Jump to navigation Jump to main content
Posts by Jane J
This is a heist story. It's also an examination of institutional racism in the rarefied world of classical music and of hope and perseverance in a world that doesn't always reward such. Brendan Slocumb, a former principal violinist and concertmaster, manages all of this in a delicate balance of a story that held my attention from first to last pages.
Three women, colleagues and the kind of sort-of work-friend you make at your job, find their darkest wishes have come true after the company Christmas party. That shocking event forces them to team up in order to avoid at the minimum, unemployment, and at a maximum, prison.
As this thriller opens Amelia Winn is leaving her shift as a trauma nurse when she's hit by a car. That accident leaves her profoundly deaf. In the immediate aftermath of the accident and the realization of just what her life has become, Amelia retreated into an alcoholic haze and it's only when her marriage falls apart and she's in danger of losing any chance of contact with her young step-daughter that she hit rock bottom.
I've been hearing about Ali Hazelwood's STEM-based debut for months and I'd been vacillating on reading it. If you read my reviews, you know I do read romance, but I read far more paranormal, historical, heck, aliens, then I do contemporary. When I think of the why of that fact I think it comes down to what I can let slide. Tropes that work for me in most other romance are a little harder to just go with in a realistic contemporary setting. But I kept hearing about how good this particular contemporary romance was, so I decided to take the plunge.
With the announcement of NPR's Books We Love I realized it's that time of year. The lists of best books are pouring in and I know that not only are we interested in them as readers ourselves, they also give us great ideas for books to gift to the other readers in our lives. So for those of you searching for your next read or even more desperately searching for that perfect gift, here is a by-no-means-comprehensive best lists to give you a start.
From what I hear from other readers I'm not alone in, more often then I'd like, struggling with my ability to really sink into a book. I don't know if the attention deficit comes from work, too many devices, or the general stressiness of life, but often I find that I have to work to stick to a book, even if I was sure I'd love it. But one genre lately has really been working for me and that is fantasy fiction. Something about entering a completely different world has just been easier.
The Lakeview Mystery Book Group had been meeting in person over the last few months but decided to go back to meeting on Zoom now that the nights are longer and are getting colder. Last week was our return to Zoom and given how the online platform can change the shape of meetings, I was wondering if our talk would be as comfortable and free-wheeling as it had been for our in-person meetings. The answer? It certainly was a relaxed, energetic discussion. But was that the group or the book?
There's a trope in the romance genre that almost always entertains me. And there is an author who does likewise. So you can imagine my happiness when I realized that After Dark with the Duke by Julie Anne Long has both.
I've been waiting to tell you about John Scalzi's forthcoming title for a while now as it was just the antidote I needed for a reading slump. At the time most things I'd been reading were eliciting a tepid, 'ah it was fine' response. And then came the Kaiju. Not only were they a saving grace for me, but based on the author note included in the book, were one for Scalzi as well. He'd been struggling with another book as the pandemic worsened and just couldn't make progress when the idea for this story popped into his head.
There are some books that make me feel like I'm smiling from the first page to the last. I finish the book and immediately want to tell everyone about the delight I had in reading it (I think I've already mentioned it to multiple co-workers). Such was the case with A Marvellous Light, a debut queer fantasy novel full of "magic, contracts, and conspiracies".
