Book 19: Hammers on Bone by Cassandra Khaw

This is a Tor free novella that I got a couple of years ago and finally got around to reading. It's a noir crime story with a supernatural twist; it reminded me a bit of the Rivers of London books and how they combine two distinct genres and play around with both. 

Overall I enjoyed it! The noir styling is aggressive but not over the top for me, and there's enough twists and turns in the case the P.I. takes to keep me engaged. I don't know that I would want to spend a whole novel in this world, but the length fits for the story and themes. A nice way to spend a cold winter evening. 

Grade: B

Book 18: Lavender House by Lev AC Rosen

A queer mystery set at a mansion! This book is pitched as "Knives Out with a queer historical twist," which was enough to make me interested. I have to say that I went in expecting a different historical setting; rather than the turn of the 20th century Edwardian backdrop, we were in the Bay Area in the early 1950s. Our protagonist is Andy, a former San Francisco detective who was fired in disgrace when he was caught with his pants down in a gay bar raid. Before he can drink himself to death, he's hired by a mysterious and wealthy woman named Pearl who wants him to investigate whether her wife Irene died tragically or was in fact murdered. Pearl and Irene lived together on a large estate in Marin County with a whole cast of queer family members and staff, and Andy needs to figure out who might have wanted Irene dead and why. 

This was an enjoyable, fast read and certainly fits the "country house murder but gay" genre, but I think I may have gone in with slightly too high expectations, or possibly just hopes for a slightly different book. One of the themes of the story is how the closet acts as a cage, and we see the impact that had on Andy while he was a closeted and then exposed cop. But we also see how living in a house where everyone knows who you are can make it difficult to survive outside of that house, no matter how beautiful it is. I think I was hoping for a lighter gay mystery novel, but once I realized what kind of story it was, I really enjoyed it. I'm already adding the sequel coming out this fall to my reading list, sigh (one step forward, two steps back, as always). 

Grade: B 

Book 17: The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes by Cat Sebastian

I kept reading the first book in this series because I had a feeling I would like the sequel better, and I was correct! 

This book overlaps with various parts of The Queer Principles of Kit Webb and benefits because it has much less setup to spend pages and pages on. Rob is blackmailing Marian because her rich duke husband was already married when he married her, which Rob knows because his mother is in fact his actual wife. For some reason (can't imagine what!) the two of them continue to exchange letters even while they should be enemies, and when she needs help after she kills her husband during what was supposed to be a robbery, the two of them escape from London together. 

If that setup sounds a bit convoluted: it is! It's an odd series, but the two of them have great chemistry together, and while the novels can't really decide whether they want to be about a couple of 18th century aristocrats completely throwing away their wealth or if it's something in the middle, it ends in a way that feels less half-baked than the first one. I don't know if the first one is worth getting through to make it to this one, but I felt satisfied by this conclusion. 

Grade: B   

Book 16: Masters in This Hall by KJ Charles

Well, it took me until February 7, but I finally read a great Christmas romance novel this season! 

Honestly, I expected this to be great; it's a novella set in a universe I had enjoyed, and the setting is also delightful. John Garland has been dismissed from his job as a hotel detective after a robbery occurred while he was, uh, distracted by Barnaby Littimer. He retreats to his rich uncle's home on Christmas Eve for the Christmas season, and discovers that Littimer is there as a master of festivities during the the week leading up to his cousin's wedding. He is of course immediately suspicious that Littimer is there to rob his uncle, but is there more to the story? Who can say! 

The pairing is very fun, and so are the holiday traditions Littimer is in charge of leading, including a mummers play. It's a classic mystery set at a great house over the holidays, and I had a great time reading it. 

Grade: A 

Book 15: Sing for the Coming of the Longest Night by Katherine Fabian and Iona Datt Sharma

Well, it's the start of February and I finally read the winter Solstice book I bought in December! Not bad. 

This is a queer, poly, multi-faith book about magic and love and family. It starts with Layla hearing that her boyfriend Meraud is missing from Nat, who is Meraud's other partner. Meraud is a wizard who has practiced a risky kind of magic, and is now stuck and hidden in an in between state, neither alive nor dead. The only way to find him and bring him back is for Layla and Nat, as his beloveds, to work together and follow the breadcrumbs to him. 

It's essentially an enemies-to-family story, where the relationship we see develop and deepen is between these two people who have nothing in common other than Meraud. At times Meraud feels more like a mcguffin than a character, but what Layla and Nat (and the other people in their separate lives) go through in order to bring him back is compelling enough that I didn't mind, in the end. A lovely, quick story to read with a mug of tea. 

Grade: B

Book 14: The Queer Principles of Kit Webb by Cat Sebastian

Man, every once in a while I hit a book by this author, who I usually enjoy a lot, and just completely bounce off of it. In this case, the setup is that the son of a Duke, Percy, needs to hire Kit, a highway robber who has lately retired and become a coffeeshop owner, in order to rob his father the Duke. There are reasons for this, and attraction is suggested between the two, of course, but it takes a hundred pages before Kit will even agree to the scheme, and then he has to teach Percy how to rob his father himself, because part of the reason Kit retired from his thieving ways is that he has a limp now from a robbery gone wrong, and there are other shenanigans at foot, but it just never really clicks for me. Part of why I continued reading is because it's the first in a series, and I knew that the second novel was about Marian, Percy's childhood friend who was married to his father after his mother died, and I'm still curious about that one. But this felt like a story that could have been a novella of setup for that second story. I will report back on whether the next book works better for me!

Grade: C 

Book 13: Daniel Cabot Puts Down Roots by Cat Sebastian

The final book (so far) in the Cabot series, this is just a very nice story about people loving each other the way they want to be, which is a concept I've been thinking about a lot recent. The titular Cabot in this story is the son of the OG Cabot, who is living in the East Village in the early seventies and just figuring out his life after serving in the army for a year but not getting anywhere near Vietnam itself, thanks to his family connections. There's definitely more than a little of the 'boy wasn't New York magical when the East Village was still affordable (because of utter neglect and abandonment)" feel to this book, but I still enjoyed it a lot. He is befriended by Alex, a Ukrainian immigrant doctor who helps Daniel after he got into a fight with someone who was talking shit about gay people, and the two of them are in the slowest, most gentle best friend pining I've ever read. But it works for me, and the way they create a life together is just really lovely, and there's just enough plot that happens for both of them and the people in their lives that it doesn't feel inert. Just a very nice book to read while there's an artic blast outside and you don't want to leave your couch all day. 

Grade: B

Book 12: A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

Note: I know the author of this book socially. 

The first book in the Scholomance trilogy, I decided to finally read this now that it's complete, and I'm glad I waited, because boy that cliffhanger at the end of this book! 

What I knew going in was that it was a story set at a magical school, but very little else, and the start of the story really drops you right into the middle of it. There's no set up, the narrative begins most of the way through the junior year of the protagonist, and in general it feels designed to make the reader feel like they're struggling to keep up. That also matches the school itself: there are no teachers, just classes with assignments, and there are monsters who can kill you everywhere, and then graduation means running a gauntlet of the worst monsters and using your developed skills (and, crucially, the alliances you've built) to survive and make it to adulthood. It's a lot!

Our protagonist is El (short for Galadriel), whose mom is a great healer but who does not follow in her footsteps: her talent in magic is for mass destruction, essentially, and she also makes everyone else feel bad psychically. But over the course of the book, she begins to develop a core group of friends, in part because the golden boy of the school, Orion, rescues her and everyone assumes that if he bothered to do that, there must be some reason to not dismiss her for their own self-interest. I've been watching a lot of Survivor this winter, and there's a real sense of that kind of alliance-building, it's an interesting mashup of genres. 

The end of the book is extremely satisfying, and then the final line is a classic first book ??? moment, and I am very excited to dive into book two now!

Grade: A