🚚🎥🤳👩‍🍼Suspenseful Mystery, 💔Ficiton, and🐌🛸 More Sci-FI!🤖🦾👽

 

Twisty, slightly unbelievable, 

    Holly Jackson is brilliant at plotting. She creates snaky, torturous storylines that keep me guessing. In The Reappearance of Rachel Price, the high school senior, Bel, agrees to contribute to a documentary about her missing mother, who has been gone for sixteen years. Her dad was put on trial for her murder, but was acquitted; however, her small town never trusted him. All Bel had was her dad, then her mother returned. Jackson twists and twists the story. It was like watching a corkscrew disappear into a cork, tensely waiting for it all to pop open. 

Here is a review of Holly Jackson's A Good Girl's Guide to Murder: https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/2024/11/murder-trouble-drug-trouble-and-more.html

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    Good Material by Dolly Alderton begins tediously and remains so for most of the book. A thirty-five-year-old comic, Andy, suffers a break-up with his long-term girlfriend, Jen. It devastates him, partly because he didn't see it coming. Most of the book is written from his first-person perspective, detailing his life after Jen, as he tries to piece together what happened and how to move forward without her. There is much humor in his actions, ruminations, and how his friends seek to help him. I thought about not finishing it, but several reviews said the best part of the book was the very end, so I stuck with it. I didn't find that it redeemed the previous slow pace. Overall, not a book I would recommend.

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    The Expert System's Champion by Adrian Tchaikovsky continues a previous novella, The Expert System's Brother. Tchaikovsky takes science fiction, an already imaginative genre, and reaches into both realistic and unforeseen places. He considers not only the flying car, but also the traffic jam. How do you survive on a plant that is poisonous to your biology? How would that impact future generations? Tchaikovsky asks and answers creative, thoughtful questions. 

Here is a link to the growing list of Adrian Tchaikovsky books I've reviewed: https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/search?q=Adrian

🐌🐝🌳

    I am rereading Martha Wells' series,  The Robot Diaries, starting with All Systems Red. I have been watching Apple TV's adaptation, and it's not bad, but it doesn't square exactly with the book. I understand that books and TV shows are different forms of storytelling, with TV and films being visual. Therefore, a book adaptation will always look different from the story I've built in my head. I sometimes feel like I'm being gaslit when new plot points surface, and I think: I don't remember that. Truthfully, half the time I don't remember! 

Previous reviews of The Murderbot Diaries:

https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/search?q=All+Systems+Red

https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/search?q=murderbot

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🧬🧝‍♀️ Science/Fantasy💐👒Recovery and🎄Christmas Mystery/Rom-Com--A Week of Mash-Ups!

 

    This week, I continue my obsession with Adrian Tchaikovsky, reading his novella Elder Race. It is told from two different points of view: Lynesse and Elder Nyr. Earth sends a group of humans to terraform a planet, making it suitable and familiar for habitation. A group of colonists and a scientific outpost remain behind, tasked with observing the events and reporting back to Earth. Lynesse is the distant descendant of those colonists and Nyr, a second-class anthropologist who occasionally emerges from stasis to check on what is happening. This brief novella explores the idea that science can appear magical to the uninitiated. So, is this book of fantasy or science fiction? This is a fascinating story, with terrific characters.

🔭🧬🧫🧝‍♀️😈

    Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman is a tragedy-to-triumph story. Young CeeCee's mother is mentally ill and not the fun, adorable kind. As her mother falls further into her delusions, CeeCee's traveling salesman father, unable to cope, leaves CeeCee to take care of her mother. Trapped CeeCee does all she can for herself and her mother, but bad things happen. CeeCee goes live with her mother's long-lost aunt in Savannah, Georgia. CeeCee moved from Ohio to life in the south in 1967. Her heart and mind have been battered and bruised, and she needs love and healing. The theme of this book is transformation from despair to hope with the help of her new neighbors and friends. 

    I love a happy ending, but this one was almost too happy, which is barely a complaint. I found the book compassionate about mental illness and the plight of those who live with it.

🌹🪻💐👒🌻👗

    I would put The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year by Ally Carter in the mystery/rom-com category. It was an exciting romp, featuring many mystery tropes, including a locked-room mystery, an old English country mansion, and the usual suspects: greedy relatives, Christmas time, and tragic backstories. On the Rom-Com side, we have a feisty friends-to-lovers storyline. I love a good mash-up! The book was fast-paced and stocked with interesting characters. I didn't guess the killer, but worked out other red herrings. 

I have previously read another Ally Carter book called The Blonde Identity. Also, super fun. Here is the link to that review:

https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/search?q=Ally+Carter

❤️‍🔥🔎🎄🔍❤️‍🔥

📚🦁 A Good Mix of Thinky-Thinky and Entertaining

 

    I enjoy reading award-winning books for several reasons. One is so I appear bright. Another is to understand what sets this book apart from all the others. Orbital by Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize. It was shortlisted for the Ursula Le Guin Prize and nominated for Best Science Fiction on GoodReads.  I had expectations. I think what made Orbital stand out was that it didn't have a dynamic science fiction plot. It recounts a day on the International Space Station, gazing down at Earth and pondering life. The writing is excellent. Harvey had eloquent descriptions of the land masses slipping by. The deep thoughts revolved around climate change, our place in the universe, and what motivates someone to pursue being an astronaut, but I didn't love it. I guess I'm still a philistine when it comes to reading.

🌏🧑‍🚀🌍🧑‍🚀🌎

    Margo's Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe was sold as a fun romp. A nineteen-year-old woman becomes pregnant by her married English teacher and decides to keep the baby against everyone's advice. As the daughter of a single mother herself, she has limited support and few options. She loses her waitress job, and her roommates move out. Desperate to support herself, she starts an OnlyFans profile. Thorpe uses the storyline to hilariously explore conundrums, such as why acting is acceptable in movies but not in professional wrestling, and what distinguishes someone as white trash from someone more palatable. The book stressed me out because it's hard to watch a single mom make poor choices that have harsh consequences. But Margo is plucky and loves her son and family; you must root for her. 

👶🏻🤼💻💉

    How to Age Disgracefully by Clare Pooley was so fun. A "mature" and somewhat reclusive woman decides she needs to make friends. First, she gets a wipe board to make a list.

😍

I was immediately hooked. This book belongs in the same subgenre as The Thursday Murder Club. It has quirky characters who need a shake-up in their lives. Things go wrong, things go right, and sometimes, things go really wrong. People help one another, and lives are changed for the better. There are smart dogs, grumpy senior citizens, teen dads, and menopausal housewives.  It has a formula, much like a romance novel, that's predictable and comforting, with whimsical side trails. This is a book that you know will have a happy ending, but it is delightful to see how they get there.

🐶👶🏻🪈💎 

    I have been reading through a compendium of The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis before bed. It was not my first trip through Narnia, and it felt like visiting friends. When I first read the Chronicles, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was the first book in the series because it was the first one written. Now, The Magician's Nephew is first because it is the first chronologically. My favorite scene remains the same, where Eustace, who had become a dragon, once again became Eustace the boy. The final book, The Last Battle, does not hold up well, but it does a grand job of finishing the series. Overall, the books and the writing are worth five stars. 

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    I'm enjoying reading books by Phaedra Patrick (what a fun name!). The Mess Lives of Book People seemed like a title designed to capture me. A woman in her 40s, Liv Green, is a cleaner. One of her clients is her favorite author, Essie Starling. When Essie dies, she leaves Liv with a life-changing bequest that will challenge her self-concept and shake up her life. I found the book to be a stretch in the realm of possibility, but entirely entertaining.

📚💻❤️‍🩹🪆

🕷️🕸️🧙‍♂️🔮🏰 More Sci-Fi with Lite Horror Fantasy and a Feel-Good Read

 

    I have read several books by Neal Stephenson, who excels at both science and historical fiction. I especially liked Cryptonomicon and Anathem. His latest book. Polostan is a historical fiction set mainly in the 1930s. It follows an unusual woman who was born in America to an American mother, moved to Russia with her father as a child in time for the revolution, then returned to the Midwest for her teenage years. She leads a complicated, fascinating life and is present at key historical events, like the Chicago World's Fair. Halfway through, I discovered that this would be a series, and I worried the ending of Polostan would be a disaster of unknowing, but Stephenson did well. I am excited to read the next book when it comes out in September.

🐎🪆🎡🎟️🩻

    After a steady diet of mindblowing sci-fi, I needed a palate cleanser. I chose The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper, by Phaedra Patrick, because a review said it was like A Man Called Ove, and it involves an older man who has lost his wife and is unsure how to continue living. The adventures that Arthur Pepper pursues are more hilarious but also uplifting. It is just on the edge of believable. A lot depends on how eccentric you believe the British to be.

🐯🐅🚇👴🏻

     I am enjoying reading Adrian Tchaikovsky at present. Spiderlight, I assumed, would be more of his Children of Time series. It was not. It was about a group of misfits on a quest to defeat the dark forces of their world that could only be accomplished through killing the Dark Lord. They needed the fang of a spider queen and her map to the Dark Lord. One spider is appointed to accompany them in an uneasy alliance. It changes all of them, and they learn astonishing things about good versus evil. Tchaikovsky. This book was entertaining and also thinky-thinky.

🕷️🕸️🧙‍♂️🔮🏰

    I like a weird book with an unusual narrator. Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell is just that kind of book. The protagonist is, perhaps, a slime mold that can take in parts from humans, trees, deer, chain mail, anything, and create an externally believable human. The village it borders sees it as a monstrous worm threatening their safety. Though a monster, she desires connection and understanding, causing story tension and a propelling narrative. It reminded me somewhat of Frankenstein in its setting and sensibility. Some themes include: Who is the real monster? Parent/Child relationships are complicated.

🪼🏰❤️💀

😍😍😍 Adrian Tchaikovsky's Science Fiction and a Memoir by Amy Griffin

 

The more I read of Adrian Tchaikovsky, the more respect I have for his creative way of thinking about the intersection of science, the unknown, and the maybe possible. Alien Clay reminds me of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago because it is set in a deadly labor camp on a prison planet called Kiln. The leadership, the Commander, wants to make scientific discoveries that will make him famous. He drives his prisoners to make discoveries that conform to "acceptable" science on a planet seeking to colonize the bodies and minds of the humans transplanted there. It's terrifically creepy and scary with enough science to feel plausible. 

👽🥀🍄🍄‍🟫

    I don't know how I came across the book. I was on a waiting list for it and jumped into reading before realizing it was a memoir, not a novel. In The Tell, "tell" has several meanings. One is a "tell" that gives observers an understanding about someone they don't have, like an eye twitch when you're lying or crossing your arms when feeling attacked. Amy Griffin's tell was her perfectionism. Another meaning is "to tell." As one of her daughters pointed out, a part of Amy Griffin feels missing. Griffin explores why she is that way. The book starts with trigger warnings about sexual abuse, so the reader can guess at what will be discovered. Griffen had buried her horrendous abuse so profoundly that she didn't remember it. Brains are excellent at protecting us from damage. What saves us children, eats us up as adults. I appreciate Amy Griffin's forthrightness and gentleness in sharing her trek as she comes to know and tell her story.

❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹

    And Put Away Childish Things and The Expert System's Brother by Adrian Tchaikovsky have wildly different environments and characters, but they are similar. I have fallen into a spiral of reading Adrian Tchaikovsky, and I'm loving it. These short books are quite different, but they share the common theme of how to make sense of the protagonist's mysterious, dangerous world.  Who am I? What is my place in it? Those ideas probably all fit under the coming-of-age trope. 

    There is an idea that writers only write one book over and over. Adrian Tchaikovsky does a fantastic job of world-building each place and populating it with emotionally authentic characters doing weird stuff, in weird places, with weird companions and enemies. He is thought-provoking and entertaining. And sometimes a bit creepy.

 🤡🧸👹😷

🌳🐝🚀🤖

🤖🛸🐷🚀🧑‍🚀👯AI Friend or Foe? Two Books Explore

 

    I enjoy Adrian Tchaikovsky's science fiction and have read several of his books, like his Children of Time series. Service Model takes place on Earth. The protagonist is a valet robot named Charles whose days are an endless repetition of caring for his master, the only human in the house, that is run and maintained by robots. One day, Charles does something he'd never done before, changing everything for him, for robots, and for the world. This started slowly, but I persevered and was captivated by the ideas, the mysterious plot, and by Charles. It reminded me of Pinocchio. Charles goes through different places and experiences, meeting big, exploitative characters with his sidekick that doubles as the voice in his head that leads him toward his big moment.

 Here are reviews of other Adrian Tchaikovsky books: https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/search?q=Adrian

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    Come & Get It by Kiley Reid has a cast of eight women. Their backstories have similarities, but differ in how family and authorities respond. Once, a character, when she was sixteen, almost hit a man with her car, and he had a heart attack and died. She receives support, counseling, and understanding. Another character accidentally kills a dog, and she is shamed and shunned. Reid weaves these experiences into the choices they make in the book. As someone who frequently wonders what causes someone to do, say, or act in unwise ways, I found this book fascinating. It has a large build-up to a critical moment. The aftermath is surprising to me. Reid's writing is tight and suspenseful. 

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   I have recently discovered the writer Mur Lafferty, a Hugo Award Finalist. She writes Sci-Fi that reminds me of Connie Willis, my favorite author. When I visited her website (https://murverse.com/about/), I saw that Connie Willis is one of her influential authors. This week, I listened to Six Wakes. A spaceship carries six crew members to a planet to colonize life. Cloning technology has been established, and many people use it to extend their lives. Maria Arena awakens in a clone vat without memories of her time on the ship save for her orientation: meaning she has died and the last mind map available for her clone is the start of the voyage. Around her are her fellow crew members also emerging from clone vats, plus several dead bodies. It is a locked room mystery. One of the crew members killed the others and then died as well. But no one has memories of their last days, which makes it difficult to know who to trust. Maria, the lowliest member of the crew, races to solve the mystery before the killer remembers and seeks to accomplish their mission. A great book from a sci-fi perspective, not only predicting cloning but also many of the problems surrounding clones. The book is a tantalizing mystery. So good!

🛸🐷🚀🧑‍🚀👯

🤖Surprise! No Dragons This Week, but Plenty of Aliens 👽, Books 📚, and Creepy Dystopian Future📱

 

    Hum by Helen Phillips is a look into a possible dystopian future. I found it scary because it felt so very possible. A woman loses her job teaching AI how to be more human. In financial desperation, she agrees to an experimental surgical procedure that would make her unreadable to the ubiquitous surveillance, screens, and targeted advertising that pervades every aspect of living. With the money, she buys her family an extravagant trip to a hotel/botanical garden. There, they smell unpolluted air, drink untainted water, and lie in the grass under a tree. An impossibility in their current city life in a cramped apartment, where they are behind in the rent. She hopes this time in paradise will be a respite from their daily lives, but even there, serpents hide.

🤖🌳💧📱

    Mark Lawrence's library trilogy ends with The Book That Held Her Heart. Lawrence finishes well. It is obvious Lawrence is well-versed in fantasy literature, and there are Easter Eggs in the text that made me smile. The main characters, Livira and Evar, are apart in time and space and seek a way back toward each other, and want to end the great war at the heart of the library. Lawrence tackles the scourge of tribalism and the need for a common enemy to rally against. The characters visit a Jewish book store in Nazi Germany on Kristallenacht and find similarities to their world. The infinite library is troubled, and its structure is collapsing. The final book is a fitting conclusion to a great series.

📚📖🐦‍⬛

    My favorite author is Connie Willis, who writes incredible science fiction, and Mur Lafferty has a similar vibe. I reaher series'she first and second booes: The Midsolar Murders. The first book, Station Eternity, introduces Mallory Viridian, who seems to have the unfortunate ability to attract murder. Wherever she goes, murders happen, which she then solves. The police and the FBI suspect her even though she solves each murder--and there are many. Her family and friends recognize that she's innocent, but still fear being collateral damage and keep their distance. So she travels to a space station with only two other humans to live among multiple alien species, hoping her murder curse won't follow her there. Guess what happens? The premise is clever and well thought out. Malory makes friends among the variety of sentient beings who dwell there. It is as if Star Trek and Murder She Wrote had a space baby that lived in Cabot Cove.

    After finishing the first, I immediately started the second book, Chaos Terminal. Lafferty continues the story. More humans visit Eternity with designs on exploiting the aliens for their own nefarious reasons. As Mallory would say, it's all about the connections.

👽🛸🐝🪨

🐺💧🐺Mystery, ❤️‍🩹Romance, and 🐷High and 🐉Low Fantasy

    The Grey Wolf is #19 in the series, Chief Inspector Armande Gamache by Louise Penny. I can count on Penny to bring a sly humor, intriguing mystery, and mouth-watering food descriptions. Her latest book is as twisty and heartwarming as her previous ones. I remember watching the Starsky and Hutch TV show. In one show, Hutch's fiancée is killed. In the next episode, it's back to business as usual. Louis Penny's characters are continually affected by what has happened to them in previous books. It makes them more life-like and vulnerable. Her plots are usually based in the terrible possible--like terrorist attacks or greed overriding compassion. This is one of my favorite mystery series.

    🐺💧🐺🚰

 

    Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert is the first book I've read by the British Romance writer. She writes funny, sarcastic characters that deal with relatable issues like chronic illness and social anxiety without resorting to easy answers. Her main character, Chloe Brown, is trying to figure out life with fibromyalgia, so she makes a list of scary things to do, like go camping and travel the world with nothing but hand luggage. She is bright and struggling. She meets her new building super, another wounded person trying to find his footing after being knocked down by life. It adheres to the Rom-com rules. You know they'll end up together, but the journey there is fun. 

💖❤️‍🩹🐈‍⬛🏍️

    I read the series, The Chronicles of Prydain, by Lloyd Alexander, many years ago in middle school. My book club is reading Newbery award winners, and this month we read the final book in the series, The High King. I have enjoyed the books we've read, but this one wasn't a great read on its own because it is the culmination of the series. The events in the previous books are dim in my memory. I could tell that an interaction or character was significant, but I didn't know why. To fully enjoy this book, I would need to read the entire series. The large cast of characters was skillfully rendered with distinctive mannerisms and voices. My primary feeling upon finishing the book was disappointment that I hadn't started at the beginning. Lloyd Alexander's characters agonize over choices that resonate. I recommend the series, especially for middle schoolers.

🐷👸🧙‍♂️🐦‍🔥🏰

    The Black Powder War is book #3 of the Temeraire series. Our dragon, Temeraire, is still in China, where he originated. Life for dragons in China is integrated with everyday life, and dragons are treated as equals, in contrast with Britain, where dragons are considered domesticated beasts on the level of a horse. Lawrence, his captain, wrestles with wanting Temeraire to flourish and also serve the British nation honorably. That is a moral dilemma that has grown throughout the series so far. Lawrence is portrayed as quite conventional despite being in the Dragon Corps. It is the height of the Napoleonic War, and Britain is in danger from Napoleon. 

    The history aspect is interesting. It has caused me to look at several Wikipedia articles, and I want to read a book about them when I find one I like. At times, the pace of the story suffers from getting bogged down in the minutiae of the war; however, there are still dragons. Novik has considered how dragons would best be deployed as a fighting force.

 I look forward to continuing the series.

🐲🐉🍜💨

🐉 Dragons, 🐦‍⬛Avenging Birds, and 😐 Noobs

 

Book two of the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik takes place in China, where dragons are more commonplace than in England. I like how Novik thinks about several aspects of a world with dragons, like whether a country could raise enough food to support dragons and dragon bloodlines. Book two wasn't as exciting as book one, but the British and dragons are compelling. I plan to continue reading the series until I finish all nine books, though not urgently. The writing and plot are solid.

🐲🐉🗺️💨

  Lucy Foley excels at writing creepy, suspenseful stories full of broken, struggling people who hurt others and themselves. It gave me pause when I was deciding whether or not to read The Midnight Feast. I know I will go down the dark alleys of the human experience. She has unforeseen zigzags to the final page. There is no moment I can let my guard down because there is a plot twist to reveal. The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley is a suspenseful, bleak mystery that kept me guessing. Her characters are layers of light and shadow. The ending was immensely satisfying.

https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/search?q=The+Paris+Apartment

🌊🌅🌳🐦‍⬛🪶

    Audible gave me a free listen to the Lit RPG The Mayor of Noobtown by Ryan Rimmel. This is an eight-book series, so if they hook me, it's to their financial advantage. It is a lightweight, fun book. The premise (like most Lit RPGs) is that a real person finds themselves in some sort of video game needing to survive by leveling up and defeating monsters. The humor is juvenile, so it made me smile. Having a pet or magical creature as a guide is a feature of all Lit RPGs. Jim, the main character, is stuck with an unreliable guide, a level one demon needing his help. It creates an interesting symbiotic relationship. The book ends on a cliffhanger. 

😐👿🗡️🧌🐺🏘️

🐲🌊🦄🦛🧌🐙 Help! I'm Caught in a Series Loop!

 

    I have read and enjoyed Naomi Novik's series Scholomance and several of her stand-alones like Uprooted and Spinning Silver. I am pleased she has another series, Temeraire, of which  His Majesty's Dragon is the start. I have been reluctant to read another series about dragons and the people who ride them. The book captivated me from the beginning, with an origin story set in the Napoleonic Wars, in which dragons fight for both sides. They are trained and treated like cavalry horses. However, Temeraire is different. Captain Will Lawrence fights on the sea for England. The ship he captains captures a French ship with valuable treasure: an unhatched dragon egg. It hatches early and bonds with Captain Lawrence, changing his life's trajectory. He must now join the Dragon Corp. Both dragon and rider must learn to fight as a team in a service that isn't well respected and is resentful of the newcomers. Novik paints vivid action scenes within the fast-paced plot. The characters are witty and likable. I'm hooked!

🐉🐲🌊⛅️

    Where the Library Hides by Isabel Ibañez is the second in the duology, Secrets of the Nile.  I reviewed What the River Knows here: https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/2025/02/books-with-magic-and-magical-food.html. I found Ibañez to be effusive in her descriptions.  The plot moved forward, but it occasionally gets bogged down in minutiae. The world she's built contains trace magic, but it is used as a get-out-of-jail-free card. Life-threatening injury? Surprise, the main character finds a healing potion. Need to communicate with someone far away? Oh, look, someone brought a magic teacup that makes that happen.  I didn't like how it ended. It reminded me of a Mission Impossible episode.  I would read more from Ibañez because she has clever ideas and creates interesting characters. I'm betting she will improve over time. 

💍📜🗺️

    I heard a quote recently, and I can't chase it down. Still, the gist was that people sought escape when anxious, like how movies boomed during the Great Depression. I have been into fantasy a great deal lately. Hmmm. I have read everything Matt Dinniman has published--at least according to GoodReads. The Hobgoblin Riot is the second book of his Dominion of Blades (DOM) series. He wrote it before his more famous series, Dungeon Crawler Carl.  I can see the seeds of characters and plot lines being explored in DOM. It is a fascinating peek behind the creative curtain. The book ends on a cliffhanger, and I'm curious if Dinniman plans to revisit the series.  I do like things tidily wrapped up.

🦄🦛🧌🐙

🔮🪐🌟🐸🦹‍♂️🐉Childhood Classic, Fantasy, Dystopian Future, and Historical Fiction

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle was the March pick for my book club. We are having a great time reading Newberry Award Winners. Not everyone is a fan of Sci-Fi/Fantasy, so I wanted to know how this book would land with some of the others. It is over 50 years old! It has held up well. I appreciate how genuine the characters are portrayed: an angry fifteen-year-old girl, a popular athlete with a tough home life, and, of course, the beings from outer space. L'Engle has universal themes about the pain of growing up, being caught between good and evil, and the importance of love. What makes the book endure is that these topics are not dealt with tritely but sincerely and with great compassion. It's a winner.

🔮🪐🌟

 

    Apprentice to a Villain is the second in a series by Hannah Nicole  Maehrer. Fun fact: The series grew out of TikToks Maehrer, which was made around the idea of what it would be like to be an assistant to a villain whose job involves torture and general evilness. Here is a link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDoN6GpjTb8&t=187s

    The second book continues the story with some problems solved and others cropping up. Maehrer developed her characters, which grew and changed. There are many nascent romances. She leans heavily on the frenemies-to-lovers trope. I found it annoying that the main characters, The Villain and Evie, his former assistant and now apprentice, refuse to admit they love each other, but I'm also amused at the ways the author finds for them to "have to" kiss.

I'm looking forward to the next book.

🐸🦹‍♂️🐉

    I have seen several ads for the movie The Wild Robot and decided to read the book before watching it. It is YA fiction. The Wild Robot by Peter Brown is about a robot from a shipment stranded on an unpopulated island. The Robot, Ros, is anthropomorphized, having feelings and forming relationships. I listened to the audiobook but understood the physical book has fantastic illustrations by Peter Brown. There are more books in the series. I would file this book under heartwarming.

🤖🪿🐿️🦫🦌🌳

    A friend recommended The Lost Girls of Paris by Pam Jenoff. It is historical fiction about British female spies who aided the French Resistance in World War II. They trained for functions but primarily worked as covert radio operators. I am somewhat burnt out on World War II books, but I tried it. The story is told by three different women: two women in 1944 and a war widow in 1946. The story of the women clumsily fit around the story of actual events and felt forced, but it was still enjoyable and compelling. I'm glad I read it. 

🕵️‍♀️🔘🌇