💘🐕❤️‍🔥🐈❤️‍🩹 Fantasy and Romance--Typical Week!

    I greatly enjoyed Shannon Chakraborty's series The Daevabad Trilogy and was excited to read her latest book, The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi. There is a lot of setup and introduction of characters. I found it dragged despite a lot of effort to keep the plot snappy. There are many intriguing and bold characters that form a dynamic team, facing significant, seemingly insurmountable problems to solve. I will go on to read the rest of the trilogy.

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    Hurray! Another Abby Jimenez book! This one is Say You'll Remember Me. It is her most recent one. Maybe I was having a grumpy week, but I didn't find this one as stellar as her previous works. There are dogs and a cat; quite appropriate, considering the love interest is a veterinarian. It tackles the heartache and struggle of caring for a family member with dementia with warmth and understanding. Here is a link to other Abby Jimenez books I've reviewed:

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🧼🧽♾️√🧩🌸 Math and More Australian Romance 🦘

 

    The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa surprised me. I thought it would be a slow-burning romance novel. What a difficult book to describe. The book is set in Japan in 1992. A young housekeeper is sent by her agency to the home of a brilliant mathematics professor. Nine previous housekeepers have come and gone. This intuitive and curious current housekeeper faces the challenge of caring for a gifted lover of numbers who, because of a traumatic brain injury, can only remember new things for eighty minutes. Every day, she must reintroduce herself and gain his trust and cooperation. How do you connect with someone who won't remember you the next day? Ogawa takes elements like mathematics, baseball, found family, and care and creates a lyrical, lovely story. 

    I read Jodi McAlister's third book in her series last week. Oops. Here for the Right Reasons is book one. The books are both intertwined and can be read independently of each other. It is fun knowing things about side characters in the book that aren't revealed in this one. McAlister, I've since learned, is an academic who specializes in the study of popular culture. To quote her website: Jodi’s work life means that reading romance novels and watching (and let’s be real, writing huge amounts about) The Bachelor/ette is technically work for her. https://jodimcalister.com.au/  Can I get that job?

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👒✍️🪭📚🎩 Get Ready for Jane Austen, Plus the Latest by Suzanne Collins

 

    I picked up Jane Austen, the Secret Radical by Helena Kelly, because the first book of this year's book club season is Northanger Abby. I've started rereading my way through Jane Austen's works. Libby suggested this book to me. It is a nonfiction work that explores how Austen's works would have been perceived by her original audience. Kelly builds her case with evidence from the day, and I learned a great deal from it. For much of Austen's life, her country was at war with France, resulting in a jingoistic culture that suppressed any criticism of the Empire under the threat of imprisonment. What appear to be frothy love stories on the surface are actually skewering criticisms of women's rights, slavery, the church, and more. For someone who enjoys Jane Austen but senses there is more going on, it is illuminating. Although it's nonfiction, the book is accessible and quite readable. Dear Reader, I recommend it.

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    When I find an author I like, I go hard on their backlist. Yours Truly is the sixth Abby Jimenez book I read in 2025, so for all the analysts out there, it means I like her. Because I've read many of her previous works, I can spot references to characters from other books, such as musical artists and a best friend who had her own book, among others. It's so fun. I found Yours Truly to be another excellent book. It employs the fake girlfriend trope, which has been deployed numerous times, but every plot needs a device. I think Jimenez worked it well. I like how Jimenez gives her characters large problems that don't evaporate at the end of the book, but they do gain better coping skills through facing their issues and maturity. This book has a main character with social anxiety. 

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    I have read most of Suzanne Collins' published works, and I found  Sunrise on the Reaping to be her most complex and mature work. It made me want to reread The Hunger Games series to rethink what I understood about Haymitch. I don't remember Collins being so lyrical in previous books. She uses Edgar Allen Poe's poem, "The Raven," to great effect to show the grief and despair of living in a deadly dystopian society. I'm glad to know how the big story ends, or it would be pretty bleak. 

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    After some heavy reads, I wanted something fun and came across Not Here to Make Friends by Jodi McAlister from Simon & Schuster Australia, so I grabbed the audio. Lovely Aussie accents reading me a friends-to-villains romance: yes, please! I managed to complete a significant amount of yard work while I listened. McAlister has relatable leads that I could root for, plus believable obstacles to their romance. The story takes place in a remote location during a reality romance show, set against the backdrop of the pandemic. Everyone has to stay in the bubble, and it makes for interesting issues, because the voted-off can't leave. Did I mention Austrian accents? So fun!

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👑👸⚔️🤴👑 Perhaps Too Much Fantasy?

 

        I am getting wrapped up in Romantasy, and I regret reading Shield of Sparrows by Devney Perry because it is the first of a trilogy. The second one won't be released until spring 2026. 

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I found the book captivating with a dynamic plot and an evolving, strong female protagonist. A neglected, disregarded princess is chosen over her promised sister to be a Sparrow Bride. The kingdoms on the continent force peace among prone-to-war kingdoms by exchanging a king's daughter to be the next queen and produce an heir. This sets up an enemies-to-lovers situation, but Perry slyly keeps her readers guessing. It is told in the first person by Princess Odessa and gives an urgency and tension. I liked the book and look forward to reading the sequels; however, this book won't challenge any conceptions about life or the patriarchy. It is formulaic, but it uses the formula well. 

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    Robert Jackson Bennett writes science fiction that is both entertaining and thinky-thinky. He has won the Edgar Award, and I hope he also receives a Hugo, because he deserves it. He reminds me of Adrian Tchaikovsky, the author of the Children of Time series. A Drop of Corruption continues the adventures of Ana and Din, a detective duo akin to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. The series is a high fantasy, well-crafted, believable world facing enormous challenges from invading leviathans and internal corruption. The world is a layered empire that is gritty, messy, and brilliant as it wrestles with petty bureaucrats, the vengeful oppressed, arrogant rulers, and those trying to make sense of it.

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   Contains spoilers! Not my first time reading Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, but each time I get pulled into the story. I can't wait to find out if, once again, Marianne will recover from the dreadful blow dealt her by Willoughby, if Elinor can bear the weight of losing her true love, and if the Dashwood women will survive in their reduced circumstances. I don't ever remember reading the scene where Willoughby comes, drunk, because he hears Marianne is dying, and gives Elinor his excuses for his behavior. What a selfish cad! 

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🦑🌆🌊Two Five Star Books in One Week! 🌟⭐️🌟⭐️🌟

 

    I was intimidated by City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett because it was a big book. Every word is needed to build Bennett's fantastic world. The book stands alone quite well, even though it is the first of a trilogy. It reminds me of The Expanse series, but as a fantasy. There is political intrigue wrapped up with spies, revolutionaries, former conquerors, and the now triumphant, but once enslaved. Many characters have big feelings about this reversal of fortunes and wrongs committed in the past. At the heart of the story is Shara Thivani, a covert operative who has come to investigate the murder of her mentor, but she discovers much more. I'm giving the book five stars on Goodreads — rare for me — but it is excellent in its plot, characters, setting, and ideas. 

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    I read Run for the Hills by Kevin Wilson in a day. The story and characters were captivation and lovely. 32-year-old Mad runs an organic farm in Tennessee with her single mother. Her dad left when she was twelve, and it has frozen her in place, unable to leave her mother alone to carry on the farm, and unwilling to allow anyone close enough to hurt her like her father did. One Saturday, a man in his 40s comes to her farm stand and tells her his her half-brother. He invites her to go with him to find their father. It gets weirder, but in the best way. 

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