90 days; I can't recall, and it really doesn't matter. The two heirs size each other up and see no reason not to since it's temporary and will benefit them both. Then they act on mutual attraction because why not? They're both adults and not breaking promises to anyone else. Then they catch feelings. (I don't think this is a spoiler since this is a romance.)
Started but not finished
Andrews, Ilona. Silent Blade - Overdrive ebook, novella length. Book one in the Kinsmen Series. I didn't go very far. Seduction for revenge turning into mutual love is not a trope I'm really into. I may try others in this series now that the library has them, but I don't feel any strong impulse to do so.
Belleza, Rhoda. Empress of a Thousand Skies - Overdrive ebook. I read about two thirds of this and finally admitted that I didn't care about what happened to the characters or what was actually going on.
Hall, Alexis. The Affair of the Mysterious Letter - I'm not quite sure how to explain why I couldn't finish this because I did like parts of it. I was curious about the worldbuilding and rather liked the narrator. I just hated the style in which the story was written and seriously didn't care at all about the mystery or the detective. The book crashes together certain Lovecraftian elements with Sherlock Holmesian elements. The problem with the mystery is that the setting isn't logical by the rules of our world or our culture. Shaharazad Haas, the Holmes character, is a sorceress with knowledge of multiple universes and of a lot of things that the author made up. A reader has no sense of 'oh, of course' with the detective's conclusions even when they're explained. I think I could have dealt with that aspect but for the narrative tic of 1st person protagonist repeatedly stating that he was paraphrasing what people were really saying in order to avoid obscenities/vulgarities. I felt like it was happening multiple times in every conversation, and the repeated focus on that aspect got to be like nails on chalkboard. I could have dealt if it was all dashes or if it was a note at the start of the book (or even of the chapter) that the writer was editing the dialogue to avoid such things. Hell, even footnoting it would have been less grating.
Mitchison, Naomi. Travel Light - This simply wasn't to my taste.
Orzel, Chad. How to Teach Physics to Your Dog - I stopped reading because the words were vanishing into puffs of nothing inside my head. I couldn't hold onto the concepts. I'm pretty sure that's a me thing rather than any reflection on the book because this isn't my first attempt to comprehend some of the concepts. I hear/see the words and then... they just don't fit together in a way that makes sense to me. I can tell that they should.
Roberts, Nora. The Last Boyfriend - Overdrive ebook. I got slightly more than a third of the way into this book and stopped dead with a, "Really? You're going make *that* the conflict?" I'd been wondering how there could still be 200 pages left, but I'd much rather have had the short version than the dumbass version. I'm skipping the third book in the series because the hero and heroine have dynamics in the first two books that make me just DNW to read about them further.
Ross, Catrien. Haunted Japan - I found this book disorganized and not useful for what I was looking for. I hoped for some actual folklore or, at least, ghost stories, but the text was more focused on how Japanese traditional culture is more in tune with the spiritual than US culture. The intro talked a lot about how some things are just Meant and couldn't ever happen by coincidence. So the author was Led to truer understanding. (I feel like I'm being snottily judgy, but it set my teeth on edge.) The disorganization part had to do with sliding from big topic to big topic without clear signposting as to what was there and without doing more than vaguely saying, "Oh! And there's this and that and the other." I couldn't find anything.
Stevermer, Caroline. The Glass Magician - I keep trying Stevermer's books and bouncing hard. The premises always sound right up my alley, and there's nothing wrong with the prose or plotting. They just never turn out to be something I want to do the work to read more than a few pages of.