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Posts by Jane J
A heroine who just wants to read and works in a bookstore? How is that not going to be added to my tbr list? But books that are added to my list are often bumped by the next items added. Thus we have The Bookish Life of Nina Hill added to my list a few years ago and only now, at last, happily read.
After eight years on a prison planet, for a crime they did commit - to be fair, Edie Morikawa, thief and con artist, gets out and is determined to live the straight and narrow life. First challenge? Getting a ship off the planet. And waiting for Edie is Angel Huang. Angel is the person who sold them out and left them to their fate on the icy prison planet. But transportation off the rock aren't plentiful and Edie knows that they can accept the ride and still reject Angel's plan for one more big score.
Every month there are new titles purchased for the Too Good to Miss collections at our libraries. If you're not familiar with TGTM (as we call it here in library-world), it's a special collection of popular books that are truly too good to miss. Some are new and popular titles, others are older titles that might not have had as much media attention as a bestseller or celebrity book club selection but are still great reads that deserve another look.
"To the world, they were a scandal. To each other, an obsession."
That's the first line of the blurb for this epic love story that takes it's inspiration from Wuthering Heights. Here instead of wandering the moors, the lovers glide across the ice in the competitive (some would say cut-throat) world of Olympic-level ice dancing.
I fully admit that a large reason for why I read the book that came before this one, The Spellshop (reviewed here), was because the cover was so gorgeous. This second one, set in this same world, has an equally gorgeous cover, but I can safely say that my choice to read this time was because of the enjoyment I had with the first book. And equally safe to say, I loved this even more than the first.
Freelance writer Cassie Bowman's specialty is true crime and she is used to murder cases involving husbands who kill their wives, or even wives who killed their husbands. Having done this kind of investigative writing for a few years, it takes a bit to surprise her. When she comes across a news article about a woman who was not only a bigamist but a widow after one of the husbands killed the other in 1985 Cassie knows if she can get Delores "Lore" Rivera to agree to talk with her for an article, it could make her career.
A bit ago I read Emma Southon's A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and loved the deep dive into how murder and assassination were viewed in ancient Rome. Not long after posting that review I heard about another book about ancient roman history. The podcaster mentioned how much they'd enjoyed a biography about Agrippina, a woman who was a descendant of Julius Caesar. She was also a sister, niece, wife, and mother to three other emperors.
The Wisconsin Book Festival is pretty good at predicting the best books of the year! If you got to see some of these authors during the Fall Celebration or during standalone book events in 2024, maybe you already knew you were in the presence of greatness.
In his history of Chicago in the 19th century Cronon's primary thesis is that rural and urban growth/development go hand in hand with one another. The two worlds are interdependent and rely on one another to continue to exist. And in the case of the rise of Chicago these connections are especially true.
All her life Lady Imogen Loveless has been told she's "too much". And given her interest in blowing things up and lack of interest in any of the things a "real" lady does, she's convinced that she'll always live up to her name and remain single. But that fact doesn't stop her from truly liking (and lusting after) Scotland Yard inspector, Thomas Peck. For his lights, while Tommy may at times be very frustrated by Imogen, he's also totally fascinated by her. The only way in which she's "too much", as far as he's concerned, is in her station - she's an aristocrat and he a commoner.