books, books, books: 2017 mar-may

[meitachi]

I just came back from a lovely 1.5 week trip to Canada (Banff, Calgary) and so this post is about two weeks later than I intended. But it's done, and Canada was beautiful and delicious and so much cooler than Houston. No humidity was great. Maybe I'll run away and move there.

Anyhow, these three months seemed to take much longer than before, or I managed to read more than expected. So here are fairly quick summations/reflections, presuming I can remember that far back.

1. Friday's Child by Georgette Heyer - A reread and always a delight. Both protagonists are pretty young, differing from some of Heyer's others, and so both are sort of flighty and silly. Some of the best secondary characters in all her books though, with Gil and Ferdie, who are eminently shippable, and oh so dramatic and romantic figure George... What a delightful soap opera.



2. Reforming the Rake by Suzanne Enoch - I barely remember this, but apparently she was a governess and he's a rake, and they're of course instantly attracted to each other. He's sort of unfair to his cousin/relations for no good reason? She loves him but refuses his proposals of marriage for reasons? There's an evil conniving aunt? This was like every bad regency romance trope, unfortunately, with frustrating characters.



3. Sweep in Peace by Ilona Andrews - I really love the Innkeeper series. This is #2 and Dina is unwillingly hosting a intergalactic peace summit. I love the worldbuilding of various aliens and their cultures, and how they clash and how Dina has to keep everyone in line while also seeing to their needs. The big reveal I had guessed beforehand, and the epic magical climax was a little bit anti-climactic, but I really liked the overall story and characters and interactions and world.



4. The Sirens Sang of Murder - Actually book 3 of the four Hilary Tamar mysteries, but I got it last as my library didn't have it! Lots of epistolary form in this one and little details about tax havens. I enjoyed as just as I enjoyed the others, and I liked the lovely descriptions of the islands and settings. The solution to the mystery was not too convoluted but also had some surprise, after various red herrings dropped earlier in the story.



5. The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde - A reread of one of my favorite plays and light-hearted nonsensical exchanges. Also, muffins.



6. Point of Hopes by Melissa Scott & Lisa Barnett - A new series! It's basically law and order policing mysteries but set in a fantasy world, so a combination of things I enjoy. The worldbuilding was very cool, with a matriarchal bent, and though there was a lot of info-dumping in this first novel, I didn't mind too much. I'm not particularly in love with the protagonists, but they served as capable vehicles to deliver the mystery and plot and world, so that worked for me. Felt like the mystery of disappering children and creeping paranoia/xenophobia tied well to the ending, which almost felt too neat/easy/anti-climactic after a novel's length build-up. But still enjoyalbe.



7. Point of Knives by Melissa Scott & Lisa Barnett - A short story that took place between Point of Hopes and Point of Knives, it shows the actual hookup between Rathe and Eslingen, except we don't really see that so much as we're told they started a friends with benefits arrangement...that evolves into something more by the end of this. The murder mystery here was not particularly memorable but does introduce us to more of the world.



8. Point of Dreams by Melissa Scott & Lisa Barnett - The next novel length mystery, more of a proper murder mystery, and showcasing the world's theater district and some more political intrigue. I enjoyed this one, and Rathe and Eslingen's more established relationship, but did suspect the eventual killer pretty early on. Just wasn't sure how all the clues tied in together until the end.



9. Heroine Complex by Sarah Kuhn - An Asian-American author telling a story about Asian-Americans and superheroes! I was just musing about how immigrant stories were not really my jam and I wanted more genre-savvy and lighthearted adventure types of stories, and so this was right up my alley. Plus Sarah Kuhn had just been in two podcasts I'd been listening to: They Call Us Bruce (for Asian-American media issues), and Hellbent (poltiics with a feminist bent). I really liked certain parts of this book, particularly the fraught friendship of the two main characters, but the romance was so...lol Broadcast From Initial Introduction. Saw that one coming. Evie's little sister was a little too paper thin for my tastes too. But the plot and action read very similarly to comics, almost in a stylized manner where I can't quite imagine real people talking or acting that way, but works if you take it as a deliberate genre style. I'll probably read the sequel when it's out later this year as well, focusing on the other BFF (and her Also Advertised Early On romantic entanglement).



10. Slightly Dangerous by Mary Balogh - Apparently the last of a series about a family of siblings and how they found love, featuring the oldest brother, the Duke, the one everyone thought didn't have feelings because duty came first. Yet it was a lovely read, maybe because I imprinted on the dynamic between hero and heroine as very Spock/Kirk...look, I've been on a kick. But it's that straightlaced, uptight, struggling to express emotion guy bound by duty, and the irrepressibly friendly, social, sunny, irreverent person who lights up the room and whose emotion ends up buoying him. Anyway, some bonus Drama from the heroine's early life and deceased husband that was actually kind of novel, and some interesting social relationship dynamics that actually show change/evolution.



11. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken - Children's book a la Secret Garden with orphans and trains and evil governesses, and escapes through the woods with the help of a local boy. Very fairy tale-esque, with struggles and an eventual happy ending. Pretty fun read for its genre, but apparently the series that ensues follows a totally different character, so I'm happy to leave this as a standalone.



12. The Adventures of Charls, the Veretian Cloth Merchant by C.S. Pacat - Captive Prince short story and it was just utterly delightful. Charls continues to be well-meaning and earnest and hilarious, and Laurent and Damen get to do things besides just be in love (as was the majority of Summer Palace). The ending is gold.



13. Slightly Wicked by Mary Balogh - From the Bedwyn saga, I picked a random one from among the other siblings' stories. This one featured a brother who was tall, blond, brawny, and unremarkable in any way in his personality that I remember, and a heroine who was destined to be a poor relative but pretended briefly to be an actress accustomed to being a mistress, because she (randomly) had great playacting skills. Also she had been gaslighted by her entire family but especially her father that she was ugly and had to be covered, when really she was a sexy voluptuous redhead? Because of puritan Christian morals or something. And we're expected to forgive him at the end because he meant well, or something. Really, all her relatives were terrible so even though the hero was not memorable to me at all I guess they were better off together. There was also a mystery plot and some emotional h/c later, which I would've eaten up with a spoon if I'd liked the characters a little better, I suspect.



14. Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee - Oh, another Asian-American author writing about Asian-Americans in a post-apocalyptic future, now with bonus superpowers! And there's a cute f/f relationship! The worldbuilding was interesting but shallo unfortunately, and the Good versus Evil plot was thin and not at all resolved in this book because of the set up for the sequel. All the characters sort of hit tumblr's "make sure to include for diversity" checklist, and no one felt quite real to me. The mystery identity thing was also so obvious it made me resent our heroine for being so dumb. Look, you've got to either write her smarter or keep your clues more subtle, because if the reader has caught on before your heroine has for 150 pages, we spend a lot of time despairing of how clueless she is. It's hard to keep rooting for her. This book's sequel I probably won't read. I don't think that I'm epecting too much of a YA novel and I'm reading below my level~ or whatever; I honestly just find the execution disappointing. It was a struggle to finish.



15. The Lawrence Browne Affair by Cat Sebastian - I remember enjoying the competent prose in the author's earlier m/m regency novel, but the characters, story, and dynamic just didn't quite hit my id or give me what I wanted. This was closer! She's still good at dealing with class differences and struggles, but it's slightly less overt and antagonistic this time around. There's more focus on mental health/anxiety in a more period-appropriate way. The attraction was a little more what I wanted too. Will continuing reading her m/m regency, though will always be dreaming of a little more lighthearted/action-oriented plot and maybe more slow burn UST.