Jump to navigation Jump to main content
Posts by Jane J
I wasn't sure what to expect when I started Mirrorland for a recent Lakeview Mystery Book Group discussion other than it would likely be a dark suspenser - and it is that.** But it's also a twisty puzzler of a book that keeps the reader off balance from first to last page.
I know you're out there. All those readers who helped make Travis Baldree's Legends & Lattes the biggest thing to hit fantasy fiction last year. If you're one of the many (like me) who ended that book with a sigh of delight and immediately began searching for other cozy fantasy to sustain you? Then look no further than Rebecca Thorne's entry into the sub genre, which has much (a lot, actually) in common with Baldree's novel.
Though Ann Leckie's new novel involves larger issues of political intrigue and is set in her Imperial Radch universe, the story is a more intimate one of self-determination and how identity is formed.
I'll say up front that this Mary Balogh isn't going to work for everyone. It's a slow-build, slow-burn romance between a pair of guarded, reserved adults who come to their HEA in small, careful steps. Doesn't sound like a barn burner does it? But for this reader it was a nearly perfect read that let me settle in and savor each moment.
"The kid is born with two shadows"
In spare, poetic language Marisa Crane draws you in from the first sentence and then holds your heart in their hands until the last page. They explore what it means to parent under the figurative shadows of loss and grief and the literal shadows imposed on their characters by a totalitarian government in this dystopian debut.
Shannon Chakraborty is back with a new magical adventure (after her Daevabad trilogy) set on the Indian Ocean and introducing a bold, smart, and notorious female pirate, Amina al-Sirafi. Let the sea voyages and the hunt for a kidnapped girl commence.
When Georgie was a teenager no one in her small home town expected much of her. She was flaky and aimless. But somehow, after leaving home for California, she managed to make a life as the the personal assistant to a Hollywood power player. The problem is, her boss has suddenly picked up sticks and retired and now Georgie is at a loss. She's used to taking care of every little aspect of someone else's life and has no clue how to do the same with her own. And so she does what all big city gals, who are at a crossroads, do in rom-coms.
To say that Maxine Justice (fka Eufemia Kolpak), Attorney-at-Law, is struggling would be a severe understatement. She's not had a paying case in forever, her struggling law practice's one employee hasn't been paid in weeks and she's not even sure she has enough money to feed her stray cat. All of which is why she takes a shift rotation in the lower court acting as a public defender - think night court, but even more desperate.
Eleanora Hatfield has a knack for numbers that has given her a good, safe, job at one of the most respected banks in London. Respectability is the key as her family history has also given her an expertise in fraud, cons and just about every other rig that could be run. When her boss asks her to assist his friend, Wrexham, Duke of Elsmore, she's reluctant to leave her safe space, but eventually agrees. Wrexham is a Director at another bank and has a stack of family accounts that are in disarray.
I placed a hold on O'Neill's tome because of a mention in a podcast. So really I ordered it on a whim and wasn't even sure I'd read it when it came in and seemed so hefty. Over a long weekend I decided to dip into it, or at least look at the included pictures. I was not seen again by anyone for the next two days as I was immediately sucked into the what if's and maybes and possibles.
