Clara Benson, A Case of Blackmail in Belgravia and The Murder at Sissingham Hall. Kindle. These are each the first in a longer series of historical mysteries. Benson made them available for free on the Kindle, which was very smart of her because I will now be giving her money for the rest of each series. The two detectives are distinct without one of them being deeply obnoxious, and the early 20th century setting is a favorite of mine.
Chaz Brenchley, Radhika Rages at the Crater School, Prelude through Chapter 9. Kindle. I’m still enjoying this series of boarding school books from Chaz, but I notice as it goes on that there isn’t one single person who doesn’t end up settling in and loving boarding school. That’s the genre. But it’s a genre I start to have more quibbles with the more I read of it, because I don’t actually believe that any institution is for everyone, and boarding schools of this type certainly not, and the longer it goes the more I start to get antsy about it, even though each book is no less fun than the last.
Elise Bryant, It’s Elementary. A bubbly fun mystery where the detective is a mom investigating suspicious goings-on at her kid’s school. She’s a single Black mom whose interactions with her ex are cordial and plot-crucial (getting the kiddo on her calls with her dad is one of the most important things in the protag’s world) and for whom race is also key to her experience at a “gentrifying” school. I found the ending a bit disappointing but enjoyed the narrative voice throughout.
Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, eds., Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells. Reread. Still enjoyed stories by stalwarts like Elizabeth Bear, Veronica Schanoes, and the writing team of Ellen Datlow and Caroline Stevermer. Worth keeping on my shelf.
Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Barton. Kindle. Her first novel, and Charlotte Bronte has not yet yelled at her about beloved people who transgress social standards getting to live out the book. So you can pretty much guess who is going to get a noble tragic death and who is going to still be around. On the other hand, the prostitute aunt and opium-addict father get a great deal more compassion than would have been standard for the era, and it’s set entirely in the working classes and firmly takes their side. Explicitly, in fact; this is a book that came out in 1848, and its author’s attentions were firmly on the revolutions of 1848 though the scope of her book is much smaller.
Marianne Gordon, The Gilded Crown. Do you want necromancy? Because this has necromancy. This has so much necromancy, in fact, that I’m not sure you could fit more in with a shoehorn. Court politics and so, so much necromancy, including of a very nice bird.
Helen Hardacre, Shinto: A History. This very correctly labels itself a history: it is the sort of book that is much more concerned with when movements related to Buddhism affected Shinto and how than it is with the experience any person might have of Shinto. It’s briskly written, very fast for its size, and interesting as long as you go in knowing that it will not be about the subjective experience of being(/doing?) Shinto even a little bit.
Selma Lagerlöf, The Outcast. Kindle. Early 20th century moral melodrama about a person who is reputed to have engaged in cannibalism (that part is chapter 1, I’m not spoilering anything) and all the good he does attempting to redeem himself in the eyes of his community. Not her best, I think.
Tiya Miles, Wild Girls: How the Outdoors Shaped the Women Who Challenged a Nation. Quite short, focused on 19th century women’s relationships with the out-of-doors, explicitly takes the time to look at Black, White, and Native American women in this context–but very American, not particularly concerned with a compare-and-contrast with other countries.
Ng Yi-Sheng, Lion City. Kindle. Queer Singaporean surrealist short stories. Weird and fun and, yes, weird. And weird.
Meredith K. Ray, Daughters of Alchemy: Women and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy. This is about the era when scientific culture itself was only barely emerging, and there’s a lot of stuff that’s right on that line where practical plant knowledge becomes botany or distilling expertise starts contributing to chemistry. Interesting stuff.
Carlo Rovelli, The Order of Time. Basically this is “time: how does it $##@&% work?” There’s some elementary thermodynamics and some elementary quantum mechanics, nothing that will be troublesome if you’re shaky on math. There are also startling numbers of Smurfs employed in the time-related diagrams, apparently on the theory that Papa Smurf is the aged version of a default Smurf? Huh.
Naben Ruthnum, Helpmeet. Creepy Victorian body horror novella. I feel like this comes closer than anything else I’ve read that was written in the 21st century to actually feeling like how the Victorians would have done it, rather than being about Victorians (although it is that too).
Catherine Shaw, The Three-Body Problem. Kindle. A 19th century murder mystery about solving the N-body problem, fun even if you’re not interested in that. Will pursue more of this series. (This is good. I’ve been in the mood to find more mystery series.)
Vandana Singh, Distances. Another very readable genre-central SF novella from Vandana Singh, the second one I got for this year’s birthday.
Bogi Takács, Power to Yield and Other Stories. I really like it when collections provide durable locations for stories I’ve liked in their original printing plus other stories I haven’t gotten to yet. This delivered admirably on that combination.
Kat Tang, Five-Star Stranger. This is one of those literary novels that might have been science fiction and isn’t. The society in it has Rental Strangers who can be hired to perform roles in people’s lives–really basically any role from parent to job candidate. The protagonist has this profession and gets emotionally involved with some of his clients, which is a no-no. The ending was very flat, which is what happens when you want to have a premise like this and not examine any of the broader social stuff, it’s just: yep, that’s how that very specific personal thing plays out, okay.
P. G. Wodehouse, The Coming of Bill. Kindle. What a weird book. The problem with the eugenicist is that she…doesn’t let the titular little white boy play enough? Uh. Huh. So on the one hand, the eugenicist is vanquished in the end and the people she was trying to control are free of her, but on the other hand a lot of things about her go completely unchallenged and unremarked. Also this is one where strong men are supposed to wear the pants, seeeee, which: oh buddy no.
Patricia C. Wrede, Caught in Crystal. Kindle. One of the things that has come up several times on convention panels is the desire for more stories where parents and kids have adventures together. This is definitely one. Kayl is a retired swordswoman with two middle-sized kids who bicker like kids and get excited about new stuff like kids and generally act like kids, but also are plot-crucial to the fantasy adventure here.
Kelly Yang, Front Desk. A sweet, earnest MG book about a young Chinese immigrant girl who works at the front desk of the motel her parents manage. Her struggles are, as Yang notes in the afterword, entirely based in Yang’s experience, and they feel real throughout.
Have you read Laurie R King? I have enjoyed all I’ve read from her, with the caveat that the denouement is always missing to some extent, and that the dead people are inevitably the most interesting. But I haven’t caught up on the Russell books and make sure to grab them when I might have an appointment.
I liked the Kate Martinelli books but never really took to the Mary Russell ones…but I see that there are a couple of Kate Martinellis that I haven’t read, thank you.