mistressofmuses (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mistressofmuses) wrote2025-07-31 09:23 pm
mistressofmuses) wrote2025-07-31 09:23 pm
Books read in July
Six books this month again! :D
Of course... I finished two of them today. (Why did I do that to myself, having to write both of them up in one go?) Pretty glad with all the reading I did manage this month, though it felt a little up and down in terms of how much I was getting done. Six books seems to be about the max I can manage. We'll see how August goes!
Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes
Horror/Science Fiction (subgenres: haunting, psychological) (background m/f) - ebook novel
4/5 [I originally gave this one a 4.5, but later revised it to a 4.]
Claire and her temporary crew are on their final mission to the outer reaches of occupied space, replacing parts of the communication net before the task is automated. There should be nothing else out there... but they intercept a distress call. Investigating it leads them to a ghost ship, the remains of the first and only attempt at a luxury cruise in space. The Aurora vanished twenty years before, taking its hundreds of celebrity passengers and entire crew with it.
The ghost ship represents the chance to solve an enduring mystery... and the opportunity for salvage. If they can stake their claim, prove they're the ones who found it, this could be the financial chance for all of them to do whatever they want with their futures. As they investigate the ship, it becomes clear that this wasn't some mechanical or systems failure. Everywhere are signs of violence and paranoia; murders and suicides seemed to claim almost all the lives on board.
Months later, Claire is in an institution, medicated and monitored by her employers. They want to know what happened aboard the Aurora. She can't remember her escape, or what happened to some of her crew. Her employer thinks she killed them. She's sure that there was something terrible aboard the ghost ship, and that whatever it was, it's still dangerous.
I really enjoyed this one! It pretty much felt like an Alien movie, but instead of aliens, it's unexplained phenomena and ghosts. Sort of. "Feels like an Alien movie, and like, one of the good ones" is a compliment from me: I like Alien movies. That said... it does feel like the type of story that has certainly been told before. It's not treading brand new ground or anything like that, but I think it is a very good example of this type of story, and I had fun the whole way through.
I'd say it definitely is more of a horror story in a sci-fi setting than really a sci-fi story. The technology and setting definitely matter to the story, but the horror is the story, and I'm not sure it's going to satisfy anyone who is substantially more interested in the sci-fi side. One of the things I liked about The Luminous Dead was having a small amount of ambiguity around some of the things that happened, in terms of whether or not something paranormal was actually occurring. This removes the ambiguity, Claire does experience genuine paranormal events, and I actually really like getting that in a sci-fi setting. A lot of sci-fi-horror has paranormal-ish events, but gives them a scientific (or "scientific") explanation. ("These spooky figures look like ghosts, but they're actually holographic recordings from an advanced civilization. This thing appears to be possession but it's actually an alien lifeform that hijacks the brain.")
The story sets up some early clues that I did pick up on, and it was satisfying that those clues were what I thought they were; I feel like I've been frustrated recently by things that felt like hints that ultimately went nowhere, so it's nice when they're actually intentional.
The one thing that I wasn't completely sold on was how... current-modern the characters and culture feel. It wasn't bad in terms of story relatability, and in that regard I kind of get why it might have been a choice; I (and theoretically other readers) understand the types of characters and cultural touchstones we're talking about. I won't say that I can't believe that a hundred years in the future douchey assholes will be wearing crude novelty t-shirts, but I'd sort of like to think the douchey assholes of a century in the future will have new fashion choices to signal their douchey assholishness, ha. Same with reality television: I imagine that 80 years from now, that's going to look somewhat different than it does now, at least in some way... but I also understand that "reality TV starlet" is an archetype, and having that be easily recognizable to the audience makes sense. And perhaps culture utterly stagnating is a reasonable or intentional portrayal as well.
Given that this and The Luminous Dead have been two of my favorites this year, maybe I need to read more horror/sci-fi. I think I will add another book by this author to the infinite TBR. (Also, part of me is enjoying pretending that The Luminous Dead and Dead Silence could exist in the same universe, given a few similar aspects.)
Installment Immortality by Seanan McGuire
Book 14 of Incryptid
Urban fantasy - physical novel; read with Taylor
4/5
This one is a reread, so same summary as before:
As a ghost, Mary Dunlavy isn't supposed to be able to die again. After being caught in the blast of a bomb her family set in the Covenant's training center, she got about as close as it's possible for a ghost to come. Six months later, the anima mundi - the living spirit of the world - has put Mary back together, allowing her to return home to her family... but the anima mundi also has a job for her. Mary isn't terribly keen on working for a divinity again, not after her time working for the Crossroads, but it's not like she can say no. The Covenant knows that there was a ghost involved in the attack on them, and they're taking their revenge by capturing every spirit they can find along the east coast, locking them away, and torturing them. With her charges Elsie and Arthur in tow, Mary is headed to the east coast on a mission to stop the Covenant's attack, before the ghosts they're torturing become dangerous weapons in their own right.
My thoughts are pretty similar to before! I just read this not very long ago, but Taylor and I read the series together, so now we're all caught up!
I feel like I did notice even more strongly this time how much Arthur's whole situation is coming up. I certainly noticed it the first time, enough to remark on it, but this time it stood out even more. I'm glad, because that's one of the current big plot threads that I most want to get a resolution, even if I don't know how it's going to resolve. (This also makes sense, as it's now been revealed that the next book goes back to Sarah as narrator, so this could very well be making sure it's set up for something coming up pretty soon.)
The first time I read this one, I teared up at the scene toward the end where the ghost boy meets the ghosts of dogs that had died in the animal shelter (and adopts one.) After having lost Cy, that part made me cry *really hard.* I felt ridiculous as I was trying to read it aloud, and kept choking up. ;-;
Hummingbird Salamander by Jeff VanderMeer
Thriller - physical novel
4/5
When Jane, a security analyst, gets a mysterious note handed to her, it sends her life spiraling completely out of control. The note leads her to a storage unit, containing the taxidermied remains of an extinct hummingbird... and another clue. Jane discovers that everything is connected to a woman named Sylvina, an environmental activist (or, some say, terrorist) who was recently killed. Investigating her reveals a more complicated legacy than anyone could have guessed, and embroils Jane in power plays between political assassins, government agents, and crime factions. Everyone wants to know what Sylvina was planning... and they're all certain that Jane is going to lead to the answer.
This book was pretty good. I do pretty much always like VanderMeer's writing, even if I didn't find this one quite as engaging as the Southern Reach series (which are among my favorite books) or the Ambergris trilogy.
Jane is an interesting narrator - she is inherently unreliable, as she says multiple times that she is obscuring certain information, like her own name, or the descriptions of her coworkers. She will say she feels a certain way about a person or a situation, then chapters later reveal that actually she was only pretending to feel that way.
The book also doles out information at an interesting pace. There's all the information that Jane is seeking, about Sylvina and what she was or wasn't planning, and all the ways that information is being actively hidden from her. But there's also the information that Jane herself is providing to the reader, when she talks about her childhood, the time spent with her brother, their abusive grandfather, etc. Those reveals happen slowly enough that the ultimate resolution to those threads really does feel like a gut-punch.
This is certainly a story that exists almost exclusively in shades of grey morality. Most of the characters that Jane encounters are pretty terrible, but they also tend to be complex. I can certainly understand how each of them views themself as a protagonist of the whole broader story.
I appreciated the frequent offhand details that were hinting at some really sinister background apocalypse happening, eventually coming more to the foreground, yet also still just being treated continually as "life as normal." That certainly felt... relatable.
I really liked the ending, even and in part because of the ambiguity toward "what happens next." It felt like it tied things together well, making it feel like everything did matter in the end, whether it "works out" or not, even if this just creates a dead end for the next person seeking the answers. (Which I was glad of, because for a little while before the end, it felt like it was going in a "none of this mattered" direction, which would also be a coherent thematic choice, but one that wouldn't have satisfied me as a reader!)
There were a lot of ways in which this felt similar to The Southern Reach, even if it's a very different story. Obviously the themes of ecological collapse, and even things like espionage coming from multiple directions, but also things like... being colonized by an idea, or the realization that once you see something in a certain way, or become aware of something in a new way, you can no longer return to your perspective from before that point. Things that almost necessitate realigning your own priorities, even if it means you are alienating yourself from the world around you. (As well as All These Relationships Are Complicated As Fuck.)
Mislaid in Parts Half-Known by Seanan McGuire
Book 9 of Wayward Children
Fantasy - physical novella
4/5 [I originally gave this book a 4.5, but later revised it to a 4.]
When Antsy was returned to Earth from The Shop Where Lost Things Go, she retained a gift: the ability to sense and find things that have been lost. Now that she has found her way to Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children, she at least has somewhere to belong... until some of the other students discover that her gift means that she could find their Doors. When a couple of the students try to compel her to do so, she flees with Kade, Christopher, Sumi, Cora, and Emily, the group escaping through the Door to the world Kade was once taken to. From there they make it to The Store Where Lost Things Go, where it's clear that the proprietor of the shop has not done as Antsy demanded, and has continued preying on children who are kept naive of the toll it takes on them.
I found this story quite fun, and enjoyed the whole thing. I got my wish to see Antsy get a chance at a better part of her story! The worlds visited were quite fun... interesting to see Kade's world (if briefly and against his will) and the dinosaur world is of course right up my alley.
It also retroactively kind of answered one of my questions from several books ago. Back in Beneath the Sugar Sky, I expressed some minor frustration/confusion about an object that would have allowed anyone to open their Doors, which is supposedly the one thing that most of the characters want more than anything, and yet no one even seemed more than very slightly tempted. This time, there are characters after Antsy for her ability to find the Doors, but most of the protagonists don't want her to find them. The whole ethos of the Doors is "Be Sure," and they want to be completely sure, on their own, for their Doors to find them again.
This book did feel a bit... transitional. That may be a bit par for the course, with the odd-numbered books, which focus on the overarching story of the school, vs. the even-numbered books which focus on individual characters and the Doors they go through. (Though often those lead into the overarching story as well.) These are novellas, so they are short, but... this book was a lot of moving from place to place, and felt more like it was setting future things up than doing a lot in and of itself. Still enjoyed the whole thing, and the tour between worlds that it provided.
Night's Edge by Liz Kerin
Book 1 of Night's Edge
Horror (subgenre: vampire, pandemic (ish)) (f/f) - ebook novel
4/5
In 2010, a pandemic began to arise. Beginning in Russia, "Saratov Syndrome" quietly spreads across the globe. It creates vampires: its victims cease to age, gain inhuman strength and speed, form a pheromonal attraction that draws people close to them... but sunlight can kill them within seconds, and they must subsist on fresh human blood daily in order to survive. Ten year old Mia's mother, Izzy, is turned into a "Sara" by her boyfriend, Devon. Mia and her mother eventually flee, both trying to escape Devin and the increasing governmental crackdown on Saras.
Years later, the two have made their lives work, keeping Izzy's condition from being discovered. Mia lives her entire life around her mother's schedule, making sure she's available to draw blood to feed her mother, to protect her during the day, and help her run a restaurant at night. She's never considered any other options for herself, knowing that she'll always need to be responsible for her mother.
Then Mia meets Jade, a part-time barista and musician. For the first time, Mia really wants there to be something more to her life, and starts to believe that could be possible. Except when Devin tries to worm his way back into their lives, Izzy starts keeping secrets of her own.
This book was good. It didn't lean quite as hard on the pandemic aspect as I first expected (though there are aspects of that,) but it certainly also very much felt like pandemic fiction.
The story is told in alternating sections, between 2010, following Mia as a child after Izzy's Saratov infection had first started, and the current day (roughly 2023), with the life Izzy and Mia have built. The parallel stories worked well, in my opinion. I found both of them interesting, and I enjoyed it better than I would have liked having say, all the 2010 bits come first and lead into just the current ones.
The thing that stuck with me the most was just how well the story captured the abusive/codependent relationship between Izzy and Mia. The two do clearly love each other, but it is very immediately clear that it's also not at all healthy. Mia is very much trapped, and has had to sacrifice every aspect of her own life to protect her mother, while also being constantly reminded that her mother could hurt her very easily, and that she can't even express minor disagreement or dissatisfaction without opening herself up to potential harm. While Mia's mom being a vampire certainly makes that potential for harm a lot more dramatic, the emotional beats of resentment tangled up with fear and love all in one were really resonant.
I think that most of what I could say about Jade and Mia's relationship ends up heading toward spoiler territory. :/ But contrary to how little it got mentioned in the summary and my thoughts, their relationship is a pretty significant chunk of the book and propels a lot of the plot forward.
Just because I am picky and annoying about this kind of thing: there was one editing oops that threw me off, where two different versions of the same line were left in. I'll take "two versions of the same bit of dialogue left in back-to-back" over "left an AI prompt in the text" any fucking day, lol, but it still threw me out of the story pretty hard when it happened.
The book has a sequel, which I'm adding to my TBR, but not pushing up as a priority. This book did feel complete, and I wouldn't say it's a cliffhanger ending, but it definitely left multiple plot threads hanging.
Buchanan House by Charley Descoteaux
M/M Romance - ebook novel
Book 1 of Buchanan House
3.5/5
After Eric's beloved grandmother dies, he has no idea what to do. She was the only one who understood him, and he's practically estranged from the rest of his family. His best friend, Nathan, comes up with a plan for them: using Eric's inheritance from his grandmother to buy an old camp along the Oregon coast, renovate it, and turn it into a boutique, queer-friendly getaway for the two of them to run.
It'll be a huge undertaking, but Eric is excited to finally do something for himself, and quickly gets swept up in the idea. Then he meets Tim, the handyman they hire to help with the renovations they need, and he's swept up in a whole new way.
This book took way too long for me to read (almost three months!), and I'm afraid that means I'm sort of lacking things to say about it. It's not really the fault of the book itself, I didn't dislike it or anything... I was just reading other things faster, and ended up hitting on multiple ebooks from my list. When I've got an ebook as my main read, I tend to read those when I have random time to kill on my phone, and the ebook side-reads get pushed aside.
I liked this book, but didn't love it. The writing was pretty decent, and I genuinely think the author was invested in telling a good story. Plot-wise it felt a little too episodic and meandering for me. There are multiple plot threads going, but a lot of them failed to truly feel particularly connected or impactful... but maybe it would have felt a little more coherent if I hadn't spent so long reading it.
The story introduces a *lot* of characters, some of whom come back multiple times, some of whom just show up and are then gone... I do recognize that might be dropping plot seeds for future books in a series, introducing characters who will be significant later in stories of their own... but it felt like a bit too much.
Unfortunately, if that was the intent, I might not ever know. When I went to add this book on LibraryThing, I was puzzled that it no longer had an Amazon listing, when I know that was where I'd purchased it from (admittedly, years ago, I think). I found the book itself on the LibraryThing site, but then decided to try and figure out what had happened to it elsewhere. Unfortunately, the author removed almost all of her books from sale, deleted her author website, and most of her social media. Her Facebook page explains that after the election, she no longer felt safe writing queer fiction, and was going back into the closet in her personal life, for fear of there being potential repercussions against her or her family. I'm sad that she felt the need to do that, and it feels especially sad when at least this book was so much about making peace with yourself, and queer identity, and specifically creating spaces for queer community to exist. Ironic in the worst ways, and I hope that she stays safe and later may feel able to return as an author.
I am currently in the middle of four books, though I will be starting two more imminently:
- Dracula, which I realized I should be including. Reading and listening to it in serial format via Dracula Daily and Re: Dracula
- Duma Key, with Alex (we're over the halfway point!)
- Dead Silence, with Alex (because we were trying to kill time and didn't have our book, so started an ebook, even though I'd just read it)
- Witch King, with Taylor
- Uprooted, my next main read, which I'll start tonight probably
- Not completely decided on the next ebook side-read, but I might just pick the oldest unread thing on my kindle, ha
Of course... I finished two of them today. (Why did I do that to myself, having to write both of them up in one go?) Pretty glad with all the reading I did manage this month, though it felt a little up and down in terms of how much I was getting done. Six books seems to be about the max I can manage. We'll see how August goes!
Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes
Horror/Science Fiction (subgenres: haunting, psychological) (background m/f) - ebook novel
4/5 [I originally gave this one a 4.5, but later revised it to a 4.]
Claire and her temporary crew are on their final mission to the outer reaches of occupied space, replacing parts of the communication net before the task is automated. There should be nothing else out there... but they intercept a distress call. Investigating it leads them to a ghost ship, the remains of the first and only attempt at a luxury cruise in space. The Aurora vanished twenty years before, taking its hundreds of celebrity passengers and entire crew with it.
The ghost ship represents the chance to solve an enduring mystery... and the opportunity for salvage. If they can stake their claim, prove they're the ones who found it, this could be the financial chance for all of them to do whatever they want with their futures. As they investigate the ship, it becomes clear that this wasn't some mechanical or systems failure. Everywhere are signs of violence and paranoia; murders and suicides seemed to claim almost all the lives on board.
Months later, Claire is in an institution, medicated and monitored by her employers. They want to know what happened aboard the Aurora. She can't remember her escape, or what happened to some of her crew. Her employer thinks she killed them. She's sure that there was something terrible aboard the ghost ship, and that whatever it was, it's still dangerous.
My thoughts, slight spoilers:
I really enjoyed this one! It pretty much felt like an Alien movie, but instead of aliens, it's unexplained phenomena and ghosts. Sort of. "Feels like an Alien movie, and like, one of the good ones" is a compliment from me: I like Alien movies. That said... it does feel like the type of story that has certainly been told before. It's not treading brand new ground or anything like that, but I think it is a very good example of this type of story, and I had fun the whole way through.
I'd say it definitely is more of a horror story in a sci-fi setting than really a sci-fi story. The technology and setting definitely matter to the story, but the horror is the story, and I'm not sure it's going to satisfy anyone who is substantially more interested in the sci-fi side. One of the things I liked about The Luminous Dead was having a small amount of ambiguity around some of the things that happened, in terms of whether or not something paranormal was actually occurring. This removes the ambiguity, Claire does experience genuine paranormal events, and I actually really like getting that in a sci-fi setting. A lot of sci-fi-horror has paranormal-ish events, but gives them a scientific (or "scientific") explanation. ("These spooky figures look like ghosts, but they're actually holographic recordings from an advanced civilization. This thing appears to be possession but it's actually an alien lifeform that hijacks the brain.")
The story sets up some early clues that I did pick up on, and it was satisfying that those clues were what I thought they were; I feel like I've been frustrated recently by things that felt like hints that ultimately went nowhere, so it's nice when they're actually intentional.
The one thing that I wasn't completely sold on was how... current-modern the characters and culture feel. It wasn't bad in terms of story relatability, and in that regard I kind of get why it might have been a choice; I (and theoretically other readers) understand the types of characters and cultural touchstones we're talking about. I won't say that I can't believe that a hundred years in the future douchey assholes will be wearing crude novelty t-shirts, but I'd sort of like to think the douchey assholes of a century in the future will have new fashion choices to signal their douchey assholishness, ha. Same with reality television: I imagine that 80 years from now, that's going to look somewhat different than it does now, at least in some way... but I also understand that "reality TV starlet" is an archetype, and having that be easily recognizable to the audience makes sense. And perhaps culture utterly stagnating is a reasonable or intentional portrayal as well.
Given that this and The Luminous Dead have been two of my favorites this year, maybe I need to read more horror/sci-fi. I think I will add another book by this author to the infinite TBR. (Also, part of me is enjoying pretending that The Luminous Dead and Dead Silence could exist in the same universe, given a few similar aspects.)
Installment Immortality by Seanan McGuire
Book 14 of Incryptid
Urban fantasy - physical novel; read with Taylor
4/5
This one is a reread, so same summary as before:
As a ghost, Mary Dunlavy isn't supposed to be able to die again. After being caught in the blast of a bomb her family set in the Covenant's training center, she got about as close as it's possible for a ghost to come. Six months later, the anima mundi - the living spirit of the world - has put Mary back together, allowing her to return home to her family... but the anima mundi also has a job for her. Mary isn't terribly keen on working for a divinity again, not after her time working for the Crossroads, but it's not like she can say no. The Covenant knows that there was a ghost involved in the attack on them, and they're taking their revenge by capturing every spirit they can find along the east coast, locking them away, and torturing them. With her charges Elsie and Arthur in tow, Mary is headed to the east coast on a mission to stop the Covenant's attack, before the ghosts they're torturing become dangerous weapons in their own right.
My thoughts, minor spoilers:
My thoughts are pretty similar to before! I just read this not very long ago, but Taylor and I read the series together, so now we're all caught up!
I feel like I did notice even more strongly this time how much Arthur's whole situation is coming up. I certainly noticed it the first time, enough to remark on it, but this time it stood out even more. I'm glad, because that's one of the current big plot threads that I most want to get a resolution, even if I don't know how it's going to resolve. (This also makes sense, as it's now been revealed that the next book goes back to Sarah as narrator, so this could very well be making sure it's set up for something coming up pretty soon.)
The first time I read this one, I teared up at the scene toward the end where the ghost boy meets the ghosts of dogs that had died in the animal shelter (and adopts one.) After having lost Cy, that part made me cry *really hard.* I felt ridiculous as I was trying to read it aloud, and kept choking up. ;-;
Hummingbird Salamander by Jeff VanderMeer
Thriller - physical novel
4/5
When Jane, a security analyst, gets a mysterious note handed to her, it sends her life spiraling completely out of control. The note leads her to a storage unit, containing the taxidermied remains of an extinct hummingbird... and another clue. Jane discovers that everything is connected to a woman named Sylvina, an environmental activist (or, some say, terrorist) who was recently killed. Investigating her reveals a more complicated legacy than anyone could have guessed, and embroils Jane in power plays between political assassins, government agents, and crime factions. Everyone wants to know what Sylvina was planning... and they're all certain that Jane is going to lead to the answer.
My thoughts, only the vaguest of spoilers:
This book was pretty good. I do pretty much always like VanderMeer's writing, even if I didn't find this one quite as engaging as the Southern Reach series (which are among my favorite books) or the Ambergris trilogy.
Jane is an interesting narrator - she is inherently unreliable, as she says multiple times that she is obscuring certain information, like her own name, or the descriptions of her coworkers. She will say she feels a certain way about a person or a situation, then chapters later reveal that actually she was only pretending to feel that way.
The book also doles out information at an interesting pace. There's all the information that Jane is seeking, about Sylvina and what she was or wasn't planning, and all the ways that information is being actively hidden from her. But there's also the information that Jane herself is providing to the reader, when she talks about her childhood, the time spent with her brother, their abusive grandfather, etc. Those reveals happen slowly enough that the ultimate resolution to those threads really does feel like a gut-punch.
This is certainly a story that exists almost exclusively in shades of grey morality. Most of the characters that Jane encounters are pretty terrible, but they also tend to be complex. I can certainly understand how each of them views themself as a protagonist of the whole broader story.
I appreciated the frequent offhand details that were hinting at some really sinister background apocalypse happening, eventually coming more to the foreground, yet also still just being treated continually as "life as normal." That certainly felt... relatable.
I really liked the ending, even and in part because of the ambiguity toward "what happens next." It felt like it tied things together well, making it feel like everything did matter in the end, whether it "works out" or not, even if this just creates a dead end for the next person seeking the answers. (Which I was glad of, because for a little while before the end, it felt like it was going in a "none of this mattered" direction, which would also be a coherent thematic choice, but one that wouldn't have satisfied me as a reader!)
There were a lot of ways in which this felt similar to The Southern Reach, even if it's a very different story. Obviously the themes of ecological collapse, and even things like espionage coming from multiple directions, but also things like... being colonized by an idea, or the realization that once you see something in a certain way, or become aware of something in a new way, you can no longer return to your perspective from before that point. Things that almost necessitate realigning your own priorities, even if it means you are alienating yourself from the world around you. (As well as All These Relationships Are Complicated As Fuck.)
Mislaid in Parts Half-Known by Seanan McGuire
Book 9 of Wayward Children
Fantasy - physical novella
4/5 [I originally gave this book a 4.5, but later revised it to a 4.]
When Antsy was returned to Earth from The Shop Where Lost Things Go, she retained a gift: the ability to sense and find things that have been lost. Now that she has found her way to Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children, she at least has somewhere to belong... until some of the other students discover that her gift means that she could find their Doors. When a couple of the students try to compel her to do so, she flees with Kade, Christopher, Sumi, Cora, and Emily, the group escaping through the Door to the world Kade was once taken to. From there they make it to The Store Where Lost Things Go, where it's clear that the proprietor of the shop has not done as Antsy demanded, and has continued preying on children who are kept naive of the toll it takes on them.
My thoughts, minor spoilers:
I found this story quite fun, and enjoyed the whole thing. I got my wish to see Antsy get a chance at a better part of her story! The worlds visited were quite fun... interesting to see Kade's world (if briefly and against his will) and the dinosaur world is of course right up my alley.
It also retroactively kind of answered one of my questions from several books ago. Back in Beneath the Sugar Sky, I expressed some minor frustration/confusion about an object that would have allowed anyone to open their Doors, which is supposedly the one thing that most of the characters want more than anything, and yet no one even seemed more than very slightly tempted. This time, there are characters after Antsy for her ability to find the Doors, but most of the protagonists don't want her to find them. The whole ethos of the Doors is "Be Sure," and they want to be completely sure, on their own, for their Doors to find them again.
This book did feel a bit... transitional. That may be a bit par for the course, with the odd-numbered books, which focus on the overarching story of the school, vs. the even-numbered books which focus on individual characters and the Doors they go through. (Though often those lead into the overarching story as well.) These are novellas, so they are short, but... this book was a lot of moving from place to place, and felt more like it was setting future things up than doing a lot in and of itself. Still enjoyed the whole thing, and the tour between worlds that it provided.
Night's Edge by Liz Kerin
Book 1 of Night's Edge
Horror (subgenre: vampire, pandemic (ish)) (f/f) - ebook novel
4/5
In 2010, a pandemic began to arise. Beginning in Russia, "Saratov Syndrome" quietly spreads across the globe. It creates vampires: its victims cease to age, gain inhuman strength and speed, form a pheromonal attraction that draws people close to them... but sunlight can kill them within seconds, and they must subsist on fresh human blood daily in order to survive. Ten year old Mia's mother, Izzy, is turned into a "Sara" by her boyfriend, Devon. Mia and her mother eventually flee, both trying to escape Devin and the increasing governmental crackdown on Saras.
Years later, the two have made their lives work, keeping Izzy's condition from being discovered. Mia lives her entire life around her mother's schedule, making sure she's available to draw blood to feed her mother, to protect her during the day, and help her run a restaurant at night. She's never considered any other options for herself, knowing that she'll always need to be responsible for her mother.
Then Mia meets Jade, a part-time barista and musician. For the first time, Mia really wants there to be something more to her life, and starts to believe that could be possible. Except when Devin tries to worm his way back into their lives, Izzy starts keeping secrets of her own.
My thoughts, minor spoilers:
This book was good. It didn't lean quite as hard on the pandemic aspect as I first expected (though there are aspects of that,) but it certainly also very much felt like pandemic fiction.
The story is told in alternating sections, between 2010, following Mia as a child after Izzy's Saratov infection had first started, and the current day (roughly 2023), with the life Izzy and Mia have built. The parallel stories worked well, in my opinion. I found both of them interesting, and I enjoyed it better than I would have liked having say, all the 2010 bits come first and lead into just the current ones.
The thing that stuck with me the most was just how well the story captured the abusive/codependent relationship between Izzy and Mia. The two do clearly love each other, but it is very immediately clear that it's also not at all healthy. Mia is very much trapped, and has had to sacrifice every aspect of her own life to protect her mother, while also being constantly reminded that her mother could hurt her very easily, and that she can't even express minor disagreement or dissatisfaction without opening herself up to potential harm. While Mia's mom being a vampire certainly makes that potential for harm a lot more dramatic, the emotional beats of resentment tangled up with fear and love all in one were really resonant.
I think that most of what I could say about Jade and Mia's relationship ends up heading toward spoiler territory. :/ But contrary to how little it got mentioned in the summary and my thoughts, their relationship is a pretty significant chunk of the book and propels a lot of the plot forward.
Just because I am picky and annoying about this kind of thing: there was one editing oops that threw me off, where two different versions of the same line were left in. I'll take "two versions of the same bit of dialogue left in back-to-back" over "left an AI prompt in the text" any fucking day, lol, but it still threw me out of the story pretty hard when it happened.
The book has a sequel, which I'm adding to my TBR, but not pushing up as a priority. This book did feel complete, and I wouldn't say it's a cliffhanger ending, but it definitely left multiple plot threads hanging.
Buchanan House by Charley Descoteaux
M/M Romance - ebook novel
Book 1 of Buchanan House
3.5/5
After Eric's beloved grandmother dies, he has no idea what to do. She was the only one who understood him, and he's practically estranged from the rest of his family. His best friend, Nathan, comes up with a plan for them: using Eric's inheritance from his grandmother to buy an old camp along the Oregon coast, renovate it, and turn it into a boutique, queer-friendly getaway for the two of them to run.
It'll be a huge undertaking, but Eric is excited to finally do something for himself, and quickly gets swept up in the idea. Then he meets Tim, the handyman they hire to help with the renovations they need, and he's swept up in a whole new way.
My thoughts, only minor spoilers:
This book took way too long for me to read (almost three months!), and I'm afraid that means I'm sort of lacking things to say about it. It's not really the fault of the book itself, I didn't dislike it or anything... I was just reading other things faster, and ended up hitting on multiple ebooks from my list. When I've got an ebook as my main read, I tend to read those when I have random time to kill on my phone, and the ebook side-reads get pushed aside.
I liked this book, but didn't love it. The writing was pretty decent, and I genuinely think the author was invested in telling a good story. Plot-wise it felt a little too episodic and meandering for me. There are multiple plot threads going, but a lot of them failed to truly feel particularly connected or impactful... but maybe it would have felt a little more coherent if I hadn't spent so long reading it.
The story introduces a *lot* of characters, some of whom come back multiple times, some of whom just show up and are then gone... I do recognize that might be dropping plot seeds for future books in a series, introducing characters who will be significant later in stories of their own... but it felt like a bit too much.
Unfortunately, if that was the intent, I might not ever know. When I went to add this book on LibraryThing, I was puzzled that it no longer had an Amazon listing, when I know that was where I'd purchased it from (admittedly, years ago, I think). I found the book itself on the LibraryThing site, but then decided to try and figure out what had happened to it elsewhere. Unfortunately, the author removed almost all of her books from sale, deleted her author website, and most of her social media. Her Facebook page explains that after the election, she no longer felt safe writing queer fiction, and was going back into the closet in her personal life, for fear of there being potential repercussions against her or her family. I'm sad that she felt the need to do that, and it feels especially sad when at least this book was so much about making peace with yourself, and queer identity, and specifically creating spaces for queer community to exist. Ironic in the worst ways, and I hope that she stays safe and later may feel able to return as an author.
I am currently in the middle of four books, though I will be starting two more imminently:
- Dracula, which I realized I should be including. Reading and listening to it in serial format via Dracula Daily and Re: Dracula
- Duma Key, with Alex (we're over the halfway point!)
- Dead Silence, with Alex (because we were trying to kill time and didn't have our book, so started an ebook, even though I'd just read it)
- Witch King, with Taylor
- Uprooted, my next main read, which I'll start tonight probably
- Not completely decided on the next ebook side-read, but I might just pick the oldest unread thing on my kindle, ha
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But thank you! I'm glad to keep chipping away at the endless book pile, ha.
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Dracula Daily sounds fun.
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Reading any books is a good amount! And hooray for getting this month off to a good start. (August might be a bit more of an uphill struggle, since I don't really have anything in progress.)
Dracula Daily is fun. (Re: Dracula is also pretty good: full-cast audio adaptation, presented the same way as Dracula Daily, in chronological order.) I followed along the whole time a few years ago, though not for the last couple, so it's fun to do it again.
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Hopefully you have a chance to at some point. It is an enjoyable way to read it!
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