Monday Mailbox

This past week's mailbox arrivals:

Annie Stanley All at Sea by Sue Teddern came from me for me.

How cute is that cover? Super cute, right? And do I have a weakness for water influenced titles? Why yes, I do. But this novel about a woman looking for the perfect place to scatter her father's ashes (potentially somewhere in the 31 sea areas that make up the Shipping Forecast) sounds good for even more reasons than those two.

Down to the Sea in Ships by Horatio Clare came from me for me.

I am fascinated by the concept of container ships and the journeys they take to bring us all the goods we desire from around the world so I can't wait to read this narrative about one man's experience on two such ships.

The Wolf Den by Elodie Harper came from me for me.

The first in a trilogy about women of Pompeii, I am definitely looking forward to the story of a woman who lives as a slave in a brothel there yearning for freedom.

Hungry by Grace Dent came from me for me.

The memoir of a food writer, this promises 40 years of how Britain eats and lives and I think that it sounds delicious.

I Am an Island by Tamsin Calidas came from me for me.

A memoir about a woman and her husband who move to a far northern island only to have their marriage break down in the absence of the family they'd thought to start, this sounds both sad and introspective.

A Frog in the Fjord by Lorelou Desjardins came from me for me.

Aside from the funny title which I certainly appreciate, I am also a huge travel narrative fan so this one about a French woman who moves to Norway for a job sounds like the perfect book for me.

Worst. Idea. Ever by Jane Fallon came from me for me.

Two friends. Fake social media. A secret that could blow everything up. What's not to like about this premise?

If you want to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit Mailbox Monday and have fun seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.

Waiting on Wednesday

This meme was hosted by Breaking the Spine and is meant to highlight some great pre-publication books we all can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on. I'm choosing to continue the tradition even though she has stopped.

Jacket Weather by Mike DeCapite

The book is being released by Soft Skull on October 12, 2021.

The book's jacket copy says: Mike knew June in New York’s downtown music scene in the eighties. Back then, he thought she was “the living night—all the glamour and potential of a New York night when you’re 25.” Now he’s twice divorced and happy to be alone—so happy he’s writing a book about it. Then he meets June again. “And here she was with a raincoat over the back of the chair talking about getting a divorce and saying she’s done with relationships. Her ice-calm eyes are the same, the same her glory of curls.”

Jacket Weather is about awakening to love—dizzying, all-consuming, worldview-shaking love—when it’s least expected. It's also about remaining alert to today's pleasures—exploring the city, observing the seasons, listening to the guys at the gym—while time is slipping away. Told in fragments of narrative, reveries, recipes, bits of conversation and snatches of weather, the book collapses a decade in Mike and June’s life and shifts a reader to a glowing nostalgia for the present.

Review: Saving Miss Oliver's by Stephen Davenport

My high school was a small, prestigious independent school. While I was there, there were currents swirling around that we students picked up on but certainly far more that we didn't. We had strong, unasked for opinions on the redesign of the school's seal (we called the new, expensive one the Chiquita banana seal). We felt more than actually knew some of the administrative or board issues. But mostly we were along for the ride, the underpinnings of the school's running hidden from us. This is probably true for most students at schools all over the country. Unless there is a compelling reason for them to look closer and be more engaged, they are focused on their own studies and getting into college, moving onto the next phase of their lives. In Stephen Davenport's novel Saving Miss Oliver's, there is no hiding the strife and turmoil or the two very real, very unlikable possibilities that the school may have to go coed or close given its financial situation. No one can just continue to keep their head in the sand and hope it all goes away. Because it just might.

Miss Oliver's School for Girls is in dire financial trouble. The larger than life, much admired headmistress for the past 35 years, Marjorie Boyd, was not the best financial steward and she has been let go. Her replacement, Fred Kindler (a man! running a girl's school!), is definitely not being universally welcomed. Charged with turning the school's direction around in just one year, if Fred can't make up the financial shortfall, the school will either have to start admitting boys or close its doors permanently. Both of these options horrify the students and the alumnae. Francis Plummer could help Fred, and the support and approval of the popular, legendary teacher would go a long way to ensuring Fred's success. But Francis liked Marjorie and cannot overcome his otherwise unfounded dislike for the new headmaster. Peggy, Francis' wife and the school librarian, on the other hand, thinks that Fred's tenure is a chance to right the ship and she's going to do what she can to back him. One failing school, one marriage in turmoil, Fred's sad personal history kept secret from the students and staff, and the discovery of Native artifacts on school land, among other things, makes for a complicated story indeed.

All of the pieces of an engrossing story are here but somehow they don't quite gel. Fred seems ineffective and rather unprepared for the job he's taken. Francis is acting like a cranky child. No one has the courage to confront anyone else with the truth or to act like adults. And the underhanded conniving that goes on from the board on down, while perhaps realistic, isn't all that fun to read. Really this is Mean Girls pitted against each other in a school's struggle to survive. The writing itself is fine but the story drags and by the end I didn't really know whether I wanted the school and these people to survive or not, not that the eventual outcome was ever in doubt. Usually I love books set in schools or academia adjacent but this one, surprisingly, was not for me.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

This meme is hosted by Kathryn at Reading Date.

Books I completed over the past week are:

The Glittering Hour by Iona Grey
You Belong Here Now by Dianna Rostad
We Learnt About Hitler at the Mickey Mouse Club by Enid Elliott Linder
A Girl Is a Body of Water by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
Waiting for the Night Song by Julie Carrick Dalton

Bookmarks are still living in the middle of:

The Boat Runner by Devin Murphy
Trouble the Saints by Alaya Dawn Johnson
Interior Chinatown by Cahrles Yu
House of Trelawney by Hannah Rothschild
In Love with George Eliot by Kathy O'Shaughnessy
The Very Nice Box by Eve Gleichman and Laura Blackett
A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

Reviews posted this week:

A Master of Djinn by P. Djeli Clark
Strange Tricks by Syd Moore

Books still needing to have reviews written (as opposed to the ones that are simply awaiting posting):

What You Wish For by Katherine Center
The Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal
The Initiates by Etienne Davodeau
You Deserve Each Other by Sarah Hogle
The Arctic Fury by Greer MacAllister
Writers and Lovers by Lily King
Better Luck Next Time by Julia Claiborne Johnson
Austenistan edited by Laaleen Sukhera
Winter in Sokcho by Elisa Shua Dusapin
Love Is Blind by Lynsay Sands
Saving Miss Oliver's by Stephen Davenport
Refining Felicity by M.C. Beaton
Queenie by Candace Carty-Williams
Our Darkest Night by Jennifer Robson
Sea Swept by Nora Roberts
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
More Confessions of a Trauma Junkie by Sherry Lynn Jones
Inlaws and Outlaws by Kate Fulford
The Belinda Chronicles by Linda Seidel
Jane in Love by Rachel Givney
Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau
The Wind Blows and the Flowers Dance by Terre Reed
Lovely War by Julie Berry
A Princess in Theory by Alyssa Cole
Dear County Agent Guy by Jerru Nelson
This Time Next Year We'll Be Laughing by Jacqueline Winspear
The Mystery of Mrs. Christie by Marie Benedict
All Adults Here by Emma Straub
Nice Girls Finish First by Alesia Holliday
Cosmogony by Lucy Ives
Heartwood by Barbara Becker
My Own Miraculous by Joshilyn Jackson
Duchess If You Dare by Anabelle Bryant
The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo
After Francesco by Brian Malloy
When the Apricots Bloom by Gina Wilkinson
Assembly by Natasha Brown
The Walls Came Tumbling Down by Henriette Roosenburg
Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward
Silence by William Carpenter
The Ghost Dancers by Adrian C. Louis
The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris
Brother Sister Mother Explorer by Jamie Figueroa
A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes
Everywhere You Don't Belong by Gabriel Bump
One Night Two Souls Went Walking by Ellen Cooney
The Bromance Book Club by Lyssa Kay Adams
Other People's Children by R. J. Hoffmann
Inheritors by Asako Serizawa
Why Birds Sing by Nina Berkhout
When Stars Rain Down by Angela Jackson-Brown
The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep by H.G. Parry
The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot by Marianne Cronin
Love in Color by Bolu Babalola
Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
Pleasantview by Celeste Mohammed
Plutocracy by Abraham Martinez
Black Girls Must Die Exhausted by Jayne Allen
The Secret, Book and Scone Society by Ellery Adams
The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson
A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick
The Earl Not Taken by A. S. Fenichel
The Stone Sister by Carolyn Patterson
The Colour of God by Ayesha S. Chaudhry
Hell of a Book by Jason Mott
The Baddest Girl on the Planet by Heather Frese
A Recipe for Daphne by Nektaria Anastasiadou< br /> The Portrait by Ilaria Bernardini
The Infinite Country by Patricia Engel
The Hummingbird's Gift by Sy Montgomery
The Parted Earth by Anjali Enjeti
The Paris Library by Janet Skeslian Charles
A Trick of the Light by Ali Carter
The Prince of Mournful Thoughts and Other Stories by Caroline Kim
The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd
Mona at Sea by Elizabeth Gonzalez James
The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
The Son of the House by Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onuobia
Bring Your Baggage and Don't Pack Light by Helen Ellis
Miseducated by Brandon P. Fleming
No Hiding in Boise by Kim Hooper
The Truth and Other Hidden Things by Lea Geller
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
Modern Jungles by Pao Lor
Where the Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda
The Third Mrs. Galway by Deirdre Sinnott
Mr. Malcolm's List by Suzanne Allain
All the Young Men by Ruth Coker Burks
The Restaurant Inspector by Alex Pickett
The Other Miss Bridgerton by Julia Quinn
Circe by Madeline Miller
Julie and Romeo Get Lucky by Jeanne Ray
All Sorrows Can Be Borne by Loren Stephens
The Glittering Hour by Iona Grey
You Belong Here Now by Dianna Rostad
We Learnt About Hitler at the Mickey Mouse Club by Enid Elliott Linder
A Girl Is a Body of Water by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
Waiting for the Night Song by Julie Carrick Dalton

Monday Mailbox

This past week's mailbox arrivals:

The Gran Tour by Ben Aitken came from me for me.

Who could resist the memoir of a grumpy millenial who signs up for six tours with British pensionners because doing so is cheaper than his rent? This looks like it will be a kick.

Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman came from me for me.

This is one of my several book clubs' choice for October and I'm curious to see what all the fuss is about.

The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman came from me for me.

I thoroughly enjoyed the first book in this series so I can't wait to dive back in with the Thursday Murder Club.

Tish by Mary Rinehart came from me for me.

Now that I'm middle aged myself, I appreciate books with middle aged protagonists so this one about a woman choosing to live life to the fullest looks charming.

Poppy Redfern and the Midnight Murders by Tessa Arlen came from me for me.

Although many WWII novels are starting to feel the same, this murder mystery set during the time promises to be just different enough to keep my attention.

The Feast by Margaret Kennedy came from me for me.

Although this opens with seven people dead in a collapsed hotel, this story about the inhabitants of the hotel from before the tragedy looks completely intriguing.

If you want to see the marvelous goodies in other people's mailboxes, make sure to visit Mailbox Monday and have fun seeing how we are all doing our part to keep the USPS and delivery services viable.

Review: Strange Tricks by Syd Moore

Sometimes series can be jumped into at point without a reader feeling as if they are missing vital information and other times series really need to be read in order to have any chance of understanding the ongoing, larger arc of the tale. I have not read the first five of Syd Moore's Essex Witch Museum series and it is one of those series where not having any knowledge from prior books is a real handicap so it's unfortunate that I jumped in at Strange Tricks, the sixth in the series.

Rosie Strange owns the Essex Witch Museum and she is still discovering things about it and about her biological family. She and her curator, Sam, who might or might not be heading for a relationship, leave the museum in order to investigate reports of a medium who has frequent Near Death Experiences and needs to share the information she's receiving there. It turns out that Rosie and Sam have been sent there by their superior Monty, who appears to be the head of a governmental agency that investigates supernatural things. (Maybe, but this is where knowledge of prior books would be a plus.) Instead of being a random case, it turns out this one is very personal, tied as it is to Sam's younger brother Jazz's unsolved disappearance so many years ago. Poor, young teenage boys who are not likely to be missed by those around them and whose disappearances police have been shrugging off, have been going missing for decades. Rosie must learn to trust her gut instincts as she tries to uncover what happened to the abducted boys.

The main story line is interrupted at intervals with parts of Rosie's birth mother's journal and her hand drawn tarot cards. These pieces serve to remind the reader that there is an unsolved mystery in Rosie's past that she very much wants to solve, just as Sam desperately wants to solve his brother's disappearance. The interaction between Rosie and Sam clearly has much more to it than is presented in this book. In fact, diving into this book as the first, the reader questions why Rosie has any softer feelings towards Sam at all. He is so wrapped up in his own desires that he is thoughtless and dismissive to Rosie, including when her life is in imminent danger. The main mystery, that centered on the abducted boys, is wrapped up but so many other plot lines are left dangling, from Rosie's mother's death to someone called Big Ig to some mysterious and attractive man coming around the museum, that this felt incomplete in many ways. And the story went from mildly ominous to dark and deeply disturbing in the blink of an eye, giving the reader a bit of whiplash. Moore brings an important social concern into the light here but it is still best read in context of the rest of the series rather than as a stand alone mystery.

Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy of this book for review.

Review: A Master of Djinn by P. Djeli Clark

I've never read a steampunk novel before. I've read very few books with djinn in them. Fantasy is not my usual genre. Nor is alternate history. But P. Djeli Clark is an award winning master and I'm trying to be more open to books I normally wouldn't read. I have to say, what a book to start with! A Master of Djinn has a complex and fascinating world, a strong female main character, and a mystery that has to be solved in order to save humanity. I never knew what I was missing.

It's 1912 and Alistair Worthington, a rich English businessman living in Cairo is the head of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Al-Jahiz, a secret society of his own creation. When the entire society is murdered in spectacular fashion in Lord Worthington's home, each member's flesh burned but their clothing untouched by the flames, it is clear that something supernatural is involved. Fatma el-Sha'arawi, the youngest agent and one of the few women in the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments, and Supernatural Entities, is called in to investigate the sinister happening. It isn't hard for Fatma and her new partner Hadia, a young woman assigned to her by the Ministry who Fatma accepts reluctantly, to discover who committed the murders but stopping the man in the gold mask, a man who claims he is the revered al-Jahiz returned, a man who can command the most terrifying of djinn, a man who is holding rallies in the poorest sections of town to profess his intention to address the enormous social inequalities of this world, a man who is capable, at every turn, of besting Fatma and her girlfriend Siti who seems to possess a certain magic of her own, a man who is bent on the destruction of the Ministry, Cairo, and this world, will be much harder.

The world that Clark has built here is indeed magical and fantastical and even those who have not read the previous novellas set in this same world (me!) will appreciate the detail about the world and the way it works here. Fatma is a quirky character, with her sharp sartorial sense--each of her suits lovingly described--and her curmudgeonly response to being assigned eager, new agent Hadia as a partner. She says that the reappearance of Siti in her bed has muddled her a bit but without her somewhat mysterious girlfriend and Siti's contacts, Fatma herself, as sharp and as smart as she is supposed to be, would make zero progress on the case. And it does seem as if there is a lot of running from pillar to pole to add more plot elements. Perhaps this is because Clark normally writes in shorter form but occasionally this feels quite forced. For instance, the man in the gold mask has no need of the rallies to win over the Cairenes given his ultimate goal but without the rallies, Fatma would never track him down. The political bickering at a peace conference felt inserted simply to remind the reader that Europe is in the run up to WWI rather than serving this particular story. And the unmasking in the end is completely, and perhaps intentionally, predictable. Despite this, Clark's novel was ultimately an engrossing story, filled with piquant commentary on anti-colonialism, racism, misogyny, mentorship, and relationship. It has convinced me to keep a more open mind toward the genre for sure.

Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy of this book for review.