February Wrap-Up: My Favorite Reads of the Month
- The Bossy Bookworm
- 9 hours ago
- 7 min read
Bossy Favorites of the Month
Please enjoy this roundup of my six favorite reads of February--three medieval-set fantasy stories I loved; a messy family story of feuding and forgiveness; historical fiction about strong women and the power of books; and the first in an FBI procedural mystery series.
I hope you've read some great books during this shortest month of the year.
Have you read any of these titles? What were some of your favorite reads this month?
01 The Once and Future Queen (Lives of Guinevere #1) by Paula Lafferty
A medieval setting, time travel, a quest, and intriguing complications--did Paula Lafferty write this book especially for me? She wrapped some of my favorite elements in funny banter, poignant (non-swooning) romance, and enough plot complexity to keep the whole thing chugging along and keep me riveted. I loved this.
Twenty-two-year-old Vera is feeling generally aimless and unseen. Then a strange man comes to town, telling Vera an unbelievable story of her true origins and her destiny. He says that she is actually from Camelot, in King Arthur's time, and that he himself is Merlin. Oh, and that her full name is Guinevere, as in "Queen."
He says that she was placed in her current time to grow up in safety into the woman she needed to be. The existence of the kingdom and magic itself are reliant upon Vera's time-travel back to Arthur's world, and only she can save them.
Upon her arrival, she must figure out how to help the kingdom. Meanwhile, she finds that the traditional thinking about a Guinevere-Lancelot romance is off base, but Vera builds a friendship for the ages with Lancelot. This funny, poignant, powerful connection is one of my favorite aspects of the novel.
I liked the injection of just enough modern feminism into a medieval setting (running! speaking her mind! wearing that modern underwear! jousting!). A newly imagined relationship with Arthur is hard-won and lovely.
For my full review, please see The Once and Future Queen.
02 The Secret Book Society by Madeline Martin
The tone of The Secret Book Society is darker than I'd anticipated, but appropriate as Martin explores weighty issues for women in Victorian England. The power of books and of friendship ultimately triumph in Martin's historical fiction.
The women in Madeline Martin's Victorian London exist within tightly constrained rules and at the whims of their fathers' or husbands' often controlling, sometimes abusive, always limiting requirements. But when three women, all strangers to each other, are invited to the reclusive, three-times-widowed Lady Duxbury's home for tea, they discover a space where they can speak frankly about their lives and also about the revolutionary, modern, feminist books they secretly trade among themselves (and must hide from the aforementioned men).
If you'd like to raise your blood pressure by reading about a bunch of destructive men subjugating women--sometimes seemingly on a whim and at other times systematically, in order to destroy their spirit and force complacency--this book should do the trick.
The story becomes truly dark as it progresses, which I had not expected, but the issues explored within that time around women's lack of autonomy in all areas of their lives warrant a grim tone. The end of the story involves a dramatic death and the promise of solidarity for the women who move forward in their lives with each other's support.
For my full review of this book please see The Secret Book Society.
03 Head Cases (Head Cases #1) by John McMahon
The initial installment of John McMahon's police procedural series follows a genius, socially awkward leader and a special team of FBI investigators who reinvent methods of finding their culprit in a smart, intriguing, and satisfying mystery.
Head Cases tracks FBI agent Gardner Camden (who has a brilliant analytical mind but is interpersonally awkward) and his group of agents in the Patterns and Recognitions (PAR) unit.
A recent murder victim's DNA matches a long-dead serial killer, and a string of bodies hold clues that seem to be left specifically for Gardner to find. He and his unorthodox team must use their areas of expertise and their instincts to solve the riddles and catch the serial killer who is killing serial killers--before he harms their loved ones and gets away with it all.
This group of genius, odd, complementary main protagonists often felt like an FBI version of Slough House in Slow Horses, in the best way.
This was smart, intriguing, action-packed at times, and both the complexity of the investigation and its resolution felt satisfying. I hope Head Cases is made into a movie.
Inside Man is the newly published sequel.
For my full review, please check out Head Cases.
04 The Second Death of Locke (The Hand and the Heart #1) by V. L. Bovalino
Bovalino's story hooked me with a main protagonist who's a female knight, her best-friend mage, intriguing magic, a terrifying destiny, showstopping secrets, danger and adventure, and a deep romantic connection. I loved every bit of the first book in Bovalino's Hand and the Heart series.
Captain Grey Flynn is a knight pledged to protect the mage Kier, who she has known since she was a child. She is not only a blade but a source of magic, a well. Unbeknownst to others, she and Kier have gone through a forbidden process to become tethered, so that magic flows between them like an unspoken language. But Grey is also secretly in love with Kier.
This, my friends, is my sweet spot for romantasy. There is no Outrageous Character Swooning meant to stand in for actual character development or used as a shortcut to attraction and bonds. Bovalino offers a wonderful in medias res introduction to the deep emotional and platonic, affectionate connections between Grey and Kier. What keeps the main protagonists apart is a realistic-feeling set of emotional barriers intended to preserve their lifelong friendship--the stakes of messing with their friendship are understandably high. And Grey is keeping a significant secret; it keeps her somewhat at an emotional distance from Kier. All of this feels warranted.
The magic in Bovalino's world is strange and the circumstances around the island feel like a grayscale, murky pause in the book's action and a potentially heartbreakng tease of a second chance. The pacing sloooowed during this section, but I was invested.
You can read my full review here: The Second Death of Locke.
05 This Is Not About Us by Allegra Goodman
The many points of view within Allegra Goodman's novel made it feel somewhat disjointed, but the peeks into each character's internal struggles, motivations, and emotions coalesced into final gathering scenes that felt poignant and hopeful for individual characters and for the family as a whole. This Is Not About Us is poignant and wryly funny.
Allegra Goodman's This Is Not About Us is a story of an extended Jewish-American family. The three matriarchs are split by a death and then a feud (the impetus of the bitter rift is the making of a family-favorite apple cake after an agreement not to do so) that promptly blows up between the two remaining, elderly sisters and ultimately threatens to stretch on until their own deaths.
The story is told through multiple points of view as the various Rubinstein family members navigate the dramas large and small that make up their individual and collective lives. The story's small moments are heartbreaking; the dialogue is often wryly funny; and the words that are unspoken are at times the most powerful communication between characters who flounder as they try to get out of their own way in order to love each other.
The various perspectives allow for a more full picture of each character yet create a somewhat disjointed-feeling book as the novel jumps from person to person. The final section of the novel captures many of the characters in extended scenes together. This part of the book felt the most powerful to me, as I was able to witness interactions and dynamics among the larger group (after being privy to each person's inner workings) as the situation played out and to see the heart behind their foibles, struggles, and attempts to support and love each other.
I received a prepublication edition of This Is Not About Us courtesy of NetGalley and Random House (The Dial Press). Goodman's novel Isola was one of my favorite reads of 2025.
06 The Isle in the Silver Sea by Tasha Suri
The Isle in the Silver Sea offers a medieval setting, magical elements, a story within a story, romantasy without swooning, and characters fighting to reimagine their futures. This fantasy novel about the power of storytelling was wonderful.
In an alternate medieval England, an island exists because of stories. Those who play key roles in tales die and are repeatedly reborn into various versions of the characters they must play, and they are fated to reenact their own battles, love stories, and ends so that the isle and those on it may continue to survive.
Simran is a strong female knight sworn to the queen, and Vina is a witch of the woods. They each know they have been called to be in a story, but when they meet, they feel an instant link--and it goes well beyond their roles in the story that they discover has been scripted for the two of them.
Evil forces are in play, and Vina and Simran are discovering their fates, whether with or without each other, while also determining how to preserve their world. They fight, they figure things out, and they fall in love. They are reimaging what is possible, while remaining brave, worrying about their found-family members, and trying not to implode the future of civilization on their isle.
I love romantasy that doesn't involve me to suspend my disbelief in order to buy into the relationship, and Suri offers up a wonderfully romantic, possibly doomed love story to feel angsty about and to cheer for.
For my full review, please check out The Isle in the Silver Sea.