Book 9: The Starseekers by Nicole Glover

Well, sometimes you read a book for book club and every single person shows up and says that didn't work for me!!! and it's a good time. This book is kind of like Hidden Figures but it's also a murder mystery and magic and also Indiana Jones and also allegedly a romance? And if you think that sounds like too many genres it sure is; there are seven different plots and not a lick of narrative urgency in any of them, unfortunately. The best I can say for it is that it was nice to read a contemporary piece of speculative fiction that wasn't a dystopia but also boy I wanted this to be better. 

Grade: C

Book 4: The Larks Still Bravely Singing by Aster Glenn Gray

Set in the dying days of World War I, two former public school boy friends find each other again while convalescing from the front. One has lost a leg, the other an arm, and they begin to rekindle the romance that never quite bloomed while they were at school together. 

I really loved so much of this - it's an era that I keep going back to, in part because the brutality of that war destroyed so much and never quite got dealt with. That's a bit of an issue with this novel, for me. I appreciated the lack of a quick fix for either of them, but I also wanted an ending and a resolution that presented at least a clearer way forward, if not a complete emotional and mental recovery for both of them. I don't entirely know how to do that beyond a magical cure for PTSD before anyone really knew what that was, but I felt more off-balance by the ending than I had hoped.

Grade: B

Book 3: Deck the Halls with Secret Agents by Astor Glenn Gray

What a charming bite sized Christmas novella! This is actually much more in line with what I expected Honeypot to be like - it's two secret agents who have been secretly fucking whenever they encountered each other on opposite sides of the Cold War who find themselves without a clear purpose in the early 1990s. They've both been sent to an English country house to steal incriminating letters at a Christmas party, and wouldn't you know there's just the right kind of bed for them to fall into together. This had almost no real conflict and I had a great time reading it. 

Grade: A  

Reread: A Brightness Long Ago by Guy Gavriel Kay

The last of my GGK rereads before I finally read his most recent two novels! This book is such a curious one - it takes place only fifty years prior to the events of Children of Earth and Sky, and it connects to them but in the kind of way where as soon as I finished this one I wanted to reread that one again, so I could better slot it all in. It's also curious in that it's deliberately to the side of major world events - the fall of Sarantium (aka Constantinople) and the remaking of the world's order, is out of focus while the almost petty citystate wars of Batiara (aka Italy) take center stage. This book takes a long time to fully immerse myself in the stakes of the story, and as soon as it does everyone is hit from the side by much more important developments. Which I suppose is reflective of living through the world in real time; I can formulate many reasons why a Canadian author might have written this in the aftermath of Trump's first election. It does however mean that it's the least sticky of all of GGK's novels for me, and while I had a lovely time becoming reacquainted with these characters, none of them burrowed deep into my chest as others have. It was still a remarkable book to finish while visiting Istanbul for the first time, however. 

Grade: B

Book 2: Honeytrap by Aster Glenn Gray

This is a gay romance novel that spans multiple decades and follows the romance of a soviet spy and an American spy who are partnered to solve a mystery of sorts and embark on a roadtrip across late 1950s America. It's both a charming romance in which both of them are hiding a secret (Gennady is supposed to be honey trapping Daniel, and Daniel has been demoted for having a gay affair with another FBI agent), and a look at how the closet hurts people's lives over many decades. I expected something different from this novel--less of a historical examination and more of a classic romance novel in which two characters decide their love requires them to risk it all--and it took me a bit to come around to the slower, more agonized love depicted. But maybe we need a slightly more honest version of this story right now. 

Grade: B

Book 44: All of Us Murderers by KJ Charles

An absolutely delightful gothic manor house murder mystery with bonus gay love story book! I really, really enjoyed what this story did with the conventions of both genres, and how it both delivered on the promise of those kinds of stories while also deconstructing elements of it. Definitely among my favorites of this author's, who's long been a favorite of mine! 

Grade: A 

Book 42: Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

An incredible book. I read this because I wanted to have experienced the book before I saw the movie, and the way the story is told in this medium is just a triumph. Agnes is such a fascinating, compelling character, but everyone we meet is; this is historical fiction that somehow fully conveys how foreign a land the past is while also reminding us of the fact that people have always been people. The slight of hand with the capital S Shakespeare of it all is expertly done, and the fact that I knew going in what would happen didn't affect how it landed for me at all. Just a book that made me remember why books are good, actually.

Grade: A 

Book 38: Golden Age

Note: I know the author socially. 

A delightful book of short stories, drabbles and visual art in the Temeraire universe! Something like methadone for me as I attempt to recover post-series. I don't have many deep thoughts about any of this other than what a nice time! 

Grade: A 

Book 37: League of Dragons by Naomi Novik

Note: I know the author socially.

I have finished the series ;____; this is both great and terrible. As is almost always true of this author, I got to a point in the final part of something she's written and thought how on earth is she going to pull it all together in a satisfying way? And as always, boy did she pull it off. The resolution to the war is incredible, the future that we see glimpses of feels both right and earned, and there's no sense of the rules of the world having to be broken in order to give us this. Laurence and Temeraire remain among my favorite characters I've gotten to spend a whole series with, and finally reading this whole thing this fall was one of the nicest things I did all year.

Grade: A 

Book 36: Blood of Tyrants by Naomi Novik

Note: I know the author socially. 

So Victory of Eagles gave me the joy of Temeraire thinking that Laurence is dead; this book gave me Temeraire in denial and a Laurence with deep, deep amnesia. I stayed up way too late reading because I simply could not pause until Laurence remembered his dragon again!! Honestly, I need to reread the whole thing because I simply could not appreciate everything as well as I might have because I needed to burn through it so fast. 

Beyond that beloved, expertly deployed trope, the story of this book is so good, with betrayal and set ups and plotting and doublecrossing and just so much fun military stuff. I haven't really gotten into how good the melding of actual historically based warfare and aerial dragon strength is combined, but it's so impressive. One of my absolute favorites of the series. 

Grade: A 

Book 35: Crucible of Gold by Naomi Novik

Note: I know the author socially. 

A quietly devastating entry in the series! I simply was not prepared to be fully losing a whole ship and a character who had been so important since the beginning, and it made me extremely stressed out about what might happen in the final two novels of the series. I loved the culture and the world that we see in South America, and the completely different social structure between humans and dragons they find there, and the way Temeraire continues to incorporate it all into his goals and aims for dragon rights. We also get the Granby reveal, which is truly one of my favorite things in the entire series, because the men are so overwhelmed by it and the dragons are just completely nonplussed. A delight!

Grade: A

Book 32: Tongues of Serpents by Naomi Novik

Note: I know the author socially. 

Another travelogue part of this series! This one takes place in Australia, and there's a lot of good stuff in it but it's also a bit harder for me just because Laurence is still taking all of this so hard and also I want the other asshole British dudes to suffer more!!!! But the stuff that works fucking works, and I had a great time reading it!

Grade: A

Book 31: Victory of Eagles by Naomi Novik

Note: I know the author socially. 

Everything that made the prior book in this series hard makes this book absolutely delicious for me. Laurence and Temeraire accepting the punishment for their absolutely morally righteous decision and then suffering even more because Temeraire thinks Laurence is dead and loses his fucking mind is incredible. The reunion!!! The emotions!! The continued consequences and depression that is only alleviated by the fact that they have each other, the triumph at the end at a moment when all looks lost, just an absolute delight from start to finish. Among my favorites of the whole series. 

Grade: A

Book 30: Empire of Ivory by Naomi Novik

Note: I know the author socially

I am fairly certain that I read about half of this book when it first came out, put it aside with the intention of returning to it, and then never did. And honestly, I understand why; it deals with a lot of very heavy stuff! Primarily but not entirely connected to the kidnapping and enslavement of West African people by European and colonial powers, with a whole bunch of dragon plague and death to boot. There's a seriousness and a reality to the narrative, and I both admire it and clearly didn't want to deal with it however many years ago I first tried it. 

It's an important book within the larger story of the series, though, and without it I think the series would have been taking the easy way out. The ending also demonstrates the great moral fortitude of both Temeraire and Laurence, especially the way that Laurence allows himself to be guided by his dragon, even when it goes against everything his own society has instilled in him. Very good but on the whole probably the book from this series I'm the least likely to reread outside of a full series reread. 

Grade: B  

Reread: Black Powder War by Naomi Novik

Note: I know the author socially.

This is the last of this series that I'm certain I've read before, primarily because it involves a character and a location that made me very very happy. This is also the book that I think solidifies the reality that it's a series that will give a resolution to the end of each book, but not necessarily a happy one--it's very stressful and while our main guys are all okay by the end and theoretically on the way home to something familiar and nice, the process of getting there is hard and also it's less and less clear that those who should be on Laurence and Temeraire's side actually are! Very complicated, but still a very fun reread.

Grade: A 

Book 28: Florenzer by Phil Melanson

This book was mentioned on one of my pop culture podcasts, and historical fiction about a young da Vinci, a Medici and a Cardinal in Rome immediately felt like something for me! This is an era and location of history that I don't know much about, which meant that I had no real sense of where the larger political elements were going, which was pretty exciting. Of the three main stories, the one I was most invested in was da Vinci's, but the broader focus on the world he became the artist he would be in Florence really made that smaller element of the story land for me. One of those books that made me immediately want to read and watch one million more stories about this historical era. 

Grade: A

Reread: Throne of Jade by Naomi Novik

Note: I know the author socially.

This is when the series turns into a proper travel adventure! The second book in the Temeraire series is when things become more complicated in lots of different ways, and also when it becomes clear that this isn't an alternate history series that's just going to brush past the way that colonialism and chattel slavery shaped the economics and political structures of the world. That makes it less simple fun than the first book, but the expansion of the world and the introduction of the Chinese court in particular is so incredibly compelling. Also, Temeraire makes a lot of good points!

Grade: A

Reread: His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik

Note: I know the author socially. 

This book is just a fucking banger start to finish. It's an incredible concept--what if Napoleonic naval warfare but the ships are giant dragons--executed flawlessly, with a central duo of Laurence and Temeraire that is as good as any book relationship ever written. Their bond is immediate and so incredibly important, and Laurence is such a good man and so exactly of his world, which just expands beyond him at such a rapid rate you would understand how someone might handle it much less well than he does. Which isn't to say he's without flaws; his mistakes are often devastating, but they are never unearned or unexplored, and the conflict within this first novel of the series is exceptional. I decided I wanted to finally read this entire series this fall, and while I could have skipped this one since it's the one of these series I've read many times, I didn't want to deprive myself of the pleasure of reading it once more. 

Grade: A

Book 22: Enlightened by Joanna Chambers

The final book in the Enlightenment trilogy following Beguiled, it's a very satisfying conclusion to both the relationship and the world we get to live in during the first two books. One of the great narrative demands of historical gay romance novels is creating a resolution that feels both happy enough for our gay protagonists and also doesn't feel like it breaks our understanding of how hard it was for most queer people, and I think this story does a neat job of it while also not relying solely on 'well they're rich enough that it doesn't matter for them.' Their life together feels well earned and they're both finally able to acknowledge what the other means to them. A delight! 

Grade: A

Book 21: Beguiled by Joanna Chambers

The sequel to Provoked, which I enjoyed very much, and hey I liked this one just as much! The two leads have come back together after years of separation, and David gets to be very brave and then suffer and Murdo gets to be the good person he actually is, and it just continues to be a wonderful regency era m/m series that's also interested in unpacking how queer lives could function in that society. A nice time! 

Grade: A